Keep breathing - HA!

It's kind of surreal: in about five weeks, I'm going to be living 6 hours away. Not that I have time to pack, I'm inundated with schoolwork, paid work, and sleeping. 

I frogged back my interlocking leaves socks and started on a Pomatomus socks - I love the pattern, but I've been struck by an unforeseen hitch in my work.

My needle snapped.  I tried to tape it, but it's bamboo, and it just won't stick together.  *dramatic sigh*

Work on my moose has been halted for a while, now.  W wants to fill the frame out with foam, which annoys me a little. It would be so much easier to have the frame first, and then knit to that shape - and, after I leave for New Hampshire, how am I going to finish this?  I can't.

Plus, I'd like to have the needles back to do other toys!

Anyway, knitting progress has gone very slow, and I haven't really done any cooking or crafting that is otherwise impressive. I haven't even planted any seeds - I figure it would be cruel bringing them into the world when I don't know if they'll have a balcony or windowsill to rest on.  My mint hasn't come up, either.

Urgh.

Things have not been going my way.  I have been stressed out, sleepless, sick, and I just found out that I owe the government $2,500 because my father claimed me as a dependent.

So, yeah, things are a bit down at camp Alyssa.  I went through the pantry today to figure out how long we can go without buying food (you know you have it bad when...).

2CKBWDAY5 - And now for something completely different

(Sorry I was gone yesterday - I started antibiotics on Weds. and it really hit me hard.  I'm feeling much better now, though.)

2KCBWDAY3 - Stash Organization

 How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

Living in a small space, I don't have the luxury of the awesome crafting studios and cupboards I've seen today from other bloggers.  Nope.  My stash is in a tupperware in my closet.



There are a few skeins around the house, but unless it's on the needles, it's probably in this box.  I like to keep things neat.  A few years ago, I heard horror stories about moths, and a girl at club had a bedbug infestation and we lost all of our charity yarn - so, now, I keep all my "nice" yarn sealed up in ziploc bags.  Yarn for specific projects is tied up in plastic bags. Cheap charity yarn/acrylic goes in a shopping bag all in a jumble.

To organize projects, I mostly use Ravelry and this blog to keep things sane.  I don't normally work on more than two or three projects at a time, so that kind of stuff isn't that hard.  I really love the queue and the stash organizer on Rav - I use them obsessively to plan out projects, see if I have enough yarn, etc. 

Oh, and another thing.  I have a secret stash of yarn.





Hehe.  Don't tell W!

2KCBWDAY2 - Gettin' Skillz

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

I have been knitting half my life.  Yes, that's totally strange to me! I haven't done anything as much as I've knit - except maybe eat, sleep, breathe, or read.  I'm at the point where I'm really happy with my skills, but there are a few milestones that I see that I've met looking back last year.

• My first published, for-sale pattern
• My first lace shawl
• My first FO for myself!

That third one is the best one! As far as knitting skills, there's nothing I really want to master - I've done pretty much everything.  Entrelac? Socks? Lace? I feel like I'm on a high mountain of knitting mastery.  And the things I haven't mastered like spinning and crochet, I don't really want to learn!

For the next year, I think I'll try to fit in a lace shawlette with cobweb lace, and maybe some dyeing - but no hurry.  I just want to enjoy the ride and knit what I feel like.  If I need to learn a new technique, by George, I'll just do it.

KCBW2 - Day One

I'm super excited to participate in the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog week! Today's theme is "A Tale of Two Yarns:"

Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

My two yarns today are both part of a mystery! For one the mystery is solved, and for the other the case file is still open.

Maybe I need to give a bit more back story.  My stash is pretty much all over the place, with yarns that I need to figure out a use for sitting out on the counter, or on my desk, or on the back of the toilet.  This yarn has been on my desk for the past eight months, since I got it at a festival:

I blogged about this gorgeous skein from Black Creek Farms on my old blog, here.  It the most beautiful, saintly yarn, but it only comes in 100 yards! And, I didn't want to make some doll or a baby item because... why would you use luxury alpaca for something like that? It just seems impractical to me.

Well, I got a great tip from someone on Rav - make a faux-lacey cowl.  Cast on with large needles, and just knit in garter stith until there's no more yarn.  What an awesome idea!! It will look great with the hat I just finished:

Which leads me to my next yarn... I thought I could make two tams out of this yarn (one for my mom and another for me) but it turns out I only have 36 g left... so, what to do!?

Hopefully I'll eventually be able to solve this mystery, too.  It's a worsted weight yarn, so I could always pair it with others in my stash and make some gloves, or incorporate it as color work into a future project...

NaKniLaMo?

In the middle of NaNoWriMo, I noticed a group had started on Ravelry dedicated to knitting lace during the month of March - NaKniLaMo.  I thought it was an awesome idea, joined, and cast on earlier this month to make my first shawlette.

I dunno about anyone else in the group, but I've been the only person to post in it. Regardless,  I finished the shawlette on Monday.  And I love it.  Really, truly, deeply. 

The pattern is Bitterroot by Romi Hill, from the Winter 2009 Knitty. I used yarn that Ash got me for Christmas in 2008, and I absolutely love it.  It's Knitpicks Kettle Dyed sock yarn, in a very bright yellow that just seems to brighten every outfit. They don't carry it anymore on their website :(

Anyway, even though I don't know of anyone else that knit lace in March, for the KAL, I thought it was super fun.  I'm really happy with the result and want to make more!

One thing that surprised me was how big the finished product was - here's a picture of it on the back of my couch.  Hard to believe that all those stitches fit on my 14'' circulars o_o;

My favorite part of the pattern?  The last four rows.  The lace between the leave motifs looks crocheted! when I took it to club, everyone was asking me how I made the edging.  I felt very smug and smart!

For my next lace shawl, I definitely will use some sort of wire (maybe armature wire or a coat hanger) because the pins were so painful to do! I hate pinning things, and if I were to use wires I could hang the shawl up on a wall and not have to worry about people stepping on it as it blocks on the carpet.

Now that I have my shiny shawl, my next question is - how do I store it?  When I'm in the shower or sleeping, I'm not wearing it, so do I hang it up on a hanger?  Fold it on a desk?  Right now, I've been draping it over my couch :)