Me Week 2009 Results Board

Me Week is drawing to a close. After three consecutive days of flights, Michael is home.

It’s been a busy, busy two weeks, and I definitely did not accomplish everything I’d hoped. Still, I made major strides in several key areas.

Spinning

My first-ever hank of handspun has been plied and twisted into a hank.



My second-ever hank of handspun—and the first that is project bound—has been plied and is currently having its twist set. Two plies are the pencil roving I purchased at Zeilingers Wool Co in Frankenmuth, Michigan last year. The third is a corriedale roving I purchased at Yarn Barn a few weeks ago. So far I’m very pleased with the result. It’s the bulk that I had in mind for my pillow project. Now I just need to find time to knit up a gauge swatch.



Knitting

As you know, the sleeves on the bi-color cables sweater turned out freakishly long. And I don’t have short arms. It’s not a gauge problem. I knit to gauge, and the sleeve turned out to be the length that the designer specified. I frogged only one sleeve at first, so I could use an original sleeve for comparison purposes if necessary. I decided to knit the sleeve specified for the smallest sweater, but it was going into a larger armhole. To help me visualize the problem, I made several charts in Excel, then came up with a good compromise in armhole shaping between the two.



It turned out to be a fairly good fit. Still a bit too long, but at least close enough that I can bunch it up and make it work. I’m not happy with the size of the armhole, but to fix that I would have to frog the main body back to the armhole bind-offs, and I am so not going to do that. So I’ll live with baggy armholes. Now I’m about half-way done with knitting sleeve #2.

The second panel of Knit Meat in a Cheesecloth Sandwich is about 1/3rd complete, but I have run out of fishing line. Rather than run around town looking for it, on Monday I’ll pick up another spool at the sporting goods store where I bought the first spool. So it’s now on hold.

Wolf in the Mist has been swatched, and I’m ready to find the instructions for making a crocheted cast on. Never done that before. Should be fun! I thought I was buying a fairly comperable fiber to the one specified in the instructions, but as it turns out I need to use a US 7 to get gauge, rather than the US 2 the pattern specified.



(I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a space-time anomoly over my home. It also makes whole hours inexplicably disappear.)

Sewing

The new back cushion for my antique iron rocking chair (it was made for a private rail car over a century ago) is done and all cushion-y



I ended up making the ties out of a Noro cord that I purchased that fateful fall afternoon around three years ago when I stumbled into a yarn shop for the first time in a decade, and found myself buying fiber, needles, and a how to knit book on the spot.



It’s amazing, and a little creepy, how well the colors match. The variegated cord contains every color found in the fabric.

Rusting

The mystery project is, still, rusting. Which is a good thing. Really.



Tree clearing

Thanks to some new “we really mean business” anvil loppers, the last of the volunteer mulberry trees has been chopped up and bundled, with the exception of some larger limbs that require a chainsaw. The chain on my saw needs to be tightened, but I decided I’d rather do that when a second body was at home, just in case I do something stupid and require an immediate and bloody visit to the emergency room.



Painting

All our new siding is back-primed and ready for the contractors to install whenever the new windows are delivered.

Cooking

I made five suet cakes using the leftover birdseed from our old house, and the bottoms of quart-sized milk containers. A bird-attracting form of stash-busting, I guess you could say.



I tested yet-another bread recipe, this time a sourdough rye bread. And it is not only tasty, but works extremely well alone, toasted, or made into sandwiches.



And I discovered that the solarium is an excellent location for letting the dough rise.



And made a half-batch of our favorite bran muffin recipe, which were still warm from the oven when Michael got off the plane.



Working

The fourth episode of our vidcast is close to completion. Just waiting for my color adjuster to return and it’ll be ready to upload.

Created a custom ringtone for my iPhone based on our vidcast credit roll.

I finished a video for a client, and an assignment that I didn’t know about a week ago.

And two weeks later, all 565 pages of my tax organizer have been completed. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it felt like 565 pages, alright? Business books are finished, and ready to close. Now it’s ready to turn over to the accountant.



All in all I think I had a fairly productive Me Week. Don’t you?