Get Yarnsatiated!

Spring break was somewhat productive in terms of knitting. I didn't work on any projects that were already in progress, but I did start two new projects. The first is Cotton Cotton Candy, a Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf in Plymouth Bella Colour. It's all the pastel colors one would expect in a nice big overpriced bag of cotton candy at a carnival.

I originally planned to use large needles to make it a bit lacy, but when I started I wasn't much liking the effect or the difficulty of doing kfb with that combination of needles and yarn. The result when I started over was much nicer. However...this meant I didn't have nearly enough yarn. I'll have to find another two skeins in order to finish it.

Once I ran out of yarn for that project, I started on Corn Maize, a Clapotis in SWTC Amaizing. I had trouble wrapping my brain around the pattern for the first few rows (inability to concentrate due to the blaring television and exceedingly warm house may or may not have been a contributing factor), but once I got started it was incredibly easy. That is, until I reached the end of the first ball of yarn (I love this yarn, by the way), and knew that there wasn't enough for another row but stupidly did a third of the row anyway. I had to unknit it, and got horribly screwed up with the twisted stitches. I'm hoping I can pick it up once my brain is clear and figure out the right way for the stitches to hang, but up to this point every time I've looked at it I've been too frustrated with my amazing ability to screw up every single project this year.

Aside from knitting, I made my yarn stash slightly less disorganized. I'd brought a bunch more yarn home that I didn't plan to use before summer, and it's now condensed into one plastic tub, one large cardboard box, and one milk crate which are neatly stacked in my bedroom. If I can dig up one more tub that's not in use, I should be able to get rid of the cardboard box and milk crate and fit it all into three tubs once I'm home for the summer.

Of course, I instantly acquired more yarn. There were some gorgeous ones at the Big Lots at home, but I passed them up because I was in a cranky mood and didn't really know what I'd use any of them for and couldn't deal with trying to pick which single yarn I wanted (mom was buying) and how much of it I'd need for a completely undetermined project. Then we stopped at a gigantic Big Lots in Indianapolis that we always pass on the way to campus, and mom bought me yarn. Sort of. In the sense that she bought yarn with which I'm supposed to make things for her, and won't really give me any idea of what she wants made with it.

They had some Bernat LuLu in a lovely minty green, which I couldn't pass up, and mom also liked this flag yarn in red, blue, and green, and picked up a simple dark green yarn to go with it. But I'm completely stumped on what to do with these.

I've been MIA from my yarn blog for nearly 2 months. This was not intentional, but given that all my knitting projects have been going disastrously, I haven't knitted with friends in ages, and I've lost a bit of my enthusiasm for Ravelry, it's understandable that I'd not be feeling the knit love in order to post anything.

First project(s) of the year were Bunniana and Bunniana Blanket. Neither is completed. Bunniana is knitted and just needs to be assembled and stuffed. Bunniana Blanket is up to the head portion, but I am incapable of correctly repeating "purl one, slip one" over the entire width of the head and at this point I may have completely destroyed the project.

These were originally intended for my cousin's niece, but due to family issues it seems unlikely I'd be able to give them to her. So I decided to give the blanket to the daughter of a former acting instructor, and I'll probably keep the stuffed animal for myself. Assuming, of course, that I successfully complete either project.

I've completed two bath puffs (A Puddle of Popsicle and A Chip of Candy Cane). The first went to a fellow cast member from Twelfth Night, who had to wait about a month from me starting it at rehearsal to finishing it long after the show ended. The second went much faster, and will be part of a traditional candy cane package that I send to a friend long after Christmas is over.

I crocheted something that was not a bath puff: the Cameshflage Sack, which came out a little bit wonky but inspired me to start designing my own pattern for a similar bag. Aside from the pattern-testing item, I plan to make one for inclusion in a BPAL swap circle package.

Other disastrous knitting projects include Warm As Neon, a hat which was supposed to have a matching scarf but I made horrible miscalculations and the hat was far too big and used up too much of the yarn. The striping pattern is also wrong because adding the final stripe would have made the hat unwearable.

Finally, there is Sideways Disco, the scarf with built-in fingerless mitts which I was knitting for the director of Twelfth Night. This time I horribly miscalculated in the opposite direction and made it too short. Seeing as how the scarf is knit lengthwise, the only solution would have been to completely rip it out and start over. It seems to still be wearable, although with limitations to how much neck coverage and range of motion is possible, so I finished it and will have the recipient try it on. If it can't be worn without strangling her, I'll take it back and try again.

Then I have two long-term WIPs that have been neglected. Corded and Recorded Were in a Boat... got put aside when I realized that I had to either buy yet another set of needles or learn to use the Magic Loop method. I haven't had enough focus to try an unfamiliar technique, but I'm going to try getting it finished over spring break since it was supposed to be a Christmas gift.

The other neglected WIP is the mystery project I'm designing. It's not even remotely difficult, but it's also a large project with a lot of knitting to go and I've been a fan of instant gratification lately. I'm probably taking it home over break and leaving it there, since I need to start moving stuff home and I don't foresee feeling compelled to work on it.

Tonight's yarn-related task doesn't involve making anything, but rather packing yarn and patterns. I'll be leaving tomorrow early evening, assuming it doesn't snow, and need to pack anything that I either plan to work on while I'm on break or don't plan to use before May. And yes, this means I'm going MIA again, for another 10 days or so.

I don't normally read xkcd (I haven't even a clue what the name means!), but every once in a while someone links it and I have a chuckle. This one's for us knitters:

Died in a ________ Accident

Knitting has since taken a huge jump in the ranks of deadly hobbies. It's up to 970 results on Google, thanks to this webcomic.

Also, I'm back from my involuntary internet-free lifestyle! I did get quite a bit of knitting done, although not nearly as much as I'd hoped, and with that and the amount of new yarn I acquired it's going to take a while to get my Ravelry pages back to completion.

Mom called this evening and said that she found a gorgeous yarn at Big Lots and bought every skein they had. I instantly was jealous, because I went there several times over the holidays and they had virtually no yarn in stock. I thought of the gorgeous Patons Bohemian in Wandering Wines that I picked out and mom wrapped up for Christmas, and wondered if the yarn she got was as beautiful and squishy. She hunted down her shopping bags, looked at the label, and told me she'd bought 28 skeins of Patons Bohemian! Hers is in the Indigo Indulgence colorway.

She's planning to make an afghan, and wanted to know if she had enough yarn (she's not used to using anything other than Red Heart or Simply Soft, and thinks in weight, not yardage). I found some patterns with similar yarn and determined that not only does she have plenty, but that she might have nearly a third of it leftover...which she said she "might" give me. Yay!

First up, an important note: I will be without internet access from December 13, 2007 to January 7, 2008. Comments on blog posts are welcome during that time, as are e-mails to yarnsatia @ livejournal .com but the chance of me getting to a computer and being able to respond prior to January 7th is very slim.

Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to close out the year with one of my favorite memes. The idea is to open up a browser window and type in each letter of the alphabet, one at a time, to see what pops up from your browser history. I generally do this right before clearing the history, which is something I'm about to do as part of Operation Start Fresh in 2008. The twist? For this blog I'm not just going to take the first URL that pops up for each letter, but browse the list and wherever possible choose the most strongly yarn-related URL I find.

( It's Like Feeding Soup to Firefox )

With that, I sign off until next year. Have a great holiday season, everyone!

It's traditional to post a "year in review" entry sometime near the end of December, summarizing the year's events in a month-by-month fashion. As this is the first time I've done a yarn-specific year in review post, and I've only been knitting for a year and a half, I'm expanding it to cover that entire time period.

(Yes, this is being posted a bit early. Starting December 13th I'll have no internet access for 3.5 weeks. When I return, I'll edit to include the latter half of this month.)

( 2006 )
( 2007 )

Citrus Peel Scarf
Originally uploaded by alsatia


This crazy thing is known as the Citrus Peel Scarf. It originated over a year ago when I was learning to do increases and went a little crazy with increasing after every stitch. The spiral was pretty, and I wanted to make something with it someday.

Fast forward to September, when I cast on for this project. (Yes, September. Yes, this really did take 3 months to complete.) Things that made this take forever:

• Starting on straight needles and having to transfer to a circular.
• Transferring to a really sucky circular that still wasn't long enough.
• Screwing up and ripping the whole thing apart and starting over.
• Needing to buy another ball of yarn.
• Dreading the idea of binding off several thousand stitches.

This blurb from my project page on Ravelry says it well:

Stitch Count: thousands
Time Spent: #@$%! hours
Yarn Cost: $2.54

I'm quite proud of myself for finishing this sucker though. (It really is finished, I just haven't taken the photos of it completely blocked.) My goal is to finish off all current works-in-progress (excluding the gigantic Mystery Project) prior to going home for Christmas. I have enough things I need to knit when I'm there, and don't want these old projects hanging over my head.

Laura recently posted her Winter Knitting Goals (and the long-awaited results of her summer goals). Seeing as how I'm going to be going home for Christmas break in a week and will have three weeks of no internet access and virtually no contact with the outside world, I need to plan which yarns to take home and which patterns I may need. It seems a good time to make a list, along with setting some of these projects as goals.

I'll first be going straight down the stash list and naming off the yarns I've packed to take home, along with patterns I expect to need:

( Stash List )

As for the mountains of Peaches & Creme, I'm only taking what I need to finish the things being given as Christmas gifts. For the most part, those patterns are memorized, but I do need the Back Scrubber pattern.

I'll also be collecting a pile of lace patterns that look interesting, so that if one of them strikes my fancy while I'm home I can try it out.

Apologies to anyone who may have tried to comment on one of my prior posts and was unable to do so. I'm positive that I selected the option to allow anonymous and OpenID comments, but just learned that it was not selected after all.

OpenID is a system that allows you to use an identity from another website in order to log in to a variety of sites. The actions you can perform when using an OpenID login are limited as compared to having a full LiveJournal account, but if your blog site supports OpenID and you just want to comment here, please see FAQ #231 for information on how to use OpenID commenting.

After you've created an OpenID account by using it to comment on LiveJournal, I have the option of adding it to my friends list. If I do this, it will allow you to read any friends-only entries I post here. At the moment, I'm not using friends-only entries, but if I do post some in the future it will be restricted to a handful of people I know fairly well, for the purposes of sharing designs-in-progress. Details about using OpenID to read friends-only entries are in FAQ #232.

Note that you do not need an OpenID account for me to read your blog on my friends page. I can do this by adding your RSS feed as a syndicated account.

If your blog doesn't support OpenID or you don't want to use it, you're still welcome to comment using the anonymous commenting feature. Please don't actually be anonymous; include a name and/or address for your blog or website. Actual anonymous comments will most likely be deleted.

So, my friend Kelli recently posted about a Pay It Forward scheme that's been making the rounds, and I managed to nab a spot among her three recipients. In return, I am obligated to make the following offer (stolen from Kelli, with a slight adjustment on the time):

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but it will be shipped by the end of June 2008, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Kelli's timeline was a year, but not only do I think I can realistically complete this in much less time (I made the deadline in the summer in case of unfortunate timesuck from school), but I don't really want to have this hanging over my head for so long.

Anyone reading this who has a blog to post the offer in is eligible. If I don't already know your address or see you in person, give me a way to contact you privately in order to acquire said address.

---

Somewhat relatedly, Susan at I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can is having a Be Happy contest. The goal is to comment on her blog post with a story about something that makes you happy. Easy, huh?

I had no trouble thinking of what to describe in my comment. There are lots of things that make me happy (and I'm thankful that I recognize them, else the times of overwhelming depression might be unbearable), but none is such a surefire way to make me smile as being shaken from my daydreams by a cute little train rolling past.

( My Comment, for Archival Purposes )

It's traditional on LiveJournal to participate in the wishlist meme each holiday season. There are two parts to this meme:

• Post a list of 10 holiday wishes. These can be anything, from "A new background image for my blog" to "A donation to Heifer International in my name" to "A Macbook Pro" to "A house in Beverly Hills". Be advised that wishing for extravagant items generally means not receiving them, though. ;)
• Browse around your LiveJournal friends list (or the wishlist_2007 community) and see if there are any wishes you wish to grant.

I've posted a half-sized wishlist in my friends-only journal, so this public one is, naturally, for yarn-related wishes only. If you're able to grant one of these wishes and it requires my mailing address, you'll need to e-mail me at yarnsatia @ livejournal .com (remove the spaces) to acquire it.

My wishlist, in no particular order:

1. Knifty Knitter Looms. I don't have any of these yet, so I'm not too particular, although I'd prefer the sets that have multiple sizes of one loom shape. I'd probably get more use out of long looms than round ones, and the spool loom looks like something I could use for easy portability.
2. Unexpected Knitting by Debbie New. Out of all the knitting books I'd really like to have, this is the one I'm least likely to buy for myself...and probably the one I'd enjoy most. I admit it, I'm put off by the price. I'm quite sure it's worth it, but when there are so many other books I'm interested in for much less money, I keep turning to them instead.
3. Book recommendations. I'm doing a pretty good job of researching books before purchasing and ending up with a collection that will be useful and inspiring to me, but there are so many books out there! I'm primarily a knitter, but also am learning to crochet, and am not uninterested in other related crafts. So if there's a book you adore, tell me about it! You don't need to buy it for me, just provide information so I can research it myself. If you've got a Ravelry account, you can see most of the books I already own in my library.
4. Random pattern fliers/pamphlets. Have you got a bunch of cheap or free patterns lying around that you're never going to use? The sheets you pull off a pad near the yarn in a craft store; the pamphlets that have half a dozen patterns and cost a dollar or two. If you were looking for a way to get rid of these, sending them to me will eventually mean having me add the pattern details to Ravelry's database.
5. Links to yarn-related videos on YouTube. I've seen The Last Knit. I've seen the Shreddies commercial. I've seen Ramen Knitting 101. Now show me more. This can be humor that only yarn crafters will appreciate, or it can be a really useful instructional video.
6. Malabrigo Merino Worsted (10 hanks of the Azul Profundo colorway). Hey, I can dream, right?
7. A nice set of crochet hooks. My existing hooks are Boye aluminum in a rather spotty selection of sizes; the aluminum part is ok, the incompleteness is not. I prefer metal (and desperately wish Knit Picks would make crochet hooks that match their nickel-plated needles) and am interested in both the yarn and thread sizes, with preference toward yarn.
8. A subscription to Interweave Knits. I picked up an issue for the first time recently, and while the newsstand price was a bit off-putting I bought it anyway because even the ads were enjoyable. At subscription prices, there'd be no question of whether it's worth the cost.
9. Surprises. I know this is an incredible cheat, but I want the things I don't know about yet. What little item can you not live without, and want to spread its awesomeness to others?
10. Donations to knitting/crochet charities for foster children. Some options include Binky Patrol (blankets for children and teens in a variety of traumatizing situations, including hospitalization, homelessness, abuse, and foster care) and Red Scarf Project (scarves for college-bound foster youth), but it would also be great if you check for programs in your local area.

Some of these items are available from Amazon.com, so I want to make sure Ravelry members know how to get part of their purchase price donated to Ravelry:

1. Visit the source page for any book on Ravelry which is sold on Amazon. I'm providing the link to Unexpected Knitting as an example, since it's actually on my list.
2. Click the "Buy from Amazon.com" button that's under the cover photo on the left side of the page.
3. Click the "Continue" button on the confirmation page to add the book to your shopping cart.
4. Continue shopping on Amazon, and make a purchase in that same session without closing your browser window. You do not have to purchase the item you added via Ravelry; delete it from your cart before checking out if you don't want it.
5. Ravelry will get 7% of the item prices for all items you purchased in that visit. Yes, even completely non-yarn-related items!

When I first started knitting, I didn't understand why people would do this crazy thing called "stashing". I couldn't imagine being able to afford it, for one thing. Then I started finding irresistibly cheap yarn in various places (and sometimes irresistible yet expensive yarn in other places) and my stash began to grow. As of Saturday, I see why it can be a good idea.

Sitting around and planning ways to mix different yarns together in a project doesn't sound like a huge amount of fun. Maybe this is because I tend to work by inspiration: I'll have seen hundreds of patterns and hundreds of yarns and have a few in mind that I really like, but not actively choose to make something until the pattern and yarn come together by accident.

In this case, just the yarns came together. It could be a while before I find out what pattern they belong in. Here is a parade of purples:



The three yarns here are Laines Du Nord Euforia, Knit Picks Twist, and Patons Lacette. They all came from different places; two were purchased in clearance sales (one online, one in a store), and one was a gift.

I acquired the Knit Picks Twist first. It's apparently being discontinued, and when I was ordering things I had a practical use for, I snatched up two balls of Twist at the same time, completely on the basis of it being purple. I kind of have a thing for purple, if that wasn't obvious yet. I have 198 yards of this yarn, although it hasn't completely sold out so if I decide quickly that I need more of it, I could order more.

Twist is 30% cotton, 30% viscose, 20% acrylic, and 20% nylon. The cotton is a solid colored boucle with a variegated shiny strand twisted around it.

The second yarn I received was Laines Du Nord Euforia. A friend just returned from living in Italy, and she bought it for me as a gift. Bless her heart for going into the little Italian yarn shop to stare helplessly at shelves full of yarn. I realized the moment she gave it to me that this yarn would go nicely with the Twist already in my stash. I have 114 yards of Euforia.

Euforia is 51% kid mohair, 40% polyamide, and 9% nylon. The synthetic part is variegated and sparkly, with a thin strand of solid purple mohair wrapped around it.

Later in the day after receiving Euforia, I went browsing in Big Lots and stumbled upon Patons Lacette in a light purple, which seemed fairly similar to the previous two yarns. I grabbed a few of those (for 88¢ each!), totaling 645 yards.

Lacette is 39% nylon, 36% acrylic, and 25% mohair. The acrylic and nylon seems to be stitched around the mohair strand.

The colors in these are not exact matches. Lacette is similar to the cotton part of Twist, only a smidge lighter. The colors in Euforia are quite like those in Twist, just arranged differently. Those two have the sparkliness in common; Euforia and Lacette have the mohair fuzziness in common. I'm not sure what these yarns want to be yet, but they clearly want to be together.

After winning the River Knits trivia contest, I was keen on finding more contests to enter. Free yarn is never a bad thing! Conveniently, there's a recently created blog called WiKnit (syndicated on LiveJournal as knit_contests) designed specifically to point out knitting-related contests that are currently taking place on other blogs.

I've tossed a few submissions into contests I saw announced on WiKnit, and currently am working on my submission for Grammieknits' 300th Post Contest (in the interest of full disclosure, I earn a bonus entry for mentioning the contest here).

The requirement for the contest is to submit a comment telling a weird thing about yourself. I had a hard time deciding which weird thing about me to choose. At first, I was leaning toward the fact that I hate touching food. I'm a bit squeamish about anything that leaves an obvious residue on my fingers, particularly cheese, and will wash my hands near instantly, even between preparing a meal and eating it. I opted not to use this weird fact because I noticed a large number of the comments were food-related in some way.

Then I thought I'd talk about the fact that I don't drive, but that seemed kind of lame. Sure, a lot of people I meet think it's completely bizarre, but I also know a significant number of other people who either don't drive or find it perfectly sensible not to, so it's a crapshoot as to whether this will come across as being weird.

Another comment I saw referenced an injury, and I considered talking about how I've never broken a bone, but have had both ankles x-rayed due to sprains, one of which happened the day before spring break and the other of which happened two years later on the day after spring break. The first came from falling off my step in step aerobics class. The second from falling off a rafter while hauling furniture around the attic-like storage space in a theatre.

This didn't seem all that weird either. I'm stumped, because I know I'm weird in a billion ways, but what can I say when limited to one fact that will be so impressively weird as to win me a prize?

So I've opted to use my aversion to driving. I took driver's ed at age 16 (my family didn't allow me to take it when I was 15, for reasons that are still unclear) and had the worst driving instructor in the world. One of the days that we went out driving, he demanded that I drive through two entire towns in the newly created turn-only lane. Another day, he told me to go 55 mph on the most dangerous road in the county—where the posted speed limit was 20 mph. In this instance, I refused. He ended up giving me the lowest possible grade that would still allow me to forego the driving test when I got my license.

Which I did. I never drove after the class ended, but my mother took me to get my license on my 17th birthday. I wanted a pumpkin pie; her co-workers insisted I'd rather have the driver's license instead. I've dutifully renewed my license each time that it has expired (twice so far, as I'm 27 now), but in over a decade I've only driven a car twice. Once was to move it across a parking lot so my family wouldn't have to walk far in the rain. Once was for a lap around our driveway when I was trying to convince myself that driving would be a good idea. Both times terrified me, although not to the point of full-on anxiety attack accompanied by sobbing, which was progress.

Only about half that decade has been spent in cities with moderately usable public transportation. I can walk distances most people wouldn't dream of and not bat an eyelash. I can understand bus schedules, which is something my mother struggles to do. I don't regret not driving...I have different skills and a different approach to life which I'm content with.

Besides...it was quite nice to knit 80% of a washcloth during the trip back to campus this morning!

Man, Ravelry is so bad for my wallet. In the slightly under two months I've had an account, I've learned about so many books and yarns and needles and notions that I must have. Ok, so I realize that I don't absolutely need any of it. But sometimes often temptation is too great...

Today I got involved in a discussion on where to buy kitchen cotton. Several references were made to The Home of Peaches & Creme, and I heartily agreed with that. It's not always cheaper than buying in a store, because of the shipping costs, but the fact that you can pick from all the colors and they're all available in cones (which definitely are cheaper than buying a bunch of balls) is fantastic.

I ordered once a while back, and had no intention of ordering again for a while. I've got 4,500 yards of cotton...I really don't need more for quite some time. Then somebody pointed out that we should look at the "Specials" page. I did. I purchased. I grinned sheepishly.

It's not my fault, honest. How can anyone expect me to turn down the option of purchasing surprise grab bags containing, at minimum, a pound of yarn? Ok, so I could turn that down if it was expensive. But this was only $2.19 per grab bag! ...so I bought ten. Oops.

Since I'm spending money anyway, I'll be having a look at my Amazon and Knit Picks carts later. The flood of packages when I get back from Thanksgiving would be fun.

This evening I'm leaving for home where I'll be spending Thanksgiving break. I haven't packed yet, and I'm encountering a dreadful dilemma: what yarn do I pack? This is the first time ever that my yarn stash has been too big to just grab it all on the way out the door. Plus I also have to know what patterns I plan to use, because I won't have internet access while at home so anything that came from the internet needs to be printed out in advance.

The currently-in-progress projects are as follows:

• The Mystery Project: Currently about the size of a sheet of paper, and using six colors of yarn. It's possible that I need only take four colors with me, as one is only being used for a border after the rest of the project is done, and another is currently being used for the last time and will be finished in a little over 1500 stitches. It's not unreasonable that I could crank those out in between the rest of the day's errands.
• Citrus Peel Scarf: Nearly finished with current ball of yarn and will need to figure out how to attach the second one. This is a project that's really mindless, but doesn't have a definite end, so I may leave it here and work on it in times where I can only handle a dozen stitches at once.
• Yo, Clouds! Drop Rain!: Will probably leave this one here. I'd like to get it done, but it can't be moved casually until I fix the error I made, else it will get worse.
• Short Row Ribbed Rainbows: Definitely taking this with me. It would be really simple to get it going again, and I could probably even finish it while home if I don't spend too much time on the Mystery Project.
• A Streak of Sky: Another of those bath puff and washcloth sets, which I just started for no apparent reason. I haven't done anything but the little cord to tie them together, and will probably just take it because they're both incredibly mindless projects that I could do while watching TV.

So that's three things I'll probably take with me. And that should be plenty, but I've got a horrible fear of getting there and having way too much time on my hands (no internet, no people, etc.). Thus I'd like to take the materials for a couple of unstarted projects, just in case. Here's what I've got in mind:

• Sampler Scarf: I've been scribbling notes about this pattern for a while, but haven't written up anything formal yet. It will be a "learn-to-knit" scarf pattern, with new skills being added on gradually. I've got a random skein of Simply Soft that will work for the prototype, and will need a couple of stitch dictionaries as reference materials.
• Meema's Marsupial Tote: Actually not taking this with me (don't have the right needles yet), but I do need to remember to write the pattern down while I'm home because I loaned that book to my mom.
• Muff: Homespun and Simply Soft. Need to print out the pattern for this, if I don't have it lying around somewhere. Taking this because it's a gift and needs to get finished soon.
• My So Called Scarf: Patons SWS. Need to print the pattern. This is another one that will be a gift, so that's a good motivator for getting it done.

This seems like a (slightly insane but) reasonable list. I might toss the patterns and yarn for Clapotis in there too if there's room, but have no real intention of starting it yet.

Ok, so maybe the Shreddies aren't really knitted by nanas. But apparently there are real live people crazy enough to knit with actual food.



I now have to let YouTube eat my brain so I can find out if there's a 102 level for this course. Must learn how to add a new noodle and weave in the ends!

I previously mentioned having entered a trivia contest hosted by my LYS, River Knits. Friday night I was browsing the Friends page of this LiveJournal account, and stumbled upon a post I'd nearly missed. It was the contest results!

Being a bit scatterbrained and slightly hyper at the time, I found myself scanning for keywords, like the winners' names that were in all capitals. I saw a name, and another name, and another. After the third, I noticed remarks about all the answers being correct, at which point I wondered which question(s) I got wrong. That, or whether I got them all right and had been disqualified, as I suspected I might.

I almost didn't scroll down past the large gap in the text, and it's a darned good thing I did. Those previous names were people in 2nd through 4th place...and I came in 1st! An excerpt from the announcement:

Dana not only had all of the correct answers, but she made us laugh with almost each one of them. For example, to the question "Where did Heather lay out her 'show us your socks' picture?", Dana answered, "At Davidson Fields, on top of a pile of rocks that is guarded by a 'leave rocks alone' sign. My first thought was 'I wonder if any of those socks with rocks are made with Socks That Rock?'" Her answer to the question of who had provided surveillance during Boot Camp For Socks? Simply this: "Corporal Wenig, Sergeant Doggett and Sergeant Gill. I can't help imagining 'Mimi LaValley and 100 Nuns' knitting their way up to the School of Assassins."

Making them laugh was the goal, so I'm glad it was effective. Now that the contest is over, I'm free to share my full set of answers:

( Twenty(-Two) Questions )

At this time, it is far beyond my mental capacity to go search for the relevant blog posts (again!) in order to provide links to the full stories behind those questions. I may be able to edit them in when I'm more awake. So for now, I leave you with a link to the lyrics of "Mimi LaValley and 100 Nuns", because the joke is a hundred (and one) times nunnier—er, I mean funnier—if you know the context.

Then, Mimi LaValley and a hundred nuns
came marching up Ingersoll Street
and as they were amassing round the School of Assassins
the whole of Fort Benning turned white as a sheet

Today I'm here to talk to you about other people's crafts. First, there's the gift I received from Paige today:

( Smooshy Washcloth )

Apparently she went a bit crazy with making these earlier in the year and burned out partway through this one. I inspired her to finish when she found out purple is my favorite color. Now I'll think about Paige whenever I take a shower!

The other craft discussion is about a different craft entirely, one that I've never tried. On Thursday I was cramming for a test when Penny, my floor's cleaning lady, dropped in for the weekly linen exchange and mopping. She noticed the (massive amounts of) yarn sitting around and asked what I was making. After she admired some of the projects that were in view, she began to tell me about the craft she used to do. ("Used to" because she claims to no longer have enough time.)

The craft was Brazilian embroidery. My cursory research indicates that this is different from typical embroidery in that the thread is made of rayon and twists in the opposite direction from normal thread, thus requiring the embroiderer to make stitches differently so that it doesn't unravel. It also appears that the work is more three-dimensional than most embroidery. There are some beautiful pictures in the Google image search.

I found this conversation interesting, not only because I learned about a craft I'd never heard of, but also because it's typical of my random acquaintance/stranger conversations yet appears to be atypical of other people's experiences. I read the forums on Ravelry and am stunned by the number of stupid or rude things that people have heard in response to their knitting or crocheting. Not because I'm unfamiliar with how stupid or rude humans can be, but because the responses I've gotten have universally been positive. People compliment a handmade item I'm wearing, ask questions, express interest in learning (or returning to a craft they used to do), reminisce about watching a loved one knit. I suppose I must be lucky, and I certainly appreciate that luck!

Well, the Ravelry forums have proved themselves valuable many times over. In the wee hours of this morning, they also proved themselves evil! I was reading a rant someone had posted about making a tangled mess when trying to wind yarn into a ball, and somehow in my sleep-deprived state that made it sound like a really good idea to wind some yarn.

Oh, not just any yarn. No, the most expensive yarn I've ever purchased (excluding things that aren't traditionally considered yarn).

My beautiful Noro Daria (at least half of it, anyway) is now this disaster:

( Daria Disaster )

I was exhausted and frustrated and getting ready to throw things, so I gave up. I really can't figure out how to untangle it, because it can't be wound into a ball. The damn stuff is so slippery that I can't get the ball through one of the tangles without it falling apart.

Had it not been for the Ravelry forums, I would probably have never attempted this, and certainly wouldn't have attempted when I was too tired to do it properly. They get a big boo for being a bad influence.

On the other hand, by way of Ravelry forums I also found out about The Knitting Guild Association, particularly their Master Knitting Program. For each of the three levels of the program, you have to complete a variety of swatches, projects, and research reports to demonstrate competency at that level.

I'm not entirely sure why this sounds appealing, because it doesn't really impart significant benefit to be certified as a master knitter, but I'm vaguely considering it. I think it would be most appropriate to wait until next June, both because I'd have more time to focus on the program then, and because I'll have been knitting for two years at that point.

Then when I've been crocheting for two years, maybe I'll look into the Masters Program from the Crochet Guild of America. ;)

When I learned to crochet recently, the first pattern I tackled was Bath Puff by Priscilla Hewitt. After crocheting a few of these (it's a very addictive pattern!), I realized they'd look really cute paired with a matching washcloth. I picked out the Nubbins Dishcloth by Vyvyan Neel (link is to a PDF file). The bumpiness of the nubbins made the edges of this knit item look a bit like crochet.

I made slight modifications to both patterns. For the bath puff, I left off the final round of the pattern. Originally this was because I didn't have enough yarn, but it turned out I liked the smaller size, as it's easier for me to hold onto. For the washcloth, I alternated the size of the nubbins, so that every other one on each side had an extra stitch.

( A Whiff of Lilac Bath Set )

This is the 3rd set that I've made. All are in varying colors of Peaches & Creme. I've been working from the 1 lb. cones, but if you purchases balls you'll need two of one color.

To assemble the set, make a crochet chain of 100 stitches, then turn around and slip stitch into each one. Knot and cut the loose yarn ends. Twist and fold the hanging loop of the bath puff so that it makes a row of three loops, and slip the crochet chain through them, so roughly 1/3 of the chain is to the left of the puff. Fold the washcloth in half, so that the top layer of nubbins extends slightly past the bottom layer. Fold it in thirds the opposite direction, and turn the open side down on top of the longer section of crochet chain. Wrap the chain around the washcloth, and tie it in a bow.

Paige also suggests pairing these with a matching bath gel. I'd take that one step further and say that if you intend to wash these before giving them away (highly suggested with darker colors, to test colorfastness), add a tiny dollop of the bath gel when doing so, and the fabric will retain a hint of that scent.

Uh-oh. I may have to install security devices around my yarn stash.

Mom came to visit for the weekend. On the night she arrived, she looked at my current works-in-progress and flipped through Vogue Stitchionary, Volume Four: Crochet, which she promptly threatened to steal. The next day, I took her to River Knits where she oohed and aahed over some of the most incredibly simple things (I even showed her the instructions for Scribble Lace later, and she still didn't understand how easy it is).

Later that evening, she got to pet the yarn stash. I had trouble keeping her from lecturing me on how much some of it cost. She kept marveling over various yarns (and techniques) as though she wished you could do such cool things with crochet. Um...you can!

Before leaving, she remarked that it was neat to have a daughter who is now into knitting, and who has exceptionally good taste in yarn, so she could steal some. Hands off! Mine!

I did (re-)teach her to knit. She didn't do too badly. I sent her home with the US 10.5 needles I don't like, and my copy of Stitch 'N Bitch (I forgot that there was a pattern from it I planned to knit soon. Oops.) I tried to let her take the crochet stitchionary too, but she wouldn't, which I found kind of weird since I don't even plan to use it anytime soon.

This all means that I need to A.) design that "learning to knit" pattern I have in the works, and B.) buy her some neat yarn to make it with, before I go home for Thanksgiving.