Sport-weight yarn is TINY. And apparently I'd better stick to the trick of casting on over two needles, then transferring it to my intended needles... otherwise I cast on so tightly I can't knit it.

My next project is the one for which I re-re-re-learned to knit: a Ravenclaw scarf. I bought the yarn for it FOUR YEARS AGO.

So when I started the black and grey hat I did it on size 8 double-pointed needles, figuring gauge would be the same as on size 8 straight needles. (It wasn't.) When the hat started coming out obviously too small I cut it free from the skein and set it aside to finish later and then donate to charity or something.

I tried size 10 needles and the gauge came out too big. I tried size 9 needles... and the gauge was the same as size 10. I think. Black is apparently about the worst colour to use for a test swatch, because it's almost impossible to see the stitches, especially when you're holding a gauge measurer up to it.

I tried to find the original hat last night, to see what the actual gauge is (I never actually measured it), but I can't find it. I also can't find the needles it was on, though I did find the one stray one I thought I'd lost out of the set. It can't have gone too far--my current knitting stuff area is a cardboard box on a set of plastic drawers behind the couch. (I need to find something better one of these days.) I'm afraid Q*Bert may have dragged it off, but where to?

And I'm wondering... how big of a difference does one or two needle sizes make in the size of the finished piece? If I use the size 10 needles, will the hat come out humungo? How much smaller will it be on size 9?

I think we might have to turn the furnace back on today--apparently doozer4200's cold front has arrived. My fingers are cold.

Today I'm going to attempt to make Alton Brown's protein bar recipe, assuming I still have enough dried fruit left after nom nom nomming on it last night. Yum. Also I may make a batch of the muffins on the back of the oat bran box.

I would also like to get some photos of my red hat (which I un-lost yesterday) and some of the nifty yarns that tpau gave me. Then I need to clear the camera's memory chip so it's ready for the fireworks demo this weekend.

Good thing it's Friday and we don't have to get up early tomorrow--I don't think I could do it. Blah.

We are, however, going to Michigan next weekend, so it's time to buy some bigger double-pointed needles and take another crack at the black and grey hat because knitting is a whole lot easier to do in the car than cross-stitch.

I love Engrish.com: So is that what those symbols on the label mean?

I finally have a Ravelry account.

We're under another winter storm warning starting around 7 PM tonight. I kind of wish we'd actually get what they predict one of these times--they always predict tons of snow, and we never get it. I should be home by then--around 3 I'm making the hour drive to our Martinsville office, then leaving around 5 and possibly hitting a Trader Joe's and an O'Malia's in my search for yeast cakes (since you can freeze them and keep them for longer).

Didn't sleep real well.

The only difference in the hat I'm knitting and the one I already knit is the fact that this one is in the round and the last one was knitted flat, but the current one looks smaller than the other. I hope it's some kind of an illusion. I'm going to be annoyed if it doesn't fit Charles.

Helmet A is kind of interestingly ugly.

( Meme from <lj user=hippie_chick> and <lj user=yipeeladybug> )

There's STILL a weather alert icon at the bottom of the screen. I clicked it, since the flooding is receding, and it turns out it's for insane wind chill. I can hear the wind making the plastic on the window crinkle. Guess I need to keep working on that hat for Charles. I should probably have made him wear the green Dr. Who-length scarf marykosher knitted for me all those years ago.

He still (as of yesterday) feels like crap. Usually he doesn't feel too icky for more than a couple of days. I thought maybe he'd picked up mono in Pennsylvania (one of the Pittsburgh Penguins has come down with it, so maybe it's going around out there, and that would nicely explain why I haven't come down with it) but his symptoms don't really fit the description.

Going to make potica (both nut and poppyseed) and Alton Brown French onion soup today. I also might make hamburger soup today if we can get a half pound of ground pork. We had tomato-basil soup for dinner last night, and Romanian garlic soup (out of the cookbook prettyh gave me!) the night before that.

Also I get to save my dialysate bags and my pee today. Yay. :P

I know I have seen cake yeast in the past, but I don't know where or when. Meijer doesn't have it, so I hit Harvest, which is a teeny little grungy grocery store that reminds me of the Shop N Save in Waldoboro from back in the day. They often have odd items the big stores don't have, but they don't have cake yeast. Maybe Trader Joe's or O'Malia's will have it. I e-mailed Red Star to see if they'll elaborate on the "RED STAR® Cake Yeast it is available in limited areas of IN, IL, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NH, OH and WI." on their website.

I did get an assload of dry yeast at Sam's though, since we've been using a ton of it lately.

Time to start knitting Charles' hat.

So I can't even look at peoples' Ravelry pages without an account of my own? Bah.

( My hat. Let me show you it. )

It's my first ever knit object! I may make Charles one, and try this one in the round with my double-pointed needles of death. My half-assed seam job on this one is already coming undone.

We're home. It was raining and nearly 60 in South Fork today, and the streams and rivers were all getting high, and by the way South Fork is where the dam that caused the Johnstown Flood was. I don't think they're due for another one for another few decades though. It's pouring down and thundering here too, and judging by the fact that there's still a Weather Alert symbol in the corner of my browser window, we must still be in flood conditions. Again.

The cats were thrilled to see us home. They were not so thrilled to be told we're OUT of canned food and that the milk has turned. Charles is out getting milk and some McDonalds, but the canned food will have to wait until tomorrow--the gang likes the fancy food that comes from PetSmart. They're currently ripping around the house in celebration, and Q just made this quite impressive leap across from the newel post to the top of the bookshelf.

The Prius is a great little car for road trips, but there's this gravitational vortex under the front passenger seat. So far it's eaten a 50-cent piece, tried to eat the brochure from Half-Price Books, and my baggie of stitch markers (helpfully labeled "plastic bone rings") has disappeared.

Spent the time while Charles was playing mass, and the parts of the trip I wasn't driving, working on the hat. 1x1 ribbing sucks for the first row or two, but I can now tell when I need to knit or purl, and can see when I make a mistake... and go back and fix it. I have three inches of hat done so far, both in ribbing and in stockinette. I'm very proud of myself.

And we arrived at the hotel in time to see that the Giants won. OMG.