Have You Seen The Scissors?

We have officially moved! It is amazing how much stuff we have - we were a bit insane to move it all ourselves. Lesson learned. The sheer quantity of stuff meant the move took two days - and there are still some things left at the old house. (Little things, though, like my plants and Dan's beer brewing stuff.)

The new house is lovely. Actually, it's really a big giant mess with boxes strewn everywhere but we are slowly making it home. And once it is home, it will be lovely! Sadly, the kitties are having to stay in the craft room so they don't get lost amongst the boxes, but fortunately the room is quite large so they aren't suffering much. They are just lonely. I keep hoping that we can let them out soon, but at the pace we are going it will likely be Wednesday or Thursday. Poor kitties.

Both Dan and I are fairly exhausted (and pretty dang bruised, too) even though we had great help during the move. It seems like we aren't making progress with the unpacking, but we are. We are, dammit! We even found all the proper plates and flatware such that we didn't have to eat out today at all! That's the first time in almost a week. We are so freaking tired of fast food - and even restaurant food has lost its luster. (Not that we are big eating out type folks anyway.)

Well, back to the coal mines. Or at least the boxes. I hope to be able to finish the kitchen tomorrow. I only have a couple of more kitchen boxes so it's totally doable! (How did we get so much stuff?)

Insanity

I've officially hit the wall.

Today, we spent the morning packing up some then went over to the new house for the DSL install. Which took a lot longer than it should have. Which meant Dan didn't get to pull the cables for the house networking and speakers. Currently we are back at our (old?) home, packing more. Well, I'm taking a mental health break because this is what our kitchen looked like about thirty minutes ago.

It's kind of insane. Since that picture was taken, I've taken care of the under the sink stuff and the junk drawer while Dan has barreled through our daily use glasses and plates and is now working on my teacups.

I, however, have hit the portion of the program where I am so amazingly overwhelmed that I have to walk away for a bit. At this time, alcohol is usually imbibed. (Fortunately, the booze has not been packed.)

Now that I have distracted myself with blogging, though, I can go once more unto the breach... at least for a couple of boxes. I'm also thinking it is a good time to get the Malibu rum out.

Frustrations & a Birthday

Happy birthday to me! I'm the big 35 today. I feel like I should be all adult-like and whatever by now, but... nope.

Big plans for this day? Well, yes. For my birthday, we got a house.

I think both Dan and I are cycling between exited and overwhelmed. Because OMG, moving! We are doing 'THE BIG MOVE' on Friday, after which we will have officially changed residences, but gah, the work required to move! And not just packing (though that's a joyous kick in the teeth). There are a number of things at the house we want to fix up either before or right after we move in - paint touch-ups, a crack in a cabinet, change out dishwashers (yes, I'm taking my beloved Bosch with me)... Nothing huge, just a ton of little things that will manage to suck up massive amounts of time.

And, here's where the frustration comes in, we have to get all new exterior doorknobs. After closing when we got the keys? Well, "the keys" turned out to be a single key for the front door. And that single key doesn't work on the other two exterior doors. Apparently, the sellers packed the other keys and put them in storage. Nice. And we need those keys to change the cores in the current locks. Well, we don't need them, need them. We could always pay a locksmith to pick the locks to change out the cores - it'll only take about 45 minutes to an hour per lock (and we have two deadbolts and two locking handles across three doors). I'm sure locksmiths are super-cheap when you have them come out for four hours at a time.

Yeah, new exterior door handles.

Also, we did our walkthrough Saturday. The sellers weren't exactly kind moving out but whatever. Touch-up paint will fix that. However in between the walkthrough and closing, the spring on the garage door broke. So we get the keys (sorry, key) and go to the house and the garage door won't work. Fun, huh? Naturally, the garage door is not covered by the home warranty. We went ahead and got it fixed (I seriously feel like our bank account has sprung a leak) and our realtor is seeing if we have any recourse about getting that reimbursed or anything, but honestly, I'm not going to hold my breath.

So yeah, the whole broken garage door, key-not-keys and "hey, look! they banged into the door pretty bad here while they were moving their stuff out!" wasn't the most exciting way to start the new home-owning gig, but whatever. I think once we get our stuff in there and start to get all settled in, we'll forget all of the initial frustrations and just be really pleased at our new place.

To end on a happy note, I will share pictures of the two rooms about which I'm currently most excited.

 

The left picture is the living room which I enjoy greatly. Open floor plan, big windows (on the left wall so not visible in the picture) and (engineered) hardwood floor. The picture on the right is a big empty room. But that big empty room is going to be my room. Okay, okay, I get to share it with the kitties (their jungle gym will be in there) but that is my future crafting room. So excited about that. (Placement-wise, it is through the French doors on the left side of the living room.)

Of course, I'm excited about the kitchen/dining area and Dan's office, too.

 

The kitchen needs brighter lights (which is actually a general rule for me and lights anyway since I tend to go for supernova level of brightness) but I'm excited about it. And I'm really happy for Dan to have an office all to himself and not have to share with my crafting stuff! I'm sure he's pretty pleased, too!

Well, I'm going to go back to being lazy and trying to ignore all the packing we have yet to do. It's my birthday, after all!

SO CLOSE!

You may notice the countdown a couple of posts down. Today is closing! Rather, today was closing! Yes, we have closed! All the paperwork is signed and our downpayment is all in. Now we are just waiting for the lending agent to double check the paperwork and okay the release of funds. Hopefully this will happen soon and we'll have the keys to our new house tonight!

OMG, we just bought a house!

This Is Not July

It has rained every single day since Saturday. Earlier this week we even had a few days with highs in the 70s. Normally, we don't even have lows in the 70s at this time of year. Seriously, what is up? Stop it!

News!

Our closing has been moved up!

We are still going to move the big stuff over the weekend, but now we'll have a few more days to migrate over some smaller items and Dan can run speaker cables and whatever else, so hopefully the "big move" weekend won't be quite as insane.

Yeah, who am I kidding? Moving is always insane!

Cute Kitties are Cute

The kitties are still enjoying our current hoarding of all the boxes we come across. They are going to completely adore the unpacking process. So many empty boxes!

Speaking of packing, I've been doing a handful of boxes every day for the past week or so. Today, though, was a super-productive day. I lost count after I packed up 12 boxes and that all happened before Dan was off work and able to help take care of a some things in the guest bedroom. Once he got involved, at least four more boxes were packed and we even took apart the guest bed!

We've still got a lot of stuff to pack, but most of our books, files, a good portion of our linens and most of the guest bedroom are all packed up. Barely a dent has been made in the kitchen though (I think we've packed one box of kitchen stuff). Hopefully this weekend we'll get to the china and some lesser used stuff. It's really amazing the amount of stuff we've accumulated in the past decade.

Also, the closing countdown I posted earlier might not be accurate anymore. The seller asked if we'd be willing to move closing up! Not sure by how much though. Financial paperwork could be where it needs to be early enough for closing to be a full week ahead of schedule, but the seller's realtor doesn't work on weekend (seriously) so I'm not sure if we've missed the window to make that happen. We shall see! And entertain ourselves during the wait by packing!

Getting Closer

Boxes

Oh my! We are moving at the end of the month! It's kind of hard to believe, but we are definitely getting prepared. We've been collecting boxes to pack in and I've even packed up a handful.

Most of our moving boxes are in the garage, but the few I've gathered from Costco have been hanging out in the kitchen. Which means the kitties are enjoying the influx of boxes to play in.

If moving wasn't such a stressful endeavor and full of unkitty-friendly change, I bet they would enjoy the process just for all the different boxes.

Ear News

Yesterday was Bitty's appointment at the kitty dermatologist. I totally didn't know they had those, but yep, they do. It seems mostly dogs go to dermatology vets, but Bitty still got great treatment. In fact, the mass in her ear that we were worried could be a polyp or deep infection (or worse)? Turned out to be a mass of hardened ear wax! (There was some long, multi-syllable words that the doctor used to say what it was but ultimately it boiled down to hardened ear wax attached to ear ear.)

It took some wax-softening drops and three ear flushes to get it out, but the wax came out leaving a sparkling ear with no ear drum issues. Yay! The doctor showed us the ball o' wax after it was removed and it was HUGE. I mean, I'd think it was big if it came out of a human ear. To have come out of a five-pound kitty's ear? ENORMOUS. There was a small amount of blood on the part of the wax ball, which was what was visible, and I think that made it look non-wax enough that our regular vet was thrown off.

But yes, good news! No polyp, no billowing ear drum, no spreading of last month's tumor. Ear wax!

Of course, the bad news is that Bitty has a bit of a yeast infection in her right ear again. Dr. dermatology man said that was most likely a reaction from some environmental allergen and is why she gets ear infections all the time. So we've got some drops that she'll be on for ever and ever (if they work) to see if we can eliminate the reoccurring infections.

Not the most fun outcome - Bitty certainly doesn't handle ear drops well - but I'd much rather take regular ear dropping over all the bad things the ear wax could have been, so I think it is a good trade off.

I'm a Fraud

Apparently I went on a shopping spree today. Zappos and Sears. Oh, and Dell over the weekend.

Only thing? Yeah, it wasn't me. (My shopping spree was confined to Ikea.) So I got to shred my credit card today. Whoo?

On the plus side, our shredder easily shreds credit cards. (It slices, it dices, it juliennes!) I rarely get to use the CD/credit card feature, so yay?

Also good, Amex is sending me a new card. I won't get it until Wednesday, though. (I guess tomorrow the vet gets the Visa for Bitty's ear appointment.) I do wonder how long I'll get to keep the new card before more fraudulent charges are made.

And totally random: I made a pork vindaloo tonight for dinner.

It was my first time making a vindaloo curry. It was delish! (Five stars out of five from Dan!) I got the recipe out of Curry Cuisine. It's the third or fourth recipe I've done from that book and I've been pleased all around. (Though one recipe made massive quantities more than it said it would. I think their onions are much smaller than what I use so when a recipe calls for six of them... But it was delicious, so I didn't mind the gallon of curry.) Of course, I never follow the recipe exactly, but I still give credit for the nummies to the original source.

House-ular Updates

So Dan and I are gearing up to move! Okay, at this point 99% of the preparation is mental but still, it's a big deal! The house we put the offer in on is pretty much ours now. Well, you know, except for the payment thing. The inspection uncovered some roof issues but the sellers are now replacing the roof. So once that is done, we can move on to closing! Currently our closing date is set for July 25. One day late, but I'm totally saying that Dan's buying me a house for my birthday. Again.

Of course, this means we've been figuring out how we'll set up the new house. It's an acre lot (no pool - yet) so we're thinking a push mower isn't going to cut it. And we'll have two extra rooms and an extra half bath to furnish. We'll need rugs. And speaker cable to run. And cabinet organization things. A shower curtain. The list is getting kind of long. I have a feeling we will be handing over lots of money to places like Ikea, the Container Store and Costco in the near future! (So yeah, if you get stuck on gift ideas for us for the next year or so, gift cards would be lovely!)

On the other side of the coin, we are starting to make another (slightly shorter) list of what we need to do with our current house before we sell it. Dan's already gotten rid of a couple of dead bushes this weekend so that can be checked off. But we've got a bit of carpet repair to do and we are trying to figure out how little re-painting we can get away with. And cleaning. And a yard sale.

It's going to be exciting to have the new house, but it's going to be sad to leave this one, too. I've got some built in shelves that Dan made for me that we won't be able to take and that's sad. Plus, this house was our first home together! We picked out the tile and counters and wood stain.... Bitty was born in this house!

But as sad as it will be to leave, I am looking forward to the next step. Especially since that next step includes getting a pool! (Of course, that means pool furniture gets added to the list.)

Nummies

For the first time in ages, I've finally made some bread! Previously, I just hadn't been able to get up the motivation to do it, but tonight, I felt all energized. And I really wanted some bread. So I made some.

I have decided that I just can't hand-knead properly, but as long as I use my stand mixer to knead, I get happy, light and fluffy bread. Tonight's French bread definitely had a happy result - one loaf is almost gone!

Another One Bites The Dust

Finally! I've had this project in process since March and it's just been sitting there doing nothing since April. But at long last, I get to mark it as done!

It's a cute little pleated purse that I had intended to use this on our cruise last month. Now that the cruise has passed, though, I really have no idea what to do with it!

Oh well! At least it is no longer languishing. And with this one being marked as complete, my works-in-progress are at zero! Zero! I'm sure that won't be the case for long though; I have a cardigan up next but I'm not sure when I'm going to start that. The whole house buying thing has me rather distracted - it's tough to settle down and knit!

Chiaogoo Interchangeable Review

It's taken me a while, but I've finally gotten the chance to give the ChiaoGoo interchangeables some attention.

ChiaoGoo offers two different interchangeable sets, the Spin (bamboo) and the Twist (metal). Even though my interchangeable hunt started with a focus on wood & bamboo needles, I decided to look at both sets since 1) the pieces are interchangeable between sets and 2) my ultimate winner was a metal needle so I feel it is only fair to review the compara ble ChiaoGoo needle.

First off, the Spin. These bamboo needles come with clear nylon cables that swivels.

I'm going to say this a lot in this post, but the feel of these reminds me a lot of HiyaHiya bamboos. Those are resin-impregranted and I have to assume these are, too, since they both feel a bit plasticy to me. I have heard some say that KAs feel more plastic-like, but to me KA feel like a smooth, natural wood and ChiaoGoo & HiyaHiya feel more like laminated wood.

Naturally, since they are bamboo they are a bit grippy, but no more than my KAs. Bamboo typically has rather dull points, but I've been impressed with the pointiness of the Spins. Mind you, I picked up the ChiaoGoo Twist in a US4, but the point is finer than the KA Switch's point in the same size. I can't really compare them to the sharpness of the HiyaHiya bamboo as I have destashed the ones I got back when and even then I had a US10.5 which will have a larger point no matter what.

Personally, I'm not in love with these just because of the feel of the bamboo, but I don't hate them. They are less grippy than the Clover needles I have used and seem only slightly grabbier than, say, a Knit Picks or Knitter's Pride needle.

The ChiaoGoo metal needles are the Twist. These stainless steel needles have the well-known ChiaoGood red nylon-coated steel cables.

Before this, I hadn't been exposed to the ChiaoGoo red cables, though I had heard folks gushing about them. I can see why some people like them - there is zero memory and they have a firmness that would be nice when working on heavier projects - but personally, I'm not a fan. If I were to use the cables as a regular circ, I'd probably be okay, but I rarely do that. These cables make magic looping virtually impossible; the combination of the firmness of the cables and the lack of swivel resulted in such tugging at the loop's cross points that I ended up with ladders. I never have ladders when magic looping! Switching to two circs at a time, I could feel the extra resistance in the cables. It gave a heavier, more weighty feel to my knitting (in a bad way). The resistance wasn't prohibitive to happy knitting, but it's not something I'd want to deal with all the time. We'll call that a personal preference thing.

The other mark against these needles is the smell. I'm fairly sensitive to smells and I hate that dirty-metal smell (like the smell your hand gets when you handle a lot of coins). These cables smell like dirty change. Fortunately, the smell never transferred to my hands (a fact to which I credit the nylon coating) and it did fade after a few hours of knitting, but it was still a really distracting (and disconcerting) issue. Yuck.

Tip Comparison in US4
HiyaHiya SHARPS, ChiaoGoo Twist, ChiaoGoo Spin, KA Switch

Compared to the HiyaHiya, I think they are remarkably similar. Materials seem alike, both offer four- and five-inch needle lengths, points seem comparable (when comparing to the HiyaHiya SHARPS, not their regular tips). I could only come up with a handful of differences between the two sets:

• The red cables that come with the ChiaoGoo Twist (metal) set are different from anything HiyaHiya offers
• Both ChiaoGoo sets have lifeline holes, the HiyaHiya do not
• The connector is shorter and has a sharper slope on the ChiaoGoos, a longer connector with a more gradual slope on the HiyaHiyas

The red cables are a bit of a negative to me, but they don't make me hate the set. If I was really in love with the needles (if I hadn't met HiyaHiya), I could always buy and use the Twist cables. Speaking of which, I do like the fact that the different cables are interchangeable between the sets. HiyaHiya bamboo and metal sets are interchangeable, but aside from needle materials, the two sets have no differences. I know lifeline holes are a requirement for some but I always end up getting my stitch markers caught unless I put a lifeline in with a needle, so I don't really view them as a positive (or negative). The connector length and slope probably makes the most difference to me since the longer HiyaHiyas seem to feed stitches easier onto the needle. The ChiaoGoos aren't problematic in normal knitting, but I did have some trouble when trying to get overtightened stitches (from a provisional cast on) onto the needle.

Bottom line: Both HiyaHiya and ChiaoGoo are good options. HiyaHiya is still my winner but ChiaoGoo are solid-runners up. If the lifeline or nylon-coated steel cable were requirements for me in my what-needle-set-makes-me-happiest search, then ChiaoGoo. But since they are not, they don't.

(ETA: HiyaHiya now makes cables with lifeline holes.)

Previous posts in my needle hunt saga:
Part I A and Part I B
Part II
Part III
And some gushing about the winner
My KA Switch short set review
This post is my ChiaoGoo Spin and Twist review!

Step One: Complete!

It has taken me a shameful amount of time, but as of today, I have officially introduce myself to my sewing machine. I even made a mini-project to practice!

Okay, it's not a really the best made project. I didn't have a pattern and it was a learning project so there are a few things that... well, were learning experiences. But it is usable and I learned how to make buttonholes so I consider it a win all the way around. Also, I totally love my sewing machine! Yay!

Now that I have defeated the sewing machine nerves, it is time to work on the lining of my poor knit bag project that has been languishing since April. Wish me luck!

In Other News...

Completely finished socks!

And let me tell ya, nothing more comfortable than wearing wool socks in 90+° heat outside in direct sunlight.

But they fit perfectly and I luf them. At this rate, by fall I'll have enough hand knit socks to finally get rid of some of my older, falling apart fun socks but still have a full sock wardrobe! (Because really, fall is the next time I truly expect to actually wear any socks for longer than a few photographs.)

Holy Veal

An offer Dan & I put in on a house was just accepted. I'm at a bit of a loss for words. OMG, we are going to buy a new house. Crazy!

Also, autocorrect is a funny, funny thing.

Kitty News

Nothing resolved with Bitty yet. Her stitches are out and ear canal is no longer gunky but the bloody ball is still there and her eardrum is bowing a little. Could be a polyp, could be an infection, could be another tumor. More tests are needed to find out so we'll be doing that as soon as we find a place that has the right equipment (some sort of biopsy-taking ear scope).

In other news (though still kitty related), it was Gidget's turn to get her annual exam and shots from the vet.

At her age, the exam includes a urinalysis, but her little bladder was empty. So she's camped out at the vet today until she can piddle in a cup for them. Hopefully that won't be long! The house is sadly unfluffy without her!

ETA: Gidget is back home - official test results should be back tomorrow!

Do I Love My KA Switch Interchangeables?

Last month, I bought a set of the KA Switch 2” interchangeables. I've knit two pair of socks with them now, so I think I'm ready to give my official opinion: two thumbs up... with a caveat.

First off, I’m really glad I bought this set. I LOVE knitting socks on 9” circs. For me, it is the perfect way to knit socks.

But while I love having this set, I'm not completely in love with the needles. Since they are bamboo, they are a little grippier than my oh so perfect HiyaHiyas. These needles also have the size cut into the shaft of the needle. Really convenient to easily see what size everything is, but the small edges created by the imprints create a little extra drag and, with more difficult yarns, can snag a bit. This wasn't an issue for the orange socks I made; in fact the needles felt a bit silkier after knitting a sock in that yarn. But the purple pair above was a different story. I don't know if it was because that yarn was 25% nylon with the superwash wool (instead of 10% buffalo, like the orange socks) but boy, the needles ended up grippy and snaggy. A bit more than half way through the socks, I waxed the needles with some beeswax with really helped but that didn't seem to last on one of the needles. So I need to figure out a better bamboo moisturizer to help with that issue. Even during the worst of the snagging, though, they never got to, say, Clover level of rough grippiness.

The second issue, not as big of a deal, is the dullness of the needle points. Honestly, they aren't dull compared to other bamboo needles, but compared to my HiyaHiya Sharps... yeah. Knitting with bowling balls. But for those used to knitting with bamboo, it's not going to be an issue. Those more into wood or metal needles, though, will notice the difference.

Finally, the last issue that I didn't have a problem with but I imagine some others might is the cable. I think it is because they are so small, but the cables are a bit stiff feeling and they do have a memory. Check out the needle in the above picture. Quite a nice curve to the cable, huh? And with how it feels, I'm pretty confident when I say that the curve won't come out. But! I can honestly say it never caused an issue. First off, since they are 9" circs, it's not like their shape or orientation changes during knitting a sock - the curve just keeps curving. And when doing a heel or using two needles at a time to make the toes, the smooth-as-butter swivel on these babies makes even the strong curve imperceptible. I am a tad concerned about the sharp bend I've managed to put in them right at the end of the needle, but I'm thinking that the denseness (which is likely what gives the cables their rigidity) will protect the cables. (I'll update if that opinion changes!)

Grippiness(/snagging), dull points and inflexible cables are the only non-positives of this set. I don't think the last one is really a negative since other factors cancel it out and cable rigidity tends to be a personal preference. I also accept that dullness just comes with bamboo needles. Which leaves me with the only unhappy aspect of these needles being the grip/snag. So yeah, I'm going to work on finding just the right type of wax to smooth these puppies out but it's not going to stop me from using these. Even with the worst of the snagging, it was better knitting with these than it was magic looping or doing two circs at a time. DPNs would have been fine but I like being able to attach a longer cable to try socks on while knitting and I just can't get a DPN-filled sock on my foot. So even snaggy 9" circs win all day long.

Bottom line: I am not in love with the needles but I am in love with having 9” interchangeables, if you get the distinction. I do really like the needles, though more so when knitting with things like the orange yarn, not the purple. Of course, if HiyaHiya came out with a set of US0 and up 2” interchangeables, I’d drop these babies like a bad habit. But as I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, I'm going to keep knitting with these (and enjoying it).

As a side note: As of May this year, KA is switching their smallest sized connector from an M1.6 to an M1.8. So if anyone decides to get any KAs that have needles for the smallest sized connector, make sure to clarify with the vendor what size they are. Last news I had, KA will be discontinuing the M1.6, making any broken or lost needles (or accessories) hard to replace and there are no current converters on the market (from M1.6 to M1.8).

Also, when I was trying to buy this set, KA was in the middle of the conversion which caused several vendors problems in getting all the accessories I wanted (cable connectors, end caps, extra needles) in the M1.8 size. I ended up contacting The Mannings who went above and beyond and were completely awesome by getting me everything I wanted in the new M1.8 size and in time for my vacation. Kudos to them! I highly recommend emailing them if anyone is looking for a great place to get KA products. Seriously awesome folks. (Especially when three other vendors gave me some version of the brush off when they figured out what I was looking for!) Yay for the Mannings!

And yay for 9" interchangeable needle sets!

Previous posts in my needle hunt saga:
Part I A and Part I B
Part II
Part III
Some gushing about the big winner
The KA Switch Short set review is right here!
And my Chiaogoo Spin and Twist review is here