Starting stuff, finishing stuff, avoiding cleaning

So I put in a gigantic order from Webs during their big sale in which Cascade 220 was only 4.89/skein and it came in on Wednesday.  Whee!  I had to prewarn the BF that a giant 9 lb box of yarn would be delivered but that it was NOT all for me.  He never gives me a hard time, but I always feel a little bad spending bunches of money on yarn since I give him the how-much-money-do-you-think-we-have-for-that-kind-of-stuff stink eye whenever he mentions musical gear that he wants.   The order really wasn't all for me - two other friends went in with me so that our shipping would be cheaper, but I got the fun of getting a giant box of yarn come to the house!  I ordered some natural color for a sweater that my mom asked me to make for her so I finally started it last night.  I haven't taken a picture yet because it's just 2.5 rows in and you can pretty much picture 2 and a half rows of garter stitch in natural colored wool, can't you?  I'm going to make Norah Gaughan's Tweedy Aran cardigan.  My mom is just a tiny thing - I think her bust measurement was only 33" or something, but she's got this thing about not wearing fitted sweaters.  She tells me that tight arms "make her hot" and she does this frantic yanking at her upper arm thing to show me how crazy it makes her.  I know that a more fitted sweater would look nicer on her, but I'm not about to tell her that, and I figure at some point in your life you care much more about comfort than fashion.  Because she's my mama I'll make her what she likes.  This sweater does have some waist shaping which hopefully she won't complain about - I think she really just wants a waist-length boxy thing.  She gave me a sweater that she does like the fit of and it's like 42" around.  I noticed that Interweave has started giving info about the modeled sweaters - like "the model is wear the size 43.5" version" and sometimes they'll even tell you how much ease that is.  I love that!  And, lo and behold, the model, who I imagine is probably about my mom's size (except that she's only 5'2" or so) is wearing the 43.5" version and it looks not at all sloppy on her.  I think this will look just lovely on my mom!  I'm going to try to make the arms the next size up and hope that they won't look puckery when I sew them in.  I saw on Neither Hip nor Funky's blog her version of this sweater where she made little triangular gussets to go on the under arm to make them a little bigger and she said they fit in just fine.  

My most recent FO is a cowl (my new obsession) that I started so that I could have something easy to knit on during my trip to Memphis for a meeting this past week.  It's basically just a giant version of the Jaywalker chevron pattern and I used some stashed Crystal Palace Deco ribbon yarn in a sort of olive-y color way.  Unfortunately I had it finished by the time I got to the hotel - unfortunate in that I then had nothing to knit on the flight home, or at the knit night that I thought about going to down there with the Memphis Knit Mafia (although they meet at a coffee shop and all look very sweet, so it's probably not too too mafia-like - the name still pleased me though!)  I did, however, get to wear it the next day and even my boss (who's every word annoys me) commented that hey, I got it done, because he saw me working on it in the airport.  I really should have taken a picture when I got home that night, but it was late and I was tired and now I have no FO photo because I just haven't had a good photo op since.  I'd do it now except that I'm just schlupping around in a tee shirt and loungey pants because I'm supposed to be cleaning this morning and there's no way I'm showering till I get that done.  I just kind of raked my hair down with my fingers and it's definitely not something to immortalize in a photo!  And yes, I know that blogging is not even close to cleaning, but I'm really good at dragging this crap out all day, alright!?  

Super happy fun time tawashi swap!

Oooh, so I got my Tawashi (Japanese dish scrubby) from the amazing Jessica (Ravelry link) for our Tawashi Town group swap!  Aside from the coolness of getting a call at work where the BF says "you just got a parcel from the UK!", I haven't cracked up so much over a crocheted dish scrubbie in probably forever.  Of course the first thing I thought after getting him out of the package was "oh man, this is so much better than what I made her!"  Actually, I liked my tawashi a lot, but it certainly doesn't compare to this cheeky little turtle!  Check this guy out and tell me he doesn't make you giggle with glee! And look - he's got a pocket so you can stick you hand inside and really give it to that dried on apple pie!  Oh, and he did - I could barely bring myself to subject him to dirty dishes, but he apparently loves it!  Oh, she also included a "Hello from London" post card, which I think i'll hand on my bulletin board at work to make myself look more continental.  Speaking of continental, I did not succumb to the large sunglasses for shipping my package "across the pond", but man I thought about it!  When I got to the post office and had to describe the contents on the customs form, I ended up writing "toy" because I just couldn't bring myself to write "dish scrubbie - no really, it's super cute - all Japanese-y, you know?" and honestly there wasn't room in the box for all that and also you don't want to irritate postal workers.  However, I noticed that Jessica's customs form also said "knitted toy" :)  Oh, one more shout out for Jessica - check out her Ravelry projects - she's got the best little amigurumi around and the cutest shots of them!  Hers are so "right", you know - like the eyes are perfectly placed lower than the nose, the head is perfectly sized - all the things that immediately jump out as wrong when you see people just crochet up a little toy and try to call it amigurumi.  Not that there's anything wrong with a cute crocheted toy, but without a very certain Japanese asthetic, they just aren't amigurumi.  Hers are perfecto!  Thanks Jessica - you're the best!!

ok, let's get our story straight...

...if anyone asks, we're all going to say it's spring now that it's perfectly ok for me to plant stuff outside, alright?  Because remember that one marigold that was blooming?  Well now check out the riot of marigolds in my basement:  Yeah.  magnificent, eh!?!   I'm not sure it's quite planting time for those guys yet, but my order from Gurney's just came this weekend and they say they ship stuff when it's time for it to be planted.  Who am I to argue?  I got 4 yellow canna tubers, a hops vine, and some Yukon Gold potatoes!  whee!  I'm soaking the bare root hops right now and I'm going to brave the cold drizzle to get it in the ground at least.  I figure it won't hurt the cannas to wait a few more days - digging holes in the mud really isn't a blast.  I can promise you right now that i WILL plant all of my flowers and vegetables too early (too early according to the last frost dates 'round here) because I can never stand it and I always jump the gun then worry for weeks about my tomatoes freezing.  I always do it, and I'm sure I'll do it again this year.  I can't wait another month to plant stuff - that's just nuts!  

I'm really bad about buying stuff (stuff being crafting supplies - that's about all I buy aside from groceries, cigarettes, and occasionally nail polish) then leaving it in the bag and hooking that bag on a dining room chair so long that I forget I have it.  I looked inside one of these bags the other day and found the fat quarter bundle I got on sale at JoAnn's - well, who knows when!

  I'm not sure why these colors appealed to me (I'm having uncharacteristic color affinities lately) but man they do up!  I've never quilted - and never really wanted to - until seeing some of the stuff at PurlSoho - they have a way of making quilting look very modern and new.  I'm not even sure I really want to make a quilt - I think I just like the idea of patchwork stuff after seeing a lot of it in Japanese craft books, and I also like buying fat quarters then not using them for anything.  It's just what I do.  Come on, if you're a crafter don't even try to tell me you don't do the same thing!  Maybe not with fat quarters, but with something!  I was kind of thinking of making a tote/new knitting bag using this zigzag pattern but then I realized that the scale would probably be way off and I'm not sure that I want to cut pieces smaller than they already are.  I don't know that my first project ought to be one that is modified and made more complicated.  I think I'll just use the instructions and figure out what to do with it later.  Or more likely I'll just be excited about this on a conceptual level and never do anything about it.  I suck like that sometimes.  

old news

For some reason I've just had no time lately to post - not for any good or exciting or interesting reason. Just haven't. So I was all excited about a week ago that I finished mitten #1 :but I guess I got it mostly out of my system since I showed it off last Tuesday at knit night. For a while I was all like "hey, you wanna look at my mitten again?" but now I'm just thinking that I'd damn well better cast on for #2 becaus my Selbuvotter book is due in the mail any time now and that'll surely throw everything all off! Not that I'm not excited about these mittens anymore - I love love love them! The pattern is great - it was my first time following a colorwork chart and I had fun the whole time. Oh, and check the little bird on the thumb!

Ooh, the other cool thing is that I'm in a swap for the first time - it's rather exciting! I joined the Tawashi Town group on Ravelry because of my love of cute Japanese stuff (tawashi are little kitchen scrubbies) and a swap was being set up so I jumped in... then later thought about the fact that I'd never made a tawashi before. please tho - it's just crocheted scrubbies! I've done amigurumi so it's certainly no worse than that! I started one (can't show it yet, in case my swap partner snoops!) and actually followed the pattern (which I have a hard time doing with crochet) AND i learned how to do a double crochet and a half double crochet! The pattern I was using was in Japanese, but it was charted so it's pretty universal - as long as you've got several other books fanned out around you, as I did, to look up the symbols, then figure out how the hell to do THAT! I swear every knitting book seems to take up half the space showing the basics of knitting and it irritates me because I want less reference and more projects - but in the few crochet books I have I couldn't find anything BUT projects! gaa! Finally I did find a little reference section in the back of Crochet Me and I was back in business. It's super cute - I'll just say that! I'll post a picture next week after I ship it out -- oh, and my swap partner is in London, so I'll get to feel all international and cool at the post office (because I'm sure they're impressed by people who ship things to Europe, right?). Perhaps I should get some of those big celebrity sunglasses for the occasion.

I'm a winner!!

I can't believe my luck - I just checked my email and found out I won a $50 shopping spree from The Sheep's Tale!   Thanks to the Yarn Sales board on Ravelry, I "accidentally" bought $40 worth of sock yarn from them last week.  I convinced myself that I needed to shop for some solid sock yarn for my Hederas and ended up buying 4 balls - it was an amazing price!  3 balls of Opal solids and one of Cherry Tree Hill - like $40 including shipping! I didn't intend to get that much, but the Cherry Tree Hill was only $11.50 or so, and the Opal was just under $8!  You can't beat that with a stick.  AAANND - now I've just gotten $50 more free!  Oh I must have done something right :)  ok, enough with this - I've got some shopping to do!!  You have no idea how giddy I am right now!!

why it needs to warm up

...and fast!  Because this is what I have just waiting for the temps to rise just a bit:  Those are marigolds that I started from seeds in my basement and they're BLOOMING!  granted, that most certainly means that I started them too soon - my fault, not the season's.  However, they're just begging to get outside!  The only problem with spring is that my winter wimpy body is not nearly as revving to go as my mind is - I'll take a whole day off work and think I'll work in the yard, but it doesn't take me long to poop out!  

We turned off the heat and opened up windows for a day or two this week - it was spectacular!  However today I had to break down and turn it back on - it was 59 F in the house!  even my scarf, wool sweater, and legwarmers weren't enough - plus, it certainly wasn't going to warm up any more overnight!  ah well.  soon enough i suppose.  

So sick of winter

Yeah, so I guess everybody's sick of winter and it could probably be worse - if I lived, for example, in Vermont or something, but I'm gonna whine anyway.  I'm really sick of it.  We got about a foot of snow over the weekend and I've made the executive decision that this really ought to be the last snow of the season - I'm just not sure who I need to tell to get that decision implemented.  For some reason this feels like the longest winter of my life, although realistically it hasn't been all that bad weather-wise.  The yuck-o weather just seems to be making me crabby and irritable and mean.  Even if I didn't have any outdoor plans, the sheer fact that I can't is annoying me!  I've got my seedlings for the garden started in the basement and at least that usually makes me feel like spring has to be coming.  My marigolds (which I used to hate with a passion - along with geraniums, but now have come to love) are ready to bloom under the flourescents and that pleases me - even if they are just in the messy back room next to the furnace!  I just want to plant them in the real live ground dammit!  Instead, I just keep taking vacation days from work because I don't feel like dealing with scraping my windshield.  That's pretty stupid, I guess.   I'll wish I had them back when spring does hit.  TBF didn't have to work on Saturday so we stayed home and I made cookies.  That was nice.  Oh, I guess I also have some sunnier news (not literally, see the crapo weather previously mentioned.)  I finally finished my Tree Jacket.  

Could I possibly look more rolly polly?  Believe it or not, I was sucking in as much as I possibly could in this picture.  This is definitely going to require some firming undergarments.  A better idea would be to stop eating cookies probably.  definitely.  I've also made some progress on my Bird in Hand mittens and I'm totally loving them now that I picked different colors.  

Certainly not a knit night project since I'd like to talk a bit instead of focus entirely on a chart.  However, to that end, I also started a pair of socks :)  I really wanted to make a pair of Hederas - because I love anything Cookie A. designs!  I started that pattern in this Socks that Rock colorway just because I totally wanted to make something out of it ASAP, but decided that I didn't like all the color changes with the pattern.  When I got this sock yarn I intended to make Jaywalkers with it because I just don't really like multicolor yarn in pretty much any other pattern.  But I just made Jaywalkers and didn't really want to start another pair.  Alas, I had to, but only ripped back to the ribbed part because it looked so great (Cookie A. seems to do the 1x1 twisted rib alot and it looks amazing - plus the ribbing on my last Jaywalkers was a little loosey goosey) and the zig zaggy pattern looks FANTASTIC with the colors! 

 I looooove them and I'm only a few inches in!  woohoo!  This is also a great excuse to buy some solid, or semi solid yarn for the Hederas.  Oh, and by the way, the STR is, hands down, the best sock yarn I've ever used.  Yeah, apparently when you pay $20 you get some good shit!  I'd like to think I could just get some $3 KnitPicks sock yarn and be as happy, but I can't!