Ramen Noodles

No, this has not become a fast-food blog.  Though ramen noodles do have their advantages.  I did a fair amount of knitting on the lavender sleeve this week.  Unfortunately "work" does not always translate to "progress".  I mentioned in my previous post that the armhole on the finished and blocked body is a little bigger than the pattern measurements.  I will have to change the sleeve dimensions a little to make the sleeve cap fit into the armhole.  Then I decided I want the sleeves just a little bit longer than the original pattern (I have gorilla-length arms).  Sweater Wizard makes it possible to change every single dimension in the pattern on the schematic picture of the sweater; when you hit "enter" it changes the pattern instructions accordingly.  I love this software!  The original pattern instructions for the sleeve instructions were something like "increase every 4 rows 18 times, then every 6 rows 6 times".  The new instructions were to "increase every 4 rows 25 times", then go to the every 6 rows part.  I had just finished all the increases using the previous set of instructions, and briefly considered just doing more "every 6 row" increases, but figured I would end up with a sleeve that dragged to my knees.  So I ripped it out back to the every 4 rows part and am ready to go again.  You still with me??  Here is the ramen noodles part:

I rolled some of it back up before I took the picture, but 30-some rows of ripped out cotton yarn looks like purple ramen noodles to me.  The good news is that I didn't wait to decide to change this until I had finished both sleeves.  Now I just have to remember what I did when I get to the second one.

Here is the non-knitting picture of the day:

My Christmas cacti appear to be confused about the season.
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You might have noticed a new link over in the Webrings and Buttons section on the left.  I decided in a moment of temporary insanity to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short).  This group of truly berserk people commit every November to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  This started in 1999, and this year so far there are over 39,000 people who have signed up. I didn't decide to do this until the last couple of days in October, so I'm a bit behind on my word count.  50,000 words in 30 days means about 1667 words a day.  As I've never written a novel before, this should be highly entertaining.  I did convince my husband that I needed a laptop computer in order to complete this task.  I will never hear the end of it if I don't get to 50,000 words.  If you join and start writing tonight, you only have to do 2083 words a day to get there...any takers??

Comments

[Ali]

You can do NaNo! I signed up for my first attempt in October, and it's been a lot more fun than I was expecting. You can get there!

[Chery]

My Christmas Cactus always (4th year) starts blooming in September and last until March or April. It is such a lovely plant, yours has load s of blooms. Good luck knitting your Ramen Noodles. I use Sweater Wizard, too.

[Amanda]

My mom's Thanksgiving Cactus always blooms in time for halloween, and the Christmas Cactus always blooms in time for Thanksgiving. There are confused Cacti everywhere!

[sarah b.]

I didn't even know there was a such thing as Christmas cactus. :-) Good luck on the novel, I would love to do that, once I'm finished writing the thesis I'm currently up against to get me out of grad school.

[Bonnie Lou]

Well, my dear old friend, is there no challenge you can say no to?? Obviously not. And knowing you the way I do, you'll succeed. You always have. I'll pass on this challenge as I just completed my master's thesis. I wish to revel in my delight for just a bit yet.

[Angie]

Okay, you've got to be kidding me, Lorette - work, knit, write a novel? At least you got a laptop out of the deal - you'll never live it down though if you don't hit 50,000!

I really need to learn how to knit....