A Perfect Storm of Meh

Today tastes like dry cleaning bags, glass, and sand.

Not every knitting project is successful. Sometimes the lessons learned are useful but not necessarily the ones I wanted to learn.

F'r instance, lessons learned from the following project: always have your batteries charged so you aren't stuck with a cell phone camera, and you'll generally do better to scatter colors in a scrapghan.



I was liking this project a lot until I seamed it all together. The idea was great--pastel colors and a simple lace, with a variegated earthy color at the changes to break it up some and define the chevrons.

Spike, darlin', you would have done better to alternate colors more frequently. Make stripes of 10-15 repeats (even a Fibonnaci sequence if you didn't want a perfectly even striping sequence) rather than pulling one ball and going till the yarn ran out.

Yup. Scrambled, not fried. This binkie is most definitely fried--yolk HERE, white THERE. Blap blap blap, no blending at all. Ah, well, it will keep someone warm and give someone something soft to hang on to during a hard time.

Trying something new with the next big binkie--using the knit 1 in the row below technique in variegated pink/gray/green with shades of deep purple offsetting bias lace text. I like it so far, but again, the proof will be in the final article post-seaming.

Shooting Star Binkie

Today tastes like flax oil balsamic vinagrette, heirloom tomatoes still warm from the sun, basil, mozzerella, and Thorax.

She's been moping because I don't do progress pics, so there hasn't been any work for her lately. "Have you finished Irtfa'a yet?"

"No, not yet."

"What about those sweaters you added to the Plans for World Domination?"

"Nope, haven't even started those yet."

"Bertha at Knitting Daily sure gets a lot of exposure." [heavy meaningful sigh]

"Bertha has dozens of knitters submitting garments and features every quarter. You have . . . me, babe. And right now, I'm trying to finish off all the ends on the Star Binkie for Project Linus."

"Can I be in the shoot?"

[ blink, blink ] "It's a blanket, Thorax. Not much to see here . . ."

"But I could do something to give it that thing you can only say in French. A little fun, a touch of ironic naughtiness, some sex appeal. A Jane Fonda on the bearskin, Miley Cyrus in the white sheets kind of moment."

So that's how we got this . . .



Yes, it is indeed a moment. And possibly something you can only say in French.

Another One Bites the Dust . . .

Today tastes like capers, yellowfin tuna sashimi,and plum wine. Salty bitter sour, buttery, and sweet. The flavors of a minor victory.

So . . . If you read the last post, you've found out that I am giving up consumption for a while. (Consumption be done about dis?) I feel up to my earlobes in things that never get an honest chance to be used because there's too danged many of them. Like having too many projects on the needles--you knit and knit and knit, but never get anywhere.

A good chunk of the charity stash is in fine weight acrylic on cones. Apparantly I'm not the only knitter with eyes bigger than her needles, because one day, while I was working at a Project Linus Blanket Bee, a donation came in. It seems that they'd finally had to put Aunt Suzie the crazy machine knitter away, so they'd cleaned out Aunt Suzie's attic and found she'd been insulating with yarn; could we use it?

No kidding, there was a pile of yarn about the size of a VW Bug sitting there on the floor. You could swim in the stuff like Scrooge McDuck.

The hoards rushed in and scooped up the worsted, but there was a bunch of acylic laceweight cones left that no one wanted. I was trying to be good, but when our Project Coordinator asked me to take a look and see if any of it could be used . . . well, I only have so much self-control. Prolly take a particle physicist to find it--it's very very small, and has an enormously brief half-life.

So I ended up with cones and cones and cones of laceweight acrylic. To go with the skeins and skeins and skeins of babyweight acrylic I already had . . . but my secret plan was to twine several skeins/cones together to make worsted weight. And I have a pattern I like for this, and you don't have to twine it all before you knit, and . . .

And you can see the same little devil on Crazy Aunt Suzy's shoulder whispering that, hey, after all, she knit with MACHINES, so it was so much FASTER, she'd blow through her stash in NO TIME, so she ought to buy some MORE . . .

So . . . I've been nibbling away at the cones, just like I nibble away at the big skeins, and just as I nibble away at the tiny leftovers until it's all gone into a blanket, buh-bye. But dang, there's a lot of yards on a cone.

Hence, it a little celebration when I finally eat that last bite and leave only a tail to finish in. One of the purtiest sights there is, a nekkid cone.



I wrapped it in part of the binkie it gave its yarn for. One down . . . eleventeen to go. I'm looking forward to the day when I finally finish off the cone of white the SIZE OF MY HIPS. Seriously, that cone has gone into at least two three by five foot blankets, and is still rolling along.

If I Had a Nickle . . .

Today tastes like the remains of a good idea, and frustration with what I hath wrought. Yup, carmalized brown butter Rice Krispie Treats just about sums it up.

See, I had almost the perfect pattern for a Linus binkie. One pattern row, one simple return row. But I wanted it in strips for portability and because it is so hot and humid that my brain cell has wilted and I can't remember the winter when I shivered in my thin, thin blood and moaned about freezing in the sub-100's and wore fingerless gloves to the office amid remarks about not getting but a half-day at Christmas and my diminutive (stature-challenged, differently large) son (male offspring) Tim.

So do I listen to good sense and sit down with the pattern? Well, to a point. Perhaps the one on my head.

I count out the repeat (15 stitches) and then, rather than spending 20 whole minutes swatching, I go off chasing undomesticated waterfowl across the 'Net, looking for the PERFECT perfect pattern--a ripple afghan, knitted, in strips.

I spend 40 minutes on this wild goose chase. Fruitless? Absolutely. Like a plum tree in Phoenix in the height of summer. Crispy fruitles; branches on the ground fruitless; crawling off to dip roots in the pool before expiring, gasping, on the lawn fruitless.

Then I sat down, counted carefully, cast on . . . and in ten minutes had my pattern proofed. Grrrrrr . . .

It's gotta be the heat.

Here goes: the PERFECT Ripple Pattern

Leftmost strip: CO odd multiple of 15 plus 4: 1 SS, 2 garter edge, pattern, 1 SS

Center strips: CO same odd multiple of 15 plus 2: 1 SS, pattern, 1 SS

Rightmost strip: CO same odd multiple of 15 plus 4: 1 SS, pattern, 2 garter edge, 1 SS.

Work first 4 rows and last 4 rows in garter.

Pattern: Sl 1, k 2, *k2tog, k 5, yo, k1, yo, k5, ssk* end as per strip. Purl back starting on row 6.

Gotta be the heat.

TGIM

Today tastes like green chile pork stew where the onions were left on the heat too long and carmelized/burned. With a side of coconut cotton candy. Not quite what I had expected, but workable.

It's been one of those weekends where you'd think I'd be delighted with everything that got done. I think I had eight arms, and every hand full of something.

See, I finished the Neverending Binkie of Modular Doom:




Then this:



became this:



became this:



and this:



became these:




More about the beading and the dyeing in later posts. Promise. Right now, I'm just so glad to be back at work where I can rest and recuperate from the weekend.

Fourth Review

In February, I made the following Groundhog's Day Resolutions:

1. I will not beat myself up for falling short of perfection with respect to this list.

2. I will complete 9 knitted projects this year.

3. I will complete three spreads per month in the art journal.

And as before, I'm hanging on to 1 and 3 by the skin of my teeth.

I finished a pair of complex socks for Gareth, then a blanket for Project Linus, and a shawl for me.

Now another binkie:



On top of that, I'm keeping up with the exchanges that are near and dear to my heart--the Hideous Fairy, and soon a Beaded Bag. Somehow I forgot to take into account my love of exchanges with strangers when I set up my goals.

I know I've re-thought this ad nauseam, but really, it's the process that matters. If it ain't fun it don't get done, and all that. Now I'm wondering if I can quantify the process of what I do to make it possible to set goals.

I've planned out how I want to play the remainder of the knitting year--I plan to work on this month's binkie as a travel project, and work on Veil of Isis as the home project till July 5, when I hop onto the Tour de France KAL¹ (virtually). Then the all-consuming nature of a closed ended KAL will have me carrying the Irtfa'a everywhere with me, knitting away every moment of my waking hours to strive for completion.

Then in August is the Knitting Olympics, and another shawl--PinkLemonKnits' Swan Lake with a similar level of commitment.

Once that fun is over, then I'm planning a Low-Sew version of the Psychedelic Squares and to complete just one more binkie for Linus (which is, yes, on the needles).

The good part is that this will clear my needles of everything that was started at the beginning of the year. Incomplete projects give me hives, so I try not to start too many things.

On the other hand, I'm a polyandrous knitter. I love cables, I love lace, I love simple texture stitches that let me play with color. I love stranded knitting, I love modular knitting, I love bizarre shaping. I love complex projects that tie me to charts, I love easy projects that can be memorized in a moment.

Nine in a year seems to be a reasonably good match for appetite and time. Now if I can only find my happy place with respect to the visual journal.

Four in a year? Perhaps.


1. See, every sporting event on TV is fodder for a knitalong. You start when the
event begins, and shoot for completing the project by the time the event ends. And it gives you something to watch while you knit. The Tour de France begins July 5 and ends July 27.

This ensures that you get to start lots of projects, promise yourself a deadline date for completion, and then start more stuff even if you haven't finished the first. Great for we obsessive types.

Nothing of Substance

Today tastes like goat cheese and honey, like strawberry-flavored cotton candy, like verjus. Subtle and fleeting, here and gone.

And gone.

It's a delightful relief from the grandma's sawdust meatloaf and mashed potatoes you could use for caulking; from the food you could live on for weeks. Like a loaf of Tolkien's lembas bread (how many did you eat, Pip?); like the Challenge Sundae at the ice cream parlor where if you can eat the whole thing, you don't have to pay for it.

Perhaps this is the amuse-bouche post, the spoonful of sherbet to cleanse your mental palate and give you renewed appitite for the heavy mentation that is coming after Samhain this year.

I'm not breaking my routines for Hallowthankmas this year. None of 'em. I'm laying plans for goals I want to meet next year, and I intend to hit them running at the break of the new year, not pick my bloated psyche up off the couch and start shuffling off to the closet to stare mournfully into the depths and try to remember what my goal-meeting clothes look like.

But right now, there's not much to share. So here:



And gone.

And gone.

Progress At Last!!!

Today tastes like blue rare steak, cut into a shell and filled with blue cheese, roasted garlic, and carmelized onions, topped with mushrooms cooked in butter. Rapini on the side for more garlic. Yum.

When last we saw the red shawl, it looked like this. Three lonely little balls, a totem of abandonment.

Now it looks like this.
Woooohoooolabooola! The center square is lined out nicely with faux faggoting, the wings all fly long, and it's looking good so far. I may make this the Knitting Tour de France project, where I will commit to FINISH this thing by July 29. I'll need to line up my paper projects and get'r done by July 1, but that may be the kick in the pants I need.

Or I may do Kiri, a simple lace shawl, in this yummy yummy yarn from the Knittery. I don't normally do yarn porn, but I'm breaking my rule for this.

The problem with variegated yarns is that often the colors pool. This is a feature, and can be used to enhance the object. However, sometimes the colors are so distinct and separate that they do this. I don't think this will happen with the Knittery's yarn. I mean, look at the wonderful blendiness of the colors they used < wipes drool off the keyboard>. And the yarn's texture is blissful, too. Silk merino . . . ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Did I mention that they will custom dye any of their yarns in any of their colorways? And that the US dollar is still strong against the Australian dollar? Do I need to list MY favorite colorways here??? HINT HINT HINT)

Tyger is done, I just need to finish in the ends. That will probably take almost as long as knitting the thing to begin with. IT'S DONE!!! IT'S DONE!!! OMGBBQ!!1!!

As soon as I get the HTML sussed out, I'll have a link to the graph and the basic working instructions up.

And the Scarf of the Apocalypse has grown from this

to this

to this.


I think it knits itself when I'm not looking. This has been a hoot to play with. I'm really looking forward to the rabbit yarn . . .

Learning Experience

Today tastes like vanilla butter cupcakes with a chocolate ganache filling slathered with coconut buttercream frosting. So innocent to look at, all snowy white goodness. So decadent in the mouth, three-four bites of fleeting richness.

I have reached an interesting point in two projects. Tyger is all but finished, it needed some borders to be complete. Entrelac is that way, I find. The edges look raw somehow, with stitches just far enough out of alignment to trigger my inner Virgoliscitudinousness.

As you may recall, "Tyger" was started for a Project Linus contest. I decided I wanted to reflect an abstraction rather than try for picture knitting. (With few and notable exceptions, picture knitting does not work. See Mary Maxim for great views of What NOT to Do.)

I started with a tigery colored boucle and black smooth worsted in diagonal stripes, surrounded by a field of varied greens. The tiger's pelt, as seen against the foliage in passing. So I opted to continue the abstraction in the borders--a dark purple along one short edge and one long edge for "Night" and a periwinkle along the other two edges for "Day." Night will have cream-colored prairie points for the moon and stars' Day will have lemon yellow prairie points for the sun.

I am enthralled with this design. The purples look wonderful against all the green and orange. Night is dark enough to read as dark without looking weird, like part of the tiger escaped the border. Pictures and pattern to follow.

Before I tried writing an entrelac pattern, I thought they were far too wordy. It's easy to get lost in all the ink. Surely I could do it faster.

Uhm, yeah. Right. Pride goeth before prejudice, right? It's so easy to explain entrelac, holding up your fingers and drawing squares to illustrate how it goes and how you just knit one square at a time. Explain it in words, and suddenly you have an inky morass of verbiage. Sigh.

The red shawl is moving along despite a small setback. I wanted a modern Shetland lace look, withe a center square surrounded by a thick border and an edging. However, Wings of the Swan, the main feature of this shawl, looks best run lengthwise--so making an inner square and then bordering it log-cabin style was Right Out.

No problemo, thought I, I'll fake a center square by changing stitch pattern and setting it off with a border of YO, K2tog. That'll be easy to work across the top and bottom of the square. Then I'll just work YO, K2tog before and after the pattern, and Bob's my uncle.

Well, except he isn't.

See, last weekend, I got to this point in my knitting, and gleefully began working what I had charted. I write before I knit--that way, I can edit my writing as I go. Plan A doesn't work, so re-think, re-write, and rip. If Plan B works as written, you don't have to try to remember how you were speaking in tongues when you attached the border at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday night and write it down again. (Or reconstruct from fevered notes. In some ways, that's worse than reading your knitting and writing it down.)

One little tiny problem. I'd miscalculated the stitches available to play with by a bunch. And I'd written the directions poorly--I got lost trying to follow them!! Rip, rip, rip. And re-write.

Second try last night. Rocking along, having big fun as this poured off my needles. Hmmm . . . the side YO's look too big. Whazzup wit' dat??

Crapamous! Knitting stitches are WIDER than they are TALL. So the YO's on the sides every other row don't have the same thickness between holes as the YO's on the bottom between stitches. I KNEW that. I just didn't think through the effect. And I didn't swatch this idea before trying it.

You guessed it. Rip, rip, rip and re-write.

And someplace I'm gonna make a note of this; that when you want a square in the middle via changing stitch patterns, you'll want to solve it by either working two rows of faggot all around--straight across the bottom and top, and vertically up the sides OR working YO k2tog across the bottom and working YO K2tog every OTHER right side row up the sides.

Oh yeah, and you might wanna swatch, too. Do a big swatch in worsted and have another little Project Linus binkie

Fallin' Off the Wagon

Today tastes like unsweetened black cherry Kool-Aid. I can't decide if it's more bitter or sour.

I took rather a bad tumble off the stash diet wagon. I didn't buy anything, but I wagged home a ton of freebies--that I didn't need. Not even for the project I thought I'd do with them.

See, Project Linus had a blanket bee February 3. Yeah, blame it all on the tough crowd that does charity knitting. They softened me up with brownies and coffee, those infamous gateway drugs.

I was being so good. No, wait a minute, SOOOOOOOOO GOOD. < puts away megaphone>. I was ignoring the hospitality table with all the free yarn. I looked at the booklets (most were crochet, as that's the way the pendulum is swinging now) and didn't take any of them. Hey, I was being SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD.

And then they announced October's blanket challenge. This is a biannual event--February and October. The challenge varies--usually it's color for the knitters (make something in pink and brown, teal and purple, orange and green) and subject for the quilters (sports, puppies, games). This time, it was just one theme.

*****JUNGLE***** (lemme try that again)



Yeah. Like that.

Now, before you can understand why this drove me to a) start a new project before finishing one already on the needles; and b) snarf up a metric ton of stash yarn from the pushers nice folks at Project Linus, you'll need to know that in my stash as I sat in my folding chair, was a big cone of boucle yarn in camel, gold and rust. I'd been thinking about a Project Linus binkie pattern for that stuff for years, and just had never found anything that made me hungry to take it on.

I was going to use it as a carrying thread to unite a black and white blanket (ehhhh); then I was going to double it and use it as stripes in a blanket (ehhhhhh); then I was going to use it in a slip-stitch honeycomb/big dot pattern (ehhhhh). But now, it had found its calling in a tiger blanket. Hmmmmm . . .

And so I swooped down upon the freebie table and snarfed up every skein of funny green (for the background), black (well, duh, a tiger blanket), and white/cream I could find. Someone had donated a pair of pillow shams and a half-completed crochet coverlet in cream--they went into the bag, too. (Hey, if it was a treasured heirloom that someone in the family was dying to have, then they would have gotten up and found someone to complete it or figured it out themselves. I hope that when I go, my good stash is eBayed and the acrylic is donated--whether the project is finished or no. I'd rather someone get the material and do what they want with it so someone can have and love the finished object until it wears out.)

Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Rather like watching a 300 plus pound person in foodstained clothes gobble down an 18-scoop and all the toppings sundae with their bare hands, solo. (That's probably going to garner some flames.) You can't help thinking, "Honey, have a little self-respect. You don't NEED that."

And then, that very evening, I cast about for how to make this work. Stripes of all sorts and kinds fell off the needles and were ripped out until I decided on entrelac, and then made a chart to keep the borders from being uniformly sized and shaped--I was going for more of an impression of a tiger in grass, with just the black and orange fur and green framing and intruding and . . . well, here's a photo.




Fortunately, I didn't hit my head too hard, but coming home from the bee and digging through all the black and cream and white to get to the cone of the orange boucle was a real killjoy.

< gets a cup of coffee, sits in the wayyyy back> Hi, I'm Spike, and I am powerless over free yarn.

Penultimate Post

Today tastes like chocolate, dried mangoes, and the paste that comes in the jar with the stick--the sweetish kind that you'd get in kindergarten. It's been a day of ups and downs.

First the downs--the waterbed sprung a leak ON THE BOTTOM OF THE MATTRESS. Earlier this week, my clean dried laundry that our cleaning lady (The Crazed Monkey of Cleaning to the cats) had laid out on my bed was . . . dampish. I was a little puzzled, but figured my socks had been in a heavy load and hadn't dried all the way.

I changed my mind when I climbed into bed that night and rolled into a wet spot. Up we sprung, dried off what we could and laid down towels so I could sleep--except for the dripping. Up we sprung again, to see just how bad it was.

Not too bad, except we couldn't find the hole on the top, so therefore . . . Hence, this morning was spent in renting a pump (n.b.--make RESERVATIONS next time), draining the mattress, hauling the mattress cover and liner out to dry, filling the mattress upside down to see where the leaks were and patch them, then draining the mattress, moving it back into the bed, then filling the mattress and making the bed. Shooooo! I have set the heater on 'Nuclear Blast' and piled every blanket in tho house atop it so maybe I'll only need to wear ONE set of thermals and a sweatsuit to bed tonight. Or sleep in the guest bedroom.

Meanwhile, even though I am facing the usual rush of Christmas shopping and creating, I, uh, signed up for a charm swap. Hoo. I have no willpower. I need to join a Creatives Anonymous group--"Hi, I'm Spike." "Hi, Spike." "I have no control over my brain . . . is that a handknit sweater you're wearing, Group Leader?" "Stick to the subject, Spike." "Right. So, in fifty-five words . . . oh, wait, I can't do that here, can I? Lessee-- 'I am Spike. I am/ A pawn of the creative/ And I need some help.' Better?" "Spike, that's a haiku. Go sit in the corner with your sponser." "Can I knit??" "SPIKE!!!!"

Yeah. Like that. So anyway, I like charm bracelets and treasure necklaces, but the thought of making twenty-thirty different charms makes me woozy. I could--I like making beaded stitch markers, and that's essentially all these are--but the thougt of setting out like that is like thinking of hopping up from the couch and running a marathon.

However, in a swap, where they can all be the same, or all different, or all very similar but not identical--I like this. I can play with this and that and try it three ways until I like it--then make one for me to keep and swap the rest! And get back a bunch of different goodies very clearly made by different hands, and then lay hands on chain and clasps and make me bracelets to dance about my wristies. It looks like this may become an ongoing swappy, which would please me no end. Or, there's a Yahoo group dedicated to handmade charm swapping, and I may join in there after getting my tooties wet here. It's all good.

We have not yet acquired the 13 book in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. This is a bad thing. Hint hint hint. Part of walking lightly for me is to purchased used when I can--we go through so much stuff as a nation, swapping out when we're told to--not when we've got the good of it, not when it's worn out, but simply when the marketers tell the sheep that it's time for skinny jeans--no,no, I meant wide-leg pants, no I meant high-waisted boot cut, no I meant skirts. This is why eBay is huge. I buy classic jewelry at pawn shops--diamonds have no provenance--or I buy the gems and have a jeweler make it for me. If I'm going to have new, I don't want to have what all the other sheep have.

But that's another rant.

I finished the Last Lunchbox, though--



Or, at least, the last one of 2006. My knitting focus now goes to socks and Cubs for Kids sweaters. Tiny little potato chippy things that can be dragged around to the holiday parties and worked without concentration.

It's funny--when I look at the projects, I see the projects and the things thet happened around them. When I look at the blanket above, I see Deadwood, Desperate Housewives, Kingdom Hospital, and Babylon 5. I see weeks on the couch terrified that I wouldn't be able to find the job I wanted, that I was going to have to take a position doing SOMETHING at a law office--or maybe a job like I had when I was in college--they always need telemarketers .

But I also see these--



And that's a good thing.

I fell into a chance at free yarn. The only caveats are that it had to be used for Project Linus, and that it was fine gauge. How fine? Well, laceweight--think about four times as thick as sewing thread. On cones. Big honking cones. I'm about halfway through this one--



I wish I'd taken a "before" picture of this--it was unreal. The Last Lunchbox was knitted with multiple strands of yarn to make the total sum about worsted weight, and as you see, it ate up about four cones' worth of yarn that is now out of the closet and living its life. Woooo-hooooo!

And this concludes the Penultimate Post, as M. Snicket would declare. The next one will come next week, and then it's time for the Hallowthankmas vacation. Since this is the second time, it must be the way we've always done it. Looking forward to next year, when it will be tradition!!

And no one would dare mess with the Hallowthankmas tradition, would they? The Great Pumpkin would surely leave turkey drumstick bones and oyster stuffing in their sock drawer . . .

Oh, They Often Call Me Speedo, But My Real Name Is . . .

. . . Spike. (Surely you saw that one coming?)

But you probably didn't see this:



At the Blanket Bee for Project Linus, the coordinator had come up with a nifty way for the crocheters and knitters to maximize their output. You see, quilting is a pretty quick fiber art--you start with whole cloth, you cut it up into pieces, sew the pieces together to make a new pattern, then tie the quilt or machine quilt it just enough to hold up to some wear, and you're done! Takes an afternoon to a couple of days, depending on how crazy you get with the scissors and electric needle.

But when you crochet, or even knit, you start with fiber and create the cloth as you shape the cloth. And knitting is slower than crochet because the stitches are so much smaller. So a blanket takes at least a week, and more like a month of steady work.

So the quilters are donating tons of blankies, and the knit and crochet folks are still plodding along . . .

But wait! What if we took fleece, used a special rotary cutter blade to make hemstitching holes in the fleece, and then had the String Pushers knit or crochet an edging onto the blanket? And voila! a new way to participate.

I think this looks pretty good for one day of work. I'm not changing my modus operandi any time soon, because I know where I fall on the line of "quantity v. quality"--to me this looks like the equivalent of a craft fair altered T-shirt compared to a tailored blouse--but for those who ached to "do more" somehow, this is a reasonable compromise.

Another Li'l Lunchbox

Sorry I haven't been around lately. I've blogged before about how transparency flies out the window when people you know in real life read your blog, so re-read thiose rants for a pithy explanation. What's been going on is stuff I wouldn't share with First Consort Gareth--except, well, he lives here, so he's privy to quite a lot that happens that I don't necessarily want to talk about.

And when it's stuff you don't want to share, you either pull up stuff on BlogThings just so you can get a post in edgewise, or you sit in the corner with your thumb in your mouth.

Or, in yours truly's case, you knit. Knit on, with confidence and courage, etc., etc.

Do enough of that and you get another li'l lunchbox off the needles and out into the world.



This one is based on a scrap quilt layout called Roman Coins. I'm happy with it; it's a nice little stash buster. I think I'll make it bigger next time, like 40" by 60", this is more like 40" by 40".

It's almost time to close this down for Hallowthankmas. (I know, I know, you couldn't tell that this WASN'T closed down from the frequency of the posts. Rant on that coming up soon.)

And Now Another Word

Today DOES INDEED taste like artichokes and used motor oil. For years I've been saying "Don't say it or I will see it," and now it appears the same goes for flavors of the day.

It's the ass end of summer, when you're finally warm enough (plenty warm, thankew, looking forward to winter even though it shivvers us something fierce, it does)and it's not only hot but muggy and thick. You're swimming in bisque without seasoning, gluey and dull.

So the weather has a lot to do with the ennui. (What is it like to be on whee? Not as much fun as you'd think; it's a draggy low rather than a high. Put down the whee pipe and get moving already!)

Working on the last couple of projects of the year. I had some dull neutral yarn that needed to become the centers of some blankets--
--and that became a project in and of itself.


The motif was too sugary-girly in white . . .
. . . so I decided to do counterpane centers instead.

Then I remembered why I hate counterpane centers--they're quite fiddly as written, especially this one, which has you increase via a yo at the beginning of each row. Additionally, there's a bunch of sewing, and when you stripe the plain knitting, you have a bajillion ends per quarter square to weave in. It's almost as much sewing as knitting, which is why this project is a tour-de-force.

I can't reduce the number of ends when I knit the striped parts, but I for sure can reduce the ends in the white and the fiddly sewing bit. I've been knitting the squares in the round, casting on for four of the quarter-squares and working a p1f&b in the increase stitches.

Start with 12 sts on DPNs, work the four leaf motifs, work the flanking leaves and move the square to a circular needle as soon as practicable. Keep it on the circ until the white part's done, then knit back and forth on the circ until the first striped part is done.

Cast off the last stripe, move one to the right, and do it again until the whole square is off the needles. Et voila! One painless counterpane square.

The monsoon's breaking once more. Off to go knit on the covered porch, in the rain. A moment of cool in a long summer of hot.

All Bound Up

I’ve grumbled about this before, but here we go again—the life examined sometimes is difficult to live.

Right now, I blog here about knitting and whatever comes to mind, I blog there about the new company that I’m involved in building. I journal my shadows under cover of darkness to keep them from creeping into the daylight hours and tangling about my feet. I share a mail project with a virtual friend (as opposed to an imaginary friend—imaginary friends don’t send you stickers or write replies to you) in which we share a journal, adding art and whatever to the pages as we go.

It feels live I live with keyboard and camera in hand, a bandolier of Sharpies slung across my chest, writing life rather than living it. There’s a lot to pick and choose from; I’m drowning in material and writing it all in my head because, of course, the perfect spot to put all this in is always in another place.

I’d like to talk about my post-project depression a little—I just finished watching the last season of Six Feet Under. The benefit of waiting for TV shows to come out on DVD is that you can fill the six disc carousel and watch until your eyes fall out of your head, knitting madly all the while. No commercials! A pause button for snack and bathroom breaks, and you can see “that” episode again and again with only a little hunting (as opposed to on videotape. I used to note the numbers for the beginning of each movie/show on the spine of a videotape so I could find them reasonably quickly. Yes, Virginia, this was back in the Dark Ages.)

Of course, the drawback is that by the time you see the shows, the rest of the world has moved on. “That was soooooo 2005.” Tra la.

So I have no one to blame but me—I knew this was the last season as I plugged it in. I knew that with a show that is predicated on death and the world going on without you as you remain only a memory blah blah blah would kill off everyone eventually and close the show off so that there was no more. No “I wonder if they ever . . .” No “Maybe those two get their act together and marry . . .” Nope, no fuzzy endings, all of it fade to white in signature style.

I just hadn’t counted on finishing a project at the same time.

I’m a process person. Big time process person. That’s why I blog rather than writing novels (although Tonstant Weader will probably chime in here and claim that each and every post is at least a novella. Pooh on you, Tonstant Weader.)

I couldn’t live with the characters, know their backstory, know their frontstory, know what they like for breakfast, then live with them and tell the slice of their life in which you get to know them—then end it all. Type my three ###’s at the end like a press release and walk away from them. Blogging, well, blogging goes on and on and on and has little bitty endings (at the end of each post) but never really stops until the day you decide to go out and live life rather than writing about it.

You see, I was working on a blanket that I’ve been knitting on for a little more than a year now (off and on; off and on since February 2005. There’s a six-months photo in the archives—October 26, 2005.) I just happened to finish it the same night as we watched the last of the show. Now it’s all over except for weaving in the ends.



It doesn’t help that I just finished another blanket that I started shortly before that.
All my long-term projects are winding down and closing off, getting ready to go out and live their useful lives.

On the one hand, I’m glad to get them done. This closes out the last of the original projects from the “Stressed Monkey Project-O-Rama” (so what do you call your “git r done” list?) It’s a good thing to finish projects because that means you can start new stuff. I limit myself to only five projects on the needles at a time, because otherwise I spread myself too thin during manic bouts of startitis, and when I come down, I come down hard, and can only sit and stare at all the things surrounding me. Lovely ideas with copious notes, and no energy at all to pick it up and proceed.

But on the other, well, they’re over. Like when a childhood friend moves away—you need permission to call long distance, and in the days before the Internet, you had to come by stamps and envelopes and stationery. You both swore you’d write every single day, and maybe you did. For a week. Or two. Where are all your friends from high school, where you inscribed “4 EvR” in each other’s yearbooks on that last day of senior year?

I don’t miss the items, not a bit. I could always make another very much like it if I took a notion to have something like that for myself. It’s the process I miss. I miss watching an idea take form under the needles and solving the bugs that always crop up.

Just like I miss getting to know the characters for the first time, watching the story arc unravel and spool out to the final scene

Woof.

Hokay--New Year's Resolution: In 2006 I will not blog between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Period. I'll post a reminder around Halloween. And I will not feel guilty about this.

There's just too much going on. I haven't had a free minute for a month, it seems. There's still stuff to do before Adverb--last minute finishy things, and I'm still getting over a wicked cold. And rather than post goofy test results each couple of days in order to have a post, I think it wiser just to close down for the holidays.

Not that this will be a long post, mind.

I was able to continue a New Year's tradition (three times, it's a tradition now) of finishing an item on New Year's Eve/Day. The Ostrich Plumes blanket is done!

You remember it from here. And now it's all growed up.



Awwww. It's 6 feet by 6.5 all stretched out for blocking. I like to do the big blankets since everyone else likes to knit for the toddlers. The next one I start will be a scrap blanket in garter stitch based on Fibonnaci triangles/golden spiral. As Mythic Grandmaw would say, faced with an engineering problem where you're constructing a 90 degree turn in a tube, "You're turning the heel on a bloody sock!"

The Month of Blogiversary Continues

Looking back over my first posts, I’m struck by how far I’ve wandered from the whole knitting theme. I thought it would be fun to have a place to track projects, but I note that several of the “first five” don’t even have a “finally finished” photo.

Part of it is working on five at once—your impact gets diluted. Knitting for an hour apiece on several projects is not the same as working five hours on one. And when you do three foot square (and larger) blankets, it can take a long time to show anything blogworthy. Five hours on one sweater can get you a sleeve (or significant portion thereof, depending on your gauge. Bulky wool on broomstick needles could conceivably get you an adult five-hour sweater!)

But what the hey—it’s well past time for an update.



This is a gift for a friend’s daughter who has been admiring the Linus blankets for years, and mournfully semi-requesting one in only the way a teenager can manage (“Y’know. . . it’d be okay if you knit ME a blanket one day . . .”) (Can’t actually ask for one, that’d mean you cared, and caring just isn’t cool.) When I graduated from high school, my grandmother presented me with a crocheted, cross stitched tour de force majeure that I had admired and lusted after since I was a tadlet. I still have that afghan, and pull it out and lay it across the bed sometimes. Since I am unlikely to have a granddaughter (gotta have kids first, I think) I’d like to do this for Mischief’s kid.

I have a couple of years yet. If not for high school graduation, then for Christmas during her eighteenth year. She’s nearly certain to have an eighteenth year. Good kid, but reminds me of me at the same age. Hopefully she’ll have an epiphany soon and realize all she’s doing is eliminating options.

This is one of the blankets for the Linus Project. Multiple strands held as one, and a dead simple lace pattern. I like the variegated effect without the color pooling—most of these are solids; I think there’s one pastel green and yellow variegated in the section on the needles.

I was at a Linus Project Blanket Bee when someone came in with easily three hundred pounds of yarn. Holy crap. Even my stash isn’t that big.

Everyone was digging for the big and bulky stuff--I grabbed as much laceweight as I could put hands to, and then a bunch of glum neutrals. I was planning on combining strands even then. The beige and gray and cream I picked up will go nicely with some chenille that’s been sitting and waiting to become for years now. Moral of the chenille—sometimes stuff’s on eBay for a reason.


This was another Linus find—nobody wanted sportweight. Their loss. This is a little more than half-done, and I’m hoping to have it finished by Christmas. Earlier this year I had FIVE blankets on the needles. Three are now cast off and living their lives elsewhere.


I’ve learned my lesson at last, I think. One for friends and family, one for charity, one for me and me alone, one for eventual publication, and one just because.



This one is for eventual publication once I finish the Boring Eternal Strap and sew a zipper in. I do the old yoga and the new yoga, so why not combine the two? The yarn’s cool—it’s dyed in long long lengths so it does that ombre thing as it rolls off the needles, and the colorways are soft and fade in and out nicely—no jarring stripes. Will keep you posted.



And this one is for me. It’s garter eyelet lace in laceweight, so it doesn’t look like much right now. It’s too big to spread on the needles, so you don’t see the designs. I think I’ve ripped this back more than I’ve ever ripped anything in my knitting life. I pulled out every trick in my lace arsenal to get it going—a lifeline at the point where the patterns change so I’ll have a place to pick up and start from, markers at every repeat, working from a chart so I don’t get lost in the verbiage, knitting only in a padded room with plenty of light . . . ok, haven’t tried the padded room yet. That would be next, however.



I’ve always said if you want it badly enough, you can knit it. I want this very badly. More than I thought I did when I cast on. Things are funny that way.

The yarn is a cashmere/nylon blend I found on eBay (curse you eBay! Curse you and your easily searched goodies!) I’m betting the spinner was disappointed in the color or the hand of the yarn—it’s a bit on the harsh side as a yarn. Knitted up, it’s not buttery soft, but it’s skin friendly. I’m betting it will bloom a little with washing and wearing, and plan to hasten that by overdying the rather blah grey with screaming bright primaries and secondaries once the garments I plan are completed. I don’t mind a heathery tone; it’s softly mottled as it is. The bright colors will be muted by the grey and should fall in the deep complex tertiaries I prefer. This one goes in the yellow dyepot, pictures to follow during blocking and post dyebath.

And the number for today—6. See you Monday.

I Say "Feh" a Lot, Lately.

Today tastes like cardamom, wormwood, and amber. Aromatic, yet bitter.

Still in state of high ambivalence about work. On the one hand, I'm finally getting some baby step valuable experience that could go on the resume and help find a better job where the bar (and the pay) are higher. On the other hand, I'm working 45-50 hours per week to try and get it all done, and I have a sneaking hunch that some animals are more equal than others when it comes to remuneration and workload, and especially the remuneration to workload ratio.

Have just about decided that it's time to begin looking--not frantically spamming each and every want ad with a resume in a frantic effort to get the hell out, but to watch for any good looking leads (and to make myself available for good looking leads) AFTER the trip to Italy in September. To put in the time to manufacture a position that is perfectly suited for me, and then to go find someone to pay me well to do it. If nothing else, the feeling of having options will ease my frustration with the high school environment.

And still highly ambivalent about the annual August Revelry coming up. Several good friends have been asking if they’ll see me there, since I’ve been staying away in droves from just about everything to do with Lynchpin and Hub since last fall. And this year’s August Revelry looks to be a history-making goodie much like the Millennial Party. Elaborate costuming, set decoration, three houses for the overflow, and big big LARP (Live Action Role Playing) all night long. Come as you aren’t, in other words.

Mischief has her shtick all laid out, from headdress to props, and is beading her beady little eyes out working on an Egyptian collar neckpiece/breastplate. Vincenza is googling images from the movie Legend so she can go as Dark Lily, complete with Tudor wirework collar. Me, I’m currently accepting bribes to finish a tunic (grommet the sleeves—that’s all that’s left). And still I say feh.

I say "feh" a lot, lately. I've been weeding out lists where I've just been whacking the delete key instead of reading posts; and soon the ones I just lurk in will be going as well. I dropped one that I thought I'd be going old and grey with. I thought I was going to miss them, but then I realized that the them I miss are the them from five-six years ago. We have all moved on.

I've been inching out of the local knitting guild, as well. Last fall, I sort of stopped attending meetings religiously, then I skipped the Christmas party, and I haven't been to a meeting save once this year. My knitting time is precious to me; I don't want to spend two hours of it twice a month to sit with people who belive you need to have a pattern to knit a dishrag or a scarf. I was working on a Linus blanket (Ostrich Plumes with a Basketweave edging) and was asked where I got the pattern (?) and then in hushed tones if I'd thought of putting those two patterns together myself.

Good lord 'n' butter! I love Ostrich Plumes--it's a lot of bang for your buck and is easy to read besides. I love Basketweave for the same reason. I needed something non-curling for the edging (and Basketweave doesn't curl) so there we were. If I hadn't loved it when I got going, I would have ripped it in the swatch--or just pulled back to the border and done a striped Basketweave. No more talent than making a pie crust and filling it with eggs, cream, cooked meat, cheese, and onions and peppers. Quiche isn't hard. Nor is knitting. No reason to need your hand held for the rest of your life with either one of them.

Feh.

Never Enough Hours

Today tastes like green bananas. Not plantains, but actual fingerling bananas, tiny and precious in their big leaf. You can still taste their astringent ghosts in the ripe yellow fruit, lurking beneath the sweet top flavors and the esters.

Right now life is an embarrassment of riches—with little catches built into them. I finished the castle blanket this weekend—

Castle Blan, complete at last!