Today's lunch

Today's lunch 7.28.10
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

consists of steamed green beans (love those frozen steam-ready bags), half a chicken breast left over from enchiladas a few nights ago, salsa, and a mozzarella string cheeseover the top. And maybe some crackers and grapes later if I'm still hungry.

I tend to skip the protein and eat carb heavy, but I'm learning that is the main reason I can't lose weight - even if I'm good with calories and the kind of food I'm eating.

This actually tastes pretty good. Maybe I'll skip the crackers - I know my nutritionist would be happier if I did!

Knitting content coming soon...

I've been trying to get more produce at the farmer's market and I keep meaning to keep a tally on here of what I purchase, but as you probably have noticed I haven't been posting much.

Last week at the Harvard Square Farmers Market I bought 4 zucchini, fava beans (yum!), and Narragansett Creamery Angelito Herb & Garlic Spread.

This week I went looking for more fava beans, but there were none to be found. Maybe I got them at the Davis Square market? That happens tonight. Yesterday at the Harvard Square Farmers Market I picked up Tomatoes, Broccoli,  and of course, Narragansett Creamery Angelito Herb & Garlic Spread.

It's been very stormy here, with sudden thunderstorms in the afternoon accompanied by small flash floods. I haven't looked at my garden since Sunday because I don't want to see what's been flattened until the rain is done. maybe I'll take a look tonight, just to see if I should stake anything up.

Gettin' er done!

Finally, a productive Saturday!

It is 8:12 pm, and I have done the following:
wtered vegetable garden
watered indoor plants
folded/hung up dry clothes from rack and put rack away!
Washed kitchen trash can
dumped, washed, and refilled litter pan
took out trash, recyling, and compost
talked to big sister for 3 hours
knitted 5 rows (hey, that's a lot for me)
run backup on my computer
located and tossed rotten potato

Summer weekends

I feel like this was my first official summer weekend this year, and I spent it doing lots of summer things. I:

-sprawled out in front of the fan and watch BBC America for hours (How Clean is Your House?, You Are What You Eat, Top Gear)
-made a pitcher of peach iced tea and drank it all in an hour
-did my crazy P90 cardio workout and yes, the Ab Ripper 100 too
-ate lunch and people watched in Boston Common
-spent time reconnecting with someone from high school and I think she and I will now be great friends - it only took 18 years!
-went to the MFA and soaked up some good art, stinky cheese, and sangria
-went for pizza
-ate Abbott's frozen custard from my hometown but in Needham, MA!
-puttered around in the garden
-watched as my computer slipped into a coma (not sure yet what the problem is or if it's fixable)
-pulled out a hibernating scarf project and knit on it for a while
-managed to sunburn just my neck and shoulders
-pulled smaller summer clothes out of underbed storage. I put on my shorts to go outside, and realized they were baggy. As in, too big for me. Hooray! So I decided to try some of the "used to fit but don't right now" clothes and voila! We have fitting! (must be a sign of weight loss but I'm too nervous to check)

Progress Bars

So right now I think I have five different posts in draft form, all 90% complete, and they haven't made it out here to the actual page where you readers can see them. Soon, I promise, I will post those and more. But for now, my first quick attempt at adding progress bars for my Ravelry projects. Ta-dah! (looks right) And...the percentages display in white, on white background. Hmm. And no thumbnail photos...Well, at least there are bars, and I'll get to fixing hopefully tonight, or this weekend.

The start of Power 90 - I have now taken 50 kajillion photos of myself in current fat state. with shirt, no shirt, all angles. did measurements beforehand. i am pleased that some measurements are smaller than when taken in december. am blinded by the camera now and am okay to start the first scary workout. wish me luck!

Look - little tiny lettuce sprouts! I planted these seeds and tons of others on Monday and they're GROWING!!!

Just spent 2 hours digging

Just spent 2 hours digging away at grass and giant roots. now have a plot approx 33in x 6 feet. that's probably enough for today.

Trying on Emmaline

Emmaline take 1 - 05.15.2010
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

I've used up one ball of yarn and started the second. I am 4 repeats in of the K1/Raglan Increase rounds and trying on Emmaline to see where the arms are. Are the markers that divide off the sleeve stitches supposed to meet under my arm? Is that how I know if it's long enough? For the large I need to do 8 rounds. I tried to take better pictures, but it's hard to hold the sleeve markers in place for the picture on my own. I guess that means they're not in the right place yet!

Proceed carefully

~Okay, I wrote this post over two weeks ago (looks like it was means for April 30), and when I posted it the middle bit was chopped out. I've been meaning to fix this post and rewrite it, but at this point I'm just going to fudge it.~

I always thought I was good at following directions and reading everything through clearly. Building bookshelves, a website, doing my taxes, catching important but minimally mentioned plot points, that's me.


Building a knitted garment, however, is not something my mind seems to want to do. Take for instance my early mishap with the Citron shawl. Having gotten through the strange 'knit a sort of square thing' with a lot of help from Amber (who says this cast on for shawls is used quite regularly) I jumped in. Knitting merrily along,


Row 1 [WS]: K3, place marker, p3, place marker, k3.


Row 2 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] three times, m1, slip marker, k3. 13 sts.


I get to the instruction Rows 3-5: Work in pattern as set, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st and working sts between markers in stockinette st. No problem. That means keep doing the pattern set up in Rows 1 and 2. I knit Row 6.
 
Row 6 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] seven times, m1, slip marker, k3. 21 sts. That instruction came after the section I had just knitted. Does this apply to the whole pattern? It doesn't seem to...but if I apply that to everything, then yes, the counts do come out properly. I ripped it out, started over, followed the instructions, and now I am much further along. Okay, further along for me. I am now halfway through the second section. Ok, that could have been a misinterpretation of instructions, but how about what happened last Thursday night?


What??? After this increase I am to have 21 stitches? I don't remember now now many I did have, but if I was going along increasing, starting with 13 stitches, plus 4, plus 8?, plus ??, so I had 40 or so stitches instead of 21. But I didn't notice that 21sts and I kept going.


Rows 7-11: Work in pattern.


By now I had WAAAY too many stitches, and I was looking at the counts, trying to figure out what I had done. A little further down in the pattern, it said


SHAWL BODY

Note: In all directions that follow, “work in pattern” means to work in stockinette st, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st as set.

~Here's where the bit I wrote disappeared. Crucial right? Anyway, figured it out, thought either the pattern/pattern writer/myself was having a bad day. Ripped it out completely, started again, which gave me practice with the odd casting on for this project, and ta-dah! I am now halfway through the second round of instructions.~

By the way, the white strings are dental floss lifelines so that I can rip back to the beginning of the section if necessary.

I was watching the finale of Project Runway (disappointing) and decided to dig in and make some progress on Emmaline since I had one and a half rows done. I was stuck on the row with RLI - right lifted increase - since I knit lefty and need to reverse the way I do the stitch. The instructions say:


RLI (Right Lifted Increase): Use the right needle to pick up the stitch below the next stitch on the left needle. Place it on the left needle, then knit into it. 1 stitch has been increased. 


Using this increase helps give the bulky yarn structure. I refer to the close up photo of the lovely, tight raglan seam of Emmaline. It looks like two solid lines of stitches drawn diagonally near the shoulder. 


And what did I do? Not that. M1 instead, which leaves a gaping hole beneath the added stitch. R-i-p.


After searching out instruction online, I started again. I now have about 10 rows of Emmaline so far, and I still don't think my RLIs look like the picture, but I have to keep going. It's the perfect weather to wear this now, and if I don't hurry up, it will be too hot. Maybe I should spend the weekend knitting?