We Sniff Yarn

Picking up the Pieces.

I'll be honest:  2010 was the year that things came unglued.

2011 will be the year that we put them back together.  I can't say that things will get "back to normal", since the definition of "normal" changed last year, too.  New Normal involves lower expectations of what I can do, and believing that it's okay to ask for help.  New Normal involves 33% more cats.  And New Normal doesn't have my Grandpa in it.

But New Normal does feature a great job, the love of friends and family, and taking time to nurture creativity.

Here's to 2011.  Tonight?  We start by casting on for a new hat.  Stay tuned.

Life Goes On.

Dear Elisa,

Wow, what a year.  I've been really busy, though you wouldn't know that from the cobwebs around here.  I was out of work ("funemployed") for a few months, then got a great job in April.  It's very interesting work at a really great company for nice pay.  I'm having a good time.  My Grandpa got sick in February and passed away in June.  That wasn't a good time.  I feel like I've only started to come out from under that in the last couple of days.  We were very close, and his passing hurt way, way more than I'd thought it would.

But I have been knitting!  We also have our garden going again for the summer.  I bought a Mac, which has been life-changing.  I've messed with computers for almost 30 years, and this is truly, truly the only computer I've ever loved.  I was reluctant to get one because I thought it would be just different enough from a PC that I would be constantly annoyed.  But once I stopped trying to find the hard way to do something and realized that there is a really easy, obvious way to do most things, it all fell into place.  Weird, huh?  I guess I'm slowly becoming an Apple fangirl.

Oh, back to the knitting.  Right.  I haven't finished that Shipwreck Shawl yet.  I did make it through the complicated lacy bits to the serious beady bits, then petered out.  I did knit a supercute baby blanket (the Cascading Colors Baby Blankie) for a friend's supercute baby, the lovely Phoebe. 

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As you can see, my Yard Buddha experienced a traumatic head removal.  He continues to be a dashing knitwear model for non-hat items, though.

xoxo,
M.

Stay tuned.

Dear Elisa,

I was just casting on for my new Epic Lace Undertaking:  The Shipwreck Shawl from Knitty Spring '09.  Isn't it lovely?  I think it will be fun to do a circular shawl now that I've got the rectangular ones down.  And even though I've only just started, I've learned my first lesson!  Did you know that circular shawls use funny cast-ons?  Me neither!  Shipwreck uses the "Simple Ring".  I've gone from "LOL wut" to "JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL WHAT IS THIS F*CKERY" in 4 short minutes!

Stay tuned.

xoxo,

M.

Oh! Hi!

Dear Elisa,

Well hi!  I've been so busy thinking and talking that I nearly forgot about this amazing other form of communication. "Writing," is it?

It was a busy summer, mostly consumed by being hot and trying to keep my tomato plants alive.  There was also knitting:

 

Just a smattering of the summer's knitting harvest, which was a bumper crop. Pretty much all the knitting I've done since May has been for the Harry Potter Knitting & Crochet House Cup on Ravelry.  If you're a HP nut like me, it's a blast.  Slytherin took the cup last term with a crushing lead over the other houses.  Woo hoo!  Slither on!  These pics are all House Cup projects and follow themes for the various monthly assignments.  From left to right:

1) Start of Cathedral Purse, 2) Attempt to knit with strung-together Japanese styrofoam peanuts (verdict: unpossible), 3) Wee tea mats in Noro Kureyon--intended to be felted, but they looked cuter and are much more functional unfelted, 4) Good ol' dishcloths in cheery colours,

5) Fibonacci scarflet modeled by The Princess, 6) Tea cozy in Noro Kureyon, 7) "Golden Fleece" singles from the most wonderful roving ever, 8) Feather-and-fan scarf in Socks That Rock "Covelite",

9) & 10) An "illusion knitting" dishcloth--owl is barely visible in #10, 11) & 12) The Shawl,

13) Some hobag modelling a Slytherin cap (Happy Hour Cappy from Pints and Purls, 14) Wee Slytherin wrist cuffs, 15) Not-so-wee Slytherin wristwarmers, 16) iPhone cozy.

I want to do a whole 'nother post on my O.W.L. project, which was The Shawl mentioned above.  It's possibly the best and biggest thing I've knit up to this point.  I haven't blocked it properly yet, but oh yes there will be pictures.  And elaborations.  I knitted it in 10 weeks, and at the end it was pretty constant knitting...like, 10-hour stretches of knitting.  But I got it done on time, got my big-time points for Slytherin, and now have a Fabulous Lace Thing. :)

I'm still knitting like a fiend, still mostly for the Cup, though since work and extracurriculars have picked back up again after the summer, output has decreased.  I went with a less ambitious O.W.L. this time around as well--4 Baby Surprise Jackets.  The truly wonderful thing about the Cup is that I'm getting SO much gift knitting done!  I should prattle on about that in a separate post.

During August, the House Cup group did a knitalong of Ice Queen, which I've always wanted to do but was caught between being fascinated or put off by the beads.  The knitalong was great--those gals got me through one fiddly bit of the pattern that made no sense where I was about to go off on a horribly wrong turn, and it was so fun to see everyone else's take on the same pattern.  I went whole hog and did the "B" version, which has 300 instead of 60 beads.  Can I just say one thing here?  BEADS ARE FUN.  Seriously.  Fun.  Getcha some and just start knitting them into shit.  They're awesome.  So here's my Ice Queen, which was done with the suggested Kidsilk Haze and clear iridescent beads.

 

Detail of lace pattern and beaded edging:

 

I'm pretty proud of her!  Can't wait for the weather to get just a bit cooler so I can start sporting all the new weird stuff I've knit this year.

One last note:  We have a new addition to the household.  She made her official debut on Facebook, but I present here as well, Susie Pricklebottom, Destroyer of Worlds:

 

Fear not, as I am sure there will be many more gratuitous hedgehog shots to come.

TTFN,

M.

Sheeeeeesh.

Dear Elisa,

I have finished the Enormous Shawl of Doom. A week ago I still had 3 feet of the body left, plus the border. I grafted the last bit of the border together tonight. Pics to come once I regain use of my hands.

xoxo,
M.

P.S. Blocking party? Said border is meeeelions of little tiny points. Geez.

Hi there!

M.,

That was a long (and unintended) break from blog land. Although being home room mom for the 4th grade clearly kicked my ass, I think I will sign up as 5th grade home room mom next year. Seriously - having gone through the pain of doing it this year I think I have it down now. The school year is almost over, then end is in sight, and I think I can get back to my normal knitting/blogging life.

Let's see, what's been going on......I just got back from a lovely trip to Italy. I went to Soave for the Soave Guitar Festival. My man was playing at the festival and we ate loads of pasta, drank lots of coffee & wine, and listened to a lot of music. Soave is lovely and it was fun to see our friends from that region. I didn't get to do any yarn shopping but I did start a scarf - Jaywalker Scarf, pattern from Javajem Knits. I used Colinette JitterBug, colourway Fire (71) and used all 291m. I love this scarf!

I think the yarn goes well with the Jaywalker pattern. Here is a close up:

I would totally knit this again. It is an easy pattern to memorize and I was able to knit rows & rows very quickly. The yarn is, of course, exquisite and best of all, it was a gift from you!

I don't have a next project lined up - can you believe it? I have one UFO - that famous black sweater, going on two years as a UFO. I have one (short) sleeve, the neck line, then the finishing it by sewing the pieces together left to do. I seriously do not know what my problem is with finishing this. Maybe I'll start some socks, maybe a shawl........

Knit on,

E.

p.s. I love the Harry Potter Knitting & Crochet House project! That looks like fun!

p.s.s. An amazing fact about me - I have not bought any yarn in 2009. This is an unwanted side effect of being home room mom. God help me when school is out and I am let loose on all that fresh fiber out there.

Slither On!

Dear Elisa,

Strange to be writing when I'm not actually going to see you the next day and say, "Hey, I blogged". This is quite a lot more of a "Dear Elisa" now!

Not much news on the knitting front. I had this great goal of clearing out the UFO queue during my "sabbatical", which totally didn't happen. In fact, I started two new projects and realised that I've completely lost the pattern sheets (and all of my notes) for my Arwen cardigan. It's a sorry state around here in my knitting world. And now I've started the new job a week hence.

So what do I do with this knitting stress? Do I plow into the queue, maybe clean my house more and dig up those lost pattern sheets? No! As seems to be the natural reaction for most of us knitters, instead of working to relieve my knitting stress, I have increased it by taking more on! Yes! I signed up and was accepted as a First Year in the Harry Potter Knitting & Crochet House Cup. Now, if I remember right, you're not actually so into the Harry Potter thing, but I am and I'm very excited. Even if you're not, the group pages are worth a read just for the sheer amount of "whoa" that the organisers put into it. The whole thing is exceedingly clever. The whole idea is that participants are sorted into houses as at Hogwarts, and earn points for their houses over the course of the term by doing knit/crochet projects in classes, Quidditch, and even OWLs (final exam-type big projects) at the end of the term.

Today was the Sorting Ceremony, and I was sorted into Slytherin house, my first choice! Classes will be posted tomorrow, and I'll have to decide which classes to take (i.e., which knitting projects to commit to) for May, and contemplate whether I think I will be able to take on an OWL over the summer.

It's interesting to interesting people. Just consider that. >.>

xoxo,
M.

You know, stuff.

Dear Elisa,

I've been knitting away, especially since I have substantially more free time than I used to! Knitting + any true crime show on A&E = Love.

The SXSW tidal wave has hit and receded, and life is back to normal. I'm so glad. I buy the Film badge every year and usually peter out before the end. This year was no different, except I did make it a week--a new record. I pretty much see my yearly total of movies at SXSW, and I gorge on documentaries. That's great, but the endless circling for parking and the arrival of the douchebags for the Music festival take the mickey right out of me well before the event is over.

All of this free time means that I've finally had a look at the pics that have stacked up on my camera. Here are a few things I've finished over the last, oh, two months. No pics yet of the things I've just started, mostly because they're not really far enough along yet to be worth sharing. But soon. Oh yes, soon.

Here's a felted bowl I did for a Christmas gift:

Detail:

I really like this pattern--Felted Bowl with Bottom Welt by Deborah Gray. It's not clear in the pictures, but the bottom is actually flat. That was the tricky bit, but other than that I just sailed right through. I'll make more of these for sure.

The other thing I finished recently is a prayer shawl. I made it for my Granny, who is in a bad way and also a bad situation. I honestly don't know what she thought of the gift, but hopefully the love and serenity that I tried to knit into it can be a comfort to her.

This is Alice's Lace Shawl from the book The Prayer Shawl Companion, which I picked up over the holidays. The yarn is something I picked up at Hobby Lobby, but I can't find the ballband anywhere. This is what I get for trying to kick my strange compulsion to save every ball band "in case I might need it". Now, see, I need it and I don't have it. Well, the yarn is soft, a little boucle-ish, and...blue. And comes in giant, giant logs. I used one log and change for this.

Detail:

We've been slowly planting our garden out since the weather has turned warm and our cold nights should be over. This is an expermentation year with the garden. We've started almost everything from seed, which is new. We're also planting a whole bunch of stuff we've never grown before, just to see how it does. Our broccoli seeds didn't do well at all--we have one limp seedling left, which I'm watering only because I can't just let something die. The cilantro should have been started in its final destination--lesson learned there. The transplant from the seed trays to the pots killed most of those seedlings as well. All of our peppers are coming along, and I have a few brave tomatillo seedlings that are still hanging in. The herbs, particularly the basil, are doing really well. I got an email today notifying me that my heirloom tomato plants have shipped from Seed Savers Exchange (starting tomatoes from seed is not something I'm willing to try yet). They should be here in a few days and I'll get to put them in. My only fear right now is that we're going to end up with waaaaay too many seedlings and nowhere to plant them. I still have to figure out where to put a couple more zucchini seed mounds as well as all of the lima beans.

That's the news from here. What's up with you, sister?

xoxo,
M.

The life.

Dear Elisa,

As every Austinite knows, it's South by Southwest Time. I'm giving this mobile blogging thing a try, coming to you live via iPhone from the PBS party. It's surprisingly raucous. I think I see Charlie Rose and Jim Lehrer dancing on the table in the corner.

I've attached a photo of this year's South by Sock Knitting. Simple Jaywalker in a Rockin' Sock Club colour from last year. As you can see, I think I've been drinking a bit more than knitting. I know, I know, you're shocked. Stay with me, girl, there's a whole week of this left.

xoxo,
M.

Touched by stripes.

Dear Elisa, I have reached the height of madness. I am casting on a fourth Noro Stripe Scarf before I have finished the third. I can't stand it. I want to see how every colour of Noro looks like with every other colour of Noro. Right now I'm checking out the ol' standby 211 (greens/purples/red-oranges) with newcomer 292 (pinks/golds/purples). I'm very excited about the possibilities here. I do have a small pitfall to deal with later, though, in that I've only got the one skein of 292 because that's all Hill Country had. Time for some innernet sleuthin'.

I could have probably held off a bit longer on the fourth scarf, but I had to take my birthday present on its maiden voyage immediately.  The Husband got me the SET of KnitPicks Options wooden straights! The thing that I circled on the torn-out catalog page and put big arrows pointing to saying PLEASE BUY ME THIS! HE GOT THE HINT! I'll be damned. And also, a New Wool Winder of my very own. The man has definitely started pickin' up what I'm puttin' down about YES PLEASE MORE YARN STUFF THANKS.

xoxo,
M.

P.S. Putting all my possessions on Craiglist because seriously, could I have picked a more expensive scarf to become obsessed with? Sweet fancy Moses.