Happy blogoversary and ...

...happy diamond jubilee to my sibling.  In his honor (he's a retired teacher), we will have a word of the day:  Snowclone.

A number of Ravelry posts I've read use the phrase "all the things".  When asked which of several colors of yarn someone liked, their reply was "all the things".  I finally got curious enough to find the source of this. The origin appears to be a cartoon.  I've seen variations of this around, but never associated it with that phrase. 

The phrase is a snowclone:
...a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence...

These examples taken from Know Your Meme should make it easy to spot a snowclone.

X is the new Y In ur X, Ying ur Z In Soviet Russia, X Ys You I’m not an X, but I play one on TV X is my middle name If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z When I say X, what I really mean is Y

Stricken II: Electric Boogaloo

strickstart, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

I started Cookie A's pattern Stricken about a year and a half ago. For some idiot reason, I used some fuzzy yarn with a lot of mohair in it. That's a Bad Idea because it blurs the stitches.

My restart uses some groovy yarn from Socktopus. It is very tightly spun which results in a springy yarn where the stitches can easily be seen. This is perfect for a Cookie A pattern. It also makes it plain to me that I'm going to have to find a way of purling that's friendlier to my knitting method. I promise that I'll do this, but I'm going to finish these socks first.

What I decided this week

• Decided that I was kidding myself about working on the Epic Tardis Afghan any time soon.  I moved the huge bag to another room so I don't have to pretend I'm about to get back to it.  I will finish it some day.
• Decided to make extra effort in using up yarn rather than buying any more.  5 skeins of sock yarn magically arrived this week and I only had definite plans for one.  I did make a scarf out of some leftovers and can now get the lid on the leftover sock yarn bucket.
• Decided  to go Ninja for the next Nerd Wars tournament.  Someone on the Ninja thread asked if this was anything like going commando.  No.  In fact, laundry will be more likely be done and there will be no necessity for such behavior.  Ninjas are not associated with a team and do as much or as little as they like.  I gave some thought to joining Team Browncoat, but I didn't want to risk letting them down.
• Decided to sign up for Tour de Fleece.  I'm on Team Nerd Wars.  My goal is to spin through the rest of the last Phat Fiber box I got.  If my energy and concentration get better, I may try the wheel.
• Decided to sign up for Ravelympics.  I'm on Team Nerd Wars for that event, too.  My goal is to do the Bigger on the Inside shawl.  The yarn isn't here yet, but I've got two months before it needs to be here.

Greetings from Weatherfield and Stars Hollow

I am vegging out with my knitting and videos.  My brother sent the latest Coronation Street tape (Canada should be caught up with the UK in a few months.  Yay!).  I've been going through Gilmore Girls withdrawal.  It used to be on tv every day and now it isn't.  I found a great deal on the whole series on DVD so I can watch it whenever I want to.

My favorite thing that I finished in the past week is this scarf:

I like Noro.

I did two Wee Tiny socks (snowflake=ugh-ly, brick house=cute).  I got the set of patterns from the first year of the Wee Tiny Sock Club and plan to do all of them. 

Yes, I've still got startitis.   I began a scarf pattern that uses up leftover sock yarn which is a very Good Thing around here.  I got a case of the dumb when attempting to execute the fairly simply stitch pattern.  It is turning into more of a double-knitting pattern instead of what it was supposed to be.  I'll finish the one I started and then do another one correctly.  Well, at least I'll try to do it correctly.  Come winter, I'll have a whole box of scarves and mittens to donate to people who might need them.

P.S.  I got my "It's the BBC, Baby!" swap this week and it was very cool.  Among the delightful gifties was an amigurumi whale and bowls of petunias stitch markers (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)  a pretty shawl (representing a towel), and a hand-knit Tardis.  I'm a lucky duck.

Yarn for Tardis Shawl

Someone on Ravelry posted about an independent dyer doing yarn for the Tardis Shawl.  He's using on the official BBC Pantone color for his Tardis blue.  I like that very much.  On top of that, the yarn's on sale this weekend only.  If you're reading this after May 6 2012, you might be able to get the yarn but you won't get a sale price.

I'm giving him a try.  Visit Knitivity if you'd like more information.

Start Attack

Startitis, I haz it:

• Nanaimo Socks, Cookie A club pattern, about to turn the heel on sock 1.  These were started when I was working on something that required massive amounts of counting and chart watching.  I wasn't feeling that well, so I needed something easy.
• Redbud Socks, Rocking Sock Club pattern, halfway down the leg on sock 1.  These were started when I was feeling better and got bored with the Nanaimo socks.
• Audrey's Elfin Leaves scarf.  When the yarn for this showed up, I stopped working on other things and worked on it.  It has 74 repeats of this leaf pattern on it and I nearly went back to working on one of the socks before I finished the leaves.  I may actually finish this before something else distracts me.
• Epic Tardis Afghan.  I've been successfully piling other knitting on top of it for months.  I will finish it at some point.
• Hopsalot bunny slippers.  They just need to be felted and sewn together.  I'm not sure where the parts are.

The list might continue into the next decade, except I ran into problems.  I'm going to knit someone a pair of socks.  I have plenty of time for that.  I have the right yarn.  I have a good pattern, except it isn't the right size for the person.  ::rant on:: Designers, my opinion is that it is your responsibility to supply size options to people who purchase your patterns.  It is not our responsibility to monkey around with multiple yarn weights until a round peg is wedged into a square hole.  I want to make socks with fingering and not dk or lace weight.  ::rant off::

Finally, there's the Tardis Shawl.  The yarn that I thought I was going to use hasn't arrived yet.  USPS told me I would have it yesterday.  After deciding to use this particular yarn, I found out that the yardage wouldn't be adequate.  I give up.  I'm officially in the queue at Jimmy Beans Wool for the official yarn for the shawl.

It looks like I've been stopped in my tracks for now.  However, I saw some really cute fair isle toy mice that the cats might like.  Maybe I could do those before going back to the socks?  And there's that cool-looking Mini Mania scarf.  I might be able to get the lid back on my sock yarn leftover bin if I started that.