Little yarn pile

This weekend, I finished rewinding my frogged yarn into balls, finally completing my 1^st Ravelympics project, part of the Aerial Unwind.

When I planned this in my head, I envisioned myself ripping the t-shirt on Saturday, washing it on Saturday evening, and winding it back into balls Sunday/Monday, depending on how the drying process went.
Of course, there were several things I forgot to take into account when planning this, such as my optician appointment, the piles and piles of ironing, baking brownies, and my current obsession with knitting socks.

Ripping the yarn took a lot more effort than I thought was going to, but the curliness kept me amused for hours! It was quite impressive the change submerging them in warm water made (warm water and Soak). Excitingly, the yarn seems to have leaked most of its dye already, and the water was barely blue-ish.

All the winding was achieved this weekend, while watching Alex play Mario Kart Wii. It's ready to use!


I will try to cast on for the next incarnation of the t-shirt before the Olympics finish. It would have been a stretch to finish it before the end at the best of times, but having a cast-on will make me feel just as successful, as I mainly wanted to use this opportunity to get it going. If only socks weren't so interesting!

Ravelympics prep!

These Olympic Games, I will be taking part in the Ravelympics¹!

I will be participating in two events: Aerial Unwind (frogging² a project and reclaiming the yarn) and Sweaterboard Cross (knitting a full sweater, although what I will be knitting is more of a t-shirt).

The project to rip is the Green Tea. Although I liked it at the time (denial ain't just a river, baby), Alex correctly identified that it was much to big. After having worn it a couple of times, I had to agree with that, and it has been sitting in the frog pile for a while. This is it's opportunity.

It's just so wide!


I will be reknitting the same t-shirt, but this time so that it fits me. I have the gauge, and my measurements, and hopefully a better understanding on how ease works, and I really hope it will be wearable this time round! Knitting it smaller will also allow me to make it a tad longer, which won't be a bad thing.


I will not be awake at cast-on time (2 am!), so I will start my adventure with some hours of delay over other people. At least the ripping shouldn't be too difficult!


See you at the other side of the finish line!



1: In parallel with the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, knitters over at Ravelry are doing their own knitting Olympics. There are teams formed by affiliation (instead of country) and different events you can compete in. ↑
2: Ripping it apart, frogging comes from "rip it, rip it" ↑

That's some colour you've got there!

You might be forgiven for thinking I was dyeing something. In fact, I am washing my Green Tea. That is how the water turned out after living it for a little bit on cold water.

Remember, folks, if you are washing coloured Rowan Luxury Cotton, handwash it separately first!

Green Tea (FO)

Hurrah, my Green Tea is done! I actually finished it on Sunday the 8^th, but I only got around to weave in the ends and block in last Friday. I wore it today to work, and I really like it. I am also very glad I managed to get pictures in the sun today, it photographs a much nicer colour than when it's less sunny (although excuse my squinting face). Teh boyfriend complained it was not very form fitting, but it is just a comfy T-shirt, and I like it the way it is. What do you think?:




Technical details
Ravelry project page
Pattern: Green Gable, by Zephyr Style.
Yarn: Rowan Luxury Cotton, in Cabbage (SH265)
Needles: 4.00 mm circulars and dpns, 3.5 mm dpns for edgins
Notes: I like this t-shirt. The lace pattern is simple and gives it a nice edge. I didn't get two circular needles, as the pattern said, but started to knit from the neck in dpns, and then moved to circulars when I had increased enough times to be able to put the knittin in mine. I think I messed up the first row to stabilise the neck, so it rolls a bit, but it is not too bad.
I had to undo the waist decreases about 3 or so times, until I got the tapering for my waist right.
Because the way my shoulders are built, the neck sits a bit high on my neck, but it is not too bad. It has the advantage of showing a little bit of back, so at least that looks nice.

I used 6 balls of yarn for it. This is how much I had left at the end:

I barely didn't make it!

Don't anthropomorphise the tomatoes

My camera card died on Tuesday after I was taking pictures of all my stash. I have a little stash, mainly leftovers, but it still bust my camera. Hence the lack of pictures, especially of the finished Green Tea (although that is not helped by the fact that I haven't finished weaving in all the ends, when I finished knitting it on Sunday). I am going to buy a new one on Saturday, before I head over to my local Knit in Public meeting. However, I can show you my stash. I am in the process of putting it all in Ravelry so that I know what I have, but you can check it in Flickr in the meantime.

However, I can tell you that, on this same Tuesday, after the stash photo session, and after I decided not to go to Tai Chi because my allergies were making me feel really unwell, teh boyfriend and I kept cracking at Lego Indiana Jones. And we finished it!
A whooping 100%, it was great. I tried to take a picture of the screen with the 100, but that's when I discovered my camera was dead (funeral arrangements to be confirmed at a later time).

<small review>
Lego Indy is really fun. Because the engine is developed from the Lego Star Wars games, they really could work on the details. The backgrounds look a lot better, and there is actual character definition! For example, Indy is afraid of snakes, so he starts shaking and gets scared if he gets near snakes. You need to use the other characters to get some fire and draw the snakes out of the path for Indy to cross. Most of the characters start without weapons, although you can pick them up when your enemies drop them. The awesome thing is that, unless your character is meant to have a gun, all the guns you pick up have limited ammo!
I have been playing with Sallah. Sallah has a shovel as his default "weapon", so he can dig on the grond, but it is also the Shovel Of DOOM, and can kill enemies. I love the shovel.
I think I still prefer Lego Star Wars 2, but this is not bad at all!
</small review>

I have finally decided to name my computer Argos.
I arrived to this name via "argent", the latin/greek name for silver. There have been many people (mostly mythological) called Argos, but my favourite is Argos Panoptes, the all seeing. I think Argos likes his name so far, although I haven't got as far as changing it in the computer itself, I've just been calling him Argos, and he hasn't complained yet.

Related to calling my computer "him", I was commenting on the baby tomatoes yesterday dinner, saying
"Aww, look at the baby tomatoes, they are so cute".
To which teh boyfriend answered,
"Don't anthropomorphise the tomatoes. They hate that".
It cracked me up.

I like meat!

The knit

My Green Tea is nearly done. I knitted a lot on my trip to my parents' (door to door it's about 9 hours, plus the 3 hour round trip to visit my grandparents). I have finished the 5th ball of Luxury Cotton, and it does feel luxurious. On a side note, the word luxury is very similar to the Spanish word for lust (lujuria), which amuses my father no end.
I did the increases at the hips today while waiting for the doctor but, when I got home and tried it on, it was way too baggy at the back. I looks like I started the increases too early, so I have to undo a good chuck of it!


The geek
I'm going to the cinema on Saturday, to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I can't wait! Teh boyfriend has already seen it, and liked it enough to be willing to come with me again to the cinema. He actually said it was good, better than Temple of Doom. To top it all up, Lego Indiana Jones is being released on the 6^th of June, next Friday. Guess what I'm going to do on the weekend of the 7th and 8th :)

And the therapy
I went to my doctor today. He says that I might not see it because I'm in the middle of it, but I look like a completely different person from when he met me; like Spiderman and Peter Parker (his actual words). I have to say, I don't really feel much better, but I don't have the luxury (giggles) of perspective. When I presented my list of problems to him today, he turned them around and showed how they were still there a while ago, but are only now becoming worse problems because I want more. My next steps are decreasing further my propanoLOL, in the hopes that it'll let me sleep better and therefore make everything better, and work on my "I can't", "I'm too tired", "I don't have the energy" barriers. While some of the barriers make sense and are there to protect me, sometimes they overprotect me, and don't let me push the edge towards getting better. I really like me doctor, he is so nice and helpful!

... ... ...

Wait, it's not over! The random!
My boyfriend remarked the other day that my blog title actually said "knit meat herapy". He is not sure what herapy means, but he is fairly amused by knit meat. Mmmm, meat. I was the Queen Carnivore (Chair) of the Meat Appreciation Society (MeatSoc) at uni. It was a lot of fun, and very tasty. The Chair the year after me was a vegetarian. It used to confuse people no end.

Tea corner

I have not been feeling very well today. I was a bit down on Friday, then well yesterday, now ill today. It is mostly physical, at least, so I can work on it with painkillers and warmth, and it gets a bit better.

I am at the moment sipping one of my nice teas. Tea always makes me feel better, and this tea is very nice. At the moment I have a tea that is in between green and black. That is, it is only partly fermented, and it tastes very nice.
I have in my kitchen a dedicated tea and coffee corner, so I know where everything is, and can fix myself something warm in no time.

I keep having sleep problems, so I might decrease my anxiety medication further. Despite keeping me a bit calm, it gives me a very interesting and vivid array of non-stop dreams every night, which means my sleep is never deep enough, and I don't rest well, which then in turn makes me feel more depressed, etc. It's so frustrating! I am due at the doctor's soon, so I might wait and talk to him, despite having explicit control over the meds.

In knitting news, the Green Tea has already 2 of the 6-7 balls of yarn knitted into it, and I'm very close to closing for the armpits and continuing with the body (would have done it yesterday, but decided to try it on and realised I need to knit a couple more rows before that).

The "big project" changes

I am very tired, and I probably look it. I don't sleep well, and today I had a really tiring day at work (there is a release today, so don't tell my boss I've been blogging!). Because I am just a code-monkey, I didn't need to work over the weekend, and instead got some knitting done.

I have started a t-shirt, Green Tea (pattern: Green Gable, by Zephir Style). It is, as the name indicates, rather green, and I think it is coming on quite well. I've already knitted to it the first of the 6 balls of yarn it needs (Rowan Luxury Cotton in cabbage green). I'm really looking forward to wearing this t-shirt. The original name of the project was going to be "Green Tee", but I kept misspelling Tee as Tea so many times, that I decided to change the name. I really like how it's turning, so you can have a picture of the front lace.

Don't click on it! The image only looks ok small, it's not terribly in focus!

The keen-eyed (or the stalkers) around you might have noticed that I only have one "big" project at a time, and I have started the Green Tea before I posted some pictures of the finished Healing Cardigan. It is, as you can see, still on its way (I've made a little bit more progress since this picture, but not a lot more).



The healing cardigan is currently in a concious break, and with actual reasons, I'm not just distracted by a new shiny (well, I am, but that's not the centre of the question).
I'm not very happy with how the fit it's turning up. I am having trouble getting the neckline to close and not be too wide and, most importantly, I think the sleeves are way too small. Despite the fact that my yarn is at the moment from different dye lots (long story), there is something at the back of my head which wants me to undo the top part, undo the sleeves, and knit them again, wider. I don't really want to do that, so I'm leaving it to rest for a couple of days to clear my head from it. As well as doing the little crochet eggs, I figured I could allow myself to start the next big project, especially as producing something successful will make me feel better.
And it is. I can feel the spring green coming from the knitting onto me. It looks like the fields, the only thing it's missing is daisies. Which I might have to knit soon.