With a capital F

No, no. Not that word (although it has become a favorite of mine in my 22 years).

No. This is a good f-word...and this word is "fixed."

It's fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed. And not only is it fixed...but it is now a fix-ed thing. Don't ask me how I figured it out, but somewhere random I had added a stitch and it was causing my remaining stitches to not line up properly.

But that's all in the past because IT...IS...FIXED...and fixed up good.

A bit better

So, we decided it would be best if I were to just put the pointy objects down (away from my eyes) and just sleep on the knitting problem. When I got off of work today, I felt calm enough (after a nice long nap) to tackle the frogging (which I always avoid doing at all costs) of my shrug. I'm still terrified to talk about it...it was that scary. However, I didn't lose any stitches along the way and the peice-o-junk looks much better than yesterday...Although, I still see something is "off" with it.


BUT MAYBE IT ISN'T MY FAULT? I do not know. I have now knitted the last 9 rows of this repeat...twice...always counting my stitches and checking that I made YO's where I was supposed to...etc... Yet, at the end of certain rows, it seems that I have an extra stitch on the left needle that shouldn't be there. I DON'T GET IT. I go back and I count the stitches before it, checking YO's, K2tog's, PSSO's (what have you) and it all matches up! So, what gives, man? The way that I "fix" this problem is just to decrease a stitch somewhere, because I don't know any fancy fixing techniques as of yet. However, as you can probably see from the images, it caused my stitches to shift to the right, making it look a little bit "jogged"--most unappealing in lace, I say.



I may decide tomorrow to take it apart...again...and knit it back up...again...But today, I just don't feel like it. I may just decide that things are fine the way they are...but I can tend to be a perfectionist...so, chances are, I'll be frogging again first thing in the morning.

Because I blogged in anger yesterday (I should really save blogging for when I have a cleared mind...maybe after some green tea or something), I forgot to mention the most important part of the day. Yesterday was my 4-year anniversary with my boyfriend, the non-drinking Russian philosopher, artist, and musician (*hehee...I like to leave out all of that boring "software development" business). I asked off all weekend, so, we will have all kinds of time to spend together. I'm sure he has plans already set up for us...he's like that.

Here's my favorite picture...I think this was during either our first or second year together:


Max, I'm sorry I forgot us in our blog yesterday...do you forgive me? Will you still give me an anniversary present? LOL ;P wink, wink.

Why do I fool myself?

This:




And not this:


is the story of my life.

That is one repeat of the Rose Lace Pattern completed...looking all torn apart and remarkably like shit.

Here's what the horrible peice of trash looks like as a whole:



Do you see how this:



Isn't going to look like this in a million years (and how I have utterly failed at knitting...ONCE AGAIN)?:


Bye



:(

I'm making stuff...

So, it's been a while since I had a real life post (that means with pictures) about my projects.

I have been working on the pink lacey shrug. I was all excited about it because I was doing everything right. I was finally getting the hang of the whole "lace thing." And then came the third repeat of the Rose Garland chart and...well...I don't know what happened. Here...this is how all three repeats are supposed to look:


and here is how the last of the three ended up:


I just decided to leave it as it was...who would notice anyway, right? It still looks like lace to me! So, now I am finished with the Rose Garland chart and have moved on to the Rose Lace chart. I am only two rows into it because I do not want to rush myself through it. I would hate to have come this far only to have to take it all apart and start over! So, wish me luck with the difficult lace to come!


I have not worked on the blue cabley scarf, but I fully intend to do so today. The weather has started to get a bit chilly. So, I should finish it before Winter comes.

Someone surprised me with a wonderful knitting book. It is called Romantic Style and has some absolutely lovely patterns in it. They are quite lacey, but I won't be able to make any of them for a while (that no-yarn oath)...so, I'll have time to make other lacey things with the yarn I have as practice. Here are a few of the patterns I want to try out from the book:



I'm sideways! :)


My final bit of news today is that yesterday I finished a purse for myself. I like to call it my Country Cute Bag. I got the fabric on sale at Joann's for $1 a yard (the plaid) and $2 a yard (the yellow).



My favorite part of the bag is these buttons I picked out for it. I think they are a nice touch.


Well, that's all for today. I'll blog again soon!

About goals

Today, I am not doing much crafting...AT ALL...and it is already getting to me. I have decided not to knit or sew today until I get some other things done (which should be more important).

So, all of my knitting today will be done AFTER I finish those other more important things. I may not get a chance to blog about any of it, though because I need sleep tonight. I don't open tomorrow, but I still have to be there by 7:00am.

So, await a possible post this evening...or don't.

Sincerely,
Me

Post

I'm posting. I'm now in the middle of the second repeat (one of three) for the sleeve of the lacey pink shrug. I do not have a picture of it because I'm not motivated to take one right now. I will say, however, that it does look much nicer now that one complete repeat is done. I can see how it sort of "comes together," so to speak.

I have not progressed on my blue scarf.

I have oiled my baby and worked on my quilt today. I only got through one and a half complete squares because I ran out of peices and I did not feel like cutting more. I really wish I had a rotary cutter (and a board to go with it) because it's easier and more time-effective to cut a bunch of peices at once...but doing it with scissors makes your hand hurt after a while. I saw a rotary cutter and board being sold as a set at Joann's today. It was around 24 dollars. That's a lot of money. The good news is that I may be able to get it for 40% off next weekend (I have coupons!) just as long as it isn't one of those items that is excluded from the sale. I'm not sure.

I went to the Renegade Craft Fair in Wicker Park this weekend. It was a good time. I got a really cute blue t-shirt with puffy sleeves that has a dove and "si se puede" on it. I fell in love with it instantly. That's all the loot I brought home with me. Sort of surprising, isn't it? :P

My mom needs a new life, it seems. Something is always going wrong. But today she called in a good mood and told me that she went to an estate sale and got two very old books (she said 1800s) for me. I'm excited, even if they end up worth nothing. I love my mom...she thinks of me when she sees stuff like that.

This was a pictureless post. I doubt anyone (other than the three who do) will bother reading it. I do the same thing.

I just drank a candle...

...and perhaps it wasn't the brightest thing to do. I was just lazily and carelessly surfing the net, enjoying the fruity scent of a gold canyon candle (which my mommy sells and they rock way more than party lite or yankee, by the way) when I picked it up and brought it to my face like a nice cup of hot tea. Luckily, I caught myself before any burning ocurred...but really, Jez, pull yourself together, man! You can't just run around drinking candles all the time! Someone is going to get hurt...

Craft news: I watched quilting shows today on PBS (do they call it that here?) while Paul made smart-ass comments and claimed he could do a better job...whatever, Pasha. :P (he'll probably read this...lol). Anyway, it really made me want to work on my quilt. So, I called Joann's to see if they carried sewing machine oil...and they do. I'm going to go get some tonight, because I just can't bear to treat my antique sewing machine cruely by using it without daily oiling. I can tell that it is struggling without oil and who knows how long it has been since someone has pampered it? Old girl, you are in for a treat tonight! I may see if I can get some new needles for her too, but I don't know if modern needles will work. It's probably all basically the same, I would just need to find the correct size...right? Hopefully I can get her oiled and ready and still have time to work on the quilt. I have to go to bed early tonight because I'm and opener tomorrow morning.

In other news, I started the shrug today. Why is it that my lace always looks like poop?



Good? Yes? No? I think it looks yuckier than it actually is...maybe after a complete repeat it will look more like lace and less like shit.

I'm looking for a pattern for a cute cardigan/wrap type sweater that is simple enough for an advanced beginner/intermediate knitter...in sport weight. I have some pink (that's right, pink) sport weight yarn that I don't know what to do with. Any suggestions from knowledged knitters (or crocheters, I suppose :p) would be welcome and appreciated!

In other news, I think I'm ready for a new phone. I am thinking (very hard) about changing to T-Mobile so that I can get the pink Razor. I love my phone now only because it has glittery Hello-Kitty stickers on it, but I figure if I have a Razor, I can still glam it up with Hello-Kitty...and it'll be pink, the perfect backdrop! More talk on that later, I get paid tomorrow...So, I may or may not "cross over."

I suppose that's all for now.

I'm ready

I am running off of the high of a completed garment and now I feel that I am ready. I am ready to tackle this:


That's right...it's the lace shrug. Isn't it gorgeous? I have pink yarn already purchased for it (remember that 5 bucks a skein deal?). I've been thinking about casting on for it all day long, but I feel sort of scared to do it. I was reading the pattern and it seems MUCH easier than that lace scarf I pulled my hair out over, even with decreases and increases. The only thing that I am unsure of is how to cast onto a scrap yarn crochet chain. I will be looking that up online shortly. It also mentions some nonsense about leaving a long enough tail to cast off 86 stitches. Great, like I know how long that is. It looks like I will be wasting an incredible amount of yarn because I am afraid I'll not have enough to bind them off. Stupid punks, making me all nervous.

I want to make a sweater for Max, and have only been able to find two that I like, both of which are from Interweave (1 from summer, 1 from fall). Although since I don't really have money to buy enough yarn for a man-sweater right now, it will have to wait. Sorry, honey. It's my fault for having so much pink yarn piled up waiting for me to do something with it.

I think that I am going to make another pledge to not buy any more yarn for a while. Would I be crazy to try to not buy any more yarn until my birthday? That is, unless I run out entirely (because the whole reason to not buy yarn would be to use up all of the yarn that I have and if I run out...mission accomplished...right?).

Well, then...there you have it. I pledge not to buy exorbitant amounts of yarn until my birthday on November 14th. At which time I will probably buy all the yarn I can get my greedy little hands on! How's that for a pledge? Am I too weak to keep it? I bought some yarn last night, but that doesn't count. It has been one day since I bought yarn. Only 62 days left to go!

I mentioned that I have a wealth of pink yarn, right? Be prepared to see a lot of pink knitting in the future.

That's all for today, I suppose.

Is it done!? Is it done!?

Holy shit, guys...I think I've just about finished my shirt...all but the weaving of ends! What do we think? I'm excited, even if it looks like poopy.


Today, I spent the day cleaning the room, doing laundry, paying some bills, knitting, listening to Mika Nakashima and Johnny Cash (totally different, I know), panicking about the future (I might have some huge news to talk about soon.... :p ), and drinking green tea with roasted brown rice (called genmai-cha). So tasty....give it a try....

The fall issue for Knitty is up and I must say that I feel disappointed in it AGAIN! I do love the wrap sweater, called Ivy. It is quite nice, but I'm not sure that it will work on my body type...while it IS a wrap, it has sort of a "grown-up body-type" feeling to me. Maybe I'm just crazy. The only other thing that I like is called Serrano. It's a nice lacey cardigan, but....it's lace....we know what lace and I do together. Ehem...anyway, Knitty, I really wish you would spend less time on socks and bags and spend more time on sweaters and the like.

If people haven't noticed, I've been playing with links in this post. How many of you actually clicked on them? Leave me a comment and let me know....wink, wink....lol.

Here are some pictures for you picture loving people.

This is my shirt! Yay for me!



This is other progress on other things! Like a clean room! Wires, boxes and un-hung pictures don't count against clean, by the way.


And a scarf that keeps getting longer!


And now I'm done writing!

My hands hurt

and for numerous reasons. So, a few days ago, I scraped my pinky finger and proceeded to bleed. I have a nice scab from it. The rest of my "injuries" are from today when I slammed my thumb in a drawer at work (I guess I thought it was a good idea) and then from when I poured hot coffee onto my hand (which I regretted immediately). Luckily, the burn was no biggie, but the slammed thumb is all sore and bruised under the nail. Lots of fun...and nice to look at.

But I guess the real reason that my hands hurt is because from the time I got home from my 5am shift today, I knitted on that effin' shirt I was talking about in my previous post. I knitted until the Russian came home (about an hour later than usual) and then a little bit more after that. I am still not done, but I just couldn't do it anymore.

I took it off of the needles (in a safe way) and tried it on. Luckily, it fit across my shoulders and wasn't TOO tight in the armholes (as I was quite worried about that from the way it looked). It was a bit tighter than it is supposed to be (the sample in the store was much bigger and it was a size small--mine's a LARGE). This means that I have made a much much tighter shirt and, while it may still look good on me, it in some way ceases to be the shirt that I wanted/intended to make. But I am just so excited that it is almost done that this doesn't bother me very much. But next time, I'll be so much more careful about my yarns and needles, as that was probably the main issue here. But still, Rowan, I hate your guts and go to hell...you cost too much. $66 dollars for a sweater plus the work and time it takes to make it? I don't think so, sugar.

Speaking of Rowan, I'm reminded of a movie...Wickerman...starring Nicholas Cage. We saw it last night and I really enjoyed every minute of it. The girl in the movie that his character was searching for was named Rowan...and my first thought was "yarn." This proves only one thing...that I have something I actually enjoy doing, which keeps me out of trouble. Although, I must say that while I knit I watch all kinds of brain rotting television on E!. It's mainly just background noise...something to ground me.

Here are some bad pictures of my shirt progress. The first one is better at showing the shape (if you can call it that) and the second is better at showing the colors (which I love):




It all sort of looks like a sloppy blob right now, doesn't it? But it will actually turn out to be something somewhat nice in the end...when it's finished and I do some cheating here and there to make things look right. Part of what makes knitting fun for me is actually seeing something develop. I'm sure I could get all philosophical here and make some sort of relation to real life...but the thing is...knitting isn't real life for me. Knitting is make-believe.

Enough of that baulderdash. It's all boloney (spelled that way on PURPOSE). I'm sleeply and have another 5AM tomorrow.

The life

When I woke up today at 4:30 in the effin' morning to go to work (Starbucks...I have a love/hate relationship with you!), I almost felt rested. Now, (without a nap, at 9:47 PM) I am beginning to feel a leeetle tired. I am not too tired to blog, however. So, here goes.

I'll start out with the knitting, since that is what this blog is supposed to be about. I have not made too much progress on my scarf, for a number of reasons...the biggest one being that I broke my rule about no new projects. And before anyone scolds me for starting something new, I would just like to say...yeah, I know and I'm sorry, but if it makes you feel any better...I suck.

No, I mean I must really suck at this whole knitting thing. I went to the LYS (I'm being cool, using acronyms) to find a simple pattern for a shirt of some kind and I spent forEVER trying to find something simple while still being cutesy (as I like things to be). I found one and I have started to make it...twice...and I may have to start again. Here's the skinny: the pattern called for a million and a half balls of Rowan holiday. First of all, Rowan, kiss my ex-trailer trash asshole...you cost too much. I conveyed that sentiment (more nicely, of course) to the salespeople, who were very kind to help me find an alternative yarn...from the sale section at $4 a skein. Guess what! It's the same yarn I'm using for my scarf only in different colors (in this case a dark red and brown--me and horizontal stripes are BFF)!

Back to the sweater...I completed 15 rows in the medium size (because of the yarn and needle change). This brought me to the point where I was supposed to cast off the sleeves (it is a sleeveless-so-to-speak kind of garment), which I did. However, I began to worry as what I saw before me looked like it might fit a Kid Sister doll. So, I ran upstairs to do a mirror check on the genuine article (Yours Truely) and decided that it just wasn't going to work. Damn it.

That's ok. I'll just start again, a size larger and things will be ok. Well, I did that...and now I'm back to the cast-off stitches for the sleeves. Again, I have worries...Knitting really sucks. Maybe it's fine. I just don't know. I have decided to keep going on this thing as it is. There is a chance that I just don't understand how these things are supposed to look and it is actually going the way it is supposed to. So, under that assumption, I will carry on. If it ends up in disaster, I'll cry myself to sleep for a few nights and make a teddy bear to put it on. You do what you have to do. At least the yarn was cheap...I guess ripping it all apart and starting over is another option, but I just don't have the patience for that sort of thing right now. BUT IT MIGHT BE FINE AS IT IS SO I WILL TALLY FORTH...all right?

I don't have any pictures of my disaster of a sweater start...although, it would not be too trying a task to take a few. I'm just so mad at the sweater that I don't want to take a picture of it to show to anyone until it starts behaving. Straighten up and fly right, punk! I do love the striping and I do love the yarn, though.

I haven't worked on the quilt in a long time...or done any sewing.

In life news, I have a meeting with my Japanese professor tomorrow. I am supposed to have the complete application for my independent study ready...and a few sources for my paper. I don't have any of the above. I am just going to wake up early and work all day on it. I don't meet with her until 4:00. That's PLENTY of time.

In other life news, I have a lot on my mind and am trying to keep a level head about things. My mom is having big money problems...again. My high school-aged cousin may be facing up to four years in prison (don't ask, it's stupid). My brother is...my brother...and I love him to death, but, DAMN. Knitting is supposed to keep me sane, but in the end only leads to a great deal of swearing (but seriously, what is UP with this sweater!? LoL). In other words, I'm tired.

The final bit: I have a few other things I need to work on...NOT knitting or craft related...but I never do it. Something is holding me back from it...nevermind.

Leave some love (and I mean comments).