What a Life!

Right before all the hoopla started last weekend, I grabbed a number of my finished and on-the-needles knitting projects and snapped some pictures. Here are the highlights…

This is a little Pack-Pack from Little Turtle Knits that I actually did the technical editing for Theresa back before Joey was born. I felted it last winter but hadn’t sewn the straps or buttons on until recently. One of the hang-ups was that it got lint all over it when I felted it so it had to have an appointment with the sweater shaver. But it is a very cute pattern and now that it’s finished, I’m very pleased with how it turned out. It’s for Ben, but I didn’t give it to him for his birthday because it isn’t considered a “toy” (at least, not at the moment). We’ll use it when we fly to Florida to visit my parents – it will be his carry-on and he can have little toys to keep him busy in it.

This is Ayla from knitty.

Knitting content:

There is a gross error in this pattern. It has to do with row gauge of garter vs. stockinette. The number of rows given for the bottom and what it should measure when finished do not match. The measurement given coincides with the other parts of the pattern. Since I’ve done technical editing on a number of projects for Theresa, I took it upon myself to email the author of the pattern. Well, she doesn’t know me from Adam, and based on the types of questions I see on knitting boards, there are knitters who ask really dumb questions, and she assumed I was one of them. Rather than listening to what I was saying, she just argued back that it was correct, stating that garter and stockinette have the same row gauge. They may have the same stitch gauge, but they certainly do not have the same row gauge. I simply gave up and decided I didn’t care if others discovered the mistake (or struggled with the pattern) and she looked dumb to them as well. I probably should have a better attitude about it, but the way she talked down to me, she just made me mad.

This is St. Brigid in progress. The back is finished and one pattern repeat has been completed on the front.

Photography content:

The two pictures above were taken in different places. The one on the left was taken inside in front of our big picture window that faces south, and the other was taken outside under a shade tree. Yesterday I complained that I was unhappy with Ben’s birthday pictures because I had to use flash. This would illustrate why. I much prefer the picture inside with the contrast the natural shadow provides, but in order to get that picture and actually get on that was in focus, I had to do the following: 1) put the camera on aperture-priority mode and open it up as much as possible, 2) use the continuous mode in order to avoid camera shake (you hold down the shutter and take three or four pictures and the shake you create when pressing or releasing the shutter isn’t an issue on the middle pictures), and 3) the ISO in this picture was 200. The resulting shutter speed was 1/15, which is way to slow for candids. Even when I crank up the ISO to 400, it was still 1/30, which is still too slow. ISO 800 has too much noise, in my opinion, and even if you “fix” it, you lose quality. And the thing about candids that day…most candids don’t occur right in front of the biggest window in the house facing the ideal direction to get the best lighting. Many times when I went to take pictures, before I popped up the flash, the shutter speed would be 1/3, which is practically insane and should explain why 90% of the pictures taken without flash were too blurred to be worth anything.

Moving on…

This is a little baby sweater I’m knitting. The neckline is an experiment…and I have not done anything else on this since I still have not decided whether I like it or not.

Here is an up-close picture of the stitch pattern, which I absolutely love…

Did I mention that I absolutely love the stitch pattern? I actually saw it in a store and analyzed the stitch pattern (thanks to what I learned about cables from Alice Starmore in Aran Knitting) and then came home and made up my own sweater design based on what I remembered of what I had seen. So it’s kind of a knock-off, but not really. I don’t even remember who published the pattern or what magazine or pattern book I saw it in. I just love it, though.

Today is actually Ben’s birthday. Instead of yammering on about the day he was born, I offer you pictures of the cake my mother made and the party we threw for the little birthday boy. {Click on the picture below to be taken over to Flickr where I’ve loaded all the pictures}

On a side note…I must confess, I was not happy with my pictures. Not the content. The quality. We were inside, of course, and the flash was a requirement. (I took about 10% of the pictures without flash and only about 10% of those pictures were worth anything – the rest were quite blurred). The flash eliminates natural shadows which makes the pictures one-dimensional; it also adds glare and washes things out in places. Ugh! I so wished for my old Canon Rebel (the film version I had once upon a time) with the bounce flash I bought to go with it. Now I’m lusting for this camera with this lens…

Okay, I’ve cleaned the house – basically. I have done the main things – cleaning the floors and the bathrooms. But a bunch of piddly stuff remains, like putting things away and back together, if you know what I mean.

I also have downloaded all my photos from the three days Mom and Dad were here. I have downloaded them and gone through them enough to knock the total down from around 400 to a mere 300 or so. Seriously. I hate to say it, but I’m tired of looking at them.

Here, though, is a picture of the famous cake my mother made for Ben. Isn’t it pretty?

What a busy weekend!

On Friday, Steve defended his master’s project and got the final word that he will graduate. Hurrah!

Mom and Dad arrived late Thursday night, here for the weekend to celebrate Ben’s 4th birthday.

We had a big party for Ben on Sunday, complete with a really cool cake (thanks to my mom) and lots of gifts.

Today, my mission is to clean the house (something I’ve started doing on Monday’s anyway since it seems to get dirty faster on the weekend and stay cleaner longer if I do it during the week). We also have appointments at the dentist and I need to visit the chiropractor. So more later on all our whirl of activities (including some new pictures of my latest knitting projects) and enjoy this week’s best shot.

This one says it all! My dad is thrilled to have his two grandsons in his lap…Ben is having fun taking pictures just like Mommy…and Joey is eying Ben’s camera, making plans…

A week ago, we went to visit some relatives who own a farm in Iowa. Ben was enchanted with this tractor lawn ornament (the wheels spin when the wind blows and the whole thing turns based on the direction of the wind).

Click on the picture to visit flickr and see more photos from our visit to the farm.

In some states, they’ll tell you there are two seasons – winter and construction. In Florida where I grew up, our two seasons were summer and snowbirds. I’m telling you, in the fall, all the snowbirds would start to arrive, the population in our town would triple, and the time to get anywhere would at least double. And defensive driving took on a new meaning – you had to be prepared for people to pull out in front of you when they thought they had waited long enough rather than when there was actually an opportunity to pull out. Yeah.

Nebraska, however, has it’s own two seasons: football season and waiting for football season. Yesterday when I was at the grocery store, I picked up Steve’s favorite magazine – the pre-season edition of Huskers Illustrated. Practically ever since I handed it to him, he’s been pouring over it.

Now if you know my husband a little, you think he’s a pretty quiet guy. You know, one of those who doesn’t have much to say. Not the real Steve. Not the Steve I know during football season. This morning after I got out of the shower and was trying to get dressed and eat breakfast, he was following me from room to room, chattering constantly about Nebraska football.

Steve’s prediction for the season? 9-4. Losses will be to USC, Texas, and possibly Missouri and Kansas. John Bishop (one of the well-known local sportscasters) is predicting 8-5 which includes a loss to Wake Forest. He thinks we’ll beat them because their strength last year was their defense, and all their stars have graduated.

One of the guys they have on the cover isn’t actually on the team anymore. He got into a bar fight about a month ago and a couple weeks later got a DUI. Why is he still on the cover? When did I think they went to press with their magazine? (I don’t know.) Steve was surprised I hadn’t heard about that. Well, dear, I don’t read the sports section of the paper every day (we don’t subscribe to the Lincoln Journal Star because they have a copy of it at work that he reads), and the home page of my web browser isn’t huskerpedia, so yeah, unless you keep me up to date, I’m kinda out of the loop.

And there’s this ad where you can buy replica’s of old Nebraska football helmets. The ad shows replica’s of various eras of helmets as well as specific player’s helmets. They sell them for $179 each for the older ones and $199 for the newer ones. The newer ones must have more technology they have to include. They had one for one year that had “N U” on the side, but they got rid of it because people thought it was too much like Oklahoma’s “O U.” And what is the difference between the last helmet they show and the one they use now? It has a grey face mask and the ones they have now have red face masks. I did answer that question correctly. Steve thinks it would be great to have a Husker football room in our house and to have all the helmets lined up on a shelf on the wall.

I swear, ever since he finished up his classwork for his masters, he’s been sorta getting on my nerves. It’s like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, like he doesn’t have any hobbies or anything. Not a problem any more. It’s football season. Thank God for football season!