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Monday, May 28, 2007

Preserve us from the Demon of Weak Nerves!

This is an early 20th century advertisement for Wolcott's Instant Pain Annihilator - just the greatest patent medicine ad I've seen so far in my diss. research.

See the little demons, pounding and drilling into poor beardy's head? They're numbered and identified as: 1) Demon of Catarrh; 2) Demon of Neuralgia; 3) Demon of Headache; 4) Demon of Weak Nerves; and 5) Demons (yes, plural) of Toothache. With the grim reaper standing in the background. Since I have way more background info than I need for the diss data, this will probably keep the title of Greatest Patent Medicine Advertisement.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

"Cleveland Eliminates New Jersey"

Don't take this to mean I'm any kind of sports fan, I don't even know what sport this has to do with, but when I heard this phrase on the radio this morning, "Last night, Cleveland eliminated New Jersey," I just thought - Whoo-hoo Cleveland! Good move! And all in one night, too! That's one powerful city, to take out an entire state. If the city of Cleveland needs any help recouperating from this epic battle, I say we should all pitch in out of gratitude. The only question is, was it just the state that was eliminated, or will the inhabitants (and especially the drivers) be migrating into neighboring states?
With apologies to the good people of Joisey.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

All's well in the land of grey

I'm back to work on both the green Shibu top-down cardigan, and the grey shawl. I sent a sample of the grey lace yarn to Morehouse, and since it is one of their natural shades, Jill says it will be easy to make a match. They're sending one more skein, and I frogged back just 4 rows to eliminate one repeat from the mainly st st center portion to make sure one skein will do it.
And now back to the BIG slog, dissertation analysis. Damn all inconsistent record keeping and artifact cataloging!

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

And another big yay!

I find myself made quite happy by finding out that next week will be the last ever episode of "Gilmore Girls." This show's been like a train wreck for me over the years. I've never consistently watched it, but keep coming back again to watch for a month or so until finally reaching the same conclusion, "This woman is psycho!" It must be the infamous GG banter. Now it's ending, Lorelei's done with the oh-so-annoying Christopher (daren't call him "Chris"), and to make it all the sweeter, Rory did not accept the manipulative marry-me-or-we're-done proposal from her pretty boy, Logan.
How long will these names remain in my head? I have more important things to remember!

Monday, May 07, 2007

A FO and more problems with math

Yay! I finished the 2nd placket neck sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts! (Well, third, actually, if I count the now-frogged soy silk placket neck.)
I got off track with figuring out problems with other projects, and it ended up being a week late for AG's birthday. However, I'm hoping 2-year-olds don't notice late presents that much. Now it's just a random new garment.
He did seem to like the fish buttons. I made it with Tahki-Stacy Charles' Tweedy Cotton (mercerised). It was a little slippery to work with, and I think my tension suffered a bit. The yarn itself is quite nice, with 2 strands each of 3 different colors. The recipient child's mom is allergic to wool (I've seen her break out in hives), so wool was out. Best not to make mom allergic to her son, and the allergy could be inherited.
Since sometime last year I've been knitting away on the Huck Lace Shawl from Morehouse Farm Merino Knits. It's been moving along as a backup project. Whenever I'm stuck on something else, or have finished a project, I've just picked it up, figured out where I left off with my notes on a post-it & worked on it some more. Now it's getting pretty long.
The shawl is roughly divided into thirds - two thirds at each end with the main pattern, with mainly st st in the middle. I'm going along, almost through with the middle section, when I realize I really have only 1 more skein left. Huh. It appears that my gauge is off and I'm basically making this shawl denser than it's intended. I am happy with the feel of the fabric, so I sent off a couple of yards of yarn to Morehouse to see if they can match me up with a couple more skeins.
And, just for fun (a strange concept to 2 grad students), K & I went up to a state park near Ithaca for a short hike on Saturday.

This is near the start of the upper gorge trail at Robert H. Treman State Park, and just a minute or two's walk from where K & I will be getting married in September. The upper gorge looks like the road to where the elves live.