11 in 2011

Just a list for me. Links are all ravelry links.

Beaded cami

Versatility

Hege

Ice Age Boots

Downtown Clutch

A modified Backward Cable Pullover

WIP-- Tappan Zee

WIP-- Rambling Rose Cardigan

WIP-- Ripping out and reworking Houndstooth Mitts

At least one pair of socks

Something else

So much past inside my present....

It took a few hours, but I think my stomach has finally started speaking to me again after all the awful things I did to it yesterday.

Our dear friend Ryan is leaving The Black Drop and, in the not-so-distant future, Bellingham and 'round these parts nobody goes anywhere without a proper send-off. So we had the (second) Deep Fry Party*, where everyone brings anything they're brave enough to batter up and dip in oil. There were too many items to list everything, but some of the notable mentions included the customary cheese wiz-filled corn dogs, shrimp and bacon won tons, Snickers (my contribution), Oreos, Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches, and a concoction Arianne came up with-- macaroni and cheese encased in garlic cheese biscuit dough**. The best however, occurred after we left in the form of deep-fried Tums.

As is also customary, there were also quite a few shenanigans, including the wearing of unitards. Poor Eric, who had been at home sleeping and was only there to ferry me home, got a little caught in the middle of all of it, though he never had to actually wear the unitard. He was a damn good sport about the whole thing, however.


On the knitting front, I've made some decisions. After a slight color change, I've decided that the Rambling Rose Cardigan is the next sweater project, in part due to the fact that I could get the yarn for that one soonest***. I'm also testing out another yarn for my brother's Baby's First Tattoo cardigan. I'm trying out bamboo, but I fear it's going to be too.... the best word I can come up with is "slinky."

I'm kind of grabbing at straws with that one, as nothing I've seen in fingering weight has been able to meet all of the requirements. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to find something in solid, non-wierd colors that doesn't require massive jumping through hoops to care for, and yet here I am testing out a bamboo yarn that will make my baby brother look like he's wearing a satin smoking jacket or something.


* -- There's good stories behind why we've all done this to ourselves not once but twice. I prefer to live inthe now, though.
** --These eventually became known as "Cheese Fists" and were incredibly yummy.
*** --Is that even a word?

She's pretty damn wierd.

I'm pretty sure that no one other than my mother would ask for a meat thermometer for Christmas. I shouldn't be suprised, as this is the same woman who once asked for a rack of ribs for Mother's Day. It was amusing, if only because I got to tell people I gave my mom raw meat as a gift.

I finished another One-Row Scarf for my dad last night. I have to start another project so that everybody (Dad, his wife Pang, and Wyatt, the new kidlet) gets something handmade, but all in all it's working out pretty well. The way I see it, if I can knock out a second scarf and a child-size hat (for another family), I'm going to consider this holiday season a success with more than 50% of goals completed. All that leaves is the other half.

The sort-of birthday outing of this weekend was a rousing success. I had an awesome time seeing the Red Elvises, and afterwards we popped over to the dive bar across the street and caught the Hot Roddin' Romeos. I lost one of my favorite scarves, but I'm going to check back and see if maybe it turned up. That makes three handmade scarves lost over the last couple of years-- one in the Baltimore airport security check, one at the (no longer open) 3B Tavern, and now this one at another bar. While none have been particularly fancy--heck, the 3B scarf was thrown together in two hours while watching a movie-- it still irks me that I have such trouble holding onto things. I'm going to start pinning things to my clothes, like they do in elementary school. This will go well with my plan to put locators on everything I own.*

For now, I'm on the move. I've got to get myself a shower before I go have a birthday lunch with the lovely Stephanie. After that, I have a full afternoon of Christmas tree hauling, knitting, and eventually dinner with my super-awesome boyfriend.

*I find I have a really hard time keeping track of things, but I thought of a way to remedy this. Know how you can call your cell phone when you lose it and it will ring to tell you where it is? Well, my plan is to put beepers and bells on everything, then create a big board of buttons that I can push to find things. The buttons will have labels like "keys" and "purse" and "left shoe".

I gotta say, I'm actually pretty okay with giving up on NaPloBloMo. The only posts that would have been made over the last week or so would have read something like this:



Look at me. I'm posting today. Just like I did yesterday, and everyday this month.



While it complies with the rules, it doesn't seem to reflect the spirit, now does it? And really, I didn't much feel like writing anything at all lately. Not in any depressed, there's nothing worth talking about, woe is me way. More in a I-feel-like-holing-up-in-house-and-knitting-without-having-to-interact way. Work's been nuts, the weather's been crappy, and I've been trying like heck to avoid the cold that Eric came home with recently. All the outside factors made it perfect timing for a week of cozying up under my super-furry throw blanket with a pot of tea (or some evenings a glass of wine) and one of the eleventy-billion projects currently piling up in my little house.

The new version of my cardigan seems to be coming along, even with the (very small) breaks I've been taking to work on the baby blanket. I went for top-down raglan this time, and already I'm much happier with it. Being able to try things on in the process makes working on them a lot more enticing!

Don't stop believin', hold onto that feeling.....

This has not been a good month for knitting. Not at all.

After I finished the purse, I put down the needles for almost two weeks. All the projects I have going require thought/math/focus that I just haven't had in me lately. Between changing jobs, buying a condo (!), counseling my best friends through their (possibly temporary?) break-up, finding out my father got married in Vegas last weekend, and everything else, who could think about knitting?

Problem is, knitting is my stress reliever. And, dear god, has there been a lot of stress. So I'm busting out a mindless project this week: a wrap cowl thingie made from Di.Ve' Teseo that I picked up not too long ago. I made the cable keyhole scarf (note to self: you still need to block that) from the same yarn in a different colorway and just love the color transitions. Rather than make something with deliberate, noticable stripes, I decided this to do something in the round that used the colors in more of a space-dyed fashion.




I call it a mindless project because, other than making sure not to drop a stitch, it requires no thinking at all. Like, really. The middle section is a random knit/purl combination that (hopefully) will create a random spacing of purl stripes on the knit background. As I'm going around, I will from time to time look down at my knitting and think I feel like purling now. So I do. I think/hope it will look awesome, but when I tried to write the whole thing down (something I've been trying to do as I knit lately at the request of a friend), it came out kind of like this:


Cast on 200 stitches.
Work in k4, p4 rib for about an inch or so, whatever you fancy.
Row ?: Throw in an eyelet row, just for fun-- k2, yo, k2tog.
Work rounds in double moss stitch until first ball runs out
Join new ball and work in random kp stitch pattern until you run out of yarn again
Join last ball and work in double moss stitch again, making sure to leave enough to do another eyelet row and an inch (or so) of the k4, p4 rib.
Bind off.

Double Moss stitch:
Rows 1 and 2: k2, p2, repeat to end.
Rows 3 and 4: p2, k2, repeat to end.
Repeat rows 1-4.

Random kp stitch pattern:
Knit sometimes, then purl sometimes, in whatever combination you choose.
Maybe k20, then purl 20, or only purl every five minutes for thirty seconds at a time.
Just make each round a little different from the one before and try not to create a repeating pattern.



Um....yeah. The whole thing sounds pretty dumb when I write it down. This is why I don't write patterns.

*puts on best italian accent*
The purse, she is fini!

I actually finished it about a week ago, but hadn't had a chance to take pictures yet. After using it for a couple of days, I've decided that adding a lining and a closure would be best. Without the lining, it tends to get stretched out by whatever's in it, and since it has a tendency to flop over when set down, it might be good to have a way to keep stuff from falling out. Otherwise, I love it-- just the right size to hold what I need, but not so big I stuff everything but the kitchen sink into it.

Even after knitting with two balls at once, things still came out a bit more solidly striped that I had planned. I'm thinking maybe next time the best bet would be to start one ball from the outer end and one from the inside. Maybe that will help?

I also finished Carly's mittens. They're green and stripey thanks to the Noro Kureyon I used. Now to mail them to her!

Next up is the Straightjacket Sweater from Naughty Needles, minus the whole buckling-in-the-back thing. I'm replacing the original thick-and-thin yarn called for with a similar one I found at Joann. Typically I've been fairly standoffish towards most of their yarns. I'm trying to avoid the term "yarn snobbery", but that's pretty much what it is. However! I found one that feels nice, looks good, has the same fiber content and has so far been getting the right gauge. And all for over $4.00 less a skein! PLUS, it's on sale for an extra $2.00 off right now. Does it get much better? I think not.

Stop the madness!

Okay, that does it-- no more buying yarn until I finish atleast one project. I'm flitting about with so many different things right now, and yet I still bought a skein of a yarn I want to test out for sweater I eventually want to make. It's like I have ADHD or something.

I did however, also manage to pick up some handles for the purse I've been working on, as well as some finishing needles, since I can't seem to figure out where I put the four I bought six months ago. I'm just really hoping they don't turn up in the couch or something. E will not be happy with me.

Right now, the current "on the needles" list is as follows:
-fuzzy sweater
-purse
-fingerless mittens (kind of like these but different), cribbed from this pattern by the girls at SpinCycle Yarns.

I also still have the cable scarf waiting to be blocked AND I found a purse I started a couple of years ago that I want to pick back up and finish. (It was my first semi-successful attempt at argyle and could be awesome if I actually got up off my butt and finished making it. )

In other words, I REALLY had no business buying any more yarn.

The haze is finally starting to clear....

On top of giving me some non-drowsy Claritin, my mom may have given me a good solution to this little sinus issue I've been having. Since we think it may be because of all the dry air I've been breathing in recently, both indoors and out, my mom had the idea to put a coffee can full of water on top of my radiator. As the radiator heats up, the water will vaporize and humidify the air. I had been trying to figure out a way to do this, but she came up with the best/most simple solution. She's a smart lady, my mom.

In other news, I am loving the new Knitty suprises. I might have to add Dragonfly to the knit list, which seems to be getting longer all the time. Just yesterday I added a wrap sweater that I sketched out, with the plan to make it from one of the recycling sweaters I picked up last week. I think I may use the wrap sweater project as a "how to recycle a sweater" tutorial. From what I've seen, the only things about sweater recycling online involve felting them and using the felt. There's so many more possibilities than that, if one is willing to take the time. And really, who can pass up a handknit sweater that only cost $5.00 to make?

No time for a real post, but since I only just wanted to post the photos that accompany my last couple of posts, I don't feel too bad.

E modelling the Tube Sock Scarf

Very blurry (it moves fast) and very big ball of roving!

The fruits of my labor-- my handspuns so far. The one on the left was done when I had been spinning for about three days and was trying to ply for the first time. I think things have gotten a lot more consistent since then. The bottom hank is from the Purple Haze ball.

The newest project, a purse. I started on it last night during Whiskey Night with Mike and Jen. It's almost but not completely in the round, since I didn't have a circular short enough. I decided to just make it with one seam up the side. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to play out yet, since I'm just kind of making it up as I go along, but it will atleast be an interesting project!

When did "sit and spin" go from being a crafting phrase to an insult?

I find that after certain events today I suddenly have a lot on my mind, but I'd rather put it aside for awhile to write about crafting. One can only mull over things for so long before people start to wonder what the constipated look on your face is about and whether you are, in fact, constipated. (In the interest of full disclosure, I wasn't.)


Meanwhile, there is so much spinning going on! Now if only I had better light for pictures/time to take pictures during the day!

There's a lady in the next town over who buys up fiber remnants from Brown Sheep Co. and cards them into bee-you-tee-ful balls of roving. My LYS, which if not previously mentioned is NW Handspun Yarns, sells them for $10. $10 for a ball of roving bigger than my head? Why yes, I will take some of that! I picked up a colorway called "Purple Haze", which is a lovely blend of purple and royal blue with bits of lavender tossed in. Because of the way it's been carded, it drafts super-easily. Within about a day, I was able to get a decent sized ball of singles spun, soaked, and wound up into a hank.

I also finally got the merino/silk and New Zealand wool I had spun soaked as well, and it definetely makes all the difference. The silly little tangled balls that were sitting on my coffee table have now morphed into smooth not-so-tangly-twisted hanks, albeit very small ones. One of these days I might actually spin enough yarn to knit something!

The Tube Sock Scarf is, thankfully, also done. There is only so much *k2p2 (repeat from *) I can stand, so I was more than happy to bind off that little number. E is very pleased with it, and spent about two hours surfing the internet Tuesday night with it wound around his neck.

Now it's onto finishing the stupid mittens that I've been putting off (I changed the pattern on the thumbhole, but being slightly addle-minded I forgot to write down how I changed it, so I'm going to have to guess at matching them. I'm not looking forward to this, hence the procrastination. ) And then it's back to the fuzzy sweater! I think I'm also going to make a purse from some of the random yarn I've picked up recently. After that, who knows? The list of future projects is so long, I don't even know where to start!

This isn't nearly as much about knitting as I intended it to be.

I am definetely an emotional knitter. I got in a fight with E the other night about something incredibly minor, but we both knew it was just a smokescreen for a couple other, slightly bigger frustrations. He went to bed, I sat up and finished another 8 inches on his scarf.

A couple of years ago, a friend was going through a rough time, and for my own reasons I just couldn't be as good a friend I wanted to be. At the time, I felt too caught up in my own emotional bullshit to be a good friend to anybody else. So I knit. I knit A LOT. When I gave her the stuff I had made for her, she was able to know that although I couldn't be "there", I still loved her.

I sat in my shower yesterday and cried, and I knew that I was crying about a bunch of things that wouldn't be big deals by themselves, and frankly weren't big deals no matter what, but all the little deals I've passed off as not mattering had ganged up and become one giant ball of stuff.

I cried because I felt like everything sucks, even though I knew damn good and well that that isn't true. I cried because I felt stupid and useless and helpless, even though I know that's not entirely true either. I cried because I'm not nearly as good at this whole "being an adult" thing as I should be, which quite frankly is true.

Hell, I cried because I was sick to death of doing laundry and dishes.

...but then I got out of the shower and worked out some of the little things, including some of the previously mentioned frustrations sitting between me and E, so the giant ball wasn't quite so crushingly big.

And then, I finished spinning that merino/silk. It is now sitting on a makeshift bobbin, waiting to be soaked and have the twist "set" (or atleast that's how I'm told it's supposed to work). I made a gauge swatch from some random yarn I picked up the other day, just to see its potential. I worked on E's scarf, because it is a work in progress worth working on.

The thing that always makes me feel better about life is this: We are always finding ways of improving, creating, building. Not just knitters-- everyone.

But as for me, it's pretty safe to say that I knit therefore I am.

And the day's not over!

My day in pictures:

I started off by throwing on my new t-shirt from Anthropologie. I love the pretty leaf image and the oh-so-soft organic cotton. It feels like I've owned it for ten years!

I managed to get a bit more spinning done. I kept telling myself to put it down so I could run errands, but the roving kept call me. I'm finding that I'm starting to be able to draft and spin at the same time. Up until now, it's been the "spin and park" method all the time. It does however mean that I drop the spindle a lot more.

Even though they didn't strike me as particularly Christmas-y, I bought these giant sparkly feather ornaments this year for our tree. Now that I'm taking it apart, it occurs to me that there's gotta be something fun I can do with them the rest of the year. I'm thinking maybe as part of a walll or table decoration....

Per my list, I made it to the yarn store, the bead store, and the book store and picked up all kinds of things. The only thing I came up empty on was lavender, but woman I talked to reminded me that my favorite tea shop carries bulk lavender. Why I didn't think of that before is beyond me and the tea shop is a lot easier to find than the mysterious lavender place with the unknown name. After today, though, there will be a moratorium on buying new knitting books until I actually knit something from one of them.

Although the girl at the yarn store looked at me funny, there's a reason I carry these two books everywhere I go. One is my new planner, the other is stitch-n-bitch knitting journal that has notes on my yarn stash, including dye lots. I now have the exact yarn I needed to finish Carly's mittens, including the correct dye lot, and just might be able to get them done by the time she gets to town on Saturday!

There was also hummus and a trip to the Black Drop involved, but no pictures. It should however be noted that it was somn damn good hummus.



As for now, the plan is to finish taking the tree apart so E and I can haul it downstairs, tidy up my living room and possibly have some friends over for dinner. In my adventures today, I walked past one of my favorite italian restaurants and the smell coming from inside made tonight's dinner menu abundantly clear-- cheese tortellini with veggie marinara, garlic cheese bread, and a choose-your-adventure salad*.

But enough rambling. If I'm going to get all this done AND run to JoAnn Fabrics, I'd better get crackin'!

*choose your adventure salad-- the basic salad is there, but condiments are up to you. I plan to use a tiny bit of italian dressing, craisins, feta, and some crunched-up pecans. E leans more towards bacon bits and shredded cheddar.

We're back.

E and I went down to Seattle on Saturday for our friends' housewarming. I was a bit nervous about it at first, but had a great time once we got there. Seeing our friends new house has increased that desire to move, though. I have loved living in our quirky old apartment, but it's starting to wear me down. Plus we need the space. We're batting around the idea of moving into a bigger space within this building, which may be all I need. Beyond that I've been kind of scanning the for-rent ads, but we have such particular tastes that finding what we want could be hard.

The other awesome thing about getting out of town was the shopping. I decided that since the new Wardobe Refashion doesn't start until Jan 31st, I'll let myself buy whatever I want, then go back on the wagon at the end of the month. I found a couple of cute shirts at Anthropologie, and a nifty $5 t-shirt at Urban Outfitters. Didn't get to stop by the yarn store as planned, but that's really quite okay.

Today being my day off, I have to have an overly ambitious list. Today I'm going to:

• Finish taking the ornaments off of our super-dry fire hazard of a Christmas tree
• Work on E's Tube Sock Scarf
• Spin some more. Work on getting an even draft.
• Hop on a bus and go to Fairhaven, making a stop by the yarn store, the bead store, the bookstore, and that lavender place I was told about
• Go to JoAnn fabrics for secret project fabrics. Cross my fingers that that clearanced embroidered silk is still there. Try not to cry when it isn't.
• Make a salad. And maybe eat some hummus.

Finally, for Julie the Samurai Knitter, a picture of where I knit. On our living room couch, atleast during this time of year, with my feet tucked under the super plush faux fur throw my mom made for me when I was 13.

When E asked me why the heck I was taking a picture of the couch, I explained, "cause that's where I knit." He told me that in that case I should also take pictures of the bed, the floor, work, the coffeeshop, the local bar, our truck, the park and the bus stop. I think maybe he's trying to tell me something.

(Sad thing is, I actually have a sort of make-shift craft room, but it's mainly where I store my stuff and work on beading/sewing/desk-friendly projects. )

I'm really beginning to love Google Reader for reading all the non-lj blogs I've become addicted to. It makes my bookmark list almost obselete! That said, I still sometimes prefer to read people's blogs, both on livejournal and abroad, in their own format. Makes everything seem a bit more personal or something.

The scarf that I made for E last year has now become a non-scarf for me. I realized about halfway through knitting it that it was going to be too wide, but pressed on anyway hoping that blocking could fix that as well as the length problem. Alas, it was not to be. Afterwards, E confessed he wasn't entirely sold on the yarn in it anyway, so rather than take this one apart and reknit it, it sat in the corner while I started something else. But it was given new life when wrapped around my shoulders and secured with one of my hair chopsticks, and looks (in my opinion) quite smashing to boot. So yay, new stole for me!

Work was dumb today, but I'm over it. Marie Antionette involved a whole lot of eating cupcakes and wearing dresses, but I'm over that too. Atleast I got to see Holly for the first time in a while.

I got some cool ideas for stuff I want to do last night, but for now I'm keeping them to myself. Instead I will work out the logistics in my head.

Spinning, spinning, spinning.

As soon as I put new batteries in the camer, I want to take a picture of my first spun yarn, knitted up into a swatch. It looks like crap, but it also looks like it started to even out a little as my day went on. I've worked on some more tonight and it seems to be coming out better.





We rang in the new year comfortably, having drinks with our friends at their house. E and I had contemplated going to a bar, but we looked at the calender and saw that absolutely nothing was happening, so instead we all decided to have a small pajama party, complete with fuzzy slippers. I finally got to give my friend Elena the armwarmers I made for her, which are just like mine only in a different colorway. She's been subtly and not-so-subtly hinting for the last couple of months that she would really like these, so I made them for Christmas. I was glad she finally got to open them.

I really wish I could find a decent spinning FAQ, I've got a couple of questions that I simply can't find answers to online. I'm thinking that I may take the beginning spinning class at my LYS. For now, I'm just going to sit and be inspired by these girls. They spin and dye some of the most beautiful yarn I have ever seen and, lucky me, have their studio two blocks away!

Sometimes I think I'm losing it, am I the only one?

I wish I lived in LA, it sounds like their SnB is full of awesome people. There's not exactly an SnB here, except the craft night at the LYS that I haven't had time to go to.

I've been having knitter ADD. I can not stay on a project long enough to finish it right now. With some, it's simply because I don't have enough yarn to finish and I'm waiting for that. With others, it's because I start them, don't like them, rip them out, and then get so bored/disgusted with the yarn I pick up something else. Here's hoping the scarf I just started will be somethingI can finish. I'm sure it will be-- scarves are easy. I also can't wait to work on the fuzzy sweater, again, but I feel like there's other stuff I gotta do first.

I picked up Dominitrix today, along with some other books. I'm starting to realize that I'm am the person retail stores designed gift cards for. Dad got me a $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, but I walked out with $60 in various books. It doesn't sound like a lot, but I always find interesting things on their $2/5/10 tables.

I was hoping to find Naughty Needles, but sadly my local B&N just doesn't have as many knitting books as I would like. I think it's just cause I'm picky cause they actually have quite a few, but most of them aren't for me. Which is part of the reason I like Domiknitrix-- most of the styles are simpler, with more focus on garment design instead of crazy overdone details. I'm all for cables and bobbles and intarsia and stuff, but it seems like too many books have patterns that are all of that going on at once. Either that or they're full of awful novelty yarn patterns and, frankly, a novelty yarn has to get up pretty early in the morning to impress me.

Either way, I'm stoked. I also picked up something for another secret project, and tomorrow am picking up a hand spindle and some roving from my LYS, which happens to do double duty as a spinning supply shop. Did I mention it's also a block away from my house? How awesome is that?

For now, I'm just going to go knit and watch some bad late night tv.

It's beginning to look a lot like January.

I don't believe in new year's resolutions, but since we are coming up to the end of the year, I thought I'd put together some knitting/craft goals for the next little while:

• make more stitch markers, including ones designed for crochet (with the exception of Jen, nobody I know has actual stitch markers! We all use bobby pins and safety pins and bits of stuff!)
• finish atleast half of the projects currently languishing around the apartment
• make the skirt from "Greetings from the Knit Cafe"
• learn (or atleast attempt) spinning
• pick up jeweler's anvil and metal snips (for a pendant project)
• figure out a project for that pink cotton novelty yarn!
• dye more yarn
• reinstate the use of the craft journal (as in handwritten journal, not blog). With some projects, it really does help to take notes.
• start a pair of socks and actually finish them
• finally sit down and write "tutorial" of reknitted sweater tips.
• Maybe gain enough confidence in work to set up etsy store (this one might be pushing it just a tad.)
• Two words: Fair Isle.
  

In the immediate future, the goals are to finish E's scarf and the Noro mittens, get Jenny's scarf (and my dad's presents) mailed, and find some dinner!