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What do you blog about when you've been working on the same project for two weeks now?

What makes a knitting blog interesting? Is it all the yarn/needlework chatter, or the little extras that differentiate each blogger as individuals? There’s only so much I can talk about my current projects, but I feel guilty for neglecting my blog for almost a week with no updates. Perhaps a mix of both would work best?

WIP: Booga Bag / Cascade 220Well, on the knitting front at least, my Booga Bag is nearly finished–the knitting part, anyway. The colors are a bit more spring-like than late summer, but since I usually just put my bags on a shelf when I’m done with them, I guess it doesn’t matter all that much. I started the last color change last night, and as there isn’t much of that color left (or of the other two, for that matter), I’ll have to bind off very soon. I just can’t decide if I want a normal bind-off, or the i-cord bind off from the Little Coco bag. Hmm. I’ll also need enough left over for the i-cord handles. Oops. Maybe if I mix the leftovers of all three, I’ll have enough? Yeah, in retrospect, that was bad planning on my part.

I have done nothing in crochet since my last update; the bag has had all my attention this week. I even took it to the Red Sox/Angels game on Tuesday, although to be honest, I never took it out of my bag–afraid I’d miss something, I guess. It was also bloody hot until the sun went down. But I did work on it at my doctor’s appointment on Wednesday and at the hair stylist’s yesterday, while I waited for the bleach, and then the blue dye, to set in. (New blue! Squee! Except, it’s more of a purple blue right now, but it’ll fade and then I can make it my usual blue–new blue! Yay!) I did not work on it while I had lunch with my friend K, or at either of my two sushi lunches (I’m obsessed with sushi these days, can’t get enough of it), or at my physical therapy appointment, but I did work on it while watching my Netflix dvds–The Dresden Files, disc one, and Eureka, disc one.

Ha! Didja see what I did there? I shared my week while still making it knitting related! Yes, I am a goober.

Let’s see, what else? I’m terribly behind in reading my favorite knitting blogs. I haven’t bought any new knitting or crochet books or magazines this week. Oo! I have been considering changing my stance on socks. I have always been anti-sock, because I despise DPNs with the heartfelt blackness of deep space. But! Two weeks ago, Wendy of Wendy Knits talked about knitting socks with two circulars, and she included a link to a video demonstrating the technique. (I’ve always known that awesome video site exists, but I always forget about it when it’s time to research a technique.) The video made it look not-impossible, and possibly even do-able. I’m not saying I’m gonna be starting a sock this week or anything, but I’m turning it over in my head, and I’m no longer saying never.

Jack wants attention RIGHT NOW, so that’s it for today.

Jack

This post has no intrinsic value

And what exactly is the definition of the word intrinsic?  According to dictionary.com, it means “belonging to a thing by its very nature.”  Does that mean anything to you?  ‘Cause it doesn’t mean a darned thing to me.  No matter, I still like saying it–intrinsic!

And I’m done.  Can you tell I’m bored to pieces?  I know boredom is a sign of, well, a very bad thing, I’m sure, but I find myself mired in indecision and an absence of motivation.  My downfall, you see, is my clean apartment.  When my apartment needs to be cleaned, I can find a gazillion things to do that must be done before actually cleaning; but today, I had a guest visit for some tutoring in Javascript, which of course meant lots of emergency-cannot-procrastinate cleaning.  Now here I sit, in my beautifully clean apartment, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

Knit, you say?  Crochet?  You mean pick up yarn in this admittedly not *so* sweltering heat?  You’re right, I should.  I have a booga bag that’s only half finished, and the scrap blanket that’ll probably never be finished, and I still only have one completed square for that Larger than Life bag.  I fear the yarn today, though; I know that once I pick it up, I’ll be planted in this chair for the rest of the day.  As long as I resist, there’s always the possibility, albeit a slim one, that I’ll stand up and go do something.  I don’t know what that something is, but I’m sure it’ll come to me, as long as I don’t tie myself down with yarn. (But not literally.) (This time.)

So far I’ve eaten some nuts….and put my feet in the pool….and helped my elderly neighbors with a wanna-wander cat…and eaten some cheese…and updated my Amazon wishlist (by request from my sis, as my birthday is coming up).  Um, yeah.  That’s about it.  Pathetic, isn’t it?

But on the bright side, I’ve updated my blog, so that my two readers will have something new to read, instead of wondering why I haven’t updated in a week.

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Knitting and Crochet

A WIP, a pic, and an off-topic plug

Sorry for the hiatus, I was at Comic-Con this weekend in San Diego. Such a fun time! Oddly, though, I never saw anyone but myself knitting (or crocheting, for that matter) in the busy hallways of the Convention Center.

I couldn’t bring the log cabin scrap blanket, as it’s getting too big for easy transport, so I grabbed a bag of three balls of Cascade 220 that had already been ziplocked into complementary colors, printed out a copy of the Booga Bag pattern, and threw it all into my suitcase for the trip.

WIP: handbagI didn’t get very far on it–I mostly only knit in the car up and down, and a little between sessions while sitting on the floor of the main lobby–but it was nice to be knitting again after crocheting for so long. I’ll admit I was afraid I’d forget something, but my fingers knew what they were doing as soon as they touched the Addi circs, so much so that I didn’t even have to look down half the time. (This was important when the carsickness hit on the drive back north.) The color is of course slightly off–the green is more of a kelly than the forest that it looks there.

As for finished projects, I was a bad photographer and forgot to photograph the finished blankets for Grace and Noah before I delivered them to their mother on Friday. Suffice to say, they’re adorable with their single crochet borders of pink and green (Noah’s border is pink and Grace’s green, so that they match their sib’s colorway).

That’s all I’ve got for needlework/yarn news.  In off-topic news, check out page 75 of this week’s Entertainment Weekly (the one with The Deathly Hallows on the cover) for a cute write-up of my friend Allyson’s first book, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

*tap* *tap* *tap*

[Note: HP7 is mentioned in this post, but there are absolutely no spoilers of any kind.]

Is this thing on?  Whew!  I tried posting yesteday, and I kept getting javascript errors that wouldn’t let me into the post field.  Yikes!  Scary!

WIP: Scrap log cabin blanketSo, as I was going to post yesterday, here is a picture of the log cabin blanket I’ve been making with “scrap” yarn, except that it stopped being scrap yarn when I started buying skeins just for this blanket.  I was working on it yesterday during my “day of processing”–that is, the day after I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Some of the blanket’s strips will be getting narrower as I reach the ends of skeins, as happened last night when I reached the end of a blue skein.  Hopefully it’ll all even out in the end.

I haven’t really been working on anything else lately.  I realized yesterday that I miss knitting Booga Bags.  I’d also like to make more of the squares for the Larger than Life bag, but it requires quiet and concentration, which makes it hard to find time to do it.

*sigh*  It’s pathetic, I really should have more to talk about, but really, my head is still trapped in The Deathly Hallows.  So much to contemplate, and revisit, and sort out.  Excellent book, but I’m having a hard time thinking of anything else.

Larger than Life square!

Willow Block, Larger than Life Bag, Interweave CrochetFinally, a picture!  This is the Willow Block square for the Larger than Life Bag, as seen on pages 76-77 of this spring’s Interweave Crochet.  I finished my rereading of the Harry Potter books on Tuesday, enabling me to finally finish this square (that was started weeks ago) last night.  Squee!  It’s not blocked, and I haven’t even weaved in the ends yet, but it’s just so pretty.  I adore the colors, which really can never be fully captured by my Powershot, and look forward to starting the next square.

It was more complicated than anything I’ve done previously, but it wasn’t hard as long as I gave it my full attention.  Thinking back, I think the center circle was the hardest part, since I still suck pretty hard at joining a round.

ION, I worked on my scrap log cabin blanket yesterday, adding another two full blocks (one in red, one in variegated yumminess).  I have it with me today, so I’ll try to take a picture of it at lunch.