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.

Motivation, such an aggravation....

Right now I should be making pizza dough, doing dishes, finding places for the dozen-or-so bags of chips that were left over from last night's superbowl shindig, and generally getting things put in order before my friends show up in a couple of hours.

So what am I doing instead? Sitting here reading things on the internet. I'm not sure if it's my completely dysfunctional need to leave things until the last minute, or that I have a had ZERO motivation today. I think it might be a combination of both.

I think it's also some other stuff that I'm just not ready to deal with yet. Right on the heels of one big scary decision, another one came along, and I haven't had enough time to properly mull things over. This seems to be the year for making some pretty big changes I think.

Okay, I've squandered enough time. That pizza dough isn't going to make itself.

Last post of the night:

Anticraft is new! Woohoo!

I envy Crazy Aunt Purl in a way-- she is open in a way that I have never been able to achieve. Which, in it's own sort of way, brings me back to my ideas about the internet and communication and such.

I have a lot of friends that I met through the internet. We were all on the same livejournal "bellingham" community years ago and decided to stage a meet-up. I made some very good friends both on that day and even before, all through this little wonder of the internet.

The thing is, as we all became good everyday friends (one eventually became one of my roommates and best friends), we also started to get more judicious about what we said when we knew certain people were reading. We've come to a point where we hide what we really think now.

Too many people think that what is written online is about them, and they take up and arms to it. And, because we all know eachother and hang out day-to-day, some of these things are about eachother, but they seem so much worse in print. I know that I could say something to 99% of my friends and have them think whatever I said was okay, but if I wrote the exact same thing, only 50% would be okay. The other 50% would be angry. I have yet to understand this phenomenon-- how completely normal people can take such different meanings from things they hear vs. things they read.

I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of context in the written word-- when you say you're mad, there's no way to gauge how mad you are, or if you're even really that mad at all. But I also think a lot of it comes from the mindset of the reader-- the readers who have never met said writer can't place themselves in the writer's subject. Granted, they can in an "I've been there, I understand" sort of way, but they can't actually put themselves in the middle of the writer's actual daily life.

It also has to do with the finality of the written word versus saying something. We can pass off the things people say, but if they take the time to write them, holy shit.... (/sarcasm)

There's more, but I'm far too tired to go further. Goodnight, wonderful few.

Why is it that Google can save my login for google reader and gmail, but not for blogger? Hmmmph.....

Sick finally caught up with me today. I went into work for the sole reason of helping out a friend. (He is in remission from leukemia, and has a lot of follow-up appointments, one of them being today. I knew that if I called in sick, management would make going to his appointment hard for him. This is one of the reasons I am leaving my job. I feel guilty about it, not out of loyalty to my employer, but out of loyalty to my coworkers.) After that, I went home and stayed on my couch for seven hours.

Good news is, I think I might be finally getting the better of this whole sinus thing-- I was able to knit today. I will probably have pictures of my new purse sans-handles tomorrow. I am up to the point where I need handles in order to go further. I'm thinking of something new to knit with the random yarn I bought, if only to avoid the fuzzy sweater a little longer.

Honestly, there was no reason for this post, except that I really like writing on this blog.

Also, I miss my pink hair. The way I'm going, it's going to be a long time before I can have hair like that again....

Word of the day is "alternate"

With the new (tiny) merino/silk hank soaked, I might just be able to knit a coin purse from my handspun knits! I think I will knit them with alternate skeins/balls/bundles of yarn, simple because I'm thinking one is thinner than the other and knitting them alternately might make it work.

In other news, I find that I like the super-carded wool a lot better than I like the merino/silk. Shorter fiber length = easier drafting for a newbie like me.

Also, I think I'm going to rip out the new purse. One, I would rather knit two balls in alternate rows to get a more random stripe and Two, I'm not sure about the pattern I'm making up. So I'm ripping it out and starting from the bottom (bottom of the purse, I mean.)

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?

Yesterday and today have had me feeling pretty much like my face was going to fall off. I think it might have something to do with winter-- cold dry air followed by dry heat from our radiators-- but my sinuses are pissed. I've been waking up feeling stuffed up lately, but yesterday I woke up feeling like someone had taken some heavy-grit sandpaper to the back of my throat and up into where my sinuses drain. Then the headache came on, those kind that pretty much put a mask of pain around your eyes.

Today isn't much better. I'm still going to work, but I'm probably going to stop by the drug store and pick up some non-drowsy antihistamines, because the ones I have aren't exactly work-safe.

The worst part? I felt so worn out and crappy, I didn't even have the energy to curl up on the couch and knit, like I normally do when I'm sick. This sucks.

For now, back to bed.

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!

Warning: If it hasn't been made obvious yet, I write the way I speak. And I speak in parentheticals.

Do you have those friends that you can spend hours with, without ever getting bored or needing some other distraction (ie, a movie or a game or some other form of entertainment)? I do, and I am so grateful for it. I also consider myself lucky in that two of those friends are miraculously dating eachother (which means I get two for the price of one!) and another one of those is my boyfriend.

The four of us (myself, E, and our friends Jen and Mike) spent the night hanging out, having drinks, and basically shooting the shit, and it was quite honestly one of the best nights I've had all week. Sometimes I feel bad and/or neglectful of our other friends, since we hang out with these two so much. At the same time, I don't.

I even got to briefly teach Jen about spinning! I've been (very) slowly teaching her how to knit, but I'm beginning to think spinning might be more her thing.

In other news, I've come to a decision about the things I was mulling over yesterday. Basically, I was offered a really big, but kind of scary, job opportunity. I mix paint for a living, for one of those big-box hardware stores. I have been offered the option to go to a smaller, more local store a couple of times. This time, I was made a really good offer. The manager of this smaller store wants me to come work there and eventually take over his job when he moves on, which is going to happen within the next six months. On one hand, this is an amazing opportunity, and would eventually mean making almost twice as much money as I do now while doing something that I enjoy and am good at. On the other, I'm terrified that I will be biting off more than I can chew. Managing my own store would be the biggest responsibility that I've ever had in my life, and I'm scared shitless that I will fall flat on my face. But after a lot of thought I finally had to ask myself, "what is life without taking risks?"

So I think I'm going to fight my fears and go for it.

To sum up, I am feeling very good about today.

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!

Now where the heck do I put it all?

So when I say I went to town with the whole stash-building thing, I meant it---



Click on picture to see details about what the heck all those yarns are.

Two of this, three of that. Oh, you only have one left? Don't worry, I'll take it!


Bells had it right that I'm a yarn store owner's dream. While everyone else is busting their stash, I'm buying up oddballs like it's going out of style! So now I've got a ton of yarn for a bunch of little things. On the upside, I didn't really have much of a stash too begin with, so now I can atleast relate a little to those gals with yarn closets (or even, dare I say, yarn rooms!)



As mentioned, I also finished the slightly-short-kinda-stripey-cable-keyhole scarf, with the exception of blocking and weaving in ends. I don't know that it really needs to be blocked, but frankly I could use the practice and I think that cable pattern could benefit from it.

Full-size photo when it's all finished. As for now, the goal is to take a shower and go out, with the hopes of procuring lavender, more roving, and something to make for dinner tonight. I'm thinking I might do spinach lasagna....

I'm proud to be someone who does things and sometimes scrapes my knees...

It's official, the sweater addiction has reached dangerous levels. I now own 40 sweaters. I could wear a sweater every weekday for two months without a repeat!*

...and I just deleted a giant paragraph full of excuses for being a sweater addict. It sounded too much like an alcoholic trying to explain why he isn't an alcoholic.

The thing is, if loving knitwear is wrong, I don't want to be right.

On the cool side, I did find a couple of sweaters that are ripe for re-engineering. Well, maybe. One is perfect, but the other one may be cut from knit fabric, which will leave me nothing but a bunch of short strings.

Tomorrow is definetely picture day-- of my new yarn, and my finished keyhole scarf!


*I actually own more than that, but the rest are for recycling projects. The official sweater count only includes sweaters I've bought with the intention of wearing.

So we housed a kitty last night. We've been seeing her around the apartment building and originally thought she belonged to one of our neighbors, but after petting her we realized that she was too skinny to belong to someone. and really affectionate and people-oriented in a way that implies that someone lost or abandoned her. So we fed her, and let her hang out in our apartment, and ultimately fell so in love with her that we decided if she stayed around we would take her to the vet on Monday and find out what she needs for us to keeep her and have her healthy. We didn't want to kick her out last night, but we also didn't want to find cat poop on our rug, so we put her outside but left her food and planned on buying a litter box pretty soon.

I fed her this morning, but we didn't see her tonight. E is slightly/pretty/mostly heartbroken. Fact is, I'm slightly heartbroken too. We were hoping to take her in and put out some "found" ads and hope that no one answered so we could keep her as our own. Know how hard it is to wake up a kitty sleeping at your feet just to tell them to go outside? Yeah.

Hopefully she'll show up tomorrow. I think that she's hungry enough that she will come find food where she knows she can get it. If not, I wish her safe journey, wherever she may go.

While everyone else is busy busting there stash, I just totally built mine up with a bunch of oddballs. Details (and pictures illustrating my madness) to follow.

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.

So I was just reading this article on the mainstreaming of cruelty-free values.

I really like that vegan- and vegetarian- friendly products are becoming more available beyond just food level, but one thing struck me. From an environmental standpoint, is trading in natural materials for lots of plastics really the way to go? Although I am not vegetarian (and subsequently not vegan), I have over time started to slowly move towards eating/wearing/buying things that have less of an impact. But swapping your leather ipod case for a plastic one, while good for the cow, isn't necessarily better for the landfill it will eventually end up in. And recycled yarn is wonderful, but shearing a sheep isn't cruelty.

Sometimes I think people miss the forest for the trees.

No craft content ahead.

I've been talking tonight about...stuff. (slightly drunk, hard to explain meaning. Then again, "stuff" is pretty non-explanatory.)

There was a conversation that I wanted to spout off about, but it's too late and I'm too tired.

This is what I will spout off about:

I have a coworker who has been single for awhile and is very intent on being in a relationship. She has told me how lucky I was to have found someone, so I've been trying to explain the whole story to her.

I think a great deal of the reason that E and I fell in love was because we weren't looking to date anyone. Neither one of us was searching for a relationship. I had been single for two years and had gotten to the point where I honestly didn't care about dating, and E had been out of a relationship for awhile and wasn't worried about dating either. I was happy with myself, my friends who loved me, and my family, so I didn't look at men as dateable/undateable. I looked at them as either people I wanted to be around or people I didn't want to be around. When I met E, I didn't think about dating him, but I knew from the first night we started talking that he would be someone I wanted to be around. To this day , I still say that if we hadn't wound up dating, he would have still been my best friend.

I had already realized that I was a whole person, with or without a boyfriend, so I wasn't trying to impress anyone when I met E. As a result I acted the same around E that I did around anyone else. I was me-- sweet, averagely pretty, bitchy, brutally honest but well meaning, kinda clumsy, not-giving-a-shit me. He was the same way- cute, kind, honest to a fault, idiosycratic, mean-to-people-who-are-deliberately-assholes him. And we liked (and ultimately loved) each other for exactly who we we are. Part of the reason we were attracted to eachother,a HUGE part of the reason we work so well despite diffences, is because we are and have always been the people we claim to be. It's not the only reason I love him, but it is definetely one of the many.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with craft stuff, it's just a mental purging on my part. I've been trying to find the words to explain how I feel in love with E and why I love him so much. My apologies.