Kathy A. Graff

ilisidi, posting in knitting @ 09:36 pm: Thanks
Several months ago I asked for recommendations for yarn stores in Sydney. A couple people recommended http://www.morrisandsons.com.au/. They're great! And they were having a sale when we were there! Also, someone recommended Featherdale Wildlife Park. It was awesome! Thanks so much for the suggestions!

bogiebogie, posting in knitting @ 05:34 pm: FO: Blue Blueberry Waffle Socks
Such an easy and satisfying pattern! They're taking a bath in Eucalan right now to soften the Trekking XXL. More details on the Ravelry project page.



Tags: finished object, socks

evester22, posting in gimpgirl @ 03:36 pm: Kidney stones and CP
Hey all, I have kind of a weird question. How many of you (if any) have had kidney stones? And what are your symptoms? The reason I ask such a weird question is because I have been having sharp pain that starts in my back near the ribs and then travels downward. It's excruciating stabby pain, cold sweats, and vomiting but it only lasts for an hour or so and then I feel totally fine. I have had test but they are inconclusive.I had 2 UTI's during this time (but I think blood in the urine could also be caused by the movement of a stone). To know for sure if I have kidney stones they would have to do a CT scan, which is impossible because I can not keep myself from moving. When I had this pain, the Dr did an ultra sound which showed I have gallstone, but he said that those may or may not be causing the pain (my gallbladder was not inflamed so he wasn't sure it was the gallstones). This sounds strange but I can sometimes feel something moving downward even when I am not in pain and haven't eaten recently. Anyway, I am just curious if anyone out there has had kidney stones. Is this similar to what you felt? How did they diagnose you? I know CP sometimes causes weird symptoms for stuff so I'm just curious.

islandofwords, posting in knitting @ 01:46 pm: Time for an FO dump!
Whee, I knitted things! Check it out under the cut.

( Why yes, I do mean this cut. )

As usual, more pictures can be found on my Ravelry Page (feel free to friend me) and crafts of all sorts (not just knitting) are documented on my blog. Stop by!

laswa, posting in knitting @ 10:05 am: Yarn sale
In case you are interested, Michael's has Paton's Classic merino on sale 2/$5 through tomorrow.

EDIT: I don't know if this is nationwide, I posted because I just scored a ton in Racine, WI. Be sure to check your local store first, I guess.
I just checked the website and the 2/$5 sale is listed...

sirjenny, posting in knitting @ 11:17 pm: Dropped stitch
I'm knitting a sweater with some relatively intense cables. I noticed that about 5 rows back, I dropped a stitch in one of the purl sections of the cable. I'm hesitant to rip the sweater back, because I don't have any life lines in, and I'm worried about losing the cables and being able to pick up the whole round of stitches, etc. I was considering just threading a piece of yarn through the dropped stitch and trying to sew it in place so it doesn't run. I don't mind the slight blemish this would make in the sweater. Is this a decent idea, or do I really need to risk ripping the sweater back?

Thanks for your help!

inhyung, posting in knitting @ 10:35 pm: Veronik Avery's military jacket
I am knitting Veronik Avery's Military Cardigan from "Knitting Classic Style" (Rav link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/military-cardigan).

I am three rows in and already stumped. It says:

Row 1 (RS): K4, [work Row 1 of Chart A, pm, p4] twice, end K1 (edge)
Row 2: P1 (edge), work sts as they appear to last 4 sts, K4
Maintaining edge st and 4-st garter edging, work even until piece measures 2 1/4", ending in WS row.

So... do I work in the chart? Or do I work even, literally, following the knits and purls. Looking at pictures on Ravelry, it seems like it's supposed to be worked in the chart, but then I get confused because Row 2 throws me off the chart. (Row 5 of the chart is a cable, so it needs to be a RS row.) But if I start row 2 in what's technically my 3rd row, I'll be on the WS for the cable row. Does that make any sense at all?

I hope I'm just overlooking something really obvious. Any insight?

daniidebrabant, posting in knitting @ 10:05 pm: twisted stitches and a FO
So I was reading up on a few different knitting sites and I stumbled on somethingabout 'twisted stitches' and how what might look like stockinette isn't *really* stockinette, etc, etc. Now, when I *first* started knitting, I knit through the backloop. I then learned differently, but upon looking at my knitting, I discovered that despite being even and relatively quick, the way I loop the yarn still results in a twisted stitch!

I tried looping it the other way, but there was a *serious* awkwardness to everything I tried. It did produce a straight stitch, but it also felt too loose and to do just a line of it took me quite a while.

What I'd like to know is: if I'm a somewhat casual knitter, and I have made quite a few items with my stitches like this and been pleased with the results, is it worth it to take the time to retrain my hands to try and untwist my stitches? Other than a slight (to me) aesthetic difference in the produced stitch, is there some structural or pattern-related reason to change? Are there things that I won't be able to make/do with my stitches like this?

I know I probably sound like a philistine, but I was wondering what you all thought.

ETA: ...have discovered, much to my own embarrassment amusement that knitting through the back loop? Straightens out my stitches. So I'll just have to remember to reverse that (ktbl = k, k=ktbl for me) and everything seems to be just fine. I'm gonna go off and laugh for a while now.

Thank you for your answers.

( FO scarf )

theljstaff, posting in news @ 01:53 pm: LiveJournal Major Notes: Notes, Tweaks, Bug Kills, LJ_Cares!

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

Tags: bugs, csi wii, fck, lj_cares, lj_photophile, notes, rte, writer's block

fyrdrakken, posting in knitting @ 02:46 pm: Thanks for the help!
A few weeks ago, I posted asking for help finding or extrapolating a pattern for a hat I'd seen in a catalog. I wound up going with the Gilligan Bucket Hat, and I thought I should make a post showing the result:

( Mom's bucket hat )

Tags: finished object

lower_class, posting in knitting @ 12:00 pm: My mom is very interested in Norwegian knitting and I would like to purchase a book of patterns for her. Since I know nothing on it really, other than what Amazon and google tell me, I was wondering if any of you had any suggestions on a good book for her. She just wants to do scarves, mittens, sweaters, etc. She's been knitting for longer than i've been alive, so skill isn't an issue.

And would Norwegian and Fair Isle knitting be considered the same or similar? What about Scandinavian?

unacquiesce, posting in knitting @ 11:18 am: curiosity
how do you pronounce "entrelac"?

mokatiki, posting in knitting @ 03:48 pm: FO's again...

Let me try this again. Some FOs I have been meaning to post

stitchystitchy, posting in knitting @ 07:34 pm: Finished objects!
( Aeolian shawl in Sea Silk )
Definitely one of my favourite patterns ever!

( Hand-spun, hand-dyed beret hat thingy )
I loved making my own yarn and dying it! What a fun experience!

( Calystegia cowl )
First time working with Malabrigo... instant love!!!

( Victorian Lace Today Capelet )
I actually hated pretty much every aspect of making this shawl. It was really boring, and took FOREVER and although it looks great, I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone who doesn't have INFINITE patience!

PS: I would really love new friends on Ravelry (I'm shystreet on there!) :) bye!

mollomar, posting in knitting @ 04:24 pm: one row high stripe?
I'm trying to knit a hat that has some stripes in it. Is it possible to have just one stripe, one row high, and not have a jog? I've Googled a bunch and come across the jogless stripes technique, but does this work for just one row? I've also come across the barber pole technique, but I want just the one stripe.

Does such a thing exist?

EDIT TO ADD: I'm knitting this hat in the round :)

loique, posting in knitting @ 06:14 pm: recent FO
( Read more... )

morningapproach, posting in knitting @ 05:23 pm: Atypically Knit HP Scarves
My brother requested a Gryffindor scarf for christmas, and I was pretty set on knitting him one of the scarves from knit.atypically.net. Alas, the website is offline now and the GoogleCache doesn't work for the patterns, which is really disappointing.

So, can anyone recommend a good Harry Potter scarf pattern? I don't want to do an illusion scarf, just a simple stockinette stitch scarf, so something along those veins would be perfect :) 

Thanks.

dwell, posting in lj_maintenance @ 02:00 pm: Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT
EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

ststepdown, posting in knitting @ 04:00 pm: Help!
I am making the Heelhead Scarf (http://carissaknits.blogspot.com/2008/10/heelhead-scarf.html) and I am at the increases, and I don't know for the life of me, what M1LP is, I know its "make one left purlwise" But how?!
If anyone can walk me through it or point me to a tutorial, I searched but to no avail :(
Thanks!

threnody, posting in knitting @ 08:24 pm: Increase issue
I'm having some trouble with increases. I'm making a scarf that will be wider in the middle than at the ends. It's in 2x2 ribbing, and I want to make the ribbing wider for the wider bit. Problem is, every kind of increase I try leaves a hole underneath. :( I've tried m1-r, m1-l, bar increase/Kfb (doesn't leave a gap but I *hate* that little bar), a modified kfb that goes back into the stitch and slips it purlwise. I've tried purl increases, which seem slightly better, but still with the hole. The gauge is fairly loose (Drops Merino (dk) on US 5 needles), but not so loose that a gap like what's happening won't bug the hell out of me every time I see it.

Is there a trick to increasing on ribbing that I'm not getting, a magic increase that won't leave a hole (some of the ones I've tried normally don't, which is why I'm stumped)? Or will I just have to deal with either the bar or the holes? Any advice/opinion/commentary would be appreciated. :)