The other day we were driving down the street and came across pots with the most amazing sign imaginable – FREE!
Now, they weren’t that pretty…
But, that’s where spray paint comes in.
Now our deck is properly summery.
Upcoming Hat December 19, 2011
My Mom went crazy buying Louise Harding for a hat. She searched through ravelry patterns for said yarn and said she couldn’t find what she was looking for.
“Oh, you know what you want?”
And so she showed me this.
I told her I would make it so. Now, I need to figure out how to do entrelac in the round.
Wish me luck!
70% December 14, 2011
I made it to two more states over the Thanksgiving holiday, which leaves me 15 more states to visit to make my goal of visiting all 50 states by the time I’m 40. Three states in one year is respectable.
I didn’t make it to a yarn shop in Washington, but I did visit three in Oregon, so hopefully that makes up for it. I bought some fabulous local handdyed sock yarn in Portland at Twisted.
visited 35 states (70%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or website vertaling duits?
Taking a blogging break October 11, 2011
It’s been over a month since I last posted a blog entry. In that time my knitting productivity expanded exponentially and I ventured into unknown knitting territory – the wilds of intarsia, entrelac, stranded knitting, and felting. It’s been great fun trying these new endeavors, but not once have I wanted to write about them. This realization, that blogging felt like an obligation rather than a fun complement to my knitting projects, prompted this post. I need to take a break and I thought it was time to make it official, rather than just leaving it unsaid as the date of my last post sidled farther and farther into the past.
I hope at some point I will rekindle my passion for blogging, until then – Happy Knitting!
Crochet Cast On August 27, 2011
The thing about following a pattern as opposed to knitting whatever I feel like is that occasionally there are new techniques that I don’t know. The glass half full perspective is that I get to learn something new. The glass half empty perspective finds me stomping away shouting, “As if I have time to find a video and learn something new! I wanted to KNIT, not LEARN!” I am sure I can pause Army Wives and find the time to do this, since I am incapable of learning through written or drawn instructions, and I finally did.
Did I mention that I don’t even know how to crochet? So technically I will have to learn two new things. Not that I’m bitter.
I checked out the three YouTube videos that came up with my google search. My favorite was from Lucy Neatby. You can also check out her useful knitting website: http://www.lucyneatby.com/
My second favorite was this one, which offers some good tips.
So, in the theory of see one, do one, teach one, now that I’ve learned how to do a crochet cast on, however awkwardly, here are my instructions for those of you blessed with the ability to learn from written instructions (for those of you who aren’t, like me, check out the videos above):
1) Do a slip knot on the crochet hook.
2) Hold the crochet hook to the right of the knitting needle parallel with the needle. Hold the yarn in your left hand behind the needle.
3) Crochet a loop over the needle (bring the hook over the top of the needle).
4) You now have a loop on the needle and the yarn over the needle. Bring the yarn to the back of the needle.
5) Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you have the number of stitches needed.
6) Crochet a few more stitches off the needle. Tie a knot in your leading edge so you know not to unravel your cast on from that side.
Knit into your cast on and you are off the the races. See, learning is fun! (Said without a hint of sarcasm. No. Really. I mean it.)
A New Project! August 23, 2011
The other day I posted about how I was in knitting burnout. I didn’t see a solution in sight – and then there was a ring of the doorbell.
However, I don’t ever answer the door. 99,999 times out of 100,000 if someone is knocking on the door, it’s not for any reason I am interested in. “Would you like to buy a left handed egg fluffer?” “Have you heard of the Church of the Flying Rabbit?” “I just broke your window with my soccer ball, can I have it back?” Etc.
So after an appropriate amount of paranoid blind peering I opened the door, grabbed the waiting package, and darted back inside.
It was a belated birthday present!
I am such a bag wh*re.
The contents motivated me to immediately abandon all my old boring projects and grab my needles to start the project. And then I got to the first line about doing a provisional crochet cast on. Blarg! Time to find a youtube video.
If you’d like to get this project it is available through Knit Picks.
Never Say Never August 20, 2011
While I was visiting the Knitting Whisperer in Colorado we were discussing knitted washcloths. I poo-pooed them and said I didn’t see the point of spending your precious knitting time making something that will be used to clean dirty stuff. Additionally, I hate working with unforgiving, finger exhausting cotton. Yet another reason to never make washcloths.
Well, never say never, because not a month later I was at the store buying this yarn to make a certain person (who shall not be named, in case they read my blog) five washcloths and a hand towel for their birthday.
We're going to be five washcloths and a hand towel.
Motivationally Challenged August 16, 2011
Motivationally. Sure, it’s a word – I just made up. If Shakespeare and Colbert can do it, why not me.
I am having issues with motivation. Such as, the motivation to blog, which is actually a byproduct of my knitting malaise. I just spent the last month making snails progress on my washcloth/handtowel project. Aside: The spell checker is telling me hand towel is two words. Ah, the vagaries of the English language, washcloth is one word, but hand towel is two. But, I digress.
There is really no reason it should take me a month to complete five washcloths and a hand towel. I should hang my needles in shame! Most knitters could bang that project out in a week. And I can’t even claim that it’s because I was working on other knitting projects on the side. It’s really because I just wasn’t doing much knitting.
But, why?
Maybe it was a lack of excitement about the project. However, I’m finally done and I’ve picked my Mom’s tank top back up, but I’m motivationally challenged on that one too, slogging my way through the 240 st cable cross round like it’s some sort of penance. Nor am I interested in the sweater I’m making for myself or the sock I started before the washcloth endeavor.
This is why there are UFOs hidden in closets. Well, one of the reasons.
Maybe my motivation will return with cool fall weather. Or I will find it in the colorful swirls of a lovely wool. Or maybe it’s waiting to attack like a zombie. I don’t know, but I hope it’s out there somewhere or I’m going to have to turn this blog into a cooking blog or reading blog or something.
Bad blogger, bad! August 10, 2011
Maybe I have blogging ADD. Or maybe life just keeps getting in the way. All I know is that for about a week I will blog and blog and blog and store those posts up to be meted out over a month or so. And then nothing. And once those posts dry up the kniftybits blogsite sits as desolate as an abandoned project in a closet.
So my apologies that it’s been 3-weeks since my last post.
I will try to do better.
Please stop yelling at me!
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