Isn't It Ironic?

So we were down at the river last night, the guys were fishing, and I was knitting. After an hour or so, my hands got so cold that flexing my fingers to hold the needles was difficult, so I put the knitting away and buried my hands in my friend's pockets.

The irony: I was knitting gloves.

We did get a fire going eventually, but by that time I'd lost interest in re-starting the same gorram finger for the fourth time, so I amused myself by taking pictures with my cameraphone. Here's my favorite:



Mmm... fire.

I Still Knit! I Swear!

Fellow TVSnBer Jenny and I went to a fiber-themed farmer's market on Sunday, and I actually got some knitting done. I brought two projects with me: a black wool stockinette somethingorother that will probably end up as a felted bag, and Greenery v.2. That's right, the hat's back, and worked a few rows while watching The Painted Sheep give a dying demo. I can't cable and walk at the same time (well, I can, but disaster often strikes when I make the attempt, and nobody wants a #8 DPN to the eye), so I worked on the black thing for most of the visit.

If you hate LOLcats, move on to the next blog on your list now, because this is probably going to make you nauseous. For the last few months, I've been thinking (and often speaking) in LOLspeak. I dragged David into this habit, so he's who I babble at when I get an attack of the LOLs. This is the email I sent to him after Jenny and I got back from the market:

k soez i goes to farmr markit wif jenny dis moarnin an she gotz lots a fyebur an cheez an we seez wulfhownd an ibeezin hownd and labs an skipper... shippr... the kewt blak dawg an i wants stuffs but i has fiev buks an i need it fer subway tamorra soez i cant has anyfin an i sad but is okee cuz i saws teh puppahs an deys kewt and dare wuz sheeps to an we pats dem and dey goes baaaah an dare wuz lama to but heez eetin soez we not pats him an tonite i gunna wach franse play eyrland cuz rugby is kewl

And this, folks, is why I don't go out in public much. ;-)

Time for work. Gods, I feel like a grown-up.

Welding Work

Holy Mother of Melted Metal, I'm exhausted. I haven't gotten used to getting up at 5am yet, and every morning I catch myself thinking, I'll call, invent an excuse for not going in, and go back to bed, but I yell at myself and get up anyway.

I like the work I do, and it's easy, mostly-mindless stuff, so I can still do it when I've had very little sleep. One of my coworkers bugs me, but I'm learning to tune him out. This is the company I work for, and the bunches of blades in those fan-shaped things are what I make. Sheet steel comes into the building and goes to our massive (about 20' square) laser cutter. It mostly-cuts the blades for each job, and then the blades come to my area, Barset Assembly. My partner and I run the sheets through a Timesaver (big belt sander) to get the burrs from the cutting process off. Then we "break" the blades (snap them out of the rest of the sheets), arrange them by type (usually between four and seven types of blades, depending on the size of the barset), and "build" the sets by assembling the blades in the correct order. We put small spacers between the blades (creating the grooves) and then put each barset in a clamp. I put on my welding helmet and fuse three to five lines across the back of the barset (depending on the set's size) and one line along each cross-section edge. The sets get run through another Timesaver to make sure everything's even, and then they go on to the next step in the process... which I don't watch because I'm too busy building more sets.

So yeah, that's my job. I haven't done any knitting since I started working, but I'm going to make time to finish Askew #2 this weekend. SFF asked about Rhinebeck... I'm not sure if I'm going this year. If I go, it'll only be on Saturday, and I probably won't buy anything except maple cotton candy.

Time to go take a shower and curl up in front of the TV for a while.

It's About Bloody Time, Eh?

I got a job yesterday. A welding job. A job I was pretty sure I wouldn't get. A job I was pretty sure I wouldn't hear back about for at least a day or two. A job I'm pretty sure I got just because of one of my references.

Last Tuesday, one of my teachers told me that a place he used to work at was looking for welders. On Wednesday I picked up an application. On Thursday I submitted the application. On Friday they called and asked me to come in for an interview on Tuesday. The interview and tour were over by 11:30am. At 2:30pm I got a call... and they offered me the job. After I hung up the phone, I screamed the ecstatic scream of someone who just landed her first decent job.

I really didn't think I was going to get the job. My employment history sucks (all retail, all more than five years ago, each job held for a month or less), I only have one reference who's a welder, and I took a hell of a risk with my wage request. I expected a "you gotta be kidding me" look from the guys interviewing me, and a call later in the week saying that I wasn't what they were looking for.

I sure as hell wasn't expecting an offer three hours after the interview.

Apparently the teacher who told me about the job made quite an impression when he worked for the company. The supervisor looked at my references, was disappointed that they weren't in the welding industry, and then saw my teacher's name on the list. "Well, you've got [this guy] on here, so that's good enough for me!"

Also, my meager knowledge of French came in handy. The other guy who was at the interview (an efficiency consultant) turned out to be French-Canadian and didn't speak much English, so I spoke to him in French for a little while. You should have seen his eyes light up!

So now I have this job making the grinding heads used in fiber/pulp processing. I start in about an hour, which means I need to go braid my hair, pack a lunch, and try to get the butterflies out of my stomach. Eek!

Fair Sock

I bound off the fingerless gloves yesterday afternoon and immediately cast on a sock with the Regia yarn I got in Virginia. I finished the toe cup in about an hour, put it in my purse, and went off to the fair. I knit while I walked around, I knit while I watched the antique tractor pull, I knit while I watched the demolition derby, and I got about five inches done before I went home. I'll be back again tonight to see the doodlebugs at 5 and the figure-8 demolition at 7:30. Hopefully I'll turn the heel tonight.

Night Knitting

Every morning as I'm going through the nearly 60 knitblogs on my daily reading list, I think, I should post something today. (And, I should update my blogroll, too.) Then I go to Ravelry, get sucked into the forums, and completely forget to post anything on my blog. I had to stick a note to my monitor before I went to bed last night so I'd remember to post today after pulling myself away from the forums.

So. How y'all been? I've been tagging along with a friend when he goes night fishing, so I've been getting very good at knitting in the dark, which is why Askew #2 is about 15 rows and two straps away from being finished. The current crochet project is in my bag, too, and its front side is a few rows away from being finished. The second fingerless glove hasn't been worked on in a few weeks, but it's close to being finished, too. Stuff might actually get crossed off the WIP list soon!



See? Stuff! Almost finished! Yay!

Anyone gonna be at the Hebron Fair this weekend? If my surcoate were in wearable condition, I'd be helping out the CT RenFaire folks, but alas, said surcoate has been collecting dust for many months and is not ready to be taken out in public. So I'll be there in modern clothes, probably hanging out with a tall redneck who wears a black leather cowboy hat. (He stands out in a crowd far better than I do, so you're better off looking for his hat than for my green-streaked hair.) If you see me, come say hi! I love meeting other knitbloggers, especially at non-knitting events.