yarn for dinner

2010-01-25T09:09:00.000-08:00

Hey, so if anyone is actually still following this blog, good for you! If you're interested in following something I'm actually planning on updating on a regular basis, check me out here: http://cucumbersoupbooks.blogspot.com/

Thrope

2009-04-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

So I've been getting some comments about my election hat, specifically people asking about the pattern. Sorry about the long delay (and also that I didn't mention this in my original post), but the pattern is Thrope by Kristen Kapur (rav link).

Hope all is well, been bookbinding more than knitting lately, if I ever get myself together I'll post some photos!

Doily

2008-11-24T05:48:00.000-08:00

So it's been a bad week. Two tests and two papers, an interview and inventing a portfolio to go with said interview (yes, I graduated, yes I'm still taking classes, you just can't keep me away). Said portfolio should show things like internship experience, classwork, and hand skills. The hand skills area was lacking so I decided to knit something impressive (at the very last minuet of course). I went for Spiralen.

I freaking hate lace. I never thought I hated lace, but I do. Everything seems relatively simple: I read the instructions, I understand the instructions, I follow the instructions, and I end up with the wrong amount of stitches at the end of the row. Also starting knitting in the round with only 8 stitches on size 3 needles was one of the hardest knitting things I've ever done. Shouldn't have been, but it was. But the good news is since I had to start over so many times (about 12) I'm now really good at knitting in the round with only 8 stitches on size 3 needles....

At first I came up with this, which only vaguely looks like the pictures in the pattern. I was confused. Then I realized that the "plain knit every other row" direction only lasted until row 12, yet I of course had continued it all the way through because I am so good at following directions.

Everyone told me this was lovely. It was fantastic and great for my portfolio. I of course thought it was crap because that is not what it's supposed to look like. So with little time left before I actually really needed a finished portfolio and when I actually should have been doing schoolwork, I made a new one, the correct way (and it goes a lot faster when you're not adding extra rows....)

Election Hat!

2008-11-05T05:56:00.001-08:00

I have this thing with hats, namely that I hate them. Or let's say I hate wearing them. I think I look stupid in most of them, although I realize that they're really nice to have when it gets cold. So I keep knitting them, at least one a winter, in my eternal quest to find a hat I don't hate. While watching very exciting election coverage last night I knitted this (well, the vast majority of this, I started it Monday night).

Yes, I am a lazy blogger and instead of using a camera I use Photo Booth....

The yarn is some cone yarn I picked up many years ago from Webs. It's way bulky which I don't really like, and it's 100% wool so it's rather not so soft, and I have a ton of it that I don't know what to do with. I don't even know what the stuff is called.... The white is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. This is a lovely knit, very quick, easy, and I like it! We'll see if I wear it. Now to wait for this unusually warm weather to end.... no, I don't mean that, don't end, stay as long as you'd like.

innocent drinks

2008-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many have heard about this from other place (ie/ Mason-Dixon Knitting, which is where I heard about, yesterday, so I'm probably way behind on the game here), but check out all the tiny hats that are going on innocent drinks!! Oh, if I only lived in the UK, I'd drink an innocent drink with a tiny hat.

2008-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

I keep thinking of things to post and then I say to myself I need to take a picture of that so I can write a blog about it, but then I never take a picture so I never blog about it (excuses, I know), so perhaps I shall start a pictureless blog (which isn’t any fun, but I’m doing it anyway).
For the past month or so have had a burning (yes, burning) desire to finish a sweater. Any sweater. I’m usually a pretty monogamous knitter but right now I have three (three!) sweaters going, for various reasons, all of which refuse to finish. I was working on that blue thing with the cables from last post for a long while and then the sleeves would not end; I kept knitting and they kept not growing and I got frustrated. And I’m going to have to buy another skein of yarn anyway and redo the waist shaping because somehow I managed to make simple increases and decreases look like crap, so that has been put to the side for now.
So I started the Dutchess Raglan, because the only yarn I have in abundance enough to make a sweater is a random cone of Classic Elite Yarns Newport, which I got on sale at my LYS a year or so ago ($5 cone!). It’s way heavier than what I usually go for but I’ve had it forever and I felt I needed to do something with it. So I knit away on my dutchess raglan but was once again thwarted when I arrived at the sleeves as I do not own any size 9 double pointed needles which is exactly the size I needed to make the sleeves happen.
So what to do other than pick up kaleidoscope, which I abandoned last year not because of sleeves but because I chose to knit it in such a freakishly small gauge it just stopped getting larger (much the same problem as the sleeves from the first cardigan I mentioned).
So now I have size 9 double pointed needles but since kaleidoscope seems to be moving along now I think I’ll stick with that for awhile. And that’s the saga of my multiple sweaters right now, all of which are only half way finished. Perhaps when one starts to work out for me I’ll take a picture.

2008-06-19T19:25:00.001-07:00

Hi,
So I'm not good at blogging, I'll admit it. For awhile there I was doing quite well, but recently (read: past year), not so much. I was upset about my procrastination for awhile (as I often
thinking about blogging), but recently I have embraced my sporadic and undependable blogging habits. And so I present to you: the baby sweater I finished in April:

If you think it's awesome and want to knit one too you can find the pattern here (http://wishingiwasknitting.blogspot.com/2007/07/baby-jiffy-knit-sweater.html). I made mine in Knit Picks shine DK weight. Soft, pretty and machine washable and dryable, no complaints here.
And I had just enough yarn!

Actually I didn't have enough yarn and the arms look slightly too long, although in reality the body is a little too short. So it goes.

I also graduated

Yay art cons for being nearly the smallest major in our freakishly huge university!

Then I started this sweater, which looks very crinkly in this shot.

I also am doing cables. I didn't use to like cables (in a how they looked sort of way, not in a how to knit them sort of way), but now I've changed my mind (good story). And cabling is really fun.

I'm just winging it, as always. This is my first real person (vs fake person or child) top down sweater. I'm enjoying being able to try on as I go but I don't feel too secure with this method yet. I'm using the four skeins of Green Mountain Spinnery's Cotton Comfort that I picked up at a sale last summer. So far this yarn is super great and you should use it. Will it be enough yarn to finish? Most likely not. Why do I always have this curse? Always There's an easy solution: buy more yarn the first time around, stupid....

Also, fresh chickpeas:

In a pod and on a plate

Bright green!

They're pretty good too :)

arts and crafts

2008-04-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

So it’s been awhile, yes. But knitting has been happening. Well, sort of. Crafty things. As well as a lot of school things and plenty of freaking out over what is happening after school is finished. After four years of preparing to go into either history or museum studies I have finally decided on library conservation. So yeah, I wasn’t expecting me to spring that surprise on me. I think it’s definitely the right thing to do (how can repairing old books all day not be the right thing to do?), but seeing as I spent my undergrad career skimping on the art and chem classes I need to take a year off to catch up on that good stuff. And then I need to go to school for many, many more years. This in itself is not a problem, but I would at some time like to make some sort of salary so I can actually, um, move out maybe? Yeah, that would be so awesome right now.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re all enthralled, onward to arts and crafts:

Over spring break I drug out the sewing machine; the very old, very awesome, very avocado green sewing machine. Box bags were made. (http://dragoknit.blogspot.com/2007/02/box-bag-tutorial.html)

Directions confused me so much at first, but I caught on. You have to be very clever to come up with these sewing things, I would never have thought of this.

Originally I wanted to make an art supplies bag but the first one wasn’t big enough for paintbrushes, thus my only option was to make a second, larger one.

Sorry for the bad angle, the other one turned out blurry....

And since I was working on art supply storage, I made this thing to keep/organize/protect my brushes.

And it wraps up like this, how nice!

I also decided that I want to make an afghan, so I bought 12 balls of Lion Brand Jiffy yarn. I know! But I decided the acrylic was a good decision because a) I think machine washable is a must for all large blanket things and b) I’m too poor for superwash wool. And it’s working out alright, very soft and easy to work with. Does not rip out well. At first I made the whole thing too wide, and with only 12 balls of yarn it would have ended up not very long at all, so ripping out was necessary. The yarn sticks together and doesn’t hold up so well, so don’t make any mistakes with it and you’ll be fine. Oh yeah, and it’s crochet, I thought I’d give that a try. I will say that things are going a lot faster then it ever would with knitting!

And some knitting, yes. For a friend’s future child, it’s the Baby Jiffy Knit Sweater (http://wishingiwasknitting.blogspot.com/2007/07/baby-jiffy-knit-sweater.html). I don’t know what’s so jiffy about it, it’s not going so jiffy for me. I never seem to have the right number of stitches at the end of each row but everything still seems to look alright and it’s turning out to have a really pretty stitch pattern. Gage and size info on this pattern is also rather vague, so I really don’t know what size I’m making here. I chose size 4 needles with Knit Picks Shine Sport. I’m just hoping I don’t run out of yarn, I seem to have a habit of doing that.

And so that’s what I’ve been spending my time doing, along with writing papers about medieval architecture and doing tedious color mixing projects such as this

Later dudes

things that people make

2008-02-27T15:18:00.001-08:00

This is a terrifying thing to walk through

In Peruvian Andes this is this place called the Sacred Valley. It’s very pretty (this is an understatement, but I want to talk to you about yarn, not about how pretty Sacred Valley is, so we’ll leave it at that) and it’s rather hard to breathe there because of the altitude but you deal because it’s so pretty. It’s known for its Inca sites, and if you go you will find a lot of very poor villages filled with indigenous people. The Inca social system (not just Inca, but nearly every Andean society before it as well) was heavily based on the creation of textiles – textiles for offerings, for taxes, for weddings, funerals, etc. Some of the finest textiles could have thread counts higher than your sheets – your good sheets. And in the Sacred Valley there are still people weaving these things today. We visited a weaver’s co-op in Chinchero, Peru where they prepare, spin, and dye their own wool, and then proceed to weave it. And so, here are some lovely pictures.

Woman spinning. I did not see one spinning wheel the whole time I was there (that being in the whole of South America), they seem to only use drop spindles - that's a lot of spinning

Hand dying yarns

They only use traditional, natural dyes. These are examples of what is used to make each color.

Weaving belts

If you so happen to want to see more pictures of Peru (and Chile!) I have tons, and you can see them here http://www.zooomr.com/photos/beckylynne/sets/

I'm back!

2008-02-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

Hi there!
Yes, its been a very long time since I've posted something. But I have a really good excuse, I was in South America, and they don't always have the internet there. Regardless, it was good times. I went with school and we restored some 1,000 year old textiles that were found in mummy bundles (which actually makes them rather gross because they were covered in 1,000 year old "body resin" ie/ dead person juice). We did other things too, like tour northern Chile and southern Peru; we were at Machu Picchu for my birthday.
I was expecting more yarn, seeing as nearly all the yarn you find here seems to come from South America, but not so much. I saw lots of alpacas and llamas and sheep and other such animals that yarn is made from, and I found lots of textiles and people weaving and spinning; but I found very little actual yarn for sale. I think it might be because everyone who does the textile thing down there also knows how to spin (like crazy, I have a great video that I'll post when i figure out how to post videos), so they all spin their own yarn. I did find a bit though, a few random balls floating about in the corner of stores. Really I didn't even know if they were for sale half the time, but everyone was willing to sell whatever you were willing to buy, so I have some yarn. Pictures later, I still haven't finished unpacking....

Now.... a meme about books! Which I was tagged for a long time ago by Dancing Knitter, but I've been a bit behind on my blog reading (ummm, so I have 287 entries still left to read....) and I just found it.

I recently finished reading:
Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird. And it's an awesome book that you should read. Let's see, how can I sum this up in a way that will make you want to read this.... It's about a Lawyer named Danny, and he's from Northern Ireland, but now he works in London. And one day his deadbeat friend from home shows up at his door. And there's terrorists. And it's rather funny and I really loved the characters and would like to be friends with them in real life. Here, read this summary, because this man is much better at summarizing than I will ever be: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article385756.ece

Turn to page 161 of the book, and read the 5th sentence. My book says:
"When Geordie came back into the living room carefully carrying the brimmed mug of tea, Ian had the money in three neat piles, all with the Queen's head on top. "

this is a lie, it's is not the 5th sentence but the 7th, because the 5th was very boring. Yes, I'm cheating, it's my meme I can cheat!

List of some of my favorite books:

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2. Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
3. Beowulf
4. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
5. Sabriel, Garth Nix

And I don't know who reads this, so I tag whoever sees this, and then leave me a comment and I'll check out what you have to say about what you read.

2008-01-30T19:52:00.000-08:00

Hi all
Just thought I'd let you know I'm not dead, just in South America. And there's yarn here! More next week, hope all is well!

cardigans!

2007-11-21T15:20:00.000-08:00

I love cardigans. So much. There are very few patterns that I come across that I say “wow, I need to knit that NOW.” Every once and awhile I will find a sweater, sometimes a hat, never once a pair of socks. But I’m all about the cardigans; my Ravelry queue will attest to that (btw, my username is “brunhilda” if you want to be my friend!). Currently I’m knitting Kaleidoscope, which I will not show you another picture of because it looks nearly exactly the same as in my last post. This morning I checked MagKnits and found this pattern, Basic Black, that I immediately fell in love with.

This one could either be awesome or look like it’s for an old man. It’s a toss up.

The Mrs. Darcy Cardigan intrigues me, but I’m not sure I can pull it off. I’m afraid I might…. pop out of it, let’s say.

And this Drops cardigan has an awesome circle thing going on.

If there are any cardigans you like I’d love to hear about them :)

Oh my, it’s an update

2007-11-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

But only a quick one. Although this blog is really worthy of a long, in depth one seeing as I haven’t been paying as much attention to it as I should be, but things are a bit hectic. School has kept me busy enough, and along with that there has been grad school freaking out, internship applying, and class choosing. I’m taking the GREs on Thursday, which is not helping me to stay calm about anything. I’m also going to South America in January on a study abroad, so there’s be a whole lot of that to organize. Apparently there’s lots of diseases that can kill you down there, and if the germs don’t get you the Peruvians are going to violently rob all of us rich Americans. I guess they have to push the worst case scenario, but it’s not really helping any of us to stay calm about this.

Anyway, aside from that, knitting has been happening, I have lots of FOs to show you, very few of which you were even aware that I even started. And I think I’ll throw a few non knitting pictures in there just to liven things up a bit. Let us begin:

Tiny birthday elephant for my mom. Sorry the pictures are bad, I finished this late at night and her birthday was the next day, so he had to be wrapped up. So it goes, just take my word for it that he’s cute.

Cell phone for scale

All wrapped up for mom!

(Make your own!: http://www.innerchildcrochet.com/patterns/tiny_white_elephant.html )

Pretty flowers Paul brought me when I got my wisdom teeth out (which sucked). He also brought many DVDs of The Office with him. We watched 19 episodes in two days, this part of getting my teeth out was fantastic.

Yarn on sale from Knit Picks. Shine Sport in Crocus (which looks nearly exactly like the Orchid I made the Summertime Tunic out of), Shine Worsted in Sea Spray (which I am quite excited about. When I saw it on the computer I was afraid it might be ugly in real life, it’s not), and Shadow in Redwood Forest. I have more than is shown here, I just didn’t think you needed to see 5 balls of the same color.

Remember that baby my cousin is having? So this is a sweater for it. It’s coming along, slowly by surely. Except it now needs to be coming along quick and speedily since her shower is on Sunday. I can nearly guarantee the hedgehog is not getting finished, that might turn into a Christmas present.

In Knit Picks Swish Superwash in Deep Ocean and Dark Navy. Pattern here: http://fpea.blogspot.com/2007/01/free-pattern-friday-mossy-jacket.html

Mister Quinn:
Kaleidoscope sweater from MagKnits a few months ago. Has been put on hiatus for baby knitting. Going super slowly anyway, and I’m having second thoughts about my gage and my yarn choice. We’ll see how this goes. Knit Picks Essential Solid in Dusk. (Yes, I live for Knit Picks).

Pattern here: http://www.magknits.com/Sept07/patterns/kaleidoscope.htm

Dinner! I made it, all by myself (and yes, this in itself is an accomplishment)! And it was really good!

So I lied, that was only one FO. But so it goes.

2007-11-05T06:01:00.000-08:00

Dictionary.com's word of the day today is "woolgathering"!
My dictionary.com word-of-the-day email has this to say about woolgathering:

woolgathering \WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:

Indulgence in idle daydreaming.

Similarly, in the meadow, if you laze too late into the fall, woolgathering, snow could fill your mouth.
-- Edward Hoagland, "Earth's eye", Sierra, May 1999

It would be easy to slip off into woolgathering and miss a deadline.
-- Jeraldine Saunders, Washington Post, March 4, 2004

Plagued by guilt, they took refuge in wine, women, and woolgathering.
-- Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

The soprano roused Fergus from his woolgathering.
-- Sandra Brown, Where There's Smoke

Woolgathering derives from the literal sense, "gathering fragments of wool."

I think that's great! My local yarn shop is called "A Woolgathering," and now I totally get it.

Real post on tuesday if school doesn't kill me!

slight problem

2007-10-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

So my cousin is having a baby (yay!), and all babies deserve a hedgehog, so I started one. When I went through my first wave of making these things, I took Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool (I think….) and dyed the yarn with cool-aid. It was much fun and resulted in my kitchen smelling super fruity. On my first attempt I made enough for a full-sized hog, yet decided to make a mini-hog instead, leaving me with lots of left over orange yarn (note: poorly dyed orange yarn. I don’t remember what I did wrong, but I ended up with a tie-dyed effect. So it’s a groovy orange hedgehog). But obviously I use more than half the amount of a large hedgehog to make a mini one, and I have run out of yarn.

Oh man, there’s only about 10 rows left. Since this is the part with the fun-fur it’s not extremely important to match the color exactly, but I am going to need some semi balance of a cool-aid orange color. So I guess I’ll get on that soon enough….

In other news, there is a yarn shop near me. That’s right – a local yarn shop! I’m very impressed. I live in the middle of nowhere (oh yes, this is farmland. There are amish people.) and I was really not expecting anything of the sort popping up around here. But the closest town, Kennett Square (the mushroom capital of the world – that’s right people, the whole world!), has been adding a lot of new shops lately, one of which is a yarn shop. (look, they even have a website! )

Now most of their stuff is expensive, or let’s call it normal priced. But I’m a college student and normal priced yarn is really pretty expensive in my world; I don’t have $50 to drop on a project. But it’s nice to look and touch and inhale and generally be around awesome yarn.

Last weekend though, Kennett had a sidewalk sale. I was so there. I picked up this awesome stuff, “Cotton Comfort” by Green Mountain Spinnery. I’m really excited about this. Probably irrationally so. But it’s just so pretty! I have no idea what to do with it yet. I’ll keep you posted.

2007-09-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

The hedgehog is finished (awhile ago, yes) and is off to it’s new owner somewhere (co worker’s nephew?). As I previously mentioned, this is a mini hedgehog. When I originally bought the pattern I went through a phase of making one for everyone I ever knew, and I didn’t have the money or the time to buy the stuff and make things that big. When you split all the numbers in the pattern in half you end up with some wonky stuff. The end result is a lopsided holey mess, and then you get really worried and think that this was a horrible idea and that you wasted all this time and you’ll have to go out and buy more yarn and start all over again. And then you felt it and realize that you were absolutely crazy, seeing as felting fixes everything.

Once again, Yarn is Patton’s Classic Wool in “Natural Mix,” and the hair is just your generic green fun fur. Less than a ball of each.
Buy pattern here
And he did not turn out looking remotely bald, as feared at one time.

The summertime tunic is also finished. Well, to an extent. It needs a bit of tweaking, which is why I am not showing it to you yet. It needs a ribbon first of all, and it’s overall a bit large. I didn’t take negative ease into account, seeing as it’s supposed to be rather floppy I didn’t think I needed it. Well, I was wrong, it’s plenty floppy. This yarn (Knit Picks Shine Sport) is supposed to be dryer-friendly so I thought I’d give that a try. I originally didn’t make a post-dryer swatch because I was never planning on putting this in the dryer (I don’t put a lot of my clothes in the dryer, it’s okay), so I guess I’m going to have to get on that to figure out if I’m going to create a monster if I do put this thing in the dryer. Don’t expect an update until next summer, fall is here and I won’t be wearing anymore summertime tunics for awhile….

PS
This may sound really dumb, but is there any way for me to respond to comments? I would really like to say hi to you, but your email isn’t listed. Or am I crazy and I just don’t see it? Am I missing something? So I’ll say here, thank you for commenting and I think you’re all awesome even though I haven’t figured out a way to tell you that personally.

doggies!

2007-09-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

I think it’s about time I start talking about my pets. It seems like it’s the thing to do, I know all this stuff about your (“you” being those in the knit-blogging world) pets, but I guess I’ve been keeping mine a secret.

A little over a month ago our dog, Annie, passed away. She was a very pretty girl, with a great sense of humor (yes, dogs think things are funny too). She was 12 years old, and we miss her very much.

After a few weeks we all decided that, although we weren’t ready for another dog, we definitely needed one. We’re just that kind of people - the kind of people who like dogs. So after some searching (petfinder.com is awesome), we picked up this little guy.

This is Quinn. He is a foxhound/beagle mix, and he’s really sweet. Since we got him from a shelter we don’t know exactly how old he is, but we’re guessing 3-4 months.

He’s adjusting very well to his new home. He loves being outside and eating things he’s not supposed to eat. He’s already gained 4 pounds and grown an inch or so since last week! (granted, he was a bit too skinny when we picked him up from the shelter).

Our cat, on the other hand, is not adjusting so well. All Quinn wants to do is make friends and play, while all Mittens wants to do is scratch his eyes out. Ah well, they’ll figure each other out at some point….

On another note, if anyone is looking for a pet, I highly recommend your local adoption center (rather than a breeder or a pet store). There are no-kill shelters all over the place (I was very surprised by how many there are! How didn’t I know about them?! Check them out on www.petfinder.com) who could really use your support. They take pets that are brought into them, but many also take animals out of high-kill shelters to give them a real chance at finding a home. Usually, they have a coordinator who sets the dogs (or cats, or whatever) up in foster homes, and their foster parents will bring the dogs into the center by appointment if someone wants to meet them. If a home is never found, the foster parents will take care of the animal for the rest of their life. On the other hand, the woman we got Quinn from keeps all the dogs in the bottom floor of her small home, while she lives on the top floor. Any dog that is not adopted she keeps – she has six so far! These people do all this while at the same time keeping full time jobs to support their adoption centers. So if you’re looking for a pet, don’t forget about these places!

2007-09-10T20:26:00.001-07:00

a little about-me meme to fill up space while I knit you something interesting to post about

Three things I fear:
1. heights
2. driving in cities
3. dead bugs. live bugs are better than dead bugs….

Three people who make me laugh:
1. paul
2. king john
3. john cleese

Three things I love:
1. chick peas (seriously)
2. summer
3. lectures on the black plague

Three things I don't like:
1. coffee
2. bubble gum
3. the color yellow

Three things I don't understand:
1. chem lab assignments
2. cooking
3. french

Three things on my desk
1. a box of cereal
2. mini gummi bears from shady maple!
3. the awesome modern-art thumb-shaped vase I made in ceramics

Three things I am doing right now:
1. lying on my bed
2. filling out this meme
3. yawning

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. get my PhD
2. go to europe
3. live

Three things I can do:
1. eat three meals a day consisting of only breakfast cereals
2. play the clarinet
3. walk down the street

Three things I can’t do:
1. sleep past 7:30 am (at least recently)
2. have a deep and meaningful conversation over the phone
3. remember my right from my left

Three things you should listen to:
1. your professors. at least the ones who have tenure
2. bug noises at night in the summer
3. God

Three things you should never listen to:
1. loud noises, as they will damage your hearing
2. negative people
3. ugly noises

Three shows I watched as a kid:
1. david the gnome!
2. pinky and the brain
3. alf

happy summer!

2007-08-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

Classes begin again next week. I can’t say I’m ready for them; this summer hasn’t been the most relaxing thing that has ever happened. But so it goes, most of it was lots of fun anyway. My internship was great, I learned so much and made some really great friends, and re-made some really old friends (my best friend from kindergarten worked in the same museum, how odd!). Perhaps most importantly I have realized that if all I did everyday for the rest of my life was conserve art, I would be thrilled.
I got very little of what I wanted to get done this summer finished. I did not finishing reviewing for the GRE, I did not read the 15 articles about paper conservation necessary for this internship, I did not relearn Spanish (I’m going to Peru in January!), and I did not do a complete deep clean room purge that my room so desperately needs. I did knit a fair amount, although not as much as I could have hoped.

First, I finished this dude, Hannah Kaminsky’s Baby Alligator.

Paul was nagging me to make him something or other, and what can say I love you better than a baby alligator? Let’s see here…. nothing.

Very very cute. Great pattern, easy to follow (and I hardly know how to crochet). I can’t tell you about the yarn because it came from the random unmarked acrylic stash. I can’t tell you about the yardage because I wasn’t paying attention. I can tell you that my only modification was to make a tongue out of red felt instead of crocheting one out of red yarn.

In progress, another headgehog!
A coworker’s sister is having a baby, and she saw one of these guy’s in my mom’s office and thought it was great. She requested tan and green – I have never made a two toned one before, and I’m a little worried that he’ll end up looking like he’s balding, but we’ll see.

As you can tell, he’s not felted yet. Once again, the half pattern, not a full sized hog.
Yarn is Patton’s Classic Wool in “Natural Mix,” and the hair is just your generic green fun fur. I used less than a ball of each (maybe only half, in fact).

And for me, Interweave Knits Summertime Tunic.I’m using Knit Picks Shine Sport in “Orchid.” It’s much more…. bright than I thought it would be from looking at it on the computer. I thought it was more purple, while it’s actually more pink. That’s okay, it’s still a very pretty color, and if I end up hating it I can always dye it. This pattern is insanely easy (thus far), it’s pretty much just a tube. Yep, one big tube.

The ribbing gave me problems, that I mentioned in my last post. The solution that I found helped, but it still doesn’t look wonderful, I guess the only way to remedy the issue entirely would be to learn to knit continental style. Alas, maybe next summer….

2007-08-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

So I have this problem. Whenever I knit a ribbing, it looks really wonky, like I'm knitting it way too loose or something. Yet this is most certainly not the case, since I consciously knit much more tightly while making a ribbing to adjust for the problem, yet this never seems to help whatsoever. After finally admitting that I had a problem, I began to search for an answer, and I came across this wonderful post at nonaKnits. I thought I'd share it with all you lovely people in case you, too, had a problem with wonky ribbing.

Slow pokes

2007-07-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve been wanting to make one of these guys for awhile now, but not knowing how to crochet was a major hangup. But since they are soooo very cute, I finally took the time to actually sit down, read some directions (*gasp*), and figure it out. Seeing as I learned from a random website, I really can’t say if I’m crocheting correctly or not (my biggest question is what is the right side? Did I make these inside out? Can anyone who knows tell from these pictures?), but it seemed to work okay.

My first attempt turned out to be a huge man eating snail. More scary than cute. The only crochet hook I owned was a size bigger than the recommended, but seriously, this is four times the suggested size. I probably also used fatter yarn….

Although the concept of a man eating snail is awesome, I was still going for more cute than awesome, so I went and bought another crochet hook (I now own two!).

More like it, yes? He’s still larger than called for, but still very cute.

2007-07-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

I started a baby sweater awhile back. I don’t know why, I know no babies, none of my friends are soon to have babies of their own (or are thinking about babies of their own…. or are married….). But I had two balls of shine worsted that I’ve always wanted to try (why did I only purchase two balls? What can you do with that?). So I decided on Daisy which is a lovely, simple pattern. Yes, I did do the math – I figured out how many yards of the suggested yarn was used, and then figured out how much yarn I had, and I decided that I had plenty to make the sweater. Obviously, I did something wrong.

So, until I get more yarn, this project is at a standstill. One thing I did learn even though I only got halfway through the sweater is that I LOVE this yarn! Why didn’t I realize that I had such awesome yarn in my closet? It’s way soft and I really like the way it drapes. I began this project right after I was done with Honeymoon and the difference between the two yarns is night and day – I am definitely buying loads more of this stuff.

Honeymoon

2007-07-10T12:58:00.001-07:00

Finally, a finished product!

Size: 34
Yarn: KnitPicks CotLin
Modifications: Skipped the lace border and used a tubular cast on. I attempted to make it longer as well, yet I seem to have completely failed at that since it is not nearly as long as I was shooting for.

I’ve decided that I don’t really like this yarn. Now, I haven’t had very much experience in the cotton/linen yarn area, so compared to other yarns of this type this could be great stuff, but I’m not too fond of it. The final product is not very soft, and it pills a bit (not that this in itself is a great problem, but I’m afraid that it foreshadows future pilling of unmanageable proportions). While knitting I didn’t have much of a problem with it, it’s not too rough to work with or anything like that. It didn’t hold up too well to ripping out and re-knitting repeatedly though (I had a bit of a rough start). The conclusion: this yarn is okay. Not good, not bad, just okay.

As for the pattern? Fun stuff. I enjoyed it, it’s interesting yet not remotely difficult. Good TV knitting, and the end product is lovely. As mentioned, I would definitely want it longer, and I underestimated how much longer I would want it. So if you’re making this and want to increase the length, don’t be afraid! You’ll have to work to make it too long. Other than that I certainly recommend it!

2007-06-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I have been a neglectful blogger. But I have a very good excuse: I am dumb.
So, the end of last semester was nearly hell. There was no time to anything other than research, write, study, eat, and occasionally sleep. And in the middle of this, for some reason, I decided that it would be awesome to take a summer class, and then I thought hey, I still have lots of art con requirements to fill, how about I take TWO classes this summer. And then I got accepted to an internship position, and then I was offered a job at the library. At the time I thought this would work out just fine, since both of these classes were art classes, and therefore involve little to no homework, so although I wouldn’t have that much free time, the free time I did have would really and truly be free, not free time that should actually be spent doing research. But in reality we all know things don’t work like that. My photography class involves lots of extra time in the darkroom, and I failed to realize that Newark and Wilmington are 20-40 min apart, depending on the time of day. So in reality, I’m spending much of the week working/classing/driving from 9:00am to 9:00pm.
The good news (I’m not entirely dumb, I do go to college), is that there’s only 2.5 more weeks of this. My college is weird because it squeezes in two summer sessions, so my classes end very soon, and my internship will end a month after that. And then I won’t know what to do with myself I’ll have so much spare time.
In knitting news, the Honeymoon sweater (tank? whatever) is finished. Actually, it has been for quite awhile, but I just got around to blocking it last weekend. I also started a baby sweater (just for kicks, I know of no babies or future babies), but then I ran out of yarn (awesome). But I’ll tell you about that later because I think everything is told better with pictures, but I don’t have any right now.

2007-06-03T14:11:00.001-07:00

See this stuff:

I bought all of it today. At one time. And no, I did not spend all the money I have ever made in my short lifetime – not even a large portion of it….

My mom and I went out today so I could get some clothes for my (super awesome) internship (I’m stabilizing and repairing sketches from the 1950s – it is very neat), and we discovered that the Hancock Fabrics near us is going out of business. This in itself is relatively sad news, you never want to see a fabric store that is actually within driving distance go out of business. But this also means that they were having a sale. A really huge sale. An everything is 70-80% off sale. And this is what I left the store with (after two trips, I just didn’t feel I took advantage of this situation enough the first time around).

Things were relatively picked over, as the store closes in eight days, but I still left with some good stuff. Two spools of quilting thread (750 yards each! ooooh), some yarn, needles, and lots of fabric, most of which is 2-3 yards, and some remnants.

Here’s the interesting fabric:

I have no idea what I’ll do with this stuff, but it’s always nice to have. I know I’ll use it at some point, and I don’t have much of a stash (well, I didn’t….)

And the yarn:

(it’s from “Dynasty Yarn” in case you’re wondering, as brilliant me didn’t think to turn the label to face the camera)

Normally I would have never chose orange yarn, but this was the only yarn left. At all. I know the place sold yarn, but I guess I was too late for that. But I’ve always wanted to try ribbon yarn, and it’s always rather expensive, so I went for it. And I am a strong believer that there is a time and a place for all things; eventually, I know I will find something that will be absolutely perfect for this yarn in this color, whether it be for me or for someone else. I’ve also never tried bamboo needles, so I guess I’ll get to try that too! (aside from this, there was only a set of size 16 needles left – the knitting section was very picked over).

And what did I spend? About $43. :)

2007-05-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve started on Honeymoon, and thus far everything has gone smoothly….

I’m knitting it size 5 needles and I’m getting not getting gage. When I attempted to knit to gage it didn’t look good at all, much too loose. So I’m getting 22 sts per 4 in rather than 20 sts, and knitting it in a size smaller. According to my math, this should work out just fine, but you can never be too sure when it comes to me doing math.

I decided that I don’t like the lace border all that much. I’m just not a lacey kind of person. I’m more of a no frills plain and simple kind of person, so I’m sticking to stockenette the whole time.

I also attempted a tubular cast on. I did not go over so well. I grasped the concept just fine, I made a trial attempt before I tried the real thing, and it also went just fine. But when you’re casting on almost 200 stitches it’s really easy to get confused somewhere along the line. And that’s exactly what I did (at least) four different times. But, eventually, it worked!

I don’t think I will ever try this cast on for something that involves this many stitches again. Perhaps a sweater that is not in the round, but there’s just too much room for error on something this big. And it takes way too long to do it all over again.

As previously mentioned, I’m using the Knit Picks CotLin. I have the feeling it’s going to pill, as I’m getting a lot of fuzzies while knitting. It also didn’t hold up well to the immense amount of frogging that was involved with my cast on. But it’s soft on the fingers and is easy to work with. We’ll see how it holds up with wash and wear!

oh look, a real post

2007-05-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

So, I wrote this just about two weeks ago, and I just took pictures now. So think in the past while reading....

Everyone, meet my bag:

Awesome. It holds things very nicely, just as it was intended to. I can’t say anything about the pattern as it has no pattern other than that which exists in my brain. The fabric? Well, it’s 100% cotton, and came from the discount rack. The lining is also 100% cotton, but came from the quilting section. The buttons came from a box on my shelf. So yes, I’m very sorry but I can not help you reproduce this thing, but feel free to try it on your own if you so desire.
My main goal here was pockets, and pockets there are! I keep all my important expensive things in the large back pocket with the zipper, thus they won’t fall out.

(it's hard to take a picture of an inside of a bag...)

Outside pockets for pencils and calculators (button holes are really fun to make….)

The strap I made much too wide. For some reason I thought it would look good; it does not. I always fold the strap over, and then it looks just fine.

**so, my strap picture turned out super blurry, so use your imagination

In other news, my art history class went to New York last weekend. It was the first time I’ve been to NY, and I must say that it was awesome. Awesome in the awesome for that one day sense, not awesome in the I want to live there sense. No, I’m not a city person at all. But that’s another story entirely.

First we very briefly went to the Met. Just for an hour, and just to look at the medieval room (seeing as this is a late medieval art class). I have to say, I’m in love with this museum and I think I need to go back some time. Yes, it is a need.
We met lots of deceased religious figures:

Then we went to the cloisters, which if possible was even cooler than the Met. And I think I want a cloister now. Except without the monks. Not that I have a problem with monks, they just tend to come with cloisters and I don’t really need the monks so much I just want a cloister.

We saw lots of very old column decorations:

Then to the cathedral of St. Patrick to get a look at a gothic – type building. It was nice, I was not completely in awe though. Maybe I was just getting tired. It was still cool though.

And here’s an action shot of my bag, which accompanied me on my trip:

2007-05-07T14:36:00.001-07:00

Once again, a lame not real post. But things are quite hectic right now. I have one major grade-altering project, paper, or presentation due every day this week, and then my huge history paper is due on Monday. SO, next week you should expect an exciting post, but I'm not making any promises as I may have a nervous breakdown before then. In the meantime, to celebrate this lovely weather, here is my favorite poem:

in Just-

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee: e.e. cummings

2007-04-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm not dead, it's just that time of the semester when all the research papers are due. SO, I do have a very exciting post regarding a bag in the works (I just need to get around to taking some pictures), and hopefully that will be finished soon. Until then, please remember that I love you all and that research papers are annoying.

yarn yarn yarn

2007-04-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

Ahh! You wouldn't believe how windy, rainy, and gross it is here for April. Not very pleasant I tell you....

Yarn that you get through the mail always looks so squished and sad when you first take it out of the bag.

As you can well see, I went with the pink. Now, usually my first instinct is to go with green. Always always always go with green. Always. But then I thought about it, and realized that since I always go with green half my wardrobe is green, whereas I own nothing that is remotely pink. And so, we have Island Coral.

I also got this stuff, just for kicks.

Now I don't know what I'll do with this, seeing as it's only 50 grams, but we'll see. Something not very big I guess.

Also, my bag is done and it's lovely, but I think I'll talk about it in another post or else this one will turn out way long and no one will actually read it.

In other, more sad news, my computer crashed last weekend. It was a sad day, I must say, especially since this happened to me once before just about a year and half ago. It wasn't the end of the world because I make sure to back everything up once a semester, and I immediately back up all my pictures. The only thing I lost was some rather important research from this semester, but I think (hope) that most of the damage is repairable since I have a habit of writing everything down on paper (what can I say, I love computers dearly but I'm just the kind of person who needs things on real paper in my own handwriting).
Now I love Macs dearly, I really do, I have always been and always will be a Mac user, but this actually made me reconsider for a moment, especially since the last time I had to have my hard drive replaced it cost me $300.
But then I stopped reconsidering after my wonderful boyfriend reassured me he could fix my computer himself. So we headed out to Best Buy, bought a $70 hard drive that is TWICE the size of my broken one, and he put it in for me. He tells me that it's a much better hard drive than the last one and thus shouldn't break on me. We'll see....

I highly recommend dating an electronics major. They come in really useful sometimes.

Thanks in advance!

2007-04-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

So i am planning on knitting this with this. Could someone who knows more about yarn substitution than me please tell me if this is a good idea or not?

And while you're at it, what color is better for this pattern? The Coral or the Green?

2007-04-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

The sweater, it is finished. Well, not officially finished, there is no ribbon on the inside. But I think that’s alright, because after wearing the sweater I realized that you can’t see the inside of the zipper most of the time, so it’s not ugly. I was expecting for it to stick out like a sore thumb, not so much.

Can't see the inside of the zipper!

Installation itself was surprisingly easy. I was expecting some horrible horrible thing to happen from all the accounts I’ve heard and strong warnings telling me to make sure the zipper is in straight and etc. Basically, I pinned the zipper in where I thought it was straight, basted it in with lovely red thread and tried it on, and decided it was still straight, then consulted my mother who agreed with me, and then sewed it in. And it was straight.

Note the awesome red thread that you probably won't be able to see unless you are so inclined to make this bigger

I sewed it in by hand, quite honestly I don’t trust a sewing machine with my hand knit objects. Nor do I see how that would actually work – wouldn’t it stretch out the fabric (thus making it not straight)? I don’t know, people keep claiming that it works.

In other news:

My bag is going alright. Lots of basting. I’ve discovered that basting makes me hate the sewing machine less – less time involved in front of it, as I can baste somewhere else and then quick sew up what I need to. But it’s going slowly, and now that school is back in session don’t be expecting this to go very speedily.

using yellow thread this time instead of red thread.

I managed to break my first sewing machine needle last night (aww, significant events in a sewer’s life, we should scrapbook this). I couldn’t exactly ask mom how to fix this situation since it was quite late and she was asleep, so I’m proud to announce that I replaced the needle all by myself! Of course in the process I managed to do something (I have no idea what) that makes the thread break while sewing. This I could not figure out how to fix by myself, and will need to consult mom about tonight.

I’d also like to apologize for the sad looking pictures I post on here. I look at other people’s blogs and they take awesome pictures of their knitting. I can’t seem to create artful knitting photos so I apologize if they’re rather uninspiring.

Opinions welcome

2007-03-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

So I need a new bag for school. I’ve known that for a while, but as of today I’ve reached a new level of needing a new bag, and very soon it won’t be so much a bag anymore as a cylinder I can carry around on my shoulders.

So I’ve been thinking. Yes, thinking. And I think that I want an awesome bag. It needs to have a pocket for everything, so nothing gets squished and nothing gets lost and I always know where everything is and there’s plenty of room for everything. But where can I find this bag? A bag that will have a place for my keys, my camera, my wallet, my phone, my ipod, my gum, my pens, my notebook and any various books or food I want to carry around with me. Oh, and it also need to have a miscellaneous spot for everything else (I’m a commuter student - when I get onto campus I stay there all day, so everything must come with me).
I don’t think that this bag exists. Remember, it must also be awesome.
So I’m going to spend my spring break making a new bag (don’t worry, I won’t start until I finish my sweater).
Check out this Monk's Travel Satchel (note – this is a pdf file). I love this bag! But there’s a few problems. Or one problem, and that being that it’s knitted. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem for anything, but after putting a lot of thought into it I don’t think this would be the best idea. I put my bags through a lot of hard times. This thing will pretty much be an extension of my being until it dies, and I don’t see something in a wool/cotton blend holding up after being thrown around, kicked around, and stepped on. I’m also worried that it’s going to stretch out - textbooks are really heavy (really heavy).
So I think I might take this idea and use it to sew a bag. Now I have sewn bags before (maaaybe I’ll show you a picture sometime if you’re really good), so I know I can do it, but do I want to? I don’t have a lot of patience for sewing. For some reason I want instant gratification with my sewing projects. I’m not like that with knitting, but if I’m sewing (at a sewing machine, I’m alright if I’m doing it by hand) I want it done right now, and I will sit there until it is finished. So if I’m planning on sewing this, I have to be willing to devote at least an entire day to sitting in front of the machine, going slowly insane. But the result will probably be more practical and durable.
But the knitted bag is just so awesome….

various....

2007-03-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

No! I have not been knitting. But I miss you all so I thought I’d tell you about how I’ve not been knitting.
I believe I have chosen a zipper for my sweater. Actually, I have chosen two.

First, I bought the dark one. It is 18”, which is a slight problem because the sweater opening is 17”. But, quite honestly, I know nothing about zippers. When I got there I discovered that they only make them in even inches (or at least that’s the trend that I saw), so 17” was not an option. Interesting. I also have no idea if you should lean towards too long or too short if you come across this kind of problem. My gut says “too short” but they didn’t have any zippers I liked in 16”, and I am sometimes an impatient person and I wanted my sweater done right then, so I bought the 17” zipper that is a color that doesn’t really go with my sweater to being with. But then school started, and although I really wanted to finish my sweater, that was no longer an option.
So then a few weeks later I went to a different craft store, and they had the perfect zipper, right size and right color, but it’s reversible. I decided that I don’t care. So now if I really want to, I’ll be able to reverse my green sweater. I don’t think I’ll want to.

I also bought two ribbons to line the inside, one on each trip. I really like the plaid one, but I don’t think I want it for my sweater. I think it would be a bit too flashy.Not that the ribbon in itself is flashy, I just think that if someone sees it they will be more likely to look at the ribbon than the sweater. The second one is a bit more toned down, it should work alright.
I hope to install it over spring break. I have never installed a zipper before – this should be interesting!

And now since I’ve neglected you for so long and this is a rather boring entry anyway, I’ll post some random pictures:
You know what I really like? Candid pictures of people with no explanation as to why or what situation they were taken in. I don’t know why. I love looking through other people’s photo albums. Posed shots I find boring, predictable. It’s the pictures that are taken when no one realizes their picture is being taken that are the good ones. They don’t need to be amusing or really interesting in any way, I just like them. So here are some candid shots of my friends, I hope you enjoy them. Or at least are not incredibly bored by them.

knitting ADD

2007-03-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

I haven’t had much knitting focus since I finished my sweater. I’ve been thinking about starting one thing or another on and off; I see one thing and decide it’s the best thing ever and I should knit it right now, and then I decide it’s ugly a few hours later. Half of this is probably because I don’t have a stash of yarn on hand. I can’t go “oh, let’s knit this with all of this lovely yarn of one uniform type and color that I have right here.” Nope, not going to happen. So whatever I choose I need to find the yarn for. And seeing as I am a rather broke college student, the yarn recommended for said project is probably going to be waaaaay to expensive for me. So I need to find a substitute, and quite honestly I haven’t spent that much time with different types of yarn to know what is a good substitute for what, and so the result is usually me getting really frustrated about the whole thing and giving up. No, really, it's fun.
So, instead of working on something productive, I’ve been doing this and that. I’ve spent far, far more time looking at potential yarns and pattern choices than knitting. I guess this is probably a good thing, because if I started a project I’d be more interested in working on that than doing any real work.
Hopefully I’ll find something good to work on during spring break (preferably something that can be finished during that one week time span. Yes, I need instant gratification.)

…. It’s a sweater!

2007-02-14T20:36:00.000-08:00

That’s right, a fully completed sweater appears, seemingly out of thin air – how does she do it?

Usually a knitting blog is used to document your knitting; that is, your knitting adventures and misadventures, not just completed works. But I didn’t really want to share this project with you until it was completed because I was making it up as I went along – that’s right, no pattern. And the last time I tried to wing it I made this ugly thing, that although was definitely a sweater, was definitely really, really ugly. I didn’t want to share with you my progress and then have the end result be something so hideous I didn’t want to share it – that would just be mean.

But actually, it turned out just as I expected it!

Why didn’t I use a pattern? I couldn’t find one I liked, quite honestly. I like plain things- I don’t really like the look of cables, I didn’t want colorwork, by no means did I want something lacey, I wasn’t interested in ribbing, or stripes or fluff or frill. I also wanted it to fit, nothing baggy or box-like. I just wanted your normal, everyday sweater. Patterns for them are really hard to find. Actually, stuff like that is really hard to find in clothing stores too (i.e. non-stretch jeans).

I love this yarn! Moda Dea Washable Wool. I highly recommend it. I have nothing bad to say about it. It knits nice, it washes nice, I have no idea what it does in the dryer since I haven’t put it in the dryer, but I’m sure it’s nice in there too!

After washing I followed my mom around the house trying to find a flat place to lie the sweater down to dry. Because my mother is brilliant, she came up with this idea – it’s two (clean) window screens on the sides of the bathtub! So ingenious! Since air could get to it from all sides, it only took a few hours to dry!

It still needs a zipper, and when I get to that I’ll be sure to keep you posted. I’m thinking that I want a big, fat, metal zipper – we’ll see if I can actually find one.

Oh yes, and Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s a rather snowed in day here, or more like iced in day as there was heavy sleet all night. Did not make for a good time shoveling. Classes were cancelled until 10:00, but I still couldn’t get out of my driveway by then (our road hadn't been plowed yet), so I had a very good excuse for skipping chemistry….

2007-02-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

Just a teaser....

In other news, spring semester has begun! My classes look great – Anthropological Collections Care (I just had to write a paper for that about polyester needle-punched felt, how odd! I love it), Chemistry (okay, well I kind of hate that part, but nothing’s perfect), and THREE medieval classes! Three! Medieval Philosophy, Medieval Art History, and a seminar on Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I can’t think of a better combination!

2007-02-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

Hello all, it’s been awhile.
And I don't even have a knitting entry for you - just some clay.

Now that I’m an art conservation student as well as a history major, I need to take art classes. Many, many art classes. And I just finished my ceramics class. It was a so much fun! If you ever have the opportunity to take a pottery or ceramics class I highly recommend it.

Here’s some of my wheel work. I always thought this looked really easy; it’s not. First you have to center the clay on the wheel, which I found to be extremely difficult. If you don’t have your clay centered you’ve got nothing, it just bounces around in your hands and is completely unmanageable. Finally though, I caught on, and once you manage to do this you’re good to go. Something just clicks, one minuet everything seems completely impossible, and then you realize what’s going on and you’re suddenly an expert at centering clay. It’s a really great feeling.

Beyond that, I seem to still have problems making sections of my work too thin and they fly off the wheel while it’s spinning. Or somehow force the piece to collapse in on itself, or don’t apply pressure evenly and make it lopsided. But really none of that bothered me at all since wheel working is so fun! I could just sit there all day and make nothing in particular, just play with the same lump of clay.
Oh, and a word of advice, this is very messy work. Very messy. Not that it’s a big deal, white clay is entirely washable, but still, don’t expect to leave the studio without clay on your clothes (or on your face…. or in your hair…. on your cell phone, on your pack of gum, on your shoes, on your backpack…. Well, I was a bit messier than most).

This is some non-wheel work. We did quite a bit but this is my favorite.

2007-01-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

Remember how I told you it was 70 degrees out? It’s definitely no longer that warm. It’s more like 30 degrees with a wind chill that makes it feel more like 12 (it’s quire windy today).
But I’ve been in Florida for the past week visiting family, where it really was more like 70 degrees. And while there I went thirfting. I love thrifting, but there really aren’t any good thrifting places near me. There’s always Goodwill, but I can never seem to find any knitting related items there. Yet at the local church thrift store on Pass-a-Grille island, there always seems to be plenty of crafty things - I attribute this to the over abundance of old ladies in the area. Remember the mystery yarn? I got it here.
This time I found no yarn that I especially liked, but I found these beads:

And a dot snappers kit which I find so cool. There aren’t too many snaps left, though, maybe enough for one item. I wonder if I can find more? Or is this kind of snap completely out dated? I’ll have to look into it.

And my favorite find:

It’s from the late 60’s, check out the awesome hair:

2007-01-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

I have a problem with cold hands, that being if it’s not warm, my hands are cold (so are my feet, but I’ll save that for a blog entry on socks). They’re just always colder than the rest of my body. A lot of the time I don’t even notice it, someone else feels my hands and comments on how I must be freezing, and I say no, this is normal, I’ll let you know when my hands are really cold. This is an excellent power for annoying boyfriends (ha ha, my hands are colder than you would have ever thought possible, let me touch you with them!) But it’s not such a useful power when you have to write a paper, or do just about anything else with your hands (if you can’t feel your fingers, it’s really difficult to type). So, I made a lovely pair of fingerless gloves! I couldn’t find a pattern I liked so I just made these up as I went along.

(Example of how easy it is to write and have warm hands while wearing fingerless gloves)

I was rather attracted to the Fetching pattern that everyone seems to be knitting now, but the yarn I had on hand didn’t quite seem…. delicate enough for such a pretty pattern. Actually, the only yarn I had on hand was my brown cone yarn I talked about a few entries back. I tend to have a very limited stash – unlike just about every other knitter I’ve talked to, I usually only buy yarn when I have a project I want to make. My stash consists of the yarn I have left over when I’m done said project, which in most cases isn’t enough to make anything substantial. I really wanted these in purple, but I was too impatient to wait until I went out and bought some purple yarn, so I worked with what I had, and this is what I had. It’s okay, I like brown too.

Scrunched up gloves pre-washing

I can’t tell you what kind of yarn this is. It’s wool, and it came from a Webs closeout sale. Seeing as it’s cone yarn, it was covered in all that weird yarn goo, which kind of freaked me out when washing:

Find the gloves – or at least find my finger tips….

Nice normal gloves post-washing

In other news, the weather here is driving everyone crazy. Please note: it is WINTER. Where I live, the summers are very hot and the winters are quite cold (I don’t want to say very cold because we really don’t have much of an argument compared to upstate NY or Canada, but we can expect a foot or two of snow and average temperatures in the 30s or 40s). This winter has been more like spring, on Christmas it was in the 60s, and one day last week it was actually 72 degrees! Of course, this week we’re back in the low 40s. So everyone here is very, very confused. And now I’m going to visit family for a week in Florida, just to make everything a bit more confusing….

2007-01-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

For Christmas my parents got me a new camera. It was quite a surprise, as I didn’t ask for one. You see, my previous camera was still in functioning condition, but really only by my standards.... I tend to take my camera everywhere with me. Yup, just about everywhere. It travels from my backpack to my handbag on a regular basis, sometimes in my jacket pocket, or someone else’s pocket. And whatever it gets put in is very often dropped, stepped on, or generally thrown around. So I’m really hard on my cameras, and sadly my last one couldn’t hold up to the challenge - I managed to break the zoom on it. It’s not that the zoom doesn’t work, it’s that I physically broke the button that does the zooming. I can make it zoom in, but to make it zoom back out I need to turn the camera off and turn it back on. And oh, that’s not all, as this button also controls other settings on my camera. For example, I can change my camera setting from “normal” to “fine,” but I can’t change it back - I need to remove the batteries so the camera goes back to it’s default settings. So I guess I can see where my parents got the idea that I needed a new camera, although I would have never admitted it.
That’s not saying that I don’t appreciate it. Not at all - I’m completely in love with this camera. The reset time is super fast (with all my old camera’s problems, it’s super slow reset time was probably the most frustrating), I need less light to take pictures without the flash, it takes really detailed pictures, and it’s really small!

So, to prevent this new, amazing camera from suffering the same fate as my last one, I made a camera case!

I have no idea what kind of yarn I used other than “a purple kind”, so just don’t ask.

Alright, so this probably won’t prevent a major catastrophe, but I’m hoping it will stop button breaking and scratches at least. And it looks cool.

well, this has nothing to do with knitting

2006-12-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

I’m picky when it comes to jeans. Well, not so much picky, as I have one criteria that must be fulfilled: they cannot be stretch. Not even a little. I hate stretch jeans, they fit me weird and they, well, they stretch out (surprisingly!). You have to buy a size smaller than you usually would to account for the stretch that will occur throughout the day. So when you put them on in the morning they are way too tight and you look trashy, but around the middle of the day they stretch out and fit you perfectly; too bad by the time you’re home they’re nearly falling off you. And so then you have to wash them again to get them back to their original tightness so the process can happen all over again – this is also a problem becuase I am a strong proponent of wearing jeans several days in a row (probably because I only own about three pairs, as I can’t find any more that aren’t stretch!).
Anyway, moving on, you’d think this wouldn’t be such a hard criteria to fill, as jeans have always been traditionally 100% cotton. But as of about two years ago it’s been next to impossible to find jeans that don’t have any amount of spandex in them. Apparently I am the only person in this world who has issues with stretch jeans - chances are you don't have any problems with them either and think I'm crazy....
The moral is I am putting an enormous amount of effort into keeping the few pairs that I have in one piece. Note:

As soon as I notice a thinned part of my jeans, I apply a patch. This particular pair is held together purely by these patches - seven of them total, they just couldn't all fit into the same shot at the same time.

But sometimes I don’t catch the problem soon enough and the jeans rip. A rip is different than
a hole. I can patch a hole, but a rip completely destroys a pair of jeans. Yes, I could sew them, but then I would have an odd, horribly obvious seam in some awkward place. And so my latest jean catastrophe resulted in:

No, there are not holes under all of these patches, I just thought it would be weird to have just two patches on my butt so I added a few more for moral support.

And one more picture of my jeans in action:

2006-12-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

Merry-day-after-Christmas all! Hope you had a good one.

I certainly did. We got to see a part of the family we haven’t seen in a very long time (I told this to a coworker and she said “oh, since last year?” “No, more like seven years.”). I even successfully finished my holiday knitting! Everyone seemed to like the washcloths, so I was pleased with that (and so were they). I finished my grandmother’s hat in plenty of time (I don’t know why I thought it would take me so long – after I got myself together after frogging it a few times it only took me an afternoon). But even though I finished it, I had to do some intensive blocking since it seemed rather snug, and when I presented it to her on Christmas afternoon it was still a bit damp. But that’s what’s great about grandmothers, she didn’t mind.

This was my first attempt at a pom pom, it turned out alright.

My parents have finally figured out that I like to knit! They gave me this marvelous cone of yarn for Christmas:

And some even more marvelous green stuff (in real life it’s lighter than this):

Also, a set of the Knit Picks options needles. I think they’re great, but these things should really come with a “suggested organization” chart. It comes with all these fancy pockets that are all different sizes to organize everything in, but I can’t figure out how they expect you to do it. What are the sizes for? Am I missing something? Help!

You know what?

2006-12-20T11:38:00.000-08:00

I’m finished making washcloths! Forever.

See, fourteen of them, aren’t they nice? All are made either from Peaches & Creme or Sugar ‘n Cream yarn. The patterns are from the inside of the Peaches & Creme label, and then a boring knit/purl combination that I made up as I went along, on size 7 needles (for the longest time I thought I was knitting with size 6 until I actually stopped and looked at the needles. Totally size 7).

And now I’m left with all these little scraps that are pretty much completely useless. Maybe someday they’ll turn into a very multi-colored washcloth, but I’m really not in the mood to knit a washcloth ever again.

I really wasn’t expecting a big difference between these two types of yarn. They look almost identical, but they’re not! The Peaches & Creme is much nicer. Yes, this is vague, I really don’t know what to say, it seems like it’s higher quality and it’s just made better. Or maybe I’m just crazy.

I have also purchased copious amounts of soap to go with said washcloths. Really nice soap too, I think. You know, it was really hard to find soap that wasn’t something typical like Dial or something. I ended up going to three stores before I found this stuff, and then I bought the store out. Mmm, Lavender, it’s been sitting in my room the past few days making everything smell good.

And the finished product, most of these will be distributed at work tomorrow:

But I’m still not finished with Christmas knitting. My mom has nominated me to knit my grandmother a hat. It’s never seemed to click with her that knitting takes time. She also wanted me to knit something for my baby cousin, but there’s no way that’s happening, I told her it was either one or the other. I chose my grandmother because I think she’ll appreciate a knitted item a whole lot more than a one year old.
I chose this yarn, lovely stuff. It’s Patons Rumor (an irresistible alpaca blend) in Hibiscus Heather. It’s on the chunky side so I’m hoping whatever I choose will knit up quick. Any suggestions for a grandmotherly hat?

(See, I was gone for a few weeks but I’m sure it was worth it, look at the long entry you got – with all these pictures!)

2006-12-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

Finals are over!

2006-12-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

First off, thanks for the hat compliments! The hat says thanks too.

And on the knitting front: more washcloths! But not too many, because finals start next week. (Why on earth do they put finals at the end of the semester? You’re so burnt out by then the last thing you want to do is study more. They should put finals during the first week of school when you’re still coherent.) So I tend to be studying for a few hours, then knitting a few rows. We’ll see if I get enough done by Christmas (five more left!).

So keep your eyes open for a washcloth-related post next week sometime (hopefully….).

2006-12-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

No, I haven’t found my camera cord, but my boyfriend just happened to leave his camera at my house the other day, so until he realizes that he left it here I do believe that I have full rights to use it as I see fit. And I see it as fit to take pictures of myself in a hat (you know, it’s surprisingly hard to photograph yourself in a mirror and not block out the hat your are trying to photograph with your hands. So please excuse the shoddy photography.)

So finally, about my hat:
My friends have begun to lovingly refer to this as my “wine-drinking hat.” If you’ll recall, there’s been a bit of conflict over whether this yarn is red or purple. Yet after asking many people, I discovered that most thought it was neither red nor purple, but wine-colored (and seeing as this yarn color is “Bordeaux,” they’re probably right). One of these conversations evolved into the revelation that if I so happened to be drinking wine while wearing my hat, and my head got hot so I took my hat off and set it next to my wine glass, and then if some clumsy person walked by and knocked over my glass and wine spilled everywhere, it would be okay because my hat is the same color as the wine. What a relief, I always worry about that. So, at last, I present to you my wine-drinking hat: Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Superwash
Color: Bordeaux
Pattern: Reversible Beret

This pattern is quick and easy, I recommend it. Were I to knit it again I would probably make it a few stitches shorter around the band, it’s a bit wide. If you’re planning on knitting with this yarn, word on the street is that it shrinks quite a bit when you put it in the dryer. Yet as I am not planning on putting my hat in the dryer I didn’t worry about that, but if you really love putting things in the dryer you might want to think about it.... Other than that it’s a lovely yarn and a lovely color that I also recommend.

oh sigh

2006-12-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

So my hat is finished, and I quite like it. I'd also quite like to show it to you, but my camera cord has suddenly gone MIA. I had it last week, and I always keep it in the same place, but today it is not to be found.

I just wanted to let you know that hopefully someday soon there will be a post featuring a hat....

2006-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

It got very cold very quickly here. More quickly than I have time to knit. I need a hat! I wasn’t made for this kind of weather!

But this is all I have so far

(Just for clarification's sake, that odd floating image in the top right is
actually a photo I have stuck in my mirror, it is not really floating. Sorry to disappoint you. )

And I don’t think wearing a half knit hat will do a very good job keeping me warm. Or enhancing my social life. But if it gets much colder I may have to wear it anyway....

2006-11-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

Knitting! I actually have some knitting to show you!

Here are my washcloths. They’re just about as exciting as washcloths can get. I have one on the needles that’s a bit different than the rest, as you can see. At first I didn’t like it too much, but seeing it next to the other ones like this I rather like it.
I decided to teach myself continental style knitting and I’ve been using these to practice. I like it! It’s a lot faster than the throw method, and I find that I can knit for longer periods before I get tired.

Of course, this only seems to do me any good on washcloths. I also started a hat (*gasp*, I’m knitting two things at once, very strange for me….) and continental just isn’t working for me here. I think it’s in part because I’m using wool which is a lot more slippery, and also because I can’t prop the circular needles against my arm or anything, I need to hold everything up with my hands (does this make any sense? Hopefully, because I don’t think I can explain myself any more clearly).

Anyway, this is my hat!

2006-11-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

Hey, guess what?

I really hate plastic knitting needles!

2006-11-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

Yarn! It’s lovely, isn’t it? The purple (or as my boyfriend insists, red – but he’s a bit color blind, we’ll just go with it) yarn is going to turn into this hat, and the orangey color is for just because I wanted it. Always an excellent reason to buy yarn.
I need to find a place with better lighting to take pictures of this stuff. Things always seem to look a bit…. off…. In fact, in this shot the purple does look rather red, but I assure you it is not!

Knit Picks Swish Superwash in Bordeaux, and Knit Picks Shine Worsted in Terra Cotta.

Edit: My mom also claims the bordeaux to be red. I just don't know anymore.... whatever color it is, it's pretty and I like it.

2006-11-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

Yay! I'm now a member of the knitting blogs webring. Hello all! I feel like a real knit blogger now.... it was all just for pretend before.

Drop me a line if you see this, and feel inclined to do so (no pressure, of course....).

2006-11-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

I guess you haven’t heard from me for awhile, have you? Well, I’m happy to say that I did survive last week. Just barely though. You know it’s bad when you have to skip classes in order to study for other classes….
Oh, and here’s another tidbit I discovered today, my chem final and my math final fall on the same day…. at the same time. For those of you who are contemplating the complete incompetence of my university I’d like to let you know that they’re not really that bad (albeit they still aren’t the smartest group); I’m taking these classes at two different schools for reasons I will not delve into right now, but if you really want to know I’ll be happy to tell you.
On the knitting front: washcloths! No photos though, seeing as I already posted pictures of one and the other two look suspiciously similar. But never fear! I ordered some yarn from knitpicks and it should arrive soon and I’ll have some lovely pictures of that for you when it arrives.
I was so excited to find knitpicks. First off, I’m a poor college student. Knitpicks yarn is real yarn, it’s not some acrylic mess that you can’t make anything nice out of and at the same time I can afford enough to knit a whole sweater. Second off (umm, that doesn’t sound right…. Secondly?) there is no local yarn shop near me. Seriously. Okay, not quite seriously, there is one little one about 40 minutes away where everything is way too expensive. So I’m just going to say there is no local yarn shop. So for a long time all my yarn has come from craft stores, which are also rather expensive and have a limited selection of anything that is not acrylic. So I’m really excited about this knitpicks thing and I hope it turns out to be a good thing. I’ll keep you posted!

2006-10-27T05:29:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to announce that no knitting has been occurring since I’ve been much too busy preparing for next week. They – being the omnipotent beings that control when my tests fall – gave me a weeks reprieve and then decided to move on from two tests a week to three tests and an art history paper. So unless you want to hear about medieval monasticism (which is actually quite interesting) or function equations (not interesting whatsoever), I won’t be around for awhile….

2006-10-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve discovered something new – washcloths! What a wonderful idea. Wouldn’t a pretty washcloth with a nice bar of soap make a wonderful gift?

I had these yarns (Peaches and Cream, colors.... i don't remember, a white and a blue, obviously) in my stash for…. just about ever, but never did anything with them. I looked all over the place for a washcloth pattern I liked, but alas, most looked very grandmotherly. Then I came across this pattern on, of all places, the inside of the yarn label – how convenient! The only thing I don’t like about it is that the other side is rather ugly. Or, if you want to be like my mother and put a positive spin on it, it’s “interesting.” Interesting or ugly, whatever you want to call it, it’s not pretty. That’s one thing that really bothers me about knitting, with nearly (*nearly*, not all) everything you knit one side is just plain “interesting.” But I think I can live with that as long as the recipient of this washcloth can.

I’ve decided to start making these for Christmas presents. And, unlike last year (the year of the scarf and occasional quilt), I’m going to start now rather than in December. So I went to the store today and made a small purchase.

Hopefully, this will get me started.

2006-10-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

So this meme has been going around (that makes it sound like it's a disease or something - I assure you it is not) and I thought I’d join in. So here are 10 Knitterly Things you didn't know about me, even though seeing as this blog has only been in existence for a month and a half you probably don’t know MOST knitterly things about me. So I guess that means this shouldn’t be all that hard….

1. I learned how to knit when I was either 7 or 18, I never quite know what to say about that. My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was 7, but I was 7, so it didn’t really do much for me at the time. I didn’t actually complete a knitted item until I was 18. So what should I say about this?

2. I didn’t learn how to bind off until I was 18. And if you look at number 1, I (may have) learned how to knit 11 years previous.

3. I hate double pointed needles. So this probably isn’t a very uncommon thing, but you didn’t know it before and now you do.

4. I also hate knitting socks. A lot. And I know there’s a whole lot of people out there who obsess over knitting socks. First off it’s the double pointed needles, and then once you knit one it’s a completely false sense of accomplishment since then you have to go knit another one….

5. I’m an extremely monogamous knitter. One thing at a time, and that’s it. I get very into my projects and knitting more than one thing at a time would just not be enjoyable. If I am knitting something that I like, I’m always “in the mood” to be knitting it, I don’t need something else to distract me from it.

6. I’ve knitted two sweaters ever, one was from a pattern and one I made up as I went along. Although both are nice and made correctly, neither turned out as I expected and I would never wear either of them. I’ll post pictures at some point.

7. My mom almost always claims the things I knit to be hers before I even finish them. I tried the entirety of last winter to knit a scarf for myself, but every time I started one my mother would tell me about how the color matched her jacket so well, and how she really needed a scarf like that, and after a few days she would start referring to it as “my scarf.” For all of last winter I wore a very boring tan scarf that was not knitted at all.

8. No one in my family is an avid knitter. My grandmother on my mom’s side taught me how, but she hasn’t knit anything since before I was born at least. My grandmother on my father’s side is a very crafty woman and an amazing seamstress, and although she knows how to knit I’ve never seen her do it, or seen anything that she’s knitted.

9. On that note, none of my friends knit either. I have one close friend who was big on scarf knitting, and then a few years ago I taught her how to make hats by knitting in the round. And she’s quite obsessed with knitting hats, but she doesn’t knit anything else. Although when she comes back home for winter break we’re planning on knitting a sweater together (she feels she needs some moral support for a sweater), so we’ll see!

10. I once taught one of my close guy friends how to knit. I found it quite amusing because he’s probably the biggest, “manliest” guy I know, yet the most open to learning to knit. And he hasn’t knit anything since that day, but that’s alright, I can still say that I actually got him to knit something once.

monsters are cool

2006-10-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

Finally, some real knitting! Some real knitting that really shouldn’t have been happening since I, once again, have two tests this week. How does this keep happening? It’s been a very busy three weeks, but next week should be a bit calmer. At least school-work wise, other than that some of the most amazing people I know from high school will be home for fall break, so I definitely won’t be bored.
So anyway, knitting. I made this little dude, and I think his name is Henry. I used this pattern, but modified it – Henry is not a hand warmer, he’s just a plain old stuffed monster. And I thought he needed some feet, and seeing as I have the power to do just about whatever I want to him, I gave him feet. So now he can walk if he really wants to. But unlike the pattern he has no mouth, so he can’t talk. I think it’s a fair exchange. Maybe. Would you rather have vocal capabilities or legs? Interesting question…. But I don’t feel too bad seeing as his brain is made of polyester stuffing so I doubt any conversation he would have carried on would have been all that intelligent anyway.
Henry was made especially for my boyfriend. Why on earth would I knit my boyfriend a one eyed monster? Good question. He’s been bugging me to knit him something for quite a long time now. I’ve been avoiding the whole thing because of the notorious sweater curse, which he thinks is crazy. Seeing as I have no experience with knitting for significant others I really don’t know if I believe in the sweater curse, but I think I’d rather not risk it. After sufficient nagging I agreed to knit something simple, but he said he doesn’t wear scarves or hats (apparently he just freezes over the winter, I don’t know). I couldn’t think of anything else “simple”, so he’s getting Henry. And my logic is if our relationship can’t withstand the knitting a tiny green one-eyed monster, we’re really not meant to be together anyway.

and to be completely off topic....

2006-09-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

I have absolutely no knitting news to report. None at all. I’m sorry but I just haven’t had the time to knit! I had two tests this week too, both today in fact. So that has been taking up most, or let’s say all, or my time. So since I can’t talk about knitting I’ll talk about tests: today I had an archeology and a history test. The archeology test was short and multiple choice and is not worth saying anymore about, but the history test, that was a bit more of a worry. It’s the history of Christianity, and hands down the most amazing history professor ever (who also happens to be my advisor) teaches it, so I want to do really well in this class (isn’t it funny how that works? I want to impress the brilliant professor, but I could care less what the mediocre professor thinks of me). He’s also a pretty difficult grader so I was quite stressed out about the whole thing. But it turned out alright, the essay was some wonderful question about Constantine’s influence on the early Christian church, which I was quite excited about. So excited about, in fact, that I completely lost track of time and when I finished the essay I only had seven minutes left to complete the second half of the test! Five identification (ie mini essays) in 7 minutes…. Needless to say I did not write in complete sentences. So hopefully the first part of the test will counteract the second half….

I guess I’m obligated to put something about knitting in here. I’m now part of the Academics Knit webring. Yay! Hello everyone!
I also just came across this pattern, and I’m completely in love with it. Both in long and short sleeve, and it would probably look great if you modified it to be a tanktop too…. So many options, I’m going to have to get on this one.

2006-09-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Finished! I was lucky enough to have just enough yarn to make a normal length scarf.

Last night I blocked it. Honestly I had never blocked lace before, and I used these instructions, which worked out very nicely. It took a bit of convincing to get my mom to agree to putting a wet pile of yarn on the bed, and then sticking dozens of pins into the mattress, but she eventually realized what a brilliant idea that actually is

Of course this morning I found the cat lying on top of everything. I don’t think with a normal cat this would be too much of a problem, but I have one of the most clumsy, destructive cats I have ever met. One of her major problems is that her claws don’t detract. Ever. So when she walks across a carpet she sticks to it. Or if she’s lying on a blanket and decides to move, the blanket usually goes with her. But never fear, as you can see the scarf survived the ordeal with no noticeable scars.

I'm don't really do that math thing....

2006-09-17T07:12:00.000-07:00

So I’ve decided to knit Knitty.com’s Branching Out pattern with my mystery yarn. I like it a lot. It’s not too difficult and it’s really pretty. For some reason I had tons of problems with row three. I spent the entirety of Benny and Joon (I tend to knit while watching movies….) knitting row three, realizing something had gone terribly wrong, and frogging the whole thing. I still don’t know what I was doing wrong, it’s not like row three is anything difficult, I just couldn’t seem to get it right. But I didn’t give up! The next morning I tried again and everything worked out just fine.

You’re right, my patterned sheets probably weren’t the best choice for a background, but I don’t feel like taking another picture so you’re just going to have to wait until later to see a better one.

I still can’t tell if I’m going to have too much or too little yarn. Or maybe just enough. That would be quite amazing. I’ll let you know.

As you can see, I was making great progress until I realized that I have both a math test and a chemistry test next week. I’m more of an art and history kind of person than a math and science kind of person, so having both a math and a chemistry test together is probably the worst test combination I could ever come by.... So back to studying for me!

Mystery Yarn (ooooh)

2006-09-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

I finished my scarf the other night while watching the movie Everything Is Illuminated. I like how it turned out, much better than the last one. I like the colors better, and it just looks neater (not as in 'neat!,' as in 'tidy.' But it’s also rather 'neat!' I guess).

My grandmother made that doll for me many moons ago I think she looks quite stunning in that scarf, don’t you?

And I have to say, Everything Is Illuminated is an amazing movie! In fact, it's now officially one of my favorite movies, and that is a really hard list to get onto. First off it was really funny. Rarely do I literally laugh out loud at movies, and at points I nearly fell off the couch I was laughing so hard (if you've ever seen it, Alex's description of his grandfathers 'seeing eye bitch' really did it in for me). It also focused a lot on the Holocaust, and seeing as I'm slightly obsessed with history only made me enjoy it more. So I recommend this movie. Times a million. Really.

Now, onto knitting. See this yarn:

I got it a very long time ago at a thrift store. At the time it never occurred to me that buying yarn that thin was a stupid, stupid idea for someone who didn’t really know what they were doing (I was probably 7 and had no clue what lace knitting even was). So I bought it and attempted to knit a scarf with it. Surprisingly, I gave up. And now I have some lace yarn. And the thing is, even though I really like the yarn (wonderful color), what am I going to do with it? It's not like I can go out and buy more if I run out. And it's not even a whole skein. What can I do with such an odd amount of yarn? Something to think about.

2006-09-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

So, I admit, I do more than knit. I also crochet. Now, I don’t do a lot of crocheting – in fact I didn’t even know how until about a month ago. And there is one sole reason for it: granny squares. I love them. I just think they look so neat. I like how both sides are right sides. Okay, so technically there is a "wrong" side, by in my opinion it doesn't look that drastically different from the "right" side; I need to actually search to identify one side from the next, and even then I don't know which one is supposed to be "right."
I admit, some granny squares really are.... granny like. They remind me of old and tacky. But I'm rather drawn to those with bright, bold colors. And the possibilities are endless. Forget the typical afghan - I made a scarf!

I'm trying to get rid of all my scrap yarn, and this is a wonderful way to go about it. This scarf is made with Carons ultra soft acrylic yarn. Yes, I admit, acrylic yarn. There was a time not all that long ago that I very little idea what I was doing, and didn't want to spend the money on wool. So now I have a basket very full of acrylic yarn that I'm trying to find uses for. So I've been making copious amounts of granny squares. Nothing fancy, and the color combinations aren't quite how I'd like them (I'm trying to get rid of yarn here), but I'm having a good time.

A few weekends ago I accompanied my boy on a business trip to the New England/New York area (yes, I realize this is not just one big area, we were in two distinct different places) and there was a lot of driving involved. So, of course, lots of granny squares were produced on the way.

I believe they will become another scarf, as I'm not entirely happy with the first one. I don't think I made the squares tight enough, and I'm not very pleased with the color combination. I'm sure I can find a good home for the purple one, though. My mom has been eyeing it at least.

Well, I'm off to class in the rain, stay dry everyone!

I am slowly creating an army of dangerously adorable headgehogs....

2006-08-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

My plan is to distribute them throughout the country. When my hedgehogs and I have successfully conquered the United States, we'll move onto Canada, and then perhaps the rest of the world. It depends on how fast I can knit.

It's Debbie Radtke's Huggable Hedgehog pattern! These hedgehogs are one of my favorite things to knit (as you can all probably tell). They're amazingly cute, everyone loves them, and they knit up quick and easy.... but not mind numbingly easy.

The large green one was my first attempt, and after that I decided I wanted to make one for just about everyone I know. Making large ones just wasn't practical (the amount of yarn, the amount of stuffing, the amount of time, etc), so I modified the pattern to make them half the size. I was quite surprised when my modified pattern actually worked. I pretty much just split all the numbers in the pattern in half. I was expecting something malformed and disproportioned, and, well, some of them do turn out a little misshapen, but once you felt them all their lumps have thus far smoothed out.

For the small ones I have been dying my own wool - with Kool Aid! It's so much fun. I'm sure dying with real dye is a good time too, but really, it's drink mix, and I'm dying yarn with it! At this point in time I really have no desire to dye with anything else. Not that I would dye yarn for something like a sweater in Kool Aid colors (I'm more of an earth tones kind of girl), hedgehogs just seem to look better in bright, fruity colors - don't you think?
To learn more about how fun it is to dye with Kool Aid, check out this article from knitty.com.

Most of these little guys have been sent off on to their respective residences along the east coast, or will be very soon. The orange one has been sent along to western PA with my good friend Emma to partake in the college life. The purple one has been keeping an eye on my mom's office in Delaware, and the small green one will be traveling to Florida next week to hang out at the beach with my grandmother. The large green one will be staying right here with me, mostly because I he's a lovely leafy color... now is probably a good time to notify you all that green is by far my favorite color.... in fact it's one of my most favorite things ever, but this is another subject entirely....

2006-08-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

Well hello hello.... I've decided to start a blog. Why? Why, Becky, why would you ever start a blog? You think they're silly. Well, they sound silly.... blog.... sort of like a log, a little like a bog.... nope, I just can't take something called a 'blog' seriously. So I guess I won't be taking this very seriously then.

No, but really (really), I wanted to start a knitting blog (there's that word again....). I read other people's and I love them. I love looking at your (assuming that you, my lovely reader, are in fact a fellow knitting blogger) knitting pictures and reading about how you're completing your projects and your socks - I've noticed that you people really love to knit socks.

I also wanted to start a knitting blog to connect with other knitters. I don't really have any friends who are avid knitters. I mean, I have lots of friends who can knit, but once I start babbling on about yarn choices and lace knitting they go all foggy eyed and start ignoring me. Hopefully I'll find some knitters out there who actually get it.

And even if no one reads this lonely little blog of mine, I think I'll get some level of satisfaction at least from babbling on to myself!