• Correspondence and status update is sent. Still no news. Better luck next week?
• I finished the first sleeve of this g-d-forsaken sweater. I made sure to start the next one immediately. This is good. Notes on knitting:
• I ordered more yarn, which is needed for finishing this sleeve.
• I also ordered yarn, enough for a second sweater. Sigh. This yarn is more fine than my usual stardard, but it’s really soft, and it has drape in a way that I’m totally ok with. I think that I’m going to host a knit a long with this yarn, and a sweater that I hope to design and work on this summer.
• This means that I will have three sweaters worth of yarn more than I have sweaters, plus a bunch of left overs. I think this is a stash.

Greater numbers of shorter blog post seem to be the way to go. I’ve gotten the second part down, (this time), here' to working on the first part, I guess.

Back to the knitting.

• Still no news. There could be a call tonight, I suppose. I told myself that I was going to write an email to ping them, and at least see what was going on, but it’s not like they’re going to forget to admit people, so I’m--at least for now--going with the stoic approach.
• My sleeve from hell has done some progressing. I have 50 some rounds left, and there are only 80-ish stitches left, which is a good thing indeed. The title of this post refers to the fact that I just switched to double pointed needles (dpns) on the sleeve.
• And then there is, you know, the second sleeve. I was going to put a cuff on this one, but it’s not needed at all, so that’s nice.
• I’ve been watching Criminal Minds, a trashy CBS procedural. I swear to you, if they made a space opera procedural (as opposed to a space opera adventure show), I think it would be amazing. I should write more about my love for procedurals. Also, re: Criminal Minds I’m not complaining about Thomas Gibson. Heh. Predictable. I’m so predictable.
• I’m taking a break before I watch the last Tales of the City videos. It’s good for me, but it’s sort of cathartic, and that isn’t particularly pleasant.
• In a turn that I’m sure will surprise no one, giving myself a chill out period before I make the computer order has tempered my perceived need. On the other hand I’ve just been refreshing three tabs in safari and watching tv with the computer this week. I still might order when I get word from grad programs, because I’d rather make the transition now, when I’m not doing any sort of production work, rather than in August or November when there will be other things going on in my life.
• I finished a pair of socks and was able to graft the socks with some skill. Though I without doubt knit an extra round on the second sock at the toe. I don’t think it will change things, so I’ll probably leave it, but you know, I might. I’ll probably not work on socks intently until/if I run out of yarn on this sweater and have to wait for an extra skein to arrive.
• I’ve started to think about my next sweater, I’m excited. Details forthcoming, maybe.
• I’m thinking about writing, even if I’m not actually coherent enough to do it, and I haven’t been able to even think about that recently, so that’s fun. Really fun.
• There’s a new Torchwood. I’m going to be really pissed in three weeks when they run out of episodes for this season and I have to wait till January 2009 for more. Sigh. Right now I’m happy.
• I have to work today. I’m down to working about four days a month in addition to teaching a couple of classes. But I don’t have to go in for a while.

Be in touch!

--ty

I still haven’t heard anything. I really do get palpitations everytime the phone rings. I’ll post something the instant that I get word. Sorry that there wasn’t a post yesterday.

In the mean time I’ve been watching the Tales of the City mini-series'. (And kniting on a never ending sleeve.)

I really like the Tales' story. I’ve only read the books once, in short order. I’d read them again except there are six--seven now--and well, when you pick one up, you basically have to finish it. My mother reports the same problem: apparently she started reading one when I was little, and lost a day.

I remember sitting down with a stack of them next to a chair when I was staying with my grandmother when I was probably fifteen, and I read all six books in like 4 or five days, and I don’t think I moved much.

The television show is similar.

There’s something about the pacing that I think is really appealing. I mean the characters are perfectly constructed, but I think fundamentally, my love of the stories has to do with the pacing, which comes from it’s origins as a newspaper serial. So each of the chapters/interludes is around 1000 words (800-ish?) and is so complete and rich. There’s something so perfect about these books for me.

The first time I watched these events unfold, I of course didn’t know what was going to happen, so I fell for a character that ends up being an ass, I got wrapped up in (one of) the great love stories, which ends in the most tragic way. Or, not really, but it feels like that. And in a certain way, it feels hard to watch friends make the same mistakes all over again.

Anyway, I’m well, and with luck I’ll still have my mind when this is over.

Regards, tycho

• I plyed a ball of spindled yarn. 7 more grams. No clue on yardage.
• I’m eight rounds away from being half way done with the bulk (but not all) of this sleeve. In reality, this means that the sleeve is like 8 inches long, but saying it in other ways is less depressing.
• I have been asked to do an essoteric folk music show on KDHX this Saturday for an hour. This is kind of funny in an annoying sort of way.
• I blocked the sweater that I’ve been whining about for a long time. The blocking fixes most of my concerns and I think about 10 minutes with a steam iron and I can fix the remaining concern. (I paid too much attention to the shoulders and the sleeves aren’t right as a result.) But it’s good. The code name for this sweater on the blog is “Turkish Tile.”
• I suspect that my fate at one of my schools is being decided as I write this, and I should have formal news by Wednesday I suspect. Eek. I’m of distracted mindset as a result of this, but because I’m so helpless to do anything, its all very “free floating.” There’s a reason I’m not really trying to write a coherent post this morning.
• I’m slowly easing my way back into the ravelry community, because’ve been absent from those forums for a while. That’s nice.
• I have errands to do this morning:
  • get a zipper
  • get copies of keys made
• I’m going to go dancing tonight, third night in a row. Oy. I really like dance, lets not get this confused, but as a social outlet, it sucks (particularly for someone my age, particularly when people are stupid), and while the activity rocks it’s all centered around social interaction. Now, to be fair, Morris dance is better than other things (under some conditions, and yesterday was great), but, wow. I’m not really complaining, just, balking at the absurdity, really.
• I’ve been watching Enterprise, still, I think I have eight episodes left.
• I can’t decide if it’s really bad or if it’s using irony effectively. Like, there was an episode arc with Orion “Slave Girls,” which tied into an original series episode that was basically an excuse to have almost naked women painted green. This episode wasn’t much different, though we learn at the end that the Orion “Slave Girls” were basically commandos, and that they were “in charge” of the Orion culture. Which, I’ll accept as a good faith effort on the part of the writers to right a trek-wrong, even if it was sort of poorly handled, and felt like an afterthought. To a large extent, the same thing goes for the Mirror Universe stuff (a woman ends up in power at the end of the arc, despite the fact that the whole arc feels like an excuse to see the actress' mid-sections), though I would say that all of the previous interest in Mirror Universe stuff comes from seeing “our” characters interact with their “evil” counterparts, and that’s basically missing from enterprise.
• I think my next television series watching project is going to be something more interesting. I have “tales of the city” DVDs to watch, and that’s next. After that, shrug.

I should hear from graduate school this week. Wow.

I’ve been knitting my on the sleeve pretty intently for the last couple of days. Not working on the sock. I have two pattern repeats done, of six, before the final 74 row pattern repeat. In other words, I’m nowhere near done, but I’m making progress, and this first little bit is always difficult because there are so many stitches. I’ve already decreased, for instance, 42 stitches. My hope is to get another 12-20 stitches decreased today.

Slowly but surely.

I also thought my way though my next knitting pattern. While I had been thinking that I would knit a drop shouldered v-neck pull-over, because I wanted to knit something that I thought I could reliably wear, I’m thinking that I’m going to knit a zipper cardigan, in a recreation/alteration of a sweater that I made about a year ago. And I thought that I’d do it after Meg Swansen’s “Saddle Shoulder Aran Cardigan,” except, you know, in color work. It means doing the sleeves from the cuff, upwards.

I’m looking forward to this, and I think that having a more concrete design goal in mind makes finishing up this project more enticing.

And I want to get through some of my spinning in the next couple of days/weeks, I did a little wheel spinning today, and I have some drop spindle to wind off, and there are errands, and what not. Oh, I set the twist in a couple skeins that I spun earlier this season, and they are quite nice, in their own way.

And that’s most of the news that’s fit to sing.

Onward and Upward!

I really need to be better and titling these posts.

I spent this morning catching up on my correspondece, mostly which needed to be done, and it was good to write with some readers. I hear some people (and others, to be fair) complain about being overwhelmed by reader email, and my only response is to feel deeply jealous. Not my best emotive moment, but it’s there.

Only a few more days till I get word about graduate school from the leading option at the moment. I’m almost a-fluter with nervous energy, but it’s not entirely unenjoyable. Want. So. Much.

I’ve been focusing on knitting and writing about knitting, because that seems to be reflexive at this point, and I think I don’t think I’m in the right psychic space to write fiction that I’d be happy with at this point, so I think it’s legitimate to work on projects that I’m more likely to be happy with. Reasonable? Nu?

Regarding my knitting, I have 3-4 inches done on take two of this sleeve, and I’ve done the first 15 of 73 decreases. There are more than 73 sets of decreases, but I haven’t read that far in the pattern (big armhole, small gauge). I think being done with this soon is going to be good for the way I feel about my knitting.

Regarding my backlog of projects: I have the sleeves/hem/neck of the sweater I’m currently working on, plus the sleeves neck, and saddle of the perpetual gray sweater (which I don’t think really counts) and a pair of socks on the needles. I have a bit of a stash worked up (two sweaters, four pairs of socks), with some intense leftovers (I could spend 60 bucks on yarn and have enough for four sweaters, or something absurd, not to mention countless hats).

I’m in pretty good shape.

Anyway, I’m off to be a hipster in a coffee shop.

ta! Onward and Upward!

My mother and I decided to set the twist in our stash of unset handspun. I had two skeins and she hand three, and they’re currently almost dry on the fence in the backyard. This inspired me to do a little blocking of the sweater that I’ve been dreading for some weeks.

And you know, I let it soak for a long time, and I have it laid out on our blocking mat and, by gum, I actually kind of like this sweater now. I was able to sort of mold the neck line into a slightly more appealing shape, and with luck, it will be a good sweater. It’ll be a couple of days before it’s dry, and hopefully it’ll soften up a bit (as this yarn typically does.)

In other knitting related news, I’ve begun reknitting the sleeve that we ripped out yesterday. It was cathartic, but not as much as I would have liked. And I have a lot of knitting to do to catch up with myself. Sigh.

In other knitting news (look folks, a whole post with only one topic!) my mother has set a project goal with herself: she’s going to make ten pairs of socks before she starts on any more lace or sweater projects. Well, she’s already started the first two pairs of socks, so eight more to go, and she expects this little endeavor to take until June.

Because she’s recalcitrant and doesn’t have (or want) a blog of her own, I’m going to be posting entries with updates of her projects whenever she sends me pictures. Because, you know, I can, and it seems cool.

I’m sort of making my own knitting goals. Finish the projects that are currently in progress. Knit from stash. Never have more than one sweater on the needles at once, or if you do, don’t have two color work or two plain sweaters in progress at the same time. Less interesting perhaps, but I think they’ll add a bit of much needed structure to my life.

Structure here I come! Onward and Upward!

I still don’t know anything about graduate school.

I still need to find more regular employment.

I still need to do more work on tealart, and write in a more focused way.

But, I got into *`Knitting Camp <http://www.schoolhousepress.com/>`_* this year. And not only that, I got into camp 3. Which is super cool, because not only is my Camp Roomate/Buddy going to be there (obviously,) knitting mentor R, and others that I’m looking forward to meeting. There are, by my count going to be 4 men-folk at this camp (counting myself), which seems pretty cool.

I am, of course, quite excited.

Also, happy leap day. Lets ignore the fact that just yesterday, in a moment of brain-hiccup, I said, “good thing it’s not a leap year, because it’s ‘06.”

Sigh.