new! improved! now with 75% less sinus infection!

FO: finals socks
Yarn: Mama E's C*EYE*ber Fiber in colorway Mermaids
Needles: size 1 dpns

I wish the ankle/leg area were tighter on these, but there's no way I'm going back to fix them now. Next time I'll know to cast on fewer stitches.

In other news, I was sick, but now am feeling better. This post is riveting, I know.

so it's just plain anemois, then?

Awww, you guys have no flava! All right then, I'll get over it and call them Anemois. I'm taking a little break from them right now though. I did the cuff of the second mitten and then decided I really need something I can knit while I read (so, not the Anemois) and something that's portable (so, not the Plain Jane raglan). No, of course I didn't make this decision while standing in a yarn store fondling delicious purple sock yarn. Why do you ask? Did Steve tell you that? Well, what kind of a rap name is Steve?

a mitten, a vote, and some advice

Since apparently the Anemoi are the wind gods, I thought it would be more appropriate for my color scheme to call these mittens... what ever the fire god(s) are called. I thought about it (i.e., I googled) and remembered (a.k.a. found on a website) that the Greek god of fire and metalworking is Hephaestus. So I uploaded some photos to flickr, all, "check out my hephaestus mittens!" and then I read the wikipedia page about him. It was this part in particular: "...Athena refused a union with Hephaestus, and that when he tried to rape her she disappeared from the bed. Hephaestus ejaculated on the earth, impregnating Gaia," that gave me pause. I just don't want to name my mittens after a rapist, you know? So--Hestia mittens? Prometheus mittens? Pele mittens? Get over it and just call 'em Anemoi mittens?





And now for the advice segment of our blog post. It has been noted by many before me that drinking and stranded colorwork do not mix. However, I thought I could just have one casual lunchtime beer and keep knitting. I did keep knitting. I did not keep knitting according to the chart. Which, with stranded colorwork, is kind of essential. In fact, it's kind of the point. I didn't frog because a) it's my first colorwork and I like that you can see the learning curve, b) I kind of just want to get them done and c) the whole thing is supposed to be stress relief for my busy semester, so I'm not going to make it more stressful by insisting that it be perfect. It's actually pretty hilarious.



p.s. I've decided the aged picnic table on my parents' deck is the perfect backdrop for knitting photos. It's a neutral shade, but not boring, doesn't have to be set up (like draping a table in a beige tablecloth would, for example), it's in natural light, and it's right out the back door.

flickr meme, or, playing with big huge labs to avoid homework

(edited to, you know, ADD THE ACTUAL PICTURE. GOD.)

Saw this at my knitting and me, whose Deep V Argyle Vest I admired on Ravelry:

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Cari
2. What is your favorite food? pizza (don't know why this photo was tagged pizza, but liked it)
3. What high school did you go to? Pocono Mountain
4. What is your favorite color? red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? David Benedek
6. Favorite drink? Yuengling (photo of cavelike area on brewery tour)
7. Dream vacation? Chile
8. Favorite dessert? cheesecake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? teacher
10. What do you love most in life? snowboarding
11. One Word to describe you. dreadnought
12. Your flickr name. safety dance

Here's the links, so you can give props to the OPs (the last one is especially worth checking out, I think, since the key to the graph is cut off).

1. Cari Pizzalolo, 2. Just a Perfect Day, 3. DWG - Pocono Mountains (1), 4. Autumn walk, 5. n40106817_30265402_5986, 6. D. G. Yuengling & Son Brewery Tour Caves - Pottsville, PA, 7. Lago Pehoe Panorama, 8. cheesecake for Lianna!, 9. Teacher in environment, 10. Face Shots, 11. Clipper Ship "Dreadnought", 12. Song Chart

i heart eunny jang

This pattern is, as I hoped, keeping me sane during this difficult semester. Just one row and I feel better. I'm about one-third of the way done, I estimate, with the first mitten, which means I'm one-sixth of the way done with the pair (relax! here at implosionexplosion, the math is done for you!).









Also pictured: my new love, my Skullcandy headphones purchased in anticipation of the snowboard season (ipod earbuds tend to fall out), which will look totally awesome with the new jacket I scored a couple weeks ago for $62. Yay summer sales!

I can't wait to finish this and walk around wearing just one mitten yelling, "HEY! I totally made this!" Because that's what I'm going to do.

I lied!

I'm posting again almost immediately! Here's the corrugated ribbing of my first Anemoi--so far, so good! I can't decide if this is an insane, eye-bleedingly ugly color scheme or awesome and bright and fiery. (The orange is not quite right on the screen, but the red is.) I'm just going to push onward and see how it looks when I get into the swirly pattern.

three knitting-related items, no pictures, very dull title

1. My mom is working on prayer shawls with some other ladies from her church. While she was teaching some of them to knit, she put her own shawl down for a minute, whereupon another lady picked up it and said, "Oh, what are you working on?" and started knitting! On her project! My mom's reaction, to me: "I mean, that's like using someone else's toothbrush!" Awesome, and true.
2. I know I said I was tired of colors and wanted to work on something natural and brown for a while, but I have lost momentum on the Plain Jane Raglan and, in the midst of school-related frustration this afternoon, decided to knit some Anemoi mittens. My theory on this is that they will drive me crazy and give me something else to focus my frustration on, so that I don't go crazy from school.
3. I went back to the notorious LYS that I said I wouldn't go back to. Well, I continue to be unimpressed. I was holding some Trekking XXL Pro Natura and said to the shop lady, "do you have any sock yarn--" and meant to continue "--that's less expensive, and comes in a wider variety of solid colors" but she interrupted, "that's sock yarn!" I continued with my sentence, and she pointed me over to the Dale section, which I had missed. I looked at the babyish colors of Baby Ull (well named!) and fumed for a minute, because... doesn't it say "sock yarn" right on the label? Did she think I couldn't read? I'm sure she gets lots of idiotic questions, but couldn't she let me finish?

So yeah, next post (so... next month, or maybe next year) I should have some pictures of the almost-finished-yoke of the PJR and my nascent Anemois, which I've already ignored some instructions on--I cast on long-tail instead of tubular, because I'm a rebel!

Oh, and I began student-teaching. Seventh grade geography, what what! On the first day of school, my mentor teacher was telling the kids what to expect this year and said we're going out to the swamp and we'll all get muddy and someone will probably fall in. Probably him, or maybe me. And this kid in the front room looks at me and says, "Wear heels."