Post 35

Another death, but not mine, two down, now who's next? I made a list of the sock warriors before and after me and have an idea on who is dead and who is not. I sent and e-mail out to the people after me informing of my second kill to figure out where everyone is at, let's hope this works, I'll be bummed if not. At this point I don't care about winning, or even getting to the end, I made a pair of socks, now where are mine???

Post 35

FINALLy, those damn Sock War socks are done. I ran of time on saturday to mail them, got my haircut, so out they went today. If the mail goddess is with me they might actually make it to the Netherlands in the 4-7 time frame they promised, I sent them cheap. I can only hope that the postal system is better there than here, I've been waiting 12 days for my Hyacinth flower bulbs I ordered on ebay. I guess if I never get them I can figure out next spring which neighbor swiped them, for all I know landlord has them upstairs on his counter, idiot.
I had a pretty lazy weekend. Roommate is gone until wednesday so was able to lazy away the whole weekend and just knit knit knit! I made a pair of Mrs. Beeton's wristlest, but with mine I added a hand covering. Boy are they warm, and the double row of lacy made a nice cushion when typing on the computer at work. I was able to stash dive for the mohair, Rowan Kidsilk, and instead of the MC yarn in the pattern I used Rowan Tapestry. Fast, easy-peasy. Now I'm down to two projects, the hemp socks and the Candle Flame Scarf. Secret Pal 9 is off and running, I can't say what I'm doing for my person, but it's way cool. Sock Wars is at a stalemate right now, trying to figure where I stand and who is dead is a royal pain. I have two dead under my belt and I'm still alive. I wouldn't mind dying though, it's getting cold in my office and warm thick socks whould be nice, no not really, I want to win.

Secret Pal 9

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
Acrylic

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
I have a zipper pouch for my crochet hooks, a box I painted for some of my needles and plastic brush tubes for my double points.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I have been knitting for 12 years, I learned when I was young from my mother and had abasic refresher from a college teacher and then I took knitwear design in art school. I would consider myself advanced.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
No. I like to buy my books at a great used bookstore in the neighborhood or from LYS's or knitting websites.

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
For bath I like magnolia or rose, but right now is the season for spices.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
I love dark chocolate, the darker the better, the more foreign the better. My current addiction is Vosges Naga Bar. Ummmmm curry and chocolate...

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I knit, crochet, spin, dye, sew, embroidery, bead work, needlepoint....lots of everything.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like a little bit of everything from Miles Davis to David Gray to Hildehard Von Bingen.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
I have a new fascination with green, I never liked it before, but now, wow. It's not so much the color but the hue, I hate pastels.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
I have a siamese cat and an italian greyhound. I also have a roommate and she has a cat.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Not ponches, never, don't want to look fatter. I love scarves, hats and mittens especially finger-less gloves, it's cold in my office.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
I am always doing socks but right now I'm getting into lace.

13. What are you knitting right now?
A pair of socks for Sock Wars, a pair of socks for myself and a lace stole.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Um sometimes, I'm a bit of a critic, but I like it when people handmake things.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
Both. I prefer bamboo, never metal unless they're addi's.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
Yea, both.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
It was 4+years, but I just frogged it.

18. What is your favorite holiday?
Does Festivus count? I love thanksgiving, all the spirit of x-mas with out the pressure and build up.

19. Is there anything that you collect?
Dud, yarn! I was collecting thimbles but that was years ago.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
I don't have a single magazine subscription, I enjoy going to the bookstores or LYS for them. I would love to collect some Zimmerman books and lace books.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
Not really, I think I have a good grasp on things, if not I'm really good at figuring it out.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
Yes, size 8.5, with thick ankles.

23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd)
4/4

Post 34

I love the fact that I have a real computer at work. Unlike my previous employment, I can now check my e-mail and listen to itunes. I've been catching up on back episodes of Cast On. When knitting podcast first blew onto the scene I enjoyed Knit Cast, but wasn't so sure about Cast On, but now I love it. It's like discovering a new author and then finding out that they've already written dozens of books, all the better! So I'm slowly making my way thru the old episodes, I'm finding it very inspirational. I've done it, I frogged the Evil Rowan Sweater! It's been sitting around for ever now, I started it years ago, never like the way they wrote it, and almost finished the last piece. I find that I no longer love the pattern, it's nice, but it's no longer love. The yarn is really lovely and I can't wait to find the perfect next thing for it, maybe the Rogue Cardigan?? Other news, I made the Ribbi Cardi last year but I never bought the zipper. I used to like the colors, pumpkin orange for the body and Burgundy for the sleeves, but eh, no more. So I will take my fondness for Kool Aid dying and try dying the whole garment, plum should be nice, I then imagine a little embroidery....I will be much happier, especially since I'm working in more of a jeans and sweaters place than a hose and heels. On the Sock Wars front, my victims, victims socks are not going so well. They will be finished tonight or tomorrow and will be mailed to the Netherlands as promised but the yarn sucks, am not inspired, oh and ran out...on the foot of the second sock. If I knew this before I would done it differently and more creatively, but since I didn't buy the yarn what can I do. I want to have at least two victims under my belt before I'm dead. It just so happens that the yarn choice was actually two different yarns knitted together and that one of them is a white angora blend, which luckily enough, if you can believe it I can match. This must mean the stash has finally redeemed itself. I bought a sweater at the Salvation Army and am frogging it for the yarn and it's a match. I can't match the other yarn that was knitted with it, so the foot will be white, but don't blame me. At least it's angora and not acrylic!

Post 33

I am so about to quit this Sock War shit. My package is lost! I am so pissed. Do I reknit a whole other pair of socks for my victims' victim, or go postal on the postal system, the latter I think. Wait until tomorrow, and it was overnight too!

Post 32

So, earlier this year I went on a tour/buying visit to Lorna's Laces and came away with some good deals. I bought this skein with the idea to make a dog sweater for Bella. Well, funky fall weather has come to Chicago, one week it's warm, the next cool, and right now a BIG thunder/Tornado storm. With the soon to permently cold approaching I thought it would be nice to get started on the promised dog sweater, it will be the first I knitted for her, not one she inherited from Mona. After a second look I no longer like the color of the yarn, so I thought, Kool Aid! I love kool aid dying, its so easy, and talk about instant gratification. The yarn is Lorna's Laces, superwash bulky.
Before

After

I couldn't tell you what colors/flavors I used, I just bought a bunch of packets and played with it. I turns out some yarn takes to the dye better than others, and this one did beautifully. The color's not quite solid, but has this unusual multi-layered color thing happening, it kinda looks like plied Manos. It took to the dye so well that after the initial nooking in the microwave, I could just dip it in a bowl with really hot water and the color would slowly go from the water to the yarn. This is it all balled up, getting alot of attention from the Piewacket.

Just enough to do a fast sweater with no thrills, no turtle neck collar and no sleeves, its a quicky dog sweater.

I love this method so much, and overdying already purchased dyed yarn opens up the possibilites. I've seen several little articles about Kool Aid dying, but I think a really indepth book with techniques and extensive color wheel would be great....I wonder

Post 31

Look at my first video! Yea I know it's sideways, but I'm learning.

Post 30

I shall not post about Sock Wars right now. I am still alive that's for sure, my assassin's assassin's assassin has me now, and if they are as clever as I am and can figure out blog addresses of those playing, they would be able to find my blog and find out where I'm at.
Saw this on Yarn is My Metier's blog, effing cute!

Post 29

Quick note before FIMS goes down AGAIN! In the Sock War sagas, I have killed my first victim! The socks were sent off, victim contacted and she is promptly sending me the socks she was working on. I just thought of something, any participant in Sock Wars that is not eliminated in the first wave should watch out for some crazy scoks. I don't know about the skill of my victim, apparently she had just turned her first heel when she got my assassination e-mail, what if she's a crappy or newby knitter? Her victim, soon to me mine will get mismatched skilled socks, ugh! I figured out that my assasin? has a blog (that is just like her e-mail name and she usses blogger), to scoop out her potential as a knitting assasin, I think she's a newbie=slow, and she talked about how much she works=slow. So as long as her killer is slow, and she is slow, and the mail delivering my next vicims sock are fast....agh! my head hurts, I feel like I need a PhD in time-theory or something to figure it all out.

Post 28

I'm feeling much better now. For the last couple of weeks I had the major isolation blues, I tend to get them this time of year and usually enjoy it, it just takes some time to get used to the upcoming weather. It helps that I'm assimilating nicely into a totally normal work enviroment. After a lot of restrospecting I realized my last job really fucked me up in the head, I always knew that but you get a different perspective on it when you work with normal people. So a little recap of the last couple of weeks. Linda had a dye party at her house which has an awesome basement setup for it. I took the greenish yarn I bought at Stitches and decided to play with the color, I was not worried about messing it up, I was going to embrace whatever happened and go with it. I had 20 skeins of Valley Farms yarn, 50/50 wool/alpaca, original color, willow green, 50 grms each for a total of 1000grams. I used 8 tsps of cyan, 8 tsps of yellow and 1/2 tsp of black.
The soaking and original color.
Just in the pot.

Getting alittle color.
Cooking away.
Drying time.
Overall I'm very happy, 15 of the 5 are very uniform in they way they took the color, 5 have mysterious darker patches here and there. I just need to find the perfect pattern, I was hoping to find a heavy detailed cabled cardigan with awesome buttons, wood or leather perhaps. Last week after my first knit class I was a little stressed so I decided to cool-aide dye some lace weight yarn I got from Knitpicks but it arrived too late for the dye party. I totaly cool-aid dying above all others. It has the most instant gratification of all the dye methods. Last weekend was the Celtic Festival in Grant Park. It was nice but it never seems to get any bigger unlike all the other fesivals they have. I had my fill of curry fries and Guinness, shopped around downtown, checked out the local renegad art fest and an unexpected Turkish Festival in Daley Plaza which is where this picture of a woman rug weaving comes from, but blogger sucks right now and won't allow me to post. Blah.

Too Much

Classes started up again today at the art studio place. I have to admit, I was surprised that the beginning knit class is going this session, an art studio is a little odd of a place to learn to knit when there are at least 8 yarn stores that offer classes within 10 miles. At least the pay is good. Also, note to self, add a cap on the number of students, 9 at once is pushing it, as is 3 hours! Ugh. But the pay is good, right?

A Chicago Thing

There's a sad sort of clanking
From the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too.
And up in the corporate office an absurd little bird
Is popping up to say fuck-you!
Fuck-you! Fuck-you!
Regretfully they tell us

But firmly they compel us
To say goodbye to you.

So long
Farewell
Aufwiedersehn
Goodnight
I hate for you to go and leave this pretty sight

So long
Farewell
Aufwiedersehn
Adeiu
Adeiu Adeiu
To yieu and yieu and yieu

So long
Farewell
Marshall Fields!

Ode to the Knitters Anon...

I little poem I made with a poetry generator I found. I'm too lazy and it's been to long since I was in school, and dammit I don't feel like trying to be clever right now. I figured what the hell, my friend Cookster her her blog buddy were having a knit poetry contest and I had nothing else to write about tonight, so howsabout a little ass kissing. So there.

Ode to a Knitters Anon...

knitters anonymous The store
sale with better go over the
random winner. 08/31 time
for beginners than combed. I put
them some seaming and I went up seating at
7:08 31 2006 January
2004 May 2005
December
2004 May 2005 September 2006 issue with sock
yarn 2. 2006 Knitalongs
VINTAGE PATTERNS Recent Entries 6 7 Looking
for the most obnoxious post this
K and
front. unveiled:
Unfortunately, Fleece Artist appear to right, earliest
to explain to the left
side of KPPPM in sock
yarn whoredom Leslie Continuing adventures in sock
yarn whoredom Liz //> Archives
September
10, 11 So going to
see
how
done ...

Problem Solving

This is absolutely not knitting related. Funny little thing about making pizza dough, if you've ever made you have to let it rise right? In a warm spot, yea, well when the A/C is going and it's the end of summer I was stumped, for a minute, then I realize the solution was my cat. Cat? yea, she likes to sit on my laptop, which is usually kept on for most of the time. Solution, remove the cat and replace with one bowl of pizza dough. It worked.

FIMS

No I have not forgotten you, well I have been enjoying my PAID three day weekend, but before that my buddy FIMS, aka Free Internet Mystery Source, was all wonky for awhile there, I minor inconvenience given the nature of the service. When Fims went down I was actually in the middle of a posting, but that got deleted, so don't expect too much this time, but alot of two-week recaps. I had a great weekend, came across some sock yarn where I least expected that holds promise in my search for the perfect sock yarn for vertically challenged legs, aka fat leg syndrome, I have a hard time keeping my socks up! The two balls have been stuffed in my now overflowing yarn stash holder, I beleive the brand is Regia, called stretch. I signed up for Secret Pal 9, so this should fun, it starts in a couple of weeks, I did it last year and had to be saved by an angel when my SP crapped out on me.%$^@*. Decided to take a nice slow day today and made pizza, well not just pizza, homemade pizza, I don't mean frozen and I don't mean from a box. I made homemade dough, with YEAST, my nieghbor and a friend gave me home grown tomatoes and with the parsley and basil from my garden I made pizza sauce that was so effing good. I mean really fucking good. I am so proud of myself, I used the dough hook on my stand mixer, and processed the tomotoes, strand them and reduced them......yum. I placed an order with KnitPicks getting ready for Linda's dye party saturday. Picked up some superwash sock yarn and lacewwight for dying, a lace book, baby booty book and dye. While Linda is all generous and all and already procured the dye, I bought abunch of yarn at Stitches that the color no longer appeals to me. The green is a little weird, the hue is off and looks like crap, so I got a little bottle of emerald green procion dye, mix that with a touch of black and we'll see. Pictures will be posted tp show the results of the experiment. The best thing of all is that my labels came in! A few weeks ago I ordered real labels from NameMaker. I've always wanted labels for the stuff I make, but alwasy hated that printed kind you see in cheesy craft stores. So I splurged alittle and found a place that will actually weave your name in the label, I picked a cream cotton background with black font. The top line say Handmade By and the bottom in a larger cursive font my name. So nice, professional. Oh, I finally got my camel, oooooooh camel, imagine that in a lower pitch than ooooooooh cashmere. A future project is a camel lace skull cap, pattern found at a qiviut booth at stitches, but I wasn't willing to pay 70 bucks for the yarn, a little rich for my blood. Pictures and whatever I forgot to be posted later.

Contest Mode/Free Stuff

I've been reading alot of blogs lately that have contests in them, and well, I love free stuff. I won't tell you which ones I've entered, I don't want to lessen my chances of winning, I don't expect to win, but the smallest chance to win free yarn....yum. Well the following picures is for a contest, it's from one of my favorite blogs to read, stuffonmycat.com, if you have a cat, you'd understand too.
Now why do I deserve to win.....are listening, well the contest is in honor of the release of the movie "Snakes on a Plane", so I'm supposed to find a picure of an animal "in" something, hence the cat pic. But, besides that, take a look at the cd for the movie, my cousins band, yes the kid whose ass I wiped when he was 4, has a song on it, yea! That would be The Academy Is if you haven't read my blog for awhile. Will I see a free copy, no, did I get tickets to his House of Blues show, no, my uncle, his father said he could get me tickets to their show at the place formly known as the Tweeter Center, hell no, drive out to Tinley Park, ick. Well, pick me contest thrower! On the knitting front, I'm starting to recover from my Stitches/yarn overdose. I really need to finish the socks so I can start a new project, I'm past the ankle on number two. Also, the place where I bought the cashmere promised me some free camel for changing the price on me, well I hadn't recieved it yet so I e-mailed them. The owners assistant forgot before she went on vacation, so he's going to send me an 'extra big' one, yea. See, I love free stuff.

Le Pictures De Damage

Yea, well I suck at languages.

Stitches Damage

Yea, um, making a list is useless, I got everything on it, plus more. Met up with Rachel and her mum and headed over to Stitches Midwest. While perusing the aisles I came across, many familiar knitting friends, Linda, Adrian and friend, Hugo and Michael I saw at the STR booth, and chitchatted with Bonne Marie and her posse. It was a good trip, didn't get overly excited this year. Instead of making the usual couple of rounds before buying, I went directly to the STR booth, I wanted that bumper sticker and something before they ran out, it was a good idea too. I prefer a lightweight finer sock yarn, but they were almost out, while I did buy some lightweight, I later came back and exchanged it for a medium weight, yea a little thicker, but I liked the color choices better. I ended up getting from Blue Moon Fiber arts one skein of medium weight superwash in the Pixie Park color way and one skein of the merino/tencel in Blue Brick Wall. The Pixie color is a little bright from me, but I have learn that with their yarns and the way its dyed, it often looks alot different knitted. Next on my list was some Inox circs for the Sarcelle lace pattern, which proved difficult. Everywhere I saw where Addi's, I love Addi's, but Inox is better for lace, but whoa, they were bought out and have a new name, Prym, and are made in Mexico. I compared them to an older pair when the company was Inox and made in Germany, they look mostly the same except the finish is different, more aluminum looking, we'll see, I thought Germany was the epicenter of knitting, hum. My mantra on this trip was, only if it's different which is why I like Dzined yarns and their booth. The make great hemp/wool yarns in great color ways that have a nice hippie feel. I've bought their stuff before at some yarn convention in Ohio a couple of years ago, I really like, it's rustic-y. So from them I bought obe skein of 50/50 wool/hemp in sport weight, great for socks, and also 4 oz of "textile grade" (versus what, smoking grade?) hemp sliver, I've never spun hemp and it shpuld be fun now that the winder is up and working. Rachael called me over to the WEBS booth to help her choose between two great deals and while I wasn't going to buy sweater knitting yarn, I've been wanting a celeryish green sweater for awhile, its a color I'm now wanting to explore. WEBS had a great deal on 50/50 Alpaca/wool in said color and if you bought 60 dollars of more you got another 20% off, so how could I pass that up? I bought 20 skeins with a grand total of 2200 yards total, I'm thinking an Irish sweater with cable and bobble and all kinds of stuff, down the road. Oh and a bottle of lavendar Eucalan wash, good for the spinning. I was almost home free when I saw the most beautiful color tencel/merino lace weight in a color that kinda looks like the inside of a hot house tomotoe right when you cut it, it kind of shimmers too. It also reminds me of art school when I would mix my own dyes for silk, I would get this color when mixing purple and yellow, it's wierd but I've always loved it. That's it. Pictures to be posted later as Blogger sucks right now.

Computer and a Credit Card

I love the modern age, you could be the best of hermits, never leave your house and still fulfill all your fiber needs. Several weeks ago I bit the bullet and just went ahead and ordered the WoolLee Winder. I didn't realize that it would take almost a month to get it, it would have been nice to use it during my freedom from work, but alas, I join the work stiffs on Monday. Well it's here and I can't wait to play with it, I hope it works as well as I think it will. When it comes to spinning, I can get on quite a roll but have to stop so often to move the hook down the bobbin, at takes up time and messes up my evenness (sp?), but the new winder will take care of that. Plus, I like the idea of it winding even, no lumps, no bumps, nice and smooth. I bought cashmere at The Fold that I look forward to playing with.

I finally got my cashmere from the UK! 150 grams of laceweight, 2250 yards approximately for 20 plus 5 for shipping, what a deal! I actually paid 29, but a couple of days after I bought mine, it was put on summer sale for 20, so I wrote the company and they offered me a free cone of something else component, so I picked a cone of 4-ply camel, I haven't gotten it yet, but I expect it within the week and will post. I've never worked with camel, I look forward to it. So the cashmere is this pretty chocolate brown 2-ply with a single thread of silvery lurex, it adds a nice subtle sparkle. I've never bought brown yarn before, all my coats, shoes and accessories are black, so this a change for me, I also thought it would look nice with my hair color. I picked the laceweight to do the Sarcelle shawl pattern that has yet to be published, a friend of a friend designed it and it is the coolest looking knit pattern, I can't explain it, but it was love at first sight. I did a sample of the cashmere, 4x4, co 40 sts, on 1US bamboo dpn's, washed it and threw it in the dryer with some towels, it bloomed nicely, not as much as I was hoping, but I think that's because of the lurex. So very soft!
Saw at a friends house this really cool vintage stitch dictionary which is where I found the pebble stitch for the socks I'm working on. I liked it so much that I found one on eBay and won it for $11 with shipping. It's in great shape, has a nifty section on stitch terms in five languages, it's very inspiring. My friend Valerie has been designing some great scarves by combing several stitch patterns which I liked and I realized that I didn't really have any great stitch pattern books to work from, it is a great addition to my library. Since I've been playing around with crochet I've been looking at the books at the crafts and have not been to happy. It seems that all the really good stuff can only be found in vintage pattern books, it's like the publishers have dumbed down the patterns, made them simple and fugly. I don't see my house covered with doilies by any means, I just thought a nice border around a pillow might add a touch a femininity to things. Oh, that's Bella modeling next to the cashmere, such a good dog.

Master of the Short Rows

1/2 of a pair of socks done! Yea. A couple of tips when photography said sock, clean your floors first, you don't want cat hair all over it and have a model with a slimmer leg model it, or at least get it from a slimmer angle. I tried a couple of things with this sock to combat my falling-sock syndrome, i.e. the socks I make always fall done on me because I have a fat calves. The pattern repeat is kind of interesting, it very slows rotates the beginning of each row by one stitch every three rows so that helps with the stretch and leg gripping. I thought I would try a gusset clock along the back if I wanted to go really high on my leg because I would definitely need to add stitches, that didn't seem to look right and the pebble pattern seemed to take the stretch nicely. I ended up doing 1.5 inches of a 1x1 rib at the top with matching elastic knitted in. So far as I write this the sock hasn't fallen down yet...I really enjoyed the toe method I used and I am master of the short rows! Tonight I shall forgo cleaning of the kitchen and cast on for the second sock.