Ouch! This learning thing hurts!

Ow ow owie ow ow!

I'm at Neonatal Board Review at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza in Chicago.

Literally 9 - 10 hours per day of lectures on neonatal topics, meant to prepare me (and my fellow neos) for The Boards, which will be on April 7th. We ought to know this stuff - it's review. I think of it as a wake up call and refresher.

I don't feel very refreshed though, after SITTING for 9 hours straight.

I have been getting a lot of knitting done though. But my back hurts!

Two and half more days, then a nice 5-hour train ride back home again! Ow!

I think this hotel should lend their chairs to the CIA as a torture device.

Well golly gee, Ravelry is the best!

A-ha! After my no-help Berroco answer (see previous post), I checked out the sweater on Ravelry. And, lo and behold, someone made Sanpoku in Comfort, just like me!

Turn out I sewed the fronts on 90 degrees wrong. Thus the curling problem. Oh, the edges will still curl, but different edges. :-)

I wonder when I will finally feel like picking out the seams and resewing it the right way.

The Dreaded Stockinette Curl

sanpoku2, originally uploaded by iron knitter.

Okay, so I knit Berroco's "Sanpoku," substituting Comfort for the Touche (or Ultra Alpaca) specified in the pattern. See their pattern photos here: http://www.berroco.com/255.262/262/262_sanpoku_touche_pv.html

Look how their edges curl on the front: completely counter to how stockinette naturally curls. To see how stockinette naturally curls, look at my sweater photo.

So I email Berroco:

" I have recently knit Sanpoku, substituting Comfort. Now that it is done, I cannot see how you got the panels to curl inward at the top -
this is counter to how stockinette curls, and mine curls outward. Even with blocking, I don't see how you got the piece to hang the way it does. Any tricks?"

And here is the answer I (quickly) got:

"Hi Catherine,
Sorry no tricks. Comfort is nylon/acrylic. It's not going to
block, you shouldn't iron it, it just makes it limp. The Touche is
cotton/rayon so it act totally different."

Evidently cotton/rayon Touche curls toward the purl side at the bound-off edge. I think not. I can believe blocking it so hard that you get it to lay flat. But I don't see how to get it to drape that way. I'm double-hosed because you can't iron Comfort (unless you want to "kill" it).

I wonder if they sewed it down.

I've put my head together with Judy, the owner of my LYS, Baskets of Yarn, in Onalaska, WI (www.basketsofyarn.net). She thought of using a more elastic cast-on and bind-off, or putting a crochet edge on the bound-off edge...or tacking it down to the inside. Once I stop being so mad at the sweater, I'll think about which of these to attack first (NOT the one that involves taking the sweater apart, thank you).

Bad bionic blogger. No biscuit.

Okay, so I have failed to post. I have unwittingly deleted photos from Flickr which were on my blog. And I have only, today, found out that I have comments on my blog, some of them months old.

Duh.

So: Visian ICL. I am now bionic. I have implanted lenses under my irises...and I can see! I was about, oh, say, 20/600 before the surgery, and worse -9 to -9.5 contacts. Now I'm 20/20 with both eyes. Huzzah! There is much rejoicing (and I may have to eat the minstrals).

I am still learning not to grab my pager or alarm clock and set it on my nose to read it in the middle of the night. I then go, "Why is it so blurry??" Old habits die hard.

Holy cow. Merry Christmas.

Where has the time gone????? Oh yeah, holiday prep, 2 weeks on-service, and a gazillion nights on call. Dang.

Finished a scarf for Miss Maddy and started the Penguin Pullover in the most recent issue of KnitSimple. Slogging away on my Sanpoku (BORING).

Oh, and I had my YAG laser iridotomy.

What?

Next month I am having Visian ICL: implanted contact lenses. Evidently, if they don't first punch tiny holes with a laser in your iris, your eyeball fluid will build up and give you a form of glaucoma (increased pressure in the eye). Why am I doing this? Because I am too damn blind for Lasik, that's why. And I'm sick to death of being blind. Especially since I regularly am awakened from a sound sleep in the pitch black and have to find my glasses befre I can figure out which end is up. I have been wearing my glasses for 2 weeks now (pre-op requirement) and I'm pretty done.

Almost-4-year-old Miss Maddy is confused: is Santa real??? Mama and Daddy say no. He is pretend, and your presents come from your family and friends. We feel that the Santa thing divorces the presents from, well, money, and that learning that your parents lied to you about Santa is a possible blow to your confidence in what your parents tell you. But he's everywhere! Her daycare teachers talk him up, of course. Her friends believe. He came to daycare! What did she tell him she wanted?

A puppy.

There's a chocolate's chance in my lunchbag that she'll get a puppy. Ever. We are cat people. So much for Santa.

Where have I been?

Do you care? Are you out there?

I've powered through most of a stocking for my kiddo. Just have the trim left. Trying to finish holiday stuff. Trying to keep up with work, all the cleaning, reading, knitting, life...I need a major vacation to catch up. Such is life. Better get off the computer and get something done!

Oy-ichi-wawa

Busy week. The usual...2 night calls with late-night admissions, screwy sleep schedule, usual kid shenanigans. Secret Santa has started...I got a mortar and pestle from Ikea, so I must have said I like to cook on the sign-up (I can't remember!). I managed to sneak in my offering without blowing my cover.

Starting to TRY to sort through all the knitting mags, flagging projects I might want to knit someday (if I live to be 140, that is).

Boring post. Sorry.