Quantum Tea

Our first date was February 5th, 1994, sixteen years ago today! We went to a little Italian restaurant off the High Street in Guildford, which has since closed. Paul got us a table for two in a quiet corner with candles. I ate all my pizza, he pushed his pasta around the plate, and six months later he proposed. We're going out to celebrate tonight at a great restaurant. The picture below is from our 12th anniversary trip to Las Vegas, taken at the Grand Canyon. I love the desert.

And now the weekly digest of tweets:

• What if I don't like ANY of the cell phones? If I can press 5 buttons at once, I don't want the phone!
• Kakapo shags cameraman, gets New Zealand Government job as "spokesbird for conservation", article
• Fed up with bias in the BBC News, retreating to the UK Torygraph, I mean TELEGRAPH, to get the other side.
• Much less cranky when I start the day with green tea than with coffee. Should experiment with a hot chocolate start.

Utter loss of my knitting skills last week. Two projects started, two ripped out: Pyroclastic socks and the Ivy Vines cowl.

My Pyroclastic sock is gone. I got through the cuff, heel, and started the arch shaping, then it all went wrong. I believe I followed the instructions for marker placement, but the arch shaping was offset from the centre. Ripped the whole sock back to the hemmed cuff, which is fiddly to make but lovely to wear. Started again using the rib pattern from Ambrosia Socks, but didn't like the slipped stitches. I'm going back to Pyroclastic, but skipping the arch shaping for a regular heel flap and gusset.

Ivy Vines started off so well, with a luscious mink/cashmere yarn. Got gauge on my second swatch, only to find out that the swatch was a liar, the cowl was far too big, and the fabric felt too floppy. Ripped the whole thing out, and was going to start the intriguing Knotted Medallion scarf (Ravelry link). When I re-skeined the yarn, I came up short for the scarf. Either I lost yardage in the winding, or my skein was 35yds short. I need a new pattern for 194yds of mink yarn (skein is supposed to be 230yds, pattern needs 220yds).

Edited to add:
I emailed Great Northern Yarn about the short skein, and he's sending out another one! I can make the Knotted Medallion scarf. Fabulous!

One project went right, a simple Lopi hat for Ruth using a Franken-pattern assembled from hat techniques I like. Lopi on US8 needles at my gauge makes a bulletproof fabric and a very warm hat. Used a Clover bamboo needle for it and the thing is hopelessly coiled. I soaked it in hot water and stretched out the cord on my bobbin box for a few days before cast on, and it still wants to curl back on itself. Ruth wouldn't take half-knit hat off when I went up to get a second head measurement and pronounced it toasty warm.

(Click for a bigger version on Flickr)

Now I'm trying a Coronet hat for me using Imperial Stock Ranch 2 ply. I got it from a "yarn tasting" at Knitty Couture, and I do not like it. Every few stitches I have to stop and pick out bits of vegetable matter. I'd expect that from handspun off an uncoated fleece, but I wonder if they picked the wool at all before it was spun. The colour is nice, the dye job is good, but the yarn is plain annoying to work with.

You work the cabled band on Coronet first, graft the ends together, then pick up stitches from the bottom and work upwards. Last time I picked up stitches from what I thought was the bottom of the band and it turned out to be the top, assuming the cable points right to left. It made a good hat, a friend in Canada liked it and wore it, but I want mine to point the correct way. Also, I want to not be using the crappy Clover bamboo needle from the Lopi hat. The band is finished and picking up stitches is just waiting for a quiet moment.

The Telegraph: Parrot that tried to mate with Mark Carwardine is given a government role.

The New Zealand prime minster has given the country’s most famous parrot a job in his government, it has emerged. An endangered kakapo parrot, named Sirocco, which rose to fame last year after it attempted to mate with the head of Mark Carwardine, the wildlife presenter, during the BBC’s 'Last Chance to See' series, has been appointed by John Key as the world’s first "spokesbird for conservation". Footage of the incident attracted more than half a million hits on the video-sharing website, YouTube. Mr Key claimed that the notorious and rare bird will be the ideal ambassador for conservation.

The incident they're referring to is immortalised on YouTube as Shagged by a rare parrot. The kakapo is a chubby green flightless nocturnal parrot that is horribly endangered. In 1993 there were only 51 known kakapo, now they're up to 124, with 33 chicks transferred to sanctuary islands in southern New Zealand to hopefully boost the species further.

• Everything aches after kata class, can't believe what I've got myself into! Going to IL for a tournament in March
• Karate lesson + gym = wipeout. No brain left. Send more brain plz. Brains....
• Sun! First time in 2 weeks I saw the sun for more than a few minutes! It DOES still exist!
• After a crappy workday, a karate instructor is the kind of person who teaches you how to break a neck so you feel better.
• Six iterations and counting, I finally have a website theme I'm mostly happy with. This is why I always put off re-designs!

This is my 1500th blog post. I started on January 10th 2002, using Blogger and free hosting on a site long gone. These days I have WordPress and my own domain name on paid hosting.

It's time to make a new blog theme. Some elements will stay the same: fixed width body, rotating header image, archive and category dropdowns. Some things will go: blogroll, webrings, twitter feed. It could get ugly while things change, but not for long

The biggest change will be font size. I read The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard and I was shocked at how nice it was to read. I'm going to have a much bigger font size for the site. The default font size 16pt and it's easy to read. The template will also accomodate pictures that are 500px wide, or wider.

Usability reports say that right sidebars are generally ignored by site visitors, though site owners use them. I browse sidebars on other sites, but I use my own sidebar as a set of shortcuts to the rest of the site. Longer blog posts I consider worth keeping get archived in the Thoughts section. Knitting and Spinning have their own sections for recording stash and finished and unfinished projects. There's a Desk Drawer for lists of books and movies I've read and watched. I'm debating putting the sidebar at the bottom of each page, which would give more horizontal space for content.

I have a basic design worked out, now I need turn it into a WordPress template, and adapt it to the PHP I use on the rest of the site.

• Second best music video ever http://bit.ly/8DdLUc
• The Traveling Shovel of Death will be appearing at the Fictional Authors meetup 2pm @ Crooked Tree. Write, or else!
• 2 skeins of handspun drying in the bathroom, Gotland wool DK weight and suri/bamboo laceweight
• The definition of squee: when the pattern designer favourites your project on Ravelry.
• Why do four-day weeks with a Monday off feel as long as five-day weeks, if not longer? National holidays should be on Fridays
• Knitting heel of pyroclastic sock, followed instructions but arch shaping offset by 3+ st. Screw it, I have flat feet anyway.

It's difficult to take pictures because St Louis has been living under thick fog all week. After a couple of weeks of -15C weather, it's nice to be above freezing but we're definitely missing the sun. Desktop wallpaper on my computer is a desert scene with blistering sunshine to make up for it.

Finished two skeins last week, all my bobbins are now empty. Love that the Majacraft Rose comes with four bobbins, but a couple more would be nice.

Fibre: Gotland wool, undyed
Construction: 2 ply
Amount: 138yds, 3oz (54yds in a second skein)
Tool: Majacraft Rose spinning wheel

This was spun to make a Fishtrap Hat (Ravelry link) from the Arctic Lace book. I was aiming for sportweight and I got there. The fibre was slightly felted, but that could be from storage. Gotland is a hairy wool, the yarn wants to stick to itself. After finishing, I wound and re-skeined it. The water I washed it in was brown and icky but it came out soft, balanced, and the right weight, this one is a success! Started it in early January, finished amazingly quickly for me. The yarn snapped while I was re-skeining it, so I have a separate 54yd skein.

Fibre: Suri alpaca and bamboo, 88/12 blend, undyed
Construction: Andean 2 ply
Amount: 90yds, 1oz
Tool: Majacraft Rose spinning wheel

I spun a half bobbin of this last year and got bored. Andean plied all of it and got lace weight! I've never spun that thin before. Not a lot you can do with that little yarn, but it's a milestone.

Next thing to spin is a skein of Suri alpaca yarn, the fibre is kitten-soft and the colour of toasted coconut. I haven't made a true 3 ply yet, only Navajo ply, so three 1oz plies is an option. I have a LOT of alpaca in my stash.

When you're in the lobby of the karate school waiting for group class to start, you can't knit lace with charts, or anything big, so I started a sock with a hemmed top from Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra in Green Apple. I got this yarn at the 2007 Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. It is spun from worsted-carded fibre which makes it springy and soft, and the colour is perfect to balance the grey slushy outdoors. There's a trend for sock patterns with arch shaping lately:

• Pyroclastic
• Arch Shaped socks (PDF link)
• Archie (Ravelry link)
• Basic arch shaped socks (Ravelry link)
• Slipstream socks (Ravelry link)
• Francie

I chose Pyroclastic, but I'll mirror the cables on the second sock (k2tog instead of ssk). My socks have to mirror, even if the colours don't match up. I tried alternating left and right cables and it didn't look right. There is some biasing because of all the ssk decreases, I'm hoping it will even out after the heel.

There's a cat off the top right of the photo, he was interested in the yarn and the cord of the needle. Didn't bite anything, just sat, in the way, until I took his photo. Then he wandered off again.

• Going to see Eddie Izzard at the Fox tomorrow night! Woo!
• I have mink cashmere yarn to play with, from sheared minks. Weird mental image of mink shearing.
• Writing creepy fiction for next week's Fictional Authors meetup, unplotted and scary.
• My cat has expensive taste, he ignored all the wool yarns and snuggled the cashmere. Must test with the mink/cashmere blend.
• Nikon D90 camera apparently fixed by cleaning the contacts on the lens, love it when it works, not so much when it refuses to focus
• Should I be worried I can write basket case female characters so well? That last story came out a little too real.
• Trader Joe's beer bread mix works with Sprite, very tasty! You can't taste the Sprite, but you can taste it when you use beer.
• I detest blocking, but love lace, will blocking wires help? Flutter scarf is pinned out like a sad museum beetle.

I was warned about the addictiveness of knitting cowls, but it was too late because these are next in line:

Alexstraza cowl (Ravelry pattern)
This could be the perfect pattern for a skein of my handspun yarn. It's pink merino/bamboo 2ply, 198yds of mostly sportweight, and the bamboo makes it shine when it catches the light. The pattern is simple enough to show off the yarn. Not started yet, I've been busy spinning Gotland wool for a hat.

Ivy Vines cowl (pattern)
This will be my second knitspot pattern. I put a comment on my pattern order to say I'd loved Spiraluscious, and Anne Hanson herself emailed back, which was lovely! Got some 70/30 mink and cashmere yarn from Great Northern Yarns for this, the mink comes from farmed animals that are sheared once a year, not killed for the pelt. It tickles me to picture someone shaving a mink. Wound up the yarn, it is not as soft as I was expecting, it feels and smells like there may be some residue on the yarn from spinning. Probably just needs a gentle wash. Ravelry users seem to like the stuff and I might be able to get two cowls out of one skein.

I wanted to try Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing cowl but it didn't work out. The cowl was far too large despite getting gauge, the Lana Grossa Seta yarn was too floppy, I couldn't get the rhythm of the pattern, and I wasn't enjoying it. I've nothing against the pattern, or the yarn, or the designer, but I'm not going to knit this one. This has happened before with two patterns from the same designer, the Branching Out lace scarf and the Forest Canopy shawl, nice to know I don't have a subconscious vendetta against just her.