ROFL

Just to warn you, there is no knitting content to follow. I just found this funny thing and I have got to write it down so that I’ll remember it forever and ever.

I’ve been reading through Cassie’s blog archives and I came upon a post where she was wondering why superwash wool squeaks. Well, of course I had go find out, so google and I had some intimate moments together. I think I’ve found the answer, it has to be related to a phenomenon called sqeaky hair. During my search for an answer (42, but what is the question?) I found a forum discussion about sqeaky shoes. So this guy had bought shoes and the soles got worn out and they started to squeak, something which really annoyed him. After some comments about whether he should return the shoes or have them fixed somehow, someone posts this:

I don’t think you need a cobbler. This is some sort of friction problem and requires a physicist. Can’t imagine, though, where you’re going to find one.

Hello? (I’m a physicist, and this amused me to no end, especially considering that the forum is located at www.physicsforums.com, more specifically here.) Where are all the freaking physicists when you really need them? Also to believe that, even though physicists do know about friction and why it causes sound waves, they can actually do something useful to get your shoes to stop squeaking… well, I won’t say anything more.

Later someone else obviously agreed with the guy and added:

I don’t know, they’re really hard to come by, especially around here. :rofl:

I think we physicists need a better PR person.

And yes, I’ve had a few glasses of wine, shoot me.

New hobby

I have been planning to go to my nearest yarn shop for a while but because I’ve been working quite late in the past two weeks, it’s always been closed by the time I get home. Yesterday I was at work as usual, when I realized that it was quarter to five and the shop closes at five thirty. It takes me at least half an hour to get there from work, so I didn’t think I’d make it and went to the shop web page to make sure that they’re open on Saturdays. (As a side note, the other yarn shop I go to is closed during the whole of July due to summer vacations – that is strangely a rather common thing here in Finland.) On the web page of the shop I find out that it’s closed on Saturdays during July, and as if that’s not enough, yesterday was the last day it’s open until the end of July. People gotta have their summer vacations. Usually this would not have been too big of a problem but I’ll be leaving to Iceland on the day that the shop reopens, and I need yarn for a wedding present for a wedding I’m attending while in Iceland. So off I ran to catch a bus, a metro and another bus, and I arrived at the shop, out of breath, five minutes before closing time. I was pretty pleased with myself, although my lungs were hurting like hell!

When I had found the yarn, I went to pay for it. I told the girl who’s working there (and knows me by now, hah!) about my running there and even acted being all out of breath. Then she replies that well, you know, it’s only going to be closed for two weeks and that goes by quite fast. Somehow I felt really silly, and I couldn’t even gather up energy to explain all the business about my going to Iceland etc. So now she just thinks I’m crazy.

I have acquired a new hobby. On Tuesday I bought myself a book on card (tablet) weaving (spjaldvefnaður) and after making some cards out of cardboard, I began doing the first assignment in the book. I’ve got to say that this is a seriously cool technique and I am extremely impressed that someone back in the days figured it out. See what I’ve made

Now I am a pretty impulsive and impatient person. I usually don’t learn things linearly, going from one level to the next. More often I just read a little bit to get a rough idea about how things work, and then I jump ahead and do whatever I’d like. This can cause disappointment, but I just can’t help it and frankly I don’t care too much. Mistakes make you learn. Regarding card weaving, I can’t patiently read the whole book page by page and go through all the exercises, because I have this idea of a strip I’d like to make and I can’t wait. Really I can’t. Anyways, if I’m that excited about something, even if I’d read the two chapters that come before the one that describes the technique I’ll need to make the design I want, I wouldn’t really pay attention so why bother? Now the only thing standing in my way is that I’ll need to make 24 more cards, and that’s a pain in the butt for someone who’d like everything to have happened yesterday.

Today I’ll be going to Hämeenlinna which is an hour train ride from Helsinki. My friend Halla (from Iceland) is participating in a modern dance performance that’s being shown there tonight. That should be fun.

Before y’all abandon me

I swear I have been knitting, although judging from the blog you wouldn’t think so. It’s just that this is the Big Summer of Gift Knitting, and gifts can’t be blogged about until they’ve been opened up.

This weekend I finished sewing in the zipper on my dad’s birthday present and it’s in the mail as we speak. I don’t know if it’s normal, but it took me over 4 hours to do (it’s 60 cm/24” long). Am I the slowest seamstress in the whole wide world?

What made it a little bit more difficult was that now the temperatures here have reached the intolerable upper 20’s (about 80 Fahrenheit) and my fingers were sweaty and slippery. Since we want to keep the heat inside for the main part of the year, apartments become like sauna’s during the summertime, just without a nice cool lake to jump into when it gets too hot. So I’ve been sitting and perspiring and it surely didn’t help that my dad’s present is made of bulky 100% wool (Álafoss lopi) :-)

Now that I’ve finished this project I can continue knitting my mom’s cardigan. I’m using a pattern from a Danish book I found in a bookstore in Reykjavík, Vintagestrik & fashion by Sus Gebhard. The pattern name is Cykeltrøje, or Bicycle sweater. Here’s a photo

There seems to be a curse on my mom’s sweater. As you might remember I’ve already knit her one which didn’t fit, and this one is wanting to get ripped over and over. First I knit half of the front but I didn’t slip the edge stitches so the edge looked really ugly. I decided to rip it and start over doing the whole body in one piece, because I don’t particularly like seams on knitted fabric, especially when it’s bulky like this one. This time I remembered to slip the edge stitches, although on one side they’re twisted on the first few rows. I still think the edge is ugly, the slipped stitches are too loose and open.

slipped edge stitches, slipped and twisted edge stitches

Normally I have no fear of ripping if there’s something I’m not perfectly happy about and for a short while I considered starting over again and twist the edge stitches but really, I’ve done almost a third of the body and it would be so sad to have to start all over again. Now I’m thinking that before I take a decision to rip, I’ll get a fat crochet needle and see if I can make a neat border to save me.

There are also some nice glove patterns in this book and one I’ll definitely knit soon but with some modifications. Inexplicably, all the gloves in the book are knitted flat, isn’t that the strangest thing? If there ever was a good reason to knit in the round, it’s with gloves.

I’m a bit obsessed by gloves at the moment. It all started when Kris posted a picture of the beautiful lace gloves she made, and I felt like my life could not be complete without a pair of pretty gloves. I found a nice pattern in Handknit Holidays and immediately cast on. I took it with me to Iceland, and that’s when all the trouble started. When I began knitting the fingers, it quickly became clear that although the glove fitted my hand nicely, the fingers were much too small. I did some tweaking and stitch adding to get them to fit but when I had finished the four and began with the thumb I naturally realized that doh, if the other fingers were to small, the thumb is going to be too small as well, and it’s not really possible to fix that easily. So I had to rip back to the cuff and rethink. In the end I decided to make a thumb gusset and so after a lot of knitting on a small thing, I finally had a well fitting glove.

Now it is eagerly awaiting its sibling the poor thing. But first, more gifts.

Muffcakes

I’m a nerd, you know. Sometimes I get this urge to learn about things which are pretty useless knowledge. Once for example, I spent a considerable amount of time on wikipedia learning about the difference between a moose and an elk, because I wondered why a moose is called that in English when in most N-European languages it’s called an elk. This week I have been wondering a lot about the difference between a muffin and a cupcake. I checked the dictionary where it said that a muffin is sweet bread whereas a cupcake is, well, a small cake. So, thought I, there must be yeast or something in muffins if they’re supposed to be bread. After a quick recipe search I concluded that no, there’s no real difference between the two. Wikipedia only tells that cupcakes evolved from muffins, but otherwise they’re just described as cup-shaped cakes which are handy in the sense that you don’t need to dirty your plates to eat them (oh so true). This leaves me highly unsatisfied. I need clearer answers people.

The second thing I obsessed about today was the difference between baking soda (matarsódi) and baking powder (lyftiduft) (wow, I notice a pattern – I seem to wonder a lot about the difference between similar things). Now that is surely a highly interesting matter and I spent quite some time reading about it online. Why did I not know that a dough (batter?) that contains baking soda has to be baked immediately or the soda won’t work? That seems like an important thing to know. Now I also know that the reason for mixing the dry ingredients first is to not activate the soda until just before baking. Really, this is fascinating stuff. I am dreaming of a cook book that explaines the processes involved in cooking and baking in a scientific way.

Now that I’ve bored you all to death I’ll finish by telling you that all this thinking about muffins of course led me to make some using a recipe I found online, modifying it slightly to my liking. They turned out pretty delicious with a little icing on top and I’ve already had three. I quite enjoy baking, but since I live alone and don’t eat much of sweet things I often end up throwing a lot away. Hmmm… maybe I can buy myself some popularity at work on monday.

Muffins or cupcakes?

I promise there’ll be knitting next.

I give up

It’s my dad’s birthday on Friday and naturally I’m knitting him a gift. I had this grand plan to finish it on Sunday to be able to mail it on Monday. Then life happened and I went to a party on Saturday only to spend the whole of Sunday recovering. There was a bright glimpse of hope yesterday when I realized that my friend Markus is flying to Iceland tomorrow and will be invited for dinner at my parents over the weekend. Then the freaking world cup in football happened, and I ended up in a bar watching a sad sad game (I was supporting Germany). Afterwards I came home with great hopes of finishing the thing, but I have been beaten. It’s three in the morning and I’m not close to finishing (plus there’s a zipper to sew in, *shudder*). I admit defeat, I’m going to bed. Man, what a loohooser.

Tonight I met Frank’s new girlfriend. Frank and I are really good friends, and him finding a girlfriend is no problem for me. I for some reason am not a particularly jealous type (at least not yet), I just hope that he finds the nicest girl possible. So meeting her was fine, except I was all the time hoping that it wasn’t uncomfortable for her because I’ve heard all these horror stories from my friends about when they met their boyfriends exes and how they wanted them to trip and fall down a deep canyon never to appear again. She seemed fine though, and she’s kinda cute. Good for her.

Hey, thanks alot for all your nice comments about my new haircut, I really appreciated them. I have now gotten used to it, and damn, I like it. In fact I think I’ll never have long hair ever again!