yarnaholic
August 25, 2005

knitting away

Yes, I have been knitting. I have not been sharing much because a couple of the items are going to be gifts and who knows who actually reads my blog. But I just want to post them so bad that these people are going to have to deal.

First off, Bad Penny is on hold. I cannot get the waist ribbing and eyelet pattern to come out looking right. I emailed the designer, but she is busy with her own life right now and hasn't had time to get back to me. I've asked other knitters who have finished this project, but they all seem to have had similar problems and so they have just revised this part. I like the eyelet pattern too much and don't want to get rid of it though, so I shall just wait. Let me know if you have knitted this pattern successfully as written. Or if you are really bored and a knitting genius, maybe you can just take a look at the pattern and help a girl out.

After getting stuck on Bad Penny, I decided to knit up a sweater using Knit Picks Get Away in the "hiking" colorway. The knit fabric is kinda hypnotic.


If you stare at it awhile, will an image appear?

I haven't yet finished my Sockapal2za socks, but I have our road trip to Arizona coming up during which I can finish them. Don't you worry, sock pal.

And now for the gift knitting...If you are my husband or his sister, you had better not peek!!

Last winter, my husband complained that I never knit anything for him. Little did he know at the time that I was already working on a scarf for him for xmas. Now I think I want to try a little larger project for him, because wouldn't it be great to see your beloved wearing a nice sweater that you made by hand!? So he is the inspiration for my very first sweater knit for someone besides me.

 

This is going to be a much revised version of the Jesse's Flames pattern from SnB Nation, revised because, well, I don't want my husband wearing a sweater with flames on it. Hey, if I'm knitting it, I have some say, right? I'm using Rowan Cashsoft DK, and oh my god is it so soft. My husband will love me so much for this. Especially if it actually fits.

I also started the Midwest Moonlight scarf from the book Scarf Style without a clue of who it would be for. As I was knitting away though, it just reminded me of Tim's sister. I asked Tim, and it turns out that green is her favorite color. Perfect!

 
This will need much blocking, but you can kind of get a sense for the pattern.

This is being knit with Knit Picks Merino Style in Asparagus. The color in the first picture is close, though it is more vivid and less yellow in reality.

Starting in August, I might actually have these finished by xmas!

Posted by alison at 04:02 PM — Comments (4)

I am such a bad blogger

I never update. I think about doing it a lot, but I never feel like doing it. "Maybe tomorrow, after I get a chance to take some pictures," I say. I never take pictures though. I am just lazy, I suppose. Plus, I think my life is too boring to read about most of the time. :)

But I will catch you up on a few things happening right now.

First, I have a new job. The one that I started in June just did not work out, for various reasons that I will not go into here. It was just not a good fit and I did not want to be miserable. So I started looking again, and had an even better sense of what I wanted and what to look for. I found something that I think will be perfect. It's a lot closer, it is a better program for the kids, and it fits more with my ideals and teaching philosophies. I've started planning curriculum, but I don't start teaching until the second week of September.

Tim and I are also going to take a little vacation soon. We'll be going to visit some of my family in Phoenix, and we thought we would make it a longer road trip since Tim has never been to the Grand Canyon. I have been many times, when I was younger, but it has been quite awhile. I must remember to take lots of pictures.

We're still working on the house. We bought new living room furniture so that we could move our sofabed to a bedroom. Having a guest room will be nice, instead of making company have to sleep in the living room. So before moving the couch, we finally got around to painting that room too. It's looking pretty nice in there! Now we just need to buy some bookshelves so that we can unpack all our books.

The kitchen is coming along nicely too but has stalled a bit. We're having a hard time finding a place to buy a butcher block countertop that will fit our island. We're also having a hard time with the place we bought our cabinets; they keep sending us doors that are banged up, scratched, or warped! I think they need a bit better quality control for the price we paid. Other than those things, the kitchen is pretty much done. We will just have a couple little things after that, like installing the toe kicks and the trim around the sliding door. The before and after pictures should be coming soon (we hope)!

There's a neighborhood kitty who likes to come visit our backyard. She is very cute and vocal. I like when she visits, except when it is 2am and she is in heat.

There's not much else that is new. Tim has been working a lot because there is a big deadline in a couple weeks. I've been doing lots of knitting when he's gone, but I will post about that in another entry.

Posted by alison at 03:00 PM — Comments (0)
August 12, 2005

disgusting

I can't believe people can be such sick bastards.

Here's the story
Here's the surveillance video. (Be warned. It's graphic and seriously made me cry.)

They need to run this guy over with a car three times.

Posted by alison at 05:19 PM — Comments (5)
August 10, 2005

bug off.

I. am. so. incredibly. sick. of. ants.

I seriously think they've built a giant, buzzing metropolis in our yard. Unfortunately, this often means home invasion. We've had to move our cats' food dishes several times because we have woken up in the morning to find a highway of ants heading to and fro. We've also had the displeasure of finding ants swarming hairballs. Last week we had Terminix come to spray the house inside and the perimeter outside. The cats and I had to leave the house for 3 hours while this happened, which I wouldn't have minded except that the cats didn't seem too pleased.

Unfortunately, the guy didn't tell me until he was almost done spraying that he was going to be unable to spray the living room due to our fishtank. It would have been nice if they had mentioned this previously (like when we called or when he first got here so that I would have time to cover it with saran wrap before posionous gases were dispersing in our house). Unfortunately, the living room is where most of the problems have occurred. But he said that if we had more problems, they would just come right back out and spray again.

We didn't worry about it for a few days. A few, fabulous, ant-free days. The past couple days, we have seen small traces of ants. They've seemed to have formed a fairly straight line, but there were too few of them to really figure out where it went. Well, I just got back from the grocery store and walked in to find a slightly larger line of ants. Headed to the pantry. And the cereal boxes.

We will call Terminix to come again and make sure that they can spray the living room this time, but let me tell you how much I am not looking forward to spending three hours away from the house with the cats again. Something more has to be done outside, or they are just going to keep coming back.

I am so disgusted. And irritated. And fed up.

Posted by alison at 06:06 PM — Comments (8)
August 06, 2005

Real Women

In the past couple days I have noticed what seems to be a new trend in the knitting world - books focused on plus-size patterns. This is a great idea. Not all women are model skinny and there's a need for larger size patterns. Though I am fairly skinny, I understand the frustration that larger women must feel in not being able to find any patterns for garments that they can actually make for themselves. Being tall, I have the same frustration in finding pants that are long enough for me, but that's a different story. This frustration can add to their negative self-image built from the media's portrayal of how women should look. Women of all sizes should embrace who they are and be equally accepted by others and by themselves.

That said, there is one aspect of these books that irritates me. Both titles include the descriptor, "For Real Women." Hmm, plus size patterns. For real women. The assumption made in advertising that all women are skinny is not positive; it's even insulting. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky, but isn't this doing the same thing in reverse?

If these books contained patterns in a wide variety of sizes, demonstrating the broad range of women's sizes, this descriptor would be great. Real Women - we come in many sizes! However, the actual use of this phrase just irks me.

I am skinny. I am a real woman too.

Posted by alison at 11:24 AM — Comments (4)