it's been 2 years, dad

WIP has become a FO

I finished the big ol' blanket from the last post. I'm so incredibly happy! I need to finish up the loose ends and then wrap it up for Christmas.

I've had an incredible desire to rid myself of things. Not sure what has caused this feeling, but I think it's the medical problems I've had lately. When stuff like that happens, I always look around and realize that material things are just meh. Part of my cleansing process is the stash I've accumulated of yarn and stuff. NOT that I regret my purchases :) But cleaning up the WIPs is #1 on my list right now.  I realize that a lot of the yarn I purchased was bought with someone in mind. Now to just get those projects underway and out to the recipients.

I'm still working on a lace scarf and it's coming so close to being complete. Once I get a way to photograph it so that you can see how beautiful the color and pattern are, I shall. It's a coffee colored Malabrigo yarn, so soft and beautiful. Did I mention it's beautiful?


There's a great article on The Guardian about boys and men taking up knitting. More guys should. It's a great relaxing hobby. All the cool kids are doing it.

The halo of the alpaca draws you in

I had a joyous time out with friends last night, celebrating the news from my surgeon that all of the basal cell carcinoma is gone. We had beers, we had bar food, we had fun. I realized, as I looked around the table, how lucky I am and how much a person really needs close friends.Family is your family and you need them, but, to sound corny, friends are the family you choose.

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I am incredibly behind on gift knitting, due to apathy at the world and all that was in it for a few months. I'm pulling out the WIPs and really going at them. I still see IOUs in the holiday future but at least it's not for the lack of trying now. This first WIP is a year in the making (should have been LAST Christmas - whoops) but once you see it, you might see why it's taken so long. I've already made 2 of these very large blankets and they turned out so beautiful. I decided to make 2 more: one for my other mother and one for my sister.  Eventually I will make one for me. Although the blankets look light and airy, they are lofty and terrible knitting during any warm season. I choose Knit Picks Suri Dream yarn, which has been discontinued (don't worry, I bought the yarn for my blanket a while ago!). The colorway I chose for Lois is Emerald Isle and it's amazing.

This is 74% Suri Alpaca, 22% wool and 4% nylon yarn. The pattern is not online anymore either but it's size 19 needles and you cast on 144 stitches and just knit. You can do a border but I chose not to with this yarn. So I'm knitting until I get through all the balls of yarn (10 of them) and I'm down to 1.5 balls left. This is definitely TV knitting.

Even though it's large needles and stitches, the lofty halo of the alpaca really makes this a warm blanket!

See the fuzzy? Yep.

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My 2nd WIP is a lace scarf. Which is beautiful but taking up a lot of time, so probably not the best gift idea since I started it so late. More on that tomorrow!

'Taters and 'Maters

In order to save my 'maters and 'taters, I whipped up some tomato soup today. I found a basic recipe in a French cookbook then modified the heck out of it, as I'm wont to do.

Homemade Tomato Soup

You'll need approx. 4 'maters and 4 'taters. I say approximately because I always use more. The 'taters are a thickener so keep that in mind should you decide to add more of them and not the 'maters.

Cut up the 'maters. Throw in big soup pot.

Peel and cut up the 'taters. Throw in same big soup pot.

Add 6 cups of liquid. Now the original recipe calls for water only but I prefer a creamy based tomato soup. So I usually add 2 cups milk/half and half with 4 cups water.

Add some salt and pepper (you'll be tasting this later, and can tweak the amounts)

Bring to a boil, covered. Then simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes. If the 'taters are fork tender, then you're ready. Use a blender or immersion blender to blend it all together. Put back in the soup pot and reheat on the stove. Now's the time to taste test and see what you want to add. I make my soup peppery and add fresh basil if I have any. Today, my basil plant looks sad, so I did not.

Soups are my favorite comfort food. A nice bowl of this and a grilled cheese (or hot ham and cheese if you are feeling frisky) and really, there are no problems with the world anymore.

Color Me Happy!

I have a new hobby:  Design Seeds has so many color combinations that my mind reels at the possibilities of what I can knit in some of these color schemes! It's become THE site for me to wile away hours just looking at colors. What about painting my spare room?

I'm thinking this.... maybe it's a tad dark?

I'm telling you, this site is magnificent!!!

This one just knocks my socks off. So maybe I should make socks in this color scheme?

This really inspires me to start back up with handdyeing my yarn. I did coffee and koolaid dyeing. It's time to expand.

Excuse me....I have more color schemes to look at.

Not Just A Country Song

It's been a rough few months. It's taken since August to finally find out that I have Basal Cell Carcinoma. My awesome dermatologist assured me that this isn't scary cancer, but it is cancer. I've had a lot of near misses with cancer in my life, considering I'm only 35, and now that I didn't dodge one bullet, I got all depressed and distracted. For a few months.

I was even too distracted to even knit. Oh, I did knit stuff, but my heart wasn't in anything. I did read, but got distracted. I tried to cook and didn't want to eat anything. It's amazing what having a diagnosis can do. I mean, I knew deep down that problem was cancer. But finally getting the phone call and getting a PLAN on how to fix it really made a world of difference. Funny how that works.

So, while I'm not running around Living Like I'm Dying (to paraphrase a Tim McGraw song) I feel like I have permission to be me again. And I realize how woefully behind I am on my Christmas knitting. Looks like it's an IOU Christmas!! Ah well.

Two of my co-workers/friends are popping out kids in 2012. I always feel a need to knit something for the tots because it feels important that a newborn have something handmade just for them. This is a cruel and scary world. I can only imagine how much happier we would all be if we all had a handmade blanket or stuffed toy to get us through. Why is it that we abandoned this stuff again??

Oh yes, because we're adults and we don't need kids things anymore. How wrong we turned out to be :)

Where I Pretend I'm An Artist

I've always had some issues with my brain creating wonderful, unique and beautiful things and my hands just messing it all up. Knitting is the exception to that, although I still have a lot of practice in my future to make the brain-to-hand deal work better.

One thing I've always wanted to try was painting. Now, I can draw stick figures and can (mostly) paint walls, so I held no illusions to what I could really do. Finding Wine and Canvas through Groupon.com was a godsend! A place to hang out with friends, have some wine and learn to paint (ie. recreate a painting).  I've been twice with 2 different groups and I had a great time, even if my paintings turned out.... not quite how the original looked. Strangely, I'm not ashamed of my paintings. They are hanging proudly in my house.

I have a gift certificate to W&C to use by the end of the year and am still excited to go back and try another painting. Hopefully with no trees this time. I seem to have problems creating Happy Little Trees.

The first painting was supposed to be looking up at the sky from the middle of woods. I can't find the original to compare to and that's probably a good thing.

It's an impressionist painting, meaning you get the idea of what it is supposed to be but if you go up and look closely it's mainly splotches. I like my leaves in this one and I really like the color of the sky. Trees, meh.

The second one was part of a girls night out with my high school buddies. We had a great time so I'm not upset about the quality of this painting. I do have the original to compare to....

Pretty, isn't it. Ah well. Did I mention how much fun I had that night??

I hung this one in my bedroom above my reading chair. It looks better from far away.

I ended up buying some painting supplies from Wal-Mart with a friend who also caught the bug. The clairvoyant I saw at Camp Chesterfield's Spirit Fest somehow knew I had just taken up painting and assured me that I needed to keep practicing because I would end up quite good. Who knows, but at least it's some form of encouragement, right?

Homemade Pickles AKA What Do I Do With These Cucumbers?

While this isn't a yarny/crafty post, I consider it creative enough to post. Plus, my blog, my rules.

My CSA gave me some cucumbers and green peppers in this batch and I almost gave it all away. I really can't stand cucumbers, can't even stand the smell, can't even stand Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon lotion. My dislike of cucumbers goes that deep. But on the flip side, I really really love pickles. And since I paid for my CSA, I'm not inclined to give more of it away. So I set out to figure out a quick, non-canning approach to making pickles.

Et Voila! I found it.

First, I sliced up all the cucumbers (almost gagging a bit, where did this dislike of cucs come from??) and the green peppers. They got set aside to "rest".

Then I took a cup of white vinegar, salt, and lots of sugar and boiled it until the sugar was dissolved. While that was working, I scrounged up a mason jar ( a bit big, but it worked) and sterilized it in boiling water. I wasn't actually canning, in the traditional sense, seeing as how I intended to eat the pickles within a day or so, but sterilizing the jar seemed like a really good idea.

Once the vinegar mixture was ready, I drowned the cucs and peppers and let it hang there for a few minutes.

The smell was...not unpleasant. Somewhat pickle-y, which suited me.

I dumped everything into the jar and let it cool a bit before I shoved it in the fridge.

Not bad. Too much liquid for the amount of veggies, but eh. This isn't science, just a test.

I just popped open the jar. The veggies are all shriveled and pickle like so I took a sample. Holy crap, I made pretty good pickles. Yay me.

Dog Says Bark

Lately it's been difficult finding things to be thankful or happy about. I notice that it's not just me in this leaky boat, it's almost everyone I meet. So when I got home from work today, and settled into my after-work habit, I realized....this habit makes me happy. And it's especially nice today.

It's a beautiful day out, not the scorching hell-like temperatures we've been having. I turned off my a/c and threw open some windows. A nice breeze comes into my kitchen and dining. A nice mug of PG Tips tea (how very English) with plenty of creamer (learnt from the knee of my Australian grandma) and peace and quiet.

 My astute friends will notice something seriously wrong.

Don't worry, I got up and got a book to read while I drank my tea. I'm not sick or anything.

Whatever happened today was put to bed during this little 15 minute break. Thankfully, the neighborhood yappy dog started in AFTER I finished my tea. Nice try, Yippy.

Kool-Aid Man!!! A Dyeing Tutorial

The coffee dyeing turned out so well, that I tried my hand at kool-aid dying. So here we go, step-by-step:

I purchased 6 packets each of grape koolaid and black cherry koolaid. I filled 2 bowls with boiling water and emptied in the packets. It really smelled trippy! I kinda liked it.

Seeing how it's a tad messy and probably will stain, use a garbage bag or plastic under the bowls.

Once again, I used 100% wool bare yarn from Knit Picks and I didn't soak it in water first, like I did the coffee dyed yarn. I just wanted to see what variation it would give :)

Added the yarn and worked it a bit to get the middle of the yarn dyed with some color.

I literally took a nap and let it soak for about 30 minutes. I needed the dye to be completely exhausted, as I was apparently since I needed a nap. The dye completely soaked in and left behind clear water. It was rather a pretty experience.

The two toned dyeing came out really excellent! I ran it under cold water to make sure no dye came out.

After drying, the colors toned down some and looked like I wanted it to look. Yay!

Final product!

Now what to make with it??

Feed Me, Seymour!

I got a little restless recently and decided that I couldn't knit on my cardigan anymore. It's too hot to have it sitting in my lap and yes, I'm a wimp. Needing inspiration, I caught up on my knitting blogs. Martine at iMake posted a photo of her Trillian shawl. It looked simple and beautiful so I got the pattern. I dug up some stunning orangey-pink sock yarn from my stash and got started. I am a happy camper now.

I'm still in the midst of knitting my 6x9 rectangles for HAP as well. Easy and portable and for a great cause. All the rectangles become afghans for the wounded in military hospitals. How can I not do this? So it would appear that I'm occupied....

On a non-knitting note, I think I came to the realization that I might very well be on the wrong path. I don't think I started on the wrong path, it just somehow turned into the wrong path. Can I say wrong path anymore? Yes. While I really do love programming, I knew today that I can't do this forever. Part of me is pretty sure I knew this way before today, but I won't admit that.

Why is it so hard to get out of a rut? Whether it's a job, a bad habit, a bad person, we always seem to make excuses on why we should: stay at the job/in the relationship/continue doing the bad habits. It's really fucking hard to change. I've already noticed that I'm becoming anti-social, but I'm not terribly concerned. I think alone time is a good idea sometimes. I'm hoping to come out of this with some significant changes in mind and in action. Otherwise, we could just probably call this depression and not learn from it at all.

Back to my shawl.

Dr. Frankenstein, I am not

But I tried!

I made my first knitted stuffed critter and he turned out really well! I bought a pattern from Rebecca Danger, which I learned about from Yarngasm. I had to learn a backwards cast on, which is pretty easy. But I also got to learn magic loop!! It was very exciting :) I really did want to learn magic loop but was really nervous about it. It's not that hard!! What was stopping me?? Geesh.

I thought it would be fun/interesting for my fellow crafters to post pictures of monster in progress on my facebook. It really did seem to entertain people. Crafters are a special breed.

So we have the start of monster (no name for monster yet. Matthew gets to name the monster). I think I redid the feet maybe 6 times. I'm really not happy with metal dpns. It was SO slick that I was having lots of trouble keeping the stitches on. But I finally got it going.

I had to tear this foot apart because I used the wrong size needles. I must have been tired when I started this.

The body of the monster was super simple and ended with a 3 needle bind off that eliminates seaming. Whoop!

Next up was the arms! And stuffing!

Once the arms are sewn on, I decided to sew eyes on instead of getting safety eyes. I don't have kids but I felt that sewn eyes were better for 4 year olds. I could be wrong but I like the eyes anyways.

I gave my facebook friends a peek (literally)

I tore my house apart for felt that I KNEW I had but apparently didn't. So monster had to wait a bit for his mouth until I could get to Hobby Lobby to find felt and liquid stitch (which, gosh, was mostly dry when I opened it. Thanks Hobby Lobby). So.... we present the final monster!

The yarn I used for this is from Colorbug Yarns in Detroit. The colorway is called Inchworm. God bless Etsy!

Dyed by Coffee: A Tutorial

Even though I had never dyed any yarn ever, I was excited when Knit Picks offered bare yarn. I grabbed a few skeins of merino wool and just waited.  I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

And then I thought....coffee.

I looked around online and found some tea dyeing tutorials and just decided to 1) not waste tea as I love tea more than coffee and 2) just do it already.

So here we go with coffee dyeing:

Grab your bare yarn and marvel at how pretty and bare it is and hope you don't ruin it

I filled my sink with lukewarm water and put the yarn in. There were a lot of air bubbles so I kept pressing gently on it until they were gone. Then I just let the yarn soak until I was ready for it.

 I had bought generic coffee from the store. I made about 2 full pots of it.

I put those pots of coffee in my big ol stock pot on the stove and turned the heat on. My plan was to get the coffee boiling and then remove from the heat and add the yarn. Once the yarn was added, I stirred it a bit but mostly let it soak for a little over 30 minutes.

I checked it occasionally and, knowing it would lighten up as it dried, waited until it looked like what I wanted.

Once I got that color, I removed the yarn and ran cold water over it until the water ran clear. Then I used a towel to roll it up and blot it dry. From there, all I could do was hang it up and wait for it to dry.

I'm pretty happy with this little experiment!  I made myself some fingerless mitts and will be using the rest for a hat. Next up, Kool aid dyeing!

It's The Little Things

I finally finished my super-secret project and will be mailing it to it's recipient this Friday. After it's received, I'll post pictures of it. Pretty happy with this project and the pattern is now a keeper.

Four day weekend this week with Memorial Day (taking Friday off work- yay!). I've decided that for the next 2-3 months, I'm going to be a very selfish knitter. I have so many things I'd like to try and learn (sock knitting, using my new drop spindle, making stuffed animals, etc) but I always get sidetracked with creating things for other folks. Which, please don't get me wrong, I love to do but sometimes I lose myself with it. I was listening to a Buddhist podcast and it was talking about generosity and giving of yourself. But it made a point to say that, if you give all year round, you must remember to give back to yourself. Because you are just as important as the other people who are receiving your compassion. They suggested that a quarter of the year be devoted to yourself. So I'm taking 3 months to just be with myself. Although I still have ideas for gifts for my friends and family, they are going to have to wait.

School is getting closer to being done. For this one class, at least. Advanced CPT coding is harder, but mostly more time consuming. I just finished the 3rd test of 5 (plus the final) and have a solid 85%. Not what I want but I'll take it. At least I do feel like I'm learning so I can't complain too much. Right?

Work has been extremely difficult lately. Or rather overwhelming. The work itself is not that hard, it's just that there is so much of it I feel like my brain is shutting down. Unfortunately, work is cutting into home time - like now, I just finished almost 3 extra hours sitting here on my couch. My knitting has really helped me at lunch calm down and focus on ONE thing. My yarn and needles don't keep asking me why I'm not done yet and oh, they need to make changes and can I start over???

Yeah. Ok.

I'm currently reading The Devil's Cloth - A history of stripes. So far, very interesting history of how striped fabric got it's bad rap (it was mostly worn by people who "deviated from the norm" ie. prostitutes, lepers and hangmen - there's a motley group of people for you). People were often depicted wearing striped clothing when they were felt (by the artist) to not be worthy. This happened frequently to Joseph (of Jesus, Mary and....). Interesting stuff so far!


Another fiber fest is coming up next week. Hoosier Hills, looks to be a good one. I'm taking a day off work, with mom, to travel to Franklin to check it out. Unfortunately, having to replace my well pump last week has left little to the Fun Fund, so I'll mostly be just browsing.

My goal in the next few months, as well as being selfish, is to keep this blog updated more often. *Crossing fingers!*

I'm Not There

I'm practicing project monogamy and boy, is it difficult. I'm thisclose to finishing my super secret project and I really do want to get it done but I keep staring at the miles of plain knitting and thinking cheating thoughts: "I could start my first practice sock." "I need to make some chemo caps" "What about my piano scarf??"

I haven't cheated yet. And I won't, darnit. I will finish this super secret project and get it out to its intended owner. Said owner has no idea it is coming and no idea it's even being created. Hence the super secret part. I do really enjoy surprising people with things and I hope the handmade goods are appreciated.

Knitting time has been cut - pretty dramatically, actually. I have 4 more classes to take to complete the Medical Coding curriculum at AHIMA online. I stopped for quite a while simply because it wasn't fun anymore. If something you are doing voluntarily becomes...not fun, stop. With 8 classes under my belt already, I decided to start the next class: CPT Coding Part II. It was a beautiful day yesterday, so I opened the windows on each side of my computer desk and did homework for about 3 and a half hours. And you know what? It was fun again. Yay for taking a break to get the mojo back!

This Friday I'm heading to another fiber event. This time it's in Greencastle. Very excited even though I need no yarn and no, I haven't started with my new drop spindle yet. It's there, it's waiting, it won't mold and die.

I did forget to blog about the Bloomington Handmade Market. A friend and I took a road trip to check this out. What I noticed was no yarn, no knitted goods (aside from a few baby booties at one table). Very very shocking. There were a lot of binders selling journals and such, a few homemade soap people (of which one I purchased 4 bars of soap - *swoon*). It was fun seeing a crossstitch booth. I purchased a smutty bookmark pattern from her. Nice stuff there, really, just surprised there was so little yarny goodness. At least I see a niche now!

After the market we headed to Upland Brewery. If you are in Bloomington, Indiana, you must go! The food is awesome and the beer is pretty frickin' great. Frickin'. Great.

I'll be blogging about the upcoming fiber fest this weekend. See ya!

Maisy enjoying the knitted boob pillow I knitted for her owner.

Because Knitting IS Art

Is it.....Spring?

Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!! It looks and feels like Spring out! *calm down* I'm sure we'll get snow tomorrow but nonetheless, I'm busting out the patio furniture in the hopes of knitting outside with a beer in hand. Or on the table (hard to knit with a beer in the hand).

I already busted my "don't buy books" resolution. I got some lovely knitting books at Borders yesterday.

I'm quite excited! I'm really ready to start tackling socks, I think. I'm going to get some cheaper, non-handdyed sock yarn to practice with this weekend and just start tackling. The Cookie A book looks so good, she seems to be the top in socks. Heh.

And the MochiMochi? How can anyone resist these little critters??? You can't.

Mailing off some baby goods today to a friend. Hopefully she likes them well enough. I made 2 newborn hats and an umbilical hat from the Stitch N Bitch book (SUPER easy hat to knit). Plus a pair of seamless booties (with I-cord ribbon) and some little French booties that were cute but I'm not sure of the practicality of them.

The Knit n'Bitch group is meeting up again on the 26th. Really looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll get some knitting done this time since all we did last time was talk. Ha!

Going to the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend. Mostly for the Thornton Dial exhibit and the Sun boxes but also to get inspiration. I have lots of color scheme ideas for yarn and several ideas for pillow cases.

Off to enjoy the beautiful day!

Fiber Fest Numero Uno

On Friday, the 11th of March, mom and I traveled to Jay County, Portland Indiana for the Fiber Fest and Spin In. Not a particularly scenic drive (it IS Indiana), it was excellent because of time spent with my momma. Once we arrived, we parked haphazardly as that seemed to be the way to park and entered the 4H barn. After paying our $1 admission, we beelined to the restroom. Turns out we just missed the dog herding demonstration, so we went to look at the petting area. The baby goats were adorable! But the bird guy just freaked us both out and we didn't stay long. I don't do birds.

 Mom was worried the sheepies were cold. It WAS cold out there but I think evolution has probably helped them adapt.

Inside, it was amazing the amount of spinning going on. Little fiber flecks were everywhere. Someone brought some bunnies. I love bunnies and have never seen an angora close up. This little guy was quite hoppy and active. Which is why the photo is pretty blurry.

Amazingly, we found our knitting teacher there. How sad that she is literally down the road from us and we had to travel an hour+ to see her! Susan owns The Trading Post for Fiber Arts and she was actively spinning some pretty purple roving. All of her roving made me drool even though I don't spin. It was all just gorgeous. I found some Mardi Gras sock yarn but resisted buying it since I still haven't started knitting socks yet. It seems wrong to buy sock yarn right now, at least until I start my first sock. I did buy a drop spindle and some roving from Susan. I figure I need to see if I like it before I go whole hog with a spinning wheel.

I also ended up purchasing some wool yarn that looks like it hides a surprise. The outside of the skein is quite festive but if you peer inside, it explodes into an acid trip of color. Susan found this yarn on a trip to Copenhagen. I have no idea what to knit with this but it's now here when I figure it out.

I also found a booth called Paper and Yarn. The girl heading up the booth was super sweet and helpful and I ended up purchasing sock yarn (I KNOW I KNOW!!!). The yarn is gorgeous and I couldn't not get it, right?? Ice cream!!!

Mom and I wandered around and watched demonstrations of a bowl maker. He made bowls out of trees. Very interesting. There were also weavers and basket weavers and such. Something of a sensory overload but I left pretty excited by all the possibilities.

Knitting isn't just making scarves and hats. There is so much more that you can do in the fiber arts if you choose to.

Next fiber fest is in Greencastle, In in April. Another road trip!

Furry...

I actually feel like I have some forward momentum lately. One of the problems of having my thyroid removed and having wonky guts is that my meds don't often work as I think they should, so I've been just exhausted lately. I decided this week that I have too much stuff to do to be tired and am faking the energy it's going to take to power through.

My first attempt at a baby bootie is sketchy at best. My brain isn't seeing how this pattern will make a bootie so I'm continuing to the end to see what happens. And then I can figure out what I've done wrong and correct it for the real set of booties.

I got some homemade stitch markers in the mail today and they can only be described as art. Pictures forthcoming.

Tomorrow is the Jay County Fiber Fest in Portland, Indiana. Is it weird that I wrote down all the yarn I would need for some projects as a just in case?? Because I did. Real, honest-to-goodness day off work tomorrow and mom and I are traveling to Portland! Hopefully the weather is good - unlike right now.

Born Lost Creations is finally getting some "official" things to help advertise the knitted awesomeness. More news soon!

Rain Rain Go AWAY

With our onslaught of rain, my house is showing me new leaks. Very very frustrating, since this means that something might have happened to my roof during our nasty ice storms. Right now, I have fans going constantly trying to dry things out. At least I'm considering it as ambient noise to my knitting....right?

I purchased a Buddha Machine from Luna Records in Broad Ripple. Spillyjane knits was blogging about them recently and turns out, I really like it! It's the 3rd generation and has odd tones that seem to meld together into excellent "noise" in the background. Knitting is already meditative but this takes it to a new level. I completed an entire newborn hat without stopping and listening to the Buddha Machine. Excellent!

I had found some yarn at Stitches and Scones in Westfield that was just unique. It's Knitcol by Adriafil and it just turned out...neat. The ball of yarn is a little wild looking and it's hard to imagine how this will stripe up.

 And it stripes up very cool! I made 2 newborn hats with the same ball of yarn and they look completely different.

Next up, I'm attempting the OpArt baby blanket from Knitty. I think I've torn this out 7 times now because I could NOT get the center right. I ended up changing the pattern a bit and instead of doing pfb, I changed it all to kfb and am letting the front be plain stockinette stitch.  I think it's finally pulling together, but I switched to small circulars ASAP because the DPNs were just causing me all sorts of headaches. I have 32" circs to switch to once this gets bigger but I guess this shows I'm a circular girl and not a DPN girl.

 I chose Knit Picks Swish in Lotus (dark pink) and white. I should have read up on this first, because Ravelry shows that some of the darker Swish colors have bled into the white. *sigh* I have several more months before it's needed so we'll see what happens.

The yarn demands the pattern

It's funny how one thing tends to lead to another which tends to lead  you somewhere else entirely.

I was on Ravelry.com recently and saw a new group dedicated to helping the victims of the New Zealand earthquake. I joined and started reading through the posts. One member said that if you buy yarn from her etsy store she would donate a portion of the sale to Red Cross NZ. I click on over and am just bowled over by the yarn. I ended up buying 2 skeins of sock yarn.

I don't knit socks.

But one colorway was Jayne Cobb. Firefly! I was weak. (Jayne Cobb is on the right). But it's for a good cause!!

Did I mention I've never knitted socks??

So now that I have 2 gorgeous skeins of sock yarn, I'm on a quest for a basic sock pattern to try my hand at socks. Who knew this is where I would have ended up?

Sometimes the yarn really does demand a certain respect and you just have to do what it tells you.

Excellent Knitting Podcasts

Just a few of my favorite knitting/crafty podcasts:

Yarngasm

Knit Picks

Lion Brand Yarncraft

iMake


Lets Knit2gether (video)

Anyone have others to recommend?

The Tao of Knitting

Of all the skills I've learned, outside of reading, knitting is my favorite. This weekend I did my first hand dyeing of yarn in coffee and ended up with a beautiful caramely yarn. I'm using it to make a pair of fingerless gloves for me, but am designing them by the seat of my pants. This makes me happy.

I notice when things get chaotic or stressful or even sad, I pull out my knitting. When things are happy, exciting and joyous, I pull out my knitting. When I get to create a gift for a new baby, I really think that my joy and excitement is knitted into the fabric. This is the same for presents for my friends and family. All of these gifts are things I hope are understood and loved. When someone takes the time (and it is time!) to knit a gift, it's because they think there is nothing out there, already made, that deserves the person it's made for. A homemade knitted gift deserves a special person to be with.

When things are not so good, my knitting comes out to help me think. The fabric doesn't absorb my worries, instead it helps me work through the fears and worry. Knitting is truly a zen-like experience and gives my brain a chance to figure out next steps, figure out what to say to someone, figure out just how to be and to act. I believe that knitting is the closest to meditation that I've been able to get to in a long time. For a brain that never shuts up, it certainly quiets down when I'm knitting. The chatter is gone and there's nothing but focus.

Now back to some focus....