After getting more and more annoyed with WordPress and its limitations, I decided to move my blog over to blogger. Despite the slight inconvenience, I hope you’ll continue to read my blog at its new location :-). There’s a new post there already! So visit:

 http://rndnrnd.blogspot.com

Happy working week!

It’s starting to look like I am cursed. I seem to be utterly unable to finish handwear these days and George knows I’ve tried. Many, many times. There was the red glove who never got a partner.

There was the glove from Folk Knitting in Estonia that I wasn’t happy with because I chose the wrong yarn for the roositud pattern and I seriously dislike stickout thumbs. I looove roositud though.

There was the glove that I started to replace the Estonian glove but ended up not being happy with either. Turns out it’s not a good idea to put two colors right next to each other, there’s no room between the tiny stitches and so the colors don’t line up correctly.

There was the two-end knitted mitten that I began oh so enthusiastically but ended up feeling bleh about which is really sad because this is the nicest worsted yarn (kambgarn) that my friend Markus bought for me in Juankoski and could this sentence get any longer?

There was the wristwarmer that I knit but I cast off too loosely and the thumb opening was too small.

and finally there is my copy of the mittens of my great grandma

and it looks like I cannot for the life of me get the top decreases right. What’s going on, I ask? I desperately need mittens for the winter. Someone please, please lift this curse!

It has been raining for the past week. The sunlight is fading into winter darkness, and endless rain and covered skies get rather depressing. Waking up in darkness, going to work in darkness, coming home from work in darkness… it’s hard on the spirit.

At times like this it’s great to have fun new socks to cheer you up.

Excuse the crappy pics – there’s no daylight here! These unintentionally ended up having the color palette of the Icelandic flag. This means that from now on I shall wear them every 17th of June, on our independence day. I hope they’ll last at least to next year, although I’m not optimistic. The yarn I used is Novita Wool and it seems like a very, very fragile little thing. The pattern is from the fabulous Sukkasillaan, my favourite sock book which I’m deeply happy to have bought – despite it being in Finnish and all.

Thank god it’s Friday. Have a great weekend everyone! Go out and enjoy the sunlight! I know I will.

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.

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.

…well. Two people asked for pictures. That’s popular, right? :-)

before and after

I have now completed my task. I used to have short hair all the time, except for a short period when I was about 7. Then one day, when I was 21, I decided that I could not live my life without having had long hair. You know, you’ve gotta try everything. So I let it grow, and the plan was to let it grow to hip length and then shave it off. It never quite reached that length, at its longest it was at waist-level. Somehow I grew used to it and then I had a boyfriend who was strongly opposed to me cutting my hair shorter than shoulder length. It seems that guys have quite a fetish for long hair – but he also had shoulder length hair himself, and so thought it would be ridiculous if my hair was shorter than his. He has many strong opinions.

Well, now I’m single and it was time. It feels damn good.

Thank you all for your really nice comments on the sweater. I'm sorry I haven't replied to your comments, but I have a pretty good excuse. As I told, I went to the US on a roadtrip for two weeks. I'm almost back now. We landed yesterday afternoon in Iceland, and I stopped over for a night here to make the trip somewhat less awful. If I hadn't, I would have had to wait around in Keflavík airport after the 8 hour Frisco flight, fly to Stockholm for 3 hours, wait around Arlanda airport and fly to Helsinki for 40 minutes, arriving at 2 in the night (I'm crap with a.m./p.m., but I guess it's 2 a.m.) and having to take a taxi home as the bus connections aren't that great in the nighttime. Horrible (with french accent). Instead I slept at my parents place in Reykjavík and am leaving for the airport in about half an hour for a direct flight to Helsinki – woohoo. It's a funny thing being here for one night, since I'll be returning in 10 days to attend a wedding of my friends! But I got my grandmothers swift and inspected some things my greatgrandmother knit for my father. That was cool.

I'm jetlagged people! I'm thinking that either we should shrink the earth and eliminate time zones, or then stop this silly business of travelling. I feel profoundly sorry for the people of New Zealand.

Oh, since many asked, the pattern for last posts sweater is the Slinky tree bark rib tunic (I hope I remembered that tongue-twister correctly!) from the Loop-d-loop book (sorry, I'm too tired to insert links). The yarn I used is called Janne and is from a Finnish manufacturer whose name escapes me. It's a cheepie, graduate student budget yarn, 75% wool, 25% polyester (or is it 85/15?) at 2.60 euros per 50g skein. The whole sweater worth was just over 20 euros, just about the same price I paid for a single skein of snobby sock yarn in the US!! Yes, I went completely crazy over there, but more on that later – I've gotta fly! 

This morning I was working on an article at home when I suddenly noticed that in the LaTeX editor I'm using (iTeXMac) an icon appeared, a picture of a tiny cup of coffee. (Funny that I had just made myself a double espresso when it materialized… an uncanny coincidence or a damn clever editor?) I couldn't resist clicking it, and after a short while my computer started talking and it told me "Please notice that iTeXMac doesn't know yet how to make coffee". No, I hadn't noticed thank you very much, but I sure do now! Did you have to bring that disappointing fact to my attention? Now I'm thinking that of course all editors should be able to make me coffee.

Then the icon disappeared. Freaky shit.

The day before yesterday I was on my way to work as usually. After finding out that my monthly bus card had expired and buying a freaking expensive ticket on the bus (but first traveling illegally on the metro in my blissful ignorance) I made my way to the back of the bus to sit in my favourite seat. Then I saw it, there was a woman sitting in my seat (it's mine, miiiiine!) and she was knitting! This is the first time I've seen anyone knit on the bus. I sat down next to her, well, with one seat in between as is custom of us reserved nordic people, and took up my knitting. Then I tried my best to roll my eyes to get a look of what she was knitting, it looked like a k2p2 something, perhaps a sweater or a scarf. I noticed she was also stealing glances at my knitting, but in true nordic fashion we kept to ourselves. It was beautiful.

Before I go on, let me give a warning to my mom: Mamma, ekki lesa áfram nema þú viljir vita hver afmælisgjöfin þín er!

I've finished the body of my mom's birthday sweater. The sweater is worked in the round to the armholes, and after that the front and back are worked separately. When both are done, the pattern tells you to cast off and graft the shoulder seams. I sat for a while staring at the shoulders wondering how the heck one would go about grafting k2p2 rib, I thought I'd figured it out and began happily grafting. After a while I realized that it was all wrong, when you graft two pieces which have been knit in the opposite direction (looking when you've laid the two ends together) the stitches on one piece are shifted half a stitch with respect to the other. That is not good news for k2p2 rib, since the "ridges" and "troughs" won't match up! After this enlightenment I opened the pattern book to have a closer look at the photos of the sweater and luckily there was one where you could see the shoulder seams quite clearly. In the hope that my mom is not still reading (and if so: skamm skamm!) I'll ask you this: those of you who own the Loop-d-Loop book, please open it on page 17 and tell me that's a grafted shoulder seam 'cause I'm not going to believe you! I ended up using my favourite slip stitch crochet to seam the back and front together and it looks fine. Now all that's left is the sleeves, which I'm hoping to get finished in the weekend. The only problem is that I also need to finish the sockapaloooza socks in the weekend, and prepare teaching, and study for exams. Oh, and clean my freaking apartment. Aah, the joys of living.

Everyone likes pictures, right? I don't have any knitting related pictures at the moment, but let me show you what I discovered on my walk in the weekend.

Isn't it a nice picnic location for the summer? What a beautiful backdrop! And it's only a five minute walk from my place.

I had this idea that I’d make a nice and cozy blanket for myself. It should have a feather and fan pattern and be multicolored. Then I realized that the blanket will be big and big things need a lot of yarn. I have bought yarn for sweaters and that already hurts my wallet so I can only imagine what a full size blanket will do to my meager PhD student income. So now I’m looking for yarn ideas people. It should be a nice and soft wool yarn of reasonable thickness with a pricing that in an ideal world would be something like 50 cents for a 500 m skein. Have you met my perfect yarn?