I have officially gone over to the dark side.

I tried, I really did. I have never wanted to be one, but it seems I have become an anti-acrylic natural-or-nothing yarn snob, all without my even noticing. Not only that, I seem to be training others to be yarn snobs as well!

After a lot of yarn perusal, I resigned myself to using Caron's Simply Soft for my impending sibling's baby blanket. I couldn't seem to find a anything else that I really liked (or enough of it in any one place), it was washable, and felt the nicest out of any of the acrylics I'd been looking at. But after about a foot and a half worth of swatching*, the doubt set in. It really didn't feel as nice once it was knitted up, in fact I'm starting to think it's a little rough now, and do I really want to use this?

I turned to Eric and asked him to feel it, cause sometimes you really do need the opinion of a non-knitter, and it could be that this has more to do with me not liking acrylic than the actual yarn itself. He rubbed my swatch between his hands and said, "It kind has that squeaky acrylic feel, don't you think? It seems like it would start to wear on your hands with a big project like this. And really, wouldn't it be better to do something in a nice cotton? It is for your brother after all."

I think I actually made the shock-and-awe face. Squeaky? Cotton? Where did that come from?

After two and a half years of being surrounded by knitting, it looks like some of my chatter about yarn and fiber may have actually been absorbed. I can just see him a year from now telling his work buddies about all the benefits of alpaca.

I did some more searching and managed to find enough Lion Brand Cotton Ease in the same dye lot to make a blanket. Being a 50-50 cotton acrylic, it may save me from the dreaded yarn snob title, atleast for a little while. Now to go do another 18 inches of swatching.

*I have trouble making decisions sometimes.

Love letter to Sunday.

I remember way back when Sunday had become just another workday in a long stretch of endless retail weekends. Then I changed jobs to a new wonderful place where I only worked Sundays if I felt like it, which mostly I didn't. Since then, I've come to appreciate having that day completely to myself.

Sundays around here are generally dedicated to football, knitting, and sometimes a big cooking or baking project. Last time it was chili and lasagna, but I might try and throw together some whatchagot casserole today. I'm on a mission to use what's left in my cupboards until I go grocery shopping next week, but it's starting to become quite the challenge now that I'm running out of both fresh and canned vegetables. But I'm too determined to go out to eat now, so I'll be coming up with something awesome out of the odds and ends.

Then again, I might bag all of that in favor of the pizza in the freezer. That's my favorite part about Sunday-- doing exactly whatever I please.

As freeform as my Sunday afternoons tend to be, I have set myself to a sort of knitting schedule. A couple of the projects I'm working on are time-sensitive and won't get done unless I hunker down to do them. So I've set a schedule for the next week of not-so-much when to knit, but what my project(s) of the day are. (I like having more than one option, so I listed two to three projects each day to give me a choice.) Next week I'll review and make a schedule for the next week.

It probably sounds a bit crazy, stringently scheduling what is essentially a hobby. But there are certain things I've promised myself I will accomplish, and it seems that won't happen unless I start getting disciplined with myself.

So for the rest of my Sunday, it will be a highly anticipated football game, laundry, and working Project A, E, or D.

The secret is making sure to add in the leap year days.

Today was quite possibly the slowest workday I've ever had in my life. One would think that I would use all that free time to catch up on work things, but alas, I lacked the motivation to accomplish much. I took care of a couple of things, then sat and perused the 2004 World Almanac someone left there.

Almanac's are fascinating things to read, even three year old ones. How else would I have found out that I'm going to be 10,000 days old on May 4th 2009, or that Nancy Reagan's real name isn't Nancy, or that the next solar eclipse will occur on August 1, 2008, but will only be visible from a small area in the middle of the Arctic Ocean?

All terribly useful things to know, if you ask me.

As for tonight, I'm eschewing a house show in favor of staying home, watching movies, and making bread. I've been wanting to try the Rustic Loaf recipe from America's Test Kitchen, but wasn't able to do it until today due to lack of a baking stone (my mom had mine). The only variation I think I'm going to make is changing it to cheese bread by adding the tiniest bit of cheddar to the dough, then more cheddar on top to get all bubbly and yummy while it bakes. Then again, I've never made bread before, only cookies and biscuits and the occasional muffin. Maybe I shouldn't go off-book just yet.

How quickly we forget.

It just dawned on me that once again NaBloPoMo is upon us. A lot of friends are starting NaNoWriMo around me, but quite frankly I just don't have the energy. Lord knows I can definetely find crap to write about in my blog everyday though. (I think.)

Most of y'all will think I'm crazy.

I am purple today, especially on my knees, where a couple of individual bruises banded together to form the SUPERBRUISE. The back of my cell phone is missing from getting accidentally kicked across the floor, but since it's been on it's deathbed anyway it's not much of a loss. My wig got lost somewhere in the crowd after I got sick of wearing it and threw it, then mysteriously turned up on the stage.

In other words, it was another successful Halloween.

I know I'm starting to get too old for it, but part of me misses before. Back when coming home covered in bruises and beer meant that we had had a good time. Things like that seem to be only reserved for special occasions anymore. Eric and I agreed that we had to grow up sometime, but I do still miss being able to go out for a beer on a Tuesday night without feeling like I'm getting away with something.

The Jem costume came out pretty darn well. I had to do some last minute add-ons, and I forgot my microphone at home, but it was definetely 80's-rific. Oddly enough, almost the entire thing came from stuff I already have in my closet. I'm not sure whether to be amused or concerned.

How long do you think you can go before you lose it all, before they call your bluff and watch you fall....

I've been having a hard time keeping the faith lately. Things seemed to have been getting more and more difficult with not much end in sight. Work stuff, home stuff, dog stuff, life stuff, being stuck in one spot on pretty much every project I'm working on, including the non-craft ones..... it drags me under the surface sometimes. I felt myself starting to avoid people, mentally cancelling plans I've already made with friends, sleeping all the time or not at all-- all the warning signs of a bout of depression setting in, the kind where I become a melancholy recluse and no one hears from me for a month.

Moments like that I start to wonder how it's so damn easy for everyone else.

...but a friend's situation and a conversation with my mom reminded me that there are problems bigger than my own and no one really has it figured out as much as I think they do.

It's funny how a little thing like that may have just pulled me back from the edge.

Oh my god, she did what?

As one might expect, there's not a lot of info online about felting cashmere, because how often does one really do it? Heck, I was expecting the gods of fiber, or atleast my local yarn store, to strike me down when I stuck it in the washer and set the dial.

As it turns out, cashmere doesn't felt quite the same as other fibers. In fact, it turns more fuzzy than felt-y. After two go-rounds in the washer, it seems to have felted enough to hold a shape when I cut it, but I can still see a bit of stitch definition when I stretch it slightly. I think I may throw it in the washer again, but save a scrap as a sample of the two-cycle felt.

The plan? I'm starting with a simple snap-closure cuff with some needle-felted details (and maybe button embellishments!) and then we'll see where it goes.

...though it might go nowhere if I can't figure out how to make these stupid snaps fit in properly. Dammit.

Atleast I found the right wig for my Halloween costume, along with this tutorial for a tutu. Let's just say I'm going to be totally outrageous.

Hey, gotta keep trying. Gotta keep holding on to whatchagot (which sure ain't a lot)

Why does it seem like when you want things to stay the same, they up and change on you, but when a little change might be nice, you start living life like it's Groundhog Day?

Life has been in a sort of doldrums. To the point where even working up the energy to think about anything (like working on one of the 2493762 UFOs I have) more work than it's worth. In the last two weeks, I have finished a sock. That's it, just one sock. The same Uzume sock I'd been working on for over a month. While I should herald that as progress, I can't seem to get myself started on the other one and, really, what the hell good is just on sock?

Consequently, I've been avoiding ravelry for a week or two as well, and skimming through all of the fabulous knitting blogs I read. I'm terribly happy for all the folks who went to Rhinebeck and enjoyed the hell out of themselves, but reading too much about it might just make me stab myself in the eye.

(See how morose I've become? It's just pitiful.)

But when I woke up this morning on my day off, the rain and clouds had blown away to reveal a beautiful, rather balmy fall day. It seems like a sign that today is the day to kick myself out of my funk.

I started by just thinking about good things, like the spinning wheel I'm saving up for, and whether I should take some of that spinning wheel money and put it towards a spinning class. It would set me back a month or two from buying one, but then again I'd have a better idea of how to use it then. As far as problems go, it's a pretty good one to have.

Now, it's time to shower and get some stuff done.

The to do list for today:
-felt a sweater Gus got ahold of last night*
-Work out some Halloween costume details
-make trips to the following places:

• craft store
• hardware store
• Goodwill
• possibly Old Navy

-find some star earrings, or make them myself
-make soup
-dye my hair
-return the batteries I bought and get the right ones
-take mucho pictures of all WIPs, FOs, and whatever the heck else

*And of course, it just had to be my favorite cardigan that he chewed holes through. My oh-so-wonderful purple 100% cashmere cardigan that I found at Goodwill for $8.00. I atleast have to give it to him-- Gus has got good taste.

This is a transitioning week, and it's not going well.

Now that Eric's working graveyard shifts for turnaround, I pretty much haven't seen him since Sunday. Sure, I've managed to wake up just long enough to have a brief, incoherent conversation with him when he comes home around 5:30, and I make sure to kiss him on the cheek when I leave for work a few hours later, but that's about it.

It's really wierd to be living in the same house but opposite hours as someone. Kind of feels like he's out of town, and the two hours we spend sleeping in the same bed aren't real. I can't even imagine what it's like for people who's schedules are always like this, as six weeks is going to be more than enough for me.

Gus seems to be having the hardest time adjusting. He's started howling when I leave the house again. Apparently he's been howling loudly enough to make one of my neighbors think he's being beaten or something. It breaks my heart, but I can't take him to work with me, yanno? Now I'm scared to ever leave him alone, out of fear my neighbors will look at me like the next Micheal Vick.

On the bright side, atleast I'll have lots of knitting time while I'm cooped up in my house with just my nuerotic dog for company.

And so my first KALs begin!

Tonight I will be putting aside the cardigan and starting my Pirate Mittens, with a little time out for sock knitting. Time to actually hunker down and rip out that sad looking toe shaping on the Uzume sock!

For some reason, it seems that much more exciting to be knitting something knowing others are doing kind of the same thing.

You spin me right round, baby.

I have come to the conclusion that Di.Ve Teseo is my favorite scarf yarn. It has to be, or I wouldn't keep going back to it. I might have to do another one before the season's out.

As mentioned, I finished John's One-Row Scarf the other day, and am starting to swatch for the convertable mittens I'm planning. You know-- the kind where the part that covers your fingers folds up so you can do stuff without taking them off. Once I've figure out how to make this pair, I might do a pair for myself. I lost mine ages ago and miss them. They're pretty wonderful-- all the warmth of mittens without that pesky "muppet hands" problem. A word of warning however; they are awful in a snow fight.

Beyond that, I'm having some issues with project monogamy lately. I started Uzume, then set them down right at the toe of the first one and haven't picked them up again, mainly because I think I started shaping the toe incorrectly and don't want to sit down and fix it. Then I cast on and knit about seven inches of my Orbit Lace thingywhatsit, but began to suspect that it was a stupid idea to knit something that's rather summer-y when we're heading into fall. Now I've swatched (yet again), cast on, and knit the first couple of inches of the Currently Un-named Cardigan. What is wrong with me!?

I think I may force myself to sit down and rip back the Uzume socks so I can get back to working on them. I'm knitting them for a friend, and although she isn't aware that I'm knitting socks for her, I can't help but feel like I'm blowing her off by setting them aside.
I only have my mother to thank. She's gotten so good at giving guilt trips she's trained me to give them to myself!

There will soon be more projects thrown into my little knitting queue, since I found out today that my new sibling is going to be a boy!* I had been waiting to find out, mainly because I'm not the biggest fan of baby gifts in yellow. In fact, is there any other color people use for the non-gender specific? Cause yellow kind of makes me want to yack.

So now I have this overly ambitious plan to make a baby blanket, booties, and possibly a tiny sweater of some sort (in addition to all the other planned projects) by the time the baby is born, sometime around early December. It's a good thing I have no life these days!

I don't plan to give any of these to my father and his wife for a little while, however. There's been complications pretty much all along the way, some so bad my dad's wife had to be hospitalized for days at a time, so we're all taking a rather cautious approach for the time being. Nonetheless, I can't help but get stoked when I see all the cute baby patterns and now have a reason to make them.

*Don't worry, I'm very well aware of how odd it is, getting a new sibling at 25 years old. Luckily, I've had a bit of time to come to terms with the fact that my family is kind of odd.

Bound off the Orange You Glad scarf tonight. Didn't do a whole hell of a lot else, because....


You see, the Boy snores. Most of the time I'm used to it (hell, we've been together a couple of years, according to most we're psuedo-married, I should be used to it by now.) But last night, E was atomic-snoring. I'm suprised he didn't wake up El and J, our friends/next-door neighbors. To be fair, I was also having a hard time quieting down my brain (which makes it doubly hard to sleep), but every time I would come close to falling asleep-- you know, that odd space between sleep and awake, just before you fall asleep for real-- E would launch one of his buzz-saw snores and jar me awake again.

So all I did today was work, then nap until it was time to go to my friend Dale's birthday outing.
But I fixed the Orbit Lace project last night. Apparently I casted on 56 stitches too many. Thats right, 56 stitches. I don't do math nearly as well as I thought I did, which is sad because it's one of my favorite parts of knitting. The whole mathematically-figuring-out-how-to-create-three-dimentional-objects-with-pieces-of-string-and-a-couple-of-sticks is what started me knittting in the first place. I blame it on my physics teacher.

Plans and progress

I figured out what E did with the camera batteries. He lost them in Alaska. No camera for me until I buy new ones!

I had planned to go into work to do some things yesterday, but when I woke up I promptly decided that work could go to hell and spent the rest of the day knitting and watching football.

I decided to take a break from Uzume in favor of the orange scarf I'm working on for my friend John. I had ripped the whole thing out after deciding that I didn't like my stitch pattern I had come up with-- despite my efforts, it still tended to roll just the tiniest bit, ie. just enough to annoy me. Instead, I'm using Stephanie McPhee's One-Row Scarf pattern, alternating skeins for a bigger stretch between color changes. (I wanted gradual color as opposed to stripes. It seems to be working.)


I also set to work planning my first cardigan. After what felt like a mile of swatching using different needle sizes, I think I've hit on the right gauge for my currently untitled project.* Knit on 7's, the fabric was rather thick and would have made an awesome jacket type thing, but I lack enough yarn to do that. Size 8's were neither here nor there, but 9's seemed to create the perfect fabric for the warm-but-not-heavy feel I'm trying to acheive. When I finished and announced that the swatch was done, E asked, looking mildly shocked, "That's a swatch?" (by this point it was about 11 inches long. I think he thought I was knitting a sleeve or something.) "Why would you spend so much time knitting something you're just going to take apart later?"

...so he got the "importance of swatching" speech. He took it better than most knitters do.



*I should create a symbol for it and call it the Sweater Formerly Known As a Cardigan. Or SweFKAC for short.

If I could only figure out where E put the rechargeable batteries, I'd be able to document my progress. Sometimes he has this habit of just putting things in random places that don't make a whole lot of sense, atleast to me.

As if I wasn't already busy with work, I made myself a little busier by adding in another project.

We've been wanting to install a desk in one of the closets ever since we bought the condo, which happened to be six months ago yesterday. Fast forward six months and one day, and our second bedroom is still full of boxes and barely useable. We had the desktop, we had the wood to install it, we just needed to cut everything down to size and put it in.

We kept talking about borrowing a saw from one of our friends that has one, but I started to realize that at this rate it would be another six months before we got it done. So I went out and bought my very own circular saw, a stud finder, and a couple of sawhorses and set to work.

I cut three 1x2's to attach to the wall inside the closet. Then I cut down a little off the sides of my desktop, as it was just a hair too big. After lots of measuring, lots of checking with my level and lots of using my handy dandy studfinder, I screwed the braces into the wall and rested my desktop on top. My cuts are a little wobbly (I blame it on not having used a circular saw in six years. ), and it seems like it's probably going to need a center crossbrace underneath before I start putting heavy things like books and my sewing machine on it, but otherwise I was pretty proud of having done it pretty much by myself. (E did take the closet doors off while I was busy cutting the top, but everything else was done by me.)

So there I stood, basking in my own handy-ness, when it started to occur to me that the whole thing looked a little bit.... tall. E and I had figured out exactly how tall we wanted this desk to be-- 28 inches high seemed like it would accomodate both him and I comfortably-- and I had measured EXACTLY 28 inches. But it still seemed to be a little bit higher up than I had thought.

I sat there scratching my head and being confused for a second until E walked up and asked, "Why is it 32-inches high instead of 28?". Then it dawned on me---

All that meticulous measuring and remeasuring and leveling and checking had been done 28 inches from the top of our 4-inch baseboards.

It's starting to grow on me however. I might just leave it that way and get a taller chair.

Note to self: Dead camera makes for boring, picture-less posts.

I think I've found my pattern for the Strikke-Along -- Hello Yarn's Pirate Mittens. While not at all traditional, they would be my first major stranded project*, so I think that will do. And they're probably going to be rather warm, so atleast I'll meet the criteria!

I made some pretty good progress on the Uzume socks, then hit a no-knit zone. Work has been kicking my butt-- twelve hour days, twice the business we normally do, and all of it physically and mentally taxing--- so thinking about anything when I got home was pretty much out of the question. Mostly I just laid around until I could work up the energy to climb the stairs to bed.

To make up for it, I've been reading and planning. I had been trying to come up with a cute (and complicated) cardigan design once I figured out the the Tangled Yoke was going to be a no-go without buying more yarn, but I decided instead to go with something pretty simple. Since I plan to do complicated (for me) things with other projects, I like the idea of a simple cardigan. I'm taking some ideas from my favorite store-bought cardigan, the one that is very rapidly falling apart from too much wear. I'm thinking a very deep 1x1 rib bottom, stockinette bodice, with maybe a little bit of fun detailing here and there.

As for reading material, I stopped by Barnes and Noble, originally searching for Poems of Color (no luck) and noticed that the Vogue Stitchionary books were 50% off! I spent yesterday evening perusing volumes 1 and 2. Some of the cables are giving me ideas for future projects, but for now the current line up looks like this:

-Uzume socks
-Pirate Mittens for Strikke-Along
-Scarf/mitten set-- I originally was just making up a stitch pattern, but I think I might just frog it and go with Yarn Harlot's One-Row Scarf pattern
-Cotton socks for my mommy
-Charade socks, possibly. Gotta keep up with the Summer of Socks!
-Orbit Lace project (maybe. I might back-burner this until spring)
- a lace scarf from some of the mohair I've been aquiring recently. I'm starting to really like lace.
-simple cardigan using the Stahl Big I picked up not too long ago.

That should keep me busy atleast until December!

*The more I think about it, this will proably be my first stranded project EVER. Yay for firsts!

I've always found that drunk posts are okay on livejournal, but is it wrong to drunk post on your knit blog?

Especially when all you have to say is, "I started the Uzume socks!"?

P.S.-- The friend I gave the Monkey socks to absolutely adores them. Tells me how much she loves them without me even asking. Not bad for my first pair of socks. :)

Cooking up some yarn.

I made another dyeing attempt this week on my (much-needed) day off. I've been kind of obsessed with dip dyeing lately, but wanted to find a set up that was easy to clean up and easy to keep the dog away from. When the solution popped into my head, it was so simple I couldn't believe I didn't think of it sooner.

Enter the grill.

Using the gas grill on my patio gave me an option that let me keep Gus inside and avoid potentially ruining my kitchen. During the process I put a tray on the main grill surface to keep the burners from getting spilled on and give me an additional place to set things. I probably could have just as easily left the main part closed, but I kept bumping the side of the cover so I had to get it out of my way.

Here's where I felt pretty cool. I screwed in a plant hook I picked up at Home Depot and added a 36" extender chain that can be taken off when not in use. I think the two together cost a whopping $4.00.
Hanging the yarn from a clothes hanger, I was able to move it up the chain to change the dye strength.

I grabbed my dyes (Louet Indigo and Saltbush, in the interest of full disclosure) a couple of skeins of white/natural stuff out of the yarn stash, two of Naturally Yarns Harmony and one of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky, and did a test run.

I need to work on getting my dye ratios worked out, because I didn't get the brightness of color I was looking for, but otherwise the endeavor was successful. After dropping the hank into the dye bath and very gently stirring with a wooden spoon, I hooked one end around the hanger and hung it up, raising it a couple of links every few minutes.

The result is a very subtle variegation that shifts almost imperceptibly from very light to a medium tone, leaving me with two skeins almost the color of faded denim and one muted lavendery-but-not sort of purple.

I think the lack of serious color saturation has more to do with the fact that I'm using yarn that's been previously treated for this little test project. I threw in a small sample from a different type of yarn and it turned SUPER dark. So we'll see how it goes with some dye-your-own product the next time around. Either way, I'm incredibly happy with how easy everything was to set up/take down. I was able to clean everything up in ten minutes flat!

Alrighty, off to swatch and see how my newly colored fibers knit up!

I think I can safely say I've earned the "MacGuyver Level II" badge from Cast On, having used my knitting needles as hair accessories, drain uncloggers and skewers for roasting marshmellows.

Monkey socks are finished! All that's left is to block them and give them to their intended recipient. Then it's onto my mom's Christmas socks. Since she hates anything wool, I've been scouring my yarn shops for a suitable replacement. I found lots of alternatives, but none in colors I thought she would like, until I hit upon a cotton number from Karabella.

I went home with a couple of rosy pink skeins (her favorite color), feeling oh so proud of myself. Which is why I could have killed her when she oohed and aahed over the Monkey socks, gushing about how nice they felt. Hates everything wool, my ass.

I'm at it again.

Got a yarn shop that's going out of business? Want to get rid of ones and twos?
Just call 1-800-JILL-BUYS-YARN.

I just couldn't stop myself! Give me a sixty percent off yarn sale and I start drooling at the mouth. That's even good enough to get me to go into a yarn store I had been avoiding (which is kind of a long story, but basically boils down to really disliking their staff.)

I did manage to get enough Stahl Big to make a sweater, but not enough to make the Tangled Yolk Cardigan, that I (along with quite a few others, according to Ravelry) have now become obsessed over. I cut myself off after that, but am allowing myself to buy other things only after, going home and deciding whether I really want it and what I would make with it. If at that point it hasn't already been snapped up, then I'm meant to have it. So far I've only been back once.