Hooray!

Carl comes home tonight. I'm busy tidying the house and baking brownies for his return! I really can't wait to see him. I know its only been a few days but last night after my friend left and I wasn't hanging out with other people I started to feel really lonely. I'm very happy to have him home today!

I did a lot this weekend but I will get to that tomorrow there's too much to much to do here. I finished the jacket but I need to put the buttons on before I show you all. Thhe first attempt was really sad. I started a clapotis last night because I needed some mindless knitting. So I guess while the brownies bake I will be knitting away till Carl gets home.

Super excited!

While the Cat's Away...

I’m really enjoying my alone time. All my little yarny friends have been able to come out and play without Yarn Ogre Carl sending them back to the basket.

The coffee table is now covered in argyle sock making goodness. I finished the 2^nd sleeve of the flair jacket this morning and I guess I could finish the neck and be done with it but I hate picking up stitches so I’m distracting myself with Grandpa’s socks.

Maybe I can get Carl stay out west just a little longer…

It's a Good Morning

Don't worry that's an index finger...good morning!

It's scary leaving Fiberland

I live in a land of fiber. I read about knitting and now spinning as close to all day as I can get. I knit when I have a second and I spin for a few minutes everyday. I no longer have any connection or understanding of what happens in the “Real World” and frankly, its sad. Back when I didn’t live in this fiberific world a little thing happened to a man name Sean Bell and two of his friends. Once I left the “Real World” I sort of forgot about current events. Today, Carl emails me to tell me that the verdict for the Sean Bell trial is expected tomorrow and the NYPD fear riots (to quote Carl “Think Crown Heights-type riots”) if the verdict is not guilty. This was great news since Carl is leaving tonight for a long weekend in Arizona with friends. He’s said he warned me to avoid my calling him freaking out if I see anything on Friday, like people breaking store windows. Isn’t he kind? I know it won’t be as bad as I’m imagining right now but it’s a little scary when you’re not in fiberland. Since I have the day off tomorrow I will be spending most of my friend in my apartment knitting and spinning so rioters beware you better not mess with me! I’m a knitter and I’m ARMED!

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And to clarify my last two posts. I know I said I wasn't buying more sock yarn BUT the yarn mentioned in the previous post was purchased right before I swore off buying sock yarn. It just happened to come in the mail the other day so it looks like I cheated.

Ok here we go...

Even though I've been really bad and have bought WAY too much sock yarn I have been getting stuff done. But first some yarn porn.

Here we have my two newest sock yarns, aren't they pretty?


First we have The Great Adirondack Yarn Company, Inc. Sirino in the Navajo colorway. Its 675 yards of fingering weight yumminess! Now I just need a sock pattern to go with this yarn, any suggestions?

Second we have Lime & Violet Mermaid sock in the Yarny Yarn colorway. Its 425 yard and just awesome. I want to make something with a wavy rib pattern as a noddy to the Mermaid name.

Then we have all the yarn for grandpa's argyle socks. They're all knitpicks gloss in various colorways. I'd name them but they're in the yarn basket at the other end of my living room and I'm tired.

I've also purchased a couple more rovings so I can continue to practice my spinning. I'm almost done with the practice fiber from class and then I'm going to start on the pretty pink/purple roving that came with my spindle.

Of course I've also been knitting.

The mesh gloves are knitting up very quickly. I'm about to start the fingers on the first one (wish me luck!).

And the flair jacket has a sleeve! Sorry for the crap picture but you can see the sleeve. Look on the right, what's that? A SLEEVE!

Boy do I have a lot going on right now in craft-land! And to top it off I signed up for Sock Wars III which starts next month. Oy! I'm going to die so quickly. Maybe I should start a pair of socks just to get me back into the swing of sock knitting? OR I can spin some more...I'm off to spin and watch my new favorite BBC show Allo Allo. The show's from the 80s but its new to me. So funny!

Can you tell I've been in a super chipper mood today? I think its all the fiber fumes.

My new mantra...

Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn! Don’t buy sock yarn!

I hope it works…

Handspun!!

I had my spindle spinning class today at The Point and it was AWESOME. We had a really good group and we just laughed and had a great time while we fumbled with the spindles and roving. At the end of three hours of learning and trying I made a tiny ball of yarn. When I got home I started to play with my spindle and its much easier. I LOVE spinning! This is going to be such fun!

Isn’t it cute! I wouldn’t buy it but it’s a pretty good start I think!

The one on the right was the thing I learned on. Ir was really hard to use in comparison. I like my spindle.

Oh the body of the fair jacket is done and off the needles (whee!). Tomorrow I start the sleeves. Oh and I kind of bought more sock yarn…it was pretty!

Loopy Ewe Newbie

So LimenViolet are starting to hurt my wallet. I'm playing catch up with their blog and I think I have been listening to them a little too much. They're always talking about socks and sock yarn, especially yarn from The Loopy Ewe. I'm just starting to get the urge to knit socks again so when I listen to people talking about sock yarn nearly everyday for a few a weeks I find that I can't help but buy more sock yarn. Today I hopped over to The Loopy Ewe for the very first time and bought another skein. I don't need any more sock yarn but I just can't help myself. Do you think that show Intervention would be interested in helping me with my yarn habit? It's starting to get out of control...help me!

Goal Check

I think it’s time to look at the goals again:

1. Stash Bust–we’re getting there but it doesn’t look like a dent has been made. I know the Yarn Harlot says sock yarn doesn’t count as stash but it does seem to take up room.

2. Flair Jacket-I’m making great headway and I’m excited to see how it turns out.

3. I want to finally make a sweater-Absolutely no progress to speak of.

4. Doctor’s Bag from Knit-2-Together-still need to workout the knots in the yarn I bought to make this bag. This year I will be gentler with the yarn I buy at Rhinebeck so this doesn’t happen again.

5. Ocean Toes Socks-totally getting frogged. I there’s just too much going on in these socks and I want to make something else that I’ll like more.

6. Carl’s Scarf-yah let’s not talk about this one. Maybe it will be done before the first frost maybe not.

7. Complete a felting project-working on it. I think I’m going to make the French Market Bag from Knitty.com.

8. Argyle Socks for Grandpa-waiting on one more ball of yarn from knitpicks and then I can start these and have them done by father’s day (fingers crossed since I’ve never done intarsia).

9. Mesh Gloves for the Northanger Abbey KAL-I restarted these last night after frogging the whole thing and downing a glass of wine and now it all makes sense funny how sometimes wine can clear a knitter’s brain and sometimes it can make it all foggy . Anyway, now that that’s all sorted I’m moving along rather quickly and hope to have these finished soon.

I have to admit I have fallen off the wagon and my yarn diet is a little um stalled BUT I will come back and be better than ever! NO MORE SEX! I can’t buy anymore yarn because frankly I have no place to put it all. My list of goals keeps increasing which I think is a good thing as long as my stash decreases as the goals increase. Sadly, this is not the case at the moment but we will soon change that. 2008 will be my great knit-a-thon!

Where did my brain go?

Just a quick post to show you all my progress on the flair jacket. I have to knit for about another inch or two and then I can switch over to the seed stitch border. THEN I can start my sleeves. I’m scared of the sleeves because people keep telling me about how they go on forever however, at the same time I’m super excited.

I have noticed that I apparently have a super long torso because I’ve had to add a bunch of inches onto the bottom of this jacket to get it hit my hip.

I’ve also cast on these mesh gloves (you can download the pattern for free at interweave.com) with Debbie Bliss Pure Silk. My Jane Austen ravelry group is doing another KAL and this time we’re reading Northanger Abbey and we have to knit something gothic. I thought if I knit these little gloves in black they’d work. I was super excited by them and cast on as soon as I got home tonight. I should not have done this. My brain still hasn’t recovered from tax time because I messed up when I joined them in the round everything got all messed up so I’m just going to frog the whole thing and start again on Saturday morning when my brain is up and functioning again. They should knit up quickly so I’m not worried about my time. On a positive note, the yarn is flipping fantastic!

Ok back to the jacket. I really want to finish this thing soon.

Spin Spin Spin

My “learn to spin with a drop spindle kit” arrived today! Well it actually arrived on Friday but my mother dropped it off to me this morning at work. I bought it from this great AnnieMay’s Etsy store. I’m super pumped to learn how to finally do this but I have had such a crap day at work that I just can’t learn anything at the moment. I will spend the week playing around with my spindle in preparation for my class on Saturday at The Point. Hopefully after my class I will actually know what I’m doing and I won’t be all thumbs.

I can’t really think anymore today so I’m just going to leave you with this wonderful shot of the BEAUTIFUL roving and spindle. And hopefully after tomorrow I will start to become human again.

Ok the picture is kind of crap but I’m tired and I still have a little bit of work to do before I can sleep.

Weekend Update

It’s been a very long weekend and this lazy Sunday is much appreciated. Friday, I broke my little yarn diet (actually that’s a lie I ordered some things from knit picks on Thursday but we’ll talk about that when the package arrives). We were taking a fellow knitter out for a little bachelorette celebration and since I have yarn shop in the lobby of my office building I just couldn’t stop myself from taking a little peek at their sock yarn. I fell in love with this beautiful skein of The Great Adirondack Yarn Company sock yarn in a colorway called Black Magic. It was so lovely I got one for me and one for her. And now we can have matching socks!

We had a fabulous evening of dinner at The Park and bar dancing at Hogs and Heifers. I learned a few things from this experience 1) party favors topped with little penises turn us all in to 8^th grade boys (giggle giggle)

Seriously not staged we looked over during dessert and this was on the table.

2) The bartenders at Hogs and Heifers will take your bra off you if you’re not careful. Two of us became victims before we just had to leave. When I saw the second one being taken off I scurried off in the other direction to avoid all bra stealing situations. And 3) Fire breathing is really cool.

After such a joyous, light hearted celebration on Friday night I had to changes gears Saturday morning and head out to Long Island with Carl for a memorial service for an old family friend of his. It was a lovely service. I always feel a little weird attending services like this when I never knew the person but this time I was just happy to be there for Carl holding his hand through this. Yesterday was the first time I ever saw Carl cry. In a very morose way, this was a bonding experience for us. It makes you want to hold to tight to the people you love since life is so finite and unpredictable.

Anyway, after such a busy and emotional weekend I’m just taking it easy today and working on my flair jacket. I’ve put the sleeve stitches on scrap yarn and have finished the 4 button holes but I’m currently very confused. I did a gauge swatch and I got gauge. I checked again while knitting—still got gauge. One would think that if I just follow the pattern everything will work out. I was wrong. In the picture on the pattern the button holes span the entire length of the front panel. The directions say to make a button hole every 14^th row 4 times. I did this and my button holes stop below the boobs. I don’t get it. I don’t have boobs so it’s not their fault. Do I have a super long torso? I checked for errors in the pattern and I couldn’t find any so I don’t think it’s that. I don’t know I’m totally confused but I’ve tried it on and I think it could look good. I really don’t want to rip back that far to add more rows between the holes so we’ll see how it all turns out. I still love the jacket.

Note: The actual jacket is currently longer than this with all the button holes but I was too lazy to retake the picture

Ravelry Update

I just learned that you can change your username on Ravelry so I am now StitchBitch23 (like my blog URL) if anyone is looking for me!

And don't forget about Ravelraising you might just win something fun!

Flighting, Drinking and Twirling

Last night Carl and I had the Fight of the Century and all because I’m a messy little tall person that doesn’t fold their clothes. Apparently, after a year and a half living in a bedroom turned girl closet can get to a person. At about 1 am I learned the following:

1. I have to put my clothes away as soon as physically possible or Carl may kill me

2. Trying to talk to him like an adult when he’s fuming is completely impossible.

3. Maybe I shouldn’t push my luck when he lives in a world of yarn which was not what he signed up for when we moved in together

4. Drinking half a bottle of wine very quickly will not make the yelling man go away and will actually make you feel like death the next morning.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be able to make it to my knitting group last night and boy did I need a little girl time. I think I have officially lost my mind and need a vacation because there is no filter left. I know you’re all asking yourself “when was there a filter?” but there was, it was just small and didn’t really filter all the much. Now that little bit I had is just G-O-N-E GONE. I apologize for anything awful that I said last night. Maybe that placenta thing was a bit much but I hope I was at least entertaining???

I wore my skirt to work yesterday and everyone LOVED it. There is nothing like getting complimented on something you’ve worked so long and hard at. It looked great and all day all I wanted to do was go to the park and twirl. It’s definitely a twirling skirt. I would have done a few twirls at work but I just didn’t think it was professional.

Gotta work but the Fair Jacket is coming along nicely. Pictures of my progress soon! I will need help picking out buttons but we'll get to that later.

Will this week every end?

I decided to start knitting on the bus again this morning since the flair jacket is a little smaller and lighter than the skirt had been these last few weeks. I waited and waited this morning for a bus and god rewarded my patience with a totally empty bus stopping at my stop. I got a single seat and started knitting. I was having a simply marvelous morning commute till about 2 stops from my office when the cord of my knit picks options came right out AGAIN! I had fixed the other end before starting the jacket and now the good end is broken. Somehow I managed to save my stitches but this was just a little too much excitement for me especially before coffee. So after a very long day of work I have to fix my option again before I can knit anymore. I'm tempted to run out and buy some addis and just say fuck the option but I love them too much to give up on them now.

Oh and I learned today that STP is getting back together, pretty sweet.

And what's this about MagKnits being down? I must investigate...

Monday Monday...

So it looks like its going to be another long week at work. Yesterday Carl and I were discussing how amazing it would be to wake up and have it be Friday night again in some sort of Groundhog Day like time warp thing. Alas, its not to be. Luckily my mother stopped by work this morning to drop of the quilted bag she made me. Isn’t it great?!

I’m making progress on my Flair Jacket and I can’t wait to see how it looks when its complete. I still need to decide on buttons but I think I’ll do that when the whole jacket is complete. I do have to say it’s really nice to knit with worst weight. No tiny needles and stitches here!

I’ve been listening to LimenViolet while I’ve been working and I have decided that they are freakin hysterical. I love all the yarn porn and yarn related adventures. The story about the protesters chanting “give geese a chance” oh my sides hurt after that one. I want to jump though my ipod and into the room with them. If you haven’t listened to their podcast before click over to iTunes and check them out. I promise you will laugh out loud. I kept trying not on the bus in case people though I was weird but I just couldn’t help it. Seriously, they’re great!

My yarn diet is doing great. It has been especially hard since there is a yarn store in the lobby of my office building but I’m coping. The food diet is a little harder. I’ve been working so much I haven’t been eating during the day so I get home and just munch munch munch. If I can resist the yarn I can resist food.

Ok back to dinner and knitting oh and getting rid of this migraine. Damn work and its being all crazy right now…

Yippie FO

Finally I’m all done with the skirt. I decided not to cinch in the bottom to make it a tulip skirt because my gauge wasn’t totally right so it didn’t come out quite as long as it should have been but I really like the flowiness of the skirt.

Back

Front

Now I’m off to swatch the flair jacket. Yah I know I’m going to actually swatch a project. I’m such a good knitter!

EEK!!

5 more rows and then I can bind off, sewing in my ends (all 90,000 of them), cut my ribbons to length and WEAR MY SKIRT!!

YIPPIE!

ok back to work pictures soon!

Sweet Jesus its Friday

I'm so happy you have no idea. Its rainy, work is quiet and I don't have to do anything for two whole days...well at least nothing work related.



We're thinking of having some people over tonight to watch Dr. StrangeLove because they have NEVER SEEN IT!! I think that's a cinematic crime. If you haven't seen it you better rent it this weekend. Peter Sellers is amazing. Go, rent, enjoy!



It's also a friends birthday today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN!!) and some other people have invited us out so we'll see what happens tonight. All I know is this time this week I want to be posting a pic of me in the puffball skirt and maybe (if I can do it) a little snap shot of the start of flair jacket? Its going to be a knitting frenzy this weekend.



Happy Friday everyone!

Oh what a night

The Yarn Harlot was awesome. This was my first time seeing her speak and she was very funny, smart and tiny. You see all these people in blogland and you think they must be like you. I’m tall so I think everyone is tall. It’s always a shock meeting someone and finding out they are what you had imagined, like reading a book and then seeing the movie, they don’t always match up. Ok I’m off track, I do that a lot…get back now. I met up with Sarah and we had a great time sitting on the floor knitting and laughing. She stood online for a bit but that had to leave so I waited and waited in the massively long line of knitters to get my booked signed. I then said something stupid to the Harlot that I basically can’t remember.

Here she is sigining away (not my book) and you can just see her traveling sock there behind the sweater. Thank god for camera phones or I would never have any photographic proof that I had gone.

She talked a lot about how non-knitters see us and how you can’t really define who a knitter “is”. We’re a tricky demographic. Her insights were great. I loved when she talked about when non-knitters say “I wish I had the time to take up knitting” and how they’re usually sitting with you waiting for the same plane or doctor or something. Apparently they’re so busy being bored they can’t possibly knit. All this talk about how “they” see “us” was made even more hysterical when I met up with Carl and his guy friends at a bar after the signing. All he had told them was that I was at a book signing. Of course when I got there I had to explain what kind of book and then they played right into everything the Harlot had been talking about. It was all just too funny.

Everyone was so nice. I just love knitters. Everyone is interested in what the other is knitting. And the compliments just flow. I loved see what others had made (of course you must bring out your finest knitwear for the Harlot right?). This one lady had this amazing Fai Isle sweater with all these inter-connecting rings. Oh it was gorgeous. One day I will make something like that. I wish I had a picture of it I really do.

Anyway I should really getting home so I can get back to my skirt (that everyone thought was a giant sweater without arms). Last night was exactly what I needed, I little me time doing what I love with people who love it just as much as I do.

Getting excited!

Work is winding down and I'm about to head up to Columbus Circle to stake my place to see the Yarn Harlot! I'm super excited and a little ticked at myself for forgetting my camera this morning. I was too distracted by all the sunshine this morning to remember anything.

OOOO Can't wait to share the yarny goodness with you!

Carl's got the Mets...

And I have: The Yarn Harlot, April 2- NYC, Columbus Circle Borders, 10 Columbus Circle, NY NY, Time: 7pm! I'm kind of a lotta pumped. I haven't had much knitting in my life the last couple of days and I feel like this is just the jumpstart I need. Work has been insane since sunday and its only Tuesday. But on hump day I get a little Harlot, the week can only get better.

We're watching American Idol because we're weird and cheesy like that. The April Fool's joke was AWFUL but that really didn't bother me so much. What did is the insane why FOX always finds away to advertise or plug its own shows all the time and in the most random ways. Everytime Seacrest says something he manages to plug FOX and FOX programs at least 3,000 times. It's just shameless.

Ok back to the cheese and I promise to finish this skirt soon so I actually have a finished project for you to look at.