For years I had this idea that using too many stitch markers was a sign of weakness. Then I stopped being dumb, and the best thing I've bought is a bag of bulb pins and a bag of number beads - rows, repeats, anything you want, right there on your piece! It's glorious! #showmeyourknits 🧶

Something has gone wrong, with the bigass ball of yarn! Ok, it wasn't a *surprise* exactly, but I was pre-yarn-chickening and ignoring it. I've joined all the bits, and weighed the yarn, and I have just barely over half the ball left. Which means none for the sleeves/hems. #knitting #knitsky 🧵

This *was* the new innovation in stitch markings - a numbered marker after every even row. Now I've joined the fronts and back, so there's a marker after every row. They count the 8-row cable, while the unnumbered ones count groups of 10 rows still. #knitting #knitsky 🧶

Apparently my livejournal is old enough to drink today. I didn't even remember having a livejournal, but I'm happy for it.

THIS FACE

My kid has been slightly obsessed with Project Hail Mary lately, so I printed them a Rocky. They immediately used it to pester the dog.

We used to have outdoor cats around here, but now we have foxes.

This week's #showmeyourknits is WIPs, lucky me - ravel.me/atul is going to be OTN for probably another month before it's finished. I'm working both fronts simultaneously, which is doing exactly what I wanted, so hooray for experimenting! #knitting 🧶

I've lived in the DC area all my life and I've never seen so little traffic on 95N, especially not on a holiday weekend. We got to Alexandria from Norfolk faster than GPS predicted, and we stopped for lunch in that time. WEIRD AND SPOOKY.

Someone at work is obviously using AI for security reviews instead of doing research (got one calling a version "a hypothetical future version" when given the right-now existing link to it). But we're supposed to use AI, so the higher ups are trying to find something else to blame.

I tried to tell 3 different people about how charging going to timed pricing was going to save me $$$ and all of them got super angry. I blame the enshittification of everything - nobody was actually listening to how $19 < $27, they just assumed that changing the pricing was to fuck customers over.

Oh no, I accidentally picked up 2 new hobbies leaving me in 4-hobby gridlock. Now I can't do anything except dither about which thing I should be doing.

OTN: ravel.me/atul, adjusted to use fingering weight yarn. THE SYSTEM! Markers every 20 sts across, to check pattern. Every 2 rows, a marker. Every 5 of those, take the 2s off and leave the 10. Every 5 10s, add a # bead to the stitch marker. I WILL NOT LOSE COUNT. #knitting #knitsky 🧶

Proof that I am not making up the Coworker Who Doesn't Understand Puzzles.

Finally finished the birthday socks! Unfortunately they're not cute laying-flat socks, but they look cute on the foot they were knit for. No pattern, just vibes, using the Cat Bordhi Sweet Tomato Heel. #knitting #knitsky 🧶

I wanted to take a silly picture of my dog trying on socks, and my stupid phone ADDED AN EYE TO HIS BLANKIE. Just made it up. Stupid fucking AI. Just take a picture of what's there. My dog's still cute tho.

🎶 Bigass ball of yarn, bigass ball of yarn, surely nothing can go wrong, with a bigass ball of yarn.🎶3 hours of hand-winding, 16.5 oz (467g) of fingering weight, Bluefaced Leicester wool.

I had cats for 30 years and will probably have a cat again, but man, giving pills to a dog is so nice. I've been giving mine his in a little yogurt and he accidentally knocked it out while licking, then went after the plain, de-yogurted pill and ate it. It can't get any easier!

Well, that's a new one. Have they been judging their "intimate moments" this whole time??? #paralives

I didn't see the neighbor doing yardwork while I sang the entire "going bye-bye in the car" song to my dog, now I can never leave the house again.

I feel like a lot of people are reviewing #paralives as a Sims clone because they're playing it like Sims, and not trying things that wouldn't work in that game. Yes it's still VERY ea, but I'm constantly surprised by the depth it hints at. Did you know you could sleep your way to the top at work?

A blankie! I made it for my eldest when they went off to college, a lil' home hug/dorm decoration for while they were gone. I forgot when making it lap-sized I also made it kinda triangular so it might look like a shawl, but it's def a blanket. #showmeyourknits #pride 🧶

Man I hate AI staging. Mmm, chair cheese!

Turkey in my backyard (I know, I know, it's serious)

PT is boring and yucky, but stupidly it works so I do it anyway. I do like looking at the picture of how to squeeze putty, it's very funny to me that people had to demonstrate it, photograph it, and draw little arrows on that photograph.

Card stolen 2nd time in 2 months. The first was legit someone stole eldest's wallet, but this time no clue. My theory is I just added youngest as an AU, so someone stole their card out of the mail before we even got it. Kid doesn't even have a credit history and they've already been defrauded. :(

#knitting 🧶I don't think there are right and wrong ways to knit things, but I do think you should know why you choose whatever you're doing. I knit socks toe-up 2-at-a-time because /1

I love knitting orange things, but I don't want to wear orange so they come and go. I almost never knit yellows, but I just finished this Maryland Flag hat for my mom, so I finally have something that matches the theme! #showmeyourknits #knitting 🧶

I had to wait several months for Jennette McCurdy's "I'm Glad My Mom Died" and it was totally worth it. 1000% recommend getting the audiobook since her narration adds so much to it. I returned it since 12 more people were waiting, but I'm thinking about getting back in line to listen again.

In honor of Mark Mothersbaugh's birthday, I think we should all enjoy that time DEVO performed on Square Pegs today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5-5...

Already going off-script. I bought some beautiful yarn for socks, wound it and realized it would be bad for what I had in mind. Then I remembered I had to make my kid birthday socks first anyway, so I have to wind a whole new skein. I guess it gives me time to figure out what to do with my yarn?

I'm trying to watch videos about learning 3d printing, but YouTube keeps trying to push me into drama videos *about* 3d printing instead of boring "this is what you should know when you start" stuff. YouTube, you're what's wrong with the world.

Man, I fukin' love Eurovision. And I don't know when I'll be able to watch it again, but for sure not this year.

I have so much nice new wool and only one functional arm. I don't know if I can transition from circulars to knitting pins, but I might have to find out.

Happy 36th anniversary to the first serious article I read about "we'll have cheap lab-grown meat in 5-10 years!" Keep it goin', guys!

For Mothers' Day my child found and clipped my favorite scene from The Great Pottery Throw down. I'm so sad it was scrubbed from the Internet, so here it is until some AI yells at me.

This is so good! I wish they'd existed when my kids were little. www.youtube.com/shorts/E4uZb...

Got my elbow xrayed and the tech asked me if it was broken. I genuinely bluescreened for a moment, now I kinda wonder if that's their x-ray tech humor.

My dad was a virologist, so as a kid I learned about all sorts of exotic diseases that I'd never have to worry about. I was promised a world where these things would be eradicated, not one where my knowledge would come in handy with a new outbreak every week.

I just backed www.kickstarter.com/projects/alt... and figured I should share it too. I am a sucker for a Living Single reference!

Someone's started bringing in puzzles for the break room at work, nice, lots of people enjoying putting in a couple pieces here and there. But there's one woman who comes in and just jams pieces together, ones that neither fit nor match. I spend a lot of time wondering what she's getting out of it.

MD Sheep & Wool was super fun! We scritched all the (permitted) sheep, and petted the yarn, boggled at the beautiful competition entries, and enjoyed the sheep dogs showing off. Oh, and spent all my money. Good times all around!

I don't know anything about the guy on the left except he's in a museum storage right now, and I love him. The guy on the right is from the HS art show, and made me immediately think of the left guy, so I figured I should share them.

We watched all the Murders that She Wrote, so we're taking a break with the new season of Top Level Chef. I don't think my dog likes it, he keeps asking who the killer is.

Art in the art show! Bigtop Burger-inspired "Pig on da Borger" from my youngest. Alternate title: "Why do they call it hamburger when we ham out eat the burger?"

Le Guin is the only author who I read and spend the first half of a story going "ugh, this is so bad" and then the second half going "oh shit this is actually the best book ever written." Finished City of Illusions today and I was actually sad it ended.

Speaking of art from my children, this was my early Mother's Day present from the eldest. I don't have the lighting for a good picture. It's got a really cool clear green into ghostly blue thing going on, I love it.

Asked my ceramicist kid for nice dog bowls for my birthday, and kid pushed back on making something for the dog for MY birthday. Wound up in a 20 minute convo about art - the dog just wants full bowls, I'm the one who wants something handmade by a human to enjoy handling/seeing twice a day.

I found out there's an international grocery store like 2 blocks from where I charge my car near work. ALL THE SOUP FOR MEEEEE! (I passed on the 2-gal pho teabag, but DIL says it's actually a good way to make pho so next time it will come home with me.)

They "fixed" the AI tool I have to use by adding a second agent that checks the work of the first. All it does is agree, as in "The classification of NULL is correct, this is an airline and not a software company, therefore the software cannot exist."