two knits of ivory

I think the serenity prayer is one of handiest affirmations out there. God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things that I can; And the wisdom to know the difference. I am a woman of many compulsions. By the grace of fate, or god, whichever your inclination, substance abuse is not one of these many. True to my promise I did not buy yarn last weekend. Wednesday, though? I didn't fall off the wagon, I fell off a cliff. Sideways. With leaden boots. The first of my two transgressions are four different colorways of my newest love, Madtosh DK. (I haven't received the bounty of my second transgression, yet.) The colorway above is Burnished and is a reflection of my fascination with blue paired with myriad brown hues. My favorite in this family is the following, Terrarium: Funny story. Yesterday afternoon I was out on my bridge taking photos when one of the skeins fell in the crick. I nearly lost ...

Finally feeling like my orbit is back on track. Home for the Patriot's Day holiday. While Beantown is all about marathons and runners, I'm, as usual, all about me. I took some photos of a near ancient FO, Tidal Bloom, as well as some progress shots of my nearly finished raglan. It'a still hard to tell if the pix stink on this laptop, but I'm pretty sure they do. [EDIT 4/21/10: posted better pix] This quasi mistake rib scarf was knit with one of the first two skeins I picked up at the NH Sheep & Wool in 2008. And when I say first two skeins, I literally mean I walked into the fairgrounds saw this yarn and purchased it. It was my second festival ever, and I was still pretty green when it came to all yarn, and indie yarn in particular. But you know, I'm remembering this wrong. The first ever skeins that I purchased up in NH were from Ball & Skein, I think. This is from the dyer French Twist. It was after I had met up with Chris that I bought th...

April? Just a smidge betta than March? Okay, that's laying it on thickly even for my drama llama tendencies. I'm doin' pretty darn good, all things considered. And there are considerable things iterating. I haven't been knitting much. Once I birthed the two ideas, my knitting became fun again, with the demanding task master hibernating. All I've knit upon is my latest lace paneled raglan in the darker Cove colorway of the Tosh DK. I am in no rush to finish this sweater. This is a new feeling for me. Usually I'm so sick of the sweater at this point I'm doing marathon runs to get it off the needles. What's different this time? Well, it's my latest love, this Tosh DK, and this colorway. Depending on the light the color gives off a sun bleached hue, like so: In other light (and with the vagaries of my photo editing skills) it looks to be emanating a mossy glow: No matter what color it actually is, I don't want to stop knitting with ...

So it's March. Again. March came with a lot of tension and some of that tension was from a miasmic bout of creativity that manifested as a fulsomely clogged consciousness. A constipation of the mind, if you will. How else can I describe this? It's like I am mentally paralyzed until I start doing whatever it is that I am inspired to do. The second of the two new projects is really new to me. I'm designing a lace scarf using the ever so intriguing Day Flower lace panel. With the laptop I find it really easy to jot down ever step I make just in case I want to finally, finally, finally, maybe, make a pattern for public consumption. Public consumption? Interfacing with the publick? Maybe. The pattern needs definite tweaking but she is lovely:

So back to March. March. Yeah. Hmmm. In March I went to Vegas. It's not my kinda town, but it gave me an opportunity to take a helicopter tour of Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon. I much prefer the majesty of the naked earth to the glitter and glam of Vegas, its air diffuse with schmaltz, smoke, and despair. I don't know my Canyon geog, but I'm pretty sure we toured what is known as the west rim. The desert landscape was awash in what looked like green mold. We oohed and aahed over the fact that Vegas recently received a whopping five inches of rain. Little did we know , our basement was filling up with 18 and one half inches of water. Maybe even at the exact moment I took the above picture. 18 and a half inches. Oh March, first you murder Randy Rhoads when I was just a young bubelah, then you go and, well, you know what you've done over many, many years. Now this? March, you are so dead to me. Or not. Oy.

March was a unique month in my life. I am not sad to see it leave. We watched the first half an hour or so of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings on TV last night. It made me think of my attachment to size 2.00 - 2.50mm sock needles. I waxed so decisively on the lesson learned on January 17: I should stick to 2.75mms if I want to actually enjoy knitting a pair of socks. My ravelry project page indicates I started the Escape to Russet Moon Mountain socks on size 2.50mms on January 24. That is a mere seven days later. WTF? Are you there brain, it's me Morticcia? I didn't even consciously realize they were 2.50mms until I had gotten halfway through the foot bed. I kept contemplating why I wasn't as attracted to this project when the luscious Sundara sock yarn I'm using electrifies my heart and mind. And there is Bilbo, being mesmerized by the ring. But this is authorial fantasy. What, pray tell, is my excuse? My inner knitter has her own agenda? ...