Visually stunted entry

I pretty much suck at keeping this thing regularly updated, unless "regular" can mean "once about every month or so." In that case, I'm just aces!

I do not have access to a camera right now, but whatevs, I say! Whatevs to that, because I'm going to post ANYWAY.

I'd like to begin by humbly touting my own spectacular genius. Now, it may be that every knitter this side of Knitsville knows this trick, but I have never heard it. All I've heard about this is "Well, there's no real way to tell how much you'll need, so you pretty much just have to guess. Try, like, 3 times the length. Hopefully you won't run out."

What am I talking about? Only the great enigma that is knowing how much yarn to allot for the Long Tail Cast On. O, you nefarious dog! How do I be certain that I'm not about to cast on 293 stitches when I truly need 297? How to be sure that I won't have a useless two and a half feet of $25-per-skein-alpaca left hanging limp and loose?

I, my dear knitterly friends, have figured out the secret. It was an inspiration so glorious that even my two non-knitty roommates were absolutely DYING to hear me explain it.

Are you ready? Are you worthy?

OF COURSE YOU ARE!!!

Simply WRAP the yarn around the needle as many times as you need stitches, then leave a little bit extra for error. You really won't need much extra, since my method here is FOOLPROOF. All you need to do at this point is to make sure the tail is the part wrapped around your forefinger. That's if you're right handed. I have no idea how you crazy but creative left handers do anything in this world. I have tried and tried to figure out how my sister contorts her whole body around a pen over a piece of paper and all that comes out is beautiful handwriting. I just don't get it. (Honestly? I'm just jealous I don't belong to the Left Handed Club that several of the women in my family belong to. But that's neither here nor there.)

Anyway, I thought, as I wrapped, "No. This is way too obvious." I thought, as I cast on, "This won't work at all." But then BOOM, there I was. I had cast on 160 stitches and had a solid and respectable 5 inches of tail. Jimmy Hoffa, here I come.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox that I was knitting for my boyfriend Ken came out great, except that there's only one, it's not THAT great, and a guy at work said, "Uh, does Ken have cankles?" He does not, but neither does the sock I knitted for him indicate that he would, it is simply that the guy at work was being a jerkface. Jerkface Marc, is what we call him sometimes.*

*That's not true at all. Marc is actually quite sweet. Except in this case. He really was just being a jerkface.

Anyway, the Red Sock was my Very First Sock, knit without pattern or measurements or enough time to make two before the birthday, so given how ridiculously stupid it was for me to even attempt something like that, I think it came out quite well, actually. He seems pretty pleased with it, at least. I was fortunate that it fit, but not perfectly enough for him to want me to make him another one, because the boy has GARGANTUAN feet and it would have taken me another 2 weeks of constant knitting when really I was just itching to start my own pair of socks from my first skein of beautiful Mind's Eye hand dyed yarn. When I have access to a camera again I'll post it.

Speaking of my first skein of beautiful Mind's Eye hand dyed yarn, why, I did complete those socks! Also without a pattern, but this time made perfectly for my feet.

Wow, this really would be a great time for pictures, huh? Well, you'll just have to imagine. Picture a self striping yarn of subtle kiwi green and a gorgeous deep wine color (it doesn't look like vomit, it's actually quite pretty), every stripe a different color, however where the purple turns to green there's a lightening there of a lighter pink, that swiftly turns to white JUSTFORASECONDANDTHEN back to green. Whew. Well, that pinky part pooled in this really cool way so as to spiral down the leg, and then again down the foot. It was pretty damn cool.

Um, you'll see them, um, someday. I really need a camera. :)

Currently I am working on a surprise wrap for my mother, based off the piquant blue version of the Tie One On pattern by nona, only I have a different (much easier) pattern that I concocted about an hour after I got home with the yarn that I bought. I was at the anniversary sale at Mind's Eye Yarns in Porter Square when I saw this gorgeous yarn from across the room. I immediately put everything I had in my overloaded arms back so that I could buy enough of this to make something beautiful for my dear mother. I had absolutely no intentions of making anything for her (I'm such a damn lovely daughter, aren't I?) but I saw this yarn and it made me think of a particular challenge she is trying to overcome in her life, so I decided on the spot that I needed to make her something to give her the confidence she needs to overcome it. I thought of how she would wear it, whatever it was, where she would wear it, whatever it was, and I came up with the idea that it needed to be a wrap made from this yarn. It is Cascade Eden Madil in Sprite Green. Hooohhhh it's so lovely. Knits up like a soft, shiny, drapey dream and I lurve it with all my heart. Hopefully she will too.

The lovely and amazing Lucy at Mind's Eye showed me how to knit two socks on one needle while I was there at the sale, so the SECOND I'm done with this wrap I will be beginning my second pair of socks, made with (again) hand dyed yarn dyed by Lucy herself (Really, I should get paid for how awesome I'm making her and her lovely yarn out to be, except that it's true and I do it because I love). This time I chose a gorgeous varigated green. A woman at the shop looked at it in the light and said it looked like "spun grass" which made me fall in love with it all over again. It's so pretty! I will have such lovely feet when sock wearing season comes around again! :)

Once again, pictures to come. Sigh...

The best news of all is that I have a lesson with Lucy on Friday afternoon and she is going to show me how to SPIN! I will have the opportunity to spin on several Ashfords, though sadly not the Traveller, which is one of my top choices for the position coveted by countless hunks of wood across the globe of First Wheel, however she does have the Traditional, which is another of my top choices. I just can't wait.

On the Stanky front, I only really got to go knit with the Stinkers for about 15 minutes last Wednesday, (and I was three sheets to the wind when I showed up- last day for a buddy at work equals lots of beer consumed on the corporate dollar at the bar downstairs, if you know what I mean. Which, I'm sure you do since I'm not speaking in any way euphamistically) and this Wednesday, once again, I will not be able to make it, for I will be at Fenway Park for the first night of my Two Night Run of Red Sox games! It's a good week when you get to go to two consecutive Sox games. I may just bring my knitting. I mean, come on, could there BE a better combination? Knitting, beer, Fenway and the love of a good man...

Yeah, but no. Not bringing any yarn to Fenway.

So that's that. A boring and pictureless knitterly post. Thanks for reading, all 3 of you! :)

(Donations toward an acceptable digital camera or wheel can be sent to PO Box 121, Pelham, NH 03076. I also accept Paypal.)