Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Nine Eleven


I've just looked back -- today is, as I thought, the anniversary of my sister-in-law's operation for colon cancer.

I made a good start yesterday on the conversion of my husband’s files. He wants me to concentrate on the ones he has recently revised, so I’m doing that. Holly, I don’t think the old Word Perfect can help – although at least I understand what you’re suggesting. It’s more than 20 years old, pre-Windows, and as I remember from my own days of using it, will save files only in its own format and as DOS text.

What I need is a macro in Word Perfect 12 which would invite me to type in the name of the next file I want loaded, and would then convert it to Word and invite me to put it away in its new place. It could save a lot of clicking.

Thank you, too, for the suggestion of Dropbox for cloud computing. As it happens, my sister wrote to me yesterday suggesting the same thing. I’ve signed up and made a start with it – and I'm sure it's going to work fine.

Yarn

Stash temptation comes crowding in. Thanks for yesterday’s suggestions, most of which I’d never even heard of. I’ve recently bought an on-line copy of The Knitter, and also downloaded a free one they had on offer. It is distinctly good, and distinctly pricy. Should I cancel “Knitting” and go for it? Reading it in bed last night with the subject on my mind, I found it absolutely full of pointers to wonderful-sounding yarns I don't know about.

Knitting

I seized an available half-hour yesterday and blocked the Brownstone – without even pausing to deal with loose ends, as you see. I can't give it its final percentage point in the sidebar until I've done that.


It looks enormous. Taking a tape measure to it, I find that the width is about right. Somehow both body and sleeves are a couple of inches longer than the measurements I was aiming at.

BUT – isn’t it wonderful how life sometimes fits together? – this morning’s edition of Knitting Daily, to which I subscribe, is devoted to the subject of shortening or lengthening a sweater! With a video demonstration from Eunny! I will see Big Thomas in the sweater on the shores of Loch Fyne at Christmas, insh'Allah, and will judge then what, if anything, needs to be done.

And here’s the little one, superimposed on the Strachur Primary School sweatshirt which is its template. So far so good.

Both Zite and an email from I Knit London tempt me with “55 Christmas Balls to Knit”. If that sounds like a title you could skip, have a look at Arne and Carlos on the cover. I could knit a bauble (our family word for them) to take along to Loch Fyne. 

10 comments:

  1. The Knitter has wonderful articles (Kate Davies is a frequent contributor) but when I went through my back issues I struggled to find many items I would actually knit. But how many of us DO knit the patterns in magazines? It depends what you want from your magazine. I bought Issue 1 of Knit Now (also UK based)and although there was nothing much to read, I thought I might use several of the patterns. And the News was news to me... but you have your Zite for that!

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  2. Hi Jean,
    The Brownstone looks great!
    I saw the book by Arne and Carlos mentioned on Ravelry Monday night.
    After knitting 6 Ishbel scarves last Christmas, I have decided to go with Christmas balls this year. The book should be arriving today and the search for appropriate yarn will begin.

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  3. Anonymous2:42 PM

    Love the Brownstone! I'm sure Thomas will be enraptured.

    I have no desire to knit balls of any sort, but I sure wouldn't mind hanging out with Arne and Carlos.

    Thanks for two different kinds of eye candy this AM!

    Beverly in NJ

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  4. Your Brownstone looks terrific! And I think you will find the size will be okay when the recipient puts it on. Guys tend to like their clothes a bit on the long side, at least in my family. Not that any of them wear sweaters.

    I have never heard of The Knitter. I will have to check it out. I am discovering I love having magazines on my iPad. No clutter.

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  5. =Tamar3:27 PM

    The Brownstone should be fine as it is. An inch or two in body length makes very little difference, though to my mind, longer is better. The sleeves can always be turned up, or pulled down to warm the hands on an unexpectedly chilly day. If there is time, let the recipient wear it a day and see how it works.

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  6. The Brownstone looks fantastic. You've re-piqued my interest in knitting that, actually. Sleeves that are a bit long are good, in my book. Basically my experience matches what Tamar has said.

    I love that book cover. The guy on the right looks a bit like my dad when he was younger; i love his sweater.

    I don't have any version of WordPerfect, so I can't help you much with batch processing or macros there. If they have a user forum, however, maybe there are some good tips there.

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  7. I just finished a men's sweater where the sleeves are a good 6" too long. I'm not sure how it happened, but I have to take the sleeves out and rip out from the top. Sigh.

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  8. Although I am not speaking from personal experience I wonder if optical character recognition could take printouts of the magnum opus and create modern Word documents in one step.
    However I don't know how much fixing that would require.
    Many scanners do include OCR as part of the package these days.

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  9. =Tamar1:43 AM

    Mary Lou - if the sleeve is plain, is there a six-inch segment in the middle of the sleeve that has no decreases, where you could remove a segment and Kitchener stitch the pieces together? If there's a pattern, of course that wouldn't work.

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  10. The Arne and Carlos book has been a runaway hit at one of my local LYS and they can barely keep it stocked. I bought the book myself. Won't get anything from the book done by this Christmas, but I intend to use these project to help me learn 2-color knitting.

    These are cute - and worth a look. They may even convince you to purchase the book!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OghpSXzGOYA

    This one is even better - you get to see their garden, house and chickens.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoDghBI3F34&feature=related

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