Neomera Knits

I got to work this morning and had not had any coffee. Thus my boss was able to get the drop on me. See, it all started out innocently enough. We were talking about coffee, and he’s going to the cafe because he’s desperate, but I maintain that he should wait 20 more minutes for the Italian Guy to open, and get the good coffee. I said to hom “You can’t go to the cafe for coffee, their coffee sucks! Your body is a temple! Put the GOOD coffee in it!” he said “Is your body a temple?” “yes, it is!” I replied, all unsuspecting. “That explains why there’s a line to get in on Friday nights!” he said, and then laughed at me groping for an adequate reply. I failed. Hear that Boss? You win!

After that I got Good Coffee for both of us and we had our first preview of The Borrowers. Kids laughed, they cried, I think maybe one threw up. Sounds like a success to me! I’ll have finished show pictures next week.

I also finished the camisole! Hooray! Finished Object #2! Um… I’ll have pictures next week. But it looks amazing. I have to go get some bigger buttons, but that’s not such a big deal. Sexy knitting rocks my world. I am now onto the sweater I got from White Lies Designs, and I’m going to work on it this weekend. Well, some anyhow, because this weekend is Connecticon! I leave tomorrow with the Applegeeks Crew, and Matt from Mac Hall. I know, the links’ll be up later. I’m damn tired.

In other news, I also finished a Surprize Project for a friend today. Mom helped more than she should have- I love my mother! I’ll have pics of that next week, too, after he’s seen it. Next week will be a photo-tastic wonder.

Well, even though it seems to be monsoon season here in the DC area, my ceiling has not yet fallen in, nor has it even leaked much today. Maybe the wind was just driving the rain up under the shingles? I don’t know, but it’s not dripping now. So…

I had to work this weekend, of course. It’s the weekend before tech and working the weekend is a given. i don’t mind too much, as this is what I’d expected going in. working three or four weekends in a row however, that’s been known to make me cranky, but hey. Life is nothing if not unpredictable. Like my old friend suddenly turning up again. Sitting at work, tracking a budget issue, and up pops a message window! The nice surprises keep me smiling while the unpleasant ones make for good stories later.

Like I mentioned in the last post, I have too been knitting! I swear! (remember when I thought this would be just a knitting blog? HAH!) Here’s proof!


I really want to finish this. Mostly because it feels like I haven’t had a Finished Object (or FO in knitblog-ese) in forEVER. I think the knitting olympics screwed with my sense of accomplishment for the year. I’ve been spinning, too! That beautiful purple merino/tencel I got in Boston. Oh man is it soft! But I seem to have less time for that even! I’ve had too many books to finish. I’m almost done with the latest one- it’s off to the printer next week. And by then tech will be over as well, and we’ll see what happens after that.

Well, Monday was strike, and boy did we enjoy it!


If I can figure out how to post movies I’ve got 15 seconds of the last wall coming down. SO much fun! Now we get to load in the next set, do hang and focus, tech…. the whole nine yards. We’ll see how much sleep I get this month! Not everything is finished, however.


The cami is about two thirds done. That there’s the body, and I’m making the bra now. I hope to be done with it and well into the sweater by tech. Hooray!

So… I actually had a post all written up and ready to post yesterday, but my brand new scanner ate it. Ok, so, my brand new scanner software got all screwed up and forced me to restart the computer, thus losing the unsaved post I was preparing. Same thing, in my mind. dumb old Hewlett Packard. Damn, but the scanner is sexy, though.

Anyway, in trying to recall what I’d written about, I remembered that Saturday was Worldwide Knit In Public Day! I was, um, at work… and welding all day in the back of a warehouse makes for little knitting and even less in-publicness. oh well. It was pretty cool to be able to shake the rust off the old welding skills. I’d almost forgotten how entertaining I find the whole process. and the gods of the beautiful weather on Saturday were even looking out for us! Both welders ran out of welding wire at the same time, thus showing us a sign that it was time to quit.

I DID get some knitting done this weekend, though! And in public, too! See?

Here’s another picture…



Taken with my new phone! With a camera! And the BEST RINGTONE EVER! It’s the Final Fantasy Victory theme. Now, whenever anyone calls me, I throw my hands in the air, then back to my sides, then in the air again, repeatedly. Well, ok, I only did that once. But it deserved a Victory Dance!

Hi, my name is Katy, and I am a geek.

Did I say quiet? Thoughtful? Meditative? Right.
That quiet, meditative state is REALLY hard to find with this camisole project. In fact, it involved a lot of swearing. I started the damn thing about a dozen times, trying to get the stitch count right all the way across the 157 stitch cast on. No. I know that’s not so very many. it is, however, enough to drive me batty! I guess I should just be glad it’s not something huge, like a shawl.

Also, I seem to be following the directions a little too well. Does this:


look like this:


To you? Doesn’t to me. I don’t mind, really. Looks just fine for the purpose it’s intended, I’m just kinda confused by it. There’s not really any way that I can see to make it NOT line up this way and still be following the pattern. Ah well. I’ve even figured out how to solve the button-lining-up glitch that arises for the not-lining-upness - you see, the buttons should be able to button through that first line of lace holes. Instead, I’m going to fold over the edge that the buttonholes should be on, and put a thin piece of boning or something to give that edge a bit of help with not pulling out of shape in little button-based scallops. That’ll take care of the extra fabric between the first row of lace holes and the scallop thing that drives me crazy. I win!

Oh man, is work busy. Saps the energy right out of me! That’s ok, though, I think. I get up, I go deal with work, I come home, I pass out and sleep badly. Ah well. That’s life.

Life’s funny, you know? I know I complain rather a lot about a few things (for which I do apologize to my friends- sorry to make you listen to that, guys!) but I realized this morning, that I’m feeling pretty empty of words these days. Makes for bad blogging, ultimately, but I’m feeling rather at peace with it. It’s a sort of feeling of contented apathy, I think. At least that’s how I’m going to describe it right now. It leaves plenty of space for random thoughts to wander through my brain.

I guess that’s one reason I’m so thoroughly enjoying the book-on-CD I just bought. Well, I guess it’s less of a “book” on CD so much as a series of interview conversations with Joseph Campbell about myths, and the meaning of myths in people’s lives. IT’s really fascinating, I think, getting into burial rituals and the symbolism behind a lot of stuff.

It’s also making me feel much more connected to my spinning and my knitting. I’ve been finding that quiet more and more easily when I sit down with the spindle or the needles. It seems to connect me with my great grandmother, who grew up on a sheep farm, and her mother, and so on through countless generations of men and women who did what I’m doing now, using pretty much the same tools. Just amazing. I love that.

*edit* I know there’s no pictures here, and that makes for dull blogging. I’ll get you your pictures when I have the energy to focus for more than 5 seconds at a time.

Well, I’ve been abck to work, and well. Yep. Vacations are wonderful, but when you come back from one you remember why you wanted to go in the first place. xP Ah well. At least we’re not too swamped right now, and when I talked to Marietta, she told me that she has joined the blogosohere! She puts me to shame, so go! read!

Also, I have remedied the laziness from my last post, and have actually put links to all those amazing people I got to hang out with at Anime Boston, so you no longer have to be confused about them.

What was most exciting, I think, about returning home was that I had PRESENTS! My aunt and uncle and cousin Jes went off to Angkor Wat a few weeks ago (yes, I’m jealous,) and Jes- being one of the world’s Good People- sent me a present! I now have a really super soft trourist tshirt from Angkor Wat, and I also have a wonderful little coin purse!


Of course, the first thing I did was to put stitch markers in it.

You see, I needed the stitch markers desperately, because the other present I got was these!

*GLEE!* oh man, the 50/50 wool/silk for the camisole is dead sexy. So soft. So yummy. mmmmm. And the and the mohair for the sweater? It’s also 10% silk. oh my GOD I am in fiber heaven! When you take the wool/silk/tencel blend and the wool/tencel I got in Boston into the mix it’s kinda a wonder that I’m making it out of the house at all! SO good.

Of course, I’m afraid that there’s a drawback. The camisole lace- the bit around the bottom that makes the scallops as if it were magic? I canNOT get the numbers to come out right after one row of repeats. The lace repeat is pretty easy, really. It’s a 9 stitchrepeat, no big deal, right? Across the 157 stitches of the bottom of this thing, I can get it right maybe… um… half the time? So I have about a thousand stitch markers in right now so I can maybe count bast three accurately. I am going to beat this.

A whole day off and I’m still pretty tired. *whew* It’s been a crazy few weeks. Long days, no days off, and way too much to do. The scenic designer on our professional show is, well, shall we say ‘difficult to work with’? He seems to have a habit of riding roughshod over pretty much everyone in order that his “sculpture” of a set looks PERFECT. Ah well. The Lighting designer (the one that I have to deal with) was pretty cool. Demanding, but not in a bad way. The poor student show got short shrift thanks to all of us being so physically and emotionally exhausted by the pro show. BUT! Today was a day off for me, and I spent it… shopping! Also, skipping opening night. Shopping was more important.

Why, what did I do during tech, you ask? I ran the light board, of course! I was the main programmer for the show, sitting next to the lighting designer, setting levels and running cues. leaving me plenty of time for




and




and



That’s actually the first sock I ever started. I put it down because I was far more interested in finishing my first sweater. I’m not certain what that fuzzy thing in the second picture is going to be. Um. We’ll see. It’s pretty relaxing to just sit there and knit garter stitch from some yummy mohair. Even if it IS in the dark.


I actually have some more to say, but I think I’m about to fall asleep again. So I’ll save it for the next post. Which will NOT be in two weeks. I promise!

Oh guys, why is sock yarn so much like crack? I can’t knit socks very fast yet (also I am lazy) but I CAN’T STOP BUYING! Clearly, I need therapy.

Just a drive by blogging here. Work is somehow exhausting me, even though I am working really slow on electrics, and the carpenters never give me tasks when I wander in. Not that I’m complaining, mind, but dang. I actually stepped forward and volunteered to attach approximately 11 million tons of clapboarding to the set tomorrow. Just for a change of pace. Boy, I hope it’s light.

Still trying to pick what I want to knit from White Lies Designs. should I take this, or this?

Work is being definitely odd this week. Last week, too, come to think of it. We seem to be being both very efficient and very unprepared. One show being installed on our mainstage, one in tech in our studio, and one on the road is keeping us pretty busy. Not to mention preparing for several other shows to boot. However I’ve still found time to keep plugging away on the sock, and to think about the next few projects. In fact, with all the riding around in trucks I did yesterday, I put on almost two whole inches, while at work! Poor me, huh?

Hmm, I did promise to talk about Knitting Rules by the Yarn Harlot, didn’t I. What to say? It’s as much fun to read as her blog is, that’s for damn sure. Several sections had me laughing so hard I had to stop reading for a while. I have to say that I agree with her about hats being better beginners projects than scarves. the finished-project payoff comes so much sooner that the buzz is enough to cement a real knitter firmly in the habit, instead of the miles of stockinette of a scarf. Scarves bore me to tears, honestly. But the book is definitely worth reading. The insert pages of top ten reasons are placed a little strangely mid-section, but I got around that by reading the section, and then going back to the insert. She’s got some pretty good basic recipes for hats and socks, too. I need to try her heel recipe- I’ve only mastered the short row heel thus far, and I feel like I need to expand my range.

Hmm… My reviews could use some work. Oh well.

I put in my vacation request today. It’s pretty much already approved so I’m not worried. Just a formality. but wow, am I ever looking forward to it. I’m going to boston to visit with my good friend and sometimes quest-mate Mookie. Who is awesome. I hope we get to hit some of the cool yarn stores I keep hearing about. I have also been promised amazing food and comic books. The week will culminate with Anime Boston, so I get the best of everything! I am already counting the days till the end of May.