It’s my birthday today! And I’ll be in the lab from 1pm to 6pm running more folks through the eye-tracker. Then I’m going to go home and have a romantic night reading papers and writing essays. Yesterday I watched The DaVinci Code (which was lame) and made my data analysis program (which was awesomely fun). It looks totally amazing! I obviously can’t show you results because some people haven’t finished looking at all the comics yet, so I’ll take a different comic and make some fake data:

It’s still a work in progress, but that’s not bad for a few hours! If someone had told me last year that I’d soon be drawing pictures with the interweb and programming my own ANOVA “software” (and ENJOYING it), I would have scissor-kicked them in their lady-and-or-gentlemanly parts.

The first step in the 12-step program is acceptance, right?

I have all this eye-tracking data now, and my eye-tracking data analysis program refuses to analyze it properly. I am considering writing my own program to analyze it. With graphics and everything. I am crazy.

I feel like I am in Stage Four of the thesis writing process. If Stage Four also involves a sudden and strange addiction to coffee, accompanied by the requisite caffeine crashes that make up 98.4% of the day. Oh, I long for the 1.6% when the coffee is actually working…

I finished knitting the Backyard Leaves scarf, and I have absolutely no energy to seam it together. Why on earth would you design a scarf that you have to seam together??? I originally decided that I would pick up the provisional stitches I left on the first half and just keep going with the second half, but then I picked up the wrong stitches and had to rip back once I realized what I had done. Instead of being the smart little girl and picking up in the right spots, I gave up, cast-off the first half and cast on an entirely new second half with the intent to follow the instructions to the letter and seam them together later. Because, of course, it would be no problem to seam, seaming is fun! Seaming is to knitters like ambrosia is to Zeus, right? Oh ho ho. Seaming is what data analysis is to researchers. You know you have to do it to finish, but it’s so darn excruciating…

I’m too tired to even weave in the ends. Maybe I can do that this afternoon, if I can pull myself away from the lab. I have six participants coming in, which will bring me up to my self-imposed requirement of 20. Not bad for an honours thesis, especially given the massive number of knitters who helped with the web end of things. (Thank you, knitters.)

I just want to keep blogging because if I don’t stop, then I don’t have to start working on the essay that is slowly ever so slowly growing during the dark times (literally dark times) as I sit by my participants in that tiny little room with the lights off so the eye-tracker can find their little bulbs better. My eyes hurt. I now associate that essay with headaches.

But anyhoo, getting back to the knitting, the FOs certainly are flying off the needles. I don’t have the patience to start anything new, so I’m finishing a lot of UFOs that were mellowing in the drawers. I finished the head of my aunt Liz’s dragon, and now I just have to seam it together (*weep*) and stuff it and glue some eyes on. I finished a third kiddy hat (and the ears that will soon be seamed onto them) for our local hospital. I tried working on my dad’s Rule 30 scarf, but after two rows I couldn’t bear it any longer so I decided to put it away again. I think I’m going to start my Orangina, now that I have once again experienced the catharsis of FOs (which I will photograph as soon as they are seamed, ha!). Maybe after that, I will have time to whimper quietly in a corner while my thesis data grows un-analyzed.

This is all Eunny’s fault.

Here’s some French inspiration for the end of the week. Maybe it can inspire some of you folks, because it’s sure inspiring me.

Read the rest »

Rare Bird Finds has a list of 100 things for under $10.

It’s not really knitting-related, but it may give you some nice crafting ideas. I really love the sausage dog corn holders. There’s also a cute coin purse in there.

While reading about Kimberly’s contest at Some Bunny’s Love this morning, I discovered that Kimberly is a “Nascar Knitter.” A whole KAL devoted to Nascar!, I thought to myself. I wonder if there’s an equivalent to F1. I didn’t find one, but I did find this:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8068663008782254608" height="326" width="400" /]

P.S.: The alternate title for this post was “Spinni Räikkönen.”

I really like this paragraph, and I felt I had to share it with you folks.

“But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!”

Emphasis mine. A line like that hasn’t affected me in such a way ever since I read “Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth” (for approximately the 5th or 6th time) and was suddenly struck by the phrase, “guzzling cakes.”

I wish Knit The Classics was currently reading this book so that it would be relevant to knitting. It should be; the first two chapters at least have been obsessed with the concept of art, creativity and genius. I think any knitter would benefit from reading it. There’s also a romantic subplot that feels a little like 19th century pseudo-slash.

OMG, I just looked up Oscar Wilde on Wikipedia and it says he made out with Walt Whitman!

I have developed this horrible habit of grimacing in the most awful way when I discover something that is just so amazing, so incredibly wonderful, that I know it will change my life. I am given to hyperbole, so I actually grimace quite often (about twice a week, maybe more if it’s a leap year).

I grimaced just now. I grimaced with severity. And who caused this grimacing, you ask? Why, Elizabeth Zimmermann, of course. And I will tell you why. (Otherwise, this post would be kinda pointless, right?)

I borrowed Knitting Around (or, Knitting Without a License) a few weeks ago, and because of all this thesis business I didn’t get to it until a few days ago when I realized it was a day overdue. I decided to read the “Techniques” section at the back of the book before returning it, because I figured there might be some tips in there of which I could make some use. I am so glad I did.

You know how when you SSK, the loop in the back pokes out annoyingly to the side, whereas with a K2tog it sits beautifully and dutifully underneath, like an obedient child? The impertinentness of SSK stitches have always bothered me, and I regularly shift them around after I have knit them to make them look proper. But now there is a better way, a way that will make you make that face that you make when you discover something that is just so amazing, so incredibly wonderful, that you know it will change your life. (Unless you’ve read this book already.)

I will let Elizabeth say it in her own words.

SSK: Barbara Walker alerted most knitters to this. It is a mirror-image of K2tog, and most useful when working decreases in pairs. However, another knitter, Dee Barrington, came up with a slight variation, which we find even more pleasing.

Barbara’s original instructions told us to slip 2 stitches knitwise (one at a time), insert the tip of the left hand needle into the slipped stitches, and knit them together.

Dee tells us to slip the first stitch knitwise, but slip the second stitch purlwise, and proceed as above. Try them both in a very thick wool, and you can see a slight improvement with Dee’s method; slipping as if to purl tucks the second stitch neatly behind the first.

I can imagine it now, and it’s true. Why did I never think of it before? This is absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to SSK!

Guys, there is an emergency. The Beau has decided that, since he filled out my questionnaire and read my comics, he is going to be a contestant to win yarn*. He also said that if he did win it, he would not give it to me The beau is a mean boyfriend.

There has been a lot of knitting at Chez Needle Exchange, and a lot of working. I wasted a lot of time yesterday looking at recipes for things made of chocolate, but I made up for it by knitting about a foot of my scarf while watching The Lost Tomb of Jesus. It was a pretty good documentary, if any of you folks are interested in archaeology (or even if you’re not). I’m not, and I thought it was fascinating. I saw something else by Simcha Jacobovici in which he was searching for Mount Sinai (it’s right here in Toronto, mystery solved), and I wasn’t too convinced of his scientific prowess (his use of geometry and step functions made me yell at the television). But this one does put out a pretty good case for a set of ossuaries containing the bones of Jesus. I’m not an archaeologist so I have to watch this from a laywoman’s point of view, but I do have a grasp of the scientific method and it’s an acceptable argument. There are A LOT of ifs and A LOT of maybes, and they manipulate statistics in a way that rubs me the wrong way. Nothing convincing at the moment, but at least it’s out there. Having grown up in a very religious household that also highly valued scientific discourse (Genesis was a metaphor for the Big Bang and evolution), I’m fairly sure this will be a dinner table conversation the next time I’m back with the folks.

Anyhoo, back to the knitting. The Backyard Leaves scarf is reaaaaally close to being done. I cast off the second half and then forgot to post the pictures that I took, so they will be up shortly, as well as a description of certain dumb things that I did afterwards as well as a full on Annie Modesitt worship party. Check back soon.

* Don’t worry, he is ineligible.

I feel like a bank that suddenly decided to work with Blue Moon Fiber Arts. You guys… You guys are just amazing. I decided to write the last post on the off chance that some people might be interested, and you guys just blew me away with your responses and your generosity. I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil just to sign everyone up! This will bring me into the area of thousands of data points! Thousands!

I want to thank a few people for their links:

• First, to Chris at Stumbling Over Chaos. I believe your post on Monday is the reason for all of this, so thank you thank you!
• Secondly, to Cara; she signed up both herself and her hubs, sent like 500 kabillion people to my post with a single link on her blog, and on top of it all she said “no need for yarn!” No need for yarn??? You are a goddess among knitters.
• To Kate at Å Strikke. Kate, you are a kindred knitting spirit. Maybe one day I will figure out what your blog title means.
• Dave at Criminy Jickets was the first boy to respond to my plea. I love boys! Especially boys who knit. (Sorry to typecast, Dave, but every time I see a boy knitting I get excited and start envisioning female presidents and men who can cook.)
• Paul at Blithering Knitiot. Is there a more hilarious name for a knitting blog?
• And finally, Sarah at NotScarlett. Nice Tats!