my house is a real mess right now because we’re getting more insulation pumped into our walls so the home knitting time is minimal. hence… more pictures of clappy!!

the “i have no head” shot

and here it is being blocked…

the yarn i used for this project was a cashmere wrapped in silk (school products) which made it a little stiff and not all that soft to begin with. but once the clapotis was done, i threw it in the wash with some mild detergent (i always use vegetable based soaps at home like seventh generation or ecover.. i hate the idea of washing things with petroleum!!) and some fabric softener, hot water, and high agitation to break up the fibers. it came out of the wash EXTREMELY soft and only a little damp. i then spread it on the bed, pinning it in places, to dry. the result was fantastic! i will definitely want to buy this yarn again.

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good news! yesterday, after returning home with more frozen food than my poor freeezer could accomodate, i sat down to watch a movie and finish the clapotis. i WAS going to watch affair of the necklace.. i slipped it into the DVD player and the DVD player spit it right back at me. it was so busted up that it was unrecognizable! no amount of cleaning would have saved it. seriously, if you rent movies, do not use them as coasters people!

anyway, lovely kaitlyn (who announced yesterday on her blog that she’s pregnant, CONGRATULATIONS!) loaned me sports night on DVD, which i had never seen.. and damn! why didn’t i watch it as soon as she gave it to me?! it’s sweet, funny, dramatic. it’s not EXCEPTIONAL but it’s pretty damn good and i can see why it won so many emmys. admittedly, almost all of the sports references went straight over my head, but, like battlestar galactica, it’s not the subject matter that’s the most interesting part, it’s the relationships.

so i watched the entire first disc while finishing up the clapotis, and here she is…

pattern: clapotis (pronounced klah-poh-tee.. it’s french for “wave”) from knitty.com

yarn: a hand-dyed silk and cashmere blend yarn from school products

needles: size US8 denise interchangeables

this now needs to be thrown into the wash in hot water with high agitation in order to break up the fibers which will make it sooooo soft. i then need to pull it out and block it. i have no idea how to block something so big though! my homemade blocking board is really small and i have no carpet in the house (the alternative method). so do i lay it out on the bed with the fan on it? any suggestions? the clapotis is a gift for someone in my family. i WANT to keep it but i know that it is destined for someone else. at least it’ll be going to a place where i will see it often enough!

oh, almost forgot… i swatched last night for the circular bolero and intend on starting that tonight. i’m re-writing the yesterknits pattern that i received for lamb’s pride bulky using size 9 needles. the math is going to work out perfectly, i think. the gauge is exactly half of what’s called for so i just have to halve all of the numbers! math is good. this weekend i also intend on whipping up the baby booties for kim and, with the leftovers, i plan on making a little scarf, too. baby knits are great! so quick and easy.. a great in-between project.

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i got off my butt this morning and took a few pictures in order to keep those foaming at the mouth for knitting content satiated. but before i get to that, let’s do a little recap. battlestar galactica is STILL the best show on TV. i just want to make that clear as there are some people out there that still don’t know about it. each week, i’m surprised and left wanting more… on a friday night, no less! since i’m gaining in years, i’ve noticed that i no longer like to go out on friday nights. after a long, stressful week at work, i like to kick it back with my hubby and a nice glass of montepulciano and watch TV. battlestar galactica is the perfect way to end my week. i look forward to the next one the minute the episode is over… then i re-watch the episode over the weekend to pick up all the stuff that i missed. the good news is that i’ve hooked kaitlyn into it (sorry about leaving the DVD at home last night! doh! i can be a real airhead sometimes…) and i have joy and KP as well to talk about it with. the other good news is that i got katie into firefly (i feel like a drug pusher, “just try the firefly. you KNOW you’ll love it.”) now KP and i will have someone else to go see serenity with in september.

other than these few things, i’ve been doing a lot of freelance. my current client, marc, JUST introduced me to phpicalendar which i’m nuts about! i’ve been looking for a substitute for .mac for a long time and i think that this will really do the trick. when i get it installed, i’ll leave it open to the public for a while so that you can see how it’s working. i plan on being involved in the dev process of it since i know some PHP. gotta love the internet.

ok, knitting content. not much is going on. i’ve been working on the christmas gifts which is fun although not that fulfilling because i know that none of it is going to me. once i get to 75% done on each of these, i plan on starting up 1) the tubular camisole from glampyre for myself in debbie bliss cotton cashmere & 2) the circular shrug from yesterknits in lamb’s pride bulky medieval red, also for myself (backpack: patterns in the queue). it’s nice to have more than one project going at once!

here’s the beginning of mom’s cabled sock (pattern from brainylady… see backpack for more info). i like this pattern. it’s very simple and easy to understand. alison does leave out a lot of the directions so you should know that this pattern is not for sock-newbies. give another fully written pattern a try first and then try this with those techniques you learned. i’m going to try the short-row heel on this one. hopefully i understand it enough.

after ripping back the clapotis, i’m back in business and i think that i’ll have enough yarn to make a decent sized version of it. yeah! the only bummer about this thing is that the darn straight rows take FOREVER! this is why i have more than one project going on at once. too boring otherwise.

and, in closing, i present the clapotis-race-to-the-finish! which i think that lisa is going to win.. she’s crafty, that one.

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i popped on over to lisa’s blog this morning and found that her week sounded a lot like mine.

i DEFINITELY WANTED to take pictures of my knitting last night but then pooped out around 10PM after ripping back the clappy to get rid of an increase row and save some yarn. this was a great idea that wasn’t executed correctly. i unintentionally twisted some stitches that i shouldn’t have and then tried fixing them one by one on the needle. completely tiring and frustrating and i decided just to live with it but then was too tired to take pictures and upload them.

i DEFINITELY WANTED to write up a nice, long blog entry about what a stupid asshole pat robertson is, but then i realized that the majority of my audience already knows this. my main question here is, if you’re a fundamentalist christian, isn’t abiding by the commandments considered a good thing to do? isn’t one of those commandments “thou shalt not kill”? or is it supposed to be “thou shalt not kill unless you’re going to kill a communist dictator and then it’s only partly ok.. you’re going straight to purgatory”? so anyway, it appears that my view of what’s good and what’s bad in this world is in the minority… and i’m an atheist! i thought that religion was supposed to teach people fundamental principles of morality. guess i was wrong.

*update* from cnn.com: Robertson had insisted he was misquoted claiming “I didn’t say ‘assassination.’ I said our special forces should ‘take him out’.” HAHAHA, that is the most lame ass CYA i have ever heard of. pat, if you were the godfather and said that, chavez would have been swimming with the fishes by now. what an idiot. THEY MEAN THE SAME THING!

i DEFINITELY WANTED to stop buying yarn for a while and then i saw that herrschners was having a great sale on summer colors of paton’s grace. i had to have some. it’s in the mail.

i DEFINITELY WANTED to work on marc’s site all this week and i’m not getting very far with it because damn work keeps interfering. sue me.

so, i guess i’m on the road to hell but, in the end, at least i have someone to walk the path with me.

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i’m completely agonizing over the fact that i may not have enough yarn to make a decent clapotis. i did all of the increase rows and one straight row and i’m half way through my second ball of yarn. i only have two balls left. each ball was 175 yds and i used a size 8 needle. why does this always happen to me? should i rip back and take out an increase? or should i knit on and see how far two balls of yarn gets me (which would be half-way through the project as far as i could take it)? ugh.

*update* i’ve decided to rip back. i figure it’s easier than going on. so this will be more of a mini-clappy instead. i’ll take pictures tonight and i guess the good thing is that my mom’s sock is going well so far. i haven’t screwed up the cables… so there’s HOPE!

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