i.am.a.knitter

seriously.

i am.

you have to take my word.

i have no pictures for you since my camera is in new orleans and i can not for the life of me find the other one. supposedly its somewhere in the house.

i started mr. greenjeans, i'm afraid it looks a little like camouflage, i'd really like your opinion, but again...no pictures. it'll have to wait until early next week.

i am so happy to be knitting, although that means that i haven't done a thing around the house since i've been left on my own. oh well.

yarn, needles...its the little things.

pumpkin horror

sometime yesterday this happened.



fucking squirrels.

the one in which i fall into a time suck and find some yarn...

as if the poor blog wasn't being neglected enough, a couple weeks ago my ravelry invite comes along and BAM - no more posting. the site is in a word amazing, but you've heard all that before.

so now, not only am i not knitting, i'm not blogging, and i'm spending hours exploring ravelry for ideas, inspiration, etc. it is addictive. i'm stephanieayn over there...come say hi.

although, i did unearth from the depths of the boxes, my project bag and the ivy pattern. honestly, i do want to knit again.

oh and i may have bought some yarn and ordered some magazines - if you didn't know Interweave Knits is having their back sale.

speaking of interweave, the winter '07 preview is up...i like the sweater girl pullover (although i'd have to sub the yarn - an entire sweater in mohair, ugh) and the gathered pullover but nothing else was really doing it for me.

ok, this was a really random post but its all i got on a monday morning.

bruises, splinters and paint chips, oh my!

ok, so it's been WELL over a month since my last post and i'll be honest, i've actually felt really bad about it, but here's the thing.

i.have.not.knit.a.stitch.

seriously, in over a month. this house-buying, moving, rehabbing, shit is for the birds.

and really, this is supposed to be a knitting blog, but since i have none of that, i will share with you a bit of what i have been doing.

i bought a house.
it's really cute.
the previous owners were dirtbags.

this is a fact that i was not fully aware of until we actually closed - i just thought they had really bad taste! so...my grand plans of painting, de-wallpapering, etc were put on hold while we cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned and cleaned and, well...you get the point.

so in order for us to actually be able to live there, we've been working our collective arse's off.

first up...the kitchen. here it is in all it's burger king glory...



yes, thats right, you are looking at vintage 1982 dark lacquered knotty pine cabinets, a red laminate countertop and linoleum floor. After much grease-scraping, priming, painting and purchasing of new appliances, here is what it looks like now...



yeah i know, it really needs a full gut, but that won't be happening till...oh i dont know, forever. so in the meantime, its clean and a little easier on the eyes (sorry about the blurry pic, too many late late nights).

there have been many other projects...and since i cant quite figure out how to link my pics to flickr just go here.

hopefully the knitting will resume (as soon as i can locate any projects, yarn, etc)...oh, the good news is that i am now in walking distance to a yarn shop.

I know I am alone in this

...but I have a very hard time buying yarn in person. I know, its weird, but I buy much better in the sterile environment of the Internet. On the Internet, I think about things like yardage, and content and gauge, price comparisons and user reviews. This is how I shop. In real life there is the looking and the touching and the smelling, but no dry data. I honestly get turned off from buying anything at all. It all looks and feels nice, but I can talk myself out of it so easily.
Now, this creates a moral dilemma for me, because in my heart, I'd rather support the small local business person than buy online in the nameless, faceless cybersphere. I really would.
So that brings us to last weekend's Knox Farm Fiber Festival.


Last year Stephanie, Carolyn and I went, and I didn't purchase a darned thing. I thought so many things were beautiful, so many things I couldn't easily buy elsewhere, but I went home empty handed. So, this year when Carolyn and I went again, (Stephanie's moving day-yay)I asked for moral support from Carolyn to help me actually buy some yarn. (Can you imagine?)


It started out tough- I saw a lot of beautiful yarn, but I had an excuse not to buy all of it. I would seriously pick up a skein, admire it like crazy, then make up a reason not to get it. The festival is petite and soon we had seen it all, I realised it was do or die, so we went back and I picked up a beautiful skein of Looped Backsock yarn in a beautiful color called sand- sort of a semi solid caramel brown, and also a lovely skein of Knox Farm Fiber a lovely hand spun worsted in a mix of purples. They even put a picture of the sheep whose wool it is and her name on the tag. (but what was it? I don't remember!)

It wasn't nearly as painful as I expected and I've already come up with plans for both! Yay to buying yarn in real life!

Thanks to Carolyn for taking photos. Heck knows I am unreliable in that regard. (not to mention the lack of camera)

Old F.O.gies: Toostiff Funnyfit Cardi

Truth be told, if we all wait around until I actually finish anything, blogs will probably be obsolete by then, and you'll be driving flying cars and knitting with fiber optic cables or something. So, call it padding, call it filler, call it what you will, I'll be calling this ongoing series Old F.O.gies.

For the inaugural Old F.O. I'd like to present a little number finished 9/20/06:




Pattern: Pismo from the Berocco Calico Leaflet
Yarn: Colinette Wigwam
Colorway: No idea
Needles: How should I know
Mods: adjusted for gauge, lowered button



The story of this little number is that one day I was at a Stitch 'n Bitch in Brooklyn and one of the attendees happened to work at a big knitting industry establishment. Said establishment had lots of yarn they were discarding and the kind soul brought a butt load of it to the group to scavenge. I grabbed up this Wigwam, remembering a pattern I once saw in a magazine for a tank that used Wigwam.
As all yarn I acquire does, this yarn went to live in my closet for several years before it got called into service. I no longer desired a thick, bulky weight tank top. I came across this Berocco pattern, thought the asymmetrical shape was cute, and that it might make a nice piece for sitting in the AC at work. Totally hate AC.
Anyhow, she came out okay. I wear it sometimes. I should have added waist shaping, but I thought the ribbing was going to do the trick. The fabric is absolutely bulletproof. There is no such thing as drape. She doesn't flatter the figure much either. Still, it's not the worst thing I've made.


Button is white shell from the button drawer. Love that site. Button could've been bigger. My fault, not theirs. Still, I like it.

Of love and loss

It pains me even now, as I write this, many weeks later.

You may recall a photoless post many weeks ago, in which I spoke of the socks I made for my husband's trip to Mexico- a tribute to our love.

Yeah, well, nothing is sacred any more, suckers.

Some excuses were muttered about the laundry and a taxi and how it wasn't his fault, but the fact remains that he returned home with only one sock.

Lucky for him he married a very reasonable woman. I have a policy about gifts in general, and that is that whatever the recipient does with a gift I have given is not my concern. Different people appreciate things in different ways, and I think it's poisonous to spy and wonder and judge their gratitude based on your expectations of what they will do with the gift. Furthermore, when it comes to knitted gifts, some think it more reverent to put the gifts aside, cherish them, bring them out only for special occasions so that they may forever be in the condition they were presented. Others lovingly wear their knitted gifts to threads. Both are a-okay by me.
Therefore, I choose to be glad he loved them enough to take them along and wear them. I will make a new partner for the lonely sock.

Here it is in all it's size 11, wide, high arched glory:



And here it is with one of my Sockapalooza socks for scale:



And so you can grasp the sheer length of the thing:




But replace it I will, because the only thing more tragic than loosing a symbol of love, is retaining only half of it.

In conclusion, these puppies will make good textbook-reading-knitting. 80 stitches around. The toe of the sucker looks like a damned baby hat.

Details when I finish.