Cold hard facts

When I started out this month I asked John if I should make some fingerless gloves instead of a pair of socks. He said that I should make the gloves because I’ve made so many socks already. At first I was like, totally, right on. Then I sat down and faced the cold hard facts:

No, I haven’t.

If you count last month’s, I have knit seven pairs of socks. Two were gifts. One for my mom and one for my Granma. Out of the five that I have kept for myself,

four of them are blue. The one that is not blue has blue in it. I think the only reason I was second guessing myself on this month is because the yarn I picked is definitely not blue.

This yarn makes me think of butterscotch, which, due to sentimental reasons, will always be one of my favorite flavors out there.

The pattern is Fox Faces by Nancy Bush and man, have I bitched about this pattern. Sorry people at knitting. Well, sorry everyone lately. I bet my bitching has been unbearable.

Despite my general pissy mood and some weird random crap that has happened lately, I’m really proud that I managed to finish another pair of socks. I always start out with these big ideas for the year and once I have achieved one milestone, I tend to fall apart. Hopefully I won’t do that this coming month, although I can already feel excuses gestating inside of me. Waiting to burst forth, kind of like

*cough* So anyways, yaaaay! Socks! Also, yay for not blue. How many more pairs of not blue socks do I need to make before people will stop making fun of me only making blue stuff? I hope it’s not many because most of the stuff in my stash is blue.

Give ‘em the boot, right in the fruit.

 

New Year? Bringing the pain.

Okay, the new year means good things for you, blog town.

I am determined this year to get shit done. (Hopefully right but I’m not making any promises.) As I was reflecting over my past year of glory, I realized, sure, things have been swell but what about the knitting? You can only stray so far from your roots before remembering you have roots… and they don’t go anywhere. (That’s like essential roots theory there.)

So this year, I am making a solemn vow. If there were blood here, I’d make a blood oath. My stash is going to get knit the fuck up people. If it doesn’t, I’m going to burn it. (…or give it away like a sane person, or someone going into a monastery.) I’ve even started an internet campaign full of like-minded people to keep me honest. Heh. You can follow along if you’re interested: Stash Killers.

I also knit some crap for people for Christmas. All using stash yarn. I’m just a G like that.

First up, I knit my mom a shawl. She said she wanted a shawl and I figured, okay, if it’s something she specifically says she wants, she has to love it.

I think she kind of loved it.

It was the Simple Yet Effective Shawl and I’ve got to say, that sucker lives up to its name. I added some random yo’s to keep it interesting for myself but it ended up being relatively enjoyable. I used yarn that a lady gave me from my knitting group. It was an intense wool. Read as: real wool. It raked my hands over good. I really need to stop taking in any more wool, especially BFL. So yeah, noted.

I also made a coworker a hat. But because I’m a genius I didn’t get any pictures of him wearing said hat. So, you get my crazy face.

There are plenty of pictures where I’m not making such a disgusting face… but those pictures aren’t real enough and you know how I like to keep it real. [cough]

Anyways, the pattern is by my super awesome internet buddy: Teekay [rav link] and it’s her Fenced In hat. I freaking love it. I also had to do it freaking 3 times because

1) I am a moron.

2) You really need to print out any pattern that has charts. (See #1.)

Gorgeous, right?

I had goals for last year and I actually accomplished a lot of them. But I missed you, blog buddies and I think 2011 is going to be a good time for our reunion. So stay with me. We’re going to do this thing up. (Hopefully right. Like I said, I’m really not promising anything.)

My super red hat

So I’ve actually got some knitting content! I know, right? I mean, you’d think, hey it’s freaktastically cold outside, why aren’t you knitting up a storm? Well, since I always have an excuse on hand, this time is that it’s cold so I don’t want to move. Moving sucks. It takes all this energy that I just don’t have. I guess it would only make sense to make a hat then.

Shazam! It’s the Snowboard Hat That Rocks and I made it in an amazingly red (and soft!) Cascade Alpaca. I do like it, although it’s a little goofy. I made it with just one ball of the eco-alpaca and I shortened up the hat a little bit. It called for four repeats of the cable pattern but I only did three because otherwise it would have been ridiculously tall and then we would have had another pope-hat occurrence.

‘

This was my first time doing ‘real’ cables. I’ve done cables before but they were all pretty self contained. These cables mixed with each other and it was cool. It took me a while to get used to it and I had to undo a good deal of it because I did it right but my tension was a little too, er, strained… however, I really like how nice they look! So much so that my next project has even ‘realer’ cables. Which I’m confident about now but I haven’t gotten to the part with the cables yet so I’ll start crying later.

In the original you’re supposed to do a braid and I’ve seen people add like an i-Cord edging or crocheted border. However I’d have to crack into my other ball to do that and I’d really rather turn that other ball into another hat. So while this could use some finishing and probably needs it… I’m not so sure. Still, I really like this hat. If only for the fact that it’s so brazenly red.

Make one today! I strongly endorse it

big time bad news

Do you know what has stopped me from completely melting into a puddle of lamesauce? You guys. The other day when I was talking out loud to John to try to motivate myself to do stuff by listing out what I need to do I said “I need to take pictures to put on my blog or else they’ll think I’m a slacker.” They? The internet! Don’t you realize what serious business this is? If someone on the internet thinks I’m a slacker well then that’s big time bad news.

A while back I traded yarn with my Granma. She sent me this really nice purple alpaca/wool blend. Well I sat and looked at that yarn and asked it what it wanted to be and it sat and stared back at me. So when I broke my yarn buying resolution two days into the new year it was actually to buy some yarn to go with the purple yarn.

Speaking of resolutions, all of mine are effectively broken. Well, I’m still hoping to lose some weight or at least get in something that can be considered “in shape” (meaning not the blob monster I feel like recently or that Wii Fit confirms I am). This winter blah crap is not helping. All of the other resolutions though are caput. Although I’m still trying to not buy yarn unless it’s necessary because I’m saving up for… something we’ll talk about in the future here. Plus when I walk in my closet it cries. The yarn actually cries at me. “Lindsey,” it says sniffling, “you loved us enough to buy us, why won’t you make us into something beautiful?” Closet guilt trip, yeesh.

So I made a hat!

It is a seriously goofy hat too. It comes to a sort of Pope hat point. It’s also pretty big considering I cut out some rows and knit it on some small needles. If I were to knit this hat again, which I might because I’m curious- I would switch out the colors. Make the purple the main color and the white the contrast. I think that might make me like it more.

While I’m glad to have finished something, I’m kind of ‘enh’ towards the outcome. Story of my life right now! I need to get out and get active, that’ll hopefully make me less of a Grumpy Gus. I hate sitting around focusing on how fat I am, how nothing I knit looks right or pleases me and how I haaate what I’m reading. Well I think things have at least turned around there because I’m finally done with stupid Wuthering Heights. Sorry if you love that book but it just killed my happiness. Okay, I’m done hatin’ and being lame, at least I hope so!

I still have a ball of the purple and of the white left, I don’t know- should I knit another hat only reverse or should I think about making some mittens? Hrm.

Also have you guys listened to Feed the Animals by Girl Talk? Do it!

Total ‘Enh’ihiliation

You ever get the feeling that you fail at life a little? A lot? I keep thinking, I should post to my blog… but I have no good news to post. I just have sort of “enh” news to post, which usually doesn’t bother me but it’s just one more thing. Damn, I am a total downer, let’s just skip to some pictures.

This is my Seascape Stole, or what I’m supposed to be finishing up for the Ravelympics. Only I got tripped coming out the gate. Everything was fine, I put in that lifeline that you see, then the actual pattern started and I tried to do something complex with stitch markers and next thing you know ::riiiiiiiip::. At least I had that first lifeline. But still, I couldn’t even look at this thing without making a dirty face at it, so I lost a lot of time.

Then I realized, I’m only a knitting superstar in my head! I don’t actually have deadlines so what the hell am I fretting over? To celebrate this self realization, I told John he should buy that TV that he wanted.

And he did!

You know, at one point… I’m going to say it was last year, we were responsible people who believed in things like “saving your money” and being “adults”. But this year we are totally like pfffffft, forget that noise and we’re being good consumers.

Speaking of which, those buttons in the first photo were from Craftin Outlaws:

Which I went to with Dana, my friend who was visiting from New Mexico. She was a bridesmaid in another friend’s wedding this past weekend. (We went to Craftin Outlaws after, where Dana got compliments on her dress- which she totally made herself!)

This is us ladies at Emma’s wedding (she’s the one in the white dress *ba dum tsh*). Congratulations Emma and Jimmy! w00t!

Yep, that’s about all… I was going to post and tell you guys to vote for me in that contest buuuuut, I didn’t make it into the semifinals. Hell, I didn’t even get an honorable mention and there were about a million of those. So I guess the moral of that story is: I fail. Also, the other moral is: stop trying.

Ha! Roidmato laughs at your misfortune.

shhhh! It’s a secret…

I want to sit down and have an honest heart to heart with you right now…

It has been very hard to not document every second of making this next project. You guys know me, you know that I like to give you almost up to the second progress shots of what I’m up to. I’m not a secret keeper but I kept that last post a secret (mostly because I was afraid that I wouldn’t get it done/mess it up horribly/set it one fire out of frustration) and I kept this post a secret.

It has been espeically hard because I want us to be honest with each other. Of course, hopefully you’ll only be honest in a totally positive and up beat sort of way and not a “Jesus, you sure are looking fatter in your pictures” sort of way. However I can’t control that and that’s cool! So, I just want you guys to know, it is nearly impossible for me to keep anything from you.

Okay, so what am I talking about already?

Bam! Total sock domination.

Although, if I were only waiting to post a sock, I would have done this two weeks ago, because I swear the first sock flew off the needles… it was that lousy second sock that tripped me up.

Still, I murdered that second sock:

I’m thinking that the first sock flew off the needles because I knit it starting out with bigger needles than I probably should have… which is also why the one on the right is all slouchy. Er, whoops. I think some elastic thread should clear that up nicely though.

This was all part of a Secret Sock group that meets at my LYS once a month… apparently. This was my first time going and I’d say it was pretty successful. What do you think?

Most people who know me have already heard my story about the meeting and I can’t really tell it over the interwebs, however, the clientèle at this particular LYS happen to be a very specific brand of swanky. The woman who designed these socks named them the Double Diamond socks, after a ski trail or something.

My first thought when she told us the name was of that Outkast song ‘The Mighty O’:

Maybe I should throw a double diamond party in the North Pole
Invite all the writers and journalists, even biters will tournament to see
Who can be me better than me?

I shared that with some of the ladies the other day and I’m pretty sure tabula rasa couldn’t be blanker than the stares I got. Ehn, it’s just a lesson to pick and choose your audiences… I think?

Oh! Hey! Remember these?

Yeah, I forgot about them too. I want so hard to take credit for these, but as you can see, I only finished the one. Then got so fricken mad at them that I shipped the suckers off to Granma, who was a nice gracious lady that finished them for me. She also added super cute buttons.

Also, because you love me, I’m sure you’ll tolerate a picture of my cat hamming it up for the camera:

Last night, when the pizza man came, she ran out the door. She seriously made a break for it. You’d think it wouldn’t be hard to catch a cat with a gimpy leg but dang she can run fast when she wants to! So, our solution to this problem (after I caught her and gave her a lecture like she could actually understand English) was to buy her a leash. I’m hoping the embarrassment and shame will make her never want to run away again.

Also, if you don’t hear from me for a while it’s because I’ve hit another road block. It’s so bad that when I think about what I want to knit next, that crappy song from Evita pops into my head; “where do we go from here…?” Should I be proud or ashamed that I saw that movie in the theatre?

Flashback!

The pure mention of this song gets it stuck in my head!

Yesterday I finished Clue One of the Spring Shawl Surprise:

I’ve never taken pictures of lace before, does this look okay? Too busy?

Detail of the side that’s the least jacked up.

Of course, a new clue is out and since Granma is going to be in a car for two days, I’ve got to knock this next one out if I want to keep up with her. When I’m not busy being a lace maniac (complete with trances and possible lace murders) I’m knitting on this puppy:

Hedera.

I turned the heel, so it’s all sunshine and roses here. Well except for the rain and general gloom. But, I did make my own laundry detergent the other day and that’s all that matters! Wait- what?

Oh look, Justin Timberlake (back when he had a bleached ‘fro, has everyone forgotten that fact?)

What are your favorite flashback songs that you either love/hate/love to hate? (Think it out loud in the comments pretty please, I want to know I’m not alone in my delusions.)

Why have I been such a lazy biatch lately….?

Oh yeah, that’s right, because of:

Super Mario Galaxy!!!

Plus there’s other life stuff going on. Silly life. Which I’m sure everyone knows about since I’m terrible about email. People ask me a simple question, like “what’s up” and get back a ten page diary about everything. Isn’t that terrible? It’s like, er, thanks.

Anyways, I don’t know about y’all but my attention span has been shot. If something doesn’t have at least one picture now I start to get antsy. Here’s a picture of my shithead cat:

That’s how she lures you. She lets you take a really nice picture of her, acts all nice and cuddly then BAM, cat puke in the middle of the hall at night. Yick.

Also, it was R4′s birthday the other day (a while ago), so I took some pictures of that. Although, I’ve got to be honest, it’s ridiculously hard to get a picture of R4 where he doesn’t look stoned.

I like this one best because he’s in the family stance: smiling and laughing while also subtly threatening you with a fork. He mentally turned 9, however he’s technically 16 now. Geez. That’s scary. Both him and my stepsister are now 16, they were born on the same day. Friggin creepy to me. What happens when they turn 21? Will I just poof out of existence in a cloud of dust?

Also, I promised you knitting. I’m glad I didn’t promise any specific quality of knitting. Whew!

This is the glove I’m knitting for my MIL. It’s still weird to me that I have a MIL but that’s a different story for another time. These gloves… well, they’re a labor of love. Mostly because of the ridiculous amount of stitch holders I needed for… well everything. I still need to knit the cap and put on the button and blah blah blah before this one is every done. They’re pretty easy to make (once you understand what the hell the pattern wants, don’t think just do) it’s just tedious. I mean. Joyful. Hopefully she’ll put them on and experience all the joy I have had making them. Or to paraphrase Garth: I just hope she doesn’t think they suck.

This is my newest project… Okay guys, it’s story time. Hopefully you already know what my stories are like, so brace yourself. I’m calling this my SWF Sweater. Why? Because I totally got all Single White Female on some poor lady without even realizing I was doing it! That’s how freaking creepy I am. I was on ravelry, checking out what my friends were working on and I love everything this one girl does. LOVE. I saw that she was making this really cool sweater, so I was like, alright! a sweater. Because I’ve been in a serious sweater mood since it got cold. I mean, it’s snowing outside people. Or at least it was an hour ago.

Well, if you’ve talked to me lately you might be wondering why I’m not doing the Simple Knitted Bodice and that’s because of a very ‘me’ excuse, which is that the yarn for that will be hella expensive. Even if I sub out what they call for and get Knit Picks instead. However, this sweater, you can sub out and use some Cotton Ease. Hells yeah! So, I’m going through Ravelry, looking at everyone’s tree jacket. Seeing if Cotton Ease really is a good yarn to use, since my last sweater had yarn substitution “issues“. Well, I saw that even the designers are making one out of it and if it’s good enough for the designers of the pattern, it’s sure good enough for me.

So, we run down to JoAnn’s and yes! they have the yarn I want. However, they have some really wonky colors. They also only have random stray balls of the wonky colors. Except for this one color that my husband seemed to like as he was loading it up and walking away with it before I could even check if it was the right dye lot. (Did he like it or just want to get out of the store ASAP? You be the judge on that one.)

I get home and start knitting. Feeling pretty awesome. I swatch (which I’m going to admit, to everyone’s horror- I usually don’t do) and find out that my needles are too small, so I move up a size and it’s right but the fabric looks really weird. So I’m like, cool, I’ll use the big needles, then switch to the smaller ones for the body. (Okay, this is a really boring story so far and kind of knitting slang heavy but I swear we’re almost there.)

Something clicks in my brain. Wait a second, this all sounds familiar. So I go back and check the person who originally inspired me to do this sweater and I freak out. Not only am I knitting this sweater in the same yarn, it’s the same color. Not only is it the same color, but she also swatched, got gauge on the same size I did but liked the smaller size better so is switching them out at the body.

Oh geez, I’m subconsciously creepy, which is probably worse than being ‘just creepy.’