KnitGlit

MOVED!!!

2008-10-21T23:51:00.001-05:00

I think I may have actually gotten my sh*t together and successfully moved my blog over to my new home. For those of you who know me, you know how utterly AMAZING this is. So....I can now be found at http://www.jumbleofwonderful.com/blog. Go there and be amazed at my most awesome birthday gift!

Coming soon to a website near you!!!

2008-10-20T23:11:00.002-05:00

Exciting things have been going on around here! If you've been wondering where I've been, this is not just another one of those times where I've grown exceedingly lazy and dropped off the face of Earth! No, no. I'm getting ready for a great big internet move. My super-friend went all high tech for my birthday and made me not just a blog, but a whole website all for myself. I'm still trying to mentally figure out how I'm going to work it all. I have a lot of moving to do, organization at the "new place", and.....I also have to deal with some of that coming to terms with worlds colliding.
All in all, I'm here, stuffs happening, knitting's getting done and soon everything will be safe in a new home. The website should be going live soon and I'll post the new info then.

The Nameless Monkey

2008-10-02T20:30:00.003-05:00

Monkey doesn't have a real name right now, but he will one day. Today he left his home in the giant martini glass on top of my fridge and went to do what Monkeys like to do. Climb trees.

Monkey's a little too hardcore for nature.

All the booze from the martini glass caught up with him after his tree climb causing him to wreak havoc behind this poor rock.

I really, really like my monkey. He's a badass as far as Monkeys go. However, I must say that properly piercings his eyebrows and ear was SUCH a pain in the ass though. He's made from STR Heavyweight in Mr. Green Jeans and Lemongrass.

Yay, September!

2008-09-29T22:38:00.002-05:00

I've been knitting a good bit lately but really don't have too much to show on account of the crapfest of weather we've been having. I had to give up on the hope of any usable natural lighting coming my way when the September installment of RSC came in. I tried. I waited. But screw it. My new Knitpicks needles came in and I want to cast this sucker on! If you're in the sock club and for some reason haven't gotten the yarn yet, go away now.

Woot! This color is soooo badass I can't even be near it without getting a minor twitch. The colorway is called Tide Pooling and the pattern, as I suppose you can read for yourself in the picture, is called Cloning Anemone Rib. Truly as rockin' as the club name might suggest.

Here's the yarn alone.

Lovin' it!!

I'm going to cast on for them tonight and attempt to do them 2 at a time, magic loop style. I've been working on a pair of plain vanilla toe-up's with my Potomac colorway doing the 2 at a time and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. My Second Sock Syndrome has reached such proportions that there's really no other option at this point. I'm kind of not thrilled with knitting socks toe-up anyway, but they really do seem to fit me a lot better in the end. I also don't actually have instructions for knitting toe-up socks 2 at a time via magic loop so those might take some figuring out. Perhaps some further planning would have been better. These socks though.....they're top down, for which I have a whole book of instructions. I'm hoping that 1) my wrists will hold out for awhile tonight so I can actually work and 2) that switching to my new super pointy and long Knitpicks Options will make it easier on said wrists. I'll let you all know how it works out.

Busy, busy

2008-09-19T21:37:00.002-05:00

When I last wrote, I believe I may have said something about how I had a goal of finishing up all the previous kits from RSC. Well.....yeah, that's pretty much not gonna happen. I have made some progress, though.

This one gives a little more details.

They're arranged in chronological order. Serendipity in Dragon Dance, Leafling in Lucky, Cleopatra's Stockings in Incredible Shrinking Violet, and Gumdrop Socks in Goody Goody. The only one to have a mate is the Leafling, but damned if I know where that thing ran off to. The next installment is shipping out on Tuesday so I've essentially abandoned all hope of reaching my goal.

I may have actually met my socky goal if the new issue of Knitty hadn't been published with this in it.

The pattern is such that it looks kind of funky until it's all blocked out and nice. I was really iffy on my color choices, but now that it's getting bigger it's growing on me more and more. I'm buying this maroon fall jacket and I think this'll go perfectly with it. The golden color is Oregon Red Clover Honey (STR lightweight) and the multi is mediumweight Carbon Dating.

I also found this thing languishing on a shelf in my hallway.

My Montego Bay scarf. In my crazy head I thought that it was almost done and decided to just finish it up. Not so much on that "almost done" part. It is a quick knit, but it's one of those where you have to just keep at it. I want it to be very long as my initial plan was to make it almost wrappish. I think I still have about 2ft left to go. Oh, and that yarn is BMFA Luscious Single Silk in Gypsum.

I've gotta work in the am so I'm going to try and make it an early night. I need to work a little on some Christmas research knitting before I hit the sack. I don't know how much about that I can post, but I'm relatively sure that no one involved reads this so I'll probably show my results pretty soon.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend kickoff!

Silence and Socks

2008-09-11T00:18:00.004-05:00

There's been little on which to update lately, hence the lack of posts. I've just been really, really busy these past two weeks and knitting has been far down on the list of things that need to be done.
One thing I HAVE been working on though, albeit slowly, is trying to complete all the socks from RSC. Though I swore up and down that I was going to stay on top of the kits, I've completed a woeful single pair. From the first kit I got one sock knitted down to just the toe. It got put on the back burner because it was packed away while I went to visit a sick friend and never unpacked. Once I got it out of my suitcase, I realized that perhaps I had made a mistake knitting the sole on a smaller needle. That discovery pushed it further to the back of the back burner. About a month ago I took it out again and put it on my foot, then decided that I could deal with it. I tried it on again last night though and have to accept that it just too tight in the ankle region. So frogged it was at about 4am. I've been working on it today and am now back to the heel turn. Hopefully, if I can steal some time out of my life, I can have the pair finished by weeks end.

The next pair is the one I finished.

The May kit is lovely, but I didn't start on it until last week. I bound off the first sock today (using EZ's sewn bind off which is AWESOME) and wow, did that thing take a LOT of knitting time. The patterns not hard to follow, but the little cables and knitting 2 together thru the backloops was hard to manage with the relatively dull pointed needles I was working with. I hope that the second one will go faster.

The July kit is also has one sock knit down to the toe and the only reason I haven't finished it, or the second sock, is just pure laziness and lack of attention span.

I guesstimate that I should have the September kit in about 2 weeks so it's going to be tough. Even if I don't get them all finished, I'll still be a lot closer to goal than I am now.

In other news, a lot of deer have come out of hiding around here because of all the tree-ripping they're doing here for the ICC. I saw 10 deer tonight while driving the 1 mile to my grandpa's house, 2 of which live in my neighborhood. Unfortunately for me, the deer in my neighborhood are two GINORMOUS bucks with great big-ass antlers and one of them wants to destroy me. Everyone keeps telling me that the deer isn't going to attack me, but I feel differently. This dude has absolutely no fear of me at all, watches me while shifting his legs like he's a race horse waiting for the gates to open, and has total disregard for the dangers associated with my car. He doesn't freeze but just keeps walking while keeping an "I'm going to tear you apart" look in his eyes. Two nights ago he even bent down and bucked his giant antlers at me while I tried to creep by. I have no doubt that he will, in fact, beat the crap out of me by the end of the season. I'd like to sneak out there and get a picture of him to show you, but that would mean my stepping into his world and getting trampled and antlered to death. Then people would just use the picture from my dropped and probably bloody camera to put up as a display at my funeral.

I need to go move Riley from my knitting chair now as he's ripping apart paper robbed from the trash all over it. I would take the trash out to the curb as it's trash night, but again....risk of brutal death. It'll have to be out off til morning.

Ahhhhh, the fabulosity that is BMFA

2008-09-02T20:42:00.002-05:00

I've kind of been holding off on the posting of new yarn acquisitions....mainly because I seem to have been "holding off" on posting FO's/WIP's/Anything that would give the general impression that I do anything with yarn other than hoard it. Since I've had a few FO's to show of late, and because this last yarn purchase is just kickass--

I'm in love. I had family over today who got to witness the freakish radiation of joy that came to me when I walked in and saw my special BMFA box. One would have thought I had just been shipped a large package of 100 dollar bills.

Now, although I'm exhausted and have pulled inner thigh muscles, I'm heading for the gym. Those of you interested in what colorways are up there can poke around my Ravelry stuff or take the less time consuming (but less adventurous) option of just asking me:)

Nothern Wisconsin Hat

2008-08-30T17:42:00.003-05:00

I'm just churning out the bog posts this week! I guess that happens when one actually has something to show for themself.

I finished up this hat yesterday while at work. I enjoy knitting hats. They're quick, fun, and full of purpose. It would have been helpful if I had worn something that even remotely matched this to work yesterday because it worked great with my nasty, unstyled rainy weather hair. Mmmm. Sexy.

Here's a slightly more detailed view of the lace-

...and the back

And to better represent the color, a freakishly ugly picture of me-

Just ignore the human element in that shot. I've been cleaning all day, have no makeup on and am just all around grubby. Also, that blur doesn't do anything justice. Mental note-find someone who has a reasonably good handle on photography so I don't end up with all these odd angle crap shots.

Pattern: Northern Wisconsin Hat by this chicky

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Wisteria

Needles: US size 2 and 8.

Mods: I didn't use the needles called for in the pattern (0's and 7's) because I couldn't find them. I also did the ribbing magic loop style because the needles I *did* find were something like 32'' long. This all worked to my advantage though because my head may be slightly larger than average....because of my massive brain, I'm sure, and most hat patterns just don't fit me right. This fits me pretty spot on. If I make this hat again I might bump up the stitch count and make it a little longer so it would be more slouchy.

In other news, my brother in law called me yesterday while I was at work and mentioned that he was going to get some portrait work done on his back tattoo. He asked if I wanted to go with him but I had to work until 6 and his appointment was at 5. Since the work he was getting done was going to take a hell of a long time (supposedly), I went up to the Baltimore Tattoo Museum after I closed up and met him. Because of the craptacular weather, it took me longer than anticipated to get there and he was almost done. Still, I was able to squeeze in a little tattoo-istic artistry for myself done by this guy.

I was really happy with the work. I'm piecing together kind of a star collage on my collarbone/shoulder area and even though these are extremely simplistic tats, he did an excellent job. We had to do quite a bit of work with the placing and such, but I'm thrilled with how it came out. I started this a few months back with a tat from some hillbilly place in Tennessee. I don't want to come down to hard on them because they were clean and nice, but it was still kind of country. Also, the ink has already started to fade big time and looks kind of splotchy.

Now I'll be going back to cleaning. For a house with two adults and two dogs, I really don't understand why I have to ALWAYS be cleaning. Well, I do know why....but I don't understand why it's always me that has to do the cleaning....of messes that aren't of my making. sigh. Additionally, after trying to take a picture of myself in the hat, I'm going to be doing quite a bit of research on diminishing under eye darkness.

A proud Mother

2008-08-28T15:56:00.004-05:00

Not knitting related, but I'm so happy about this that I want to share it with those who exist outside my MySapce account.

I am simply overcome with pride over Dylan. As many of you know, Satan lives in his heart. He's been blacklisted by almost all the groomers in the area, my family fears him, and the vet won't even stay in the same room with him if he's not sedated. Except for that one time where Dr. T decided to be all manly and try to demonstrate how it couldn't possibly be as difficult as I claimed to administer ear drops twice daily. That episode ended with a destroyed vets office and poo on the table. Luckily, it was Dylans poo though I suspect some dirty underwear may have been concealed.
So today I had to take Dylan in to have a possible tick examined, as well as a nubby hard spot that appeared near his ribs. Naturally, as soon as Dr. T appeared, Dylan began his usual growling and such. HOWEVER, I put him up on the table and all he did was continue the growling and try to climb up on my shoulders. Dr. T approached him and Dylan bristled, but I was able to hold his face looking at me while the doctor examined him WITHOUT SEDATION. This, my friends, is abso-fuckin'-lutely AMAZING. I took a big chance and risked jinxing myself by gloating to Dr.T that this was the first time we were able to ixnay the drugs, but my luck didn't break. Dr.T didn't even charge me for the visit. Dylan does have to go in for minor surgery next Thursday to have the mole and lump removed, though I think it's mainly cosmetic. I was assured that it's nothing to be concerned about. Plus, I get the huge added bonus of his teeth getting cleaned so it's possible that I won't be greeted with the stench of rotting corpses everytime he breathes near me. That's always a plus in my book. Naturally though, Thursday is the only day I have "off" next week so I'm going to have to sacrifice the dream of sleep and have him there by 8am. I've been told that he should be ready to come home around 4 so I should be able to squeeze in a nap btwn drop off and pick up.
In my extreme state of jubilation I bought him some Greenie treats. Foolishly, I removed the $6 that were in my purse. Dear God, those things are expensive! He was very happy with them though and has since consumed 5 of them. That's acceptable because he's also lost 4 lbs since his last doctors visit when I found out what a fat pig he really is. I have since demanded that my mother cease her constant food sharing activities and it has paid off. I still catch her, on occasion, dropping a cookie on the floor or something...usually in a defiant effort to thwart my plans. I say this because such incidences seem to occur directly succeeding my requests to NOT feed him. He has also attacked Riley at least twice since we've been home, but from the sounds of the fights they seem to have been very short attacks. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Riley incited the throwdowns, either.

And here he is pretending to be dead in waiting to attack Riley.

I'd like to say that they usually don't look that scuzzy....but really they often do. They'll come back from the groomers looking all fluffy, white and soft and it'll last for about 30 minutes. In all fairness, due to their wet stringy hair , I suspect that they just came in from playing in either the snow, rain or mud before that last picture was taken.

God help me, I finished them! A tale of sock horror.

2008-08-26T13:41:00.004-05:00

Yet another FO. These socks both pissed me off to the extreme and made me happy that I've clearly learned more patience in my knitting.

And a little closer...

And closer, still....

Pattern: Spring Thaw Socks by Cat Bordhi, found in the current Knitters mag

Yarn: BMFA STR lightweight in Amber

Needles: US 2, worked magic loop

Mg's of Xanax taken: 50

Don't get me wrong, I love these socks. As soon as I saw the pattern I HAD to make them. Seeing as how I 1) have giant feet and 2) am not exactly a pro at knitting socks from the toe up, I had some trepidation about doing these. They're 56 or 58 stitches and I'm used to doing more like 64-80 depending on yarn and needles. After trying on the toe several times I deemed the width sufficient as the twisted rib has incredible stretch. Seriously, unstretched these socks are about as wide as my three middle fingers. So obstacle one solved. Then came that goddamn gusset increase. I don't know why, but I NEVER trust the directions when it comes to where I should start doing them on toe up socks. This pattern has a very concise formula, as do most Cat Bordhi patterns with the "new" architectures, but I was confused. Seeing as how these socks were to be stretched to amazing proportions, I didn't know if I should be measuring my gauge for such calculations while it was just laying there or on my foot. I think the first go at these, I took my stretched measurement and then totally overshot my foot length. You have to do a certain number of rows in pattern to get to the heel and when I was at row 17 of 44 the foot was already working it's way up my ankle. Frog #1. I carefully ripped it back and started again....and apparently ripped exactly back to where my measurement mistake had taken place and did the exact thing over again. Frog #2. I carefully ripped it back and made sure to actually go back further on the foot. Still too big. Frog #3, though this one occurred at about row 30 in the pattern. It then occurred to me to redo my measurements. I used the unstretched rpi and remeasured my foot, finding it to be about half an inch shorter than before. So I started again. Then something else happened...which I've obviously blocked from my memory because of the trauma and I had to frog it AGAIN.

So...I finally got my first sock finished, though I ran into mild issues with the heel. Due to lack of attention span, I did something that got my stitches all over the place rather than on there designated needles. I muddled thru. When it came time to bind off I painstakingly searched the internet and found a good tutorial on the tubular bind off. I went to work all set to complete my sock and quickly found that I had left the friggin' 16 page tutorial at home AND the internet at the store wasn't working. Considering that my sock was my only knitting for the day, I was peeved. Luckily I had the foresight to look in the magazine index and there were instructions. I then found that I loathe doing a tubular bind off, but I got thru it. Apparently, though, where it says in the instructions to pull certain stitches "snug", it's a vicious lie. I then sat there and picked thru my stitches to loosen them and in the process ended up with some jacked up bind off that looks like armless person did it with their mouth and feet. So happy was I to have the sock done that I just said fuck it.

After all this it, I handled the remaining yarn and found that it felt disappointingly light. I scoured the store for the scale and couldn't find it. Putting my faith in sheer luck, I cast on for the 2nd sock. When I got home I broke out the scale and lo and behold, sock #1 weighed 2.10 oz and ball remains weighed 1.9 oz. "Fuck!!" I thought...and said...a lot. Since I already had some of the toe done I weighed it, too. It was something like .5 oz but had a needle stuck thru it. I decided to go ahead. It shortly became apparent that there was no way in hell that I was going to have enough yarn....you know, because I couldn't have figured that from the missing oz's on the scale. I decided to suck it up and order more yarn only to find that Amber was one of the colorways that BMFA pulled just days before I needed it. So I checked on Ravelry to see if anyone had some up for sale. No. I decided that I could get a good ways up the leg and even though ,because these are toe up socks, any mismatched color would be the showing part, I could substitute a similar colored yarn at the top. And then I knit as tight as I could.

Somehow, and this is beyond me, I was able to finish the socks with the one ball of yarn. I even had a tiny bit leftover. AND my second sock is a little longer than my first even though I knit as tight as tight can be. And Voila! My socks are complete and I am nervous breakdown free!

Last night I cast on for some Mittens Interrupted by Eunny Jang with some StormMoonKnits Celestial Bulky for which I've been hoarding until the perfect project came along.

My hand really doesn't look like a brightly colored cow hoof....at least I hope not. I'm super happy with these and they're such a joy to make after the hell of the Spring Thaw socks. I was planning on finishing them at the hospital today while my grandpa saw the doctor but I, ever the tard, left all the finishing tools at home so I just sat there in the waiting area holding them. I may even have them finished tonight if I don't royally screw up the thumb. I have a way of doing that. I think they're completely awesome and thank StormMoonKnits for creating such a yarny masterpiece with which I can work. The thought of making these probably is what kept the Xanax at 50mg's rather than 150-ish.

Not Dead!!

2008-08-23T12:50:00.002-05:00

Wow, for someone who was going to make a effort to really stay on top of the blogging this year, I suck BIG TIME. Life has been particularly busy lately and while I've had ample time to knit, I haven't been able to squeeze in the logging of artsy activities. Sorry.

My progress in the 52 Pair Plunge is going at approximately the rate of a turtle stuck in molasses while trying to move up a steep cliff. I've knit some single socks...but they don't really count. I do, however, have this to show.

Pattern: Spring Forward by Linda Welch, available in the current Knitty.

Yarn: BMFA STR Mediumweight in the Lunasea colorway.

Needles: US 2's, done magic loop

I did 3 full repeats on the cuff. These socks took an extraordinary amount of time to complete despite the fact that the pattern is quite easy and structured in such a way that the sections roll by. The delay was due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to a shitty needle that was way too short for magic looping, loss of pattern while my computer was out of action, sweltering Italian heat that kept me from knitting like I planned to, and general distraction. The 4th installment of my Rockin' Sock Club came in right after I got back from my trip so that kind of stole my attention. Sadly, and typically, I have yet to complete that pair.

What else, what else....I went back to work at the yarn shop. That's going well and I have to say that while having to wake up in the morning isn't exactly my cup of tea at the moment, I very much enjoy being back. In fact, I kind of like working the morning shift as it's generally easier on my day. It's just a little tough at the start since the decision of when I go to sleep at night seems to no longer be my own. Gotta love the old folks.

The next thing on my knitting agenda is completing Cat Bordhi's Spring Thaw socks from the newest Knitters magazine. I've been having some "issues" with that which I'll go into more detail on when I have the FO to show. Also, as the weathers been getting a bit chillier at night I'd like to get my newest Clapotis done. I think it's going to be absolutely ass kicking when it's done. I just get easily bored with the Clap pattern. Still, the project is sitting here by my knitting chair taunting me with it's glowing green and yellow beauty.

Oh, oh!! I don't know if I mentioned this previously because I haven't posted in an eon but I've been gifted the basement as my craft and exercise room. That'll be mega sweet but I have a LOT of work to do down there before I can get moved in. I'm going to have to do some major stash reorganization which I'm not exactly looking forward to.

I think that about covers it. Till next time....which hopefully won't be such a long time off.

Uhhhhhh...good thing I'm "organized", huh?

2008-07-29T12:08:00.002-05:00

Ok, no photos or anything of interest. Just a small plea for help. Does anyone have any idea what the hell I bought 15 skeins of Noro Silk Garden No. 211 for??? I know it was a garment, and I know I was super excited about it. I also put a lot of thought into the color choice. I had come across the yarn while I was picking up for my trip and all memory of it's purpose was sucked straight from my brain. I've looked through my Ravelry queue to no avail, then checked my stash to see if I had earmarked the yarn for anything. Typically, since it's knowledge that I actually need, I didn't even enter the yarn into my stash. I then perused the blogs I frequent to because I felt I had probably seen the project there. No....but that *is* where I finally decided on my colorway. I have since scoured all my Noro books and the projects on Ravelry and still have nothing. Nothing even strikes recognition in my head. I fear this is going to drive me insane.

And She's Back!

2008-07-24T18:43:00.002-05:00

WARNING: POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

I got home from Italy about a week ago. The trip was fabulous, as always, and I'm already looking forward to going back. I'll be uploading the relatively few pictures I took as soon as I feel non-lazy enough to do so.

On to the important stuff. So how much of my knitting list do you think I got through?? Ummm...how bout NONE. Seriously, how pathetic is that? Lack of progress was due to an assortment of things, namely hurting my finger the second day I got there and then just not particularly feeling like it. I swear, it as so. friggin'. HOT there. Truly, the few times I did attempt to knit my yarn would become so water logged that it seemed to be felting in my sweaty little hands. I've made a little progress since I've been back, but none to speak of. I'll stick up some WIP pics later.

And now, on to the VERY important stuff. One of the benefits of going away when I did was that I hardly had to wait at all for the July installment of RSC. Awesome. And we got not one, but two patterns this time around! Exciting!

The kit (minus the Sweetarts that I already ate)

The yarn: STR lightweight in Goody Goody

Pattern #1: Gumdrop Socks by JC Briar

Pattern #2 Sweet Tart Anklets by Marilyn Kaleikilo

Sorry about the semi craptacular lighting. The sun long gone but I want to cast on so I had to make due with what I had. I'm trying to decide what size/needle combo I want to use. The sizes are a little small for my gigantor feet but I can easily remedy that by going up a needle size like I usually do. If I choose the largest size and knit with the called for needles, there's no way in hell I'd have enough yarn. I think I'm going to try out the medium size on a 2. The fit should be fine, but I always risk getting some kind of super fug pooling when I fiddle with stuff like that.

Speaking of fug......I was on the Lion Brand website today as I've been looking to try out their newish sock yarn. While there, I browsed the patterns and picked up a few for afghans and a bag that I've been eying. Some of the other ones.....Ughhhhh. Had to have been some of the most hellashiously shiteous things I've seen. You should go take a look if you're into the horror genre.

Off to play with my yarn!

Bon Voyage!!

2008-06-30T01:52:00.003-05:00

I suppose that's not something one really says to themself....or regarding themself, but oh well. I never was very good at going with the pack. I'll be leaving here in just a few hours. I have to somehow run a few errands in the early morning before I fly out, so that'll be interesting. I have no Xanax for my many, many hour flight so I'm hoping I can catch the doc super early and get a quick prescription written out. Then I have to go find some brown pants and make a deposit at the bank.
On the knitting front, I have these projects lined up for my travels-
1) Finish my Spring Forward socks that I'm making with STR Lunasea
2) Finish my "Gaywalkers" in STR Pride
3) RPM's in a semi vile color of Noro Kureyon sock. I'm excited about these.
4) Marble Arches in STR Calico
and 5) Finish last years Italian knitting, my Embossed Leaves in STR Lemongrass.

We'll what kind of dent I make in that list. Last year I knit 2 socks. Well, almost 3 b/c I had my Alina Monkeys just cast on when I left. Anywho....I'm bringing my computer with me so perhaps I'll be able to update while on vaca. I'm off to make a last ditch effort to minimize the pores on my nose so as not to scare off any hot Italian suitors. Because my puffy, no-sleep-induced-black-circle eyes will make no difference at all.
Till next time, Ciao!

Finally!! FO's

2008-06-25T20:30:00.003-05:00

I FINALLY got the baby blanket not only finished, but photographed and sent too! And the baby's only 4 weeks old. Amazing! The blanket I knit for his 4 or 5 year old sister is still folded up in my bedroom. I possibly should have sent that along, too, but I've not exactly sure how late in childhood a blanket is an appropriate gift. Anyhow, on to the good stuff.

And a really blurry shot that sucks, but at least it shows the blanket in its entirety.

Frankly I'm too lazy to type out all the yarn information, and actually I don't even know the colors offhand. The ball bands are long gone. If you're really curious you can check it out on my Ravelry project page. Here are just the basics-

Yarn: Dark Horse Fantasy in various shades of blue with a bit of black and tan
Needles: Size 7 circ's
Pattern: baby size Modern Log Cabin Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting
Mods: Instead of using the 4 colors the pattern called for, I used something like 8 and just put them in where I saw fit.

I can't tell you how thankful I am to finally have that monkey off my back! It shipped out today and should arrive on Friday morning.

Next order of business: Zombie Socks!

It was really hard to even *try* to get the pattern details or an accurate color, but here's my attempt.

Pattern: Zombie Socks by Emm1e on Ravelry
Yarn: BMFA STR lightweight in Rook-y from the Raven series
Needles: Size 2 circ, worked Magic Loop
Mods: I did 5 pattern repeats on the leg instead of 3 and had to add a few repeats onto the heel.

These socks are also my first pair for the 52 Pair Plunge....which I joined with some crack-pipe aspirations in my head. I am SO far behind, but I'm not too pressed about it. I'd rather enjoy what I'm knitting than feel like I'm knitting with a gun pressed to my temple. Tonight I plan on finishing the first of my second pair, the Spring Forward socks from the summer Knitty. Pictures of that to follow.

In non-knitting news, guess what I'm doing right now?!?! Oh yeah....I'm just sitting here watching DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER!!!!!!! Evidently A&E has decided that while Dog may be a bit of a "character" he may not be so much of a racist and have put his show back on the air. You know what this means!! My obsession can continue! I knew the new season was starting in July, but you can imagine my surprise when I heard that familiar riff and the voice of Ozzy as the show came on tonight. I totally spazzed out. Big time.

Alright, off to work on my sock!

Because Everyone Else is Doing it.....

2008-06-23T19:52:00.002-05:00

This has been going around the blogs so I figured I'd have a go at it. It was very interesting to see what turned up in my photo searches.
It goes a little something like this:
Search flickr for these things-
1) your name
2) favorite food
3) High school you attended
4) favorite color
5) Celebrity crush
6) favorite drink
7) dream vacation
8) favorite dessert
9) what you want to be when you grow up
10) what you love the most
11) single word to describe yourself
12) your flickr name

Cut and paste the URLs to fd's mosaic maker and voila!

Mwahahahaha....I WIN!!

2008-06-19T20:41:00.002-05:00

My few year long obsession with STR has paid off!! For those of you not in the sock club this year, Tina just had a contest in which we had to guess the two colorways that made up a pair of socks she got for her birthday. I got it on the first guess. Woot! The winners were announced today and as a prize I get some Rare Gems. Gotta love the Rare Gems.

I've been doing a good deal of knitting lately but haven't had a chance to take pictures with the off and on weather. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

Overwhelmed

2008-06-09T19:56:00.002-05:00

The remainder of my time before leaving on my trip is going to be spent truly cleaning my living areas. None of this shifty around of items to make one room look better while another room suffers. I mean down to the knitty-gritty, multiple cleaning supply using, probably changing the colors of the walls and floors from them not having been really, really scrubbed down in ages type of cleaning. Objective/necessity numero uno is getting the rouge yarn under control. I contemplated taking a picture of the anarchy that's ensued in my office but I think it would probably give me a panic attack. I should probably take a picture and just not look at it, then post some before and after pictures later....if I make it. It's just SO. BAD. I don't know what to do. I sit there and try to untangle, think I'm making some minor progress and then pull a strand that leads me to another clot of yarn-hell across the room. And it's not even shitty yarn that I'd be willing to sacrifice to the scissors and trashcan. It's Jojoland Melody, hard to come by Regia, assorted Berroco.....ughhh. And the main cause? The boys. I love them to death but it's driving me crazy. Riley especially. He likes to take his toys, climb into my yarn and burrow. Dylan's tactic of choice is to grab things out of the trash can and bury it in my yarn. It just gets worse and worse and worse. The thing that really gets my goat is that just days ago I saw my one ball of Jojoland had fallen out of it's bin and thought, " I need to get that.", but I didn't. So now I have like 300 yards of giant tangle to deal with.
That's all for now. I need to do some more of this while I'm feeling motivated. I foresee the rest of the night going something like this: Untangle about 3 yrds of various yarn, panic attack, untangle 3 more yards, panic attack....etc.

May Rockin' Sock Club!

2008-05-31T15:13:00.002-05:00

**********SPOILER***********

I got my package pretty late so it's unlikely that this would actually spoil anything anyway. Better safe than sorry, though. I love it!

The colorway is called The Incredible Shrinking Violet. I didn't take a pic of the pattern because they never come out good but it's designed by Yarnissima and called Cleopatra's Stockings. Very chic. There's been a lot of grumbling about how so far we've gotten all semi-monochromatic colors this year in sock club. Personally I don't mind at all. Tina wrote in the dyer's notes that this will probably be the last of her color study so the rest of the shipments should be more multi colored. Still, even though all the colorways thus far have been shades of the same color (reds, greens, and now purples) I don't consider them shaded solids at all. March's "Lucky" was the closest, I'd say, but there was still a huge difference in the colors.

In other knitting news, I'm almost done with the baby blanket. I have about 20-some rows left of the blanket body and then the border, which I'm going to have to go pick up more yarn for. Then I have the fun task of weaving in all he ends. Ick. A new motivating factor arrived today by way of a box from Webs. That Kureyon I ordered to make my Curilque Coverlet came in and I must say, if you all don't already have No. 196 in your stash, go get some NOW. Even if you don't love knitting with Kureyon, this one is a must.

Didn't beat the timer

2008-05-25T19:58:00.004-05:00

Blasts! The baby came out! Audra had a the baby sometime this evening. It weighed over nine lbs, so I'm glad this blanket is going to be on the large side.

I yanked this pic from Audra's Myspace.

Yarny Weekend

2008-05-24T17:34:00.004-05:00

I had to deliver my mother to UM today so she could judge the MSMTA Solo Festival competition. Since I was (relatively) in the neighborhood, I decided to stop by A Tangled Skein to pick up some Conjoined Creations Flat Feet. I had seen it before but had become entranced by the sheets/units/whatever the proper term is for them that have popped up on Ravelry. I also scored some great pattern booklets from Sublime Yarn. Uh, and some Opal Rainforest collection and some Stitch Diva patterns I've been wanting. Also, I found the Oat Couture pattern for the Curlique Coverlet that I've been hunting for. That may win as the Item of the Day because I've been all over the place trying to find it. After some deliberation, I ordered some Kureyon from Webs with which to make it. I'll post some pictures of my haul once I figure out why Flickr has decided that my photos should be posted sideways, regardless of what editing tactics I employ.

This weekend should be pretty low key. I've been working in my office, sporadically at least, over the past few days and I've hatched a plan to assist with yarn/book storage. Now I just have to get off my bum and build the shelving units I picked up. My plan is to put one of those Target 4x2 units sideways under the long stretch of my desk and a little 2 story table unit under the shorter leg. Hopefully the printer to my laptop will fit there because it's been a real pain in the ass to have to run all over the place just to get a sock pattern....or whatever else I want a hardcopy of. But yeah, it's mainly just sock patterns. It may have been useful for me to have measured or something before I went out and bought the furniture, but if it doesn't fit where I want it I'll just find a place where it will.

I don't know if I mentioned it or not but I joined this years round of the 52 Pair Plunge. I don't know that either my willpower or my wrists will hold up to knitting a pair of socks each week, but I think it'll definitely help me downgrade the tremendous sock stash. I have a feeling that Fiesta Boomerang will be one of my best friends since it's so thick and sproingy. I haven't actually tested this, but I bet i can whip a pair out in a very timely manner with it. That starts June 1st, so if I appear to have vanished it'll be a safe bet that I'm just holed up obsessively knitting footwear.

Now I'm off to build!

ETA: The shelving unit TOTALLY doesn't fit! Dammit all!

Clapotis the Fourth

2008-05-22T18:24:00.003-05:00

Alright.The sun came out and I happened to not be out running my ass off. I've been working on this semi-obsessively and not doing any of the other projects I'm "supposed" to be doing, but I'm really liking it.

And a little close up of the dropped stitch part.

And my awesome stitch markers! I got these and some pistols from an Etsy shop.

I wish I could remember the name of the store. If I recall it, I'll let you know. She had quite a lot of interesting stitch markers and I'd like to go back for more. Knowing where I was going would help.

I'm about halfway thru my second ball of yarn now and it's become clear that I'm going to need a little more. Luckily, I know Lindsay at Storm Moon Knits and was able to put in a word for some. It may be a little while, but that may give me a chance to subside my clap obsession and work on the baby blanket.

You know you need another cup of coffee when....

2008-05-18T19:26:00.002-05:00

I'm currently knitting yet another clapotis. I'm completely infatuated with this one, as it kicks major ass. I'm using Storm Moon Knits worsted yarn in The Time I Was RadioActive. I promise I'll post pictures as soon as one of these random sunny days corresponds to my free time. I don't want to do it the injustice of photographing it in the dark cave-ishness of my house.

So these past few days I've been running around more than usual on less than usual sleep. This was evidenced tonight as I sat here working on my clap and proclaimed, "Oh shit! I dropped a stitch!".

In other knitting news, I'm still going at it with the baby blanket. I'm not sufficiently at the point of time crunch madness that'll push me into crazy knitting on it. That day is on the horizon, however, so I can expect that it will soon become my current *must do* WIP.

More Monkeys!!

2008-05-01T16:07:00.002-05:00

IMG_2249
Originally uploaded by knitglit

I joined a KAL on Ravelry and actually did the knitting!! I think I was just really excited to use this yarn, and who can turn down a Monkey sock? I have the first one completed....obviously, I guess, and am about to do the heel flap on the second. The colorway is KawKaw and was the sock camp colorway at this years Camp Crow's Feet. I wasn't able to go, but Cindy was kind enough to nab a skein for me. If anyone's interested in the colorway, Tina just put it up on the BMFA website today.

Leafling

2008-04-28T14:02:00.002-05:00

I believe I mentioned that I had finished my Leafling socks the other day. Voila!

In trying to take a picture of these, I had the realization that I am apparently rather retarded in the area of putting on socks straight. Oh well. We can't all be good at everything. I also found that it's very difficult to get a decent photo of your own feet/lower legs while trying to simultaneously bend over, keep you long pant legs from dropping down, elude shadows, and keep a balanced hand. Here are some of the pics from the first finished sock, but we'll just pretend that I planned to use them here as detail shots rather than their real intent/origin, which was just me being hyperactively excited about having a single sock and thus taking approximately 1000 photos of my single foot. Yeah...."detail shots"....that's it.

I hope this is a better shot of the design.

Semi decent shot of the heel detail.

These socks were a pretty fun knit. They used a heel from Cat Bordhi's new(ish) book New Pathway's for Sock Knitters: Book One. Instead of doing a heel flap, stitches were added along the sides of the pattern panel so by the time the heel turn was worked, half the foot was already knit. Pretty sweet. The ribbing on the heel continues down to about mid sole, too, which is a new one to me. I think it looks pretty snazzy.

On to the specs!

Origin: RSC March '08

Pattern: Leafling by JC Briar

Yarn: STR Mediumweight, Lucky colorway

Needles: size 2 circular

Mods: none

I guess I should also add that this is the first pair of socks I've completed using the magic loop method. I began using the one needle out of necessity and just stuck with it. I found it to be pretty intuitive in practice so I didn't check to see if I was doing anything "right". It all worked out though, so yay! Considering that I often lose needles if they're not practically sewn onto my hand, magic loop is my friend.

Hope everyone is having a fun day, and for those not in my immediate area I hope you're having better weather. It sucks here and has for a number of days. However, the rain and general grossness outside makes for good cozy knitting inside.

Freak of Nature!!!

2008-04-25T20:52:00.004-05:00

The baby shower at which my blanket is supposed to make it's debut is next Saturday. How did I miss this?? I'll refrain from posting a new picture because it would be depressing. If you're really interested in the progress, scroll down a few entries and look at the last picture of it. The only difference between then and now is that the blanket is currently balled up in an ice bucket that it was thrown in as we were bringing things in from the van. Shit. I'm off to knit.

Woot!

2008-04-21T16:38:00.002-05:00

I got in my shipment from BMFA a few days ago. Rarely have I ever gotten such a thrill from a yarn shipment. Almost everything I took out of the box became my new favorite thing. And the Single Silk?? O.M.G! It is sooooooo nice. I don't have the patience to post a picture of each of the items received, but more detailed info can be found either on my Ravelry account, or on Flickr. In fact, I think that the individual photos should be rotating thru that little Flickr badge off to the left right about now.
In knitting news, I FINALLY finished my Leafling socks from the March RSC. More details on that to follow.....once this shitty weather goes away and I can take decent pictures. Today I think I'm going to cast on for a pair of Crosswalker socks with one of my new yarns. I love them all so much that it's going to be hard for me to decide which. No new progress on the baby blanket, because I suck and am very, very selfish.

The Power of Sunshine

2008-04-17T13:14:00.003-05:00

I took advantage of the nice weather the other day and photographed a good deal of my newer stash (i.e, sock yarn).

I plan on doing some more of this advantage taking today. Not so much with the photographs, but with the leisurely outdoor knitting. I FINALLY finished a sock from the RSC last night and I'm eager to get into the 2nd as I'm semi afraid I'm going to run out of yarn. Size 11's and sock yarn yardage don't always get along so well. Especially when you're a super-tardo like me and decide to knit an 8 inch cuff while all the while sitting there thinking, "hmmm, I hope I have enough yarn!". Oh well. We soon shall see.

Also (keeping fingers crossed here) I might be getting in a mega packed order from BMFA today. They put up the new/returning colorways awhile ago but I was trying to hold out for the the Inside Out sock pattern to be posted before I ordered. Tina had told me that it would be up a few weekends ago, but no such luck. I decided to just go ahead and order. I'm VERY eager to do the Inside Out socks though, and now that I'll have the yarn it's going to eat away at my poor brain. I'll get it eventually though. Not like I don't already have enough to keep my hands busy.

Off to lounge in the sun!

Je pense que je suis "jinxed"

2008-04-09T20:58:00.003-05:00

Last week at Stitch n' Bitch I was asked if my Log Cabin baby blanket wasn't terribly boring to work on considering that it's all garter stitch. I said no, and at the time that was the truth. Since that night, however, progress seems to have come to a screeching halt. Up to that point I had been completing about a section a night. Currently I'm about half a section away from where I was a week ago. This is not 100% due to it being a boring project. I really don't even find it boring at all since I usually work on it while I'm catching up on my days DVR recordings. Something happened though......that's for sure. Here's where I'm at now.

You may notice that there's VERY little difference between this picture and those of my previous entry. Really though, it'll be done after not too long. After this top section that I'm working on now there are only 2 more to go. They involve a little intarsia action so the monotony of working on the really big sections will be broken up. I'm thinking it's not going to be quite as big as I had thought.

And here's one of those random FO's I promised.

Pattern: Noro Hat by Saartji de Bruijn

Yarn: Noro Kureyon No. 185

Needles: US 8 circ's

I don't think I modified this hat in any way. I started and finished it back in January so my memory on it's production is a bit questionable though. I do recall that I thought it was coming out HUGE but in the end it all worked out. Oh, and something is fishy with my camera so please excuse the amount of fierce blur in some of these pictures.

In non-knitting news, I signed up for an Italian class through the Italian Cultural Society of Washington. The Monday night class I wanted to be in got cancelled because of lack of space so I had to take Wednesday nights. That means no more Stitch n' Bitch for me for the next 10 weeks. My class started tonight, but after driving around for 2 HOURS I still couldn't find the building so I ended up coming home and missing it. WTF???

Oh! I also went to see the Yarn Harlot on Monday night. Typically, I left my camera at home. It was much fun, though. I started a new project while I was waiting there.....because we all know that's exactly what I need to be doing. I'll have more info on that later on.

I'm Baaaack

2008-04-04T20:51:00.003-05:00

Yes, yes. I know it's been forever and a day since I last posted. Sorry. All I can say is that I'm one of those people for whom the more time there is to do stuff, the less stuff gets done. Conversely, if I'm super crazy busy, I go into frantic mode and manage to get absolutely everything I need done and then some. I'm still adjusting to not having such huge deadlines always looming over me and when given the spare time, I just kind of flit around trying to decide what it is that I'm really supposed to be doing. Anyhow, that kind of explains it.

Sooooooo.....I have lots and lots to share. My game plan to get myself back into the swing of blog maintenance is to post a little spread over a few days. Seeing as how I'm so all over the place, some of the stuff may be (severely) out of chronological order, but oh well. To start, I'll begin with the present.

Most of my sock club subscriptions have expired, which is a little sad. I had some massive issues with Paypal that kept me from being able to renew anything. Maybe that's for the best seeing as how my sock yarn stash has grown to legendary proportions. I think we all know where my heart really lies, and *that* sock club is still in full swing. Yes, I am referring to the 2008 Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock club. I don't really remember if I ever even posted my first shipment....I'll have to investigate that....but here's the second.

and a semi fugly close up of the yarn

The colors really don't show well at ALL in these pictures. My house s so dark and with the schedule I was keeping, sunlight and I were distant strangers. I really like the color, and am liking the pattern too. I wasn't sure about it when I first looked at it, but once I really saw the details of it I'm digging it a lot more. I'd really like to say that these socks were completed, but a little touch of masochism got in the way. It looks a little like this.....

It's a Modern Log Cabin Blanket! Excitement.

I recalled that my impregnator nephew and his fiancees baby is due quite soon. So, in my brilliance, I decided to make a large, multi-colored, smaller gauged blanket for them. Smart! It's actually coming along quite nicely......attractive, more complex looking than it really is, and yet still on the easy knit/semi-speedy side. The only issue I'm really having with it is that some of the joints are a little......icky.

I'm hoping that when I wash it and all that good finishing stuff, I can kind of conceal some of the messiness. If not, eh, it's really not all that noticeable unless you're really looking at it.

Well, that's about it for now. I have my camera charged and ready to go so hopefully I'll be spitting out some FO shots soon. Not that I'll actually be spitting out FO's. That's one of the joys of not blogging for a long time. I have a lot done already:)

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-14T23:51:00.002-05:00

Considering that I haven't updated in God knows how long and have completely fallen short of my New Year's goals of keeping better records of my projects........I decided today would be a good day to do ne of my standard "Hi, I'm here and not dead" photoless posts. I HAVE been knitting and even crocheting a bit. I have NOT managed to tae any pictures......because I suck at such things. This past month hasbeen filled with familial sickness, having to go out of town to help a friend, and just more chaos than my life normally is immersed in. Hopefully things are slowing down, though I'll be going ou of town again this upcomming week for a few days. Anyhow, I'll break out the camera soon and give a real update.

What???

2008-01-21T21:07:00.000-05:00

So the other day we were out and my mom said something about how messed up it was that she had a daughter who knits and she's the only person she knows who doesn't own a scarf or hat. This is from the woman who has specifically told me on several occasions not to knit anything for her because she wouldn't use it. From this experience, I opted to ignore her comment. Night before last, though, she called me to say that she had been feeling sorry for herself because she didn't have a scarf and gloves. I reminded her again today of her earlier comments, but it's been decided that I'll make her the scarf and gloves that she wants. She wanted some cashmere but for the set, that would be quite expensive. I ended up choosing Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky for the scarf and some DK for the gloves. I've never tried the stuff myself, but I've heard good things. Here's hoping.

Yay for Sock Clubs....as if I need more

2008-01-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

For whatever crazy reason, I thought that if I signed up fora bunch of clubs this year I would slow down my yarn acquisition. My reasoning fall somewhere in the lines of that if I don't feel the obsessive need to check out what everyone else who's in the sock cubs is getting, I'll spend less time perusing yarn websites and feel less of an overwhelming need to compensate for my sadness. As of now, I have received two club packages. I have also placed 2 orders for Vesper sock yarn, one with Wollmeise, one with Joann's, and one with Yarnmarket. Oh well. To be fair to myself, the Joann's order was for the red yarn-of-hell, with which I am to duplicate stitch the aforementioned "B". For the sake of my sanity, I'll just leave that one alone for now.
On to the yarn goodies!

Yarn Pirate Superwash Merino in Kalamata

and

Lucky Lurker Sock Club DK Duets

This was my first time seeing the Duet sock yarn in person. I've heard fabulous things, though. This is my second round of the Booty Club, and I've loved everything I've received thus far. I'm fairly certain that my first ever BMFA Rockin' Sock Club package will be shipped this coming week, so stay tuned for my dip into mania when it arrives.

Trick Weekend

2008-01-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

Hmmm...now that I've typed that, the chosen title may give slightly the wrong impression of me. No, no....It was not that kind of weekend. In the typical way my life seems to go, even after checking, checking, confirming, and checking again that I had no obligations associated with the MSMTA conference this weekend, I still somehow ended up staying at the Marriott all weekend and playing driver girl. While this considerably cut into my planned ass-sitting time, I was able to make the most of my time by knitting and taking baths. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the shower head there because to me, it is a marvel. One of my favorite things to do in hotels is make use of their superior shower equipment and water pressure. However, I've found that the showers at various Marriott's across the nation are more suited to say.....the under 4'3 crowd. Trying to take a shower while bent over backwards in a bridge formation is not my idea of relaxation. The room service was fabulous though, so I was able to survive. And knit!

Brian's sweater.....dubbed the "special" sweater. Right now one cannot truly witness its "specialness". I just looks like a little brown.....well, a large brown hat, really. That's because 1) I have yet to separate the arms from the body and 2) It won't have the giant red "B" that he demands be put on it until after it's finished. Hopefully the process of duplicate stitching a giant red "B" on my freshly knit sweater will induce such alcohol consumption that the letter will come out looking more like cool abstract art. Now, I'm not particularly old. I'm aged enough to know that I don't always understand all the lingo of the tiny aged people, but I like to think that I'm still pretty on top of fashion. I'd hate to think that wearing giant red initials, a la Alvin and the Chipmunks, had somehow gone into style and I completely missed it. I mean, the whole point of the Scarlet Letter was that it was going to be a noticeable label. As the book goes, people would notice the letter and go , "Oh my....that woman's a whore!!!". In my version of the story, The Scarlet "B", I see people taking notice of the letter and thinking, "Oh my....that boy's a reta-,uhhhh, I mean...BRAVE!!!". We'll see. As I should have learned many ties over from past endeavours, it's not always wise to confer with the giftee beforehand. Just make and give! Hopefully my sweater won't get mangled in a schoolyard brawl, or anything like that. That's my big concern. You know how certain "things" can happen to certain kids.....on a daily basis in the lunchroom by one group of kids, then again at recess by another....then again on the bus ride back home, only to start over again the next day when you wear a sweater with a giant red "B" on it.
Alright, time for dinner. Then maybe I'll feel like gambling and breaking off the arms of this bad boy. Not the kid, just the sweater. I'm not really THAT upset of the "B". My sisters family moving 45 minutes away has put a serious damper on my responsible plans of actually trying the thing on him. It's looking more and more like it's going to be more a game what I like to call "Wow, I sure hope this fits!!". I like to live on the edge.

Quant......the first of '08

2008-01-03T22:36:00.000-05:00

Wow. It's only the 3rd and I have a FO already! Granted, it is something small.....but something none the less :)

side 1

side deux

Patten: Quant, by Star Athena....from the latest Knitty.

Yarn: Noro Kureyon, No. 172

Needles: US size 8 straights and DPN's

I really liked this pattern as soon as I saw it. I've found that whenever I go to do an entrelac project, Noro is the first thing I go for. On this particular project, however, I wish I had used the Taos the pattern calls for. The color runs in the Noro are just too long for the short width. I still like the project....just not as much as I would had the color been more broken up. Luckily for me, I already have two colorways of Taos on the way from Yarnmarket. Oops. So much for that yarn diet. I like the way this one fits, though, and can see myself wearing it frequently. It covers my ears nicely which will be helpful in the freakin' miserably cold weather we've been having.

Christmas Knitting in Review....plus some other stuff

2008-01-01T20:27:00.000-05:00

FINALLY I found my friggin' camera cord so I was able to upload some pictures. My grand plan was to post one of those murals of all my 2007 knitting. As I went looking through my old pictures, I realized how haphazardly I've photographed a lot of stuff, how many things I haven't taken anything but baby progress shots of (helloooo...Lady Eleanor? And that's a kickass project, too), and finally, how many things I just haven't bothered to take pictures of at all. It's bad. So, I decided to scrap that project. I now have a new New Year's resolution to treat my projects right and give them the photoshoots they deserve. This is, of course, somewhat dependent on my developing some picture taking skills that don't blow. I'll work on that, too.
Ok, so since I'm not doing a year in review, I can at least cover Christmas.

First:

These technically weren't Christmas gifts, but they were knit right along side all the others and gifted......so I'm just going to throw them in here. This set was knit for Sara's baby. I still have to make another set in pink for my nephews daughter. I made a tiny mistake by mentioning that I was sending a gift and hoped it would get there by Christmas in their card. Oops. I better get that started soon. Here's the info-

Pattern: Suede Bootys and Suede Baby Hat by Candi Jenkins

*available on KnittyGritty site

Needles: US sizes 2 and 3 for boots, 6's for hat

Yarn: Berroco Suede in colorways I'm not sure of and Berroco Plush in Creme

Second:

A cashmere neckwarmer knit for my awful sister. I won't go into why exactly I would knit such a thing for someone like her, but those of you who know me well understand the motives behind such gifts This is not the best picture. I took it super last minute while ppl were gathering downstairs for Christmas Eve.

Yarn: Artyarns Cashmere 5, unknown colorway

Pattern: Neckwarmer from Pretending Sanity

Needles: US 8's

Third:

The super secret super project. This is one the Colinette Ab Fab Throw kits in a colorway that's called Santa Fe something. Needle size 11. Making this makes me want to go buy one for myself REALLY. BAD. Maybe even 2 of them. I already have one that I made about 5 yrs ago but its just the vertical stripes. Not too interesting. I'd like to make this pattern and one with the mitred squares.

Fourth:

This is the scarf and hat set that I knit for one of my other sisters. I have yet to give it to her because she didn't show up for the family party and I really don't see her. I'll have to mail it, I guess. I really like the hat and am eager to make one for myself.

Pattern: Scarf-basic seed stitch, Hat-Monk Hat over at RedThreadsUntangling

Yarn: Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande and Eros Glitz...don't know colors

Needles: Scarf, 15?? Hat, 10

If I did this again, I would have used a larger needle on the hat. I had to do it fast and I the 16" tens were what had sitting near me. It is QUITE dense, but still very nice.

Okay, there it is. Soon, b/c I'm really, really going to work on this, I'll have some pics of what all I'm working on now. Till then......Happy New Year everybody:)

Crappers

2007-12-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

Well, I had myself all set up to do a real update post with pictures and all. I painstakingly photographed all my Christmas gifts and other various items of interest in addition to snapping pics of a whole drawer full if old stash for Ravelry. I joined a stash-burning group for 2008 and the first step is to log all of your stash. Anyhow, I did all this and was all ready to go.....and then I realized that I have no clue in hell where the cord to my camera is. Considering that I had absolutely WRECKED both my office and bedroom during a frantic last minute search for Christmas yarn that was MIA, it may take me awhile to find it. It was not pretty. As it became more and more apparent that the yarn was nowhere to be found while I was mere moments away from having to wrap the thing, my search quickly moved from shifting things here and there to pulling out/dumping entire drawers, haphazardly yanking out/dumping storage units.....it just wasn't good. The yarn turned out to still be in the shipping box on my little table downstairs, btw. Absolute destruction for nothing. On the bright side of things, this will at least give me reason to get a jump on my New Years cleaning and organization effort.
Alright, so another post w/out pictures. I suck. This I know......at least with this.
Oh, and guess who guest starred at the Celtic Knot this afternoon? Moi. I'll be doing an encore performance tomorrow morning and afternoon, so if anyone wants to stop by and say hello, that's where I'll be.

Meryy Christmas!!!

2007-12-25T16:30:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!!!

I'm having a good day relaxing and plan on knitting myself a new pair of socks. I'm thinking something chevron-esque out of my now giant stash of Storm Moon Knits Twilight Sock. Either that, or some Charades. I had the urge last night after the super fun "please kill me now!!!" family gathering, but I thought back on all the nights I've acted on my last minute knitting urges and been sad afterwards. I just don't do well starting things when I'm exhausted. Anyhow, I'll be back later with some photos (gasp) and a mini-run down of our Chistmasy events.

I'm trying here.....

2007-12-05T17:25:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Yes. I haven't posted since Thanksgiving. Evil, evil me. For those of you who don't know, things have gotten just a tad crazy here and my knitting time has....well, it's pretty much vanished. The little time I have has been (supposedly) spent on gifts for the fast approaching holiday.....though I may have knocked out a hat or something for myself in there, too. Anyhow, nothing to show b/c it's all secret, but I am here, I am knitting some, and I will post some pics of what I can show when it's ready to be shown.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-21T23:55:00.001-05:00

Non-knitting in Vegas

2007-11-11T04:11:00.000-05:00

I started for Vegas with all the supplies to make my double knit diamond scarf and swatch/start my nephews Christmas sweater. I had bought some of the new needles from the shop for the former, and I brought it all in my purse on the plane out there. I got a wee bit done on the scarf but it was a bit uncomfortable knitting on the plane, at least while fumbling around with my not-so-great double knitting skills. Once at the hotel, I eagerly went for my project to knit in comfort only to find that one of my new needles ha evidently not made it off the plane. So that was sucky thing number one. Sucky thing number two was that when I started to swatch for the sweater, my fabric was all holey and gross. I had assumed when packing that I would be doing it on size 9's s the ball band suggests a size 10.5. Being the loose knitter that I am, I figured the 9 would be great. Being me, I figured entirely wrong. On to massive suckfest item numero trois. I had the swift idea to look up the "local" knitting shop in the phone book and hopped a cab out there Tuesday morning. $55 later, the cab driver pull up to the address and says,"Oh, you just wanted to get your nails done??".....because the knitting store was now a great big ol' nail salon. I had him wait for me while I wandered around the shopping center and eventually found someone who could give me a vague description of where the store had moved. The cabbie took me there, then informed me that there was no way in hell that I was going to ever get a cab back to the strip because we were in the middle of bum-fuck. He was kind enough wait for me at no additional charge. So I went into the store and was icily greeted by about 9 women sitting around a table knitting. I swear, I've never been given such a noticeable once over before in my life. I stood there until they went back to their knitting and then proceeded to head back where I saw yarn. Before I reached my destination, a woman jumped up fro her chair at the table and very rudely demanded of me," Can I help you!?!?!". I asked her where needles were, to which she huffed and said "Over here!". There selection sucked ass, but I was able to make out with a pair of plastic 6's and 8's. I started back to the front, then remembered that I also needed a tape measure. Here is out dialog:
Me: Excuse me, but where are your notions?
Mean,Evil Lady: WHAT!!
Me: Your notions.
MEL: What do you mean!?
Me: I need a tape measure. Where are your knitting notions?
MEL: Oh, you mean accessories????
Me: Yeah, I guess so.
MEL: Back where the needles were! I don't know how much we have back there though.
Me: Thanks....(and in my head, I hope you get gonorrhea that envelops your entire body)

I then went to check out, where the other woman completely ignored me while she stood there printing out color cards. Finally she said to me, " I am going to help you, really". Eventually she did and I was able to get back into my cab and bitch about the bitches to my cabbie.

So after my $35 cab ride back, I was able to play with my new shitty needles. Yay. I think in the end I only knit maybe 10 rows after that. I think the whole ordeal just disgruntled me. So now I'm back and madly working on stuff for the holidays. Oh, the joy. On the bright side, I came home to a confirmation email welcoming me to the 2008 Rockin' Sock Club. Kick. Ass. Also, the new Raven Series is out! I got me some Laci and two skeins of lightweight. I can't really recall he colors offhand, but I'm sure they'll be fabulous.

One little FO

2007-11-02T19:55:00.001-05:00

IMG_1620
Originally uploaded by knitglit

Hmmmm...for some reason, when I took this, I didn't think that it was such a vomitous picture. However, now that I'm not looking at it in the middle of the night, I'm thinking that I'm a jackass for posting such things on the internet. Oh well. Jackass it is.

Pattern: Basic Seed Stitch-I think I cast on something like 27sts
Yarn: Something Brown and something brownish gold
Needles: US 13

Sorry I can't be more specific, but this was another stash buster. I'm fairly sure that the ladder yarn is either something from FFF or Whimsey from Plymouth. It's something I had picked up back in store #3 to make a brown butterfly shawl that never happened. I don't know what I got the brown base yarn for, but I'm sure it couldn't have been anything too important. The fringe on this is killer. Too bad I didn't think to photograph it. I maxed it out bigtime.
So I'm leaving for Vegas in the morning and an still about 70% unprepared. I'm going to attempt to clean up my office for my nephew, but you know me....no guarantees. I also have to be on call to possibly pick him up from Towson tonight so he can get the key and van.
I think I've decided what I'm going to knit in Vegas. I'm bringing along some yarn and a HUGE boys shirt to swatch for a Christmas gift, and I picked up some Fantasy today at work to make a double knit diamond scarf designed by Karoline. I would link to her blog, but I don't have the addy at the time being. I swear though....I went to Target after work to pick up this shirt to use as a measuring tool. I was told to do about a boys 14, and that shirt was just friggin' monsterous. Literally, I could even have worn back when I was slimmer, yet still a boob filled adult woman. I decided to go a size down, but still, this thing is going to be far more time consuming than I had thought. Oh well. I should have learned from past experiences (like my nephews 3 years scarf/hat set) that I shouldn't open my mouth about knitted gifts until they're done.
Alrighty, I'm off to clean up and pack. Be back in a week, hopefully not madly in debt.

Cripes....what am I gonna talk about now???

2007-11-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

So A&E pulled Dog the Bounty Hunter off air. I don't really know what to do now. I have yet to listen to this taped conversation where he drops the "n" word, but I hear it's pretty fierce. I don't know if can take it.

Nothing new on the knitting front. I'm still plugging away on my SSSP, which is turning out nicely. I need to figure out what all I'm going to take to Vegas with me. I know what I should take, but size matters when travelling and I'm thinking some socks may be on the menu. Surprise, surprise. Oh! And I sent in my info today for the 2008 Rockin' Sock Club, but I have yet to get a confirmation email so I'm beginning to sweat bullets. Hopefully it'll come tomorrow. Also, I guess I'm going to miss the premiere of the Raven series. Bah! I suppose I'll be able to hold off until I get back from my trip.

Losing Mojo

2007-10-23T14:31:00.000-05:00

I haven't been knitting much lately. Mainly, probably, to the fact that I have my online game back and I've been engulfed in my own super dork-fest. Also, I've run into another one of those stages where nothing I do seems to turn out right. I have all this sock yarn, and I mean A.L.O.T. of sock yarn, so I feel this need to knit socks. the past two pairs I've made though have really let me down. I did a Coriolis sock from the new book by Cat Bordhi and really was pumped about it. I finished the first sock and the bind off was awful. I ripped it out and tried another, supposedly more elastic bind off. No go. I tried again. Better, but no cigar. Now sock number one is sitting matchless in a basket while the second sock is stalled on the needles. I had actually forgotten why it was that I didn't feel like working on them, but someone gave me a tip today on Ravelry that reminded me. Then there was another pair of Regia socks that I was so excited about and I was working on teeny-tiny needles to get a super cushy fabric. Turns out the needles were just a bit too teeny-tiny and they hardly go over my foot. Bah.
And then there's the issue of gift knitting. I'm just never satisfied with it. Everything is the wrong shade of purple, or the wrong color all together.....or too wide/narrow. I must have ripped out one scarf 8 times before coming up with something I deemed acceptable. But I still think the shade is a bit off. Anyhow, I gotta get my groove back. I'm heading to Vegas in two weeks and that will be the perfect opportunity to knock some of the half done socks off my list. Good for transport and all :)
Alright, I'm out. Just didn't want to leave the blog stagnant for too long.

Kick. Ass.

2007-10-18T15:37:00.000-05:00

~*~*~*~*~ WARNING: BOOTY CLUB SPOILERS!!!!!~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I got a killer surprise in my email the other day. A shipping notification for the Yarn Pirate Booty Club package! I thought this might be in error because I didn't think I was supposed to be getting anything until the start of the new year. I checked with Georgia though and it turns out that my subscription started much earlier than I had thought. Woohoo!!
So this is what I got today-

Rock.On.

It's named Killer Bees. I think it's awsome-us maximus. As you can see, I also got my little booty club extras: 2 hot pink size 2 circs, a YP sticker and button. Woot! I am a happy, happy girl.

In other news, my super secret super-project arrived in the mail yesterday. Sorry I can't go into detail, but some of you already know what it is. I was a bit peeved after I took the time to wind everything last night, hunt for needles and cast on only to find that the pattern had great big errors in it. I had to do math (gag) and fix it. Still, I should have realized when I saw the blaring error in the pattern that the CO number would be off, too. Anyhow, all is well now. My time w/my SSSP had to be cut short last night because I had to go to hell....I mean the dentists office, today. I swear, I could have teeth hand carved out of pearl by God himself and I'd still feel like a guilty, filthy, non-teeth cleaning nasty person while having my teeth picked at by the dentist. I was asked like 20 times if I floss. And asked with a concerned frown what kind of toothbrush I use. Then they said my teeth look great. I was also told that when the dentist looks at my open mouth, she feels like she's looking at a ten year old. Just what every lady likes to hear. This is on account of my apparently large tonsils. Maybe that's the new rage with ten year olds. Who knows. I suppose this is better than two visits ago when I was told that I appear to be anatomically normal so they couldn't guess as to why their giant shots only inflict pain, not numbness. Hmm.

Okay, that's it for now. Super secrecy calls.

To add to my last post.....

2007-10-16T19:20:00.000-05:00

I wanted to add to my previous comments on Brooks Farm. Seeing as how I was a touch p.o.'d, shall we say, at Stitches, I was very happy to find an order confirmation and shipping notice in my email this morning. Those are some quick ladies, especially coming right out of Stitches and headed straight into Rhinebeck. Anyhow, I'm very happy with the service I got from them so I just wanted to post that I'm not some crazy hater.

Stitches Sunday and liars

2007-10-15T20:28:00.000-05:00

So no that Stitches is over with, I have time to reflect on all that transpired. For the most part everything was wonderful. Sunday was not so happy time for me as I was experiencing a mixture of PMS, Ravens induced parking issues, tiredness, and the now standard horrible abdominal pain. While I was planning on not doing any shopping Sunday, I underwent such stress getting there that retail therapy was called for. While I very much enjoy the items I purchased, I had to deal with some not so favorable people. I will catalog my experiences here, in chronological order.

1) My first stop through the door was at the Children in Common table. First off, I want to say that I was really on the fence about putting this on the web. I think the project is great and I don't want anyone to think that I'm downing it. However, what I'm going to bitch about here really has nothing to do with the cause and it's a pet peeve of mine. Should anyone from the group see this, maybe it'll give them some insight. Anyhow, I went to buy these cute stacking doll stitch markers that SheeperThanTherapy pointed out to me on Friday. I quickly picked them out and asked if they took Visa. The woman looked at me sternly and said, " Well, we can take Visa.", then stood there making no movement towards taking my card. I just looked at her with an "Okay. Take my money now please" look. Then she goes, "If I take your visa, then more money will go to credit card company and less money will go to the children we're trying to save!". Then more standing there looking at each other. Finally, after I see she's not going to go for the card, I tell her that I don't carry cash, so oh well for her. I ended up paying with check. The thing is this. If you don't want to take a card, put up a sign that says you don't accept credit cards. Otherwise suck it up and lose the ten cents of whatever trivial amount the card company is going to deduct and move on with your day. I was doing my part by buying from them at all.

2) I went to the Celtic Knot/Eleanor Francis Designs/ Storm Moon Knits and bout more of Lindsay's yarn because I have issues. I also got two sets of her stitch markers.

3)I did a little bit of early Christmas shopping at a booth for some alpaca farm in Minnesota. They had yarn, but I opted for these semi creepy alpaca figures made of, what else? Alpaca. the brown one of for one of my nephews and the white/blackish one of pour moi.

4) I then headed one booth over to Brooks Farm. Here, again, I must insert a disclaimer. I have bought from Brooks Farm before and not had any issues whatsoever. I asked around and no one else reported anything but nice service. I must have just caught this lady in the midst of Sunday "Hurry up and Finish" syndrome. Here's the background. Brooks Farm has had a sample knit up out of a shade of Duet that I've been lusting after through like 3 fiber festivals. I asked the woman if they had anymore of it and she said no. I asked if I could order it off the website. She then gave a great big huff and told me that all the fiber show colors are special and that once she's done with the show, she moves on to dying different things. I wandered around a bit more and found the color in Riata. I came back to her and happily said, "Found it!". She looked at me stone faced and said, "Well, I guess that color is similar." I bought it and moved on, thinking that she was a bit of a crab. The thing with this one is that her story was essentially bullshit, and if it was true, then she shouldn't have the colorway on display. Issue #1 is that I know the colorways aren't all specific to one particular show. Some of them, maybe, but not all. #2 is that is the color I've been wanting was a show specific colorway, it had to have been from a show years ago because I've personally seen it a few times. If it's that old and unavailable, don't use it as a model! And #3, I went onto the Brooks Farm website and found the supposedly unavailable color right there in plain sight, proving that it is not a one-show invention and yes, it is available on the website. Now it's mine so HAH, Lady!

5) I bought more yarn from Lindsay. Damn.

6) I got some cool needles that have beads strung through the top of them and a row counter bracelet. I've been meaning to try one of those.

7) After I thought I was through for the day, Carole came over with some BMFA Laci in Backstabber that was to die for. So I had to haul ass back over there and buy some. I also picked up a skein of lightweight Pond Scum while I was there. My justification for that is that it has some darker green splotches on it like real pond scum does. It sounded more reasonable at the time.

That's it! I'll have work backwards from here since I still haven't shown the goods of the previous days. Oh, and I also should add that I insanely decided to knit the alpaca nephew an alpaca sweater to go with the figure. If no one sees me again before the holidays, you'll know what's up.

Stitches East and some dissapointment

2007-10-13T21:17:00.001-05:00

IMG_1543
Originally uploaded by knitglit

Stitches East has been a fun experience, and I've picked up a good number of very nice items. My main purchases have been at the BMFA booth (big surprise there) and from Storm Moon Knits. The above photo is of a small portion of my haul from the latter. I must say, it's fabulous. I also got two things from Karida at Neighborhood Fiber Co., some Tess Silk Boucle and sock yarn that I was coveting, a few skeins of some odd, super inexpensive yarn to make a throw or something, and then two things from a really nice German weaver guy who has a booth across from the Celtic Knot. I also came home on Thursday night to find not one, but two packages from Wollmeise. Now all I have to do is find time to knit all of this stuff up.
Speaking of time, I was quite put off today to learn that one of my super secret projects that was shipped on the 6th may not get here for three weeks. That's going to throw a major wrench in my plans because 1) it's a project of some involvement , 2) it's on the larger side, and 3) it has a completion deadline which I previously had been sure to meet. While I had been looking forward to this endeavor, now it's just sort of sucking. Only thing I can do now is wait it out and see what happens.
So today was my day off from Stitches. Not that much has been required of me while I've been there. Still, I needed a day to just sit. Thursday night I developed some sort of abdominal issue that has yet to be resolved or identified. At first I thought I just had bad heartburn because I stuffed my face on Thursday night after not eating all day getting ready for/going to Stitches. The whole not eating anything is super bad for me because since I have no gall bladder, bile just sort of builds up in my belly. If there's nothing in there for it to play with, it just eats away at me instead. This supposed "heartburn" thing kept getting worse and worse though until I was doubled over in pain for a number of hours, even after taking both Tums and Pepto Bismal. It eventually started to subside around 3am so I tried to go to bed. That didn't work out so well, but I did get to sleep after awhile and I felt better when I woke up. I was a little late going up to Stitches on Friday because I wanted to see how my body reacted to food. Everything was going well until I ate a cheese bread thing and the pain started to come back, but only briefly.Anyway, long story short...I've had bouts of this pain now for three days and have eliminated various possible causes such as an ulcer and appendicitis. I guess horrible heartburn is still on the table, though I find it hard to believe that it would strike this bad in such a short period of time. It also doesn't seem to be diet related as I've tried eating or not eating foods from various categories. I guess this, too, is another thing I'll just have to wait out.
Okay, that's all for now. I'll update again after Stitches is over and hopefully by then I will have had the chance to take pictures of everything. Hope everyone is having an adventurous and yarn filled Stitches weekend!

Special thanks

2007-10-10T19:50:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to give a great big thank you to a certain someone for RUINING ME!!! Thank you oh.so.much. Unfortunately, I don't have the blue tooth bit to send photos from my phone to my computer otherwise I would share the bone chilling picture she sent me from the convention center. Let's just say that I'm considering calmly packing up my stuff and going to cam out with the Baltimore homeless so I can be first in line for the BMFA booth.

ETA: If you want to see the spoken of cell phone picture, look here. If you know me, it won't be too hard to guess which picture I'm referring to. And, now that the Stitches preview is over, the picture in question may as well have been taken in my house. Except I'm not as well organized.

Recent Happenings

2007-10-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

I don't have much to say knit-wise but for those of you who have been asking, I'm starting to upload all my Italy pictures onto my flickr account. It's going to take some time because I have hundreds of them, but I think I have one hundred or so up now. Not a bad record for me.....after only 4 months.

Knit news: I have a pile of blanket sitting next to me that I'm about to frog and redo. I've found that anytime have to keep track of the right side of garter stitch, things go awry. I was going to leave it, but I know it's going to mess with my head if I have picked up stitches showing on both sides. Adios, blanket! You'll be reincarnated soon.....like as soon as I rip you out and roll you back into a nice, neat little ball. Also, while I really, really want to love my Rainbow socks, they're beginning to severely piss me off. It's like no matter what I do my stitch count is off. I have to frog the heel on that one and continue on. Grrrr.

In life news (also tagged: News that makes me look like a GIANT dork): The online RPG I used to obsessively (OBSESSIVELY) play in my late teens/early twenties is back online and I have completely flattened my ass sitting here for hours on end playing it.. I'm hoping the rekindled obsession will subside and I can go back to my normal life of only obsessing about yarn, patterns, bags, shoes, wrestling, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Ravelry and OCC. A girl has only so many minutes in a day you know. Also, Stitches is mere moments away an that will surely light a fire under me. I will buy Storm Moon Knits out of stock, and I will raid the BMFA booth like a looting pirate (except my credit card will be my sword), and I will probably become fast friends with a number of other yarn manufacturers. Hooray!

My very first charity project

2007-10-05T22:04:00.001-05:00

IMG_1474
Originally uploaded by knitglit

I decided semi last minute that I'd like to knit some stuff up to donate at the Columbia Annul Knit-a-Thon tomorrow. Taking into account the "AHHhhh!! i have no time!" factor, I opted to make some preemie caps. They're small, supposedly quick to make, and are all around a good cause. The thing is this. I know little to nothing about babies, little to nothing about making things for babies, and little to nothing about charities. I will admit, I knit about half of one cap and before thoughts of grand suckiness started running through my head. To spice things up a little bit I raided my stash and pulled out a bunch of stuff I wanted to be rid of. Lion Brand "Cashmere" (all of 5%), Patons Melody in a God awful color that hate to admit was actually purchased a few years go to make something for myself (gag), and some assorted acrylic blends that I have for whatever reason. My goal was to knit through all of this yarn. Needless to say, I failed miserably. It didn't help that the Rainbow Socks from Magknits happened to be published in the midst of my mania. I finally broke down and even crocheted a few in the hopes of eating up extraordinary amounts of yarn in a quick fashion. This did not work as I don't really crochet. Still, I managed to whip out about 4 or 5 of them. Altogether I ended up making about 15, though I swear I made at least one more red one that's somehow vanished. I also had 5 or 6 kindly donated to me to add to my collection by shop-frequenter and crochet instructor Eudora. So that's that. I now have it for a charity.....not counting the few times I've knit for someone I deem to be a charity-case. Perhaps I'll even do it again next year. I bet I can work through all the extra yarn by then.

I need to maintain composer

2007-10-04T21:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight I successfully picked up some of the raffle prizes for the Columbia Annual Knit-a-Thon. (See here for more details on that.) These were very kindly donated by Neighborhood Fiber Co. Seeing as how some people have not been exposed to this yarns fabulosity, here is a teaser.

Studio Sock in the Capital Hill colorway

and

Studio Sock in Brightwood

Ahhhhh.....lovely, lovely, lovely. Now they just have to stay out of my reach until they can be handed off on Saturday. Luckily, I just bought a few skeins for myself so I should be satiated....for now. Thanks a ton to Karida for her genius and to Erika for being so kind as to get it to me.

Short Attention Span

2007-10-02T21:42:00.001-05:00

IMG_1371
Originally uploaded by knitglit

As I perusing the forums on Ravelry Monday I happened across a post saying that the new Magknits was up. A lot of the time, I'm not too thrilled with Magknits. I'm a touch picky about patterns and of the 5 or so they offer I usually only will even concider 1 or 2....if any at all. Anyway, I popped over there and saw what I consider t be my current socks of destiny. I love them. I didn't wait a heartbeat before immediately going back to Ravelry and adding them to my queue. In a more normal persons life, they might have cast on for them or something like that, but not me. Later that night I began. I decided to use some STR lightweight because 1) It always stripes for me and 2) I could get away with using larger needles to accommodate my massive feet. As you can see, they're not exactly striping in the short row pattern. I still think they look cool and I like the way they showcase the color of the yarn. Next time I'll try them with some of the Trekking I have laying around so I can really see some self-striping action. Oh! And I also got to use my new, ultra-cool Knitpicks Harmony circulars. They're purty.....and sharp as hell! Watch out for that.

The joys of Ebay

2007-09-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country," --Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC.

You gotta love good ol' Marion Barry. I'm so proud of my birthplace.

So this weekend I went shopping. I was trying to get out of the house and blow some of the illness off me, so I went here and there. I had to go out to Columbia to pick something up and then went to Pier 1 to look for cushions. While I was at the shopping center, I decided to go to Joann's to see if they had any size 1 circ's, since mine suck ass. They had no size 1's but I came across a very peculiar colorway of their house brand yarn, Sensations Licorice. I had purchased some blue Licorice a few years ago and still have yet to do anything with it. It's a very nice yarn but more on the pricey side for craft store yarn, and I just didn't have enough of it to anything I wanted to do. I tried for about 2 years to buy more of it but couldn't fins it anywhere. This year I found tons of it but never bought anymore of the blue since I've decided to make a hat with it. Anyhow, so I found this killer color. I bought all that they had in stock because I want to make a sweater with it, but I still am like 8 balls short. I checked online and they're out of stock as well. Boo. In my searching, I realized at some point that I hadn't seen any Patons Mosaic advertised. I was making a sweater out of it like 2 years ago and never bought the remainder of the needed yarn. I checked the Patons website and sure enough,the yarn is discontinued. I searched everywhere on the internet to try and find some leftovers. Found none. Finally, I saw a listing for some on Ebay in the colorway I needed. Long story short, I ended up getting all the yarn need to finish the sweater (11 balls) for like $17. Sweet.

Start the Insanity!!

2007-09-25T20:42:00.000-05:00

I suppose the word "start" isn't particularly applicable when speaking of myself. A better word would be "increase" or, in this case, the proper term might be "Heighten insanity to an alarming level.....CODE RED". I shall break it down in list form:

1) I am STILL SICK!!! WTF!! I have now been sick for a week and 4 days.

2) I have absolutely destroyed both my office and bedroom, frantically searching for this....

DumDumDum...

3) I have begun studying for the GRE's, which I have to take in a little over a month.

4) I am still having minor issues over my sister's families recent acquisitions, shall we say.

5) There is a large meeting to be held at my home on Thursday morning. I have been trying to clean the house for about 3 days and have achieved nothing. I told my mother two days ago that I can go no further in m endeavours until she cleans up her mess, and she agreed. Guess who still has not cleaned up her mess??

For these reasons, among others, I have been sleeping less and less. I have not been making the best decisions in my sleep deprived haze as can be seen in this photograph.

Hello 6am McDonald's run.

I would like to say that I really don't have such massive cankles. Those would be my Opal Jaywalkers and my fancy Italian moon-walking shoes. I am aware that they don't particularly compliment each other. We decided to switch things up this morning and have breakfast before we went to sleep. You know.....we like to break out of the mold every now an again.

In knitting news, i finally attempted to photograph my finished Lady Eleanor, but pretty much failed miserably.

Pattern: Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden #251, 11 skeins

Needles: US 9

Mods: I made it WAY longer than the pattern called for.

I also received this kick-ass yarn from Yarn Ahoy.

She does some of the most vibrant work I've seen. There's also quite an impressive yardage on these suckers. I believe the colorways are Nouveau Blue, Sour Berries and Chocolate, and Ablaze.

Always the optimist, I will take the havoc wreaked in my office as an opportunity to organize my old stash. Most of my newer stuff and sock yarn is in new shelving units, but the bulk of my stash is shoved (and I mean shoved, squished, pounded) into my plastic units in the office closet. Well...it was until I went on my mad rampage of destruction. Now it's just all twisted and tangled across the room. I'm off to clean!

Just when I thought I was safe......

2007-09-21T20:43:00.001-05:00

I was sick as a dog on Sunday and especially Monday. I'm half surprised I even made it through the day alive. I wandered into work in the morning after camping out in my bathroom for about half an hour trying to gather the strength to walk downstairs and get my medicine. I was running so late that I didn't have time to call anyone and I had absolutely no voice so any call I did try to make would sound like a dying frog. I finally decided that my best option would be to drive to work and put a note on the door if I really couldn't hack it. By the time I got there, I decided that I just needed to sit so I slumped my way back into the office and just pretended that I was dead. Since I was there anyway and not going anywhere, I flipped the sign to 'Open'. Luckily for me, it wasn't such a bad day customer-wise. Around 2 I started getting pissed off call from my family because I wasn't in bed, so again I thought about putting a sign on the door and heading home. However, it became clear to me that the chances of my passing out behind the wheel were great so I just stayed there. I eventually was able to muster the strength to go to Safeway, where I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing the medication section before buying a crap-ton of drugs. I then proceeded to sit in the Safeway parking lot and down just about everything I could get my hands on. This elevated me to a level at which I felt comfortable driving home, but I stayed open until or normal closing time anyway. Then I slept a great deal. I thought I was getting better, but then yesterday I took another turn for the worse. Then today I felt fine except for a fair amount of congestion. As soon as I left work though, I got sick as hell again. Not nearly as bad as I was, but bad enough that I'm coughing myself into quick blackouts and the sinus pressure in my head is making it feel as though it's about to pop off my neck in a scene of epic nastiness.
In other fun news, my sister (formerly referred to as "the good one") informed us that they bought not one, but three fucking s-words. Those of you who know me well understand what I am alluding to. Two of them start with "ball" and the third starts with "corn". As though this was not terrorizing enough to me, they plan on breeding. This is particularly damaging to me because my sisters house was my safe house for when those who could never be called "the good one" visit. Now I shall never enter my sisters house again. As I was telling Carole earlier today in my rage, I can't even trust going over there and just not going into certain rooms. Her children are the sort who would drop feared things on my neck while I was sleeping just because i would be "funny" to watch me react in a freakish panic that may or may not involve me jumping out of windows. So, to my sister- Thanks a lot Sherry! Have fun getting someone to house sit when you all go on vacation!
No knitting content. I just haven't been feeling inspired due to my death-flu. That, and I now have such an illogical amount of yarn that I feel dizzy when I try to decide what to do. Due to this flustering effect, I decided I should go on a yarn diet. In true Lindsay fashion, I then decided that I had to buy some samples of Berroco Foilage to try out for a blanket that I've been wanting to make, then fell in love with a color of Silk Garden that's discontinued to make Klaralund with. I've since been scurrying about trying to get together 11 of them. Additionally,BMFA just put up their fall colors today and even after choosing carefully, I still want like 12 or 13 or them. NOW. But I didn't order any because I have a butt-load of yarn that I'm not doing anything with now. I don't have any group pictures that would be good for posting, but you can take a look at my flickr page (link is up on the left) to see some of the goodies I've gotten in recently.
That's all for now. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive, albeit barely. Hopefully this bug will hit the bricks soon and I'll be able to get back into the swing of things.
Oh! And if I don't get to see some photo's of the Yarn Harlot yarn soon.....well, nothing really bad will happen but I must see that over which I've heard so much raving.

Bellatrix

2007-09-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

Finally, I present you with my completed Bellatrix socks.

Pattern: Bellatrix from Socktopia.net

Yarn: STR Mediumweight in Hard Rock

Needles: US 2.5 circs

These socks took me a loooong time to finish. This was due entirely to the fact that I decided to try knitting them on one short circular needle, which I hate, hate, hate. I just couldn't get into it. It hurt my hands, the heel flap was a pain in the ass to do, and the stitches were looking all spread out. I was not happy. I stopped knitting the first sock when I was about 8 rows from the toe and just couldn't pick it back up. After a month or so I finally switched the stitches over to two circs and finished it up. I was a bit nervous about knitting the second one because I figured the stitches would be much tighter than on the little guy. It turned out okay though.

In other news- I am S.I.C.K. I thought my throat felt a little funny on Friday night. Saturday I woke up at about 3pm and my entire throat was numb and very swollen. Within a few hours I had the full on super-congestion, big head feeling, weak muscled nastiness upon me. I was half delirious throughout the night because of illness and heavy medication, but I got out of bed pretty early due to my nose continually running. I made an effort to make myself look at least normal and went to work. I was the only one there today and I had a class to teach. My students sat there with me for awhile and then collectively were like," Uhhhhh.....how bout if we don't do this today". So they went home and I sat the alone in misery. Now I am going to sit here at home in misery, but WWE Unforgiven comes on PPV tonight so all will be well. The Undertaker is coming back from an injury and nothing can stand between me and the Undertaker.

Work Horrors

2007-09-15T15:23:00.000-05:00

Again, no actual knitting content. I have a nice little FO to show and still haven't taken pictures of Lady E., but I'm sick as a dog and really don't feel like expending the energy to plug my camera in and hit 'download'. So! Reading my comments from my previous post this morning brought back a rush of memories. It also made me think about how while the crazy people we have to deal with at the shop are indeed CRAZY, I have yet to be disgusted, personally injured, or bitched at for the time it takes to eat a multi-course meal. This most recent incident was , I think, the first time someones has actually yelled at me in my whole yarn shop working experience. In contrast, here are some of the highlights of my time with Silver Diner. And this is just with the restaurant customers, not with the people in corporate. That's another story (and in case anyone connected is reading this, almost all of you are wonderful but one certain person who happens to own the company is a bit on the spoiled brat side).

1) I once was seating a family and took them to the back room. As I was walking into the section, a man with another family started shaking his head back and forth at me, trying to keep me from bringing these people back there. I gave him a quizzical look while continuing to walk and he made eyes to the adjacent table across the aisle. I looked over and found that the father of that table had puked ALL OVER THE PLACE, and he and his family remained sitting there munching on their food like nothing had happened. YUM.

2) In a similar vein, I once ran food back to table in the same back room. I noticed that they had brought a great big lego box for their daughter to play with and thought that was nice. Later I went back in that area and happened to glance at the bucket again. FULL OF VOMIT!!. That led to a multiple hour ordeal where the family had decided to pretty much camp out there for the day, ordering desserts and having other people join them, etc. All the while, the sick little girl would just sporadically puke into the bucket. We couldn't seat anyone back there and the manager was new and didn't know if he could legally kick them out since they were paying customers. Nasty day, and that manager wasn't with the company too long.

3) Once an electrical wire broke in the food window and shot hot, hot sparks all over a friend of mine.

4) I had to spend the night in the emergency rooms with one of our illegal cooks after he chopped part of his finger off in the kitchen. I had all sorts of fabulous responsibilities!!

5) I can't even count the number of times parents just sat their ignoring their bastard kids as they literally ground food into the tables, seats, and windows....then just walked away after the meal leaving it for the workers to clean up.

6) The man who shit on the floor not once, but THREE TIMES. All on different occasions.

7) The dude who chased one of our waitresses down the aisle, knocked her over and physically attacked her right there in the aisle. She ended up getting paid off by the guys prominent father. The guy was mentally ill and was on a weekend pass.

8) New Years Eve drunks at 4am. Need I say more?

I'm sure there's much, much more but I just wanted to give a little taste of the wonders of my old job. I'd say my current job woes pale in comparison. Oh, and crazy lady didn't come back in on Friday.

Yarn shop fear

2007-09-13T20:15:00.000-05:00

No pictures or anything of yarny interest today. Just fear of going to work tomorrow. For the most part, I either like or don't mind our customers. In saying "for the most part", I refer to just about everyone who comes in except for a small, small handful of people. Considering that 1) I'm not too much of a people person and 2) Customer service really isn't my forte, I think I handle the job well....probably because I'm high on yarn fumes the whole time I'm the shop. I also sometimes like to play the sociopathic game of trying to see just how nice the person at hand can think I am. Eh. It helps me pass the time. That, and sometimes I like to see how much water I can consume from the cooler.....but that's generally only on really slow days.
Anyhow, back to the work fear. As any of you who have faced a similar situation can attest to, it is a truly horrible feeling to sit around all day waiting to see if some terrible person comes in to visit. I had a bad experience on Wednesday. Big time bad, and the woman was C.R.A.Z.Y. I was in the back room getting my cell phone out of my purse. I came back into the front, planning on going to my car to plug the phone in. This older woman was standing in the middle of the room and scared the shit out of me. She looked at me, the exclaimed, "HelOooooo! Is anyone here?". Then gave an exasperated sigh and plopped herself down in one of the chairs. What happened next was a strange conversation (predominantly me listening to her). She was an odd bird and I wondered if she might be a drunk. I decided that she was just quirky and perhaps a sufferer of Parkinson's. The long ad short of it as that she had been knitting some baby booties about 40 years ago and lost the pattern. She wanted to know if she could bring the project in and have me tell her what she was doing. I told her that if it was a fairly simple pattern that it could probably be worked out. She asked me when the next day I was working would be and I told her Friday, but that we were open everyday and anyone there would have just as good of a shot at figuring it out. So then she leaves. A minute later she comes back in and asks me where the photo shop is. I told her that it must be in the section of the shopping center by Safeway,because there's not one in our section of the shopping center. This seemed to enrage her. She walked back out but kept the door open while he started yelling at me that YES, there IS a photo shop in this section and blah, blah, blah. I apologized to her and said that I'm not 100% familiar with the area because I'm not local, but that I was sure there was not a photo shop in our strip. That sent off a rant that included telling me that she doesn't care where I'm from ad that I've got to figure out what's what and get my act together. She also was referring to me as "girlie". So she finally let of the door and stood there for a minute making exaggerated hand motions at the shop. I was literally stunned. I took a few minutes to regain the sanity that she sucked out of me, then went to my car. When I was coming back in I saw her with her face pressed up to the window of the nail salon before she stepped back and started making the same " You're a no good idiot" gestures that she was making at our door. All I have to say is that I hope my perceived total ineptitude was so great as to sour her taste for our shop all together. I have a churning feeling in my gut that tells me she'll show up again, though. I just hope it's not going to be tomorrow.

Today's Activities

2007-09-10T13:44:00.001-05:00

IMG_1250
Originally uploaded by knitglit

I finally finished knitting Lady Eleanor last night. I shouldn't use the word finally, really, because it implies that it took a super long time. I started knitting this eleven days ago I think. I had a goal of knitting one ball a day but I fell behind around day 7. I ended up using a full 10 balls of Silk Garden to finish the body and decided to save the 11th for the crochet trim and fringe. I did a little figuring last night and realized that I was going to need about 40 yard of yarn for the fringe. hopefully it'll dry up fairly quickly and I can get her finished up tomorrow. I was a little unsure about how to block the body because I need to add about 4 inches in width and was getting some conflicting advice. I ended up deciding to wet block it after giving it a soak in some Eucalan to try and remove the stink of dog. I picked up the Eucalan at Fiberworks this morning. Renee went through her new stock with me while I was there and she's got some really nice stuff. A cashmere/silk blend from one of those companies associated with Tahki, and a few wool/silk blends from various companies. I'll have to plan a project to use at least one of them. Anyhow, it's time to break out the pins ad get this thing laid out.

Far be it for me to criticize

2007-09-07T19:08:00.001-05:00

But COME ON!! I yanked this picture off the Knitty Gritty website, btw. I couldn't find a picture of anyone actually wearing this hat, but if you take a close look at the styrofoam head you ca get an idea of it's fit. Hmmmm. Innovative.

Had to add this....

2007-09-06T16:47:00.000-05:00

Somebody really needs to just chop off my hands and get my greedy little debit card away from me. Well, I suppose just the debit card removal would be sufficient without the hand chopping.....but then again, I may remember the number. Why has no one alerted me to Lisa Souza yarn before? Is everyone evil?? Just in case you have not been made aware, stick your credit/debit cards in the freezer and go check it out. Emerald City and whatever that Mars color is are absolutely t.o. d.i.e. f.o.r. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Stalled

2007-09-06T09:15:00.000-05:00

I guess I've been knitting a lot lately, but I really have nothing to show for it. I'm juggling a few different projects and none of them are really going anywhere. In fact, I may even be moving backwards because as I was organizing things the other day, I decided that I want to frog my chevron scarf from Scarf Style because it's too thin. I felt as though I was making huge progress on Lady Eleanor, too, but now I'm kind of at a stage where I knit and knit but it doesn't really look any different. I'm experiencing those evil little thoughts in the back of my head about that project seeing as how I bought yardage to accommodate the pattern but I'm thinking I may have bought way too much and I no longer have the receipt. I'm getting mixed messages over how much people have actually been using to complete the thing, but it seems to fall within the range of 9 to 11 balls of Silk Garden. I have 11 and am on the 7th ball right now....already about to hit the end of the pattern tiers. I'm going to make mine longer since I'm knitting at a slightly smaller gauge and I know the length may be compromised a bit when I stretch the hell out of the width for bocking. I just hope I don't end up with a huge surplus. Anyhow, next time I'll break out the camera and show what I have so far.
Oh, and here's the link for the Hot Lava pattern.

My "special" order

2007-08-29T23:48:00.000-05:00

As was leaving for work the other day, I came across an interesting package thrown onto my front porch. Inside was this:

Direct from the poppy fields of Nicaragua!!

Just kidding. After some fluffing it really looks like this.

purty.

I have a strong feeling that this shall morph into a Hot Lava shrug......or whatever that thing is called. Clearly I'll have to dig through my old patterns a little before starting. Oh......and I guess I should finish at least some f the 50 million other projects I have going.

In related news, I finally broke down last night after setting up and organizing my new yarn shelf and cast on for Lady Eleanor. I'm in love with it already, even though I was only able to knit three tiers of it while I psychotically sat up until 7 am watching The Devil Wears Prada, for like the 100t time in the past week because HBO seems to have decreased its movie pool to about films. I had never seen the beginning of the movie though, and by the time I hit where I had picked up before the shawl had gotten the better of me and I was hooked. Additionally, I have to say that my secret project of amazing skill and proportions is coming along very well. Some of you already know of this project of insanity. The rest of you will just have to wait a bit. I'm sure it will (not) blow your mind.

Oh!Oh!Oh!!!! And everyone MUST go out and buy this stuff NOW!!

You would have thought that I had found the Holy Grail when I took this bad boy out of the bag. I actually pulled it out, had some kind of mini convulsion and had to shove it back into the envelop so I could try to absorb the glory I had just seen. It's STR lightweight in the new Loch Ness colorway. A must have for all!! I love this colorway as I have loved few before. It even eclipses my obsession for Manos Stellar.

Oh rats. I hear the war cry of CSI:Miami coming on so that means it's time for me to go mock-vomit at David Caruso. My yarn and I will have a splendid time together. And if any of you see me getting a little crazy....like carrying my new love around and talking to it in public, feel free to take action.

Yet another FO

2007-08-27T15:38:00.000-05:00

This one has been a long time coming. I don't recall if I had previously mentioned that I had started my Pomotomus socks. This was way back, like in April or May. I had been on a roll with the sock production and the new found obsession with STR, bu once I started the Pomotomus pattern it all kind of halted. There was something I wasn't getting about the pattern and I didn't like reading all the charts.....and the sock ended up tossed under a pile in my bedroom with about two inches of cuff completed. At some point of cleaning, the sock was found, placed in a bag, and moved into my office with the rest of my yarn. The other week I was looking for something else and I came across it. On a whim, I picked it up to see how much I still hated knitting it. Surprise, surprise......I didn't hate knitting it at all! I don't know what was wrong with my brain the first time I was fooling with the pattern, but it's not hard or confusing at all. There was one row of the pattern that my stitch count kept getting messed up on and I still have no idea why. It was easily remedied by adding in another stitch.

Here's a more accurate shot of the color.

Pattern: Pomotomus by Cookie A.

Yarn: STR lightweight, Mustang Sally coloway

Needles: size 2 circs

Modifications: left out some of the toe shaping due to reasons discussed below.

I became super nervous about running out of yarn when I was about halfway down the foot of sock#1. I ended up having just enough, though if I had knit the whole foot correctly I surely would have run out about one pattern repeat short of finishing the second sock.

I guess my absentmindedness saved my ass on this one. On the chart for the top of the foot, there's a point where you have to start adding stitches onto the end of the pattern repeat. I got wrapped up in watching TV and just kept knitting the regular pattern on the third (and final) foot section. It was easy enough to replicate on the second sock and didn't interfere with the fit, so all was good.

Redemption

2007-08-20T18:18:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been loving my DVR and was very excited by my new found ability to watch Knitty Gritty. That post received a comment that basically said that Knitty Gritty didn't have too much to offer as far as new stuff for the more advanced knitter. Unfortunately, I've found this to be very, very true. I think I've watched all the episodes I've recorded, but really saw nothing thrilling and, truth be old, I usually haven't even really been "watching" as mush as having it on as background noise while I knit something completely unrelated. This week things seemed to take a turn for the better though! There was one episode with Lily Chin that covered a lot of different techniques like bobbles and something else that I can't recall, although it interested me at the time. Then came today's show. Today's show actually made me pause my TV and come downstairs to order yarn. I wasn't able to get a good picture of these so you can just follow the links. This has to be one of the cutest baby things I've ever seen in my life. This hat and these booties. I love, love, love them. I immediately ordered some Berroco Suede and Plush from Yarnmarket. I'm changing up the color scheme a little since they're for a little girl, so I'm doing the main color in Annie Oakley and using a darker rose for the soles of the feet. Then I'm using the cream colored Plush for the fleece part. I'm totally in love with these and am so happy that my nephew knocked up his girlfriend, thereby providing me with the opportunity to knit such things. Thankfully, they live many hours away so I can knit the cute things, mail them, and not have to risk touching a baby. I can't wait until the yarn comes in.

Stash Busting!!!

2007-08-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

I did it! I actually broke down and knit something with stash material! Actually, I had to buy another ball of yarn for this, but I consulted some people on this and the consensus is that it can still be considered a stash busting project. Here it is:

And to get a better view of he colors:

Pattern: Artyarns Cashmere Diagonal Scarf by Iris Schreier

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted (black)

Paton's SWS in Natural Plum

Needles: size 8

Modifications: I tried following the directions exactly but the numbers for the foundation section just weren't adding up for me. I ended up skipping the slip stitches and just knitting. I tried to duplicate this on the end section but it got all nasty looking. Something just ended up not right with my stitch count. I tried to fix the little bit of fug that showed up in the last section while I was binding off and it worked, for the most part.

The other big (and perhaps even bigger) news for the day is that my fancy new sock blockers arrived! Even though I don't have too much of a purpose for them, this excited me to no end. Here they are sporting another FO, even though this particular FO is slightly older.

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A.

Yarn: STR Mediumweight in the Alina colorway

Needles: size 2 circs

Mods: I omitted all the stitches and just knit the whole thing. This made it go a lot faster because I wasn't having to keep track of numbers, but it also left me with much less give. They still fit though and I think these massive blockers will stretch them into shape.

I also got this nifty stitch marker as a bonus.

The First Hat for Fall

2007-08-12T20:17:00.001-05:00

IMG_1072
Originally uploaded by knitglit

So my feeling of knitting dread actually inspired me to finish something up. Amazing.
Pattern: Lady (Hat Trifecta) by Amy King of Spunky Eclectic
Yarn: Berroco Softwist, colorway presently unknown due to my band
trashing habits
Needles: size 8 16" circ's
Modifications: I did 2 extra repeats of the cable pattern before the decreases.

If I knit anoter one of these, which I just may, I'd add another few repeats of the pattern to make it a touch taller and I'd also thrw another cable into the circumference. My head is evidently quite a huge thing that regular patterns do not accomodate easily. All in all, I'd give this hat a thumbs up. I've been oddly drawn to this color lately and I'm excited to see how it will look with my fall hair colors. Oh,and the Softwist.....hmmmm. Lovely colors, but it can be a bitch to work with. I've dealt with much worse, but this stuff really does like to split and unwind.

Drowning

2007-08-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

I'm having some sort of knitter's crisis that I've only had once or twice before. I feel like I'm absolutely drowning in my projects! I always have had a million ad one things on the needles, except for when I was working on my first and maybe second project. I used to be a responsible knitter. I used to go to MS&W and not buy anything because I didn't have a specific project in mind. Also, in the past, I think I used to get over infatuated with a yarn and want to dive right in, only to discover that I was knitting a giant piece of crap that I didn't want or like. Then it would be discarded into the abyss of "WIP's", which really was just a hiding place so I could pretend it didn't exist. Nowadays, I'm knitting things I actually want. I'm making an effort to get things finished. I'm trying to reel in the stash and get things organized! It's too much for me! Then all these pretty new yarns appeared. Even though I'm not knitting anything with them right now, I have plans. And damn that Ravelry queue! Half of me loves it, but in the state I'm in right now I feel like those projects....all those many, many lovely projects, are just sitting there reaching out with zombie-like arms saying "Kniiiiiitttt Meeeee, kniiiitttt meeeeee". It's putting a strain on my brain! And then I started all these different things. Some of the big, some of them supposedly small and quick to knit. Or so I thought. Scarves and hats and socks....yes, they're quicker. Still, when you have a gillion of them going at one time it doesn't work out so speedily.
Well, I'm done with pitiful rant. I have the day free so I'm going to try and finish up something, at least, while I'm playing with my DVR and straightening up.

Experiment

2007-08-09T19:55:00.001-05:00

IMG_1006
Originally uploaded by knitglit

I'm just fiddling around on Flickr trying to see how this automatic blog posting thing works. Nothing much to say or show.....but here as a test picture is an old FO from the beginning of the year that I don't think I ever posted.

Pattern: Ruffles Scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden is an unknown colorway

Uh....I don't really remember anything else about it. Sorry.

Yay for DVR

2007-08-07T17:39:00.003-05:00

We finally upgraded from dial up modems and crappy bow cable that didn't even receive half the channels anymore to Fios. It took the guy over 9 hours to get everything up and running.....well, almost everything. My compute up in my office that's been out of action for over a year now still won't work. It doesn't have a wireless card in it, but I feel like that shouldn't matter since it's hooked up to the box. My knowledge of computers is rather infinticimal though. I have to call Verizon tomorrow to see what's up.
So! With my new Fios I got to watch Knitty Gritty for the first time ever! I had to take my grandpa to the doctors today so I recorded it and watched it when I got home. This is perfectly suited to my life of insanity. I'm quite the happy camper. Unfortunately, the episode was about how to cast on and do a knit stitch so it wasn't exactly groundbreaking material for me. I'm glad I got to see it though, and I have the thing set to record every episod

Close call

2007-08-05T19:43:00.000-05:00

I just got back from Chicago last night and had to be at a birthday party for my mom and one of my nephews at 7:30. This party was also to be my unveiling/presentation of my Lil' Devil Pants. This would have been all fine and well except for the fact that, well, I didn't have them done. By the time we got to the hotel on our first night of driving, I just didn't feel like knitting and instead entertained myself by marvelling at how strange Criss Angel is. He's one weird dude. That's about all I can say about that. Then, when I finally got settled at our hotel in Chicago I came to the awful realization that I had much more to do on the pants than I had thought. I did end up getting it all knit, but then I didn't have the tools for finishing. This was remedied by my trip The Fold (drool), but that's a tale for another day. Let me just say that I spent far, far less than I thought I would. Shocking, I know. So now, with tools in hand, I had to sew the damn thing up. I found this so confounding that I decided to put it off until I got home, thinking that I'd have plenty of time to make a few little stitches before party time. Oh how stupid I can be sometimes. I got home absolutely exhausted, still had to go gift shopping for my nephew, and still didn't know how to sew for crap. After much bitching and whining, I prevailed.

My favorite detail.

I had to use my imagination to get the drawstring through, but it came out pretty well. Also,I amazed myself with the evenness of my seaming.

My mom suggested to me that I not seam the leg cuffs. I don't particularly care for it undone, but I was already like an hour late for the party so I said f-it.

Perhaps the untrained eye won't even notice that this obviously was supposed to be sewn up.

So, onto the specs.

Pattern: Lil' Devil Pants from Stitch n'Bitch Nation

Yarn: Patons Grace in Cherry Red, 4 skeins

Needles: Size 2 Circulars and size 3 DPN's

Started: late July '07

Finished: August 4 '07

I predominantly followed the pattern exactly. I think I must have an early and error ridden edition of the book because I had to leave a row off of the buttonhole shaping. Also, as stated, I didn't sew the leg cuffs. Everyone seemed to love them, so mission accomplished. Hooray for FO's an meeting deadlines!

Gift Knitting

2007-07-27T20:42:00.000-05:00

****WARNING: IF YOU ARE PART OF MY FAMILY IN OHIO, GO LOOK AT SOMETHING ELSE ON THE INTERNET NOW, AND DON'T COME BACK HERE UNTIL AFTER YOUR VISIT HERE!!!!********

Sorry about that. I'm not clever enough to manipulate those little pop up links to help conceal photos of gift items. So I'm gift knitting. I don't exactly know what possessed me to do such a thing, but I started it and now I have to finish. Blah.

I guess it could be worse......a lot worse, if any of you remember the fiasco with that piece of crap blanket my niece was having me make for her. No offense, Nikki, if you should happen to read this. On the bright side, I came up with a fabulous plan to rework the blanket and make it wonderful. I hope. Anyhow, on to the project at hand. I decided to make the Lil' Devil Pants from Stitch n' Bitch Nation to gift to my nephew's daughter Grace. Nothing says loving like dressing an infant like Satan! I think the pattern is really cute, but I want to hunt down whoever decided to write a baby pattern for such small, small needles and teeny tiny yarn. I wouldn't mind so much except that it goes against my notion of baby knits being extraordinarily quick and I'm on a deadline. There were other factors involved, too, which somewhat hindered my knitting.

When this photo was taken, I don't know that I realized yet that the width of the leg was going to keep getting wider and wider, as opposed to thinning out as I had planned. That wasn't a fun moment of clarity, let me tell you. Harry Potter got finished, and soon enough I was able to devote a little more time to the pants of evil. Here's where I'm at now.

One leg down and the bitchy, lengthy, time consuming part to go on the other. I'm having to divey up my time a little now, because I've become completely enamoured with another project. I'm going to hold off on mentioning it for the moment because I'm not 100% certain that I can actually pull it off. Some of you may already know what it is. If I can do it, it will be a truly spectacular feat, at least for me. I'm also waiting on my Knitpicks order to come in with the fixings for my ginormous spider wen shawl. Someone needs to shoot me.

Okay, I'm off to plot and plan.

Have I gone mad?

2007-07-23T17:17:00.000-05:00

I really don't have time to be doing this right now as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is laying, 3 chapters from completion, at my side. I came in from my porch to get some lunch and while I was eating, I opened up my copy of Victorian Lace Today. I must have been eating some funky pizza because I immediately placed an order for yarn to make the huge, gigantic, terribly time consuming full hexagon spider web shawl. It's gorgeous, yes, bu it may very well be the end of me. Ravelry proved useful once again in yarn choice, as I did not see spending mucho dinero on practically 2000 yards of kidsilk haze as a viable option. Instead, I shall sport what I call the "unemployment" version, crafted out of Kniticks Alpaca Cloud in a shade called Autumn Heather.
Okay, I'm off to read.

A funny thing happened on the way to the airport.....

2007-07-16T12:33:00.000-05:00

The night before I flew out, I had many, many errands to run. No big surprise there. The day had already started off in a flurry, as I had to be at work at 10am and I had gotten essentially no sleep the previous night. I had put on this new shirt that had a deep v-neck and grabbed a camisole to put on once I got into the shop. I remember thinking at the time that if there were any customers there when I pulled up, they were likely to think that we were a "yarn shop" much like Madame Flora in College Park is a "palm reader", if you catch my drift. All that worked out fine and I got into work without being confused for someone with a for sale sign attached. I did my bit there, then ran to just about every store one could think of where I could pick up last minute items for my trip. I finally got home and happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

well hello there

I have no clue how long I was wandering around like this, but I'm sure it was long enough to suitably make a giant ass out of myself. Note to self : make sure camisoles fit, even if they're worn underneath clothing.

In other, more yarn related news, I was alerted to the fact that a box had arrived for me during my second week away. Yes, a nice, big ol' box. I've moved up in the world. Meet my new friends.

These are, from top left to bottom right, Spacedust, Amber, Jailhouse Rock, Backstabber, Mesa, Minestone, Calico, Beryl, Januaryone, Brick, and Spinel. The Backstabber, Beryl, and Brick are STR Silkie. All the others are STR lightweight.

One of thees days I'll post a picture of something I've actually knitted with all this stuff. I do have FO's, but they're still hiding in my suitcase.

Nothing to show

2007-07-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

While I have been knitting a teensy bit whil on vacation, I still have nothing to really show because of the no camera cord situation. Oh well. I did finish my modified Alina Monkey socks, and they're quite lovely. However, I realized while I was in the middle of my second sock that the colorway is suspisciously similar to two other sock yarns I have stashed. One Claudia Handpaints and one Colinette Jitterbug. They're all a touch different, so I guess it'll be okay. Clearly Ienjoy the color combos.
Well, that's it for now. I need to take a shower and get ready for dinner.

Ciao from the Amalfi Coast

2007-07-03T03:57:00.000-05:00

I have to keep this short because my mother will inevitably find a way to destroy this post, too....as she did to my vey lengthy MySpace blog entry which I just tried to compose. Right as I was posting it she decided it would be a good idea to fuck around with all the switches in the room and shut off the electrisity, thereby killing my computer. At first I thought I was doing pretty well, but someone needs to pass the message on to Carole that all "no killing" bets are off.
Anyway, naturally we flew into London right after all the bomb stuff. Super fun. My baggage got lost and I've been sitting here with no pants, no underwear, no tampons......but I managed to sneak in 5 lipsticks and a plethora of yarn. All is well though because my luggage wasfound last night and shipped over.
I knit a modified monkey sock, but that's all so far. I'm very angry right now due to the huge post losing so I think I'm going to go change and hit the beach, even though my face is already lobster red. Fun, fun, fun.
Oh, and please excuse any horrific spellng errors as my blogger account is operating in Italian and doesn't give a crap about English words.

OH. MY. GOD. CAN'T. CONTROL. IT.......

2007-06-27T19:50:00.000-05:00

Lord Help Me, they put a whole slew of new colors up on Blue Moon Fiber Arts!!!! I lost control! I couldn't help it! What's wrong with me?? Do you all realize how much freaking sock yarn I have??? I've clearly lost my mind. I'm not even going to be in the country for at least a week or so after it arrives! What the hell! I am weak....WEAK, I tell you.
Anyhow, I ordered Mesa, Jailhouse Rock, Space Dust, and Mineshaft (I think that's what it's called) in lightweight and Backstabber in Silkie STR. I must stop. Stop, stop, stop. My God. And I seriously want to go back onto the website right this second and order more. They put up new solid colors.....and there are so many more variegated shades that I. must. have. On top of all this, we gt reservations today for Chicago and essentially the sole purpose of me driving there is so I can ditch my mom at the hotel and drive to The Fold, where I plan to just sit and stare at the STR....before turning into a raging yarn buying beast of hell and wiping out their stock. Issues, people.I have them. Serious ones. You must go look at the BMFA website. Really. Luckily for me I already bought some of the new colors at Sheep & Wool.

Still trying to Update

2007-06-26T17:36:00.000-05:00

I'll tell you, for being on a semi-sabbatical, I just can't keep on top of things. I guess that's part of my "all or nothing" life trend. The fact that I'm madly trying to get stuff loaded onto Ravelry before I leave doesn't help. Ravelry itself is super great, but Flickr and I....well, we don't always get along. I'm not particulary familiar with the service so I don't know if it's Flickr itself, or just my slow ass computer that makes it take literally like 20 minutes to upload a liited number of pictures. Then I have the added confusion of using two photo publishing services. As far as I can tell, and I realize that I'm very likely mistaken, I can't post pictures directly from Flickr. In my head though, they've already been uploaded ad are ready to go. But thn I have to go back onto photobucket and re-upload them for blogging purposes. Hmmm.....confusion. I'll get it worked out. Anyhow, I've gone on another bit of a start-a-million-projects-at-once rush. I think I kind of hit a brick wall there for awhile because I was pumping out really simplistic projects while I was amassing large quantities of more difficult patterns. Then, when I started in on all the "Hold up! What's this 70 row chart doing in here?!?" patterns, I felt a little blah since I couldn't really just sit in front of the tv and knit away, or even really knit at work. I guess really I only started 2 or 3 pairs of socks that I really just got the icks about. Unfortunately, Pomotomus was one of those pairs. I had high hopes for those. I'll finish them eventually. Another was the pair of Monkeys for my mom. I don't have an issue with tat pattern, just the yarn and the freakishly crappy needles. I finished the first sock but never got around to casting on for #2.
Okay. Enough of what I haven't done. Here is something that I like quite a bit and it is now complete.....though not kitchnered because I seem to have misplaced all of my darning needles.

And a close-up of the pattern.

This is STR mediumweight in Henpecked. The pattern is Stansfield 196 from More Sensational Knitted Socks. I wish now that I had continued the pattern down the foot, but this will have to do. I like the pattern enough to make a second pair and I'll just do the foot on that future pair.

I also started a pair of Mata Hari socks in STR Alina. I just wasn't feeling them though so I frogged it last night. Still, here is what it looked like.

I love the colorway and I love the pattern,just not so much together. I re-cast on for them in STR Amethyst, but I'm not even done the ribbing yet. We'll see how that works out.

In non-knitting news, I cut all my hair off. Voila!

It doesn't really show in the photo, but the underside of the back of my head is shaved. Not shaved bald, but way, way short. I really like it and it's super easy to take care of.

That's all for now!

Woot!!

2007-06-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

I just got my invite to Ravelry and am sooooo excited!! I half wish I could postpone my trip to Italy so I could obsessively sit here and upload photos. The "responsible" part of me is als thinking about how this could potentally be such a blessing to me organization-wise. It'll require me to go thru everything, group everything, provide me an opportunity to re-house things in a sensical manner.......and then I have to deal with all the technological crap and re-upload all my shit from photobucket to flickr and mess with all the things photo related that I'm very surprised I haven't managed to jack up aleady. Poo.
Oh, and as promised like a month ago, here's the damage on my pretty, poor little Fire on the Mountian sock.

Ouch

I sillhave to figure out how to darn it, if that's what the process is even called. Okay, I have to run and play more on Ravelry! Yay!

Sorry, sorry, sorry.....

2007-06-21T19:16:00.000-05:00

It seems that I managed to drop off the fave of the earth again. A lot has been going on at Casa de Lindsay, and most of it has been (no surprise here) tragic. In list form:
1) I went a little crazy when I got back from Williamsburg. Big time depression that was B.A.D.
2) I evidently have grown into the world of supreme panic attack sufferers. Sucky!
3) I am now almost properly medicated and have been feeling like a "normal" human for several days. Yay!
4) I had some big time family issues which have landed me in the emergency room for a quickie psych ward check-in (not for me, surprisingly enough).
5) I had to deal with all the ramifications/future planning/family conferences which were involved with #4.
6) I had to deal with changing just about every plan when there was a surprise impromptu release from #4.
7) Now everything has changed again and I'm worried/stressed but still feeling pretty fly.
8) I'm leaving for Italy in a matter of days and I have to clean the house, pack, prepare for a few weeks out of the country....what's a girl to do?

I will soon post pics of the damn hole in my sock, plus give you all a little look-see at what else has been coming off/going on the needles around these parts.

Exactly what I was afraid of

2007-06-01T15:36:00.000-05:00

I'm in Williamsburg right now attending the annual conference of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. I must say, it pretty much kicks ass. There have been some thing that haven't been as exciting as I thought they were going to be, but there have been an equal number of events that have far exceeded my expectations. However, this is all besides the point. Wednesday morning when I was getting ready to leave I recalled my plan to never go barefoot as I'm trying to maintain my new pedicure. I slipped into my Fire on the Mountain socks and went about my business. Not too long after I put them on, I happened to run my hand over the sole of my foot because.....well, I do that a lot when I'm sitting around. I felt something ultra funny in the heel area and took the sock off to investigate. Sure enough, there's a mammoth hole torn into it. I have pictures but seeing as how I didn't pack my camera, they'll have to wait. I', always so afraid of messing up my socs that I rarely wear them, and if I do, it's just around the house. You may recall how I sucked up my fear and wore my FotM socks to Atlantic City the other week and had a bit of a shoe accident. I thought my fears were unfounded after I washed the socks and gave them rudimentary check up. I've even worn them to bed since then and didn't notice a thing. This really, really sucks and although I know there were extenuating circumstances surrounding their demise, I know it's going to leave a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to legitimately wearing my special socks.
It's nap time for me now. My room is one the outside of the building facing the parking lot, though I'm a few floors up. Last night a bus of hillbillies (or apparent hillbillies......they may have been some sort of Southern state team) arrived and it took them what seemed like hours to unload. Then there was a white-trash-a-thon going on outside my room on the balcony starting at like 7am. When I found out that my room was on the outside with a common balcony/walkway thing with an accessible window, I figured I wouldn't make it out of this place alive. I wasn't planning on going off on one of these mountain women who have intruded on me, but now at least the fear of my perishing has been alleviated.

Maybe it just means that I really like it.....

2007-05-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm back from the yarn shop now. What a nice, nice store. Good inventory, and super-duper nice people. I was able to score some of the Neighborhood Fiber sock yarn, so I was very happy. I didn't go way overboard either, which is impressive. Here is my haul.

I got the Neighborhood Fiber studio sock in Kingman Park, Tofutsies sock yarn in some color that I can't even think of how to reference seeing as how I don't have it in front of me, and some Malbrigo goodness. The Malbrigo is lovely, but apparently doesn't like to be photographed. Here's a much darker shot that's a more accurate representation of it's color.

Frankly I surprised myself a little with my Tofutsies purchase. I'd been wanting to try it out since I read about it's impending release, but I just haven't been thrilled with the colors. They had a sock knit up with it at the store and it looked nothing like what I've seen poking around online. I initially went straight for the purple/pink yarn that the model was knit up with but then stopped myself when I recalled that I have socs made from Fixation that are almost the exact same color. After picking up and putting down about 4 different colorways, I finally decided on the one which I purchased. The whole ordeal got me thinking though, and reminded me of something I noticed the other day at work and my shopping practices at MDS&W. The first thing was me noticing how some of the colors from Art yarns are exactly the same as those of Scarlet Fleece. I was in awe because while I realize that there are only so many colors out there, these two colorways were exactly the same. Scarlet Fleece is a hand dyer, too, which made it more weird. Anyhow, I then thought about my freakish STR splurge at MDS&W and how I later said that I could tell if I really liked a color if I made a mad dash to scoop some of it up twice. Anyway, today I got to thinking about what I've got going on in the stash and on the needles. This is just a minor wedge of all that's going on, but do you notice anything?

Here I have another Fixation sock I'm reworking (I frogged a pattern out of it last night and am redoing it all in stockinette), some STR in Algae, and the Tofutsies from today. This picture doesn't really show the lime green in the Tofutsies, but it's there. Then we have this.

Hello! Totally the same freakin' thing! I mean, I suppose I could look at it as me just really liking these certain color combinations, but it's like that with sooooo much of my stash. It's like I've just gone from yarn company to yarn company buying the same exact thing. Thankfully I've bought so much that I have just about every color represented, only in a giant clump of sameness. I'll just have to be a little more aware with my shopping from here on out. The funny thing is that a lot of the colorways I buy come home with me because I think they're so unique. I must have some sort of short term memory loss when it comes to fiber.

Busy, busy, busy

2007-05-26T13:16:00.000-05:00

What's that saying...."There's no rest for the wicked" or something like that. Well, I must be one of the wickedest then. That's not necessarily such a bad thing considering the modern connotation of the word as being something ultra cool. Anyhow, the end of school has yet to bring me any peace and/or relaxation. I haven't had a day off yet, and I'm sad to report that my sleeping issues from winter break have resurfaced. Those issues being that I no longer sleep.
So today my task is to drive my mother to UM and then drive her home a few hours later. Then it dawned on me, Hey! I can jaunt on over to A Tangled Skein and check things out. I hear Neighborhood Fiber Co. dropped off a delivery not too long ago. Now my day sucks far less ass! Pictures later.......

Seven Facts

2007-05-17T21:57:00.000-05:00

This is a meme that I found on Storm Moon Knits. While I was not officially tagged, she mentioned that she would be interested to see what I would come up with and , after some thought, I was a bit curious to see what I would come up with as well. I find myself living in sort of a dichotomy between feeling that it's terribly difficult to think of 7 facts that would be of any interest and feeling that it's terribly difficult to choose a mere seven things from the vast pool of facts about me. So, here it goes.

1. The first profession I ever wanted was to be a hooker. Oddly enough, one of my sisters wanted to be a hooker when she was younger, too. I don't really know what her reasoning was, but I know that I had the impression that hookers were fabulous and had rockin' clothes and went to fabulous parties and all the guys loved them. They were also very independent and didn't take too much shit from anyone. Now, looking back, I think my most of my career aspirations came from watching a few too many Jamie Lee Curtice movies at too young of an age. Things swiftly changed when we got cable and I saw a crack whore giving a guy a bj in a filthy alley while watching a documentary on something....probably crack whores. I can still recall my feeling of ,"Whaaa...??Uh....hold up...". That totally changed the course of my life. My sister didn't become a hooker either.

2. I don't have a complete brain. I was born with a brain defect that didn't really show itself until I was 12 or 13. I had to have 3 surgeries in total and was in the hospital for many months. They had to cut off part of my brain that had dried up. I should be a lot taller, and I like to think that I'd be a freaking genius if I had a full brain. In reality though, I'm only missing pieces that have to do with my balance and coordination. If you ever see me walking around like a drunk, it probably has more to do with my brain sending out creepy commands rather than actual liquor consumption. Besides, I generally stay sitting down when I'm drunk.

3. Speaking of my brain....I blew the back of my head open once at a WWE (at the time it was still WWF) event at the Patriot Center (which doesn't exist anymore). I left the hospital after either my first or second surgery and went to the event, got all spazzy and excited because I LOVE wrestling, ruptured all my stitches and had a hole in the back of my head. Yay, fun! I also once blew out the back of my head with a really bad sneeze. I like the wrestling story better, and I think the WWE should give me some sort of fan honors. That event may or may not have been the same one where a wrestler threw a quarter into my sisters eye, leaving a scar. That's the same sister who also wanted to be a hooker.

4. Due to the various back-of-head-blowing-out incidents, I had to have my head patched together with cadaver pieces. Yummy!

5. I was born a freakishly huge baby. My mom thinks I was born a month late, but my sister (the one with the quarter in the eye and hooker aspirations) was kind enough to regale me with the story of catching my parents in the act of conceiving me, being scarred by it, and knowing for a fact that I was born right on time. Anyhow, (yuck) I was so gigantic that I couldn't wear any of the baby things. I had to have big kid diapers and all that. I also pushed myself up on my hands in a crawling like position and cried big tears. They used me as some sort of freak-show exhibition for a few days before releasing me. One of my nephews was pretty freakishly large, too, but he didn't do too much of the weird stuff. He did projectile vomit pretty continuously for the first few years of his life though........perhaps we're some sort of demon breed. P.S. I almost never throw up.

6. I am an incredibly awkward sleeper. This has just been the way it is from the time I was born (see notes of freakishness in #5). When I was an infant, I would sleep flat on my back with my arms and legs spread out around me. I also spread my fingers and toes apart while I slept. My mothers theory is that I was rebelling against being crushed in her womb, seeing as how I was so monstrously huge. I think I must have spread out a bit in her womb as well, because I destroyed her abdominal wall. For those of you who have met my mom and witnessed her sort of apple-ish shape, a lot of that has to do with me. Back to the sleeping....there have been numerous times where I've woken up turned completely around in my bed, or even with my legs vertically pressed up against a wall. I also frequently flail about in my sleep and have mildly violent dreams. I always had to sleep away from other people when I had slumber parties and whatnot because sometimes I would punch people while I was sleeping. That mostly went away, but within the past 8 years I have broken an ex boyfriend ribs in my sleep, and thought I broke my hand while slamming it against a trunk. I also tend to build a nest around myself while I sleep and there are many pictures of me wrapped inside a huge piles of pillows/blankets. The bright side of this sleep issue is that I always get to have my own bed when we go out of town. Sometimes I also make siren noises in my sleep. That's particularly strange because I become aware of the fact that I'm doing it while I'm still asleep. Once someone wakes me up I usually immediately apologize for making the noises because I know that's why they woke me up.

7. Hmmmm.....last one. My first kiss was Billy Warlock from Baywatch. I met him at a Days of Our Lives convention downtown that my sister (hooker wannabe) had won tickets for on the radio. He was hot, but like 4 feet tall. At the time though I was much shorter so it didn't phase me.

Okay, so that was fun. I'm sticking with the plan of not tagging anyone else. It's fitting since I wasn't officially tagged at all myself. So tomorrow I get to go do step 1 of not having all my teeth fall out in a giant clump. (damn, that would have been a good fact, too. We've been speaking of it recently due to obvious reasons. I somehow decided when I was kid that when it was time for my teeth to fall out, they would all just spontaneously drop from my mouth. I lived in fear of not being able to catch them all and losing out o the tooth fairy loot. To remedy the situation, I would only wear outfits that had a giant pocket on the front of them, like Osh-Kosh overalls did. That way, when the fateful teeth-losing day came, I could just open my mouth over my pocket and they'd all be safe.) I HATE, HATE, HATE going to the dentist. I had to have all the literature about tomorrows proceeding removed from my reach because I kept looking at it and freaking out. I'm totally not liking any of it, and am half wanting to just say screw it and let all my teeth go. I also was smart enough to not take off work or anything so I have to be at the shop 2 hours after my procedure starts. So, if anyone wants a good laugh during the day you can call me at the store and listen to me try to drool out words like some sort of Quasimoto mouth. I don't know if I spelled that right, but it seems phonetically sound. Okay, I gotta run. I want to finish the heel turn on my mom's sock before I go to sleep.

Sock Tale

2007-05-15T11:09:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it's been lately with all my sock mishaps. There's the one pair that I kept finding in dirty parking lot puddles. There's the one where I waited and waited to use this pattern that I really liked, only to find that it doesn't show up a single bit in the yarn.....Oh! And what's the deal with me never being able to get a sock over my heel anymore? My heels don't look like they've suddenly expanded greatly. My legs, maybe. Heels, no. Anyhow, remember how I ordered all that sock yarn the other month and it all accidentally came in at once and I thought I was gonna pass out? I stayed true to my prediction and plunged right into the Fire on the Mountain.

preeetttyyy

With help from my mother, I was able to successfully wind it into a center-pull ball using hands and the winder, sans swift. I don't know why it never occurred to me that this could be done. I recently read somewhere about doing this, and while it was a tad troublesome and undoubtedly more time consuming/messy than doing it with a swift, it worked none the less.

I decided to keep the pattern about as simple as a pattern can be 1) because I didn't want to obscure the color at all and 2) I wanted my socks quick. I opted for plain stockinette socks, loosely based on the Sock Love pattern at Chic Knits. Then this happened.

fug

As unappealing as I found the severe, creepy tie-dye-gone-heinously-wrong appearance of this, I received multiple compliments on them. I kept thinking."Well, maybe they're not so bad." and kept knitting, in case you're wondering why I worked all the way thru the heel while a large part of me loathed them. I like my heel, so I new it wasn't the necessarily the sock yarn itself.

I did some poking around on the internet and after I saw what some of the less goofy socks looked like, I knew what had to be done.

ouch!

Luckily I was able to salvage the ribbing because I've developed quite an aversion to doing it. All I did was decrease 4 stitches around and this what I ended up with.

worst FO shot ever

Please excuse the fact that it looks like my feet are propped up on a mountain of trash. They're not, really, but I quickly cleaned off the table afterwards. Since completion, my socks have travelled to Atlantic City, where I mistakenly hoped they would be some sort of good luck charm, and got to go on the beach. Then my f*cking shoe broke exposing a large chunk of metal that poked and rubbed away at my heel. I was able to quickly get another pair of shoes, but I thought my socks had bit it. After I got them home and washed up, I thin they'll survive. They must have had some luck in them after all. If I can figure out how to send my phone pictures to my printer, maybe I'll show some of our adventures. Maybe I'll also get off my butt and take some shots of my finished Quill Laces Socks, which I realized earlier that I had never done. Oops.

Some things I forgot

2007-05-12T14:17:00.000-05:00

I was picking up around the house today and found a few S&W purchases that I had forgotten. I think this mostly has to do with the fact that I got most of them technically before the festival itself, but they either came from the festival or were something that was a planned purchase from MS&W but happened to be procured right before by chance. So here they are.
1. No Sheep for You by Amy Singer and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot's Guide to the Land of Knitting.

I initially hadn't expressed much interest in the No Sheep book. However, as I was standing in line for STR, the ladies in front of me had one very lovely tops which I was told were "Tomato" from the book. I know at least one of these ladies is a semi-local knit blogger, though I have no idea what her name is. I suspect I recognize her from the shop. She's one of the one's photographed on JavaJem's blog from the meet up.

2. A smallish umbrella swift!! Yay!!

3. This next one is something that was gifted to me by Carole after she and pretty much everyone else who works at the shop got to go pick out yarn on Friday while I held down the fort. I couldn't have picked better myself.

Ellyn Cooper Yarn Sonnet's Fine Merino in Strazzberry

4. Because I liked the yarn above so much, I decided to pick up a little more. I thought this color would work particularly well for my Horcrux socks from the Six Sox Knitalong.

Ellyn Cooper Yarn Sonnet's Fine Merino in Misha

In unrelated news, I got some very bad news yesterday. As many of you may know, I've been having a great deal of problems with one of my wisdom teeth lately. I finally was able to see the dentist yesterday and it totally did not go as planned. During my initial look-over, it was discovered that I have bad periodontal disease and that there's essentially nothing that can be done to save mt front bottom teeth. The problem was amplified by my smoking (which I quit doing a while back) and my tongue ring (which I very begrudgingly had to remove). I also have some bad issues in all of my molars and my front teeth on top. As I understand it, hopefully the bottom ones are the only ones that are totally f**ed. I was also told that all of my orthodontal work has given me substantially less time before my teeth pop out like pez because all the shifting significantly shortened my roots. I guess the problem started a long, long time ago because it's way down in my gums and I have had extraordinary flossing practices for quite a long time. However, I have had a truly dismal history of visiting the dentist for like 10 years, unless there was an emergency. The ironic part is that my teeth themselves are fabulous. My gums just suck. I was particularly fond of the dentist telling me how wonderful my teeth were yesterday because it really doesn't mean jack right after telling someone that their teeth are soon going to be ejected. I'll tell you, if it's not one thing it's another. And the best part? They're not going to do a thing about my wisdom tooth until they can get however much of this periodontal stuff under control that they can. Now I get to suffer through the pain of that while thinking about the swarms of bacteria festering in the lower regions of my gums, destroying all my connective tissue. Super fun!! At least I'll be able to get a lot of knitting done while I'm hiding toothless in my house waiting for partials to be constructed.

Disclosure

2007-05-08T23:02:00.000-05:00

Maryland Sheep and Wool was very exciting for me this year, to say the least. I didn't get to go last year because I was foolishly attempting to save some dough for a trip to France that was supposed to be happening a short time after the festival. That trip got cancelled not too long after I had missed out on all the yarny goodness. Anyhow, back to this year. I had a plan. All I wanted to do was get there, get some STR in colorways unavailable online, and get out. I had a party to attend later that day and I'm really not in need of any yarn. I made this plan one, maybe two weeks prior to the festival. As the weekend approached, I came across more and more accounts of STR selling out in mere minutes and herds of knitters storming the booth as soon as the it opened. I devised a plan to get to S&W really early and just wait. I heard more and more tales of empty yarn bins. I began to panic. At some point a few nights away from the festival I actually had a nightmare about lack of yarn. Scary. So Sheep and Wool day came and I got up super dark and early (in the 5am hour) and made it up to the festival by around 7. I can honestly say that I may have been the first non-worker sitting around that day knitting on a bench. By 7:45 others had joined me waiting outside barn 3, aka the STR barn. By 8:15 I actually had to go stand in line in front of The Fold because others were flocking in and I'd be damned if I was going to get up that friggin' early to be beaten out by a bunch of late-comers. When they finally undid the little rope that was between us and the yarn, it was anarchy. Luckily, since I was right up in front, I was essentially thrown face first into a giant wall of STR mediumweight by the 50 or so people pouring in behind me. It was heavenly......though I bit panic stricken.
So here's what I ended up with.

Brooks Farm Duet......lovely

Little Curly Mohair Handpainted by The Flock Bransonas

Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in very pretty greens & purples

Gypsy Girl yarn in Angela (pink) and Goblin (green/purple)

Oh yeah.......and that STR I was talking about?? I got just a weeeee little bit of it. It looks a little something like this......

Wooo!!! I hit the motherlode. What can I say?

I wish I could tell you all the colorways, but I had to quickly stash the goods and didn't have enough time to write it all down. I'll give it a whirl from memory.....uh, holy goodness, I think I know it all....at least the majority of it. What can I say, I know my STR. Here it goes, from top left to bottom right. Algae, Crazy Lace Agate, Carbon Dating, Hard Rock, Neptunite, Red Rock Canyon, Highway 30, Lemongrass, Alina, Country Clare, Pebble Beach, Azure something or another, Romancing the Stone, Heart-something, and Amethyst.

I wasn't satisfied (somehow) with the first 13 skeins I got in the early morning so I ho the booth again a little later and picked up some more!! Hello, Psycho! My crafty coworker later pointed out to me that I picked up a duplicate colorway during my initial buying frenzy.

Country Clare

While it is probably one of my favorite new colors, I just wasn't down with the duplicate. I had to go back and exchange it for something else on Sunday. I got there a little too late and there were slim picking to choose from. I ended up getting this......

....which is a merino/tencel blend from BMFA in the Tiger's Eye colorway (damn, I good with the color names!). It's quite nice and I'm not too sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I also picked up a good number of patterns, all of the sock persuasion. I have a feeling that they might just come in handy during the next few months. I have no idea why.

Okay, that's it. I finish school in just a few days now. I'm so through mentally that I hope I can wait for the next few days to pass before I run off screaming in the middle of the night. I think I can do it. Oh, and I have at least one FO to show....maybe even a second by the time I get around to posting again. Excitement!

Shhhhhhhhh.......

2007-04-27T18:53:00.000-05:00

I've been poking around on the Internet for quite some time and it seems to be the trend for Fridays to be yarn porn day. This couldn't be more fitting considering that today is perhaps the most yarn-pornyest day that ever there was. I have to kind of keep it on the down low though. I think I may have reached a new peak in the "Oh my GOD! What have I done?!?" category. Anyhow, let's get this party started.....
First off is aforementioned Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock.

Here's a bit of a closeup that shows the colors a little better.

I don't really remember what all I d about this yarn before, but the green one is Envy and the other is Vera. Yum, yum, yum. Even if it is way thinner than I had in mind when I ordered it. I still couldn't really capture all the coolness of the Vera. It's a very strange yet pretty combo of dark pink/mauve/fuchsia with some browns and grayish greens. The Envy is the one I'm attempting to knit up for my sister, though I think I'm going to have to frog it once again because now the sock is turning out super huge. Did I mention this before?? Possibly.....

Okay. Now here is what caused me to think that maybe I've really lost it this time. This is like the Adult Film Awards of my yarn porn.

Voila!

And in a view that makes me froth at the mouth just a wee bit more....

From left to right we have Pink Granite, Socktopus, Rhodonite, Lunasea (which is particularly applicable to me), Puck's Mischief, and Fire on the Mountain. All of it is STR mediumweight, with the exceptions of Socktopus and the Pink Granite which are lightweight.

Socktopus and Lunasea are two of the new colors from the Tides collection. I literally almost threw up from excitement when I saw that they had added them.

Fire on the Mountain is just like a hippie tie-dye rainbow for the feet. I'll be looking forward to digging into this one. It'll take me some time to think of something to do that won't f#%@# around with the color scheme. I got these two patterns, also.

I like the patterns from BMFA. I still am uneasy about mixing lace with colors, but apparently sometimes it works out just fine. So, what does one do when all these goodies happen to arrive on the same day?? Absolutely freak out. Now, I've hid yarn before for various reasons. I wouldn't want a kid to touch something or I wouldn't want someone to see something that may be for them. There have also been times where I was little ashamed that I had to pick up this or that while I as out so I may have just pretended that it didn't happen for awhile while the yarn rested in a hidden bag. This however........

You have to remember that the above happened in like a nanosecond while I thought someone was coming up the stairs. Yes, this yarn was hidden out of pure fear. Fear o what, I'm not exactly sure, but fear it was. It as like having a soft, squishy, super wash merino panic attack and moment of sheer joy simultaneously. Scary. I think I'm going to have to take them out one by one and just pretend the others don't exist. Then, once one is safely hidden, I'm come down and nab another one. Sickness, people. That's what this is. Plain old crazy-yarn-lady sickness.

Hope everyone has a good weekend !!

laziness

2007-04-24T20:25:00.000-05:00

my keyboard is broken in a way which prevents me from capitalizing letters. sorry for that. I'm feeling very lazy/tired today and really didn't feel like uploading pictures. if i had done so, i would be showing you a completed quill lace sock along with about half of a second. I'd also perhaps show off some of the new Lorna's laces i got to make my sister and myself some goodies. I'm a little peeved about the Lorna's laces though because i realized, only after splurging on quite a few different colorways, that i was ordering the sock weight and not the sport. the sock weight is okay and feels about as good as any other sock yarn, but the sport weight is soft, cushy, and all around my preferred Lorna's laces sock type product. i started my sisters socks on a size one and worked and worked my little hands off. after about a night's worth of work.....which yielded an approximate total length of about 2-2.5 inches, i found that it there was absolutely no way in hell that any full size human was going to fit it over their foot/heel. i ripped it out and started a new pattern with 80 stitches and am now thinking, after knitting and knitting and knitting, that it may be far too large an fiber consuming. this is one of the main reasons why i am a very selfish knitter/person in general. things just don't turn out right when i try my hand at random kindness.
okay, I've grown tired of playing with this monstrous key board so I'll bid a quick farewell and come back when i have some visuals.

Quill Lace Socks

2007-04-19T13:38:00.000-05:00

I decided not to waste any time before diving into another sock. Surprise, surprise. My latest endeavor is the quill lace socks from the current (??) issue of Knitty. I'm liking the pattern now, but found it a little tedious at first. I'm often that way when I first start something new. Now that I have it in my head and can just do it, the sock and I are getting along better. Oh, and this is my Little Bunny Foo Foo medium weight STR. See the resemblance to Lucy??

Here's a detail of the lace.

I made some sort of heinous mistake on the cuff and ended up with surplus of stitches. I did my best to fix it but knew as I was doing it that it wasn't exactly working out. I should have been less lazy and ripped back a few rows, but I don' really care too much. You can see a pretty obvious screw up here in the middle two columns.

It's in the back of the sock and it's not like a person could tell (I hope) without really looking. The sock also has an 'Eye of Partridge' heel, which I don't think I've even done before. It's not all that different stitch wise from my usual slip stitch heel, but there's quite a contrast in appearance.

I've gotta play around with my camera some more and figure out how to get shots that have more color accuracy. I keep getting wither really dark photos or the flash bleaches everything out so much that my pictures look either black & white or like a giant shiny thing. I'll have to put that on my to-do list. That's all for now : )

Goes From Virgin to Yarn Whore in 60 Seconds

2007-04-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

I've come to a realization about myself. I need to anticipation of packages arriving in the mail to get through the average day. I knew bad things would happen when I started shopping online. I knew it! Oh well. I guess having yarn issues,while still a legitimate worry, is much less severe than many problems one might develop. That being said, here is what arrived for me this week.

I hate to say it but I'm less impressed with this shipment than i was with the previous one. I think it's practically because the colors are a wee bit different than they appeared on the screen (whereas the others were spot on) and that the first order I placed was ones that I really, really wanted while this one was more in the category of "Hmmmm...do I want this one?.....or do I want that one?" which basically culminated in my just kind of randomly deciding on two of the multitude that I desire. I still like them though. And maybe when they're knit up I'll be doing imaginary back flips over them like I did with the first order. And yes, sat here for a good 10 minutes with at least one hank of the yarn pressed up to my face while I semi-psychotically inhaled it's fabulousness. The one on the left is STR Henpecked and the other is Little Bunny Foo Foo, both in medium weight. LBFF is essentially Lucy but with pink instead if the blue. In my head I think of it as being grey, but it is in fact a beige-ish color.

On to the next subject.....oddly still related to my new found obsession with STR.

Guess what I have???

Why yes, that's a photo of me relaxing in my super-terrific Monkey socks!

I enjoy standing in them, too.

Here's a closeup of the pattern.

As previously stated, this is the Monkey pattern from Knitty. I used STR lightweight in the Cracked Canyon colorway and size 2 needles to accommodate my humongous feet. I love them.

Now I get to break into the new stuff: )-

One down

2007-04-13T23:41:00.000-05:00

I'm loving my Monkeys. I'm also loving my STR. Big time. The sheer awesomeness of my socks is so great, in fact, at it may case somewhat of a family rift. My mom, who doesn't even wear socks, picked up my completed Monkey and put it on her dirty foot. She then asked me which color I was going to make her a pair in. My first reaction was to go to BMFA's and show her the colors. The underlying plan being, of course, to throw a hank or two into the order for myself. But then.....then......ughhh. I don't even want to say it. She wants my new Lorna's Laces. My new, pretty, pink Lorna's Laces for which I had already printed out a little pattern which was carefully placed in a it's own special plastic sleeve just waiting for my Monkeys to be finished. After I picked up the crumbles of my heart, I quickly formulated a new plan. I would order more or the Tickled Pink and get a few hanks of the Vera colorway, too. Then I thought better. It's very rare that I can knit with the same yarn multiple times. I get bored and part of the whole sock yarn draw is the novelty of color. I decided to just not be selfish and make her the freakin' socks.......except then I had a big realization while I was freakishly sitting up in my office staring across the room at the yarn I had spread out over the adjacent chair. The Tickled Pink has a great big glob of purple in it! So does the Rhodonite colorway from BMFA that I've been stalking. The new and improved (and tentatively final) plan is this. Purchase the Rhodonite and knit both it and the Lorna's Laces. Then I can fully consider the extra yarn purchase as being part of a highly involved experiment. Excellent!

So I was going to Chick-Fil-A for dinner.......

2007-04-11T16:48:00.000-05:00

Oops. I forgot that the JoAnns with the big yarn section lives right across the street from the Chick-Fil-A in Columbia. So, while I intended to run out and come home with some chicken nuggets, I came home with this instead.

The guy who checked me out asked me if I was a new knitter. I felt a little bad about being asked this because I still carry a bit of buying-shitty-yarn shame. I said that no, in fact I was NOT a novice and explained my predicament about being in town to buy some chicken, but being so close to yarn of virtually any sort makes me go a little nutty sometimes. He then asked me if I liked the color green. Hmmmmm. The darker colored ones are Patons (not too shitty) wool and the other ones that have more convoluted coloration are something so cheapo and terrible that I won't even mention the name. Come to think of it, I don't even know off hand what the name is. Anyhow, it' absolute crap but I like the colors they come out with.

Maybe the next day or the day after that, I stopped by FiberWorks while waiting for a prescription of my mom's to be filled.......two towns or so away.

The maroon yarn is something from Universal. We just started carrying the company at the shop, but we didn't get in any of this stuff. The other yarn is some new stuff from Online, producer of the yarn in my fabulous orange socks. In all honesty I probably wouldn't have actually bought the stuff if Rene hadn't been so kind as to go out of her way to show me where it as on the shelves and show me a poster of it. Its interesting and stripes in a very oddball sort of way, bu I'm just not really feeling the jacquard (or however one spells it) yarn at the moment. And the needles....ahhhhh, the needles. Pretty, pretty, cheap, plastic needles. I love them so. I had to run out to Micheal's to pick up something random and naturally couldn't go without getting myself a prize, too. I've been wanting these needles for a fair amount of time because I like the colors and truth be told, I really don't care too much about using plastic needles for things that aren't teeny tiny.

A few days later I had to go back to Michael's in search of paper Easter grass for a basket I was assembling for my grandpa.

This yarn is extremely pretty, and feels a bit like an old brillo pad. Oh well. I'll suffer through. It's really not that bad and I figure when I combine it with the boucle, it'll be better.....slightly. I really like it though and think it'll make a nice scarf. I like he way the pink and brown goes together.

Speaking of pink, look what just came in the mail!

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Tickled Pink and Flame. Yay! Clearly, my mental status is flailing. I think that maybe subconsciously I'm getting nervous about the prospect of being dirt poor while I'm in grad school. By buying a non-sensical amount of yarn now, maybe I'm just trying to set myself up with a little something nice for later.

Oh, and just to feel just a weeeeeee bit better about the yarn purchases. here is a little baby WIP shot.

In case you can't tell, it's part of a Monkey. That seems to be the definitive thing to do nowadays. This is the Cracked Canyon colorway from BMFA in lightweight. I LOVE it. In fact, I love it so much that no sock pattern was deemed worthy for it. I had some massive trouble at first since I seemed to hate everything that would perhaps detract from the yarn. The pattern may be a bit busy for the yarn, but I'm fine with it and I think that's about as close to being very happy with a pattern as I'm going to get. BTW, a new color palette is being being released this coming week I believe. I'm a tad panic stricken that they'll remove some of the colorways that I'm still stalking. I hope not.

Sad day

2007-04-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

My guinea pig Angel passed away at about 3:15 this morning. I'm very, very sad about this. He was seven, maybe even eight years old. That's quite a run for a guinea pig. He was one of my most favorite guinea pigs of all time.

That's him on the lower right. The cowlicky one with the white nose. It's sad to even look at the picture because everyone in it is dead now. Angel used to like to chase Beau around and bite her tail. Sad, sad, sad......

The worst part is that I knew he was dying for a few days. He got super sick yesterday morning and I kept checking on him all day. Finally, at about 7, I thought he was dead and I went and made him a little coffin and dug a little grave. When I went to get him though it turned out that he was till alive, and we just had to wait until early morning. That was horrible beyond belief. At least now he's not suffering or anything. I HATE burying animals though. I can think of few things worse than having to deal with all that. I'm just not cut out emotionally for such things.

Alright, not much else to report. I haven't been knitting too much.....or at least have nothing to show for what efforts I've made. In fact,I pretty much am moving backwards knit-wise because I decided last night that I need to frog my Caruso socks due to sizing issues. Once I get that sucker on my leg I'm fine, but I just can't deal with the fight of pulling it over my heel. I keep feeling like I'm going to snap all the slipped stitches in half. No good. Hopefully the rest of the week will be more cheery and I'll get more fun stuff done.

I had thought of a witty header......

2007-03-31T00:38:00.000-05:00

When I was driving around tonight I though of something that would be the perfect title for this post. However, sometime between then and now, it's escaped me. First things first. Someone was kind enough to gift this upon me.

Notice the freakish, large saw. Why,in the name of all that is holy, would a gnome carry a large saw?? This to me is undeniable proof against the notion that all gnomes are friendly, forest dwelling protectors of nature. Nature isn't protected by giant saws. Here is another shot of him, the evil gnome-of-toe-chopping, as I expect to find him one night, slowly creeping through the darkness of my bedroom to de-toe me.

The above photo is quite dark so depending on how your screen is, you may have to tilt your head or something to partake of the horror.

Okay, that being taken care of..........there's something I want you all to see! It's beautiful, and it made me truly feel like an addict when I opened it.

Yes, my STR arrived. In fact, I already have one sock of it finished! On the left is heavy-weight Lucy and on the right is light-weight Cracked Canyon. They're both quite lovely.

I love, love, love it! The heavy-weight is soooo dense. It as crazy to feel it against the lightweight. I can't wait until the medium weight comes back in stock...which should be next week. Excellent. Well, I guess that's all for now. I have a bunch more to show, but the batteries on my camera died and I haven't had a chance to photograph any of it yet. Now I think I'll go back to my CSI:Miami marathon. I had to momentarily leave the room to avoid seeing that cheese commercial where they butcher EMF's fun hit "Unbelievable" by their musical proclamation that their product is 'crumbelievable'. Perhaps it's just me, but that commercial truly drives me insane. Fun.

If you don't have anything nice to say......

2007-03-21T15:54:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling a little jaded for the past few days. As most of you know, this past year (or couple of years, but who's counting) has been filled with various unforeseen stresses and I, as would be expected, have been more stressed out than usual. I have big time wander lust and usually get the opportunity to travel at least 3 times a year. In October I was supposed to go to Atlanta and was sooooo looking forward to the trip. That got cancelled because my dad died maybe a week before we were supposed to go. Then I was supposed to go to Pittsburgh in January. Not a huge deal there, but Pittsburgh isn't here so it's good enough. Then I was supposed to go to Toronto maybe a week or two ago. That was another that had me excited. Toronto = hometown of various wrestlers, the Yarn Harlot, and Lettuce Knit, which conveniently carries STR. So I've been feeling stressed, stressed, stressed and claustrophobic about the DC/Baltimore area with no real option for escape.
This, being my Spring break, was supposed to be some sort of great, relaxing event for me. I like to believe in the "work hard, play hard" mentality....but have been finding that it's more "like work hard, then work hard some more.....and maybe sleep some" for me. My Spring Break, until today, consisted of working, cleaning, hiding from family, driving old people around, sitting in our lawyer's office for hours upon hours.....you get the point. Last night though, a plan was born. It had occurred to me while I was trying not to nod off at the lawyers that I should have just taken off for the yarn shops in Rockville. Since it was too late to do anything about it then, I decided to go today. Soon after that I recalled that a Dog the Bounty Hunter marathon plays on Tuesday nights, which I usually can't watch b/c of school. That made all the crappy Spring Break stuff fade into nothing. Anyhow.....onto to the yarn stuff. I guess it kind of makes up for the not going anywhere.
First, I went to Wool Winder's in Rockville. I had done some research on them last night and found that they had a great deal of yarn listed on their inventory and had their prices listed as well. I drove for quite some time to get there, and got lost only once. Keeping with the title of this post, I was very impressed with my parallel parking skills. I was not aware that my parking skills would be called upon like that, but I took on the challenge and was victorious. One may say that it was the trip highlight. Additionally, the owner of the shop was very nice to me. I came away with much less than I had anticipated, but one thing was way worth the trip.

Silly me hadn't realized that this bad boy was out on the shelves yet. It's way cool......and I almost choked on my own tongue when I flipped it over and saw the price of it while I was pumping gas on the way out of the city. Yes, I like to stand there reading knitting books while I get gas. I also picked up these, which I have mixed feelings about.

I have been regularly eyeing Koigu in the Patternworks catalogues. I had marked some colors that I wanted to order and was very excited that Wool Winder's carried it. To tell you the truth though, the colors weren't so hot in real life. Personally, I've never seen the stuff except for some super fug that was at the awesome shop in Texas. Even they said it was nasty and told me to chew out the company people for them at that years MS&W. Also, and I'll go ahead and say this because I talked about it with the staff there, they had maybe 7 colors. The reason for this is that they get in a huge, massively massive order once a year around November and it just trickles away from there. The company i not the best at sending out yarn, but at least they're very honest about it.

I was feeling a little let down about my day and I hadn't found some of the yarn that I was quested for, so I decided to go somewhere else......that I just won't name so I don't get any dirty looks. There, i picked up these.

The greenish/yellowish stuff is this killer Trekking XXL that I've been hunting and hunting for. In the middle is some Claudia Handpaints fingering weight in Pink Cloud. I have better representations of the color below. On the right is some of Colinette's new sock yarn. I'm not secure with the yardage, but the colors are very interesting and rich. This particular one was just so wacky that I had to take it. It's way more circus-y than I would usually choose, but I like it. Here's a close up of the pink cloud.

You know how much I paid for the Trekking, Colinette, and Claudia?? $20. Yep. Twenty smackeroos. You know how much I paid for at the first shop? Many, many, many. Granted, I got a book. Still.....many, many, many. Not so much what I was looking at price wise on the web.

Okay, so I obviously have quite a bit of sock knitting to do now for the rest of my break. I blame this whole shopping binge on the lovely ladies as Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Perhaps if my account information showed a sent icon instead of an order pending message, none of this would have happened. Hmmmrphhhh.

The Dirtiest Player in the Game

2007-03-20T17:34:00.000-05:00

I feel the need to give a quick shout out to the wrestlers of WWE who may be Googling their names today looking for themselves in print. I'd just like to say Randy, Adam, Shane and whomever else that I wish hadn't been mentioned.....Stay off the 'roids guys!!
Okay, now that that's out of the way....am I a great big,dirty ol' cheater? Perhaps.....

It appears that there's a pair of socks on my feet. I use the word "appear" because these socks really don't match at all. I tried (no too successfully, but oh well) to capture their discrepancy in size here.

I believe I mentioned somewhere in a previous post, pre-rampage over the STR on Skrilla's page, that I was put off by the first sock of this final pair and didn't really know what to do. Rather than take the one out and re-knit it, I just knit a second sock with like 10 more stitches cast on and maybe an addition inch of cuff/foot and called it a day. The fact that this may not actually be a fair pair out of my quota of 3 is negligible at this point.........besides, I ordered my STR as soon as that last heel was turned!!! Woooo! Yeah!! And who said I could only order one skein, huh? Those babies are packed up and shipping out! I'll wait until my package arrives to go into details, but it will be a grand day for me. Karma got me good though because if I hadn't been so freakishly gluttonous and impatient with my stalking I would have seen, pre-ordering, that the medium weight yarn that I wanted is anticipated to be restocked the first week of April. I'm not thrilled with the steeper price of the heavy weight and am not exactly secure with the yardage on the light. Hmmm. We soon shall see how they both fare. And I'd be willing to bet that come the first week of April, we'll see how the medium weight works out for my gigantic feet as well.

And I haven't just been busy with the socks!

Okay, so one of these is another pair of socks and I actually plan on casting on for another pair tonight. What can I say? I have a f*cking ton of sock yarn that I have to work thru. That green sock is going to be half a pair of Tweeds from Magknits. I believe I mentioned that endeavor a post or two ago. The scarf is knit in Inca from......someone, and is just a 3x1 rib. It's been quite the popular pattern at the shop. Also, speaking of popular patterns, that purple thing is my short row hat from Interweave. Perhaps that should become the store's project mascot because I know that at least 3 of the 5 of are currently or have recently made one. Mine is special because it's evil. This photo is of the second or third incarnation of it because the bottom line is that the pattern just doesn't fit my wide head. If the circumference is working out, I'd have to be a cone head to accommodate the height. Currently I've sized my needles down to a size 6 and my measurements are still showing too large a gauge. I say screw it all. I'm finishing the damn thing and will shove my head into it regardless of how small/large/misshapen it turns out.

Alright, I've been distracted by the sounds of CSI: Miami floating down from my office. That means I must go, immediately.

GrrrraarrrRRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!!! Noooooooooooo.......

2007-03-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

Okay........I so totally just had a mini mental breakdown and literaly almost threw up a little in my mouth from the deadly combo of sheer excitement of looking at yarn that I want and the rage/jealousy of seeing someone else who has it all. I had to check just one more blog before I went to do my work........just. one. more. And what did she have?? Skein after skein of STR, in the SAME colorways I want, that she picked up at Stitches West. I am very upset right now.........I am quite inclined to go to bluemoon fibers and orer every single damn thing that I want and sit here until it shows up on my door. I want my yarn. I want to be in the f*cking sock club. I want to have not set this retarded goal of actually finoshed three friggin' pairs of socks before I order my yarn. I am not a person of restraint. It's ridiculous for me to set rules like that for myself. Yet I did, and I will stick to it. If I break down now I'll lose all faith on myself. It'll be like a heroin addict fresh from rehab taking a hit ( I watched Intervention a lot last night). Hrrrumphhhh. I think I might feel better if I actually threw a temper tantrum, complete with kicking and pounding on the floor. Yes....that would good, and it would be yet another thing I can do to keep myself from writing my paper.

Two and then some down

2007-03-10T20:34:00.000-05:00

I finally was able to finish my orange socks. Here they are, being modeled by Dylan.

He woke up a mere moment after I threw the socks on him and I could tell by the look on hos face that he sometimes has serious doubts about the intelligence of humankind......or at least me.

The completion of these socks brings me to 2 out of 3 needed to purchase my STR. I have one sock completed of that last pair but I have mixed emotions about it. The bottom line is that it's too small. It was suggested to me that I just finish the second one and give he pair to my niece. This, of course, is utterly ridiculous considering the fact that the reason I bought the yarn in the first place is because I like it for me. The fools......

To keep myself from thinking too heavily on the matter, I started a pair of Tweeds from Magknits. On par with most other things in my life, they aren't coming out exactly as planned. Perhaps this is because I'm doing something completely different than the pattern says. It calls for using two colors of yarn and doing one row stripes. I figured that I could achieve the same effect by using a self striping yarn that has short repeats. This is not working put so well. The sock itself looks fine, but it doesn't really look like the sock in the picture or that much different really from a basic 2x2 rib. Oh well. It gives me something to do. Speaking of which, I have to go finish writing a long, long, long paper : ( I'd soooo much rather play with my yarn instead.