This and that

So I'm at the point where I can start on the fancy lace edging for my Icarus shawl. It looks pretty much the same as it did Sunday morning, just bigger. I've finished 5 or 6 repeats of the top section. (I have 6 rows of yo's originating from the center - which I think makes 5 repeats - but that's one of those things that hurt my poor little brain.)

I've asked the lovely Mim about extending the fancy part of the lace, but so far no reply. I also posted on the Knitlist and got some really good advice from Lori Gayle, who I don't think has a blog. But basically she said that just repeating the 2 lace charts won't work. I e-mailed her back and said that I've been thinking about it and I'm contemplating inserting a couple of "smaller" 12 stitch repeats before I hit Chart 2, then just knitting Chart 2, 3 and 4 as directed. I think it can work - but it will take some planning on my part. Stay tuned, I'll let you know how it goes (or maybe not if it all goes horribly wrong).

I found a great deal on a 1gig memory card for my little camera this weekend. I've ordered it, and now just waiting for it to get to me. Believe it or not, I've been using the 16mb card that the camera came with for the last year or so! I'm calling it an early birthday present to myself. Though the BBE did offer to buy it for me for my b-day.

Finally able to walk again today. It was perfect weather!

Here's the wool silk blend that I plan on plying with the pure silk that I was spinning earlier. I've decided that I'm going to 2 ply the wool silk blend, and then cable it with the pure silk. Should be pretty - I haven't tried a cabled yarn yet, so it should be interesting as well!

Three day weekends rock! Saturday, just knit, knit, knit. Sunday - hung out with the BBE, and knit some more. Monday, went swimming for a bit, and then went to a friend's barbecue over in the East Bay. Their sister had told us that things were supposed to start around 6 or so, and of course that's when we showed up. Well - it really started around noon. So by the time we arrived there was not so much food left, apparently a lot of tequila (I'd call a 5th and a half a lot - wouldn't you?) was consumed before our arrival - and a lot of beer, so there were a few people there who had definitely overindulged in the Margaritaness of it all.

It was also a weekend of anniversaries for me. I moved back to the US 4 years ago on the 28th. I just can't believe it's already been this long. I had a 23 hour journey from Oxford UK to Fairfax CA, and arrived at my funky little place sight unseen with my son and 2 suitcases - of course the suitcase that held my Joy got held up in St Louis where we had a stopover. I remember they made me take off my shoes, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me - I mean I was wearing Birkenstocks of all things...

But yeah, I moved in with nothing - My apartment had all kinds of little quirky things going on... Though I wouldn't call the fugly paint job in what is now bedroom cute. Oh man, that was bad. Very dark orange/brown/terra cotta matte paint in a small room that gets very little light. And the trim? It was, and I kid you not, the colour of dried blood. And it was everywhere. Worst paint job I've ever seen. Apparently it was the girl who lived there before me and a lot of wine. There was paint on the carpet, and the ceiling, and the back of the door. There was even paint over where she'd taped the baseboards. There wasn't any paint however, where her couch used to be. We fixed that pretty quickly - now I'd like to paint the rest of the place.

Quirkinesses of my house: I have door-shelves. Really - one of the doors into my kitchen had a shelf at about the 2 foot level. One shelf. There's a medicine cabinet in my kitchen. Which is actually very handy - I keep my vitamins in there. The place itself measure 30' long x 20' wide. It used to be WW1 Army barracks that were moved over from Alameda - and it used to be 2 separate studio apartments. For a while there, I actually had 2 studios and a one bedroom all attached... I used to joke that I was literally living beside myself. But I just couldn't afford to keep the whole shebang. It was nice when I had all that space.

It was also mine and BBE's 9 month anniversary on the 29th. We didn't really do anything to commemorate. I believe that guys should be given a break on every single month anniversaries. I'm sure we've got many more in store for us. Things have been slightly rough over the last couple of months or so. He's been trying to figure out what direction to take his life - looking into buying a business, being frustrated - wanting more input from me. I figure this is something that he has to do for himself, and I will be there to support him in any way I can, but I can't do it for him. I can see how stressful all this is, and I'm actually glad that it's not up to me to figure out. I think it's getting to a point where we might begin to see some movement in directions that are actually viable options, as opposed to all these hypothetical possibilities that we've been dealing with, plans changing every ten minutes, and just spinning wheels in general. It's been draining to say the least.

Anyway, here's a little shot that I took when we all went to Bolinas a couple of weeks ago.



Have fun!