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Magic Loopin’

Just dropping by to announce that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth in terms of blogging. I have just been… not inclined. Or distracted, or busy, or whatever.

Last weekend we were in Redding for my cousin’s wedding. I forgot to bring any knitting, so when we were at Sew What! (a funny quilting/knitting hybrid shop) I bought some Panda Wool (bamboo/wool/nylon mix) and a 40″ US2 circular, looked up magic loop on my laptop (free wireless at the motel) and taught myself magic loop:

Sock started in Redding

I am not super enamored of it for socks (DPNs 4eva!), but the possibilities of its use for sweater sleeves, hat decreases, etc., are pretty great. I look forward to using it on top-down sweater sleeves, where DPNs are kind of a pain.

I really like the Panda Wool, it has a nice drapey quality to it.

***

I went and saw the Dark Knight last night, and was VERY BORED by it. It is NOT the second coming of superhero movies, it was basically boring in every way, rather masogynistic (only main female character gets burnt to a crisp and the only other female character who even talks turns out to be owned by the mob) and way too long. Props to Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Heath Ledger, though: they turned in top notch performances. And Aaron Eckhart was hot as usual, even with half his face melted off.

Still, I was way more excited about the crappy preview trailers for the new Terminator movie and the Watchmen movie coming out next year than I was about the Dark Knight.

So, go watch it if you’re inclined, but I thought it was boring.

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Loominous

Well first of all, I think it is noteworthy to inform the interwebs that my intestines have betrayed me. As soon as I finish writing this I am going to LIE DOWN.

Anways…

I am totally weaving you guys! My loom came in the mail last Wednesday. I’d been feverishly tracking its progress here via UPS and was rather irked when I got home from work and it hadn’t arrived. But then the UPS dude dropped it off at 7 p.m. and all was well.

So that night I put it together while watching the first episode of Project Runway Season 5, which I have to say was not very interesting. Tim Gunn seems put upon. But I got the loom mostly together until I got to the part where you attach the handles “with the screws that are already attached.” Well, mine came with extra screws, but they didn’t fit the handles as they were too wide and too long. So I knew I had to go to the hardware store. I also needed to get a candle to melt the ends of the nylon cords together. I’m definitely not a candle person so I was a little irked that I had go buy fire.

Anyway, so I also needed to get some T pins to block the Swallowtail shawl, so I stopped at JoAnns on Saturday and picked up some of those and also a candle tin that was only a buck. I also stopped at Ace Hardware and found new screws that fit perfectly in the handles, and only set me back thirty whole cents.

I tried to take a picture of me melting the nylon cords together, but that proved impossible with how quick the strings caught fire and melted together. So, here is a picture of the crappy candle and the mess I made, trimming the ends of the strings to match:

Burning the Cords

You can see on the right the little melted black blob where the ends are fused together.

And I finished putting together the loom and then I made a warp on the warping board (a Kromski Harp has a built in warping board on the underside of the loom – you just insert pegs and get to it) out of some Knitpicks Essential (the new kettle dyed stuff, I wasn’t too impressed with this reddish colorway – I was going to return it, but then realized that I wouldn’t care if I screwed it up so used it for the first warp) and put the warp on the loom:

Setting up the warp

It is pretty obvious that I ignored the instructions on how to center your warp, but for just eyeballing it I came pretty close. I am not super sure that it really matters on a rigid heddle, but I am just winging it at this point.

Then I started to weave, using the other ball of knitpicks essential that had a better color variation, and I added some extra sock yarn bits I had lying around and wah lah, I have a scarf well on its way to completion:

Weaving

Woo!

Anyway, so it is pretty easy to get started. My next project will be a wider and shorter scarf out of Noro Kureyon Sock yarn. I am learning a lot from this project, about tension mostly, and I REALLY like weaving. I suspect that once I get my initial projects out of the way I will be doing a lot of Christmas presents on the loom. Also, I think it will be an awesome way to get rid of some of the goofy novelty yarns I have lying around – I think they’d work pretty good as wefts, not so much as warps. Luckily I don’t have any crappy fun fur but I do have some random stuff I picked up at Hobby Lobby and JoAnns.

I still love socks, I just totally got bored with them (all at the same point):

Socks in Progress

So for now you all will have to suffer through this whole weaving binge! 😛

(Also no, apparently I do not make socks that are not pinkish or greenish.)

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Enter Weaving

Well, I have been waiting rather impatiently for the UPS guy to deliver my birthday present and FINALLY yesterday he did:

Kromski Harp

It has been a light spot in an otherwise hectic couple of weeks. I have spent the last two weeks training newbies and having to be “on” all the time, which is really tiring when all I want to do is hide in my cubicle and write minutes, you know. (Well kind of, since I hate writing minutes. Anyway.)

I am feeling whingey apparently.

So anyway, yesterday I finally got the loom and put it together while watching the first episode of Project Runway Season 5. I don’t have any readily accessible candles, so I can’t make the loops to attach to the end things yet, but I think I’ll probably do that tomorrow, along with picking up my mom’s blocking wires and blocking the shit out of the Swallowtail Shawl, which is otherwise finished:

Swallowtail Shawl

Speaking of whining, I don’t see what the big deal is with the nupps on the Lily of the Valley part of the shawl (for the uninitiated, the edge part of the shawl with the “pea pod” like sections).  I rather enjoyed them. The P5tog on the wrong side? I totally used a small crochet hook, and the sections went really quick.  I like the texture and would totally make nupps on another project. I also really liked the “elastic bind-off” which I think I might use forever more instead of the regular one.

I didn’t use any lifelines on this project, though there are definitely some goofs scattered here and there. I like to call one of them in particular the “Twin Peaks Fuck Up”, even though I will be the only one who knows its even there.

So yeah, Twin Peaks, a big fat WTF towards that television show. I got the first disc from Netflix and watched the first episode, which is supposed to be this iconic moment in television history or whatever and IT WAS NOT INTERESTING.

After I was done watching it I watched the alternate ending for the international release and okay, it totally had a random dancing little person (the guy who played Samson in Carnivale) so while it was weird, it certainly made an impression.

I’m not sure why we are supposed to care about Twin Peaks, and I will not be watching any more of it. Also I went on Wikipedia and spoiled the end for myself, whatever.

The other stupid thing I watched this week was a 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park (Jane Austen). I’d watched the recent adaption with Billie Piper on PBS earlier this year and other than Billie Piper’s hair, it didn’t make much of an impression on me, so I thought I’d get this other version to compare. I have never read Mansfield Park so I can’t say anything about plot, but I CAN say that this 1999 Mansfield Park was HEINOUS in its interpretation. Also kind of boring. You would think turning a Jane Austen story into a bodice ripper with hints of lesbianism and Jonny Lee Miller would be kind of, well, awesome, but you would be SO wrong that it is not even funny. I’m not even sure what the hell was going on during the whole movie, with Fanny Price talking to the camera and making out with Henry and then rebuffing him, and to top it all off I stayed up stupid late watching it so I was really tired all day today.

So, don’t watch that Mansfield Park unless you don’t know anything about Jane Austen. Jonny Lee Miller was pretty good, but I kind of like him so whatever.