You were perfectly fine . . .

avoidance behavior

Have you noticed that every time I get into stockinette sleeve hell, I make about 50 little projects in order to avoid working on the aforementioned sleeves? Thus prolonging the hellishness? Yeah, me too.

They say that recognizing the problem and admitting it is the first step to conquering it. Sure it is.

Which is my roundabout way of saying that I knit another purse. It was really fun and pretty, and a pretty stark contrast to endless grey stockinette (and I don't care what anyone else says: Jo Sharp Desert Garden Aran in Monet is GREY, not lilac or pale mauve or whatever it looks like in photos). I'm pretty sure this is a character flaw, but there you go. :)

It's made from the same Crystal Palace free pattern I knit for the 4th of July Deco Ribbon purse, but not as tall, and using two balls of India. If you are going to knit this and you only have two balls of yarn, do the handles first, so you can just knit merrily away on the purse body and not worry about running out. The little bow in the picture is not a permanent fixture--I just tied it on there to show how much ribbon I had left.

Have a great weekend!

PS--my darling husband is making a guest appearance over at Rachael's--don't tell him!!!

being a beginner again

You know what I hate? Being a beginner at something. Anything.

It's not that I have an enormous ego or that I'm an obsessive perfectionist. And I love the idea of trying new things, so it's not that I'm just stuck in a deep rut. I just hate that awful interlude between the initial excitement of planning to do something new and the eventual mastering (or abandonment) of the new thing.

Case in point: I have been admiring the many Charlottes in knitting blogdom for more than a year. I want one. Never mind that I don't wear shawls and likely never will. Never mind that no one I know will wear one either. Never mind that the bright Koigu color combinations I would enjoy knitting with would likely make for a shawl that I could only wear while reciting the poem "When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple." And never mind that I hate the thought that I might only want to knit one because everyone else has.

I just want one.

In an effort to resist Charlotte, I decided to knit my newly-unplied "pebble beach" Kersti into a stole/poncho with a simple lace pattern. I did a little looking around and found this lace pattern; nice, simple, geometric, won't look too busy with the variegated colors of the yarn. I charted the lace pattern carefully, discovered the (major) error at the end of each line, and fixed it (email me if you'd like the corrected pattern). I pulled out a US7 circular needle and the first ball of mini-Kersti and began, with visions of a lovely light lacy poncho dancing in my head.

I'm 10 rows in, and my visions have taken on a decidedly more sinister character. Now I'm picturing a heapy blob of fine-weight yarn, representing hours and hours of painstaking work, too ugly to do anything but dust with. Yikes. Also, it's hard to get used to all those yarnovers, and keeping them from jumping over adjacent stitches on the needles.

Can this project be saved? Or am I destined forevermore to drooling lace beginnerness?

ooh baby baby . . .

Ta Da! The (first) Velvet Oblivion is finished! I love this. It felted beautifully in the washer/dryer and is the perfect size, shape, weight for an aspiring hungover movie star. I couldn't find the Bernat Boa quickly enough, so I used Crystal Palace Splash in black instead. It turned out fine. The only thing I will do differently in the next one is to just use the fluff cycle in the dryer (not too much heat), because up close the Splash looks a little frazzled. It's all polyester and my dryer is a little on the hot side.

My other project involved unply-ing a bit of Kersti . . . a little tedious, but so far so good:

I love these colors--sort of like a pebble beach. So I'm going to do something with it that would be beach-appropriate, I think. A sarong or poncho cover-up thing. Still thinking.

And I'm taking a shot at designing something that I've been thinking about for awhile . . . I'll show you when I'm further along. :)

PS--yes, that is K's foot in the Kersti picture. She wanted you to see her owie.

oblivion for 2!

Good news for lovers of oblivion: one ball of Touch Me makes 2 hung over movie star eye shades!

I love this color (3601-burgundy)--it's a deep wine red. I'm off to find some of the fluffy stuff and black elastic today to complete the look, and then I'll felt them. Each one only took about an hour, the instructions were clear and easy to follow, and all of the women in my family will be getting these in their stockings at Christmas. :) Thank you Stephannie!

Have you noticed I'm avoiding the endless stockinette hoodie? It's just so . . . endless. Here's where I am on the sleeves:

I'm using a rosewood circular needle I treated myself to last month, and I LOVE it. I normally use bamboo, and like them very much, but I have to say that I wouldn't mind being able to use the rosewood all the time.

Off to enjoy my oblivion! Have a great Thursday.

move along . . . nothing to see here . . .

Bad blogger! A whole week with nothing to say?

In reality, I have been knitting the Jo Sharp hoodie (you've seen enough pics of this, I think--it's lilac-grey stockinette, not terribly titillating in progress). It's coming along nicely but is deadly boring to watch. At the moment I'm knitting both sleeves at once (so I don't have to freak out trying to get them even later); it's kind of a challenge to keep the two strands of yarn from getting tangled up, but other than that, I'm thinking I like doing it this way.

I also took a little break over the weekend to knit my sister a scarf from Crystal Palace Splash in bright and deep reds. That knit up VERY quickly at 14 sts per row on US13 needles, and I only needed one ball and about 5 hours to do it. My sister was thrilled with it, and I got to knit this fun soft stuff without having to keep the finished product (which I would never never wear). A win all around.

I didn't get a picture of the scarf in action, but here's the yarn:

Have a great Wednesday--and cross your fingers that I finish the hoodie soon so I'll have something interesting to show you!

going and coming

After a brief recess (while dh replaced the kitchen floor and the whole house was impossibly dusty), I was able to block Haiti:

and now she is ready to send off to my sister:

I ordered labels from Charm Woven that say "knitted love just for you" and this is the first one I've used. I'm sort of nervous to send it off--that whole "what if she doesn't like it--what if it ends up at the back of the closet until next time I visit" thing. But I've been procrastinating long enough, I think (her birthday was at the end of May).

And I've discovered another reason to move to the Netherlands: speedy post!!

In the background of the Haiti-with-label photo, you may have noticed my 3 lovely new Phildar books, sent with dispatch by Elbecreatief! The package was here when I got home from work last night; I opened it and ignored my family for the rest of the evening.

Priorities.

did I mention the local LYS?

Went shopping. Bought more yarn. Must stop before I . . . um . . . oooo, what's that? Is it new?

So here's what I bought last week:

There you see the turquoise Manos del Uruguay, destined to become a basic spring cardigan for next year, the "touch me!" in violet and chocolate, meant to become two Velvet Oblivions (one to keep, one to give), and some Lamb's Pride that may become Sophie someday if I get over my Fear of Felting.

Which brings us to this weekend's purchases:

If you look closely at these items, you will see confirmation that I am indeed a masochist. You can't see it? I'll explain. The two skeins of lovely lapis Giotto indicate that despite the truly disastrous results of my prior Giotto tank experiment, and all of my bitching about the splittiness, I'm determined to knit a Giotto tank that I can wear. Armed with blunter needles (to combat the splitting) as well as the photos and measurements I took of the prior tank, and inspired by the lovely color which I truly love, I am convinced that this time I will succeed.

Don't laugh! I really believe this!

Also, I'm emailing Wendy for advice on the decreases. When all else fails, consult the oracle!

The other masochistic purchase was three skeins of Koigu Kersti in a cream/oatmeal-with-muted-bits-of-blue-taupe-and-many-other-colors. How could such lovely yarn cause pain? Well, in the store I fell in love with the cool assymetrical poncho in the window, knit in Koigu KPPPM. (You see where this is going now, don't you?) But I didn't love any of the KPPPM they had in stock. After fondling all of the Koigu in the store, I liked the Kersti best. So I decided to buy three skeins of this Kersti and unply it all. Yes, you read that right. I am insane.

But I'm already looking forward to my cool assymetrical poncho. (As soon as I find a picture, I'll show you. I promise.)

ich bin ein nederlander!

well, not really.

But I'm very fond of the Netherlands today. Why, you ask?

It turns out that I've been home for three days running with my feverish 3-year-old. My husband is out of town (a coincidence, he claims), so this means I have been in dire need of adult companionship (not that kind). And I'm a little obsessive.

What this adds up to is that I got a knitting pattern in my head (darn that Alison and Kerrie!) for a hooded jacket and matching blanket for my nephew, and, upon discovering that said pattern was not readily available, well, um, I searched the world for it. Literally. God, what did mothers of sick children DO before the advent of the internet? I shudder to imagine.

I finally located the coveted Phildar 363 on a webstore in the Netherlands. I ordered it (and a couple of other books, you know, I can't just order one . . . ), but then I couldn't figure out how to pay. Very embarrassing. Apparently not everyone in the world just waves a credit card about.

In desperation, I emailed my knitting e-friend Natasja, who happens to be a real Nederlander. She fixed it all up for me, and now my coveted books are on their way. Have I mentioned that I love Natasja?

Added bonus? With the time difference, I also got to "chat" with a real adult person (and a knitter besides) in the middle of the night, which was my main block of free time.

So I'm feeling pretty lucky.

And speaking of being lucky, thanks to Jen & La I am no longer buttonless! I have no idea how buttons are made and sheepishly admitted the same to them last week. Over the weekend, I received a surprise gift (well, two actually!):

and

I'll put them in the sidebar in case you'd like to have one.

Have a great Thursday (if you haven't already)!

detour on the road to . . .

Friday on the train in to work I met a lovely woman who commented kindly on my knitting. More importantly, however, she also imparted to me a very important piece of information: there is a knitting store in Walnut Creek, only a few blocks from the train station. This means that for the first time ever, I have an LYS on my way home!!! Do you know how much trouble I'm in???

So of course I HAD to leave work right at 5pm in order to get to said shop before closing time (6:30pm).

In addition to the Touch Me I absolutely NEEDED for my velvet oblivion, I HAD to have the Manos del Uruguay in turquoise for a spring cardi, and I could not leave the store without Deco Ribbon to make this little seed stitch purse (free pattern is here) which I carried to all my 4th of July festivities:

There may have been a couple of other things in the bag too . . . This is a lovely shop, and I can tell I'm going to visit there a lot. They carry all sorts of lovely things from Colinette and Jo Sharp and Koigu and Manos, as well as a great selection of the standards like Debbie Bliss, Brown Sheep and Cascade. Now I understand why Wendy waxes so rhapsodic about Knit Happens, her own cool LYS.

Apparently they've been in business about 6 months, but don't have a website (can you imagine???), and since I have NO knitting friends in real life and all my shop-finding involves looking on the web first . . . well, I nearly missed them!

It's frightening to contemplate.

PS--Erica commented that velvet oblivion is "a practical item that also has 'hungover movie star' charm"--Exactly!! I think I need more items in life that lend me hungover movie star charm. Plus I just love the expression "hungover movie star charm."

velvet oblivion

This is the pattern I've picked out from the new Knitty. The only one. Knitting may or may not be sexy, but wearing a knitted thong (edible or otherwise) and/or wielding a knitted whip (!!) is not. At least not in my world.

Am I a poor sport for thinking that as Knitty got advertising support, it has now veered down the road already travelled by Vogue Knitting (bikinis with arm-warmer-thingies, and bandeaus from tape yarn that you could only wear if you had no boobs to begin with) and similar? I'm really bummed by this trend of finding a pattern source I enjoy, only to have said source begin aiming all of its material at some audience that doesn't include me.

Wah. Oh well.

I'm going to alleviate my pain by slipping into Velvet Oblivion--tomorrow I'll head to the LYS for some Touch Me or Sinsation to knit up a lovely eyeshade. I won't be getting the furry yarn because I'm going to edge it in the same Touch Me/Sinsation yarn instead, probably doing a round of single crochet instead of knitting up stitches all around. Keeping it simple.

The other bonus? With my lovely soft eyeshade on, I won't be able to see those other designs in this issue of Knitty. :)

One more thing--maybe the most important thing of all. I do not mean to say that Knitty shouldn't have made the pattern choices it did. As with all things, I will enjoy the parts I enjoy and let the rest go by. That's life. Not everyone agrees with me all the time, and I reserve the right to let that pass.

However, I noticed in the feedback section of Knitty, at least half of the comments said something like "I don't like politics, leave that out." Seriously: they said LEAVE THAT OUT. My response? If you don't like politics, then don't read the article entitled "Knitters v. Bush." You KNOW it's not about horticulture, you KNOW which perspective the article is written from, so if you don't like it THEN DON'T READ IT. You don't have the right to shut other people up just because you disagree with them. Just skip that part.

I'm just saying.