Sunbeam Soapbox

Well – I have to admit that I held out on you in my last post. The yarn for the mittens, you see, wasn’t the only yarn I had purchased on Saturday.

No, I bought some Cascade 220 to make this shawl as well. You see I’ve been mesmerized by mara ever since katie over at brokeknits started hers, with a few words about the color green:

1. Green represents tranquility, good luck, health.
2. Researchers have also found that green can improve reading ability.
3. Green is often used in decorating for its calming effect.
4. Green is thought to relieve stress and help heal.

To which I said: wait a minute, I could use that too. I better make my mara copycat in green too. Although this sea-green is far outside my normal color scheme, that was also part of the point: to branch out a bit. I know I’m a little stuck, color-wise, and I’d like to break out past my deep blues, lime greens and scarlet reds. So I’m trying this.

It’s funny, though. When I first started seriously knitting, I thought there was no way I’d enjoy knitting something was purely garter stitch, or purely stockinette, and here I am now, completely enjoying it. I think I finally realized that there’s a place for those really complicated cable patterns that I love so much (nothing makes me melt more easily than twisted stitches and cables running all over the place), that place is probably not relaxing at the end of the day while watching TV. Then I just lose my place and stop paying attention to what I’m watching. So I guess we’ll be seeing more simpler projects from me in the future, things I can knit and watch stuff with.

And I’ll keep the complicated stuff (like Clematis) for my “buffer zone” between classes, when I don’t want to start watching TV but do want to get my mind away from school.

So — that’s the works in progress for this week. I just got my shawl and vest from January so I’ll start doing the finishing on them sooner or later! I’m super excited for some new FOs! Happy knitting to all.

No need to send the straight-jackets—everything is turning out fine. I managed to rest enough on Thursday to feel much better Friday and today, so today I wanted to go out and walk around, feel some fresh air. And maybe visit the yarn shop. ;) Actually it looks like my inner knitter needed to visit the yarn shop even more than I thought, as I hardly dawdled getting over there, and once I (very quickly) found what I wanted, I bought my yarn, wound it up, and rushed home to start knitting.

And that’s where I’ve been since.

That would be the beginnings of Clematis, which is part of the flurry of downloaded patterns I bought last night as part of the Help for Haiti relief. I may or may not have bought many more patterns than I ever have before, so here’s hoping that my resolution to KNIT MORE really holds true.

And – let’s just say one more thing: this is really not how I planned to spend my day, but I’m pretty happy with the outcome. :)

ETA Becky is hosting a giveaway over at Lunsh.net, please drop by and enter! I guess that means I have to host the next giveaway, huh…?

Picture: The sock from last week, all ready to be grafted shut at the toe, but not done yet because then I would really have nothing to knit, since I forgot to pack the second ball in my luggage.

Picture: The shawl and vest, not quite caught up to my spring semester adventures, as they, too, have been left behind in order to preserve space in the luggage.

Picture: One recently-turned-21-year-old girl, sniffling and hacking, growing more and more irritated by her luck. A girl who had wanted to write a whole post on her birthday, one that could hardly contain her excitement, but saw her confinement to bed whenever possible the more prudent measure. A girl who has been confined to bed with nothing to knit… but at least has fixed up her Internet so she can watch hours of television on her computer without the shows breaking up. This girl would never know what to do without television when she is sick!

Yes, sick, just my luck, as usual, my immune system sucks, la la la, hatred, anger, etc. Obviously this year is starting off juuuust right. If I get bronchitis again I’m going to hit somebody. Preferably whoever thinks this is funny (that would be whatever gods are up there in the sky). I WILL STILL WRITE ABOUT MY BIRTHDAY, PLEASE DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST ME THAT IT WILL BE QUITE A FEW DAYS LATE BECAUSE I’M SICK AND FRUSTRATED AND JUST WANT TO TRADE IN FOR A HIGHER-GRADE IMMUNE SYSTEM. Thanks all. If anyone hears this — please send yarn!

Yup, looks like this is going to be a Thursday WIP round-up. I thought about it yesterday, a few times actually, but all at bad times.

Brrrrrrr. It’s been raining the storm of the season and the house is chilly. I keep lighting candles for warmth and comfort and drinking lots of tea. Speaking of tea—I think it’s about time for another cup to warm up my hands. I’m wearing three layers AND wool socks, so I’m not sure why I’m so cold as usual. Must not be moving around enough. Need a little more energy, I admit. Anyway. It’s cold and my vest isn’t drying very quickly at all.

So, that’s going slowly because everything takes foreeeever + 3 days to dry. This is my least favorite part about knitting. I need something that gets air under it and dries better. Bleh.

On Monday we decided to watch movies all day (don’t I feel lazy), and my hands felt restless, so I pulled out this KnitPicks Risata sock yarn and started Hedera, a pattern I’ve been wanting to knit for a while now. Whoosh! Look how quick the leg went.

It looks extremely crisp and absolutely adorable, but, man! Is it hard to knit with cotton or what, and this isn’t even 100% cotton. Just the majority is cotton. It’ll be a great spring sock for when I want to dress up a bit, but I get the feeling it’s going to be a while until I get there. I can’t wait to get back to school next week, because I have a feeling I’ll be heading to the nearest yarn store pretty quick to get other sock yarn. Or hat yarn. Or sweater yarn. I just want to knit with soft lovely warm wool!

Have a great weekend, all! Think of me as I’m packing, flying, and cleaning my room at school and getting settled in again. The next time I write here I will probably be back in good ol’ freezing Minnesota. Thinking of that really makes me want to put a coat on…

The new year doesn’t really start for me until my birthday (Jan. 26), so let’s say I wrote this in plenty of time. ;) It’s not really 2010 I’m concerned about but being 21. What will being a whole year older make me feel? And how do I want to embrace the changes of becoming an adult? Particularly considering how out-of-place I feel, now that people will start to recognize me as an adult instead of a child. I don’t at all feel ready for the responsibilities of the adult world; I just feel like I’m being thrown in it. Time to sit, reflect, and plan.

My knitting resolutions for the year, prompted by recent knitting-related epiphanies I’ve had:

1. Knit more often.
   aka Don’t be afraid to take the time to step back from what I’m doing and untangle a problem, aka Don’t freak out and try to ‘abstain’ from knitting when it’s all I can think about and I’m ’supposed’ to be studying. If all I can think about is knitting, I will save myself quite a lot of anguish if I knit for 15 minutes and soothe my mind instead of staying agitated about it for the next three hours. Also, too often I meaninglessly browse the Internet when I think I ’should’ be studying but all I’m thinking about is knitting. I’m wasting more time, not less, by doing that. So: knit more often and knit every day.
2. Don’t be afraid to start over.
   I’m knitting more anyway, so it’s not going to matter that much if a project is not going according to my plans and I have to rip it out.
3. Relax. After all, that’s why I’m knitting in the first place.

It’s not more intense because, well, I’m not that intense. My biggest goals for my 21st year are to grow socially and spiritually and have a Happiness Project, and maybe get a job for once. I’d love to learn to read Tarot, to draw, to write a novel, to write poetry, to read more Good Literature, etc. etc., but right now, what’s important in my life is that I cope better with dealing with other people, and not through the Internet. Because of that, I won’t set my expectations very high on anything else. It’s all waited this long, I think it can some time longer.

However, in the spirit of Knitting More, I’ve been re-organizing my Ravelry queue. I hope they keep the Wishlist feature! I like it. The possibility of someone sending me a pattern I’d like? Awesome. The possibility of sending people patterns as a surprise? Excellent! So hey, if you want to send me a birthday present, I have a few patterns on my own wishlist… and I suppose I’ll do a little more re-organizing and figure out what I really want to knit, what will really fit my style, and what I want to knit next. But first I have to pick my brother up from school. Happy knitting!

Huh. Although “WIP Wednesday” sounds so much better than “WIP Thursday”, Thursday is seeming more and more conducive to posts than Wednesday is. It might have to be WIP Thursday. Well, Wednesday or Thursday, as long as I do it.

Although this time around I don’t have a whole lot for you. The shawl looks pretty much the same as it did last week, with just a few stitches bound off, so I’ll just show this picture again:

Most of the knitting on the vest is finished, but it needs to be washed and blocked before I’ll start sewing it together and finishing the neck- and button-bands. However, I’ve been meaning to wash my handknit socks for ages, so they were the first to get a bath, and now I have to wait until they’re dry. Which takes foreeeeever. Bah!

I did make this while watching a movie the other day (Wings of Desire—pretty good movie, except for one monologue at the end!):

Mom’s been going on about how she loves the one dishcloth I made and left home, and how she needs new dishcloths, so when we went to RiteAid one day I picked up a ball of Sugar ‘n Cream to tide me over before this:

Yesterday I got out all of my yarn and tried to organize it a bit, so I know what’s where and where to look for interesting things. On the left is leftovers of yarns, and on the right is full skeins (and partials, if there are matching partials). There’s a little more yarn than that, but not much. I try not to keep a lot of yarn or I’d get confused. The only thing is that right now I’m between projects, and I don’t know what I have and what I could make with it! So I might be knitting dishcloths for the next week and a half, then get myself to a yarn store once I’m back at school. Or maybe I’ll do something more exciting with the worsted-weight leftover yarns. Not really sure yet.

So I haven’t yet typed up my 2010 knitting goals for the world to see, but I finally sewed these up, washed them, and waited days for them to dry before finally putting a hair dryer to them.

Ta-da! Awesome orange mittens. I’m heartily bemused by the comments on these mittens—here and on Flickr. You see, the yarn here has a story. I didn’t pick it up myself, but an old friend decided one day to send me things I might like. I only know this friend online, but apparently the force of my personality comes through so starkly that he picked out the best colors to match *me*.

Which makes me happy.

I’ve been carrying around this yarn for a couple of years now, Brown Sheep Naturespun Worsted, and trying to figure out what will make it the best. I knew I wanted something in colourwork (because I’m obsessed). It was hard to come up with a pattern and I kept wanting to do something really ambitious, but honestly? These two colors go together so well that the simplicity of the pattern just lets them do their thing.

And that thing is bring brightness and happiness to the world.

So go new mittens. (Which I desperately needed, as my only pair of mittens wore a big hole in the thumb the second week of December in Minnesota.)

orange herring (Ravelry):
Pattern: Herringbone Mittens by Elli Stubenrauch
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted, orange and red-brown
Needles: US 5 / 3.75mm and US 3 / 3.25mm. I probably would have done better had I gone with the “women’s medium” sizes of US4 and US2, but I really didn’t want to go that small with the gauge. Too much trouble.

However, one of the nice things of having real mittens right now is being able to measure my hand against it. Whilst mittens should be somewhat looser than the actual hand fitting inside them, these, with the exception of the thumbs, are far too big. But now I have two mittens to compare my hands to, so the next time I knit myself mittens (hopefully not long now as I’ve found how quick and easy they are!) they won’t be so big! I’m a little surprised at how close-fitting the thumbs are, to tell the truth. Those are most definitely snug.

So—what do you thing is next? Bird in Hand? Or any of the number of mittens in my Ravelry queue or favorites? Time will tell!

(January 11 and first FO post of 2010… I’m so on a roll here!)

As part of my 2010 knitting resolutions (which I haven’t yet written up here), I thought I should do WIP Wednesday posts. Whoops—Wednesday flew by me yesterday, so it’s time to play catch-up (again, already). So here are the three projects occupying my attention right now:

No, my second Ishbel certainly hasn’t gone by quite as quickly as my first did, but I still love the pattern. I tried to do a large stockinette and small lace section but was about to run out of yarn, so I ripped it to the stockinette section last week for the small small size. I only have about 15 rows left, so it’ll be done soon, and I’ll have another pretty Ishbel to wear around my neck. :)

One of my January knitting goals that I have as of yet failed to clarify here was to knit mittens. Well here I go! My current mittens are a year and a half old and falling apart. They were the kind you could flip the top off so you could use your fingers, which really, don’t keep your hands THAT warm when it’s 6˚F out. I’m stalling a bit to put in progress on Ishbel 2 and the next bit, and because if I sit down to finish the top I’m going to have to weave in ends. Blasted ends. I’ll get to it soon.

And my Vestvember vest. Oh wait, it’s not November? Yeah, that’s how long I take on things. I’ve got two fronts and this is the back, halfway done, so it too should get finished soon. Fingers crossed I don’t procrastinate on washing and blocking it as I usually do. This is a good evening knit that doesn’t require tons of concentration.

I’d like to start (and finish?) another sweater before winter break is over, so I guess I better get knitting. Have a great Thursday!

Happy New Year! I am really excited for 2010—I’ll finally turn 21 and at the end of it I’ll be very close to finishing my undergraduate studies. Which means, horror of horrors, that I’ll have to figure things out and be close to knowing what I’m going to do “next”.

But first, I’m under the impression that in the past few days people have been talking about the past year and then resolutions and hopes for the next. I think I’ll do the same, and split it into two posts. First I have three last FOs of 2009 to present:

My favorite aunt and uncle requested hats for Christmas (in the summer). I completely forgot until December. Luckily hats are easy and I whipped these two up pretty quick.

uncle’s hat (Ravelry):
Pattern: Marsan Watchcap
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers in 2445. I was really impressed with this yarn. Such beautiful colors and it felt so soft under my fingers.
Needles: Size 7 bamboo circulars

aunt’s hat (Ravelry):
Pattern: Stella’s Hat
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers in 9408. See yarn notes above. Great yarn.
Needles: Same
Modifications: Knit to 7″ instead of 6″ before starting brim. Thought it would stay puffy at the top that way. In retrospect probably should have just knitted the 6″, as my aunt was folding the brim up to wear it. Then again, she said she could pull it over her ears as she needed to (and she will need to).

These have been done a month, but I keep procrastinating on washing them, which is why I hadn’t posted them yet. They’re Through the Loops! Mystery Socks of 2009. These were so much fun. And so cute. The yarn is pretty delicate though. I’m not sure how I feel with wearing them on an everyday basis; they seem more like something to wear on special occasions.

oh my lusciousness (Ravelry):
Pattern: Mystery Sock 09 from Through the Loops!
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Sock, which is pretty inexpensive actually
Needles: 2.5mm

Finished in 2009:

2009 really wasn’t the year for knitting. It was more of a year of personal growth—although there were backslides at times. I think I’m growing and changing. But I’m scared of a lot of it. All I dreamt of achieving is behind me, so now I have to figure out my new dreams, and how I’m going to achieve them. It’s scary. It’s hard to believe.

And at the same time, the knitting has picked up. I’m enjoying it a lot more. The last four of 11 of my finished objects were knitted in the last two months of the year, and the knitting mojo is staying. (Soon I’ll talk about my current WIPs, soon!) Stay tuned, because next time I’ll talk about my knitting resolutions for the year. Happy knitting!