Sleeves

The two sleeves are finished, though they don't look too cheerful.



The winter light makes everything look gray and I am too lazy to play around with my camera to fix that. I am bracing myself for the seaming.  Side seams are not so bad, but I have to tackle the sleeve seams first, which, at least to me, are harder.

That book is Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. I thought that after so much fantasy, some science fiction might be a nice change. Well, if you like techno-geek teen stories, this book is all right. There is little consolation in knowing how plausible this "big brother" scenario might actually be. Having a geeky teenager take on the Patriot Act is quite entertaining, but there were some parts of the book that got me yawning.

One more birthday went past, which I celebrated at work with my lab assistants and two of my co-workers with an excess of the really bad carbohydrates: cake, cookies and soda. I gave in because it was a very nice detail. Most people, including myself, take off long before my birthday comes around. In fact, we must have been the only people left in the whole building. Later the spouse took me out for dinner to my favorite sushi place.

Christmas itself was a quiet affair. We spent the afternoon having cookies and cake (more  bad carbs) with some friends, and later went to have dinner proper with a different group of people my husband had met through someone from work. All of us came from different countries and we were all in different trades. The only thing we had in common was that we had all decided that flying home for Christmas was not worth the expense.

I am not complaining. I started this year with my family in Mexico and I actually got to travel home two more times during the year. I do hope everyone out there had a nice Christmas, hopefully with their families, unlike myself.

Still knitting

I've been too busy lately but I've managed to keep knitting and reading. Here's proof:



The left front joined to the back, with markers where buttons will be, so I can knit matching buttonholes on the right front. That novel is Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson. It is the first of a fantasy series and so far so good. Fantasy worlds can be very repetitive but this one is very original. It made me want to read the first novel he wrote:



As often happens, his first novel, Elantris, was not as well written as the second. Nevertheless, I found it as original as Mistborn. It seems to me that he was testing the waters before embarking in a larger project. I finished it along with the right front of the baby jacket, which has an endless amounts of ends to weave in. I should start doing that soon.


But first I will work on the sleeves. As much as I hate sleeves (and sleeve seams), knitting them is better than weaving in ends. That last book, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, has my husband constantly making fun of me for reading teenager chick lit. I remember Jennifer mentioning to me that she was reading the second book. Well, if she liked it enough to read the second one, I reasoned that the first one must be good. And it is. It is not something my husband would enjoy, but hey, it's letting me progress nicely on the baby jacket. I don't ask for more.

Errata

I wish I had taken a look in ravelry before knitting this jacket, because they have a link to this pattern's errata.

Not that it did me any good. By now I am done with the first pocket. And that's a problem. According to the pattern, you place the liner, leave the pocket  stitches  on a stitch holder, and there is no further mention about what to do about them later on.

Because I did not know about the errata page, I had to come up with something, so I based myself on the pictures in the book. I did not knit the liner separately, I picked up stitches from the bottom, saving
myself a seam, like my mother taught me. She also taught me to bind off
my pocket edges prior to joining the liner, so that's what I did. And because there appeared to be a seed stitch border, I knit that border before casting off.


That picture was taken before the liner was finished and joined.

Now that I've checked the errata, it appears that I should have added the border after placing the liner. I did think of that possibility, but then I would have to sew the border on the right side of the jacket. Having all seams on the wrong side made more sense to me. And really, there is no difference, except that the pocket is a tad narrow.

I don't mind, and I'm sure that my friend's baby will not mind either. I will have to remember what I did so I can repeat it on the right side of the jacket.

But once more I am glad this was a library book, and that  I don't bother buying knitting books.

Not that I'm buying many books lately. That's the blessing of having a well stocked library.



That is the Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, another fantasy book that kept me turning page after page. That is the spouse's recommendation. I am very happy I married a guy who shares my reading tastes.

In that picture you can also see the pocket after joining the liner. It needs a couple of side seams on the inside, but no seams on the outside will be needed.

Slideshow and baby jacket

I made a slideshow out of some of my pictures form Oaxaca.



And here's the new project, cable and moss stitch jacket, from a Debbie Bliss book I checked out of the library.


That's the back of it, posing next to Lia's recommendation: The thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. This novel has a little of everything: mistery, romance, madness and a few skeletons in the closet. It was a good read.

I am much less pleased by the Debbie Bliss book. The amount of mistakes and omissions in the pattern makes me wonder why they bother paying an editor. I had to figure out some stuff in order to work the back. I cringe to think of what awaits me as I begin the left front.


That novel is Comfort Food, by Kate Jacobs. I don't watch TV and I don't like to cook, so reading a novel about a cooking show host seemed like a bad idea. But I kept on reading, trusting Pilar's judgement. It is not my type of story, in that I like conflicts to be a bit less inane than a simple rivalry between TV hosts. And yet, once in a while I can enjoy a lightweight, friendly story.

Progression

This is how the socks were progressing as I was reading some of the recommended books .

First, another Hellboy comic (I'm going through a phase, I guess).



And then, The Spanish Gardener, by A.J. Cronin, recommended to me by Sandra:



This is a very bittersweet story that I would have enjoyed much more if the main character had been more credible: a very poor Spanish boy who, even though he could not afford an education and never left his native  hometown, could easily speak, read and write in English.  And though his English is perfect, the author has him constantly repeating "señor" and "amigo", as if those were the two words he did not bother to learn. I had read another  A.J. Cronin book before: The Green Years. Perhaps that raised my expectations too much.

I took a break from sad stories and from the socks (the colors were becoming too dull to my eyes) with Letters from the Earth, by Mark Twain. This was Thuy's recommendation. The first part, the actual letters from the Earth, is very funny and invites you to reflection. The rest of the book contained many unrelated pieces of writing, some of them more interesting than others.



Those booties are for a friend of mine who is having a baby in February. Knitting them was a breeze but I hated seaming them. I am still not done with the second one. I did keep knitting the socks and finished them before packing, but I did not have time to wash them. I did so on my first day in Oaxaca and took a picture of them in my hotel room before meeting the recipient for breakfast on the day of the wedding.



By the way, Oaxaca was great. The people are fun, they dress beautifully, they cook wonderfully and the roads are a disaster. But every sight was worth the drive.  I wanted to make a collage of all my sightseeing, but I hardly found the time to make this post.

I already started another project because those booties seem like a smallish present. I will post about it later.

More Hellboy and another book

Don't ask me why, but I enjoy Hellboy comics.



For me to like a comic book, the art and the plot must be good enough. The drawings are wonderful, no question about it. The stories... well, those are quite absurd, but amusing, and I've always liked fantasy.

Talking of fantasy, here's some from Lois McMaster Bujold: Passage, which is the third book of a series called The Sharing Knife.



I believe I have read all of her books. I liked her more when she was writing militaristic science fiction, though she's also written excellent fantasy books, my favorite being The Curse of Chalion.  I don't think that The Sharing Knife is as good as other stuff she's written, but maybe it's just that her style has changed, or she may be trying to accomodate other type of readers. I do feel she is now concentrating heavily on the romance, which she was not doing before.

The idea of not doing any patterning made these socks go fast, didn't it? I do want to finish them soon, because I will be going to a wedding in Mexico and these are a gift for a friend I will be meeting there. And no, they are not a wedding gift! The couple will be getting money.  Boring, but that's what they asked for.

Two books

I might not be blogging, but I have been knitting and reading.



That is Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi. My library owns the first three books on this series, and yet when I suggested that they buy this one, which could qualify as the fourth, I got a message stating that Scalzi was a fairly unknown author and that the library would not be getting this book. So I let it drop, hoping that the book may become available later on through interlibrary loan (oh, I am so cheap). Well, all of a sudden, I got another message from my library that the book was ready for me to pick up. Apparently, enough readers requested it that they went ahead and bought it. And the best part was, I was the first to read it.

It took me about two evenings to finish it, but that is not surprising, it happens to me with all of Scalzi's books. This is the same story of the third book, but written under a different character's point of view. Not boring at all, even when you already know what is going to happen.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The second book is The Nuclear Jihadist, by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Now that's a depressing book. You see, A.Q. Kahn, the scientist who developed the Pakistani nuclear bomb, went on to traffic nuclear technology with countries like Lybia, North Korea and Iran, all the while under CIA surveillance. And nobody stopped him, because nobody wanted to cause any turmoil in Pakistan. Well, Pakistan is in turmoil anyway, and now the genie is out of the bottle. Depressing indeed.


So let's talk about something more cheerful, shall we? How do you like the sock striping, so far? I like how it is coming out and I am thinking of making a plain stockinette sock without any bells and whistles. Any attempt to incorporate texture would ruin the wide stripes, don't you agree?

Hellboy

This was not a recommendation from a fellow knitter, but from my husband. So I trusted him and read the comic. I confess that I enjoyed it a lot. It was a good beginning for the toes.


But now it's time to start reading some of the recommendations I got from knitters visiting this website. Luckily, my local library has them, so I will get to them eventually. Thank you so much for your suggestions!

There!

Finally, here's a finished pair of sunset socks:




To celebrate, I decided to start a new pair of socks with some Knit Picks yarn. To my dismay, the skeins were wound up from different ends. I kept unraveling while searching for the same sequence on both skeins until I discovered what was wrong. By then, it was just easier to manually wind one of the skeins backwards:



Has anyone had this problem before? For me, this was the first time ever.

Anyway, please help me celebrate the completion of my eternal socks by suggesting me a few books to read for the current pair.

Almost There

 Yes, this pair of socks is almost finished. And I also finished Valerie Plame's Book: Fair Game. It is full of "redactions".



Luckily, you can still make sense of what's going on. And the afterword, by a different author, fills up the gaps with information already available to the general public.

I feel sorry that someone who was working so hard to keep her country safe was betrayed by her own government.

Refried Book

Back in Mexico, I used to scan the section of English language books in Sanborns, searching for science fiction. While not strictly SciFi, Robin Cook's books were a neat substitute: medical thrillers. But I often felt, after reading a few pages, that I might have bought a book I already owned. Checking my shelf, I would then notice that no, I had made no mistake and this was, in fact a new book. The problem was that Robin Cook was repeating himself. So I stopped reading him.



I was browsing the new books section in my public library when this Robin Cook's book, Crisis, stirred some memories. Maybe I should give him another try, I thought. Guess what? Even after so many years, I recognized the same recipe: A few mafiosi, a good doctor, a bad doctor, and something to criticize about modern health care, in this case, concierge medicine.

The good thing is, he's still a page turner. It was over soon.

Once Upon a Quinceañera

I am still not sure why I picked this book by Julia Alvarez. I was never interested in quinceañera parties. I did not have one, and none of my close friends did. Some people I knew did, I attended as a guest, and that only made me even happier about not having had one. Back then me and my friends thought quinceañeras were a cheesy thing of the past. Who would have told me that here in the US it is such a huge deal for young latinas?



For my 15th birthday I went skiing with my family. It was an expensive trip, but considering what I just read, it was quite cheaper than the modern day quinceañera.

I wonder why is it that young girls try to integrate themselves into the American society as much as they can, but at the same time they wish to keep this expensive and primitive tradition alive. And, from what I read, it is becoming more and more expensive and complicated. Why bother with such a waste? Wouldn't it be wiser to set up a college fund for the young girl in question?

A beautiful book

The author is David Sheff and the title is Beautiful Boy, just like the John Lennon song.



I think this is the saddest real life story I have ever read. I know there are worse tragedies than addiction, but never before had I read about the horrible life of an addict and his family in such detail. It is a very depressing book, but it is lovingly written.

No time to knit...

... or to blog. But there's always time to read.


Yes, comics count as reading.

Another inch, another book

The book is Into the Wild, by John Krakauer. This is Jennifer's recommendation. Actually, she recommended the movie, but I thought the book would be more interesting, so I got it from my local library.



And interesting it was. I had not heard of Christopher McCandless, who after earning his college degree cut off all links with his family and basically became a hobo. Two years later, he died of starvation in Alaska. Knowing the outcome from the beginning of the book was no spoiler. Rather, I was amazed on how much my opinion on McCandles evolved as I kept reading. The author was very thorough in following his steps and narrating them in detail. This book would be excellent  were it not for the inclusion of other similar cases or the digression about the author's related experience. This book was supposed to be about  only one person and I wish it had remained so.

Allergies, socks and twinkies

I finally went to my primary care physician and insisted on getting allergy tests. Which did not do me any good, since none of the stuff I brought from work produced a reaction. The doctor explained that the test is only for a short term reaction. I need what is called a patch test, so they can test for prolongued exposure.

Meanwhile, it was fun (though quite itchy) to see little rows of welts develop on my forearm and learn that I am allergic to grass, pollen, dogs and cats.  Since I've never had problems with any of those, I cannot take those tests seriously. Having a welt when you actually puncture the skin is very different from breathing in an allergen or rubbing it against unbroken skin. I certainly don't plan on getting rid of my dear pooch. The doctor recommended that I always wash my hands after touching him but guess what, I've been doing that with all pets all my life. That's probably the reason why I've never had any problems. He also says that the pooch must not sleep in our bedroom. Good luck with that one. We've tried that and all we get is hours and hours of howling. He does not like being away from the pack.

The Summer of Socks has begun and I never took the time to add a button to my sidebar. Heh, I have not updated my sidebar in years. I am a lazy blogger. Maybe this site should be the lazy knitter instead of the cheap knitter. I am counting my current pair of socks for the Summer of Socks. I don't know if it is against the rules, but I do know that this Summer is turning out to be much busier than I expected.


I am reading a foolish book: Twinkie Deconstructed. The author, Steve Ettlinger, picked the twinkie as a typical example of a processed food item, and then went through its label exploring the origin of every single ingredient. Some of those additives are incredibly complicated. They may be synthesized form petroleum, rocks and/or industrial by-products, and then end up present in the twinkie in really minute amounts. But they need to be there in order to acheive good taste and prolongue shelf life. I am not new to food chemistry, and yet I never realized how processed foods relied so much on some unsuspected sources such as mining or palm oil production in the third world. It is also weird to find out that some of those ingredients are also needed in a lot of non-food items such as vaginal lubricants or candles. I cannot remember when I last had a twinkie but I can confortably say it was really the last one for good.

Ankles!

OK, now that both heels are completed, I can keep going round and round unitl I run out of yarn. There will be some increases down the way, but those can easily be handled by the coriolis stripe spiraling around the leg: I'll just skip the corresponding decreases. It will still take me a long time, but having both socks on the needles will help.



The book in that picture is Ladies Coupé, by Anita Nair. It seems that I am drawn to women issues when it comes to reading about far away lands. I was very surprised to see how many things I felt women in my own country have in common with women in India. I could relate to many of the issues that each character brings up. Yet, I felt very distant from these characters. It could be because the setting was just too foreign for me, but I think another problem is the way the book is written. It is neither a novel, nor a set of short stories. It feels like a lot of loose ends who the author tried to tie together, not entirely succesfully. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable introduction to a culture I am only slightly familiar with.

The slowest socks

The Summer schedule is killing me. Classes have not even started and I am already exhausted by the time I get home. I cannot imagine how it will be later on.

Here's the heel of the second sock:



I can't wait for the weekend...

I won!

I won Mathgirl's contest! She randomly chose my entry on unusual or obscure holidays. Where I come from, Candlemas is not that unusual, but people in the US or Canada don't really celebrate it. Here's my prize:



It is a skein of  Mama Llama Monterey from Woolgirl. Thank you, Mathgirl, you made my day! I've never knit anything with seacell in it, and I can't wait to try it out.

The semester was officially over last week. That means that things are going to slow down until the Summer session begins. I will try to finish my sunset socks before then. Here is one heel, completed.



I recently finished reading  The clash of Fundamentalisms, by Tariq Ali.





This is another depressing book which gives the historical reasons of the mess we have in the Middle East. Here'a a quote: "To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence."

Which reminds me of a song  Nacha Guevara used to sing in the 80s.



I will not bother translating the whole song. It's horrible. In the beginning, with much optimism, she decides to stamp out all hatred. But in doing so, hateful methods are adopted. A very sad message.

I succumbed

Oh yes, The online Coriolis pattern was enough to tempt me and now I am the owner of Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. My library does not have it, it was not available through interlibrary loan, and I really wanted to explore more this idea of not having any gussets but having a heel flap.



So far, no buyer's remorse. I had already begun these coriolis with the idea to  keep increasing after completing the heel in order to make the arch a little bit more roomy. Now that I have the book in my hands I see that Cat's method actually teaches you to take row gauge into consideration, unlike the online pattern which was kind of vague (it says to start the increases at 5-3/4" less than desired length, and I'm not sure that worked for Caroline's socks). I like the way the book is teaching me to think of socks in a new way, but is still lax enough to let me try stuff my way. I might even venture into cuff down socks again thanks to the alternative toes her book offers. Oh, and I am happy to report that the mistake I found in the online pattern is not present in the book.

Another book flew by this week: Agent to the Stars. This is Scalzi's very first novel, which nobody wanted to publish, as is usually the case with unknown authors. So he uploaded it to his website and it became a major hit among Science Fiction fans. He got more that $4,000 from this shareware novel before someone finally decided to publish it.



I got a copy through interlibrary loan, but if you like funny Science Fiction and a quick read, you can follow the link to the whole novel, which is still online.

Sunset socks

WIth the pretty Opal yarn I got fron Nutse, I started a new pair of socks. The pale blue contrasting with the warm colors reminds me of a sunset at the beach. This will be another Coriolis pair for myself, with some modifications. My progress would be faster paced were it not for a book that I found hard to put down: The Logic of Life, by Tim Harford. I finished reading it last night.




In general, I am not interested in economics, but in this case the author tries to explain things such as sexual behavior, racial discrimination, CEO pay, o inequalities between cities and rural areas. According to him, people making really foolish decisions tend to have what turns out to be a rational base, even when the consequences are to everyone else's disadvantage. He cites a lot of behavioral experiments conducted by other researchers, and in some cases the results made me very sad. How can we humans be so selfish and biased?

Afghan Squares

These are the two afghan squares I contributed to this year's Rainbow of Heroes. In previous years, I had been given at least three colors of yarn, but this year I got three balls of yarn, all in one color. Also, I did not have much time, so I ended up sending simple mitered squares.

   

I recently finished The Android's Dream,  by John Scalzi. Crazy book. But then, Science Fiction tends to be crazy. There's two other books by him that I consider to be much better written than this one, which is an earlier book. You can tell he is getting better. Now, don't get me wrong, this book is still very funny and it kept my interest all the way through. I was actually sad when it was finally over.

My swap socks

Nutse sent them from Catalonia, they fit perfectly and I love the colors and texture. She sends a crochet flower brooch along with stitch markers, Opal sock yarn and a postcard and bookmark from Barcelona.



I was in Barcelona many years ago and I loved that city, especially all the Gaudí architectural feats. I even keep a Gaudí memento on my bookshelf, see?



That bookmark and that yarn will be put to use immediately. Thanks Nutse!

Not posting does not mean no knitting. I'm contributing two squares for the Raibow of Heroes afghan. I'll post the pictures later. I also finished a couple of books. The first one, by Ibargüengoitia, was somewhat disappointing. It was a volume containing three plays by him, none of which I liked much: Clotilde in her home, The Superficial Trip and Bird in Hand. I believe he must have based his novel Two Crimes on the last play. The novel is great, but the play isn't.

The other book I finished was The Gospel of Food, by Barry Glassner. It is refreshing to have someone tell you to stop worrying about what you eat, especially in this culture where skinny people are all over the media and everyone's complaining about how fat the rest of us are. Still, I do watch what I eat, and enjoy my food. I can't see why one thing would exclude the other.

Coriolis

I was late in sending in my swap socks. To make it up to my sock recipient, I sent them by UPS instead of regular mail. The pattern I used was Coriolis, by Cat Bordhi. I believe the web version of the pattern contains two mistakes (hopefully  her book does not), but I liked it a lot.  The increases are on the top of the foot, curving diagonally. A very interesting way to construct a sock, but not the best choice when you have a deadline and little time to learn new techniques. Anyway, the socks are on their way and I have a few pictures to show.

I followed the pattern as written except for the toe and the bindoff.  Here is the heel, which is just like an ordinary toe-up heel with a heel flap:



You can see how he diagonal ridge continues after the heel just as a decoration. Here is one sock right before the edging, showing the ridge on both sides of the sock:

      

The pattern calls for a seed stitch edging, which I was unsure of but I went ahead and used it.  What I did not do according to the pattern was the bind-off, which required four strands of yarn. Instead, I  did a purl bindoff, using the technique I learned from Vaxgirl. Here is the result:

      

Please ignore my hairy legs. The sock is a tad big for my foot, but I should fit the recipient. For the record, I did wash both socks before sending them in.

This very unusual sock design has piqued my curiosity. I am itching to try Cat's new book: New Patwhays for Sock Knitters. Does anyone recommend it?

Eight days

Oh no! My intentions were to at least turn the heels this weekend but it just did not happen. I like this pattern a lot but I do believe there is a mistake in it. After starting the arch increases I realized that the socks were not symmetrical, so I had to rip... again. Luckily, I only had to rip one of the socks, and now that I caught up they look just right. Here's one of the socks on my own foot:

     
Can someone attempt a guess at the pattern? It's really cool, but I hope it gives me no more trouble, since I do want to finish these socks on time. I'm planning to knit tonight until I turn the heels, or until I drop, whatever happens first.

Catching up

I'm much happier with the width of the socks. Of course, now I have to hurry up as much as I can in order to meet the deadline (April 15). I will start the increases pretty soon.



I finished another book this week: Fatima Mernissi's Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood. Quite an interesting first person account of a muslim woman's family traditions and her point of view on poligamy, the veil, and women's limited freedom. I read a Spanish translation.



The title in Spanish is quite different: Dreams at the Threshold. When I encounter such differences I always wonder what the author's preference would have been.

Dialogue with myself

-These socks are too narrow.
- No they're not. See? They stretch.

knit knit knit knit knit...

- You did not swatch, remember?
- No need for it, I used the same yarn before, and I am getting the same gauge, see?

knit knit knit knit knit...

-They still look narrow, why don't you try them on?
- Oh, well.... hmmm, just a little tight.... they are OK, though.

knit knit knit knit knit...

- You know you're in denial, just look at them. Why don't you try them on again?
- Oh shut up, they're not... well.... maybe... Oh shoot.


rip rip rip rip rip rip.

*Sigh*

I did start over, and I hope to catch up soon. Lately, I am too busy to knit or blog. I still have time to read, though. Maybe I should blog about the books I finish, though I hesitate to write reviews about what I read. I recently finished this book:

I love interlibrary loans. I couldn't find this book anywhere and I really wanted to read it. I did not know the author but someone recommended this as a good ghost story. I  did enjoy it, though at times it is more cheesy than spooky. Still, it kept me interested page after page.

As for my swollen face, it turned out not to be eczema, but allergies. I already suspect some stuff I use at work, and whenever I handle it I take my precautions. I would still like to confirm my suspicions but for some stupid reason there is a waiting list at the clinic where I get my primary care, and I am now with an HMO so I cannot go elswhere for allergy tests.