An Open Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

This year for Christmas I would like a new gelaskin for my new iPad. I like M. C. Escher’s Reptiles one, or there’s a blue robot one I like too. I could also use an InvisiShield Screen protector for it. I would also like iTunes gift cards because apps are fun and iBooks are good too. My iPad could also use another USB to Lightning cable. Maybe you could put that in my stocking.

For other toys, Moleskein is making stationary boxes / kits. I would like the one that is themed with Le Petit Prince, or the 2013 weekly planner with Le Petit Prince. I really want the Lego Winter Village sets or Lego Architecture Big Ben. As for DVDs and whatnot, I would like the DVDs of This American Life TV show or the live show called “Invisible Made Visible”, Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson, Brave BluRay & DVD combo pack, Seasons 3 & 4 of The IT Crowd, or The Mission.

For books & music, I would like That Eternal Day by Cantus, or Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer, anything by David Rakoff (I don’t have anything he wrote), Cockeyed by Ryan Knighton or Stitch New York by Lauren Farrell. I also need a new winter hat. I would like an Oscar the Grouch one, or gray/red/black, preferably with ear flaps. I could use a vent mounted universal phone holder.

Heck, as long as we’re talking, Santa, I need a new car. I think I want a Prius, the wagon one. Used would be ok.

That’s all ephemeral though, you know. Here’s the important part, Santa. I really want to wake up Christmas morning to find these things under my tree so I could share them:

• I want something to stop things like the Sandy Hook school shootings and for all children to feel safe in their schools.
• I want all people the world over to be free, have shelter, enough food, safe water and access to good medical treatment.
• I want more love, acceptance and kindness for everyone the world over, regardless of color, religious beliefs, gender or orientation (sexual or otherwise).
• Most of all, I want every human to wake up Christmas Day and know that we only have one life, one planet and one race – the human one, so we better get to working together.

If you can’t bring those things, Santa, can you please bring me the will, drive and strength to work for those things in the world myself?

Finally, I would also like a hypoallergenic kitten and I wouldn’t say no to a goat. Thanks for all your hard work in years past. I hope you have a nice Christmas, I’ll leave cookies and warm cider out for you.

Love,
Mostcurious Monkey

Summer Flies

Summer flew by me this year. We are having some major changes in our lives chez Curious at the moment and I spent a lot of the summer getting ready for those things, then working on those things. To be honest, I am still working on those things.

The good changes: Our house is sold and the closing date is set. We will make money off the house when everything is said and done. My department is now two people instead of one, with a dedicated portion of a third person as an “advisor.” The three of us have a LOT of work. I did not travel to India this summer but am getting ready to go in January this year. My OCD is a great deal better than it was even a few months back.

The rougher changes: We are not moving together. The HH™ and I are separating and it is entirely my idea. The Kid™ is probably the most nervous about what this means, but we will share custody as close to 50/50 as we can. As we lost JD this spring, Smudge is our only pet left, and she will go with the HH™. I’m moving into some temporary space with family before trying to find my own place.

I don’t really want to say much more than that here, but there are good days and bad days for all of us. There is a lot of loss to grieve as we go through this transition to the next thing. The important thing is, we are moving forwards with great respect for one another.

Along with these changes, I’m contemplating the future of this blog. I love it, I do. I am a language lover and a storyteller. I like showing off my crafts and documenting what I’m learning. But there’s a lot of stuff I’m censoring because it needs to be kept private and it’s hard to find my balance. Especially as I’m not crafting as much as I’m packing, moving and cleaning.

In the in-between, as I sort out again who I am, I am around on twitter some. I hope the next time I’m able to come by I have more crafty-ish news for you. In the mean time, here’s some lions from National Geographic because I like them. Best of wishes in your own crafty endeavors!

Knitting Mojo and Bad Riffs

My knitting mojo has been coming and going in waves lately. After a long span of no knitting when I was focused on other things, the waves have gotten much shorter. I finished up those mother bears and completely knit two new ones. I took a short break, and then picked back up some socks I started in January.

I really, really want to love the Riff socks. I love the idea of a musical riff becoming a repeating pattern in a sock, because I’m a musical kind of person. I like the diamonds. I love the twisted stitches. I like the all the symmetry. I even like the way it looks in this yarn. But. (You knew there was a but, right?) My knitting time now is limited and extremely fragmented. The complexity score of this sock is far too high for “I have ten minutes of knitting time during which I am probably also talking to my kid or my spouse or participating in a teleconference.”

Let’s say the base complexity score of a sock is 3 (the heel, toe, more than 2 needles) because a sock is pretty much a long tube of continuous knitting with a couple of bends. Now let’s look closer at Riff.

Complications from the base sock:

• It’s a toe-up sock, which is a new technique for me (+0.5 because it wasn’t difficult and was really enjoyable to learn).
• It has left & right twists, which are a new technique for me. (+1 because I knit tightly and it’s a little hard but they look cool)
• It has a chart to follow, which, when I printed it, did not have the note explaining that the repeating section didn’t start at row 1 (+1.5 – 0.5 for having to follow a chart, +1 for it having an error)
• The heel gusset increases happen every 3rd round, in a polyrhythmic contrast with the every-other-line twisting of pattern stitches (+3 because polyrhythmic things are HARD to do. It’s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach.

So that brings us to a complexity level of 9. Yeah, that’s way way too complex for teleconference knitting. In the nine rows of heel gusset I managed, I missed an increase in one round, put in an extra round of plain knit, and then twisted the stitches the wrong direction on the next pattern line. When I realized that I’d made that third error in nine rounds (and I was amidst re-knitting an inch of sock that I’d screwed up by not starting the gussets in time) I understood what the sock was trying to tell me.

Now is not the time and this conference call is not the place for this sock.

Ribbit, Ribbit. This yarn wants to be something much simpler I think.

Wrapping Up

Another thing I’ve been wrapping up during the last few weeks: Mother Bears.

This one was started in 2010 – in fact, I think a lot of it was done in 2010 or early 2011 but I almost always stall on embroidering faces.

She was started in 2009. I think I finished her in 2010 sometime but again, stalled out on faces.

This one I started in February of this year. When I can’t think of what else to knit, I drag out my scrap pile and start a bear. She’s the 13th bear I’ve knitted, so I called her Lucky.

This girl was started just in May. I decided to do one more before I sewed faces on all four. I forgot that embroidering with yarn makes for lumpy eyes sometimes. When I finished knitting her I was true to my word and embroidered faces on all four. My daughter was thrilled because I promised her the older girl bear up there. Now Anna (who may have been renamed) is snuggled in her bed for the summer.

Cleaning Up

I found this while I was cleaning up over the last couple of weeks!

This is my second-ever crochet project. It’s an awful late 70s/early 80s shawl in a really hideous purple and teal acrylic (Red Heart Super Saver, actually). It’s scratchy and unfashionable. What could be better? I was proud of myself for finishing it but knew even right off that it was ugly and ridiculous. It’s going to a new home. I’m sure someone will enjoy the warmth it can provide. Good luck, ugly shawl!

Left You Hanging

Sorry to leave you hanging on that ironing project there. It’s done. There’s been some upheaval in my life that’s kept me really busy the last couple of months. I’m really sorry, because I’ve missed you blog. For a while I wasn’t knitting much but I’ve picked up again.

It started when I decided to finish this long-outstanding blanket for a friend who passed away.

It took a couple of weeks of sewing, but it’s all pieced together now. In fact, I’m putting it in the mail today. It’s been done a few weeks but I waited until a nice sunny day to photograph it, and then forgot about it until this weekend when I realized it hadn’t yet been mailed. So it’s in my office today and I’ll be mailing it out either today or tomorrow.

Once I finished it though, I decided to finish a few other things that have been laying around. I’ll let you see them over the next few days.

Epic Project Post 5: The Great Ironing

Sunday I started the Great Ironing and Assembly of the Epic Project.

Smudge is thinking about helping, of course.

First fully assembled piece – the interior of the main cabinet. I worked all day.

Got the outside contrast wrapped around the top of the main cabinet.
It’s starting to come together finally:

And then of course, when I set it aside, Smudge “helps” some more.

Another hour passes:

And another…door two is almost complete:

I start one of my favorite movies – it’s mid-afternoon now:

This seems to be the last picture I take for the evening – starting on door 3. I believe I finished door 3 before I went to bed though.

24 hours of work.
$30 in fabric, fusible web and glue.
$25 for a rotary cutter & mat.
This is about halfway done, though it feels like it should be more, but everything that follows is very exacting details and it takes quite a while to get through.