Another batch of flower photos.

 

He walks with the weight of the ocean on his shoulders.

October is always a busy month. The weather is usually crisp and clear; neither too hot nor cold. The smell of autumn dances on the tips of our noses. Apples are picked, bread is baked and hot chocolate is sipped from warm stone mugs. The seasons dictate my moods, and I must confess, autumn is my most favorite season.

Growing up in Texas, we don’t see the leaves change colors. The air is still crisp, cool, and has that definitive “fall” scent, but the trees still cling to their leaves like a mother. I always felt sorry for the trees as a child. In the south we don’t have snow to blanket the ground, or ice to freeze it. It’s relatively warm in comparison. Instead of the leaves blazing bright scarlets, golds and ochres, they shrivel to brown and eventually crumple to dust; going wherever it is leaves go. It was almost as if when each leaf fell, the tree would shudder, crying its misery that winter was coming.

The smell of my mother’s apple crisp baking in the oven brings back those memories of Texas. I get homesick often. But now that I’m grown, and living in New Hampshire, somehow autumn feels whole. Apple and pumpkin picking have a whole new meaning. Hay rides and Halloween still hold the same wonder, and the harvest moon is even more spectacular contrasted amongst the maples and spruces of New England.. I suppose you could attribute this to my being a mother, but forgive my cliche, I feel I’ve always been a child at heart.

I have not been idle. Indeed these hands have wrought the wonders that are cooking, baking, hugging, tickling, painting, photographing and knitting. I also picked up Elizabeth Zimmerman’s “Knitter’s Almanac” and after having only read the first paragraph, I’ve already fallen in love with this woman. I’m a bit of an anglophile, so forgive my prejudice as she is British. I would encourage anyone, knitter or not, to pick up this book and read it. My local Barnes & Noble didn’t have a copy of “The Opinionated Knitter”, much to my dismay, but I shall eventually obtain a copy soon.

So, on the knitting note, I’ll share with you my current projects that I’ve photographed. My projects change like the seasons, but hopefully I’ll finish them.

This is a love/hate project. The pattern is One Row Lace Scarf by turvid. I juts fell in love with the simple lace pattern. I absolutely love the yarn and the colors and the pattern. However, it has been very slow going. I’m not sure if it’s the yarn or the needles or both, but knitting for an extended period of time has been difficult. I suppose one day I should finish it.

I’m also knitting turvid’s Slouched Tuva Hat, but it’s slow going as well. No pictures as yet.

My next project is this insanely easy pattern No More Plastic Bag, Thank You or Nest Tote from the 2nd Floor. It’s a very fast knit and quite mindless. I bought some navy blue dye thinking that would be the perfect thing this bag needs, but I’m not sure.

This project is actually finished! It’s Arcana Vitae’s Dice Bag of Glory! with adorable little Cthulhus holding tentacles together. It was my first stranded (or Fair Isle) knitting project and I did mess up quite a bit. Some of the Cthulhus got puckered due to my contrasting color’s tension being too tight. I also changed the bottom of the bag; instead of making a swatch and picking up the stitches, I just staggered a bunch of increases to get to the amount of stitches needed for the Cthulhus. It resulted in a rather large bag for dice, but I’m still proud of it. It was also my first time knitting on double pointed needles, which wasn’t as intimidating as I’d thought.

Close-up of the Cthulhus. Aren’t they adorable?

Close-up of the edging I crocheted. The pattern didn’t call for a shell edging, but I felt it needed something else. I know EZ disdains crocheted edgings, and I normally do as well, but it just felt right.

Last on the list is my new baby. No, not from my womb. It’s my new (used) camera: a Minolta X-370 that I can’t shut up about. I bought her off craigslist for $25. She came with a 1:3.5-5.5 28-100mm zoom lens, which is pretty decent, and is in close to immaculate condition. I’ve used up a roll and a half of film trying her out and can’t wait to get the film developed.

I named her Athena, after my favorite Greek goddess. Freya (Norse goddess of beauty) was a close second, but Athena is also the goddess of weaving, so it just made sense to me.

 

I talk to the wind, but the wind does not hear.

It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?

Time is precious and life has a way of slipping between our fingers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing; especially if you’re laughing.

I have many things to show you, but no knitting projects. I bought some circular needles and plan to knit a hat, but I need more practice; and more practice means boring swatches. I have not been fruitless, though.

In fact, I’ve been keeping myself rather busy between doing homework, housework and child wrangling. I could tell you the many, many joys of medical coding or perhaps potty training is more your style, but I’d blow your collective minds; so I won’t.

I have many pictures to show you instead.

First on the list are my paintings/sketches. I’ve taken up a paintbrush again: something I haven’t done since I was about 12. It’s rather therapeutic. I’m addicted to watercolors (or in my case: watered down acrylics). Which is pretty much the same thing, by the way. And yes, I started with acrylics. Why? Because cleaning up oils is a pain in the ass and I don’t have the time or the space or the 50 billion hands it would take to peel my 3 year old away from my art. I have a tiny apartment and only so many places to store my art before my son destroys it. And for your information, acrylics really aren’t that hard. So there.

Acrylic on 8″x10″ raw canvas

Acrylic on 8″x10″ raw canvas. I have yet to finish this one, as I long ago lost inspiration.

Acrylic on a big raw canvas (I forget the dimensions). Excuse the crappy picture.

Watercolor sketch on paper.

Watercolor sketch on paper.

Watercolor sketch on paper.

Watercolor sketch on paper.

 

Saturday Blog Dump

I am so very sorry to those of you who read this! I promised an update that I didn’t deliver last week, and I feel terrible. Fear not, for I am here with much to discuss with you. I have my cup of tea, Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack playing softly in the background, and my fingers are poised ever so delicately over the keyboard so as to reveal all that has been happening. Let us begin.

First is a bib I knit a friend of mine for her surprise baby shower. She’s due in October and has one beautiful daughter already. Another girl is on the way and I wanted to knit something simple and cute, but practical. What better way to accomplish this than a bib? I took [much] inspiration from another knitting blog, Kris Knits. Hers came out so much more polished than mine, but I’m still fairly proud of my handiwork. The thread I embroidered with apparently is not color-fast (i.e. it doesn’t bleed in water), but babies are messy and purple dye probably won’t be the only stain on it eventually. I also bought a onsie and hat from the Dwell Studio line at Target.

Second, my raw silk yarn came in finally! It’s recycled yarn, so I feel good about the purchase I made. I saw a blog post about a Crocheted Basket over at The Purl Bee, and I knew I had to crochet it. It feels good alternating between crocheting and knitting. Sometimes my brain gets a little tired, so the switch up seems welcome to my mind. I tend to crochet faster, as well, so my projects go by quicker and I feel more accomplished. I haven’t crocheted much of it as yet, but I can show you the yarn. The yarn is a little pilled, but that was to be expected from something recycled. It still is 100% raw silk and I just love it.

Have I made you fall in love with yarn yet?

Lastly, my newest knitting project: the Cthulhu Dice Bag of Glory! As I mentioned, my husband and I play Arkham Horror, a board game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. We hold monthly gaming nights with our friends and try to make it as interesting as possible. I even make snacks that are H.P. Lovecraft themed: Cthulaid (green Kool-Aid; obviously Cthulhu), Miskatonic (seltzer water and Sprite dyed purple; obviously Miskatonic), Ithaqueso (cheese dip; from Ithaqua) , Dagonoms (mozzarella sticks; from Dagon), and Pie-Go (a peanut butter pie that is the best pie ever; from Mi-Go). If all of this is gibberish to you, then I implore you to at least read H.P. Lovecraft. He is one of the greatest American authors and of course one of the greatest horror writers of all time. Have I geeked you out enough yet? I haven’t made much progress; I only spent an hour knitting tonight. But it’s my first time knitting in the round, and I’m pretty proud of myself. It took me a couple of tries to get started, but it’s been fun actually. Knitting in the round used to scare me, but I think some socks are next on the list.

Sorry for the crappy pictures, but it’s late. I hope to work more on this tomorrow. I tweaked the pattern a lot, though. She called for knitting a swatch and then picking up the stitches within the swatch, and honestly I tried, but I couldn’t pick up those damn stitches. So I browsed around on the internet and found some bags people had made just by simply increasing stitches. I’ll be working round after round to increase to 70 stitches (or thereabouts) and then follow her pattern from there. It should be an interesting departure from the normal. I’m excited.

Also in the news….my husband and I will be celebrating our 3rd year of marriage tomorrow! We’re not doing anything (that I know of). We have no money and no one to watch our son. Some laundry might happen. And I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. Marriage is awesome, yes?

I  seem to think so.

My husband is a scruffy bastard, but I love him and he’s a wonderful father.

 

Summer is here!

Mmm, summer. Summer is flowers and butterflies and iced tea on the front porch while the sun warms my toes. It’s the smell of freshly mowed grass and that wonderful earthy smell of water after the rain. And all those other cliches.

The weather has been beautiful out lately and I’ve been taking advantage of it! Swimming is the favorite past-time at our house.

Nothing much new on the knitting front. I started a new semester and have a lot of homework and papers and such. I’ll add more pictures of current projects next week. The vest and top are slated for Christmas presents now. I just don’t have the time to finish them right now, and my hands were getting so sore after knitting for hours on end trying to rush to get them done. C’est la vie.

I haven’t much else to update. I did pick up a knitting book at Barnes and Noble the other day that I’ll review next week. I’m still waiting for more yarn to come through the snail mail, so NEXT WEEK (hint, hint) should be pretty busy with updates.

And with that, I’ll let you enjoy some more of my photography. I bought a bouquet of flowers at the grocery store the other day and they were too pretty not to photograph.

 

New Yarn!

As promised, the silk mini skeins came! They’re 100% pure handpainted silk (in a lace/fingering weight) from Silk and Shine on Etsy. I couldn’t be more happier with them. In fact, I’m pretty obsessed with them. See, this is what happens. I love to knit, I really do; but what I love more is yarn. I collect yarn like my apartment is a museum. If there is a surplus of money at anytime, my husband will ask me, “What do you want to do with it?” and I will [almost] always answer, “Yarn”.

It’s an obsession, I know. I think more of the reason I’m obsessed with hoarding yarn is because I have no knitting books, or I can’t buy enough yarn to finish a project I really want to do. Same with these mini skeins. Although I must say I’ve narrowed it down to knitting a pair of pretty socks or a neck cowl. The socks because I love lace socks and the colors just remind me of summer; the cowl because the colors would just be gorgeous poking out of a coat in the winter. I think a Barnes & Nobles trip is in order soon!

Anyway, onto the yarn! Because you know my blog is more of a picture blog than anything because I do so love photography. And it has been lovely out the past two days.

 

Update Update Update

Updating this thing is kind of a chore when I have nothing to blog about. Things have been slow going around here. I made a good chunk of progress on the Tea Party Top, but nothing on the Cabled Vest. Actually, I did spend quite a few hours trying to rework the cabling pattern for the sweater vest, but realized it was all for naught. Making patterns is not what I do best. My deadline for both these projects is July 11th. I promise I WILL get them done! Anyway, here’s moar progressyness:

That’s it. And you don’t even get a pretty picture because the weather’s been terribly stormy lately, you wankers. All of the stockinette stitches want to make me stab out my eyeballs with my needles. It wouldn’t be so bad if the yarn were more fluid. I’m shaping the yoke right now so there’s lots of k2tog’s and I just want to scream. And I have a WHOLE OTHER SIDE to go. Please call the wahmbulance for me.

In other news, I bought a few skeins of some silk yarn on the cheap from etsy.com and I am SO EXCITED!!! No amount of exclamation points are able to express to you how happy this makes me feel. I feel like a true knitter now, instead of a hack buying from chain stores. This emotion will probably dissipate as soon as I realize no matter what pretty yarn I buy, I’m still a n00b at knitting…..BUT at least I’ll be knitting in style. Proper.

I’m really trying my hardest to make this update as interesting as possible. Can you tell?

Hmm, my birthday is coming up. This Sunday, actually. I’ll be turning the big Two Five. Oh yeah. But I won’t be getting a discount on my car insurance. Since my husband turned 25 before I did, I already got that discount. LOSERS. I have no more big, drunken milestones. I feel like an old bag now. Where’s my face cream?

Speaking of my husband, he came back with a few games today: Ghostbusters, Prototype and Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition (our old Oblivion CD had some carvings etched into it thanks to our 360; and yes I still play Oblivion). We traded in my DS Lite and all my games because I never play it; and really, what games do I really forsee myself buying for the DS in the future? The DSi had a lukewarm reception and I doubt we’ll be purchasing it in the future. Sorry, Nintendo.  I still want a Wii, though.

That’s really all I got, aside from cooking, cleaning and potty training. Not for me, though: my son. He pees pretty much every time I time put him on the potty (mostly) without a fuss. I need to get more consistent about it, though. And I really wish he could learn to aim, instead of spraying me in the face. But that’s underwhelming news, no?

I guess I’ll leave you alone now. Here, have a picture. Enjoy me smirking.

Whooo!

 

Knitting Projects: Tea Party Top and Cabled Sweater Vest

It’s been seasonally rainy as of late and been quite boring around the house. I can’t say I’ve been knitting a whole lot, but I do have projects that I’ve been working on.

The first is a top for my niece’s birthday from Lion Brand Yarn called the Tea Party Top. I thought it was the sweetest thing and knew just the yarn to use for it! It’s from Naturally Caron and is a merino blend called Country in Coral Lipstick. It’s been a tad to tight to knit with on my size US 7 needles, but the softness and the sheen of this yarn are outstanding. I will definitely be buying this yarn again. The pattern is knitting up quick; I really haven’t been working on it as much as I should! There’s only two stitches used: the stockinette and the garter stitch. Another version of this top has a lace pattern below the empire waist, but with time constraints I opted for the easier, though no less prettier, one. Here’s my progress so far:

My other project is a cabled sweater vest for my nephew’s birthday. It’s also a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. I had actually made loads of progress on this, but had to rip it completely due to a huge mistake on my part. It’s my first cabled anything and the pattern has been pretty easy considering how long I’ve been knitting. I’m thinking of making some small changes to the pattern; maybe adding in another cable or something else interesting in the middle. Perhaps a crocheted car or train just might do the trick. In any case, I have all the yarn I need I just need the motivation now. The gray yarn is an acrylic/wool blend and it is an absolute joy to knit with! The pattern calls for size US 8 needles and I swear my stitches just glide so much faster on my needles with this yarn. It’s called a “tweed” yarn, but I don’t really see anything “tweed” about it other than the brown flecks here and there. The cream colored yarn is your typical cotton that I’ll be using for the rib stitch. The pattern just calls for it on one row around the openings, but I’m leaning more toward striping it on the rib stitch. So many choices! Anyway, here’s the yarn picks. I had to desaturate them to get the right color of gray. My camera was all about picking up the blues.

 

Bawllz!1

Now that I have your [ahem] attention, I want to share with you my passion: yarn. It’s really more of an obsession. I frequent local craft and yarn stores, buying up skeins with no particular project in mind. Sometimes I just drop in the store to look at and feel different yarns. If I had more money, and a house, one room would be dedicated solely to my knitting and I would have a vast expanse of wall spilling over with the delicate threads of wool, cotton and cashmere. This is my dream, in any case.

So with that in mind, I’d like to share with you my most precious yarns that I can’t quite seem to knit into something.

The first is a 100% cotton sport weight yarn I found in a bargain bin at a local yarn shop. The threads are heavily spun together, but delicate enough for a larger lace project. It was made in Greece, and the color is reminiscent of the grapes and vineyards there. Not that I’ve been to Greece, mind you, but the color was so vibrant I couldn’t let it go to waste!

The next skein is a store-bought brand at a craft store. It’s a fingerling weight and intended for socks, but I have something else in mind for it; what, I really don’t know, but just not socks. Again, I was drawn to the vibrancy of the colors. I have a soft spot for bold colors and these reminded me of candy stores from days gone by. Perhaps I should knit up a child’s toy with it.

This skein is a dream as well. It’s a Lion Brand Homespun yarn, in Lagoon, I believe. As you can see, it’s another bold color! I just can’t help myself it seems. The color is very understated, I must say. At first it looks to be a solid teal, but upon closer inspection there’s purples and maroons mixed in. It really is gorgeous and reminds me of a mermaid’s tail. I crocheted a beret out of it and have yet to figure out what to do with the rest.

The last skein is by far my absolute favorite. The color is a beige-gray and is very understated, but what it lacks in color it makes up for in texture. The yarn itself begs to be touched. It’s a 100% organic merino wool and is simply divine. I consider cashmere my favorite of all wools, but this has far outweighed cashmere. I can’t put it down and can’t bring myself to make anything out of it. Such is my curse!

 

I believe it’s time I make my debut…

Introductions are probably the hardest thing about blogging. In one fell swoop I must mesmorize your attention and declare myself unique among the many, many denizens of the internet. How do most bloggers accomplish this? By a little old trick we call the “FAQ”. Let’s get started.