strings attached

I interrupt my regularly scheduled knitting post to comment on the auto industry.

Now I generally don't approve of far flung money throwing--typically it's a waste of money. However, when an industry's sales figures are off as much as 30% (please keep in mind that the catastrophic retail sales number are projected to go down by 3%) how can the government keep insisting that it's poor design?

The last trip by the CEOs to congress was... a fiasco to say the least (I would immediately fire whoever was in the meeting that decided "hey go to Washington and don't take a single plan about how you are going to cut costs").

The thing is, most people don't see how the auto industry failing would hurt them. I have to wonder about the media coverage that doesn't emphasize the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would be lost, from the corporate offices down to the suppliers and dealers. There is more to an industry than a corporate office and union employees. As someone who has 3 family members working in the auto industry, we know how widespread the ripples can spread.

Those suggesting bankruptcy--do you have any idea how difficult it is for a company to receive financing during the proceedings? Guess what---all those lenders have disappeared, so the company would not be able to emerge from bankruptcy because there is no one to pay the bills.

If a government makes a habit of bailing out a banking industry which took advantage of lax lending standards and is in the process of dragging down the whole economy---there is more that needs to be fixed than just "give the banks some money which they won't lend because they want their balance sheets to look better."

The government has lent to the auto industry before, and they have paid back those loans with interest. Another thing, quit calling it a bailout--its a loan, with strings attached and an expectation that it will be payed back---unlike what is happening with the banks.

This whole thing has me a little tense. Can you tell?

We interrupt your local programming to bring you this:

My right index finger hurts!

That's my mouse clicking finger people!

The horror. The horror.

get checked

Ever have those times when everything just seems to be going on?

So far, we've had two car accidents in less than two weeks--my older sister got hit during the season's first snow/ice storm, her and about 10 other cars where pulled up on the side of the road. She compared it to bumper cars, and then went on and on about how awesome her brakes work ( I guess it's better than finding out your car brakes are total crap). My younger sister--not the teenager--got t-boned earlier this week during another bit of icy/snowy weather, she was waiting to turn left and considering the way she got hit, she's very thankful that oncoming traffic was stopped on a red light.

Both cars have pretty extensive damage--my older sister's audi needs to wait for parts, my younger sister's infinity had over $11,000 worth of damage, this will probably go up once they manage to pry open the doors and see the full extent of the damage.

Luckily they both made it out with minimal injuries, just a case of whiplash for my younger sister. In the meantime, I'm taking my car to the shop to get checked out. Nothing reminds you to have good car maintenance like a couple of accidents.

Knitting content is forthcoming, I just have to yell at my camera and see if I can get it to properly read color. I think it secretly hates me.

Great Times

I had a whole political/change we need post going, but I changed my mind. This is a historic time and I'm glad to witness it, but this is a knitting/spinning/dyeing blog, so let's focus on that.*

Part of my whole let's expand my spinning repertoire, is to try new fibers. On that note I tried Targhee wool from Mountain colors purchased here in the 'Wilderness' colorway. Have you spun this stuff? It is so springy and easy to spin. This would actually be a really good yarn to start spinning on: the fibers have enough crimp and length to cling enough to form singles really easily. The one thing I didn't like was how muted the colors where--but that's just a personal color palette thing.
See I spun this:
and two-plied it here:
It's got purple, green, red, blue, and a little yellow. I thought about navajo plying the yarn, but I decided it would look better with a little more blending of the colors.

Ignore the horrible pictures. My camera has decided it hates taking pictures of yarn. My pink roving comes out orange-y, my blues and purples completely blend together and come out fuzzy--not to mention the purple becomes blue. I don't use flash and take my pictures with indirect light as much as possible.

*plus when you have to use a million exclamation points to write something, distance is usually needed.

can't be bothered

You know you had a good party when it takes you a week to recover, and then came Halloween. My family loves Halloween--my dad, not so much. Luckily he's learned to accept the limited amount of crazy that usually accompanies the occasion.
This year, the holiday was a bit of a bust. Not a lot of people in our neighborhoods passed out candy, luckily the 4 year old enjoyed his 2 block trick or treat walk and then spent the rest of the night bossily handing out candy and chips.
May I just say how annoying I find the large number of teenagers who didn't even bother putting on a costume--really people! The process is quite simple: You dress up in some sort of get up and then I provide candy. Why should I bother to give you candy if you can't be bothered to dress up?

Totally crazy times.

My sister is getting married on Friday (yay!). Luckily she moved up her wedding date because otherwise I may have had to kill her.

A bossy and anal personality does not a peaceful bride make.

As part of our wedding gift for her, my older sister and I decided to make her wedding favors. Chocolate. Little molded chocolate cakes and truffles. Lots of work, but everything is looking great. Of course, I've been covered with chocolate for the past week.

I was planning on knitting her something (this is back when the wedding date was set for December) but then her fiancee got a job in Kuwait and he has to be there in November. I may be able to knit fast when the occasion calls for it, but even I can't pull off a 2 week lace deadline. Especially while planning a wedding for a sister who doesn't like the look of knitted stuff---this said, she got annoyed when I suggested that I was going to knit something for our 2 cousins who are getting married in May and August next year and not her. What kind of knitted piece does someone moving to Kuwait need?

to such

I totally got my blue--which is really good because I was starting to dislike that color, and as someone who works with color, I can't go and send bad thoughts to such a big portion of the color wheel.

I've been busy with boring non-knitting things to do. Some knitting content is upcoming, including some usable handspun yarn--and it only took 9 months!

Later.

As opposed to what we had before

When did we become a dinner party family? Two in less than a week seems to be a sudden shift in our family's entertainment lifestyle. The first was a Colombian themed dinner for 20 of our friends and family (my god, you should have seen the food!) The second is tonight is for 16 people, but about 7 of them are under the age of 15. I kicked everyone outside but the baby. Interestingly most of them are boys, so it's a different dynamic from what we normally get. I think we've settled on the dinner party idea because we enjoy food and hanging out at home. We're pretty lazy about going out together, but we enjoy people. Pretty good compromise, except for the dishes.

I had to frog my brother's toe up sock because it was wrong. So very, very wrong. I tried to work through the short row heel directions but it completely failed. I know I've only recently started knitting socks, but who would think that I've already developed a block to knitting them any other way aside from top down?

P.S.: I'm starting to hate the color blue.

Not knitting

No hot water for 3 days plus 2 1/2 weeks of fasting make me a very cranky girl.

the past tense of sneak

So who snuck (sorry...sneaked) into my house and hid my camera charger? I just can't seem to find it and it's annoying me. I've looked in all the likely places and some unlikely ones too. Grrr.

Aside from that, I know it's September and fall is in the air, but it's actually chilly in the mornings and evening around here---I've got cold feet people!

That's it folks. I'm boring.

payback

So...do you remember that pesky pumpkin plant that took over the entire garden and killed my cucumbers? Apparently payback is a b%@*!#. In the course of 2 days, one or more squirrels decided that the corn they've swiped this year is not enough and should be followed by some nearly ripe pumpkins. The 4-year old was very upset, and who can blame him? The only survivor is a small, still dark green pumpkin that grew late in the season--I'm buying chicken wire today and covering the remaining pumpkin. I guess I should be glad they don't steal the roving I dry in the back yard.
On to other news, school starts today. Yay. I have to wake up early again. Bah.

Bloop

I've been spinning. I had a brief panic when I still thought that the braid was 4 oz and I. Could. Not Finish. It. Then I checked the label and discovered it was actually 8 oz. Phew.

Aside from that, I haven't been knitting. I made the decision that I would knit myself a zippered sweater, but once I made that decision I kinda fizzled. Knitting a sweater. For me. Not a child. Not in bulky weight yarn (because nobody needs to add that much bulk). Plus I need to swatch and dye my yarn (I have some lovely white alpaca that I can use). Not to mention I'm mentally juggling about 7 projects I want to get to.
So I did what I always do.
Distract myself with something completely different: Spinning-mainly during the olympics- and rereading an author's backlist-she has over 17 books and I'm more than half way done.

loosely based

So I didn't join tour de fleece or ravelympics. I've decided I'm just not a joiner. I don't enjoy being given rules about my knitting or spinning, even if it's loosely based guidelines.

We had a garage sale this weekend, and it was exhausting. Luckily it freed up some space in the garage and basement--we can finally start fully organizing the house.

My camera is still being repaired, so no pictures of the new hat. OK. I'm tired and my contact lenses are burning, so later.

orange

Forgot to post a picture of my Monkey socks (you know the ones that where for me, but went to my sister since they don't stretch as much as they need to). I may steal them back though, she doesn't really like the color orange.
Modifications: shortened the leg portion, my sister and I are big fans of the ankle-ish length for socks. Yarn: My YarnBabies Merino/Tencel blend in Baby Fawkes, which sold out of the shop (I love it when that happens).

I went traditional

My long finished baby gifts for the new family additions have been photographed.
First up are the two Peas in a Pod hats (pattern by Susan B. Anderson):

I used Lion Brand Cotton Ease because I already had it in my stash, the hats look good and the pattern was straight forward. The only thing I would change next time would be the yarn, for one reason only: the accompanying simple newborn hats which I knit out of baby bamboo makes them look a lot rougher.
These are my plain baby hats with their little tops:
I love this yarn. It is so soft and nice to work with, it made the cotton blend feel like I was knitting with hemp.
My SIL is doing well and so are the two boys. They named one boy after our dad (actually her dad and mine share the same name, so it works out on both sides of the family) and the other after an uncle. Twins don't run in our family, but they do run in hers. But you did notice the blue and white color schemes, right? Thank goodness I went traditional, all their newborn baby photos are blue and white.

emergency rescue operation

Woke up Monday all better. I'm not sure what I had but it was random. I was so tired it took 30 minutes to work 2 rows of a 52-stitch row. That's 104 stitches in 30 minutes people!

On non-fiber related stuff:

Monday afternoon, I tricked my mother into helping me weed the garden. Thanks to the amazing amount of rain we've had this year the crop are growing like weeds---which gives you a pretty good idea of what our weeds are doing.

Piece of advice: pumpkin plant grow huge. Let me repeat that: Pumpkin plants are huge! My dad bought 2 seedlings for the 4 year old (as well as 2 strawberry plants, which are not doing as well). These 2 seedlings are now huge, ginormous plants taking over my entire garden. It's growing to the left, the right, all the way to the back where the corn is.
We had to replant a tomato plant in an emergency rescue operation.

The cucumbers are finally making an effort at actually growing and they've produced some really yummy results. The lettuce was bitter (what causes this?) so they got dumped.

Our many tomato plants will be flooding us with way too many tomatoes in a couple of weeks. This may make me miss the great radish overload of June.

Aside from that I finished two pairs of baby hats for my half brother's soon to be here twin boys. I thought about adding booties, but he's not the type to appreciate handmade gifts. At least I've made an effort. I'll post pics after I recover the camera from whomever took it last.

I've also cast on a pair of new socks. For me. My cousin, sister and mother asked when I would get around to making them a pair. My sister is still holding out hope for some thigh highs. Unfortunately for her, I can only handle project monogamy for short periods of time.

fine to sick

Yes it is possible to get the flu in the middle of the summer. Apparently (thank goodness for spell check, cause my temp is up and I can't quite spell right now), watching Space Monkeys (or apes or something, who knows?) and then getting up is enough for me to go from perfectly fine to sick, dizzy, fever with chills, aches etc.
I need to go lay down again.

my attention grabbing title

I'm annoyed.

My one year anniversary selling stuff through my etsy shop just passed. I had grand plans including rolling out a new logo, taking new pictures of my yarns in a similar setting to help unify the look of the shop, and renaming some of the yarns.

The new logo turned into a bust--I'm fully aware of where my artistic talents excel, and it's not in cartoons and logo making (should you need a charcoal drawing of a nude figure though, please call me). My efforts to get someone else to do the work kinda sucked, so it's back to square one.

I spent last week taking pictures in my free time and with the cooperation of the clouds and sun. After much fiddling with my point and shoot camera (have I mention how much I want a new camera? No? Then considered it mentioned), I got to the point where I thought I was taking some seriously good pictures. These pictures looked great in the camera, but once I downloaded them...disaster. All the pictures look like I took them with a black film on the camera lens, which sucks big time. Now I need to retake the pictures and find time to edit them.

The renaming plans is working out a bit better. But I suck at titles and naming yarns is a lot like giving stuff titles. Please refer to past blog post titles if you where in any doubt of my naming skills or check out my attention grabbing title for my MA thesis, which I totally would post except I don't want to.

I guess I can push thing back a bit to time it with the one year anniversary of my first sale in August. If I remember correctly, I registered for etsy and it took me some time to get the product/prices/images in order. I can totally make August. You know barring any major disasters.

flying bugs

I think Blogger is getting it's revenge on me. I'm ready to blog and it is not. Passive aggressive anyone?

Anyway, I thought I should mention a few house rule that we have around here:

1. No one touches any active knitting. I have a 4 year old who insures compliance--he's loud and insistent, bad combination for any would-be-perpetrators.

2. You can't watch TV and play the DS at the same time. This rule is of course twisted by the 4 year old to his advantage (he frequently revenges himself on the teenager this way).

3. No mention of the following words within hearing distance of the 4 year old: "mop", "park", "fire", "Starbucks" and anything that you may want to keep private and within the family. This includes venting about annoying people who he may run into at a later event. This includes my sister's boss. Spelling words and switching languages will usually work to avoid detection.

4. You must wear bug spray when entering the back yard. I think I need to import some frogs or something to control the annoying flying bugs.

5. The family camera must be returned to me promptly following any event that you need to use the camera for. That way it may be inspected for damage and it's physical location is verified. Somebody took the camera to record her graduation activities and I just got it back. Time lapsed: one month.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for FO now that I have the camera back.

I've survived

what will hopefully be my last illness of the season. My god...you'd have been amazed my the amount of phlegm one body can produce.

Anyway.

I've decided to expand my sock knitting repertoire, so I pulled out Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters (vol. 1). I am in complete awe of the way her mind works. It's this combination of 3-D thought plus math that I just find completely mind boggling.

The only other thing I could compare this with is with the Theory I studied in my MA. It kills you when you're trying to decipher it (and you begin to question the state of theory and philosophy and it's validity as a field of study---because it just isn't right), but when you get through it and discuss it with everyone else (and the two people who actually understood the thing--that would be my friend Sara---explain it to the rest of us mere mortals), that you finally understand its genius.
At this point I am contemplating why this book exists and how the hell could I be knitting in the wrong direction and am somehow on the second sock, when I've been following the directions for the first sock the whole time. Why??!!
And why the heck is the sock looking so wide and kinda loose. It's like the sizing is off after I measured 3 times. This is my first toe up sock, so I get that the shaping is going to be a bit different, but I need to figure out how to position my stitch markers so that I can start knitting the heel directions.
The thing that sucks is that the sock is for my baby brother (the finished monkeys are in hiding until I can get his socks done--how could I give my sister socks and not him), who is ever so patiently holding my ball of yarn as I knit. I told him there might be a mistake and I needed to take a break, so that gives me a few hours to figure out how to turn it around and get it to work. Of course, I may have promised to take him to Greenfield Village to go on a train ride (I love my season pass with all rides included) to help tide things over.

Dirty hands

I've been dyeing and I have three skeins, one roving and 10 dirty and stained fingers to show for it. I wear gloves, but I think I need to upgrade my brand of plastic, because it doesn't seem to help much. I would love to show pictures of my new colors, but I can't. Somebody dropped the camera on a recent trip to Sin City and now the battery cover won't close. I can't remember if my warranty covers drops--with my luck, it wont.

Also my luck, my sinus infection is now complete with this horrid chest cold cough thing. I'm resisting labeling it as bronchitis or pneumonia. Don't worry I checked.

Other than that, school is almost over. The teenager's last day of school is tomorrow (3 more hours) and the preschooler has one week left. Me? I need to step up the job search with school winding down.

Socks

Finished my monkeys. Well my sister's monkeys...unless something miraculous happens in the blocking process and they grow enough to fit my size 9 feet. Hey it could happen.

My brother informed me that he would really like socks. You know the kind I make not like the ones he's wearing. When I asked him what color he wanted, he told me that it should have 5 colors (5 being the number of the moment--he really wants to go into kindergarten like some of his classmates, and was really disappointed when I told him he can't go until he's 5). I'll dye something up that will, hopefully, not be too garish, tacky or feminine(my mother's concern).

I think I'm going to knit my youngest sister a scarf from the pink mixed roving I spun up. I cannot believe that 1-she's 18 now and 2-she's graduating high school. Now if she could only learn how to drive better, then the collective family can stop driving her to work and school.

In other news, my sinus infection morphed into a sore throat, fever with aches, and congestion thing. It's mostly over now, just have to deal with a slightly painful throat and the congestion. This is especially interesting when combined with my allergies. Mucus. Lots of it. I should warn you, I tend to be a bit of a hypochondriac. I can diagnose myself into almost anything.

I'm off now, not to shower but to take a little boy to his soccer practice. And I have nothing cast on to take with me. Crap. Wings lost yesterday. Sigh.

Friday

I didn't quite finish those socks for my sister. I was avoiding them yesterday. It's not that the pattern was hard or anything--I've just been in the mood to do some spinning. In order to spin, I need to dye some of my roving. I'm resisting raiding my etsy shop for the roving (merino and tencel roving is unbelievably soft). And I've been busy doing b-day related stuff and general laziness.

Other than that, I'm sore from my gardening. Shoveling is hard work. I was actually more as time wore on than less. Today took a turn for the better. The four-year-old keeps checking to see if the plants have vegetables so far---note, he doesn't want to see them grow, he just wants to pick the veggies.

I've also noted a tendency to end my posts by saying that "I need to take a shower". Apparently, I need to come up with a new way to end posts that don't imply OCD or poor hygiene.

Just a dash

Me plant seeds. Me tired.

That's about all that's going through my head right now. Well that and "I really need to finish the swing set." So what if it's going on 3 weeks? And we can't really use the yard that now doubles as a lumber mill. That's one of my goals for this weekend.
I already fertilized and planted everything in the main veggie bed, but I still have to get to the containers, which is my second goal for the weekend. Must finish planting before summer really begins. Michigan growing seasons can be short...or really long...you just can't predict these things.

On to knitting:
I just turned the heel of my second monkey sock and I seem to be having some trouble finishing it. The problem is not with the pattern, or SSS (second sock syndrome), rather it has everything to do with the fact that these socks which I began to knit for me...don't fit. They fit my younger sister (who will most likely be the default recipient of all socks that are too small to fit me), but I wanted them for me.

Me.

Me.

Me.

It's not that I'm selfish about sharing knitted stuff. I love it actually. It's just that I know she doesn't really get the whole knitted sock thing, and I'm not sure she'll really appreciate them. But I'm sure she'll like them...once they finish...which may or may not me in time for her b-day in 3 days.
You know that whole birthday deadline angle might be just the thing those socks finished. I love working on a deadline (when there's a reasonable chance I'll get something done...this will not be a repeat of the baby blanket from hell incident I'd like to keep just between us).

I guess I have my evening planned out. Knitting, showering and kitchen clean-up. My family informs me that the above order of importance is not acceptable. Sigh.

Uh...hi.

I made a rule when I started this blog: I am not allowed to bring down the morale of anyone and everyone who happens to read this with my grumpiness. So, as I'm in the middle of a funk--actually I'm hoping its towards the end of the funk--I haven't been blogging. Or cleaning my bedroom (but that's another matter).
I have been knitting though, just not taking pictures of any of the my knits. I could describe my lovely socks, but that would get boring really, really fast.
So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to not work and take a shower before I crash.
Later.

Don't worry your children are in good hands...

When I'm not knitting in class. An unexpected bonus from substitute teaching is the ample knitting time I keep finding. It's pretty rare for a teacher to leave me actual teaching work, usually I'm just a glorified babysitter. This works only for middle school and high school--lots of knitting time in those grades.
I was going to have a funny post about how interesting substitute teaching is and how great things have been going...until today's assignment. Fourth grade. Children not listening...to anything. Me crying. Then hyperventilating. Then taking a 4o minute break to calm myself down. I hated having to call the assistant principal into the class, but it could not be avoided. This is the first time I have every cried over a class--not even the horrendous teenagers. I hate not having self control in front of students or other faculty.
You'll laugh when you hear how I calmed myself down. Emergency sock knitting. It helped regulate my breathing. Now I'm off to take a bath. Tomorrow I'm going to teach some lovely, wide-eyed and innocent first graders...for half a day.

Friday

So on Friday, guess who I got to see?

The Yarn Harlot herself, Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee. She's on her book tour and Ann Arbor was one of the stops. I went last year when she came to Ann Arbor for her last tour and it was a blast (even with the 3 hour wait and delayed flight mishap). She's a very entertaining speaker and super funny. Once again we kinda freaked out the muggles, though the main guy heading it knew what to expect from last year. Over 300 knitters. Knitting. Talking. Listening. Laughing. If she comes anywhere near where you live definitely go, it's much more fun than going to my younger sister's powderpuff football game (yeah....like it was such a hard choice).

I met some very nice people. The two ladies sitting next to me where from Ohio and the two sisters that I stood next to in line where from Indiana. I guess a 45 min drive doesn't quite compare to a 2-3 hour ride. Right behind us stood a guy wearing a kilt wearing his first knitted sweater--crazy cables and his knitted socks--the long ones that go up to knee. I felt like an underachiever, but he was so nice and gave one of the girls in line with me advice on knitting the socks.

One of the funnest things I've gotten in the habit of doing is playing a game of 'see if you can spot a knitter's car'. I park in the lot right next to the library and I always find 2 or 3 right away that are awash with yarn/patterns/knitted pieces.

Bonus piece of advice: If you, like me, have a habit of loosing count when listening/watching something funny...put the knitting down when she starts talking. For the second year in a row, I lost a stitch and threw off my knitting. But no worries, I fixed it all the next day and I even finished. Pictures later.

Whit's Knits

Apparently Whitney and I knew each other in a past life or something. Every time I'm looking for a pattern for myself, I go over to the purlbee.com and behold I find the answer under Whit's Knits.
First came the Daisy Stitch Hand Warmers. Then the Circular Needle Organizer (I love this idea, and I didn't have to spend any money). Now there is the April Showers Scarf.
It's just the most random thing.
FYI I finished the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knit Gifts.

Spinning with a baby on my lap...

Well not a baby, but a four-year-old and not so much my lap as on the couch between my legs. Yup, the four-year-old told me he knows how to spin, so he should do it. We compromised, he pressed on the pedals and I would handle the roving. So that's what we did. It worked pretty well. Except for when he got distracted by the TV. Should you wish to try this at home with your own preschooler: try spinning while playing 'red light/green light', it seemed to work the best.
I, or I should say, we spun this:


It's from my first attempts at dyeing roving. It's really pretty and really, really soft. I'm thinking of turning it into a three-ply with the white that I had spun earlier. Or alternating two colors for a 2-ply, but we'll see.

I have to ask: people who sell roving--how do you keep the roving looking so neat? Mine was looking a bit mangled---it didn't felt, but the presentation is sorely sloppy. Maybe I need a drumcarder? Ha, like I can pay for that now---have you seen the prices of those lately?

Later, tomorrow I get to sub in an art class. Yay. At a sucky school. Blech.

Yeah I have a pessimistic attitude. What's it to ya?

It's a Dear John Letter, but you know for Knits instead

Dear Henry,

I don’t want you to think this has anything to do with you. It’s me. No, really it’s all wrapped up with me. You see, I though I could do it: Just spend time in one relationship. I thought we could both enjoy our time together and live on happily ever after (or until my sister wanted to spend time with you---I am nothing, if not a generous sister).

Then the 'accident' happened. It was such a shock, I was sure we were almost done for--but you pulled through it. We both survived, thanks in large part to some blue yarn and a large needle.

One day passes after surgery--you're resting and so am I.

Two days pass. Nothing happens.

The third day comes and goes and I start avoiding your gaze as I go to work.

By the end of the week, I walk quickly by with my bag in my hand, not looking your way.

I suspect you knew where this was going, but maybe we were both in denial. I tried not to flaunt it, but I can't deny that I found a new friend.

It's all so wonderful and new. You must admit, our relationship was getting a bit stale. I was annoyed by you, and I'm sure you felt the same way too.

I know this is hard for you. Maybe if it was a hat or gloves, this would make it easier for you. But another scarf on size 3 needles is a lot to take. I understand. I'll give you time. Maybe we can still be friends?

With lots of love,

Your Guilt Ridden Knitter.

P.S. The new scarf is a she. Does that help?

It's the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

Realization

In case you did not know:
Substitute teaching loud, obnoxious fifth graders leaves one contemplating the meaning of life and existence. It also makes someone who was severely depressed for a couple of years wonder if this is the beginning of a very slippery slope you've just finished climbing out of.

Moving on (I need a couple of hours and some rest to get over this class. Distance is a wonderful buffer).

I spent some time dyeing yarn and roving yesterday. I figure if I like spinning and I know others like spinning, then they -- like me-- need some lovely roving to spin. I dyed a reds and then a blues-y merino/tencel blend. It was interesting. I really need some more practice.
Then I dyed some more sock yarn in my Fawkes colorway. It's pretty. Although I think they mis-shipped me the type of yarn--I'll wait until it dries to make sure that it's not the right blend.

First day of ...

Spring. Yay! Easter is this weekend...candy and chocolate eggs for me.

Having gotten that out of the way, I would like to continue my attempts at turning my blog about knitting into a blog about weather. Lovely weather today: sunny and 40s. Not so lovely weather tomorrow: snow.
This should be of no surprise to me, seeing as a few years ago (actually its probably more than a few by now) we had a snow day on the first day of spring. None of us missed the irony of this.

Sigh.

Nearly there...or not

Hey there.

Remember Henry?

That scarf I’ve been working on with size 3 needles—that Henry?

I finally passed the half way point. The stitch pattern seems to be working out in my favor. It looked about right to my eyes anyway. Then something goes wrong.

Look at this picture:

Can you spot the problem? I’ll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with my stitch count and everything to do with my circular needle coming apart! See?!!

What makes this especially painful--these are new needles. I bought these just for this scarf. What can I say--I don't normally use 40" size 3 needles. I wonder is Skacel (Addi) needles have a warranty? I'll have to look it up.

Now I need to figure out how to salvage this. I don't have the right size needles to complete the project and I don't want to buy new needles to finish this. I wonder if I can use a little bit of gorilla glue (or as my brother calls it, "monkey glue') to fix them. But what am I going to do with all of those live stitches?

Socks and Jocks

I'm going to be posting a couple of new yarns on etsy this weekend. One is a green/yellow-green mix. It's quite lovely and spring-y. Something sorely missing in Michigan this week. We've been inundated with snow. Again. I love snow, but I really miss spring and green stuff and flowers.


My second yarn is complementary to my Twilight tencel/merino. It's a superwash merino but what I like about it is that with the addition of a little orange, this yarn is warm rather than cool.


Moving on to the Jocks. I've been subbing, mainly elementary schools. For the most part, really positive and interesting teaching posts. Until Thursday, I decided to try high school classes to see if this age group worked for me, so I accepted a 2-day assignment for a Spanish/speech class.

Strike 1: I forgot how much I dislike waking up at 6 am.
Strike 2: To be teaching and dealing with people at 7 am is just wrong.
Strike 3: Teenagers.

Now not all teenagers are horrid little monsters who should be locked away until the time that the amazingly annoying attitude of theirs goes away, just the 4 boys I had the pleasure of dealing with during my 5th hour. Everybody else was manageable (usual mix of good and not so good), but this group was just not interested in anything.
I just don't know how to deal with anarchist personalities. You know the ones: don't want to learn, don't respect others enough to appreciate that they may want to learn something, and don't understand simple logic.
Four year-old alert. Must go.

Guess what I'm doing now?

So, in case you've missed it, I have mildly---err loudly---complained about my difficulty in finding a job. After watching several annoying videos and filling out lots and lots of forms, I finally got entered into the local system for substitute teaching. I signed up for 3 districts to help ensure I get a job. I've been thinking about getting certified as a teacher, but that involves going back to school. Since I've spent so much money going to school for something that didn't quite work out, I figure: spend time substituting, get some money, feel out how I feel about working with kids in the under-18 category.

On the knitting front, I'm still working on Henry. I've been saying I'm half way done for a while now--but I think that has more to do with wishful thinking than an aesthetic reality.

Also, I cut my bangs today. Nobody has noticed. I'm guessing my family thinks I look different because I am actually wearing makeup and in decent clothes.

Hey

Not sure you've had a day like mine yet. Let me share.

1. Woke up at 6:30 for substituting assignments. Rejected it. Put head back on pillow. At 6:32, was woken again by the same system. Told them I was off duty for the day.
2. Go to the bathroom. Look at clock. Note the time. Wake up the high schooler (who slept with her window open--idiot) and my other two sisters (you know the ones with a job).
3. Get woken up again by my phone. My sister calling me from down stairs--my brother's not going to school today.
4. 8-ish (this is pure conjecture), get woken up again by the dang, stupid substitute system. Again. Listen and choose an afternoon assignment for today.
5. Get woken up by my mom: baby brother is in my bathroom and to pull him off when he's done. 6. Go in to check on him. He insists on matching up the radio with the microphone that's downstairs. He finally put together his missing karaoke machine with the stereo upstairs.
7. Knowing the implication of this, I bring the radio downstairs. Pull out the DVD the kid put in there. Put in the actual music CD he finds. Listen in abject torture to kid songs. Really bad kid songs. I need to buy the kid a mother goose/nursery rhyme CD, it will be less painful.
8. Need to get ready to drop sister off at work. Seeing as she woke up late and is physically incapable of getting herself ready with anything less that 2 hours of prep time.

Time 8:30. Weather: Snow. Again. Cold. Really cold. I read on someones blog yesterday that the only snow she enjoys is when it's over 30 degrees outside. I have to agree. Anything below that sucks.

You may go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

sniff....

It's....snowing. AGAIN.

WAAHHHH!!!!!

Yesterday was so lovely, around 40F. Gosh darned Michigan weather.

I lived in Riverside, CA for 2 1/2 years while working on my MA. Even though summer/fall completely sucked. Winter there was wonderfully mild. February/March were the spring months in Riverside. Of course it balanced out. The place had only about 4 months of good weather, while the other 8 left you in fear of strong winds, crazy heat, smog, wildfires, droughts, mudslides and earthquakes.

So maybe I will take the snow. Nothing like a little bit of perspective, and the reminder that being woken up by your house shaking all around you, was not my idea of a good time.

Thinking

So I really like these bags. Am wondering if a certain boy would actually use one. My life is plagued by the lack of girl children in the under-16 category---well, girls I would actually knit for, I'm not throwing my money on yarn and pattern for someone only distantly related, especially when the boy children in my life like it when I make them stuff.

That's all.

So...

I'm knitting Henry from Knitty.com. It's a really lovely pattern. Once you figure out the stitch pattern, things can go very smoothly... or crash and slowly burn.

I'll give you a minute to think about which point I'm on for this pattern.

I'm almost 30 rows into the pattern, which is worked length-wise not width-wise like most scarf patterns. I like working it length-wise because I don't have to keep turning the work. It's fun. But, and it's a big but, if you're off on your stitch count, things don't line up properly. If you're off early on, you know---when you're still not sure what the pattern looks like and how it works up--you don't realize you're making a mistake. At least not until row 20.

So I finally figured out my mistake (an extra stitch---one extra stitch). I adjusted the stitch count and worked up a few more rows and I now understand the way it's supposed to look. I like the way it looks, but I don't want to rip anything back.

I'm divided by whether I want to try to match things up on the other end or just stick to the original pattern and have two different sides.

I'm still thinking.

Thinking.

Screw thinking, I'm just going to knit until I get to the end and I'll make do then.

Hush

Not to alarm anyone or anything....but I'm actually knitting.

Shocking isn't it? No pictures though--the camera and the knitting are both on separate floors. I've finally gotten around to starting the supposedly for Christmas wish list that I had going. This scarf is going to take me a while though, I'm knitting a scarf on size 3 needles--yeah I'm not sure what I was thinking either.

I'm thinking of dyeing/knitting some things through the Project Spectrum theme. Fire is up first. I can work with that. Except for the scarf--that's in green. My sister's favorite color. Who knew?

It's birthday time

When you have a soon to be 4-year-old boy in the house, firefighters are constantly saving you from imaginary fires and catastrophes--you know that kitten just needs to get down from that tree. So it's no surprise that for his birthday party we are having a firefighter cake and cupcakes for school.

This is the cupcake design:


Which goes in this box with its friends:


Times 3.

Yeah, yesterday was fun. Actually it wasn't so bad, once I simplified things up a bit.

Here are some easy simplification techniques:
1. Use box cake, BUT, replace the oil with the same amount applesauce.
2. Add chocolate chips. I use semi-sweet, since my frosting tends to be sweet.
3. Pull out the butter early in the day--it helps when making buttercream icing.
4. Small touches help make the cupcakes very special. In my case, I wanted to get red or firefighter themed cupcake liners--but they don't have any. Anywhere. I think I need to write Wilton a letter. So instead I got a bag of red chocolate melts and a mold for firemen hats. Repeat 4 times and an instant topper.

Although this isn't a simplification thing, please keep in mind: Do not make frosting, color it red, yellow and orange, pipe it like flames and top it with a fireman hat. Yeah, think about it. Luckily I thought this out before I went through my plan.

As a break away from the simple, and relatively straightforward, here comes the actual birthday cake.
Yeah, it's a burning building with firefighters. He got a kick out of it. After we cut some of it up, he started using the firefighter figurines to fight the fire in the building. It was really cute.

The original design was a lot more complicated, involving a firetruck 2-D design along the base and fondant made firefighters. I wish I could use fondant for family cakes, but then everybody in my family would have been in an uproar--they really don't like fondant.

Everybody had a good time, he enjoyed the cake and his gifts. Unfortunately for me, I deeply regret one of the games already--A computer game sounds like such a good idea, until I was woken up at 8 am on a Saturday to help him with the game. Sigh.

Me

I should preface this by pointing out that I had a very lovely post about my brother's birthday cake and cupcakes. I'll post that later.

Generally speaking, I am not a nice person. I'm not a mean person, but I am very blunt and may even, on occasion, be called moody. I detest being taken for granted. One should never assume that I will be available at one's beck and call whenever they should require it. This especially applies to a certain 17 year old who keeps texting me with requests to pick her up at certain times. What the heck am I? A paid driver? No. I am unemployed* and, apparently for my sister, that means available. I have a list about a mile long that needs to get gone through and I am not playing around with people's pick up and drop off times. So I told her she can't stay after school and I'm picking her up at her regular time. Not a minute later. Bite me. I am quite willing to be paid for my troubles, she however, chooses to ignore this and sulks.

I'd like to end this with the following: I will be back later after I have calmed down. and vented. and possibly even yelled.

*Ha. When I had a job and went to school full time, I had more free time than I do now. Maybe I should call what I do with my time: volunteering--it certainly sounds better than unemployed. Of course both mean the same thing: Broke.

It's kinda sad

Yes it's very sad--my titles that is--I'm not sure if they're really necessary. I know I generally don't read them.

So lately I've been spinning. and spinning. and spinning. Let me show you:

After spinning some small different colored balls of yarn, I move on to my nice stuff:

Alpaca:

I think the larger one is a 2-ply and the smaller one is my attempt at navajo plying.

Then came my gorgeous, soft, black merino:


This is my second attempt, something went horribly wrong with the first batch that I spun and tried to ply:

It's horribly twisted and tangled. I think it's going to go in the bin.

On Monday, I'm going to be dyeing some superwash sock yarn. Maybe something springy.

The next few days are going to be rather stressful. My family has three people employed in the same company, the same company that just declared bankruptcy (chapter 11 not 7, so they need to restructure). Hopefully they'll announce a restructuring plan early next week and my stomach pains will start to decrease.

Okay I'm back

I should tell you: I am a Reader. Please note the capital R. I've been a Reader since I was 9 years old when my family was moving back to the States from Colombia and my mom got me a copy of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales to keep me busy on the airplane.

I rarely read 'proper' literature. I have a problem with people telling what makes good reading material, so I mainly read lots of romance novels, sci-fi/fantasy and nonfiction. I find it highly amusing when people disparage romance novels for being flighty and silly choices for reading materials, especially when you consider how much crappy literature I've read over the years.

My current fixation for reading material is Anne Bishop's Realms of the Blood Series. It is very, very good. It's both dark and twisted, as well as wonderfully written. (I don't think that sentence makes grammatical sense but in my head it works).

Before I went of a two-day reading binge (the fact that it took two days to finish is a testament to how much I liked it--standard mass markets take no more than 3 hours for me to finish), I was spinning. Navajo plying is the coolest thing I've learned to do lately. I'm not sure I've been doing it 100% right but I managed to produce some wonderfully good (comparatively speaking) yarn over the weekend.

I should be knitting a few different things right now, but all I want to do is buy the rest of the Realms of the Blood books (I finished the original trilogy now, I just have to get the other books in the series). Not to mention that Feb. 4th is the release date for about 5 books that I want to read by my auto-buy authors.

It's kind of funny that I think knitting a pair of mittens and some baby hats is more important than cleaning the mess that is my bedroom. I would show you a picture except that it's way too embarrassing. My 3 year old-soon to be 4 year old- brother walked into my room yesterday and said "D why is your room such a mess?" Then he offered to help me clean. If you've ever experienced the helpfulness of a preschooler helping you clean, you would understand why I stopped reading and took him downstairs for distraction.

Today

Hush. I'm reading now.

New obsession

I've been spinning. A lot.

I made the decision that I was going to learn so I've been spinning about 20-30 minutes before I go to bed for the past couple of days. I finally hit that moment when you just get it. It all makes sense: the fiber and its relationship with the spinning wheel; all of the twirly things and strings on the spinning wheel and my hand and the fiber. It's a nice sense of accomplishment.

So buoyed by this, I moved on to plying--which didn't go too well, but I'll get it.

On to other news, I finally got my official certificate of completion for my M.A. Yay, all the i's have been dotted and t's crossed. About time.

Guess what I have?

Besides a new blog post.

A finished object. A pair of wrist warmers to be exact. But before I show you my lovely new wrist warmers, I should share its evolution.

First came the pattern:

Then came the substitutions:

Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk (80% alpaca and 20% silk) in two colors instead of four colors by the Fibre Company's Organik (70% Organic Merino, 15% Baby Alpaca, 15% Silk).

I had a bit of a learning curve for this pattern, mainly because knitting 3 stitches together is hard with this yarn, although I get the feeling this would have happened with any other yarn.
My second hiccup came when I tried to alter the pattern count to avoid the pattern stitch rows.
Third problem came when I tried the gloves on: it was too big, despite matching their recommended gauge.
Fourth problem, I get impatient to finish projects, so I made them too short.

In the end I had one wrist warmer which was missing all the qualities I liked about the original design. They were long and not too chunky or thick. The opposite of what I had in my possession.

So I started over. I switched down needle sizes to 7 all the way through the pattern, instead of just the ribbed sections. I also triple checked and finally understood the actual pattern (think of the first glove as an elaborate swatch).

Success is sweet (ignore the wrinkled sheets I used as background).



So you have a comparison point between the finished products and my bad first pair:

Now all I have left to do is weave in the ends and wash the pair.

My day

It didn't start out so great. Baby brother A went back to school today. A moment of joy and great sadness---I'm his official drop off for preschool at 8:30.
My mom is a very smart woman. The moment my older sister got her driver's license, she got a car to take us all to school. No more cold Michigan mornings for her, nope, she now had a built in driver in a teenager desperate to drive. My other sisters take turns dropping off my younger sister at high school (at 7AM!), but I get Adam. It could be worse. I could be dropping him off at 7. In case you haven't noticed, I am not a morning person.

The rest of the day was whatever, BUT, I finally used my gift card to the spa and got a massage and pedicure combo. I love massages and I especially love pedicures. Imagine it: 1 hour and 30 minutes of someone rubbing your feet. Heaven.

I started and finished a novel between waiting and half my pedicure. I've got to go to the library more, I just payed $8 for a book I finished in about 2 hours---I could have gone to the movies.