…my weekend and the clap

i honestly had no idea what this much time felt like. so after knitting alone in my apartment for two weeks, i finally dragged myself to my first ever stitch n’ bitch at lettuce knit last wednesday and it was actually really cool. i didn’t introduce myself to a whole lot of people but it was the first time any knitters have ever seen me knit, and the lack of pointing and laughing meant my self-teaching methods aren’t completely flawed.

what did i work on? my first ever clap! with the sweet sheep superwash merino from the knitter’s frolic.

eventually it’ll be the 342850948th completed clap on ravelry, but i still love it because the yarn makes it so beautiful. i need a new scarf. sue me. i’m making a small version– really thin (maybe 8″ unblocked) and as long as i can go with the yarn i have. by the way, this yarn is FANTASTIC. if i ever see michelle around toronto i will gladly give her $40 for 1000 yds of this stuff again.

among the other ridiculousness this week was DH’s job. i’m not going to get into details but, in short, he is currently taking a bit of time off to straighten out his plan for the future. which means– long weekend! we had to get the hell out of this city and clear our heads, and when i got an email about the WEBS tent sale my heart dropped. thursday night we reserved a car and a few hotel rooms, and friday morning we were off.

as if there was any question, WEBS is by far the most fantastic yarn store ever. not just because of the size– or the selection. but the prices, holy god. not only were the ticketed full price items about 20% less than what i’m used to, but about half the regular stock was on sale, and it’s nearly impossible NOT to get that 25% off full price yarn purchases. my huge pile of yarn and notions summed up to $160– i was expecting closer to $300, but i’m not complaining :)– i even got a yarn ball winder and swift (the cheap one, not the wooden one) and could hardly even wait until we got to the hotel that night to try it.

(yeah, i know, that’s the worst looking ball of yarn any winder has ever produced, but it kept falling out of the grip of my toes.)

here’s my hoard–

-bristol yarn gallery buckingham in natural and teal. i thought i was done with this yarn after the endpaper mitts and swallowtail shawl– but its so pretty and cheap ($5.59/hank). i’ll find something to do with it.

-ella rae bamboo silk in cyan, cyan ash, stone, and white. i fell in love with this yarn at first touch. anyone who hasn’t seen this yarn in person– go to your lys! rub your face in it! not to mention the gorgeous colours and the fact that it was $5.21 a hank.

-bag of swtc twize. i very rarely buy bags of yarn because i don’t knit anything big enough to need them. but when i saw that twize was $22.50 a bag, i figured i’ll find something to do with it.

-malabrigo lace in burgundy. for the curved shawl. all i can say is yummy (ETA i’m retarded and i didn’t buy enough. blah)

on the way to portsmouth, we visited nashua and stopped in at ewe’ll love it. i didn’t really, though. maybe if i hadn’t just come from the shock and awe of WEBS. the prices were higher and, although pretty, far too high-end for my wallet (lots of hanks for $60+, eek). even the 25% off loft couldn’t tempt me.

monday we also happened to be in chester and drove by a knitter’s garden— but they were closed. *pout*. that place has some damn strange hours for a store so far off the beaten path. spinning yarns in dover was closed too. it was an off day.

we took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent an amazing day at hampton beach, where we found a nice big “welcome to new hampshire” note on our windshield.

at least i got to take some good clap photos and a nice big blotchy sunburn

one of the scariest towns i have ever been to (now twice, for that matter) is bennington, vt. as we drove in on route 9, we noticed a lot more people than we were used to seeing. but as we looked closer (it was dark), we noticed that they were all statues. of regular people. doing regular things, like sitting on benches, reading the paper, and shopping. but it was all ceramic. we shrugged it off, figured it was just a weird little town, and kept driving. on the way home, we noticed them again and took a few photos, figuring we’d look them up when we got home. somehow, though, there is no information about this online! bennington seems to be one of vermont’s largest cities and nobody even mentions that half the people there are statues. so i’m now doubting my own sanity and/or the sanity of the citizens of bennington. what is going on???

thanks to the WEBS run, i now have more future wip’s floating around in my head than ever, so i’m gonna get back to knitting.

click for more photos (slideshow)–

recovering from a transit-free weekend

well, last weekend was the knitter’s frolic, which was amazing– no thanks to the TTC who inconveniently and unwarningly went on strike a mere eight hours before the frolic. i could rant for pages about how angry this makes me, but i’ll hold back. really. i will. the JCCC was packed regardless of the strike, so i can’t even imagine how it would have been if everyone had managed to get there.

i’m off to nyc this weekend so i tried to restrain myself– no more addi’s– although they were 25% off at just about every stand, the american MSRP is about that anyway. my goal was to pick out a small amount of beautiful, local, handspun/handdyed yarn, and i think i managed to do it. for under $80, i might add.

skein#1- sweet sheep superwash merino. 980 yds!! i’ve been wanting to make a variegated clapotis for awhile now but didn’t want to worry about odd colour changes– talk about late to the bandwagon– but i’ve never seen a skein this large before. perfect! did i mention it’s beautiful? brighter than in this photo. i’ll take a new one when i get that new camera.

skein #2- hand maiden 2 ply silk cashmere. i had never heard of this brand before, but it seemed to be stocked at half the stands so obviously i’m recovering from some strange gorgeous-yarn-blindness, and thank god! i spent a good hour at various stands picking out exactly which colourway and fibre i wanted to start with, and ended up in a sale section holding this. it’s brighter in person as well, and insanely soft. i unravelled it to show the colour variegation but i can’t really manage to do it justice in a low quality photo. i have no idea what this is going to be, but something about it calls out to spirogyra

i also have some brooklyn handspun waiting for me in new york. i’ll be writing up a pattern of some sort. i think arm warmers, but that might change since i seem to be in an arm warmer kick right now.

last thing–endpapers are coming along. i had to mod them a bit but wanted to leave them at least looking like endpapers. but so far so good– i really like them and they’re super warm (seriously, i break out in a sweat everytime i try them on)

on a side note, i think i’m going to be writing here a little less in the future. or at least make an effort to. for some reason it’s easier for me to procrastinate and document progress than actually sit down and knit. and because of that i’ve been posting stuff lately that even i don’t care about– like what i did that day. if my mother doesn’t even care, why would the internet? i’m going to restrain myself from posting again until at least the endpapers are done. i hope.

spring cleaning

is it even still spring? i can’t keep up with the weather here in toronto.

i was really hoping to post the “spring cleaning” song from rocko’s modern life here, but it seems viacom took it off youtube and i can’t embed myspace videos, so… here’s the best substitute i could find.

anyways, after i wrote that last post this morning i looked around my apartment and realized the amount of school crap that i still have laying around. my WIP bin is in disregard, and i even had a few… erm, misplaced WIPs that i could only hope were not going to turn up under the couch alog with a gaping hole in the leather. it was time for some spring cleaning (*queue rocko’s modern life here*)

the WIP bin, obviously, was of utmost importance so it got done first.

let me tell you, untangling hundreds of yards of sock yarn is something i would definitely like to avoid in the future. so now all WIPs are beautifully seperated in grocery bags. not pretty but hopefully effective.

next, the couch and floor. guess what? i found the min cardi sleeve! lookie!

you might think, how much stuff could possibly been covering that? it’s pretty obvious, right? i must not have looked for it.

this is what was on top of it.

i am ashamed to share this with the entire web, but i am glad to have this out of my couch and in the recycling bin.

i also frogged the endpaper mitts. i wasn’t sure if i had enough of the off white yarn and wanted to remeasure. good thing– i don’t. these are gonna have to be a lot shorter than i planned. plus, the ribbing was REALLY messy and i just came across a new provisional tail method cast on on TECHknitting (my new obsession, by the way) which would be a perfect solution. plus, frogging gave me yet another opportunity to appreciate the pretty yarns 🙂

the cast on was sort of hard to deal with on size 0 needles, but well worth it. i now officially love this method and will be using it as often as i can, along with the matching bind off

that’s all for now. i want to work on these mitts all night and just get them done but DH made plans with friends and i’m expected to participate. i’m pretty sure neglecting friends for a habit is one of the signs of addiction so i might as well make an effort to not think about knitting every waking minute. or maybe just tonight. or maybe i’ll bring the mitts along, just in case, yaknow 🙂

neverending WIPs

ok so it’s been a little while since i’ve posted a FO. thankfully, yesterday was my last final! i still don’t have much to show, but i thought i should at least post progress photos

the two-tone ribbed shrug. oh my god this ribbing is SO boring. and it doesn’t help that my stupid boye needlemasters won’t stay together.this has become my before-bed project because i fall asleep after about a row (although i love the way it looks!)

kirby hat. this one is inspired by Mysterious on craftster, except i wanted to make one that was inhaling your head rather than holding it. it started off alright–just a basic earflap hat, a little longer in the back

then i started the embroidery, feet first

looks alright, right? sure. except…

it’s backwards! so now i have to tear out the hat up to the bottom of the feet…

now do you see why i haven’t finished anything lately? everything will be done in due time. or at least that’s what i keep telling myself. the min cardi hasn’t seen much progress– one sleeve is almost done but now i can’t find it so that doesn’t help anything. tomorrow is the knitter’s frolic. as if i didn’t have enough yarn. i’m ridiculously excited, though– hopefully DH and i can get there before all the good stuff’s sold out.

wip: baby’s first endpapers

so, i’m sitting in my apartment, finally having gotten together all needed supplies for my next wip, eunny jang‘s endpaper mitts, and i do a lovely gauge swatch. i knew i was going to have a problem here, having shopped in the children’s mittens pile of the dollar store for every winter of my life, but even after shifting down to a size 1 needle (size small in the pattern is a 2, and it goes up from there) i still had to alter the chart slightly. and buy my first pair of size 0’s for the ribbing (eek! they bend in your hands!)

for reference, those are size 1 dpns and i even added in a lil paperclip.

they do fit, though…

hrmph. the #1 joy of knitting: making alterations to fit your freakish body abnormalities.

anyways, i’m loving the pattern so far (alterations and all) and i can’t wait until i have some time off next week (study week? psh. studying charts maybe…) to get some work done on these babies.

by the way, if you were wondering what those “weirdo art school students” do for finals, i suppose i should be the one to inform you:

corn car costume. two different types of toasted corn, popping corn dyed three different colours, and lots and lots of glue. some type of statement about how we’re feeding our cars and how absurd it is.

“don’t cry” paper cutout. i dunno. i just woke up and was like “i should do this right now”… and i did.

“talk shit” interactive installation. click to go to that project’s website… if you so desire. and yes, we did get censored. unbelievable.

and last but not least… for my “free” project (ie do whatever you want but don’t spend any money) i knit those four dk earflap hats and wrote up the pattern, using acrylic yarn from the fibre studio at school and my grandmother’s old needles. without any sort of paid advertising or promotion, i managed to make back all the money i spent this semester on supplies. it was sort of an idea of making something out of nothing and it worked! thanks to everyone who bought a pattern, and everyone who will in the future. i can’t wait to present this one. (for further clarity: the hat came first, then this idea. this isn’t some ploy to fundraise, it was actually just a way for me to get class credit for the fact that i knit nonstop)

wip: swallowtail

when everyone said this would be a quick knit, i thought they were insane. it’s my first time doing real lace knitting (i don’t really think wisp counts) and within four days i’ve almost finished it! i haven’t been knitting nonstop, either– it’s almost the end of the semester so i’d say i’ve only put about 8-10 hrs into it so far.

when i started i was just using my boye needlemaster’s which, although very handy when you don’t have that size circ in another brand, are pretty much useless. the threads have been so overused that little sharp metal bits stick out and catch the yarn, and then they unravel about twice a row which doesn’t help.

i was on my way to romni yesterday to buy some addi lace needles and passed a store i’ve walked by a million times and never went in– americo. i never thought it was a real yarn store — from the exterior it looks like wool clothing, blankets, and fabric… but inside it’s a naturalist’s haven. the two people working there were the only negative, they were sort of weird and unwelcoming (just sat where they were and watched me walk around the store). some of the yarns were really beautiful but i resisted, picked up my needles, and went to romni anyway, just to check out the sale 😉

anyways i just got up to the nupps and holy god ya’ll weren’t kidding about those either– they suck! thank god i bought these needles– i would have given up entirely on the boyes.

here it is so far. an awful photo, sorry… it’s going to stretch a lot after blocking.

it probably won’t be done today or tomorrow– i have a ton of stuff due– but by this weekend almost definitely.

i feel normal again

“normal,” of course, being a figure of speech.

i’m back up to multiple WIPs. 4, to be exact– the min cardi, two tone ribbed shrug, a new dk earflap hat, and a toque for class. this, of course, excludes the “ugh! i’m never finishing these but i’ll leave them on the needles just in case” WIPs (including a sweater from an early issue of knit.1– how can a garment knit on size 30 needles be flattering?! i just figure i don’t really need those needles for anything else– but i guess i could use part of the FIVE strands i had to hold to get gauge…)

i decided the other day that, in my longing to visit home, i should probably make a memorial hat. the first challenge was picking the colors. what f’in colors are new york? keep in mind that blue and orange are quite possibly the ugliest, overused colors– i wanted something that was really new york, not just the merchandise of new york. so what i came up with? black and gray. ha. just like the people on the streets. i needed a hat that matches with everything, anyway.

i just finished the crown of the hat last night and today in class i’ll start working on the chart (which was, by the way, a huge challenge as well– the actual skyline of manhattan isn’t easily converted into a recognizable chart– i had to pick and choose buildings to leave in and exaggerate negative space between them just to get my DH to stop asking “what the heck is that?”

eek **checks clock again** this was not a good time to start a post… i have a finished school project or two… i guess i’ll put those up when i get home from presenting them. they’re not that exciting anyway.

it’s a miracle

seven days ago i posted quite possibly the first good interaction anybody has ever had with government offices.

today i will post another.

last wednesday i applied to renew my passport. i was told it would take 2-3 weeks for processing, and 7-10 days for shipping. i heard this as “about two months”– factoring in necessary gov-bs’ing-time. last night, completely forgetting that i was essentially stranded in canada until i received the new passport, i planned a weekend road trip to the states for next weekend. i realized this morning and began to panic, until i tracked the package online and found that it was in my mailbox!

seven days. shorter than i have ever received a letter via canada post. and somehow it wasn’t broken into, torn in half, or lost somewhere in oregon. it’s a miracle.

i also have a WIP update (miracle #2)– the two tone ribbed shrug is lookin pretty good so far. i’m just about at the sleeves. i’m thinking about using the cable design from the new knitty’s juju just to keep my sanity (soo much stockinette!)

and a nilsson update– the stage design i did for “the point!” for drawing class. the top part rotates and the bottom, including the “bedroom” stage and stairs are stationery. it’s cardboard, masking tape, hot glue, and acrylic dollar store paint.

the land of point:

the field:

the pointless forest:

i think it turned out cute. it occurred to me after the presentation that i should have loaded “me and my arrow” on to my phone and placed it inside the stage, but oh well.

so i guess… no complaints/rants/annoyances right now. well… there’s always taxes, but who cares about those, right?

by the way, i do have a lys itinerary for this trip next weekend. right now, it’s gonna be The Knitting Knook in Keene, NH, Ewe’ll Love It in Nashua, NY, and The Yarn Basket in Portsmouth, NH. hopefully i’ll manage to get to all of them– it’s gonna be close with closing times and stuff. but i’ll post reviews of the ones i do get to. and if anyone knows any good lys’s on i-90 between NH and buffalo that are open sundays, i’d love to know (i’m dying to check out Knit Witts in Brookfield but alas, tues-saturday only. hrmph). according to knitmap, i’m SOL (since i don’t think we’ll be in Buff til late)

gotta get back to ANTM. more later this week prolly. i’m writing two term papers on craft (what bs!) so not much actual crafting is getting done.

wip: pocoyo!

most of the time, i know my strengths and weaknesses. but every once in awhile, i surprise myself by doing something i never thought i’d be able to, or royally screwing up something i never could have predicted.

last night i had an urge to cast on a new hat. a pocoyo hat.

but i didn’t have anything in that shade of blue, and the nearest thing i had was some free cheapo acrylic i got in the yarn stash at my university. i don’t know if it was the cold i’m developing or a vague memory of digging through the wools and scratchy mystery yarns to find it, but i got a sort of formicating itchy feeling while i was knitting the crown. i didn’t even want to touch the skein, and i was compulsively washing my hands after putting it down. so this morning i caved and decided to try washing it. i skeined it– something i never do but never expected to have a problem with– and popped it in the washing machine. i know, i’m supposed to hand wash, but come on its acrylic it can go in the machine. when i took it out, i had created a massive knot. see how you can tell it was a skein?? almost, sorta.

given, i no longer feel itchy around it, and (after about 3 hours of untangling) i did manage to get it back into a ball, so i suppose this didn’t end as badly as it could have.

it should be done today or tomorrow. i got a good amount of work done yesterday despite the fact that i’m sick (or maybe because of– i didn’t want to go outside and spread my germs). i have to draft a pattern and start sewing this costume thing but i reallllllly dont feel like it so maybe i’ll let my mind play the sick card and just sit here and knit.

week off? turns out i’m not that productive

ten days? ten free days? why, that’s all the time in the world! i can do a ton in ten free days!

no. not really. damn my time optimism. but i did get a few things done, and here they are:

the third double knit earflap hat is nearly done. i’m tweaking the pattern, so as soon as i cast off the flaps (tuesday? wednesday?) i’ll finish the pattern and send it off to the test knitters. OH the test knitters! turns out ravelry has another level of awesomeness and it’s called the testing pool. i spent two weeks finding one person to test my bearded hat, and in one hour i had nine volunteers for this baby! rav, what would i do without you?? (and thanks to the future testers as well, of course). i’m finding the pattern easy to follow, but of course i would. i asked for people who were intermediate knitters but who had little to no experience double knitting, so i can test how effective this pattern truly is.

victorian-style melted army men neckpiece. boy was this a pain in the ass. i had the actual piece done early last week, but finding a way to attach it to the neck was like a whole other project. i ended up just using a combination of superglue, two part epoxy, and hot glue on to elastic. the clasp is a bra extender. unfortunately my dear head mannequin does not have a neck or bust so i can’t get a great shot of it. overall i’m not overly excited about it but i’ll pass the project

so, that’s pretty much it. i had soo much stuff to do and its all still on the list. my apartment is full of boxes, i haven’t drafted a pattern for this project, i haven’t made a prototype for another, and i haven’t begun the stage design for yet another. now i have a paper to write and a museum to visit. thank god i have off from wed to next mon so HOPEFULLY this week will prove slightly more productive than last.