Ravenclaw? No surprise there

So, I stayed away from the internet and tweens on Saturday, and only got to read my book at 11 pm on Sunday. I finished it at 5:30am on Monday morning, and had to wake up to take the kids to swimming lessons at 7:30.

Now I kind of knew that I shouldn't have stayed up that late. I'm really too old to be doing that. I obviously have no willpower. I will tell nothing of plot or anything, but I did think that while some of the vocabulary was stretched a bit at times, I enjoyed the book, and found all the ends tied up nicely.

I found the Sorting Hat quiz on Annie Modesitt's blog, and it put me in Ravenclaw. (I could have guessed that -- probably everyone who knows me would have put me there.)

I'm off to go buy some milk in the 90-something degree heat of Minneapolis. It's hot out there, baby.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

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Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

A Contest!

A contest for Victorian Lace and a skein of lace weight! Shelley Kang aka The Heathen Housewife is offering this contest, but you must be QUICK and enter by Friday July 20 before Shelley puts her kids to bed (I love that)!

Of course, if I am lucky enough to have lurkers that go enter *and* mention my blog or me, apparently I will get an extra chance. Love that.

Go now -- right here

Shelley is even offering to dye it to the winner's specifications. Sweet.

Go now. You have only 20 hours left.

Long ago (and far away)

Long ago, to save myself from some Kitchener stitch, I began some toe-up socks. I ripped out 66 stitches around and tried 88. I ripped out 88 and tried 77. I went with 77, then went too far, and ripped back so that I could have a heel in my socks. I made the heel (on blind faith), and got this far:



I think I'm liking it, and after this pic was taken I switched from zeros to ones, and I believe it will now allow my foot through the ankle portion. I kind of like the magic loop, but I'm not completely convinced yet.

Other things now OFF the needles! Swimming lesson time is a great time for me to sit and watch the kids and knit simple things. This scarf is beaded kidsilk haze at each end, and a very soft marled merino that I got in Tokyo. I did it in a simple feather and fan pattern. The ladies at the Rowan store in Tokyo gave me the pattern, and I only messed with it a little (!).


Then I also got a simple fancy fun thing from Knit Happens, and made this "Cabaret scarf." I am sure I never would have bought it in person, but I think it's growing on me. It is also finished.


I've begun another scarf with Knit One Crochet Two Jam fancy yarn, and while I am really not a big fan of the actual fancy yarns so much, I am enjoying the beauty of the colors as it comes out. The color blending is beautiful. You'll have to trust me on that, because right now there is a cold one waiting for me downstairs.



See ya later!

Pictures at last!

There has been a new development here at Tokyo Stitches (in Minnesota): the loss of two baby teeth!


The first was lost in the x-ray line at Narita Airport last Sunday -- the second of the top two was lost tonight, about 3 seconds after being tucked in, when she accidentally knocked her hand against her mouth and it fell out! Ta-da!

The Tooth Fairy has been notified.

Another delight (at least for me) was the arrival of the Sock Fairy, aka Blue Moon Fiber Arts:
Behold my lovely skeins of Socks that Rock. I've been wanting these for months. The colors are so beautiful I want to cry. As always, the colors are more more more in person. Imagine them a touch darker, and much more vivid and alive. They are soft. They are wonderful. I'm in love, and I don't know which one to knit first.

A really fun touch was the sticker they put in my box.
I feel like I'm part of the club now. I might even try to stick in on my blog somehow.

So back to the Minnesota Sky I love -- since I keep raving about it, here's a picture from my fantastic window, with the pinkish evening sky. It's not the best picture, but I wanted to highlight the light outside, not the window and wall inside. Don't you LOVE my window?
Let the record show that this picture was taken at exactly 9:09 pm Central Daylight Time. I love that it's still light out at 9pm.

The kids' room has a great window as well -- and a sun/moon on their ocean/beach fantasy wall. Since we can't paint the walls in our apartment in Tokyo, I went wild here!

Busy in SummerLand

We are loving Summer in Minnesota. Did I mention the blue blue skies and the flirty white clouds? The most beautiful skies in the world -- or at least some of them. (There are a lot of beautiful skies out in the world.) My apologies to those in some areas (like the Pacific NW perhaps) where gray and clouds are the norm.

Part of the fun of Minnesota is that the natives live large during the summer, knowing that it is brief and wonderful, and the days are long. They are walking, jogging, playing croquet, sitting at outdoor cafes, doing outdoor sports, and have a really fun time enjoying the summer. All too soon they will be putting on layers and watching the cold front move down from the Canadian Rockies straight over the Dakotas to Minnesota. Everyone is so happy and cheerful. I love it.

Pictures soon -- if you are walking around Minneapolis, St. Paul, or the southwest suburbs and see a woman knitting pink and chocolate colored socks -- say hi. It's me.

Life in Minnesota

Blue skies, freaky monsoon rains that start and end in a flash, green grass, smiling people -- I'm HOME!

I was greeted the evening of my arrival (driving jet-lagged in a rental car) by a darkening sky. My brother and I were grabbing some tacos to go, leave the Chipotle Grill and big raindrops are falling. By the time we get to his car, the rain is falling so heavy and fast (with pings of hail, too!) that if I had not been on a bridge with no shoulder I would have pulled over due to lack of visibility. Of course, 10 minutes later it was over, but it was pretty wild there!

The 11-hour plane ride was uneventful -- the best kind of trip. The kids were well-behaved, lined up patiently in each line they had to line up in, even when they had had only 90 minutes of sleep and it was 2am Tokyo time. The flight was a bit early, the bags came off right away, and we made it out to the arrivals area very quickly. (The speed of getting from baggage out to the arrivals area was due to a very kind flight attendant who took pity on me, with two dragging young children, each holding something (doll and stuffed dog) and pulling their suitcases, and I had 4 huge duffels on two carts, and I was walking back and forth between the carts pushing them and trying to get the kids to keep moving forward.... You can imagine.)

None of us slept much on the plane -- we've been here 2 days now, and we still haven't slept much.

Knitting on the plane? Surprisingly, even though I had two projects with me, I was busy attempting to feed the kids, get their crayons, books, snacks, etc, that I never was able to bring out my knitting, and then they turned the cabin lights off. I didn't get a single stitch in.

I *did* knit from 2am to 4am Monday morning, and for an hour this wee-am morning, so I think I've made up the time! And I've been knitting each morning during the kids' swimming lessons -- just need to be careful of where I sit, so that I don't end up getting chlorine on my socks!

More later -- we are swimming, biking, and falling asleep on the floor after eating just a few bites of dinner. (Actually, that was just one of us. I fell asleep on the sofa after finishing my dinner.)

Going to sleep now -- 9:32pm. I sure as &"'# hope I can sleep more than 2 hours tonight. I want to find knitting stores tomorrow!

Waiting for courage

While I've been waiting for the courage to rip out my lovely sock and re-start it (??!!), I've been trying to amuse myself with other things. I found an interesting Japanese book that had an amusing tank top in it that was all basically a mesh thing. I decided to try it for my daughter, who was excited about the idea. Unfortunately, I think I hate it. I have started twice, and I am just not enamored with the color, the ribbon, whatever. I'm using a size 15 needle, and I think it's going to take too long.



So I started a plain blue cotton hat for my son. About halfway through, I wonder why I'm doing it -- he doesn't need a cotton hat, and I'm not sure he wants one. He's a willing participant to the trying-on-thing, though, and I ask him if he'd like something on it, like a stripe in a fun color. "I want horsies on it," he responds, as he walks out of the room. (Remember the race car vest? He has an extremely vivid imagination of what I can put on knitted items because of it.)

Since I can't put horsies on a bulky cotton hat (without sewing patches on, making the whole thing a huge horse head, or something else), I put down the hat.

Next I picked up a small ball of Rowan cotton glace that I got a year ago to make into delicate lace washclothes. (The pattern actually calls for linen, it's the pattern that The Yarnery in St. Paul contributed to Knitter's Stash.) It amused me enough to keep me going, and let me not think about the lovely sock that I'd be ripping out soon.



It's nice, isn't it? Not too demanding, just friendly, quick start, quick finish, and you get to play with a new lace stitch. This one is the lacy vine.

Update: Morning brings courage. I ripped out the hat, the sock, and began both again. The sock is looking and fitting better, and the hat is cast on (smaller needles this time).

This is my last morning of peace for 2 months -- summer school/camp ends tomorrow with performances, then flying home, then weeks of swimming lessons at 8:15am for the kids. I'm going to go knit.

Tokyo Cost of Living

Today I'm going to share with you a little fun called "How Much Could One Raspberry Really Cost?"

Here's my grocery list for "just a couple things" I picked up today:

Orange juice, 1 liter -- $1.50
6 liters of milk, (i.e. about 3 half-gallons) -- $8.50 total
8 yogurts -- $8.50 total
2 tiny yogurt 4-packs -- $4.00
1/2 loaf of graham bread -- $2.20
4 bananas -- $2.20
6 bagels -- $7.20

Okay, expensive, but not crazy, right? Here comes the kicker:

Bing Cherries, 1 pint -- $11.00
Raspberries, 1/2 pint -- $10.00

I counted the cherries in that container -- 60 of them. After you add the tax of 5% on everything, EACH cherry costs 19 cents. Raspberries are a slightly better bargain -- there's about 70 of them, and that makes EACH raspberry 15 cents. Of course, if you go by weight the cherries are the better deal, even after pitting them.

So, my little trip to get just fruit, bread, and milk for 3 days is over $55.00 US. (Insert gasp here.) The berries will last through breakfast, the cherries through to the end of the day. Then back to the store for more fresh fruit. (Peaches are 2 for $18.00 right now. We're passing on those for a while.)

By the way?? This is the regular grocery store. Not the high-falutin'-gotta-wear-your-diamond-tiara-to-go-shopping one. Not the "we supply fruit to the emperor" one. Not the one that stocks the square melons for $80 - 200 US ("that's just wrong," as my brother would say), it's Just a Grocery Store.

Don't ask about the time I bought a mango without looking at the price tag -- there was a basket of $8.00 mangos, and a basket of $9.00 mangos, and a basket of mangos that looked the BEST, but did not have a price tag on the basket. Reason: each single mango had a price tag, a whopping $28.00 US. I found out when I got home. It *was* an exceptionally good mango. (The other, less expensive mangos were from Mexico and the Philippines, and the super expensive little one was from the southern islands in Japan.)

I'm a lot more careful about reaching into the fruit basket now.

Math for knitting

I love math. There. Hate me if you like, but there you have it. Math is my friend.

When I first began knitting I realized that if I wanted to recreate a picture in intarsia I needed to figure out my exact gauge. I'm a good study, and I knew enough to make a large swatch in the same yarn and the same needles I was planning to use. I took the gauge, put it into Excel, and made myself my own personal gauge chart.

Then I took a large picture of Lightning McQueen, taped it to the window on a sunny day, and put my gauge graph on top of it. Trace, color, and voila! I had my intarsia chart. I didn't let it bother me that I did not have any intarsia experience, I just kept several good knitting books around while I did it, and the results were awesome.

So when I decided I really wanted feather and fan lace socks, I did a big gauge swatch, took out Sensational Knitted Socks that I had ordered expressly for this sock yarn, and began my math journey. Let it be shown that I measured and made notes:


Still, when my gauge said that I was knitting at 9 stitches to the inch, and the sock I wanted to knit in the feather and fan pattern was going to yield a sock that fit either an 8 inch diameter foot or a 10 inch diameter foot, I wasn't sure what to do. I knew I needed to end up with a 9-inch sock that stretched to 9.5 inches.

Actually, deep down I knew that this pattern wasn't going to work with these socks, but I was in denial. This is the yarn, this is the pattern, it will work by the force of my will. I decided to knit the bigger one, but I'd knit it "really tight" and hope my gauge hit 10 or so. I even BENT THE NEEDLES getting it that tight. (The needles work just fine bent, thank you. They conform nicely to my demands.)

I ripped out what I'd begun as my test swatch, and began again with 88 stitches, going for the 10 inch sock, and then realized it was huge. It was going to be 10 inches, but it would be baggy. I ripped back to the toe, and stopped increasing at 66 stitches for the 11 stitch repeat (yes, 77 is probably perfect, but I was believing that I should have the same amount of stitches on each side). Now that I'm halfway up the foot, each time I try it one I realize that OOPS, lace is not very flexible, and even though it fits, it's not roomy. I like roomy. My toes like to breathe.


Isn't it beautiful? It would be perfect for a woman with size 7 or 8 feet in a normal width. Someone like....my mom.

So now the dilemma -- rip back a 3rd time and start with 77 stitches, just putting 3 repeats on the top of the foot until I get to the leg? Rip back a 3rd time and choose a new pattern? Or keep going and give them to my mom?

I'm leaning towards the first one. I love the yarn, and I picked it expressly for myself. I like the pattern. I love my mom, but I don't know if she wants socks. Actually, she'd probably love socks. She's not a big pink person though. She'd love some blue ones, I'll bet. I bet she'd wear them only when her feet were in the air, and take them off before they touched the ground.

Don't you LOVE how I can justify keeping the socks for myself?

On another note, my big Japanese calligraphy test is this month, and I've finished my submissions for that test. I'm hoping to do well -- I'm particularly pleased with the left two. For those not familiar with Japanese calligraphy (shodo), these pieces of paper are about a foot wide and about 4.5 feet long. I grind the ink by hand, and have to get the color right. There are all sorts of things that make shodo "beautiful" that would be considered mistakes in many other forms of art. The ink trailing off in an intermittent streak -- it's called "kasure" and it is a very desired effect. The changing of the ink's tone, the addition of fresh ink in a spot that is NOT at the top of the paper, and in an appropriate break in the poem -- all these things are considered. I have a very good teacher who tells me exactly how to write it.



I won't know until August or even September if I go up a level. It's like karate or judo -- you get different rankings as you go on! My husband likes to say that I'm a black belt in shodo.