Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you and yours are well and enjoying each others company.

2008 Knitting Resolutions

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions - I am much more of a "I should do ______" and then I resolve to do it - regardless of if it is the middle of the year or December. But there are a few things that I would like to do in terms of crafting, and since this subject has been a subject of other people's blog posts (started with Texas Purl Gurl) I will post my fiber related resolutions.

This year I resolve to:
1. Learn to crochet
2. Knit a sweater that I will wear
3. Learn to spin a consistent thickness on my drop spindles
4. Use my knitting magazines/books for patterns more often (I think I stole this from someone... oh well, it works for me too)

Non-knitting my resolution is to keep in better contact with people, both those in town and out of town, in the country and out of the country.

Christmas Ornament

This was just finished and so before I forget to post...



It was an empty basket on our tree, now it is a full knitting basket on our tree. It contains a hat, two scarves, two small skeins of one type of yarn, and a ball of the other. There is a spare set of needles - so three sets of needles, which are toothpicks with beads glued on the ends.

Pictures From Yesterday's post

Blogger decided to let me upload the pictures I talked about yesterday. This first image shows how far I got before ripping back - I had forgotten chart A completely.



This second picture shows the lumpy bumpy nature of my fabric - I was okay with this since these mittens are my first stranded knitting project with the exception of the Lindy Bag.



And here you can see how far I ripped back. Zoie was staying still for a bit so I included her in the image. It is a bit rare to have her still while you photograph her... And a kitty always adds a nice atmosphere to a picture.



And this final picture is to add some festive cheer to the blog. Ellie likes to get the ornaments sometimes so we keep the soft non-breakable ones near the bottom. Happy holidays everyone.

Practice

I finally started on my Strikke-along project. It is NHM #3 from Selbuvotter by Terri Shea. I knit quite a lot of it yesterday as you can see. Well you would be able to see if Blogger was behaving. I will try tomorrow, and you will see also how much I had to rip out. I call it practice (and a bit of colour work addiction). You see, I missed a whole chart (that had 5 rows and was small-ish) and while I was prepared to live with the uneven-ness of the fabric, missing a whole chart was too large of an error for me to accept. So I took pictures and ripped the sucker back to the ribbing. The second time around is going quite well, still uneven though I think it is less so then the first try. A problem that bugs me even more is the uneven stitches. I'm not quite sure what I am doing wrong but I have to go back every now and then with a needle and pull the stitches up so that there is a crisp boarder where it is needed. And some stitches are too large/small. But I will keep knitting this pair, and when I finish them I will likely start another. They are addicting, and living in a place like Calgary you can always use a couple pairs of mittens.

And Now For Some Knitting

I've had these scarfs done for awhile now but not blocked. I completed most of the two scarfs while at the SFN conference - thank goodness that I could knit on the planes too. It made the actual travelling bit go by very fast. The hat was recently completed. This means that my final thing to do is ********** for my mom. I don't know that these will be sent in time to get to the recipients by Christmas but they WILL get them before the end of January.

The first is for my husband's Nana, she crocheted me a stocking for Christmas so this is my thank you to her






Branching Out Scarf from Knitty
Rowan Kidsilk Haze

This one if for my mother-in-law



Razor Lace Scarf from 101 One Skein Projects
Rowan Kidsilk Haze

And this is a hat for my husband (we are big Firefly/Joss Whedon fans). I don't do stealth knitting so he has tried it on etc.



modified Jayne Cobb hat
Lamb's Pride Worsted (held double)

But is it Scientific?

No. The study of psychotherapy, paranormal events, and spirituality - to date - are not scientific. By its very definition science is repeatable objective observation of a phenomenon. And those topics do not easily lend themselves to an objective study. The nature of these topics there is some undefineable quality, something we know is there but cannot measure. Does that mean that they are less valid or true - nope. But in our current culture it seems that we value science over just about everything else. And unfortunately in my area of work and study, if I don't order my values this way I tend to be thought of as someone who is in the wrong field. One of the professors even said that yesterday at the talk - the presenter had people who believed in a higher power or something bigger than themselves to put up there hand, and some of us (me included) did. And the prof essentially said that although our beliefs were up to us, we should think hard about whether we were in the right field. I know I am where I need to be - perhaps not the right area of research, thus I am switching, but in academia. I feel a sort of calling - I am good at what I do and when I'm in the right lab I feel really passionate about what I do. When teaching I get a sort of excitement that I don't get from other work interactions. So the professor is wrong - I am in the right field and these beliefs can co-exist if we want them to.

I hope this makes sense because I am quite tired. I didn't sleep very well or solidly last night. But now I am going to a PhD thesis defense that could last 2 hours. I am glad - my job is to sit and listen and show my support of the student (who is a friend/acquaintance).