Last hurrah

Today was the last day before my "use what you have" commitment begins, which I actually plan to keep for 2 months or more. Anyway as a last hurrah I went to Chez Casuelle which has wonderful prices on handpainted yarn, and picked up the rest of the supplies I need for the Lorna's Laces Twisted Float Shrug from Vogue Knitting, some Malabrigo to test out for the Great American Afghan project, and another skein of Schaefer Laurel, in the Catherine the Great colorway. I started casting on for the versatile wrap today; I thought I would have some good knitting time at the doctor's office, but that practice has it going on! I have never been in and out of a doctor's office so quickly! In before my appointed time, out within 15 minutes! And the doctor seemed to have plenty of time for me! Anyway I also visited another website to get some crochet hooks and DMC crochet thread. I've been studying motifs in the Crochet Stitch Bible for inspiration for scrumbling, and everything looks so gorgeous in the crisp mercerized cottons that they use. Got some different hook materials too: balene (faux I'm sure) and rosewood - all on discount at www.knitting-warehouse.com.

Some completed works

I spent some time on one of my least favorite knitting related tasks:
weaving in - I did it on a crochet baby blanket I made about a year
ago; I decided it looks fine - at first I could only see flaws, now I
see a very pretty blanket. I also wove in/trimmed countless ends on
the Louisa Harding wrap - now just have to crochet hook the fringe...
Now I have another task I've been avoiding - redoing the seams on the
Cardishawl that I made with Debbie Bliss - I just have to adjust the
sleeve position - it will be my 3rd time redoing it! And then crochet
the trim, which I look forward to doing. The weather lately had me
wishing I had completed this already, I would have liked to wear it on
these chilly days.

Does anyone experience end-weaving anxiety like I do? I always wonder
if it's enough, will it unravel, but I hate doing it and want to
finish as quickly as possible. I did learn to wrap/weave the ends in
as I go but still wondered if I had to weave just a little bit more
before trimming; then wonder - should I be gluing in with fabric glue
- but that seems so tedious - I just want to KNIT! Does anyone relate?
I do find I get into the zen of it a bit and often it goes faster than
I expected but still... it's something I don't care for much.

I have a plan for this!

Here is a skein of Schaefer Laurel - I am missing the colorway name but think it is Jeanette Rankin. And here is a pattern for "Lattice Lace Versatile Wrap" which calls for one skein of Laurel. The pattern uses Nicky Epstein's Elizabeth's Lattice from On the Edge. I am itching to start this one, may wind it up today!

More of the stash

Here are a few more stash highlights:
From Stitches West, 3 skeins of Judi & Co. yarn in Dirty Denim colorway. Suggestions welcome.

A Great Adirondack kit I picked up at Stitches, in wild birch colorway. This looks so fun to make!

And a skein of Schaefer yarn, Sandra, in a lovely terracotta colorway called Margaret Mead.

Stash Closeups

These are some highlights of my stash:


Some Colinette Tagliatelle in lapis - love this so much, don't know what to do with it! Please send suggestions. I have 3 skeins, plus 3 skeins in gauguin colorway - I do have Colinette Tagliatelle pattern book...


The 3 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Baltic, which is part of the supplies I need to make the Annie Modesitt shrug on the cover of last fall's Vogue Knitting. Turns out I need 2 more skeins, plus 2 skeins in solid, and 2-3 skeins of grace, the boucle. Since I am on a Use what you have campaign, this will have to wait.

Some Point 5 - 2 skeins in dark umber. I also have 2 skeins in giotto in the same colorway. You will see a skein of Isis in Gauguin, plus some more isis in fruit coulis. I also have 4 more skeins of point 5 in velvet plum - any ideas for mixing these 6 skeins of point 5 into something?

Flash Your Stash April 1

April 1 is Flash Your Stash Day. Ever the early bird, here is my stash, lovingly arranged by color and sealed in plastic bags for protection. I was able to get a 4x4 cubby from the LYS which went out of business, and it is so nice to have everything out of the storage bins! Now I just need to think of some major stash busting projects! I want to make some afghans and that will go quickly if I crochet with a big hook and combine yarns. I need some help planning these projects - any volunteers?

Another quiz

Your Birthdate: October 23

You're not good at any one thing, and that's the problem. You're good at so much - you never know what to do. Change is in your blood, and you don't stick to much for long. You are destined for a life of travel and fun. Your strength: Your likeability Your weakness: You never feel satisfied Your power color: Bright yellow Your power symbol: Asterisk Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

A fun quiz

Who Should Paint You: Gustav Klimt

Sensual and gorgeous, you would inspire an enchanting portrait.. With just enough classic appeal to be hung in any museum!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

A little bit of heaven

I thought I was on my way to the pearly gates this weekend. I was sicker than I have ever been. I visited urgent care Friday afternoon for help with pain in my right ear that extended all over that side of my face and head. An ear infection. Bless those poor little babies - what agony they go through. Got RX for antibiotics, topical and internal, and then spent the entire weekend in bed, sweating through fever over 102 degrees. Fortunately my DH was sufficiently recovered from his near-miss with pneumonia to wrangle the boys. Woke up Sunday morning with a stiff neck - oh no, DH bolts upright - can you touch your chin to your chest? Nope. Now I lay back in delirium, wondering if I have meningitis, remembering our friend from McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, who DIED from meningitis - he thought he had the flu, was in bed with a fever, finally called 911 - but too late. So we went back to urgent care - dear friends came and took the boys to Sunday school while we went. Doctor didn't think I need worry about meningitis so it was back to bed to sweat it out. In the early evening, I felt a bit better and picked up my knitting. I was able to complete 1-1/2 of the cable repeats of the Ripple & Rock strip for my afghan. Am on the mend... hallelujah!

GangstaKnitter

Please check this out! Love it!

gangstaKnitter

Use What You Have Month

April is "Use what you have month". Tough for the LYSs; glad I'm not an owner! I seriously considering buying a store last month.

Getting my stash arranged in my new shelf will help - I can really appreciate what I have and get going on some serious stash reduction! It is rather distressing to go through these serious piles of yarn and see the projects I thought I would make, and now that I am more experienced , realize I don't want to make them any longer. I know better the kinds of yarn I like working with, what is challenging, what is mind-numbing etc.

I do love the experience of yarn shopping: reading the books and patterns, researching the yarns and prices, walking the aisles and fondling the wares, chatting up the peeps and other customers, all with a dreamy glazed expression, imagining the oohs and aahs of friends and strangers over the FO. If you care to join me in this effort, lmk!

Yarn Lust

While browsing blogs yesterday, I was tempted to visit KPixie and there I found their one-of-a-kind yarn section, with artisanal spun yarns from around the country. I was especially intrigued by the work of the two women of MaterialWhirled and now I am in total yarn lust, trying to decide which one (one!?!) of these yummy skeins I could pick and what on earth I could do with it (how about an artful arrangement in an artglass bowl in the middle of our formal dining table?). I really appreciate the whole "Knit what you have" campaign I've seen out there, and also realize that yarn lust is just part of what the Buddha calls our cycle of suffering - there will never be enough, will there? But there is also something to be said for supporting the work of these amazing artists. I read bits of their blogs and got a small picture of their lives and would like to do my small part to recognize their craft. And if anyone wants any gift ideas for picky old me, remember this post!

At play in the fields of the net

So I figured out how to insert buttons and to ACTUALLY MAKE THEM WORK!!! Please check out my buttons (ahem, not those buttons)! Next I want to learn how to make one for my blog! Anyway these buttons allow you to subscribe to bloglines so you know when I add new posts. One is for Project Colorswap, where I have been assigned a buddy, Tammie in Carey, NC, with whom I will swap objects colored orange and yellow - the colors for the month April. I have prepared a yummy package for Tammie and am ready to address it, stamp it and send it xcountry. Next, I have signed up for Flash Stash - where folks will be posting images of their stash! This I am looking forward to because I have bought one of the shelves from my LYS which has closed, and plan to artfully arrange my stash in my office, rather than have it shoved into plastic bags and storage bins strewn about the floor. Next I want to get a comfy couch/futon/chair and set up a nice lamp and table and sit and gaze at the beautiful fiber. Yeah yarn is like crack for me. You know you're out there. Then there are buttons for fun sites like MagKnits, Yarn Harlot etc. I will be collecting buttons from my favorite sites - check back later!!

In Memorium

When is your life no longer colored by the way it ends? With a death by suicide, I don't know if it ever is. Three years ago, my uncle and my godfather, Ken Gotschall Jr. ended his life in a wooded park in Lodi. For months we pondered why and tried to find someone to blame, like his ex-wife. It was comforting, for some family members, to imagine that he was murdered. Living in the aftermath of suicide is like that. Our family has gone through this twice.

I want to remember my uncle without wondering about this exit plan simmering in the back of his mind - how long did he consider it an option? I want to remember long summer weeks spent at his house on Central Ave. in Manteca. I want to remember the pleasure he took in his garden, the eggs he received from his chickens, how he could make a mean BBQ. I want to remember the way he said my name. I want to remember his voice, his smell. Not that horrible week when we learned he left us and how.

I was heartened to learn that progress has been made in erecting a suicide barrier for the Golden Gate Bridge (SF Chronicle)

Here's a link to an amazing article about suicide in general and the "allure" of the Golden Gate Bridge for the suicidal, from The New Yorker.

Here are two excerpts that I think are especially important.

A familiar argument against a barrier is that thwarted jumpers will simply go elsewhere. In 1953, a bridge supervisor named Mervin Lewis rejected an early proposal for a barrier by saying it was preferable that suicides jump into the Bay than dive off a building “and maybe kill somebody else.” (It’s a public-safety issue.) Although this belief makes intuitive sense, it is demonstrably untrue. Dr. Seiden’s study, “Where Are They Now?,” published in 1978, followed up on five hundred and fifteen people who were prevented from attempting suicide at the bridge between 1937 and 1971. After, on average, more than twenty-six years, ninety-four per cent of the would-be suicides were either still alive or had died of natural causes. “The findings confirm previous observations that suicidal behavior is crisis-oriented and acute in nature,” Seiden concluded; if you can get a suicidal person through his crisis—Seiden put the high-risk period at ninety days—chances are extremely good that he won’t kill himself later.

I regret that we could not get my uncle through his crisis period. He'd had an attempt less than a month before his "successful" completion. I had just completed a video for teenagers about depression and suicide and knew he was in danger. My conversations with him were futile. He did not confide in me about the depth of his pain.

Here is another powerful excerpt from The New Yorker piece. This quote made it into the zeitgeist, and colored various episodic TV shows for months afterward - it actually was quoted in one show (can't remember which - ER?)

Survivors often regret their decision in midair, if not before. Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines both say they hurdled over the railing, afraid that if they stood on the chord they might lose their courage. Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

Kenny jumped. We're still here.

On the drawing board

Projects I'm considering

One is the Lady Eleanor Stole from Interweave Press' Scarf Style book. I have 4 skeins of Noro Iro that I was considering using for (yet another) denim
handbag. I think it could work nicely for this pattern, and it would present another knitting challenge: entrelac. Of course, the pattern calls for 15 skeins of La Lana Forever Random yarn (which runs about $300!). I could look for more of this Iro colorway on Ebay or LYSs, or just make it a wee bit smaller.

The other project I've been daydreaming about is squares from the Great American Afghan Book by XRX. I've been considering purchasing some Malabrigo yarn, or one of the other similar kettle-dyed yarns from www.handpaintedyarn.com. I spent some time fondling the Malabrigo at the WEBS booth at Stitches. It was gorgeous and oh-so-soft. I may try a few skeins and see how it looks.

And yet another idea is the cable throw from The Knitter's Bible by Claire Crompton. I have 19 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky in two colorways that might work nicely. I love this book. I have nearly completed the Stitch Sampler pillow project, which was a nice way to learn many different knitting techniques.

Chinese Lantern Bag

This is the chinese lantern bag - the pattern I picked up at Stitches West from Rumplestiltsken, a LYS in Sacramento. It's a series of short rows, a technique I had never tried before.

I learned how to execute a "loop" stitch, using alpaca/beaded sari silk yarn I found on EBay. What a nice purchase - I got the beaded yarn and they included handmade wooden needles. This was much nicer than the other recycled sari silk yarn that I have tried - it usually twisted up, had knots, breaks, twigs, dirt, would get down to a mere thread... Now I just have to finish up the seam and make a tassel and this bag will be done.

FreeForm Crochet

Yesterday I took my first class in FreeForm Crochet. I was inspired by Kim B, from the LA SNB group - we exchanged some posts, she seemed really nice, and it seemed a good way to meet her, visit a new LYS (new to me anyway - the Stitch Cafe) and learn about FF Crochet. I'm so glad I did - the teacher's work, and that of the other students, was just amazing. It really is an true art form, and great for yarn fiends like myself. You can find a yarn you really like and use bits of it in several pieces, rather than have to buy 15 balls to make one (rather boring to produce) garment.



Here are some samples of what FF crochet looks like. The teacher was Myra Wood - she has a website, www.myrawood.com.


I am joining the Yahoo Groups site and look forward to learning more. I did "scrumble" a bit yesterday, and will take some pics and share my first attempt soon. Kim and the other classmates were very kind and supportive - sharing bits of yarn and helping me try to keep up with the class. I spent the entire 3 hours about 2 steps behind everyone, trying to catch up. I did my first attempt at a bullion stitch - yikes - not sure what the attraction is there, though the other students made beautiful ones.

To learn more, here are some links:
www.knotjustknitting.com is Prudence Mapstone's site.
There's an online FF exhibit at http://lacismuseum.org/exhibits.html
www.margarethubertoriginals.com

On the needles

I have started on the second of the yarn packs that I bought at Stitches West for the new Nicky Epstein book, Fabulous Felted Bags. This one will be my first, very tentative attempt at colorwork/intarsia. It also features another new skill, duplicate stitch. Right now I am just doing the back, which is one color, stockinette, so I carry it around with me and pick it up when I have some time. I'm spending most of my time knitting up the Louisa Harding wrap...

All Buttoned Up

Had a lovely knitting meetup last night at Borders with partners in crime, Lynda and Lauri. I took the opportunity to do the chores I dread, finishing, and added buttons to my "Pursenalities" felted bags and started sewing up the Sari Silk Chinese Lantern purse. Had a few close calls with the needle, and am glad that chore is over. I love to knit, hate to sew!

Movies I've seen lately

We watched Hustle & Flow this weekend - it was SO good. I wish I'd watched it before the Oscars - I would have appreciated the song performance more. Now I really am glad that it won. We look forward to the Sopranos tonight.
We saw Brokeback Mountain last weekend - I found it slow and uncomfortable - not something I was looking forward to - I went because it was going to be the Oscars so wanted to understand what the fuss was. Robert made an interesting point that the music selection was not very good (anachronistic too - with a Steve Earle song, Devil's Right Hand - which was released about 10 years later - wouldn't have been so bad if perhaps a gun played an important part in the film, but it didn't) and that there was absolutely NO mention of the Vietnam war.

Pajama Day

Not about knitting, but it was pajama day at Logan's preschool. He was so delighted. We brought a tent and he had a grand time playing with his friends. He wishes every day was pajama day!

Noro Denim Purses

This is the first purse I made with Noro - I saw a sample at Yarn Garden in Studio City and got the free pattern and made it in Noro Transitions, which is an interesting yarn which "transitions" between camel, cashmere, silk, alpaca and angora. I have made another one in Noro Iro, which is wool/silk which I actually like better, since the angora gets pilled in a high-use product like a purse. Anyway I love these purses, get so many compliments on them wherever I go. I do want to add some magnetic closures at the top and then they will be perfect!


The green/blue is the second Noro denim purse that I made. I much prefer this one - love the buckle, and the way the finisher did the pockets inside is fantastic - with all the pockets you usually have on jeans, including the small change pocket!

My latest WIP

Here's a photo from the cover of the Louisa Harding pattern book I picked up recently at Village Knittery. I am making this piece, featuring some Prism Roccoco (rick-rack style) yarn that I picked up on sale a while back at Yarn Garden (now Monroe's Dry Goods). It is such a special yarn I was stumped what to do with it. The help at VK was wonderful, made this suggestion, and I picked up 3 other coordinating yarns and have been having a grand time - have completed almost 30 inches of 43. Along the way I remembered the technique of weaving in the ends as you go, which certainly comes in handy in a striped piece like this. I can see using this pattern for lots of yarn that I have in my stash.

On the nightstand

I have been on an (unintentional) Sherlock Holmes jag.

I am reading the new Caleb Carr book, The Italian Secretary, which is a further adventure. It is very fun so far, has supernatural elements. I recently finished "A Slight Trick of the Mind" by Mitch Cullen which was another look at Holmes, finding him at age 93 in post nuclear bombed Japan, and also revisiting an earlier mystery from the late 1800s. I listened to it while hiking in the mornings after dropping the kids at school. My walks aren't the same since I finished it.


Also on my nightstand is the new Julian Barnes, Arthur & George, which is about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I wasn't as captivated as I had hoped so am reading the Caleb Carr first - it's a bit disturbing because it's about racial harassment (Doyle helps the victim)