In which I discover that it's really difficult to take pictures of yarn

As if my housemate doesn't already think I have a problem...
I spent yesterday afternoon trying to take pictures of some yarn I've acquired in the last two weeks (the last two weeks have been really good for yarn, but not so good for knitting). It's finally nice and sunny, so I figured that would be ideal for pictures...but, no. Or, at least, not with my powers of photography.

A couple of weekends ago, The Limey and I went back to the UK for a wedding reception with his family. Of course, the first thing I do nowadays when I know I'm going somewhere is to look up possible yarn shops to visit. The closest to Stoke is Knit2Together, in Wolstanton. They also run the on-line site Cucumberpatch. Reason my in-laws are awesome #1: The Limey's dad drove us up to Wolstanton, then sat in the car to wait while we went into the shop! It was great...so much yarn...and when I asked if they had Rowan 4-ply Soft, they said, Yes, down the road in our other store. Indeed, a block down the road was another store, just as big, and just as full of lovely yarn. I felt guilty about The Limey's dad waiting for us, so I did a quick run-through to see what they had and picked up a flier for their website (one of the reasons I don't buy very much yarn on-line is that I like to feel stuff and poke at the yarn in person first). I also didn't want to spend any more of the money that I don't have. So I got just a few balls of nice stuff.

Some Rowan 4-ply Soft in a nice rich red. I'm thinking of making myself a pair of Anna socks with it.


A couple skeins of oatmeal-y coloured Rowanspun Chunky, for a bag, I'm thinking. Something in a herringbone stitch, maybe, or, at any rate, something woven-like. I also asked The Limey to pick himself some sock yarn for his next pair of socks. He chose some Patons in blue and black. I'll be looking for suggestions for a good pattern for men's socks; I'm sick of plain ribbing or plain stockinette. Any ideas?

Reason my in-laws are awesome #2: Sunday morning, The Limey and his mother dragged a TV-sized box and another huge bag of stuff down the stairs and set them in front of me. What the hey? I said. It turns out: YARN, and lots of it. From way back when she used to knit. In fact, as we happily rummaged through it, we found half an Aran sweater. She'd finished the front and a whole sleeve before she gave up. It looked great, and must have taken lots of work. Now, we'd flown Ryanair, so there was no way I'd be able to take even a quarter of that stash back with me. I chose half a dozen balls of this Jaeger mohair, figuring on a shawl or lacy scarf.


The pink is a little too baby pink for me, but I figure I could use it somehow. The blue is nice and dark and lovely, though. Maybe the reversible rib shawl? There were lots of other stuff in the box, if only I had room in my bag! She had some chunkier superwash wool in a creamy natural colour that I could totally see in a cabled cardigan. She's promised to bring some more over when they come visit.

Last week, I also heard rumours that The Wool Shop in Bray was closing down. (The dire situation of nice yarn shops in Dublin is ameliorated by This Is Knit moving to better, slightly bigger, sunnier premises.) I took myself down to Bray to see if this was true, and, alas, it is so. The owner, Bernadette, said she was closing down at the end of April to go sailing around the world. Great for her, bad for us. Most of the stuff in her shop, including lots of new products from Rowan, Jaeger, etc. was on sale. I made myself leave after getting just a few things (the only people who say money can't buy happiness are people who already have lots of it):














Six balls of Jaeger Merino DK, in a great deep red (more red?!), for a cardigan or sweater, I think. Can't decide what yet, though. And two hanks of Rowan Summer Tweed, possibly for something like this. The colour of this tweed is like...fields of wheat in the sun. Excuse the purple prose, but, really, it fairly shone out at me in the cramped, low sunlight shop. I also bought a couple balls of a Regia sock yarn, a very slightly variegated light blue. No pictures, 'cause I just couldn't capture the colours well. But I'm thinking lacy socks for me.

As I said, a good couple of weeks for yarn acquisition, but knitting? I plug along on the Print O' The Wave. I'm on the 11th repeat, almost a third of the way through the centre panel!

Pater socks

Basic ribbed socks for my father
Yarn: Lang Jawoll from Springwools (just less than 100g for the pair)
Needles: 2.0mm dpn's
Pattern: none, just basic 4x2 rib

Notes: I did these toe-up, with short row toes. A few new techniques were learned for these socks. 1) Norwegian purl. I've been unhappy with the way my ribbing usually turns out- the knit stitches before and after purls are definitely not uniform. So for this, I used the Norwegian purl, a way of purling that keeps the working yarn to the back, instead of bringing it to the front. It's slower than my normal purling, and hurts my hands a bit after a while, but I really like it for the ribbing. I think it makes the ribbing much more even. 2) Fleegle heel. In my quest to find a good, non-fiddly heel, this time, I used Fleegle's. It's good- it's definitely non-fiddly, and gives a gusset, unlike my so-far-preferred short row heel. It makes a triangle-shaped heel, which looks kinda weird, but looks fine when actually being worn. Here's a closer picture of the heel:
I reduced the number of increases on the gusset, partially because my dad's feet aren't that wide, and partially because it was clear that, by the time I'd increased as much as Fleegle recommends, the sock was going to be waaaaay too long. That's one thing that may keep me from using the Fleegle heel more- not being able to predict exactly when to start the gusset increases. This would improve with practice. 3) Sewn bind-off. I finished up the cuff with 1x1 rib, and used Elizabeth Zimmermann's sewn bind-off. I won't be using it again, I don't think. For one, it's not any stretchier than, say, Grumperina's bind-off, and second, it's a bitch to frog! Yes, after I'd finished off the second sock, I realized it was a full 1.5 cm shorter than the first, so undoing the sewn bind-off was adding insult to injury. Lastly, I like toe-up socks because when you're done, you're done. No kitchenering or other fussy finishing. Having to whip out the tapestry needle and sew the bind-off seems like more finishing work to me.

These will go off in the post with my sister's Anna socks, and some HP sauce that The Limey has promised to send.

A little experiment

So I've been looking at job websites. It turns out there's not much call for science PhDs in Ireland. Even the Big Pharma companies who have manufacturing sites over here don't need PhDs; they just need someone to sit in front of their gas chromatographs and press the "On" and "Off" buttons when beeped at to do so by the machine. This is interesting, because apparently the Irish government has a goal to double the number of science PhDs produced in the country by 2013. Hmmm...great way to guarantee a steady export of your brightest young people: over-educate them, then have no available jobs to offer them.

But that is another rant. Today I'm going to talk about my little experiment, which will hopefully find me a job, and keep me entertained for a little while.

My name (full name, as well as its individual components) is unpronounceable for most English speakers. Not only that, it just looks really...foreign. When confronted with its full 3-syllable glory, I think most people just blank it out, or go "Wha?" and their eyes just sort of slide past it to something safe and recognizable. It doesn't help that it's really short, and so seems like it should be simple, but the strange combination of letters gets 'em every time. I've always quite liked my name, and it's been relatively simple to learn to spell it every time someone asks for it. However, I get the feeling that, in a very competitive job market, it may make it awkward or difficult for someone reading through a stack of CVs. ("Let's call Mr Smith first, and if he's not there, we can call this...uh...this...person from the second CV here.")

However, now I have another name at my disposal: The Limey's. The Limey has a nice, safe, recognizable, common, easily-pronounced surname. What I'm going to do is write one CV using his surname, and one using my name. Then I distribute them on different websites and with different agencies, and monitor the difference, if any, among the responses to them.

I'm totally excited to see what happens. On the one hand, of course, I kind of hope they don't treat the two CVs any differently. On the other hand, if it gets me a job, or even job interviews, hey, I won't be overly upset.

tacky souvenirs

When The Limey and I decided to cement our unholy union, we did it in New Zealand, which was conveniently so far away that no family members would be able to make it, even given months of notice. When the officiant (apparently wearing an Elvish Lord of the Rings-type ring himself) asked if we were going to include rings in the ceremony, we said, Uh...no?, and he said, Great, that's 5 minutes off of the ceremony then. Making it a two minute ceremony. Afterwards, we hung around and chatted to him for a quarter of an hour or so. Really nice, friendly guy (like all the Kiwis, really).

A couple weeks later in Auckland, and we were due to fly to San Francisco a few days later. Since we would never dream of lying to immigration, The Limey would tell them that he was in the US to visit his wife's family. At this point, we decided it might help things along if we at least tried to convey the appearance of marriage, at least to the average person. So we picked two simple jade bands from the little bowl full of them at the counter of the souvenir shop at Te Puia when we visited Rotorua. At the equivalent of EUR 6 per ring, those were the cheapest wedding rings ever.

Now, The Limey actually wears his ring all the time, more or less. I, however, hardly ever wear jewelry, and anyway, my parents never had wedding rings. So I wear mine if I happen to pass by my dresser on the way out and remember to put it on.

Well, fast forward a few months, and we are due to fly to the UK to have a wedding reception for his family. On the aircoach, halfway to the airport, I notice, of course, that I'd forgotten my ring! The Limey was not happy- his family were half convinced it was all fake, anyway. I figured they wouldn't notice, but he said, No, they'd want to see the rings. So we had to think fast. At the airport, we passed by a Carroll's gift shop- you know, the green one, that sells all kinds of Oirish shite. This one had a stand of jewelry! We were saved! It took two seconds to find one plain enough to pass as a wedding ring (plain Celtic knotwork), although at EUR 20, it's kinda pricey for a wedding ring, for us. But it was convincing enough for his family, anyway (although I think some of them did wonder why it didn't match his ring).

I'm strangely pleased that both my wedding rings are cheap, tacky, touristy souvenirs.

In progress

This was a great yarn weekend, but I'll talk about that later. Meanwhile, some progress in certain projects.


My father's socks. This is mostly through the gusset increases on the second one. I'd decideded to go with Fleegle's No-Flap, No-Hassle heel. This makes a triangular shaped heel, and I haven't decided whether I like it yet. Part of the problem is that my father isn't here to try on the sock, and I'm just guessing at the size. I think it may look better on the actual foot it's meant for.

As for the black Cathay scoop neck top...well, it turns out there was just enough yarn to finish it, but then I looked at it and thought, Oh, it's just a black tank top. Blah. So I decided to buy another ball of the Cathay (at This Is Knit, and of course, totally different dye lot, but it's for the sleeves/ribbing, so I'm going to call it okay) and I'm going to do the cap sleeves. I have a lot of cap sleeve tees, and I love them, so why not one more? Plus, I'm excited about trying to figure out how to do a cap sleeve. I have some ideas.

Third project on the needles is this:

Looks terrible, but that's the curse of unblocked lace. It's Eunny Jang's Print O' The Wave Stole, knit in a cobweb-weight merino from Margaret Stove I got in New Zealand last year. Here's a better picture of the lace pattern:
I'm on the fourth repeat, and if I do say so myself, it's gorgeous. I can't wait 'til it's done. It's slow going, because, although the lace pattern isn't difficult at all, I'm scared to death of making a mistake, and so I've been too nervous to work the pattern from memory. I sit there with the chart in front of me. I put in the lifeline after every repeat, too, which slows things down only a little bit.

Speaking of lifelines, if it seems like there are a lot of random ends of yarn in that first picture of the lace, it's because I've got the normal lifeline, and two vertical lifelines. I first heard about them on either the Knittyboard or Knitter's Review forums, and found a description in Fleegle's blog. Basically, it's a way to help pick up stitches around the vertical edge of a piece of knitting. After I'm done with the centre panel of the stole, the instructions say to pick up 240 stitches at each long edge of the piece. 240! I hate picking up stitches. It's probably why I will never do a standard heel flap for a sock again. No matter how careful I am, it always seems messy and haphazard to me- more an art than a science. Putting in a vertical lifeline is easy- I just have to remember to loop my working yarn around a piece of waste yarn at the beginning of every row, thus "carrying" a piece of waste yarn up the side of my work. This means every other loop at the vertical edges of my work will have a lifeline through it. When it comes time to pick up the stitches, they'll be picked up already, almost- I just have to run my needle through those loops. Since it's only every other row, I'll probably also have to pick up a few extra here and there, it's way better than 240 all at once! Here's a blurry close-up of the vertical lifeline:

I remembered it after I'd done most of the first repeat, but it'll definitely be a life- and sanity-saver when the time comes, I think.

Oh, happy day!

Just as I was getting bored with sitting around all day as a "lucky jobless bastard", I hear a rumour that the DETE (Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment) will grant work permits to spouses of EU citizens living in Ireland while they wait for the Department of Justice to process EU1 applications! I don't have to wait for over six months while the DoJ s....l....o.....w....l....y processes their backlog of EU1's. They've already entered into illegal EU territory by taking longer than the EU-mandated six months.

I called the DETE this morning, just to see if this was too good to be true, and apparently, all the rumours are right. The DETE will fast track applications from spouses of EU citizens. You still have to apply for a work permit, but there will be no fee, and the normal rules for non-EU work permits will be waived (i.e., the employer will no longer have to prove that they've advertised for x number of months, and no EU citizen can fill the vacancy). Also, the "fast track" means that the permit should be granted in 1-2 weeks. I will still have to get a job first, though, and have the potential employer fill out the work permit form.

Ooooh, now I can actually look for jobs!

Oh, wait. That's no fun at all. Now I'm not sure why I was so excited.

An anniversary

Last week was the one year anniversary of the day The Limey quit his 11-year smoking habit. A cause for celebration if there ever was one. Clearly, this called for cake.


I asked him what kind he wanted, and he sort of went off into a dreamy "mmm...cake" free association for a bit, when his eyes grew round and he said, "Jaffa cake...cake!" So this is my first-order approximation of a Jaffa cake.
I used orange marmalade for the centre bit, but I also made an orange sponge cake for the base. I topped it off with ganache and called it done. It tastes good, but absolutely nothing like a Jaffa cake. Oh, well. I think, more research next time before I attempt something like this.

A few things

Three projects in various stages today.

Finished: Lace socks officially done. After looking through Hickey's and the Dublin Woollen Mills, I found a spool of gray elastic sewing thread. I wove this through the ribbing on the lace socks, and it works perfectly! Stays up like a dream, but without cutting off circulation, either. And the thread is easy to work with and easy enough to lace through the ribbing without showing on the outside (as you can see...or not...on the sock on the right there).


Finishing: Scoop neck top. I've just got the one armhole to finish the ribbing on. I've already picked up the stitches there. I'm in total denial about this, though. See that little tangle of yarn there at the right? That's all the yarn I have left. This won't be enough for the four rounds of ribbing and binding off. I know this. In fact, I knew this while I was doing the ribbing for the first armhole. But did I stop? Did I get more yarn, or rethink the design? No. I went on anyway, knowing full well that I won't have enough yarn, and that I will have to rip out most of the ribbing I've already done...and continue to do.

See, if I have to buy another ball of yarn anyway, I may just put in those little cap sleeves that were in my original design, and also make the armscye a little longer- it's a bit snug at the moment. So I'm going to have to rip out all the ribbing. But for some reason, even after I figured this out, I refused to stop, and in fact, continued to add more ribbing. Sigh. I think basically what will happen is, my brain will refuse to see the truth here until I actually run out of yarn at around the second row of ribbing.

Starting: Basic ribbed socks, for my father. I figure if I'm going to pay the postage to send off my sister's socks, I may as well add in another pair. It's from some Lang Jawoll I got from Springwools. I'm not sure why I picked this colour- it's a tweedy blue that isn't particularly to my taste, but as sooon as I thought about knitting some socks for my dad, I knew it would be perfect. It kinda knits up into a denim-y fabric. As you can see, I knit this toe up, with short rows. I'm not sure right now whether I will do the short row heel, or maybe the upside down heel flap, a la Baudelaire, or Fleegle.

Less than a month late!

Anna socks (aka Cute Librarian Stockings)
Yarn: Two balls (100 g) of Jaeger's Matchmaker merino 4-ply, from This Is Knit
Needles: 3.0 mm, 2.5 mm, and 2.0 mm dpn's
Pattern: Anna socks from Rowan 40

Notes: These are a -belated!- birthday gift for my sister, who is a librarian. I thought lace knee highs would be super cute, and kept imagining her wearing them with a gray wool skirt. I chose this purply colour just to match this imaginary wool skirt. This lace pattern is easy. YOs and K2togs, no purls, even. 4 row repeat, easily memorised and easy for learning how to read your knitting, as well, since the pattern is so simple.
I had reservations about this pattern. It only comes in one size, and some have found it too large. It has no calf shaping, so everyone who has knit these in the blogosphere (The Daily Purl, Knitlit, and basically every link that comes up when you google "Rowan Anna socks") has suggested switching needle sizes for calf shaping.
So I took everyone's advice. I started with 3.0 mm needles, switched to 2.5 mm once past the largest part of the calf, and switched down even further to 2.0 mm needles at the ankle and for the foot. As for the sizing issue, I basically ignored the pattern altogether. I used it to get the lace pattern, but then just knit until it fit. I'm a small person, and my sister is an inch shorter and a size smaller in shoes, so I figured it was definitely going to be too big for her if I followed instructions. In addition, these are lace, so I knew they'd look better if the lace had a chance to stretch, so, whenever I could (one lace repeat more or less, needle sizing, etc), I estimated to err on the small side. I also did my preferred short row heel instead of the pattern's heel flap one.

I think they turned out really well. They mostly stay up, but I think I will add elastic to the ribbing, just so there's no need to pull them up during a busy library day.

Thinking about food

...And not just in a "Mmmm...lunch" kind of way.

I've just finished reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. In this book, Pollan has three meals, following their production from the ground up, from the three different "philosophies" of eating that he can think of. The first is the big agribusiness monoculture way of getting calories and the subsequent meal is, not surprisingly, McDonald's, eaten in the car. For the second meal, Pollan goes to work for a week at a "beyond organic" farm in Virginia. The farmer there uses his livestock to fertilize his fields, and his fields to feed his livestock, and does everything sustainably, organically, and, importantly for me, humanely. Pollan uses meat and vegetables from this farm, as well as other locally sourced ingredients, to cook his friends a meal. The third meal is one that Pollan gathers, grows and hunts himself. Veggies from his garden, mushrooms gathered from the forests and fields of northern California, yeast for the bread from the Berkeley air around his home, and pork from a wild boar killed by Pollan himself.

I've always read Pollan's articles for the New York Times Magazine and I found this book fascinating. This is a subject that I'm very much interested in. My personal way of eating can be summed up as "no mammals or birds, but I'll try anything once." I eat fish and seafood, so I am not a vegetarian. I haven't eaten mammals or birds for just over ten years now, from my second year in college, when I realized that I would never be able to cook the meat dishes the way my family does, and that I didn't find the choice available from the school's kitchens that appetizing. Also, and most importantly, I had learned about how meat was produced in the US, and I was not impressed.

I have nothing against the eating of animals. Hey, we invented the spears, and we have the teeth and digestion system to deal with meat. I have no issue with this. I do have an issue with the way meat animals are treated. I believe we owe it them, simply as fellow living things, to treat them humanely and with respect. Beef cattle, crowded together by the tens of thousands, standing knee-deep in their own feces and being fed corn instead of the grass they are evolved to eat, and then dosing them with antibiotics because they get ill easily from this lifestyle to which they are not adapted? No. Cutting the beaks off of chicks because chickens get stressed from being piled together in mesh cages with no room to move in and will peck each other to death? No. Cutting off the tails of pigs because these highly intelligent animals get depressed when crowded together and will chew each other's tails, causing infection and therefore a less "efficient" farm? No.

However, this is how the vast majority of meat is produced in the US. So I refused to contribute to it by eating the results. (Not to mention the health issues of ingesting the vast amounts of antibiotics and hormones that these animals are subjected to.) When I moved to Ireland, I thought about starting to eat mammals and birds again. I had a vague thought that farming was done differently in Ireland and in Europe. But I don't know whether this is true. I haven't found anything telling me how it's done here. I know I can find "organic" food and meat. But what does it mean here? What are the standards? What does the "free-range" on the egg carton actually mean for the laying hens?

I guess I'll be thinking about food for a while yet. Hopefully, I'll be thinking about food every time I eat or think of eating.

Two and a half months

When I tell people that I'm not allowed to work for six months until the Justice Department and immigration people process some paperwork (go on, ask me how efficient the Irish government is at this), usually they put on a "you lucky bastard" face and tell me they'd love that and to enjoy it. A few people who have actually had large amounts of work-less time, for whatever reason, had more sobering advice: make the most of it during the short amount of time that this will be enjoyable. They told me that they loved it for the first 2 to 3 months, after which they nearly went of their minds with the pointless, aimless, dull sameness of the days. Apparently, there are only so many days that you would enjoy not showering, sitting around in your robe, and having no reason to leave the house or talk to people. At that point, asking yourself, What am I going to do today? leads to despair, because the answer is moot- whatever it is you decide to do, it really doesn't matter.

Well. I officially entered this second stage yesterday. I did the usual: got up, had a bagel (toasted, with cream cheese), had some juice (orange, usually with added calcium, but not this time), fired up the computer, looked at my knitting for a bit, checked my e-mail, and then, suddenly thought, Oh Jesus, I can't be doing this all day again.

I know, I know... more energetic and gung-ho people have said, Get out of the house! Do something! But it's March in Dublin; it's wet, and cold, and it's freakin' miserable outside. Plus, I'm not supposed to spend any money, so outside + no money needs a bit of creativity. At any rate, I'm really just lazy. If there's no compelling reason for me to put on proper clothes and shoes and step outside, I just won't do it.

But now, this four more months of doing nothing, stretching away in front of me, is making me totally depressed. The thing is, with six months of no job, I should have had a Project. Something big that I should have taken advantage of the time to do. Write the great American novel, started a knitwear design company, learned how to paint, trained to become a plumber...something! But, no, not only have I not done anything, I don't even have enough energy to think about it at this point. I've wasted two and a half months, and I look set to waste the next four.

Oooh, I've totally failed at this "having no job" business. Yuck.

I'm officially old

I didn't have that much of a problem with turning 30 last month. I'm still living in my student-y lifestyle, so the Big 3-0 was not accompanied by much angst or panic. Until today.

I was flipping through the monthly Irish Film Institute schedule. It's a great place- my preferred theatre to spend film-related money. They show new artsy and foreign films, as well as old classics, usually in mini-film festival blocks. Well, this time, a showing of "Kiss Me, Kate" caught my eye. I got really excited, 'cause I've only seen it done at the university theatre level in Seattle, and it was great. I may have let out a little squeal.

Then I read on, and realized this was their selection for their "Wild Strawberries" group: a "film club for older people". So there you have it: I'm officially old. (Housemate said that I would totally fit in there if I went in with my knitting.)

So much for that one

Well, after more examination of the Sodera sock, I became convinced that it wasn't recoverable to the point where I'd be satisified with it. There were three problems (that I could find):
1. My SSKs were messy and didn't mirror the K2Togs well at all. When I searched for a solution to this, I found that this was a common complaint, and that lots of people had gone through lots of different ways to try for a clean neat left-leaning decrease to complement the right-leaning perfection of the K2Tog. I'm doing up a stockinette swatch now to see which way may be best for me.
2. My YOs before a purl stitch were much looser than my YOs before a knit stitch. Since the YOs before purls came at the left side of the lace panel, and the YOs before knits came at the right side, I wasn't getting that nice, clean, double row of lace holes that should have been showing. It looked really lopsided. This could be fixed by being more careful and keeping my YOs at the same tension.
3. I was slipping purlwise in my sl1, k2tog, psso double decreases. This made my whole left-leaning line even more messy.

So, given all that, it wasn't really rescuable, or rescue-worthy, so I frogged it.

Whether because of these problems or not, I decided that I was no longer quite so in love with the Hedera/Sodera lace pattern, and looked more closely at the Anna socks. There are a few problems with the Anna socks that made me dismiss them before: no calf/ankle shaping at all; knit top down; only one size. But I decided those could all be dealt with one way or another, and after looking at some finished Annas, I grew to quite like the diagonal, lattice-like lace. So I cast on (top down, unfortunately) and started the lace.

And found that it was really easy, dead simple lace. YOs and K2Togs, that's all. This neatly sidesteps all my problems with the Soderas! Obviously, I will need to learn how to do all that at some point. But right now, I could crank out these socks, which are already late for my sister's birthday.

Symmetry is good

I'm knitting the Sodera socks for my sister. They are basically Cookie A.'s Hedera socks from Knitty, but knee-length and toe-up. Although I consider myself an advanced beginner-intermediate knitter, I have done very little lace. So these are something new for me. And I've run into a problem. Here're some pictures of the Hedera (left) and Sodera (right):












See how the lace gives two nice, symmetric rows of yarnover holes running up and down each lace panel? The left- and right-leaning decreases gives nice clean lines running up and down the panels opposite each other:
Mine, so far, look like this:

I'm not sure if you can see it that well int his photograph, but not only are the yarnover holes not nice and open, the holes running up the right side (on this photo) of the panels are larger than their partners on the left. Also, although my right-leaning k2togs are nice and neat and make a line, the corresponding ssk are terrible and look really messy. I'm doing the "improved" ssk by slipping as if to knit, slipping as if to purl, and knitting through the back loops.

Basically, my left- and right-leaning decreases don't match at all. Not sure what to do about this. Try going back to the old ssk (slip both as if to knit, knit through back loop)?

So close!

Pub quiz last night. We had a large-ish team, and came in second, tied with a couple other groups. But only two points behind the winners! And I blame myself for those two points, honestly. We lost two points in the very first round, and they were both my fault.

The first question: who headed the investigation into the Clinton and Lewinsky affair (pun not intended...sort of)? For some reason, Ken Lay popped into my head, so I wrote that down, but even as I was writing it, I knew it was wrong, but close!, and I could not for the life of me remember if that was the actual name.

The second question: what colour shirts did Italy's fascists wear in the WWII era? I was sure it was brown. I wrote "brown". The Limey said, Weren't they black? I said, No, definitely brown. And another member of the team said, Yeah, they were brown. But, no, of course not, they were black.

So close! So close!

More socks!

Ribbed boot socks
Yarn: Just a smidge less than 80 g of Sirdar's Town & Country wool-rich 4-ply sock yarn from Springwools
Needles: 2.5 mm (cheap) Pony dpn's
Pattern: heel and toe cobbled together from various sources: Silver's sock class, Knitter's Review, Knitty, and az.com

Notes:
These are for the Limey, whose hairy legs are displayed here. I made the legs 20 cm long, to accommodate his wearing them with boots- they have to be quite high.

There are a couple of problems I can see: 1) That pointy big toe! I can see a hole starting there. Maybe asymmetric shaping of the toes for next time? But that would involve him having to remember which sock is left and which right; 2) I did the heel flap too short, so that it ends before it hits the back of his ankle. This makes the leg of the sock bunch a bit right there, which is annoying. Next time, longer heel flap.

I cast on for these right after I finished my own socks, and, to give myself an opportunity to decide what kind of sock-knitter I am, I did these cuff down, with a heel flap. I have to say- didn't really enjoy it much. People complain about the fiddliness of the wrap-and-turns of the short row heel, but I find this much more tedious and mistake-prone. There are a few other heel treatments out there. I will definitely try some more.

Next up, sock-wise, are some knee-high lace socks for my sister's birthday. I was thinking the Anna socks from Rowan, but then I found Sodera! They are toe-up and come with shaping for the ankle and calf, which Anna lacks, and I can see some issues cropping up there.

We won! We won!

We've finally found a regular pub quiz in Dublin, at Russell's in Ranelagh. A good, brisk half-hour's walk from our place. Every Thursday, it's a house outing. We've been going for a good four or five weeks now, and the dude who runs the quiz knows us. He's very good, actually. Very funny and doesn't take the whole thing seriously at all. Plus, he's a fan of musicals.

The quiz is quite small, usually only maybe 8 or 10 groups. We've never won. We come 3rd or 4th, regularly, usually lagging the leader by 3 or 4 points. It's very annoying.

But last week! We actually won! Granted, it was a low, low turnout for the quiz, because something else was going on in town at the time, but, still, dammit, we won. We were so proud of ourselves. The winnings didn't offset the amount the guys spent on beer, but, still, a little is better than nothing at all.

It feels nice to frog

Yesterday, I turned this
into this
It's some tweedy red (that first picture makes it look very pink) I bought last year on a trip to Dingle. I'd knit it up originally into a raglan cardigan, with ribbing at the sides so that it would hug the body, instead of waist shaping. I'd finished knitting the whole thing, including the hood, when I realized I just didn't like it as much as I'd thought I would. It lay at the bottom of my pile of knitted things for a year. I took it out again recently to look at it, still didn't like it, so frogged it. I'm thinking it would rather be something like one of these:
These would be, from left to right, Knitscene's Central Park Hoodie, Knitty's Mariah, and Rowan's Celtic. I decided the tweedy Irishness of the yarn deserved something more special than a plain stockinette/ribbing. On the other hand, I don't want to go overboard into tourist Oirish-Aran madness. So, a few judiciously placed cables, I think, is the way to go. I don't know if I'm going to actually follow the pattern for one of these, but will certainly take my inspiration from them.

What I've been doing with my time

Since I'm now a lady of leisure, but with no money to spend, I can happily sit on the couch and fill my days with knitting.

Birthday Socks
Yarn: Lana Grossa Magico from This Is Knit (60 grams for both socks- so I have a just barely useless 40g left over)
Needles: 2 mm Inox dpns
Pattern: short row heel and toe shaping from Knitty's Universal Sock Pattern.

Notes: I got much tighter gauge than the yarn calls for: 36 sts/10 cm instead of 28 sts/10 cm, and the socks fit and feel great. I didn't use the number and measurement system from the pattern, just knit until they fit. There were many firsts for me here: my first socks, short rows, crochet provisional cast-on. By the way, the instructions on the pattern for the provisional cast-on made no sense, and after frogging twice, I finally went to another source for the instructions.


Because I'm a masochist, my two current projects are both black.

Ribbed socks for The Limey. He only wears black, so there was no choice, really. I'm doing this one cuff down, with a heel flap, just to see how it works, and to compare how I like doing it this way vs. short rows. So far, I'm liking the short row heel much, much better. The heel flap, picking up stitches, gusset decreasing, etc., etc., is just really fiddly. And I think the resulting heel is uglier than the neat, gently curved short-row heel. (By the way, picking up stitches on black knittting?! Ugh.)


A deep scooped-neck vest I designed. My drawing in the picture there shows waist shaping, but I decided not to do it. I kind of want to see how it looks and hangs with a straight waist. I'm knitting this in Cathay, which should drape nicely. I hope. I also haven't decided whether I'm going to put in the little cap sleeves. I've knitted it as a tank so far, so I could pick up stitches on the armholes and use short rows to shape the cap sleeves. Not sure yet whether I want to- without them, I'd be able to wear this as a vest with long-sleeved shirts. With little cap sleeves, would it look weird with long sleeves under it?

Vacation...

For those who haven't seen them, the pictures from my two-month vacation are here. The whole trip was a blast. We spent a week in Hong Kong, three weeks in Vietnam, two days in Singapore, three weeks in New Zealand, and a week at home in San Francisco. Short thoughts:

Hong Kong: Shoperific! Great cheap food, and they speak English, but I still got a good chance to actually use my Cantonese. Felt right at home. All the clothes sizes fit!

Vietnam: Crazy. Just...crazy. But eventually we figured out how to cross streets. Great cheap food, fun streets to walk around, too much stuff to see. Trip reports here and here.

Singapore: Once again, shoperific! The night safari was awesome, and the food was cheaper than I'd thought it would be. So, again, great cheap food. I really wish we'd spent more time seeking out the hawker stalls. Instead, we walked around, and just stopped for food randomly. Still good, though.

New Zealand: Gorgeous. Really friendly people. The food was good, but not quite so cheap. Drove a lot, but it was so lovely that driving basically felt like sight-seeing, so it was great.

The Plan

Right. So. It's been formally agreed. I'm staying at work here until the end of October. It turned out to be easier to get an extension for my work permit than I'd thought, so I figured it'd be good if I racked up at least two full years here. We tacked on an extra couple months, 'cause some equipment has just arrived, and those extra two months may be productive for me. So, it's been agreed, and the people in lab know and our collaborators in other labs know.

Now, here's my Plan. I finish end of October, and instead of starting another job right away, why not spend some time travelling? I always feel vaguely guilty taking large chunks of vacation time while I'm working, even if I'm entitled. Plus, this way, I can go for as long as I have money, instead of being constrained by my 23 vacation days. Not that money's going to last longer than 23 days, mind.

Anyway, so I figure a couple months. Where? Well, November and December are miserable and wintery here, so the perfect time for the southern hemisphere. I'd always wanted to go down there, but the flights are so damn long that it's not worth it for shorter trips, so two months seems like it'd be great. I'm thinking Hong Kong, Vietnam, New Zealand, and maybe Australia. I was thinking two weeks in each, unless I skip Australia, in which case, three weeks in each. I don't plan to do much travelling once I get to each place. I think I want to rent a place for a week each or so, see the sights in a leisurely way, and spend most of my afternoons lying around drinking foofy pastel-coloured drinks and reading. Also eating. Lots and lots of eating. I may have accommodation with a friend in Hong Kong, which would be great. In New Zealand, I think I may want to do a camping/hiking trip. But that would mean buying camping equipment, and carrying it around. Hmm...maybe I can rent them once I get there?

The big question is: how much money is this going to cost? I'm over the hostel thing, so I'm not staying at the most basic budget accommodation anymore. It'll have to be a level above shared bathrooms and drunk 19-year-old Australians coming back into the room reeking of smoke at 3 in the morning. If I have a free place in Hong Kong, that would be great, as it's an expensive city. If I don't have a place to stay in HK, then I might stay less time there and more in Vietnam, where it's cheaper. I might also skip Australia altogether and spend more time in New Zealand, where it may be slightly cheaper with the camping and such.

The upshot is that I'm supposed to be saving money these next few months. I think my plan is to not do any travelling outside of Ireland until November, and I'm cutting down my restaurant-going to once a week. These things are good anyway, because the first gives me a perfect excuse to see more of Ireland before I leave it, and the second means I can look up restaurants I like and can book ahead rather than going to just any old place, or Yamamori yet again, because I'm hungry and can't be bothered to go home and cook. The third prong of attack in my money-saving scheme is to start bringing lunch into work more often (or at all, actually), but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Let's be realistic here, I'm still a lazy cow.

Yay! I'm so excited.

Huh, what'd you know?

Icelanders are not nearly as tall, blond, and skinny as I'd been led to believe.

Nice when stereotypes are disproven, isn't it?

I hasten to add that not being as tall, blond and skinny as we'd all thought doesn't mean that many of them are any less beautiful. But every single person we saw below the age or 30 or so was so cool and hip (but not trendy, obviously; they're way too cool to care what the current trends are) that it hurt us, as mere mortals, to be among them in the bars of Reykjavik.

Two things

1: Although digital cameras are certainly handy, I have to say that I don't like having to go to my computer to look at the pictures. I want actual, physical pictures, which I can keep in a box, sort through on a rainy afternoon, leave fingerprints on, actually frame and display (Shocking thing to do with photographs, I know). I know that digital cameras make it easier to share your photos with other people, but then what? Great for other people, but what about me?!

And, yes, I know I can get them printed, but given that I can just barely remember to bring my camera when I travel, what're the chances that I'll actually go and get them printed up?

2: I told my boss that I will not be renewing my contract after it ends this year. I thought I had 'til August, but it turns out that my actual work permit ends in mid-July, so I'll be unemployed by August. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Find another job, obviously. But if I don't manage to get one by mid-July, can I still stay in Ireland for the 60 or 90 days that normal tourists are allowed? I don't know. Also, I found out that I very likely qualify for a highly-skilled migrant visa to the UK. It'll allow me to live and work in the UK without needing a work permit and job offer from any specific employer. The UK wants to attract skilled migrants (the unskilled ones they can get from the new, poorer EU states) and the visa program works on a points system: x number of points for college degrees, y number of points for age (the younger, the better). If your points add up to above a certain number, you're in. I'm not sure how long it takes to get one, and I'm not sure if I can apply from outside my home country. It's an idea, though.

Marrakesh trip report, part the last

Oh, who am I kidding? There's no way I'm going to write a day-by-day trip report. I can barely summon up the energy to write a paragraph. Plus, I'm never sure who the hell is interested in lengthy, detailed vacation reports. I mean, it's basically an indulgence for the writer, isn't it? Like, oooh, look what I did. I guess it's useful if you're planning to go to the same place(s) and can therefore learn something useful. Anyway, so no long trip report. Instead, I'll just show you the pictures, which will be something completely different, coming from me, huh?
This is the Place Djemaa el Fna, the main square. Although it's not at all square-shaped. These are mainly the food stalls in the middle.











This is the centre courtyard of the Musee de Marrakesh, which is an old building they'd renovated in the '90's. I think it used to be some big house. I didn't pay enough attention to the explanatory pictures. They did it up really nicely, though. That huge chandelier thingy is all metal and meticulously filigreed. It's crazy. It must be really heavy.

They'd put couches and chairs around, and it was actually really nice to just sit in the cool, shaded courtyard, listen to the fountains bubbling and stare in awe at the tile and plasterwork.

Speaking of tilework: this is the fountain at the entrance to the Ensemble Artisanal in the medina. The Ensemble Artisanal is the government-run craft shops, where there are price stickers on everything, and no one hassles you to buy things. It's a relief after the endless hard sell in the souks.













The centre courtyard of the Medersa Ben Yusef, an old, old Koranic school. Those little arched windows are from the dorm rooms, where they used to pile as many students as they could into.















Fish in one of the ponds at the Jardin Majorelle, a botanical garden, full of palms, cacti and other palnts Majorelle had collected and brought to Marrakesh. Gorgeous, gorgeous colours everywhere.


















Lily pond and the Musee de l'art Islamique at the Jardin Majorelle. That blue they use everywhere in the garden is crazy gorgeous.

If we'd manage to catch it at a less busy time, the garden would be a great place to just sit and spend a quiet afternoon in. Even so, we managed to spend a couple hours there admiring everything.



Outside the city: we took a day to go up to the Atlas mountains to walk around and see what's up. To split the cost of the cab up to the mountains, Thierry, our riad owner, asked around to see if any of the other guests wanted to make the trip. Dominique, a French woman in Marrakesh for the week by herself, agreed to come with us. Her level of English was about our level of French, so you can imagine how well that turned out. The most embarrassing bit was when we realized we'd have to use our Moroccan guide to translate between us, because he, of course, spoke Arabic, French and English (and probably Berber, too). But actually, we got along pretty well, and spent a couple of very pleasant evenings at the riad with her and Abdeghani (I'm sure I'm spelling his name wrong), Thierry's Moroccan second-in-command. It was actually the first time in forever that I felt comfortable enough to practice some French.

But here are some pictures of our trip out to the Ourika Valley in the High Atlas.

This is why Marrakesh is called the Red City. Their buildings and walls are a distinctive red/pink colour. And why not? They're just taking their cue from the mountains around the city.
















It turns out the Boy had never actually seen a snow-covered mountain before. Isn't that silly?













And what use is mountain scenery without some waterfalls?

Marrakesh trip report, Part One

First: I am totally totally sick. Maybe something I caught in Morocco, or on one of the planes back? Pah.

So the Limey and I went to Marrakesh over the St. Patrick's Day weekend. Parades full of American high school marching bands? Crowds of drunk people stumbling around the city? Pubs too full to even contemplate squeezing yourself into? Nah, we thought, let's leave. So Morocco it was. A good choice, too, because the day before we left, it was snowing in Dublin, and every day we were in Marrakech, it was 24-25C. So hah!

We flew to Marrakesh from Gatwick on Atlas Blue, part of Royal Air Maroc. Our original plan was to leave on Friday and come back on Wednesday, and thus still have two days of work the week we came back. However, Atlas Blue canceled our flight back, and booked us onto the next one, which was great- an extra day!- but then we thought, Hang on, what's the point of just coming back to work for Friday? We should have just taken Friday off as well, and stayed a whole extra weekend! But, no, it was too late.

We arrived in Marrakesh at around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. The arrivals hall, for some reason, didn't have an ATM, and we had no Moroccan money. (The bureau de change was having a field day, though.) I had done some research beforehand and was convinced there was an ATM in the airport. So, after asking around, in bumbling French, we were told there's an ATM in the other terminal, which we couldn't see because it was behind a construction site. So we manage to get some money. We leave the terminal and approach the taxi stands with some trepidation, as I'd been warned that the Moroccan taxi drivers will totally try to rip tourists off. A taxi driver comes up to us and asks where we're going and we say the medina (the old town) and how much would that be? 120 Dirhams. Ha! I say No, how about 30? He is in total disbelief and points us toward the posted sign for taxi fares into town. It says the medina for 60 Dh. So I'm like, fine, 60 Dh for the trip. And he says, No no, 60 Dh per person. Which is total crap. We point out that the sign is obviously for grandes taxis, which charge per trip. He still insists it's per person. So we say, Fine, we'll try the taxis back in the arrivals area, where there are more people about and where they might not try to so blatantly rip us off. As we leave, another taxi dude comes up to us and says he'll take us to the medina for 80 Dh, total. Still a rip-off, but since I was expecting to pay 60 Dh, a tourist tax of 20 doesn't sound that bad. So we agree and get in the taxi (which has no sign of a meter, by the way). At which point, the other taxi drivers start getting riled up that someone's come along and busted up their price-fixing scam. The original driver asked us how much this one was charging, and the other drivers are clearly less than gruntled at this development. But, anyway, we drive off. We ask the driver if there's some problem back there, and he says No. Oookay.

We pull up to Bab Taghzout, one of the old city gates that are dotted about the medina. We're instantly surrounded by a pack of kids, asking us for "un dirham, un stylo, un bon-bon." We're, like, No, we're not giving you any money or pens or candy. We don't have any. One of the older ones (mid-teens?) asks where we're staying, and we say Dar Zouar, and he starts leading the way to the place (we had been given a map, but it was, uh, less than crystal clear, although we'd probably have been able to find it, given the chance). At the door of the riad, the kids once again start their cacophony of demands for gifts, and the oldest one asks for something for guiding us to the riad. We're like, Dude! We have a map! Anyway, after spending some time telling the kids (in bad French) that we had no change or presents to give them, we get into the riad, where it is blissfully quiet and still.
This is a picture of the riad from the rooftop terrace. You can see some of the centre courtyard and the first floor. Our room is on the first floor, on the left in this picture. You can see one of our windows and just a bit of our door. The place is an old Moroccan house that the French owner had bought and restored. There are only five rooms, and the whole thing is done up really really nicely.The terrace had lots of seating, with some areas shaded. The courtyard had couches and a small table where they've just started serving breakfast, because the weather is getting warm enough. Lots of plants everywhere, which is nice. There's even a house cat, who basically sleeps on all the couches and anything cushioned, and fights off the other cats on the terrace.






We had some mint tea and a talk with the owner about where we should go and what we'd like to see. Then we went up to our room, unpacked, and rested a bit.


At about 6 or 7-ish, we decide to try to find the big square, the Djemaa el Fna, which everybody said must be seen at night. It was obvious we were going to get quite lost. The medina consists of lots of teeny lanes and alleys, none of which run straight for very long and almost all of which are not named or marked, either on the streets themselves, or on any of the maps we had. If I was by myself, I would not have attempted this at night. But the Limey has a solid sense of direction, so we set off. Happily, the kids seemed to have lost interest in us, since they mostly ignored us or just said hi as we passed.



We were staying in the northern end of the medina, which isn't a touristy part, so the area we passed by on our way to the Djemma el Fna was fairly laid-back, compared to the bits right around the square. It mostly had teeny storefronts, with a counter right at the street and goods piled around them. Lots of people selling the flat round loaves of bread the Moroccans eat all the time. Lots of shops selling the long hooded robes both men and women wear. The traffic on these teeny lanes was just crazy. Motorbikes, bicycles, donkey- and man-drawn carts, pedestrians, actual cars when the road was wide enough, all going at ludicrous speeds down swervy, uneven streets, with no sidewalks, obviously. I am amazed that I wasn't mown down by a motorbike, given the number of times I had to turn a corner without being able to see what was coming down the other way.

By basically following any path south, we actually manage to get to the Djemaa el Fna without getting hopelessly lost. You can sort of tell when you get close to the square, because the stalls start getting spangly and shinier and obviously catering to tourists. Also, while most people on our walk down ignored us and went about their business, nearer to the square, the shopowners started more aggressively trying to get us to stop and look at their wares, which is a little annoying, but okay. I can pretty much do the smile-shake head-say Non, merci-and keep walking thing, but the Limey cannot just ignore someone, and would actually stop when people called to us and then he'd stand there forever saying No, we don't want to buy anything...no we're not interested in any leather at the moment...no, thanks, really... I'm all like, don't stop and talk to them! We'll never get anywhere! Eventually, I think he learned and just started ignoring people, like I did. He feels uncomfortable doing it, but there's really no other way.

We get to the square and it really is crazy. It's not actually square-shaped at all, quite randomly shaped, actually. But there are people everywhere! There are stalls set up (these are clearly made to be mobile and set up every night- during the day, the square is nearly empty) selling glasses of freshly squeeze orange juice (3 Dh (30 cents) and sooooo good; I guess there are many pluses to having orange trees growing everywhere around town); teeny glasses of a hot, spicy ginseng-based tea, which the Limey got totally addicted to; a row of stalls sold bowls of stewed snails, where they give you toothpicks to pick the snails out of the shells (they were kinda interesting- unlike the butter-and-garlic smothered French things, these were more lightly flavoured and you could therefore actually taste snail; weird, but not in a bad way, though the Limey refused to kiss me after I ate them until I washed everything down with some orange juice); lots and lots of carts selling dried fruit and nuts; some stalls sold herbs and spices. In the center were the food stalls. Dozens of places, some with just a centre cooking part with some benches, others with more elaborate spreads of food and lots of benches set up in a dining area. Here the waiters and stall workers spend part of ther time trying to get people to stop and eat at their stalls, and we made one of them very happy by taking them up on their offer. We sat down and they put two of the flat round loaves of bread in front of us, with little dishes of olives, a tomato salad and a spicy pepper sauce. I ask for some fish and the Limey asks for lamb. I get a plate of fried fish, which is okay, and the Limey gets half a dozen skewers of grilled lamb, which were apparently quite good. They charged us 80 Dh (€8, which is total tourist pricing).

After dinner, we walk around the square some more. At the south-western-ish end of it, there are people playing some sort of drums, as well as story-tellers (in Arabic, so no clue), snake charmers, henna artists, and basically all kinds of street theatre. It's crazy. We stop for some spicy tea, walk around some more, then stop for some orange juice. When we got a bit tired of being asked for money, we decide to try to get back to the riad before it was very late, since we knew we'd have to allow time for getting lost. And yup, we totally got lost. Luckily, although most of the stalls and shops had closed up at around 9:30, there were still plenty of people in the streets at 10, so we stopped by a shop and asked for directions. I think we got back to the riad at 10:30 or so. Plenty of time to clean ourselves up and crash into bed.

New continent! Yay!

Just got back from Marrakech. Totally, totally crazy city. Have pictures somewhere. Will write more later.

It's contagious!

So the other day, I was sitting around crocheting an edge onto a sweater. Just the really simple crochet chain stitch, or whatever they call it. I don't really actually know how to crochet; I just learned enough to do this to stabilize some edges on my knitting. Looking through the huge-ass needleworks book that's the most useful present I've ever received, the Limey, who was just around to drop off some of my stuff, have a cup of tea, then go home to nurse his cold, sees the crochet section and says, hey, this looks cool and pretty easy- just one needle! Could he borrow my crochet hook? So I give him the (my only) hook and the book open to the crochet section. Two hours, the whole mug of tea and some cake later, he's still sitting around trying to get it right! Eventually he left, but not without taking the crochet hook and some practice yarn with him. The next day, he tells me he was up 'til the wee hours of the morning trying to get this crochet thing down. Then, yesterday while I was browsing the library for knitting books, I come across the Crochet Stitch Bible, which I show the Limey, who immediately insists that I check it out for him.

This morning, he announces that he has mastered the chain stitch, the single and double crochet stitches.

Ha! I should start warning all my co-workers.

Two recent obsessions

I have in the past couple of months become totally and inexplicably obsessed with two things:

1. Really nice underwear; and
2. knitting

(And I will pre-empt your comments by saying, right now: No, I'm not going to knit my own underwear.)

Now, obsession #2 is kind of a continuation of a knitting phase that started in Seattle, and which had been in dormancy for the past couple years, only to flare up again a couple months ago. However, whereas in Seattle, I was merrily knitting a couple hours a week, doing things like simple hats and scarves and basically using knitting as an excuse to fondle soft fuzzy skeins of yarn, here, I think of nothing else all day except for how much knitting I can get done that evening, after work (with some brain time set aside for obsession #1). While at work, I spend all my time on knitty.com and knitting pattern central, among countless other websites of knitting patterns and techniques. And it's embarrasing how many on-line yarn sellers I've browsed through. With yarn shops so thin on the ground in Dublin, I'm reduced to drooling over yarn on the web, which at least keeps the yarns more hygienic. I'm thinking of flying over to London again in a couple of weekends, to visit the yarn shops there. I only got to one last time. I'm also entertaining a trip to Galway, 'cause I read somewhere on the web that there's a new yarn store in town. This weekend, I corralled the Limey into driving me out to a soulless commercial/industrial estate in feckin' Walkinstown, for Christ's sake (no, there's no need for any of you to know where that is) because Springwools is there. I bought 6 balls of a cashmere/cotton/angora blend that I don't even know what the hell I'm going to do with. I also ran out of the lovely GGH Soft Kid (which I'd bought in London last time) about 12 rows from finishing a cardigan I started on last week, so I went to yarn-shop.co.uk to buy another ball. (12 rows! And you just KNOW the new ball is going to be from a different dye lot, and my lovely soft mohair cardigan will look like I spilled tea on the top few inches.) And while on the website, I thought, Well, it's silly paying all that shipping and handling just for one ball of yarn, isn't it? So I ordered 5 skeins of a lovely yellow wool that I also don't know what the hell I'm going to do with. I went to all three of the biggest bookshops in town on Sunday, to see if their stash of knitting books had expanded at all in the last week. (No, they hadn't.)

Now, obsession #1 is a surprise for me. I mean, up 'til December or so, my idea of great underwear was the cotton ones my mom had bought for me in a 25-pack at one of those Asian random crap stores that you find on Clement St. in SF. Fit OK, four or five colours so you don't get bored, a teeny bow at the front so it's not completely featureless. Most of my underwear still consists of these, and my mom died 7 years ago, for Pete's sake! This tells you how often I thought of underwear and how often I bought new ones. (Hey, they're sturdy cotton and wash well, okay?) But now! If the price tag on a bra has fewer than 3 digits, I sneer at it. I only want underwear with lace constructed of silk from hand-fed silkworms and satin that's been woven by fairies from pixie hair. Or at least, that would be the only things that would justify the prices on some of this stuff. I slink around the Agent Provocateur shop in Brown Thomas, in my Zara jacket and cheap jeans and try not to call attention to the fact that I can't afford to even look at the merest sliver of silk in there. The Myla people sent me a catalogue (thus ensuring that, should I ever move away from this address, future residents will never be able to use their bathrooms, which will be constantly occupied by their heavily-breathing 14-year-old sons), which I leaf through at night when I'm done leafing through knitting books and patterns. I had to stop myself from browsing this stuff on-line during the day, 'cause all my co-workers would then think I'm browsing porn, which is basically what some of this stuff is. Hey, at least it's expensive, high-class trash.

When I walk around town nowadays, I stop at the window of every knitwear shop (of which there are lots in Dublin- why the hell don't they have some decent yarn stores, then? Makes no sense) and scrutinize their stock. I have come to the conclusion that Aran sweaters are just absolutely hideous. I mean, the cabling, the diamond patterns, the heavy in-your-face Oirishness of it all is just disgusting. And it's not like Aran jumpers are easy to knit (although they're probably all done by machine). It would take forever to knit one of those- why waste your hours just to make something so ugly? Maybe there are simple Aran-style jumpers out there, that are nicer? There must be. In between knitwear shops, I look in the windows of lingerie shops (of which there are also lots here...hmmm...maybe I'm just obsessed with these because that's what there is to obsess about here?) and sniff at the quality (acetate lace? rayon? Pah.) and design (brown and aqua blue? Really? Together? In a bra designed with the structural engineering of bridge scaffolding?).

This is all very bad. I've spent a whole bunch of money on yarn and knitting supplies; I'm constantly disappointed at my underwear drawer; I'm not getting any work done. Even worse, since my evenings are all knit-obsessed, I haven't read a book in ages! This is bad.

Happy birthday to me!

Because of that stupid-ass sappy Valentine's Day crap, the flights to anywhere even remotely nice were totally expensive for the weekends around my birthday (but, hey, I could still go to Liverpool for cheap!). Instead, the Limey and I drove out west, to the Dingle peninsula. I'd been to the town before, but didn't have much chance to look around the area, so this time, that's what we were going to do.

We took off work early on Friday, and were heading out from my place at around 3:30. We were hoping to make it to Dingle town (or An Daingean, as it's been rechristened (or re-rechristened, I guess, as this is its original Irish name)) by dinner time, as we'd been told it would take 4-5 hours of driving. Hahahahaha! No way! We made it to Tralee at 9:30. Traffic out of Dublin was, true to what we'd been told, absolutely horrible. But even if it had been clear, we'd never have made it to Tralee in less than five hours, and it was another hour, at least, to Dingle. Instead of arriving at Dingle and trying to get a room and dinner at 11 o'clock, we decided to stay in Tralee for the night. We drove around a bit until we found a B&B that looked okay, inspected the room, agreed to pay €30 each for the night, dropped off our bags, and went looking for food. The first two places we stopped in at were packed. The third place, The Cookery, seated us after we promised we'd be quick, as the kitchen was closing. The food was good, verging on very good.

The next day, we had breakfast and drove straight out to Dingle. Unfortunately, I had a horrible headache, so couldn't enjoy the drive along the south side of the peninsula. Luckily, the headache cleared up a little bit after we arrived. We walked around town a bit. I went into every shop that looked like it might sell yarn, and hit jackpot at a little place called Commodum, which sold Aran weight tweed yarn from a Kerry mill that, the proprietor claimed, was the last place in Ireland that still spun and dyed yarn. I bought 400g of the darkest red they had. I should have bought more, and it was very hard choosing a colour from all the ones they had. They will mail stuff, though, and the proprietor dude very thoughtfully checked the colour number for me before we left, in case I wanted more later. There was also another little shop that sold yarn, but it mostly had eyelash and other novelty yarns; not quite what I was looking for. I did buy some knitting needles from there, though.

After a bit more walking, we stopped by a couple B&Bs, which turned out not to have opened for the season yet. (Dingle's pretty touristy in summer, I think, and a lot of places close for the winter. We passed few tourists on our walk around town.) Eventually we got a room at An Caball Dubh, dropped our stuff off, and decided to drive out to Slea Head while the light and weather remained favourable. The drive was gorgeous; the coast is lovely. We found a little beach that only had a couple of surfers on it and walked around, poking at things with sticks. (Hey, we're scientists.) We took the long way back, along Slea Head drive, and got back to Dingle in time to have some tea and cake at a cafe, then went back to our room to change for dinner.

The Chart House had been recommended to us, and I'd called them Friday during the drive up to book a table. It was good I had, 'cause when we arrived, people without reservations were being turned away right and left. And the food was just absolutely wonderful. I had mussels to start, and herb-encrusted skate on risotto for my main course. The mussels were pretty good, but the skate was done perfectly. The Limey had duck confit to start and a filet of organic, free-range Kerry beef (we probably passed the cow it came from during our drive) which looked amazing, even to me. I tasted a bit of it, and it was indeed good. We finished off with chocolate terrine and a glass of port, for him, and muscat, for me. We were so stuff that we could probably have rolled back to the B&B, if it hadn't been uphill.

The next day, after a small breakfast (still digesting from the night before) we drove around the peninsula some more. Connor's Pass took us through the mountains to the north side of the peninsula. It was properly, San Francisco foggy and misty at the top of the pass, which was fun to drive through, and the other side had beautiful blue water and green fields. (And hillsides dotted with sheep! Who knew that actually existed outside of schoolbooks?) Drove up to Brandon Point, with a great view of the Atlantic and the bays along the northern peninsula. After that, we started our drive back home, this time at a much more leisurely pace. Stopped in Adare for a late lunch. We tried The Wild Geese, but it wasn't open, so we had some blah lunch at a non-descript place a few doors down.

Got back to Dublin at 9 or so and collapsed. It always amazes me that I can get tired just sitting in a car all day. And it's not like I was driving.

But the whole weekend was lovely, all around.

Um, and yeah, neither of us remembered our cameras.

Lookee what I did!

Look! I knitted a whole sweater!

Okay, it's not the most flattering picture of me, but you get the idea. The pattern's from the first Stitch 'n' Bitch book and I knitted it with Rowan's Kid Classic yarn. The blocking went okay, but I didn't manage to get the sleeves any shorter. The sleeves kinda have a bell shape at the bottom, which I really like.

Anyway, it's totally wearable, and everything!

Edited, a year later, to add: I've frogged this sweater because, let's face it, it's hideous. I mean, I'm proud I knit it and put it together and that it was -barely- wearable, but it's not my style at all. That loose fabric, those huge bell-shaped sleeves when I can stand stuff that drags and inhibits movement? The upside is that now I've got some lovely yarn to work with again.

Yay me!

I actually finished knitting my first sweater! (Well, my second sweater, but we won't talk about the first one I attempted.) I finished sewing it together last night, and tried it on, and it actually fits and everything. The sleeves are a little long, but that's okay. I still have to crochet the neckline a bit to stabilize it, and then block the whole thing, which I'm hoping will shorten the sleeves up a bit as well. The first long seam I did was joining the two sides of one of the sleeves, and it was a horrible job- uneven and a bit bumpy. Then I redeemed myself with an absolutely beautiful, can't-tell-where-it-is side seam. When I went to do the second sleeve, I started at the top end instead of bottom (as was recommended by the pattern) and this one turned out waaaaay better. I sewed up the second side seam, and, taking a good long look at the finished thing, decided I'd take out the first sleeve seam and re-do it.

No no no no no! Disaster. I sewed up the sweater with the same kind of yarn as the knitting was done in, so I had no clue which bit of yarn was the seam and which was bits of sweater. After pulling at various bits and scrunching up the sleeve even worse, I wisely decided to quit while I was ahead. I pulled and stretched the bits of damaged yarn back into something resembling a sleeve and called it quits. So, some advice: sew up your work with another kind of yarn! You won't be able to see it if you've done it right, but you'll be able to pick it out if you haven't. Horrors.

Will post a picture when I've done the blocking. Despite slight sleeve problem, yay me!

Reading: Watching the English, by Kate Fox. It's a study of English behavior as documented by an honest-to-goodness anthropologist. Plus she's English, so she gets to take the piss out of her countrymen. Anyway, it's hilarious. The way she describes them, the English sound very much like me.