KnottyKnits

Lately, I’ve been suffering from what I like to call the “I don’t want to do ANYTHING” portion of the summer. I don’t want to knit. I don’t want to quilt. Let’s not even mention the stuff I’m SUPPOSED to be doing that I’m generally ignoring, like laundry – craftiness motivation completely left the building. The most I could muster in the evenings was a sigh in the general direction of my sewing machine, and then I’d flop down on the couch after the kids were in bed. I’ve noticed that this happens at about this time every year; it’s like my body just rejects the heat and boredom that summer in Austin creates; this year has been exceptionally sucky, with the 105 degree days and the lack of rain and OH MY GOD I AM SO OVER THIS. I hear folks on TV complaining because oh my, it feels like fall up north! This makes me invariably roll my eyes until they almost create a full circle in my skull and then invite them to spend a couple of days on the surface of the sun with me. I can’t even get my groceries home from the store in the afternoons without everything completely defrosting before I can get them home. All this means that the thought of having extra fabric across my body, for any reason at all, was rather unappealing.

While I type this, I’m watching an informercial with Billy Blanks and some weird English guy hawking some power tool, and all I can think about is that Billy Blanks had drugs in his system when he died. Is that why OxyClean yanked all of his ads and replaced them with Generic Blonde Motherly Type? I refuse to believe they did it out of any sort of respect for him.

Randomness. Anyway.

With the liberal application of air conditioning and 44 oz iced teas from Sonic I’ve been getting back into the groove lately.

Hello! I'm Cassidy!?

What? You don’t immediately want to knit a sweater in the middle of summer, too? I’m not really a fan of knitting sweaters, but about once a year I get the bug and I have to knit one to get it out of my system, and this year is Cassidy’s turn. My progress is slow, due to the aforementioned BLAH going on, but the b/4 ack is done. Now I have to figure out how to shorten the sleeves to 3/4 length (math is not what I’d call my “strong point”) and I’ll have something useable by Christmas.

I am also working my way through a quilt. I saw this awesome tutorial online (which I now cannot find, but a search for Half Square triangle shows me that it’s not like this is a NEW idea) – you take two squares, draw a diagonal line down the center of one of them, and then sew a quarter inch seam on either side of the line. Then cut through the line, flip open and press seams in any direction that you would like. I won’t judge you if you like to press them completely open, or press to the dark side, or whatever wackiness you’ve come up with. I accept you, whatever your pressing style.

I’m not sure what this is going to turn into in the end, but I’ve had some pretty awesome inspiration. I’m sure I’ll come up with something. In the meantime, I’ll continue making half squares until I’ve exhausted my supply of charm squares, or until I’m sick of making them. Whichever comes first.

I thought these blocks would take a lot longer to complete, but I knocked them out in just a few days.

Yellow:

Orange:

Pink:

Green:

Blue:

Purple:

I've cut the sashing for them, and I'll start putting it together tonight. I need to go buy the backing and the batting for it since I'll probably be quilting it by the end of the week. I'm loving how the colors are bright and happy. This will be perfect for Sarah's room! The only change that I'm going to make is that I'm not going to put the extra blocks into the back of the quilt; I think I'll use them as artwork in her room. I'll have them matted and framed, and I'll hang them above her bed.  I'll also have to make her curtains and a pillow or two, but that's why I bought double the fabric. I'm thinking string blocks for the two pillows. 

On top of that, I have been knitting:

That is a feather and fan scarf made with some of the SAFF yarn that I picked up last year. It had two random knots and a large section of unspun yarn which I cut out and had to spit splice together. On one hand, yeeeech, and on the other hand, it totally worked. The yarn is very thick/thin so I didn't want to use it for socks. Still, it was calling to me, and I think this shows off the yarn to the best advantage. wouldn't that be a great color for a cardigan? I need to investigate getting a bunch of this in DK for a sweater….

So, how's that shawl coming along?

It's good! I mean, I know it was getting a little long, but I really want to use all of the yarn. See? Here's a picture.

Whoa! What the…don't you think it's long enough? I mean, at some point, you have to stop! Put down the yarn! BACK AWAY!

Yeah, maybe you're right. 

Maybe?

All right! I'm finishing this repeat and I'll kitchner in the other end. I didn't think there would be any harm…

You're scared of kitchnering that many stitches. 

Not scared, exactly…

Chicken. 

What?

You heard me. 

Uh, okay. Didn't realize this was going to turn all third grade. 

How many times did you knock over that cup of beads while you were knitting?

Twice. 

*crickets*

Okay! Eight times! EIGHT TIMES! Is that better? 

Anyway, how are the kids?

Doing great! I mean, don't you see the joy on their faces?

Not really.

Seriously. They are doing great. That is just ONE picture, I've got tons more where they are totally jazzed.

I see. Let's move on…are you going to be doing anything crafty anytime soon, or are you just going to continue to bore us with pictures of your kids and blahblahblah house junk?

I've been busy! School, work, house - 

Yeah, we know. I wasn't asking for justification, Captain Defensive. Just if you were going to, oh, I don't know, get more INTERESTING any time soon.

Yeah, I'm going to start a quilt for my daughter's room. I'm just dithering over the color scheme. I'm going to start it when we get into the apartment and school is over, so give me two weeks. 

We'll see. You'll update? With pictures?

I promise!

That remains to be seen.

Believe it or not, there has been progress on this shawl.

This is approximately 19 of the 31 repeats done, although I will be doing as many repeats as I can get out of this yarn because I do not want to waste one spare inch of it. The pattern is extremely easy to memorize, so most of the time the pattern stays in my knitting basket. What I am NOT looking forward to is kitchnering all of the stitches across this shawl; the bottom border is stitched to it like closing the toe on a sock, and I manage to screw THAT up enough that it should be very, very interesting to complete the same maneuver on something like 100+ stitches. Of lace. Maybe I should just give up while I'm ahead. I did manage to finish a sock:

Only one, though, so don't get too excited. I haven't even cast on for the second sock. I'm loving the colors, and there is something about the red toe that just delights my little sock knitting heart. They are totally obnoxious and loud, and they will be put away to be used as my Christmas socks. I try to knit a pair of socks for myself for Christmas morning every year. I obviously got a jump on it this year, since it is only Spring (as is evidenced by my AWESOME PLANT THAT I NURSED BACK TO LIFE AFTER ALMOST KILLING IT).

I'm just a leeetle bit proud of that damn plant. I bought it, transferred it to that pot, and it promptly lost all of its flowers. Since I absolutely suck at plants, I figured that I had killed it, but I kept tending to it anyway, and it absolutely exploded into flowers last week. I will take it with us to the apartment that we'll be living in to decorate whatever patio we have, and then hopefully it will make it long enough to get transferred into our new home sometime later in the year. This gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, I can keep other plants alive, too. I've managed thus far with kids; plants shouldn't be all that much harder, right?

Here in Texas, you don't wear a lot of sweaters. Knitwear is kinda thin on the ground here; my love of the hobby is looked at with a raised eyebrow most of the time, because seriously, how many sweaters do you need in a city that really only has four days of freezing weather? But occasionally, I'll stumble across a pattern that I love, and I just have to make it, heat be damned. I think, though, that this takes it over the edge. I've cast on for the Apres Surf Hoodie, which is a lacy sweater in fingering weight yarn knit on US 3 needles.

(For those of you not up on knitting lingo, that's like trying to build your house out of toothpicks. It would take forever.)

I have the perfect yarn (the pattern calls for Cashcotton, but I have cashsoft, which is the same yardage just swapping wool for the cotton content), I have the pattern, I have the needles, but I have apparently lost my mind and decided that this is a good idea. I like the fact that it uses a relatively thinner yarn and that there is some lace on the pattern, making it less warm that some of the worsted weight sweaters that I've made, but again, I live in Texas. Thank God that we are as active with the A/C as we are, because otherwise most of this stuff would never get worn. I am doing some modifications to the pattern, though; I'm not making the hoodie, and I'm shortening the sleeves to 3/4 sleeves, since I end up shoving the sleeves up anyway. And I want to add some length to the body, so I'll have to figure that out, too. I'm not all that great at making modifications to existing patterns, but I'm determined to make it fit the way I need it to, so that will take a little a little extra effort on my part.

On the house front, we're still on the market, getting 1-2 showings in a week. Spring is starting to peek through, and we're hoping that will drive people out to find their perfect starter home so that we can get this one sold.  But for right now, we're still in a holding pattern. I'm trying not to think about it all that much; I know it will sell at some point, but I'm very impatient when it comes to this type of thing. Send good house selling karma this way, if you please!

Being that I am in love with geekery these days, I did a Wurdle for this blog:(enclicken to embiggen)

As my husband pointed out, I apparently talk about yarn a lot.

This year, instead of candy and flowers on Valentine's day, my only request is that I be released from picking up the house for one morning to attend a party. Not just any party, of course: this was a Ravelry party at The Knitting Nest, complete with Jess, Casey and Mary-Heather. And I may have forced them to take pictures with my child.

Luckily, they seemed okay with me thrusting Sarah into their faces, and the kid herself happens to be a camera ham, so it all worked out well. Note that Sarah is clutching her very own Ravelry pin, which she demanded the second she saw everyone else getting one.

So, yeah. I had a great Valentine's Day. What did you do?

I'm slowly making progress on Madli:

That is six repeats completed on the center panel of the body; the pattern recommends 31, but the plan is to just keep going for as long as the yarn will allow. I promise that there really are beads on it, but they get lost in the mess of the unblocked lace. And to be honest, that is the point. I don't want the beads to overpower the lace. My goal here was to add just a touch of sparkle to the already lovely yarn, and they do that rather well.

Don't adjust your eyes – it is a bit blurry. But you can see the beads a little bit better, no? And that's not all that has been getting a little bit of work around here:

In order, that's my crazy-ass socks, which I plan to finish off with a plain red toe just for fun; my master bathroom, which needed a serious makeover and now matches the bedroom; and the pictures that now reside in my master bedroom that I have been asking to be put up for months. This moving thing has so far included cleaning, decorating, putting things in storage and preparing to live in as sterile an environment as possible. See that silver speaker in the last picture? Going to storage. The candles? Storage. The weather alarm? The blue plate with change in it? STORAGE. Clutter is the bain of the For Sale home, and I am determined to boot it out of my home.

However, it is eating into my knitting time. I am not sure this is acceptable.

I have a friend that is getting married in May, and while Texas isn't what you'd call "cool" during that time, she is getting married near the lake. Which means that it is going to be breezy. To combat this, I wanted to knit something for my shoulders; something I could throw over a little black dress and feel comfortable. The silky lace I picked up at SAFF jumped out at me, so I wound 'er up and contemplated a pattern. 900 yards is a lot of lace yarn, but you'd be surprised at how many shawl patterns either call for 400 yards (generally a triangle, and I wanted a stole), or 1200 yards. Finding something that I liked for the yardage was a challenge.

Luckily, I remembered that I have a copy of Knitted Lace of Estonia. I pulled it out of the knitting library and I knew that Madli's Shawl was the one. It requires more yarn than I have, but it also has a wealth of The Dreaded Nupp, which I will just replace with beads to add a little more shimmer. Matter of fact, I've already completed one end of the shawl:

The construction requires you to knit an end and then the center, and then to knit the other end and kitchner it in. To get the most out of the yarn, I am instead knitting one end, leaving it on the cord (Knitpicks Options are perfect for this!), and then knitting the other end and the center. I am loving the beads instead of the nupps. I don't exactly love putting them on the stitches, but the effect is gorgeous and I think will be appropriate for a late afternoon wedding. Now to just make this project stretch out a while longer so that I don't run out of things to knit!

The yarn, that is.

We have decided that it is high time that we bought a new house, which means that we need to sell our current house. The things that you have to do to get your house ready to sell include decluttering, cleaning, repairing, painting, and landscaping.  Apparently, yarn is classified as "clutter", and my stash is being moved to a cold, lonely storage unit, along with my sewing table. (The sewing machine will be taken out of this house over my dead body.) I am being allowed to keep a few small projects in a basket that will reside in the top of our master bedroom closet.

How sad is it for a knitter to be ripped away from her stash like that? I've already had daydreams of sweaters I know I won't knit in the next few months, outlandish shawls that I don't have the yarn for, and I have an insane need to stash more yarn before it all goes away for a (hopefully) short while. It's not like I was going to knit it ALL in the next few months – I can definitely be without it for a while. But still, it's a little sad to see it boxed up and ready to be sent to THE STORAGE UNIT this weekend. 

What I'm keeping: the beautiful skein of silvery-grey silk that I bought at SAFF and that was hand-dyed for me; the Baruffa Cashwool for my Forest Path Stole, and two lots of yarn for socks, which I haven't even decided upon yet. It's like choosing among your children, I swear. Okay, maybe not THAT dramatic, but still…it's hard to choose. 

What would you keep, if you had to make that decision?