Mixed Feelings

I've been on another startitus kick and combined it with some sort of sock kick. I did manage to reign it in at a piffling two projects (but I may have patterns printed and yarn gathered for at least three more pairs of socks...). This is one of those new projects, started last week when I spotted a £2.60 sock yarn in my local market and thought that 'it would be rude not to at least try it':

The pattern is Maeva from the Winter Knitty and it looks lovely, but the pattern is slowly rolling into the 'not-one-of-my-favourites' pile. Here's why:

• All the charts are quite low resolution meaning you either have fairly small charts or you have charts whose row numbers are near-impossible to read.
  This one is no biggy, I can either root out a super skinny highlighter or just do a bit of actual counting to sort out ambiguous row numbers.
• The gauge is a little looser than might be average: 34 stitches and 50 rows in four inches on 2mm needles (stockingette) - I get around 44 stitches and 55 rows. in four inches on 2mm needles.
  Not really an issue - I should have looked before I started and I didn't. Everyone's gauge is different and just because I often get the pattern gauge with the pattern needles doesn't mean that when I don't the pattern is wrong.
• The gauge is a bit weird - it looks kinda tricky to get both the stitch count and the row count on the same pair of needles. On my 2.25mm needles I'm just slightly over on the stitch count at 35 stitches in four inches, but I'm under on the row count at 48 stitches.
  It sort of seems like my gauge is close, but I'm having all sorts of trouble with the foot length, my sock is trying ever so hard to be much, much longer than I'd like it to be (try 4" longer). I'm putting this down to 3 things:
  1. Because I'm over on the stitch count I had to knit the 64 stitch (L/XL) sock. This is the normal number of stitches for me on this needle size so it's not that surprising, but it does mean all the charts are also just a touch longer. (I could have accommodated for this by using the small charts with a bigger border around the cable section but it didn't occur to me until far too late).
  2. Because I'm under on the row count the whole sock is longer anyway - each row takes up slightly more space than it should.
  3. A slightly odd foot length measurement (see below).
• The foot length for my size seems wrong - I'm a US size 6 which the pattern calls 9.25" foot length but I have an 8.25" foot. Am I weird?
  This does bother me somewhat. I've fiddled around with the tape measure and I can't get a bigger measurement than 8.25", but the sizing is for a US 6-7, maybe there really is an inch between the sizes? It does mean that right from the off I was worrying about the chart lengths.
• Why chart an ordinary toe? Knitting the odd rows and doing "k1 m1r knit to end of row m1l k1 on even rows" is perfectly comprehendible in words and would save me printing the first of five charts. Given that knitty is set to show each chart in a new webpage, the use of a chart here is essentially wasting a sheet of paper for nearly everyone who knits this pattern.
  This makes nearly no impact on the knitting but is still strangely quite irritating.
• Likewise, the heel flap chart seems pretty redundant, I'd much rather these were included in the pattern as instructions. If you want to waste paper with charts like these then at least make them optional. As it is, I'll probably write out the instructions when I get to this bit.
  As above.
• I'll reserve judgement on Chart 5.
  Because I've clearly grumbled enough already, I'll stop now.

So many grumps, but they are still very pretty socks. I do hope they work out in the end.

carcarsad :(

The carcarcar has failed its MOT. This is not entirely unsurprising but it has made more more unhappy than I expected. Maybe something to do with timing... I can't really afford a new car until we've got the wedding budget sussed - something that's unlikely to happen for a while (and even then I suspect the conclusion may be that I can't afford it as all the car money will suddenly have vanished).

*grrrr*

Friday Fill-Ins

This week's Friday Fill-In:

1. The last band I saw live was Scouting for Girls (at the Big Gig - they just happened to be the last to play).

2. What I look forward to most at Christmas is everything.

3. My Christmas/holiday shopping is part way there.

4. Thoughts of grumpy fill my head.

5. I wish I could wear something other than t-shirts and jeans.

6. Bagpipes are played in Scotland... and I'm planning a trip to Edinburgh.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to tidying the world, tomorrow my plans include being less grumpy and Sunday, I want to feel like I've had that nice balance of a weekend - productive and relaxing!

Grrr....

I misread the knitting pattern for my hat and so will now have to undo everything I did yesterday :(

Coursework Woes

Handed a paper copy of my coursework in today around five minutes late which should be OK but I forgot to submit it electronically before I did so I missed the deadline for that and the folder was locked. I hate electronic sumission - I always forget to do it.

Hardback Books

Hardback books are an irritation because they slow down the release of a nice paperback. I don't mind reading hardbacks too much (though they're bigger and take up too much space in my bag) but I'd much rather own a paperback. Hardbacks are for libraries.

I seem to have been waiting for loads of stuff to make paperback and the only one that has made it is a silly size so now I must wait even longer for them to re-release it in the same size as all the other books I have by the same author. I'm hoping Christmas was the delay factor and they'll start being released soon :)

---

Books I'd like in paperback:


The Lollipop Shoes (Joanne Harris)
The Dark River (John Twelve Hawks)
Sepulchre (Kate Mosse)
Nineteen Minutes (Jodi Picoult)
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Oliver Sacks)
The Children of Hurin (J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, and Alan Lee)

Maybe there aren't as many as I thought :)

---

Also, it's not snowing any more :(

The Timewaster Diaries

Today I have borrowed The Timewaster Diaries from the library. Today I mostly feel like I have been wasting time. *sigh* I hate not having things to do when I know that later in the term my life will be manic. I have no lectures until the 21st, argh!

People who know too much

(or like to think they do)

This morning's lectures have been going so incredibly slowly. It's not that the material is dull (though I have seen an awful lot of it before) but that we're moving through the material like some insect in treacle. The material is actually carried over from yesterday's lectures which had the same problem - other people. Not not-understanding people, I can cope with that happily enough, but instead people who want to show off their knowledge of life, the universe and everything by constantly interrupting the lecture and holding little arguments among themselves. Arrgggh!

Birthday boredom.

It's my birthday and I'm bored.

Whilst I'm sure trawling the internet won't really help, this guy has cool drains.

:(

There are too many days of misery at the moment. I know it's because I have too much time on my hands - I like having days where I know what I'm doing - but it feels quite a lot like being permanently hormonal.

This morning wasn't too bad, I got up at 8 because I was all awake. We'd organised to meet as a kitchen at 9:30 and drink hot beverages so I had a shower and then did that for an hour before heading onto campus. Got to campus and nosed around Freshers' Fair. Once I'd been round Freshers' Fair I hung around for a bit with Bailrigg and the cinema . Got the bus back into town and ran an errand for Hobnob. Went from bank-errand-running to the library where I sat on the floor and read a book before choosing some others to borrow. Took my books back to my room and sorted out the vast array of junk I'd acquired at Freshers' Fair. I then made and ate lunch and then my day mostly seemed to waste away. I don't even seem to be able to code any more.

Grrr. :(

Random Misery

Why do people have moments of just :( with no reason at all?

Completely unrelated:

$this->{get_parent_class(__CLASS__)}();

(found in this entry of BlueShoes PHP Blog)

How was that ever a sensible way to call a parent class's constructor? PHP4 is so odd.

iTunes

iTunes has got itself into a terrible muddle. It's been trying to update to a newer version (7.4.1 I assume) for ages now. Software update would pop up and say it had an update, would go away and download it and would then, once the download was completed, seemed to take another look and say that it didn't want to install anything after all. This has been occurring for over a month now I think.

This afternoon, when I opened iTunes it seemed to think it was running a new version and showed me the software agreement. I assumed that it had caught up with itself and didn't bother to think any more about it.

Now, when I open iTunes (I know I said I was going to bed, but I remembered a quick piece of code I could write) it says:

The file "iTunes Library" cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes.

So it seems that whatever it installed has gone away again. I had a look at version.plist and that says it's currently version 1.3.1 that's installed. As I now can't use iTunes at all I've decided to download a copy of 7.4.1 from the Apple site and hope it'll be all happy again...

On the plus side, my code change was a five minute job so I have achieved something by delaying my sleep some more.

Dear Mr. Council

Dear Mr. Council,

If you have to dig up the road - the same bits, every other month - do it in the daytime!

(And if you have to do it at night, with the road closed, do the lorries really need to beep and tell me they're reversing?)

Love from Me

(Enjoying another night of digging and yelling and lorries)