The Problem with Knitting

I now have the sleeves and the back of the sweater finished. I have 10 or so rows of the front done. Not bad.

Unfortunately, I am entering that stage of the project where I start to look at other patterns and think about starting them. I've had a pattern for a lace scarf for a while now. I have pretty lace weight alpaca to make it with. It's almost more than I can withstand.

But, if Ryan's going to have a sweater to take back to England with him, I must press forward and continue the sweater, unimpeded by beautiful lace scarves or black wool socks or even other sweaters from that book I just got.

I will be strong.

More Feeble Attempts at Photography

Look! It's the same picture everyone who has ever been to DC has!


Presque Isle. Great for sunsets.


Curious baby Ripley's butt. C'mon what's better than kitten butt?


Maybe kitten faces are cuter than kitten butts.


Yes, I am really that close to the raccoon. He was very nice.

That Kind of Thing Is My Bag

It's well established that I make bags. Everyone loves them, thinks they're cute. My kids at school have made almost as many as I have. They're great. They're (fairly) easy to make if you can sew a curve. They're reversible. They hold small and medium size knitting/crochet projects pretty easily. What more could you want.

The problem with picking out the fabric yourself, however, is that you become attached. It's like raising kittens and giving them away. It's pretty tough. I own four bags right now. These three plus the watermelon bag.


The problem is...I have half a dozen or so sets of fabric (again, in various states of completeness) that I really like. I've thought about limiting myself to one bag for each month, You know, an October bag and a June bag and a February bag and so on. Maybe that will work.

"Back" to the Sweater

I now have not only two (count them) sleeves, but I also have half (or so) of the back of a sweater! It's amazing really. Now all I have to do is finish the back, do all of the front, find someplace big enough to block them, sew them together and finish the collar. No problem!

Color Theory

Humans by their very nature tend to categorize things. It's how we learn as children. We start out very simply with "me" and "things that are not me." Then "things that are not me" start to get put into boxes like letters, numbers, shapes, colors, animals, whatever. I spent a lot of time in the color box. I have this strange compulsion to put things in color order. Markers, colored pencils, thread, floss, yarn, fabric...it doesn't matter. I need them to be in color order.


The reason we put colors in the order we do is because they belong in that order. Each color as perceived by the eye has a different wavelength. Red is the longest, violet the shortest. ROYGBIV is not an accident or an arbitrary arrangement. Even more interesting is that white is technically a combination of all colors, while black is the absence of color. Things look red because all of the colors except red are being absorbed while red is being reflected at us.


Being just a credit or so shy of an accidental minor in philosophy, this is kind of an interesting thing. Our brains are interpreting light that is reflected back at us. Sometimes our brains are fooled. How can we tell if anything truly exists if all we have is a (sometimes) faulty interpretation made by our brains? Hmmm...

Singin' in the Rain

Out in Las Vegas, the faculty put on a production in the spring of whatever musical the kids did in the fall to raise money for a performing arts scholarship. Of course, most of us can't carry a tune in a bucket, so it's pretty funny. Some kids would come to every show just to laugh at us. We did Grease the first year I was out there and Singin' in the Rain the second. We raised a lot of money. The cast photo below shows us in all our Singin' glory.


I'm the short red dress (with the headband) on the left side in case you couldn't find Waldo. And yes, I did make the sparkly red flapper dress that I'm wearing.

The best part of the story, though is from the night of our final dress rehearsal. I had to pick something up on the way home and didn't have anything to change into. So I walked through my neighborhood Albertson's grocery store in a sparkly red flapper dress (self-actualization, line one). Even better, in proper Sin City style, no one even looked twice at me. Probably one of the few places where that's not the weirdest thing they've seen today.

Kitchen Which

Recently, I've been feeling stifled. My job is probably better about it than most, but I still feel some days like I'm constrained and therefore I often have to stifle some of the kids. I also feel like I'm missing out on opportunities that might be more exciting. When you cook with 7th graders, you're making chocolate chip cookies, not creme brulee. Kids who won't eat soup that's not from a can aren't interested in the "mother sauces."

Add to that the fact that I absolutely hate cooking for myself and I have a slight kitchen slump. I actually had popcorn for dinner last weekend. This really upset my vintage copper Revere pans.

This is just part of the stash. I love them. I'm not allowed unsupervised on Ebay for this very reason.


Another bonus to Ryan coming home is that he thinks my cooking is fabulous (and I don't have to cook just for myself). He'll eat pretty much anything (or at least try whatever I make). I've already told him he has to stay twice as long so I can feed him all the wonderful food I want to make. I get to show off just a little when I cook for him.

Mostly, I set the bar way to high the first time I ever cooked for him. Stuffed mushrooms, salads with homemade balsamic vinaigrette, steak au poivre, garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and for dessert bananas Foster (I love to flambe things and I think boys like steak and fire). Add to that a bottle of wine that was the result of a week's worth of homework. It was pretty good. I still have the bottle because I'm a girl and we're allowed to keep things like that.


I should have made sloppy joes or tuna casserole or something incredibly boring so I could work up to the fabulous stuff.

I don't think it mattered anyways...the chocolate chip cookies did him in. I warned him!

The Infamous Harry Potter Scarf

I started knitting the Harry Potter scarf in the fall of 2006. I think. I really don't recall exactly when the nightmare began. It started out innocently enough. I was going to make Amber the scarf from the third HP movie. It's a pretty big scarf. Not only that, it's knit in the round so it's twice as many stitches. It's also the same stitch, the knit stitch, every stitch. 44 rows of KnitPicks Merino Style "hollyberry"... then 4 rows of "goldenrod"...another 8 hollyberry...4 more goldenrod...and then you start over. And over. And over. I'm estimating that there are well over 4500 stitches in this scarf so far and it's still not done.


As I said before, the scarf is knit in the round so it's knit on every row. I have actually become adept at knitting Continental style (yarn in the left hand) because it's so incredibly boring that if you don't do something different, you want to bang your head against the wall. You pray for the goldenrod rows to come up so that you at least have a different color to look at. It's horrible. It is the scarf of doom.



Now, at one point during the HP Scarf, I started knitting a cable and lace scarf in 100% alpaca. It's gorgeous. When I showed the lovely Victoria the pattern, she asked if I was on crack. It's a 32 row repeat. For those of you who aren't concerned by that...it means that there are 32 different rows. Those 32 rows in this yarn yield about 5 inches of scarf, so I did that about 12 times. There are two 8-stitch cables and a 4-stitch with lace panels in between and a 2 stitch selvage. I actually had to think about this one! It was great, and really not all that hard once I got going. I learned really great ways to fix mistakes, too. It was nice. There are only two noticeable mistakes on this scarf. Of course, if I'd stop pointing them out to people they probably wouldn't be as noticeable.

Might As Well Face It...

I'm addicted to fabric. I suppose there's worse things. I could be addicted to cocaine. I'd spend a lot more money and have nothing to show for it. As it is, I estimate (conservatively) that I own easily 200 yards of fabric. Give or take a few dozen yards. The best part is that it's mostly in fat quarters and other small cuts. I easily got 400 squares for a quilt once without ever repeating a fabric. That's dedication.


This number is actually down from my last rough calculation. I was up somewhere between three and four hundred at one point. That was before I cut out 40-odd bags. I didn't count those in the current yardage. Once fabric is cut into some other shape, it doesn't count any more.



These photos represent the tip of the iceberg. You know, how they say you can only see the top 10% or so of the iceberg. The rest of it is hidden below the surface. "The Surface" is the middle bedroom. Actually, I have moved all of the fabric in there (okay, not all...I'm sure there's fabric out in the living room or somewhere). It's a good place for it.


One of these days I'm going to work on some kind of storage system for it. Something other than a blue clothes basket and a plastic set of storage drawers. Something that is worthy of it's greatness.


Some fabric is not for cutting. I like it too much the way it is. It's waiting for something special. I always say the fabric wants to be a quilt, it's just not sure yet. Some people look at me like they're re wondering how fast they can get me to Warren.

But...quilters just nod. They know.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words (1st edition)

I never pretend to be much of a photographer. I'll leave that to others. Every once in awhile, though, I come up with something...


I love Ansel Adams. This is my homage to his genius. Mostly, I didn't have a lighter colored rose or grainy-er wood, but I do what I can.


Lola was feeling left out after the blog about the other two girls. She's not as crafty, but she's definitely pretty!


This was actually taken from my back yard. I always say that I miss the 330 days of unbroken crystal blue sky that is Las Vegas, but this is pretty amazing, too.


Who knew sailboats were so beautiful?


Most guys cop out and buy roses because they're safe. Not my man! He's a little more creative.

Old bags

This is the very first reversible bag. Back in Las Vegas. Back before I was smart enough to leave the opening in the side of the handle. Back before I could pin and cut the pattern without looking. It currently holds the Harry Potter scarf. More on that later. I promise. Wait for it.


These are some of the first (and second...and maybe even third) batch of bags. The second and third batches were marked by eleven hour stretches of sewing. Really. I forgot to eat lunch. And dinner. This is why I don't even get started sometimes.


I have forty or so cut out and in various stages of completion. Mostly in the very incomplete stage, but at least they're cut out. The kids at school had a field day with the scrap fabric.


There are also a couple of knitting needle and crochet hook cases. I need to make more of these. A lot more of these.


Victoria (of Victoria's Yarn Shop in beautiful Girard, PA) wants more for Christmas. I'll get right on that. In my spare time. No problem.

WhichCATS

This is a picture of my skein holder and ball winder. It's so easy to use that even Ginger can operate it. She's definitely the craftiest of my kitties.This is some alpaca yarn that has disappeared into the ether. I can't seem to find it anywhere. It was meant to be a lace scarf. I hope it finds its way home.


Ginger again. If that quilt looks familiar, it's because it's the header on this page. It's actually under my butt right now.


Here's Gracie with her sewing machine. She gets a little angry when I try to use it. Good thing I'm bigger than her!


Gracie gets a little sleepy when she works this hard. Sometimes she has to take a nap in the fabric pile.

I'm a Wench!

This was originally made for my sister. She did a Renaissance Fair at school.

I didn't make it just for something to do. I don't have quite that much time on my hands.

During Homecoming week one of the "spirit days" was costumes. So, I made a new corset (I'm just a little bustier than Amber!) and wore my wench costume.



The best part of this costume is actually not visible in this picture. I have on a pair of green flip-flops. Very authentic!

It takes a little self-actualization to drive to work like this. The guy at Tim Horton's looked at me, but didn't say a word. I just wonder if it's the weirdest thing he'd seen that day. Probably not...

Fun with Sleeves

I have a sleeve.


I have started another. That's probably a good thing. This sweater would look pretty silly without two, eh?


I also have a cool kitty-proof bag. Ginger says, "Drat! Foiled again!"



He might just get this thing on the 26th!

Not Artistic

I tell people all the time that I'm not artistic. If they've seen me draw, they nod.

Someone the other day, though, looked at me funny when I said that. "Don't you knit and quilt and all that?"

Oh, yeah...that. I forgot about that.

This is some of that not artistic stuff.