well, a few friends on flickr may have noticed that i looked gloriously fancy yesterday. this is because i got to spend my afternoon at a photoshoot for berroco. what! i know! i will tell more for real when the patterns/photos come out. i will say for now that i was so psyched that cirilia asked me to be involved. i’ve not really done anything like this in the past, so i wasn’t sure what to expect. it was a treat to meet norah gaughan of course, and everyone involved was so nice and it was such a fun and relaxing experience. i hope i did an okay job and the pictures come out well! i do have a knack for making awkward or hammy faces at inappropriate times. we will see! for now, i stole a few of cirilia’s pictures of the shoot:
see what i mean about hammy faces? i was supposed to look mean. even in wtf december i have a hard time making a mean face. especially during such a fun experience.
also worth mentioning is that pretty much every pattern that was photographed is something i really, really want to knit. knowing that these knitting adventures await really reinforces my belief that 2010 is going to be a good, good year.
back to the end of my christmas knitting, as per usual! take care, stay warm and be good!
well, less than two weeks to christmas (and only one week until i go to pennsylvania to hang out with my family) and i am making some serious strides back toward sanity.
meg and i mailed our red scarves to the orphan foundation of america on saturday. it definitely felt good, both to cross a project off the list, and to do something that hopefully will make someone else’s winter a little nicer. i definitely will do this again next year, except this time around i think i’ll make a few scarves throughout the year so i can send in more than one. it’s a cause that’s become pretty near and dear to my heart throughout my time at my current job, and this is a nice way to pitch in and do a little something extra.
annnd today was mass market. that just snuck right up on me! i did a really good job in terms of photograpic documentation, right? but really, the event was a nice one. i split a table with courtney at mass market 4 this past june as well, and i have to say that of the few craft fairs i’ve done, this one has been maybe the most consistently pleasant and successful. it’s nice to chat with people about crafts and make a little extra chunk of change while i’m at it. what will i spend said disposable income on? well how about a trip to the vet for felane because she’s due soon. and then the leftover can buy some wool, obviously. because when christmas is over i just want to sit down at my kiwi and spin and spin and spin.
anyway! this is all from me for a little while. i’m glad i’m done being stressed out/worn down. i’ve had a few pleasant surprises in the last week or two, and some good things coming up this week, and then home! hang in there, kitties!
as i have been saying (and saying, and saying and saying), my life has been a little wild lately. but it’s under control. i just watch disgusting amounts of murder, she wrote, and when the going gets tough i ask myself “what would jessica fletcher do?” i hope to be just like jessica fletcher when i grow up. realistically, i’ll probably be more like dorothy zbornak, but that’s another post for another time.
for the moment, i just want share with you one thing that i think jessica fletcher really might do*. knit these excellent and mysterious socks:
what! these socks combine knitting, mystery and crossword puzzles. those are not merely a few of my favorite things, they are almost all of my favorite things. if only this pattern somehow incorporated cats and burritos, it might be enough to sustain me for the rest of my life. am i exaggerating? i don’t know, maybe. but i am being sincere when i say that i cannot even wait to download this pattern and get started. they look like such a treat!
*it’s worth noting that i’m on season seven of murder and j.b. has touched nary a knitting needle, but i still have i think five seasons still to go, and i’m holding on to my hope that she may yet learn!
oof. only five days in and i am already so over this month. today i forsook productivity to instead spend seriously the entire day wrapped up in the world’s most insanely warm fleece blanket, a gift last winter from my mom, and a nice treat for me, as i am not one to turn on the heat if i can help it. i watched a marathon of murder, she wrote, and am about to finish up my evening by watching don’t tell mom the babysitter’s dead. i cooked and ate a huge pot of mujadarra, drank two pots of coffee and started an irish hiking scarf for my nana. this is a really pretty, simple cable scarf pattern. i like it more than some others i’ve seen because it’s pretty but not overwhelming. i’m using valley yarns berkshire in the wine colorway, and i feel like this pattern and yarn work really well together. (also, berkshire is only $4.99 per 140 yard skein, so it’s not only soft and cozy, but so affordable. less money spent on yarn is more money spent on cat treats, so you know felane is a fan.)
and otherwise? i wrote – count it – one sentence of my grad school application essay. but i’ll tell ya right now, it was a darn good sentence. i’ll write a few more of ‘em tomorrow after i go to the gym and consume my weight in caffeine. 2009 has kind of been a real garbagecake of a year. when all my work this month is done, i’m going to draw a picture of a garbagecake to illustrate this for you. if you’ve had a similar year, maybe you ought to draw a garbagecake as well. i’d love to see your interpretations. i keep typing ‘garbagecake’ because my spellcheck is actually acknowledging it as a real word and that’s kind of lifting my spirits. but for now, back to christina applegate and that lovely irish hiking scarf.
first, here’s a picture of some knitting progress to make us feel good. this is mi escuelita, a jaunty little sweater for my jaunty little sister:
okay, so. i officially deem this month “wtf december.” you don’t have to ask me why, because i’m going to tell you right now.
knitting to finish: one sweater (see above), four scarves. maybe a sweater for myself to wear home over christmas so my family doesn’t say that i look like a “ragamuffin” (but they will probably find an opportunity to say this anyway, so that sweater is not really a necessity).
mass market 5 is sunday, december 13. this actually requires no effort beyond my presence. i had enough leftovers from past craft shows that this one needed no prep work really. nice!
grad school applications are due by early/mid-january. this isn’t really all that bad either, i just need to keep on ‘em.
TONS of survey/data entry at work so we can have accurate 2009 statistics for grant purposes.
i guess that really this isn’t any more absurd or crowded than any other month. i just had a tiny panic attack early this morning when a friend of mine made a comment on the internet akin to “only 30 more days of 2009.” i seriously yelled “WHAT” at my computer and started to get really nervous. but as soon as i typed up my little list of things to do in this month, i realized it isn’t even that wild. but i still consider this to be wtf december. i can’t wait to kick back in january and knit seed stitch scarves that require no looking, counting, or thinking and maybe even find time to, dare i say, read books. see ya then.
tomorrow is thanksgiving. how? it feels like it was JUST thanksgiving last year. whatever, i am thankful for and excited about more or less everything. yesterday i spent a pleasant afternoon exploring in boston, and still found a little time to work on this:
which is my contribution to the red scarf project. it’s a palindrome in burgundy malabrigo, which i think makes for a nice unisex scarf. and soft! and squishy! i would be psyched to get this as a gift, and actually a few friends have asked me for one of these, so i think it makes for an okay donation, yes? i think i’m going to make one in gray for the boy i mentor, actually. he will make fun of it, because he makes fun of knitting every time we meet, but i think also he will like it (secretly, of course).
and i have to admit, this scarf also let me move in a new direction with my grandparents’ christmas gifts. i was making falling water for my nana, and henry for my papa. both beautiful scarves, but in my gut i totally knew that they just weren’t quite right. you know what will be just right? CABLES. i am having a love affair with cables. also, nana and papa live in northwestern pennsylvania. it SNOWS there. who needs lace-weight scarves in lake effect snow? it may seem a little late in the game to just jump ship and start new projects, but i’m not even sweating it.
oh, also, my newest cousin was born last night. jack robert. i knit him this little sweater. i used some acrylic baby yarn i had stashed, so this isn’t the most luxurious baby sweater ever, but also, babies throw up on things. might as well make something machine washable? also also, i have nine cousins now. or ten. that’s a lot of cousins! fortunately, as the oldest grandchild, i never worry about losing my special rank and just becoming one of the masses. also, i don’t see any other grandchildren knitting glorious cabled scarves for nana and papa. what.
happy thanksgiving!
Filed under: gift knitting
it’s not totally done, but seriously, i am psyched to be so close:
i still need to weave in ends and block this. i got really discouraged on my last sleeve. can you see the imperfection? i realized halfway through the sleeve that even though i’d been very careful about buying the same colors and dye lots, my last ball of noro was suspciously lacking in turquoise. there’s just a join where the turquoise is supposed to be. i got really bummed, considered frogging the sleeve and buying more noro, considered frogging the whole body and putting the non-turquoise noro in the center so at least the flaw would be symmetrical, and briefly considered just canceling christmas, but gary told me not to sweat it, and i decided that might be the smartest path. so, thinking positively: “imperfections” can really be what separate a hand-crafted item from something mass produced. also, my brother is pretty laid back, he probably won’t care about this at all. if i had made this sweater for myself, i wouldn’t care, but because it’s a gift, i really wanted it to be perfect. i don’t know. at least other than that little flaw, i really think the sweater is overall pretty decent.
also, the name of this hoodie (hacky sack hoodie) makes me think nonstop about this:
and now i need to enjoy my second pot of coffee and get ready to go knit red scarves with meg, who just got back from months and months in ireland!
hey meg! your eunice socks look so nice! and they inspired me to post pictures of my own just-finished socks:
toe-up knee highs, knit using the provisional cast-on toe and short row heel detailed in wendy’s generic toe-up sock recipe, and even though i knit them one at a time, these seriously flew right by. i think the variation in the noro made them a lot more visually compelling than the average sock.
crucial info: i used noro silk garden sock, and some plymouth yarns happy feet that i hand-dyed a sort of muted teal color and size 2 double pointed needles. i kept these so simple – i didn’t even bother with jogless stripes, i just made sure the color changes were on the inside of the calf. did a few rows of increases for the calf, then decreased for the ribbing and finished with a decrease bind-off to keep ‘em flexible. so fun, so fast. and seriously, so stripey!
the days are going to get steadily warmer here in providence (up to 61 degrees on friday?!) so these aren’t going to be in steady rotation just yet. but they are going to make riding to work so much more pleasant when the weather does actually get cold. i secretly can’t wait!
just a quick break from my furious knitting to help spread the word about the red scarf project. this is a scarf drive that benefits college students who have aged out of the foster care system. obviously this is very near and dear to my heart because i a) love knitting and b) work for a mentoring program that serves teenagers who are about to age out of the foster care system without permanent and positive adult supports. the description of the red scarf project explains that “these brave young people are going it on their own and trying to improve their lives and the community by attending college,” which may not sound like a great feat to those who have had adults who are invested in their lives, but my job has really opened my eyes to just what a huge that is for those who have not. and while a handknit scarf may not sound like the answer to all of the problems these kids face, i have also learned that it is a really big deal to receive anything for the holidays, never mind something handmade and personal.
the deadline for this project is december 15, so you still have plenty of time to come up with something special. read the link i included at the start of this entry for more details, as well as a nice list of appropriate unisex scarf patterns. even in the throes of our pre-scheduled holiday knitting, i think this is a really important and worthwhile project. you can also check out the red scarf project ravelry group for more ideas and inspiration.
this project is done through the orphan foundation of america, and you should really check out their website for some more information. it was one i referenced a lot when i first began my job and was just getting a grasp of the realities of the foster care system. i personally also recommend using foster club to learn more. their state-by-state foster care pages are really helpful, and may also lead you to other ways to get involved (like AHEM, being a mentor).
it feels good to be up and with a fresh pot of coffee before 7 am. it’s rainy outside but i am nice and toasty and ready for a morning of peaceful solitude, reading and knitting. i wouldn’t say that these moments are rare, necessarily. over the years i have trained myself to be a morning person more or less because i want days exactly like this to be more frequent. but i still have the odd day where i think i just appreciate it more, and today is one of those.
the picture above? those are some socks and a slouchy hat for an old friend i recently got back in touch with. i’ve done that with a few old and dear friends lately (well, more accurately, they’ve gotten in touch with me, and i’m just really glad that they have). hopefully this one likes the hat and socks, and i know i like the feeling of sending them off and waiting to hear what she thinks. and in the meantime i have lots and lots of works in progress to occupy my rainy day time.
here’s hoping everyone else has a nice day, rainy or otherwise. and also that soon i will have lots and lots of finished objects to share!
