First Thursday

Of the semester that is, and it's shaping up to be a more than decent one.

Here's how the day started:



But rewind, please.
Before that luscious mug of hot four-grain cereal, I confronted this:



The microwave in the grad student lounge is a fickle beast, who likes to add zeros to the time that you enter. So what I thought was 4 minutes was, in reality, 40 minutes. I realized this 9 minutes into the cooking, or about two New York Times articles.
The mug had spurted hot cereal in a fit of pique, which I dutifully cleaned up, all while thinking "I should take a picture of that! Seriously, it would be a great picture," while walking to the bathroom and soaping down the dirty carousel component. The mug remained dirty, since I didn't want to waste too much of its warmth. (What gives it that homey slurry look? Whole fat yogurt and sour cherry spread.)

Cleaning the mug afterward was not as much fun as getting it dirty, though.

And here is a picture of knitting:

(Shh -- it's in progress!)





Do to please forgive the crappy picture quality. I'll take advantage of the still present snow when there's more of it to show. (Hey that rhymed)

Socks that Rock, Mediumweight, Covelite. Lovely lovely yarn.

And lovely lovely needles too -- metal dpns lent by Mom, indeterminate size, and not a matching set. They've converted me to metal dpns, because for once, I can really pull the first two stitches tight enough to get rid of the ladder, without worrying that I'll snap a fragile needle.

Back for Another

Semester, that is. And also a finished object!
Here is a picture.


These are hand-warmers with a cable pattern that I ganked from the Louisa Harding pattern in the Winter 2007 Interweave Knits magazine (cable pattern borrowed from her new book Knitting Little Luxuries) -- and these are (appropriately) slightly luxurious.
Specs:
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, DK, color: a cop-out number. I think it's kind of like oatmeal.
Needles: Two circulars (boo-urns some may say, but it was a bitch attempting the cables on dpns), one Inox, size 7, one Addi Turbo, size 8. Pointier needles make for happier cabling.
Pattern: Ye olde fingerless glove, 2x2 ribbing on palm side, cable on the back of the hand side. I fudged the thumb gussets, and they are more or less even. I think.
Answer the damn question:
I loved knitting these, and they're nice to wear, too -- these were my first full-on cable project, and it's amazing how the unfolding pattern urges you to knit to completion.

My dad liked them, too. He asked if he could wear them for chopping down trees, and my mother said, "No!"

I knit these in a pretty accelerated four day spree, and much of the knitting was done in public -- a quarter was in a sports bar in DC where I met up with a number of guys I'd known in high school, and about a half of it was over new years eve and brunch the next morning with friends from college and their friends. Surprising to me was the fact that both crowds (nerdy dudes working at various think tanks and, uh, corporate tax advising firms, and nerdy kids playing beer pong and making merry) found it note-worthy, and started talking to me about it.

School starts on Monday, and the transition may be brutal. But a new semester plus a new batch of students equals comics fodder, which shall be posted as soon as I figure out how to get the dang scanner thing to work.