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