53 + 43 = 98

Don't cha know??

Yeah, math was never my strong suit. I managed to get As through school, I even managed to stumble through Calc III in college (goodness, what was I thinking?!? And why didn't anybody stop me?!?), but it always required superhuman efforts to do it (let alone understand it). And adding in my head was always my Achilles' heel. Not that I always use calculators--- but fingers, pen and paper (clearly not effective here), beans, whatever, I need a crutch.

And with the math issues addressed:

A foretaste of what is to come. (You should see the underside! Hoo-boy!)

Oh, and in other news, I made a $600 dollar mistake today in the lab. The cost is not what upsets me; rather, it is the lack of progress, but the cost adds insult to injury. For the next few days, you can probably assume any knitting progress is to compensate for the lack of it in the lab.

. . .Will probably die tryin'

So yesterday I woke up and set about sewing on buttons, but it was quickly obvious that this was not going to happen. All of my tapestry needles were too large to fit through the button, and I didn't have a small enough crochet hook to improvise. So some errands were in order.

(Sidenote: I'm not caffeinated yet and those five lines took me FOREVER to type because of all the typos I had to go back and correct. I'm tempted not to correct them; it may be amusing to read)

Of course, with me, I can never go out and just get ONE THING. I have to nose around. I have to see the inventory of that entire store and adjacent stores. And after getting a call from my mother, angry that I didn't tell her about Daylight Savings Time and sitting in the church parking lot an hour before everyone else (I totally forgot at the last minute and I haven't found a church in my new town yet, I've kind of given up, in case you're part of the Church Police), I figured I really had time to nose around.

So I come out of Target (no purchases) and get back to the car and see a glove under my windshield wiper. Funny, I didn't bring in my gloves. . . Well, apparently one got loose when I got out of the car and some really sweet person stuck it on my windshield! Who does that these days? I was stupefied. Still am. I guess what goes around comes around. A few months back, at this same Target, I came upon a crowd of people gathered around someone having a seizure. The person was breathing fine and not actively convulsing and the paramedics were on their way, so I felt stupid to hang around and advertise myself as a physician (#1, seizures aren't really a surgery resident's specialty, and #2, what more could I do when the ambulances were coming?). Apparently I could do something--the woman was on her back, a BIG no-no (you can choke on your own tongue, or vomit and breathe it in, charming, I know) so I butted in and helped get the woman on her side. A long-winded story, but my point is (what is my point? Coffee, need more coffee) that what goes around comes around. A little karma, if you will.

After spending all morning browsing, I realized when I got back that I was totally under the gun and tried to seam the edging, but I miscounted. Given all I had yet to do yesterday, I put it aside. I won't sacrifice quality for speed. But at this rate, I'll still be working on it on my deathbed.

Newsflash--Newsflash--Newsflash

Leftie's done!

And the best part--she looks just like Rightie! (actually, that's a lie, do you see the diff???)

I'm going to decompress now and block the edging and while that's beginning to dry, I'll weave in the rest of the loose ends (Rightie's already pretty on the inside, just Leftie to do). And tomorrow, on go the edging and buttons!

Get finished or die tryin'

Sorry if I offend you with a nod towards gangsta rap.

I have too many projects cooking, both in my personal life (knitting) and at work. I was under the impression that my research advisor was revising my abstract one last time, and then the entire paper, which has been festering for nearly ten months, would be out the door. I was so wrong. I now have to look at 4 other pathway intermediates before we send it out, and they aren't things anyone in the lab has looked at for other projects, which means I don't have the supplies or even know what to order, so this is practically a 2-3 month setback.

With this being Friday's big news, I have thrown myself into finishing Pam, hence the post's title. Along that line, I offer you some photos of a seamed Right Side.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Deep breath.

Sunday's post was practically prophetic.

Two hours later, I get THIS email:

My good friend from college and her husband of 2 years (or so) are expecting their first child! Try to imagine, if you will, that it's wearing a knitted hat and booties. . .

The word on the street is that they'll know the gender by the end of the month. That at least gives me a little time to finish up some of my &%#@ ---oops, I mean, projects--before I start something for Baby.

Switching gears, here are my faves from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2006. I took photos of them--I didn't scan them (I think I did OK). Hopefully I won't get busted for breaking any copyright rules.

Vladimir Teriokhin did 6, 7, and 9. Where do I start???

A pre-seaming fitting session

Everything is safety-pinned while I try it on for size. I'm pulling down the front because the ribbed edge/collar appears to pull it up. From what I know, you're not supposed to block ribbed parts, but I may do so.

I think the fit will be perfect. Perfect, I tell you! The gloating has started a bit preliminarily here.

After all the flailing on the collar/edging's buttonholes, I ended up doing the ribbing exactly as directed. When I set out to knit this thing, I wanted to make the collar more "voluminous" but I opted to keep it simple after all. It looks more voluminous than in the photo Rowan provided, at least. And if it were any more so, it would look stupid to wear a coordinating scarf I have with it. So there it is.

And because it's always sexy to pose with the vacuum cleaner in the background. . .


And a detail shot.

Drooling yet???

Cheers, y'all.

Baby's first buttonhole.

The Pam sweater is still stagnating. I attempted the ribbed edging/collar twice before I broke down and swatched a buttonhole. Knitting five rows of 330 stitches each before discovering that the buttonhole directions Rowan gave yielded a hole which barely accomodated my pinky, let alone for a 5/8-inch leather button, was NOT cool. Equally not cool was the second go-round, when I experimented with buttonhole sizing and creation after knitting those same 330 stitches another 5 rows. That's when I broke down and swatched. And it still took me a while to figure out something that the button could fit through.

I modified the pattern from a yo, k2tog to--- binding off 3 stitches, and on the following row, yo 3 times. It's perfect, lemme tell ya. So if you have decided (perhaps foolishly) to follow my lead and knit this sweater, dear reader, this blog entry is the key to the kingdom (as far as the buttonholes go).

The edging/collar is finished now. It's a matter of seaming the shoulders and attaching the arms (already seamed), and seaming this latest piece on. Oh, and the buttons! Let's not forget those.

I'll eventually make one last groan and get this baby out. . .

Lucky No. 13

Our hotel room is beautiful! I'm especially enjoying the window seats. Our room has other issues, however. . .

I met my roommate at the parking garage last night (she's a med student and pres of the surgery interest group) and got confused in the elevator: Did they put all the buttons for the even floor in one column and the odds in another? No, wait--there's 14 right above 11, that can't be right--and there's 12. . . Ohhhhhh. . . We're on the 13th floor! No button! Now I get it.

I guess this explains my near-mugging in broad daylight in a good part of the city yesterday. Don't worry, I'm safe, and I'm carrying my mace with me now (I didn't have it, it was on my car keys, and I didn't think I needed them). That sucker shoots up to 10 feet. Look out, people!

I guess this explains why my roommate broke her foot last night. Yep, that's right. We come to a strange town and she breaks her foot walking through a construction zone (with no beer in her system, ironic). She managed to hobble back to the hotel (we were already on our way) but it was pretty swollen already. We thought ice and elevation and Ibuprofen and a little sleep would take care of things, but this morning--no such luck. First spot I touched on examining her foot put her on the ceiling. We suspected the worst at this point. We ended up taking a cab to the convention center and sought the First Aid folks. There's nothing like needing a doc when you're in a room full of docs and you are one yourself.

They took one look at her foot and recommended she get to an ER.

So our morning was spent in the ER, and sure enough, she broke it (the 5th metatarsal, through-and-through, in case you care). As we would say to our students during morning rounds, "Strong work!!"

She's as fine as she can be, all vicodin-ed out on the bed, and I'm OK, so all is well. Just a few misadventures to re-tell now.

More later. . .

make that motOr.

Crap. The Holiday Vogueknitting is out.

From the looks of my blog, I dropped off the planet for a while, which isn't far from the truth. I've been preparing for a presentation at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress, finishing experiments here and there for certain papers by people who have since left the lab, and taking care of and sacrificing the lab animals (of course, some crucial sacrifice timepoints just had to land during the week of final preparations for this presentation). And I was in the lab until just a few hours before I left for the ACS convention pulling a few things together for my presentation. Nothing like taking it to the wire, eh?

So now I'm at this convention, with a little time on my hands (I did not bring the knitting, apparently I cannot handle even stockinette stitch in the solitude and calm of my own home, so how the heck can I knit competently while on the road with strangers?) and a Borders only 2 blocks away. Bad combination. There's also a Staples a few more blocks down the way. And a Macy's! Bad, bad, bad. Of course, I ended up at the Borders, and discovered the Holiday issue was out.

It wasn't supposesd to go down like this. I have 2 projects stagnating at home. They should be done. My goal was to have a whole week's worth of apparel knitted by moi for this event, maybe even to wear with my suit for the presentation, because this surgeon can do more with string and needles besides suture. Yeah, right. Didn't happen.

And now, this magazine comes along and I'm drooling over almost every project!! Good ol' Vladi has my moter going with a few of these projects. I really seem to have taken to Teriokhin's designs (#7, 13, 14)--they were the first I marked.

Speaking of which, I've started seaming the Teriokhin braid and I think it's going to fit like a charm. I still have the collar and sleeves to do. Don't wait for me to finish, Kristina, it's gonna take a while! The yarn supply is questionable, so I may make the sleeves 3/4 length, just in case. The last thing I want to do is re-knit anything on this sweater (again). Plus, I seem to have developed a heat intolerance (this from the girl who studied through med school in flannel pajamas, wool socks, fleece robe, and sat on a heating pad to stay warm.). I think residency flipped some sort of temperature control switch in my pituitary. I can't wear much more than scrubs these days. . . .And WHY am I knitting in wool???? Because this is what knitting should be: sumptuous, luxe, enveloping, cozy.

I have zero idea when I'll have pix ready. Don't hold your breath, folks.