two knits of ivory

This spring I fell off the deep end. I'm still making my way out. I hope to be back when I get there. In the meantime... Zombeh Kitteh Is In Yer Bed: Sleep iz hard Sleep iz really, really hard Rawr!

My ability to ignore the obvious is monumental sometimes. The irony in my last post about keeping things in moderation, while showcasing two large gift projects cast on in the same week, took days to grasp. Not the brightest bulb on the tree, I am. But moving right along, harnessing the willpower to clean out my knitting basket last month has finally borne its fruit. One of the projects I completed as part of this undertaking is a pair of cable rib socks in one of my most coveted colorways, Lorna Lace's Gold Hill (details ravelled ). Started as an easy Xmas travel project, on December 22, they lingered and lingered and then lingered some more on their needles. Almost two months passed before they were complete and when they were done, I questioned if I hadn't seen the last of any sock knitting for the forseable future. (I was pretty disappointed by this yarn. In more than one location I found what I believe are clumps of white nylon.) The ennui surrounding the project was ...

My mind's been laid up for a few weeks. Two days after my last post I succumbed to a full week with the flu (again!). This time it ended with a nasty mental diversion à la The Yellow Wallpaper . The idea of conversing with the world, even in the one-way medium of a blog, was anathema. Knitting was rare. Yet, my return to knitting was hindered not just by depression, I think, but a lack of motivation. It wasn't until I realized I should get cracking on some baby knits for a little bun in the oven of my husband's best friend's wife, that I was inspired to cast on and cast on with a vengeance. And so the daily knitting routine reasserted itself to much personal glee. In retrospect, my exclamation a few weeks back about streamlining my gift knitting was short-sighted. The bad choices I made in allowing the gift knitting to take over last fall was reinterpreted falsely. I am propelled, as a knitter, by gift knitting. Giving it up dried up my motivation to knit fo...

I cannot count how many times in the past two months I thought I finally was going to get ahead of the curve only to find myself behind a seemingly insurmountable mountain of work and life obligations. I'm in government finance and its budget season, so the forces in my world have been excessively engaging, at their best, and infuriatingly obtuse, at their worst. Ugh. But, you know there is an amazing silver lining, and one that I keep coming back to time and again. It's already February. That's right, February. I have been far too busy to even notice winter passing me by. Now, that is something to celebrate at chez yarn. Usually by the winter solstice, which is December 21st or 22nd, I am miserably counting down the hours and days and weeks and months left of the dark days of winter. This misery wallowing begins the moment we turn the clocks back. I'm in awe of how busy I've been to really, and I mean really, acknowledge the time of year. It's like ...

So about 10 days ago I wrote a post with the title "I can haz willpower...?" By the time I had a chance to proofread it, things changed. It was no longer a question, but a reality. The theme over the past two weeks has been more like I HAZ willpower! That's knitting willpower, not blogging willpower, silly goose. :-P Things in my life have been all over the place. As an aspy I thrive when my life goes along a highly regimented schedule. Since getting sick two days before my 41st birthday back in December, it's been everything but calm at chez yarn. Last Friday marked the beginning, it seems, of things really feeling on track. Not surprisingly, there's been a lot less yarn acquisition going on. One of my post-holiday goals is to clear out my knitting basket and not cast on anything new until I do. I figured it would take a lot of willpower to do, and as I've kept to my goal, making significant progress, I've decided that this must mean I am a font...

1. Mill End Socks , 2. Meaghan's Socks , 3. Seraphim Shawl , 4. Town Meeting Socks mistake heel , 5. Sarah's Socks , 6. Entrelac Scarf , 7. Shetland Triangle in the wild , 8. Embossed Leaves Socks , 9. Leaf Mitts , 10. Wide Leaf Scarf , 11. Wide Leaf Hat , 12. Apple Lace Scarf , 13. Dad's 70th Socks , 14. Herbed Carrots , 15. Digitessa Too , 16. Mobeius , 17. Blueberry Moon, I love this p2k1 ribbing! , 18. La Digitessa Socks , 19. Blue Wavering , 20. Electric Mitts , 21. Lime & Blue Cabled Hat , 22. Christmas Balls Socks , 23. LMKG Chevron Scarf , 24. EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket , 25. Baby Cakes Raglan , 26. Project Stole and Frizzy Hair. Woot! , 27. Cornucopia Socks , 28. Seal Rock Socks 29 FO's 13 Socks 4 Scarves 3 Shawls 2 Mitts 2 Baby Sweaters 2 Hats 1 Adult Sweater 1 Stole 1 Cowl Conclusion #1: More socks for me this year. Seriously. I gotta be more selfish about this. Conclusion #2: Relearning that I should never say never. One year ago, if someone wo...

The Shetland Shawl/hat/mitt project ended on as onerous note as all my other scarf/hat/mitt projects. Which is too bad, but easily, and happily, forgotten. Now that it's done I feel like I can breathe easier. Not only am I enjoying wearing these every_single_day (fangul you -6 degrees!) I can get to that gift project I started back in November, but had to put aside to complete my Christmas knitting in time. It's the lace scarf knit up in a lovely cocoa colored Bristol Valley Yarns. My new camera captures the color of the yarn beautifully. It's 80% Alpaca/20% Silk and splitty as all get out, but I think I'm finally finding my rhythm. I nearly doubled its size this week. (Photo below was before.) Speaking of my camera, I finally had a chance to take pictures with it outside and I had a rude awakening. All that success I've had with indoor photos is the extent of my knowledge with the camera. This puppy must be reprogrammed for outdoor light and, well, uh, I just...

I have been buying yarn, and then more yarn, then more yarn, and then, for good measure, even more yarn. I need to fess up. Maybe if I put my shame out for all to see I'll be able to control myself? But seriously. Why should I fess up? Why should I feel guilty? As long as this is free cash I shouldn't. The reason I do is because I feel out of control and that is breaking rule #1 at chez yarn. Control is everything. Isn't it? In November, a month or so after the US economy began it's trip to hell in a red, white, and blue hand basket, I stashed 32 skeins of yarn: 1. Knitpicks Felici , 2. Claudia Hand Painted , 3. Bristol Yarn Gallery , 4. Sheepaints lace , 5. Wollmeise Indisch Rot , 6. Wollmeise Suzanne , 7. Hangefaerbt extra fein , 8. Hangefaerbt extra fein , 9. Hangefaerbt fein , 10. Wollmeise Kurbis , 11. Wollmeise Miss May , 12. Knit Picks felici , 13. Queensland Katmandu Aran Tweed , 14. Cherry Tree Hill supersock , 15. DIC Strange Harvest , 16. DIC Butter...

Nothing makes this knitter more self satisfying than a month or so of gift knitting. As soon as I was done with the last of my Christmas knitting I went hog wild with the casting on. Over Thanksgiving I purchased six skeins of Queensland Collection Aran tweed at a "new to me" LYS, Knits and Bolts of New Haven, Vermont. The color card says pale pink (#141), but a better name would be pink granite. These were purchased with a project in mind, another scarf, hat, and fingerless mitten set. (I'm still catching up with the coat purchases I made this year and at the end of last winter.) My preference is for a lace scarf and after a couple of weeks of indecision, I realized the Shetland Triangle would be the perfect pattern. First, the pattern is so addicting and easy to knit. Second, I've taken to wearing both of my smaller shawls, the Sunshine and Shadows and the Shetland Triangle, wrapped around my neck, rather than my shoulders (scarf style, rather than wrap st...

The knitting and spinning has been slowed by health, work, and the demands of the holiday season. Washing the yarn I plied the week after Thanksgiving was on the todo list the day I first woke up sick as a dog, December 12. And todo it, I did. Not being right in the head has to be the reason I thought it was a very good idea to put all my newly plied handspun into the washing machine with a hat and scarf. (The second picture is one of the first I took with the new camera.) If I hadn't been preoccupied with wallowing in vat of self pity the size of a small island nation over being sick, I would have been crying myself a river, and then a sea, and then an ocean over the perceived ruination of all my hard work. The delayed hysteria gave me enough time to recall that when it comes to untangling things I have a freakish amount of patience. I originally wrote this around 12/18/08.

It's been a pity party for one over at Chez Yarn this week. Last Friday night I came down with a whopper of a cold and I am still fighting it six days later. My biggest complaint, once the sore throat faded on Tuesday, has been the lack of energy I have had in mastering the fabulous combo Christmas/birthday gift I received recently: The older I get, the more sympathy I have for the people who couldn't program the second generation of VCR's in the 1980's. I've decided that the human brain's capacity to absorb unwanted information is inversely related to their age. I reached my peak interest in technology in 2000. Since that date I have gone from being able to put a computer together to a wife who hands her husband any electronic device and asks him to "make it work." Faced with the idea of learning a whole new trade is daunting, but the source of much reward. I did not expect the range of color I found in these skeins of Wollmeise which I receive...