Author Archive: meri

Hey, fiber nuts (of the yarn variety, that is). I have a quest for you.

I very much want to knit the Maple Leaf Knit Shawl as a gift. I want to knit it for a few reasons. First, it’s a beautiful pattern. Second, it’s an interesting pattern. Third, I happen to have a whole lot of Canadian family-by-proxy, so this would make a wonderful gift for one of them.

I don’t have a lot of money at the moment, but I do have a $100 gift certificate for Jimmy Beans Wool.I’ve been looking and looking until my eyes are crossed, but I can’t seem to find the perfect yarn. This is where you come in.

If you feel like it, browse through JBW, and find me a yarn that meets these criteria:

• Appropriate color for the shawl (so, a red-based tone; not apposed to variegated, but would prefer tonal)
• Yardage of roughly 1,000 yards
• Coming in as close to $100 as possible

I promise pictures of the project along the way, and may even consider a knitted gift to the person who helps me find the yarn I ultimately pick.

There’s a good chance that things are going to go quiet around here for a bit.

I’m likely going to be out of touch for about a week, give or take. I’ll probably only be checking email, SMSes, and cell phone about twice a day. If you have something really urgent, contact G, and he’ll relay a message, if possible. (Please try not to have anything really urgent, as “really urgent” usually translates to “really bad” in our circles, and I would hate for any of you to have something really bad happen. Ok? Ok.)

Things should return to a meri-normal state by Monday the 10th, barring weirdness.

Be good, or if you can’t be good, at least have fun.

A beautiful yarn is on sale today. If I had the funds, I’d be purchasing enough of this in Slate and Cherry to knit up a Dijon. Perhaps someone else can benefit from the sale, though. 🙂

Three things happened: I remembered that I have a dress form. I remembered that I want to take a picture of my Harvest sweater in progress. And I remembered both of these things at the end of a row. Go me. (Please ignore the disaster that is my upstairs desk.)

(Small context: We’ve had a foot of snow.)

[meri] Today is gonna be a long day. I can tell.
[meri] I’m feeling cabin fever, just from knowing that I can’t go out.
[meri] And layout is slow.
[meri] Also, I have no pony.
[meri] I do, however, have yarn. Maybe I’ll make a pony.
[meri] … I wonder if I have any pony patterns.

This is me, not going to Ravelry.

Based upon a comment made in response to my last post [1], I went searching for Hugh Laurie on my Roku. I was not able to find the show I was looking for, but I did discover that Jeeves and Wooster (IMDB) is available on Hulu Plus. I know this doesn’t pertain to most of the people reading this, but if all you know of Hugh Laurie is from his Hollywood-based acting, you’re in for a lovely surprise. (I recall once watching Jeeves and Wooster at work at AOL, and a co-worker declaring what a wonderful job Hugh Laurie does at portraying a British accent. I about choked.)

And, well, Stephen Fry. You do know Stephen Fry, right? Right?

I have the DVDs of Jeeves and Wooster (as well as those of A Bit of Fry and Laurie (IMDB)), but that would be effort, and not something I can watch at my desk without ripping them. Streaming, ahoy!

[1] Based upon a comment in LiveJournal from Colin, I was looking for the series Fortysomething (IMDB) (which has both Hugh Laurie and Benedict Cumberbatch), but alas, that does not seem to be available via Netflix, Amazon Streaming, or Hulu. I may be forced to acquire media.

If you’re interested in Mr. Cumberbatch, I found a series that he did back in 2008 called “The Last Enemy” (link leads to IMDB page). It’s about a brilliant mathematician (Cumberbatch) who has been living in China for the last several years, and returns to the UK only to attend his brother’s funeral. Upon arrival, he discovers a London that has been vastly changed by a bombing of a tube station, resulting in greater police / military presence and a decline in anything resembling personal privacy.

He also falls for a woman, loses a corpse that was in his apartment, gets a new job, and gets into various kinds of trouble. And I’ve only watched the first (of five) episodes. It’s kind of erratic, and I’m not sure they’re going to be able to pull off the premise in 7.5 hours (each episode is 90 minutes long), but I’m willing to give it a shot. Besides, you get to see our hero’s naked bum, and in a pair of plain white boxer shorts. I can’t decide if this is more or less amusing than the Sherlock-in-a-sheet scene.

Anyway, for those with Amazon Prime, it’s available to stream for free. Of course, you could always buy the episodes to stream, or purchase the DVD.

Enjoy.

I think I might have overextended myself this week.

• Today, I was supposed to have three medical appointments (starting at 7:30 AM!), but one of them cancelled on me. So far today, I’ve gone to PT, gone grocery shopping, and ran a quick errand for G. Now I have a few hours until I have to head out to the orthopaedic surgeon, to see if he can figure out why I can’t straighten my left knee. (The physical therapist was quite adamant that, no matter how much she tries to help my ankles, it’s all going to be for naught if I can’t straighten the knee. And I see her point. Thus, the appointment.)
• Tomorrow, I see a dermatologist, to have him examine a weird mole, and to see if he can figure out why my skin seems to be at war with me.
• Wednesday, I’m having my car serviced.
• Thursday, I have more physical therapy, and knit night (and maybe dinner afterwards).
• Friday is thus far blessedly free.
• Saturday, the Harvest knit-along continues. (I’m well past the point of having joined my sleeves, and am almost at the end of the increases, for those playing along at home.)
• Sunday, I think I shall collapse.

Intermixed with all of this is a bunch of layout and design that I have promised people, and little things like eating and bathing and doing laundry.

Does anyone have any spare energy to spare? I think I’m gonna need an influx.

It’s early yet, so another discovery might surpass this one, but this one is kind of annoying.

I appear to have lost the ability to be simultaneously reading one thing, typing another, listening to another, and speaking a fourth thing. I used to have to do this all the time when I worked at Kinko’s as a desktop publisher, and honed it when I was a sysadmin at various places.

However, I was just trying to do something along those lines here at home (reading a piece of text in a web browser, typing a correlating piece of text into InDesign, listening to the television, and singing a song), and it all ended up a mess. I ended up either typing what I was reading or listening to, or singing what I was typing. I suppose I should be happy that I didn’t sprain something.

So, what weird thing can you do? Or can you no longer do that you used to do?