Skittles Blanket - Quick Update

Not going to be a lengthy post, but I just finished construction of the skittles blanket.  I still have 203 ends to weave in, though.  But the time-consuming part is completely done!!!  Here's a picture I took a few minutes ago, and then this post is done.

I also chose to make an edging all the way around, and I'm really glad I did, it looks much more finished than my other completed granny square afghan.  (Why are they called granny squares, anyway?)  It's also quite heavy, I wasn't expecting it to have so much weight.  I am now going to try to weave in all those ends tonight in the hopes we can take it to Matt's parents' house and give it a quick wash tomorrow since we're going to be out that way anyway.  (It needs to go in a washing machine without an agitator so it doesn't get mutilated.)

Woo hoo!!!

Rainbow Fibers

This post isn't going to have anything to do with the weather.  Or politics (I'll get into that later, I'm planning a rant at a later date).  This is gonna be all about the projects I've been working on since I last posted stuff about my projects.

Since I last posted, I finished my own Christmas stocking, an entire set of coasters, unmade the two placemats so I could remake them (the pattern I originally chose sucked), completed a placemat with the improvised pattern, finished my Christmas tree skirt, and started yet another blanket.

Placemat with PS3 controller for scale.

The story with this placemat is that I realized how much I hated the pattern (since I couldn't get it to stop buckling), so I made this one and unraveled the pink one since I hadn't finished it yet.  Unfortunately, I had to toss the purple one because I'd already woven the ends in and I couldn't unravel it without having to cut it into little pieces, making it useless to crochet with.  So I bought more purple yarn.  I don't think Matt actually knows I bought more yarn.  At the moment the kitchen table is more of a catch-all than a place to eat, so having the placemats isn't terribly important right now.  That situation probably won't change until at least after this stupid, stupid semester is over.

Both Christmas stockings.  I may revisit the stocking situation at a later date because I don't love these.

These are the Christmas stockings.  They look okay, but I'm not in love with them.  The one that is mine is definitely not what I would call "me" - it's a little more traditional than I would like, but I couldn't decide on a color scheme that was still kind of Christmasy while being a statement of my personality.  So I'll make a new one at some point down the road when we actually have a mantle or something to hang them from.  I still haven't figured that one out.  We have stockings for Matt's parents' house at Christmas that go with their decor, so these are exclusively for our house.  Might look up some ideas on Ravelry or something later.  These will do for the next few years, though.

My completed Christmas tree skirt.  It is 48" from point to point.

This is my Christmas tree skirt.  Finally, finally done.  I only started it in July, so I guess that's less of a finally than some other projects.  (I have a blanket I started in 2007 and finished in 2013, and another I started in 2010 and I still haven't finished it, among other projects.)  I love this Christmas tree skirt, though.  It's sparkly and awesome, and it's not the shitty fake snow with the crappy glitter that I've been using as a tree skirt.  The package on the fake snow may have said "Christmas tree skirt" but it is horrible and I hate it.  Which is why I wanted to finish this project so badly - then I can not use the one I got for $2 at Walmart.  But yay!  It's done!

So, just under two weeks ago, I got very upset at my homework (there was about 3 hours of crying involved and no progress made), and said something along the lines of, "Fuck my homework, I'm making a blanket."  So I started making a blanket and it's basically taken over my life for the last 11 days.  I think maybe this blanket was meant to be made or something, because I can't stop working on it.

Composite of the progression of this blanket.

It has never taken such a short amount of time for me to get to this stage of a project this large.  This is also the largest thing I've ever made.

Current progress as of the writing of this post.

That is the Skittles Blanket, as Matt has so dubbed it.  It is currently 5 ft square.  I am on the final color, but I'm unsure of how many rounds I'm going to do of the really, really intense pink I'm currently using.  I love this blanket.  I feel happy just looking at it.  Maybe that's why I needed to make it.

It is also already big enough to cover pretty much my entire body head-to-toe, and I'm not even done making it BIGGER.  As you can clearly see, it's already almost large enough to use as a bed blanket.  This thing is a monster.  I love this blanket and can't wait to finish it.  Of course, I still have to weave in all those damn ends (this is the only thing I'm waiting on for another blanket I made), but I don't think I'll mind so much because it makes me feel so happy.  I think I might make a rainbow hat or something just for grins and giggles so I can take the happy with me wherever I go (at least when it's cold outside).  That's a definite possibility, actually....

Anyway, that's about all I have to talk about.

Grammar. Use It.

It is so frustrating to be reading an article somewhere and have these glaring grammatical mistakes - you know the kind.  Your vs you're, that kind of deal.  So here's my rant.

When you are writing, especially when you are writing for an audience, it is always, ALWAYS prudent to double-check what you've written before you publish it.  Standard spell check is not going to catch grammatical errors and I'm not sure MS Word's grammar check would catch these types of errors either.  Below is a short dummies' guide to how to grammar, because apparently nobody actually paid attention in school.  (I am not an English major, so this isn't exactly going to be perfect with how I describe it, but hopefully it will be accurate enough.)

Pronouns that mean possession:

your
yours
their
theirs
my
mine
her
hers
his
our
ours

Sentence examples for selected words:

Your wallet is on the table.  Their car only has 5 seats.  That is my house on the left.  That sandwich is hers.

Pronouns that are action-oriented:

you're
they're
I'm
we're

Sentence examples:

You're going to be in the third car of the train.  You're potty training your child.  (There's an example with the two most maddening ones.)  They're not on the baseball field.  We're going to the park.

Other words that I'm not sure how to categorize (many homonyms):

there - He is over there, playing on their trampoline.
here - Here comes the bride!
you - You live in a dwelling.
me - Help me memorize polyatomic ions.
him - I have to take him to the doctor today.
it - The box of rocks is with it.
its - The cat isn't feeling well, its stomach has an ulcer.
it's - I'm going to be late, it's too snowy to drive at a normal speed.
to - I'm going to the park.
too - We're going to the park, too.
two - There are two more people at the park.
are - You are my sunshine.
oar - You use an oar to row a boat.

Hopefully I've made my point.  I'm so sick of reading grammatical errors constantly, even in what I thought were respectable publications, like Time magazine or USA Today.  Fucking learn grammar, people.  I learned this shit when I was 7 years old.  It is not difficult.  AND PROOFREAD. For fuck's sake.  Stop abusing the poor apostrophes.

Liquid Oxygen and Silver Vapor

Hi.  So, it's been awhile.  Before you read any further, I just wanted to say that this is a science-heavy post.  I will be using technical terminology, which I have attempted to explain, but if you're not all that into science or don't want to hear a whole lot about temperature scales and states of matter, you might want to skip this one.

Anyway.  Today my chemistry lecture started the subject of gases and gas laws, so my instructor (who, sadly, is a temporary one who is leaving after this Friday to be replaced by the person who was originally supposed to teach this class) did a demo showing what happens when a balloon is cooled rapidly.  (Obviously I understood the gas law stuff VERY well.)  And she showed some other cool stuff that had nothing to do with what we were covering but it was AWESOME so whatever.

Anyway, she started with 3 balloons and did the same thing with each one in succession.  These balloons were not filled with helium, though.  They were filled with oxygen.  I'm going to assume anybody reading this knows what oxygen is, and if you don't, bless your heart and go Google it.  For those not in the know, it is possible for oxygen to exist in a solid and liquid state as well as the typical gaseous state, but it has to be very, very, VERY cold.  To explain how cold it is, I have to explain absolute zero and the Kelvin temperature scale and how it relates to Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Absolute zero is a theoretical temperature (I think it's been done in laboratory conditions) at which all molecular movement stops.  What I mean by this is that when water freezes, the molecules are in a solid formation, but they are still vibrating.  Not so with absolute zero.  Absolute zero is typically used along with the Kelvin temperature scale.  The degrees of the Kelvin scale are the same size as the degrees on the Celsius scale, so going up 1 on the Kelvin scale is just adding 1 to the converted number on Celsius.  0 K is absolute zero.  That is -273.15 degrees Celsius, or -459.67 on the Fahrenheit scale.  That is unfathomably cold.  Anyway, if the temperature on the Kelvin scale was 1 K (degrees are not used in the Kelvin scale), the temperature on the Celsius scale would be -272.15 degrees Celsius.  Conversely, 0 degrees Celsius is 273.15 K, and 1 degree Celsius is 274.15 K.   I think I've made my point.

Oxygen exists as a gas at room temperature (22 degrees Celsius is considered standard room temperature, it's about 72 degrees Fahrenheit), that is something that is taken for granted.  The freezing point of oxygen is 54.36 K (-222.65 degrees C), and the boiling point is 90.19 K (-182.96 degrees C).  This means oxygen exists as a liquid between 54.36 K and 90.19 K.  In case you haven't caught on, that is VERY VERY VERY cold.  On this planet, oxygen cannot exist as a liquid or a solid except in laboratory settings.  I saw liquid oxygen with my own eyes today.

So, back to the oxygen balloons, which, by the way, do not float!  How cool is that?  Pure oxygen is heavier than air, since air is about 78% nitrogen, which has a lower atomic weight than oxygen.  (Oxygen only makes up about 21% of our atmosphere.)  Anyway, she took a balloon and placed it on a table at the front of the room, then grabbed a jug of liquid nitrogen (exists as a liquid between 63.15 K (-210.00 degrees C) and 77.355 K (-195.795 degrees C)), poured some into a styrofoam cup, and then took that and poured it over the balloon, which shrank dramatically before our eyes, because the volume of the gas inside of it had decreased with a decrease in temperature.  They didn't put anything to catch the nitrogen, either, so it beaded, rolled off the table, and sizzled and steamed as it fell to the carpet, where it made very solid plopping noises as it boiled its way back to vapor.  Coolest thing I have ever seen, I could have watched her do that all day.  Anyway, she very quickly cut the balloon open, and poured the condensed (liquid) oxygen into a beaker to show us.  It was boiling and sizzling.  Apparently it is paramagnetic, which I didn't fully understand, but it followed a magnet she ran along the underside of the container and even stuck to it (sizzling and boiling the whole time) when she dunked the magnet in there.  AND IT IS PALE BLUE.  How cool is that?!

Anyway, she did that twice more, only she dunked cotton balls in the liquid oxygen this time and set them on fire.  They sparked like sparklers on steroids.  Seriously, this was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life.

As an aside, I'm pretty sure things like metals can also exist as a vapor.  Silver, for instance.  Silver is kind of the same thing as ice - all ice is is solid water, it's a state of being.  The point at which silver becomes a liquid is 961.93 degrees C (1763.474 degrees F), and the point at which it boils (in other words, becomes a GAS) is 2212.0 degrees C (4013.6 degrees F).  Silver can exist as a vapor.  (For reference, the sun's surface temperature is 5504.85 degrees C or 9940.73 degrees F.)  So for silver to exist as a vapor, it would have to be about half the temperature of the sun's surface (the core of the sun is 15.7 million K).  That's pretty hot.  BUT IT COULD HAPPEN.  Somewhere out there in this big, big universe, there is a place where silver exists as a vapor.  Hell, there could be a place with beings living on it that BREATHE silver.

Anyway, I've pretty much exhausted my science excitement for tonight.  I needed to share this whole thing with liquid oxygen, though.  Because seriously, that was cool as hell.  (I'm not changing my major, though.  I would be a horrible chemist.)