I went to update my link list to include some of the blogs I have been reading, and I found out today that LiveJournal doesn’t allow more than 30 links on a link list. LiveJournal is also rather restrictive about other things (e.g., no JavaScript), and that has limited some of the other cutesy things I was thinking about doing. However, you can’t beat LJ for price – a mere $25/year.

Nevertheless, I am thinking about blogging using a different service. I’m not up for Movable Type quite yet. (However, Matt and I are going to be setting up a server sometime after the wedding, so it’s still a possibility.) I tried and didn’t like Blogger a couple of years ago. I’m leaning towards TypePad at the moment, but it does cost more – considerably more – than my little LJ subscription. I’m thinking I might just keep the main functionality of LJ but then embed it into a new web page… once we have our new server set up.

What do you recommend? Is there some sassy new blog publishing service that I don’t know about?

First – I finished the socks! Well, I never mentioned that I was working on them, actually, but here they are, finished nonetheless, with blockers tucked inside.

The recipient of said socks is a gal who worked in my lab for the past year as a postdoc, and she is now moving on to the Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor. I will definitely miss having her around.

My mom periodically does children-inspired “ego searches” on the internet, looking for mentions of me, my sister, or things related to what we do. Since Mom covers the bases quite adequately, I rarely do my own ego searches anymore. However, last week I googled for DNA scarf mentions (don’t remember why I started in the first place), and I discovered that someone is hosting a knitalong of the DNA scarf! Neat-O! She made a button and everything!

Go knit thyself a geek scarf!

Now, let me insert my cranky complaint.

Before writing this post, I googled again to find the URL for the DNA-along linking button. In doing so, I came across someone’s comments from the LiveJournal Advanced Knitting community. (Fwiw, I’m not a member of that group.) This has nothing to do with the Knit Along. This is some other thread, some other forum. Anyway, someone says:

A couple notes for anyone who plans to integrate the cable-chart-from-the-web into some other garment without using the scarf pattern…
- The big X in the middle is a C2B, even though she already has a symbol that means that. (I think I know why she did it, so the pattern is more obviously like the cable it produces, but she should have included it in the legend.)

- The chart doesn’t do anything useful like greying out rows 1-2 and 39-40, so one would assume that you go blithely on your way repeating rows 1-40. As I found out at about row 5 (second iteration) you’re actually supposed to go 1-38, 3-38 (as many times as needed), 39 40. Would have been nice to indicate that, though admittedly the chart is for use with THAT pattern, so I should have read the pattern too. (Managed to rip back to row 38 without losing anything so I’m not as grumpy as I was when I found it the first time).

I have a few knee jerk reactions to this. Not sure which, if any, are fair to say – so I might as well say all of them, ha ha, hoo hoo, hee hee…

1) Hey! It’s a free pattern! What do you expect?
2) The chart doesn’t do anything useful?!? What?!?
3) I kind of like having that missing legend piece – not that I did that on purpose – but I find that it helps me keep track (in a very general sense) of how many people (or at least novice knitters) are still making it.
4) When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.
5) I charted the knit and purl stitches in Excel, and I used a red felt tip marker to do the cable crossings. I scanned it, turned it into a .pdf file, and had Matt put it on the web. Honestly, it wasn’t worth putting any more effort into it.
6) If someone really wanted to be helpful (instead of, um, just kvetching), they would volunteer to fix all of the issued raised over the years – let’s see, we could redraft the cable chart with numbers on the left and right hand side, explanations of why the wrong-side symbols “seem” to be wrong (I did, fwiw, follow the Starmore charting standards when I wrote that out), put in the correct cable crossing figure on lines 13 and 31, grey out lines 1-2 & 39-40, and… Oh wait. That’s too much work, huh?

Yeah, and that’s why I haven’t done it, either. I haven’t even bothered to fix the email contact info, and that address has been defunct for over a year. (I am so easy to find via Google, it hardly seems worth it.)

Rawr. I’m feeling ever so… snarky.

It is the hottest day of the summer today. After experiencing such a mild season up until now, I had forgotten what 90 degree heat feels like. I will attribute this crankiness to the weather and go drink a watered down lemonade.

8/30/04 – Addendum. I have one more thing to say to that knitter who didn’t like my chart. It does say, right under the legend, to repeat rows 3-38 for the pattern. You just can’t read. So nyah nyah nyah. Ok. Now I’m done.

Bet some of you were wondering what happened to that old wedding lace project, eh? Well, I’ve been working on it quietly all summer long, and I recently kicked up the pace. (I had a bit of a panic when I realized exactly how long I had before Oct 2nd!) I’ve been spinning more cashmere wool blend, and I’ve been knitting for hours and hours every day.

However, we have now hit a major milestone in this project. I have finished the center panel!!!

I am holding it just around ankle height in the photo, and it stretches up to where my waist would be if I actually had one. (Someday…) Once blocked, I think I can get at least another foot out of it, not to mention a bit more width. This may be a veil after all! Who knows?

We also picked up Matt’s wedding band on Saturday. They gave us a cute double ring case (the box shape is oddly reminiscent of a casket – symbolizing the death of our singledom, perhaps?).

Nestled deep in their beds…

Finally, I leave you with a really silly picture of Charlie. He often lies on his back like this. I think he thinks he’s a person!

How often do you see two Asian guys in the lead roles of any American film?

If you enjoy gag movies like Naked Gun or Airplane, then you might like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Matt and I saw this in the theater, and I laughed to observe that Matt was one of perhaps only a dozen non-Asians in the entire place. We knew this was a must-see because we really enjoy White Castle sliders (and we’re not ashamed to admit it!), plus the movie supposedly starts in New Brunswick, NJ (home of Rutgers U., my alma mater), travels through Princeton (where Matt worked for 5 years), and finishes in Cherry Hill (near where Matt spent his childhood). Of course, the movie was actually filmed in Canada (!), so the only authentic-seeming shots were of the Garden State Parkway toll booth and a road sign pointing to New Brunswick via Rt. 18 and Rt. 1. (Plus, the presence of self-serve gas stations is a dead giveaway that you’re not in NJ!) Anyway, it was a real hoot and a terrific way to waste some time on a Friday night.

How often do you have a blind masseur and master swordsman rolled up into one cheerful guy?

I didn’t really know what to expect from this movie. Apparently, Zatoichi is a very famous, beloved character (I understand there are dozens of movies and long-running tv shows about this fellow in Japan). The movie got a very favorable review on NPR, and that was enough to motivate me to go see it. The movie had a surprising and delightful musical element (reminiscent of the Broadway show STOMP), but it also includes the classic samurai slash-and-bleed aspect, along with cgi blood and flying appendages.

Glynis sent me a wonderful gift last week. Included in the box were dishtowels from India, a spoon rest, and a nail file. As you can see, they are all adorned with a kitty motif. What a pick-me-up!

Thanks, Super G!

Matt and I took the day off of work on Friday to take care of wedding stuff (we’re licensed to marry now!), and in our travels, we drove by a yarn shop in Sturbridge, MA. We popped in briefly, and I came out with a glittery version of one of my favorite sock yarns. I’m not terribly keen on the colorway, but the twinkle will make up for it!

Who needs disco when you have sparkly feet?

We were also good Massachusetts citizens and stimulated the economy on Saturday, the first sales-tax-free day in the modern history of this state. I’ll tell you about that later! (Bought a nifty fiber toy but want to run it through its paces before I discuss it here.)

I know I haven't been posting more than once a week lately, but that's primarily because I haven't really done much in terms of fibery accomplishments. As some of you may know, I've been job hunting for a new postdoctoral position or a "real job" since finding out last spring that my funding would be discontinued come August. Through a strange series of incidents, I was notified in July that there now was money available if I wanted to stay, but since I'd been actively applying for jobs since March, I wanted to follow up on everything that looked interesting to me. It's worth mentioning that I've been incredibly picky in what I applied for, since Matt and I figured that it would be better to be unemployed for a month or two, instead of going with any place that would make me an offer.

When it rains, it pours. No one responded to any of my letters for three months (the really hot places don't advertise openings even when they exist, they get so many unsolicited letters from highly qualified people as it is), but in the last month, I've had an interview nearly every week. One place has since rejected me, one place seems like a place where scientists go to die, one was very exciting, and I have a meeting with another professor next week. Aside from the option of staying where I am, I also have a standing offer to join a friend's laboratory if I wanted (she is an assistant professor in the Harvard Medical School), and a Spinfree friend who also runs her own research program in Utah has mentioned several times that she could use a molecular biologist. So there are many options, and I shouldn't be worried about my future or being imminently unemployed. Nevertheless, it's pretty stressful.

Speaking of stress, I realized that there are only six weeks left before the wedding. Yipes! I have an appointment with a salon for wedding dress alterations, but I have a recommendation from ClaudiaLB for a different person that I think I might prefer over the local place. At this point, Matt and I have accounted for nearly all of the invited guests, I'm getting the hotel reservations put together, figuring out the menus, talking to the judge who is officiating the ceremony, etc. It feels like there is still so much to do, although there really isn't. Worry, worry, worry…

I’ve been buying fiber on ebay again (bad, bad me), but I’ve been enjoying getting these 8 oz “samples.” Generally, I prefer to buy fiber either raw or minimally processed, and I like to do business directly with the farmers and shepherds who raise the animals.

One of my recent purchases is a 70/30 Corriedale/kid mohair blend from Apple Leef Farm. They call this a “medium silver,” but I would say it is closer to brown. In any case, this is a rich natural color that should also overdye beautifully. The mohair is a little bit coarser than other first clip kid fleeces I have dealt with, and I have been spinning this fiber with that consideration in mind.

Recently, Elaine wrote a detailed blog post on why you need more plies and less twist to get a fluffy yarn (and why coarser fibers benefit from this kind of spinning). Since anyone who has even dipped a single toe into the online handspinning community waters instantly intuits that Elaine knows everything, I naturally kept her advice in mind as I sampled this roving. After a few 5 yard samples of various plies and various thicknesses, I’ve decided the yarn is best as a 3 ply fingering-to-sport weight yarn.

I like spinning fine yarns, but spinning a thin single with low twist has been a different experience for me.* I keep the final sample card on my lap with a length of the singles wrapped around it. Dangling off a corner is also a short length of 3 ply yarn. Periodically, I stop and check my singles, fold back a length of newly spun yarn into a three-ply, just to make sure it is consistent. It is going fairly well. I finally finished a bobbin this afternoon.

Later tonight, I’ll put it onto a storage bobbin. Hopefully, I’ll remember to weigh the empty bobbin first, since I only want 2.67 oz on each one. I don’t actually know how much fiber the Drudik bobbins even hold.

Caught a cute picture of James sunning himself on the sofa this morning.

All together now, “Awww…”

I have one more job interview on Tuesday. On paper, it looks like an excellent job. I hope it is as good in person, and I also desperately hope that they will take to me! Wish me luck.

*) In retrospect, I know that as a novice spinner, I just wasn’t getting enough twist into the singles yarn. I made a lot of 3 ply yarns early on because they just didn’t look right as a 2 ply. Now that the underspun issue is overcome, it’s weird to go back and to deliberately make a fine, low-twist single.

We spent our Wyoming vacation in the Grand Teton area. Most of the days were spent shopping, driving around, sightseeing, eating, and going to concerts or a play in the evening.

Here are my two best “scenery” photos (one from a float trip, the other while driving around the Grant Teton National Park).

Our best family photo actually occurred while we were at a souvenir stop, when we paused to eat a bit of huckleberry ice cream. Too bad we didn’t have a more scenic backdrop!

Other miscellaneous news – I have another job interview tomorrow. Let’s hope I present well! Next, Matt and I picked up my wedding band this weekend. It’s beautiful. Can’t wait to get married! Last, I saw a really pretty spinning wheel on ebay last night. It looks like a custom/handmade wheel (maker is “Benheim”?). Does anyone know who this might be?