Month: December 2006

One more fishtank post, since there are much more interesting things happening in that arena than in the knitting one.

I got a fun picture of one of our littler snails on the glass the other night. Only the actinics were on, so it’s all a little blue. The half circle above his foot is his mouth — when he’s eating, you see the full circle pressed to the glass. Also, eyes, antennas, and little things that sort of look like ears. I really should try to find out more about snail anatomy.

In the next picture, you can see the pattern on the foot — really quite pretty.

When the snails are on the glass, it’s so interesting to watch them move, since the foot is divided down the middle and they move one half at a time. It’s sort of like watching a person in a potato sack race. The quasi-bipedalness is far more visible in our big new Mexican Turbo snails, since they actually have a line down the center of the foot. Here’s one of the snails in the quarantine tank, and you can see the “right foot” is forward and the “left foot” is back:

His mouth is out and eating — you can see both the pattern on it (which I’m sure serves a useful purpose? Again, I need to learn more about these guys), and how he’s able to rotate his shell around so that he can eat all around the foot instead of just what’s straight ahead.

Whereas the first snail’s shell is only an inch or so long, you can see the turbos are much more substantial:

(And in that photo, his left foot is forward, right foot back, and he’s rotated to eat below. They’re surprisingly quick.)

Of our first batch of six, we’ve lot three of the snails. I know that they’re very susceptible to changes in water temp and pH, but so many things seem to do well in our tank and their failure to thrive has been bothering me. We have two left in the top tank and one in the sump, and I do a headcount every time I walk by. As they start to grow purple coralline algae on their shells, they’re getting harder and harder to find. Quite the camouflage. When I got home from work last week, though, it was easy — one of the snails was lying on his back in the sand. When they first fall, the foot retracts and their little trap door shuts. If it seems safe, they start to open the door and grasp for a wall or rock to pull themselves up on. This guy was partway open, but couldn’t get the rest of the way because there was what looked like a rock anemone wedged against the hinging part of his shell. I tried to shake it off, then brush it off, but finally had to resort to tweezers. It turned out not to be an anemone, but an angry, small (3/8″), white crab that I haven’t seen before with a rectangular body and incredibly short legs. Since removing him, we haven’t lost any more snails. I wonder if he was just being opportunistic, or if he was part of why the snail fell in the first place? Our tank is so full of mysteries.

It’s done! Here, folded twice lengthwise:

Project: Clapotis
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Silk & Merino DK, color: Green Mountain Madness, 2 balls. (8 yards, 21 inches left over)
Needles: Size 5
Finished size, blocked: 14″ x 63″
Duration: March 2006 – December 2006

I ordered the yarn as a celebration of my job offer at Microsoft — such a splurge. Although I had it in hand at the end of January, I didn’t start knitting until March, due to the Olympic exertions in February. Throughout, this was a particularly on-again, off-again project for me. Posts here and here attest. At the beginning, especially, I had to actually watch my knitting, which made it hard even for knitting group, let alone for an accompaniment for tv or reading. It was difficult to mind, when each stitch was a different color — this was my first time knitting with variegated yarn, and the colors are gorgeous. By the second ball, my fingers had finally caught on and I could knit this without paying too much attention. I had to take a break in the summer, because it was too hot to have in my lap. And now, I’m done! I’ll enjoy wearing it to work — the office is always so cold. Maybe I’ll use the leftovers as an accent on an otherwise solid pair of fingerless gloves? Perhaps I’ll even try intarsia? I’m glad to not quite be done with this yarn.

I was interested to see what the edge would look like, since the pictures never seem to show it. Even better that after zooming it, I finally got a shot that shows the true colors — most of the time, my camera washes them out.

I used a purl stitch instead of stitch markers to indicate the columns of stitches to drop, after seeing so many people from my knitting group do it that way. So much less fidgety! And after reading the summary here, I decided to use twisted stitches (knit 1 back, or purl 1 back on the reverse side) on each side of the dropped stitch. I like the way that it came out.

Final lessons:

• If I knit this again (unlikely, but life is long), I will not use a wool blend. The stitches were too sticky, and it was a pain to drop them down. I suspect that with slicker, non-haloed yarn, this would have gone a lot faster and been more enjoyable. (Not to say that I didn’t really enjoy the pattern — it is interesting to knit, and every time I reached the drop stitch I felt such a sense of progress. It’s just that after ten months, I’m ready for new horizons.)
• I really am not a fast knitter. This wasn’t the only thing I was working on, either in terms of the knitting, apartment improvement, or life in general, but even so. Ten months for a pattern many people seem to complete in a few weeks. It’s definitely important, then, to choose things that I will enjoy working on, and wear after I’m done. This, post-blocking, fits both requirements — a good project.
• It’s fun to spend more on yarn sometimes. While I’m still not a three-skeins-of-koigu-for-one-pair-of-socks girl, there really is such a big difference between some of the cheaper yarns and those in the luxury category. Cascade 220 is still my standby, but if a project is going to last a steady near-year, it’s worth paying a bit more and enjoying the process.

Tied with the smell, my favorite part of Christmas trees are the patterns of branches’shadows and light that get cast on the wall.

It’s hard to photograph. With a flash, the tree looks drab, green, and you can barely see little dots of the lights. Without the flash, however, the photo comes out truer to my impression of how the tree looks at night.

You can tell I took this picture before the lights went out on the fishtank — the walls are all purple-blue. Driving home, now that it’s always dark when I arrive, it looks like we’re performing crazy bionic experiments downstairs. Instead of dark windows, or glowing happy yellow light, ours emit a surreal, steady deep turquoise. It’s like a more intense, non-flickering version of the color you see from outside when people are watching tv in a dark room. The neighbors must wonder.

I sat down on Tuesday night, determined to finish Clapotis. I was worried that I hadn’t left enough yarn for the decrease section, but as I knit on and the size of the ball barely seemed to change as the tip of disappeared, it turned out not to be a problem.

The worst part of finishing was that as the rows got shorter, I had to stop and drop down the stitches more frequently. As much as I enjoyed the flush of success when I reached the next dropped column, actually undoing the columns was kind of a pain. My yarn (a wool and silk blend) definitely had a halo, and was sticky. Instead of the dropped row being like undoing a zipper, it took a good five minutes to untangle the stitches and pull them all loose. Perhaps a cotton/silk blend would have been more slippery? Or bamboo? In any case, it’s a good lesson if I ever do another pattern with dropped columns of stitches.

Here’s the last column, waiting to be dropped:

Since I purled the drop rows, it just looks like an extra wide column.

After I finished dropping stitches, I took a before shot for the blocking.

It’s always such an amazing transformation. Here’s clapotis all laid out and wet after a quick trip under the tub faucet, after I pressed out the water, and blocked it as a rectangle.

I lost a little bit of blue dye, but the yarn took the water well and blocked extremely quickly: no pins, about 4 minutes. And now, it’s just been sitting for two days on my garbage bag “blocking pad” waiting to dry. It’s holding the shape perfectly as it dries — I love wool. What a difference! 🙂 The pattern really wasn’t looking so great to me while knitting as the scarf just got longer and longer. Kind of old cat lady. But after blocking it just looks crisp and lovely and shows off the yarn. I couldn’t ask for more.

The colors are particularly great when the yarn is wet and the blues look more saturated.

How pretty!!

It’s now dry, and after I weave four ends in, will be done! Even better, tomorrow is Saturday, so there’s a slim chance that I will actually manage a daylit shot for a project summary post. Given the early, December sunsets and the low, Seattle clouds, daylight isn’t exactly overabundant recently — maybe the weather will cooperate?

What a fun week! I had to win in order to tie for 5th and make the playoffs, and my team pulled it together for a 92-57 match. So now I get a playoff spot. How cool!

QB
	Chad Pennington, NYJ	14
RUNNING BACKS
	RB Marion Barber, Dal	19
	RB/WR Shaun Alexander	15
RECEIVERS
	WR Terrell Owens, Dal	8
	WR Reche Caldwell, NE	12
	TE L.J. Smith, Phi	0
DEFENSE
	D/ST Patriots	15
KICKER
	K Jason Elam, Den	9
BENCH
	RB Laurence Maroney, NE	1
	WR Deion Branch, Sea	2
	WR Reggie Brown, Phi	15
	WR Keyshawn Johnson, Car	3
	TE Jermaine Wiggins, Ari	3
	D/ST Seahawks	16
	Seneca Wallace, Sea	0
	QB Jon Kitna, Det	4

Marion Barber continues to make me happy, and I was afraid that after last week’s 22 points, Shaun Alexander would boomerang much lower than he did. I’d picked up Reche Caldwell in place of Reggie Williams, and he was strong. Poor LJ Smith didn’t do much, but by that point it didn’t matter, and it was such fun to see the Eagles win Monday Night Football regardless of whether they threw to him. Luckily, I had Maroney on the bench, but I hope he gets well soon. Elam continues to do well, but now he has a hamstring injury. I’ve picked up Dave Rayner (the Green Bay kicker) in case it’s looking like he won’t play this week. I probably should have dropped Seneca Wallace for him now that Hasselbeck is healthy and starting, but I love Wallace so I dropped my backup tight end instead. This means that LJ Smith needs to come through with points this weekend.) And the Seahawks D outscored the Patriots this week. Crazy!!

We’ve been having technical problems that have cut into my football viewing. Kevin has a digital antenna, so we’ve been watching and recording games all season using his computer and his new(ish) widescreen tv. (not flat panel, to his chagrin. The common sense side of his brain won out over the usually dominant gadget side.) We even cancelled our cable, since we get the networks in high def. Then, his motherboard went on the fritz, so he sent it back right before Thanksgiving and we’ve been watching football through the flurries without recording since. I never thought that I’d be this invested in my ability to (a) watch football (b) on a fancy tv, but I’ve completely joined the dark side on both points, I’m afraid. (For balance, it should be noted that the same issue is affecting my Grey’s Anatomy viewing as well.) Kevin just got word that they’re shipping the new board back now, so with luck everything will be up and running in time for Sunday’s matchups.

And, since I try not to post without pictures, here’s the Christmas mantle:

I’d gotten the sparkly candles a while ago because I thought they’d look nice with the painting, but adding the dark greens for contrast takes it to a new level — so pretty. Between this, the tree and our monster snails in the fishtank, I’ve been spending way more time than usual in the living room. 🙂

Tonight was our night to host the more-or-less weekly potluck Brown dinner. Last year I just didn’t feel festive for some reason, but this year I’ve been wanting tradition, so we settled on a theme of peppermint (either the flavor, or red and white food. Jonathan took it all a step further and made pepper and mint pesto. yum.).

Since our apartment wasn’t holidayish at all, I went questing in our neighbourhood for greens to make an advent wreath.

The berries were a major find. Every other year that bush has been orange. I don’t know if it’s a maturity thing, or due to the recent cold snap, but I love the red as an accent. And I found perfect, little pinecones under a tree up the street. How pretty! And, best of all, this is the first year that the types of evergreen available hasn’t grated against my sense of a proper wreath. Am I finally settled in Seattle?

I neglected to take pictures of everyone, but the early arrivers are all bustling in the kitchen here:

Ginger even dressed for the theme. She made soup, Graham made mozzarella pizza in peppermint candy form, we made drinks including hot chocolate and peppermint schapps with a candy cane swizzle, and everyone else brought desserts, appetizers, homemade peppermint stick ice cream, and other pastas… we never seem to lack for food.

And Andi and Ginger helped me decorate the tree. Here’s Andi trying to follow the (my) exacting tinsel protocol.

🙂 And just for fun, since we’ve now been getting together for over a year, a list of past themes:

Fall foods	The letter ‘S’
Stuffed food	Home cooking
Finger food	Pizza
Cheese	Mexican
Grown in Washington	Crepes
Spheres	Kids’ food
Fresh fruit	Spice
Nuts	Layers
Summer	0s and 1s
Food that shares a name with a country/state/city	Breakfast
Brown foods	Beer
Things which aren’t brown	Thanksgiving
Foods in songs	Grilling
Uwajimaya	Things that go with lasagna
BBQ	Aphrodisiacs
Mother’s Day	25 for $25
Triangles and wedges	Johnny Rockets
Frozen foods	Food you can use as a weapon
Irish food	Chopsticks
Appetizers	Americana/elections
Colors of the rainbow	Peppermint
Honey

Look what I have here!

I’ve finally turned the corner and started the decreases on my Clapotis! I brought it with me to PA, and after a week of steady work (80+ rows), I finished the last 30 or so over the first part of the week. I turned the corner Wednesday night, and last night decreased through another section and a half on each edge. It’s starting to feel like running downhill, since I have one less stitch each row and they go faster and faster. It’s very motivating. Also, the lengths of the columns of stitches that I have to drop are decreasing too. Now I only have two more full-length columns, and the ones on the other side are very short. I can’t wait to be done.

The only point of concern is the amount of yarn left. I had two balls of yarn, and didn’t weigh the scarf after finishing the increases, so I can only count the rows before and after joining the yarn to decide when to start decreasing. If the first ball has much more yarn than the second, I may have to rip the entire decrease section and redo. I gave myself two full rows worth of grace by starting decreases after 128 rows instead of 130, but we’ll see… It’s not going to look like much left of the ball when I get down to the finish.

(PS. I’ve finally finished updating all of the posts I meant to write over the last two and a half weeks. Enjoy! Sorry about the delay! To see all of them, read November 2006.)