Not yay for lace

Um...so wow it's been a while since I dropped in here. I guess it doesn't matter since the only two people that read it don't even really need to, lol!!

So let's see...Foliage was and still is a total disaster. I tried three needle sizes (getting smaller each time) and the fucking hat was WAY WAY WAY too big on every attempt. Granted, I have a stupidly small head for an adult, but this thing was gigantor. It wouldn't even fit Logan. :p I gave up on it. I love the hat, the pattern itself was easy and I could probably do it in my sleep at this point, but it was getting ridiculous. I am not knitting a hat that was written for size eights on size fours because then it's just going to look totally jacked up. Yes, I know...take out a lace repeat, duh!!! Well, my little anti-lave brain says, "if it's that much trouble, fuck it". And there we stand on Foliage.

Since that time, I completed my purple Edgar, my re-worked pink SWS hat, a pair of wrist warmers from the Noro Cash Iroha that Logan got me for my birthday and a black Bukkit hat. That was all in a month, too! I was on a roll.

Since then, I have knit on one thing: a Lady Eleanor stole. Mom came to visit for Frouth of July and when she saw Brandi's, she had to have one. It was decided that this would be her birthday present. Now, let's all stop and chuckle at the thought of me being able to actually afford the yarn for a Lady E.....everyone done, up off of the floor, tears wiped away? Good. Now that we have come back to my reality of a gas bill that eats up nearly half of my monthly income, I will admit that Mom did buy her own yarn. I know, you must be thinking...wow some birthday present that your mom had to pay for herself! True, not my proudest moment, but anyone that has knit one of these will recognize that the time and dedication that it takes to make one of these monsters if most definitely a gift in and of itself. And it's one hell of a gift, trust me. Right after mom left, I whipped out a quick bukkit hat for her in a gorgeous shade of green and sent that off to keep her somewhat satiated until October (her birthday). On July 27th I cast on the infamous entrelac stole. I finished knitting it today. I still have a lot of work to do on it...blocking, fringe and weaving in. Sometimes I stop and think that this project took up so much of my knitting time, but to be honest, I never knit much during the summer. It's just too hot and I am rarely inspired. Considering the weight and warmth of this thing, I am surprised that it is done already. There were a few weeks that it had to go away; just looking at it made me sweat. Now it is done and I am very very proud of it. It is beautiful and I cannot wait to see it totally done. I think Mom will look beautiful and elegant in it.

Now...I have another Eleanor to knit. Insanity, I know. It will only be half of a real Eleanor and I have until Christmas to finish it. It will my godmother's Christmas gift from both my mom and I (yes, she bought the yarn, I am doing the grunt work). We decided on a similar, but more muted color palette in Kureyon for this one and I've decided to work it on larger needles. I think it make it lighter and I can get more out of my limited yarn (the yarn store was short one ball from the number that I really wanted).

On top of all of this...I have to start figuring out my Christmas knitting. I successfully worked B into a panic about this tonight as well. I'm a good friend like that. I can't be alone in my frantic race to the Christmas finish line!! I was just being encouraging and helpful...yeah...that's it.

Happy knitting!

yay for lace?

Anyone who knows me, in a knitterly way, knows that I am not a fan of knitting lace. The amount of frustration is way too disporportional to the amount of satisfaction that I get from it. Actually, I've never gotten any satisfaction from it. It just makes me mad. I love seeing other people knit lace because it is gorgeous and I do envy a few things that I'll never make for myself, but in the end it's just not worth it for me.

 

Last night I decided to cast on Foliage from knitty. I've had it in my Ravelry queue for a while but haven't been motivated to do anything about it because it's lace. Granted, it is lace with a worsted weight yarn which redeems it a little bit, but not enough to make me really eager to try it out. I've even had the yarn since before I found the pattern!! I don't know what got into me last night, but I decided that it was time. On tv night, no less (and let's not forget that it's a TOP DOWN lace hat). A recipe for disaster and needles being hurled across the room, once would think. In fact, I saw just that thought flash across B's face when I divulged my less-than-intelligent plan.

 

Still, I merrily wound my yarn and packed it into my WIP basket with my needles and dropped it off in front of the couch, waiting for 8pm to roll around. We settled in to watch our shows and I cast on. Five rows in and I've fucked it up already. No surprise there. Froggity froggity. Completely distracted by tranny bitches and sad losses on ANTM, I hot back to it. By the end of ANTM, I had half of the crown done and only had to tink back twice!! I looked down at my hands and thought "where the hell did this come from?". So I kept going. By the end of the night, I had the crown done and the first lace pattern repeat done. Not once did I have the urge to catapault the project from my sight or even get frustrated.

 

So....kinda yay for lace. I love the pattern and the hat is just so damn cute. I think I just might be ok with it. But don't start thinking that I'm going to be eyeing any other lace for a very long time.

In desperate need of focus!

I am in such a scatterbrained mood with my knitting. I busted out that bucket hat, which was good because I've been very ADD since I finished my Clap. I'm still working on my Edgar but summer makes it so hard to stay focused on winter projects. The problem is that there isn't much warm weather stuff I want to knit. I really really need to get started on my Rogue so that I can wear that this winter. I need to actually swatch...the right way, lol. I have so much yarn that I don't know what I want to do with most of it yet and I can't afford any new yarn so my options seem to be limited but I think I'm just being lazy.

I need to clean out my WIP basket and get it back to it's original intent. I need to re-wind a couple of balls that are left over from recent FOS, measure and record them so I can figure out what I want to use them for. I should have enough of my Dream in Colors left over from my Bucket Hat to make matching wristwarmers. I promised Garrett I would make myself a pair of mittens so that my hands would stay warmer in the buggy.

I just need to focus and get myself organized so I'm more motivated to get started on new projects.

<3 on all sides

How could my birthday have been any better. Ok, well, besides the obvious having my mom and Wendy here with me. Almost as good....more yarn!!! Yes, more yarn. Never enough yarn. And a very cool story to go with it.

Mom sent me a birthday card. I knew there was going to be $100 in it and I really wanted to try and get more of the Artyarns that B got for me. It was just so beautiful and incredibly perfect. I got home from work on Monday, picked up my card and money, called Harmony and had her set aside the last skein so I could pick it up. On my way to the shop, I called mom and thanked her and told her that I was on my way to pick up the yarn. I got to the shop and talked to the owner for a bit and she showed me some fun stuff before I wandered off into the yarn for some serious shopping. As I was sitting on the shop floor, surrounded by a dozen hanks of yarn, the owner got a call that sounded a little strange from what I heard through my daze. I thought maybe it was B calling to have me pick something up for her and to pay with her credit card over the phone but she didn't say anything to me once she hung up so I just forgot about it. I picked out a yarn for the Better Bucket Hat and another pretty yarn that I wanted to try. I went to check out but I had to wait for her to finish running the credit card she had taken over the phone. She rang me up once I was done and gave me the total. As I was getting my money out she goes "Oh! but you have this $50 gift certificate that your mom just called and bought!!". So awesome. She's the best mom ever.



I decided to make a mini-clap out of the Artyarns. Well, more like the yarn decided. It's beautiful. The yarn is a dream and the colors are gorgeous knit up. I'm almost done with it, but I have to break into the second hank for the last five rows, of course. I also found a matching wristwarmer pattern that I'm pretty excited about. They won't be warm, but they match. I don't really like the Clapotis hat, so I don't know that I will make a hat to go with the set. I might just see if I can figure out a headband pattern to go with it.

I think I found a pattern to use for the Noro Cash Iroha that Logan picked out for me as well. To top it all off, I found a website to buy Travertino!!! I ordered it on Wednesday and it should be here early next week. I have something to make with all of the new yarn I've gotten and that's really neat. I can't wait to start new projects!

Kitten is loving the Artyarns too...

Birthday Bounty!!!!

Ok, I am super tired but I had to show off my new yarn. So this will be short, but very very sweet! I got my Cash Iroha and blue/brown haindpainted colorway that I have been dying for for MONTHS!!!!! (btw, these were both from B and Logan's present) :D I are be happy happy gurl!

Srsly....

Is he not the most adorable thing you've ever seen??? The hat's pretty damn cute too, hehe. I love knitting for him;he gets so excited and he's so appreciative. It really makes you want to knit more when people are so gracious about it. He actually wears them too. I really liked this pattern and I'll probably make more in different colors. I got my Superwash wool from KnitPicks and I started a new BF hat for Garrett. I really like the yarn so far; it's really soft and nice to work with. I'm looking forward to seeing how it holds up to his abuse and washings. I love KnitPicks. Great yarn, even better prices. I'll be able to make him hats to last him years with that yarn, lol.

I've been on a bit of a kick the last couple of weeks. I've finished a couple of hats, my pink and black gloves and a bunch of washcloths. I've been making little fishy washcloths!!! They are so cute; I'm going to make a bunch of them for the X-mas box. I also made a cute lace-panel soap sack. I've got a bunch of cotton and those are great little instant gratification projects. I'm going to look around for other soap sack/washcloth patterns so I have a bunch of them for little stocking stuffers.

Along with Garrett's Superwash yarn, I got some yarn on clearance from KnitPicks. I definitely need to order color cards for the yarns because my monitor is off enough to make a difference. Two of the colors, I don't really like. I might use them for gifts, but I might check out the swap thread on Ravelry and see if I can just trade with someone. I'd rather get something that I like than try to use colors I don't really like. I guess we'll see.

Lessons Learned and Injuries Sustained

Lesson Learned: Don't knit a hat that needs to maintain any sort of actual shape or fit a head after being worn twice out of Simply Soft, or any pure acrylic. Garrett's hats are now more of a beret/rasta hat that fall off of his head when he bends over. I get the feeling that I've blogged about this before but I'm posting from gmail so I can't check. I asked around on Ravelry and my suspisions were confirmed that acrylic was the culprit. Of course, the most obvious answers are the ones you always miss, lol. Superwash wool! Duh!!! He can get it dirty and wash it all he wants and it's cheap enough through KnitPicks to replace somewhat frequently. Or, he can just pay for the yarn, ha! I've got a couple of skeins on order (yay for clearance!!) and I'm excited to try it out. I've never used Superwash so it will be fun to try something new. Garrett really loves the hats I knit for him and that's so much fun. It makes me want to knit for him even more!

 

Injuries Sustained: I attempted to chop off my thumb on Tuesday night. I was not sucecssful but I did come away with a pretty gnarly cut! I've been showing it off to everyone. Well, those that will look at it, that is. B and Logan refused to indulge me this time. It was great; I was cutting very wet potatoes (I know, I'm a genious) and one flew out from underneath the knife and narrowly escaped being butchered by sacrificing my thumb in it's place. I briefly checked it out and it was bleeding a lot and pretty deep but didn't appear to need stitches or any immediate medical intervention so I stuck it under cold water to get it all rinsed out. Nurse B assisted in the procurement of the advanced medical supply located conviently in the kitchen to aide in staunching the blood flow (that's a paper towel, btw). I noticed that it wasn't slowing down after a minute or two so I took a closer look. This is the cool part, but skip it if you're weak of stomach (ahemWendyahem). Turns out that I had cut through my thumbnail, which had then gotten lodged inside of the cut on the fingertip. My first thought; "Damn...I'm going to have to pull that out of there. That sucks.". Suprisingly, it didn't hurt and was relatively easy to get out. That helped the blood slow down so I threw a band aid on and went back to dinner.

 

I haven't tried knitting with my injured thumb yet and I have no idea if it's going to be a problem. I really hope not; I have a lot I want to work on. Can I knit through the pain?? I guess we'll find out soon enough!