Peaceful Knitter

Have you ever noticed a beautifully painted sign at a boutique type shop, the ones that say things like “Live, Laugh, Love”, “I Hope You Dance”, and “Simplify”?** Sweetie and I always laugh a little at the ones that suggest simplification while urging you to buy something utterly useless. The sentiment is well placed, however, and is something that I am trying to keep in mind this year.

I have been slowly culling my possessions, taking inspiration from the 7 Things project.  This involves putting serious thought into the possessions I have around me, both things I already own and things I am tempted to buy. I am asking myself  “Do I really need this?” before I buy anything, and I tell you: just raising consciousness like this has saved me mmore than a few bucks in impulse buys!

I have made the most significant simplifications in my yarn and book stash.  The first resolution I made  was that I would only buy yarn for specific projects.  Sock yarn is, of course, for socks, so I can and will buy as much as I like.  I get to go to Webs today as we are heading up there to attend a  Sarah Vowell reading.  It’s going to be a smorgasbord of sock yarn for me, as I am hoping to get my hands on some Malabrigo, Noro Silk Garden, and Dream in Color Smooshy.  These are all sock yarns I have not yet sampled but have been lusting after.  It feels better to  me to buy with intention than to just go hog wild and wonder what happened later when the adrenaline wears off!

My second area of simplification is books.  I am a bibliophile, and I love to buy, collect, attract, and stash books of all kinds.   I turned around last month and really saw how many books I have purchased that I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet.  I made a pile.  It was tall.  Then I made a pile of books that I had read and didn’t want to keep.  Also tall.

At that moment, I decided two things: 1. No buying books until I have read all the books in the first pile. 2. Do something good with the used books I no loger needed.  A friend suggested I look into Paperback Swap and it was a revelation.  You simply post 10 books to your account that you are able to trade.  As people request your books, you get a credit which you can then use to get a new book.  The only cost is for media mail shipping which is under $2.50.  Needless to say, I’ve gotten rid of many books, acquired a few I’ve been wanting, and have been reading a bit more than usual.

Thirdly, I feel inspired by the Wardrobe Refashion challenge.  The idea is to “…abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing [and] refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands…”  I like the idea of looking at clothes buying in a new way, as well as refurbishing some of my existing wardrobe.  I have been inteneding to buy myself a sewing machine for about 87 years now, and I think this is just the impetus to finally do so.  I dream of making my own skirts, hemming and change things I already own, and creating something new from something old.  Is anyone interested in taking the 2 month pledge with me?

So those are some of the projects going on around Peaceful House these days.  Unfortunately, I found out yesterday that there is not a bun in the oven, so that is no longer a work in progress.  For the time being, anyway.  Thanks again for all your well wishes and support.

Have a great weekend everyone!

**In the interest of full disclosure, I do have a sign that says Love Joy Peace over my front door.**

I took myself and the Baby Cables sweater out to Starbucks yesterday for a bit of a marathon knitting session. There were many chores at home to be avoided done, so before I left I switched the laundry over and made a shopping list, then grabbed my knitting and fled. Some days the bare minimum is all that can be expected when it comes to housework, don’t you think?

I had the pleasure of several brand new podcasts to listen to, so I  decided to sit and knit, drink a chai tea latte, and listen to Cast-On. It was during that hour that I fell miraculously and hopelessly back in love with this sweater.

After finishing the decreases at the waist, I decided to try the sweater on for the first time.  Not doing so before this point was a bit of a leap of faith, one I hoped not to regret.  When I pulled it over my head and shoulders and felt that wool/alpaca blend against my body, I just knew it would fit perfectly.

Seeing the sweater as a garment and not just a long-running work in progress has reignited my desire to finish it.  My new plan is to keep working on it this week to finish up the body.  Once that happens I will reconsider whether to start a new project or keep knitting away at the sleeves.  I am open to either possibility!

I have the best Sweetie ever!

After having a little bit of a bummer of a week, I had a very sweet surprise at my doorstep.  Sweetie “sent” me a care package full of goodies that taste, smell, and feel delicious.  Yarn, lotion and bubble bath, mini candy bars,  watercolor markers and canvas.  Plus a few letters that spell “Baa” for the craft room.  Fun in a box!

I’ve been wanting to try the Lion Brand Organic Cotton for some time now, so it was nice to see it in the box.  This is the Macadamia Nut colorway, and it is a beautiful, natural shade that I can see knitting up into a sweet cardigan or baby blanket.

This was a good weekend for knitting.  I got a few inches done on the stockinette body of my Baby Cables sweater, but I still can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I like the sweater and look forward to wearing it, but there are so many other projects I’d like to get knitting.

I keep breaking up the monotony by telling myself I can work on another project after I get through each progression on the sweater.  For instance, I’m on the decreases at the body, and when I finish that I plan on starting something else.  Probably the mate to my bubble gum pink socks.  Yeah, I think a little bright pink is in order!

Let’s get this weekend started off right with a finished object!

I cannot quite describe to you the level of elation, relief, and excitement I am feeling after finishing these socks.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy knitting them.  It’s not that there was anything wrong with the delicious yarn or the pattern.  I just had a hard time finishing the second sock!  I really need to try that 2 at a time thing again…

• Pattern: Queen of Beads by Sivia Harding for Blue Moon Fiber Arts (Ravelled here)

• Yarn: BMFA Socks that Rock lightweight in My Blue Heaven

• Needles: US size 1 (2.25mm) double points

• Mods: The only modification I made was to omit the slanted stitches on the top of the heel flap.

I would have liked to make the leg of these socks a little bit longer, about the length of an additional chart repeat.  But I read that if you were doing a size medium as I was, and you decided to do extra repeats, you may need another skein of yarn.  I have actually never finished a pair of socks using this yarn, so I wasn’t sure about the yardage.  After finishing the second sock, however, I had a ridiculous amount of yarn left.  I could have easily knit another pattern repeat on each sock leg. Grrr.

I also had plenty of beads left over, which was nice.  I did use the beads throughout the whole sock, somthing that was really a non-decision for me.  If I’m going to do this sock club, I’m in all the way, no questions asked!  They sit nicely on top of the sock, and the squishiness of the yarn really cushions them so that you don’t even feel them on the foot.

My other gripe about the pattern is the way it was laid out.  There are charts for each size, with text in between, and for my size I had to do a lot of page turning to read the pattern through and then to work from it.  This wasn’t a huge obstacle, but the first few times I was looking at the pattern, I had to be very careful I was using the right chart and following the right instructions.  And I think one of the charts was mislabeled…thankfully I saw a note about that on Ravelry before I got to that point so I knew what to look for.  Otherwise, it was a nice pattern to work with, and once I figured out what page and chart to use, it was smooth sailing.

And as for the whole sock club experience, I think I am a fan so far.  I joined this group to sample great yarn of course, but also to challenge myself with new techniques and patterns I may otherwise skip over.  In this pattern, I learned how to do a tubular cast on and how to knit with beads.  It is my intention to knit these kits as they come (unless for some reason I really can’t stand the yarn or the pattern).  It’s a fun, manageable challenge for me and I am already looking forward to the next package.

Dang, these socks are photogenic!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

It’s incredibly nice to find out you have been nominated by a peer you admire for a blog award.  Thank you so much, Knitting Siamese!  You should check out her beautiful blog for its stunning knitting, photography, and photos of a certain mischievous Siamese cat…

I’ve been thinking about who to nominate for the past day, and the more time I spend thinking about it, the more of my favorite blogs get nominated by others!  So instead of playing by the rules, I’m going to let you peruse my blogroll on the side.  These are the blogs that I read on a regular basis and they all offer something special.  Check out a blog or two that you haven’t been to before.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.  Consider yourself nominated, if you so choose, and pass on the love with these things in mind:

1. Copy the award to your site.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
4. Link to those on your blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

ONline Linie 12 Clip

I had a little bit of a stash infusion over the weekend, picking up yarn for specific projects I have in the works.  That’s my new modus operandi, by the way: buy yarn as I intend to use it.  So far so good, although I am starting to crave some new sock yarn as I have a trip to Webs coming up soon…

Cotton Ease in Taupe

Cotton Ease in Lake

These two might have something to do with a baby blanket for a certain sister of mine who is expecting her first baby in May.  Since she is a devoted reader of this blog and had infiltrated Ravelry, this will have to be a completely stealth project.  But I thought it would be fun to give her a little tease and show the colors!

I have a variety of projects in mind, and will be narrowing the list just as soon as I finish up some knitting housekeeping around here.  Damn all those wips that just won’t finish themselves!  Where are the little finishing elves that come out at night and knit a few inches on each project?  I swear I feel I am knitting constantly and yet nothing is coming off the needles!  I don’t know how some of you knit a pair of socks in a week, or an entire sweater in two.  I’ll be lucky to finish half a sock this week!

I have received a generous outpouring of kindness and support this past week, both in the comments and via email.  Thank you.  It has really made a difference for me during a very difficult time to go onto the computer and read your thoughtful, friendly, and often funny comments.   Your responses were welcome and much-needed.

From Sweetie

Unfortunately I have no finished objects to show you.  I had hoped to finish a sock this week, but a vicious stomach virus attacked me and I was literally unable to stand or sit up straight for two days.  Knitting was not, for once, at the front of my mind.  I did catch up on some great podcasts while I was laid up, among them Cast-On, Stash & Burn, and my new favorite, Craft Lit.

Heather Ordover does a wonderful job of combining literary discussion with her craft life, then plays a chapter or two from a classic novel each episode.  Since I just started listening, I jumped in with the most recent book, Jekyll & Hyde.  It’s fantastic!  I’m almost certain that I would find the text a little dry if I were reading this myself, but the guy doing the reading has a deliciously wry British accent that punctuates this Gothic tale to perfection.  The book seems to be wrapping up, and next will be The Scarlet Letter.  This is turning into a wonderful way to be entertained while knitting, walking the dog, or cleaning house, while at the same time getting a brief education on some classic literature.  Love it.

Now that I’m on the mend, I have been focusing my attention on finishing up the Queen of Beads socks from the STR sock club.  I’m about halfway finished with the second sock and look forward to grafting that toe closed in a couple of days.  Believe it or not, I have the opposite of Second Sock Syndrome right now, a syndrome in which I feel highly motivated to finish both pairs of socks I have lying around.  Maybe it’s more of that urge to spring clean, start with a clean slate or something. Whatever it is, I’m giving in to the feeling and getting socks off the needles!

It’s starting to feel like that time of year again.  We had a couple of slightly less frigid days that normal, and all of a sudden I remembered what spring feels like.  The birds were singing.  The breeze didn’t make my eyeballs freeze.  And for about a day I thought about Spring Cleaning, that mythical act of airing out and freshening up your home, office, wardrobe, stash, whatever.  I got about as far as washing my car and organizing my knitting patterns before I lost steam.  It’s just as well, because it got cold again.

But I did come away with a couple of things that got spring cleaned.

I took apart an old binder and re-purposed it as my new and improved knitting pattern library.  This binder now holds all the patterns I have printed out or purchased since I started knitting.  They are each housed in their own plastic protective sheet and are organized by anatomy of use, ie Feet, Hands, Head, etc.  it felt good to get all those papers tamed and accessible; and let’s not forget how much I love using my label maker!

As far as Spring Cleaning and knitting go, I whipped up one little FO but didn’t make noticeable progress on any of my other projects.  Most of my knitting time went to working on a sharps container cozy, a knit born out of the desire to cover this ugly/scary thing:

Before

This box is sitting on the back of the toilet in my bathroom, awaiting its daily needle disposal responsibilities.  Now I’m not typically a cozy person (although I have been tempted by all of the beautiful tea cozies over at Princess Pea’s), but thought it would be nice to cheer this process up a bit.

I went to my stash and pulled out all the little leftover balls of yarn that spoke to me.  I found bright pinks and greens, and a couple shades of purple.  I then grabbed a brand new ball of teal yarn to act as a unifying background color and set to work.  My design was nothing more complex than knitting with a strand of teal and another color held together until I felt like changing, then randomly grabbing a new color from my knitting bag.  I did this until it was long enough to wrap around the box, then finagled a 3 needle bind off with 2 needles and a cast on edge.  It worked, and I didn’t have to seam anything together!

After

• Pattern: Be a Happy Pincushion sharps container cozy by Me

• Yarn: Paton’s Classic Wool Merino in color 77734 “Too Teal”, 3/4 skein, and varying amounts of leftover wools.

• Needles: US size 10

• Notes: This method could easily be used to blend disparate yarns and leftover bits into any knitting project.

This was a fun way to use up some leftovers and to cheer up my surroundings.  When you have to give yourself daily shots, it’s nice to have something a little silly around to remind you not to take yourself too seriously.  I’m considering hanging up some Teen Beat posters and getting a hot pink Troll doll to finish off the look.

For those of you wondering what all the shots are about, here’s the brief update:

I am currently going through an infertility treatment called In-Vitro Fertilization.  The protocol is different for everyone; for me this means I am taking hormones to stimulate egg production and having blood work and ultrasounds done to monitor my body’s response.  In a few more days I will go in for an egg retrieval surgery where the doctor will remove all these eggs and then fertilize them in a lab.  If all goes according to plan, they will put no more than 2 healthy fertilized embryos back and I will get pregnant.

That’s the long and the short of it!  It means that I am tired and bloated and excited and nervous all at the same time.  I may not be blogging much in the next couple of weeks as this is an intensely personal process and I need to focus.  Rest assured that if I finish any of my knitting projects I will let you know!

I love my cat.  I love my cat.

I am reminding myself of this because we just had an Incident.  An incident in which I had an entire finely crafted blog post highlighted to change the font  size when one well placed cat paw touched the keyboard.  Gone, kitty, gone.

In lieu of trying to reconstruct it, I will give you the highlights:

Instead of knitting my second sock this week, I decided to tend to some other projects that were already on the needles.  Poof was one of them.  Once that was finished, I turned my attention to the oft neglected cabled sweater.  I started this beautiful knit back in December, but progress has been slow.  I got distracted by socks and scarves, while still feeling a strong urge to finish the sweater.  It’s going to be Spring soon, and I have to wear this at least once while it’s still Winter!

With a renewed sense of dedication, I knit almost exclusively on it all week.

Baby Cables & Big Ones Too

After all that knitting, I only just put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn.  This has been a black hole project: I knit and knit and feel like I’ve made very little progress.  Hopefully it will feel faster now that I’m onto the plain stockinette body.  Purling across every other row really slows me down!

Cabled Sleeve

I am loving how the cables are turning out.  This yarn, a 50/50 blend of wool and alpaca, is ever so slightly variegated within the strand that there is a lovely depth to the yarn.  A slightly fuzziness also adds interest, and it all makes the cables really pop.

I’m off to enjoy my weekend activities which include a double feature, a knitting class, and a doggy play date with Martha and her friend Hugo.  I hope you have a great weekend!

A couple of weeks ago I was taking my morning shower when I noticed the pathetic and disgusting state of my nylon bath puff.  It was coming undone and had long, floppy appendages of droopy mesh that I had to scrunch up in my hand when I wanted to use it.  And there was a suspicious patch of darkness spreading from the center where the cord was attached.  Time to say goodbye.

Instead of buying a new one, i decided I would try to knit a replacement from my cotton stash.  NutmegKnitter was kind enough to lend me her copy of One Skein which contains a dead simple pattern: knit a tube, knit some i-cord, combine.  I made it even easier on myself by knitting it using Magic Loop instead of on double-pointed needles and omitting the 19-inch i-cord.

• 

• Pattern: Knitted Bath Puffy by Leigh Radford from One Skein (rav here)
  

• Yarn: Sugar ‘n Cream in Landscape, 1 skein/120 yards
  

• Needles: US 10.5 circular
  

• Mods: I knit this in the round using magic loop. I knit until I only had a couple of yards left & cast off. Then I put the tail on a tapestry needle, folded the piece as directed in the pattern, and ran the yarn through the center. Then I turned the piece into a circular shape and wrapped the tails around and around the outside, using the remaining ends as a hanging loop. no i-cord needed!

This took a little bit longer for me to knit than I had anticipated, and I have been showering poofless for about 2 weeks.  Those beaded socks may have had something to do with it, I suppose.  In any case,  I am eagerly anticipating our first rendezvous this morning…

Come here, poof.  I’ve got plans for us.

Another component to hosting a knitting party is to invite talented and generous friends.  Everyone brought delicious vittles to share, highlights of which were the largest tiramisu I’ve ever seen, a caramelized onion quiche, delicious breads and cookies, chili, pizza rolls, and veggies with dips.   Mmmm…  And I have leftovers!

Lady’s Slipper brought Ravelry name tags for everyone, which was a huge treat. Nutmeg Knitter brought a book and some llama yarn for the raffle.  There were several other raffle prizes donated as well; thanks to everyone who brought something.  I think just about everyone went home with a prize!

Pixisis brought her stash of beads, many of which were handmade. She taught people how to make their own stitch markers, and some of us were fortunate enough to have her make them for us.

Turquoise beads were handmade glass, red and yellow beads are Swarovski crystal.  She doesn’t mess around.

We’ve been nagging at her for ages to set up an etsy shop to sell her beaded wares, so if you like what you see, go nag her here!

I may have to cast on a new project just so I can put some of these beauties to work!