knit knit knit

So the spinning urge has passed, though I still think the rovings are oh-so-pretty. So have the starting urges. I did make good progress on FPS. More on that latter.

I also did make it to Michaels, but they sell no buttons. Now where-to? I might try Hobby-Lobby - I think they had a real fabric section, while Michaels does not, but it is the same sort of store, which lowers my expectations. Or perhaps Wal-mart? I heard they're closing their fabric section, but have they yet? They're close enough to make checking less painful.

I'm up to tier 4 on the FPS. While that is nominal in the course of how long it will need to be, and less than it sounds like since I'm making it narrow, I feel like it's solid progress. Total of 8.5 squares if I remember right. It's almost longer than it is wide.

I did my first standing up & knitting at the social security office today. Wasn't in line long enough to do much, and didn't get any comments, but I felt cool to have an intricate project there. (I'm such a nerd) and it was helpful for the standing part that it was lightweight. I did feel like I was hunching more than I do when I knit while seated.

I also worked on it a little at my parents', where we stopped over the weekend to do more potting (a.k.a. steal more pots), borrow their grill (a.k.a. make them dinner) and M fixed the computer. My mom asked if I was making it for her. While I'm pretty sure I want to keep this one, it makes me happy to have a willing recipient for lace, since I'm not sure how much of it I could wear myself. (who are we kidding here, I don't have *any* lace FO's yet - always planning ahead...) She says she likes shawls even though other people tell her they look like an old lady, and that maybe she is getting to be an old lady.

We also watched V for vendetta. (again, to show it to my family) and I'm still quite fond of that movie. While the current-politics slant is done with a bit of a heavy hand, the material does at least pre-date today's specific political clime by a good bit, and was allegedly even more political. I love how well the title character was done, quite a feat given you don't see his face. Makes you think about the technical aspects of movie-making involved in making that work. Also, I think the 1812 overture is a spectacular backdrop for blowing up buildings. Which, I guess is what it was designed to be, except for with ships. The emotion there is such an effective foil - far superior to fireworks. Family liked the movie too, which surprised me a bit, I was expecting it might be a little too dark for them.

itchy fingers

I want to start something. I want to acquire more yarn, and start doing something new. Like learning to spin. With stuff like this



or this,



or even this.



and make a lumpy bumpy beginner yarn into a lumpy bumpy bulky hat. I think any of those would be enough to make a hat. Of course, I'd have to buy a spindle, but it sounds like fun.

I also want to buy every different kind of lace yarn I've ever seen.

Particularly sundara's pure silk (regardless of the fact that it is currently un-obtainable), and some petal-pink KSH and cast on a half-dozen different shawls & scarves in all the fancy patterns from my barbara walker books. This one is particularly silly, since I just found my FPS pattern, and am absolutely gleeful to be working on it. So gleeful, apparently, that I want to do other lace. Lace is largely lace to me now, starting a second pattern would bring nothing good, other than making me lose my memorization of the first pattern.

I even want to swatch and start the lurking monster of the long-planned cable&lace denim cardigan design project. This is theoretically a good thing, since I've been trying to drum-up motivation for that beast for some time now. Now that I'm in a startin' mood, I worry that I don't really have enough yarn for it, particularly if I swatch (which I must do - it's a cable-sample homegrown design for gosh sakes). So I'm stuck. Particularly since there ain't no more of the yarn available right now.

But the *real* reason I'm not starting anything, is because my inner granny (thank you mother of chaos) wants to finish things. She wants noticeable progress on the FPS, because it is fun. She really, really wants to work up the body of the handpaintedyarn sweater, since it would go so fast you know. And then it would be soft and cuddly and wonderful to wear until this coldsnap breaks. Or even better, karma might break the coldsnap to perfectly coincide with finishing the nice cuddly sweater, so that I couldn't wear it until next year. Which would be even better. Because then it wouldn't be cold.
Ahem. Back on target. The thing is, in this case, I really do agree with my inner granny, and I don't even resent her for it like I usually do. I will try *very very* hard to get myself to Michael's this weekend and pick up some buttons and ribbon for the sweater so I can finally cast on with an appropriately sized knit-on button band.

I should probably stop by old navy and attempt to buy more jeans while I'm there. (almost) all of mine have holes in the butt.


disclaimer: all images in this post are saved to my own account (no bandwidth theft) and were taken by their respective creators, who have been linked to. I take no credit for these tasty, tasty things. The images serve to advertise exactly what I have been dreaming over, which I consider fair use. However, if they are your images, and you disagree, comment and they will be removed.

hahahaha

Found the FPS page. With the guitar music. I was so close to buying a new one.

Need to make...

this

Snowflake Scarf

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas, Alpaca Worsted, 4 skeins, natural and light blue
Gauge: 14 sts, 16 rows per 4"
Pattern: My own
Needles: size 8? bamboo.

This is one of my favorite projects. It's also My mother's, for what that's worth. This yarn is incredibly precious. You touch it and can't believe something so soft came from a living animal. That said, there are some guard hairs that I notice on my very sensitive neck. Not enough not to wear it. Also, one (not terribly long, though grandted double-thick) scarf like this will set you back $80. Phew.
It is beautifully warm though. Just long enough to really wrap across your face once. And quite good at hiding beginner's DK eveness issues. Also, it has a cable construction, and really hasn't pilled in two winter's worth of resonable wear. It does leave some fuzzies on my black wool coat, but the scarf itself is doing quite well.
Appoligies on the pictures - the coloration of this is incredibly hard to capture for some reason. It's subtle and pale, but not nearly as blurry and grey as these suggest. Most pictures that showed any kind of contrast either washed the whole thing to white so you could barely see the patten, or made the blue a strange brilliant cyan. I need to get better with the camera.

Progress on Many Fronts

The temperature here has finally crested freezing, after nearly a week of nasty, terrible snow-spitting misery, made all the more keen by the gorgeous 80 degree days that followed it. It isn't exactly balmy at 40F, and we probably won't have any lilacs, or many other early spring flowers here, and it's forcasted to be rainy and grey for the next, well, ever. But at least it isn't nasty-cold any more.

We're trying to grow some lettuce on the patio this year, and even after going un-watered through the 80-degree honeymoon, and left outside through the first sub-freezing night (before we realized that it was going to *stay* like that) it's not dead. Most of the problems seem to relate to itty-bitty lettuce seeds floating away in lightweight peat soil, and redistributing themselves to non-ideal locations. And they probably need thinned, but I'd like to wait until the mix seeds differentiate themselves somewhat, so I don't end up with all one thing.
(The two big containers are spinach and romaine, the little ones are a mesculn mix)

M's been great this weekend getting presents under control and put away, which is fortunate, since I've been grouchy and tired, and generally hard to motivate to do anything but sit. It still isn't done, but it's making progress.

Also making progress are the sleeves on the handpaintedyarn sweater. (in case you can't tell, that's almost a full pair there) There's been some pooling even with the alternation, some of which I find fascinating and beautiful, some of which I find, well, tolerable enough to not be worth ripping things out and trying to break the yarn to fix it.



Which leaves me dangerously close to having to make a decision (read: figure out) how to do the button band. I sense a stall coming on here...

and I still can't find the rest of my FP shawl pattern

Got Married

It's funny how my ability to think about this is hampered by the fact that I will never do it again, and therefore learning from it is irrelevant. I'd never realized how much my thought processes are centered around learning and improvement. it kept catching me unawares when I was thinking about it.

That's sort of an anti-climatic way to start that post isn't it?

To be fair, it really was a little anti-climatic, which was pretty much as I expected, seeing as we'd been as-good-as married for two whole years of engagement.

In any case, thoughts, whether I learned from them or not:

I was definitely right about not being able to handle an exciting strenuous trip to europe immediately afterwards - hocking hills was just about the right speed. Should have had the foresight to pack gatoraide and a massage for that night.

Ari very seriously critiquing Paige's performance as flower girl. Apparently 'her mom did most of it' well, she is two, so that was sort of the plan. Ari really is more the right age, but as an oldest sibling myself, I could not do that to her oldest sibling.

Should have invited more people to the rehearsal dinner, since even though I think I did a good job of mingling, I did not spend nearly as much time with my closer family as I wanted to.

Only had one contact. That plus veil equals very blurry vision. Didn't give me a headache, just kinda weird.

Flowers were good. Some of the corsages were magenta rather than pastel, which strangely aligned with my primary nagging fear in the days leading up, but the main bouquets were right.

Music was good, though I wish I'd had more time to relax and listen to it, as from all reports it was in fact, really good. This contradicts my other main nagging fear, suggesting that I should not in fact quit my job to become a psychic.

People were impressed by the cake (yay) but some seemed confused by the food format, expecting to be excused like a buffet. I think more tall tables, smaller stations, and some passed stuff would have helped this, but again, when am I ever going to use that knowledge?

One of my friends took pictures and posted them, which was nice to have right away like that. May post some, though I'm a little squeamish about posting face-pictures on the internet.

M realized when we got back that I hadn't brought my knitting and thanked me. I thought that was a little silly, since I didn't really think I'd have much opportunity to knit. He also gave me a hard time when I thanked him for making sure we could watch the basketball game (NCAA championship), since apparently, as a girl, I'm not supposed to allow sports on my honeymoon? Apparently his boss was also surprised that he'd been able to watch it, which I find particularly bizarre, since we watch most games with him. Does he really think that I would hang around with a bunch of M's work people, while the other wives were somewhere else if I did not actually like watching the games? M's boss is great, I really like him, but he's so fun to pick on, and he's definitely getting an earful for this one.