Ch-ch-changes

Ok, so after a bit of a hiatus I've decided to move my knitting journal over to my new domain. I believe I'll keep this one for other craftiness, since there's a fair bit of that as well.

I'll also be re-structuring my photobucket so that may break some links to photos here in the older posts. I'd rather that not happen but it's simply unavoidable because I can't find a darn thing in my photobucket now because of my haphazard (or lack of) use of albums. :P

All of this probably stems from some naive urge to once again attempt get organized. It would make sense to get all of my knitting stuff organized under one heading... one email address even. We won't even go into how many of those I actually have. It's absurd really. But the one I've been mainly using for years long ago became so cluttered with this 'n that, that I miss everything important now. All my knitting stuff, all my school stuff, anything with any validity or usefullness falls through the cracks. All the crap is readily accessable though, I assure you.

Of course, always one to get a little overzealous, I have delusions of registering my domain name again and tinkering in doing my own web design and such. Then it struck me how much I hated doing web design... enough that I quit and started going to school for accounting. Yeah, that much. So, it's probably a lost cause. But I still want the domain name. I'm not the most rational person in the world, occasionally. Lol.

So yeah, I can't even organize this simple posting but I'm gonna "get organized" dagnabbit and it's starting here. Or there. Whatever...
Lol ;P

Back in the saddle again

Well, I've finally been knitting again. Finally finished my Lady Eleanor last week but haven't gotten any pictures yet because my camera is dead and I can't find the battery changer. :(
Sock Wars III is underway. Been working on that the past couple days. I'm sure I'm behind but what the hell. I'd really love to at least finish my pair myself to send to my target, even if I'm killed immediately thereafter.
Tofutsies is a nifty yarn. I just happened to have a skein around that I picked up for another project that never got off the ground (and I don't think it was right for that project anyway), so I'm actually using the recommended yarn this year. *gasp*

Was hoping to have my mom's Knucks ready by Mother's Day but that didn't quite happen. All I have left is sewing up a few finger gaps but I got frustrated after I accidentally started sewing up one gap with the wrong tail the other night and had to put it down for a minute. Then Sock Wars started so it'll hafta wait 'til next week.

Hopefully I'll have some new pics soon. If I could just figure out what I did with that darn camera bag... :P

SOCK WARS III

Hooray for Sock Wars! I just signed up for the third round. Participated in the original but somehow missed the second war so I'm thrilled to have caught this one.

Sadly I have not been knitting much lately. Well, until the past couple days. One thing or another seems to come up or I keep misplacing all my WIPs. *sigh*
Kinda stressin' finishing up classes this weekend and have managed to sneak in a little super basic knitting and crocheting time. Once I get better organized (hopefully over the next few weeks) I hope to wrap up a couple *almost* finished projects and get crackin' or froggin' on my other WIPs.

Disaster struck the first sweater project... It seems one of the cats got ahold of the all but cast-off back and tore a nice hole so now I must frog back, splice, and re-knit. Discouraging. As is the fact that I was using a patter I printed from MagKnits so if I can't locate my original print-out, I guess I'll need to find a whole new pattern anyway. :(

and now I think I shall go eject my snoring dad from the recliner and get some knitting or crocheting done before I turn in. :) Tomorrow will likely be nothing but schoolwork so I should wind down and relax beforehand, I think.

Long time, no update...

Well the reason behind that is actually long time, no craft. :(
I haven't gotten back in full swing since my accident. It was hard to do much over the summer due to the broken hand and then my super stressful course load. Just after Fall semester started, my Season Affective Disorder started kicking in along with some other life stress (end of a relationship, death in the family, my mom having cararact surgery, money stress, etc). I ended up dropping my classes and taking some time off. You'd think that would allow me to craft again but alas, I just couldn't find the motivation. Or my tools. All my stuff is in complete disarray because that's just what happens when I get depressed and anxious. So I've been spending time getting all of that out of my system which involved me not being home much and sleeping most of the time when I was.
I also hurt my back on the world's most evil fold out couch a few weeks ago. I thought that being bed-bound for a week might allow me to start crafting again. I tried but apparently whenever I have another injury, my hand decides to act up again too. Luckily it seems to be the only time I have problems with it.

Anyway, today I'm starting the reorganizing of my room and my craft stuff in particular. Then tomorrow I'll be making my first trip to the LYS in months!! I'm so excited, even though I have to take my little bro with me again and he's not too keen on those trips. I haven't told him we're making that stop on our shopping trip yet, actually. Heh. I'll just take him to the bookstore first so he can get something to entertain himself with.

Since I'm so terribly behind and all my WIPs seem to be in varried states of distress, I'm not doing a lot of holiday crafting this year. It's just too late in the game for that.
Having said that, the one thing I have made prigress on is my dad's Gamecock socks (despide the shitty second half of the season... I'm a long time loyal fan so I've been through much worse :P) and I'd like to have those ready for Christmas. Also, my mom lost one of her Knucks so I'll be whipping up another pair of those for her. That's not so much of a Christmas present but I'd like to set that deadline for them.
I had really hoped to have John's socks done for him by now but they're not even started yet and they're fair isle (I've never done a whole fair isle project before) so that's not in the cards. We're not together anymore but we're still close friends and planning to do a Christmas exchange and I do already have the materials so the socks will come to be eventually. (What the hell else am I going to do with that hideous orange yarn? Lol. ;P)

I'll try to get a pic of the socks soon and I'm sure I'll have some pics after my shopping trip tomorrow. I'm so excited!!
I also reorganized the stash into big Ziploc bags so maybe I'll get a shot of that too.

Well, I better get busy. Much to be done and little time to do it in because I have an eye doc appt in a couple hours.

Oh! I almost forgot. The one big craft advance I made on my break! I'm now doing crosstitch as well. I'm almost done with one of the Subversive Crosstitch designs for my mom. Now I just have to find that WIP so I can finish it. And her pinking shears before she kills me.

Woohoo!!

I just bound off the back of my first sweater!
It ended up about an inch longer than I intended but hopefully everything'll turn out ok. I'll just have to make the front the same length and still try to get my short rows in the right place. :P

It's done!!

I finished the extra large SSS clapotis! :D Still about 2/3 of the ends left to weave in but other than that's it's done and ready to go. Woohoo!

I just finished the 5th repeat of Budding Lace 2. :) I'm also nearly through the regular straigt reps on the SSS clap.

Lace!

I finally started my Swallowtail Shawl today from the Fall '06 Interweave Knits.

I'm using KnitPicks Shadows merino in Redwood on KnitPicks 24" US3 circs. So far I have Budding Lace 1 and two reps of Budding Lace 2 done. :)

Sale yarn, the crazy blankie, and more

Alrighty, on with the pictures! I haven't posted any since I got my new camera. Remember, everything is clickable for larger versions. :)

Here's the obnoxiously 80's entrelac blankie. I think it shall henceforth be dubbed "the electric blankie." Caron Simply Soft Brites on US10 Denises.



This is my latest Clapotis. It's going to be a bit larger than the pattern. Caron Simply Soft Shadows on US8 Addi Turbos.

This is my latest haul. Picked this stuff up the same day of the hand incident so I haven't been able to do anything with it yet. :( It's just been sitting at my mom's waiting so I picked it up today. Left to right: Aurora 8 (3 colors), RYC Cashcotton, SWTC Tofutsies (for a pair of lacy gloves), and Cherry Tree Hill Possum Lace. Everything except the Tofutsies was 50% off!
Also found out that my fav semi-LYS now carries a whole bunch of new lace yarns! So exciting because they had only one kind before. Now there's at least 5 or 6 I can think of offhand. One is... MALABRIGO! Malabrigo LACE. *faints* It was soooo nice and soft. (And sooo not on sale. :P)

And just for the heck of it, here's me recently. Check out how long my hair is getting. It's about time it started growing again. I'm excited. :D

And now I think I'll go knit some more.

*ETA*
I did manage to find my missing WIPs, thankfully. Located the sweater, Malabrigo clap, and Lady E all hiding together.

Catastrophe... Hooray... and a smaller catastrophe!

Yes, I have meen MIA for quite some time now. :( Unintentional, I assure you. I broke my hand!! Broke two metacarpals in my left hand (pointer and middle) all the way up by my thumb! Don't ask. :P
So I was in a horrible ER splint for a week and a half or so, a full cast for two weeks, then half that cast as a splint for another three weeks. *whew* I finally got clearance to startusing it again this past Friday. I'm not 100% yet but I'm doing much better. (We'll pretend it didn't keep me up hurting last night and out of class this morning. :P)
So I can finally knit again! Hooray! I went to grab my Malabrigo Clapotis I started forever ago and enjoy the squishy soft goodness. But no! The bag I thought it was is only contains my failed first attempt where I ran out of yarn too fast on one side and the ball for the center piece. That's ok, I'll work on my sweater. Nooo! Sweater is MIA too! *@%^ #$*%!!

For now I'm off to investigate some stuff for my other project I'm restarting... Project Make Tiny Bedroom Liveable.
Then I'm going to pick up the yarn I bought the day of the hand-breaking. More on that later. :)

I just saw this and could not be more excited about it! I think Eunny will do great things for IK. Can't wait to see.

There's a big photo update in the works. New camera big. ;)

Thursday I'm heading up to Myrtle Beach for the weekend with my dad for a Miata-owners get together. I'm such a dork. I'll be sure to put the new camera to use there as well.

Hurty fingers!

But I guess I haven't forgotten absolutely everything about playing an instrument. :P I still have no rhythm though. Heh.
I've come back across some music I used to love in my search for tabs as well. That new order/regulation that made so many places take their tabs down can just suck my ass though. Seriously, it's a load of crap! I can at least understand some of the downloading song files stuff but fer chrissakes who am I hurting by practicing my (crappy) guitar skills by playing a tabbed out version of a song? Fucking stupid. That's what it is.

Well, I haven't gotten much interesting knitting done. I'm still playing catch-up on the part of the clapotis I had to rip out so that's nothing interesting to see.
So here's my favorite guitar and my bass:

Going to school in your underpants!

No, it's not a bad dream. Come to find out, my Bus. Math class is broadcast on the local cable channel so I am sitting at home in my pajamas, knitting and playing on the computer rather than sitting in class bored out of my mind because they're going over the last test. I'm so glad I didn't go today (and still get credit) because I just found out I got 100% on that test. :)
Unfortunately they show a gardening show next instead of broadcasting my Personal Finance class so I do have to go in for that one. Drat!
Hahaha... he's using my "scratch paper" from the test to show how to work the problems rather than writing it out himself. I must admit, my paper was pretty and well organized. Funny that my work is on cable though.
I pulled out my bass and one of my guitars this afternoon and played a little bit. Boy are my fingers tender now! That's the worst part about playing guitar. The necessity of calouses.
The only thing that would make this better would be if I could take a nap while they do the test and just wake up for the actual classwork. I can't complain much though.

Had to rip out an increase repeat or so from the size 11 clapotis. Forgot a yarnover and that would have spelled disaster later. It was easier to rip back than I anticipated. Always a good thing.

I think I might have a low grade fever. I'm overly warm. Enough that I don't really want to knit.

Man that nap would be nice.

MMMMalabrigo

What better pick-me-up when you're feelin' puny than deliciously soft Malabrigo merino?
I picked up two skeins of Col. China and one Pagoda last weekend. It's becoming a clapotis. A beautiful, soft, candy apple colored clap. Lovely. I feel better just working on it. Well, that and instead of taking my ADHD meds and doing housework, I opted for cold medicine, something for the budding migraine and wonderful wool. Did get the desk cleaned off and my painting supplies put away so the day wasn't a total loss.
Anyway, since I only have 3 skeins but want a large clap, I have been experimenting with needle size. Here's a shot of version 1 on Denise 10.5s. I'm now doing another version on 11s with the second ball of Col. China. I think I'll end up going with this one and frogging the first for the decreases.



Well, I think I'll check in on Craftster (I can't believe how long it's been compared to usual) and go back to my knitting.

*yawn* *sniffle* *groan*

Blargh. :P I feel like butt. Today it's my sinuses again but I've been generally dragging for a good while now. Getting next to no knitting done, totally worn out nearly 24/7, scattered, anxious, foggy... bleh. I haven't been to the gym in weeks. Haven't knit in a week and hadn't knit for a couple weeks before that. Horrible with checking my email. And simply cannot seem to make it to the post office during actual business hours. I won't even go into the six million other things that keep getting put off.
So there you have it. Or as much of it as anyone who's not me would care to hear about, I suppose.
The boy is coming over before work to make tacos. Mmmm... tacos. I will then be drugging up and getting some stuff done around here if it kills me. For a couple hours at least. It's a start.
Good thing last week was spring break. Too bad all the plans fell through.
Must.Not.Lay.Back.Down. :P
Improvements to come shortly. :)

How 'bout some pictures?

Here are a few shots of my modified-Fetching glovies. I added a thumb gusset because I don't know about you, but my thumb does not just jut off the side of my hand at a 90-degree angle. ;P Also shortened them a bit for my stumpy baby hands. Made in Patons Classic Merino on US4 Plymouth Bamboo DPNs. Took 3 days, start to finish but I really didn't work on them the second day.
For the record, it's hard as hell to get decent pictures of your own hands. I'm not sure I succeeded but here's my best try:

And an amusing shot of Snarf for good measure. ;)

My dog ate it!

When I got home from class last night, I found one of the boxes form my Secret Pal package in the floor with a chewed up corner. Didn't damage the cute snowman figurine but I was annoyed. We have one dog that likes to chew cardboard boxes and one who eats any and all things paper-y that she can get her paws on. After raising hell and kicking them both out into the yard, I noticed that other things were missing as well. Apparently they ate all my dark chocolate I was saving! Luckily everyone is still ok today. The one I suspect on that part (Sassy) has an iron stomach. That dog can eat anything, I swear. I also found my fine weight cotton yarn in the floor, sans ball bands. I started looking around for them and soon realized I wasn't going to find anything. Ball bands = Paper. Sassy figured this out so she removed and ate them!!! Didn't hurt the yarn, beyond a minor rustling up but damn. Ate the ball bands right off the yarn. Sheesh.
Needless to say, they'll be waiting outside when no one's home from now on. :-P

Very entertained by Dirty Jobs tonight. Got to see Mike Rowe shear an alpaca, spin, and help alpacas get it on. Lol.

I'm much less entertained by my complete inability to find a suitable fair isle pattern. I have three colors of Patons Clasic Merino I'd like to do something cute with but I can't find anything suitable. Everything is either more colors, fewer colors, wrong gauge or too much yarn. Dangit! All I want it a hat or bag or something. I'm having fun with my swatch but I'm eager to start an actual project with this yarn.

I guess I may end up attempting to whip something up on my own. I'm not sure how well that'd turn out though.

Well, I better get ready for bed. I still have homework to do tomorrow. Did well over half of it today but I still have a bit left. :P Then I have 6hrs of class.
Better get tucked in before the fire burns out. There's no more dry wood to throw on tonight. At least it's not 20 degrees tonight.

Mmm... fiiiire

Well, I haven't gotten around to that homework yet. Soon as I get off of here, I swear. Has to be done, unfortunately.

So what did I do yesterday? Lots. Really.

First I finally made the pattern row counters for my Secret Pal. Hope she likes 'em. I made larger ones and smaller ones, each in both a 4 and a 5 round rep.
Then I decided I needed something cute to put them in. Whipped out the Altoids-sized tins I've been saving (and the ones I've been using), picked up Mom's acrylic paints and got to painting. Haven't painted in a long while so this was quite fun. I've finished two, one with a monkey and one with a kitty. Have two with jujst the background color so far. One will be a fishtank and the other either animal print or paw prints. We'll see what kind of animal print idea I can come up with once I sit back down with it. Then I need to find a glossy sealer of some sort to finish them off.

Next I ate dinner, watched a bad movie and went through some stitch pattern books I hadn't really sat down with yet, Knitting Beyond the Edge and The Vogue Stitchionary 3: Color. It was really cold so I took a warm bath and read the Knit 'N Style Dec '06 issue my Secret Pal sent (thanks again). When I got out of the tub, my fire was dead so I was too damn cold to get to sleep. :P I have this HUGE thing against central heating and will damn near risk hypothermia just to avoid it (not that such a thing would be a real risk 'round here). My skin is exceptionally unhappy this week so it was definitely a bad idea. And I'm pretty much incapable of building or reviving a fire. Also couldn't find the wood, which didn't help. So instead, I wrapped up in a blankie and took on some Fair Isle for the first time!
In the end I'd had my first go with Continental knitting, two color stranded knitting (one in each hand), *and* the two-circ method! Not too shabby! Hehe. Also listened to my new CD about 10 gazillion times while doing all of this. I'm in love. ;)
Finally Dad got up for work and revived the fire so I was able to get some sleep. I'm still pooped in that didn't sleep much, bad sleep timing, kinda pukey feeling way but at least I didn't just watch bad TV all night or something.
Pictures to come soon. Stitchmarker thingies are rather hard to get a good picture of, come to find out. :P

And now I have to go do some insultingly simple math and dig through my much dreaded financial information for school. *sigh* I'd rather paint and nap but I do have class tomorrow so that would be very bad. I've put it all off too long already.

I need another fire. Brrr! Gotta make myself some fingerless gloves!!

Brrr... it's right cool here. S'posed to get down to the low 20's tonight!
It's been a good day. :) Got my final SP9 package (thanks, Debbie!). I also got the new Shins CD! Woohoo. I've been pretty excited about that being released. Can't wait to spend some time with it.
Then the boy took me out for lunch. Sushi! He made faces at me while I ate the seaweed salad and flying fish roe. Wasn't allowed to get any baby octopus though. He has this thing against watching anyone bite the head off of things. Heh. Mmmm... baby octopus.

How 'bout some pictures I've been meaning to get around to posting?

Here's my finished SWS Clapotis. I really need to knit this pattern again soon. I need a neutral colored one. I'm not sure what I'll made it out of yet though.

I'm not happy with this picture because the colors are total crap but I'm happy with the scarf. Another FO in line for blocking. Haven't gotten to show it to Mom yet, unfortunately. I'm anxious for her to see it and let me know what she thinks.
I think this pattern would be a good choice for my friend in WI's scarf she requested. Maybe in two different colors like the original Danica. I'm not sure about all those blasted ends though. Wonder if I could just carry the yarns through. I'll have to swatch that up.

Here's Lady E! 'Bout 1/4 into the third ball now. Please excuse the background here. My car was the only place I could find to lay it while trying to get a good shot in the sun.

Took this one for the Lime & Violet Sock Marathon on Flickr. This is my sock yarn collection, minus the skein of Bearfoot I missed. All 6.16 miles of it. Heh. I finally did frog the purple sock yarn Clapotis. I think I'm gonna go with the Pi Are Squared shawl instead. Not sure if I'll go plain or sinmple lace. That has been put on the back burner for the moment.

Okie dokie, time to clean off the desk and get some work done. Have homework for both classes and some pattern row counters to make. :)