Moo!



You can click on the photo for a larger version. It's not blocked yet, and there are a few ends to weave in, but I couldn't wait to share it. I can't believe I knitted almost half of this thing yesterday while I was sick. Crazy girl. Marney would be proud! I did end up deciding to finish it off in garter stitch, then go back and pick up stitches, pull out the cast-on edge, and re-knit it in garter stitch. A bit of a pain, but worth it - I like it this way much better than all roll-ey like it was before.

Wow, I have been a knitting fool today. I am just a few inches short of finishing the Moo blankie, after pretty much knitting all day. I felt too crappy to do much else! It will be nice to finish this so early and not have to worry if the little one pops out ahead of schedule! I won't bother posting a progress pic because I am lazy, but as soon as it's finished, I will certainly do so. Does anyone have any washing/blocking suggestions? It's Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, and the washing instructions say it's machine washable. My only concern is about color bleeding - is there something I can add to the (cold) water to add an extra measure of protection?

I noticed that Julie just bought the same book I picked up last weekend - Vintage Knits. Apparently, we had the same reaction - I want to make SO many things in the book! The cover pattern is particularly adorable, as is the beaded short-sleeved top towards the end. Except I think an all-over beaded top with 900 beads is probably not the best way to start learning that technique!

Ryan is out at a friend's birthday party, which I skipped since I still feel like crap. I have to force myself to stop knitting, because my left wrist is going to fall off soon. Hmm, maybe if I start knitting American style, then my right wrist can pick up the slack for a while?

I gave in to sickness and stayed home today. Not much was going at work that needed me anyway, so it's OK timing. Except that it is Friday and I feel like crap and I don't want to be sick for the weekend. I'll probably go over to the natural foods store for some lemon-ginger-echinicea juice that has seemed to help in the past. That's along with the zinc lozenges, vitamin c, etc. that I've been sucking down. I will get better fast!

Staying home sick does present a nice knitting opportunity, and I plan to take advantage of it. There are 55 rows of chart left on the Moo blankie, plus 8 rows of just plain old ivory on the end. Well, that doesn't include the crochet edging I am probably going to have to add because I was stupid. Well, the pattern was stupid first, and I was stupid for following it to the letter. It calls for straight stockinette the whole way, which we all know means rolled edges. What is even more annoying is that I looked closely at the photo in the back of the book (Mission Falls Wee Knits Too) and I can see that the edges are definitely garter stitch. When I started this, I said "Hmm, maybe I should just do garter stitch for the first 8 rows of plain ivory" but decided to believe the pattern. Stupid stupid stupid. Maybe instead of crochet, I will do the trick that Stitch Doctor Deb taught me and pick up the stitches a few rows short of the beginning, unravel the start and re-knit in garter stitch from there for a few rows. Any thoughts on this vs. a crochet edging? Keep in mind that I haven't crocheted in a while and never as an edging on a knitted piece.

Had a wedding nightmare last night. All my bridesmaids and my mother abandoned me to get dressed by myself, I couldn't figure out how to get my veil on, everything was a mess, I felt like a total spaz, and was running really late. We were on the beach and everyone was sweaty and gross and by the time I hauled my ass out to where Ryan was I was a totally crumpled mess. Nah, no anxiety here!

OK, this is too funny not to blog about. A friend here at work just sent me this link: Amazon.com: buying info: Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom. Read the first few reviews. Hmm, maybe I want one of these! ;-)

There I was last night, happily chatting on the phone with my big brother (who said he's going to make a concerted effort to read this blog, so hi Larry!), when I felt it. That telltale tickle in the back of my throat. The tickle that can only mean I'm getting sick. Noooo!!! I popped a zinc lozenge and downed some vitamin C, hoping to ward off the evil virus. I'm still trying, but I have been feeling progressively crappier since last night. Achy, scratchy, queasy - sounds like I'm building my own set of dwarves here.

Oh, add one of the "official" dwarves to that list: Grumpy. Really grumpy. I just want to go back home and climb under the covers, but instead I'm here at work in the freezing cold with my space heater blasting. I was just unnecessarily grumpy to my sweetie, too. Sorry, pookie, if you're reading this.

Despite the crappy feeling, I did manage to get more work done on Moo last night. I am a little past the halfway point! I am going to make a concerted effort to finish this in the next few weeks, as the baby is due in mid-October and I don't want to have that last-minute rush. I also want to get started on my super-secret hat for Staceyjoy's RedLipstick Hat Contest! I obviously won't be sharing the details of that one until it's done and submitted. I will say that it is probably going to be a kiddie-sized hat and it'll be made from Tahki Cotton Classic in various shades. The idea actually came to me on the subway with Ryan on the day I was going to meet the girls out at RedLipstick, the store. I've been excited about it ever since, so I definitely don't want to miss the September 30th deadline.

In other news, I spent $476 on Rush tickets during the internet pre-sale this morning! Yipes! That's for six tickets, and I'm going to get paid back for most of them, but it was pretty daunting to hit "confirm" on ticketmaster. They really rip you off - each ticket is $65, but there are $14 in surcharges tacked on. Bastards! I am really looking forward to the show - it'll be me and Ryan, plus my aforementioned brother, brother's old friend JJ who I used to have a crush on 20 (yipes) years ago, and friend Greg and girlfriend Kym, who we went to the Mets game with a few months ago. October 24th is the date.

Really hating work today. This account person (who I mentioned a while back) is so unbalanced. I don't mean she's just a bitch (she is that, too) - I mean that she seriously appears to have a mental illness. For one thing, a pathological inability to believe or admit that she is wrong about anything. I mean this to the extreme. She has been insisting that there is no space between two parts of a disease name that one of our client's products is meant to treat. Absolutely insists that the three letters and the one roman numeral all run together with no space. The writer pointed out (in private) that the website and all other materials show it as three letters, space, roman numeral. Her response? "Oh, maybe that's how they do it on promotional materials, but really there is no space." OK, so they would put a wrong spelling on promo materials why? Jeez!

Enough of that.

I had a good time at Stitch-n-Bitch last night, despite the terrible fumes coming from the recently-refinished wood floor. I was really pleased to meet Annie Modesitt, whose blog I have been admiring lately. She was wearing the most gorgeous knitted lace hat with a big wide brim. SO pretty! I got to thinking after I got home that it might be really neat to make one of those to wear on my honeymoon, if it's the kind of thing that wouldn't get totally trashed by the trip out there. I've got my heart set on the veil and tiara thing (come on folks, it's the ONE day in your life that you can wear a tiara and get away with it no questions asked!), otherwise I'd think about it for the wedding. I'll have to check in with her and see what she thinks about it's travel-worthiness.

I was a silly girl and didn't bring an extra ball of the ivory yarn for the Moo blankie, so once I finished what I had with me, it was either go home or sit and weave in ends. Eeew. I chose the weaving, and at least that chore is done for a while. I try and keep up with them because there are a lot of color changes, but I just hate weaving ends. I start getting all antsy after just a few. I don't mind sewing things up, but I HATE weaving in the ends!

On the wedding front, I have to start working on finding someone to marry us. I am sweating this a bit, because I am Jewish, he is not, but we are planning to have a Jewish ceremony, as long as it doesn't get too deeply religious. Many people have reassured me that I am not being hypocritical by wanting this, and I know I have been to many interfaith weddings where a rabbi or cantor presided over a semi-traditional Jewish ceremony. But suddenly I am feeling stressed. What if the rabbi I call says I don't "deserve" a Jewish wedding because I'm not observant? I'm not. But culturally I identify myself as Jewish, and I do keep kosher for Passover (though not the rest of the year) and I fast on Yom Kippur. Those things make me feel connected to the Jewish culture at large. I feel very conflicted about my beliefs and desires in this area, and I know the right thing to do is just make the calls until I find someone who will work with us. I have a friend who had a Jewish/Hindu wedding 2 years ago - gotta ask for her rabbi's name.

So tired. I am like a broken record with that, aren't I? Hmm, that's an anachronistic phrase now, isn't it? People still use it, but there are probably plenty who don't even realize why. Anyway, I had trouble sleeping again last night and was up at 6:30 even though I was still sleepy and didn't need to be up until 7:30.

I did get to the knitting last night, and got another inch or so done on the "Moo" blanket. Had a freaky moment where I realized I had messed up the pattern and had to rip it back a few rows to fix it. Discovered that ripping out rows of intarsia with many different bobbins is a major pain in the ass. Concentrated hard and did it right in the end. Phew!

I will be bringing said blanket to Stitch-n-Bitch tonight, though I don't expect I will stay very late. I think 9pm is my absolute deadline, as I need to go to the supermarket (which is conveniently halfway between Java-n-Jazz and my apartment) and I need to get some sleep tonight. Unfortunately, Jackie won't be there again, but we will try and carry on without her!

Sometime today or tomorrow I need to write some copy for a website Ryan and I are doing for my friend Leanne. She's an amazing pastry chef and does a lot of beautiful wedding and birthday cakes on a freelance basis. Guess what she's giving me as a wedding present? Right! It's going to be so fun to know I can have a beautiful cake that tastes delicious, too, and is made with lots of love. It's going to be a little taxing for her being a bridesmaid and the baker, but I gave her the chance to back out and she said she is absolutely fine with it. Yay! If you know anyone in the NYC Metropolitan area who needs a cake, I can give you her contact info, and I will post the website when it is complete.

Hmm, since I am just waiting on other people to get back to me about all the stuff I wrote here last week, maybe I will do that little bio now. Might as well use my non-working time productively!

OK, I'm a little grumpy because I wrote a long post, and then due to a blogger error, lost it. Why in the world didn't I do it in Word or something?

I'm also a little grumpy because I am sleepy! We were out late last night with friends, first at dinner, then at two small clubs. The second place was called "Sway" and was really neat. Ryan's friend Chris was in town from Boston, and a friend of his is a party promoter, who told him about this place. Very cool interior - Moroccan-inspired decor, and what seemed like a cool crowd. We were there until almost 3, which explains my sleepiness today! Chris's friend took a picture of us, which was posted on his party promotion website. From the left, there's part of Ryan's face, me, this girl Cathy (Kathy?) who was with us, and Chris.



The earlier part of the weekend was fun, too. Dad and I got rained rained out of the US Open during the day, but still saw some tennis that night. Then on Friday he decided to upgrade our regular nosebleed-seat tickets and paid the difference for amazing seats 6 rows back from the court! We even had a bona fide celebrity siting, with Meredith Viera from "The View" sitting a few rows ahead of us. To appreciate the difference, check out the locale of our usual seats - the big yellow arrow points to the approximate location.



To contrast, the snazzy new seats were right next to the little corridor where the players come out onto the court, so we got to see Gustavo ("Guga") Kuerten being interviewed right before he came out onto the court, which was sort of cool.



The actual game-play view was no less impressive - we were really very close to all the action! Check out Guga's big serve.



In addition to seeing Guga upset #2 seed Marat Safin, we got to see Long Island native Bea Bielik play. She ended up losing her third-round match to Justine Henin, but it was fun to see her play in her first US Open and do so well. She was ranked 1102 in the world before the Open - something tells me that number will rise fast. After the match, she seemed very happy to have been there, and was very gracious about signing autographs for the kids.



Actually, most of the players were good about autographs - I didn't see anyone get turned away. After the Bielik/Henin and Guga/Safin matches, we saw Lindsay Davenport again, and then the day's schedule in Arthur Ashe stadium was done. We headed to the outer courts, and settled in at Louis Armstrong stadium (the next largest) for a while. Though we were easily spoiled by our great seats, Dad was a trooper and was still able to concentrate on the match from higher up.



And so ended another fun, if soggy, trip to the US Open. We got there around 11:30 a.m., and you can see from the final photo that we made the most of the day!



And now that's the end of my attention span. Here I go somewhere else - hope to be more coherent tomorrow!