AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

A winner! A winner!

I finally closed the comments yesterday afternoon when I got home from visiting family in Maine. 

Maine was gorgeous and felt so pristine after comparing it to Quincy. My neighborhood is full of green here, but the larger number of people and the corresponding number of cars means it just smells different. It's not a lot, but it is there. While in Maine we visited the beach, climbing over the rocks onto the even rockier shore. We searched for beach glass and interesting shells and funny rocks. I spent a lot of my time thinking about one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems, "maggie and millie and molly and may" as I hunted for my own smooth round stone.

My brother and his fiancee came down with us and now I am air conditioner free (the previous owners had caulked the air conditioner into place). It is in the basement, so the air conditioner might end up moving into the bedroom this summer. After they left to go back home I did a bit of cleaning. They keep their place so much cleaner than I that I felt guilty and had a bit of the spree (but only in the kitchen). Then I chose a winner.

I love Random.org and so should Jane T. I've already contacted her and her prize will soon be on its way! 

Her comment was: 

It's always nice hearing from people, so thank you everyone for entering the Giveaway Day!

My mom is still in town, so the sun is peeking out and we're going to see the Chihuly exhibit at the MFA. Fun, food, beautiful art, and cooking (which is just like food, but I love food, so it gets a second mention), and crafting. What more could a gal want on a beautiful almost summer day in May?
 
 

Giveaway Day: Matching Chokers

I loved the last Giveaway Day I did so much that I wanted to do it again. It is a great way to interact with a lot of new people, find new blogs (not just new people finding my blog, though obviously I enjoy that too) and possibly get some cool stuff.

Like many bloggers I signed up for a ton of 'alongs' and other crafty ventures for the year. One of the best has been IronCraft. I'm not very good at getting projects done, but it has given me a lot of new crafts to try and materials for a lot more projects. It is an awesome way for me to come up with new things to try. 

One of the projects a few weeks ago (gosh, it might even be over a month ago!) was to make something with a flower. I made this fun choker and thought I would offer a pair of custom chokers (shipping internationally). This is great for mother-daughters, pairs of girls, boys can pretend to be a princess too (I won't push any gender identity stuff on anybody), or just for the make believe box. Made a little longer, your kids could pretend they are crowns. They can be wrapped around a few times and worn as bracelets. There are a ton of possibilities.

You pick the yarn color (and I will pick the color that most closely resembles that from my stash), and I will build a custom choker with ribbon backing and lace trim.

Your pieces will be decorated with beads, carefully sewn on (definitely not the baby age set here though!) and shipped in a small box like you would receive jewelry. It may not look like this one, but it will have a similar look and feel. 

This Giveaway is open until May 26 (I will be out of town and will close the giveaway when I get back), and when I get your information I will need your approximate neck sizes. The choker shown above is worn on a neck between 12 and 13 inches around. 

I have an Etsy shop, so if you don't win the giveaway and you still want one, please look for these to make it to the shop next month!

poor decision making

I do not know what possessed me last November. I know I intended to make a vest for my husband (who is a loyal and hardworking member of Team Hufflepuff) and I put the yarn in the cart at the Loopy Ewe. One skein of Jet and one of Gold are all I need to make the stripes. 

But why, oh why, did I think that I could do the entire vest body with only 3 skeins. That would be pushing it for me and I would at least be decreasing for waist shaping! Then there was an idea to instead make a full size sweater. Yet, I never ordered additional yarn in my main color (9324 Misty Lilac Heather, dyelot 9366). 

Until this morning.

I placed my order (and some extra stuff to get to free shipping) and here is hoping that the dyelot gods are kind. Otherwise it will be a very sad multicolored vest in July for the next Harry Potter movie.

hey, mikey! I like it!

Today was full of awesomeness.

I'm going to a convention in late June and so a couple of my friends arranged for me to go to an event that I can only call a pre-event. I got to sit around and chat and knit and meet people I hadn't seen in years.

I got to make ice cream with liquid nitrogen.

I made my Nutella Rocky Road. It came out cream and rich without any weirdness from using liquid nitrogen.

There were at least 18 other ice creams on the table when we were done. Most of them were half batches like mine. Ice cream done a single pint at a time. There was just amazing flavors all around.

Now I'm churning with my normal method the next ice cream on my list from The Perfect Scoop: Milk Chocolate. While undoubtedly delicious (like everything I've had from David Lebovitz), it is just not the same feeling of camaraderie and glee.

prize patrol

I feel like I'm going to be hit with a big check at any moment for even thinking those words.

I have been going through my stash (yeah, sock yarns for the masses), and here are the prizes:

For the person who is closest to guessing the correct date:

 
Fiber Optic Footnotes, Gypsy (One of a Kind Batik), 80% superwash merino-20% nylon, 420 yards/4 ounces

For a random person from all of the commenters: 

 
Alchemy Juniper (2 skeins), Autumn Ecstasy, 232 yards/50g skein, 100% superfine merino

Of course, I reserve the right to find an awesome-r skein from my stash (like Wollmeise if I haven't hidden it so well I cannot find it) and sub in.

I'm only taking entries to the end of the month (because it just isn't fair for someone to see a status update later and enter with better knowledge). Sock yarns for all!

the land of garter stitch (contest)

I started the Mitred Crosses blanket about a month ago. While it isn't the only thing I've worked on (I've also done a paltry amount of cross-stitch, a tiny amount of beading and a single choker in that time), it has commanded almost all of my craft time. If I were making a baby blanket and using my sock yarn squares to alter the size, I would be entering the home stretch. I'm almost done with square 8, and will probably finish square 9 if I don't get distracted by making ice cream (milk chocolate from The Perfect Scoop).

However, I want to make a full size blanket, and I don't want to make half squares. The full size blanket is 40 x 52 inches and my casual math says I will be close if I have 5 squares per row and 7 rows. That's a lot of squares.

Think I'll actually manage to finish this by September? I have a whack of vacation time coming up. A nice staycation followed by going to Squam. I'd like to think that I will get a lot of knitting done, but realistically if I pick up a book any knitterly productivity goes straight out the window (and it is the week I need to be on coffee ice cream). 

I'm accepting wagers. Even odds (no I don't really know what the gambling terminology means). Nice yarn for one person chosen at random who gets the day I finish this project correct. Just comment here with the day you expect me to be done (including weaving in the last ends).

For those who want to have educated guesses: started April 8, square 8 finished May 8. Guess away!

enjoying spring

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning, so instead of rushing around and walking to the subway I took the more leisurely route to Quincy Center yesterday. It was a glorious morning for a walk and I was thinking about things like Macro May and Project Spectrum. I had brought the camera with me and was looking for red things to photograph (but being uninclined to photograph people's houses, so no red brick for me).

Instead I took this:

Click the picture for bigger.

I love this tree. I walk by it three or four times a week and Victor and I go this way for our dog walk. Now it is full of these extravagent blossoms. I'm such a goober when it comes to flowers, that I'm not sure which flower it is though it certainly doesn't look like any of the cherry blossoms I saw in DC in April.

I was playing around with the camera and used the macro setting. I probably looked like a dork with my face upturned and my stance wide,  trying to get the steadiest base for my picture taking. I didn't care. The thought of these lovely almost frilly blossoms kept me happy all throughout the day.

Since then it has been a bit chillier again. After a 70 degree day, 50 feels downright frigid. However, the skies are clear, I have strawberries planted along the path and summer is right around the corner. These are all good thoughts to keep for when times are bad.

a confluence of events

I am signed up for both Iron Craft and 10 for Tuesday. While there are other things I signed up for this year, these are my primary bloggy things to do (not that you can tell by the number of Iron Craft things I've finished this year).

For Iron Craft the challenge was flowers, and my thinking about flowers so influenced my 10 for Tuesday that I thought I was supposed to write about flowers. Baka.

I haven't made a choker in nigh on forever. Usually when I make a choker I bead weave, which I also haven't done in forever (I found one of my looms with a pattern already strung on it, but I don't remember the gist of the pattern. I think I was doing braille pictorially, but did not see any notes conveniently next to the loom).

This time I knit. I knit a cabbage rose from Knitting on the Edge (by the way, does anyone have a copy of this pattern that has the leaf instructions for the Cabbage Rose?) out of leftover Madeline Tosh sock yarn. I then created stamen with random seed beads, because I was too lazy to get up and find the gold and yellow beads). I sewed a strip of lace onto a black satin ribbon and sewed on black snaps (incorrectly the first time. Please tell me I'm not the only one who regularly sews her snaps on wrong). I positioned the flower over the snap and sewed it into place.

A single evenings worth of work.

 
A better picture though still dark. What were we thinking this morning?

In 10 for Tuesday land, I really would like to talk about my favorite birds.

1. I obviously like penguins. I have a wallet (still in progress, because I'm slow) that has a free form penguin on the front. They are cute, surprisingly loud, and live pretty much in the water.

2. Swans. I especially like the mute swan. It has the most gloriously frivolous plummage of the different swans I've seen.

3 (and 4). Chickadees and Grackles. They remind me of Maine and of wall hangings my mom made.

5. Starlings. I blame Tris's book, because I hadn't really thought about starlings before that.

6. Peacocks. I love the super colorful tail feathers.

7. Mallard Ducks. They were one of the first ducks I could recognize with their snappy markings.

8. Sparrows. I remember being young and watching a sparrow beat a crow (or grackle) for a partial hot dog and bun that we had thrown to the birds. It was the dead of winter when every scrap of food was precious.

9. Owls. I know they are over done, but I love them anyway.

10. Herons and Cranes. I love the long limbed birds (for that matter I love Rhea and Emu, but it is mostly a crossword puzzle thing with those birds).

awesome friends

One of the best things about Facebook is the stuff that everyone finds and shares. Most of these are friends of friends or the people you know that just love certain topics and write and find content for those topics incessantly. While on an off day it is easy to be irritated by the 100 links or posts about the topic, often there are real gems.

Like this one (I love my kooky friends and kooky friends of friends).

   

It makes me as happy as the explanation on Sluggy Freelance 1 million years ago about the difference between Republicans and Democrats. I always want to read it after seeing something political done in a novel way.