It's been a while

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Oh my, it's been quite a while since I last posted here. I haven't been feeling myself in recent months and I've been making very little or no knitting progress. I can't even stand to look at or touch yarn most of the time, the thought of yarn makes me feel itchy! I can't even think about wearing a scarf right now, not that I would want to with the warm weather we have been having. I'm feeling miserable or uncomfortable most of the time so I'm not good for doing very much. I can't even concentrate on knitting while watching TV. And I haven't been up for the usual knitting internet activities.

The good news is that I'm feeling a little better, not quite as bad as the worse times, but I'm not 100% better yet. I'm taking stronger meds which has a long list of side effects. One of them is increased appetite. I always have the munchies now and I just finished half a Chinese Mooncake before I sat down in front of the computer to type this. If you've never had one of these, you should know that it is quite rich/dense and not exactly the healthiest thing to eat. Hey, it was that or an apple strudel I picked up at Costco (8 to a box!). The lady at the sampling station at Costco was evil, she had to mention that they could be frozen and that they'd be great with ice cream. How can you resist knowing you don't have to finish 8 of these things before they expire in 2 days?

Another good thing is that I think my local medical group has made some improvements to waiting times before seeing a doctor. I took some yarn & needles with me on 3 visits with the hopes of starting the toe section of a sock. During each visit, I didn't even have enough time to finish JMCO! I didn't even bother to bring knitting with my during my last visit, and it turned out to be the correct call. Not so good for sock progress, but very happy about not having to wait a long time in the waiting room. :-)

I'm still chipping away at Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris, nearly done. And I finally got my hands on True Blood season 1. Yay! I've watched the first 4 episodes so far. It's somewhat similar to the book. Some things aren't as I had imagined them when I was reading the books.

I decided to try a new restaurant for dim sum. I think they need to figure out which country they want to be, cuz the place is called Hong Kong Saigon Seafood Harbor in Sunnyvale. The wait for at able is insane, be prepared to wait. A. Long. Time. Bring a book, bring your knitting. And once you get called for a seat, you'll find it is a mad house inside. Noisy too, due to lack of carpeting (for one). The tables are packed in tightly; the carts can barely make it by without bumping a chair or two. You may need to be assertive about getting food onto your table, depending on where you're seated (by the wall is not good). Don't be shy, get up and take a closer look at what's in the cart. The food is average but affordable. (Avoid the turnip cake, it is sub-par, turnip cakes should not be that mushy). At least you won't have a problem finding parking at the little strip mall the restaurant is located in.

Dim sum seems to be a brunch thing here in the US. I was surprised when I was in China (aeons ago) and saw restaurants serving dim sum at dinnertime.

The Little One mentioned that she prefers going out for dim sum with Nai Nai & Yeh Yeh (grandma & grandpa). Smart girl. She knows that when we go out for dim sum in a larger group, there are many more dishes for her to try! Her eyes are always wider than her stomach, and she'll always say, "I'm still hungry," when you know she must be full after all the food she's just consumed. Her favorite dim sum dessert is the Dan Taat, an egg custard tart.

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Of course Deb would guess that the photo in this post was a dishcloth. Well, not actually a dishcloth, but close enough. It's knit with kitchen cotton, the same stuff you might use for a dishcloth.

It all started many many months ago while I was at Mom's house and she showed me her floor mop. She couldn't remember the name of the mop, and it didn't look like my Swiffer so I knew it what it wasn't. Mom mentioned that she wanted to find more refill covers for her mop.

Fast forward many months because I'm just plain forgetful. I was browsing up and down the aisles at my local Big Bullseye Store, wandered down the mop aisle and saw a mop which looked similar to what I remembered my Mom's mop looked like. It was a Scotch Brite. So I picked up 2 of the extra mop covers:

And then used the mop refill as a sizing guideline to knit a cover for her. Actual fit size is slightly smaller than the dimensions mentioned on the packaging due to the "overhang" along the edges. So although the packaging says 5.2" x 16.2" , I was aiming for something a little narrower. The "pockets" were 3.5" deep. For the mop to fit my knitted cover, I needed the width to be at least 4" wide and length at least 16". My goal was a knitted rectangle of around 4" wide and 23" long. Why 23" long? So that I could fold over the ends to make 2 "pockets" --> 3.5" foldover section, 16" mop section, 3.5" foldover section = 23" total length.






After seaming both ends and snipping off the excess yarn, I ended up with 10 pieces of yarn! It was partly due to not having enough tail for seaming one side, so I'd have to join more yarn to finish that off. I also sewed up each seam in both directions for extra strength.

Oh and if you look carefully at how the ends come out from inside/outside, you'll see that I couldn't even do the simple task of folding over the ends on the SAME side. (Ends are on the outside on the left side, ends are on the inside on the right side). One is folded over on the RS and the other is folder over on the WS ... not that you can really tell the difference when the stitch pattern is reversible. ;-)

Here's what they look like side by side. You can see what a bad job I did of turning the ends. The pocket on one side is longer than the pocket on the other side. My finished rectangle was more like 24" long. I should have thought to center things so that both pockets or folded over sections were the same length. I worked a chain selvedge along the edge and folded over 12 chain length on one side and 16 chain length on the other.

Here's what the underside looks like.

Keep in mind that I didn't have Mom's mop to test for fit while I was making this cover. I brought the thing with me the next time I visited Mom and tried it on her mop. It came out too loose. That might not seem so obvious in the photo. It is definitely too loose. And it will become looser once the cotton becomes wet. In retrospect I probably should have added some ties to help secure it to the mop. My guess is that Mom will probably not use it because it fits so poorly.

Well now I know. I'll have to make it snugger next time. And maybe add some ties to secure it better, since wet cotton stretches like crazy.

PersProjNotes for this cover:
-- Lily Sugar & Cream; 4.5 mm.
-- Box Stitch from HG2 pg 18, mult 4 + 2.
-- CO 22? 1&4: K2 * P2 K2 *; 2&3: P2 * K2 P2 *.


Well, it's time for me to finish my Jasmine tea and then go get dinner started. Can't we just skip to dessert? There's still one lonely apple strudel waiting to be consumed...
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