Categories
Miscellaneous

The week, according to me

I had two readers yesterday–two!  Woot!  And, uh oh, one of them clicked on the link to my main website.  Ouch.  That sucker hasn’t been updated in forever!  I’m terribly sorry, mystery reader!  I’ll go post a picture or something right away!

I haven’t done anything yarn-y this week, I’m afraid.  Ever since finishing the shell shawl (picture still to come), I haven’t been inspired to start anything new.  Well, that’s not entirely true–there’s one project I’ve been thinking of, as a present for a friend, but first I have to obtain some Cascade 220 in the desired colors.  I’ve been carrying around a couple of balls of nubbly red yarn and some needles, in case I feel like starting a scarf for the Red Scarf Project, but after three days, the needles are still bare and the yarn is still balled.  Also, my evenings have been spent visiting my friends’ daughter at the hospital, where I stand by her bed and sing to her while she sleeps, so when I get home, my back and neck are cranky from the odd standing position, and my head just doesn’t want to think. Just too tired, I guess.  So, no knitting or crochet news this week.

Instead, I’ve been busy at work, integrating two exhibitions at once (not the first time).  When I take a break, I play with Twitter, or I find new widgets to futz with. (Didja see the new iTunes widget in the sidebar?  Scroll down, it’s neat!) I’ve signed up with Scrabbulous, but have yet to actually play a game–everyone there seems way more advanced than I, it’s very intimidating! And sometimes, I search the internets far and wide for the cheapest Brown Sheep Burley Spun in variegated colors (one hank is the perfect size for a bubble bag!).

Last night, I helped my friend Allyson Beatrice assemble gift bags.  She will be doing a reading from her first book, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?, and a Q&A this weekend (Saturday, 9/1, 4pm) at Vroman’s in Pasadena.  (You should come!  There will be the aforementioned goody bags, and cake! And, she’s way funnier than me, so it’ll be entertaining, too!)

That has been my week so far. Not exciting, I know (although the near-death of my not-backed-up external harddrive was certainly a pulse-raiser!), but I hate to see this blog go without frequent updates. Perhaps for my next post, I’ll describe my awesome new business cards! 😀

And now, for something completely different–my darlin’, Trouble:
Trouble

WIP: Shell Shawl

WIP: shell shawlI got started on my latest project this week–the shell shawl from Debbie Stoller’s The Happy Hooker.  (The picture is from early Sunday–I spent most of yesterday on it, so it’s grown quite a bit already.)  It was a little hard to get started–shells and treble stitches are new to me–but once I got into the swing of it, it became easy-peasy (except for the blisters forming on my fingers).  I can even work on it while watching dvds, without losing count.  Woot!  I’m using purple Red Heart, which was a Christmas gift from my friend Tricia last year.  I thought it’d be enough, but as it turns out, I was wrong–looks like I’ll need at least another skein.  I’ve long since thrown the wrapper away, so hopefully dye lot won’t be an issue.

I really like the pattern,  particularly how each row gets quicker, since you’re going top down and therefore decreasing a shell on each pass.  I suspect I’ll be making this shawl again, perhaps with the blue discontinued alpaca from Cascade that I’ve been saving for a special occasion; we’ll see how this one turns out first, though.

Categories
Blogs Knitting and Crochet

Chore Wars!

Yesterday I was catching up on my blog reading, surfing WordPress blogs by tags, and I found a reference to “KnitWars.”  Huh, I thought, I wonder what that is?  There was no link, so I googled it and found Lime n Violet’s website, and what I read of KnitWars intrigued me muchly!

They had found a website called ChoreWars, whose sole purpose is to turn chores into a game resembling a D&D adventure.  Sweet!  Groups of people (families, housemates, offices, etc.) create their own gaming party and define their own adventures (i.e. chores), with rewards, treasures and risks attached to each one.  Presumably these families set up a real-life reward/punishment system based on the scores people earn as motivations for the completion of chores and duties.

Lime and Violet created their own chore party, but instead of mopping, dusting and vacuuming, the adventures run more along the lines of finishing a WIP, frogging a lost cause, and spinning 4 oz. of fiber.  You create your own character and keep track of your accomplishments to earn points, gold and treasure–meaningless in the general scheme of things, since this wasn’t set up to compete against other knitters, but a fun way to keep track of what you’ve done, what you’re doing, and what each goal might be worth on the scale of your own time.  It’s fun and creative and fantasy-adventurish, and may not be for everyone, but for me, competitive and fantasy-loving me, IT’S AWESOME!  So far I love it to pieces, and I’m hoping it motivates me to finish the many WIPs I have stashed away in drawers and closets.

In fact, I love it so much that I created my own private party of one, with all my single-living, nobody to do them but me, chores and activities (including exercise and good eating habits), in the hopes I can kick myself into gear to get those dishes done, and finally throw that old computer away, and earn points and rewards while I’m at it!  (There’s a 5% chance I can buy myself a new dvd if I brush the kitties tonight!)

Yes, I am a goober, but I *heart* technology, especially the kind that makes the tedious necessities of life a little more interesting.

And since I want this post to count towards points in the KnitWars, I have to include a picture:

Purse, waiting to be felted

This is a purse that I knit months and months ago, that has been sitting on a shelf ever since, waiting to be felted. I live in an apartment building, with coin-operated washing machines downstairs. The water doesn’t get very hot, and at $1.00 per wash, it can take a lot of valuable quarters to felt things in it. And this isn’t the only purse waiting to be felted. Someday, they’ll be FO’s, and on that day, I’ll be sure to take the KnitWars points for them!
😀

Categories
Blogs Knitting and Crochet

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

Categories
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?