Deep Space Knit

If you can help...

2009-10-01T00:29:00.000-07:00

This is a geek thing, but I promised a friend I would spread the word.

An artist at Dragon Con had a piece of his artwork stolen from him. My friend is a fellow artist who is acquainted with the theft victim and we are trying to get word out - if you see this or have information about it, please follow the link and contact the original artist. I know y'all are knitters but this is a geek blog, too and geeks take care of one another.

Here is a LINK to the original blog

Socks N Dirge of Cerberus

2009-09-29T23:32:00.001-07:00

Alright, I warn you, I am about to commit knitting sacrilege:

I don't really like knitting socks.

Gasp, shock! I know! I'm a knitter, and we're all supposed to like socks, right? I mean I have knit socks. Heck, I have knit four pairs in September alone (yeah, most of them were heavy socks, pick yer jaws up). And still socks are among my least-favorite projects.

Why you might ask? Easy. It isn;t turning the heel - I find that rather charming, actually. I don't like the interruption. I like zen knitting - back and forth, back and forth or round and round and round. Anything with changing needles, tangling yarn or potentially creating ladders irks me to some degree. I can hack it at the top of a hat because I have just spent the rest of my time joyously creating the body (or will be creating the body), but socks are continual: knit, stop, knit, stop, pull tight and get the yarn in the right position. Yargh.

Yeah, I know how to knit on two circulars, 4 DPNs, 5 DPNs... in the end I magic loop. One needle, less fuss. I sort of like working the foot of my current pair, which is from Charlene Schurch's Sensation Knitted socks - Small Capitals. The pattern balances nicely across the top on the foot, and the stockinette bottom seems to zoom by. But afterwards I'm doomed to make a pair of socks for my aunt who prefers 2x2 rib.

Yawn.

Heck, she doesn't just prefer... I can put book after book after book of amazing, lovely, creative, interesting sock patterns in front of her and she will go out of her way to find the basic beginner sock at the front of the book and tell me to 'make that sock'

Round and round and round and round, watch the ladders, watch for no yarnovers, finish one, knit a second, ARGH!

Usually when knitting irritates me, I turn towards my guilty pleasure: video games. I have a small selection (read: sizable stash) of favorites from the Atari 2600 up to the Playstation 2. Haven't gone newest gen yet - haven't found any games really worth playing on any system but the Wii, and my boyfriend has a Wii. Anyways (this all ties together, I promise) I favor two types of games: Mindless action adventure and serious RPG. Usually when stress kicks in I favor the former. Dynasy Warriors ("Watch me wade into a dozen dudes and righteously slay them with my magical powaz while being accompanied by period-accurate ancient Chinese hard rocks music...") and Devil May Cry - the first one - ("Jamie, why are you juggling blood-spraying zombies in the air with a hail of gunfire?" ""Cause it's fun, Mom...") are personal favs.

But I bought Dirge of Cerberus several months ago, Heck, maybe even a year or more ago - can't remember. Gainful adult employment does that to ya. Anyways, a while ago -and I hadn't played it yet. It looks so promising - RPG styled, action oriented, badass main character, prettyboy anime design. So what do you mean I have to go play almost first-person shooter? (third person shooter actually). I mean it's all about getting my ass kicked while I run around with a really big gun. See?

I bite at this game. I blow goats at it. RPG fans are not created to do shooter games. I aim everywhere but at the dudes I am supposed to be killing - and at times this reminds me of my sock knitting. I drop stitches forget patterns and occassionally forget to turn the freakin' heels and only notice this after I'm decreasing for the toe. I run around Dirge of Cerberus saying things like "You get back here, I'm gonna shoot you!" while wildly flailing and shooting the crap out of anything around me; and I knit socks while vowing "You get back here you damn dropped stitch! you will not evade me!"

This is cheaper than therapy. Trust me. :D

StashCat

2009-09-24T00:35:00.000-07:00

Like a LOLCat, but lazier.

So, I have a new cat. Actually an old cat that is new again.

Hokay, let me try to explain. My mother and I swap cats. She lives on a farm and decided to rescue stray kittens, so she has a lot of cats. More cats than could really be considered normal and a house that is far too clean to have so many cats. I swear she's like a bionic woman when it comes to keeping a clean house with (*ahem*) fifteen cats.

Yes, fifteen.

Stop rolling your eyes, we used to have twenty. (The joke used to be 'I have two, my mother has the other 18 - cats are cheaper in packs of 20...)

Anyways she has a lot of very happy healthy cats in a disturbingly clean house. And when Sultan was a kitten he used to be called Meriadoc (because his brother was Pippin, 'natch) and he was supposed to be my cat. However my first cat, Robin, didn't like Meriadoc. So Robin stayed with me and Meriadoc stayed with my mom, who changed his name to Sultan. Thanks, Mom.

Anyways, after getting gainful employment and an apartment nearby said gainful employment, I wanted a cat with me in the apartment. But Robin is getting weird in his older age and he has decided that he will. Not. Move. Ever. Again. To the point where he hyperventilates and pulls out all of his fur if you try to move him to a new house. So that was a no. Meanwhile Sultan was banished to the basement for peeing on the baseboards (say that five times fast!) because he had dominant male issues.

So my mother sweet talked me into taking Sultan, again. He knows he new name now so I couldn't change it back. However being an only cat means he has had no peeing issues whatsoever. He does, however, believe he is prettier than any other creature on the farm, and he has also decided that my stash is his stash.

This is Herschnerrs Warehouse swag. Yum. I dig the Nob Hill Jewel Sparkle for kid's hats. Sultan prefers it for it's lovely bed-like qualities.

Look at him. He's smirking. Proud that he can shed on my yarn.

Jerk.

Oh Dear Me

2009-09-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

I am a horrific blogger.

I really am. Stress gets to me and I stop writing.

However Ravelry is down tonight and I finally have a new computer and decent internet access and, well, a blog!

So I'm working on a Scotty hat. Dang is this a long hat! Long to wear, long to knit, LONG! It is for Eric, who is lovely and has a big head. Physically not egotistically ;-)

I have piles and piles and piles of photos. I must sort and post them.

Gainful Adult Employment

2008-10-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

I has it.

When I ended last theatrical season, I swore to myself that this seasonal work thing was going to stop. I was sick and tired of moving across the country every 7 months, and feeling like I was getting older with nothing permanent to show for it.

So I did not re-accept my contract with my previous employer.

As the summer days grew on, I kept failing to reach a new contract with a full time theatre; and it was looking more and more likely that I would have to see if my position was still unfilled at my old job. (sigh) And one day out of the blue the neighbor lady came over to collect her rummage sale things and she suggested that I check on the Sentry website for a job.

I paused a second and wondered if she was nuts. Sentry is a grocery store; but near my hometown it is also a major insurance company. I thought that neither sounded like they really had a career path for a theatre technician.

Ah, I was wrong. Sentry Insurance owns a theatre. And they needed a theatre manager. And after a long interview process of many candidates, I am the chosen successor for the 'Theatre Manager' position.

My very own theatre, mwa hahahah!

I work 30 minutes from home. Not 1200 or 2000 miles.... 30 minutes. It's.... amazing!

So, that's what I have been up to. That and scads of knitting. Oh, and Hat Attack. Dear goodness. So much catch up blogging to do!

Yarn Recycling Day

2008-08-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, lovely lazy weekends.

Since I have been bit heavily by the destash bug, I have also been going through my yarn.  I feel the need to ball up, tidy up and categorize everything.  And with that, I have been frogging some very old projects I will never finish or wear in order to reclaim the yarn.

Mmmm, strawberry flavored wool.  This was at one point going to be a crocheted sweater; but I figured out that I didn't quite have enough yarn for the pattern I wanted to make. So it sat in a box all through grad school and then sat for two more years until I finally found it and thought "gee, this is nice wool"

Besides, I figure that knitting takes less yarn than crocheting does, so I still have enough yarn for a ~knit~ sweater!

And so it was frogged.  And balled.  And turned into a lovely hank of crinkley yarn.

I even had help through this whole process! See? This is Heidi. She thinks I cannot see her...

Oh... but the temptation was too great. I see you, Heidi... >.> <.<

I had five hanks to be dipped in hot water, relaxed and then hung to dry. Several move un-crocheted skeins that could simply be balled and stored.

After all that work, my assistant was pooped.

I'm sort of jealous that this old cat still has the flexibility to turn herself completely into a catball. May I be as supple when I am her age.

Until then, I'll content myself with the fact that I now have a sweater's worth of wool all fresh and waiting for me!

Cats in the Slammer

2008-08-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

(with all due respect to "Cops"... eh, who am I kidding. I'm making fun of it.)

Bad cats, bad cats, what'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when the come for you...

To be fair these are not bad cats. They are simply feral rescues. For years and years my parents had barn cats in the, well, barn. But as the number of cows dwindled the number of cats grew. So we started taking in kittens (which might account for the unusually high number of housecats our family has) and finally my mother decided that enough was enough. She was going to livetrap all the feral cats.

We finally live trapped the last of the feral mothers from the barn; tranquilized them, got them taken to the vet for shots and fixings; and now they are enjoying a lovely day in the sun. We set up a place for them to live indoors, with an outdoor cage. Now they pass thier time away as healthy, lazy cats. This is a Saint Bernard pen that is rigged up through a basement cat door, for some fun in the sun. Or shade as the case may be in the pictures. I just like how Suzy (the little black cat) is looking up so woefully, as if to say 'nobody knows the trouble I've seen...'

Woe be to the chipmunk who runs through the bars.

Round and Round

2008-08-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

(and round and round and round and round....)

I find it a theme of my projects lately that I start them "because the yarn was there"

No, really. It's the yarn's fault. It lays in the boxes and tells me to make things. I erase all responsibility.

So let's start with the yarn. Red Heart Symphony. It's 100% faux mohair. As faux as mo goes. Acrylic, all of it. I found it within my stash - the old stash (yes, I have stash stored away in separate places, like vintages. And when I dig it out I find some surprising things. This was one of them.) I took it out and looked at the skein and thought 'what the hell is this?'

What the hell indeed? It was... well, it was furry. Not Fun Fur furry. Just furry.

What the hell do you do with furry? You type "Red Heart Symphony" into Ravelry and click on 'pattern ideas.' That's what you do. God Bless Ravelry.

Anyways, one of the patterns that showed up was the "Portland Pullover" from Interweave Knits. I have always thought it was an attractive pattern; and the fact that it's modeled on that cute redhead model IK used for so many years didn't hurt. The ravelers said it was a fast, easy and nice to wear. I said 'sold!'

I cast it on a few days before my mother fell off the garage roof, and I ended up spending hours knitting the sweater body in the ER waiting room. There are some times where completely mindless circular knitting (19 inches of it...) is most welcome.

I did not knit the sleeves flat. I mean a circular body with a circular yoke and flat sleeves? Please. I knit them on a 16" circ. Yaaay!

I'm not fond of funnel necks, and I will almost certainly wear a button down or turtleneck underneath it; so I bound it off earlier, and shored it up with a single crochet border and kitchenered the armpit seams.

Since Wisconsin is cold lately, I got to get some lovely outdoor pictures. Mmm, fuzzy sweater. Fauxmo it may be, but it's delightfully soft and light.

Hermitage

2008-08-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Like animals when they don't feel good and they crawl off to thier dens, I have crawled off to my internetless den for, oh, about two months. I'm very bad at that >.<

News: my mother just got okayed to walk again (yay!) and now she can really start driving me nuts.

Man, I'm glad she doesn't read my blog. >.> <.<

Life is good.

This post had pictures. The internet ate the pictures. *shakes fist at the internet* I will post the pictures later.

Life is still good.

2008-07-06T19:03:00.001-07:00

I want to thank everyone who gave me comments and thoughts. When I get a moment to sit down and it is quiet I will try to respond to each individually.

My mother is home. Sore and slow, but home. And so I knit on. I have half a sweater done. Soon I hope to have pictures.

Happy 4th of July to all, and peace,

~PSG

Sometimes You Knit...

2008-06-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you knit to remember.

Sometimes you knit to forget.

I don't have any jokes for today's blog. No witticisims or sarcasm. No pictures even.

My mother fell off a roof today. We were very lucky because she slid and landed on her hip rather than falling on her chest or head. So she broke her pelvis, but hopefully no other injuries.

It all seems so stupid. The ladder slipped. You wonder 'could I have done something different?' I stepped into the house for a minute or so, trying to get something out of the over before going back outside, and I heard the ladder collapse and her scream.

I don't know. I don't like to wallow in guilt. So I spent two hours in the emergency, knitting while I waited to hear about CAT scans and X Rays.

It will be a long heal. Two months. I wish it were me instead of her. I really do. I'm much younger and I mend better. But if all goes well, there won't be any major complications. She can come home in a day or so.

Knitting is funny. Stitch after stitch, a way to channel the enegry that could be used for pacing, screaming, shouting, hitting. Stitch by stitch by stitch. The same movement over and over and over again.

I think I might give the sweater I make to her. We are the same size, it'll fit.

A sweater to remember the love, knitting to forget the pain.

The Manly Scrafghan

2008-06-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Scrafghan: (noun) scrˈaf-ˌgan : a blanket or shawl knitted or crocheted from many different colors or types of yarns. (scrap+afghan)

~My dictionary of dumb definitions for words that don't exist... but should!

Several days ago my mother entreated my with a quest. Nothing so droll as running out and slaying monsters or beating the hoards of cats back from the basement. No. I was to protect the integrity of the very walls of the farmhouse she lives in. Save the chairs from a cruel fate! Preserve the sheen and appearance of the 1970's fake wood paneling!!

I needed to make her an afghan.

So, the yarn warrior rode again, digging through the nameless trenches of ages old stash. Stash so old everyone had forgotten where it was bought. Stash that surely bore the horrors of things like nameless forgotten scratchy wools and acrylics so cheap they would curdle milk. What would come of thise project... time would only tell.

~*~*~*~*~*~

So, yes. My mother wants an afghan. For the express purpose of putting it on the back of the chair my Dad sits in to watch TV.

Now my Dad is an older man, and the years (and beers) have not worn well on his frame. He has bad knees and therefore has a tendancy to not so much sit as to collapse into any given chair. Therefore the wall behind his favorite chair gets decimated if there is no padding between chair back and wall. That's where the afghan comes in.

He has an afghan on his chair. Oh yes, he does. Or did. It is his afghan. My great grandmother made it for him in the 1970's. Much of my parents house still dates to the 1970's. Anyways, it was a fine afghan, one of the few knit afghans in the house (most of them are crocheted because most of the grandmothers crocheted more than they knit), with wide chevrons done in knit and purl ridges, in dark brown and white. Nothing wrong with it... well there wouldn't have been anything wrong with it had half of the afghan not been made in wool with half made in acrylic.

See how it has big stripes? Some of the stripes are wool. Some aren't.

Well, my Dad sweats. Most men sweat. So when he would use the afghan and get sweaty the afghan got smelly. After decades my mother decided the afghan needed a wash because it was rank. All of the other afghans in the house were either all wool or all acrylic. This one said on a very old card that it was all acrylic, so my mother out it in the washing machine on gentle and washed it before hanging it on the line to dry.

And then she noticed that some stripes had felted, some hadn't.

Whoops.

So I dug through the big old stash of bulky yarns that time forgot. Some I bought (shame on me...). Some my mother bought (shame on her...) and some that we didn't know where the hell they came from. I pulled out everything that was in the olive/gray/brown color scheme and then all the neutrals. I figured if this was a sacrifice afghan, I was going to make it the easiest and quickest way I knew how: interlocking shells of crochet with an N hook.

So now the challenge is to make this big pile of unknown scrap yarns look like something that really meant to be an afghan without killing some of the yarns in the process. (I hate you, Lion Brand Cheille Thick and Quick... do you hear me? )

So far, not so bad!

Today is...

2008-06-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Jerky day!!!

YUM!

(yes. This is thoroughly random. But I don't care. Because I have jerky.)

Ronan's Old Man Sweater

2008-06-18T10:32:00.001-07:00

or "Proof Positive that I was not on a Two Month Bender..."

I mean, you can't be drinking and knitting... right?

Anyways, I had bought six skeins of Dalegarn Baby Ull in three colors: lime, sunshine yellow and blue. I throught they looked nice together and wanted to make a baby sweater out of them. I actually get a kick out of making baby sweaters that are in colors most people don;t consider 'baby colors.'

And so one of my best friends, Colleen, announced several months ago that she was having a baby boy. I think I had this in my head when I originally bought the yarn, but I delayed the project for several months. Then I dealyed it until after my Mother's Mother's Day sweater was done, meaning I started Ronan's sweater circa May 21st. The shower was on May 30th. I would have *totally* gotten that sucker done in time if I didn't have to drive from Vermont to Wisconsin in the middle.

That's OK. Ronan isn't born yet (he is due fourth of Julyish) and the sweater is sized so he can wear it in oh, December rather than July. I had enough done so I could show everyone the body at the shower, and most of the guests thought it was a dashing vest. Nope... I just had to add the sleeves. Sleeves, I think, are my nemesis.

Anyways, with the yarn I had, I decided that it would be funny if I knitted a golf style argyle into the sweater with fair isle. Because in my warped mine, making an 'old man' style sweater for a newborn was funny.

I wove a good amount of the fair isle on the body of the sweater. I am getting away from weaving, but I didn't want anything snagging. I didn't Fair Isle the sleeves at all. That isn't because I hate Fair Isle on Magic Loop (ok, I *do* hate fair isle with magic loop...) but more because I didn't want any loops in the sleeves whatsoever so there would be no chance to Ronan catching his itty bitty fingers in them.

I sewed the steeks on a seweing machine, cut them (to the horror of my aunt), sewed them on, and tried about six different variations for the neck. My biggest quandry there is that I wanted a button and a toggle until someone politely pointed out that some babies chew things like buttons off of thier clothes. Yargh! I want to dress the baby, not choke the baby, so I haven't finished the sweater 100%. It also needs a blocking, which will get done tomorrow.

On the bright side, both the mother and the mother's family like the sweater. So goal accomplished! woot!

Mother's Mother's Day Sweater

2008-06-17T19:26:00.001-07:00

The complete story.

(or at least as complete as I can make it)

I had come off the Stonewalls vest raring to knit a garment. I signed up for the Monthly Adventures Knit and Crochet along through ravelry, and I was off and running.

The snag came into place when I hit the end of the body. Front and back was knit in the round up to the armpits and it sailed along right up to the shoulders which were finished in a three needle bind off. I breathed a sigh of relief and cast on for the sleeves.

And then I was cornered into working the Full Monty.

Remember that British movie about the six guys who lose thier jobs and decide to become strippers. Yup. That Full Monty.

Well, almost. The musical version is what I would call "Americanized." Set now in Buffalo instead of Sheffield, the musical lacks the gentle subtlety of the British movie and instead opts for beating you over the head with the funny while six guys sing, dance and prance about in thier skivvies. I had to give the actors props for this one, because they took a mediocre script and made it into an entertaining night of theatre. Anyways, spending the bulk of one's free time backstage did not make for good knitting for a week or so. And when I finally got back to the sleeves, I found myself staring in the face of a deadline.

No worries, I thought. I wasn't moving back to the midwest until May 27th. So I really didn't need to finish the sweater on Mother's Day since I could hand deliver it on the 30th. But as May crpt by the worries sunk in.

I was frustrated with knitting both sleeves at once. I found that no matter how much I can do a technique, I hate anything with a high probably of tangled yarn. The fact that I was working against a cord as well as the technique meant well... I chickened out. I knit the sleeves one by one. Magic looped up to the fair isle and then on a 16" circular the rest fo the way up.

Here's a bit of trivia. I knit the sleeves backstage of the show... so I could honestly tell my Mom that her sweater was lovingly knit while six actors got totally nekkid onstage.

Here's another bit of trivia... unlike the British movie, the American stage version of MOnty makes a pretty big deal about the chippendales strippers all being "Fairies" or gay. There is even a role of a gay male stripper. (I chalk this up to the fact that the writers of the show were gay men). So the bulk of the characters are straight men, trying to prove that being straight strippers are better than watching prancy gay men.

Yet the bulk of the cast was gay, with two notable exceptions... one was the main character, the other was the guy who played the gay male stripper.

Nothing is funnier than hearing a very attractive guy pretend to be gay. Particularly when all of his lines are stereotypical, and yet he sounds so... buff.

Anyways... now for the eye candy. I haven't shot a pic of my mother in the sweater yet, but I modeled it. I love the way it turned out. Very light and fluffy!

Moving and Flooding and Knitting (oh my!)

2008-06-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

No, I have not been on a two month bender.

(I can hear the chorus of *snap!* awwww.... now)

I hate moving, so the drive from Vermont to Wisconsin meant less time for internet more time to packing and even more time spent pacing, going "But I don't wanna move, Charlotte, I don't wanna!"

And when I got back to Wisconsin it welcomed me with... rain. Alot of rain. Feet of rain.

But now we have the sump pump merrily chugging the last few inches out of our basement. Wausau came through pretty well, not all that much flooding (though I can't say the same for a few hours south >.<)

So tonight we have stories. The story of Mother's Mother's day sweater, the yarn stash, the ultimatum, the ongoing pile of hats, and the Manly Scrafghan! (I feel like a TV announcer for a teaser.)

And so many blogs to go read. It's like a big ol' treat :D

29, bay-beh!!

2008-04-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

OK, drunk blogging again!

I do this so rarely, it's like a hyperactive treat!!

29 today! Opened SHOW! The actors didn't know I was turning 29, so when they found out afterwards they *all* bought me drinks. Alot of them. Yikes! Yee haw. SO many I had to get a ride with the painter. Yee.

So.... I have alot to blog about. Hats. Sweater progress. Theatre.

Must. Blog. While. Sober.

I need another goblet of water.

Crocheted Beanis got a great reception tonight. For some reason it makes people bust a gut. Awesome.

I need to go to bed.

I love everyone right now. Yeah. Head spinning. More water. Bed. Yeah.

Peace,

PSG

Sweater Progress, a Renegade Hat and Kink.

2008-04-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

One of the best feelings in the knitting world is the feeling you get when you three needle bind off some shoulders, because it means you're done with a whole big chunk o' sweater! I love the body of the sweater. Light, soft, warm , and it even actually fits!! Unfortunately in my world it also means you have to cast on for the sleeves.
I have decided to venture into learning something new, and will work both sleeves at the same time. The only problem with this is that I have a limited stock of 40" needles. I have a size 7 in Addi Turbo's which the bulk of the sleeve will be knit on, but the start needs to be knit on 5s. And I only have 5s in Plymouth Speedway. The cord of my Plymouth Speedways has more kink that Hugh Hefner in a whipped cream factory, so knitting is less than pleasurable. (and, yes, I have boiled/heated and otherwise tried to soften the cord in every way possible.) I can't wait until I have enough rounds to change to needles thta won't fight me every step of the way.

Road Trip!

2008-04-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

There are very few things on Earth that would possess me to get my butt out of bed at 8am on a Saturday. They must be Earth shattering (like a fire... in my bed) or tantalizing (like a sci fi convention). Or maybe they just have the right words in them.

This one started with "Road Trip" continued with "through lovely rural New Hampshire" and ended with "woolen mill". Somewhere between the beginning and the end the magical word "yarn" came up.

That's the point where my mind did a complete 180 degree turn and I went 'bwuh-huh?' That word required more explanation.

     "Oh, it's the Harrisville Woolen Mill" the lady organizing it said. "They spin their own yarn and they are having a sale." Uh huh. yeah. Now I'm listening. "It's in their old mill building where they have knitting and weaving and spinning classes, and their studio had hanks of their yarn, plus cones and wool by the pound and..." She said alot more, about how they carried Vivian Hoxbro kits and did things with her shadow knitting, but at that point I had really tuned out, and I was already planning on how in the world could I get the day off from work.

It ended up being just as easy as saying "I'm taking Saturday off." With phase one accomplished, he meticulously planned phase two: get up in time for the road trip. I am pleased to say phase 2 went off without a snag, so let's just skip directly to the part everyone likes, right? Pictures and yarn!

The drive was wonderful. What looked like it was going to be a foggy, rainy day, broke into a fully day of warm spring sunshine. It was, in a word, radiant. The trip was smooth: drive on the highway south to Keene, and then on back highways past little towns until you get to Harrisville. Harrisville was one a small rural settlement in the middle of nowhere that was built around a mill in the late 1700's. Over 200 years later and it is... a small rural settlement in the middle of nowhere built around a mill. It is gorgeous. I would move there in a heartbeat. If I had a job, that is.

This is basically the downtown. The white building the the general store, which is alive and thriving, and sells, well, everything you might need. It's pretty much one of the only stores around, so unless you're taking a trip to one of the larger cities, people shop here for their day to day needs. On the far left you can see a large brick building - old dormitories for the mill workers, they now serve as dormitories for people who take classes and seminars though the millworks spinning, knitting and weaving programs. I would love to take a class like that someday.

The studio is in the old mill building, which is built directly over the river (which provided the mill power). You can hear the rush of the water in the building. People always mention it, and some tourists ask if that's "the air conditioning going off?" After you get used to it, it is wonderfully comforting.  (yup, here's a picture of the water, running under the mill buildings!)

And then there is the yarn. I suppose by some yarn store standards there isn't alot of yarn, because they only sell a few things that aren't their own yarn. But that's OK. Their yarn is pretty breathtaking. That, and they helpfully offer to get any quantity you desire if there isn't enough on the shelves. I found plenty on the shelves. This is their New England Shetland - enough of it to die and go to Fair Isle heaven.

(And if you're asking what's so cool about this yarn, what do they make with it, well, here's one of the patterns I have seen recently made with Harrisville New England Shetland. Drool!)

So then comes the question... did you buy anything?

I, being of extreme self control did not... aw, hell.  It was on sale. I sure as hell bought yarn! I did get out of there with under $100 of yarn (a feat most others could not claim) but I bought yarn for that vest above, as well as two more skeins of wool and flax, to beef up the two I already had (which will become a vest! A lovely vest!) and a skein of silk and wool for my yarn swap partner through ravelry.

Did I mention I'm going to make that vest up there? The Eunny Jang Ivy League vest? I want to run around in circles and squee! But that would probably make my roommates try to commit me, so I'll settle for lounging in the sun.

Sweaters, Sweaters, Sweaters!!

2008-04-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

So, I decided to make my Mother a sweater for Mother's Day.

I don't know why this suddenly struck me as the best idea for a Mother's Day gift (besides the fact that I'm completely addicted to knitting...) but something gnawed upon my brain and said "knit her a sweater!"

Now this isn't the first sweater I have knit, nor the first sweater I have knit for my mother. The first sweater I knit was following the "Skully" pattern form the Stitch N' Bitch book, but I didn't use Lamb's Pride. No, I use some other Mohair mixed with Acrylic, and bound together with a thin nylon thread.  I can't remember what it was called. Not Moonlight Mohair - something else strange sold by Jo Ann's. It was distinctly... furry. Not like fun fur, mind you. It looked fairly innocuous on the ball. But the Acrylic was brushed to be fuzzy, and the mohair was fizzy and it had a sort of almost boucle type texture from the nylon binder, so all in all it ended up looking like I was wearing a beige shag carpet when I was said and done.

     I normally take pictures of these disasters and share them gleefully, but I have to admit that when I moved away from Oregon, I (ahem) conveniently forgot to bring the shag carpet with me. In fact, I think it accidentally ended up in the big "Donate your clothes to the homeless" bin. And I feel sorry for the homeless person who ended up with it.

Anyways, the sweater I first made for my Mother was called the "Bookworm Tunic" from the Better Homes and Gardens Hip Knits book. I made that one out of a lovely shade of muted brown-purple Cotton Fleece from Brown Sheep. It turned out very nicely, and distinctly not furry. She still has it, so I'll take pictures of it sometime.

The problem was I made the size small, 36 inches. My mother is quite small, having about a 35 inch chest. But the finished sweater didn't have much stretch (cotton tends to do that) and she felt it was a bit too snug overall.

So, I was on a mission to find the perfect sweater for my mother and make it in a comfy size that was big enough without being too big. So when I was shopping in Newport, NH (In a store called Hodgepodge, which is a lovely romp in the yarn type of place) I found an older copy of a Dale of Norway pattern book. And I loved every sweater in the book, so I bought it. The sweater I loved best was this one:

It is called "Gerbera." It's made out of a yarn called "Sisik." I wanted to know more about this yarn, so I called up the information on Sisik. And from the Dale of Norway site, I found out that it was... discontinued.

That's ok, I never use the yarn the pattern calls for. So with weight and such in hand, I tromped off to the LYS and started looking for a substitute.

Here's where we got into trouble. Sisik is an unusual yarn. It is 30% wool, 30% mohair, 34% acrylic and 6% viscose. That's an... odd combination of fibers. It is also an unusual weight, falling somewhere between a sport weight and a DK. It is also extremely light, and I was afraid a physically heavier yarn like the Kathmandu DK that was available would make the sweater unbearably heavy. There aren't many yarns I found that would substitute for it. At least not in my little town. I needed more information on this Sisik.

So I went to the web's greatest source of weird knitting lore. Ravelry. And I typed in Sisik, which brought up pictures of the yarn and the label.  I recognized the bird on the label. My jaw dropped open. I had that yarn in my stash.

     6 balls of "pewter" (a light gray) to be exact. I had bought them from the Herrschnerrs outlet store from their big "Hey look, discontinued yarn, cheap!" bin. Serendipity? I had half a sweater sitting right in my bedroom. Now to find six more skeins of a discontinued yarn.

     I didn't get alot of choice of color, but the choice I did get was good. 6 skeins of Navy Sisik from LittleKnits.com later and I was off and running.

Oh yes, and I chose to knit the medium (39") instead of the small (35") chest size. If this sweater ends up too big, I will beat my mother (kindly, of course) with it.

But she does look smashing, so far, no?

Life, Hanging in the Balance....

2008-04-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

Either that is the start of an emo-poem, or the latest round of hatly violence has taken a turn for the worst.

And since I am rarely (if ever!) emo, lets move on to hatly violence.

Monday, March 31st was a blur of orange yarn and crochet hooks. The newest Yarn Smackdown pattern was released at 8pm EST, and I was determined to finish it before I slept.

Called the "Divine Hat" by Sarah Arnold, it's a lacy little crocheted beanie. I whipped it up in just over two hours, and was on the bottom ribbing when I noticed that I had made a mistake. Not a weensey little mistake, mind you... a big honking, "I read the pattern completely WRONG!" mistake.

In my defense the pattern is white type on a black background in 8 point font. Despite the fact that my monitor is big, the resolution made it darn near impossible to see. So I dug out my glasses, re read everything, consulted pictures of finished and more divine hats than mine on Ravelry and figured out that yes, in fact I was a blithering idiot.

So at around 10:15 or 10:30 pm, I ripped. And ripped, and ripped. I ended up with this:

So sad. I could only save the first 3 rounds. I took a break, got some chocolate and some Diet coke, sat back down and began to crochet again. It went faster this time, and I got the hat done a smidge under 1am, finishing and everything. That's OK. I cannot physically mail anything earlier than 8am because no freakin post office around here (that's within 50 miles) is open anything other than 8-5 (ok, a few are open 7-4, and if I wanted to drive all the way to Concord NH there is one that is open until 6) Point being these mystical things called 24 hour post offices are mythical and legendary in the snowy fields of Vermont. So I was pretty happy with myself and I mailed it very early the next morning.

Well, my opponent also mailed hers early, if not the night before (She does live in a place where there are mythical magical late night post offices. Lucky punk!)

She mailed hers Priority. I mailed mine Priority.

On Friday both hats arrived.

As of right now we don't know who is alive or who is dead.

On the bright side I got lovely natural soap with a nice hat! So if I die, at least I'll be clean and smelling good.

The Alphabetical Death March.

2008-03-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't been knitting much lately. I was supposed to start on a sweater for my mother; but that has gotten pushed back and back. Then again I haven't been blogging much lately either.

So that begs the question, what exactly have I been doing?

Oh, such a bad question for someone who works in theatre. I have been working on a play (as is to be expected) and that play is currently The Elephant Man. Yeah, the one about Joseph Merrick, who suffered from elephantitis in Victorian England. Actually it's a very good play. Not one for the squeamish, but very well written.

Anyways, the play has titles for every scene. Usually, if a director wants to show the audience the titles, they are projected on a back wall or screen or some such with a slide projector. But our theatre doesn't have enough space to project - the images cannot be sharpened. It also had the problem of being an intimate space, so you can hear the constant whirr of a projector fan. So what is the solution? Make title cards.

Now this would have been a fine solution had someone gotten around to deciding what those title cards needed to look like in a reasonable amount of time, instead of waiting until the last minute. Or if someone decided that we had enough budget to print out the titles on large format paper and simply spray glue them to cards. But, no. They decided we had to print out and tape together stencils, and then cut out the letters, so we could stencil the titles onto cards.

Ever hear the adage: "Cheap; Fast or Effective - pick two." That's theatre to a T. And we already has cheap and fast down, so honestly the signs look rather like ass; but they are readable so I'm not complaining.

This is me, dead in my tracks, after fifteen straight hours of sign cutting. With piles of theatrical junk all around. Glamourous job, no?

Anyways, let me show you the aftermath of almost 21 straight hours of sign cutting (with some sleep and a bit of food in between parts of it). There was one point where it was 10:30 pm, I had seven signs left, and I put on some techno and set my brain on autopilot. For three hours I became a letter cutting, diet coke fueled machine! Yeah, bay-bee!

Here is the weapon of choice, an exacto knife, with the backup of a pack of 100 number 11 blades. Yes, you know you're in theatre when you buy exacto blades in packs of 100...

But look how many blades this project used!!

And the carnage of my workstation. (messtation??)

Look at all them letters! I am incredibly glad that's done with.

I cast on a hat during this whole mess. A plain old beret. Because I desperatly needed some idiot knitting to get me through!

Technical Difficulties and Kicking My Blog's ass...

2008-03-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah, there was some technical difficulties.

It's not they we're dumb... it's that our internet connection sucks and we're not patient.

So ignore the weird strange multiple posts. These are not the droids you're looking for...

*waves hand, goes back to knitting*

Every Single Time...

2008-03-26T23:21:00.005-07:00

So, lately every single time I end up at a knitting meeting, a Stitch N Bitch or a hat club knit along, the same music seems to be playing on the radio.

Now seeing that I live in bustling, historic downtown White River Junction (heard of it? didn't think so. I have figured out when a town needs to bill themselves as 'historic' that translates into 'we don't have anything else good to say about us, so we'll bank on the fact that we've been a boring little town for a reeeeally long time...') there aren't many radio stations to choose from, so the one oldies station seems to be a safe bet for most people.

Therefore the oldies station is usually what's playing. And every single time I sit down to knit, the *same song* comes on. Every single time!

I like the song. I really liked the song before it started stalking me; and to make things worse, it makes me want to dance. So I'll start dancing while getting coffee or picking out yarn, which greatly amuses the rest of the knitters around.

So now it's become a joke of sorts to see whether or not the song comes on, and if I'll get funky wit' my bad self.

So, you can share in my pleasure and pain. The video even has bonus psychedlic 70's special effects! I hereby present to you the song that has been stalking me, the schmoozy dance hit of 1974, and the man who screams "I got a mullet!"

Mr Andy Kim, "Rock Me Gently"

Hats, hats and more hats.

2008-03-24T15:33:00.001-07:00

I have a backlog of hats to blog about. That's partially because I have not been blogging as much as I should and mostly because I have this hat knitting obsession that I should really address at some point.

So, without further ado, I present to you...

(cue theme music)

Hats!

We'll start with the Nomad Hat and Scarf (which I call a harf, because: A. it sounds funny, and B. gets people asking 'did you mean 'harf or were you hocking up a hairball?)

Well, I love the idea of a hatscarf, and let me tell you, man is this sucker warm! Though I don't think that many respectable nomads would choose the colors I chose.

Yup. Lime green and bright pink. I used to have a nailpolish that exact color of pink and my mother wouldn't let me wear it to middle school because she called it 'prostitute pink.' I remember my Aunt buying both the prostitute pink and a prostitute purple from Avon because the color they had printed in the book was far more muted.

Anyways, I chose the colors, not because I have an obsession with wickedly bright colors. (ok, wait, I do have an obsession with wickedly bright colors. I'll admit this.) (But I'll deny it later ;-) ) But because I was at a yarn swap with some older ladies and one brought out these two skeins of lime Lamb's Pride Bulky with the statement, "I don't know who would ever want these..." and while most everyone else sighed and shook their heads, my eyes lit up like bubble lights on a Christmas tree (effervescence and all!). Well, I got the two skeins, plus the skein that 'went with them' - the pink. Funny thing was, the more I looked at the skeins all together, the more I decided that they really did go together. And so the Watermelon Harf was born. I have to make another one of these in far more muted colors for my aunt who always complains that her ears are cold during the blustery Wisconsin winters.

And as an added bonus, my swinging the tails of the scarf behind your back, you can pretend you're a superhero with a scarfy cape. Ok, maybe you won't but I will. :D

(heere she comes to save the daaay....!)

I also had leftover yarn, so I knit up a pink radioactive pirates hat. I finally figured out that I have made enough of these for now. I printed off the pattern and didn't use it once until I had to check which row the decreases started. When you memorize a fair isle pattern, it's time to find a new one. Anyways, this one is stranded not woven as an experiment and needs a block, but is otherwise a dandy hat. Yay. I said dandy.

And I finally jumped on the bandwagon (shown by my somewhat manic expression in this picture. ether that or the caffeine just kicked in...) and knit up an 'Unoriginal Hat' from the YarnHarlot. I need to knit a big hat and send it to Kim since the others didn't fit her comfortably, This one is pretty big. I'm also going to knit up a Foliage hat in the biggest size I can to see if I can get one that's comfortable for her.

Now I'm on to a sweater, so no more hats for a bit. (who am I kidding. I can sneak some hats in my queue, right?)