I am back from the far north but I am carrying some violent plague that has manifested itself in my right ear. I have pictures & tales to share, but for now I need a plunger to the head. More to come soon.
Off To The Frozen North
Tomorrow I have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to get on my 7AM flight to Minnesota. I’m super excited (and a little sad that the Mr isn’t coming), I have roughly 9 differernt yarn stores to visit, family to see, and my dad to run ragged as I drag him all over the Twin Cities.
You may want to note, I am not one of those “relax and kick up your feet” people on vacation. I think those people waste their time off work. If I’m going on vacation I want to cram in as much “fun” as I can.
I’m definitely going to hit up Uncle Hugos Books and hopefully once again come back with a suite case full of used fantasy novels. If you’ve never been to this book store I’m sad for you, there is nothing here that would make Oprah’s Book Club, but only becase it’s filled with 1 million times more awesome than anything she would pick.
I hope to come back with at least one memory card full of pictures, 7 books, and an armfull of new lovely yarns to knit. I’m going to try to keep it to sock yarn. Wish me luck!
Oh & Herman is coming, he may need a scarf!
I have one finished knit to show before I pack up and head out.
No so Wispy
Pattern: Wisp
Yarn: Jitterbug 1.5 Skeins
Needle: US 4
Pretty darn happy with this knit, though I don’t have a whole lot to say about it.
Knits In Abundance!
The last few weeks I have been a little more quiet around the blog, talking less, trying to shove in more photos to make up for the lessening content. Let’s just say, I wasn’t feeling very well but I’m better now, and getting better every day I do believe. So blogging shall continue to it’s normal stream of babbling even a brook couldn’t compete with (get it? Babbling. Brook? HA I crack me up).
First up, this little guy has been sitting around done for a couple of weeks and never got blogged. All together now “aw, sad”. 
So here I introduce you to Sid the Squid (some of you may even get the reference, if not, fear not, you are just not as big of a dork as me).
Sid hangs out with ripened oranges and well watered succulents.
Let me take your attention away from the cute as a button squid for just one second, looking past him into the background you see such a fantastic blurriness. That would be because I have now in my possession a brand spanking new 85mm prime lens. I am in love.
I have also finally washed the blue cable scarf. It is now even more fantastic.
So cabley!
I also finished my test sweater for my Matthias pattern. It will be available by Wednesday for those of you looking for it.
Side view (not seriously flattering though)
I really wanted to make sure everything was as perfect as it could be since I plan on offering this knit for sale. I’ve had a few people write me confusing emails about my entrelac cowl pattern (and entreleac is confusing enough with out having to think about it in the round) even though when I knit it (from my own pattern) everything comes out fine, so I don’t want any of those emails on a sweater scale.
I think the most difficult part for people will be the collar (you knit it almost 2″ shorter than the actual measurement of the neck hole opening) and shoulder/epilet transistion. I’ve tried to write it as clearly as I can but I expect emails.
In other news, we seem to have a marauding giant cat attacking Innocent castles & chomping on helpless lego men.
Bob Smash
God speed little lego warrior.
Spring Greens
I’ve started a new sweater. I’m kinda making it up as I go along. This green Blue Sky Dyed cotton has been in my stash for over a year. It was time to clean it out. That’s my goal this year. Clean out the stash, knit what I have & discover that I have more than I think I do. I’ve overspilled my closet drawers & it’s time to get real about using this yarn up.
One sleeve is right side out, one is inside out. I'm just not sure which one is which yet.
Spring has also come to California. The flowers are blooming, the bugs are alive, the lizards are getting fat once more & the cats are allowed outside. Not my cats mind you, my cats aren’t at all interested in the “outside”.
Mr. Ghetto of the big eyes & head.
My inlaws are now back from Arizona so that means that we are done dog sitting for now. I still don’t understand how it’s fair that they got the baby (our niece) & we got the dog. Tyler is deep down a good dog, but he’s such a bad mannered spaz I often forget that. Let’s just say that I’m relieved he’s gone.
Today my new lens is being delivered and I’m just about hopping out of my chair with excitement! Also, it’s just under a week before I’m heading to Minnesota which is awesome. My list of places to go, see, and photograph is ever expanding. There are so many things you do not do in the state you grew up in. So many things that seem normal but are truly beautiful. Maybe this is why I do all the “dorky” stuff in California & why I insist on stopping to take pictures whenever the whim hits me. Thankfully, the husband seems to fully understand.
Roses roses everywhere.
This weekend I have set a goal of 5-7K worth of words to write, plus adding the edits I did earlier last week. Thankfully, it seems to want to rain so I don’t have to feel bad about spending time indoors on the computer.
Meandering
I’ve been relatively quite the last few weeks, well, Internet wise at least as I think it’s quite impossible for me to be physically quiet (much to the dismay of the Mr). Though I have been wandering the outskirts of my usual Internet haunts I haven’t had the energy to really jump in like I normally do, meaning I have been a poor commenter on the blogs that I love and haven’t taken a single none knitting related photo in weeks.
That is all about to change though. I’ve felt the subtle frustration welling up once again which means only that I really need to get out and create or capture. Knitting doesn’t quell this part of my personality in the least. Usually in the past the only way I could feel calm and normal again was to draw or paint (bet a bunch of you didn’t know I could do that. Well I can, I don’t paint well, but I can draw pretty damn awesomely. Yes, I said awesomely).
Thankfully, I have an 85mm Canon Lens zooming toward me in the back of a UPS truck. The delivery date is Friday which means that I will be able to play all weekend.
A week from tomorrow I will be taking this lens (along with many others) my knitting and myself (because honesty, I don’t know if there are any other important things) to Minnesota for a long weekend. I will be visiting my long frozen family in the far north and trying (in vain I’m sure) not to let them see how California has thinned my blood and wussified my Scandinavian heart.
I have lived in California all together for 5 long years. I still always clarify though that I’m from Minnesota because a huge part of me doesn’t want to assimilate to this state, this culture and this mindset. If you are from here I doubt that you would ever understand, but like most people who move to this long state on the ocean I will never understand fully what drives the people here.
As I pull my things together for the trip and start listing off the things I want to do I am hit with a sudden heart ache for my long lost home. I don’t miss the winter, (but I do miss season change in general), I do miss the cities with their random one way streets and skyways. So I will be dragging my dad all over the twin cities at a break neck pace visiting yarn shops and snapping pictures until I am too tired or too frozen to continue. So for now I leave you with a little funny and a little inspiration.
- Herman needs a hand.
My weekly favorites from Flickr seem to show a tendency toward green (like that’s a surprise) orange and blue.
2 To Keep You Warm
Two FO’s. I’ve been plowing away at my UFO pile, mainly because it makes me uncomfortable to have so many UFO’s laying around, but mostly because if I finish them asap I can wear them in Minnesota in two weeks.
First off, yet another Saddle Shoulder EZ sweater (and this one I actually didn’t have a hissy fit over and cry about raising the back. This time I trusted EZ and it all worked out!)
Those of you with better monitors will notice a stripe, a stripe which vexes me.
Pattern: Seamless Saddle Shoulder Sweater (SSSS)
Yarn: Frog Tree Alpaca Sport
Needles: US 3 through out (yes it got tedious)
Verdict: This sweater fits me perfectly, it’s exactly how I want all my sweaters to fit, why? Because I was honest about what kind of positive ease I actually wanted. I measured the crap out of a favorite cashmere Old Navy sweater and copied it.
This sweater makes me realize that 1. I REALLY need to dye my hair & 2. I have line backer shoulders!
Those of you with better monitors will notice something fishy going on across the front of my sweater. In the general bust area there seems to be a stripe of different color. Well yes, there is. I did not personally notice this until I was 1/2 way through the yoke. It seems that I had a random skein of the wrong colorway.
Let this be a lesson to you! Just because you buy a bag of all the same yarn on sale DO NOT assume that it’s all the same colorway or dye lot. Thankfully the stripe in person looks intentional. So it’s now a (get your finger quotes out!) “design element”.
The next FO is a huge thick cabled scarf.
This scarf could protect you from nuclear fall out. Seriously.
Pattern: None, I used a cable pattern (open trellis I think) from Vogue Stitchonary Vol 2.
Yarn: Lambs Pride Worsted 4 skeins
Needles: US 8′s throughout.
This sucker is amazing. It’s a good solid 3 pounds of scarf. It’s so thick and tightly cabled that I do believe it would save you from a nuclear blast. I totally am in love with lambs pride and if I lived back in the Midwest I would have an entire sweater collection out of it. Why? Well the mohair component is amazing. I know a lot of people don’t like mohair, but the knits I have out of Lambs Pride have stood the test of camping in the rain. I have worn sweaters out in the drizzle and have never gotten wet, the hairs collect the drops and keep them away from the main sweater. Seriously amazing stuff.
Stay tuned kidos! I’m going to have a stash busting contest in the next week. Yarn (Lots of yarn!) will be offered as prizes. I will announce the rules later this week.
Herman The Hermit Crab
Interwebs, meet Herman the Hermit Crab
"I pinch."
Pattern: Hermit Crab
Yarn: Jitterbug for the shell & Ultra Alpaca for the body (2 colors)
Needles: US 4
Verdict: I love him more than is healthy.
Please go visit the designers site for more information.
I seem to be on a toy kick lately. I have never really been one for the knitted toys but after finishing so many large projects I really needed some small satisfying knits. That’s not to say this guy was easy. This is definitely not a beginners pattern but I think that if you have ever knit a sock you will be able to bang this guy out with out so much trouble.
The key is short rows. The brilliance of the short row shaping is absolutely mind blowing. The legs curve gently by themselves even with out the pipe cleaners I shoved in there. The shell was tougher, but only because it got tight near the end. The designer says that you can use straits which I did, but I recommend knitting the shell on circulars so you have some more room to maneuver the stitches.
The hardest part of the whole project (for me) was sewing in the legs and head into the shell. I had a harder time positioning everything quite right, but in the end it all worked out perfectly.
I couldn’t be happier with this project, everything about it really makes me happy. I’m really glad that I didn’t choose standard crab colors either because I don’t think the overall effect would have been as nice. Plus, there are very few sea creatures that are naturally red before cooking and I wanted a LIVE crab
Immediately after finishing this little guy up I cast on for the Fiddler Crab. I know that I said I would be done with short rows & “make 8″ for a while, but I obviously lied. After that I may be done, or I may cast on for the Praying Mantis and then call it a day.
I think this tangent comes from the weather here in California lately. It’s cold in the morning but is summer-like during the day so I don’t really want to cast on for anymore sweaters right now, but I’m not ready yet to throw myself back into socks. Soon, I promise, I will move on. Till then, revel in the cuteness of the crab.
Stuff It
Things keep popping up around my house. Every time I turn around…
Albert & Maddox Monsters
I finished these little guys in one day. It was fun, satisfying & easy. Just what I needed to clear my head.
Albert the Monster
Pattern: Albert
Yarn: Berroco Comfort DK (two strands held together)
Needles: US 6 DPNs
Maddox Moster
Pattern: Maddox
Yarn: Cascade 220 (two strands held together)
Needles: US 8 DPNs
Having completed both of these guys I wanted more. I have tons of scraps (who doesn’t?) and no pressing knits so I can fool around for a while if I damn well please. So I ventured over and bought some sealife patterns from hansigurumi. I bought the squid, hermit crab & fiddler crab.
Squid-A-Licious!
He still is waiting patiently for his eyes to arrive in the mail (I liked the look of glass eyes better than knitted ones).
Pattern: Squid-a-licious
Yarn: Brownsheep Lambs Pride Prairie Goldenrod & scrap Malabrigo
Needles: US 6 dpns
I am totally in love with this guy. Knitting him was so much fun and the short row shaping is genius. I know a lot of people have mentioned the fiddliness of knitting it, but I didn’t find any of that. I will say, if you do not like directions that state “knit 8″ this is not the pattern for you, even if 1 leg only takes 15 minutes.
I have since moved on an am 1/2 way through the hermit crab. He has a fabulously genius curly shell, 4 little legs & 2 pinchers done and is just ready for a head & some sewing up. Then I think I might be done with the short rows for a while 
I spent Sunday writing up the Matthias sweater pattern, I just have to double check the row gage math on my sleeves & epilates and then I think it’s ready to go. I tell you though, that’s a lot of math. Sizes available are 36-68. That’s 14 different sizes & a whole lot of “wait, where was I?” going on
Second Verse, Same As The First…
Just a little bit louder and a whole lot worse!
Actually, it’s not worse, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Swallowtail Shawl in class "preita" pose with only 1/2 my face showing.
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Sock
Neeldes: US 6 circs
Mods: I worried about running out of yarn and after researching ravelry (isn’t that lovely, just think, 2 years ago you couldn’t do such a thing!) I found that I would run out, so I omitted 1 section of the lily of the valley lace.
Verdit: Love.
Not as big, but just as pretty.
The second version is not as big due to my yarn choice. I love it. The size is absolutely perfect, PERFECT I SAY.
It’s so purpley and happy, I love this knit. I think I might make one more for the grandma. Though I might not.
LOVE. Seriously.
In other news the Mr is one proud papa.
If I didn't know better I'd worry he loved this more than me!
I made him stand there next to the new baby, because I’m a dork, and I force my dorkiness on others. I believe in sharing the horor. I also just realized that I think this picture captures every one of my favorite things.
1.The Mr (obviously)
2. Computer complete with writing
3. Ugly fish!
4. Moutain Dew
5. Knitting!
6. TV (I won’t lie, I love tv)
7. Spinning Wheel (you can just barely see the treddle by the Mr’s feet)
Wow, that picture really do represent my big loves! It would only be complete if the Mr had a cat in his arms, one on his shoulder and a mouth breather in my face.
What mouth breather you ask? This mouth breather who thinks that personal space means the 2cm between your nose & his!
Tick Tick Tick On The Keyboard.
This weekend I wrote quite prolifically, I have thus far reached 60,000+ words, some of them gems, and some of them need to be expanded upon. According to the Mr I am now approximately 1/3 through my book. In the end The Story Of Mildred is really going to be quite larger and more richly documented than I had ever dreamed. I’m estimating to complete roughly 200,000 words before I can call this book done, though in my heart I know that it won’t be done. There is so much I want to accomplish that I know this book will not be lonely long before I start composing it’s sibling.
It’s weird for me to think that I even started along this path, that I am actually writing more than just bi-weekly blog posts, that four little paragraphs sprinkled with humor could so quickly blossom into such a large project.
It’s all a little overwhelming, truth be told. Sometimes I look around at the shelves upon shelves of fantasy novels in our house and let a little self doubt sink in. How on earth could I stand to compare myself to these authors, these brilliant minds that have shared their worlds and imaginations with the world.
The fact is, I can’t. I’ve come to the realization that though I admire them, how I think and how I write is nothing like them at all. This thought has been swirling around in my head for a couple of weeks now, moving itself in and out of my unconscious mind. Then something hit me like a bolt of lightening strait out of the clear blue sky and I have finally found some peace.
I can’t compare myself to these other authors in the way that an apple can not compare itself to a carrot. One of the main reasons I think that I have been struggling with the difference between how I write and think an these books I so love is that I am, at my very foundation, completely different than them. I am a woman. I see and think about things much differently than the authors of the books that I really love. Making that discovery I have decided to search out well known female authors in this genra. And you know what I’ve found?
Once you remove the vampire romanace novels, and those teetering on the edge of just being more romance than fantasy you are left with one hell of a short list. I can list only a few before having google do my walking. Robin Hobb, Anne McCaffery, Maragret Weis, and from there my list grows thin.
So, with my determination renewed I’m ready once more to charge head first back into this book. Even if nothing ever becomes of it, I will have managed to weave together a story and created people that I know I would want to read.
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In news unrelated to writing I have an FO to show, but I couldn’t bring myself to blog about it today for some reason. I think The Story of Mildred has eaten my brain while it tries to decide how to map out the Yeti Capital. (You know what? It’s probably best you don’t ask
I’ve also promised the Mr that I am going to download the audio book of Wheel of Time (book one). I have never been able to do this series past book two and I think that kind of saddens the husband, so I’ve come to a compromise. At the very least I will try.
(This is completely random, but I think it’s funny that wordpress spell-checker thinks that “Blog” is not a word. HA! A blog spell checker doesn’t recognize BLOG as a word! Awesome.)
