Update: Knitting

It's been brought to my attention that I haven't posted to this blog in a very long time. Life kind of went to hell for a while. It got so bad that I hadn't touched my knitting in months. I was just so stressed out about everything that I just didn't have the energy nor the inclination to pick up my knitting. But life is better now, so craftiness resumes!

My sister has an adorable little kitty named Alice. Alice is the tiniest full grown kitty I've ever seen. She's about 2 years old (I think). My sister wants me to have Alice. So in a few weeks, I'll have a kitty and there will be many gratuitous kitty pictures! Every knitter/sewer needs a kitty supervisor! I'm extremely animal-oriented, so I'm absolutely psyched. I'm going to spoil her rotten.

In the spirit of spoiling her rotten, I knitted her a Kitty Pi. It was a quick and easy knit that used nearly all of my remaining bits of Cascade 220. It's double stranded, so the sides stand up well. It's a bit big for Alice, because she's so tiny, but better big than too small, right? Besides, I'm switching Alice to a high protein, no corn, no preservatives, no byproducts food, so I'm assuming she'll gain a little weight.

I really love the top part of the sides. I used 2 strands of white Cascade 220, a strand of lime green di.Ve' Cipria that was on clearance for $2.00 several years ago, and a blue skein of Trendsetter Yarns Spruce I bought in Vienna. I used 7 different colors of Cascade 220, and then the two decorative yarns.

Let's see, what else. The Goddess Knits Mystery Shawl is on hold for a while. I was working solely on that before I took my hiatus from knitting. Instead, I've been working on finishing my Kimono shawl. Not much to show, as it's the same pattern repeats over and over.

WIP's

WIP's

Entrelac Bag. Patons Classic Wool Merino.
I can't remember exactly when I bought this. I had it for Christmas or Thanksgiving break my freshmen year as I remember feeling deathly ill and knitting while taking the Amtrak up to Seattle. I've had the first 3 1/2 tiers done, then I got distracted by some other project. Ironically, I picked it up when I was sick, during Spring Break 2008. This just seems to be the project I grab when I'm sick, probably because it's just stockingette, yet the frequent decreases keep it interesting.

(Note:: the blue is actually more of a green than a blue, not this bright blue the picture shows)

When I picked it up on 3/26/08, I had to switch needle sizes down to a #6. I had been knitting backwards for the purls, and when I started knitting and purling regularly my gauge was incredibly different. It's still a bit bigger than the original, but I don't feel like working it on a #4. In the end, I'm pretty sure the size difference will be pretty negligible once I felt it.

Kimono Shawl. I'm about half way done with this now. For the moment, it's resting in my striped bag, waiting to be picked up again. I'm very pleased with it. This is it lying non-stretched, non-blocked in front of the window. As you can tell by the vertical wrinkles on either side, it's actually a bit wider than this.

It's been a good knitting day

I've knit another 40ish rows on the Kimono Shawl today, most of that while listening to the Pride and Prejudice audiobook! When other knitters swore by how wonderful audiobooks were to listen to while knitting, I tried to listen to one. It was painful, as I found out that I am very picky about the speaker. But this whole LibriVox thing is amazing! I'm already 1/3 of the way through Pride and Prejudice, and I love the speaker. Best of all, it's completely free!

I also decided I should check my Bloglines, which haven't been checked in a very long time. I have over 1062 posts to read. Yikes. I think I may just read my most favorite blogs, then tell it to mark all others as read. I'd rather use the time spent on reading 1062 posts knitting.

Recently, I've been planning for my first sweater. I've made Soleil, which was my first sweater-like garment, but that's the largest thing I've ever made. Due to lack of funds, I think it's in my best interest to make larger projects (such as shawls and sweaters), rather than buying lots of different yarns for smaller projects such as hats, gloves, and socks. I have a few sock yarns stashed, so I will continue living out of my stash. However, my rule is that when I finish a project or two I can buy yarn for another one. Now instead of buying yarn for the smaller projects, I'll buy it for larger ones. I can make a pair of socks for ~$22, or I can make a six foot shawl for $30, and spend many more hours knitting it. Next month (ie. next paycheck) I'm going to go check out Yarnia, which is an amazing concept for a yarn store and will be a very cheap way to get a lot of yarn for sweaters or lace. I would go right now, but I didn't start working until late January, so my paycheck for this month was a bit thin, and it has to last me until March 15. How I hate monthly paychecks.

Welcome back to this blog!

Hi everyone! I've finally finished copy and pasting all my old posts from Vox (for archival purposes), so that's why I have 50+ posts in two days. This was the first blog I started, way back in 2005, but eventually I moved over to Vox. I had my quibbles with it, but overall it was decent. However, Vox started getting really bloated and really slow while not offering any more options/customizations. I should have known that in the long run, a site that was set up for those with no computer experience wouldn't have enough options to satisfy me for long. Unfortunately, the only place that has blog posts import/export functionality is for wordpress, and I believe Blogger might as well. Vox does not.

But then I found several art communities, and wanted to start a separate blog specifically for my drawings and scribblings. Luckily, I had kept my account open here, so I simply added another blog for my art.

However, I have lost my camera cord (the USB cord that links my camera to my laptop), and it has simply not turned up. In the past few months I've done a lot of switching between my two places of residence (school in Oregon and home in Washington), and it was a bit of a mess there as I was packing my things up, and giving and throwing lots of things away. I think I either left my camera cord there, or accidentally threw it out. I'm hoping to buy a new one soon.

Lot's of knitting has been going on here.

I've started and completed: my boxweave scarf with Purple variegated Manos Silk, my Alice hat with earflaps, my Knitting Needle Bag (actually all complete except the straps), and Flared legwarmers.

The project I'm working on right now is my Kimono Shawl, from Folk Shawls. I love this pattern. It only has a 10 st repeat, and it's actually more of a stole than a shawl, so there's no shaping. However, there's enough variety that it's still quite fun and interesting to make. It's a great beginning laceweight yarn project. In the past two days, I've completed over 22 rows on it. I also put in a lifeline, just in case. I started this project when I was housesitting over the summer, and used US 6 needles. However, I must have been a very tight knitter, as when I picked it up again yesterday I needed to switch down to US 4's to get something even resembling the original gauge. It's still slightly bigger, but I think it won't be noticeable once it's blocked. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me.

I've become absolutely addicted to Pride and Prejudice. I've watched the entire BBC version (around 5 1/2 hours) twice as well as rewatched the 2005 version with Keira Knightley. I love Colin Firth in the BBC version, and they did a much better job keeping Elizabeth in character. She was much more witty, yet Knightley's character was a little more smart alec-y. I also downloaded the entire Pride and Prejudice audiobook from LibriVox. Don't worry, Pride and Prejudice is public domain, so it's completely legal. I've always had a hard time listening to audio books because I am a very visual person and I am very picky about the speaker. However, the great thing about LibriVox is that I can listen to a chapter for a few moments online to see if I like the speaker's voice. You don't need to download it or anything to preview it. They offer streaming mp3 or ogg chapter by chapter, as well as a zip file of the entire book. You can even get an ebook, or get a chapter-a-day. Hopefully this will work out well. Unlike my other projects, the Kimono Shawl is not something that I can watch TV with. I can listen to the TV, but I can't take my eyes off of the shawl, even if they're not really focused on the project (the whole hard eyes vs. soft eyes thing).

I've upgraded my Mediamonkey (the best totally free player and media library in existence, as well as the best player out of all the paid ones) as I was over four versions behind. In the new version, they have increased their podcast interfacing/ability quite a bit. I have been enjoying the Cello podcast by Magnatune, Eastern Voices by Magnatune, and Indie soup.

Lastly, any projects that are mentioned here can be found on my Ravelry page. It's still in beta so there's still a waitlist to get on, but if you're already on there, I'm ObsessedKnitter!

What I've been up to

In Real life, I finished my housesitting job. I've been working about 30 hrs a week at Company B, and next week I work 40!! Although I wasn't going to take another housesitting job (I had offers) I found one that is fine with me working long hours at Company B. Wohoo! It's only for five days, but every little bit helps.

Knitting (for those who aren't on Ravelry :D),

I started and finished a gorgeous felted bag.

I cataloged my entire yarn stash on Ravelry. I'm teaching my mom how to knit. I'm making really good progress on my first lace shawl.

I actually ended up overdying an already hand-dyed laceweight because I wasn't happy with how it knitted up. There's quite a bit more variance in colors than is pictured here.

I'm trying to track down homosote board in order to make my own blocking boards, according to instructions in Knitty. Checked Home Depot, but they didn't carry it. I'm afraid I might end up using foam.