How to drive someone crazy from 1100 miles away

22 November 2007

I hate holidays. The End.

15 November 2007

Moving on. Reluctantly.

Now that the boyfriend/girlfriend hats are out of my life, I find myself dawdling. I have so much stash... what's next? I finished the back of the Eyelet Cardigan, and am wondering if I want to cast on both fronts at the same time, or both sleeves. Then I think that it would take longer to make both at the same time and i waffle a bit. Then I think it will take just as long, if not shorter to knit both at the same time, because I tend to take a little break between bind-offs (you know, the back's done, so breathe for a day... the first front is done, so take a day off... you see where I'm going with this). Pros and cons make me indecisive, so I just think about other things to make...
Like an afghan for my Mom. But I am waffling on this, too, because I am not convinced she'll like the yarn (it's the Retro Throw from Knit Picks and I chose blue, azure and buttermilk) or the pattern or anything about it, really, because I recently found out she didn't like the Christmas present I gave her last year and she never said anything. I had to wait for my dad to make a rude comment to figure it out. Last month. So, confidence shaken, yes, and the plan right now is to take the yarn to her house on Thanksgiving and see if I can get a reaction out of her. So I don't want to waste my time knitting on it if I am just going to turn the yarn into a bathrobe for me.
So, I could work on those socks I have started... Yeah, right!
I could try stash re-organization as an attempt to get inspired, but that sounds like it involves cleaning parts of the house, and I am on strike until I get four more cents per DVD I dust.
I could get the backs started for those entrelac pillows... from September... but I never did settle on a method for them. Stripes? Solids? Some kind of bizarre brocade? Flat or circular?
What is a girl to do? I'm spinning my wheels. Suggestions, please. I'm trapped in bad attitude land and need help finding my way out.

11 November 2007

Close enough to done

I think that once a project is off the needles and I can easily hide any ends that may need weaving in, it is close enough to FO status for a photo. I don't really like work in progress photos, because what if I get distracted and don't touch it for over a year (there's a stripey tank top in this phase, all it really needs is straps, may my sweet kitty Eskimo {who is an incarnation of a lesser Yarn God} help us all) and you really liked that project and want to see more of it, what then? Well, I can't not listen to my knitting instincts that tell me don't bother with that boring ass project, and I can't bear the thought of disappointing anyone with the gumption to visit here more than once, so you get the Glory of the Finished Object in the most part. If it's really fascinating me to take a picture of a WIP, well, you'll know when that happens, won't you?



Anyhow, here's the project. It's Lindsay's Lucky Horseshoe Hat. Made specially to coordinate with the hat I knit her boyfriend, Stephen, which is just Headline News from SnBN (you'll recall my little blue hat he loved so much). Oh, modelled by me, btw. I don't have a really close friend who looks exactly like me, that would be creepy.





And a detail shot.





Ends need woven in, and the brim needs stitched on Stephen's hat, but I think I can call these babies done. If they were cookies, I'd be relying on carryover to finish them right now.

Some cool facts about Lindsay's Lucky Horseshoe:


  1. I designed this myself. I just picked up sticks and went crazy, did whatever I felt like doing until it looked like a hat, and called it a day.

  2. The horseshoe cable brim is worked horizontally with a slipped stitch edge, and I had to create a jig out of floral foam and straight pins to get the graft to be just perfect. It's no mean feat to kitchener in a knit/purl combination if you've no earthly clue where to even begin, and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. The thing about it is this: in all the books that tell you how to properly graft knits and purls in the same row, the drawings of stitches are lying flat and off the needles. So, I figured, why not get those cumbersome needles out of the way? I pinned each stitch to floral foam and pretended I was duplicate stitching. So easy once I figured out what I was doing.

  3. Those are tiny baby horseshoe cables going up the crown, in case the resolution ain't so great for you. Special thanks to Ariel Barton who wrote this great article and helped me figure out how to make these wicked cute. And yes, for those with a superstitious bone, all the horseshoes face up.
  4. For those of you who simply must know, Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes, US size 9 needles (straight and DPNs), whatever gauge came off the needles (I never did check).

These should be ready for mailing, say, Monday? Don't hold me to it, Linds. I do have a full time job.

Enjoy the photos and subsequent stalking of yours truly. I am adorable in hats, even when they're not mine.

03 November 2007

Yay, October!

I love October because of four great things. One, my birthday is on the twelfth. Two, fall really starts to kick in. Three, Rhinebeck. And four, Halloween. I love the creative opportunity Halloween presents. I am a bit disappointed that so many of my peers have turned it into International Dress Like a Whore Day, or Let's Get Wasted in a Costume Day, or I Just Want to Walk the Streets in my Bra and Panties Day (if you've ever been on Church Street in Orlando for Halloween, then you know...), but I hold on with all my creative mettle to be something that doesn't make me look like a common street-walking trollop.
A few years back, I lived in Gainesville (home of the most University of Florida girls ever) and for Halloween, all my friends were deciding what to do with themselves. I heard such things as I'm going to be a... slutty army girl! Slutty nurse! Slutty cop! Slutty devil! Slutty baby!
Yeah, that last one got me pretty bad, too.
It came around to me and I said I wanted to be Zorro. All my girlfriends looked confused... Someone said, hesitantly, "Slutty Zorro?" And I said no. Just Zorro.
So, I was a little disinclined to participate for a few years, until now.
I can't believe it, but I actually got Yoshi to go downtown and hang out in a bar, nay, several different bars for Halloween. He also dressed up. He got medieval.


And wonder of all wonders, he already had that outfit. It's a throwback from his Renaissance Fair days, and he looked smashing.
I toyed with the idea of being Lil Pimpin'...

Which, oddly enough, is also a costume Yoshi had tucked away in his closet. He claimed to me once that he won it on an online contest (his exact words were "You didn't think I bought that, did you?") and I thought it was hilarious on my petite frame (5 feet tall, weighing in at a buck fifteen). It is actually sized for him (6-foot-something, around 230-240), and I was really intrigued by being the Littlest Pimp. Until my girly side caught up with me and I just wanted to be pretty.

So, I was Holly Golightly.


Well, as best I could with what was in my closet. It was great fun to be recognized as Audrey Hepburn by some people and hear their friends say "Who?" and then watch the incredulity of the cinematically cultured vs the folly of those who haven't seen a movie older than Ghostbusters. I have the same reaction when people not that much younger than me say they have never seen Star Wars.

And in knitting news, I finally got around to getting myself a birthday present.


Nice, huh? I got myself the kit, US size 4 to 11 (yes, my needles go to eleven!). I just wish they made short cables so I could convert them all to 16" for hats. Fortunately, a charming woman promised me some sometime within the next year, so I am not sweating it at all. I got time.
I also managed to make the entire hat for Steven, and most of the brim for Lindsay's hat (designing that one myself, so it's taking a little longer). And I cast on for this little cardigan, for which I had purchased a kit from kpixie.com. So, we are knitting and knitting and quite happy with the knitting. With the exception of this...
I made a horrible mistake. I bought an entire small sweater's worth of yarn (Bengali from the Queensland Collection, color six on the card if you're interested) and I hate it. I unfortunately bought it on sale, so it's mine forever. Unless, of course, you want it. I've got ten unmolested balls (880 yds! Four stitches to the inch on size 9s!) that I will be happy to send to you, whoever and wherever you may be, for, hmm, whatever stuff you may want to offer, but shipping at the bare minimum (I paid about $7/ball, if you want to know). I wouldn't expect anyone to accept the ball I swatched with, because I have thrown it across the room a few times in despair and hatred and it is not pristine any longer. I should have known better than to buy so much of something I was completely unfamiliar with, but the colors are what hooked me in, and it is really soft, and it was on sale. I just don't care to work with it any longer. So, if you like pale plum, gold and green in a wrapped novelty yarn, let me know what you want to swap and I'll send it along.