Totally Busted

I was just so busted by my nephew and I knew the only place I could get any understanding was from fellow knitters. At Christmas two years ago, I had started knitting him a scarf. It turned out looking half-assed so I bought him a gift instead. My mother, being wonderful, told him that I was making him the scarf and showed it to him. I didn't rip it out and restart it for almost another year. This past year as Chirstmas was approaching, I bumped his gift up to a scarf, hat, and fingerless glove set. I knew I woudn't actually be seeing him at Christmas, so his gift got bumped in priority of finishing. I DID finish all the knitting, just not the weaving in of ends. He came over in January and I showed him the set, which he was impressed with, and told him that I would have it finished very soon. About a month and half later, I ran into him at Walmart and asked about it. I told him that needed to know if he wanted scarf fringe or not........It's now the very end of July. He came over for a surprise visit tonigth and saw his *still* unfinished gifts laying on my chair. I am a TOTAL LOSER, people. This time I said that since it had gotten so hot, I knew he wasn't going to be needing it so I just left it alone....and that I needed someone to show me how to sew over the holes in the thumb attachment. I have serious, SERIOUS issues with finishing projects.

While it's true that I'm sometimes an unfaithful knitter....

Okay, I'm totally feed up with my publishing equipment. The program I have apparently doesn't work AT ALL. The pictures won't go where I want them to go, I can't add captions....I'm thru. I am adding finding a new alternative to my schedule this week. As much as it pains me to do so (because God forbid I should want to add a photo or two to my blog) I present to you one completed jaywalker, as shown above. It's in Opal sockyarn, but I must admit that I have yet to figure out the German mumbo-jumbo on the label to identify any sort of specific yarn name. I know from reading that they do HAVE actual names, but it's just beyond me at this moment.
And as proof that I didn't fib about starting the second sock immediately upon finishing the first, my black sheep tape agreed to pose with the cuff of the second.

I did mention the other day that I'm a terrible, unfaithful knitter and started my RPM's. I had a system worked which involved planting the RPM's at my kitchen table and leaving the jaywalkers in my office. That way, if I was upstairs, I was forced to work on the jaywalkers exclusively. In fact, I even finished the 2nd sock! Amazing. The sock has yet to make it's photo debut, but it soon will along with the baby bits of my 1st RPM.

Lucky day for knitting

Today was a pretty good day, knit wise. However I sense that I am waaayyyy on the verge of cheating on my second jaywalker and dive into those RPM's. Hey, I found the yarn for it after all! I see that as a sign that the socks must be made post haste. Or I'm just good at justifying my totally irresponsible knitting decisions. But.....I also found some size 2 needles hiding under the seat in my car, which I need for the RPM's. My size 2's are currently occupied with another pair of socks I started a good while ago but had a terrible accident involving a 24 row lace pattern and no clue where I was in the chart. Ughh. I also bougth some Feza Cotton Candy today at work. I'm planning on making a bolero/shrug/shoulder warmer thing akin to a One Skein wonder but a little different in the arms. Hooray knitting!
I'm very sad that I didn't get to go to the Columbia Sit n'Knit tonight, but I was busy saving the battered women of the county. I really wanted to go.

P.S. I'm leaving all photos out of this post because I actually made an effort to learn how to correctly utilize my publishing stuff and they are experiencing difficulties. That made me angry so I just left it all alone.

Looky what I found!

I must be losing it

I'm having some serious sock yarn issues. Now, I realize that I have what may be considered an obscene amount of yarn. Even though I'm far (FAR) from being the most organized person in the world, I have my own odd little system which allows me to process all the disaster and know what I have and roughly where I can locate things. Here's the thing. I know that a few months back we got in a huge shipment of sock yarn from the new Skacel collection. We got their new 100g balls of the stuff with the little metallic strand in it, Trekking, and that Step stuff that has the aloe in it. I clearly remember this because it happened while I was in New York and I nearly passed out when I walked back into the shop and saw it all in its gorgeous sock-yarn glory. I also recall this situation clearly because right before my trip, I happened across some Trekking at a shop which shall not be mentioned and decided to treat myself to some. I had never seen it before, thought it was awesome, and was hella pissed when I saw the saem friggin' yarn at my shop where I have a lovely little thing called an employee discount. I scooped up a ton of it. I bought three balls the first day and at least one more at a later time. Those first three though....they've got me stumped. My little detective story goes like this:
1. Look at new sock patterns on Knitty.
2. Decide that I wish to make RPM but can't think of which yarn I'd like to use.
3. While in a state of confusion, my brain switches back to pomatomus and I decide that the pink sparkly stuff I got way back when is a super option.
4. In thinking about that yarn, I try to recall the other yarn I bought then.
5. Dead air.....lots of dead air.
6. I remember that when I hd that bag of sock yarn laying here in its bag, I decided to go out and buy a new trunk to stash yarn in and placed the sock yarn in it.
7. Go thru trunk. Find 2 of the 3 balls of yarn.

I am now going nuts. Both of the ones I found are the sparkly stuff. I have a very strong feeling that I bought some more of the Trekking in a more neutral colorway. Where the hell is it thought?? I KNOW I bought that third ball of yarn. Why would I have put it in some random place while I put all the rest in a special home?? These answers I do not know. What I do know is that I want my yarn. Even if it isn't the suspected Trekking. I want it now.
Speaking of socks...amd speaking of things which won't make me crazy, I finished one of my new Opal Jaywalkers. I'm not doing flips over the colorway, but everyone else seems to like it a lot. I don't think I've ever gotten so many compliments over any other sock yarn. It's not that I don't like it, it's just not super cool in my eyes. This sock didn't tke me nearly as long as the lone Jaywalker I made of the magic stripes. And contrary to my usual one-sock-and-I'm-done routine, I have alreasy cast on and knitted a fair deal on the leg of a second. Hooray for me. I will get pics up as soon as the camers returns from its trip to Ohio. I must say though, working this much on such tiny needles is taking a toll on my hands. I'm quite achey.
As to not continue on and on with no pictures to entertain, I'm going to call it a night. Happy knitting.

Yarn, yarn, yarn

As much as I enjoy yarn there are several problems with it.
1) It's addicitive to buy

2) It costs money, and sometimes a lot

3) It requires minor home renovation when you accumulate enough of it. I don't even know how many times I've rearranged my closet and had to run out to Target to buy more shelving units.

and 4) ......dammit, it all crumples up into unmanagable knots and tangles all over the floor and everywhere else it twists and lands and you end up with an office floor that looks like it's covered with one gigantic, colorful, terribly intricate cobweb that refuses to succumb to your hours and HOURS of painstaking picking apart work!!

I swear, I'm so close to just trashing the whole glob of it that's laying there. I think I've separated out most of the "important" stuff, but I'd still be tossing at least $150 of fiber. I just can't take it anymore. I have to get this place looking like a grown human rather than a messy chimp lives here and the yarn is just out of control. I'm thinking that if it's gone this long without me touching it that it clearly is not high on my Things to Knit list. However, I'm kind of a pack rat and there WAS a reason that I bought all of it. I just don't know what to do with it.
Okay, I'm done venting and am going to go back to it. It feels a little better each time I get at least one piece out. Seriously though, I think I'm about to just take the loss and grab some scissors and a trashbag.

Contrary to Popular Belief.....

No, I'm not dead. I haven't been abducted by aliens, or even been away on some fabulous world vacation. It was brought to my attention that I need to be a much more responsible with my timely blogging duties, so here it it.
Big thing number 1 is that I went to the TNNA convention in Indianapolis....back near the beginning of June. Since it wasn't a cash and carry event (thank God because I'm broke), I have little to show for it but we will soon has much wonderfullness filling the shop. The main things I scored were some needle cases and I picked out some yarn to try out on Forcast (from Knitty/ Stephanie Japel).
Big thing number 2, and the main reason why I have virtually nothing to show for summer knitting/ seem to everyone to be in hiding or something is that I am doing two bits of research over the summer. Since I wasn't talking any summer classes, I decided to fill up my schedule with pretty much everything else under the sun. I'm a busy, busy girl these days and essentially have an average of zero days off a week. Yay!!
Well, that's that. I'm scheduled at the Howard County Domestic Violence Center on Thursday nights, so I will only be able to attend my knitting group in spirit for a good while. My morning meeting pretty much preclude my being able or wiling to do much at night anyways. That kind of sucks, but at least I feel like I'm doing something for the greater good and all that jazz.
I think I have food burning in the oven now so I guess I'd better run. I don't really have anything else intetresting at the moment, so cya later.