Pterry, Knitting, Shoe Question, & Sunday 7

[neadods]

Match it for Pratchett
Terry Pratchett has donated half a million pounds to Alzheimer's research; his fans are attempting to match and/or exceed that. Details, including how to donate from America and a graphic button swipeable for your LJ.

Shoe Question
I found the most fabulous pair of brown shoes the other day. Naturally, they were last year's style, there was only one pair left in the whole wide world, and they didn't fit. So I turn to the shoe mavens on my flist:

What I look best in is the classic 40s/character shoe pump with a T or ankle strap and a rounded toe (I do have these black pumps, which are perfect. Well, the heel's a little high for daily wear, but still. Perfect.)

Where can I find such shoes, especially in wide widths? Anybody know of a swing dance/re-enactor/actor's outfitter place? I can google and find a lot under "character shoes" - who's a reputable store and which make will hold up to street wear?

(And if anyone knows where I can get last year's American Eagle pump in brown 8.5 WW - the one with the T-strap, not the hideous ruched and ruffle thing of this year, do let me know!)

For the Knitters
I keep twiddling with it, but if anyone wants to download the full layout, stitch patterns, and notes on Roma, I've put the full Word file up on Sendspace. The original layout was based on a heavily-adapted version of Cottage Craft's "Rambling Rows" afghan. To make it the proper size for my bed at the chosen gage, I've quadrupled that and added a spacing set of blocks in a cross along the middle.

The original Roma is being knitted of natural-colored worsted-weight cotton on #7 needles based on a rectangle of 21 x 42 stitches. (I originally had 4 cones of cotton; I'm starting to think I will need about 16).

Because the notes were originally written for myself, they're fairly idiosyncratic - for example, you'll see "|" in several of the instructions, which is my sign for "stitch marker." The note about "cast on side" means those rectangles are cast on along the long side, not the short side. Any other questions, feel free to ask.

Not noted, but my Standard Operating Procedure: first stitch of every row is knit through the back loop; bring yarn forward before last stitch and slip it knitwise. This is the easiest way I've found of making a tidy chain edge, and the least likely to fall off the needles.

Four quilt patterns to be reverse-engineered into knitted ones; archived for my filing, listed in case you are interested:
http://www.quilterscache.com/R/RomanSquareBlock.html

http://www.quilterscache.com/A/AutumnTints2Block.html

http://www.quilterscache.com/H/HideNGoSeekBlock.html

http://www.quilterscache.com/S/SplitNinePatchBlock.html

Sunday 7
I had a bit of a fantasy last week: to have all those little clutters and messes and jobs that appear in a week to be accomplished that week. While there is much catching up to do, I was at least able to take care of everything that cropped up this week before Saturday afternoon, leaving me free to spend today reading Torchwood books.

Sunday 7:
Odd Job: Quite a few here. I've done the grid for an "interlocking crosses" afghan, I updated the grid for Roma. I finished the recipe book, updating it with the Fine Cooking articles that came in on Monday. I created and updated a binder for breadmaking.

Declutter: I've packed away the job-hunting stuff. Everything that was put on the library table to be dealt with has been tidied away where it belongs.

Indulgence: A manicure, but a bit of a disappointing one; she didn't take half the time shaping my nails that I'd hoped for.

Knitalong: I'm running two projects simultaneously at the moment; the original knitalong (for when I want mindless garter stitch) and Roma (for when I want something more difficult). This puts me at about 39 of 55 for Knitalong and 3/274 for Roma.

3 Items Dealt With: Freecycled the following:
1) Antique wooden office chair
2) Old Ikea armchair
and
3) Old polariod camera and one box of film

Week #3 on the cleaning rotation, and while it's not a good in-the-corners-scrub, I am getting the entire downstairs a decent maintenance cleaning every week, and I'm quite surprised proud of that.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the TP link, I will definitely pimp that across the LJ, Blog and the forum I belong to...

[gem225.livejournal.com]

Thank you for putting up the Word file for Roma. I've downloaded it, and it looks like a real challenge. I may have to try it at some point, when I've finished a few more projects. :-)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That icon makes me giggle!

Roma is a heck of a challenge, and one that may defeat me yet. But now you know the plan, at least!

[gem225.livejournal.com]

Your icon of Gromit knitting makes me giggle too.

I love my Yarn Pirate Snooch icon. It's from the Two Lumps online comic strip (http://twolumps.keenspace.com/), which always makes me laugh. So far my cats have not followed Snooch's example, thank goodness. *g*

Good luck with Roma!

[hildy.livejournal.com]

Isn't it the way it always works? You find a style of shoes you absolutely fall in love with and then they disappear or the maker redesigns the shoe so you can't wear them. New Balance "improved" their heel, so narrow me feels like she's slipping all over the place. *sighs* I have the opposite width problem you have. I can't even come close to Payless with my AAA size feet.

shoes

[missbaxter.livejournal.com]

Hush Puppies are doing a lovely range of vintage-inspired pumps at the moment; they come in black and green (at least the ones in Aberdeen shoe stores do), have a reasonable heel length, and are actually comfortable to wear - bonus points in my book! Good luck with the hunt!

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I am back to talk about Roma, and to ask this: when you say "cones of cotton", how many yards is each of those? (In my researches with Uncle Google, he seems to believe that cotton that comes in cones comes in 1-lb cones of about 785 yards, which, aside from that being a mind-boggling number of yards, would also -- if you're right about 16 cones -- yield a blanket that weighs fifteen pounds or more, which can't possibly be right. Can it?)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

(I have now done some math and worked out that the Sekrit Baby Blanket used about a thousand yards -- well, about two thousand, but it was double-knit, so, just in length, I mean -- and was only baby-blanket sized, so, hmm. Seems like to get something that would fit a queen-sized bed would take upwards of ten thousand yards. Which is quite a lot. I apologize for doubting you. But -- a fifteen-pound blanket?)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Well, Roma's being severely cut down, as I flunked my math on several levels... *sigh*