blah blah blah
How Stacy got her groove back…
Well, as most of you can see, I have been pretty absent for awhile. My problem has been a big one.
The “powers that be” decided to steal my mojo.
For a girl who does something crafty every day (and I mean that…literally EVERY DAY), dealing with a creative slump is tough. I went though all sorts of phases. There was denial and mourning and letting go. I figure, why force something that isn’t there right? Maybe it was all the stuff I did before my slump that burned me out. All those projects *I didn’t post here*. I couldn’t bring myself to even take pictures of the garments I finished before this loss of creativity. I had no desire to knit.
Before you start thinking, “But Stacy, you have plenty of other hobbies. Why not work on something else?” The answer is: “I just couldn’t”.
All this happened at the height of Tour De Fleece, which turned out to be an epic fail for me. I finished NOTHING. I was so excited about starting, but I fizzled out quick. I had no desire to spin.
No knitting, no spinning. I had done a few sewing projects pre-slump. But even though my sewing machine is still sitting on my dining room table…it looks cold and lifeless.
My husband suggested our trip to Comic Con might help jump start things. It didn’t. A couple trips to the my local LYS had me sitting in a chair watching everyone else knit. How. Freaking. Sad.
So I waited, and waited, and waited some more. For what seemed like an eternity, I did nothing.
But then something happened…
It started with a request to knit for the shop. It’s a pattern I don’t care for particulary, but I decided to take it on anyway. I decided I was gonna force myself to soldier on through whatever this is I am going through. Then I was watching Being Human and decided I was going to try and sew this:
Annie
I started sketching right away. Hey, it wasn’t knitting, but it was *something*.
Then it got even better! I went to Stitch ‘N Pitch 2010 on Friday night. The Dodgers v. The Nationals. There was a big pre-game sale at my LYS (Unwind). I was there two minutes and zero’d in on the Madeline Tosh Merino Light. The Fjord colorway. I snatched up the 4 skeins that were left and carried them around for very little time before I walked up to pay for them. 4 skeins of yarn with no project…but I knew they were destined to be something awesome.
I got as far as Dodger Stadium before deciding what that yarn was destined to be. I met a lovely lady in line for a Dodger Dog that was wearing the most amazing sweater. I made a point to ask her about the pattern name twice and texted it to myself. Pas De Valse.
So now, I am excited about knitting again. I can’t wait to get started on my sweater. Thank goodness!
Carnival of FO’s: Part Two
‘Cause I know how to get crap done…
Can you tell someone has been blocking at my place?
Rainbows and Unicorns Simple Things
Tudor Grace Scarflette started at Stitches West 2010
My Very First Fair Isle!
My Aestlight
My Aestlight made use of a good 600 yards or so of 100% Fine Alpaca dyed by yours truly! I was glad to finally get it out of my stash…it had been there a long time.
I am very much on a shawl crawl lately…
Because torturing myself is fun…
I have issues.
I could totally fix this situation, but I choose not to…because I like to torture myself.
I work in a bitterly cold office. You would think that, because I am a knitter/spinner/crocheter, I would be able to fix this situation pretty easily. Knit or cro something up and wear it up in this icebox I call “work”. Do I do that? Of course not.
Back in our old building, what seems like ages ago, I had started the Office Blankie of Doom. I pulled that sucker out of hibernation in March. I am knitting it on something crazy like size 17’s or something. No, I am not done yet.
So, I started a couple of shawls. Aestlight is one of the patterns I started. I worked on it today at lunch…and this is where the torture begins…
Look at me! You know you wanna...
Here she is…three repeats of edging left to do. I left her sitting on my desk all afternoon. I am rubbing my nose in the fact that I am freezing here and this 100% superfine alpaca shawl is still not done. Take that Ice Girl! Not even your knitting gives a crap that you can’t feel your extremities.
Sidetracked? No.
Today I had posted a picture of a project I am working on to my Twitter account. I immediately got a message from a friend telling me to get back to my blanket!
Let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?
In my yarn stash, I have enough skeins of sock yarn to complete somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 pair of socks. No, I’m not joking. If I want to have scrap yarn for my blanket, common sense dictates that I best get my ass to knitting!
So, in the last week in a half I have finished my Tudor Grace scarf, which got me a nice ball of shiny purple yarn…then I did my first Simple Things with some Socks That Rock in “Fire on The Mountain”. Nice scraps there too. Now I am working on second Simple Things that will eventually be a gift… even more yarn for my Insanity Blanket.
Simple Things alongside my Strappy Tank
More knitting...
I have started to make plans for the other sock yarn in my stash. The stash has yet to include my Wollmeise acquisitions… but I am planning projects for those too.
I also snagged some of the sock yarn out of the stash to put up for trade on Ravelry. So far, so good. I actually traded four balls of Knit Picks Palette for sock yarn scraps. Yes, I am *that* determined to get this blanket to work.
I have also gotten some great donations from friends of mine at my LYS!!
So, blankie update time…
So far...so good.
I am 49 squares in. 2 are not attached. One more to the 50 square mark! I am moving slowly right now, but once I get a few more projects under my belt I can start to devote more time to this. Plus I will have more colors to choose from once I get some of my swap stuff. I am hoping for some yellow.
Solid. Yellow.
I never knit anything for myself in yellow and there is spot in the blanket that looks like it wants it.
How dealing yarn is like dealing crack.
Hi, My name is Stacy and I have an addiction. It’s been getting progressively worse over the past few years, but I feel like I have fallen off the wagon hard this time.
My drug of choice? Wollmeise.
I haven’t quite achieved snob status just yet. I mean, come on, I haven’t even knit with the stuff yet! But I see it coming…oh yes, it’s coming…
I have to say I have enablers…those little devil’s on my shoulder pushing me in one direction or another. This one’s name is kataish.
First let me say, this girl is amazing. She can knit and draw and is generally an all-around craft goddess. She is also my biggest crack dealer.
Last week I decided to put the call out on Twitter asking where she scores her Wollmeise. Now, for those of you out there still into acrylic, or maybe those of you that don’t knit or cro (GASPS), Wollmeise is a highly coveted yarn. I know of two places that sell it, The Wollmeise website (in Germany) and The Loopy Ewe. I also know that the chances of scoring said yarn on those sites is pretty darn low. Unless you are one hell of a sniper up at insane o’clock, you probably won’t get any.
So, I put the call out and Kata responds. She says she will PM me on Ravelry. So I sign in and I wait….and wait….and wait. Surely it couldn’t take that long to shoot me a PM? Then it comes…what is now the longest personal message I have received on Ravelry to date. She goes into your standard methods of getting the stuff. Waiting for updates, sniping…ya know, the usual. Then I see this:
“Now, onto the ways you can REALISTICALLY score WM ;)”
She launches into how you can get it from other people. Swaps, trades, commission knitting…oh my! My head was spinning. Now, I know I have WAY TOO MANY projects right now. How the heck could I knit anything for trade? I barely have the time to do everything I am doing now (luckily I don’t sleep much and it helps that I know how to walk and knit at the same time).
So I told her what I was looking for and she hooked me up with a friend that worked out a deal for me. Nice right? See…it’s all about who you know.
Woohoo! It's much prettier that my crappy phone camera allows it to be.
And just think, After I am done with whatever project I decide to use this for, I can use the scraps in my Insanity Blanket. Bonus!
Slowly…things progress
I haven’t been sleeping much lately and that seems to leave me with a lot of time for crafting. I mean, God forbid I do the dishes or vacuum the house. Not that it would be a wise thing to do at 11 o’clock at night. I mean…what would the neighbors think? What? I don’t have downstairs neighbors right now? Um…yeah…well…
Crafting is pretty quiet.
Except for the sewing, which I try to keep to a minimum after 9 p.m.
I finished two skirts recently. Yay, something to wear this summer for work! The hand sewing hook and eyes with black thread was a real treat for some evening fun in low light. MY EYES! MY EYES!
I had some fun with a hot glue gun after knit-a-long last Sunday and made some cute hair flowers.
My daughter is thrilled with Mommy's attempts at girlieness
Then there is the knitting…all the knitting…
I have slowed down a little on my strappy tank, but it is pretty much all stockinette at this point. So it is more my mindless knitting. It’s “I’m half asleep on the couch watching bad t.v. shows” knitting.
So. Much. Stockinette.
Then my baby for the moment, the Insanity Blanket. It is coming along nicely. I got some great yarn from Vilma and Camille this week!
Vilma's contributions.
Camille's samples: noro from her poncho, and some of her koolaid dyed yarn from a class she took
The new stuff is amazing, and it is hard to get sick of knitting the same thing over and over when you get to try out all kinds of different yarn. It is really starting to grow.
I am going to knit some more squares as soon as I am done blogging.
I have been making sure to keep track of where everything is coming from. I have been tagging all of my flickr photos and labeling each square. Yay me!
Also, in a “hell must have frozen over” moment, I have started spinning again! My wheel and I have not had the occasion to spend much quality time together since the new year. It feels good to get reacquainted.
Of course I have been spinning all of my fiber samples for use in my insanity blanket. Man, ulterior motives!
I spun them end to end...
Later I will break the ends and ply them on themselves.
Now, off to knit some squares!
Go ahead and say it…
I am clearly insane. I *know* this and I really can’t help it.
This week’s craft update is just stating the obvious, because what would I be doing if I *weren’t* crafting?
Oh yeah, probably cleaning my house or something…
So, my WIPS (”works in progress” for you non-knittahs):
Classic Elite Strappy Tank.
Faerie Mountain Fibers spinning (drop spindle, this may take awhile).
2 skirts I am currently half-done sewing. I have waistbands and hems left.
Grey, my little alien friend.
An Insanity Blanket.
<insert screeching tires sound here>
What the heck did I just say? An Insanity Blanket. Yes that is right! For the record, I am not the first one to make one of these…you can see the original, and find directions on how to make your own on The Heathen Housewife’s Blog. That banner at the top….that’s it. The one that pushed me over the edge belongs to The Other Side of The Pom. Really, click that link…you may fall prey to it’s magic too.
So what is an Insanity Blanket? It’s a blanket made up of mitred squares. Sound crazy? Not really…until you throw in the fact that it is knit up of stray sock yarn…and I am knitting it on size 2 needles. It is sure to take me a very long time to finish, given that I don’t even own enough sock yarn to complete it, but we’ll see what happens.
I am also planning an taking it an extra step further and journal/blog my progress and chart where each square “comes from”. I figure there is a story in just about everything.
So here is a little example of what I have so far…
My squares.
The attached ones on the end there are the foundation corner of my blanket. Now to figure out how many 2 3/4 in. squares I will need to make a Queen size blanket. Eek!
Hell might have just frozen over…
…I started an etsy shop.
What it looks like so far...
You can probably see what I have in the shop over to your right there…
Yeah, your other right….
Ya know, the side with all those widgets. See ————->
It’s not much, but it’s a start. 
Stitches West…Day Two!
We started the day off slow. No getting there when the show opened…we took our time. As long as we were there by noon to get in line for the meet ‘n greet at the Purlescence booth, we were golden. Emily and I wanted to stop by and say “hi” to The Knitmore Girls!
Gi Gi, Me, Emily and Jasmin. Woohoo!
What? That’s right! I’m wearing my February Lady Sweater. I had to wear something I knit. It was very hot in there though, so I spent most of the day NOT wearing it.
A Stashymama sighting!
It is sort of becoming my modus operandi to have Day One be the freak-out fest, while having Day Two be much more relaxed.
The nice thing about Saturday was that we totally got to take our time doing whatever we wanted. I spent the day looking for yarn, but to be honest, I mostly bought fiber. I had gotten one ball of yarn in the scarf kit I purchased and that was the ONLY YARN I BOUGHT THE ENTIRE WEEKEND. Yes, you heard me right. On the other hand, I did buy just over a pound of fiber…but we will get to the fiber porn next post.
I have to say, during my leisurely stroll around the convention center, my favorite booth was the ArtFibers booth. They had this cool thing called a “yarn tasting” and they were giving everyone one free sample of yarn to swatch. This was exciting because I have been looking for a nice summer yarn that isn’t cotton and is something that doesn’t have mohair. Mohair=itchfest. Then…I fell in love.
Kanji...where have you been all my life?
I asked for a sample and spent the rest of my stroll down the next two aisles swatching it. Yes, I can walk and knit at the same time…
My talent...in action!
As a matter of fact, to attempt and showcase how supremely talented I am, not only did I walk and knit at the same time…I knit on needles that already had another project on them. Yup, that’s how I roll.
After a trip ’round the place, we headed to the bar for some rest/knitting time where we did some show and tell. Ang and Vilma bought some fabulous pyrex needles that we all admired.
Glass knitting needles...
Sensing a trend?
Emily, me and Suzanne
After spending the evening hanging out in the bar, we decided to venture out in search of food.
Dinner!
I can’t remember the name of this place, but they had really good steak salad.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel where I did a little bit of knitting and then passed out…with my glasses on…and I slept that way all night.
Stitches…Finally!
I made it, I finally made it!
Sure, I left at 6-something in the morning…picked up the ladies…and commenced driving. We made a few stops, including a little detour at Pyramid Lake.
Something happened here...
Kids, this is where we learned that, no matter how much Dramamine you consume, coffee and oranges just don’t mix.
We got to Santa Clara sometime after 2 p.m. We checked in and headed to a local restaurant to meet up with a friend of mine for lunch. He’s super cool and the girls love him ’cause he knows how to have a good time with a bunch of knitters. We were having an awesome time hanging out, but we needed to get back! We hadn’t walked the floor yet and it was getting late.
Here is where the insanity begins. We hit the convention center at 4 p.m. and the showroom closed at 5 p.m. I learned a valuable lesson in the last hour of Stitches on Friday. No matter how much I seem to think it is a “good idea”, not taking any knitting with you to a knitting convention is just plain dumb.
So I spent that hour running from booth to booth in search of a project. At what seemed like the very last moment before closing, I found two projects. I picked up a scarf kit and some fiber and a spindle.
With “the crazy” apparently haven taken over my brain, we headed to the bar for some knitting.
Time for a break...
We met some nice ladies in the hotel lobby.
Apparently this is my "crazy face".
So my girl Emily helped with some yarn ballin’ and I was able to start knitting my scarf. It was still early so we headed to Sunnyvale for some grub.
Holy crap! That yarn is shiny!
I had a Mexican Hot Chocolate. No it doesn’t have alcohol in it. It IS tasty though.
Me and Emily
The ladies!
Once dinner was done and we got back to the hotel, we had some show and tell.
Shawls!
And Suzanne had made me a project bag using one of the skull buttons I purchased on etsy for my sweater. Too cute! Once she starts selling these I am gonna totally pimp her out here ’cause she’s got skillz!
The perfect project bag for me to use while I walk and knit on the floor Saturday!
It was a long day, so I headed to bed to get myself prepared for Saturday…
Search
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Aug | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
Archives
ClustrMap
Blogs
Favorite Places!
Non-Knitterly
