500 posts!

Hooray! This is post #500! I can't believe CM has been going strong for so long. What a nice surprise today.

Let's see ... SP8 officially starts tomorrow, which means I ought to put up some sort of button or something. (Done!)

And the local art center is (still) begging me to teach a beginner's knitting class. I think it would be a lot of fun. I think about it off and on, about all the things that I'd want to do in preparation — swatch different stitches, swatch "right" and "wrong" techniques, have a giant swatch or display made with huge dowels and rope ... I know, call me crazy. But teachers get half of the entry tuition, which is a very good reason to ponder this further. Also, I should officially join the Friends of the Art Center group instead of just getting the mailing because we're a publication.

I haven't made much more progress on the shawl, unfortunately, but I've been working on stuff for the swaps I'm in. As I said earlier, SP8 is under way. Sendouts for the Neil Gaiman 3 swap on Craftster are next Friday; Fyberduck should be sending out the matches for the Hogwarts Houses swap tomorrow or Friday.

Oh, and I've officially been (sham)poo-free for a month. I notice a definite change, as my hair and scalp don't feel as dried out as usual. Winter is always the worst, but not so this time around. Now I just have to teach my face to keep up.

And off to the post office I go!

Laberinto

I forgot to mention that the yarn for the Swallowtail is a blue-grey colorway of Trekking XXL. It's nice to knit a shawl in sock yarn, I've decided. So nice, in fact, that I think I'll do it again sometime. (And I did get my circular needle, which has made knitting on it even better. Yay!)

Oh, and my cousin had her baby four, maybe five days ago. He's a doll, and his name is Tristan. I haven't asked if I could post a picture, but I will link one. This is my favorite.

Okay, on to Guillermo del Toro's El Laberinto del Fauno — Pan's Labyrinth. First off, it's a foreign film, which I enjoy, and it's in Spanish, which I also enjoy. (Spanish of Spain, as opposed to other Spanish-speaking countries. You can tell by the lispy way the name Mercedes is pronounced: Mer-THAY-deth. Also the movie is set in Spain in 1944.)

I have to admit, it has its scary moments, like when you first see the faun (who is not in fact Pan, as Crazy Lanea also pointed out). Also, when you first see this guy:


Talk about scary. Those are eyes in his hands. The Pale Man, as I see he's called, really is the stuff of nightmares, if you're prone to them. At any rate, it's not a film for children, despite the fairy tales.

I very much enjoyed the movie. I loved the way it was shot, how it was set, hell, I even loved the subtitles. (I love movies with subtitles. Even if the film's in English and the subtitles are on, I end up reading them.) I didn't even mind the gore. The shooting, though, was a little surprising, though by the end you come to expect it.

You know, The Pale Man reminds me a bit of one of Goya's paintings, don't you think?


(That's my favorite painting of "Gory Goya", which is what my high school art teacher always used to call him.) Anyway, I do recommend this film. But if you see it, you'll have to tell me whether you think the fairy tale is real, or in Ofelia's head. I know what I think.

What in the world could that be?!

I cannot distract you any longer. I've actually got proof of the shawl.



This is through 10 (of 14) repeats of the second chart. See how the fabric is all crinkled up on the left? That's why I'm going to need circs right quick. But hey, look at that schnazzy stitch marker (that silvery smudge near the top) from Fyberduck! I love seeing it glittering there, marking the middle of the shawl. It's a good goal, too, because if I stop in the middle of the row instead of at an end, I'm more likely to remember where I'm at. (Call me crazy, but that's how I roll.)

That's all I've got for now. More after we see El Laberinto del Fauno tonight.

Fold your shirts!

Folding a t-shirt, a la Japanese Martha Stewart.

Last night we watched The Devil Wears Prada and, though we can hardly forget Anne Hathaway's performance in Brokeback — who wouldn't forget? All of a sudden her boobies were the star of the show! — I really enjoyed the Prada. I would still like to read the book, my usual requirement for books-turned-movie. Kas, who hasn't posted in her blog in forever, didn't think it made much of a difference when it came to Children of Men, though. Who knows? All's I know is that we're going to catch Pan's Labyrinth tomorrow, and perhaps stop at B-A-B for a little groundhog action.

But really, what you came here to see was knitting. Well, I have no pictures. (Bad blogger! No cookie!) But I do have news: I'm through the sixth repeat of the second Swallowtail chart. I feel like I'm absolutely flying through it, and I think I'll have to stop at a yarn shop this weekend and pick up some circs, because the straights I'm working with aren't going to hold out much longer. I think 16-inches will probably work just fine for the duration. I hope I can find some bamboo ones ... I'm not quite brave enough for metal needles and lace yet. Though I am using sock yarn ...

Okay, back to fixing the labels!

Gunn-ing for fashion

Speaking of Tim Gunn ... We've got this news too about Tim from the Bravo tv site:

"On February 1st and 8th, our own Mr. Gunn will be appearing on ABC’s (Golden Globe Winner) "Ugly Betty." And, he’s not playing himself! He'll appear as a fashion reporter who covers a controversy that takes place at “Mode” – the show’s fictional fashion magazine.

We can’t wait to see Tim in an honest-to-goodness “February ratings sweeps” spectacle. Who knew he could act?"
— post on Craftster

He had this to say at Blogging Project Runway. Oh baby, oh baby.

---

I spent nearly an hour this morning trying not to scream expletives at various electronic devices here in the office. We have a new postage software, which generates both labels (with barcodes, ooh ahh) and a postal form. Except the freaking label template would not agree with how the paper was fed through the printer. Usually, with the old system, I had labels done by 10:30 max. Today I finished at a quarter to 1. I was nearly livid, and quite frazzled. Thankfully, my mom rescued me and we went to lunch.

I came back, preparing to pull out more hair, as I hadn't done the postal form yet. It turns out that last Thursday, when I was on the phone with California for what seemed like forever, we got the form set up wrong. Obviously, we publish a periodical, and so qualify for periodical postage. Well, the darn guy had us set up for standard mail.

We have been paying roughly $290 per week for the past couple of months, so imagine my surprise when, with everything calculated together under standard mail, the postage came out to nearly $330. Yikes. But today, now that I fixed the form, postage cost $150 — half of what we've been paying. So either I did it completely wrong today (which is entirely possible as I'm not omnicient, contrary to all y'all's beliefs) or we've been doing it completely wrong for the past two years (at least). Dear Maude, I hope that today's was right. Maybe then El Boss won't be so cranky.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a new Lime & Violet episode to listen to.

Honeycombs, swaps, and swallowtails

My mom's birthday was last Monday. I had decided to knit her a little something in order to keep off the chill when she's downstairs in sewing land, where there's no heat. (The basement is still unfinished.) I thought a nice wristwarmer and Calorimetry set would keep her warm. I used one skein of Lion Brand Wool in a purple-pink-orange sort of colorway; it had just enough yardage for the set.

I don't have any photos right now, but I'll give you my basic pattern for the wristwarmers. I used US 8 DPNs with the worsted weight wool. I started by casting on 42 stitches, using the alternate cable cast on (found at the bottom of the linked page). After 1 1/4 inches of 1x1 rib, I switched to a modified honeycomb cable.

1. C2F, *C2B, C2F* around.
2. Knit around.
3. Knit around.
4. C2B, *C2F, C2B* around.

It wasn't exactly even over the 42 stiches, as it's a 4-stitch repeat, but you couldn't really tell. After that, I did 4 or 5 rows of 2x1 ribbing, so it would pull in a little closer. I bound off in pattern, knitting the knits and purling the purls, and it was done. Were I to do it again, I think I'd make the stitches divisible by 4 to keep the honeycomb even.


Here you can see the chart over 12 stitches, created with VisiKnit.

Other than that, I've joined Secret Pal 8 on the Knitty board, and have been claimed by my upstream pal. I've also claimed my downstream pal. I've got some very good ideas for packages to send, so I just have to start getting them together.

I also joined a couple of other swaps on Craftster: Hogwarts Houses and Gaiman. I've got my partner for the Gaiman swap, and so have begun to work on rustling up some projects for that. Fyberduck, the busiest girl in the universe, is organizing the Hogwarts Houses swap, and will be sending our partners in the beginning of February. I've signed up as a Ravenclaw. I've also realized that my kindred spirit in the Harry Potter world is Luna Lovegood, because she's quite quirky and ... interesting. (I can't wait to see how she's portrayed in the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.)

Oh, I almost forgot: Tim Gunn and Kate Moloney will soon be releasing a book, A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style. And now I think I'll get ready to go develop some film, and start a Swallowtail Shawl (inspired by this one) while I'm at it.

Edit: I've knit through one full repeat (of the requisite fourteen) of the second chart, and am thoroughly enjoying the pattern. I had wanted to start knitting lace more actively this year, but didn't expect to enjoy it quite as much as I did, sitting at the Hy-Vee Starbucks drinking a caramel macchiato (tall's enough, thanks) and watching people.