Oh My Darlin'....

I apologize about being a liar. I promised to be back yesterday with an FO and I wasn't - the knitting was finished, I just needed to weave in ends and steam block my Clementine... which of course I didn't do yesterday. But I did that this morning and she's finished now:



Pattern: Clementine Shawlette (rav link) by Michele Rose Orne
Made for: Holiday 08 Gift
Needle: US 3 / 3.25 mm Inox circs
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy
Colorway: Good Luck Jade
Started: September 18, 2008
Finished: September 21, 2008

This was a super quick knit and easy to memorize - great for zoning out in front of the television (which I happen to do a lot). With this pattern, you knit the two ends separately and then use the kitchener stitch to sew the two together to keep the "trees" going in the same direction. Stitching the two ends together took absolutely forever (about half of the Emmy's was spent fusing) and gave me a neck strain, but it's done now!

I loved this yarn. I really wanted to make a hat with the leftovers, but there definitely wasn't enough for that - you can see how much yarn was left in the top right corner of the above picture. Boo.

The Highland Games

This weekend, I went to the New Hampshire Highland Games with Matt, his mom, his sister & his sister's boyfriend. Although this was my first time, they've all been multiple times. It was a lot of fun - lots of good food, fun athletic events to watch, and beautiful scenery. It's held in Lincoln, NH which is a ski town. It was at the base of Loon Mountain, but you could take either the ski lift of the Gondola up to the top and explore.



It was gorgeous! From certain views, you could even see Mt. Washington (not in this picture). I'm so happy that I've moved - New Hampshire is such a beautiful state. I'm getting pretty scared of winter, but I think I just need to experience it and then I get past that.

You know what else is gorgeous? The view out my living room window.



It's a cemetery that sits right beside my lot - the old part is what you can see, with dates as early as 1804 (at least, that's the earliest death date I've found). How cool is that? It makes me wish that I was a writer - I could go out and pick a plot and spin a yarn about the person buried here. It's strange being in such an old place (Warner was settled in 1774 - older than America!) and thinking about the thousands of people who have lived - and died - here for hundreds of years. What must there lives have been like? How cold the winters must have been without electric heat! How difficult it must have been to have make all of your own clothes and grow all of your own food and to be so completely self-sufficient! It kind of makes me look at knitting in a different light. Now, I knit socks and shawls for the love of the craft, the satisfaction of completing a lovely new garment that I can do what I like with. It must not have been so nonchalant 200 years ago - it was really a matter of survival, in some ways.

Anyway, I just wanted to post those photos. I'll be back tomorrow with a new finished object (a stealthy project!). I also start my new (part time) job at Borders tomorrow! yay!

Weirdness

I've been moving along with Gerda- I'm on the sixth and final repeat and am loving how it's going to look. I hit a snafu last night though - I picked her up to work a little more and found this:



It looks like the yarn has been stretched out of some of the stitches - the result is random loops of yarn (kind of like when you're cross-stitching and don't pull the thread all the way through the back, ya know?) and then the correlating rows are gathered (like an elastic band). There are 3 or 4 of these happening, and I found that if I pull the stole from side to side, then the loops shorten but do not go away.

The only thing that I can think that caused this is Sammy.



If one can believe that.

At one point yesterday, I took a nap (hey, I'm unemployed, I can do that) and he was downstairs with me. I placed the stole on the floor beside the couch and maybe he thought he'd try to make a nice pallet out of it and rooted it to make it comfy for him. But I have no proof so I'm really not sure what happened.

As far as fixing it: I think I'm going to just continue knitting, knit on the border, and block it as-is. After it's all stretched out from the blocking, I'll clip the strings and then weave in the ends. It doesn't really seem as if it's distorting the motif too badly - almost like there's a purl row where there should be a knit - nothing too god-awful. But I'm going to ponder my plan of action a little more and see what I can come up with. Suggestions are definitely needed here!

But this baby is going to be HUGE:



I'm getting a little nervous about knitting on the border - the directions seem to say to knit on a border, and then knit a totally separate second part of the border (on different needles) and then graft those two together! What an undertaking - eeks! I think I'm going to look into other border options.

On Balancing

I've been working on a new stole this past week: Gerda. Check her out:



This has been a blast to knit! First of all, this is the first time I've used Zephyr and it's been just amazing. I love the texture of the yarn and feel like it's the absolute perfect weight - I wish I could knit everything in this! Secondly, the pattern is amazing. It's 77 stitches across and each pattern repeat is 84 lines, which makes it quite challenging... so much fun!



The pictures I'm sharing were taken last week and show 1 repeat and the beginning of the second repeat. Right now, I'm about 15 rows into the 4th repeat, so I'm just over halfway finished with it! It has a knitted on border, which I'm nervous about... I haven't done that yet! I'm just crossing my fingers and will trust the pattern.



Last night, I finished "Blackbird House" by Alice Hoffman. Blackbird House is a farm in Cape Cod, MA that was built by a sailor back in the 17 or 1800s and has survived the storms of the generations of families that lived there. As families come and go, the Blackbird House is always a silent backdrop to their interesting lives. The farm has white blackbirds, sweet peas, turnips, and ghosts of past residents - a wonderful and cozy book to read during Autumn.

Which brings me to my big dilemma: I cannot seem to figure out how to balance reading and knitting. I love reading and finishing books: the accomplishment and enjoyment both bring me big rushes. But it's the same with the knitting: I love the feeling of finishing a project and then giving it away. I love doing both equally, but I can't be as productive if I split my time between the two. The obvious fix is to not worry about finishing things so often and quickly and to stop being an over achiever. Sun: don't rise tomorrow. I just cannot figure out the best way to reconcile the two.

Here's the best things that I can come up with:

1) utilize audio books when I can. My public library has a nice selection which I hope can keep me pretty busy and occupied.
2) While I can't do complex patterns without looking at my work, I can get by with simple knit stitches - maybe I can work on larger projects with big sections of stockinette (such as sweaters?) and read at the same time. This would definitely take some practice but is not out of the question.
3) Make it a point to knit the complex patterns that I really want to complete (such as lace) at times when I'm going to be watching television anyway - such as during my favorite shows or the news.

I know that this is silly, but it has truly been bothering me. Last night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I actually felt my heart-rate rise and felt a little anxious because I was thinking about how I hadn't worked on Gerda all weekend. Then I started telling myself that if I had been working on it, I would almost be finished by now - and that would be one more Holiday gift completed... Like I said, it's silly, but I just can't help it! I'd love to hear how others work this out in their own lives.

Finished Fun

Lace has really become my go-to project of choice. It's so amazing how many images one can make with just a few different stitches. This is my Aspen Grove. Here are the specs:

Pattern: Aspen Grove by Miriam Felton
Yarn: Wooly Wonka Fibers Silk/Merino Laceweight
Colorway: Quaking Aspen
Needles: Addi Turbo Lace US 4
Modifications: Miriam describes the trunks as, "twisting, odd trunks of the aspens." I wanted the shawl to represent the pine trees in Southeast Texas: to reach straight to the sky. So I took out most of the twisting and tried to make them as straight as I could.



I loved this pattern - it was a quick knit and not too challenging. The first section involved pattern-work on both sides (right and wrong), but the other two sections has rest rows on the wrong side. So it's a great project for tv time or other brain dead moments.

Before we moved, I completed a pair of socks:




Pattern: Wendy's Generic Toe Up
Yarn: Zitron Trekking (XXL)
Colorway: 104
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony, US 1.5

Extra-big because I want them to fit my little brother's monster feet. They're so soft and squishy - I really do love Trekking. It is so affordable and diverse - I can always find a colorway that I like!

This morning I've been rewatching old episodes of Felicity, organizing my flickr account, and adding books to my library at librarything. Very relaxed and lazy! I need to be looking for jobs though :(

New England

IMG_0226
Originally uploaded by ktgdiddy

We're here - we finally made it to our new home about two weeks ago. What can I say? I love New Hampshire. This photo was taken atop of Mount Kearsarge which is pretty much in my backyard. You can drive almost to the top of the summit but if you want to get to the tippy top, there's about a half mile hike. I won't mention the fact that I didn't know that and I wore flip flops the day we went. I also won't mention the few tears of frustration and fear for my life. Moving on.

We're almost unpacked, but we are having storage problems. At first, our apartment seemed so small, but as we get more and more boxes taken care of I'm starting to think that it might be a bit bigger than our old place. Just a bit. The master bedroom is definitely bigger and I love that the master bath is connected to our room - the bath is definitely smaller, but we're working on utilizing the space.

Aside from packing, I have been job hunting. I've applied to a lot and have an interview next week. I hope to schedule more interviews, but we'll see. I've also done a ton of knitting (I'll blog the projects later) and watched a lot of TV on DVD - seasons 1 & 2 of The Wire and Season 2 of Dexter (the second season of Dexter ROCKED! I liked the first season but the second was way better), plus I've been rewatching the first two seasons of Ghost Hunters. It's been pretty nice and relaxing :)

Fall is coming and I'm soo very excited. There are so many fairs and festivals coming down the pike and we're trying to decide which we're going to attend. We know for sure that we'll be going to the Highland Games which is in just a few weeks!

Big News!

We'll just ignore that I've been gone some months now and the fact that I hadn't really been knitting.

But I will share pictures of the few things I've completed in the last couple of weeks:



(ignore the mess in the background, more on that later)

Name: Autumn Scarf
Pattern: Diagonal Lace Scarf by Helena Frank
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted
Colorway: Whale Road



Name: Bee Fields
Pattern: Bee Fields by Anne Hanson
Made for: Mom
Needle: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Yarn: Wooly Wonka Fibers Merino laceweight
Colorway: Buckwheat Honey





Yay! It feels so good to be knitting again and excited about patterns and yarns! I've added a ton of stuff to my ravelry queue and am so ready for Autumn... which brings me to my big news. We're moving. In less than 2 weeks, we'll be headed for New Hampshire for a new adventure. I'll actually have a use for wooly, knitted things! This is the explanation for the clutter behind my photos - we've been packing for a while now and things are in quite a state of disarray.

Work is really busy right now because school is about to start and I'm trying to wrap a lot of things up that I've got going... it's pretty stressful, so I need to get back to that now. I just wanted to post an update (but no one reads, so no biggie anyway) and express my excitement in just one other medium. :)