Due to issues with Blogger, I'm moving my knitblog to Livejournal. You can now find me at Beauty Knits. All posts will be left unlocked.
See you there!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
An Open Letter
Dear Denise,
We all miss you very much. It's not that we don't appreciate the new additions to the family, and we're glad you made sure we were dry and warm and safe while our home was being renovated, but it's been a while since we've seen you. And we know that you're very busy with thesis and schoolwork and other things, but we hope to see you again soon.
Love,
your stash
We all miss you very much. It's not that we don't appreciate the new additions to the family, and we're glad you made sure we were dry and warm and safe while our home was being renovated, but it's been a while since we've seen you. And we know that you're very busy with thesis and schoolwork and other things, but we hope to see you again soon.
Love,
your stash
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
My God, it's full of stars.
I feel very accomplished. I finished one whole sleeve of my cardigan! I actually knit four inches too long because I was in a groove. It's all big and squishy and pretty and wonderful. And I have almost three hundred extra yards of yarn and I really hope it'll be enough, because I used one whole skein (of seven) for one sleeve. I will probably be fine. Hopefully? Yay.
I cast on for the cardigan after finishing the centre triangle of the Neverending Highland Shawl of Epic. Are you ready for this? It's like you dropped on of those grow-a-robot things into a coke bottle full of water. From the begining, one pattern repeat at a time, drumroll please:
Yes, that's a DVD case. The centre triangle is larger than my finished Shetland Triangle. The finished product is going to be the size of an afghan. I am so excited to see how it finally turns out.
The Briggs & Little has the right crunchiness and weight, it's going to be very warm and it has the right look for the project. I don't think it's something I would want to wear next to my skin for a long period of time, but I haven't had any problems with it yet. The next challenge is going to be picking up the stitches for the border, which will be an adventure. I'm leaving that to when I have a nice chunk of time to myself to sit down and figure it out.
Last bit of knitting news is also creative writing news and school news! As my final project for creative writing class, Maddie floated the idea of doing a series of poems that mirrors the creation of a sweater, using all the knitting (choosing the yarn, casting on, ribbing, stockinette) as metaphor. It's an interesting idea, I just don't know if I can pull it off. Playing around with verses and lines now.
I cast on for the cardigan after finishing the centre triangle of the Neverending Highland Shawl of Epic. Are you ready for this? It's like you dropped on of those grow-a-robot things into a coke bottle full of water. From the begining, one pattern repeat at a time, drumroll please:
Yes, that's a DVD case. The centre triangle is larger than my finished Shetland Triangle. The finished product is going to be the size of an afghan. I am so excited to see how it finally turns out.
The Briggs & Little has the right crunchiness and weight, it's going to be very warm and it has the right look for the project. I don't think it's something I would want to wear next to my skin for a long period of time, but I haven't had any problems with it yet. The next challenge is going to be picking up the stitches for the border, which will be an adventure. I'm leaving that to when I have a nice chunk of time to myself to sit down and figure it out.
Last bit of knitting news is also creative writing news and school news! As my final project for creative writing class, Maddie floated the idea of doing a series of poems that mirrors the creation of a sweater, using all the knitting (choosing the yarn, casting on, ribbing, stockinette) as metaphor. It's an interesting idea, I just don't know if I can pull it off. Playing around with verses and lines now.
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Monday, January 12, 2009
The Great Flood
Okay, so I had this big long entry about my Christmas knitting half-typed out with spaces for pictures, and the draft got scrapped somehow. Ugh. So I'll skip it for now. All the sock-angst, the scary old Chinese lady who taught me how to knit continental barely speaking a word of English, the success of my X-Ring shawl, all of it. Skipped.
My apartment building flooded on Friday night. None of the yarn was harmed! I know that was everyone's first thought. But it's all safe. Only the living room and kitchen was affected, and the yarn lives in the hall closet at the other end of the apartment. But right now it lives with Caitlin. Because of the extent of the water damage in most of the building (we got off lightly), almost all the students have been moved to another residence on campus. Small, crappier, sketchier. No kitchens. We had to pack everything - everything - and move, in the space of a few hours. It was . . . an ordeal. People keep calling it an adventure.
Anyways, I've been doing some stress-knitting. It's good to have the needles back in my hands after having to give it up for so long because of papers and thesis. I've finished a repeat and a half of my Highland Triangle Shawl in the last few days. I only have one more repeat to go (24 rows) on the centre triangle before I start on the knitted border, which really will be an adventure. I've been taking pictures of it every time I finish one repeat. This thing is going to be huge. It's already larger than my completed and blocked Shetland Triangle.
That's after five repeats. I should have put something in for scale, but each of those floor tiles is one foot by one foot (if you can see the lines for the tiles).
I also started Maddie's Rose Wristwarmers for what feels like the thousandth time. This is the cursed project, I swear. Something is always wrong. The yarn (I'm on the third one I've tried), the needles, the gauge, the cables . . . I frogged my latest attempt this morning, but I know what to do for next time. I'm going to use Sapphire2001's mods for the pattern, and loosen up the cables along the sides - four or five rows between cables instead of two. The Cascade 220 seems comparable to the Creative Focus Nashua Handknits Worsted I'm using. I love the colour, though:
I got a skein pretty yarn for Christmas that I want to turn into wristies for myself, but I don't know if I'll even have enough. Definitely don't have enough for Knucks, which was my first plan. Think I might just do a big squishy rib with a thumb slit. It's Noro Sakura, which apparently is discontinued. It's so funky and different and awesome, I wish I had more!
Just seems so full of promise . . . I want to fulfill that promise before all my time is taken up with school again.
My apartment building flooded on Friday night. None of the yarn was harmed! I know that was everyone's first thought. But it's all safe. Only the living room and kitchen was affected, and the yarn lives in the hall closet at the other end of the apartment. But right now it lives with Caitlin. Because of the extent of the water damage in most of the building (we got off lightly), almost all the students have been moved to another residence on campus. Small, crappier, sketchier. No kitchens. We had to pack everything - everything - and move, in the space of a few hours. It was . . . an ordeal. People keep calling it an adventure.
Anyways, I've been doing some stress-knitting. It's good to have the needles back in my hands after having to give it up for so long because of papers and thesis. I've finished a repeat and a half of my Highland Triangle Shawl in the last few days. I only have one more repeat to go (24 rows) on the centre triangle before I start on the knitted border, which really will be an adventure. I've been taking pictures of it every time I finish one repeat. This thing is going to be huge. It's already larger than my completed and blocked Shetland Triangle.
That's after five repeats. I should have put something in for scale, but each of those floor tiles is one foot by one foot (if you can see the lines for the tiles).
I also started Maddie's Rose Wristwarmers for what feels like the thousandth time. This is the cursed project, I swear. Something is always wrong. The yarn (I'm on the third one I've tried), the needles, the gauge, the cables . . . I frogged my latest attempt this morning, but I know what to do for next time. I'm going to use Sapphire2001's mods for the pattern, and loosen up the cables along the sides - four or five rows between cables instead of two. The Cascade 220 seems comparable to the Creative Focus Nashua Handknits Worsted I'm using. I love the colour, though:
I got a skein pretty yarn for Christmas that I want to turn into wristies for myself, but I don't know if I'll even have enough. Definitely don't have enough for Knucks, which was my first plan. Think I might just do a big squishy rib with a thumb slit. It's Noro Sakura, which apparently is discontinued. It's so funky and different and awesome, I wish I had more!
Just seems so full of promise . . . I want to fulfill that promise before all my time is taken up with school again.
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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Vacation Away
December? What was that? I have no idea what you're talking about. Pssh. December. Crazy talk.
(Read: It's been almost exactly two months since I last knitblogged. Trufax.)
I was eaten by thesis (rawr advisorsuck drama, ended up with a decent mark and ditching the advior) and exams (I rocked them) and then Christmas (whoo!) and now I'm back here at school and hiding from the looming cloud of thesis over the horizon. I will now use a cluster of images from the last two months to distract you from the fact that I failblog:
Next time, on Denise's Incredibly Sporadic Knitblog of Fail, actual talk of knitting! Stay tuned. Wildly different bat-time, same bat-channel.
(Read: It's been almost exactly two months since I last knitblogged. Trufax.)
I was eaten by thesis (rawr advisorsuck drama, ended up with a decent mark and ditching the advior) and exams (I rocked them) and then Christmas (whoo!) and now I'm back here at school and hiding from the looming cloud of thesis over the horizon. I will now use a cluster of images from the last two months to distract you from the fact that I failblog:
Next time, on Denise's Incredibly Sporadic Knitblog of Fail, actual talk of knitting! Stay tuned. Wildly different bat-time, same bat-channel.
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Friday, November 7, 2008
Thesis Monster
Haven't posted much lately. Haven't knit much lately. Last week I think I picked up the needles once or twice. It's that time of year again, that magically time when university students build nests in the darkened, out-of-the-way corners of libraries, from photocopied articles and discarded essay drafts. They retreat into the nests and only emerge, blinking in the thin winter sunlight, when classes are over. Some will remain in this caffeine-fuelled state of suspension for weeks longer through the exam period.
Finished one draft of a paper due next Friday, haven't even started writing a term paper for my seminar class, have ten pages of a forty-plus creative writing assignment finished, and my thesis, for which I have to rewrite my proposal and refocus my research, making the last two months of work I've done on it useless because my advisor is a douchebag who has been more hinderance than help.
Anyway.
Have four projects on the needles, two are in definite hibernation until after my papers are written. Exam period is, for me, three exams in a two week period with dick-all to do in between. Lots and lots of knitting time. It's the desert in the ocean that's getting me through right now. One has a deadline of December 3rd, so I've been plugging away on that, and the other is a new project I cast on Wednesday for Lumberjill. As part of the Selfish Knitter Destash Swap, she sent me ten sets of bamboo double-pointed needles - well, a couple are plastic, but sooooo nifty and shiny and pretty - and all she asked for in return was that I love them and hug them and call them George. And a pair of Evangline fingerless gloves.
No picture yet, but I increased the length of the cuff to keep tucked away more easily in sleeves and just finished the first cable repeat. Using the same Briggs & Little in blue heather as for my Highland Shawl. Gonna be sooooo warm. I kind of like adding the little regional touch of a Nova Scotian yarn with a Canadian pattern. The name 'Evangeline' never ceases to remind me of the Acadian regions of this province, either.
I have taken a long enough break from thesis. Back to the salt mines.
Finished one draft of a paper due next Friday, haven't even started writing a term paper for my seminar class, have ten pages of a forty-plus creative writing assignment finished, and my thesis, for which I have to rewrite my proposal and refocus my research, making the last two months of work I've done on it useless because my advisor is a douchebag who has been more hinderance than help.
Anyway.
Have four projects on the needles, two are in definite hibernation until after my papers are written. Exam period is, for me, three exams in a two week period with dick-all to do in between. Lots and lots of knitting time. It's the desert in the ocean that's getting me through right now. One has a deadline of December 3rd, so I've been plugging away on that, and the other is a new project I cast on Wednesday for Lumberjill. As part of the Selfish Knitter Destash Swap, she sent me ten sets of bamboo double-pointed needles - well, a couple are plastic, but sooooo nifty and shiny and pretty - and all she asked for in return was that I love them and hug them and call them George. And a pair of Evangline fingerless gloves.
No picture yet, but I increased the length of the cuff to keep tucked away more easily in sleeves and just finished the first cable repeat. Using the same Briggs & Little in blue heather as for my Highland Shawl. Gonna be sooooo warm. I kind of like adding the little regional touch of a Nova Scotian yarn with a Canadian pattern. The name 'Evangeline' never ceases to remind me of the Acadian regions of this province, either.
I have taken a long enough break from thesis. Back to the salt mines.
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Saturday, October 25, 2008
Christmas List
It's getting to that time of year - Christmas gifts.
It's only thirty-eight days to December 3rd, I know (X-Ring!), which makes it sixty days exactly to Christmas.
. . . oh hey, it's the 25th of October.
My mind works in mysterious ways.
Anyway! Christmas knitting. It's the most wonderful time of the year. I have a small list of people that I knit for - immediate family, four close friends, and my girlfriend. And future mother-in-law. She bought me a Christmas present, apparently. Which is pretty amazing considering that I turned her daughter into a hell-bound lesbian.
The List! Yes, I have checked it twice.
Mom
Parrotfish. She loved the Nereid Fingerless Gloves I made for the Ravelympics, but she wasn't crazy about the idea of socks, I couldn't figure out how to adapt it to a scarf, and a sweater would make her look like Namor. So when I saw this pattern, it was perfect. A woolly forest green would look good with her red hair. Also working on a bunch of scrunchies for all that hair - just trying out different yarns and stitch patterns, seeing which ones I like.
Dad
Dad! Hard to buy for. Friggin' impossible. How many golf tees does a man need? He loves three things - golf, curling, and biking. He also likes socks. Thus, a classy pair of Diamonds in His Shoes. Good for work, nice little pattern. Already cast on. Using KnitPicks Essentials Tweed, in the Lumberjack colourway - green. If I have the time, I'll also knit a pair of bike helmet ear warmers, because he is just crazy enough to bike into cold weather.
Sister
My tiny, funky sister gets a bunch of tiny, funky hats. She only specifically asked for a Jayne Hat, but I'm also going to make a Brainmonster and/or Robot Hat. Was tempted by a penguin hant, but my attempt at instarsia ended in tears.
Girlfriend's Mom
Simple. Classy. Lace Stole in a multiblue mohair. Not a throwaway project, but not something I'm going to get very invested in, in case it's burned as effigy or something.
Friends
There are four of them, but so far I've only been able to come up with three presents. For my fake husband with aspirations of being a luchador when he grows up, Lucha Libre. More instarsia, I may cry. In acrylic. He doesn't deserve better. For the sistah from another mistah, Rose's Wrist Warmers. Yes, I am voluntarily doing more cables. For my future wedding planner and kinky biology major, Thwack. In red, of course.
Which leaves me with one of the friends and the girlfriend. This is almost harder than shopping.
It's only thirty-eight days to December 3rd, I know (X-Ring!), which makes it sixty days exactly to Christmas.
. . . oh hey, it's the 25th of October.
My mind works in mysterious ways.
Anyway! Christmas knitting. It's the most wonderful time of the year. I have a small list of people that I knit for - immediate family, four close friends, and my girlfriend. And future mother-in-law. She bought me a Christmas present, apparently. Which is pretty amazing considering that I turned her daughter into a hell-bound lesbian.
The List! Yes, I have checked it twice.
Mom
Parrotfish. She loved the Nereid Fingerless Gloves I made for the Ravelympics, but she wasn't crazy about the idea of socks, I couldn't figure out how to adapt it to a scarf, and a sweater would make her look like Namor. So when I saw this pattern, it was perfect. A woolly forest green would look good with her red hair. Also working on a bunch of scrunchies for all that hair - just trying out different yarns and stitch patterns, seeing which ones I like.
Dad
Dad! Hard to buy for. Friggin' impossible. How many golf tees does a man need? He loves three things - golf, curling, and biking. He also likes socks. Thus, a classy pair of Diamonds in His Shoes. Good for work, nice little pattern. Already cast on. Using KnitPicks Essentials Tweed, in the Lumberjack colourway - green. If I have the time, I'll also knit a pair of bike helmet ear warmers, because he is just crazy enough to bike into cold weather.
Sister
My tiny, funky sister gets a bunch of tiny, funky hats. She only specifically asked for a Jayne Hat, but I'm also going to make a Brainmonster and/or Robot Hat. Was tempted by a penguin hant, but my attempt at instarsia ended in tears.
Girlfriend's Mom
Simple. Classy. Lace Stole in a multiblue mohair. Not a throwaway project, but not something I'm going to get very invested in, in case it's burned as effigy or something.
Friends
There are four of them, but so far I've only been able to come up with three presents. For my fake husband with aspirations of being a luchador when he grows up, Lucha Libre. More instarsia, I may cry. In acrylic. He doesn't deserve better. For the sistah from another mistah, Rose's Wrist Warmers. Yes, I am voluntarily doing more cables. For my future wedding planner and kinky biology major, Thwack. In red, of course.
Which leaves me with one of the friends and the girlfriend. This is almost harder than shopping.
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