So the economy is flat, you say?

It's not my fault.  I went out and tried to buy things yesterday.  I left the house with a mental list of what I wanted.

Whadda waste of time.  I went to the bigboxbookstore to find this book on Jimmy Carter.  A few weeks ago, I heard an interview from an author that believes that Jimmy Carter jacked up foreign policy so badly that we are still paying.  Hmmm.  I didn't know anything about that...but I am interested in what this guy has to say.  It wasn't available, but they can order.  I don't understand why that's a service.  I can order it myself.

Oh well. 

I went across the parking lot and over to the mega housewares store.  

I want help making sushi.  I have no joint rolling skills, and I make a mess every time I cozy up to nori and rice.  I've tried the bamboo mat.  No dice.  My mom used to do that with a dish towel.  I didn't inherit her dexterity.  My older brother, aka the whitest hapa I know, has both a rice cooker and a sushi maker.  His sushi comes out fine.  He uses this.  

I was on a mission.  

I also wanted a rack so I can line dry some clothes.  It may be green, and all that, or maybe it would just save time-I could do multiple loads back to back, and pop them on the back porch.  God knows it gets hot enough.

The product assortment at the big box home store is kind of comical.  I can get a Ped Egg, a DiscoHitsofthe'90s Cd, and gummi bears, as well as a pink KitchenAid coffee grinder.  (that was tempting)  But I couldn't find anything related to sushi.  "We have plates," the clerk volunteered.  Ummm, no.

And that drying rack?  I wanted something fairly substantial-I do a lot of laundry.  Something like this would have been ok, but all I found was a behemouth, over engineered system that included three laundry bins which required a lot of floor space.  I looked at it, and tried to envision how I would use it.  And couldn't.  Who drives a cart like that from room to room collecting laundry?  When I sort mine, I throw it on the floor.  Hell, it's already dirty.

I went out yesterday with good intentions, and didn't get the things I wanted.  I ordered stuff from Amazon last night, but if you know where I can get a good heavy duty folding laundry rack, let me know!

Mistakes

Wow. That's what I thought when I walked into my LYS and saw this leaflet next to the sample garment. I snapped Noro 24 (the leaflet) right up. This weekend, it crawled out of the want pile, and wriggled over next to some Needful Yarns I got on a raging good sale at Elann. So I cast on.

Now, I am a competent knitter. I can follow instructions. On the pattern set up row (Row 8), it has you reaching back "4 rs" to make a loop. On subsequent pattern rows, it says do loop stitch.

I looked up loop stitch, which was [knit tog the next stitch and the corresponding purl loop form previous row on the right side of the work]


My work looked like this. It was totally kicking my ass, so I drove to LYS and looked at the sample garment. (40 miles, dontcha know)



Well, the 4s were the problem. The first row needs to go back MORE than '4 rs' and subsequent rows just reach back to the previous garter ridge.

Well just say so, already.

Need another opinion

I am trying hard to finish up UFOs. I ran across this, an entrelac sweater started last October, in Austermann Inverno. I figured out where I was, sat down, did a few squares, and really looked at it.

There is no way the front will match the back. Given entrelac's tendency to spread, the front is a good 5" wider than the back.

It's kind of....quiet. Misty. Do I really want such a serene sweater?

I was a little worried. I started the project based on yardage, and a little nervous, because I know I need to reknit the back to fit the front. I wasn't sure I had enough.

Then I saw my big ball of Berroco (mumble becauseIdon't remembertheyarn's name ..crap... Mosaic Iusedonthe cardi) Optik, that I salvaged from something else I frogged last week. And it just might look really good with the Inverno.

In order to do that and have it come out looking ok, I would have to take it back 2 tiers, and then add in a total of 2 tiers. I have 6 of 10 done.

In the meantime, more Inverno has surfaced. So running out of yarn is no longer an issue.

What do you think? I am standing by to listen. (Actually, I am sewing buttons on that last cardi, but you know...)

Ok, I am dead now

I have officially died. Today, about 10 minutes ago, my Hat Attack hat arrived. It's SHORT. It is way too small to go to anyone but DGD. It barely comes to my ears! That is not my assassin's fault. The hat was written row by row, and most hats are written to the measurement. But if you tweak your needles for stitch gauge, you very easily may miss ROW gauge. I think our arms dealer was a little inexperienced with pattern writing, and that tripped her up.

Con see err //gggrrrrrr// jjjjah

We went to the depths of hell today. We went to the Apple Store, because it was time for new phones.

I wasn't really wild about giving up my old phone. My last few calls from Dad are still in the call menu. I worked hard all year to keep them there. But I dropped it a few months ago, and the hinge finally fell apart.

Mark bought himself a very expensive Sprint Treo last year; that's a weird calculator/phone/portable typewriter hybrid. We're still waiting for the rebate check on that. Mark was never really happy with it. So off to the Apple Store we went.

The first thing you notice is that the store is packed. They don't have sales clerks, no staff, no store partners. If you can flag a kid down, he's a concierge. I think they made a mistake on that, because MW says a concierge is:

1: a resident in an apartment building especially in France who serves as doorkeeper, landlord's representative, and janitor

2: a usually multilingual hotel staff member who handles luggage and mail, makes reservations, and arranges tours; broadly : a person employed (as by a business) to make arrangements or run errands

Mark and I gave each other desperation looks several times. The store is loud, no one REALLY wants to help you or REALLY answer a question, the security alarm goes off, there's no calm place to set up your new phone accounts. It's set up weird. The guy had to go get our phones from the back-no biggie, but the cases and headsets weren't convenient, organized OR easy to find. And they are getting A LOT of your money.

DH is a computer security wonk. Ask him to type in his credit card and his SSN in that store-with his back to EVERYONE? The only reason he did it is because I watched behind him. We BOTH know better. He was distressed, and after about 5 minutes in the store, I didn't even want a phone, it was so crowded and noisy.

It was WORSE than "Saturday before Christmas" shopping at Walmart. It was AWFUL. So bad, I had to take him to lunch afterwards. At a place with real napkins. And nice staff.