Rolling On One

We went up to Casco yesterday for the house inspection. There are four or five minor points and one more thing to get looked at professionally, plus radon tests to be done, plus the septic system inspection.

There’s a gorgeous view of (snow-capped, as of two weekends ago) Mount Washington from about two miles before you get to the house.

We went over to Bridgton, about 18 miles away, to walk around downtown. My agenda included looking for a book on Maine mittens, Fox & Geese & Fences, which I had had out of the library recently. It seems to be out of print, but the same author, Robin Hansen, has put together lots of the patterns from it, plus other patterns from another out-of-print book of hers, in Favorite Mittens. Down Home & Company, a tiny but lovely yarn and spinning shop in Bridgton, had a copy which we bought. In Bridgton Books we found a book of old photos of the towns around Lake Sebago, part of the Images of America series. We went into a place that called itself a diner for coffee and pudding, tapioca for Arlene, grape nuts custard for me.

We came home by the more scenic, or at least less built up route, down route 117 from Denmark through towns like Hiram, Standish, and Limington, out to the Maine Turnpike at Kennebunk (non-New Englanders, that’s ken-ee-bunk, not ken-uh-bunk)

Wednesday night I really did all the last knitting on Charley’s sweater. Thursday morning I sewed down about a third of the collar, enough that I could try it on and get Arlene to take a picture of me wearing it:

I went over to Black Sheep on my lunch hour and said, “I wanted to show you what happened to some lopi you guys sold me.”

There is a little puckering in the fair isle part of the top. I thought I was being careful not to hold the thread too tight, and it’s better than on the lower part of the body, but there’s still room for improvement. The woman in the store said, “Just steam it, or take it to the cleaners across the street and have them block it for you.” But I don’t think Charley will mind, or even notice, anyway.

Charley was over for supper tonight, along with David and Rachel and their toddler Jared, and Millie and Joel who are visiting from New Jersey. Here he is, ready to take his new sweater home, just in time for the cold weather. Well, that’s how I planned it.

… or just sitting on the curb. On my way home from getting bagels last Sunday I noticed some furniture on the curb in front of Linda and Dixie’s house, in particular one very substantial-looking chair, but didn’t stop for a closer look. Arlene went out later in the day. When she got home, she said, “I saw a pretty nice chair on the curb down the street.” We put our coats on (it had started to rain) and walked down to check. The chair wasn’t there any more! But Dixie was, moving some of the stuff. She said, “I put it back on the porch. Would you like it? Linda’s brother used it in his college dorm room.” We looked. Though the seat looked as if t had been severely clawed by pets over the years, the frame was solid and in pretty good condition. We carried it home and I started to take the rush seat off, a little at a time, trying to see how it had been made as I went. I didn’t think to take a “before” photo, but here’s a “halfway” photo. There was cardboard between the top and bottom layer (it’s sort of a figure eight structure) of rush. Some was corrugaged, some was an old shoebox. We couldn’t find any date, but the design on the shoebox fragments looked like ’40s or ’50s style. That would be consistent with the dorm room history.

Will I buy paper “rush seat” material? Will I pick cattails and try to make a real rush seat? Will it sit undone for years? Stay tuned…

I walked around the pond at Cutler Park on my lunch hour today. That was supposed to be one of the attractions of this job. It worked — the pond is really there, and I can walk around it in 38 minutes, including side trails to the Charles and to a little point jutting into the pond that seems to be a particularly good birding spot. I saw three golden-crowned kinglets today as well as titmouse, nuthatch, swans, mallards, and song sparrow. It’s not a huge list, but I still consider the kinglets to be good birds.

All the knitting is done on Charley’s sweater! I still have to bind off the neckband, fold it in half and sew it down, and weave in lots of loose ends. I grafted the underarm stitches at the start of tonight’s knitting, just so they wouldn’t be hanging around to do when everything else was done. Pictures at 11. Oh, it is 11. Pictures at 11 on Friday, probably, because I have Koleinu tomorrow night and probably won’t get to finish the sweater.

This one took 2 1/2 months. The previous two took three months each. Maybe I’m getting better at this, or maybe I’m just playing less computer solitaire.

I did bicycle to work my second day at the new job. Even in my out-of-shape state, it only took 18 minutes (of course I looked at my watch!) It was as nice a ride as I expected, down the hill on Nahanton street through the golf course, over the bridge on the Charles and past the marshlands. The turn into the work parking lot wasn’t hard, either; I was a little concerned about traffic making that left turn.

I spent most of the day with online training (as I will be doing for about three weeks), learning what our product is, who are customers are, and how they use it.

Arlene came to drive me home, since it’s not so much fun bicycling in the dark, and brought most of the stuff I had brought home from my office. There are still two cartons I had brought home from a previous office that would be nice to get out of the house, and stuff in the trunk that I haven’t brought into the new office yet. But it’s an office, not a cubicle, and there’s some desk space to use.

Also, today was my first day at my new job. So far so good. My boss spent about half his day getting me set up on the computer. They want me to do a lot of web-based training on their product before I start monkeying with it. Probably a good idea. I have an ID card on a little retractable, spring loaded string that clips to a belt, a real office (as opposed to a cubicle), and one computer on my desk (as opposed to two). It really is close to home — 3.7 miles. It doesn’t count as a commute, just as driving to work. That’s different.

I finally got to work on the coptic binding book I had started a couple of weeks ago. The covers are cereal box cardboard covered with Japanese printed paper that I bought at the stamp convention back around Memorial Day. The directions for the binding were, natch, on the web. I used way too much thread. My advice to anyone who wants to try this project is to be more careful estimating the lenght of thread to use, and not use way too much. It’s just awfully slow pulling excess thread through all the holes. The other suggestion I have is to use a rubber band or binder clip to hold signatures that are already bound out of the way. Here are the results —

We went over to Charley’s so Arlene could plant bulbs in his yard. I went over to Mind’s Eye Yarns in the meantime. It’s in Porter Square, Cambridge, only a couple of miles from Charley’s place near Teele Square, Somerville. I’ve met the people from there a couple of times, at Gore Place and the Knit-Out on the common a few weeks ago, and have wanted to see it. It’s two smallish rooms with nothing but really nice (people and) stuff — gorgeous yarns and roving, because it seems to be the area’s best source of spinning supplies and equipment. Patience was there, six rounds away from Kitchenering the toe of a sock. She’s entitled to put a more flattering picture on her blog — she’s way cuter than I remember her from the Knit-Out. She’s really knowledgable about knitting, too. I asked if they had Knitting for Anarchists and she said they didn’t, but I might check in the bookstore across the parking lot, but she doubted they’d have it — she didn’t think it was out of print, but it was a couple of years old and they probably wouldn’t have it on the shelf. I mean, that’s keeping track of things!

Oh, why sock yarn? My real reason for going was to see what the place was like and what spinning supplies they had (spindles, lots of niddy-noddies, roving in lots of colors and fiber combinations), but the excuse was to buy some of the solid-color Regia sock yarn that they had recently got in. I bought two balls each of brown 4-fadig and grey stretch.

I’m making serious progress on Charley’s sweater. I think there’s a good chance it’ll be done inside a week.

That’s what I am! Yesterday was my last day at the place that I was hired twelve years ago (well, I started on Feb 1 1994, so it’s three months short of twelve years, but close enough) and Monday is my first day on the new job.

It was very emotional leaving after that long, and there were several people that I didn’t get to say goodbye to whom I should at least e-mail, but, ya know what? I feel great today.

I’m recycling my catalog from Despair, Inc.. I’m not even ready to consider the possibility that it’ll be a Dilbert-like place. Though I guess it’s a possibility. But for now, I’m between jobs and optimistic.