Knitting Zen

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2010-04-15T16:32:00.001-05:00

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2009-06-17T14:15:00.005-05:00

I had several balls of sock yarn listed at Ebay, but three of them didn't sell, and I thought I'd offer them here if anyone was interested. They were listed at $15.00; I would ask an additional $1.50 for shipping, so $16.50 for each. If you're interested, just email me and let me know which one you want, and I'll send you a Paypal invoice. If I have more than one request, it will be first-come, first-served. I'll let you know either way.

No. 1 - Regia Jubilee, Color 5472 ("India"), Dye Lot 53723. Hot pink, white, burgundy, tan. Made in Italy. 75% Superwash Wool, 25% Polyamide. Size 1-2 needles. 100 gram ball (420 meters).
This yarn was part of a limited edition set created for the 55th anniversary of Regia, and is no longer available.
$16.50 including S&H

No. 2 - Opal Rainforest III, Color 2030, Dye Lot 10. Off-white, denim-blue, gold, coral. Made in Germany. 75% Superwash Wool, 25% Polyamide. 8 stitches=1 inch on US Size 1 needles. 100 gram ball (425 meters).
$16.50 including S&H

No. 3 - Gedifra Socks Color, Color 4203, Dye Lot 10459. Pink, cream, turquoise, tan, pale yellow. Made in Germany. 75% Superwash Wool, 25% Polyamide. Size 1-2 needles. 100 gram ball (459 yards).
$16.50 including S&H

2009-06-17T00:02:00.000-05:00

Just posted about two dozen back issues of Knitter's and Vogue Knitting on Ebay.

2009-06-16T22:27:00.003-05:00

I just listed a bunch of old needlework magazines on Ebay: McCall's Needlework, Threads, Cross Stitch Magazine, Quilter's Newsletter.

And there are still a couple of balls of sock yarn, including a ball of Regia Special Edition "Jubilee," but the auctions end in about 15 hours!

Free Audio Book

2009-06-16T10:41:00.000-05:00

Free Audio book download of "Sweet Talk" by Susan Mallery from Lion Brand and Audible.

Sublime Stitching | This ain't your gramma's embroidery!

2009-05-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

These transfers make me want to embroider, something I haven't done for probably more than 20 years: Sublime Stitching.

I might have to order some . . .

2008-08-09T08:34:00.003-05:00

Noro Silk Garden is probably my favorite yarn ever, so I'm not sure why it took me so long to buy some Silk Garden Sock. In any event, I bought six skeins in a buying frenzy -- they came out with 8 colors, but I didn't buy the one that's all cream and tan, or the royal blue one. Anyway, I decided I'd bought too much, so I'm keeping the two colors I liked the most, and put the others on Ebay. They're a dollar or so cheaper than I paid for them, and about the same amount cheaper than the only other seller on Ebay.

2008-07-27T12:36:00.001-05:00

Today's time waster: photographing skeins of sock yarn and putting them up in my stash on Ravelry

I joined Ravelry a while ago, but had never done anything with it. Then yesterday I was putting up some Vera Bradley stuff on Ebay--something else I hadn't done in awhile--and was reminded of my "opal sock" saved search, and then for whatever reason, that reminded me of Ravelry, and I went there. And saw that they were having a "knitting olympics," and that intrigued me, so I went down in the basement to see what sock yarn I would pick if I was going to make a pair of Olympics socks, and that led to the photographing and listing extravaganza.

Right now I'm working on a sock that I started around the 4th of July so that I would have something to knit at the family reunion that weekend. I didn't end up knitting anything--my parents didn't want to stick around after lunch--but I'm about halfway through the first sock. I'd like to finish at least one before I start something else . . . maybe my "Olympic" knitting could be the second sock?

2008-01-09T17:19:00.001-06:00

Crocheted hamburgers, tv dinners, sardines . . . TOYS - a photoset on Flickr. Link from Slashfood

Knitted Kitty

2007-12-11T09:45:00.000-06:00

This is a really cute knitted kitty toy (a toy that's a kitty, not a toy for a kitty, I assume), and of course I would never buy this kind of thing as a kit -- would anyone pay $72 to the materials to knit a toy?? Even without the needles it would be over $60 just for the yarn and pattern book. I might buy the book, but if I were to make this, I'd definitely make it from scraps in my stash.

Yarn Market has Project Ideas for Toys - Wool Cotton Kitty Toy

2007-11-30T07:39:00.000-06:00

I went to the post office the other night to mail a package, and bought some stamps from the automated machine. I expected regular stamps, but got holiday stamps. Without my glasses, I couldn't really tell that they were anything other than pixelated holiday images, but it turns out that they're knitted holiday images.

From the USPS website:

For the 2007 holiday season, the U.S. Postal Service will issue Holiday Knits, four stamps featuring classic Christmas-time imagery designed and machine knitted by nationally known illustrator Nancy Stahl: There is a dignified stag; a snow-dappled evergreen tree; a perky snowman sporting a top hat; and a whimsical teddy bear.

2007-09-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

Briefly -- I put up about a dozen new sets of stitch markers in my Etsy shop. Most of them are semi-precious stones (Amazonite, Prase, Turquoise, Sugilite), with a few Czech glass items. I have a few more sets to photograph and post later in the week. See pictures of some of them in the left-hand column. More later.

Strange Horizons Fiction: The Leaving Sweater, by Ruth Nestvold

2007-09-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

Strange Horizons Fiction: The Leaving Sweater, by Ruth Nestvold:

The leaving sweater was made of scraps of leftover red wool—many different shades of red. And many different qualities of yarn, from mohair to raw silk to cotton and linen mixes. And many different stitches, from ribbed to open work to waterfall to butterfly. Although it had been a decade now, Vicky could still remember watching her mother make it as a present for Vicky's high school graduation—before she was to go away to college.

"I don't want to leave Rolynka," Vicky had said, her arms wrapped around her skinny legs as she watched the needles fly in her mother's hands and the strands of wool take shape.

2007-07-11T23:46:00.000-05:00

A t-shirt I found in Second Life:

2007-06-07T11:20:00.000-05:00

I love this:

Masquerade

and:
Knitta

Makes me want to knit a cozy for . . . something.

My friend Kurt sent the link to me, and he said, "I'm gonna walk outside some dy and see a telephone pole knitted up, aren't I?" Yup.

2007-03-15T07:40:00.000-05:00

Did I ever post this? I can't remember. I found it when cleaning out some files yesterday. It's a creation myth that I wrote.

Knitting the World

First Daughter was in a foul mood. She and her sisters had drawn straws, and she had gotten the short one. Consequently, she had been given the task of knitting the earth, and it was going very slowly. The stitches would not come easily; she seemed to knit and knit and knit, and never get anywhere. Miles of stitches. And the brown and green yarns were boring—yard after yard of greens and browns, endlessly spooling from the needles. She yawned. Why couldn't she have gotten to knit the sky, or the sea?

Second Daughter was knitting the sky. Stitches of blue silk flew from her needles, punctuated with fluffy tufts of cloud and the occasional jeweled bird. She laughed to herself as she duplicate-stitched a flock of geese into the fabric, creating tiny v-shapes with silvery gray thread on top of the blue sky.

Third Daughter was knitting the sea in pools of emerald and sapphire, spumes of foam rising from her clicking needles.

The Mother walked among them, fingering the cloth, occasionally correcting a stitch, pulling it straight, and stroking her daughters' smooth heads as they bent over their work. Second Daughter smiled into the sky, pulling a length of white wool from her workbasket and knitting it together with the sky blue silk to make a cloud. With sudden inspiration she selected a shiny silver yarn from her workbasket and began fashioning the lining for the cloud.

Third Daughter looked up as the mother approached, and leaned her head into her mother's hip. The Mother smiled down on her and fingered the fabric that was rolling off her needles. Third Daughter was working a cable into the fabric, creating an island in the center of a gleaming silver sea. Miles and miles of sea pooled around her, green and blue and silver; she looked up and, seeing Second Daughter knitting the sun into the sky with golden wool, she chose a lighter shade of gold and began to knit the sun's reflection into her sea.

First Daughter threw down her needles. "Why do I always get the boring jobs?" she asked. "Second Daughter and Third Daughter get the pretty blue and silver silks, and I get the boring, lumpy green and brown wool. It isn't fair!" The Mother walked toward her. "Why do you complain so?" she asked. "Every job is worthwhile. The sea is beautiful, and the sky is beautiful, but the earth is beautiful, too."

The Mother picked up the bolt of fabric that was First Daughter's knitting. The knitting was lumpy and bumpy, having been knit of roughly spun wool on heavy needles, so unlike the smooth silk of the sky and the sea. First Daughter tried, but she couldn't help comparing her knitting to her sisters'. "Can you fix it for me?" she asked her mother. "Will you?"

"It was your job to knit the earth, Daughter," the Mother said. "You have to do the job that is given to you, no one can do it for you."

"Then I quit!" said First Daughter, and flung her knitting down and flounced away. Without a hand to smooth it, the knitting lay where it fell, in lumps and bumps and piles, forming furrows and hills and valleys. And that is how the mountains were formed.

~ Willa Cline, February 23, 2006

2007-03-11T14:23:00.000-05:00

I spent this morning stocking my Etsy shop -- so much fun! I never know if I'll make any money doing something like this, but I always figure as long as I have fun doing it, it's win-win.

2007-03-04T09:21:00.000-06:00

I started a new sock yesterday, out of a limited edition Opal called "Regenbogen" (which is, as far as I can tell, the German word for "rainbow). I ordered it from Astrid's, in the Netherlands. I could hardly put it down yesterday, and was reminded that I love Opal above all other sock yarns. The Trekking (below) was very splitty (of course, I guess that's the result of the multi-ply, which also gives the ombre effect) and wasn't a lot of fun to knit.

I've also decided to make this pair a little longer in the leg than I usually do, just to see if I like it.

2007-03-03T11:28:00.000-06:00

I finally finished the first green/red/pink Trekking sock:

It's a little tight on me, and I'm not sure why. I made it exactly the way I've made all of the others; I think Trekking yarn may be a tiny bit smaller than the Opal I usually use. It fits, it's just that it exactly fits. Maybe when I wash it it will loosen up a little, they usually do.

2007-01-23T09:33:00.000-06:00

The yarn in the pictures below is Trekking XXL -- I think it's 107 (I don't have it with me). But looking at those pictures on my monitor at work, they really don't look like the true colors. I think I need to do some color correcting! This image shows the colors much better (from Astrid's Dutch Obsessions.

2007-01-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

I made a resolution to knit a sock a month, or 6 pair this year, but I'm not off to a very good start. Seems like every time I sit down, I'm working. But I have made a little progress:

We'll be on vacation in a couple of weeks, so I'm looking forward to lots of knitting time on the plane, waiting in airports, and beside the pool.

2007-01-01T17:18:00.000-06:00

Over in the left-hand column you'll see a new little ad block, offering a piece of sterling silver jewelry free, for only the cost of shipping and handling ($5.99). I saw this on another website, and checked it out, and ordered this sterling silver and garnet ring:

I just ordered it today, so obviously haven't received it yet, but I was impressed enough to set up an account so that I could put up the ad. Every fifteen minutes, the jewelry on offer changes--there are always four items available, so you can just wait until something comes up that you like. All of it looks pretty nice, lots of lovely stones. Garnets are one of my favorites.

2006-12-20T11:36:00.000-06:00

I thought this was a very interesting article about the correlation between knitting and magic(k), specifically the making of knots: Blogickal: Knitting Magick.

She talks about the book The Knitting Goddess, by Deborah Bergman, which I also have. I love the passage that was quoted here:

The invitation to knit usually doesn't arrive when we are feeling like everything in life has achieved a measure of Parisian fullness and balance and needs to get roughed up again. Not always, but more often, it seems to be in one of those ragged, odd moments of life - when we are feeling somehow at odds, in transition, at risk, out of sorts, or just plain awkward - when two needles and a skein of something intriguing manage to present themselves within arm's reach. A voice whispers in our ear. We pick up the rudimentary tools and fiber, put up with the fleeting added challenge of learning yet another new skill, and the next thing we know we are knitting our way through our transition, ordering our life into a new pattern while we also use our hands and needles to learn to pattern yarn. We counter one transition with another, and get through both, and then some.

I haven't been knitting very much lately. It's a very busy time of year, but I somehow need to find the time to sit down and knit a few rows; I think it would probably help to calm and center me.

And maybe try some knot magic.

2006-11-14T07:51:00.000-06:00

I was surprised to see a Berroco Free Pattern called Willa. Ugly sweater, though, unfortunately.

2006-10-20T22:16:00.000-05:00

Over the next few days I'm going to be posting some yarn for sale at eBay. Just trying to do a little de-stashing (to make room for new yarn, of course!). Check out my eBay page. All I have up there so far is a bag of Elann's Endless Summer Sonata in Angel Blue and a bag of Noro Shinano #1, but as soon as I can get some photos taken, I'll post some more.

2006-10-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

I just ran across a good sock tutorial. It's meant for knitting socks with patterned foot and leg, and plain toe, heel, and cuff, but it could work for any kind of socks, I think.

2006-10-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

Article about Tracey Ullman, knitting, and her new book, Knit 2 Together: NPR : Tracey Ullman Takes on Knitting

In Knit 2 Together, Mel Clark provides the unexpectedly enticing designs, from a flirty apron to a chic doctor's bag while Ullman provides the contagious zeal of a recent knitting convert.

2006-09-03T13:57:00.000-05:00

I was knitting on my current sock this morning, and I held it up for Bob to see; I kind of thought he would like it, because it's red, white and blue, but he sort of rolled his eyes--he isn't a fan of my wild colored socks.

I said, "yeah, I know, but," and he interrupted me and said, "It's therapy, I know."

I know I've said before that I'm a "process" knitter, i.e., I'm not so much interested in the product as I am in the process. I love sitting down and turning yarn into something, but while I see sweater patterns that I think are lovely, I'm honest enough with myself by now to realize that I will very seldom stay interested long enough to knit one. I think I'm a hardcore sock knitter (at least right now).

And it's not even that I'm all that crazy about the socks themselves; if I was actually knitting socks that I truly wanted to wear, I would probably be knitting much less wild ones than I do now. I choose sock yarns based on what looks interesting to knit. I do wear them, and love them, but honestly, I could probably just put them in my drawer and never wear them, and I would get just as much enjoyment out of them.

Why I like knitting socks for myself

Portable - can be stuck in my purse
Easily memorizable pattern - can knit anywhere without a pattern
Quickly finished, i.e., immediate gratification
Interesting, fun colors
Mindless parts (leg, foot)
Challenging parts (heel)
Don't have to think of anyone else's tastes or size
Only need one ball of yarn (or at most, two) for a pair, i.e., don't have to worry about dye lots or running out
Don't need a lot of equipment, only the yarn/sock and needles
I'm proud of the fact that I learned to knit them, and feel proud of my accomplishment every time I finish one
It's soothing--it both calms my mind and frees it up to think
It gives my hands something to do while I'm watching television
At the end, I have a sock!

2006-09-03T13:47:00.000-05:00

You thought I was kidding about having enough sock yarn to last the rest of my life, didn't you? Although, if I got busy, I could probably have it all knit up in a couple of years, and then I'd have a pair of socks for every week in the year. Of course, that assumes that I don't buy any more . . .

2006-09-03T12:29:00.000-05:00

Very cute Barbie Poncho knit in the round with sock yarn.

2006-09-03T00:33:00.000-05:00

Last night I finished the second Rodeo sock:

It only took me six months to knit the second one! But now I'm back on a sock knitting kick, and started a second pair out of another Rodeo colorway:

I've got the two balls of sock yarn coming from the Netherlands, and I also bought two new balls today. I didn't intend to, but I went to the yarn shop for another set of No. 1 Brittany's, and told myself that I would only look at the sock yarn, and if there was anything there that was really interesting, I could get it. I ended up with a ball of Fortissima Socka "Modern Art" in cream, purple and gold, and a Trekking XXL in muted Christmas colors.

My very favorite socks are these Opal Lollipop ones. I love the colors. I'm also fond of a muted red-white-blue pallette, so I'm really enjoying the new Rodeo ones. Maybe I can actually knit a few pair without waiting half a year this time.

2006-08-31T21:18:00.000-05:00

I followed a link from knitmeister to Astrid's Dutch Obsessions, a knitting shop in the Netherlands, and ended up buying a couple of balls of sock yarn--both of them 100 gram balls, and one (Fortissima Mexico Tequila) was only $6.50 and the other (Gedifra) was $8.95!

And shipping wasn't bad at all--just $7.50--so two balls (two pairs of socks) ended up costing just over $20. I had actually put quite a bit more than that in my shopping cart, but I culled it down to just those two. I can always order more later. Of course, there's no question that I have enough sock yarn to last me the rest of my life right now, but at prices like that, who could resist?

I almost bought some of the Opal Hundertwasser, but although I'm a huge fan of colorful, crazy socks, this was just a bit too crazy, even for me. Still, I might order some later . . .

2006-08-13T21:48:00.000-05:00

I finally finished one Opal Petticoat sock:

Then moved on to the second one of the Opal Rodeo pair that I started in Mexico:

I have two other single socks, I think, one an Opal Bumblebee and the other also an Opal, an Inspiration, I think. I'm hoping to finish up those--and the second Petticoat one--before I start on anything new. It's so hard, though. I have a bin full of wonderful sock yarn, and it always seems so much more interesting to start a new ball of yarn, to see what it's going to look like, than it is to knit the second sock of a pair.

But it has to be done. It seems to make it easier (for me, at least) not to try to knit the two socks of a pair one right after the other--knitting something else in between works better for me.

The Opal Rodeos that I'm working on now will be fraternal twins; I decided against trying to make them match because the color repeat is so long that I would have had to pull out half the skein to find the right place to start, and I just didn't feel like it. I like having them not match sometimes, anyway. Although I also like having them match exactly -- self patterning yarn is just cool, period.

2006-03-17T09:12:00.000-06:00

I thought this was interesting:

Even now, I can never leave my knitting after a purl row; I always have to finish on a knit row. Is there something unfinished about an odd number? Why does a purl row always need a knit row to complement it?

For myself, I prefer to put down my knitting after a purl row. To me, stopping after a knit row is what seems unfinished. Isn't it funny how we all have different little quirks, yet for each of us, they make some kind of sense?

yarnstorm: obsessive knitting

2006-02-23T21:33:00.000-06:00

I had kind of forgotten about this: The Story of Cashmere

Cashmere doesn't come from ordinary sheep. It comes from the incredibly rare Cashmere Goat. There are only five Cashmere Goats in existence, and they live on top of a very high mountain in Tibet, tended by Tibetan monks. The goats, since they are so very rare and precious, are considered to be sacred, and holy, and they are not allowed to be sheared.

Their hair, the sacred Cashmere Goat Hair, can only be collected after it sheds from the goat naturally. At least two monks attend each Holy Goat at one time--one monk to place a gold-embroidered white cloth in the path of the goat as it walks, so as to catch any sacred Cashmere Goat Hair that falls naturally from the goat, and one to walk behind and gather up the hair as it falls on the cloth.

Since the goats are cared for so religiously, they actually shed less than they would if they were left to their own devices, so very little hair is collected, only a few hairs per week, in fact. It takes almost a year to collect enough Sacred Goat Hair from the five Holy Goats to spin the wool to make one sweater. And only the very holiest of the monks are allowed to spin the wool. Only one monk is chosen every year, and it is considered a very great honor to be chosen to be the Sacred Spinning Monk.

Each year, if enough hair is collected for a sweater--and it doesn't happen every year--the Sacred Goat Hair is brought to the chosen Sacred Spinning Monk, who spins the hair into fine yarn which is then wrapped in one of the gold-embroidered white cloths that are used to collect the Sacred Goat Hair. The yarn is carried down the mountain in a golden casket and handed over to the best knitter in the village, known as the Sacred Cashmere Knitter.

The Sacred Cashmere Knitter knits the yarn into a sweater, using special golden needles that have been blessed by the Dalai Lama. When she has finished knitting, the Sacred Knitter's husband goes out into the valley and calls the monks back by blowing the Sacred Cashmere Horn. The monks then come back down the mountain, collect the sweater, and Federal Express it to a store selected by secret lottery, where it may be purchased at great price.

And that is why cashmere sweaters are so expensive.

Holy Goats: The Story of Cashmere

2006-02-23T21:27:00.000-06:00

The Knitting Addict.

2006-02-21T22:53:00.000-06:00

I'm still working on the Opal Rodeo sock; in fact, I've hardly gotten any further at all. I'm doing the heel flap, and I hate doing heel flaps. And it always happens--I get to the point where I need to start the heel, and I've got tan yarn to work with, almost exactly the same color as my needles, so not only is it a pain to have to do the flap, I can't do it in low light or anything other than optimal conditions, because I can't see what I'm doing! Grr.

2006-02-13T14:10:00.000-06:00

I just got back from a week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I took a half-finished sock (Opal Inspiration):

I worked on it while we were there:

And finished it that same day, in spite of the drinking and the sun. I started a new one (Opal Rodeo):

I was kind of proud of myself for not getting overly optimistic about the amount of knitting I would get done. I figured I would be doing good if I finished one pair of socks; I did take an extra ball of Opal, and ended up starting a new pair rather than knitting the second sock of the first pair.

One day I spent the whole day reading (Stephen King's Cell), and didn't knit at all, but most days I knit in the morning for a couple of hours, then played cards in the afternoon. It was a wonderful week, so relaxing.

2006-01-16T12:36:00.000-06:00

This felted gadget case is so cute! I don't want to buy one, though, of course (not at $32), but I want to make one.

Link from Popgadget

2006-01-05T10:25:00.000-06:00

I finished a pair of socks last night:

These are Opal Brasil, color 5001. Awfully bright, aren't they? Fun to knit, though. I think I'll make the next pair slightly longer.

2006-01-04T12:57:00.000-06:00

Here's an article about knitters in Houston who are "tagging" lamposts, car antennas, trees, etc., with knitted "cozies." A softer, gentler kind of graffiti.

Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women: Knitta, please

Link from Misty

2005-12-14T19:25:00.000-06:00

A friend in England told me about seeing smoothie bottles in his supermarket with little woolen hats on, and said he'd collected a whole set of them. I was fascinated by the idea, and looked it up on the web: innocent - keeping people warm this winter. Innocent is donating a fairly large percentage of the sales price during this promotion to charities for the elderly. A really delightful idea. I think I'm going to have to knit some little hats. They have a pattern.

2005-11-26T17:02:00.000-06:00

This is the first I've seen of this, so don't know if it's new or not: The Knitted Wedding. I like the little knitted pansies; I also want to knit a sandwich!

From Slashfood

2005-10-21T23:03:00.000-05:00

Although the Trust cannot offer any direct employment there are skill shortages in several areas but particularly in the building trades and knitting.

Property to Let in Fair Isle, Scotland

2005-10-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

Oh, how nice. On the page for the new Family Circle Easy Knitting: "Work It, Girls: Hook your way up the corporate ladder with fashionable crocheted office wear."

2005-10-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

One of our local yarn shops here has a "frequent buyer" program, i.e., for every $5 you spend at the shop, they punch a card, and when it's filled up -- I believe it's $150 worth -- you get 10% back: $15 in free merchandise the next time you come in.

I think that's such a great idea. It promotes loyalty and makes you want to spend more money, so really, everyone wins. I wish more stores would do that.

I went there today, intending just to check out the sale room and see if they had any cotton yarn, because I wanted to try knitting some washcloths; I thought that would be a quick, easy Christmas gift, maybe. I found a lone ball of coral-colored Calmer, and then I also picked up a skein of red and black sock yarn that I thought might make a cool pair of fingerless gloves. I thought about buying some Silk Garden, but their price--$11.00--seems awfully high when I compare it to the $7.95 or so that I've paid online.

Still, I do like buying locally if I can, and there's that frequent buyer thing going on . . . but I decided to wait, and just get the two sale things.

When I got up to the register, I noticed that they had a sign up that from now on, you would get one punch on your card for every $10 in purchases. So they effectively made it twice as hard to get anything free--now you'll have to spend $300 to get $15. I though, oh well, and handed over my debit card and my punch card, thinking at least since I was spending about $15, I'd get one punch.

The saleslady took my cards, processed the credit card, and handed the punch card back to me without a word, or a punch. I thought she'd forgotten, and said, "Um, did you want to punch it for me?" and she said, without looking up, "Not on sale items, sorry."

And I thought, okay, that's it for this shop. It's always packed, they've got knitting classes going on all the time, it's always full of women buying expensive novelty yarns. I know it's tough running a small business, but you know what? I'd almost rather they just discontinue a program like that rather than making it doubly harder to get anything. Frankly, it would have made me a lot happier if they had said that you had until whatever date to fill up a card, and after that it was discontinued.

The other thing they do that bugs me is that they mark merchandise up--you'll quite often pick up yarn where the price has been marked out with a marker and another price written in. Obvioiusly suppliers raise their prices, but raising the (already high) price on older stock to match new prices seems wrong to me.

Anyway, I guess I'll just go back to ordering online. It's less hassle and less expense, and infinitely less aggravating.

2005-09-28T22:27:00.000-05:00

Pye never really cared for the felted Kitty Pi, but she loves one that I made later, in its unfelted state.

2005-09-28T22:25:00.000-05:00

I'm still working on the dog sweater, but SOOOO slowly. Honestly, if I actually sat down and worked on it, I could probably finish it in an evening. But most of my knitting is done while I'm waiting somewhere, or just a few odd moments here and there, like on a conference call at work, or stuck in traffic, or something like that. But this is so fiddly, with so many increases and decreases, and counting, that I can't do it without the pattern in front of me.

So I keep carrying it to work and back, and not knitting on it at all. I did most of the front piece while I was at my parents' for my dad's birthday on Sunday, ended up ripping it all out because I did increases instead of decreases because I wasn't paying attention.

I really need to finish it, because we're going out of town for a few days next week, and I need to start something mindless so I can have knitting for the car, and for sitting on the bank while Bob fishes. Or what I'll probably do is stick a couple of balls of sock yarn and some double points in my bag and call it a day.

2005-09-12T13:44:00.000-05:00

I finished the Top-down Raglan Friday night while watching City of Angels--one of my favorite movies--and eating Ben & Jerry's "Half Baked" ice cream. Well, that's not entirely true. I didn't eat while knitting, I knitted, and then ate. I intended to watch the original, Wings of Desire, on Saturday night, but Bob came home a day early, which was good, because I hadn't yet made plans for dinner Saturday night ...

Yesterday I started my next project, the dog sweater in Berroco Air, which is very nice to work with, if a bit sticky on my bamboo needles. I'm afraid Addi's would be too slick, though, so I think I'll stick with the bamboo, particularly since this will be such a small/quick project.

2005-09-01T12:55:00.000-05:00

I'm reading Knitting Heaven and Earth, by Susan Gordon Lydon. The book is a memoir, made all the more poignant because Ms. Lydon died earlier this year.

I read this last night, which I loved:

There are knitters who put a lot of restrictions on their knitting lives. They work on only one project at a time; they make sure it has a practical purpose; they are careful not to spend too much money on materials.

There are probably as many types of knitters as there are stitch patterns for knitting, but I am not of the puritanical mind-set that believes in limiting pleasure in my creative life. The structural constrictions of making a three-dimensional garment from a flat piece of thread are limitation enough as far as I'm concerned.

So I indulge every whim, spend any amount of money to get the yarn I want, let the knitter within get away with murder, metaphorically speaking. I abandon projects in midstream, experiment freely, do what I want, when I want, and hang the consequences. I want the knitter in me to be as free, wild, artistic, and creative as she has the desire to be. Knitting is where I give the wild woman inside me free rein. If she wants to be the wise woman as well, that's fine; if not, also fine. I no longer care that my kitchen cupboards are stuffed with yarn, and my closets with half-finished projects.

I knit with cashmere often because it is kind to my hands, which have endured bouts of tendinitis on and off for years.

At this point in my life I say: Judge me if you dare.

2005-08-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

I ended up ripping out the first sleeve of the Silk Garden sweater. I decided it was too wide, and at first I thought I'd just fudge it by making a bunch of decreases toward the cuff, then I realized that since it was the sleeve, and I had to make two, I wouldn't be happy with either a) having two vaguely different sleeves, or b) making the second one wrong just so it matched the first. So I ripped it all out and started over, making the decreases closer together.

I went to the yarn shop today to see if there were any bamboo circular needles smaller than 16" to finish the sleeve. There weren't (I don't know if any are made or not), but they had 12" Addi Turbos, which I had never tried. I just wasn't sure about it, and they were expensive, but I thought I'd give it a try, and bought one.

At first I thought it might be too slippery, but I got used to it pretty quickly, and loved it! I think now I'm going to go back to the shop tomorrow and buy a 16" one -- actually, I'll get it free, because my purchse today filled up my punch card, and that means I get $15 off something, which will just about pay for another needle.

I finished the sleeve tonight (I ended up using double-points for the cuff ribbing, though), and I think I'll wait until I get the new Addi tomorrow to start the second sleeve.

And then, what's next? I'm not sure. I ordered the yarn for the dog sweater, but it isn't here yet. I've been wanting to try the entrelac shrug from Knitters' Ponchos and Wraps, but I'm not sure. I might give that a try. I have another bag of Silk Garden . . .

2005-08-24T22:34:00.000-05:00

Here's a site with a BUNCH of free sweater patterns that I found tonight: Ornaghi Filati.

2005-08-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

A bad picture, but illustrative of me trying on the sweater while one sleeve is still on the needles, and trying to figure out how much longer it needs to be.

2005-08-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

I'm working on the first sleeve of the Silk Garden sweater. I'm probably not going to have enough yarn, but I'm going to wait until I finish this skein to decide whether to order another one or not. I think I'm going to need one more, but I'm trying not to be obsessive about it (unusual for me).

2005-08-19T09:51:00.000-05:00

I've been looking for a cute sweater to make for my in-laws' dog, a Boston Terrier. I think I found the perfect one. I need to look through my stash and see if I have any appropriate yarn, although it only takes two balls of Berroco Air, so maybe I might as well get what it calls for.

2005-08-14T13:27:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of pictures of the Silk Garden sweater that I'm working on, using this pattern. I'm almost finished with the body. I haven't decided yet whether to make short or long sleeves. I'm leaning toward short cap sleeves, but I'll probably have to try it and see.

It's still on the needle, which is why it doesn't meet in the front. I'm probably not going to do buttons or anything, but it won't actually fit like this when it's finished, I just didn't want to take it off the needles for the picture.

2005-08-09T07:47:00.000-05:00

(I walk into Dave's office wearing the sweater I'm knitting on one shoulder, trailing a ball of yarn behind me.) (Okay, I forgot that it was still attached to the ball, I was just excited to be trying it on.)

Me: "See what I'm knitting??"

Dave: "What is that, a sweater?"

Me: "Yup."

Dave: "They have those in stores, you know." (Yes, and probably cheaper.) "Do you need some money?"

2005-07-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I think these photos are fascinating: Pieter Hugo: The Hyena People of Nigeria; I especially like the crocheted muzzle on this hyena!

2005-07-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

I got a new camera phone, which should help me post more pictures to this blog and to my sites in general. It's not wonderful quality, by any means, but it's not bad for a phone. Here's the recycled Silk Garden, being knit into cosmicpluto knits! top down cardigan:

And here's the mini-sweater. The sleeve stitches are still on waste yarn, I had to stop and wait until I got some more Shinano, which I have now, so hopefully sometime this week I'll finish it.

2005-07-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

I dreamed that I was going somewhere for the weekend, and I was late leaving -- everyone was waiting on me -- but I had to find some yarn to take with me. I was in the middle of knitting a pair of socks, and I had to find another ball of Opal. I was searching in the closets, and everywhere I could think of, but no Opal. There was other yarn, but it was all icky novelty yarn. I tried to make myself take that, and thought, well, I could knit a new pair of socks, and maybe make something for my niece, but it was kind of acid green with black eyelashes, and I just couldn't get into it. I just kept looking, and trying to remember where I'd put it, and telling my friends, "Just a second! I just have to look one more place!"

A knitting anxiety dream!

2005-07-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

I decided the Mini Sweater that I made in Silk Garden was really too small and I would probably never wear it, so I decided to rip it and try again, since I didn't want to just put it away and waste the yarn. Bob came in while I was ripping and rolling the yarn into balls, and he said, "That's a good idea!" I said, "What? Ripping it out?" and he said he hadn't realized that was what I was doing--I'm not sure what he thought I was doing, but he asked me if I was going to re-use the yarn, and I said I was, that the sweater was too small, so I was going to try again.

He said, "You mean you can knit it, then if it doesn't work out you can re-use the yarn and knit something else?" I told him that was the idea, and he said he thought that was really cool. It is, isn't it? Would that more things in life were that way.

2005-07-15T13:04:00.000-05:00

There are two yarn stores near me now. One isn't very convenient--it's between my office and home, really too far to go on a lunch hour, and it's usually closed by the time I head home, and too far for me to want to drive there on the weekends. The other one is closer to home, and a nice convenient location for visiting on the weekends. They have a lot of inventory, and they carry Noro yarns, which is like crack to me.

But they arrange the yarn by color, which drives me nuts.

It may make a nicer presentation, i.e., more dramatic or something, but it's almost impossible to find something, even when you know exactly what you want. Maybe that's the point, maybe it's more conducive to browsing or something, but it mostly just annoys me.

I remember being in there one Saturday a few weeks ago; I had gone in for a skein of Kureyon. I searched and searched and searched, and finally found it, and as I was walking up to the counter to pay, another customer stopped me and asked, "Where did you get that??" She and one of the women who work there had been searching in vain for it. It was multicolored, with turqoise and grays, and they had been looking in the blues. I pointed to the other side of the store: "It's over there, with the grays."

I've noticed that one color of Noro Transitions (and probably other yarns, too, that's just the one I noticed) will be all over the store--if you wanted enough for a sweater, you'd have to go around and collect it from every corner--since the skeins are multicolored, some would be with the pinks, some with the browns, some with the grays, etc.

I know there are a lot of different ways to arrange inventory, but it would seem to me to make a lot more sense to have one kind of yarn together, to have all of the, for instance, Noro Silk Garden, in one place so you could compare different colorways without having to carry an armful of it over to the other side of the store. But maybe that's just me.

2005-07-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

I spent Saturday evening in front of the television watching back-to-back episodes of What Not to Wear on BBC America and knitting my third Mini Sweater. The first was practice, in Plymouth Encore. The second was in Silk Garden, my favorite yarn in all the world. It's not bad--could be slightly larger, but it's okay. This one, the third, is in Noro Shinano, which, since it's a bit heavier than Silk Garden, should end up making a sweater that's just right.

I wish I had saved something I found the other day, because I don't remember where I saw it. It was "Know thyself," but kind of as a list of all the things you should know about yourself--oh, as I wrote that I remembered. It was in a Cary Tennis column at Salon:

Know thyself. Literally. Know everything about thyself. Know thy diseases and know thy fears; know thy self-deceptions and thy sins; know thy weak bones and thy strong bones, thy capacities and thy limits; know thy neck stiffness, thy sleep requirements, thy food sensitivities, thy secret hatreds and biases, thy fetishes, thy body types, thy terrors and delights. Know thyself. Know everything. Turn away from nothing. Know it all.

I will probably explore that a little further over at the journal, but here's something that I finally know about myself with regard to knitting:

I'm pretty conservative when it comes to clothing. I wear mostly black or white; my current work "uniform" seems to be dark jeans and a white t-shirt, or occasionally black, and on rare occasions, red. I branch out more when it comes to shoes--my favorite tennis shoes are hot pink, and I'm currently wearing a pair of dark red thongs with antiqued silver accents--but I very seldom wear anything with a lot of color or pattern.

But when I knit, I need color, and, frankly, I need many colors. Variegated yarn sings to me.

I can totally relate to this:

Just like with variegated yarn, the excitement of seeing what colour is coming next charms and occupies me to no end. (This could explain much of my happiness in the world. I'm apparently simple.) It's hard to publicly admit this, but it turns out that despite my experience and education, all the intrigue that I need to sit gripped at the spinning wheel for hours is waiting to see what two colours will ply together for the next 10 cm.

Self-patterning sock yarns are heaven to me, but sometimes I want to knit something that's just a little larger. Once I discovered Noro yarns, nothing else really compares, just like Opal is, to me, the epitome of sock yarns. And out of all of Noro's yarns, Silk Garden is the one that would be my "desert island" yarn. It's endlessly fascinating to me, waiting to see which colors will come up next, and how they will look. When a brown shows up in the progression, I knit faster, trying to get rid of it, because I don't care for brown. When pink shows up, or turquoise, I'm thrilled! Isn't that silly? But oh, so true.

My love for variegated yarns started way back when I first learned to crochet with my grandmother's crochet thread and steel hooks. She loved variegated colors, too, and I still have a hard time not picking up a ball of that wonderful variegated pastel crochet cotton thread that I used to buy in the dime store. I probably still have a few balls of it upstairs in my secret crochet/pearl cotton stash, now that I think about it . . .

2005-06-27T14:15:00.000-05:00

This weekend I bought Loop-d-Loop by Teva Durham. I'd been thinking about it for awhile; it's one of those books where I don't know if I'll ever actually make anything from, but it's so inspirational, and such a beautiful book, that I decided I had to have it.

I also bought Cat Bordhi's Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. Bob saw it sitting on my table, and he said, "There's magical knitting?" Meaning, I guess, knitting that makes magic, and I think, yes, there is.

2005-06-27T14:00:00.000-05:00

I finished a Minisweater in Plymouth Encore this weekend, and started another one in Noro Silk Garden. The Encore one was kind of a trial, to see if I might actually wear one. I think I might, although I didn't pay much attention to gauge, and it was a little small. The Silk Garden one will be slightly larger, I think.

I tried it on with nothing under it last night, though, and Bob thought it was just fine . . . ;)

I bought a couple of skeins of Rowan Summer Tweed in a mulberry color to make a One Skein Wonder, too.

I loved making the Mini Sweater, because it's made all in one piece from the neckline down to the bottom, and the only finishing that has to be done is to sew the underarm sleeve seams. Finishing is always my downfall, and I also hate to make a bunch of fiddly pieces and put them together.

The Silk Garden is color number 87--turquoise and green and pink and red--and it reminds me of the colors of the recycled silk sari yarn.

2005-04-06T09:38:00.000-05:00

Here's a cool ( or "kool") Kool-Aid colorchart for dyeing purposes. Link from Meggie Cat.

Here's the front page to that site: Dyeing Protein Fibers with Kool-Aid.

I've never tried Kool-Aid dyeing, but this makes me want to. Just what I need, another hobby . . .

2005-02-07T16:16:00.000-06:00

Imagine a room with 50s decor where everything's made from wool. Knitted cakes, teapots, cups and biscuits - even a knife and loaf of crusty white bread - while over in the corner sits a knitted valve mantel radio. The big question is - why?

Strathaven folk knit themselves a room :: ABC Tasmania

Link from Boing Boing

2005-02-02T10:28:00.000-06:00

I finished the pink Silk Garden multidirectional scarf yesterday. I added a ruffle like Leslie's, and it came out beautifully! After I asked her how she made hers, that is . . . I meant to take a picture, but didn't think about it last night.

Last night I started an unfelted Kitty Pi--really just a big bag, I guess. I'm not sure what it's going to end up looking like, but Pyewacket, while she loves wool, is ambivalent about the felted bed. I actually made two, and neither one of them get used at all.

But Pyewacket always wants to lie on my knitting, so I'm thinking that maybe it's partially the squishyness of it, which the felted beds just don't have. So I dug out the extra skein of Big Kureyon that I had left over from the earlier beds, and thought I'd make another one and give it to her and see how it goes. If she loves it, great. If not, I might try felting another one and see if I can get one that actually stands up.

I thought for sure that I had some size 11 Brittany doublepoints, but all I could find was a set of Crystal Palace bamboo ones, which I hate. I sucked it up and used them for the first few rounds, then switched off to a short Clover bamboo circular.

I don't like the Crystal Palace ones because of the laquer--they're too slick. I don't really like bamboo doublepoints at all, but I have quite a few sets of them that I bought before I discovered the Brittany ones. I was thinking last night that part of the enjoyment of knitting for me is have tools that I love. It's the whole thing that I love--my beautiful Brittany needles, wonderful yarn, the pewter stitchmarkers that I made, a nice bag that goes along with the project I'm knitting.

When all those things are right, I'm in my knitting zen zone. If they're not, why bother? I mean, really, most of us knit now because of the enjoyment of it, we don't actually knit so our families have clothes, like our ancestors did. And certainly my cat doesn't need a wooly Kureyon bed. But for me, it's the whole process that I find enjoyable, and if I can make her happy in the process, that's a bonus.

2005-01-25T10:39:00.000-06:00

I looked at For the Love of Knitting a couple of weeks ago in the bookstore, and loved it so much that I went ahead and ordered it from Amazon. Well, I wouldn't have, it was so expensive, but Amazon had it for almost $10.00 less than the regular price, so I didn't see how I could resist. It's a beautiful book. I especially loved the reproductions of old ads (1950's and 60's) for knitting materials. No patterns, just photographs and essays, but then, I love reading about knitting almost as much as I love the knitting itself.

2005-01-25T10:32:00.000-06:00

Errata for Stitch 'n Bitch and Stitch 'n Bitch Nation: oops, I knit it again

2005-01-16T19:56:00.000-06:00

This is the Felted Hot Water Bottle Cover fromm Felted Knits in its unfelted state. The pattern called for Classic Elite Lush, but I used Kureyon. I hope it shrinks enough--it looks really big. (Cat included for scale.)

I think Noro yarns--particularly Kureyon and Silk Garden--are my favorite yarns in the world. It doesn't help that my new local yarn store has a large selection. I went there on Saturday and bought some more Kureyon to make the Tea Cozy from the Winter Knitty.

I'm really going great guns on Christmas presents for next year. I hope I can keep it up. My goal is to have handmade gifts for everyone next year, and not to have to go near a store. I won't be able to manage it completely, because I do my father-in-law's shopping for my mother-in-law, but other than that, I think I can. I just have to keep the momentum going.

2005-01-16T19:07:00.000-06:00
I think I mentioned that I've been knitting the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf pattern. My friend Sharon in Tennessee wrote and asked me a question about it, and prompted me to get out the camera and take some pictures. This is the first one I made:

I used two skeins of Noro Silk Garden. I made the second one a little narrower, and also used two skeins:

I started a third one last weekend. I'm currently in a pink phase, and boy, is this yarn pink!

And might as well include an outtake:

2005-01-14T13:46:00.000-06:00
I generally don't do the meme thing, but I love reading about everyone else's stuff and I love making lists, so here goes:
Grooming Products
Shampoo: Biolage Moisturizing Shampoo
Conditioner: Biolage Conditioning Balm
Skincare Products: Clinique
Cologne: Clinique Aromatics Elixir
Toothpaste: Colgate Total

Electronics
Cell phone: Motorola T720
Computer: Apple eMac
Music: Apple iPod Mini (blue)

Home
Sheets: Navy blue
Coffeemaker: Mr. Coffee for Bob
Car: Ford Escort ZX2 (black)
Stationery: Email

Beverages
Bottled water: Evian
Coffee: Nope. Stash Organic Chai Teabags or Oregon Chai
Vodka: House brand
Beer: Nope

Clothes
Jeans: Lee
T-Shirt: Black, white, taupe or grey, no logo
Briefcase or tote: Perry Ellis taupe & black microfiber tote
Sneakers: New Balance
Watch: Pink plastic Minnie Mouse from Disney World

Favorite Places
Sarasota, Florida

Necessary Extravagances
Yarn and books

2005-01-10T21:35:00.000-06:00
The Craft Yarn Council is offering a free Dog Days 2005 Calendar featuring a free dog sweater pattern for each month. Some of them are kind of a stretch--like the dog bikini for August--but some of them are really cute.

2005-01-09T14:03:00.000-06:00
I ran a contest over at the Journal last month and gave away six sets of my stitch markers. I tried again to take a picture of them, but was again unsuccessful. I'm obviously not much of a photographer . . .
They were fun to make. I gave them away to all my knitting friends and family this Christmas -- which didn't amount to that many people, which is why I had a bunch of them to give away!

I'm thinking about taking what I learned when I made the stitch markers and making earrings for next Christmas. My goal is to make nearly all of my Christmas gifts next year, spacing them throughout the year so that I don't have the mad rush next December. I actually think I might do it this year.

The year before last was the year of the Chinchilla scarves; this year, I didn't knit anything at all except one scarf for a niece who got left out the year before. Next Christmas I expect to give hand knitted scarves, handmade soap, and beaded earrings. We'll see, I guess, but I think the goal is reachable. Of course, it isn't without cost to make things, particularly when you're using sterling silver or silk yarn, but I'd much rather spend the money that way than buy something at the last minute that doesn't really reflect much, if any, thought.

2005-01-09T13:56:00.000-06:00
I've become enamored of the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf and Noro Silk Garden.
Over the Christmas holidays I made two scarves using Silk Garden from my stash, and yesterday I bought enough to make three more. I can get one good-sized scarf from two skeins, I've discovered.

The pattern is simple enough to make without referring to the pattern, but just difficult enough to keep my interest. I guess I like short-rowing. Who knew?

2004-12-23T09:21:00.000-06:00
CNN.com - Can I take it with me?:
Knitting needles are generally permitted, but screeners have the authority to prohibit the needles if they are perceived as possible weapons. The TSA prefers wood or plastic to metal needles, and circular needles should be less than 31 inches in length.

2004-12-22T07:24:00.000-06:00
I tried to take a photograph of the stitch markers the other day, but this is all I could get, and I gave up.

I'll try again this weekend. :)

Crafty

2004-12-08T13:15:00.000-06:00
When I was out Christmas shopping last weekend, I ran across these miniature Hallmark ornaments, and it suddenly struck me that they would make cool stitch markers. And they do! They're kind of heavy, though. But it made me want to make more, so I went to Hobby Lobby last night and bought rings and charms and beads, oh my! How fun. I've always admired the beaded stitch markers, but thought they were sort of unnecessary and silly. They still are, of course, both unnecessary and silly, but I now have stitch markers with pink ribbon charms, turtles, Christmas ornaments and little pewter tags that say "WISH." Pictures to come.

Faux Fur Boa

2004-12-07T09:42:00.000-06:00
Here's an interesting concept: knit i-cord out of novelty yarn for a Faux Fur Boa. Might be a quick, easy Christmas gift.

Vindicated

2004-12-06T13:44:00.000-06:00
I work with several very talented, very intelligent people, and I am occasionally prone to feeling a little, well, inadequate. I know that everyone has their own talents, and I know I'm talented in my own way, but sitting in a meeting hearing people talk about computer programming could make anyone feel inadequate.
Then I looked at the new issue of Knitty, and I was reading this pattern while I ate my lunch, and I had a bit of an epiphany.

Which was, hey, I bet none of those guys could knit a tea cozy, or could read this line and understand it:

Next Row [RS]: K2, YO, ssk, [k4, yo, p2, yo] 3[4] times, k4, k2tog, yo, k2. 36[44] sts.

But I can. So there.

Poncho Queen

2004-12-02T17:41:00.000-06:00
Even though I haven't been blogging here much (or at all, really), I've actually been knitting. I finished a poncho -- actually, I think I probably knitted and ripped and knitted and ripped it about three times before I finally decided to finish it. I started out using Amy's Instant Poncho pattern, but it was meant for cotton (and was meant to be washed and dried), and I was using wool, and it became apparent that it was going to be WAY too big for yarn that wasn't going to be washed and subsequently shrunk.
So then I tried Stephanie's Very Harlot Poncho, but I didn't like the way the increases looked.

So I did sort of a combination. I cast on the number of stitches from the Harlot poncho and started it out the same way, but did the increases like the Instant Poncho. Oh, and I used Encore Bulky instead of worsted, and I used Size 11 needles instead of, I believe, the 13's she recommended.

I finished it on Thanksgiving at my parents' house and started making fringe by wrapping my yarn around a "Prevention" magazine I found on the coffeetable. The trouble was, I'd knit and reknit the yarn a few times, and while it did fine when knitted, it was too curly for fringe.

So I ended up having to order another skein of yarn, and it hasn't come yet. But once it does, I'll have a new poncho! I'm very pleased about that. And I started another one! I told myself that the first one was kind of a test run, and if it didn't work out, it was okay. But now that I knit it, and liked it, I'm making another one out of some Feza Star that I bought for half price at my local yarn store, and which I haven't been able to find online.

It's burgundy, kind of, with little flecks of "stuff" . . . I don't know. It's kind of weird. But it was half off! I bought a TON of it, probably enough to make two ponchos . . .

New Bag

2004-11-22T13:36:00.000-06:00
It's been a heck of a year, and one that I'll be glad to see the end of. I know it's just an arbitrary construct, but there's something about a new year that makes me think of new things, fresh starts, etc. I spent the weekend under the influence of food poisoning that I apparently picked up at a catered dinner on Saturday, and I'm still feeling a little shaky. Yesterday would have been a good day to knit, but I didn't pick up the needles.
I did go out on Saturday before the dinner and buy a new knitting bag. It's actually a diaper bag, apparently, but I thought it would be a nice size for larger projects, especially for travel.

The project I'm currently carrying around is a poncho, and I'm almost finished with it. I'd like to have it finished by Thanksgiving.

Knitted Uterus Pattern

2004-10-30T23:30:00.000-05:00
Since I no longer have a uterus, perhaps I should knit one. Link from KnitinK.

This is dangerous

2004-10-30T18:42:00.000-05:00
I went to the post office this morning to mail a package, and I was knitting while I was standing in line--one of a pair of fingerless mitts I'm making for Bob--and a woman came over and asked me about my knitting. She said she was a new knitter, and had just done scarves so far, and she was interested in the process of knitting on four needles.
I showed her how it worked, and she asked me if I'd been to a certain yarn shop, and I hadn't, I hadn't even heard of it. I thought, oh, surely it isn't a new shop, it must be a needlepoint shop or something like that, but no, she said it was a real yarn shop, and a very good one at that.

After I left the post office, I went to get my hair cut, and I asked my hairdresser, who is also a knitter, if she had heard of a new shop, and she hadn't, but she said if I found it, to call and tell her about it.

I found it. It's called, funnily enough, The Yarn Shop.

Oh my. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. A small wall of sock yarn, a couple of freestanding shelf units of novelty yarns, and the rest of the store -- all four walls -- filled with Noro, Colinette, Giotto . . . It was the Noro that blew me away. No one else in town carries it. I was transported, actually being able to see the yarn, since all of it that I've ordered so far I've ordered online.

I controlled myself pretty well -- I bought a skein of Big Kureyon, four skeins of a gorgeous red Kabuto (a wool, silk, alpaca and cashmere blend), a ball of charcoal sock yarn that might turn into a pair of gloves or socks for Bob, and a skein of Berroco Optik that I have no idea what to do with, but that was too cool to pass up.

They also have something that every yarn shop should have -- a frequent buyers club. You get a card, and when $150 worth of purchases have been punched, you get a $15 credit. I'm well on the way to my first one.

Berroco Free Patterns

2004-10-29T07:41:00.000-05:00
Berroco has some fun new patterns, including an Asymmetrical Poncho that looks kind of cool.

More free patterns

2004-10-25T07:46:00.000-05:00
More links to Poncho Patterns on the Web, this time with pictures.

iPod Cozies

2004-10-24T18:03:00.000-05:00
Here's a fun thread at Craftster.org about making knitted and crocheted covers for iPods and other technological gadgets. Kind of fun to see the pictures of what various knitters have come up with. Very inventive! I'm extremely careful with my iPod mini. I have a rubberized sleeve on it, plus if it's not in my pocket, I keep it in a stiff zippered case meant for safeguarding memory media. The rubberized sleeve means that it's almost impossible to "slip" it into anything, so I probably won't be knitting a cover. But they're fun to look at, anyway.

Noro Silk Garden purse

2004-10-24T16:57:00.000-05:00
Cool little Noro Silk Garden coin purse.

Kitty Bag

2004-10-24T10:07:00.000-05:00
I'm knitting this bag at the moment; I've finished the main body part and am working on the straps, trying to figure out how long to make them, since the bag is going to be felted.

I'm using Kureyon, which Pyewacket absolutely loves. She appropriated it today, crawled inside, tucked in her head, and played possum, hoping no one would notice . . .

I'm letting her stay there, but only because it's going to be felted anyway. And she doesn't need another kitty bed, since she has one already, also of Kureyon. Spoiled?

Free Patterns

2004-10-21T09:44:00.000-05:00
From Interweave Knits' WebWatch blog: a huge list of links to free poncho patterns.

Knitting again

2004-10-11T11:35:00.000-05:00
I really haven't done any knitting at all this summer. I've been busy doing other things--mostly on the computer, that is, setting up my new eMac, getting familiar with OSX, playing The Sims, importing music into my new iPod, etc.--but also, summer doesn't really seem like knitting weather to me. But with cooler weather, my hands are wanting to knit something again. So I pulled some Kureyon out of my stash last night and cast on for this Kool-Aid Striped Felted Bag.
It starts at the bottom, which is kind of fiddly (just sort of difficult to arrange the four cast-on stitches on doublepointed needles), but once I'd done a few rows and got it large enough that it would fit on a short circular needle, it's going very quickly. We're going to go away for the weekend on a little road trip to Branson, so it should make good car knitting, I think. Assuming I don't finish it before then.

The unrecognized assistants on those do-it-yourself shows

2004-09-25T19:56:00.000-05:00
Funny post about what really happens on those do-it-yourself shows, in this case Knitty Gritty. Link from Mike Duffy.

TIME Magazine: How To Live To Be 100

2004-08-26T12:50:00.000-05:00

Margaret Dell is 96, but you'd need to check the birth date on her driver's license to believe it. Sporting a baseball cap with a Harley-Davidson logo on it, she is the designated driver for her seventy something friends who no longer feel comfortable behind the wheel. Last winter a snowfall threatened to keep her from her appointed automotive rounds. She took a shovel and cleared a path to her car. Driving keeps Dell young. That and knitting. She constantly knits. She makes baby booties and caps and blankets for friends and family whenever a baby arrives--the newborn getting an early blessing from the ageless. And every month, she donates several blankets to a charity for unwed mothers. Driving, knitting ... and tennis. She plays two or three times a week. She has a much younger doubles partner who "covers the court. I'm a little afraid to run too much because of the circulation in my legs," she explains.

TIME Magazine: How To Live To Be 100

Link from Mike Duffy (a non-knitter) :)

I want an iPod!

2004-08-19T09:37:00.000-05:00
freeiPods.com has teamed up with various retailers to offer free iPods (naturally) to people who complete an offer -- I chose BMG Music's 12 CDs for the price of 1 -- and refer five people who also complete an offer. It's pretty painless, and it would be very cool to get a free iPod . . .
There was a story about this company in Wired recently, so it looks legitimate.

Clicking on the link above will take you to the freeIpods site and give me credit, so that I just might get one! Wouldn't that be cool??

Link from Misty, who my participation will help to get her free iPod.

Comments

2004-07-06T15:25:00.000-05:00
I've had a couple of people write to me and say they weren't able to post comments without a Blogger ID to sign in with. I checked, and I have it set up so that you can also post anonymously -- under the "sign in" button on the Blogger comments page, there's a little link that says "Or Post Anonymously." If you click that link, you'll get the comment entry form.
It's a little more complicated than some of the posting systems, and I think they should probably do away with the sign-in, but the reason I chose to use Blogger's comments rather than one of the independent services is that they're (the Blogger comments) stored on my server along with my weblog entries. I've noticed that on some sites that use off-site comments, if the remote server goes down or is slow, it affects the loading speed of the weblog, which sometimes can't load at all.

I had been waiting for Blogger to introduce comments, and they finally did. So while it's a little more complicated, I think it's worth it.

In knitting content, I started a new pair of Opal Inspiration socks at a family reunion on the 4th of July. I stuck some needles and a new ball of Opal in my bag when I left the house, not really knowing if I'd knit at all, but after sitting in a lawn chair under a tree with the rest of my extended family for a couple of hours, I had a respectable couple of inches on a new sock, with time off for passing it around to show everyone.

One of my cousins did say, though, "Wow, it must take a long time to knit a pair," and my reaction was to goggle at her, since I thought I'd made pretty good progress. I mean, yeah, I guess it's slower than actually buying socks.

Organized!

2004-06-25T09:46:00.000-05:00
I just discovered the coolest thing: Purseket is a purse organizer that holds all the stuff that falls to the bottom of your bag, and you can remove it and put it in a different bag en masse, which is the one thing that keeps me from switching purses all the time. I have a lot of bags, but it seems dumb to dump everything out and put it back in a different bag, but if it was all contained, I could switch them easily. You just fill up the sections and then fold/roll it up and put it in your purse. Bigger things that don't fit in the sections can sit in the middle, easy to find.
It would also be great (and this is what I'm actually thinking about it for) knitting bags. I could put the stuff I use all the time -- scissors, tape measure, crochet hook, needle sizer -- into one of them, and then switch it between project bags without having to worry about whether or not I picked up all the little things.

Anyway, I thought it was very cool. I'm thinking about ordering a leopard print one for a friend who collects animal prints and purses.

Attention Gloria Steinem

2004-06-19T09:42:00.000-05:00
This post at Yarn Harlot was very true, although I hadn't thought about it in those terms. She talks about errors in knitting patterns, which is something that I only recently even thought about occurring. For some reason, I always assumed that knitting patterns (and crochet patterns) were checked to within an inch of their lives, and that there's no way that a mistake would be printed in a magazine or book, and that if there was a mistake, it would be a very, very rare occurrence, and the magazine or book publisher would be filled with chagrin and remorse for letting it happen.

I figured out awhile ago that that was naive, and that any time I'm contemplating knitting something from a pattern, a part of that process should be to check online and see if there are any corrections published to that pattern, before I start.

Not to pick on any one particular magazine, but looking at the Vogue Knitting corrections page, it looks like they seldom publish an issue in which any of the patterns are without errors, and some issues apparently contain nothing but errors.

Talk about inspiration!

2004-06-15T17:04:00.000-05:00
Definitely makes me want to rush home and get out the crochet hook: Anna Voog Hats.
Link from notsoswift.com

Foot Thong

2004-06-11T12:48:00.000-05:00
They call it a "foot thong" in the newsletter, a Beach Thong on the web. Either way, I'm glad they explained it. It would be nice to see it on an actual foot, though. Might be kind of a fun thing to make--should be quick and easy enough, anyway.