sweater
The dash to get ready for Stitches West!
This seems like the longest day ever! My last day of work before my Stitches West trip.
The game plan...so far...
I’ve printed out my coupons, map of the show floor, started making a list of things I am looking for… and most importantly…
I got my February Lady finished!!! Thank God, I feel like I got something accomplished. Especially since I haven’t gone to the bank, filled up my gas tank, bought snacks and water, packed…or even figured out what I am knitting while I am there. I am NOT bringing Lucy (my spinning wheel) or any yarn with me. I am, however, bringing all of my needles and notions and my laptop. I am just gonna wing it as far as my knitting is concerned…
So, I will actually try to sleep tonight, with visions of yarn and fiber dancing in my head…’cause I need to be out of the house by 6 a.m.
Yeah, wish me luck. I’ll be picking up some Starbucks…
Happy Birthday to Me!
I have been busy slaving away on my February Lady Sweater, trying to get it done before I leave for Stitches in less that a week. Last year I didn’t wear any of my own knitwear to show off at Stitches. WHUT? I know, shame on me! I am determined to get it done and I am, quite literally, in the home stretch. Boy, sleeves sure do seem to take forever.
Sorry for my crappy Blackberry photo.
Saturday, I took the day off knitting (sort of) to celebrate my birthday. I had a day full of fun activities.
First, my kids presented me with the cake they made…
Yes, that is yarn and needles...and some balloons.
Then my husband gave me the card he made…
The inside says something like "Wouldn't you like to get 'Pegg-ed' for your Birthday?"
We left the house to head to Chinatown with a stop at Pep Boys…and hell yes…that is me putting in power steering fluid IN A CLAPOTIS. Check it out! You know it looks good.
That's right! Me, under the hood.
If you didn’t think that wasn’t awesome enough…we headed to Chinatown where I had Dim Sum for the first time. We ate at The Empress Pavilion…it was quite an adventure. The kids weren’t so sure about it though. They enjoyed the little shop next door that sold the cool toys.
The girl picking at a sesame ball while reading "Yum Yum, Dim Sum"
After we ate, we walked down to the street where Chinatown had a parade in my honor! Isn’t that the nicest thing ever?!? Huh? Chinese New Year? Yeah, I don’t know what you’re talking about…
Dragons!
Flags!
More Dragons!
My party hat...
It was already a long day, but it was far from over. After getting home from the parade, my husband and I got ready for dinner. I had no idea where we were going. After driving in the dark, along winding roads, we got to Inn of The Seventh Ray. It was a beautiful place, with fairy lights and a creek. It even has this little new age bookshop near the entrance. It was lovely! I did take one picture of the city while we were driving back…
A blurry pic of the city as we were whizzing by...
We got home pretty early and luckily the kids were asleep. I parked myself on the couch and worked on my sleeves. I guess I did get some knitting in after all!
More stuff…
I had Cassandra take some pics of me in my Bruised Sweater at knitting a few weeks back…
Here I am...after a very long week.
Close up of my stitches...
Really it’s just an excuse to have Cassandra take close-ups of my chest for me to post on the internet. Or at least that is what I told my husband…luckily nothing I say phases him much anymore.
I have also been trying to come up with ideas on ways to use my leftover hand spun. I thought hair accessories might be the way to go.
My messy mop with a cute headband
Bad vibes, stress and knitting! Oh my!
So right after the Ravelry event I got pretty sick. I must have felt it coming on. It was so bad I couldn’t get any knitting done. I would have been content to sleep all day long…given I wasn’t barfing at the time.
So I spent an entire weekend being ill, then my little boy got it, then my little girl got it…
Then other weird stuff started happening in all aspects of my life. Weird as in “not good”.
To be honest, life had me pretty disgusted. I had no urge to knit. I had a fear…and you can call me crazy if you wish…but I felt like if I even touched my sweater I would transfer some sort of bad vibes to it. I wasn’t prepared to do that. It is my first self-designed sweater.
So I had a talk with my friend Kate at work. She had this fabulous idea for knitting when bad stuff is happening. She said I could knit an “anger blanket”.
Yes, an “anger blanket”, but I imagine it can be knit for any kind of negative feeling or bad vibe you might have. Keep it around for all those times you want to choke someone out with a pair of circular needles, if you are depressed, hurt, grieving…whatever yucky feeling you might have.
Once you’re done, bless the thing, or have it blessed by someone less negative, and donate it to the homeless.
Bad vibes turned into something positive. I like the idea. I am going to do it.
So, everything above postponed my self-imposed knitting deadline. I want to report that I did finally finish my sweater…and it looks great. I think it is my fourth official sweater…and it is the first I designed myself. I can’t wait to wear it…with only positive vibes.
Knit in True Love Fiber Sock in "Bruise"
Party, Party, Ravelry Party!
Ravelry folks are in town? It’s the anniversary of Unwind’s opening? Sounds like the perfect reason to have a party!!
Manos, Manos, Manos!
Still pretty quiet before everyone arrived...
The cool thing is that there was a VIP party beforehand that we got to attend. It was great fun. We got a sneak peek at all the fun stuff before everyone else. Manos, Namaste bags… all sorts of stuff! I had a plan going in, and anyone who knows me well knows I can stick to a plan. 
Me and Meilan...and a bunch of people waiting outside.
See, I know sometimes these things can be overwhelming, so I knew what I was going for and kept my blinders on to everything else. It was kind of like my Stitches approach. Go with a list, do not deviate from said list…it was the only way I could keep within my budget. Of course I did see plenty of eye candy that made me all wide-eyed and crazy looking, but I was a good girl. I only really looked at the Manos color cards. I picked my color and I did two laps around the shop before I went up to the register to order and pay for it. 14 skeins in Bing Cherry. I also found a full punch card when I opened my wallet. That means $30 off my order that was *already* sale priced. I had a *moment*. I believe I actually started jumping up and down and giggling loudly.
I bought enough Manos del Uruguay to make this:
It'll look awesome in "bing cherry"...
I can’t wait until it comes in. I have it slated as my next project.
So, I said it was pretty overwhelming, right? Hopefully Penny doesn’t kill me for this one, but sometimes she is so cute that I just can’t help myself…
I believe there was some swearing happening right before this photo...
Little did I know at the time, but I was coming down with something. That and the crowd inside would explain why I felt like I was burning up. I ended up keeping Emily company at the front door and working on my sweater. It was chilly outside, but it was nice to sit and get some knitting done.
Flo, Meilan and Patty outside chatting.
Emily and I...
I enjoyed playing “bouncer” with Emily. Don’t mess with us ladies…..we carry pointy sticks!
The funny thing about this whole night…and I am not quite sure what I was thinking (for now I will blame the fever that came the next day) but I didn’t even think to go introduce myself to the Ravelry folks. I saw Mary-Heather a few times…and I think saw Jess and Casey once, but I didn’t get any photos of them. Blogger FAIL!
I did have fun though. And it’s getting me primed for Stitches West in February.
It’s done! It’s done!!!
I am so excited I could squeal!
Swamp Thing!
It fits, the ends are woven in…and it is pretty much ready to wear. Er….well….if it weren’t like, 100 degrees outside.
I got a few other things done tonight…
I went to the bookstore with the entire family (my parents are in town staying with us). I was pleasantly surprised to see this:
Robert Dancik is the coolest...
Back in my “former” life as someone who worked in Precious Metal Clay, I had gotten the chance to meet Robert Dancik at a PMC Conference. His work is amazing! Even though I don’t get much of a chance to make jewelry anymore, I snapped this book up right away. Then I came home and made a set of stitch markers and a new necklace.
Making progress at lightning speed!
Ok…now wait a minute! I am lucky if I can get a pair of socks done in a month, but a whole sweater? What? That is crazy talk!!
Have I mentioned lately how much I love stockinette?
There is more done at this point, just no pictures to back it up!
At the rate I am going, I could very well have this sweater done in three weeks. Not 3 weeks from now, I mean 3 weeks TOTAL! As a matter of fact, as of this writing I am done with the body of the sweater and am working on the sleeves.
It’s gonna be the best sweater ever! But it’s still hot out…I may have to wait a little while before I am actually able to wear it. I should have pictures soon.
Boredom, in real time…
I hardly ever really blog just because I am bored. I guess it is because I have so many projects that I can hardly ever say I’m bored. Mostly I blog after an event, so I have time to think about it and get my pics together and so on and so forth. Not tonight…
Tonight I am blogging because the playstation froze while I was trying to rock out to Guitar Hero.
How do I have time to even play Guitar Hero, you ask?
Because I was blowing off doing the dishes.
And I was so close to getting 100% playing “Take it off” by The Donnas!
On “Easy”…I am not that big of a video game nerd…nor am I that coordinated.
Then I put on television and immediately saw this:
What the heck was she thinking?
Just because you are pregnant doesn’t mean you need to walk around in a garbage bag.
Oh, didn’t I promise yarn porn?
Swamp Thing!
I spun the last of it Labor Day weekend and it didn’t take me long to get my sweater game on. I cast Wicked on 3 times, just to get the right color for the collar. So far it is looking pretty good!
Looking good so far...
So I am going to go do some more work on it now that I actually got the dishes washed. The fact that I am working on a stockinette project is so nice! It is relaxing to knit and not have to look at what I am doing most of the time!
Another one bites the dust…
I did it. I finally did it. I finished my summer sweater. I finished it at the end of August, but that is okay. I do live in Southern California after all. I guess technically I can wear my summer clothes until…at least…December.
I finished it last week and decided to wear it to my regular Friday Night Stitch n’ Bitch. So, here it is…
Ta da!
I cannot even tell you how glad I am that this project is done! It isn’t like I didn’t enjoy it, but I think I have found that I have limits. All the ladies at the shop are always so impressed that I “get so much done” having 4 year old twins and a full time job…and my volunteer work….and teaching sock knitting…they just don’t know how I do it. To be honest….I don’t either….outside of me being a little manic about things sometimes. So, I have decided my limit is lace knitting. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t like I can’t do it, I just think it is difficult to do with *distractions*. I did use life lines for the first time on this one and didn’t screw up (thankfully), but I think I could stand a long stint of stockinette sweater knitting.
And that is another thing….I am not feeling the socks lately. I guess I am moving into my sweater phase. This last one turned out so well that I have decided to spin the superwash Wendy gave me and take a stab at “Wicked“.
I'm calling it "Swamp Thing"
It is going to be…soooooo gooooood.
Oh, and while I was at the shop that night I got the nicest surprise! Rachelle had overheard me talking about my being homesick and how I miss real Polish food. I mean, out here in L.A. there isn’t much to choose from…well, not like in Hamtramck. People at work have heard me complain that I couldn’t track down a paczki to save my life. Well, imagine how excited I was to find out Rachelle brought me dinner…..
Pierogi!!!!!
So…verrrrrry….gooooooood.
Sweater FAIL (and why sometimes it is good to get a second opinion)
What a busy little bee I’ve been!
So, Iceland…dear Iceland…..bane of my existence….why have you failed me so? Was it the pattern? Most definitely not! The yarn? Well….maybe. I thought I had gauge….I did swatch it three times. Maybe it was my leaving the first repeat for so long before picking it back up? I just don’t know.
I thought I was in the home stretch. The top was knit and ready to be blocked. I purchased gorgeous buttons from my LYS that flashed teal and fuschia. Like the most beautiful of polished abalone It was going to be the most gorgeous sweater ever.
One night at my stitch n’ bitch Vilma said she had the room and was ready for me. I was going to meet her at lunch and block that sucker! I got all my supplies ready and left work to go meet her. We stuck my lovely Iceland in the sink and soaked it…..then what happened…well, I can only say it made my brain go kablooey. It blew up….like, literally. It was so huge we didn’t even pin. We laid it out gently on the towels and tried to shape it. We checked dimensions, but then decided it was best not to try and agonize over it. We were trying to make it as small as possible. I decided it looked flat and straight and I left it there, with my heart broken in little pieces all over it.
The next two days I tried not to think about it, but I made little comments to non-knitters here and there about how I utterly failed. It was my first sweater fail and that seems to be the hardest. I almost vowed to never knit another sweater. Yes, it was *that* bad.
So Friday rolled around and I went up to the shop. I was hardly excited. I knew she’d be there with it. I didn’t want to look at it, which is sad because I had also had a total win blocking one of my handspun scarves. It didn’t matter….my gorgeous sweater was ruined.
I walked in and tried it on and wanted to cry. It was enormous. Too enormous to save. I had lost all hope.
Then something wonderful happened. The ladies at the shop decided to change my perspective. A few of them offered to buy it off of me after hearing that I planned to rip the entire thing out and restart it. But then they started to offer me another option. I think it was a miracle (well, for a knitter at least).
For those of you out of the loop, this is what it was *supposed* to look like:
Iceland, the right way
This is what it ended up being:
My Iceland, repurposed...
And the back....
So, I may have saved this one. Of course, It isn’t quite a finished object yet. I need to make a black sash for it….that ribbon is just for “show”.
And while I am sitting here going on and on about saving this, I did have a win…
My handspun "Saltwater Waves" yarn made into a purty scarf for me.
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