Confessions of a Clumsy Knitter

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

2011-10-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I'm just popping in here to let you know that I decided to move to a new blog. The ClumsyKnitter name just hasn't been working for me for a while and I figured it was time to make the change. I changed my Ravelry name and my email address too, but you can still reach me at the old email.

I will be posting at www.deirdreknits.com from now on. Please join me! I have some exciting news and updates to share over the next few days. :)

Big News!!!

2011-10-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

I think I have mentioned once or twice on my blog that I have been unemployed for a while. The frustrating thing about finishing a degree just in time for the recession is that I have a lot of education but no practical experience within my new field. These days (and for several years now), you pretty much need to have five years of experience AND a job just to get a new one.

I had an interview at (yet another) job placement service last week and I got grilled pretty heavily on my two year "gap" between 2008-2010. They wanted to know what I had been doing during that time ("So, you just weren't working?") and how they were supposed to explain it to the companies they were hiring for ("I don't know...it's going to be tough to explain this away..."). I had to sit there and calmly explain to them that I had just finished an advanced degree in a very particular field, that I had also moved to a brand new city where I had no industry or personal contacts at a time when no one could get a job. What I really wanted to do was scream at the woman to get a clue, and tell her to go shove her slightly-above-minimum-wage-job. But...I needed to get into her system as a backup, in case my other interview of the day didn't pan out.

But it turns out I needn't have worried. I interviewed at a company that same day, and got a job offer the very next evening. The woman who interviewed me called me from her home to offer me the position. I am so thrilled! Sure, it means less knitting time, and I have to cut out my weekday shifts at the yarn shop so I'm back to Saturdays only, and now I can't continue taking my Tuesday morning sewing class, but...I got a job! Honestly, it's just entry level and the pay is not that great, but it's in the industry I would like to work in and it's a foot in the door. I start tomorrow so I'll let you know how it goes after I've been there for a week or so.

I still haven't heard back from little Ms. Holier-Than-Thou at the job placement service. Her loss. ;-)

Lake Tahoe!!!

2011-10-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

OK, this post is a bit late but I've been busy since I got back from out of town. More on that next time. For now, I just wanted to squish in a post about the day trip The Brain and I took while we were in Reno.

On Thursday, our last full day in Reno, The Brain decided to blow off the conference (nothing much was relevant to his work that day) and the two of us drove down to Lake Tahoe to take in the scenery. I had never been before, and all I knew about the area beforehand was that it was beautiful, and that a lot of wealthy people have cabins there.

The reality is that it is beautiful, but those aren't cabins. The homes built along the sides of this lake are enormous and impressive and honestly, more house than one really needs. I mean, I grew up in a family of 12 kids and I'm pretty sure there would be enough space for all of us and then some.

One of the fun parts of the day was all the snow. Big, fluffy, sticky snow was falling all day. One of the main roads into the lake was blocked off and we had to take an alternate route. I'm really glad we got new tires put on the car a few weeks ago because I would not have felt very safe on the mountain passages with the old ones.

It was a very quiet day, partly because it was the middle of the week and partly because the weather was colder than expected. We drove all the way around the lake, stopping at scenic viewpoints to pop out of the car and nab a few shots and then pop back in to warm up again. My camera ran out of batteries so most of the shots were taken with my iPhone (and honestly, you can't really tell the difference).

So here you go: a few peaceful shots of a beautiful trip. It really made me wish I could snuggle up in a cabin near the shores of Lake Tahoe on a misty winter day like this, knitting and sipping hot chocolate. Hey Peter, maybe we can make a trip one of these years?

RENO!!!

2011-10-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I am out of town. Reno, NV to be exact. The Brain helped organize a conference for smarties and I tagged along for the ride.

First impressions: Reno is a LOT smaller than I thought it would be! I'll admit to being amusingly unaware of what most cities are really like. Before I moved to California, for instance, I thought everyone out here spoke like a surfer dude and was passionate about recycling. Before I moved to Pittsburgh, I was warned that no one out there used infinitives. A kindly, older coworker spent weeks coaching me on how to interpret things like, "The car needs warshed". (I was not at all prepared for "yinz" though. Nobody warns you about "yinz".)

You can understand, then, when I tell you that I blithely set off for Reno fully expecting it to be a slightly smaller version of Las Vegas. You know, because gambling = smokey casinos and flashing lights. And heck, I basically expect any city that I have heard of to be large and make an impression. Reno, however, is so far outside my expectations and I am pleasantly surprised by that.

Here is the view from my hotel window: Mountains! Clouds! So pretty!

OK, here's the unedited version complete with parking lots and a highway. But still! Look at all that open space without tall buildings and giant malls! There's an airport around there somewhere, too. It's really just so peaceful and quiet and pretty...I really like Reno. :)

Knowing that I would be left to my own devices while The Brain was whooping it up with all of his electrophoresis and spectroscopy buddies, I came armed with knitting. A lot of knitting.

From L to R:

Seven golf club socks that need to be shortened. This is a commissioned project from a customer at my LYS who wants the cuffs shortened to fit into his new golf bag better. The originals were knitted flat by machine and then seamed up so I'm not exactly in a hurry to get cracking on these...

The pile of blue Berroco Vintage is for a Sleeping Baby's Castle Blanket. I figured I could get started on it when I finished all my other projects after just one day. (Yeah, right.)

Next to that is a pile of pink and white yarn for a sample knit I was hired to do. I'm still waiting on the pattern, but I brought the yarn with me just in case.

The ball of blue/green in the front is some Knitters Brewing Company Sock-aholic in Jungle Juice that I'm using for Kitman Figueroa's latest KAL. I just started last night and I'm loving the color already. I'm only 6 rows in so the jury's still out on the pattern but I fully expect to be happy with that, too. ;-)

And finally, I have one completed Bridge of Roses sock and am ready to cast on for the next. This is a kit I bought from Knitters Brewing Co. at VKL and I think it's fabulous! The colors are wonderful and I like the challenge of the design. I still have a few more roses to embroider and then I can start Sock #2.

And as if I don't have enough yarn crammed into my hotel room, I went shopping on Monday! Jimmy Beans Wool is located right here in Reno so I couldn't pass up the chance to visit them. I saved some of my money from VKL because I was sure I could find what I was looking for at JBW and I was not disappointed:

I was on the hunt for some dk weight yarn to go with the Rust-colored Shibui Silk Cloud I have in my stash. I want to make a Sheer Beauty swirl jacket and I was able to find exactly the right shade of MadelineTosh DK to go with it! (You can see the Shibui at the top of the photo, and the MadTosh underneath it. The colors are more vibrant in real life but my hotel room is kind of like a cave at the moment.)

I also found a new lace yarn from Juniper Moon Farm. Findley is 50/50 merino/silk and comes in 800 yards per ball! I picked up two balls because I'm thinking of designing something with them. I love the colors they had available. :) And finally, I picked up two more project bags, some darning needles, and some gift tags for sewing onto your knits. Not a bad trip: I found exactly what I was looking for, and I came away with some other useful goodies as well.

One more note about expectations. I know Jimmy Beans Wool by reputation. I subscribe to their newsletter and I have placed online orders from them in the past. (Fewer now that I work at an LYS, but I always appreciated their quick shipping and excellent customer service.) I knew that they had recently moved into a larger space so of course I was expecting some kind of Webs-like warehouse. Imagine my surprise (and delight, I must admit) to find that their storefront is actually quite small. And there is a COW PASTURE across the street! (Really, my mind just about blew at that one. First Reno is smaller than expected, then Jimmy Beans is not the giant megastore I had imagined, but to see cows across the street?!? Too funny.) Granted, most of their business is done online so they kept a majority of their stock in the back, but I really liked the atmosphere. It was just like any other normal LYS (in fact, it was one third to one fourth the size of the one I work at) and the woman working there was just charming. When I lamented that I could only find one skein of the color of MadTosh I was looking for, she immediately brightened and said that they only put out one skein of each color and that they had 10 more in the back. Then she went into the back and brought out all 10 skeins so I could choose which ones I wanted! I could see through a window behind her to a second room where two women were sitting at computers processing online orders (I presume). And when I tweeted about stopping into the shop yesterday, I immediately got a friendly response from them. How cool is that?!? All of my interactions with this company have been wonderful, and I highly recommend them to others. In fact, I may just make another trip back there tomorrow. :)

That's all for now. I hope everyone is having a week that is just as pleasant as mine has been. :)

FO Tour

2011-10-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to get back to the blog sooner but I've been so busy lately that some days I don't even turn on my computer. I'm out of town for a while now (more on that tomorrow, hopefully) so how about a drive-by FO post? I had a whole bunch of projects without FO photos on Ravelry, so last week I made a list, dragged my tripod out to my deck, and did my best to get some shots done. Here they are!

Pattern: Belle Nuit by Sivia Harding
Yarn: Curious Creek Fibers Meru
Notes: This was the final installment of the Year of Lace club. I replaced the blue beads with ones that more closely matched the color of the yarn.

Pattern: Daybreak by Stephen West
Yarn: Crystal Palace Mini Mochi and ONLine Linie 33 Cosmo
Notes: Large enough to be warm but soft enough to bundle around my neck.

Pattern: Koukla by Hilary Smith Callis
Yarn: Aslan Trends Invernal
Notes: It still needs buttons, but it always takes me a while to get around to those. :-/ Love the finishing details (hems, pockets, folded down collar).

Pattern: Laccaria by Norah Gaughan
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton
Notes: A simple knit with some interesting front details.

Pattern: Striped Snowball Blanket by Sirdar
Yarn: Sirdar Baby Snowball
Notes: This yarn was an impulse purchase one day at work. It was quick and easy but kind of annoying to work with. The end result though is a blanket that feels like a cloud; super soft and snuggly...on one side. The other side is a web of nylon cording and not too pleasant. The ends were also a pain to finish because they had to be sewn down with a needle and thread.

Pattern: Sweet Jazz by Samantha Roshak
Yarn: Ella Rae Lace Merino
Notes: Quick and easy lace shawlette. I really like the elongated crescent shape. It's easy to wear as a scarf or a shawlette.

VKL Was AWESOME! True Story

2011-09-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

Whew! It's been a while since I've caught up with the blog. Sorry! I've been inordinately busy the past couple of weeks and I haven't had time to read blogs, either. Expect a slew of comments on old posts sometime soon.

I'll do a catch-up post on my own stuff, but this post is all about the FABULOUS time I had at Vogue Knitting Live on Friday!!!

As some of you may recall, I had been waffling about whether to make the trek up to LA or not, but after a won a free class of my choice from a blog tour I was SO IN!!! I quickly signed up for a custom knitting design class from Josh Bennett on Friday afternoon and then waited patiently for several weeks for the event to arrive.

Let me tell you: it was SO WORTH IT. Here's the skinny:

The Class
The program told me that my class was being held in Classroom 511. So...up on the 5th floor of the hotel. I thought it was a little odd that they had groups of classrooms on the upper floors of the hotel, but I headed up to find it. Boy did I feel like a hick when I realized that it was just a hotel room with the bed removed! (DUH!) They had set up four skinny tables for the 10 students, leaving a tiny sliver of room in the front for Josh to do his thing. It ended up being quite lovely though because it was much more casual this way. No one had trouble seeing or hearing what was being demonstrated, and we all felt comfortable introducing ourselves and asking questions.

Josh Bennett is a WONDERFUL teacher. He took us through all the steps of designing a sweater. I mean, we actually designed an entire sweater in class! He had worksheets with typical sweater instructions written out, with blanks for the stitch or row counts, and another sheet with the equations needed to figure out the correct numbers. We took the measurements of a volunteer and used those numbers to fill in the blanks in our worksheets. Along the way, Josh gave examples, answered questions, told stories, and showed samples. I was excited to see that he had brought in samples of most of his sweaters, and tear sheets of his other designs. He was kind enough to stay behind after class and answer more questions and even agreed to take a picture with me. He totally demystified sleeve cap shaping for me and I was able to apply what I learned to the sweater I'm modifying for my brother. Score!!!

The Marketplace
I wasn't sure what to expect from the marketplace going in. I had looked over the list of vendors and most of them seemed to be other LYSes in SoCal, not a bunch of indie dyers like you seem to find at larger venues like Stitches or Rhinebeck. I also knew that all of the fashion shows, book signings, and prize drawings were happening on Saturday and Sunday so I would miss out on those. But this was my first knitting event, so I was still excited to go.

It turned out to be fantastic fun! My first stop was to see Michelle Miller of Fickle Knitter Design. She had her own booth with samples and copies of her first book, Leaves: Fickle Knitter Design, Volume 1. I have been reading Michelle's blog for years now and I love her designs, especially her one-skein shawlettes. It was super cool to finally meet her in person and have her sign my copy of the book. She even gave me a fun tote bag to carry the rest of my marketplace purchases. Thanks, Michelle!

My next stop was RedFish Dyeworks, right around the corner from Fickle Knitter. Holy cow, people! The colors! I don't think I have ever seen so many beautiful colors on such beautiful yarns, arranged in a perfect rainbow of glittering skeins. Every time I picked up one gorgeous skein, I traded it for the one right next to it, and so on and so on. Eventually I settled on the three skeins shown here. I am so glad they have a website I can order from because I'm already kicking myself for not getting more. I had been saving up my yarn money for a couple of months, so I splurged on some luxuries: The purple skein is 400 yds of a silk/cashmere blend, the gold skein is 800yds of a silk/camel blend, and the variegated skein in the center is 450 yds of 100% silk. For people who like knitting lace, this stuff is to die for, and very reasonably priced.

After that, I headed over to the Knitters Brewing Co. booth. They have some fabulous hand-dyed sock yarn, gorgeous patterns and kits, and a really fun podcast called Yarn on Tap that I highly recommend checking out. I may even have agreed to be interviewed for an upcoming episode! I had a lot of fun hanging out with Wendy, Kelie, and Rebecca. We swapped Rav names and I even got a super special handmade stitch marker from Kelie, along with a Sockaholic tattoo! So much fun. They promised to come down to San Diego to visit me at the shop soon, so I'm looking forward to that.

Of course I had to take advantage of being able to scope out their lovely sock yarn in person. I picked up a fabulous Bridge of Roses sock kit in the Greyhound colorway. I didn't even realize until just now that it includes a cute little stitch marker! How awesome is that?!? But why stop at just one kit? I also picked up a skein of their Sockaholic sock yarn in the Jungle Juice colorway, and now I'm kicking myself for not getting two. It would be perfect for the Kitman Figueroa mystery KAL I signed up for! I'll just have to place another order with them and maybe pick up some more Chia Goo needles as well. The cables and tips on these needles are perfect for socks.

Other highlights of the marketplace included meeting Shannon Okey at the Cooperative Press/Bijou Basin booth, chatting with the folks at Namaste and letting them know how much I love their bags (I have several), seeing Amy Singer, Cookie A, and Vickie Howell (I shared an elevator with her and she said she liked my bag), meeting StevenBe of the Yarn Garage (all the way from my home town of Minneapolis!), checking out the carbon fiber needles at Blackthorn Needles, meeting Linda Morse of String from NYC (she wrote the book Luxury Knitting, which first introduced me to luxury fibers when I was a new knitter and didn't know what was "good" and what wasn't), lusting over the quiviut yarns at Windy Valley Muskox (Oh my god! The samples!), sampling the new Lacey scent from Soak (loved it!), and generally just being with all of these other, happy knitters. It was so much fun!

I drove home afterwards exhausted but happy, having met a lot of wonderful people both in my class (Hi Sandra and Amanda!) and in the marketplace (Hi Michelle, Wendy, Kelie and Rebecca!), and with new techniques, knowledge and yarn that all made me excited to knit some more. Now that I've been bitten by the knitting convention bug, I'll be trying to make my way to more shows in the future. It would be even more fun with some travel companions. Interweave Knit Lab and Stitches West are right around the corner...how 'bout it, Peter? Can you take a week off school??? ;-)

Ups and Downs

2011-08-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

Here in Land of the Lost: The Polka Years, life continues with its ups and downs.

Up: Not taking any classes this fall = saving money and more time to knit!

Up: Wrapping up work in the psychology research lab = more time to knit!

Down: No school = once again looking for a full-time job, without much success yet. (If you happen to know of any market research firms in the San Diego area who are hiring right now, let me know, will ya?)

Up: More free time = more shifts at the yarn shop during the week.

Up: More free time = going to the gym more.

Down: Going to the gym more = plantar fasciitis developing in both feet.

Up: Taking the (free!) sewing class this semester through the adult continuing ed program at the local community college.

Up: Flexible schedule = tagging along with The Brain as he travels to conferences during the year. Reno, Miami...I forget where else. But it will be fun. Plus, there is always more time for KNITTING!!!

Up: Actual proof of knitting! Here is the very end of a sample project (green) and the beginnings of a requested sweater for my brother (purple).

Up: I am also putting together a magic loop class to teach at the yarn shop, so I'm working on writing up a simple hat pattern to use as a sample.

Up: New yarn! Gorgeous merino/silk laceweight from The Woolen Rabbit yarn club. I love the deep, rich blend of black and blue in the "Ink" colorway. This is the second shipment of this new club and I have been 100% pleased so far. I have been in a few other yarn clubs before and was supremely disappointed by them, but I love The Woolen Rabbit and the Shakespeare in Lace clubs. I have to save up my sample knitting money to join them, but they are well worth it!

24 Hour Polka People

2011-08-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a looooong day at the shop. Saturdays are normally pretty busy, but this one was unusually so. During the past couple of weeks we have been flooded with people who need help with their projects, but yesterday we were flooded with people who wanted their yarn wound. I was cranking away at that ball winder for HOURS. People were waiting in a line three deep to have their yarn wound, rather than go home and do it themselves or bring the yarn back on a slower day. It was a little ridiculous.

I like winding yarn. Truly, I do. And I'm happy to do it for you if you come into the shop. It's part of the job but it can also be meditative and sometimes it's fun to watch the colors stream off the swift and onto the ball winder. But here's a tip from the friendly girl at your local yarn shop, who is always happy to see you (really!) and help you choose yarn or fix your project:

Please, for the love of god, when the store is packed with people and several of them are waiting to get their yarn wound, and I have just finished winding your four skeins of Malabrigo Lace, do not say: "Thanks! I have a ball winder and swift at home but it's just so much easier when someone else does it for me!"

I would rather not know. I would rather think that I just saved you hours of tangled agony as you tried to wind the yarn yourself by hand. Really and truly, keep your mouth shut. It would be a mercy.

Speaking of mercy, the asshats across the canyon have finally turned off their polka music after 17 straight hours of hell. What started as a seemingly innocent party yesterday evening morphed into an increasingly humorous few hours of drunk Mexican polka karaoke. (I kid you not. Polkaoke, anyone?) But as it stretched well into the wee hours, I was starting to get angry. Party central is two blocks over and that damn tuba could reach me through our closed windows and doors and my high-tech hot pink earplugs. I finally called the cops at 9:30 this morning. They said they had already received noise complaints about that location but no one had been able to get out there yet. Seriously? The music plays for SEVENTEEN HOURS and the cops, who are 6 blocks away, btw, cannot get over there to tell them to shut it?

I don't know what's worse: the fact that I was kept awake all night by polka music, or the fact that I have morphed into the kind of person who calls the cops at 9:30 in the morning (!!!) when the music is too loud. In my defense, I was already exhausted by winding all that yarn yesterday so the sleepless night didn't help.

Also: I'm still knitting. I'm just really bad at taking photos of it in a timely manner. Plus some of it is top-secret so I can't show you anyway. (Do I sound like a badass secret knitting agent yet?) But here are photos of some socks I completed recently:

Purple socks: Twisted Flower Socks, by Cookie A
Yarn: The Woolen Rabbit Pandora, part of the 2011 yarn club

Orange Socks: Vilai, by Cookie A
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Terracota

OK, I know it looks like I have cankles but I DO NOT. It's just the angle of the camera. Or something. Use your imagination.

Houston, We Have a Doorbell!

2011-07-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

Apartment Update

2011-07-25T11:15:00.001-07:00

Things have settled down a lot here in the jungle. The major things have been taken care of. I totally pulled on my Big Girl Pants (tm) and called Landlord Man to tell him that the carpet still smelled and I was waking up with headaches. Apparently the smell-hating force is strong in me because two days later we had brand new, non-stanky carpet in the bedroom. It is SOOOOOO much better now.

The new carpet doesn't quite match the old carpet but I could care less. I'm so happy to have new carpet that I don't really care. Just add it to the list of quirks in this place. Carpet Man noticed that there is a seam running down the middle of our living room. He offered to bring a strip of the new carpet in to replace it. Thus ensued a comical back-and-forth between us wherein I kept insisting that the strip wouldn't match the old carpet, and he would say things like, "Yes. Is the same." while pointing to the new, mis-matched carpet he had just installed. I finally told him to check with Landlord Man and waved him out the door.

(The following photo was manipulated with Photoshop. I did not actually let him "fix" the seam in the living room carpet.)

Other delightful "quirks" about our new place:

The backsplash in the bathroom isn't actually attached to the wall. I found this out the first time I cleaned the bathroom. Apparently propping pieces of granite against a wall is good enough.

The deadbolt on the back door does not quite match up to its hole in the door frame. This means that the door isn't locked at all, even if you think it is.

Everywhere you look there are screws holding things together. That's all well and good, but these screws were only sunk halfway in. Putting in a window? Who has time to sink the screws? Halfway is good enough! Hanging a curtain rod? Leave the screws sticking out! It's easier to remove them later! Installing sliding closet doors? You didn't want to open those, did you?

We also seem to live next door to a compound for shrieking children, overseen by an old Mexican woman who loves her polka.

And then there is the monster in the canyon. Every so often, and usually at night, our house is visited by a snarling, growling creature thrashing around in the underbrush. It's all very Lost.

Other things are bustling along here as well. I have completed my top-secret project and have been back to working on things I can actually talk about. I have a backlog of FOs that need to be photographed, so I may have a marathon FO post coming soon.

Whee! Fun Knitterly Things!

2011-07-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Dudes, you know how when people win something they always say things like, "I never win anything!", which is probably true for most people and it generally is true for me, too. But I guess I can't claim to be unlucky in this regard anymore because after winning the skein of Smooshy from Kristen I also won...

...a class at Vogue Knitting Live in September! There was a blog tour thing with a different designer giving away a class each day. I was the lucky recipient of a class from Carol Sulcoski's blog. Carol, as you may know, is the author of the very helpful book Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn, a book which helped many a sock knitter figure out just what the heck to do with their beautiful skeins of sock yarn that looked great wound up but fell down flat when knitted.

I had been debating about whether or not to go to VKL. We Unemployeds really don't have money to drop on classes. And if I splurged on a class I would have to give up my right to cry "Unemployed!" as an excuse not to do other things, like buy that stupid mouth guard so I stop grinding my teeth at night. (I am wise beyond my years, truly.) But now I get to take a class (my first knitting class!) and stick around for the marketplace so I'll be sure to let you know what I find. I decided to take a Friday afternoon design class with Josh Bennett. I have always liked his designs, and I have never done any designing myself so I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

The other fun news I have is the new book that finally arrived in the mail: Knit, Swirl by Sandra McIver. The patterns looked interesting and I almost bought the book at the LYS in St. Paul when I was back visiting the fam a few weeks ago, but the hefty price tag held me off. Fortunately, I checked in on Knit Picks' summer book sale where it is being offered at 40% off so I snagged a copy. And let me tell you: I LOVE IT. I can totally see myself making several patterns from this book. The information that she provides about this unique construction method is so fascinating and I can't wait to start knitting one of the sweaters just so I can try it on. It is a beautiful book, with great photography, clear instructions, and a wonderful presentation. She even gives helpful hints on techniques both in the book and on her website. Highly recommended.

I'll be back shortly with a post about real-life stuff but I wanted to get this one out there.

Help a Knitter Out, Will Ya?

2011-07-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Now that things are starting to settle down here in the jungle, I have been able to get back to other things, like knitting! Yay! I'm working on a mystery project right now so I don't have a whole lot to blog about, but I did get a special piece of mail on moving day to share with you:

This is a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in the colorway Wisterious, and I love it! The fabulous Kristen from the Learner's Per-Knit blog sent it my way after I won a blogiversary drawing on her blog. You may remember that her blog post is partly responsible for me getting back to it myself. This skein of yarn dropped through the mail slot on my moving day and it was quickly stuck into a box, sealed up, and remained there until I was unpacking my office the other day. It was a nice surprise because I had forgotten all about it in the midst of all the other drama at the time.

If you don't read Kristen's blog, you really should. She creates wonderful knits and I always like keeping up with what's going on in her life.

So here's where the help comes in. Kristen put up a blog post today in which she talks about her mother's bout with cancer and upcoming laryngectomy. Kristen could really use some of the fabled knitterly generosity and is asking for help knitting/crocheting/sewing some stoma covers for her mother to use following surgery. She includes a link to a website with several patterns for how to make these items, and they look quite quick and easy.

If that's not enough to get your needles clacking, Kristen is also offering a drawing for a beautiful skein of Wollmeise and the sock pattern of your choice. Because Kristen is a bloggy friend of mine, I'm going to send her another little something to raffle off to participants, too. So go! Check out her blog, whip up some quick little projects (great stashbuster!) and get your name in the drawing for some great yarny prizes!!!

Further Adventures in Moving

2011-07-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry to leave you all hanging there. The suspense is killing you, I'm sure. Did we manage to take down all our furniture and box up all our possessions in time for the carpet cleaner to come on Saturday morning?!?

Yes, we did. And it sucked. Here is a picture of our dining area with everything piled into it.

I was away at work on Saturday but The Brain had to spend his entire day either crouched on that chair or out on the deck in the sun. He had his iPad and laptop loaded with video games, and he totally had access to food if he shimmied past the mattress and into the kitchen so don't feel too bad for him. It took the carpet roughly 48 hours to dry so on Monday, exactly a week after moving in, we got to celebrate our independence by hauling boxes (AGAIN) and getting our furniture set up.

That musty smell hasn't gone away though, so now I am convinced that the carpet is rotting out from under our feet. I am still recovering from the spider infestation so there is no way in hell I'm peeling back a corner to take a look. I simply don't think I can take the knowledge of whatever is happening under there. I'm trying to be all zen about it. Maybe I can take on a new identity as a quirky knitting lady who smells like rotting carpet. It could be my thing. And then people will get to know me and discover that people who smell like rotting carpets really aren't that bad. It could be an After School Special. Do they still make those things?

So let's recap, shall we? In the last few days we have had our carpet professionally cleaned (The Brain tells me it was one of those super-powered giant tanks on a truck with a long hose), we got our power back and our hot water turned on. Things are looking pretty good, no? Except that I have filled one and a half pages on a legal pad with things that are broken or installed incorrectly or just plain annoying. As Nora suggested to me, I'm putting everything in writing and delivering it to Landlord Man so that there is no confusion later on about who was responsible for what. I am including everything from the fact that we need to run the dryer three times before the clothes are no longer damp to the leaky toilet that is draining water all over the bathroom floor. Now not only do I smell like rotting carpets, but I have the classy distinction of getting to pour a bucket of water down the pot while standing on soggy towels every time I visit the restroom.

Things are not all bad though. Landlord Man brought his own personal washing machine over on Sunday so that we could do laundry (a process which led to our discovery of the faulty dryer). I finally took matters into my own hands and WD-40ed the heck out of our post office box and now the lock works again. The Brain even managed to use his powerful biker's legs to press the front of the dishwasher back into shape so it doesn't catch on the baseboard. Now we can open it all the way! And it was with great relief that I turned on the AC today and discovered that something in this place actually works.

And in case any of you are still wondering what possessed us to move here (aside from a rent payment hundreds of dollars cheaper than before), I leave you with these:

The view of the canyon from our front deck:

The view of the canyon out the door of the guest bedroom:

The sunroom/office, overlooking the canyon:

Every day is kind of like waking up in the middle of a jungle...a jungle with its very own ice cream truck driving up and down playing "Oh Susanna" all the livelong day.

It Continues...

2011-07-01T12:59:00.001-07:00

Problem #16: The garbage disposal does not work. The landlord's response when I told him? "Sometimes you have to take a broomstick..."

Problem #17: We were given only one key for the mailbox. It's one of those group thingies shared by the whole cul de sac. Problem is that the landlord forgot which box was ours and never called me back to let me know. Once I called him and got an answer, another problem appeared: the lock is old and dirty and probably bent inside. I just spent 10 minutes up there trying to get our key in the lock so we can get our freaking mail. No dice. Landlord told us last week that he was going to replace the lock. We're still waiting.

Problem #18: No doorbell. It's just gone. It's one of those battery-operated things with no wires that you just stick on the wall. Apparently the previous tenant removed it to replace the batteries...and then lost it. Landlord told us weeks ago that he was replacing it but...

Problem #19: I was cleaning the kitchen cupboards when I found the doorbell. Yay! Problem is there were so many bug carcasses in those cabinets that I am completely unwilling to put any food inside unless it is sealed in a snap-loc container. That means another trip to Target. We've already been there every day this week.

Problem #20: We started out with hot water in the shower, which quickly disappeared over the week. My shower this morning was so cold I was shivering. I scouted around and located the water heater in an outdoor cabinet. It was turned off. Gee, thanks Landlord Man. No electricity and no hot water? Way to do your freaking job.

Update: The Brain and I spent all yesterday evening dumping 4-pound boxes of baking soda on the carpet and then finally vacuuming and putting together our bedroom furniture. We even managed to get the couch set up so we can have a place to sit, and hooked the tv up so we could flop on the couch and turn our brains off for a while. So of course when I called the landlord this morning to reiterate the carpet problem, he finally admitted that he never actually asked the previous tenants if they had cleaned the floors--he just assumed they had. The end result is that he is having someone over tomorrow to shampoo the carpets. This means that we have to cram ALL of our belongings into either the kitchen or the bathroom. Tonight. This oughta be good.

I also told him how upset we were that he doesn't have a washer for us yet. Apparently he is scouting around town trying to find the cheapest used washer he can. I told him we need to do our laundry and we're tired of waiting. He said he could bring over his own washer to let us use until he finds a replacement. WTF?!? Just buy a freaking washing machine!!! Or hell, give us a cut on the rent and we'll rent one ourselves!

Uff Da

2011-07-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

So did y'all like that little teaser in which I told you I was back to blogging but then disappeared for ages again? Good one, huh?

Yeah. I went on that week-long trip to visit the fam and I totally meant to blog while I was gone, but then...you know how it goes. The trip was fun and I got to spend time with my brothers and sisters and friends so I'm glad I went.

But then I got home and had a day to pack before we moved apartments last Monday.

And let me tell you, this week has nearly killed me, mostly because I have no patience for other peoples' bullsh*ttery, and there has been a lot of it this week. I'm apologizing in advance if this post is super cranky or complainy. It's just been one of those weeks and I really have to vent about it. I actually typed it all out and then almost didn't post it. It's long. Feel free to skip it, if you want. There are no pictures and no knitting content because I can't find my camera cable yet and I haven't knitted a stitch since before the move. It is what it is.

Problem #1: Way back on June 16, The Brain and I met our new landlord at the new place to pay our security deposit and first month's rent. The previous tenant was finishing up his move-out, so there were still a few small things hanging in the closets, etc. Everything still needed to be cleaned. No big deal. Except that there was no power. This detail will be important later on.

Problem #2: On Saturday, June 25, The Brain and I met with the landlord at the new place to pick up our keys for move-in on Monday. Still no power. The landlord guesses that the previous tenant had the power completely shut off instead of reverting it back to the owner. Now he tells us that we'd better call the power company ASAP because they can sometimes take a couple days to turn on the power. Umm...I'm sorry, but shouldn't that have been the landlord's responsibility at any point during the last 10 days? The answer is yes, yes it should have been.

Problem #3: On this same visit I notice that the floors are still dirty. Landlord tells us the carpets have been "cleaned". Kinda hard to do when there is no power, isn't it?

Problem #4: We go home on Saturday and The Brain fills out the online form with the power company to get the power turned back on, hopefully in time for our move-in on Monday. He gets an automated reply telling him to expect a response within 48 hours. So far, so good...maybe.

Problem #5: Knowing that the floors were probably still filthy, I want to bring a vacuum on our first run to the new place and give them a once-over before moving all our belongings in on top of dirty floors. But the lack of power thwarts that plan.

Problem #6: We spend all day Monday moving into the new place and have to put our (new-ish) mattress on the bedroom floor. I refuse to put the furniture together until I can clean the carpet. We keep the mattress in its plastic bag and sleep on the floor Monday night...and Tuesday night...and Wednesday night.

Problem #7: The Brain makes a special trip out to pick up a shower curtain. Gets it home to discover that both the packaging and the curtain have been sliced through. Makes a second trip to the store to replace it.

Problem #8: No power until late Thursday afternoon. This means no vacuuming the floors, which are clearly filthy and full of cat hair. It also means running to Target for some cheap camping lanterns so we can pick our way through piles of boxes and furniture when the sun goes down.

Problem #9: All the cat hair from the previous tenants are aggravating The Brain's allergies. We still can't vacuum all the floors because they are under our stuff. We can only move and clean patches at a time.

Problem #10: There is a VERY STRONG musty or cat smell in the two bedrooms. Our mattress smells from being on the floor. Our bedding smells and has to be dry cleaned. As soon as we got power we cleared everything out of the room and used up two large boxes of baking soda doing two rounds of odor-eating treatment. It's a bit better but still hits you when you walk into the room. I'm sitting on the couch in the living room right now, a good 5 or 6 feet away from the bedroom door, and I still get wafts of mustiness from in there. Not sure if it's a cat smell or if there's something else going on in there.

Problem #11: Still no washing machine. We were told one came with the unit. There is a dryer, but the washer mysteriously disappeared between the time we viewed the unit and when we moved in. Owner/landlord says he is "working on getting one", whatever that means.

Problem #12: This place is crawling with spiders and other bugs. Literally. I have emptied two cans of Raid already just on the doors and windows alone. I have taken to carrying a spray bottle of Hot Shot around with me and I am constantly checking the corners of the rooms. For someone like me, who emptied and re-packed all the boxes we had in storage at our old place just to be sure I wasn't bringing any bugs into the new place, this is a special kind of hell. At least when we had no power we couldn't see them. The Brain counted 5 spiders hanging out near the ceiling of the bedroom closet alone. I just want to dunk this whole building in a vat of toxin. It would help if the owner/landlord had actually sealed things like doors and windows. Instead, this retired-community-college-professor-turned-property-owner has installed his own doors (badly) and windows (badly) using mostly recycled items that don't quite fit. There is a good half-inch gap underneath and between the french doors that lead directly from the living room to the front porch. There are numerous openings between the floor and the outer wall in the self-built sun room. Gee, I wonder how all the bugs are getting in?

Problem #13: The fridge stinks from sitting around in the summer heat for two weeks with no power. Another run to Target for more baking soda.

Problem #14: Most of the food we had in the fridge and freezer at the old place had to be thrown out because we had no place to put it.

Problem #15: Having no power and no place to store food also means having to eat out for all our meals. This means having to eat cheap meals. I don't even want to think about all the crap I have put into my body this past week.

At this point you're probably wondering why we moved to such a horrible-sounding place. Well, it's like this: our old apartment was in a great location and we really liked it...except for the things that we didn't like. For instance, we didn't like that it was on a very busy street with deafening bus and truck traffic. We didn't like having to battle it out with our neighbors for parking every day, let alone having to park more than half a mile from our own home when there were events at nearby Balboa Park. We didn't like that the hardwood floors were so old that they sometimes gave us splinters. We didn't like smelling what our downstairs neighbors had for dinner every night. We didn't like that the windows leaked cold air in the winter, and we didn't like that there was no way to cool the place down in the summer. And finally, we didn't like that our already-expensive rent increased every year while the landlord made no improvements to the building.

So we found an upstairs/downstairs duplex that sits in a canyon at the end of a dead end street. It is surrounded by palm trees and other plants (hence the bugs), but it has TONS of windows, a veranda, a back deck, a sun room, and just enough space for two people with no kids or pets. It is SO QUIET and I love that I can open the two sets of french doors and get a nice breeze. It has air conditioning if we need it, but I doubt we will. It came with all the appliances (except, apparently, a washing machine?) and it has so many wall sockets it's kind of crazy. So we loved it at once, but now we're discovering a lot of problems that we couldn't have known were here. I'm just hoping that things will settle down and once we spray the heck out of this place and get the floors cleaned, things will start to look up. Either way, we're stuck here for the next year so we might as well make the best of it.

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm off to call the landlord (again) to let him know that the garbage disposal does not work, and to inquire about the washing machine (again).

We Have Winners!

2011-07-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I've had a whopper of a couple weeks there so I'm a bit late with posting the yarn prizes. I'll get to that in another post, but for now I just want to get the winners' names out there so I can mail off some good stuff!

I used my trusty Random Number app to pick winners. (Just kidding. It's not trusty at all. I mean, it does exactly what it says it will do, but it's not the smoothest interface. But why am I complaining? It's an app that picks numbers for me. If that's the most I have to complain about, I have it pretty good.)

(P.S. That is not the most I have to complain about right now. TRUST ME. You'll get an earful in my next post.)

So without further crankiness, here are the winners:

Julie from the Lotus Blossom blog will receive the Berroco Flicker. I enjoy reading Julie's stories about her sweet little girls and all their adventures. Congratulations, Julie!

ccr in MA from the Knit Reads Cats Hockey blog will receive the Universal Yarns yarn. Congrats, ccr!

And finally, Linda B. (not Johnny) will receive the Noro Kirameki. Linda is a Rav friend from the podcast days and I always enjoy the periodic messages we send back and forth.

I have sent the winners emails (or Rav messages) to ask for your addresses. If you did not get an email from me, please let me know at clumsyknitterATgmailDOTcom. Thank you!

And a big THANK YOU to everyone who welcomed me back from my time in the woodwork. I appreciate everyone who took the time to say hello!

History Repeating Itself?

2011-06-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your comments on my last post! It is so nice to see that so many of you faithfully kept me in your blog readers where I just popped up. I will admit to going through my Google reader once a year or so and clearing out any blogs that haven't posted in a year so I am happy to see that most of you are not as anal as I am about clutter (virtual or otherwise). Remember, you still have until Friday to comment on that post for a chance to win some yarn.

I also have to add that I tried to reply to all of the comments, so if you did not receive an email reply it's because Blogger does not collect email addresses and I have no way to reach you back if you don't list your email address on your blog or web page. I went searching for each and every one. I apologize if I was not able to get to everyone, but thank you for saying hello anyway.

In my last post I mentioned that I had no idea why Berroco named their Flicker colorway 'Siegfried'. Commenter WillyG said that it reminded him of a character from Wagner's Ring Cycle, so I looked it up along with other Flicker colorway names. Alas, it was not Wagner. But, a quick search of some of the more unusual names directed me straight to the character list from Swan Lake, which is apparently where all the Flicker colorway names are pulled from. Thank you, WillyG, for pointing me in the right direction while simultaneously allowing me to reveal my ignorance of famous ballet character names.

Before I re-started this blog, I made a joke that as soon as I started blogging again I would magically get hired for a great job and be too busy to keep it up. As fate would have it, the very next morning I woke up to find an email(!) inviting me to an interview for a job to which I applied ages ago. The interview is not until early July and the HR rep I spoke with was very unhelpful so I don't have many details, but if anything comes out of it I will be sure to let you know. It is only a part time job, but it is in an area of interest for me so I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, I am going out of town for a week to visit my family in MN. I haven't been back for a year and a half so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I am also looking forward to some thunderstorms. It's been several years since I've been able to enjoy a good thunder and lightning display. Two days after I return home, The Brain and I are moving to a new apartment. I'll be sure to keep you posted as I try to cram 1400sf worth of stuff into 1000sf with no storage. Word of the month: PURGE!!!

Once again, this post has been brought to you by random FO shots.

Knock, Knock! Anyone There?

2011-06-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's been a while. It's been a looooong while. I really kinda left this blog hanging, didn't I? A few of you were even nice enough to email me to ask if everything was OK because I hadn't been around for a while. That was very sweet of you, so thank you for checking in.

Yes, everything has been fine. I just got overwhelmingly busy in a short span of time and several things had to go by the wayside, this blog being one of them. I'll give you a (very) brief overview of my life this past year. There are prizes involved if you read to the end!!!

I'm starting the blog back up because I never really intended to let it slide. It just sort of...happened. And then Kristen was having a blogiversary giveaway on her blog, and I realized that we started blogging within a couple weeks of each other. We found each other's blogs way back in the beginning and I've been following her story for years. I also realized that my blogiversary would be the perfect opportunity to restart things. My brother was also very enthusiastic about the idea because he says he never knows what's going on with me otherwise. That was a good enough excuse for me, so here we are on my 4th Blogiversary.

So when last I left you a year ago, I had just been hired on to a new part-time job. Here is my life in a nutshell since then (complete with random FO shots):

1) Part-time job became full-time. Woohoo!

2) I earned three degrees to make copies and travel plans for other people full-time? Boo! :(

3) Quit job (sort of) to go back to school. Agreed to work part-time until replacement found.

4) Last fall semester: Worked 20 hours a week, volunteered 10 hours a week in psychology lab, took 6 classes, studied for GRE, applied to grad programs, managed to survive. Woohoo!

5) Didn't get in to grad school (shortage of research experience). Boo! :(

6) Spring semester: Volunteered in research lab, took 4 classes. Much easier to manage. Woohoo!

7) Still can't find a job. Boo! :(

8) Started working at my favorite LYS on Saturdays. Woohoo!

It is now summer and I am still getting research experience in a different psychology lab on campus. The flexible schedule allows me to pick up random shifts at the LYS during the week and get to the gym more often. (Yes, I joined a gym. I'm super excited! It is brand new and it opened in April. It is women-only and has a spa and you can go to as many classes as you want. Woohoo! Unfortunately, my overzealous running habit caused me to come down with a nagging case of plantar fasciitis nearly three months ago. Still can't walk without limping. In fact, I just got a night splint and casts for custom orthotics today. Boo!)

I am back to my old problem of trying to find a job and weighing the pros and cons of going back to grad school. If I can get a decent job in my line of interest without more schooling I would be thrilled. I'm trying to break into market research analysis. You know, running focus groups and doing the statistics and all that fun stuff. We'll see where I end up.

Now that I have updated you on all the pertinent information, it's time for the fun stuff! I picked up some fun blog prizes at my LYS this week for three lucky commenters. All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment to let me know that I still have some readers. And hey, if my brother and my mother are the only ones who comment, then I guess we're keeping the yarn in the family. ;-)

First up I have two lovely skeins of Berroco's new Flicker yarn in the Siegfried colorway. (No, I have no idea about the name either.) It is a gorgeous, light gray with subtle glints of silver. I love this yarn. Get this: it's a worsted weight and comes in 189 yds/skein, but each skein is only 50g! This yarn is so light and lofty it's unreal. It has a unique chainette construction a lot like my beloved Rowan Lima and it is super soft and squooshy. Berroco has just released photos for their dedicated Flicker pattern book in time for TNNA, so they should be hitting stores soon I hope. In the meantime, you can download a free Flicker ebook from the Berroco website. Two skeins are enough to make several of the patterns in that book.

Next I have two skeins of Universal Yarns Classic Shades in the Harvest colorway. I love this yarn, and I don't normally say that about mostly-acrylic blends. It is a 70/30 acrylic/wool machine washable yarn with amazing color changes. I would definitely opt for this over Noro any day. It is super soft to the touch and each colorway is very pretty--none of those "ugh" colors like you find in Noro. Two skeins will give you 394 yds of fall-colored glory. This is plenty of yarn for a couple of Noro Hats or a Noro Striped Scarf, without the scruffiness and veg matter from Noro.

And finally, lest you think I don't like Noro, I have a skein of their laceweight Kirameki. The color I have for you is a mix of pinks and purples which I think is just lovely. I got a skein for myself and made Grumperina's Volna scarf and I LOVE IT. I loaned it to the shop I work at to be used as a model so I'm looking forward to getting it back so I can wear it. ;-)

If you are interested in winning any of this yarn, or even if you aren't, please pop up and say hello. I will accept comments until this Friday, June 17. I would love it if you can let me know if there is anyone out there still reading this. LOL In the meantime, thank you for reading!

Still Alive

2010-04-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that. I didn't mean to be all, "OmigodIhaveanewjobwoohoo!" and then take off for weeks at a time. I do appreciate ALL the comments you guys left for me on my last post. I replied to everyone who I could find email addresses for, so THANK YOU to those of you I wasn't able to reach. It's been...busy around here, as you can imagine. I started my job a week and a half ago and it's been a bit crazy since then.

Work has been fine. Not really stressful, because like I said I'm pretty much doing the same things I was doing back in Minnesota, but with different people and different proprietary software programs to learn. I always hate the first few weeks at a new job, when you're spending so much time trying to remember peoples' names and what they do and who to call when you need help figuring out how to order office supplies, or where to drop off time cards. Working only 20 hours a week is not a benefit in this case. My to-do list grows daily--every time I cross something off, I add two or three more things. I still don't have access yet to most of the websites and programs I need, so that limits how much I can do. Why did I have to start at the busiest time of year for academic offices? In addition to the normal day-to-day stuff to deal with, I also have to help plan all the commencement activities this department is putting on, and let's just say that they do A LOT OF STUFF at the end of the year.

Note to anyone out there thinking about working in academia: start in the summer. The campus is a ghost town and you get nearly a year to get up to speed before having to plan for the graduation hoopla. Don't start mid-April when the office is fielding calls from students frantic about whether or not the bookstore is handing out the wrong color tassels for their major, and the faculty is trying to decide on how many cookies vs. bottles of water to order for their commencement reception.

The good news is that everyone I work with has been great so far and I'm confident that as I learn my way around the bureaucracy, my to-do list will shrink. I'm not as confident that this Mac girl can learn her way around Windows Vista as quickly. Seriously! They moved everything around! I feel like I'm learning how to use everything all over again. :-/

As for knitting? Well...my knitting time has dropped off dramatically. Even though I am only working 20 hours a week the amount of time I spend preparing my clothes, packing lunch, showering and blow-drying, commuting, and all the millions of other little things you do to prepare for work is the same as for a full-time job. It would almost be easier just to stay at work for the full 8 hours than to leave after 5. But I do get Fridays off, so I can't really complain about that. :)

Sorry for the long, photo-free post. I'll try to have something more interesting for next time, but I just wanted to pop in and give an update.

Omigod! Omigod! Omigod!

2010-03-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

OK, first of all, you guys are FABULOUS! Thank you to everyone who left a comment telling me NOT to feel guilty at all about having a bright, shiny new machine and just to ENJOY IT for Pete's sake! And you know what? I think I will. ;-)

The stars must really be aligned for me though because exactly one week after I nervously bought my new sewing machine, I GOT A JOB OFFER! Dudes, I have been applying for every job that crossed my path for nearly two years and this was the first one for which I even got called in for an interview. (Actually, there was an "assessment" with all sorts of office-type tasks, then came the interview.) And finally: the offer!

It's certainly far from ideal: it's not in my field AT ALL. In fact, it's an office manager job at a university...essentially the same job I left in order to go to graduate school! Although with this position, I do get more responsibility. It is only part time (until the state's higher education budget gets more money, but that could take years) and right now this position is subject to the state's furlough "program" so that takes a 10% cut right off the top. BUT...it is a job. I liked the people I met when I was there for the interviews. I will be able to resume payments on my student loans. My husband and I will be able to stay in the apartment we love instead of moving to a cheaper, smaller, more distant location. And in all honesty, the part-time hours kind of suit me right now. I can ease back into working outside the home after several years of school and forced idleness, and I will still have enough time to devote to keeping the shop humming along as it should.

I can't even begin to express the amount of relief this job has given me. I tried not to talk about my unemployment woes too much on this blog, but those of you who have been there: you know. It's a constant pressure, a constant strain. This is a step in the right direction and hopefully things will only get better from here on out. And who knows? Maybe there will even be a few knitters at the new job. ;-)

I Feel So Spoiled

2010-03-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

This past week has been an embarrassment of riches for me, so much so that I almost don't even want to post about it because I don't want to come across as though I'm showing off or anything, but it's just so fabulous that I really want to share!

It all started a few weeks ago when I was told by the sewing shop that the "great machine" I bought last summer at a garage sale for $30 was actually broken and unfixable. (It still works just fine in all respects but for the stitch length--it bounces back to the largest setting no matter what you do.) I really want to learn how to sew, so that was very disappointing but nothing I could do much about at the time.

But then a few things happened. First, the repair guy offered me a refund on the $50 repair fee as store credit. Then I had a birthday and my mother agreed to chip in some money for a new machine. Then I got paid for a few freelance knitting jobs. Then my husband and I finally did our taxes and instead of all the money going towards his new glasses, like we had planned, we had some left over. It all added up at exactly the right time and I was able to get a brand new sewing machine last week!

I rushed out to the store on Tuesday and they had one last one in stock. It's a Janome DC2010--still on the low end as far as sewing machines go, but the woman helping me said she would not hesitate to recommend this machine to her granddaughter if she wanted to sew, and that it would last me for years. It looks complicated and fancy only because they printed the stitch guide on the front of the machine, but that's about it as far as bells and whistles. Still, I'm thrilled. It will do everything I need and I am so excited to start playing with it!

To add to the excitement, I really wanted to find a place to put a machine. Like many households, I really don't have a spare flat surface--even our kitchen table is small and the outlets beneath it are being used by our wireless router anyway. So...my husband and I headed out to IKEA yesterday to find a table. We came across one that was only $20--score! I wanted a slightly wider one though, so I think the end total was still only $36. It fits perfectly next to the window, and now I have a place to leave my machine instead of dragging it out of the closet every time I want to use it.

Lest you think I'm too spoiled, here is a more accurate photo of the sewing corner:
The table just barely fits between the wall heater and the window, which has a heavy curtain over it because it is in the southwest corner of the building and the afternoon sun heats up the place like nobody's business. The area to the left of the table is the small coffee table that holds all my knitting supplies, and immediately behind it is the fireplace. And yes, the fireplace is now filled with all our DVDs, which used to be shelved nicely in the corner where the sewing machine now sits. I've been wanting to get rid of that dorm-room-looking stand for a while now. We don't watch the DVDs we own much anymore anyway. I would much prefer to burn them all to a hard drive and get rid of the physical copies. Someday. But for now, I think my first project will have to be a nice curtain to hang over the fireplace and hide them from view. :)

This is the most extravagant purchase I have made for myself in a loooooong time, and I admit that I'm feeling a little uncomfortable about it. I mean, isn't this just inviting disaster? Is my car going to explode next, or our rent increase dramatically? And now that I have a sewing machine, it means I have to buy more stuff in order to use it (namely, fabric)...that may not happen for a while. LOL But I have the biggest hurdle cleared, right? Oh, and the mailman just dropped the latest issue of Burda magazine through the door. Perfect timing! ;-)

Wanna Win Some Fibery Goodness?

2010-03-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I know I need to do a regular blog update, and it's coming, but I wanted to let you all in on a chance to score some fiber fun!

Kristen and I have been reading and commenting on each others' blogs for...wow, a couple of years now I think. She's super great and does some nice work so it's worth checking out. But now she's giving you even more reason to look--she's participating in a walk for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America and is raising money for the cause. Please read her post to see why this is so important to her.

While you're there, you can also get the details about her prizes! She has some pretty nice stuff already, but I hear that even more prizes are being donated so it's worth keeping an eye on what's going on over there. I am sending her a little something from my shop, too, but you'll have to keep up with her blog to find out what it is.

Good luck, everyone!

Question for Sock Knitters

2010-03-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

All right all you sock-knitting pros: I have a question for you.

I have not made a lot of pairs of socks, so this may be a stupid question, but bear with me: I have a fit problem with all of my socks that I cannot seem to conquer. My socks are always extremely difficult to get on over the heel, and they are always quite tight across the ankle once I get the socks on. What gives?

I am knitting to gauge. I do not have giant ankles. I am tall (5'10") and I do have long feet (size 10), so I'm wondering if I just have a wider heel/ankle space than other people? I recently discovered that tall people generally need longer arm holes than others (Such a DUH moment when I read that in a sewing book! So that's why t-shirts are always tight there, despite my skinny arms!) so it's not outside the realm of possibility.

But if that's the case, then how do I go about compensating for it? My ankles and feet are skinny and long, so adding stitches will just make for a baggy sock. I have tried using more or fewer stitches in the heel flaps, and I have tried making longer heel flaps. I'm not sure what else to try and I was hoping someone might have a suggestion for me.

Is there anyone out there who can offer up some much-appreciated advice? :)

Are You A Knitter?

2010-03-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, for reasons that are neither relevant or interesting, I found myself waiting around in an office on a local college campus. There was one other woman already waiting when I arrived, and we smiled at each other as I sat down in a chair nearby.

She looked at me quizzically and said, "You look familiar. Do you work here on campus?"

"No," I said, "I don't. But I can't guarantee that we haven't met somewhere. I always have trouble recognizing people out of context."

"Oh, me too!" she replied, "But you look so familiar to me!"

"Huh. Maybe I just have one of those faces," I said, and that was the end of the conversation because we had to move to a different office.

I know I don't know her because I know everyone I know in this city (meaning that it's not as though I have met so many people that I have started to forget some of them), and she's not one of the people I know. But she also looked familiar. And friendly. When we got up to head down the hallway to the other room, she was delighted to find that we are the same height (a rarity in a world dominated by women who are less than 5'10" tall) and we continued chatting as we walked until the office worker with us asked if we knew each other already. Nope. Not at all.

Of course, as soon as she said I looked familiar (and when I knew that she didn't know me from "real life") I desperately wanted to ask her if she was a knitter. Maybe she's on Ravelry and has seen me around. Maybe she even listens to the podcast or reads this blog! (No, I harbor no illusions that I am that well-known, but it could just be one of those flukey things, ya know?) But I didn't ask her for one reason: if she wasn't a knitter, then just think about how random and unrelated such a question would be. It would be akin to breaking into a conversation about financial planning to ask someone if they have ever hunted rhinos.

Or...thinking about it now, maybe it wouldn't have been that weird. *sigh* I'll never know. And now my curiosity is killing me!!!

Destash

2010-02-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

I've never done a destash before, partially because my stash isn't all that big to begin with, and partially because I like all the yarn I have. But the reality is that I do have some stuff that I've been hanging on to for a while with plans for it that never come to fruition. And since I would rather see the yarn go to someone who really will use it (and because The Brain needs new glasses), here goes!

All prices include first class shipping within the U.S. You can contact me at clumsyknitterATgmail.com if you're interested in anything. All payments by PayPal only, please.

Year of Lace - September 2009 Kit - $55
Includes Centrino pattern by Laura Nelkin and two skeins of Shaefer Anne in a limited edition color (a blend of reds)
60% superwash merino / 25% mohair / 15% nylon
560 yds/512 m per 113g skein
Fingering weight

10 balls Plymouth Royal Silk Merino - $40
Full bag!
Lavender - Color 0003, Dyelot 18
51% silk / 49% merino
109 yds per skein (1090 yds total)
Worsted weight

J. Knits Super-Sporty! - 1 skein - $10
Maine colorway: a dark, semi-solid green
100% superwash merino
183 yds
Sport weight

J. Knits Superwash Me! - Light Sock - $20
New Jersey colorway: a variegated blend of purples, from light to dark
100% superwash merino
530 yds
Fingering weight

J. Knits Lace-A-Licious! - $25
Mississippi colorway - light purple
100% superfine alpaca
1200 yds
Lace/Cobweb weight

J. Knits Lace-A-Licious! - $25
Vermont colorway - lime green
100% superfine alpaca
1200 yds
Lace/Cobweb weight

1 skein Rowan Kidsilk Haze - $8
Nightly colorway - midnight blue - Shade 585, Dyelot 635
I have a partial skein (about 1/3) that I will include as well
70% super kid mohair / 30% silk
229 yds / 210m
Lace weight

2 skeins Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light - $8.00 for both
Dark Chocolate colorway - Color 4205, Dyelot 702
50% superfine alpaca / 50% Peruvian wool
144 yds/133 m per skein
Sport weight

Reynolds Soft Linen - $3.50
Chocolate colorway - Color 0413, Dyelot 1410
53% flax / 47% acrylic
94 yds
Worsted weight

Brown Sheep Nature Spun - $4.00
Storm colorway: a dark brown - Color 114, Dyelot 028
100% wool
245 yds
Worsted weight

Valley Yarns Berkshire - $3.00
Coffee Bean colorway - Color 39, Dyelot 94788
85% wool / 15% alpaca
141 yds
Aran weight

Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky - $3.00
Coffee Bean colorway - Color 39, Dyelot 94773
85% wool / 15% alpaca
108 yds
Super Bulky / Bulky weight

Ravelympics Win?

2010-02-17T13:50:00.001-08:00

So...remember my last post? Specifically, the part where I said that I had decided to join the Ravelympics because I thought, "What the hell? I might be able to crank out a pair of socks over the next couple of weeks. You never know."

Well, I cranked out those socks. In two and a half days. And while I'm happy to report that I successfully finished my Ravelympics project, I feel like a cheat because it turned out that I had waaaay more time this weekend than I had anticipated and I grossly underestimated the size of project it would take for me to feel "challenged". Instead, I feel like the Little League team who recruits high school students in order to get the advantage. Can I really feel proud that I completed the Ravelympics? Umm...no. (But let's get real here: it's a made-up set of arbitrary restrictions revolving around an activity that none of us would be doing if we didn't enjoy it in the first place, so completing it or not completing it really wouldn't phase me one way or another. And therein lies the reason why I can't get into trends like NaKniSweMoDo or 10 in 2010 and so on. Either you do it or you don't, but no matter how hard I try, I simply can't get myself to feel the pressure OR to feel much of an accomplishment when it's completed. Meh.)

Wow. OK, to counteract my obvious crankiness (I am dying for a candy bar, and I really wish my office had a vending machine right now), here are some bright and sunny photos of finished socks!

Pattern: Skew, by Lana Holden
Yarn: ShibuiKnits Sock in the Spectrum colorway
Verdict: LOVE!!!!! Even though the pattern is mostly stockinette, the bias-knitting kept my simple brain transfixed, and the heel is super duper fun. Plus, they fit like a dream! Sure, they're an eyesore but they're MY eyesore and I am profoundly pleased with them. :)

(Yes, I did sit on the floor and stick my feet into a light box in order to take these photos. Isn't that how it's done?)

Wanna See Something Funny?

2010-02-12T13:25:00.000-08:00

I have been itching for a real lace challenge for a while now. I still like knitting shawls and stoles, even though I never wear them, but I've been in the mood for something different and more challenging. I've been thinking about making a Niebling or something from one of Marianne Kinzel's books of modern lace knitting, but have never had the proper materials. Nieblings, if you search on Ravelry, are generally done in either lace weight yarn or very fine crochet cotton and on tiny needles. Lace yarn I have, but I really have no idea how many yards any given project takes, and I really like the pure white used in most of the projects.

Even though I don't have time to start one of these projects at the moment, I want to be prepared for when the time/mood strikes me. You know what this means, right? Shopping trip! Thankfully for my budget, from what I have gathered from others crochet cotton from Michaels is perfectly fine for a project like this.

So I dashed out to Michaels today, on a search for crochet cotton. I'll be honest here--I had no clue what I was looking for. How is "crochet cotton" any different from embroidery thread, or lace weight cotton yarn? Umm...I still don't know. But they had a bunch of it in its own section, and that's the important part of this story, right?

While I was standing there trying to decide what I needed, I was keeping the words of the fabulous Cookie in my head. She had done a Niebling and when I asked her what materials she used, she mentioned getting five skeins of Baroque cotton. Hmm...OK...they had exactly five 400-yd skeins at the shop, all in the same dye lot. But guess what? They also had some different stuff that came in larger balls. And lower down, they had some thicker thread. Hey, I could make an even bigger project with that!

But oooh...what is that? Waaaay down on the bottom shelf, tucked back from the edge so it's hard to see?

Why YES! It's a barrel-sized cone of size 10 crochet cotton! As the wrapper proudly proclaims, it has over 1.5 miles all tidily shrink-wrapped in plastic! That's a 2730-yard ball of mercerized cotton that is almost as big as my head! SCORE! (Regular-sized ball of sock yarn used for scale.)

In other news, I know I totally said I wasn't going to do the Ravelympics because I really don't see the point. But I got a Ravmail last night from the fabulous Liz of MacKintosh Yarns inviting me to participate in her "unofficial" group (groups had to be formed by January 15 to be official) and...you know what? I'm gonna do it. Just for the fun of it. I have deadline knitting that has to be a priority, but I'm hoping that I can crank out a pair of socks at the same time. I am intrigued by the Skew pattern from the Knitty surprise, so I'm going to make a pair out of ShubuiKnits Sock in the Spectrum colorway. I think they'll make a nice pairing. :)

Blogging? Who, Me?

2010-02-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

Man, I have not been the fastidious blogger I hoped to be lately, have I? Does it count if I think in "blog-ese" instead? (You know, when you go about your daily business imagining how you're going to write everything up when you get around to blogging about it?) I think that for me, it's the same thing as imaginarily (sure, it's a word) knitting up my stash. It's no longer stash because I have already knitted it up in my head. Right? Right. (Speaking of stash, I think it's time for me to do a little destashing around these parts. Look for a post about that in a day or two.)

I really and honestly have nothing exciting to show for the past few weeks. Work is keeping me busy (yay!) and I have mostly been working on small projects here and there. I'm waiting on materials/patterns for three different sample sweaters that I was hired to do, so I don't want to start any large projects now. I know that if I do, the sweaters will arrive in the mail and I will have to work on those, therefore losing all steam with my personal project which will be a joyless affair when I finally get back to it. This is one problem with being a monogamous knitter, but it is a burden I shoulder willingly.

In order to keep something on the needles, however, I have kept busy with these:

Pattern: Pfeiffer Falls Hoode d Scarf by Anne Kuo Lukito
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers
Mods: None. I loved this pattern!

Pattern: Men's Fingerless Mitt s by Kathy North
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers
Mods: Lengthened the wrist ribbing to 6.5", lengthened finger portions slightly.

Pattern: Citron by Hilary Smith Callis
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Purple Mystery
Mods: None

Pattern: Sock Recipe by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett in Storm
Mods: None

Pattern: None - donation for Global Knit
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride leftovers

Because all of these projects are little ones and only take a couple of days to complete, I continuously find myself in that annoying in-between projects stage. I am constantly wondering what to knit next and it's driving me crazy! I really want to start a big lace project, but again with the sample sweaters. Plus the Evenstar Mystery Shawl KAL starts on Friday, so I will have that to keep me occupied as well. I just need to be patient for a few more days...

Ta Da!

2010-01-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

I did it! A pair of slippers in just two days!

I know. It's not that exciting. I'm just trying to raise my own enthusiasm because I don't have much else to offer the blog today. So: you get garter stitch slippers. I get to pat myself on the back for blogging, and we can all live happily ever after.

Pattern: Nola's Slippers
Yarn: O-Wool Classic, color Sumac, 2 skeins
Needle: Size 10

I have also been working on a project for my older sister. She has been trying to find the perfect hooded scarf in stores and can't find one that's just right. Enter the knitter. Over the holidays, we sat down in front of Ravelry and found a pattern (Pfeiffer Falls Hooded Scarf), picked up some yarn (Cascade 220 Heathers) and I started working on it last week. It's going very quickly and to be honest, I was hoping to finish it up this weekend. But...other things took up my time. That's OK though because I'm almost done with the scarf portion and I don't expect the hood to take very long (famous last words).

I am itching to start some new projects for myself. I just have to figure out what. It's been a while since I've done a sweater. Hmmm...

From Foot Failure to Foot Success!

2010-01-15T10:11:00.001-08:00

OK, so I took all your kind comments about my charity socks to heart (thank you for them), and decided to finish knitting the pair and see how I felt when I was all finished. Easier said than done. I ran out of yarn halfway down the foot of the second sock. Total. Bummer. I set them aside to rip and re-knit into something more useful. I have several colors of Lamb's Pride lying around, so at the very worst I guess I could stripe them with some other jarring color of which I don't have enough for socks. Bright turquoise and pink, perhaps???

To make myself feel better about having wasted three and a half nights on a failed project, I decided to forge ahead and cast on for some long-awaited slippers for The Brain. Seriously, folks. I've been promising him slippers for about a year now. Oops!

I found a comfy-looking and well-reviewed pattern for men's slippers on Ravelry called Nola's Slipper Pattern (non-Rav link here). It looks like a basic, non-fussy garter stitch slipper with a turtleneck. I had originally been planning on making The Brain some felted clogs, but he decided that his feet would get too hot in something like that and requested something that could breathe. OK. Garter stitch = lots of holes for breathing feet. One thing troubled me about this pattern though: it is knit flat in one piece with a seam running down the center of the sole! Think about that: a seam running the length of your foot. Not too comfy, if you ask me. And yes, I admit that I only glanced through the pattern before casting on so it wasn't until I was nearly done with the darn thing that it occurred to me that the seam is actually grafted from live stitches, which renders the darn thing virtually undetectable in the finished item. Yay!

Oh, and the best part? I finished the first slipper in one evening and it fits!!! It comes off the needles looking a little tiny, but that garter stitch sure knows how to stretch itself out. Perfect slippers: thick, squishy, breathable, warm, fast, and bright red! :D

Good Sock / Bad Sock

2010-01-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

Holy cow!

I just want to give a huge thank you to everyone who commented on my last post with well-wishes and encouraging thoughts. I responded to everyone whose email address I could find, so if I wasn't able to get back to you, I apologize. Please know that I appreciate the support that you all so graciously passed on to me on my new endeavor.

In other finishing news, in the past week I have completed two sample knitting projects and a pair of socks for my brother. Unfortunately, the only project I can show you is the socks, and they're not very exciting.

Pattern: Twin Rib Socks from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Black Pearl
Size: OMG gargantuan and sooooo boring!

In keeping with my plan to knit a charity project in between personal projects, I cast on for a pair of child's socks with some leftover Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride I had lying around from ages ago. I followed the Try a Trio pattern by Ruth Garcia as suggested by the Global Knit organizers on Ravelry. I finished the first pink sock last night. Umm...I don't know what to think. I'm not used to knitting socks in worsted weight yarn on size 4 needles, and while the fabric is undoubtedly thick and sturdy, I'm also not sure there is a person alive who would have a foot slim enough to fit inside without cutting off their circulation. I don't think causing Bulgarian children to lose their feet is quite what Global Knit had in mind with this project. It would make a good banana keeper though.

*sigh* My first project for charity and it's a major fail. I don't have enough yarn of this color to make larger socks. Maybe I'll have to do stripes? Maybe, despite all my experience with skinny children of various ages, I really have no idea what will or will not work? I'm just assuming that if the sock is so small and tight that I can hardly get my hand inside without trouble, putting it on a child would be nothing short of torture. Do over!

What I've Been Up To Lately

2010-01-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Check it out:

A five-star week! I kept up with my workout program every (week)day this week, so that deserves a star on my calendar. Go me!

But you know what else makes this a five-star week? I finally get to reveal the giant project that I've been working on for the last nine months!!! This project has been a lot of work and has also been the source of a lot of fun (and a lot of stress!). It is the reason I haven't always had time to blog (not a good excuse, I know, but there you have it). It has also taught me a lot and, more importantly, given me a purpose and something to work towards which has been a huge help these days.

And now I finally get to reveal it!

Presenting...

(click on image for link to site)

After completing grad school and finding myself in the middle of a horrible job market, I took stock of what I know and what my strengths are and decided to open up an online shop. I polled friends and family members for names, and the winning selection was Flocks of Yarn. I got finances in order and started planning: I took great care to select a good web designer who could do both the artwork and build the website (and train me how to use it!), and even though it took quite a bit longer to complete than I had originally planned for, I think the end result was worth it.

The next step was the fun part: researching and choosing yarn lines and other products! I wanted to go with yarns that I like to work with, and companies that I knew to offer high-quality products. It is my intention to grow from here, but I am happy with the base lines of yarn that I offer.

I am very excited about this next step in my life, and I would love it if you check out the shop. Feel free to tell me what you think, if you're so inclined. Don't worry--I don't intend to turn this blog into one big advertisement. I might mention "the shop" once in a while here, but this is still my personal knitting blog and I want to keep it that way. I have a shop blog to talk about shop things, so feel free to subscribe to that one too, if you like. But at least you'll know what I mean when I talk about "work" or "my job" from now on. :)

More New Year Thoughts

2010-01-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

Before I left town for the holidays, I went through a sort of "spring cleaning" in my apartment. I hate coming back to an untidy house after taking trips so The Brain and I cleaned every room from top to bottom, cleared out the fridge and cupboards of any food that might spoil (don't worry--we ate it), and made sure the floors were scrubbed and the bed made with fresh sheets. I also decided to go through the entire storage closet and clean out anything we had that wasn't necessary. It turns out that my many moves over the past decade have whittled down my belongings quite a bit, and the only things I found that I could get rid of were a couple of very fragrant vanilla candles (I don't like vanilla-scented things) and some falling-apart picture frames.

Since we knew that the electricians would be coming to repair the three outlets in our apartment that had randomly decided not to work any more (this was the final blow in a long series of unrelated catastrophes that all but pushed us out of town in fear for our lives during the first three weeks of December...don't ask), we also had to rearrange some things in the living room so they would have access to the outlets. I decided this was a good opportunity to move my ugly knitting shelves into the spare bedroom, therefore making our living room more open and nice-looking.

The bookcase ended up fitting perfectly in a strange angled corner of the spare room, between the door and the head of my treadmill. (The other half of the room is taken up by The Brain's bicycles. It's sort of our unofficial workout room.) It's not as convenient to have the bookcase all the way down the hall, but I have to admit that our living room does look nicer now and it's not as though our apartment is so big that I can't make it back there! The bookcase holds the entirety of my yarn stash, and all my leftovers go into the plastic set of drawers. As you can see, I really don't have an over-abundance of yarn to work through. It really is quite reassuring. :)

All this cleanliness and rearranging had me thinking more about clearing the knitting slate in the new year. I really don't have any long-forgotten UFOs like my brother does, but it is nice to take stock of everything I accomplished in the past year and consider what I want to accomplish in the coming year. While doing my yearly stash roundup, I discovered that while I had gotten my "older" stash yarn down to 7113 yards in 2009, I also added to the stash and am starting 2010 with 16842 yards of yarn. Considering the fact that I knitted up (or gave away/sold) 17602 yards in 2009, not counting any sample or test knitting I did, I feel reasonably confident that I can become stashless by the end of the year. I just have to keep to my goal of not making unnecessary or impulse yarn purchases!

I also did a final project count of all FOs for 2009, and I'm posting them here only for documentation.

4 - Pairs of socks
19 - Accessories (hats, gloves, legwarmers, baby blankets, etc.)
9 - Sweaters (not counting two that are 95% finished)
11 - Lace shawls

New Year, New Habits

2010-01-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

I'm not normally one for New Year's resolutions--I think any time of year is a good time to make good choices and adopt healthy changes. But there is something to be said for having a definite starting point, an easily-memorable date from which to track your progress. And let's face it, after being diligent about my workouts for the final four months of 2009 but seeing that I had made no progress towards fitting into my dressier clothes when I was trying them on before leaving town for the holidays (which didn't matter in the end since my family did not dress up this year), the new year seems like a great time to start working out smarter.

So, that's my resolution for this year: re-commit to working out regularly (which I already do), but work harder at finding a fitness plan that will actually give me results. I bought the book Daniel's Running Formula last year at the suggestion of my sister's boyfriend, who is an avid long-distance runner, but I never read it. I think that will be my first step towards developing a better and longer-lasting running routine and I will probably start the Couch to 5K program as well. I can run for a decent amount of time, but I am someone who likes to start from the beginning and develop good habits and techniques, so I think I'll start from the beginning with this, too. I also heard that there is a C25K podcast so I'll have to check that out. I am also quite intrigued by the 100 Pushups/Situp/Squats program and I'm thinking of adding that in as well. Anything that starts small and builds is more likely to stick, right?

As far as knitting goes, I was not successful in using up all my old stash. I started 2009 with the goal of knitting up any yarn from my stash that was already there on Jan. 1. But midway through the year I started taking on more and more sample/test knitting jobs and while they were great for helping to pay the bills, they completely derailed my stash knitting plans. I'm not complaining though! I started the year with 24,716 yards of yarn (I know! Where did it come from?!?) and I ended 2009 with only 7113 yards remaining. Of course, I also managed to add to my stash during 2009 so my new 2010 count will go up. I plan on continuing with this goal in 2010 as well--I would really like to be a no-stash knitter, and using up older yarn makes me feel better about spending money on new yarn.

I would also like to knit more items for charity. How often do we end up with single skeins or partial balls at the end of a project with nothing to use them for? I don't tend to knit for charity as often as I would like simply because like everyone else, I have limited amounts of time to knit and you have to make the conscious decision to forgo personal knitting in favor of knitting for someone you don't even know. But I have decided to try knitting up my leftovers as soon as I finish a larger project. That way I'm not adding random small bits of yarn to my stash, and I can do something worthwhile at the same time. Plus, small projects are always a nice palate-cleanser in between larger, more time-consuming projects.

How about you? Did you make any resolutions for your new year, knitting or otherwise?

End of 2009 Recap

2010-01-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

Man, I cannot believe that it's been a month since my last post! A month?!? Seriously??? Probably the busiest month since I was in grad school though, so at least I have an excuse. I wasn't being lazy, I was being very productive...just not in the blogging arena. I'm really going to try to do better this year though, if only so that I can stop composing blog posts in my head all day and just get them onto the computer.

If you're anything like me, you will not have had time to read all the blog posts that have been stacking up over the past couple of weeks, leaving you with literally hundreds of unread posts to wade through. I do still like to read everything, but I have been skimming details on FOs and not commenting much...sorry!

Not much knitting has been happening lately. I did end up doing some last-minute gift knitting, however, since I drew my sister Sheila in the family KK swap and she always appreciates a good hand-knitted gift. I finally got a reason to try Twinkle Soft Chunky and made her a Marian cowl by Jane Richmond with it. It knitted up quickly on size 19 needles, but holy cow! Those things are like broomsticks and rather awkward to work with. Nevertheless, I persevered and managed to crank out a seed-stitch cowl in a couple of hours.

I also whipped up a pair of the ubiquitous Bella's Mittens in Berroco Peruvia Quick. Let me tell you: doing cables with chunky yarn on size 8 needles is not pleasant at all. But it was worth it in the end, because they produced an airtight mitten (that took days and days to dry after blocking). Sorry for the crappy pics--they were snapped in a hurry before the cousins came over for a family fun night.

The Brain and I were lucky enough to get to go back to St. Paul and spend two weeks at my parents' house hanging out with the family. We spent lots of quality time with my brothers and my youngest sister (9 years old), and played around with my little nephews (both 2 years old) who are also both super cute. I was pretty much away from my computer the entire time and it was great! (Not so great: trading San Diego weather for the single-digit degrees in St. Paul, and a house whose furnace kept going out for the first week of our visit...yikes!)

But it was all worth it, the travel to and from was uneventful, and now I'm back in San Diego where it is currently 75 and sunny. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year, and that 2010 will bring better things for everyone.

This 'n' That

2009-12-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

Dude, I have been a terrible blogger lately. Been busy, ya know? I know you do because who isn't busy this time of year?

To keep it simple and get you up to date on my life, this is what I have been up to:

More sample knitting on top secret projects. Sorry! No pics allowed.

But to counteract my top secret knitting, I have been interspersing these little guys into my knitting time:

Berroco's M inutia '08 patterns. I am so hooked. Really, seriously addicted to these things. I have made six so far and have had to limit myself to only one a day, otherwise I probably would have made all 36 tiny sweaters already! (They published the first Minutia set in 2007, and recently released Minutia 2009--each collection has 12 sweaters.)

I was originally going to make these as part of my KK present to a family member (we pick names every Thanksgiving). But that plan got parked by the wayside when I decided to go in a different direction for my giftee. That did not, however, stop me from knitting tiny sweaters. Now I can't stop. Seriously. Can't. Stop. I'm sure the only thing that will stop me will be to eventually run out of scrap yarn. Other people make baby clothes or scrap yarn blankets. I, apparently, make tiny sweaters that are of no use to anyone. Go me.

What else...well, the most exciting thing I did today was try to "do" my hair. I haven't done anything with my hair in ages. I have straight and very fine hair. By "very fine" I mean that if I gathered it all up and put it into a ponytail, it would be about the thickness of my pointer finger. Doing anything with my hair is like wrestling limp cornsilk. Sure, I know that having silky, smooth hair is supposed to be a good thing, right? Put it this way: when I was a kid I was in a production of 'Annie' and all the orphans were supposed to rat their hair and look dirty. I distinctly remember the two directors standing backstage trying desperately to rat my hair, to no avail. I was a total orphan poseur and everyone knew it. Pretty much the only things that will work in my hair are those flat barettes that you have to bend in the middle to open. Everything else just slides out. I will trade my hair for yours any day.

But you know what makes me feel better? (Not that I really feel bad...come on, people; it's just hair!) My new slippers. Purchased on sale. I feel like a muppet. They're awesome.

I Made Socks. No, Really!

2009-11-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

I have long been one of those knitters who admire complicated-looking socks from afar. Sure, they look nice, but who wants to knit them? And yeah, sock yarn is fancier and prettier than most other yarns that I would consider wearing in public, but who wants to knit socks? OK, so there are a lot of challenging patterns out there and socks don't take very long to make, but...who wants to knit socks?

So I gazed at sock patterns from lauded designers such as Cookie A and Anne Hanson, but could never quite get myself over that whole "who wants to knit socks anyway?" hump. I would knit socks for other people once in a while, but never for myself. And then finally, something just snapped and I wanted to knit socks. Of course, not being a sock knitter left me with a giant hole in my stash: no sock yarn! The way other knitters tell it, you would think the stuff would multiply in my stash just by rubbing two skeins of wool together. But no luck. Then I scored some Regia sock yarn on major clearance at Little Knits and set to work.

Behold, the first socks I have ever knit for myself (both from Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation):

Wanida

Milo

I have to admit that I got a little bored with the Wanida socks. They weren't really very challenging to knit. I'm going to knit up more pairs out of Cookie's book (but I will probably skip the simpler ones) as I come by more sock yarn. I think the appeal for me is the fun of working on complex patterns in small bits. I don't foresee myself as needing an entire drawer of hand-knitted socks just for the sake of having them. We'll see though...I think this is just the first step down the rabbit hole.

Oh, and I also got The Brain to take a few loooooong-overdue shots of me in my Hex Coat. (Norah Gaughan, Berroco Ultra Alpaca) I finished this back in June but just wasn't really happy with it so I never bothered with photos. I just really can't see myself wearing it, to be honest. It's long, heavy, slightly scratchy, and really large. I purposely knitted it at a smaller gauge than called for in the pattern and made the smallest size option (46" I think?) to try to get something close to normal ease with it, but it's still quite large. Please excuse my strange smile in the photo: it is not a look of smug satisfaction, but rather a grimace of "oh-my-god-get-me-out-of-this-thing-it-is-100-degrees-in-here!". Plus, I didn't know The Brain was including my head in the shot so that didn't help either. :-P

For those of you familiar with the Uptown area of Minneapolis, the painting behind my head is a print by artist Michael Birawer of Cafe Barbette. It was our favorite weekend brunch hangout when we lived in the area (I miss those buckwheat crepes!), and I got the print as a wedding present for The Brain. I encourage you to check out his online gallery. He has been painting notable hot spots in the Twin Cities for nearly 10 years now, and began adding scenes from Chicago in 2003. He has recently started painting Las Vegas, too! Many of his paintings include wooden cut-outs that are mounted on the main canvas to give it more of a 3-D quality. All of his works are vibrant and memorable, especially when you're familiar with the areas he depicts. I will definitely want to add more prints to my walls some day.

Swiftastic!

2009-11-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

OK guys, pity party is over. Time to move on. Thank you all for your lovely comments (and to KGLO from the Rainy Daisy blog: thank you for all your kind comments -- I'm sorry I don't have an email address to respond to!). Things could always be worse, of course, so it helps to keep things in perspective.

You know what else helps? Working out. I've gotten into a better routine this year and I like that. I ran out to the store the other day because I had a gift card and I got this game for the Wii for only $10. Score! I have only used it once so far and I liked it, but I will give a more thorough review in the future after I've been using it for a while (if I remember...).

Speaking of reviews, I believe I promised a review of my new yarn swift! If you recall, my old swift was a homemade contraption that was falling apart and made winding yarn quite difficult. I did enough sample knitting that I was able to invest in this new swift from Crazy Monkey Creations. I really didn't want an umbrella swift that would need to be clamped to a table, and this was the best alternative I could find.

The website says to allow one to two weeks for production, and another 3-5 days for shipping but I got mine in about a week, if I remember correctly. I was very happy with that. Even though the swift came flat-packed in pieces, they include a very detailed photographic manual to help you put it together (but really, you probably don't need it). All the pieces are well-crafted and solid, and the whole thing smells like new wood--love that!

Now, because the whole thing is very sturdy, it is also a little heavy. I don't mind that, but it does make it a little difficult to haul around when I need to use it. To help solve this problem, I went to the hardware store and picked up a simple pull handle for a couple bucks and screwed it into the back of the swift. Now I can pick it up without grabbing the arms, which probably isn't the best thing to do with those fragile pieces.

The whole thing rotates very smoothly and evenly. I was a little nervous that the heaviness of the arms would cause the rotation to slow down, but it really doesn't. The one thing you have to be aware of is to make sure that the yarn-holding hooks are evenly placed on the arms. Because each one is adjusted individually, it can be a little tricky, but if one of them is way off it can affect the tension on the yarn as it spins. Thankfully, the hooks are very easy to move and there are guidelines etched into the wood to help you space them correctly.

Overall, I am extremely happy with this swift. It is a simple yet effective piece of hardware, and I really can't picture having any problems with it. There aren't any small pieces to break, there are no fussy strings to keep track of (as there sometimes are in umbrella swifts), and the only movable piece is a giant screw and that's not going anywhere. This swift gets a definite two thumbs up from me!

Quick Catch-Up

2009-11-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

Oops. No post for a while. I would like to say that I've been super busy. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. I haven't been busy enough. Unemployment tends to leave you without much to do. I know: when you're employed you dream about having weeks and months of unscheduled time in which you can do whatever you want. You'd get so much done! Read all those classic novels you've never read! Clear out the storage closets! Paint the spare rooms! Learn new hobbies! Work out every day!

Pattern: Bamboo Socks by Lorraine Ehrlinger
Yarn: Trekking XXL

In reality, my days are more like this:

Get up.

Check email.

Read blogs.

Answer email.

Work out.

Run errands (if any--I try to spread them out over the week so I have something to do most days).

Scour employment boards and apply for jobs.

Knit.

Pattern: Ethereal Fichu by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer
Yarn: Buffalo Gold Buffboo

A couple weeks ago I was thisclose to getting an interview for a really good job. Not my dream job, but one that pays more than I was getting as an undergrad 10 years ago, which is the best offer I've seen since the economy went down the tubes. After working for a week on the written portion of the interview process (creating a two-page newsletter and writing a three-paragraph press release), I was not chosen to proceed. Whatever. Usually I don't even get a confirmation that these places even received my application. I've tried leaving my Masters degree off the resume but that doesn't seem to make a difference, so for my own pride I'm leaving it on.

I'm still getting test- and sample-knitting jobs from time to time. The above lace shawl is for Buffalo Gold, and I have another sweater in the works for Hannah Fettig as well. I am very grateful and happy to have this work. But DUDES, I need a job soon! Even if it's only for my sanity because I tell ya: I'm getting a little stir-crazy down here!

I'll try to post a review of my yarn swift up here soon. Preview: I LOVE IT!!!

P.S. Thanks for letting me whine. (Letting me? It's my own blog! LOL) It's been a long couple of weeks.

The One In Which I Am Super-Duper Proud of Myself

2009-10-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

So...I may have mentioned once or twice before that my apartment is a dirt and dust magnet. I mean that literally. My apartment sucks this stuff in the windows like it's feeding off the grime of the city. I can't figure it out because no one else around here seems to have this problem, but I am not kidding when I say that each time we sweep the apartment, we end up with a pile of dark gray dirt large enough to masquerade as an ant hill. I am not a filthy person, so needless to say, this grosses me out. Big time. Wearing socks or slippers is a must in my apartment unless you want the bottoms of your feet to turn black. I was working out in my living room a couple weeks ago (Wii Fit is more fun than an actual workout, what can I say?) and my running-shoe-clad feet actually slid across the floor! We store the Wii Balance Board in a zip-up pillowcase just to keep it clean, and that white pillowcase is looking rather gray these days.

Dust and dirt settles on everything in the apartment. I am constantly wiping down the mantle and the windowsills, the bookshelves and the desks. I have to dust-bust the couch and armchair every time I sweep. This leads me to the topic of this post: if that much dust and dirt covers everything in the apartment, what is it doing to my poor keyboard?!?

I have had to pop all the keys out of the keyboard and give each one a thorough scrubbing several times since we moved down here. The last time I did this, I had had enough. I pulled an old tea towel out of a drawer and tried to use that as a cover. Not only did it look terrible, but it didn't really work. The grime would get onto the keyboard anyway. I spent an hour and a half yesterday prying all my keys out again and giving them another thorough scrubbing. I was thisclose to telling The Brain that I absolutely wouldn't stand for thtis any more and insisting that we move to the Arctic Circle when I decided to Do Something About It.

So I hauled out my trusty(?) sewing machine and made a keyboard cover. I just took the keyboard measurements and winged it, and I think it turned out pretty well. I even lined it with contrasting fabric and used fusible interfacing for extra structure and reduced porousness. It may not be the world's finest sewing job, but it does the trick and it makes my work space look more streamlined and professional.

The best part about the whole project is that I was able to use fat quarters that were sent to me a few months back by my fabulous bloggy friend, Jacey. Thanks, Jacey! The fabric was put to good use and it matched my color scheme perfectly. :) You should check out Jacey's blog for some knitting awesomeness and extra-yummy Food Fridays. She's also having a blog contest in honor of her 2nd Blogiversary, so go visit!

Oh Yeah...the Blog!

2009-10-15T10:26:00.001-07:00

Here is what my past couple of weeks have been like:

I really need to blog today. I really need to blog today. I really need to blog today. Oh, crap! It's nearly midnight! I'll blog tomorrow.

Next day: I'll blog as soon as I finish this. And then this. Oh, and this other thing. Oh, crap! It's after midnight! I'll blog tomorrow.

Three days later: I really feel like I'm forgetting something. I know there was something I was planning to do...oh yeah! I needed to eat lunch. That must have been it.

I kind of crapped out on my personal goal of blogging at least once a week, didn't I? Oh well. At least I threw a podcast up there to keep you entertained. Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments. I really like listening to podcasts while I knit but I know there are some people who really aren't interested. That's OK. We're just doing this for fun and will not be hurt or offended in the least if you don't feel like playing along.

And I do promise to post to this blog...when I can remember. :-P

So, what has been happening over here? I'll give you the quick run-down:

My final lace project for MacKintosh Yarns was completed and sent off. Ice Queen by Rosemary Hill, free pattern in Knitty. Knitted with MacKintosh Yarns Brigit Lace, a silk/cashmere/alpaca blend. Final thoughts: Like knitting with cream. Plus: beads are fun.

I managed to get the first of three pairs of legwarmers off to my sister in Minnesota, just in time for the first snowfall of the season. I had some leftover yarn (Berroco Vintage...a decent yarn. Inexpensive and machine-washable, yet also kinda waxy-feeling.) so I whipped up a Ripley hat to go with them. That pattern is super fun, and the knitted-in slouchiness helps you look effortlessly cool.

The second pair of legwarmers, Mosey by Susan Power, also in Knitty. Also in Berroco Vintage. Also, my first time making pom poms. I actually ran out to Jo-Ann and got a pom pom maker set. It promised "Perfect pom poms every time! No trimming needed!" Once I relaxed my opinion of "perfect", the pom poms turned out OK.

I also whipped up a Spiral Cowl by Keri McKiernan out of the fabulous yarn I got from Leann at Enchanted Hues. I love hand-dyed yarns, and I love them even more when they don't pool! This yarn had the perfect amount of little bits of color that peeked out from a swirl of dark blues and greens. I love it! I just need to find the perfect button to finish it off. I'm thinking black glass, maybe?

Next up: more legwarmers for my sister. She's going to have the warmest legs in Minnesota this winter!

Giving it a Whirl

2009-10-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

If any of you read my brother's blog, you already know the news because he beat me to the punch (by 16 hours), but here it is for the rest of you: We decided to put up a podcast!

You can listen to it here at Libsyn, and read show notes here at Blogger.

Does the world need another knitting podcast? Probably not.
Do we care? Nope. Not in the slightest. :)

It's our first episode so obviously we're a little rough. We'll continue to improve. I promise. Feel free to leave constructive criticism for us because we can take it. No need to comment on the fact that we both sound waaaay more Minnesotan than we think we do in real life. Or the fact that I sound like a complete ditz. I'm an intellectual giant! (...in disguise, apparently)

It's just an idea we've been tossing around for far too long, so we decided to go for it. We're having fun and we hope you do, too.

Stick A Fork In It

2009-10-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

Ugh. It's been one of those weeks, ya know? It's Thursday already and I'm just now getting a chance to let you know what happened after my lace emergency of last week. First of all, I want to thank everyone for your helpful and kind comments! I know it's something we've all been through before, and every time it happens I think, "Well that was stupid! I'm never going to make that mistake again!" Famous last words, of course.

I decided to play it safe and figure out how much yarn each border repeat was going to take. Using a very scientific method of sticking a safety pin through the yarn at 3-foot repeats, I calculated that each row of the border took about a foot of yarn. A foot! That would mean that to do the border as written, I would need about half the yardage from the entire skein. Umm...definitely not enough for that.

So I ripped. I ripped out about 24 hours' worth of knitting. I ripped out the outer border. I ripped out the inner border. I ripped out my grafted seam (and a beautiful seam it was, too). I ripped out 3 pattern repeats from each side of the shawl. When I was done, I was left with this: two shawl halves and a bunch of little balls of yarn in various lengths.

Then I started the process over again. I grafted the two sides together. I picked up stitches and knitted the inner border. At this point, I was contacted by Liz, the dyer extraordinaire at MacKintosh Yarns, who told me not to panic and that even though there was no more yarn in this color to be had, I was welcome to stick a crochet edging on the thing and call it done. Now, maybe it's just that I didn't want to admit that a shawl had defeated me. Maybe it's my Midwestern work ethic. Maybe it's simply the fact that my crochet skills can be called "sketchy" at best, but I wasn't about to just throw any old thing on the shawl.

So I did what any self-respecting knitter does and picked a simple (read: low-stitch-count) border out of Victorian Lace Today and used that instead. Good thing too because by the time I had finished knitting up the border on Tuesday night, there was barely more than a tiny coil of yarn left. Whew!

Problem solved. Major crisis averted. The shawl is blocking and all is well.

Oh! And I just have to say a word about this yarn: MacKintosh Yarns Spinneret Lace. It is a 55/45 blend of silk and superwash marino. I just have to say that after repeated knittings and rippings, it held up just fine. No pills, no fuzz, it still looks great. It's nice and smooth and has good drape, and it's not thick like some 100% wool laces can be. I think I may have found my new favorite lace yarn. Just sayin'.

Lace SOS

2009-09-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

All right, intrepid knitters. I need your help with something. I'm still working on the Print O' the Wave stole for MacKintosh yarns, and as predicted it's knitting up very quickly. I flew through each of the separately-knitted sides. I grafted the two sides together in the center. I picked up the 640 stitches around the outside and knitted the inside border. I casted on the 17 stitches for the outer border and started working my way slowly around the outside. And now...

Now I'm afraid that I won't have enough yarn to finish it.

It's a nightmare. If this stole were knitted in one piece, I would jut rip back a pattern repeat and go from there. But it took me EIGHT HOURS just to graft the two halves together, pick up stitches around the outside and knit up half of the inner border. It took me another EIGHT HOURS to finish the inner border and knit up 25% of the outer border. Ripping back right now would not only be excruciating, it would leave me with several (rather long, it's true) lengths of yarn.

So here's where you come in: I need you to tell me what you would do! Would you, a) keep knitting the border and hope that there really is enough yarn to complete it, or b) cut your losses and not waste another moment of your time by ripping back right now?

I've never been all that good at estimating how much yarn I have left--I usually end up with much more than I thought I would need. I'm worried that I'm using that as an excuse to blind myself to the truth: there simply isn't enough yarn here. I suppose I could try to figure out how much yarn each border repeat uses, and then measure out my remaining yarn to see if I have enough. That actually works in two ways: I will know for sure before I rip out all my work unnecessarily or waste more time knitting, and it will also force me to spend time troubleshooting and therefore postpone the inevitable. Hmm...what do you guys think?

More Random Happy Things

2009-09-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

I feel as though I use this blog to complain about things a wee bit too much, so here are some more random happy knitterly things that have been going in the past week.

First off, I won a contest that Leann was having over on her blog. She was giving away an item of the winner's choice from her Etsy shop, Enchanted Hues. She has some seriously beautiful stuff over there, people. It actually made me glad that I don't spin because her fiber is so pretty. I really want some of that Eastwick! Hmm...she also custom spins any of her roving...I'll have to keep that in mind. As it is, I had a hard enough time choosing between all of her yarn colors. I was really drawn to The Great Pumpkin, a bright blend of orange shades, and Poisoned Apple with its deep reds. (Btw, how much do you love her color names?) In the end, I decided on a skein of DK weight superwash merino in the Forbidden Forest colorway. I'm so glad I did (although I'm certain I would have been happy with any color I chose). It's the kind of color that you can't take your eyes off of. It seems to be the darkest green you can imagine, almost black. (Is it black?) It has bits of brighter greens and browns and...is that blue? Purple? Every time you look at it, it seems to change color. It is soooo mesmerizing and I LOVE it. This is definitely in my queue of yarn I need to knit up rightnow. I'm thinking a nice cowl...maybe the Spiral Cowl by Keri McKiernan, or the Faberge Neck Warmer by Nina Machlin Dayton. Something to think about...

My second random happy thing is that Hannah Fettig released the pattern for her Lightweight Pullover! Yeah, I know, you're probably sick and tired of me saying this, but I knit the sample for this one too! It was seriously the most pleasurable sweater I have knitted in a long time. Part of it was that the yarn is scrumptious (Classic Elite Fresco) but mostly it is the pattern itself. Like a lot of knitters, I really like to challenge myself with my projects. Bring on the complex lace or colorwork or cables, and I'm in heaven! But the truth is that the sweaters I wear the most are the ones that are mostly stockinette. They just look so polished and wearable. This is definitely one of those sweaters, and it knits up so fast! Just look at that drapey funnel neck! Not too much of a cowl, but not too much of a turtleneck, either. I will be working one of these up for myself soon. I can picture myself wearing it everywhere...if only it wasn't so dang hot down here in San Diego! :-P My one regret is that I didn't think to take FO shots before I sent it off to Ms. Fettig so I don't have any photos for my Rav projects page. :( Ah well, live and learn, right?

And wait...what's this? This pile of wood on the floor?

Omigosh, it's a new swift!!! This is a brand new Heavy Duty Vertical Yarn Swift from Crazy Monkey Creations and I am soexcitedomg to have it! My little brother kindly made me a tabletop swift for my birthday nearly two years ago, and it was great at first...but you could only wind the yarn in one direction or it would tighten itself up and stop turning. But then you had to reach over the spinning posts and hold onto the little wing nut in the center of the swift to keep it from unscrewing itself and falling apart while winding. Yarn ends tended to fly free and wind themselves around the center shaft, gunking themselves up in grease, and even when everything was running smoothly, the thing kind of wobbled and I could hear the center screw gouging its way into the wood. So...out with the old, in with the new! I knew I wanted a swift that didn't necessitate clearing off the entire kitchen table in order to use it, and I didn't want an umbrella swift that needed to be clamped to the table, either. When I found this online I knew I had a winner! I am very pleased that my knitting-for-hire has been able to buy such a great new tool. After being out of work for so long, I had forgotten how nice it is to be able to pay for something for yourself. I haven't tried it out yet, but I will be sure to report on how it performs.

Random Happy Things

2009-09-17T15:57:00.001-07:00

I decided this post should be about random happy things today. And why not?

First off, I am excited to report that the comfy purple Gooseberry Cardigan designed by Hannah Fettig that is on the cover of the new Interweave Knits Weekend magazine was knitted up by yours truly! The fabulous Ms. Fettig posted a call for help on her blog back in...April? May? Some time ago anyway. I answered the call and was given the privilege of knitting up her wonderful design for INTERWEAVEMAGAZINEOMG! I was super duper excited to see that they put it on the cover (because I'm a ginormous dork), and I ran out to buy a copy the day it hit newsstands. And if you look in the back at the Staff Projects, you can see that Eunny Jang herself is wearing it! Too fun!

After sending off my most recent shawl, I moved right along to the third in the series of shawls for MacKintosh Yarns. This time I'm doing the Print O' the Wave stole by Eunny Jang in MacKintosh Yarns Spinneret Lace Yarn in the Mossy Bog colorway. I am happy to report that I am in love! This yarn is the best! It's a 55/45 superwash merino/silk blend and it is so smooth and alive that it is so much fun to knit with. The color of this yarn is just perfect for the pattern, and the way the stitches change directions makes the light hit the yarn differently and really gives it a nice shine and makes the color vary from one angle to the next. I liked it so much that I sat down yesterday and in one evening knitted up 9 out of the first 17 pattern repeats. This one will be a quick knit, I'm sure!

And now, a little story that did not make me happy but that might make you chuckle so I'll call it even: When I was a child there was a candy called Tangy Taffy. It was a fruit-flavored taffy sold in a long strip. I loooooooved Tangy Taffy. I think they used to only come in cherry and grape flavors, but after a while they started putting out mixed flavors, like strawberry-banana or mixed berry. They also started coating the top of the slabs of taffy with giant, brightly-colored sugar crystals. These changes were gross and I stopped eating the candy.

Somewhere along the line, Tangy Taffy was discontinued and subsequently resurrected as Laffy Taffy by Nestle's Willy Wonka Candy Company brand. (A quick search on Wikipedia divulged the following, rather unhelpful information: "A former taffy, Tangy-Taffy is also now discontinued and has been replaced totally by Laffy-Taffy," which is essentially what I just told you. You have now been told twice. I hope you're still paying attention. There will be a quiz later.)

While shopping at Target on Monday, I passed the candy display (oh, all right, I was there on purpose looking for Twerpz, which seem to have mysteriously disappeared from candy shelves everywhere, to my eternal broken-heartedness) and found the Laffy Taffy. Remembering how good it was as a child, I grabbed one and brought it home.

Once home, I sat down at my desk to get some work done and started happily gobbling my way through the sticky mess. (No, I don't know why my keyboard keeps getting so dirty. Why do you ask?) I was halfway through the gooey slab of taffy when I found A HAIR. A wiry, black hair embedded in my candy. Ew. Just...ew.

So I immediately called the number on the packaging and was helped by a very slow yet very serious woman on the other end of the line. I had to give her my full contact information. I had to read three different codes to her off the packaging. I had to answer a whole litany of questions about the hair: What color is it? How long is it? Is it curly? Wavy? Sraight? Where in the candy is it? Had I noticed anything odd about the packaging? Had I noticed anything else odd about the candy inside? And so on...

Then she asked me if I would be willing to mail back my "sample" to them if they sent me a postage-paid envelope. Sure. Fine. Then she asked me if I was able to take pictures of the "sample" and email them to a super-special, top-secret link she was going to email to me. This link is only open for three days, and then I guess some sort of internet black hole is going to swallow it up. Okaaaaay...sure.

I was trying not to laugh at this point because really, it felt more like a criminal investigation than a mundane food complaint. I felt like I was working in a crime lab when I took these pictures! Before I got off the phone with her, she reiterated that they take their food production very seriously, and assured me that all employees who come into contact with any step of the food production process are required to wear hair nets, and any men who also have beards must wear a special hair net on their faces as well. Then she told me that they would be sending me replacement samples and some coupons, so all was well.

When I told my brother this story, his reply was: "OMG! You're even unlucky with your candy!!!"

Yes, sad but true. Don't worry: I will keep you all informed as this situation progresses, because I am positive you are all on pins and needles to see how it turns out.

And now I leave you with the final happy thing:

Proof that shimmery happiness can be had for only 97 cents. (Please ignore the red and puffy post-shower feet.)

Poking Around

2009-09-14T12:42:00.001-07:00

I feel like the groundhog (you know, The Groundhog), sticking my nose outside to take a look around. I'm about to go back under, but I thought I should put up a post about what I have been up to.

It has been an insanely busy last month or so, and it's going to remain that way for some time to come, to which I'm sure you can all relate. I have been working night and day on a super-colossal top-secret project that I hope to reveal in about a month. Until then, my brain will be kind of scrambled, I'm sure.

In my last post, I had been halfway through the first of four shawls I was hired to knit as samples for MacKintosh Yarns. Well, I finished that first shawl in time for it to go off to Stitches and I am very happy that I was able to finish it on time.

Pattern: Kiri Shawl by Polly Outhwaite
Yarn: MacKintosh Yarns Rhiannon Lace Weight, color Hibiscus
Needles: Addi Lace size 6
Finished Size: 80" across the top, 45" down the center
Mods: Added pattern repeats until I ran out of yarn, then bound off.

I quickly moved on to my second shawl project and blocked it last night:
Pattern: Lughnasadh Shawl by Renee Leverington
Yarn: MacKintosh Yarns Skye Lace Weight, color Morrigan
Needles: Addi Lace size 6
Finished Size: 72" across the top, 41" down the center
Mods: Added three repeats of the center stitch pattern in order to use up as much yarn as possible, and to help balance the design.

Here's a question for you: What do you think of superwash lace weight yarn? The Skye Lace Weight, while beautifully dyed and lovely to work with, is a superwash merino. I seem to be noticing a lot of superwash lace yarns floating around these days, and my question is: Why? You're not likely to toss your lace projects in the washing machine anyway, right? I mean, you have to block them out so you might as well soak them carefully before doing so. Are these yarns made to be used in lightweight garments, like Hannah Fettig's darling Featherweight Cardigan (for which I have the pattern and the yarn...just waiting to have the time)? I generally prefer to stay away from superwash yarns unless I'm knitting for someone else, but superwash lace weight? I'm confused. Any thoughts?

OK, back to the grindstone. I have to finish up a baby sweater I was hired to knit (so cute! I can't wait for it to be released so you can see it!), then I can get going on my third shawl. I'm really looking forward to this one--it's green! :D

In Which I Show the Rotary Cutter Who's Boss

2009-08-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, bloggy peeps! Sorry for the long absence after leaving you with shots of my mangled finger. (I have to admit that after all the blood stopped gushing, it clearly wasn't as bad as it had originally seemed. However, for a knitter (on a tight deadline, no less!) who uses that exact spot on that exact finger to help maneuver things, it has been pretty annoying.) Thankfully, I have been able to retrain my hand to knit just fine while holding that finger out of the way. It makes little everyday things annoying though--like typing and flossing and all that fun stuff. But my youngest sister (a 9 year old newbie knitter) was kind enough to knit up a squooshy finger cover for me and send it in the mail. Isn't it cute? She "discovered" seed stitch all by herself and has been whipping out these little thimbles/finger warmers/finger covers. Mine comes in handy because it keeps me from bumping my finger into things. :)

As long as my finger was on the mend, I was not about to let the rotary cutter win! So after staring at it hatefully for a couple of days, I buckled down and tackled that tote bag. I spent all weekend (when I was resting my hands from their new way of knitting) sewing this thing up and I have to say that I'm very pleased with how it turned out. :)

It's a tote bag pattern from the first issue of Stitch Magazine (published last fall). It's lined on the inside and has two layers of pockets on the outside for storing all your sewing/crafting stuff in. I have to admit that I was afraid my machine's needle was going to break from sewing through all that fabric, but it held together just fine. There were a couple of mishaps, such as sewing both sides of the bag together at one point, but I managed to fix everything that came my way. There are a couple of mistakes in the pattern: they have you fold the top layer over to the inside way too far, and the instructions for the straps would end up only 1/2" wide if done as written. Thankfully, I had some spare brown fabric and interfacing so I was able to make new straps.

In knitting news, I received my lace yarn from MacKintosh Yarns last Friday and I have been working on the first of four shawls. Can I just say: Wow! This yarn is nice stuff!!! My first project is the Kiri shawl out of Rhiannon Lace in a nice deep pink color called Hibiscus. This is probably the smoothest 100% silk yarn I have worked with and it took a while to get used to. It's so slippery! But it is also shimmery and so light you wouldn't believe it. I'm over halfway done with the shawl and it has gotten so big that it takes about 15 minutes to do one row. I was complaining to my brother about how my progress seems to have slowed down so much now, but he sagely reminded me that I am still using up yarn at the same rate. Oh, yeah! Thanks, Pete!

The One Where Sewing Quickly Goes Downhill

2009-08-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

Hello, all! (And a hearty welcome to my newest reader: Mom!) Thanks to everyone for their kind comments on my first sewing project. It was a lot of fun to make that tote bag, and I'm totally jazzed about jumping back in for my next one. But more on that in a minute.

First, I want to talk about my latest knitting projects (because this is a knitting blog, after all). I recently had the privilege of knitting up a sample sweater for Hannah Fettig's newest sweater design, and I finished that last week. I gotta tell you: this was the softest, cuddliest, most enjoyable sweater I have knitted up in a long time! Keep an eye on her pattern release because I predict that a lot of people are going to want to make this one. I'll be first in line!

In other fun knitting news, Hannah also asked me to knit up another sample for her, which I was more than happy to sign on for. And I also got asked by a hand-dyer to knit up some lace shawls out of her yarn. How exciting and fun is that?!? She's overnighting the yarn to me so that I can get started right away, and hopefully have at least one shawl done before she goes to Stitches in early September. Unemployment does have some benefits, I guess.

While I am between projects and waiting for yarn to arrive in the mail, I decided it's time to get back to my sewing. This leads me to my next bit of fabulousness: one of my super fantastic blog readers, Jacey, actually sent me a pile of fabric! Can you believe how generous and super sweet that is?!? Jacey and I have been commenting on each other's blogs for a while so we're bloggy friends, but I was still bowled over by her offer. Free fabric for the poor and destitute!!! What a friend! She even threw in some zippers and bias tape so I can practice with them. I can't tell you how excited I was when this package showed up on my doorstep earlier this week. Thank you so much, Jacey!

I got a JoAnn flyer in the mail last week, and you were right, Cookie, when you said that picking up another hobby was going to be trouble. I couldn't resist running out to get a rotary cutter (on sale!) so that my previously jagged edges can now be all neat and clean. (Just like the real sewers do it!) Enthused by fun fabric and new tools, I used a couple of free hours this afternoon to sit down and cut out pieces for my next tote bag. Things were zooming along, and I was wielding that rotary cutter like a pro!

Until... (If you are squeamish, you might want to stop reading now. I mean it.)

Well...first there was a slight bump and then a snap! and then a small spurt of blood on my pretty fabric. Then a geyser of blood which I managed to contain until I got to the kitchen sink. I had sliced right through the end of my finger!!! The snap was the rotary cutter making a neat and clean cut right through my fingernail. (Just like the real sewers do it!) Now my finger is bandaged up like a mummy because I'm afraid that even the slightest bump will dislodge the little wedge of fingernail that is so valiantly hanging on, or cause the top half of my finger to flap open. I know...EW!!! (Pictures at the end of the post. You've been warned.)

I honestly don't know what's so great about sewing. What has sewing ever done for me? I never bled all over my knitting because of a puncture wound! It must be a sign. Maybe I need to change my handle to "Competent Knitter, Clumsy Sewer"? I want to finish that tote bag, but the thought of using that rotary cutter any time soon kind of makes my skin crawl. And the worst part about it? I have to figure out how I'm going to knit lace at top speed with my mummy finger!

Dudes, I Sewed!

2009-08-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

That's right: I taught myself how to sew this weekend. Yee-haw!

I went to jury duty on Friday morning, but they chose the jury and dismissed the rest of us before lunch. As interesting as it would have been to serve on a murder trial, I'm actually kind of relieved that I don't have to. Besides, I have been able to enjoy The Brain's week off with him and it's been very nice. :)

After I got home on Friday, I headed out to Jo-Anns for some bobbins and to scan the patterns. I ended up getting one Vogue pattern for a wrap dress (which they say is Very Easy...I'll be the judge of that), and a bunch of random buttons that were on clearance.

Then, on Saturday, it was Learn To Sew Time! I still had the pieces from the tote bag that was part of my sewing class from earlier this summer. I ditched out after the second class period because I really felt that I would learn better by teaching myself. That meant that I missed the directions on how to assemble these random pieces of cloth. Hmm...

After playing around with some scraps of fabric to test the tension (I have to tighten the main thread tension almost to the max...I don't think that's normal), I dove right in. It was just a matter of sewing a couple of rectangles together, and then sewing the straps to the top. I had no idea where I was supposed to place the straps, so I just kind of guessed. How do you like my fancy-dancy "you-can't-rip-me-out-no-matter-how-hard-you-try" X stitching on the straps? Yeah, I agree: it could use some improvement.

Here's one thing I wasn't anticipating: I can't actually hold the bag open by pulling the straps away from each other. Not too effective. I'm sure I did something wrong, but I'm equally convinced that it could not have had anything to do with the two rectangles of fabric that I cut off the tops of the bag before sewing them together. They were on the pattern, but clearly they were just extra fabric that wasn't meant to do anything, right? Kind of like a third nipple. Off they came!

I was so super excited about sewing some more that I went back to the store on Sunday and picked up some sale fabric to make a tote bag (from a real pattern this time) out of the first issue of Stitch magazine. (I can't find a photo of the bag online.) I haven't had time to get back to my machine yet, but it will be there waiting for me when I am! :)

Oh, and thank you to everyone who left comments with suggestions and/or encouragement about my newest...craft? Skill? Hobby? I appreciate it!

Let the Good Times Roll

2009-08-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

So...remember the jury summons I got a few weeks ago? Yeah, well, that's where I've been spending my time over the past two days. I have to go back for a full day tomorrow, too. They're doing the jury selection process for a case that is estimated to last about three weeks. Three weeks! That's a lot of time down the tube. But I'm happy to do it--it's rather interesting, and I've never been called before. I just wish it wasn't happening right now: The Brain is finally taking some much-needed time off next week, and I would really like to be around to enjoy it with him! But there's still a chance that before the end of the day tomorrow they will decide not to use me. I can't decide which I would prefer, so I guess either way I won't be disappointed!

No news to report on the knitting/sewing front. And if I don't check in over the next few weeks, you'll know why!

The Roundup Continues

2009-08-01T17:11:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all the kind comments on my last post--both about the FOs and about The Brain's pay cuts. I know we're not the only people going through this (not by a long shot!) so it's nice to hear that people aren't so jaded by everyone's problems that they can't offer sympathy or support.

But enough of that. In my grand tradition of exposing all of my embarrassing quirks and foibles, I have another story for you:

The Brain and I were invited to a barbecue at one of his colleague's places last night. It was to be a small gathering: three other profs and the husband of one of them. I have been working this past week on getting back into the habit of running every day, so I was quite proud of myself for doing my full workout three days in a row. "I went running for three days this week!", I told myself, "I'm going to look so slim and sporty at this barbecue! People won't even notice that I'm the only one there without a PhD because they will be marveling at my poise and the special radiance that can only come from such a healthy specimen of the human race!" ... Then we got there. Conversation turned fairly quickly to cycling (The Brain rides with a local club), then trail running, then triathlons. Turns out that everyone else present at the gathering could kick my ass in just about any sporty endeavor you can imagine. I wasn't fully deflated, however, until the (only other) woman casually dropped a line about participating in the IronMan competition a couple of years ago. You know, while also struggling through her first year as a faculty member. So she didn't have a lot of time to train. *gulp!* Yeah...I've been unemployed for over a year and my major accomplishment is that I went running for three days in a row this week. LOL!

Must. Set. Higher. Goals. :-P (Speaking of which, is there anyone else in the San Diego area who might be interested in doing some trail running? I'm talking super beginner stuff, not those crazy-ass ultra-serious groups who meet up at 5am on Saturday mornings and run for 6 hours straight. If you're also proud of running for three days in a row, I bet we could work something out.)

Aaaanyway, I wanted to continue with my roundup of things that have been going on over the past couple of weeks. Guess what...I got a sewing machine!!! I was browsing around on Craigslist a couple weeks ago, and I came across a posting for a sewing machine in my neighborhood. This woman was moving to a smaller apartment and didn't use the machine any more, so she was happy to get rid of it. She was only asking $30 for a Kenmore machine, so I emptied my bank account and headed over to her place first thing in the morning because I was worried that the machine wouldn't last very long. It was still there, and the woman even threw in a tote bag full of never-used patterns, batting, tracing paper, safety pins, etc. She plugged it in and sewed a few things for me so I could see that it works well. It's missing a few accessories, like part of the button foot thingie, but right now I am such a newbie that I don't think I'll be sewing anything but crooked lines for a while.

I'm super excited to learn to sew now! I need to get some bobbins and a couple tiny pieces for the machine, but I have the major hurdle over with. I just got a Jo-Ann flyer in the mail yesterday with an ad for Vogue patterns at only $3.99 apiece and the usual 40% off coupon. I'll have to head over there next weekend to see if I can pick up a couple of patterns. Next time I have cash, I can get some fabric. Little by little, I'll learn to sew if it kills me!

Speaking of learning, does anyone have any recommendations for learn-to-sew books? I have checked out a few from the library to do some comparisons. So far, I have the Reader's Digest New Complete Guide to Sewing, Vogue Sewing, and The Complete Photo Guide to Sewing. If you have any opinions on these, or any other books, please weigh in!

Oh, and if anyone can explain to me what the heck a "fat quarter" is and what you use it for, that would be cool too!

Sorry for such a long post! I need to post more often so I can avoid this verbal explosion.

P.S. A super huge thank you to Dana who, after I posted about wanting a sewing machine ages ago, actually offered to sell me her Kenmore for the cost of shipping. Thank you so much, Dana! Your kindness has not been forgotten. :)

July Round-Up

2009-07-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

How is it that my little brother can go on vacation, come back, and still have more blog posts than I do? I'll tell you why, and it's very simple: I'm a sucky blogger this month. There! Alert the presses! :)

Things have still been up and down this month: The Brain is definitely getting a 10% pay cut, and they're saying that the education budget will be even worse next year. Everyone who was eligible has already taken early retirement, they are cutting course offerings and raising class sizes, and now they have a pay cut. What's next? Layoffs. Talk about a brain drain! I'm sure other states will be more than happy to take the high-quality educators that California doesn't want (and the chancellor has made it very clear that lecturers are preferable to PhD-holding, tenured faculty members because they're cheaper). But that's my bitterness talking.

Less bitterness! More knitting!

It has been a busy month as well, with some more top-secret projects making their way into my life. One involves knitting a sample sweater for a designer's pattern and I am really loving it. The yarn (Classic Elite Fresco) is soooo soft and light and just a dream to work with! It's in the perfect shade of silvery gray. I will definitely have to make one of these for myself, too.

My youngest brother was in town last week from MN and we had a blast running all over San Diego doing all the things you can't do up in the Twin Cities: mainly, swim in the ocean, seal-watch, drive into the mountains, walk around at night without mosquito spray, etc. It was a blast! I also took some time to get some FO photos from projects that have been sitting around for a while. Yay!

Pattern: Little Birds, by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Jamiseon's Shetland Spindrift
Size: 34"
Mods: Added one repeat of the pattern to the body of the sweater (lengthwise), and two repeats to the sleeves.
Final Thoughts: This was my first large-scale stranded project, and I really liked the challenge. I feel that my stitches were even (blocking helped!) and the final product looks OK. But, the fit is a bit strange on me. I don't know if it was the added length, but the front pieces are angled funny and tend to hit right outside my boobal area, which gives the sweater the effect of looking too small. Also, the high ribbing at the bottom makes it appear as though I have no waist. I assure you, I do...if only because there is no way my waist could be as wide as my hips. (Thanks, Mom!)

Pattern: Laminaria, by Elizabeth Freeman
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Silk Lace
Mods: None
Final Thoughts: I love this pattern, I love this yarn (thanks, little brothers!), I loved knitting every second of this shawl! It was challenging to block because the star stitches seem to make the lace want to stretch in every direction imaginable. I feel as though it turned out too wide, and not long enough. But I hate blocking just enough to not care enough to do it over. I still love it though and am very pleased with the end result.

Pattern: Wisteria Garden Shawl, by Amy Swenson
Yarn: Zen Yarn Garden Sea Lace
Mods: None
Final Thoughts: This was the second installment in my Year of Lace membership. I really love getting new yarn in the mail that I may never have tried on my own, and this was one of those shipments. I'm not a fan of the color, but that's no big deal. I can donate this to Knit for the Cure. At least it will go to a worthy cause instead of draped from a hanger in my closet with my other lace things!

Pattern: Miss Lambert's Shetland Pattern for a Shawl, by Jane Sowerby
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Stonechat
Mods: Added 5 repeats to the body to make it wider
Final Thoughts: This was my mindless TV knitting project for the last few months. It was a very simple pattern in very soooooft yarn, and I'm a little sorry to have finished it. But there is always more Malabrigo to be had, so I don't feel too bad!

Sorry to have foisted these FOs on you all at once. I'll try to have a more entertaining blog post next time! :)

A Better Week (?)

2009-07-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Thanks for all the commiseration on my last post. Bad days suck, and bad weeks suck even more! Thankfully, this past week made up for it:

On Monday, I was able to drive up to LA to meet with members of my grad school class. They had postponed the dinner until I was able to make it! I had a lot of fun seeing them again, and we spent several long hours discussing all their H*ollywood careers and lives in the past year. I didn't make it back home to San Diego until 2:30 in the morning, but it was totally worth it.

On Monday and Tuesday The Brain and I were treated to front row seats at a drug raid across the street. Federal agents and armored trucks and explosives and circling helicopters, oh my! These pictures were taken at 6am on Monday after a bullhorn woke the neighborhood by telling these people to come out with their hands up...followed by a loud explosion as the SWAT team blew in the door and ran inside with their guns and dogs. The entire house was circled by a SWAT team, guns drawn. But no further drama ensued. They hauled a couple guys out...guys who were still wearing their rubber gloves. Who knew that in such a nice neighborhood, we had a meth lab right across the street?!?

Also on Tuesday: I got my second Year of Lace shipment in the mail and cast on right away! I'm already about halfway done. The yarn is Zen Yarn Garden Sea Lace: a 70/30% blend of superwash merino and seacell. The pattern is called the Wisteria Garden Shawl, and it was designed by Amy Swenson. I think the yarn is fabulous, although it's not a color I would have chosen for myself. The pattern is quite simple, but I like that I can just breeze right through it. I seem to have a lot of yarn to go though...I'll probably end up with a lot left over.

The remainder of the week seemed to glide past in a series of days in which nothing even remotely interesting happened. This was fine with me, of course, because I did not need any more drama! The Brain was excited to discover that he has today (Friday) off, as he is certainly in need of some stress-free days himself. We decided to make this weekend a great one, to make up for a crappy couple of weeks. We started it out right by sleeping in this morning, and I was all ready to enjoy the beginnings of a fabulous three days when I got this in the mail:

The universe certainly has a way of keeping balance, doesn't it?

I'm Glad That's Over!

2009-06-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

You know, I wasn't going to let my previous post sit up there for very long. I figured that the general malaise I was feeling would pass, and that I would be able to post a more fun! upbeat! post shortly thereafter.

Instead, my week went downhill quickly. Each day seemed to play out like an episode from a bad tv series. Nothing *horrible* happened, but everything seemed so random that by Friday I was afraid to leave my apartment to run errands because I was sure I would get flattened by a falling meteor or blue ice or something. To add to the worries about pay cuts at The Brain's job (the alternative being job cuts, and since he was one of the last people on board he would likely be one of the first people cut), here is a random sampling of what happened last week: I woke up on Wednesday with an out-of-nowhere illness that necessitated hours at the doctor's office and antibiotics, the illness caused me to miss the casual grad school "reunion" which I had organized up in LA, I applied for a line of credit at the bank a week ago just in case (see above note about pay/job cuts) which should have taken "a couple of hours" to be processed, but instead has now taken over a week and has included extra trips to the bank to deliver pay stubs, tax returns, utility bills, driver's licenses, etc., one missed work opportunity and a separate work setback, and...a broken couch. I should have known better than to sit on it! (Thankfully The Brain was able to fix the last one...all the others: well, sometimes life just sucks.)

But no one died, no one was hospitalized (that was the week before, heh), and no one has lost their job (yet). The good news is that I actually finished my Hex Coat (post later) and I got a fun box in the mail from my sister! Yay for yarny gifts!

My sister is a multi-lingual world traveler and nursing student extraordinaire. She was recently completing a series of courses in China and she got me some yarn while she was over there. She doesn't know anything about knitting so she really didn't know what to look for, but when she got back and told me that she had picked up "two things of yarn", I was expecting two hanks of undyed handspun or something. What I got instead was two cute little plastic yarn bags with 10 balls each of yarn in them. I have no idea about the fiber content. The yellow bag says that it contains "high-grade elaboation knitting wool". I tried looking up the word "elaboation" and I still have no idea where they were going with that. The package says it's an 80%/20% blend of something, but judging by the feel of the yarn I'm going to go ahead and say it's 80% acrylic and 20% other plastic.

The package containing green yarn actually has sheep and a goat on the front, so I'm guessing it might actually contain some sort of natural fiber. It certainly feels a bit less squeaky. There is no English on this package (not like it helped much on the other one), and I tried typing "gaojijingpin hunfangrongxian" into a text translator but didn't get any help on that either. It is apparently a 75%/25% blend of something-or-other. I think the packaging is pretty cute no matter what it contains. :)

And finally, in knitting news, I cast on for my Tempest last night. You may recall that I overdyed some yarn to use specifically for this sweater. Well...I'm not sure I like how they go together, now that it's all said and done. The stripes just don't contrast enough for my taste and I'm really not sure I'll be satisfied with the final project if I just keep going with it. So...I think I'm going to rip it out and keep one or the other of the skeins to use in a different version later on, if I can find another yarn to use. I realize now that when I was dyeing, I should have done some kind of dip-dye and only let the tan part of the yarn hang in the dye, while keeping the vibrant purple out. That would have given me a bit more contrast. But...too late now, and there's no guarantee that I would have liked it any better.

Thanks for sticking through such a boring, informative post! I'm really hoping something entertaining will happen to me soon so I can spice up the blog a bit! :-P

Blogging Apathetically.

2009-06-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

There. I said it. I'm apathetic today about nothing in specific and everything in particular. I'm still getting things done because I have to, but I'm not really feeling it, you know?

I quit my sewing class. Why? Well, it's not that I'm not interested in sewing, it's just that I really don't see the need to sit through a four-hour class once a week just to learn how to do it. I read the recommended book (at left) from start to finish over the weekend (but I skipped the sections on how to make certain types of collars, and so on) and I realized that I really do not need someone else to help me learn this stuff. I learned more from that book than I had from the eight hours of class I already sat through. So I just stopped going. I am still looking forward to learning how to sew, but I'm just going to wait until I can afford my own sewing machine and teach myself then. I have to admit that something about piecing together specific shapes of cloth and making something useful out of it really makes the diligent, organized, puzzle-loving part of me want to do a lot of sewing right now! *sigh*...someday. :) I do want to thank everyone for the encouraging comments you left about learning how to sew. I'll get back to it in the future! Promise!

I had a long paragraph typed out here about the job market and potential pay cuts at The Brain's university, but I don't want this post to be a downer. I will say this though: 10% is a lot of money to take out of someone's paycheck, especially when they're still expected to do the same amount of work. Just sayin'.

Instead of moaning about the economy, I'll show you knitting! The Hex Coat has been seamed up and the hexagons have begun (see bottom of coat). I hit a snag yesterday while seaming up the sleeves. I was trucking right along until I realized that I had attached the sleeve to the armholes inside out. :-P So I had to rip out the seam and start all over again. I'm brilliant, I am.

I'm impressed with how well the hexagons fit into their wavy little notch (no credit to me at all--Norah Gaughan did all the heavy lifting). The only thing I don't like is that the hexagons are knitted in the round from the border in, resulting in having to rotate the entire coat over and over and over...I think I'll have to leave this project for random TV knitting soon. It's not as though I'm in a huge hurry to have it done!

The second installment of the Year of Lace will be arriving shortly. (Hooray for gifts that keep on giving!!!) I'm really looking forward to seeing what this pattern will be like. Calgary knitters have been able to pick their kits up since Saturday and have started to post spoilers on the group page. I'm doing my best to avoid them!!!

Updates!!!

2009-06-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been one week since my blogiversary post. Thank you to everyone who left a comment, whether you are regular readers, de-lurkers, or new visitors! I had 20 comments, which is a respectable following for me. I assigned everyone a number based on the order in which the comments were left. Then I hopped over to the Random Number Generator and came up with...ikkinlala! Congrats, ikkinlala! I will send you an email asking for your information. I checked out ikkinlala's Blogger profile, and although she doesn't have a blog listed there, I figured that any Canadian student (my husband is Canadian! and I like students!) who is also a Pisces (I'm a Pisces!) can't be all bad, right?

On to the sewing update. Last Monday in class we learned how to wind our own bobbins and thread the machines. I had trouble finding the last hooky thingy before threading the needle, but there are some very helpful students in my class and we finally sorted it out. I practiced doing some straight stitches on some scrap cloth, but...well...my "straight" stitches weren't really straight. At all. I'm going to have to do some more practicing. But hey, that's how we all learned to knit too, right?

The cloth shown here is what I chose to use for my tote bag. The grellow is going on the outside, and the brown flowered cloth is for the lining. I know they're not exactly perfect matches, but a) I don't care, b) it's just a first sewing project that I'm expecting to mess up anyway, and c) they make me happy. So there. :) I washed the...uh...shoot. What do you call pieces of fabric? Just "fabric"? OK. I washed the fabric and now I have to "square" it, which is really just a fancy way of saying that I have to rip a strip off the top and bottom of each piece (with my bare hands!) to make sure I have straight lines there. Then I have to iron it, pin the pattern to it, and cut the pieces out. Keeping in mind that the laminated class pattern I used wasn't perfectly straight, that I'm not sure I can cut the fabric around the pattern perfectly straight, and that we all know I can't sew perfectly straight...I'm looking forward to a very crooked first project...unless three crookeds make a straight? No, I don't think so either. :-P

And finally, here are a couple photos of my Hex Coat. I have the two sleeves done and most of the two fronts done. I just have to add arm shaping to the back piece and then I will be ready to sew all those pieces together. After that it's just a matter of knitting the hexagons around the edges of the front and it will be all finished! Just in time for the weather to heat up, of course.

Actually, speaking of weather, June Gloom is still going strong (and has been for...quite a while!). Last night The Brain and I went to a small gathering at the house of a fellow faculty member to watch a film projected onto a screen hung in their back yard. It was quite a nice setup, except that it was SO COLD! I don't know why I still haven't learned this despite living in California for two years now, but: IT GETS COLD AT NIGHT! VERY COLD! I was wearing my Cassidy hoodie and my Endpaper Mitts, but I was still shivering the whole time. See, back in Minnesota, when it's hot all day, it's hot at night too. It's hot and muggy and the humidity keeps building up until you have a thunderstorm and everything cools down. And then the cycle starts over again. Down here it's hot while the sun is out, and then once the sun goes down it gets cold. I understand it in theory, but I still find myself confused every time I go outside after dark and I'm cold. Every time. Don't they say that's one of the definitions of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result? I don't think I'm insane, but man: it is very difficult to override a lifetime of weather expectations!

It's Blogiversary Time!!!

2009-06-13T18:45:00.001-07:00

Oh my gosh, can you believe that I almost missed my own blogiversary?!? Today's the day, and I have so many other things going on in my life (unlike all of you, right?) that I would have missed it entirely if I hadn't put a reminder alarm on my phone. Whew!

To celebrate my two years here in blogland, I am having a little giveaway! I've never done one of these before, so I thought it would be about time. :) Just leave a comment on this post between now and...oh...next Saturday, June 20, and I'll put everyone's names into a random number generator and pick one! Please feel free to de-lurk to put your name in the hat. I always feel bad if my first comment on someone's blog is when they're giving away free stuff, but trust me: I will feel like I won a little battle if I get you to leave a comment. ;-)

What do I have to offer?

To start with, two skeins of Curious Creek Fibers Nakuru in the Early Sunset colorway. Each skein is 72 yards of an aran/worsted mohair/wool blend. I originally picked these up to make a pair of wristwarmers/fingerless gloves/something like that. It turns out that the several pairs of fingerless gloves I already own never get a full rotation because of this certain thing called a "warm climate" that we have going on here in southern California. Who knew?

In keeping with the light purple theme of this post, I am also including one skein of Malabrigo Lace in the Cuarzo colorway. 470 yards of merino numminess is plenty for a little summery, lacey goodness.

I'll be sure to find a few more nifty little tidbits to tuck into the package. So please leave a comment and celebrate my blogiversary with me! The more, the merrier!

I have also been up to a little something different this past week. See if you can guess from the photo. That's right, I took my first sewing class! I have been so inspired by all the multi-crafty geniuses I read about on the blogs, so I decided to go for it and try something new. I have never used a sewing machine in my entire life, but they have free (FREE!) sewing classes in the continuing education program through the San Diego community college system, so I showed up for their summer session. Unfortunately, a meager budget year means that they cut the course down to only five class sessions. But I'm optimistic that that will be enough time for me to learn my way around a sewing machine and make a little tote bag for my efforts. I'll keep you updated on my progress. Of course, I have no sewing machine of my own (and no way to afford one for a while), but I'm hoping that this class will be enough of an intro for me so that if I ever am in a position to get a machine, I will be able to teach myself what I need to know. After all, I taught myself everything I know about knitting and I think I've been doing OK so far. :)

Oh! And I just have to respond to a comment Jacey made on my last post. No, I have not actually knitted 13,000 yards of yarn so far this year. I have merely removed that yarn from my stash. This was done mostly by knitting it, but also through some destash efforts and the gifting of a sweater's worth of yarn to my brother. So...I cheated, a little, but it's helping me clear out my old stash and it's getting yarn to people who are more likely to use it than I am. :)

Into the Dye Pot

2009-06-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

Yeah, that yarn there on the right? The bright purple and tan yarn? (All together now: Eww!) I got the yarn as payment from J. Knits for some swatches I made for them a few months back. I ordered up two skeins of their Superwash Me Light Sock yarn to use to make a Tempest cardigan. The colorway photo on their (old) website made it look as though the skein was actually purple and dark gray. Not tan. (Ew!) There was no way in bleep I was going to put those two skeins together in one sweater!

To be clear: this yarn is lovely yarn. Soft, pretty, generous yardage. It will make a really really nice sweater. Just not in those colors. So I did what any self-respecting do-it-yourselfer would do: I got myself some black acid dye and a skein of cheap, bare yarn and went to practice.

I was stalled out for a while because I didn't have any suitable pots for dyeing. The local thrift shops were fresh out of pots, and even though The Brain brought home a ginormous beaker from his lab, it wasn't quite big enough. I finally bit the bullet and picked up an enameled pot from Target and went to work. I followed the exact directions with my first practice skein and ended up with DARK, DARK BLACK yarn. My goal was to turn the tan into a dark gray and tone down the bright purple a bit, not cover everything in black. So on my second practice skein I cut the amount of dye in half. It came out mostly black with a few light spots.

By this point I was getting impatient so I just threw caution to the wind and cut the amount of dye in half again, then threw my precious purple and tan (ew!) yarn into the pot. It came out looking quite nice, if I do say so myself. The tan had turned a light gray, and the purple was more subdued but kind of splotchy. I dyed it again, and this time it came out just right. Yay me!

When you place the two yarns next to each other, you can still see that the purple/gray yarn definitely has more of a warm tone than the gray/black yarn. I'm hoping it won't look funny when it's knitted up into stripes, but I'll take my chances. The difference aren't quite so drastic in real life. I think this may be my next project, after I finish up my sweater coat. It's not old stash yarn, but I deserve a break from that for a while, right? I also have the next installment of the Year of Lace coming up in a few weeks, so I will at least have some summer-appropriate knitting to do. :)

Call Me Crazy

2009-06-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

Hey, check it out: It's JUNE. June! When did that happen??? And what is up with the weather in California? It seems like we were having heat waves while the rest of the continent was digging themselves out of snowstorms, and now everyone is enjoying summery weather while we sit through weeks of mid-60s cloudiness. It's not the weather I mind (I do like that it's not scorching hot), but the fact that I have absolutely no way to measure the passing of time. People from northern climes often say that they like having four seasons because "you appreciate the good weather more". I say, ballz to that! I like good weather any way you slice it! BUT...this Minnesota gal can't tell winter from summer any more, and the months seem to go by in the blink of an eye.

I have been on a finishing kick lately...of sorts. I never have many projects lying around, so I don't know if you can officially call it a "kick", but I finally blocked my Little Birds and Laminaria. Both turned out well, but I will have to do FO shots later. Little Birds needs buttons, and Laminaria needs a photographer.

I started the Petal Halter ages ago, it seems, but have been having so many problems with trying to get the sizing right that I keep working on it for a day or so, then abandoning it for other things. I'm tall, so I'm trying to rejigger the pattern so I can make the length of the larger sizes, but I'm not very big up top so I'm trying to preserve the width of the smaller sizes. The problem is that the top is constructed in six "petals" that are knit individually, then sewn together two-by-two to create three layered tubes. Each petal is knit from the center out, then attached end to end with a second one. Because of the way the petals are constructed (knit sideways instead of bottom up), and because of the way they are angled and overlapped when sewn together, I am having a hard time adjusting the sizing.

I started out doing what I thought would work, but ended up with a tube that fell right off my hips when I tried it on. I ripped it all out (and ended up with 4 mini skeins of yarn), and started again. This time, the tube was much smaller, but is more suited for the bottom hip area than my chest (see photo of this tube sewn together). I made the next two petals much smaller than those, but I haven't had the heart to sew them together (see photo again). I'm afraid that they won't fit. If they don't fit, I will give up on this project. I don't want to face the fact that a project may have kissed my ass. A project, no less, that several other Ravelers have made and look great in!

So, in a fit of avoidance, I searched around for a new project to work on. I knew I wanted to use up some old stash yarn (look at the counter on the right--I'm over halfway down!), and I also wanted to use one of my pattern books that has not been used yet either. I settled on the Hex Coat from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature in Berroco Ultra Alpaca. No, you do not need to mention how ill-timed my choice is. I am fully aware that knitting up a knee-length moss stitch coat in a wool/alpaca blend is not the most logical of choices. In southern California. In June. But for some reason, it seems to be just what I needed. I already have one front and one sleeve done. Crazy!

Sad News About Yarn Forward

2009-05-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a bummer, especially after my previous post about how satisfied I am with my digital subscription to Yarn Forward: they just announced that the company who operated the digital version has suddenly and unexpectedly gone out of business. :( A disappointment, to be sure. Because the subscriptions are paid by the issue, no one is out any money, but I had really been enjoying the convenience, the price, and the paperless-ness of the digital version.

If they find another solution to the situation, I'll pass along the information. In the meantime, I suppose I'll buy the hard copies so I won't miss an issue. Thankfully, their most current issue just came out last week, so it will be several weeks before the next one.

And in answer to a couple of comments on my review:

The link to the Eden Shawl does work, but the shawl is not labeled in the picture. It is the first image shown after you scroll down below the cover shot.

My digital subscription began with Issue 13, and ended with Issue 14, which is the current issue on newsstands. I purchased Issue 11 (with the Callie Bib Tee pattern) off of eBay from this seller. I received it from the UK in less than two weeks, and in perfect condition (and paid less than I would have if I purchased it here in the States!). They have more copies, if anyone else is interested.

Yarn Forward Review

2009-05-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is a review of my recent digital subscription to Yarn Forward magazine. I received my first issue immediately upon signing up and downloading the special reader software. I have to say that I am very happy with the magazine overall and I would definitely recommend at least looking through the project previews for the type of projects they have.

The magazine has all the typical things you would expect: articles about techniques, events, and people in the fibery world, book reviews, advertorials, etc. Because it is a UK publication, the articles and ads concentrate on that region (as can be expected). They are not of much immediate use to me, but it is still quite interesting. They did a two-part (so far) article about formal knitwear/design education opportunities in the UK that was quite interesting. They also seem to do an article in every issue which highlights the fiber climate in other parts of the world. In the issues I have so far (13 and 14), they wrote about recycled silk yarn from India, and about knitting in Prague. Each of these articles has a handy sidebar with information on key terms from the article, key words and phrases, and even local yarn shops! It's pretty neat to see the different facets of knitting around the world.

In addition to all their articles, there are also the patterns, of course! There are 13 in each issue, primarily women's tops, but also one guy's sweater, one children's article, and a couple of accessories in each issue. My favorite projects so far are Niamh and the Eden Shawl (scroll down: it's the first image below the cover...kinda scarf-like) from Issue 13, and Morning Echo and Siena from Issue 14. I almost cast on for the Eden Shawl (they call it a "scarfwrap"...I thought that was cute) right away because I have some Malabrigo lace in my stash that has been looking for a project, but decided to use it for something else instead. I don't even know what attracts me to it: it's a reaaaaaaally long lace scarfwrap with the ends grafted together so it forms one giant loop. It's just...completely impractical (in San Diego) and would be a snooze to knit, but...it's one giant, removable cowl and who doesn't love that! They even seem to be doing some kind of mystery KAL, revealing new clues in each issue. As far as I can tell, though, it's just going to end up being a giant block afghan with different stitch patterns and colors. Hmmm...not for me.

They do something cool with the patterns though: every one has a size and yarn guide chart in both centimeters and inches, in which they lay out the bust size it is intended to fit, the actual size of the garment for each size, and the length of each garment. It's the same thing as a schematic, but in an easy-to-read table. And yes, they do have schematics too. They also include a chart that shows how much yarn the pattern will take for each size. For instance, if two sizes both call for 8 balls of Rowan Silk Wool DK, they will tell you that the smaller size takes 790 yards, and the larger size takes 870 yards. LOVE THAT! It makes it so much easier to substitute yarns! Another thing I really like is that they give you three yarn alternatives for each pattern, in three different price points: Save, Spend, and Spoil Yourself. I think that is so flipping cool!

I was a little disappointed with the photography because they didn't have many angles available, at least in Issue 13. They seem to be doing better in Issue 14 by showing the back of sweaters, detail close-ups, etc. But overall the photography is very good and of the quality you would expect of a professional publication.

Some good points about the digital version: the table of contents is linked to the page you're looking for, so there is no need to scroll through to find what you want. (Hmmm...except that the scarfwrap isn't even listed in the contents.) Any website mentioned inside the magazine is linked too, including the little "advertorials".

Some downsides: It is very difficult to size the reader to make it easy to read. It seems to have two settings: one so small you need a magnifying glass, and the other so large you have to scroll up and down and over just to read one page. I did manage to find an in-between setting, but then it doesn't let you shrink it back down. Also, the pages can be a little sluggish to turn at times, but that is expected with any digital publication.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the magazine. I only wish I had started subscribing earlier. I did end up ordering Issue 11 off of eBay because I like the Callie Bib Tee so much and I didn't bother to snag it while it was still in stores.

First Impressions

2009-05-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a whirlwind couple of weeks! Shortly after my last post, I finished up one of the secret projects I have been working on and sent it off to its new home. It was a sample sweater done on behalf of a designer, for publication later this year. I don't know a better way to say it, but I was just tickled to have the opportunity! I'll let you know when it comes out.

My other, larger, secret project is still on the go and still taking up SO. MUCH. TIME. But it's good and fun (and a little nerve-wracking) and I'm learning a lot. Hopefully I can reveal more about this in the next month or so.

These two projects (and a few days of migraine-ish headaches) have sort of slowed down my personal knitting time. Ironically, I was able to distract myself from my headaches by working on very complex lace. I know, right! (Dear god, I am officially a Californian. I just wrote out "I know, right!" Shoot me now.) ... (Not that being a Californian is a bad thing. But I try to maintain a level of dignity and sophistication, and uttering things like "I know, right!" or "That's the way I roll" - which you may remember was the phrase I chose to use at a job interview last spring to impress upon the interviewers my ability to handle complex emergency situations - kind of thwarts any attempt to convince people of these aspects.) ... (Come to think of it, I do A LOT of things that make me look like a fool. In the past two days I have: tripped on a sidewalk because I was looking at a tree instead of the ground in front of me, and only saved myself from a very public face plant by grabbing onto a picket fence for dear life; rolled over my own toe with the office chair I was sitting on at the time, and managed to get said toe jammed up in the wheel well; discovered, as I was getting ready for bed last night, that I had been wearing my underwear inside out all day without realizing it. Oh, and I guess now you can add "publicly shared my embarrassments to anyone with internet access" to that list.)

But I was talking about lace, right? Behold, my latest project: Laminaria. I'm only two rows away from the bind off. I'm going to miss this knit once I'm done! I wasn't expecting it to be quite so complex, but I can honestly say that it is the most complicated thing I have ever knitted. That's not to say that it was hard, but it definitely required concentration. I tried not to watch movies while working on it, and listened to podcasts instead. And speaking of podcasts, why has no one ever recommended Craft Lit to me?!? I know, I have no one to blame but myself. Craft Lit is one of those names that I hear all the time but for some reason never bothered to check out. Well I'm glad I finally woke up! I love it! In case there is a reader out there who is not familiar with Craft Lit: it is a podcast created by a former English teacher named Heather Ordover. She talks about knitting and crafting and so on, but then also plays a few chapters each episode of a book from LibriVox. She gives wonderful background on the authors and the settings and it is all so lovely and professional and I am so excited that I have 131 episodes to listen to! I know, obsess much?

Well, this post was supposed to be a review of Yarn Forward but it looks like I got off-track (was I ever on the track?). Next time, I promise!

Guess What I Did Yesterday???

2009-05-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

I finally got the last few rows of Little Birds finished, and I steeked it! I didn't bother to secure the stitches first...I was feeling lazy. And anyway, this yarn (Jamison's Shetland Spindrift) is like knitting with velcro. Those stitches aren't going anywhere!

I seamed the shoulders shut, and now all I have to do is six rows of garter stitch around the edges for the border. And hide those ends. Oh yeah, and buttons. I'm really bad about buttons. This sweater may never get finished. :-P

I also finally broke down and ordered a digital subscription to Yarn Forward magazine. At less than $4 an issue (with the current exchange rate), how can you go wrong? I really like the patterns that they show in their previews, and I'm hoping the articles are just as good. I'll let you know. :)

Catch-Up Posting

2009-05-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to catch up on in this post, so I hope you're ready! Here goes...

First off, the fabulous Leann of See Leann Knit nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award! Thanks, Leann! I love reading Leann's blog because her stuff always comes out looking professional and lately she has started spinning and dyeing up some very beautiful stuff, which she sells in her Etsy shop. Very pretty - check it out!

I guess I'm supposed to pass the award on to five other blogs that I like. Leann is on that list, but I think it would be cheating to pass it back, so here are five other noteworthy reads, in no particular order (I'm trying not to repeat blogs I have given some love to in the past, so don't feel bad if you're not on the list--I still love you, really!):

1) A Mingled Yarn - I originally found this blog through some of Elizabeth Klett's fabulous designs on Ravelry, and continued reading it because she creates some fabulous FOs. She sews too! Plus, she is an English prof so she's a smarty and gives good book reviews. :)

2) Shut Up and Knit! - This blog CRACKS. ME. UP. She says the things that I think but never say out loud. It's a good read. 'Nuff said.

3) The Yarniad - I originally started reading this blog because I saw some photos of her fabulous FOs on someone else's blog. I continued reading it because she continues to crank them out! Check out some of her original designs. I have plans to make my own Trina soon.

4) Sassy Does It - Another very funny blog written by a smarty with good taste. Have I mentioned before how much I enjoy smart blogs? One of my new favorites.

5) Knitting With a Y - Yes, another shameless plug for my little brother. He's just like me, except he's a guy, 10 years younger (10?!? Really???), and his FOs are always perfect. Oh, and he's a fabulous writer too.

I wish I could report that since my last post I have been a workout fiend, lost 10 pounds, and now have butt cheeks of steel. But...that post will have to wait. A long time. I have been working out, although no more than once or twice a week. But thank you to everyone who commented to let me know I'm not alone in this! Still very busy. Still can't talk about it (yet!). I know, it's obnoxious to say I'm working on stuff and then not talk about it. I hate it when people do that! Why bother mentioning it at all?!? I guess I just wanted to see what it's like to be one of those people who are always doing "secret knitting" and stuff. Umm...it's not really as much fun as you would think. :-P

But I did manage to find a sunny day and a photographer and get some photos of some FOs. Yay photos!

First off, my Flutter top, by Norah Gaughan. You may remember that the neckline is waaaay too tight, and that the armholes are bordering on cutting off circulation (see photo). I debated ripping it all back and loosening things up, but a few of you mentioned that the cotton should stretch out some, and frankly: I'm always willing to listen to people who tell me what I want to hear. So I'm considering this one done.

Secondly, I finally got some modelled shots of my Cassidy hoodie by Bonne Marie Burns! Not much to say here, I just wanted to post the pics.

And lastly, my Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark. I don't think I ever blogged about this. It was a super quick knit and I only did it so I could use up some of my old stash yarn. Love the Malabrigo Silky Merino, love the simple pattern, and I love the stash busting! It took less than two skeins and now I have a cute little shawlette/scarf.

Speaking of stash busting, I cheated a little and put some yarn up for sale that I knew I wasn't going to get to. I was amazed at how quickly most of it disappeared! If I had known it would be that easy, I would have done it a long time ago! :)

Running Buddy

2009-04-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

I am blogging right now because I am trying to avoid going running. It's not that I don't like running--I actually enjoy it. It's the time leading up to Going Running that I hate. It's just like putting off writing your thesis because you can think of a million other things that need to be done right now, even though you know that eventually you will have to bite the bullet and just get your *insertdreadedprojectnamehere* done. Plus, you feel so much better afterwards! My problem is that I started working out in earnest back in January--about 5 times a week--and for some reason I just kind of fell off the wagon recently. I didn't work out for almost two weeks! It's always hard to climb back on the horse after you fall off. (Yes, I am trying to add as many overused sayings to this paragraph as possible, thank you very much.) It didn't help that we almost hit 100 degrees here on Sunday and Monday. I was barely able to keep myself hydrated without adding a workout on top of it!

I subscribe to SELF magazine (and I'm not afraid to say that I love it!), and every year they do a three-month challenge with new workouts every four weeks. (They also have a diet plan, but I don't follow it because The Brain and I already eat pretty healthy most of the time anyway.) I've been following their workout plan, which is nice because it tells you exactly what you have to do and then you do it and you don't have to second-guess anything. It usually keeps me pretty motivated, but lately I've been getting kind of bored with working out in general. I think I need a running buddy. I used to go running in Minneapolis with my sister, but now that I live in San Diego and she lives in Silver Spring, MD, meeting up after work for a quick jog around the lake isn't possible. I live right by Balboa Park and there are joggers going up and down the street to and from the park all the time. I was joking with The Brain last night that I should just slip onto the sidewalk behind some runners some day, and just run about 3 feet behind them. I could pretend they were my running buddies! Problem solved! :-P

In addition to my good workout intentions and other super top secret Extreme Busy-ness, I have been spending a fair amount of time knitting. I mentioned in my last post that I had received my YOL (Year of Lace) and that it smelled like a perfume bottle. Well, the scent dissipated slowly and I was able to work on it for longer and longer stretches of time. I am now about 80% done with it, and will most likely finish it up in the next day or so. The yarn is very nice to work with and I like the color, but I'm still not enamored with the pattern. Oh well, part of being in a mystery club is taking what you get, right? I do have to admit that it is a highly unusual pattern, and I like that about it. I'll see how it looks like after I block it out. (Apologies for the blurry photo.)

I also finished up Flutter over a week ago, but didn't blog about it. That's because I tried it on and could barely get the thing to fit over my head! I knit it to the exact specifications, but I think the two rows of edging that you knit around the neckline may have pulled it together too much. I plan on ripping it out to see if it can be done more loosely. The other problem is that the armholes are just a touch too small. They kind of bunch up under the armpits. It would be great if I could take out the shoulder stitches and just add a few more rows, but then the sleeves would have to be re-knit in a larger size and I just don't think I have the urge to do all of that. We'll see. If it's still bothering me after I finish a few more projects, I might try it out. I do have enough yarn (for once!).

It's Here!...A Week Later

2009-04-16T10:40:00.001-07:00

I started this post a week ago, but then got sidetracked with More Important Things so I never got around to finishing it up and posting it. But it's all new to you, so it's still good. :)

My first Year of Lace shipment arrived last Thursday. I was so excited to open the package, and even more excited when I saw that the yarn was GREEN! My lovely green! If you remember, I have recently decided to embrace my lifelong love of green, hecklers be damned. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace, a 50% wool/50% silk blend, and it's absolutely beautiful. It is in a colorway called Mossy Grove, which is a variegated blend of (mossy) greens and browns. It's quite pretty, and even though I don't normally like variegateds, I absolutely love this yarn and I'm very happy to get a chance to use it.

The pattern? Ummm...it's not my favorite. It's called the Ancient Woodland Shawl, and it's designed by Miriam Felton who is no slouch when it comes to lace. I don't think you can see the details too well in the picture, but it is a two-sided shawl with images of three trees formed out of yarnovers and cabled branches. It's not the cables in lace that bother me (would you think I was lying if I told you that I have been sketching out a shawl with images of trees using cables for the branches?), but it's the miles and miles of stockinette. I'm not a huge fan of stockinette in lace. I think lace should be...lacy. It just looks pretty and complex and if I wanted a solid fabric I could always use worsted. Plus to me, the trees look rather anemic. They need about 5 times as many cabled branches as they have...but I don't think a lot of people would be up for that either, judging by how many people have expressed dislike for this project on the YOL group page on Ravelry. And finally, I'm not a huge fan of drawing little pictures in lace by outlining the shapes with yarnovers. MAN, I'm hard to please! ;-)

So far, working it has been a little bit of a challenge. I don't have the right size Addi Lace needles for it and my regular Addis are not sharp enough to cross four stitches at the back right after a yo. I had to go back to using my Knit Picks needles for this project, and I am reminded of why I like Addis a whole lot better! Another bothersome aspect of this project is that the yarn smells. Lorna's Laces must use some kind of scented wool wash on their yarn or something because the yarn smells like an old woman at a theater matinee. You know, the one who always wears waaaay too much perfume because she can hardly smell anymore, and who you always get stuck sitting next to out of all the seats in the theater, and by intermission you are so high from the fumes you would swear everyone on stage is floating three feet off the ground and you spend the entire intermission in the bathroom blotting your face with wet paper towels so you don't faint? Tell me it's not just me. There's a reason I don't go to matinees any more.

But anyway, the yarn is all perfumey and it makes me dizzy just knitting with it. So to the list of things to avoid when knitting cabled lace, I would like to add perfumed yarn right after alcohol and screaming children. I persevere because the day has not yet come when a lace project will conquer me with its overpowering stench...but I try not to work on it for long lengths of time either. :)

Some Randomness

2009-04-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be a jumble of random kinds of knitting stuff. My apologies in advance for not waxing long-form about one thing or another. Kidding! Wouldn't want your eyes to glaze over. ;-)

Well, as you may or may not have heard out there on the internets, the U.S. Year of Lace shipments were delayed and did not get mailed out last week as planned. Apparently, the yarn is coming from Oklahoma. But the Make One yarn shop is in Calgary. There is no sense in shipping yarn from the States up to Canada and then back down again. So the U.S. yarn is shipped to Montana, one of the women from Make One drives down and assembles the kits, mails them from the U.S., and hops back across the border. This time though, the post office in Montana decided not to hold the yarn there and shipped it right back to Oklahoma...meaning it had to be shipped *back* to Montana to be shipped to the knitters this week instead.

The Brain says it's all my fault because I have the worst luck with this kind of thing, and now I'm subjecting innocent people from all over the country to my particular brand of wonkiness. Even Jacey noticed it and commented on it in my last post! There is nothing I can do but apologize...and wait for my yarn along with everyone else. :)

Well, that left me in a lurch because my Little Birds is stalled while I wait for more blue yarn, and my Year of Lace yarn is criss-crossing the country. I was asked to knit up a sample piece for J. Knits: an infant dress, and I did that in three days. Yep, three days to knit the thing followed by one entire day trying to figure out how the heck to do the row of single crochet and row of reverse single crochet around the neck edge. It took *hours*. I'm not kidding. I felt like an ape who has just discovered tools while I sat there with my tongue sticking out the side of my mouth, manipulating yarn with this unfamiliar hooky thing. I really should learn how to crochet. It makes edges look so much nicer! And don't worry, I blocked the edging after I took this photo.

That still left me with nothing to do, so I went ahead and cast on for a simple project last night. Flutter, from Norah Gaughan Vol. 4, is basically just a v-neck tee with a ruffle down the front. I know I'm supposed to be using up my old stash this year, but I purchased a few skeins of Aslan Trends Glaciar del Cielo cotton at one of my LYSes in February. They were having a 25% off everything sale, and I considered it my birthday present to myself. Believe me, at 25% off an already low $3.80, I think it was OK. :) I don't normally knit with cotton, but so far I am really enjoying this yarn. It's suuuuuper soft and the drape is very nice, almost like bamboo but not shiny. I'm hoping to finish this one before my other yarn comes in and then I'll have a new top to wear for summer. Yay!

I leave you with some random photos from Balboa Park this past weekend:

Look! It's Almost a Sweater!

2009-04-04T09:40:00.001-07:00

See that? It's my Little Birds sweater. I'm only 16 rows from finishing. See that coil of blue? I bet you can guess what that is: the end of the line. I am out of blue yarn! I only need the blue for six more rows, but it is simply not going to last that long. Even if I cannibalized my swatch and all the ends from the inside of my sweater, and spit-spliced them to within an inch of their lives, I would be lucky if I got an entire row from it. Most frustrating is the fact that I had to wait six months for the yarn to begin with. I think it should be easier to get another ball this time though--last summer when the pattern came out there was quite a run on this yarn, but I shouldn't have that problem this time. Maybe I'll chuck a couple more balls (of a different color) into my order so I can make a Selbu Modern...I wouldn't want the rest of the blue ball to go to waste, right?

I was hoping to have this sweater all done before my first Year of Lace shipment arrived. I'm expecting it in the mail any day now (maybe today?), and I plan on jumping into it right away. But that's OK...this delay will let me do just that without worrying about leaving my birds to languish in a corner.

P.S. Thank you, Amy, for your kind words and thoughtful advice on my last post. Blogger won't let you reply to comments, so you get a public shout-out instead! The rest of you should check out her website--Amy sounds like good, fun people to me! :)

I Just Flew In From New York...

2009-03-30T16:36:00.001-07:00

...and boy are my arms tired!

No, I didn't go anywhere, but I was thinking about that joke earlier as I was working out. I'm embarrassed to admit that I had to have that joke explained to me the first time I heard it...but I was just a child, so don't jump to conclusions about my intelligence. I am an intellectual GIANT, I swear.

Haha. :-P

Thank you to those of you who indulged me and my rant in the last post. I was feeling a little bad about it, but the reality is that nothing I said is untrue, so I'll let it be. I have more to say on the matter, but I stuck it at the end of the post so you can find it there if you're interested. If not, fair enough: read on.

In actual knitting content: Look! Lots of birds! I finished the body up to the armholes on Saturday and started the first sleeve yesterday. I am pleasantly surprised by how quickly this is moving. I'm happy about that because I'm expecting the first Year of Lace shipment at the end of the week (can't. wait.) and I don't want this to fall by the wayside. I'm also excited to have it finished in time to wear in the skin-boiling weather this summer. (Kidding! This thing is a long-sleeved wool sweater. In San Diego. Yes, I am a huge dork.)

I was also the excited recipient this morning of the first yarn I earned from J. Knits. I'm not lying (or getting paid) when I tell you that they have some very lovely yarn. Plus, they have been super cool to work with, and I can't stress enough how fantastic that has been. First up: I ordered two skeins of their Lace-a-licious 100% alpaca lace yarn in the Minneapolis and Vermont colorways. I was expecting the Minneapolis color to be a darker, murkier teal like it is on their website, but it is a deep and vibrant teal instead. Not exactly my color, but since I never end up keeping any of the lace I knit (again, I am a huge dork), I don't mind too much.

I also got two skeins of their Superwash Me - Light Sock yarn in the Michigan and AC-136 colorways. I ordered these specifically to make Tempest, but I have to admit that I am disappointed with the AC-136. The color photo on their website makes it look like it has variegated grays along with the purples. But the skein I got has no grays at all, and instead looks like a flat natural color. The two do not go together at all, especially since the Michigan is less variegated than I was expecting (but still quite beautiful--I like it a lot).

So now I'm left with a conundrum, and maybe an opportunity? I like the yarn itself. I like the black skein. I want the purple/natural skein to work with it. Dare I overdye the skein? I have never dyed yarn before, so this would take a little experimenting. If I ordered some black dye and a skein of bare yarn (for practice) from Knit Picks, would I be able to acheive the desired results? I know the purple would get darker too, but I'm fine with that. I would hate to have this purple skein sitting around because it is very nice yarn and I can't imagine what else I would do with it. I'm not a huge variegated fan and I don't knit socks. So...any opinions? Pointers? Leann, you dye lovely stuff: do you have any expertise to offer me?

Wow, this post is much longer than I expected it to be. Sorry for that, and thanks for sticking with it! :)

The Rant (cont'd)

If I have to admit it, I am a bit bitter about the job situation at present. Every couple of months, a job comes along for which I match the requirements perfectly, would fit in line with my career goals, and which sounds interesting to me. I apply, but then I never hear anything. I was hoping to hear last Friday about a job that I am well-suited for, but Friday came and went and today came and went, and I never heard anything. I'm actually toying with the idea of putting my money where my mouth is and opening my own online yarn shop, since I seem to have some pretty strong ideas about how things should be run! ;-) (Any and all thoughts about that crazy idea are appreciated.)

Magazine Review

2009-03-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

After searching high and low for months, and pestering the staff of two local B&N stores, I was finally able to get my mitts on a copy of the latest issue of The Knitter. I missed the first issue, since even though the B&N shops had it in their system, and should have had it on their shelves, they never did. But they also only have 3 issues at a time, so in all likelihood they disappeared before I got there.

But today I was crafty: I called ahead and the woman said they had one copy left, but that she was not allowed to hold it for me. She did, however, hide it behind several copies of a sewing magazine on an adjacent shelf and I was able to find it, no problem. Now, normally a $13 price tag would make me hesitate, but I have only heard good things about the magazine from various online sources (until, of course, I got home with my magazine yesterday and read this post), and I liked the preview photos they had up from the first issue. And if this is truly the magazine for experienced knitters, then it's worth checking out, right? Besides, it is a large magazine printed on heavy, glossy, high-quality paper. From my initial glance-through, it seemed well laid out, with some OK patterns (that would hopefully become super cute! when I spent more time looking through them at home).

Sadly, the cringe-worthy design on the cover is pretty indicative of what I found inside, too. There are only 13(!) patterns in the issue, and EIGHT of them have been published elsewhere, in many cases several years ago. For this price, and with re-purposed patterns, I would have expected some earth-shattering articles too. As you can probably guess, those were non-existent as well. There was some paltry "article" about two-handed fair isle knitting, suited more for a beginner than something I would expect to find in a magazine aimed at the experienced knitter. There was also some blurb about favorite new yarns (which I don't pay much attention to because they're really advertisements in disguise), and favorite novels (wtf?).

Even though I used a gift card from my birthday last month, I'm still annoyed that I paid full price for this magazine, instead of spending my money on the issue of Yarn Forward with the cute tee pattern that I like. I have never read Yarn Forward, so I can't speak to its quality quite yet. (With an $11 price tag, I have always hesitated before.) But I like that they are starting to publish online. It makes the issues easier to get (no more calling a store a million times and having the staff member hide the magazine for me!), and you can order back issues cheaply and easily as well. The digital store doesn't quite seem to be working yet, but I will likely purchase Issue 11 once I get the chance.

Proof That I'm Still Here

2009-03-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

And still knitting!

I finished up those ginormous leg warmers for my younger brother, and they were received with much delight and frivolity, as evidenced by his Facebook album dedicated entirely to all the subtle sides of handknit legwarmers. I included just a sampling here. I had so much yarn left over from the legwarmers that I improvised coordinating arm bands and a head band as well. There is *still* yarn left, so I suppose I'll be knitting him some technicolor shorts next, just to complete the ensemble. (Fwiw, my brother is a theater and dance major, so the legwarmers truly will get some use!)

I also managed to finish up the latest in my series of swatches for J. Knits yarn company. This time they requested lace swatches in their Stunning sock yarn, and I have to say that if I was a sock knitter, I would be happy to reach for these socks. The yarn is sturdy, shiny, and quite soft after washing. I'm still waiting on my "payment" yarn, but the first shipment should be coming early next week, so I'll review that when it gets here.

Finally, I began my Little Birds sweater a week or two ago. It was set aside to work on the two previously mentioned projects, but I picked it back up over the weekend and finished up the ribbing. This sweater is becoming a comedy of errors for me. First, I ordered the specified yarn back in August from an online shop (no one carries it locally, that I could find). Then, I waited five and a half months for them to actually get it in stock and ship it to me. (Entirely out of their hands, so I was patient.)

I was super excited to clear the decks and get moving on this sweater, so I cast on in my intended size (34"), and knitted up half the ribbing. Then I slipped it onto waste yarn to try it on: waaaay too tight. I'm a slender girl with wide hips (thanks, Mom!) and I could not get the thing to overlap far enough. Nothing to do but rip it out and start over. But I only needed a little bit more room, and the next size up (38") was too big a jump. So I juggled the numbers and did the ribbing in a size halfway between the two.

I knitted up most of the ribbing again, put it on waste yarn, and tried it on: perfect! Although at this point, I discovered a small problem. The cast on is a time-consuming one which calls for you to provisionally cast on half the stitches with a larger needle, pick up the other half of the stitches with a needle two sizes smaller, fold the few knitted rows over and knit all the stitches onto the smaller needle, alternating by threes. (Sorry if that's confusing, but that's not the real point of my story, so don't worry about it.) Then you finish up the ribbing with the smaller needle and switch to the larger one once you get to the colorwork portion of the sweater.

Well...I had apparently been knitting the ribbing in the larger needle all along. So then I was left to wonder how it would look once I get to the colorwork portion? Would the colorwork look funny or sloppy on top of the ribbing? What was the point of doing the ribbing in a smaller gauge anyway? Should I just have moved up a size in the pattern, instead of doing all my fancy math?

Ugh. Too late. I didn't want to go back, so I kept knitting. I had to decrease down to the number of stitches called for in the pattern before the colorwork, because I didn't want extra room up top. I don't have a big chest to balance out my wide hips (thanks, Mom!). But I am tall, so I rejiggered the pattern to add another pattern repeat. This wasn't difficult, but it messes with the angle of the fronts and I won't be able to see how that turns out until the sweater is finished and steeked. From here on out I'll just be holding my breath and hoping everything turns out for the best. I do have a similar store-bought sweater that fits quite well, so I keep measuring that to see how this one compares. So far so good. :)

Next time: a magazine review. I finally got my hands on a copy of The Knitter!

Favorite Colors

2009-03-18T11:25:00.001-07:00

I've been on a purple kick lately. Not a royal purple, or a bright purple, but more of a lavender/periwinkle purple. Not a pastel kind, but...a light purple with a certain je ne sais quoi. I would blame it on my Autumn Arbor stole (which is obviously a darker purple), but I've had purple on the brain long before I started knitting that. For quite a few months, I couldn't get enough of light purple. I finished Autumn Arbor, and test knitted another shawl...in a periwinkle color I had to order online especially for this project. I even ordered a sweater's worth of merino/silk yarn from a Little Knits clearance. I've been doing more swatches for J. Knits, and they keep sending me nice purpley-lavender yarn and I couldn't be happier.

So it has been a little strange that in my mind, whenever I look at purple yarn, I hear this voice that says, "No, do it in green! Greeeeeeen! Not purple, GREEN!" Green has always been my absolute favorite color, but I have been very self-conscious of it ever since people started teasing me years ago about only owning green clothing. I think I only own one green t-shirt now, and it's a bright, neon green with a picture of a frog on the front. Not exactly a shirt I can wear anywhere respectable. And yet, in my head, I wear green all the time. I suppose it's similar to how people who lose a lot of weight say they still see themselves as the "fat girl" or something...I still see myself as "that girl who wears nothing but green good god what is wrong with her".

This is getting somewhere, I promise!

Through the purple haze of lavender/periwinkle, green has finally won out. What did it? My birthday present from my brothers:

That is 1100 yards of Claudia Handpainted 100% Silk Lace in the Moss colorway and a copy of Knitted Lace of Estonia, by Nancy Bush. That yarn is gorgeous. It is the most beautiful yarn I have ever owned. It is all shimmery blends of just the right shades of moss, olive, pea, and golden greens you can imagine. All I want to do is knit with it. I want to knit everything in this shade of green. Forever.

Too bad I don't own any other green yarn. :-P

(I would like to give props to my brothers for getting me such a perfect gift! I would also like to point out that this is incredibly impressive because not only are they both in college, but one of them is colorblind and sees orange when he looks at the greens, and the other one might as well be colorblind, since he picked out the yarn for me to make him these:)

Legwarmers for a 6'3" nineteen year old. Oy.

Birthday Surprises

2009-02-24T16:16:00.000-08:00

Also titled: Why I Love My Husband

Yesterday was my birthday. I am now Officially Old plus one. Except that I don't feel old. And I'm not depressed about my age, just the fact that I have no career right now. I'm blaming that one on the economy. If the economy wasn't horrible, I would have a career (hopefully one that I enjoyed) and life would be just peachy.

Besides, how can you be depressed about your birthday when your husband surprises you with a Year of Lace?!?!? The Brain, and here I have to give him a lot of credit because he has historically been not the best gift-secret keeper, signed me up for the Year of Lace over a month ago and never ever gave it away!!! Not even when I bemoaned the passing of the sign-up deadline, or sighed around the apartment one evening after learning that there were still a few spots left, or even when I was depressed about my lack of a job because I could have signed myself up for the club if I had the income at my disposal. (You heard that right--for a brief period of time, I actually wished I had a job not so that I could actually use my education or have a fulfilling career, but so I could buy yarn. I'm hoping a job will come soon and knock that out of my head.)

I am so excited about this club, I hardly know what to do. The first shipment comes in March and I cannot wait. Do I have the best husband, or what?

I will have a knitting update soon. Promise!

Project Update

2009-02-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

Haha! Here is a post I wrote a month ago and then for some reason never published...I was probably planning on including pictures or something. Here it is, more for archiving purposes than anything else. The projects I talk about are all finished at this point!

So, what do you do when you are obsessed with a large lace project for three weeks straight, and then you finish it? You look around frantically for the next project to lose yourself in, of course. Finishing a big project that you love is kind of like finishing a novel that you love. It's hard to cope without having that project or book to turn to in your free time, and you don't think any other project or book could possibly be as engrossing as the one you just finished. In fact, you kind of go through the stages of grief once it's gone:

Denial: My project is still over there by the couch, waiting for me to pick it up. I can't be finished with it because it has been part of my life for so long!

Anger: How can I be done with that project?!? It was so large and challenging--it was supposed to last me forever! I hate all other projects!

Bargaining: I will trade all of my old Ultra Alpaca for another evening of working on that project. Just let me not be done and I'll knit for charity for the rest of the year!

Depression: If I can't knit on that project, I don't want to knit anything ever again. Life is so unfair, and it's not worth looking at other yarns if I can't have the one I want.

Acceptance: Well, if I have to be done with that project, I'm going to make my next project that much better/bigger/complicated/fun!

So that was the plan. But instead of better/bigger/complicated/fun, I opted for the hidden enjoyment of a stash-down project. See, I have five skeins of Ultra Alpaca in the Ocean Mix colorway, which is a very pretty, deep blue/green color that is absolutely wrong for me. I do not look good in blue/green, no matter how pretty I might think it is. I spent a couple of evenings online, trying to find something to make with it and I finally, grudgingly (because I didn't even want to knit with the yarn) settled on Harper, from Pop Knits. And guess what happened? I fell totally in love with the yarn and the project! I think it is super pretty, and I can't wait to finish it and throw it on over a black t-shirt and jeans. Score one for stash-down!

But that's not all! My progress on Harper was stalled by my continued fascination with lace knitting. I actually volunteered to test knit someone's shawl pattern! I told her I could have it done in two weeks, and that was over a week ago. I'm halfway through Chart 5 of 6, so I'm nearing the end, but it's a faroese shawl knit from the neck down, so each row gets longer and longer as I go. Right now, a row takes about 15 minutes to complete, but I can see that getting up to about 20 minutes pretty soon. Still, it's a very pretty pattern and I'm quite happy with it. I haven't asked the designer's permission, so I'm not going to post photos, but I'm sure I will be able to when it's done.

Finally, I received a knitting request from my 18 year old brother who is a theater and dance major in college. I don't think I need to tell you how excited I am to be knitting knee-high legwarmers for a 6'3" boy in the Fruit Punch colorway. Needless to say, progress is rather slow right now.

Chugging Along

2009-02-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

Phew! Things have been rather busy here lately. It looks like the job market is going to pick up soon, and I've been keeping busy generating momentum on that front. I had lunch on Friday with a new contact in the theater world down here, and he gave me some more leads to follow up on so hopefully things will start looking up.

In knitting news, I totally finished my Autumn Arbor stole last week! I didn't get a chance to block it out until last night, but I was wearing it all over my cold apartment this morning and it's warm and snuggly and pretty and I love it. I did end up having enough yarn to do 8 repeats on each side, so it ended up being 12 inches longer than it should have been, but there was plenty of yarn left over. After a lifetime of things being too short, I never consider extra length to be much of a problem. :) I don't have any modeled shots yet, but I'll try to get some this weekend.

This was the first stole I have done in which I had to graft two pieces together. It came out pretty well, I think. I was careful to graft the two halves together very loosely, and then go back with a small crochet hook to tighten them up to the proper tension, so they match the rest of the stole. Unfortunately, there was a stretch of very light-colored yarn near the end of my grafting so it looks a little out of place, but I didn't care enough to do anything about it. This stole is for me and me alone, and it's perfect enough for me! :)

That stole knocks a ton of yards off my count. Only 19224 to go for the year! Unfortunately, after not adding any yarn to my stash since before Christmas, I did order some sale yarn and it all came in the mail today. I'll post more about that another time. But again, the point is not really to get rid of all my yarn, but to use up old yarn that's been sitting there for a while. So far so good!

Also, as an aside, has anyone else been trying to find copies of that new magazine, The Knitter? Cookie from Shut Up and Knit said she found a copy at her local Barnes & Noble, so of course I ran out there this weekend. Did they have any copies? NO...and they didn't have it in their system, either. In fact, they had old issues of IK out so I'm not really holding my breath with this branch. :( You know what's probably going to happen is that I will eventually find a copy after months of trawling through book stores and driving longer and longer distances in search of this elusive magazine...and it will totally suck. Anyone lucky enough to have a copy care to prove me wrong? How is it?

ETA (by suggestion of Julie): Here's a link to a little preview of the magazine. It is a British publication, but the publishers also have an office in California, so I see no reason why it would not be readily available here. In fact, Mason Dixon Knitting had a little contest about it last month, but ever since then I haven't heard or seen anything about it.

Down the Autumn Arbor (Woolen) Rabbit Hole

2009-01-30T16:09:00.000-08:00

OK, woah. I had a thing going. I was on a roll! A new post every day for what, three weeks!?! That has to be some kind of record!

But you wanna know what happened? I fell down the rabbit hole. Totally and completely. That Anne Hanson must add some powerful stuff to her patterns, let me tell you. I have succumbed to the magic that is the Autumn Arbor Stole. The wonder of the pattern combined with the beauty of the yarn is so strong that I knit too much.

Yes, sadly, I was only supposed to do 7 repeats on the first side before starting over and doing 7 repeats on the second side. (The two identical halves are then grafted together in the middle.) But for some reason I just kept on knitting and knitted up 8 pattern repeats before I glanced at the pattern to make sure I was on track. Oops!

I'm not going to worry about it too much. For one thing, I'm 5'10" so even though I'm knitting the "tall" size, I'm not going to object if I have more length than the pattern specifies. (Although...that would really only make sense if I wore the stole vertically, since I'll probably be able to wrap the thing around my body at least three times when it's finished.) But whatever...it's all about proportion, right?

The only thing is that there was one tiny knot in what I can only guess was the middle of the skein. That knot was...you guessed it...right after the 7th repeat. So if that was the middle of the skein, then I won't have enough yarn to do 8 repeats on the second side and I'll have to rip back the first side, splice the yarn together, blah blah blah. But I'm totally not going to worry about that right now. This stole is coming out so beautifully and the yarn is so lovely that I don't care about anything else. I highly recommend this pattern to anyone, and I definitely recommend purchasing the kit from The Woolen Rabbit. This yarn is to die for. Seriously.

* * * * *
In other news, I recently found my way to a new knitting blog through a comment. It looks like it will be a nice read so I'm looking forward to future posts. The blogger said in her first post that the first person to comment on her blog would get a necklace from her Etsy shop...free! Well, I was that lucky commenter, and her necklace arrived yesterday. I can't tell you how pretty this necklace is! I'm very excited about it, and it's hanging next to my computer so I can see it every day (until I wear it out, of course). Thank you, Julie, for such a lovely gift!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time...Again

2009-01-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

Once again, I seem to be living in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Although I guess you could argue that near the end of January, the right place to live is anywhere other than the Midwest. Or Canada. And speaking of Canada, The Brain was a little tweaked about the post in which I mentioned that large Asian food markets were not something either of us is used to, since he is from Canada and I am from Minnesota. He didn't ask me to say this, but I think he would like you all to know that he is from Montreal and that Montreal has everything, including Asian food markets, certainly. In fact, their Chinatown is so large that they built themselves their own hospital. Actually, you could probably say that if you can't find something in Montreal, there's a good chance that it doesn't exist. I did point out to him, however, that they do not have large Asian food markets sitting in a strip mall next to the Staples office supply store. He had to agree with that. In fact, Minneapolis does have several specialty food stores and world bazaars and so on, but also not in such a conspicuous location. I can think of meat processing shops (you know, so you can bring in your hunted goods and have them made into sausage and so on) more readily than I can think of an Asian foods market. But I digress.)

Wow! A whole paragraph of digressions! Fun!

To get back to my point...the American Swedish Institute opened their Bohus Exhibit yesterday, and I can't help but feel a little wistful about the fact that I spent most of my life trying to get out of Minneapolis (because of the weather only--otherwise it is quite an ideal city in which to live), and now that I am about as far away as I can get and still be in the continental United States, they have this exhibit and I can't get to it. It's probably just as well though, because I've been wanting a Forest Darkness (black) sweater kit for a while now and I might not be able to resist picking one up if I were there and given the current state of my employment situtation...I'll have to content myself with knitting up my stash.

Speaking of which, I just finished the 3rd repeat of my Autumn Arbor stole and I loooooove it!!!

All Laced Up

2009-01-22T21:07:00.001-08:00

Woohoo! I told myself that I had to finish up my Cassidy and my lace swatches before I could move on to my next big project...and I did! I still need buttons for my sweater before I can do an FO post, but I mailed the swatches off yesterday afternoon, so here are all the pictures. Sorry they're not as crisp as I would have liked--it's been really gray and cloudy here and let's face it, I'm no photography expert.

Just to remind you, I was knitting 6" x 6" lace swatches for J.Knits hand-dyed yarn company. I had the choice between knitting plain stockinette or adding patterns to the squares. Well, I don't know about you, but if I was going to be knitting that many squares with laceweight, I needed to do patterns for two reasons: a) it would be dreadfully boring if I didn't, and b) it gave me a chance to play with the yarn, test out some patterns, and learn more about lace and how it behaves.

The company only asked for 10 swatches, but I knit up 15 just in case some didn't turn out and also so they would have a choice about which ones they thought worked best. They sent me five different colorways: two variegated and three semi-solid. I have to admit that I liked working with the semi-solids best. Partially because I generally prefer semi-solids, and partially because (as we all know) the lace patterns tend to become obscured when they have to compete with colors. I tried to choose stitch patterns that had more stockinette for the variegateds.

I had a lot of fun doing these swatches. The yarn is a very thin laceweight--almost cobweb--and 100% alpaca. It is reeeeeeally nice. It's only the second alpaca laceweight I have worked with, and I like it so much better than the Misti Alpaca I used for my very first lace shawl a couple years ago. This yarn is very smooth and felt like silk. Lovely. I can't wait to get my hands on some of their giant skeins and knit up something full-sized and beautiful. :)

And the next big project that I cast on for? My Autumn Arbor Stole, by Anne Hanson! I ordered the kit from The Woolen Rabbit last fall when the pattern was first released and I have been itching to cast on for it ever since. I love this pattern, and I am in love with this yarn too! I love it so much that I even ordered a second kit for my brother's birthday last November (he got the green colorway). I really love merino laceweight yarn, and this yarn is so soft and sproingy but not too tightly twisted, and the color changes are so subtle when it is knitted up that it gives the fabric greater depth and looks so lovely. I'm actually twice as far now as I was when I took this picture. And check out those huge yarn cakes! I had to cut the yarn in half because it comes in one giant 1650-yard hank! This is definitely some yarn I will be working with in the future. :)

Ta Da!

2009-01-21T20:20:00.001-08:00

I finished Cassidy!

Finally...I thought that hood and those button bands were going to be the death of me. I desperately wanted to cast on for my next big project, but I knew that if I did before I finished the sweater, it would be too warm to wear it once I finished.

Oh, wait...I'm not in Minnesota any more. It's in the 70s here. I may never get to wear this sweater.

Which brings up another thing I've been pondering: I love knitting sweaters. I have a lot of sweaters already, and I'm likely to keep adding to the pile. I'm running out of room to store all these sweaters. Herein lies the question: is it crazy to get a second dresser to house all of the sweaters that I keep knitting but which I never get to wear?

Don't answer that.

I Don't Know About You...

2009-01-20T10:06:00.001-08:00

...but I'm breathing easier already. :)

Near Misses

2009-01-19T19:04:00.000-08:00

OMG! It turns out that Anne Hanson was at Balboa Park last Friday, mere blocks from my house! If I had known she was going to be there, I would have camped out down there all day so I could accost her and gush. Actually, getting close enough to make sure it's who I think it is and then playing it cool and ignoring the person is more my style, but I'm ignoring that part.

After the little photo shoot yesterday, The Brain and I drove out to a shopping center I found online which was supposed to have a Japanese book shop. I have been wanting some Japanese stitch dictionaries for a while and really don't want to pay the high shipping costs from ordering them online so I was excited about the opportunity to browse through the collection first-hand. Well, it turns out that the book shop is actually inside an Asian grocery store! (Sorry, this is a first for me. I'm from Minneapolis and it's not like we have giant Asian food markets everywhere.) So while I picked through the bookstore to find the knitting section, The Brain wandered around the market.

I came up empty-handed. They had a fairly sizable knitting section, but it was half knitting, half crochet and mostly full of pattern books for children and accessories. The Brain, on the other hand, was ecstatic to find out that they had a deli counter that sold freshly-prepared sushi ingredients! (Again, we were a bit outside our element. And he's from Canada--again, no large Asian markets.) We've been wanting to make our own sushi for a while now but weren't quite sure how to get the proper ingredients. Problem solved! Plus, the prices were really nice. We didn't make our own sushi yesterday, but we did pick up some pre-made lunches and gorged ourselves at home. YUM! We'll be back, so look for some sushi-making posts soon! :)

FO Post: Central Park Hoodie

2009-01-18T16:20:00.001-08:00

At long last! My Central Park Hoodie FO post! Actually, because I was running out of yarn and omitted the hood, and because I live a couple blocks from Balboa Park, I christened my version the Balboa Park Hoodless. Kinda catchy, no?

The Details:
Pattern: Central Park Hoodie, by Heather Lodinsky
Yarn: Filtes King Extra Stampato in Olive, 15 balls
Needle: Addi Turbo sizes 7 and 9
Size: 36"
Mods: No hood, added length to sleeves and torso

It only took me a week to knit up all the pieces for this sweater, but then I had to head out of town for Christmas. Once I got back, I blocked the pieces and seamed them up but realized I didn't have enough yarn to finish the sweater as written. I knit the button bands and then picked up stitches all the way around the neckline and knit in 2x2 ribbing for 9 inches or so.

I probably could have gotten away with a hood if my swatch hadn't lied. The swatch didn't grow much when I blocked it, but man! Those sweater pieces grew like you wouldn't believe! It was all I could do to pat them back into the size they were supposed to be when I was blocking them. Each piece had easily stretched out about 6" longer than it should have been. This is some stretchy-ass yarn! I bought it from one of Elann's closeout thingies and I was really nervous about how it would turn out. (But really, at ~$30 for an entire sweater? It was a risk I was willing to take.) It's a strange sort of 8 (10?)-ply merino yarn in which half of the plies are the main olive color, and the other half are a variegated mix of oranges, whites, yellows, blues and greens. It could either blend together really well, or it could end up looking like a circus. You can see the detail of the yarn best in the collar pics. Bottom line though, this yarn is quite soft and squooshy. I can easily see myself grabbing this sweater to go run errands around the neighborhood, and I actually think that having no hood makes it a bit more wearable (for me).

I'm not too sure how many opportunities I will have to wear this sweater though. There I was out in Balboa Park in the middle of January and I was SWEATING BUCKETS! I'm still not used to the weather down here. It's like we're stuck in some timeless paradise while the rest of the country is dealing with snowstorms and power outages and the like. There were actually butterflies flitting all over the valley behind me. Butterflies in January?!? Dude, I am so not a Californian (yet). I made sure The Brain got some of the palm trees in the picture. Please excuse my smile/sneer. There is a reason I'm not a model (aside from the obvious people, please). Also, the bangs are a recent and impulsive acquisition and I'm not quite sure I can rock the look. My hair is just too fine to pull off a nice thick fringe, and without it I feel like I'm back in high school circa 1994. But you're here to see the sweater, not criticize the model, right? (Who am I kidding? We all do it.)

Oh yeah, one other thing: the sleeves do seem a bit snug, just like gloriana pointed out in her blog. I hadn't realized this was a common problem until after the sweater was finished. Good thing the yarn is so stretchy! It really is quite comfy all around. :)