Wednesday, July 26, 2006

It's too hot for all this

Expected high today of 34C. Not as hot as last week (36C), but the humidity is higher. My poor G5 is already roaring gently as the fans strain to cool it after a bout of graphics work. There's so much to do! I'm off work next week, so of course three clients are *demanding* I get drafts to them before I stop... I've pointed out as tactfully as possible that two of them delayed getting resources to me earlier this year, so why do they expect me to sweat blood for them in this heat? The third, gah, the third deserves his. I'm doing my best. In addition to baking bread for a friend's party this evening ("In this heat? You're mad" he said). Making lists of stuff I have to do before I leave, stuff I have to take, stuff I want to buy, printing maps to find places in cities I haven't visited for decades (I've got google maps to find yarn shops, too). Oh, and there's the man to replace the windscreen. Isn't it FUN that the heat stress makes stone chips send out lovely wavy cracks across the glass?

(excuse me while I dimple my foccaccia...)



The handspun scarf is on hold: it's too hot for that lovely yarn and I've thought of a more appropriate gift (in August!). Remember those blue cashmere socks, a wedding shower gift for my sister? My bro-in-law-to-be deserves socks too, but I don't know his size. So I'll give him a Sock Token. Two per A4 sheet, each folds in half to become a ruler with which the recipient can measure his/her feet. Designed to be wrapped around something (in this case a bar of rather nice soap) in the following manner: fold the strip, then run a strip of clear stickytape the full length of the ruler (to give it some strength), ending with a small, er, sticky tab of tape on the end where it says 'cut here'. Wrap the token around the gift and stick that end down with the tab.



Addendum: I haven't yet worked out how to make a PDF available for download, and Blogger won't accept the large files necessary to make this print nicely from your machine. Email me if you want one and I'll send you the PDF (c. 150kb).

The Badcaul Socks are well underway in Fleece Artist 'Jester', not as loose as they look in that photo. The Elfine socks were a bit tight and this pattern is not only smaller, it's cabled, which pulls the diameter down even more, so I added 6 stitches to the circumference, making a new small cable running down the centre front and back. I love cabling. I love cabling *without a cable needle*, which is what I've learned this time. I've also learned that reading and knitting at the same time is Not A Good Idea. But I kept doing it anyway, and reaped my reward as shown. Spot an error 10 rows down, unravel, recable. I hesitate to say this, but I actually enjoyed doing that, even though I've had to do it several times. Very satisfying just to be able to do it and it's easier to keep track of which strand is next using multicoloured yarn "pink, flesh, green, pink, hot pink, purple". And, of course, the error is gone.


(must just go and exercise the ciabatta)

The other major knitting is almost certainly a waste of time and yarn, alas. I have succumbed to the lure of Norah Gaughan's Shell Tank in Knitting Nature. It won't suit me, I know it won't. I'm short and squarish with a bust. But the cable... I have to try, I just have to. It's not a difficult pattern, but I've never knitted cotton before (that's Jaeger 'Aqua' in Willow, that is). It's not inclined to forgive the tension variations due to my stop-and-start knitting times. 15 minutes here, an hour there. I can see the changes. Dammit.


I have to work on my tension. Ha. At this wedding I'll be seeing family I haven't seen for over 20 years, plus a vast number of other people I've never met before. When I spend almost all day, every day talking only to my computer and henchcat. Tense? Moi? At last, after 48 years I'm happy to be me, but I expect I will have to hold that thought hard on occasion. It's lovely to read the blogs of people who love and like their families and are loved and liked by them, but it makes me all the more conscious that not all families are like that.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wanted to let you know that I just e-mailed you a copy of the ring code from the RingSurf admin. site. Your blog is in the queue for the Fiber Arts Bloggers webring, but you don't seem to have the ring code up on your blog. If you want to e-mail me when you have the ring code back up and whatnot, I’ll check it out and get you into the ring as quickly as I can. Let me know if you need any help! :)

sarah said...

Thanks, Joni -- it's in place, or I think it is.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering how you print out your lovely Sock Token.
On my printer at 110% it still does not come out as cm.
Maybe I will have to create my own.
Thanks for the idea,
Lisa in Toronto

Alice said...

Great how most of us increase in confidence, along with the advancing years. But the confidence doesn't entirely erradicate an awkward situation, although it helps. Hope it goes ok.

I think my tension varies quite a bit but most of the stuff I make is lacy or in variegated colours, so it doesn't show too much. But there's nothing like a nice, plain bit of cotton to show off all those beautiful details!

Hope your foccaccia was nicely dimpled.

blog-blethers said...

Love the badgaul sock and what a stunning colourway! Hopefully you have recovered from the heat and managed to get all the work done for your clients

sarah said...

Alas, I didn't get everything done, but I think I did enough to placate everyone!

Lisa, the Sock Token image was just a quick screenshot. I can't get to that computer at the moment, but some time next week I'll replace the image with a full-size PDF file that will print correctly.

Joanne said...

Not everyone has a great time with their family--I avoid it on my blog because it's so tense for me sometimes! (Like, in April, when I went to my brother's wedding? I was the only nuclear family member not included in the wedding. The bride's family didn't know he had an older sister.) Yup.

I love your sock token idea! You're so smart. Are you saving that scarf prezzie for the winter holidays? That's a heck of a scarf, can you give it up? I'm not sure I could! :)

sarah said...

Oh, that's terrible. We inflict such pain on each other without meaning to, it's foolish to do so deliberately. At least everyone knew I and my brother existed, even if I had to gloss over the reasons that my mother had no previous experience of being 'the mother of the bride' despite admitting that I've been married 28 years.(We were 'estranged' at the time of my marriage, my mother having said, quite literally, that I must 'never darken her door again'.)