Half Marathon - Hannover

Before we start here, let me just apologise for the lame cell phone pictures and British spellings.  The former is due to me being alone on my trip.  I wasn't positive if I could get a late checkout, and I didn't want my DSLR in a plastic baggy in a giant room full of everyone else's plastic baggies.  The latter is due to my computer's current identity crisis and its strange need to write things like colour and favourite.

Hannover was pretty fun!  I didn't see many of the cities cultural offerings, but I would say I explored a pretty decent chunk.  I didn't take any maps with me on my wanderings, so I let myself get lost a few times.  On my first attempt at finding the race expo, I actually found my hotel again.

On Saturday, I woke up, went for a 2 mile loosen-up jog, came back, and took a shower.  The hotel had some interesting soap dispensers, and I couldn't resist a picture.  You will notice that each language places "hair," "hand," and "body" in a different order.  I'm not sure what this says about the different cultures, but it probably says something.  (The German, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic versions are in very small letters at the bottom, hence the giant picture.)

Hair: important to anglophones, unimportant to hispanophones, francophones are ambivalent.

Then I put on my new, magical Cornhusker shoelaces.  They barely fit through the holes, but I think this was actually a good thing.  Once I tightened them down just right, they weren't going anywhere!

With those, I went on my short walk turned long walk to pick up my race packet.  It was a nice trip.  I saw lots of side streets, ate a crepe, and got some ice cream.

When I got back to my room, I dropped everything off and then headed down the street to buy a Hannover Starbucks mug.  I just started collecting them this year (which is unfortunate, because I don't have them now from a lot of places I've been), and I really want to have them from places I've run in.  I don't have a picture of the actual mug, but I do have a picture of the statue of King Ernst August.  His statue is right outside the Hauptbahnhof at Ernst-August-Platz, which is not a great location to get a good picture of anything.  I took it just to prove that I actually went to the place to get the mug instead of trading for it.

The actual race was pretty nice.  The forecast had predicted heavy rains, but they didn't come until much later in the evening.  I'm not sure yet about my feelings on the weather.  I wore a baseball style running cap to keep the rain off of my eyes so that I could see while I was running.  I ended up wearing it despite the dry weather to keep the sun out of my eyes instead.  I could tell by the end of the race though, that it was starting to get hot under my hat.  In general, I would have preferred if it were 10 degrees cooler with less wind and humidity, but I was there to have fun, not break world records.

After I ran the race, I had a couple hours to kill before my train was ready to take me home.  My intention was to go visit a museum, but I noticed that I really just wanted to do a lot of sitting.  I did some sitting on a bench with some ice cream.  I did some other sitting on concrete blocks without any ice cream.  Then I took a very roundabout way back to the train station and saw this building.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something very German to me about a Bäckeramtshaus.

When I was finally on the train back home, I learned a very important lesson.  Deutsche Bahn coffee is both overpriced and terrible.  The quality is comparable to American gas station coffee.  (The average German gas station coffee is actually very good.)  It costs 2,80.  So about $4.

The offending cup

You'll also see there part of a chart from my double knit Space Invaders scarf.  I got four aliens finished on my various train rides, which doubled the work I had accomplished over the two previous months.

Overall: Success!  Four German half marathons down, twelve to go!

WIP Wednesday

It's confession time.

I really like Harry Potter.  No, you don't get it.  I really like Harry Potter.  As in, I like it so much that I joined a group on Ravelry over a month ago where people get sorted into Hogwarts Houses, turn in knitting projects as homework, and compete for a House Cup.  They even have OWLs and Quidditch.  April is a break month, but everything starts back up again in May, so I've been waiting for then to cast on my knitting projects so that they will count for things.

But there's no point in not working on things I had already started.  And it seems a shame to deny myself knitting just because there's a game going on that I can also knit for.

Here's my Vasa, which is still a WIP because it has 50000 ends not woven in.  I was an absolute idiot and for some reason didn't carry the contrast color up the side of my first piece.  But it is blocked, even though that little piece of ribbing doesn't like to stay where he belongs.

I'm still deciding how I feel about the Vasa.  I think it's decently flattering, for a shirt with no shaping whatsoever.  If I do make another one, I am definitely doing it in the round.  I am all about easy finishing.

And what's this over here?  Could it be?  It's Visser's big cousin, Visser 4!  (It's only the second one I've made, but it's the fourth size.)  It's coming along reasonably quickly.  I've already separated the torso into front and back.  I'm working the back right now, because it's just mindless stockinette.

FO Friday - Visser

My favorite online LYS, Eat.Sleep.Knit, wrapped up their first quarter KAL challenge on Monday.  We were supposed to knit things that required us to learn a new skill, and we would get credit for 1000 yards in their yarnathon.

My initial plan was to submit Zantha, which you've seen here before, since I had never done lace before.  But since then, I've knit two more, and I am just Zantha'd out right now.  I didn't even want to look at it long enough to sew the buttons on and finish it up.

Instead, I grabbed a skein of Madelinetosh Pashmina and got to work.  My two skeins of Pashmina, in Cobalt and Citrus, reminded me of the bright, complementary colors I saw a lot of in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  I decided to see if there were any typical Dutch sweater designs that I could translate into a baby sweater, and there were!

These would be quite at home in a Van Gogh work.

Dutch fisherman sweaters were exactly the thing I was looking for.  They are knit in solid colors, so the visual interest comes from various knit and purl stitch patterns that decorate most of the front of the sweater.  They also generally have a drop shoulder construction, which is much easier to measure and calculate for than the raglans I am used to making.  They are often knit very tightly, but I loosened up the gauge a bit, since a baby doesn't need to be waterproofed on a boat.  (They probably also weren't knit in a yarn with any silk content, but hey.)

I've named this sweater Visser, after the Dutch word for fisherman.

And what were the new skills I learned for this?  Many, to include casting on in pattern and the right twist mock cable.  But the one I am most proud of is seaming.  I'm no longer terrified of it, which is good, since my plan is to knit myself a seamed garment someday.  This also lets me use sweater construction methods other than raglan and circular yoke.

Sunday Six

In no particular order, here are six pretty cool things that happened this weekend:

1) Spring finally came to Germany.

When I went for a run this afternoon, it was around 60 F!  It was nearly 20 degrees warmer than last week's run, so my pace may have suffered a little.  I didn't bring a watch, because I didn't want to compare myself to last week since the weather was so different.

And flowers are starting to bloom.  I even saw a potted plant we had put outside last year.  It used to be a houseplant, but it looked dead, so we just put him outside.  Not sure why.  Anyway, turns out, he was not dead!  He was just done for the year!  (His friend behind him seems to be actually dead, though)

The Lazarus plant.

2) I bought a cool pattern and the yarn to go with it.

Someone in one of my Ravelry groups posted about Vasa, and I decided I needed one, too!  I bought the pattern (my first purchase on Rav!) and then wandered over to my favorite online yarn shop, Eat.Sleep.Knit, and ordered three skeins of Tosh Merino Light.  I plan on making the Vasa over and over again, so there's a ton of TML in my wishlist now, but I'm starting with Alabaster, which is a pale yellow.  [I just counted.  There are 12 skeins of TML in the wishlist for various projects.]

I hate seaming and purling, so I may modify it to be knit in the round, but that will depend on what size needle I need to get gauge.  If I need anything smaller than a 4, I will have to knit back and forth, because that is as small as my reasonably-sized circulars go.

3) I ran the highest mileage week I've ever run.

33 miles!  There were only 30 on the schedule for this week, but we had a 3 mile company run on Friday.  It was pretty slow, so even though Fridays are rest days, a slow three felt restful enough that I didn't think I needed to move around the rest of the miles and just kept with the schedule as planned.


4) Three bananas reached their banana bread prime.

I put them to use in some banana bread from the Smitten Kitchen.  I've already eaten half the loaf.

 

So tasty.

5) I found the missing piece of my coffee maker.

Senseo: One of the top things I will miss about Germany

You see that black shelf looking part?  The place where you would obviously put your cup?  I moved offices a few months ago, and the new office didn't allow coffee makers at desks (literally the only thing I miss about that other office and job), so it had to come home with me.  That one piece ended up misplaced, and before I found it again (in a suitcase?!?), I had a tuna packet balanced there that I could very gently put a little mug on.


6) My shawl started developing an actual shape.

That shawl from the last post is starting to take on the shape I was intending for it to have.  I'm using yarn leftovers right now just to test it out, but when I get yarn specifically for it, I'll alternate colors more often.  The stripes right now are a little wide for my taste.

And here's a bonus picture of the dog in the yard:

When there's nothing to compare her to, she looks bigger than 20 pounds.

Sneak Peek

Here's a little peek at the first thing I'm designing for an actual adult human!

This was taken in my dining room with no flash and a speed of 15 fps.  The motion control on this camera is incredible!

Eventually, my hope is that it will turn out to be a shawl.  I did some swatching, but I think I just won't really be able to tell if it's working the way I see it in my mind unless I get it bigger.  I wanted to order yarn especially for this, but as I'm on a bit of a restricted yarn diet, I decided it would be better to work with yarn I already had in the stash.  This right here is Tosh Merino Light, a fingering weight yarn, and you may recognize the Antique Lace colorway from the baby cardigan photo I posted earlier.  If it works out, I may order some laceweight and make it again before publishing the pattern.

Ouch!

Turns out, you shouldn't jump right into a heavy-mileage training plan after you don't run for three months.  Who'd have thought?

[Pause for laughter as "real" runners take a glance down below at the weekly mileage I was doing.]

I've developed some pretty awesome shin splints, only on my right leg interestingly enough, which I didn't know was possible.  I was supposed to have a three mile run today, but I was in pretty awesome pain after just a half mile walk with the dog, so I nixed it.  Something tells me an 11-miler tomorrow would be a bad idea.

It's hard to do, but I think I am going to have to start over with a lower mileage plan, like one for real beginners even though I've run five half marathons already.  Munich in October is my target race, and I don't want to injure myself training for a race I'm running just for the heck of it.

Not one to end on a negative note, I am also including a photo of my first pair of knitted mittens!  Just missing one thumb!

If you are a right thumb amputee, these are finished!

I'm a Real Person

I spend about an hour each day in my car, commuting to and from work.  Public transportation is, unfortunately, not efficient or cost-effective in my case, so I drive.  This means I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts, and one of my favorites is NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.  One of my goals in life is to do something interesting enough that Terry Gross interviews me.* 

Terry Gross was interviewing Greta Gerwig a few months ago for her movie Frances Ha (which is pretty good, by the way), and Greta said that she felt like a real person once she was a member of the Screen Actors Guild.

All of the to say, today, having joined the Knitting Guild Association, I am also a real person.  I'm pretty sure you have to actually act on a screen to be part of the Screen Actors Guild, and you don't have to provide proof of knitting to join this guild, so maybe I shouldn't compare the two, but it still feels good.

You even get a membership card!

*I used to want to be on Conan O'Brien, but I've realized I wouldn't be able to make jokes fast enough, and it would be one of those really uncomfortable, scripted interviews.  Although, if you still want me, Conan, I promise I will make you look really smart.

WIP (Almost) Wednesday 1

Apparently it is a tradition among knitting bloggers to post pictures of works in progress (WIPs) on Wednesdays.

Well, I am here to tell you that Wednesdays are terrible days to write blog entries, because I have homework due every Wednesday.  It's due at midnight, which means, guess what I'm doing with my evening up until midnight?  Guess what I say won't happen every week on Wednesday, but totally happens, without fail?

Someday, I won't be trying to work full time and go to school, but until then, here's my WIP Almost Wednesday:

Tosh Merino Light in Antique Lace - a dream!  The name of the sweater is a secret until I publish the pattern because I know there are thousands of you silently reading this blog, waiting to steal it.

This is the very first thing I've knit in lace!  It's a horseshoe lace pattern that's thankfully fairly easy to memorize and also easy to know right away (at the latest, two rows later) if you've made a mistake.  So far, the biggest mistake was not slipping on an sk2p, but I managed to fix it without having to rip it back!  I refuse to learn to crochet, but I do own a crochet hook for these exact situations.

As you can tell, it still needs a good block, ends sewn in, and buttons sewn on.  I blocked a swatch of the lace pattern, and it really opens it up.  The ends also end up looking way less lumpy.

The reason I finally got around to knitting lace was thanks to Eat.Sleep.Knit's "new to you" knit-a-long.  By knitting a project that makes me try something new, I get 1000 yards credited to my yarnathon progress!

The goal is to publish this pattern eventually.  I'm trying to work on a few extra lace details people can add on as they wish and to make the increases more symmetrical.  I learned how to do kfb's and yarn overs on the purl side, too, so I will try that on the next size that I test out.

Top 10 Reasons to Knit Baby Sweaters

Everyone* who knows about my knitting knows that it is 95% baby sweaters.  In honor of my tiny sweaters, here are, in no particular order, the reason you should knit them, too:

1. You get the satisfaction of completing a real garment in just a weekend!
2. You can splurge on really nice yarn, because you probably won't use more than two skeins.  One skein of Malabrigo Rastita or Madelinetosh Pashmina can make a sweater up to size 12 months (and maybe beyond, but I haven't tried it yet), as long as you don't get too fancy with the stitching.  A skein of Malabrigo Worsted makes a size 12 month cardigan with a cable on it!
3. The baby will not complain if the color isn't just right.
4. The baby will also not complain if the sleeves aren't just the right length.
5. If it really doesn't fit, just put it on a different baby.  Or wait two months.
6. They are just as portable as socks, but with no tricky heel turning or obnoxious single sock syndrome.
7. When airport security is suspicious of your knitting needles, they let their guard down once you tell them you're knitting a baby sweater.  (See number 6)
8. Even an ugly sweater is cute on a baby.
9. A striped baby sweater is the perfect stash-buster.
10. You can display them four across on the back of a tiny couch, in all of their unfinished, unblocked glory.

    

    This is a loaner couch.  I may not have great style, but I own nothing that ugly.

These were the first four sweaters of my sweater-knitting life, which started when I basically had a couple weeks off work nearly a year ago.  I hope to never progress to adult sweaters.  I am the Peter Pan of tiny knit things.

*This is mostly my mom.