Vettlingar!

In four weeks, David and I are actually going off on a short vacation that has no other agenda than vacation. Typically our travel involves work or family obligations, but not this time. And our destination? The land of the Viking sagas: Iceland.

I love visiting out-of-the-way places, and Iceland's always been in there on the list, but the devalued króna and some particularly good off-season package deals finally made it a viable possibility. David, as usual, was skeptical, but the prospect of spending 6 days somewhere with tons of geothermal hot springs was a huge selling point.

Anyway, visiting Iceland in early March meant one thing, in particular: a reason to knit some new mittens. I have some Létt-Lopi one of our former techs brought me from a trip there a couple of years ago, so those will (hopefully) become nice, thick Nordic-patterned outer mittens. I started on them tonight, but I think they need to be frogged so I can make the cuff looser. I wanted something a little softer for an inner layer, though, so I decided that would be a good project for some of my own handspun that had been sitting around for a few years now.



The wool is the lambswool from a border leicester cross that I got at NH Sheep & Wool (The Year of the Deluge), and I absolutely love how these turned out. While my spinning could have been more even, it all worked nicely in the finished fabric, which is squishy and very cozy. And I do believe this is the first real project I've ever completed using my own handspun. No pattern for these. As I often do, I made it up as I went along. The cuffs are baby cable rib for a little extra warmth, and the thumb gussets are placed on the side so that they'll go on either hand.

The other advantage to using stash? It helps free up space for all the really, really cheap Icelandic yarn I anticipate buying. In fact, I did a major cleanup and destashing this past weekend. This trip wasn't the sole reason, as it was very badly needed, but it may well have given slightly greater urgency to the task.

As it was, I managed to empty out a huge box that had been at the bottom of a huger pile of stuff, untouched since I moved in over 5 years ago. That, in turn, freed up space along the wall for some of the bins I'd been storing under my bed. So now there's an empty bin under the bed and space to fit more bins. And since I have more non-yarn bins that need to be gone through and that I may well be able to free up, I'm foreseeing a distinct possibility of a yarn frenzy up near the Arctic Circle in the very near future.

Snow Days

I seem to have lost my blogging voice of late, or maybe I've just got too little worth saying. There has definitely been a bit too much dull regularity around here of late. And everyone already knows we've had a lot of this:



That photo was taken at the home of my friends Shawn & Chris. I stayed with them Tuesday night in anticipation of the latest storm, since they live much, much closer to my workplace than I do. As it turned out, the storm wasn't quite as dire as predicted and I likely could have gone home. Since I don't see my friends nearly often enough, though, it was nice to have the chance to catch up a little bit.

Meanwhile, I noticed the night before that that the sweater Tuck was wearing had chafed him pretty badly on one of his legs, and since I was already planning not to head home and didn't have an alternative for him to wear, I figured I need to knit him up a new, non-chafing sweater toute de suite. Fortunately, I had some Berkshire Bulky from Webs that I'd gotten to try out a pattern idea and decided I could spare a ball to keep him warm. In the end, I needed just a smidge more than one ball to finish, but the end product certainly works well.



He was so sleepy, it was all he could do to hold his head up. Clearly, being a model is hard work.

First FO!

Okay, I finished it two nights ago, but I didn't manage to snap a photo until just before I left for work Monday and only just got around to posting it here. This is the hat to go with the fingerless gloves I made for my mom. It's a double layer, so it's extra plush and should keep her extra warm. The design, including tassel, was discussed and approved, and I'm quite pleased at how it turned out.

The holidays were low-key, not least because of my work schedule, but they seemed to go by awfully quickly. I worked Xmoose Eve, but I had the rest of the weekend off, so we went to my parents and had a nice, albeit brief, visit. David had gotten me tickets to a Boston Pops concert for Boxing Day, but the Nor'easter that blew through put the kibosh on that. Instead, we'll be going to see Mr. Lockhart and Company sometime in the spring.

The other big deal gift he gave me was a Kindle! Which I have very, very much been enjoying. At Mush's suggestion, I set up Calibre e-book management software on David's computer, as it has a built-in server to be able to manage collections remotely. I'm using it primarily to download syndication feeds from a few different international newspapers plus The New Yorker without paying subscription fees. There is definitely some content I don't get access to, particularly with the latter, but I get whatever they've already got available for free online - which is pretty much everything really worth reading - just by accessing the server and downloading. For FREE!

Back on the Wagon

It likely comes as no surprise that the holidays shot my weight and diet management all to hell. Anyway, with the new year, it's time to ride that particular pony again, and Messrs. S & H over at Cocky & Rude are having their second annual weight loss competition. Last year I was only unofficially competing, since I had already started my weight loss program well before they started theirs.

This year I signed on for realz, and the competition starts tomorrow. They required that everyone send in a "before" photo, so I submitted the most recent one I have. You can see I've got my work cut out for me.

A Few Things

Thing the First:

I recently received a care package from India.



The way they do this in India is that the cardboard box is stitched up inside a fabric bag, which is then sewn up and sealed with sealing wax.



Inside was a small container of ground-with-mortar-and-pestle chai spices and a couple of boxes of delicious Indian tea, which I have been enjoying.

Thing the second:

I recently got to work knitting up some yak/cormo yarn my mom bought at Rhinebeck last year from the folks at Bijou Basin. She decided she'd like some fingerless gloves, so she could keep her fingertips free for her photography, and a hat. I found the glove-in-progress very amusing once it was bristling with needles.



When I finished the first one, Tolo graciously offered to model it for me.



I have since finished the pair, and I handed them off to my mom last night. For the hat, I have enough yarn that I can make it double thickness for the winter.

Thing the third:

We finally put up our tree tonight.



After the Great Monkey Massacre of Aught-Nine, I think we were a bit reluctant. It wouldn't have seemed like the holidays, though, without it. This year, it's back on top of the dog crate and has been lashed down with four holding points to minimize the potential for major crashes. I'm not entirely convinced Cougar won't kill this one, too, though.

This Old (Drafty) House, or Implements of Mass Destruction

Because I had the day off and because I've been trying to do some of the weatherizing our little house so desperately needs, I spent Tuesday putting insulation in our attic spaces. I use the plural because the kitchen was attached later and has an attic space that is a) only accessible through the rotting louvre on the outside, and b) is completely unconnected from the main attic space. I had spent little to no time exploring either prior - thanks to their relative inaccessibility and my not insubstantial claustrophobia - so I wasn't entirely certain what to expect.

The kitchen space was fairly straightforward. There were some lengths of R-11 fiberglass that had been tossed up there some years back but never laid in properly, and once I did put them all in place, there were still areas that were completely uninsulated. So I laid in some R-30 on top of that, and plan to go back and put in more to make sure that we have R-60 or better in that space. I'm still fairly certain that the walls (which are sided on the interior with hardboard - basically heavy duty cardboard) are completely uninsulated, but that will have to be a task for another day - likely when we can gut the entire room and sort it out properly.

The main attic space was a very different story, and I learned a bit about how the house must have been constructed. First of all, it's a crawlspace, in a very, very literal sense. And despite my attempts to get rid of the worst of the cobwebs, I found myself dragging myself around through them on my belly for much of the afternoon. Second of all, the access hatch is too small to push a roll of insulation through. It's barely enough to fit myself through, which caused no end of anxiety every time my arm or leg got wedged just the wrong way.

So to get the insulation in, I had to open each roll, begin feeding the batting up into the attic, then shove myself past it, climb in, and pull the rest of the roll up after me before feeding it to where it needed to go. And let me just say that, under those conditions, it does not matter if you're working in a space that is, at best, in the mid-50s F. You will get hot and very, very, very sweaty. That extra 88¢ I spent per roll for the "Comfort Touch" sheathing? So. Worth. It.

I had known that the roofline had been raised in the rear of the house at some point. What I didn't realize until I hauled myself up into the Cobweb Factory was that only the tiniest of access holes had been cut into the old roof. Not only that, it appears that the area over the bathroom was originally a shed dormer, with the roofline elevation extended over the remaining length at some later date.

So over one whole room upstairs, there is exactly zero access. Zilch. And while there had been an attempt at some point to blow in insulation over the rest of the attic space, there was no real effort, it seems, to make sure that it was evenly distributed. Or even moderately adequate. Which it very much is not, on either count.

Anyway, suffice to say that I didn't get everything insulated. Yet. But it did prompt me to do some looking around and to get the advice of a butch dyke friend who knows from power tools. And now I am the proud owner of this beauty:



And as much as it reminds me of the alien weaponry in the movie District 9, it's really a heavy duty 12 amp (contractor grade) Hitachi reciprocating saw. My friend suggested it because it has an award-winning anti-vibration feature, which gave me quite a laugh, seeing as Hitachi is also known for this.

So at some point in the next week, I intend to crawl back up in the attic and perform a bit of deconstruction so that I can get the rest of the house insulated properly. And then I think Hitachi (Does it need a proper name, do you think?) and I will target the laundry sink, which really needs to come out and become a garden prep sink.

Festival of Lights

It is now the second night of Hannukah, and in honor of the season, I thought I would offer up this...erm...gem?...from the batshit crazy unbelievably soused inimitable mind of Sandra Lee.



Um, are those marshmallows kosher?

Gobble Gobble

I hope everyone had a great Tofurkey Day. It was the first Thanksgiving in a while that actually fell on my off week, so I didn't have to work, nor was I coming off of an overnight the night before. As per our usual custom, we had dinner with Wendy and Paula at Wendy's dad's house.

I was asked to bake the pumpkin pie, so I did that and also baked sweet potato pie, in keeping with family tradition. In fact, I had enough filling for two of each. Which one do you think I've been having for breakfast and which for dinner? David made a cornbread and seitan dressing, which is his standard. He's an excellent cook, but Thanksgiving is about the only time these days that he ever does so, largely leaving that up to me.

In other news, I ran the Seacoast Half Marathon two weeks ago. Or, more appropriately, I hobbled it. I knew it wasn't going to be a good race, because I just hadn't been able to keep up my training since the Portland Half in October and I'd been having iliotibial band issues. The ITB pain got bad enough that by midway I was down to a walking pace. I did finish, though. Lee Ann, formerly of Fuzzy Logic Knits, came down from Montréal to run it with me, and we figured out that my walk pace was the same as her light jog pace, so it worked out well and I had wonderful company.

I still plan to continue running, but it's going to take me a while to work out the ITB issues, and I've not been pushing myself since the race. On Thanksgiving Day, though, I did decide I needed a pre-dinner caloric burn and walked the length of our road and back (a teeny bit shy of 10K). At our end of the road there's an apple tree right at the intersection in a little triangle of grass. I managed to find a good armload of late windfall apples that were still in decent condition, so I brought them back with me as a little treat for the sheepies. They were very thankful.

Aside from that, there's been some knitting, but on a gift exchange project. I've also been slowly processing Angus's lamb fleece to get it ready for spinning. He's getting a ton of grey in his fleece now, which is quite exciting. Come next year, he should spin up into a lovely heathery yarn, which will go well with Shaun-Fergus's mooskit, also heathery.

Yesterday was spent doing mountains of laundry and putting up plastic on the windows for the winter. We've talked about it before but never followed through, so I'm hoping that it will save us a bit on heating bills until we can get all the windows replaced. Right now we're looking at replacing our cracked oil boiler with a high efficiency propane one. The fuel costs are currently more for propane, but we'd be able to free up the chimney for wood heat, which we could hopefully get in place within the next year or two, and we could also put in a propane cookstove. Such is our fast-paced, jet-setting lifestyle.

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream?

So I've decided to embark on a little experiment. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog for any length of time knows that my sleep schedule is absolutely verkacht, which is a Really Bad Thing, particularly where all of my neuropathic issues are concerned. Or when I drive home after the 15-hour shift that turned into 18 hours.

Anyway, I've been considering polyphasic sleep schedules for quite a while. Certainly biphasic sleep, at a minimum, was well known in the pre-industrial world, and there's at least anecdotal evidence that it's quite doable. And, let's face it, I've been essentially living a bi- to polyphasic sleep schedule for years now.

Considering the problem and my general state of feeling tired most of the time, though, I've realized that my polyphasic sleep has not been regular. Not one little bit. So after reading up on the Everyman sleep schedule and with some encouragement from Mush, I think I've sorted out a variation that can work for my crazy schedule.

The plan is to get a core 4.5 hour block of sleep in the morning, then 20 minute naps at about 4PM, 1AM, and 5AM. The 4PM to 1AM stretch is a good bit longer than the recommended no-more-than-6 hour interval between naps, but it's the most workable solution I could think of that I could maintain during my regular work schedule. The nature of emergency work, of course, is that you never know what to expect, but the first half of my shift is almost always the busiest and I can typically find 20 minutes to spare in the post-midnight half. I'm hoping that my body will say, "A semblance of regularity? I'll take it!"

In Other News

The other day I dug Angus's lamb fleece (from last year) out of the shed and scoured it. Now I'm in the process of combing, then carding it. The combing is to get out as much of the vegetable matter as possible before carding the fiber into rolags. Also, the shearer made a lot of second cuts, and I'd prefer not to have a lot of neps in the yarn. At any rate, I've got a bag that's filling up with rolags and am looking forward to moving on to the spinning process.

Eine Kleine Rhinebeck

I never seem to manage to get many photos of the actual event anymore, since we always get too busy. I did slip away for a bit on Sunday, though, and snapped a few "ambience" photos.







One of the odd ironies about Rhinebeck is that it's the one place I know I can count on seeing Clara Parkes. Even though we live in the same state, and even though she lives in the same neck of the woods as my grandmother, and even though our respective travels often bring us within proximity, our paths never seem to cross otherwise. Which is a shame, really, since I understand she makes some mad tasty caramels.



This year, for a change, we took an extra day after the festival to be tourists and see a little bit of the area, which included taking the Walkway Over the Hudson, a late lunch at the Culinary Instute of America (Apple Pie Bakery Café, to be precise), and a visit to the FDR Presidential Library. I took a few photos of the first and third on that list, too.






It appears that Sara Roosevelt is knitting a jumper in this photo, though it's a little too dark to tell. I'm fairly certain she's working with long dpn's. And how many of you noticed that gigantic dog sleeping between them?


Some of Eleanor's knitting needles

I now also have one post-Rhinebeck photo to share. Last night I finished up my latest Rhinebeck knitting project - the vest I started back in the spring from yarn I got last year. The neckband and armhole ribbing is from yarn I got this year, so technically it's a two-Rhinebeck project.



I decided that I would have liked the body about an inch shorter, so I'm adjusting it for the written pattern and the next iteration, but I didn't want to frog back this one, so I'm leaving it as is. On the whole I'm pleased with the way it turned out. The yarn colors complement each other very nicely, and it's going to be a nice warm vest to wear this winter.

The Truth About Sheep and Wool

First of all, Day One of Rhinebeck was absolutely phenomenal, from a business standpoint. The weather was perfect, so there were huge crowds already assembled at the gates when we arrived. Our booth was hopping from the get-go, and the pace really didn't let up all day. Since my parents came along to help out, I did manage to get away long enough to hit the fleece sale and to visit Nanney Kennedy and get some yarn to finish off my vest. I did not, however, have a chance to take any photos of the day, as has been the case the past few years. Visits with people I love to see were far too short, as they also tend to be.

Anyway, toward the end of the day, I was busy ringing up a customer when David says to me, "I've got a big sock purchase to ring up here." So I told him I was nearly done with the current customer and could help him shortly. He was working with a really tall blonde woman, but I was busy with the other customer and not paying much attention. At one point she called him by name, but I wasn't sure where she knew him from.

At any rate, I finished up with my customer and hurriedly started ringing up the HUGE pile of RedMaple socks he had in hand, as the woman said to her male companion, "I need to go get something from the cashmere place," and rushed off, leaving him with her credit card to pay. He asked us who had cashmere, clearly not remembering where it was he needed to follow her, so I told him it would pretty much have to be Springtide Farm, who are in the next barn over. Then I gave him the total and he handed over the credit card. I swiped it first, then looked at the name - UMA K THURMAN.

For real.

Calm Before the Storm

Great Minds

One of the interesting aspects of my relationship with David is that we often have the same thoughts at the same moment. And when I say often, I mean at least on a daily basis. Maybe it's a psychic bond, maybe it's just having very similar frames of reference, but it's been that way through the entire relationship.

Lately we've been watching old episodes of "The X-Files", thanks to Netflix. Earlier tonight, we were watching an episode where animals in an Idaho zoo were apparently being abducted from their cages by aliens but then not being put back in quite the right location afterward and wreaking havoc on the local population.

One of the animals was a tiger who ended up in a warehouse across town. As our intrepid FBI agents arrived on the scene, Scully said to Mulder, "How does a tiger get all the way on the other side of town without being spotted?"

David and I both immediately yelled at the TV, "Because it's striped!"

A Fortunate Non-crisis

Last night I noticed I was nearing the end of the current ball of yarn I'm working from for the vest-in-progress, and it struck me that I couldn't remember if this was the 2nd or 3rd ball of the four I have. Since the yarn is a one-off dyejob I got from Nanney Kennedy last year at Rhinebeck, and there were only 4 skeins to be had, I started to get a little nervous. After all, I'm still about 4 inches from the armholes, and we all know how much yarn the cabling takes up.

So I got home from work and quickly looked and found one lone ball of yarn. Curses! I love this yarn - the color is pretty true in the photo, very denim-y - and really want to have this particular vest in this particular yarn. Visions of having to frog the whole thing back and starting from scratch on this project were swirling in my head as I went to bed and got a fitful day's sleep. When I got up this evening, though, I had a slightly more thorough look and, sure enough, found the 4th ball fallen down under a bit more of the clutter that is my yarn room. Crisis averted!

Just to make sure, though, I did a quickie calculation and determined that by the time I reach the armholes I should be right at 2/3 of the yarn used. Once I figure in the armhole decreases and the V-neck shaping, that should give me just enough to finish this project. I hope.