Sadness Chez CraftNinja

Treat me kindly, my beloved friend for no heart in all this world is more grateful for kindness than the loving heart of me.

Do not break my spirit with a stick for though I should lick your hand between blows, your patience and understanding will more quickly teach me the things you would have me learn.

Speak to me often, for your voice is the world's sweetest music, as you must know by the fierce wagging of my tail, when your footsteps fall upon my waiting ear.

Please take me inside when it is cold and wet for I am a domesticated animal, no longer accustomed to bitter elements.

I ask no greater glory than to have the privilege of sitting at your feet beside the hearth.

Keep my pan filled with water for I cannot tell you when I suffer thirst.

Feed me clean food that I may stay well, to romp and play and do your bidding, to walk by your side, and stand ready, wiliing and able to protect you with my life, should your life be in danger.

And my friend, when I am old and no longer enjoy good health and sight, do not make heroic efforts to keep me going, I am not having fun.

Please see that my trusting life is taken gently.

I shall leave this earth knowing with the last breath I draw that my fate was always safest in your hands.

Author Unknown

A year and a half after coming home with me from the rescue, my little Lulu has left me. Regular blogging will return next week.

How CraftNinja got her groove back

My knitting yesterday was so much more pleasant than it has been! I didn't feel weighed down or rushed to finish anything. Isn't it funny how much mental pressure we can put on ourselves? When I stopped trying to "let go" and just decided to work within my own neuroses, everything got much better. I spent last night working on the mystery stole, and got about 9 chart rows done. I brought both the ruana and Veronique with me tonight to knit one or the other at choir - probably the ruana. The mohair is too prone to leap off the needles to be worked on while managing other stuff in my lap. I can work on Veronique at the SO's afterward while I wait for dinner to be ready.

I also have yarn on the way for a Featherweight Cardigan. I'm using KnitPicks Shimmer in Lilac Dream. It's an alpaca silk blend and I think it will be perfect for days when the office air conditioning is a little overambitious. If I have enough yarn, though, I will make the body longer. The cropped look never really flatters me. I ordered an extra skein so hopefully I should have plenty.

I think my needles are on fire

SO MUCH KNITTING this weekend. Friday night, I knit on the moody mansock during my game time and I finished the first sock. Saturday morning, I sat down and finished my sweater. I even sewed the underarm seams and wove in the ends. That afternoon, I cast on for Veronique and by Sunday night I had around 8 inches completed. Monday, the SO and I went for a drive down Skyline and had dinner in our favorite restaurant from when we were in college before heading back. I took the panda socks and the three-scarf ruana, figuring I would knit on the panda socks until it got dark and then knit on the ruana, which I don't need to see. Unnecessary! We got back just before 8 p.m. and it wasn't dark yet. I finished off the sock before I went to bed that night.

It felt really good to get some longstanding projects off the needles. The panda socks took me almost two months to knit for no good reason except that I was loaded down with other projects and some neuron in my brain refused to fire, so I never got the pattern memorized. I needed the pattern for the start of every round for some reason; once I got started on the round I was fine, but I couldn't seem to remember how to begin each round. Very annoying, but not the fault of the pattern at all. Just me.

Now that my #1 needles are free (or, at least they will be when I kitchener the toe tonight, I saved that for a more clear-headed moment) I really need to get a move on on the mitts for my mom that were supposed to be done ages ago.

The sweater is, as I feared, really too big for me. I'm sorry, I meant to say, the sweater has a lot of ease. Also, the sleeves are so long they come down to the first joint of my fingers at least. That's the only part that really bothers me, but there's no way to fix it unless I were to frog the entire yoke, and then frog and reknit most of the sleeves. I could just unravel them from the hem (or just cut them off, rejoin the yarn and knit down, I suppose) but...I'm fine with being done. It's still soft and comfy and I'll just wear it like it is. It does need to be blocked before it can really be shown in public, though, there is a discernable line where I started the yoke that I hope will come out in blocking. The part below the line is the stuff that had previously been blocked, and the stuff above the line has never been blocked, so it stands to reason that if I am lucky the line will even out with blocking.

But, now on to lighter and airier things. I'm knitting Veronique out of the discontinued Rowan Kidsilk Night in colorway Oberon, which is sort of a smokey grey with a touch of blue. The metallic thread in the yarn is a little rough running between my fingers - I wrap my yarn around my first three fingers so it runs between my ring finger and my pinky, so the metalic bit scratches right along that little soft inside area of my finger. But, it's not too bad, I'm okay with it. This garment has been a thousand times less frustrating than the Moonlight Sonata stole, leading me to believe that I did in fact make a poor choice for the yarn on that one, and I'm right to give up on it. In simple stockinette, the yarn is much easier to work with. I'm not saying I wouldn't use it to knit lace - I just wouldn't use it to knit lace that requires stitch manipulation more complicated than your basic decreases (it was the funky increase used in the midnight sonata shawl that really got me).

I've also given up on the Water Turtles Shawl. I don't like it. I like both the pattern and the yarn just fine, but I don't like them together. So that project is going to the frog pond.

And just like that, I'm back down to a manageable number of projects.

And...just like that, I'm really tempted to start more. I've been waiting for Pink Lemon Knits to come out with her new pattern, and she finally has: Flamenco. I have two skeins of the same yarn she used in a different colorway that have been sitting in the stash since the early days of my knitting career. I do kind of love the color she used, though - one of the lifelong issues I struggle with is that the colors I love to knit are not necessarily, or do not entirely encompass, the colors that look good on me. I'm not a big fan of bright colors, but I do look really good in red. I have compromised in the past by looking at yarns in the burgundy type range, but the two skeins of Suri Blue that I have are in Ruby, which is by no means a subdued red. It's perfect for the theme though. A flaming red flamenco flourish!

But, I will hold off as long as I can, to keep the guilt of unfinished projects from watering down the pleasure of a new one. I know that there are no knitting police, but I have tried it both ways, and I really think that it's better to live with the anticipation than to try and do too much at once.

Since I have no knitting pictures to display all of my projects this week, I will leave you with a picture from our drive yesterday instead:

Sleep is a curse

I am so close to being finished with my sweater! I don't know what it is - that first diamond took sooooooo looooooong but now they are whipping by. I knit as fast as I possibly could last night, but I couldn't finish. Around 9:30 I stopped to take stock of my progress. Maybe, just maybe, if I stayed up late I could finish. This is a dangerous tactic, because my propensity for mistakes increases drastically with the lateness of the hour, but it would be worth the risk to be done. I have plans for the rest of the week so I wouldn't be able to work on it until Saturday at the earliest.

"How much more do you think I have to go?" I asked hopefully, showing the chart to the SO.

"Hmm," he said. "You started here tonight?" I nodded anxiously. "And you're here now?" Nodnodnod. "Well, I'd say you've probably got another four or five hours."

"What?!" I grabbed the book back and stared at the chart. "No way! Look how small that is! And there's decreases at each diamond so the rows get shorter!"

Sadly, his math-fu defeated my knitter logic as he pointed out how long it had taken me to go from here to here and therefore how long I could expect it to take to get me from there to there. I ran out of yarn for the night 10 minutes before Deadliest Catch was over, so I gave up, watched the rest of the episode (Jake! You are breaking my heart! You were so happy and excited and young and now you are so jaded and cynical and mean!) and went to bed. I think it should only take me one more ball of yarn to finish, so I'll wind it sometime this week and hopefully finish this weekend.

I have been doing a lot of yarn surfing this week. I'm not officially on a yarn diet anymore but I am trying to maintain some degree of self control, especially since I already have plenty of stuff to work on. I am enamored of Fly Designs at the moment. It's definitely on my 'yarns to try' list. I am especially pleased that they have a merino-tencel blend sock yarn. The last pair of merino-tencel (the blue embossed stitch socks) socks that I made were really nice and have worn very well. I've been on the lookout for that blend ever since but it doesn't seem very common, at least not in the brick-and-mortar stores around here. I still have plenty of sock yarn to go through so I am trying to be good, but the next time I need a fix I will be all over that. The colors are fantastic, too.

In order to keep my yarn-buying impulses under control, I've been looking at patterns instead lately. Whenever I find a pattern that I like on Ravelry, I fav it, and then when I am looking for a new project I go shop my favs. Once I've knit it, I take it out of my favs. However, I don't think all this pattern browsing is helping me. There are so many things I want to do! I have about 240 faved patterns to date. I have about 9 in my queue, 5 lace projects, 2 socks, and one pullover that I keep changing my mind about. I have about 1400 yards of Valley Yarns Northampton in my stash and I can't makeup my mind what to do with it. I'm thinking I would prefer a cardigan or something that would go over other clothes. Northampton is soft but I'm not sure it's next-to-the skin soft. Then again, I am kind of spoiled in the softness category. I'm thinking about Rogue, but I'm a little short on yardage. I'd need 1485 and I only have 1400 and change - and that's assuming none of the skeins are short. So, I'd be taking a risk. I'm not really sure it's a good one, especially considering how economical Northampton is. I could just go buy 7 balls and not be so worried. $35 plus shipping for security - not a bad tradeoff in my mind. So, that gets me a rogue hoodie but does not solve the problem of what to make with the Northampton I already have! Maybe Hey Teach? I'd want to make the skirt a little longer but that might could work. Hmmm...

Still Fevered

I had a very busy weekend and made very little knitting progress. I knit a little on the blue mansocks and I knit a little on the Water Turtles shawl, but not enough to be counted on either. I knit a little bit on the yoke of my sweater yesterday but I'm at the first decrease round and I got confused and thought I had done something wrong, and picked out almost two rounds before I decided that I hadn't done it wrong, or that if I had done it wrong, I hadn't done it wrong in the way that I thought I did it wrong, and then I was just confused so now I have to think about it again. Very frustrating.

My spring fever has also triggered my nesting instincts, which have taken the form of "geeze this house is a mess" so I've also been spending a lot of time cleaning and picking things up and trying to figure out what I can change so that stuff stops migrating to my loveseat, ottoman, and kitchen table. This all cuts into knitting time.

I also took a lot of pictures at the church retreat I just went to, which means I will need to spend some time post-processing and getting them on my church photos shutterfly site. I am not one of those people who has as much fun post-processing as photographing, so I've really been making an effort to get the shot as right as possible the first time so I don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But, there are still a lot of pictures and even if I only spend a little bit of time on each one, it will take me a while!

Spring Fever

I'm totally restless lately, but I seem to be managing so far to put that energy to good use. I've taken care of a lot of things that I've been meaning to do for a long, long time. One of these is - cleaning my craft room! I finally quit whining about it this past weekend and got a cheap, utilitarean set of plastic shelves and set them up. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, putting stuff away, and stacking the shelves with my papercraft materials. The difference is massive. I wouldn't have believed I could get so much done in one day. I thought it would be a week's job at least to get that place in order.

It's not totally finished. The stuff in the closet needs to be pulled out, evaluated, and reintegrated. I still have 3 bins of non-craft related stuff in the guest room that I need to find a home for in the craft room (one marked 'computer,' one marked 'office supplies,' and one marked 'misc). And, my working table is covered with all the little bits and pieces that either have a home in something larger but will take some time to put away, or that don't have a home at all.

I've come to the conclusion that I need a better method for organizing a couple of things. In my head, I categorize them as scraps, stickers, and string. Scrap paper leftover from other stuff, stickers and other flat embelishments, and different strings and fibers collected for scrapbooking purposes.

I keep my stickers in a Crop in Style PSB, and it works pretty well except that there's no backing in the pockets of the pages, so you can see right through them into everything below and it makes things confusing. I suppose I could hole-punch some plain white 12x12 paper to put in between each page. I'd also like to devide the stickers up by category, which I currently can't do because I don't have enough pocket sheets of every size. I'm using pretty much every slot I have.

So, things to think about, but at least I am making progress toward organization! I am so proud of the fact that I can walk from one end of the room to the other! I can go in there at night without fear of breaking my neck before I find the light switch! And, I'm feeling some enthusiasm for some of my crafts besides knitting, now that I have room to breathe and (almost) space to work!

Useless knitting is better than no knitting

We went to see the Star Trek movie this weekend, and needless to say, the yarn I ordered from WEBS did not arrive in time (I'm not complaining, they are totally taking a reasonable amount of time, I just didn't think to place the order soon enough).

So here I am, with absolutely no movie-suitable knitting, and a two-hour movie, and what on earth am I going to do?

I took my swatch. I need to swatch size 8, 7, and 6 at least so before we got to the movie I switched to the 7's, purled a row, knit a row with 7 yarnovers to remind me of the needle size, purled back across that row, and I was all set up for movie knitting.

Two hour movie, and a 50-stitch square of stockinette.

Yeah. Needless to say, this swatch is of a generous size. I actually put it down towards the end of the movie because I could feel that I was going to run out of yarn and I would either have to frog some of what I was doing or start a new ball for the size 6 needles. It was actually a really difficult decision, but I kind of hate knitting with Ramen-noodle-esqe frogged yarn, so I put it down. Fortunately, it was a really great movie, so I was only midly uncomfortable without knitting.

From now on I vow to always have a reasonable weight garter or stockinette piece for movie knitting. Meanwhile, my WEBS yarn is en route, which is good, because I still want to see Monsters vs. Aliens!

In other knitting news, this weekend was really busy so I didn't get a lot done. I did, however, get a lot UNdone. I frogged the yoke of my sweater as planned. I pulled out the yarn attached to the current ball by hand. I knew there was an entire other ball of yarn that would have to be pulled out, so I went upstairs, draped the sweater over a chair, stuck the end in my ball winder and just wound it right off the sweater. Then I took the sweater downstairs and frogged what was left.

I ended up frogging all the way back to the place where I had joined the sleeve. I hadn't intended to do this, but finally decided it would be the easier than trying to figure out when I had frogged enough and where the start of the round was and all that jazz. It was only two extra rows anyway. This turned out to be a very good thing because it was actually supposed to be 4 extra rows, but I was dumb and didn't realize (don't ask me how) that there was a different number for different sizes.

I've worked on the sweater some since then but I'm really sort of slogging along at this point. I'm ready for the sweater to be done. The weather's changing and it's warming up, so I'm not feeling the drive to work on it the way I did in the cold (strange but true). Also, it's getting heavy. I tried to work on it some last night, but I was watching the Caps game and had to switch to TV knitting when I missed two out of three goals because I stopped to count.

My WEBS yarn did arrive yesterday (one day too late for the movie! doh!) and I cast on for the Three-Scarf Ruana (rav link) and used that for my hockey knitting. I'm using Valley Yarns Northampton in a nice heathered light gray. Very pretty, utterly dull - perfect. 34 inches of garter stitch before I have to think at all. (I may be less excited about that 15 inches from now, but for now - thrilled).

The colrain lace and the silk alpaca lace are both very pretty and brought me much glee. But, I am doing nothing until I finish this sweater. I think Veronique (rav link) is up next. We'll see. I may not start anything else for a while, because I'm really feeling the lace bug at the moment. I want to get MS4 off my plate so I can start Hanami before the spring/summer are totally over.