More Done Stuff

I finally finished my BYOB. Here she is:

Pattern: BYOB

Yarn: Bernat Naturals Cotton - 3 colors and I'm not sure how much. Less than one 400 g skein of white and brown, less than one 100 g skein of blue (tidepool, I think)

Timeframe: July 9 - September 7. This one took awhile!

Mods: None

Problems: The pattern has a small typo in it - it says to start the bag body at the center of the cast-on row. It's supposed to be start at the center of one of the sides, to make the handles line up correctly. Luckily, I was watching the BYOB KAL on Ravelry and knew about this one, so knit a bit extra on the last body row to line up my handles the way I wanted them to be.

I love this bag. I intend to make more of them. I don't particularly like knitting this bag though, so the others will have to wait! All that seed stitch and the cotton yarn is just not terribly pleasing to me. I should have enough yarn for four bags, one more like the one I just made and two with the brown as the main color. I have a 400 g skein in each color. It might not quite be enough though, since I'm using the main color as an accent color in the other bags. I might need another 100 g skein of each to actually get all four done.

I was working on sketching out and designing a bag almost exactly like this one. It was going to have a garter stitch bottom, stockinette for a few inches, an open lacework panel, then stockinette and handles similar to this one. The short row handles and rolled edge are ever so much better than mine was going to be, and the seed stitch a lot sturdier. I was going to add a pocket, but that really wouldn't work with the bulk of the cotton yarn, which I would have learned for myself later.

I'm really, really, really impressed by the handle though. The short rows to make it flow out of the bag but make it look nice instead of just slashes in the top solid portion, the rolled bits to make it nicer on your hands, it all works so well together. I am so very impressed by this bag! Especially since the designer found such awesome ways of putting everything together and making all those little aspects of the design I was wondering about work so well. Thank you, Moira Ravenscroft, for such an awesome bag!

See, I Finish Things!

I will show off two of my lovely recent(ish) FOs clogging up the sidebar. Man, I've either got to take pictures of these stupid things more quickly or change the rule that I cannot take the finished items off of the sidebar until there's pictures of them. I think I'll just try to take more pictures!

FO #1: Manitou Passage Scarf

Pattern: Manitou Passage Scarf

Yarn: Patons Classic Wool in New Denim, about 0.85 skeins

Timeframe: July 23 - 30.

Mods: Taken from StickChick on Ravelry

Problems: Not a problem so much, but it grew a LOT during blocking and flattened out amazingly, as I'm trying to show with the old picture on the side there. You might not really be able to tell, but trust me, it's much flatter and longer after blocking! Also the length had something to do with the yards of knitting after this picture was taken.

FO #2: Manitou Passage Hat

Pattern: Manitou Passage Hat from djinniya on Ravelry

Yarn: Patons Classic Wool in New Denim , about 0.85 skeins

Timeframe: Just a few hours of knitting - started on the 1st, finished knitting on the 3rd, finally blocked on the 6th.

Mods: None

Problems: Only thing is it didn't quite block as flattened as the scarf did, so it doesn't match quite as well as the original set. Not that big a deal though!

These are a thank-you gift for the friend of my mother in law who helped to arrange the flowers for our wedding. She wanted a nice denim-y blue scarf she could wear with her blue jacket. I'm thinking this about fits the bill! It's also very nice because it's reversible, so she can just throw it on and not worry about having the right side out or anything.

Also, I have more pictures but Blogger is not being nice about allowing me to integrate. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/shlaci/ or my Ravelry account for more. Stupid Blogger. Figured it out. It wasn't Blogger, it was Chrome. Stupid beta Google product that doesn't actually work with Google products...

Also, to wrap up old news:

• We're getting our stuff out of customs when we get to Japan, yay!
  
• I didn't win the Art of Disney "The Happiest Celebration on Earth" cross stitch, as it sold for over $200. Ouch.
• I chose to use the Grapefruit Ginger from the car, since it was about 1/4 gone.
• I have two weeks left in this country. TWO WEEKS! But I officially have my visa in my passport, so all that's left is the cleaning, packing, visiting, and trying to finish the crazy amounts of knitting I thought I could do before I left.

Today's Conundrum...

I'm trying to use up as many of my consumable items before going to Japan so that I'm not packing so much and I don't need to store as many items when I get there. I'm mostly trying to use up my lotions and body washes/soaps. It's a concentrated effort. I've been using soap as shaving cream, shaving my legs and subsequently lotioning them more often than I usually would, showering with Lee to lather him up in my girly sops (teehee) and giving Lee foot rubs, of course using the lotion. I was working through them from least to most liked, but only the ones where the body wash and lotion matched. Now, I'm down to non-matching, and I have less than a month left before leaving. My conundrum is this: Do I use the ones I like the least first, and hope I can use up a whole bottle, or do I go with the Victoria's Secret Strawberries and Champagne which is half gone (I really like it) and can probably use it up? I know, this shouldn't be as much of a problem. I have a Kiwi Lotus lotion that is 1/5 gone and a Grapefruit Ginger that is slightly less used that I keep in the car. I have a not opened Grapefruit Ginger that I was going to use next, since I don't really like that scent, but I don't know if I can use it up before I go and I'd rather use up more than have a bunch of half-used bottles. Though if I go with the Grapefruit Ginger, I can have matching lotions in both the car and at home...

Does anyone else find stupidly simple, irrelevant to everything else in the world, and really miniscule decisions like this so difficult?

Five hours of car time this weekend, I think I can safely promise an FO picture or two for my next post.

More News

Chugging away on my BYOB - nothing new to note yet, hopefully will have a finished product by the end of the weekend. And maybe some FO pictures for the growing list of finished but not photographed items in my sidebar.

McCain has finally chosen a VP, and it seems like a very smart move on his part. She seems competent, poised, pretty, and a very staunch republican in all the worst ways. Anti-gay, pro-life, pro-drilling in Alaska, and who knows what else. Good move, sir. We shall see how this one plays out - and this time I get an outsiders view on the whole shebang.

I was ever so pleased this morning. One of the Art of Disney retired cross stitches, The Happiest Celebration on Earth, was put on eBay. I do own all of the charts for all of the cross stitches, but I want to own all of the kits and this particular one requires beads. I put it on my watch list, as it was just listed today, and am prepared to wait until the final two hours to start my bidding, hoping that it remains down around $15 so not too many people actually notice it. I've found that if the bidding doesn't get too hot, the ones that start low tend to stay low. Of course, a couple hours later, I check back, and it's already over $60. I was planning to pay between $60 and $100 for this, and will have to watch it. It's worth a lot to me, but right now, I really shouldn't be spending so much on something so unnecessary. We did just take out a large loan from Lee's parents to consolidate some of our smaller and higher interest loans as well as set up our apartment in Japan, so we have the money for this, but I just don't know how high I can reasonably go. I really, really, really want this, and this one isn't listed very often. I'll be keeping my eye on it and crossing my fingers that the other bidders don't think it's quite worth it!

The News

The excellent news: My Certificate of Eligibility is officially in the mail from Japan, which means I am 100% going to Japan in just under a month. Awesome!

The good news: The yarn I mentioned for a test knit in the last post didn't get here until Monday. However, I was able to whip out a pair of 7.5" leg, 9" foot socks to get in the mail on Wednesday. Fastest socks ever. Though I do need to ice my wrists now! It's a pretty cool pattern coming out by Phoenix Bess, a biased lace sock that Lee found very entrancing, especially given the yarn that I was using. It pooled nicely with the pattern.

The "eh" news: No pictures for this post. I haven't really worked on anything but test knits recently and though I've taken pictures of them, y'all don't get to see those until the pattern is released. I will say that I am quite pleased with the Sea Silk Wrap and can't wait to show that one off! This one also had pretty amazing pooling, and I love the colors, though I think it's going to be a present for my aunt. I love it but don't think I'd use it, whereas she probably will use it.

The bad news: I haven't yet even started my SotS3 Hint #2, and Hint #3 comes out tomorrow! We will have a lot of car time this weekend with a visiting friend, but I've also got a couple other things that should be done first. We'll see how that goes...

The awful news: Everything we own (practically) is still stuck in Japanese customs. At this point I just want to tell them to hold onto the boxes until we arrive, then we'll go there and make the extensive lists of everything AGAIN so that we can have a household in Japan.

Thank you and good night.

Shipping Woes

Got back from a couple of days at the lake this morning. There's a voicemail on Lee's phone saying that our boxes (most everything we own) in Japan are being held in Customs due to the fact that only one of the customs sheets got there with the boxes. Now, we had to unpack the boxes to fill out these sheets since the forms require you to be very explicit with what is in each box. We would have done this in the first place, but the idiot FedEx employee who helped us when we said "We're shipping things to Japan" didn't actually help us but gave us the wrong number of boxes and charged us for the other two anyway while not listening to what we said, so didn't give us the forms in the first place. This same guy was very helpful during the shipping of the boxes, so we figured that he was just having a bad day the first time or something. We're using the Great Rates line through FedEx so we get 74% off of the normal shipping costs by shipping it on a certain day of the week when everything else is slow. It's new, so we were having problems shipping it out and it took over 2 hours at the store to get it done. We also haven't actually gotten charged for the shipping yet, but at least the boxes got to Japan.

We called FedEx and they gave us the number of the local shipping center to call. No one has our paperwork. Well, one form made it through. Their advice is to forge the other 14, even though the form is legally binding and all and we could technically go to jail if we lie on it. I guess we were supposed to get a copy of all of these, but the employee didn't give us any. We filled out completely 15 of these sheets, which took many, many hours, and apparently, only the one got shipped. They faxed us a copy of the one that got shipped so we can better forge the rest, and we've found that some information on it was changed after we turned it in, and we're thinking the employee changed the numbers and threw the rest away. Lee's trying to call Japan to let them know what the problem is so that instead of forging these rather important pages, they know that FedEx screwed us over and forged some information after we signed the declaration. We're hoping they don't send us back all the packages, because that would be very painful.

Also I was supposed to get yarn for a test knit today and it didn't come in. Right about now, I hate all forms of shipping. I did finish Peasantry and am close to finishing a couple other things, so that I can start others, but did not take photographs on the lake of both Peasantry and the Lace Rib Raglan like I planned. Maybe I'll take them up to Maine tomorrow and take pictures then. Hopefully we get this shipping stuff sorted out before we go and also I hope that my yarn comes in and the mail gets here before we leave. Six hours of car ride would at least get the first sock mostly done, and I'd hate to lose that especially since this particular knit is on a rather tight deadline.

Also also, I have been so very upset that I totally forgot that today's Friday and the next Secret of the Stole hint is out. At least I'll have that to keep me busy if I don't get the sock yarn. Like I actually need something else to keep me busy - my list of WIPs isn't enough?

Motivation

I had a lovely day last Friday with the cat, sitting by the stove, knitting away, burning old financial records. All I needed was a mug of hot cocoa and a change of season to say, January instead of August. Oh well. Got a bunch of knitting done!

Last night we went to a Buddy Guy/George Thorogood and the Destroyers concert in Boston. We live a bit over an hour away, so of course, I brought some knitting. I brought my BYOB for a change of pace from the laceweight, and got to the end of the lace panel. Came time to do the top of the bag in seed stitch, and I realized that I didn't pack the smaller needle tips needed for that portion of the bag. Luckily, I never pack light knitting-wise and had my Sea Silk Wrap in my purse, which I happily knit on during the first two bands (Peter Gammons' band and Buddy Guy) and during the intermission-y time before George Thorogood came on. I was dancing and there was not enough light to continue the wrap during his set. I got another couple of inches done on it, so that's going well. I also had a small cross stitch ornament in my purse too, the $1.99 kind that's sold in big box craft stores. I love those little suckers! The lace part of the BYOB seemed to go quickly, and I'm hoping my renewed interest in it carries me through long enough to finish it up soon. I'm in a finishing stuff mood, but I do not have enough time to really sit down and power through anything. Though we are going to the drive-ins tonight...Maybe I'll bring my Peasantry and not any other warm clothing so I have to finish it when it gets chilly out. That may motivate me enough!