Monthly Archives: January 2004

30Jan / 2004

Straight or Circular

I cast on for my 2×2 rib hat, but of course I forgot to block my gauge swatch first. So I may be making another swatch, depending on how it turns out. Another part of being a beginner. :\ What I’m slightly confused about is that my pattern says required needles are 14″ straight needles. But it says cast on 108 sts loosely. When I cast on 108 sts, it is so squashed, I can barely fit them all on the needle. I’m thinking I need to get circular needles and use them instead of the straight needles. So my question to everyone is this: What’s your standard for needles? Is there a certain # of stitches you follow…say if the pattern say over that # you use circular instead of straight? Did that question make any sense to anyone anyway? LOL!

Oh well, I’m blocking my swatch tonight, then we’ll see if I was able to get gauge. This will be my first attempt at gauge really, since what I’ve done so far pretty much didn’t need to be gauged. But I definitely think I’ll be going out tonight or tomorrow to get circular needles. I’ve only got US10 and I think I will need 8 or 9 for this project.

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29Jan / 2004

Junk Mail

I’ve been thinking about changing my online email account. I’m starting to receive a bunch of junk mail. But then I started looking at the messages and apparently I had it set to forward all unrouted mail to me, so I was getting a bunch of email addressed to anna@wifetalks.com or some other address besides themrs at wifetalks.com. So I went into my email settings and told it to bounce all unrouted mail. I’ve got 2 email addresses set to forward to me so you can use my standard email address (themrs[at]wifetalks.com) or you can use one of the following: rayne[at]wifetalks.com or rayne[at]thirtyish.us. I set up both of those to forward, in case you don’t remember my email address, just use my name and I’ll still get it. Hopefully all this changing of email settings will help cut down on the junk mail I’m getting.

Also, the email address I use is not the default that is assigned when you get an account (usually the same as your main login to cPanel). I picked a different one. Makes sense for security reasons, but I set a bunch of unrouted mail to go to the default. So when for some unknown reason I logged into webmail from cPanel (it uses your default account), there were 400 messages in there! Many from my linkware site that I had forgotten I told the script to use a different email. So out of the 400, there were about 50-100 informing me someone had downloaded a template from my site and all this time, I had no idea. I had also wondered why my friday five notifications quit coming in. :\ Hell there were email messages in there from when I had the old domain (iwhispered.net), ha! I know I’ve had wifetalks.com for at least a year, because I just renewed it in December. What a mess. I hope I got it all straightened out now. I had planned on holding on to thirtyish.us till I turned 30 in another year, but when the opportunity to create a knitting blog came about, I figured why not. I also have another domain (bairfoot.us) sitting in reserve at godaddy (it’s parked there as there is no room on my hosting account, I can only have 3 domains and I’m maxed out). Maybe I’ll add the $2 cost to include it and park it on my account. It’s a cute name I couldn’t resist buying. And I have it on hold in case I ever get sick of wifetalks.com. :D

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28Jan / 2004

Long Hair

I was watching Charmed last night on TNT and I noticed that Piper’s hair is extremely long. It is so pretty, I’ve decided I want mine to grow out and get real long also.

I used to have really long hair when I was in 4th grade, but I got to 5th grade and the style was shoulder length with the front all feathered…you remember that look from the 80s, so I chopped it off. Then of course, I had to perm it in 8th grade, which was the thing to do at the time. In 9th grade I was sick of the perm so I straightened it and put that bleach stuff in it. So I had frizzy, bronze colored hair. Yuck!! I got tired of the dead frizz, so in 10th grade I cut it real short…neck short. It got most of the frizz and bleached hair. Then the rest of my high school years, I spent growing it back out so that all of the dead frizz was gone by the time I graduated. In college, I pretty much kept is about shoulder length, going back and forth between bangs and no bangs. Now, my hair is pretty healthy again, finally. It’s about down to the middle of my back and I have medium length bangs. The last time I cut bangs, I cut them pretty long, so I can sweep them back out of the way or keep them in front. I’m growing them back out and eventually they will be as long as the rest of my hair again.

And I have about 6-10 more inches till my hair reaches my waistline. So I think this weekend I’m going to get it trimmed. I mean at max 1 inch, and if the salon lady cuts it any shorter, I will not be tipping her! I just want the ends cut so that it can keep growing. If it ever gets to my waist before I get a whim to cut it short again (I’m really going to try this time), I will post a picture. Because it will be the first time it will have been that long since I was in about 3rd or 4th grade.

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27Jan / 2004

Shape It! Scarf

I decided to try my hand at the Shape It! Scarf in The Knit Stitch. Not a major project but it gives me a chance to work on knitting a cast on stitch, which is a problem for me. My first row keeps coming out to loose, so this scarf is the perfect way to practice. I can also get familiar working with circular needles. Of course, it may come out looking all wacky and I may end up ripping it once I’m done. But I figure it’s easier to practice with a goal in mind rather than just knitting endlessly for no reason.

I’m also practicing my ribbing, which isn’t coming out too bad for the first try. :) I think it’s too bunchy but who knows. It might improve as I continue to work on it and get more practice. Maybe I’ll post a pic for opinions, maybe.

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27Jan / 2004

Marathon

My husband is going camping this weekend with the guys so I’m on my own for the weekend. I don’t really mind. It will give me plenty of time to knit. :) I’m hoping to catch CSI Season 1 at the video store and have a CSI marathon this weekend. We re-joined Netflix, because my husband has become addicted to Stargate, so put the entire season 1 (that’s 5 volumes) in our queue. We also put season 1 of CSI in our queue, but this weekend is the perfect time to watch it. I also want to try to catch “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.” Not sure yet on that one.

We still haven’t decided exactly what we’re doing for our Anniversary, except we’re taking the 19th and 20th off from work to go somewhere. Maybe we will figure it out sometime next week. I’m looking forward to the vacation though. We haven’t been back from Christmas holiday, and I’m ready for another break. :

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25Jan / 2004

Ripped the Scarf

Nope, didn’t like how the scarf was coming out. So I ripped it up. I plan on starting it another time, when I’m feeling more comfortable with my work. I was having some trouble with the yarn, maybe me or maybe being new was part of it. But it’s gone for now and the yarn is put away for a later attempt. I’m moving well on my practice swatch. I started doing the stockinette stitch last night and it’s coming out very nice. So today I attempted to practice increasing and decreasing, but I’m stuck. Not quite sure how to do an increase on the purl side. I guess I need to look at it again. Once I get those, I plan to work on ribbing and binding off. Then I have a beginner hat that I want to try.

Here’s a newbie question: What do you do with your gauge swatch once you get gauge? Mark it with the gauge and yarn and needle size for future reference? Also, does the yardage requirement include enough to do the gauge swatch? I would think so, but I just want to ask anyway. These may sound like idiot questions, but I gotta learn somehow and I don’t really have anyone nearby to ask.

I signed up for the meetup, and hopefully I’ll be able to catch one soon. Not sure how well it is doing in my town, but hopefully it will give me a chance to meet some other knitters that can give me some pointers when I need it.

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