Impulsiv

Usually I'm pretty monogamous when it comes to knitting. I don't like to start new projects when I have one going, and I've really been enjoying working on the Still Light tunic. So why is it, then, that I rather sheepishly have to report that I cast on for a totally new project today?

I've been thinking a lot about both dresses and skirts, and there are many fun patterns on Ravelry. While browsing around I came across something called "Bulgarian knitted skirt"; it's a free Japanese pattern blogged here, though thankfully someone on Ravelry was generous enough to translate it to English. Not quite sure why this is considered Bulgarian? At any rate, it's a fabulously simple A-line pleated skirt knitted in fingering weight yarn--perfect for some of that yarn I bought in Denmark last summer. Somehow I can't feel guilty about wantonly casting on something new when it's yarn that I have on hand. Much better than ordering new yarn, which I confess I've been a little tempted to do recently.

Here's what the start looks like:

(The color should be greener than this. Couldn't adjust it to save my life.)  There's a hem (about 3/4 inch) at the top for an elastic waistband. Then you start in on 1x1 rib for 12 cm, followed by an increase row, followed by 2x2 ribbing, then another increase row followed by 3x3 ribbing, then finally another increase row followed by a section of 4x4 ribbing. No counting, no thinking, just acres and acres of ribbing.  So addicting.

I don't think I ever posted a picture of the needle holder ("nålhus") that I bought a few months ago for my darning needles. It has to be one of my all-time favorite purchases:

If you are a knitter with a bunch of darning needles stashed away in various places, but you can never find one, you really, really need one of these. I got mine at Husfliden in Oslo for about 65 kroner. Well worth it!

We worked inside this morning for a couple of reasons. E woke up vomiting again (poor guy!!! We're really stumped as to why he's had such stomach trouble this summer), and it was pouring rain. I started out by putting up shelving in our storage room ("bod"), and then later in the day KE took apart more of the kitchen in our bedroom (!) in preparation for installing closets (yes, we have no closets). Here's a shot of the "bod" (though I warn you, it's not much to look at):

The shelves to the right and the drawer unit are part of the former kitchen. Now we just have to organize all the stuff that will be going back in!

My Mom arrives at the end of the week for a short visit and we're all really excited to see her. It would be great if we can get some of these indoor projects taken care of by the time she gets here, though that may be overly ambitious.

Rolig

We've continued to have lovely weather, and are into a really nice family "staycation" groove now. E has really mellowed out and has been such a delight to be with for weeks and weeks now. He's so much more able to get absorbed in playing on his own than ever before--he's acting more like the classic only child who is able to entertain himself, and when we're interacting with him there are far fewer tantrums and power battles. He's such a neat kid!

Today we took a break from painting and staining projects. While the boys went to the beach, I stayed in the shade (3-day headache...) and re-read Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer, which I liked even better the second time through. I really recommend it. I picked it up again because over the past few days I've been fixating on, of all things, serial killers in the Pacific Northwest. It kind of hit me the other day that my entire childhood was affected by a low level background of the violent torture, rape, abuse, and murder of young women at the hands of men like Ted Bundy, Randy Woodfield, and Gary Rigdway. I started compiling dates of activity and names (mostly from this old article from the Seattle PI), and counting Oregon and British Columbia, there were almost forty serial killers (depending on how you define the term) operative in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in the Northwest. It's so weird, especially since otherwise the murder rate in the region is noticably lower than other places, apparently. This article attempts to determine whether there really are more serial killers in the Northwest per capita, and if so why. Nothing conclusive, of course. This is actually something I think I want to write about in some capacity...

On a more wholesome (or at least domestic) note, I made vegetable soup earlier today, and right now I have a basic yellow cake in the oven. I went with a recipe from Bakerella's website (I think she and her "cake pops" are something of an internet phenom, but it was the first time I've actually looked at the site).


I have some before and after shots of our front door, which has changed fairly dramatically through the magic of paint. Before:

(Sanded, so even shabbier than it usually looked, and taped). Most of the royal blue door and ochre trim is overexposed, so you only get the true look of the color combination at the top of the door.  And then after:

Same house color (it just looks really different with different lighting), but now with a periwinkle or cornflower blue door, and white trim. At first KE hated the lighter blue, but I think it's growing on him. 

Still knitting away on Still Light. It's a great mindless summer project. I also ordered a color card of Istex Létt-Lopi and the pattern for Kedja from a Norwegian supplier called Birgirsdottir. Very happy with the quick service, and enamored with the fabulous color selection. It will be hard to decide on the colors for my tunic!

Tunika

Little bit of progress to report on the Still Light Tunic:

I finally made it past the yoke raglan increases last night! It is such a relief now to have 5 full centemeters of knitting with no increases. Surely I can't mess that up?

The tunic thing really has me hooked! I am contemplating knitting two more sweater dresses this summer and fall. One is a dress called Kedja (that "d" should be an "eth") made out of Istex Léttlopi. I've seen a really fantastic version of this on Ravelry done in a really soft brown (a sand or dun color) with natural for the contrast color. It looks great when the contrast is less stark. The other is so heavily modified in my mind that there's really no point in posting a link.

Rusten

The delphiniums are just past their prime, but still a spectacular blast of color in the yard:

 

We've been trying to adjust to vacation mode, which in our family always seems to entail a few temper tantrums (from all) before we can settle down and relax. We have no plans to travel, and are just going to try to regroup and catch up on everything that needs doing around here. First on the list is staining the garage. We got started yesterday on the primer, but ran out of the stuff (we started with 10 liters!) before we could finish the upper part:

It looks kind of nice with just the primer on, actually. It looks a little like the whitewash on the interior walls of our house. Unfortunately we can't do any work outside today because it's raining on and off. I think we're all a little stir crazy, trying to fill the time.

The other day I bought a liter of kefir for no good reason, and as it had already expired, I decided I really needed to make something out of it before it's too late. After poking around a bit I came up on this recipe for "Fluffy Kefir Pancakes" on a blog. Boy were they yummy!

With vacation time, I'm finally getting back into knitting. I had been plugging away on a cabled pullover in a charcoal gray alpaca yarn, but the color was just too dark to do credit to the cables, and the hard work just didn't seem to be paying off. So in typical fashion, I decided to rip out the two almost finished sleeves...

... and start over with something new. What I decided upon is the very popular "Still Light Tunic" designed by Veera Välimäki. It has a lot of features I like, in particular the fact that it has a top down raglan construction. I must be incredibly rusty, though, because I have had the darndest time making it through the yoke. I have already started twice, and have had to count and count and count, and rip and rip and rip. Here's what the back of my pattern looks like:

 That's never a good sign. Here are the two attempts. It's painful to see how far I got on the first one (on the left) before I stopped to count stitches:

It really shouldn't be that hard! I did notice that for the numbers to add up, the back part has to have two stitches fewer than the front part. I think that may have been the source of my initial confusion, since it isn't mentioned in the pattern.

I never did seem to get around to posting a picture of my iPad and wireless keyboard set up. Here's what it looks like:

 

I'm really happy with it, especially the keyboard. It makes a huge difference in how useable the iPad is. I've already started trying to scroll with my finger on the screen of my laptop after just a few weeks of iPad use! Unfortunately, I found out that there was a big game sale online, and Sims 3, which I've been thinking I wanted to try for ages, was on sale for a buck. Needless to say, I've become totally addicted in only a few days. Here's hoping I get over it fairly quickly (the iPad version is a lot more limited than the full game, apparently). 

Trosbekjennelse

I took the belief-o-matic quiz and got the following results:
 

 

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.
Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1.	Secular Humanism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3.	Theravada Buddhism (92%)
4.	Liberal Quakers (84%)
5.	Nontheist (79%)
6.	Taoism (72%)
7.	Neo-Pagan (60%)
8.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (59%)
9.	Mahayana Buddhism (57%)
10.	Orthodox Quaker (49%)
11.	Jainism (48%)
12.	New Age (43%)
13.	Sikhism (37%)
14.	Hinduism (36%)
15.	Reform Judaism (35%)
16.	Baha'i Faith (30%)
17.	Seventh Day Adventist (27%)
18.	Scientology (21%)
19.	New Thought (20%)
20.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (17%)
21.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (15%)
22.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (13%)
23.	Eastern Orthodox (10%)
24.	Islam (10%)
25.	Orthodox Judaism (10%)
26.	Roman Catholic (10%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (7%)

As far as I'm concerned, every thing after number six is pure conincidence or a factor of living in the same general culture.

Småting

Just coming up for air after a major article revision that took me way too long to finish. Sometimes my work really flows, other times not at all. All my knitting has stalled, and I don't want to start yet another project for fear that will stall too. I did do a little easy knitting on the trip to New Mexico to use up my left over Noro Silk Garden, though:

I used up all the black that I cut out of the Noro raglan pullover that I made earlier this spring. There wasn't all that much, so the scarf is pretty short. And, as you can probably see, I have yet to darn in all the (many!) ends.
We've been having really muggy weather, alternating between sun and rain. The garden is blooming and cherries and berries are ripening. I love this time of the year. Unfortunately, E is still suffering from a lingering stomach virus, though today he seemed to perk up for the first time in over a week. I think he may be over the worst of it.

Otherwise, we're anxiously awaiting word on various job applications, and I'm engaging in big time escapist fantasy. Even though I love living here, I can't help but dream intensely of living some other life in some other place. Will that ever stop?

Oh, at work today I had an amusing little cultural exchange that reminded me that I'm an American in Norway. One of the administrators came to my office and said "Dette er ikke en purring men, jeg ville bare høre hvordan det går med den karakterbegrunnelsen..." (this is not a reminder, but I just wanted to hear how it's going with that grade report...). Hello, that totally IS a reminder! Norwegians are so indirect...

Fetisjobjekt

So the iPad I ordered back in May finally arrived yesterday, and I have been fussing around with it ever since. Yesterday evening I was a little frustrated and disappointed, mainly because of how difficult the on screen keyboard made the interface. But while we were in the US I purchased a Logitech Zaggmate wireless keyboard, which I decided to test out this morning. What a huge difference it makes! Suddenly using the iPad works like a dream. I'm a pretty writing-intensive user, and I really can't imagine using the iPad without it, after only a day.

So far I've purchased two apps: an enhanced ebook (Jack Kerouac's On the Road as it happens) and GoodReader, for PDF annotation. I have also downloaded a couple of free apps, like KindleReader, iBooks, the British Library Collection, StoryKit, and the demo version of a game called Drawn. Didn't find the game very engaging. The verdict is still out on the two ebook libraries. Not sure I'll do much with StoryKit either, but the British Library Collection is a fabulous resource for electronic versions of 19th century British books. For example, there are enough travelogues on Norway in it to make the start of a research project.