AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Craft Boston

I really want to go to Craft Boston, but it is this weekend - the weekend of my 1st year anniversary. I kind of promised myself a yarn-free weekend (or as much as can be expected from someone as thoroughly addicted as me), so I would spend more time with my husband. I've been knitting up a storm to make sure I am as far along with the SockapalOOOza socks as possible before the weekend.

Craft Boston is Friday through Sunday at the World Trade Center and is $14 (which is good for all three days). There are plenty of fiber artists - both wearable art and decorative. Some of them appeared to be doing interesting things with knitted and felted fabrics, and there was one artist who had some shibori-style work. Very nice, even if I couldn't wear it.

I also love glass art, something I wish I knew how to do, which is well represented. I love the shapes and colors that the glass inspires. I only looked at a few pieces online, but I wish I had time to see them in person. They have some art jewelry and a couple of people doing baskets and metal work. It is just all very impressive. I really want to go. Someone go for me and let me know how it is (maybe I will get to go in 2007).

A good start

Thursday was a quick trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond and Michaels. I didn't go for yarn. I went for a box. What I was envisioning in my mind was a glass box with a beautiful metal filigree work on the outside. Not because I need something that fancy (or could afford it), but because it would remind me of Wellesley.

At BBB, I found a couple of boxes that might work, but they were boring and looked like they would show dust or marks too quickly. So, I punted the box idea and bought a new tea pot that whistles! It isn't terribly piercing, but it does mean that we won't wake up the neighbors when I have tea in the early mornings.

At Michael's I found a good selection of small to medium sized boxes including a couple of two box sets. I got one of (place link to image here)them. The larger box is perfect for small projects that I want to have on hand, so I don't have to wake the husband by rummaging through my dresser drawers for the project in the noisy plastic bag. Umm, most of my dresser drawers have these projects. Bad sign, isn't it. The box is big enough to hold four smallish skeins with a working project. Just the right size for the by the couch sock project.

The Over-the-Knees socks are a little more challenging than I originally thought, as my brain doesn't really want to make the random cable at the end of the lace pattern.

尿㿕㿄㿭㿓㿯㿠タ㿧㿙。

Evil, naughty, nasty Zoot! Or in this case, Saru-chan.

Saru-chan since Saturday morning has:

1. gotten into my closed backpack once, pulling out two skeins and requiring that I restart a project because of dropped stitches (Saturday was a very tear-jerking day for me in that regard);


2. found a bag I forgot to put away last night, pulling out two socks and shredding apart the skein I needed for the last afterthought heel;


3. got into the bag (which I believe was in my backpack before I put the luggage locks on) and pulled out the sockpal-sock and dragged it around the condo for a bit.


4. got into a bag that was in a place I used to think inaccessible and dragged my latest project for Dulaan around the condo, pulling out entire loops of knitting (required also a complete restart).

That is five skeins since Saturday morning. I now have luggage locks for my backpack (which makes me hate using my backpack). I am not truly the cat person at home. Cat person is my husband (I would rather have a dog even though they tend to be on the destructive side as well). I have spent most of the last four days either trying to be away from Saru-chan, crying and tearing my hair out, or wondering how I was going to finish the Sockapal000za socks with the cat finding and dragging my work hither and yon.

I restarted this morning. Over the knees socks from Holiday Handknits. I am possibly going to embellish the lace column in the back with beads (and I am doing the knitting with Merino 4ply). I always remember when I make socks how much I love this yarn.

Silly hats for guys

I finished a hat last week and neglected to upload the pictures until today. Big surprise, really (umm, no), because I am just not that great at remembering to add pictures and most of them come out way too blurry to use. *sigh* Very blurry.

I made a hat and decorated it with hedgehog buttons! It seems a bit too big for the number of buttons I used, so if I did it again I would use a bit finer yarn and maybe a couple more buttons. Maybe I will make one like this for myself with just one or two really large buttons.

One plus one plus two plus one...

What do
plus plus have to do with each other?

Socks.

I am planning (and am still working on a backup plan in case this fails) on making Odess-style socks. The yarn is a sport-weight wool and the beads are golden in tone (though I do have a blue mix as well if I can't stand it anymore).

The plan is to figure out how many stitch I need to cast on to get fit and then figure out what the nearest Odessa-appropriate multiple is. I want the beading to end above the ankle, so they will be comfortable in socks. I'm afraid that they won't look good if I do that, so I might have to make a second pair of shoe socks and bead these all the way. I want the heel to reflect the swirling of Odessa, so it is likely that I will have to do an afterthought and do the patterning like the crown decrease for the hat. Part of me feels overly ambitious, but at least I am not spinning my own sock yarn!

Experiencing withdrawal...

Why is it that you only really truly want something when you are told you can't have it?

My yarn diet is going great guns. I have told the hubby that if he buys me yarn that it doesn't break the diet (complete with loaded looks and tons of hint hint). The truth of the matter is that I don't really need more yarn. I just want more yarn. I have gotten a few things done since Intercon, though I haven't gotten around to taking pictures and making posts about them.

Pictures that will make it to the galleries in the upcoming week:

The Bzz hat from Stitch and Bitch Nation. I made the hat with size six circular needles (that I have reclaimed^*) and the leftover purple Lamb's Pride yarn from the capelet. I have very little of the yarn left and only need to sew on the hedgehog buttons to be done. It is for a friend in the Virginia-DC area, so it is mostly for when he visits the Boston area in the winter.

A hat for the Dulaan project out of the bright pink Malabrigo. This one is also on size six needles and I started it this morning. I want to finish the skein and I figured a child-sized hat would do the trick. I want to rib the thing all the way up into the decreases, so we'll see how that works.

A second Odessa from a few weeks ago that is going to a friend in Pennsylvania with some fudge of space and time. I have a box that is nearly ready to go that has the hat and a single skein of Malabrigo. She does freeform knitting, so I think I should go through and make some of the scraps I have part of her collection.

^*What am I reclaiming the needles for?

W. I started it on Saturday at Circles and I am nearly done the front (or is it the back). Other than a brief confusion where the pattern starts off with Make 2 (and I think that it would be best to have the pattern say Back and then Front (same as back)), it is going well. I am using yarn left over from the wedding shawls from last year. I had 3.5 skeins of Chasing Rainbows yarn left, and I think it will take 2.5 to make the tank top. I have no idea what I will do with the last skein.

And a good time was had

Intercon is for me an annual event where I get to see people that I only see once a year (or if I am stupid and don't go for a few years, people I don't see for 3 or 4 years).

I go to make pretty clothes, show off, chat a lot, get no sleep and generally have a lot of fun.

This year I made my first kimono (which is not completely finished in the picture - I ran out of time)

I will over the next few weeks be finishing up the final detail points of the sewing so I can use it for other occasions, but for the game I wore it for it did the job admirably and held up to the stress I put on the rough stitching.

Costuming

Intercon is just two days away. Friday night is my first game, A Question of Faith, in which I play a historian (I have spent days trying to explain what Intercon and LARPing are mostly to get either blank expressions or people thinking it is some kinky sex thing). The costuming hint was that robes would work for pretty much everyone.

Monday, I had my hubby measure from shoulder to shoulder. I added a couple of inches, took out the crappy white fabric of D00M, and cut all the way down the fabric to make it about 23-24 inches wide. I then folded it in half width-wise and cut nearly all the way up the front. Then I folded it in half length-wise (so there were 4 layers), and made a very small quarter circle cut for the neck.

I have spent 2 days pinning and hand-sewing the garment. Last night I marked for eyelet placement, made my little snippets, placed eyelets and hammered.

And hammered.

I got done and put it over my head. "It looks like a cleric's robe," said the hubby.

Success!

Going on a diet

I have a bag I will post about tonight or tomorrow (if I complete the finishing and write up a pattern). I have the capelet thingie I posted about a couple of days ago. I have the ruffled capelet that I am working on now.

I bought all of that yarn last week. Three skeins for the short row capelet (which I keep forgetting is called Blue Collar in the Scarf Style book), 2 skeins for the bag, and 1 hand-dyed, hand-spun monster skein for the project I am working on now. Even with affordable yarns that is a lot of yarn.

Yarn diet. Yuck.

I mentioned it this morning on the train and my husband gave me this amused and skeptical look that said, "I'll believe it when I see it." He's probably right, but I do have a lot of yarn and I should work from the stash, so I can buy msyelf yarn for my birthday (if things go right, I'll be on a trip to Canada for my birthday).

Goal: No yarn purchases (excepting Sockapaloooza) between March 1st and April 30th. I'll revisit what I have done and how well I have done it (now isn't that a sentence that makes no real sense) at the end of April and either allow myself to buy yarn again or extend it another 6 weeks.

What I intend to do?
I have sock yarn. It's not for the Sock Pal, but I should finish a few projects for Dulaan, a sweater for myself, a sweater for the Husband, W (from Knitty, which everyone seemed to think was cool, but no one seemed to want to do), and lace. I seem to buy lace weight yarn as a default "I want yarn, but don't know what to buy" selection.

Minimum goals to buy yarn
Umm, I should aim to finish at least four large projects and rid my stash of about 8 full skeins and 6 partial skeins of yarn. If I finish two sweaters, then that will cover the full skein requirement no problem.

First project
I want to finish the ruffled capelet and the silly hat I am working on. After that, I probably should finish Scoop It and the Dulaan vest. I'll see to a priority list after that.