No more flare for me, please.

Well Giselle flare #2 came off the needles tonight. It ended up having one screwup in it which made my eyelet line go askew at one point, but it ended up being the same shape and size as the other one for the most part. So I decided that I am satisfied enough to not force a do-over on them. So now I am mapping out my plan of attack for the body extension. I'm going on vacation to the beach this weekend, and my goal was to have that sleeve flare done and off the needles so I could do the body during the trip. I'll definitely be taking it with me, I always can find time to knit.

While knitting tonight I was listening to the recent Knit Picks podcast (http://community.knitpicks.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1984936%3ABlogPost%3A28467) in which there is an interview with the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/) whose blog I just loooove to read. This interview was awesome and I highly recommend it. My favorite quotes:


On the comforting "bubble" that knitting creates:

You pull out your knitting and all of a sudden it sets up this force-field around you. Everybody around you can still be a dumbass who's tickin you off, but it just doesn't register in the same way. You can just sit there and knit while they all go on about their business...

On knitting as a source of income:

I'd had a stash upset. A friend of Joe's walked into the house and he was like you know "Dude....lotta wool." And Joe just looked at him and he said "Hey, watch your mouth. Knitting has been very very good to me."

That first quote rang so true with me. I've discovered that taking my knitting with me when I go places and working on it while I am waiting for something that I would normally be impatient for totally relaxes me. It also comforts me when something is bothering me. I just start my knitting and the rest of the crap just fades away.


The Yarn Harlot's blog is full of some of the best writing I have read in a really long time. Really check it out sometime if you're not already a reader.

Need more pieces of flare!

So yesterday I knitted my butt off, trying to get to the end of what seemed like the "Neverending Sleeve Flare". It ended up being a lot bigger and taking a lot more time than I thought it was going to. I frak'd up the couting on it so its uneven by a few stitches here and there I think, but overall I believe it came out looking the way it is supposed to. I was struggling with the YO's and the W&T's and was not at all sure if I was doing it correctly or not. I hope I can get rid of the curling edges somehow. And now, I get to do it all over for the second one! The trick will be to get the second one to come out the same as the first.

As I was sitting up knitting into the wee hours of the morning last night I found myself thinking "Hmm... wonder how many other knitters listen to Anthrax while they knit?" ROFL

The next big thing?

For me at least... I have been watching videos on how to spin your own yarn and ooooooh does that look fun! I'm thinking I may need to try that. I saw some dyed roving at a local shop and I know of several places to get it on the internet. So perhaps I will look into finding some affordable supplies and try it out here in the future.

When you least expect it

I was sitting here doing some late-night knitting as seems to be the trend these days. I decided tonight to check out some knitting related podcasts and came upon this one titled "Absent Friends" ( http://www.cast-on.com/?p=288 ) from Cast On. It was one of the most beautiful and moving things I have heard in a really long time. There was a lot in there that I could relate to. So much truth in it. Knitting in hand, I was listening along and I found myself in tears before I knew what was happening. If you have 30 minutes to spare in your day, check this one out.


Brenda Dayne - thank you for sharing your heart with us.

An old dog learning new tricks

Last night I cast off the top portion of Giselle after finishing the second sleeve. I think that it looks pretty decent so far. (despite the crappy and unflattering picture I had to take of myself):



I cast on for the first sleeve flare today. This is causing me to learn some new techniques which is a good thing. I am learning how to do yarnovers (YO) to make decorative holes in the knitting and how to do "wrap and turn" (W&T) to make short rows to give the flare its shape. Right now it is kinda confusing to me but I think I am starting to figure it out. I haven't started the W&T's yet but am getting the hang of the YO's.

I went to Hobby Lobby today because I had a 40% off coupon and wanted to buy some size 6 bamboo straight needles for doing these flares. After driving all the way up there I found that they didn't have what I wanted. I ended up using the coupon on a skein of Red Heart sock yarn that is a possibility for the crochet trim on this project. But it is ivory and when I look at it I think it might be too warm a color to go with the blue of the sweater.

So after I left Hobby Lobby I headed to Busy Beaver's and ended up getting my needles there as well as a lonely, disheveled dark grey skein of Paton's Kroy yarn to use as another possibility for the trim. My first thought was that I wanted light grey trim on it but I couldn't find the color I had in mind anywhere. Now that I am looking at it more I am thinking maybe a dark trim wouldn't be too bad. I've got plenty of time to decide.

When I got home I cast on with my new bamboo needles and felt like my work was way too loose. So I ended going back to my trusty Addi Turbo circulars anyhow... Maybe I will switch back now that I got a few rows started. I really wanted to try out the feel of bamboo straight needles for the first time =/

To sleeve or not to sleeve....that is the question

Well I made a lot of progress on Giselle last night while sitting up late watching TV. I've now finished and bound off the top portion. I feel like I could have made it a bit longer, but since adding the weight of the bottom half should pull it down a little, I'm going to go with it as-is instead of modifying the pattern. I might skip ahead and do the upper sleeves next instead of going straight to the bottom part. That way I can get rid of the needles holding the sleeve stitches. Here's what it looks like so far:










I got 2 plastic under-the-bed storage bins with lids, so I took my yarn out of the bags and put it in those. I couldn't fit another skein in there, they are overflowing. I gotta use some of that sometime when I manage to finish my Giselle.



Oh and I almost forgot, I picked up a couple more knitting and crochet magazines when i was grocery shopping tonight. I'll have to add them to my Ravelry bookshelf. Oh how I love that bookshelf...

My First Afghan

I decided to add my Crocheted Cuddly Kittens afghan to my completed projects. This was the first afghan that I remember completing. I found the pattern on the internet and finished it when I was living in Louisiana in 1999. Back when all my decor was blue and white :)


The pattern is still out there if anyone is interested:

http://www.knitting-crochet.com/crochet/cudafg.html


Here's the pics of mine:







Its supposed to look like rows of kittens like peeking over a wall or something. At least that is what I see when I look at it =P

Organizing schmorganizing

Well tonight I busted out my old bags of yarn and works-in-progress and added all the stuff to my ravelry page. I frogged one random blanket sliver that I figured I wouldn't finish, but had only a few other things that I never completed. I thought I had more but I must have already frogged those in the past. The ones I kept:

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Primrose Path Afghan (started in 1999) http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/projects/feb99_crochet.html





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Squares Afghan from the booklet "63 Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches" (also started around 1999)





(The squares are supposed to be 7" but mine are more like 9". Oh well.)

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The Super Simple Knitwit Sock Pattern (started 2007) http://www.royea.net/sock.html







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And a baby blanket that I started for Neil at some point and never finished









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And after all the sorting, bagging and labeling of yarn, this is what I ended up with (sorted by brand)







Hey, at least I have Ravelry to keep it all sorted. Now to find a place to store all this stuff....

Eh

Well last night we checked out the drive-in in Fairborn and watched "Hancock" and "Get Smart". I thought both movies were really good and had some amazingly funny parts. I think I want to go to that drive-in more often because it was very un-crowded on a Sunday night.

I managed to roll up my first yarn ball that feeds from the inside center. Pretty cool for me but not so interesting to anyone who may be reading this blog lol.

I worked on Giselle a bit today but managed to tear myself away from it for long enough to set up a new blog for my best friend and I (woot!) and to play some Everquest with my cousin Patrick. I haven't hung out with him in a while and have been meaning to, but my knitting obsession is keeping me away from my video games. We went to some of the Planes of Power zones that I was never able to go to back in the day. Plus he gave my shaman some sweet armor :)

Movies and storms and skunks, oh my!

Well we did make it to the drive-in tonight to see Hellboy II and Wanted. Both movies were super good. It ended up thunderstorming while we were there so we watched a lot of the movies through windshield wipers with lightning flashes, but it was pretty cool. We stayed to watch the repeat of Hellboy since we missed some parts of it the first time it played. I think we saw 3 skunks and one black cat wandering around near our van. Was a good family night all around, and you cant beat 3 movies for 4 people for a total of 16 bucks. Good times. But now I have Barry Manilow stuck in my head...

"I can't smile without you...."

So many projects, so little time..

I spent a few nights this week working on the Josephine Scarf to go with the Josephine Halter that I made. I had wanted the scarf to be finished by last night so that I could wear it to bellydance night at Kira's, but alas I couldn't get all the tassels put on in time. So I wore the halter along with the burgundy 4-tiered skirt that I made, and instead of the scarf I wore a black velvet triangle shawl with fringe and my black scarf with silver coins. It still looked pretty good I think and I got some compliments on my outfit (including the kid working the McDonalds drive through window lol). I completed the scarf this afternoon:

Here's the halter it matches:

I also managed to throw together a set of bathroom curtains this week that I made out of some leftover scrap material. I had just enough and I think they came out pretty good:




Of course what all this means is that I have had to put Giselle on hold, and I am looking forward to getting back to working on it. I bought some more clearance yarn and some books at Half-Priced Books this week and now have tons of patterns on my to-do list from all these fabulous books.

I want to go to the drive-in to see some movies tonight but the weather is kinda iffy...will see what happens.

Busy weekend

Well, the trip home to Wheeling had its good points and bad points. I knitted the whole car ride there on Friday afternoon which was good. The weather didn't cooperate and thus the fireworks were canceled. Still managed to have a nice family cookout at my mom's. Met Beverly's fiancee and got to spend time with Grandma and the uncles. Unfortunately Sara and Tim played a game of chicken with a deer and the deer won... Tim with a hurt neck and the car probably totaled. But Sara and the girls got by ok.



Saturday was cookout number 2, this time at Lance's mom's church house. We got to see the parsonage and the church and the kids got to play outside and stuff so it was a good time. We tried to make it to both Elm Grove and Wheeling's fireworks displays that night and pretty much missed them both which was a bummer. I swear they started them too early this year and they didn't last long at all.


Sunday I went on a yarn hunt with mom to Ben Franklin and Michaels. Got some more clearance yarns... yeah as if I need more. It's an addiction, I can't help it. Mom got some yarn too and I looked up some patterns for her to use it in so she can do some crochet. I knitted during the ride back home Sunday night until I ran out of light and had to quit.


Yesterday I napped a lot which was nice. I took Melissa to Best Buy to get a new computer monitor and then went back to her house to set the monitor up and pimp her computer with some programs.


Today we had a doctor's appointment for Sean and he finally got his picc line taken out. Maybe now we can start actually behaving like it's summer around here, since school starts in exactly 6 weeks... how depressing. I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up two awesome knitting books and 2 knitting magazines. (random digression: zz top is on vh1 classic right now lol) The books I got are Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel and Sensual Knits by Yahaira Ferreira. They both have some drop dead gorgeous patterns in them that I can't wait to work on.


But first things first... Giselle is coming along slowly but surely:





And I have every intention of starting on the Josephine Scarf tomorrow to see if I can have it ready to wear on Friday night. Oh well, I think it's off to bed for me.

Yarn shopping and a new project

Well, tonight Melissa and I ventured out to 2 local yarn shops in Beavercreek. Our first stop was at Busy Beaver Arts & Crafts where I bought some beautiful Cherry Tree Hill merino sock yarn in "peacock":








And some equally beautiful Trendsetter Yarn "Dune" in a color called "Grass & Sky":

I also got an excellent set of addi Turbo circular needles (size 6, 40") that I am adoring.

A really sweet girl who worked there took us downstairs to show us the hot glass jewelry making class they were having. We decided that taking that class is definitely on our to-do list now. I was really impressed with this shop after this first visit.

Then it was off to Fiberworks, where we each got 6 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool for making the new "Giselle" pattern I just purchased (http://www.stitchdiva.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=SDS-042). My selection was a turquoise blue (go figure) and hers was a rich brown. We talked to a few ladies at the shop and found out that knitters get together there a few times a week. We will definitely have to check that out.

So we got a decent start on the Giselle pattern tonight. This will be a good learning experience for me because its the first time I will be knitting a project on circular needles, the first time I am using stitch markers rather in-depth-like, and the first time doing what are called "lifted increases" (L1R and L1L). Who know's what other surprises await us as we get further into this pattern. We decided to make the long version with crochet trim. I can't wait to see how they turn out. I am loving working with high quality yarn and high quality needles for a change. It just all feels so good in the hands...

Well, tomorrow it's off to Wheeling for the 4th of July. I'll be taking my knitting with me. If nothing else it will give me something to do on the 3 hour drive. And of course I'll be taking the laptop ;)

Happy 4th of July!

Feelin' Blue

I've been sitting here working on my "sparkling Gigi" (http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer08/PATTgigi.html) while listening to Blue October. This CD is taking me back to last summer and I'm feeling kinda sad, missing a good friend of mine that moved away.

Gigi is coming along, but I am getting an idea of how long this is going to take me to complete. I've never knitted a decent sized item with such small needles before (2 and 4) and have never had so many stitches per inch. It's going to be an interesting challenge... will I get tired of it and "shelf it" like I usually do with stuff that takes a long time?

How many web pages can one person possibly need?

Apparently for me the answer is > 10 or something... sheesh. It all started back around 1996 when I made my first web page on AOL's hometown thing. Shortly thereafter I made a poetry page on Geocities. Neither of those exist anymore, but I think I have remnants of them stored on various floppy discs in a closet somewhere. I was teaching myself the basics of HTML.

There have been several incarnations of my family webpage with pictures of my husband and kids and our family news etc. to keep the relatives updated, only I really didn't keep up with the updating.

Then came 1999 when there were a lot of paid-to-surf and affiliate opportunities floating around. As a stay at home new mom, I figured why not. So I set up a money-making page with all of my affiliate offers etc. That page also no longer exists.

Then I got into The Sims. Big time. And I spent hours upon hours creating clothing and home decor items for my game. And I figured what the heck, I'll put up a website for that. The first one I put together was on the defunct terrashare.com - a host that promised to pay you for your page visits. I did get one check from them and it was good money for doing something I thought was a fun hobby. (http://simboutique.tripod.com/)

Not long after, my best friend and I decided we wanted to put together a website that had a coffe-house theme to it, but we never got too far with that one because we got distracted by Active Worlds.

A few years later, I got into IMVU for a little while and created some clothing items and made some credits on there. (http://avatars.imvu.com/spacejunk)

Since then I have had my obligatory myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/a_me), my profile page on Tribe.net (http://people.tribe.net/a_me), a page on Kaneva (http://www.kaneva.com/channel/SpaceJunk.people), my Facebook profile, my Ravelry profile (http://www.ravelry.com/people/SpaceJunk), my youtube page (http://www.youtube.com/geekess), a yahoo 360 page, a Windows Live Spaces page, whatever else I may have forgotten, and now this blog...

I know that I have a blog on myspace and wherever else, but I think that it will be nice to have one that is unaffiliated with anything else. I was all about keeping diaries when I was younger, and I keep telling myself I should do something like that now. Especially since my memory seems to have been going to crap over the years =P

So here's my blog. Who knows what will end up in here. Hopefully something will, and my tendency to slack off and leave things unfinished won't rear it's ugly head here. But I guess only time will tell...