NOBODY LIKES ME
EVERYBODY HATES ME
GUESS I'LL GO BUY YAAAAARRRNN!!!
BIG FAT FUZZY YARN
SMALL SKINNY SOCKY YARN
LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTSA YAAAARRRNNNNN!!!!!
::scowl::
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Aaaahhh, that's better. :)
I am back to having access to a camera!!! Yay!
Okay so first things first, we've had a pretty awesome week, baseball-wise.
Oh, yeah.
Ken and I at Game One of the 2007 World Series, which our beloved Sox won for the second time in three (and, like, 90) years.
As I write there is a HUYUGE parade of Duck Boats carrying our Hometown Heroes travelling immediately outside the window of my office. I, however, am watching it from home, which is where I'm working today. A few pictures (of the television) of that:
Here is Kevin Yoooooouuuuuuuukkkilis, and what you can't see is that in this picture he is right outside the building where my collegiate a cappella group recorded our album in 2001 on Boylston.
And some photos of the Dropkick Murphys playing on a flatbed truck, with my Baseball Boyfriend Papelbon dancing and acting adorable in the kind of way that would truly irritate me if it was anyone else. :)
Yes, I took those off my television. I wish I was there but, alas, I have to work today. And yes, I really am working, just wanted to take a little blog break and write an as un-Jenny-like post as I have ever written.
What an amazing city, man... I've never heard of a celebration like this for any other baseball team. Any kind of team, really. I think all of the people in Boston are at City Hall Plaza right now, watching Papelbon do a fake Irish jig in a kilt while the Dropkicks play Shipping up to Boston, Tessie and Dirty Water.
OH! AND! Ken and I flew to Ohio this past weekend for a wedding and who sat next to us but Josh Beckett's mom! No lie! She was in the aisle, Ken was in the middle and I had the window! She offered me an Altoid! See, Ken and I were both wearing Boston hats and when we sat down she asked if we were Boston fans. We said yes and she kind of half whispered, half laughed "I'm Josh Beckett's mom." We kind of half smiled and wondered why anyone would say that. What a weird joke. So then as we touched down (that's when she gave me the Altoid!) I joked, "So you're Josh Beckett's mom, huh?" and she was like, "Yep! Sure am." "Wait. Really?!" "Yeah. Want to see some ID?" Ken said, "Uh. Yes."
That was kind of the highlight of the trip. That and seeing an actual, real live DeLorian. Ken rolled down the window and screamed "HEY! DOES THAT THING HAVE A FLUX CAPACITOR IN THE BACK?!?" But, I mean, the wedding was nice, too...
Okay, so no, I haven't forgotten this is a knitting blog.
Please excuse the previous burst of pseudo testosterone. Back to the stitches.
Currently on the needles we have the Boogie vest from Knitty. It's coming along alright. At the same time I'm looking forward to having it done so I can wear it and I'm also totally realizing that it will probably be exceptionally unflattering on me, lol. Meh, if it's that bad I'll give it away and call it a hand-knit gift. :D The color in this photo isn't entirely representative. The real color is much more of a deep olive.
Also on the needles: I'm making arm/wrist warmers from the pink and green yard I dyed during the AWESOME weekend at Martha's Vineyard with some of the closer friends I've made over the past year in my open, public, weekly knitting group. As an aside on that topic, I don't feel guilty about making friends with other knitters. In fact, I look forward to forming more friendships from that knitting group.
So here's how the warmers are shaping up. I'm using that slip/knit/slip thingy that you do during heel flaps. Sorry, no idea what it's called. :) I'm really psyched about how the colors are forming with the exception of one REALLY weird anomaly.
Both sides:
As I'm knitting these using the Magic Loop and I haven't been rotating it, I've got a consistant split down each side. One is alright and flows well, but on the other side the colors split at EXACTLY that point where I change needles. It is the weirdest thing, it looks like a badly planned seam, but it's just how the colors have worked out.
Bizarre, huh? Really, I'm not that worried about it. We'll see how the other one comes out.
Last weekend Ken and I relaxed and unwound from our very hectic Housewarming Party by going apple picking in North Andover. We had a really nice time and last night I made a pie from our apples. Yum!
My artful photography:
My gorgeous boyfriend:
My favorite picture from the day:
Awwwwwww...
GO SOX!
Enormously inspired, yet again, from the lovely, creative and talented Librarian-In-Training, I have decided that creating a list of knitting goals is EXACTLY what I need to do right now! It is much more important than actually, say, working (not actually much to do right now) or PACKING for the move first thing tomorrow morning. I can't really put a time limit on these goals, pretty much rendering them useless, but at least it will help me to organize my knitterly thoughts.
1. Finish 2nd Kool Aid Charade sock
Once I've done that I can then compare the first (knit on US 2s) and the second (US 3s) and decide which one I like better, then I can get started on...
2. Knitting 3rd Kool Aid Charade sock
...using what's left of the ball (heh, ball) and probably having to unravel a bit of the reject. If I do not have to unravel the reject, I will felt it and make lovely flower lapel pins from it to place on my black Navy pea coat for the winter.
3. Finish the Boogie vest
I graciously offered to do a Boogie KAL with a newbie knitter friend of mine, then got so focused on finishing the back panel that I zoomed off on my own and finished it while the poor girl was still struggling with the 2 inches of 2x2 ribbing at the bottom. I'm a bad friend. :(
However, now that I've started it, it really just makes the most amount of sense for me to just finish it, right? Besides, now I will have already been through the pattern and I can focus more on her knitting next time we get together! See? It all works out!!
Ahem.
4. Set the twist on my blue handspun and get started on the mittens
Um, that one is self explanatory
5. Do SOMETHING with the ugly Kool Aid dyed superwash Knitpicks Bare
Seriously, it looks like a stoned Dead Head dyed it. I need to try to fix it or, worst comes to worst, just overlay it with something super dark.
6. Start the socks for my Rhapsody-in-Hot-Pink Knitpicks Peruvian that I dyed with, you guessed it, Kool Aid!
I think I will be knitting the Falling Leaves socks from Knitty... I think that pattern will look gorgeous on that yarn. Though I believe I may need to purchase a new set of needles for this one.
7. Finish Callisto!
Duh! I am so excited for this wrap! I put it down to knit roommie-Nathan socks and never picked it up again! Gah!
That's about it for now. Of course there are countless other projects both on the needles and ready to spring to the needles, but I can't focus on those right now. I need to get this stuff done first!
If you're REALLY lucky, I'll post UPDATES! GASP! OH, and just to let you know, a plain wooden dowel makes a fine Nostepinne. :)
So, in other news, today is my very last day as an apartment dweller. My very last night sleeping alone. Tomorrow morning, at the buttcrack of 9am, I am moving out and into the new house. I am so excited, even though I do LOVE sleeping alone sometimes, and even though I will miss living in Boston more than you can imagine. But like I always say in my supreme wit, as much as I love Boston I love Ken more. (Square.)
BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!
(Dear readers, this is Jenny's wheel speaking. Please excuse the above horrendous joke. She's very stressed out right now and I think she might be losing it a little. I keep standing here, looking beautiful, trying to tempt her into more time working on me since it will make her feel better but she just keeps running around the apartment frantically pointing at things she will at some point need to pack and not packing them. Her hair is a MESS, too, it's flying all over the place. But hey, I just notice these things because I'm a wheel, and noticing flyaway fiber is just what I do.)
WHAT?!? WHAT?!!??? TWO POSTS IN TWO DAYS?!!? That just doesn't make any sense.
So the Cherry/Pink Lemonade yarn turned out a beautiful slightly variegated deep pink. I love it. So does the yarn. In fact, the yarn itself felt so warm and fuzzy about the color that it just kind of up and felted itself a little bit. Like a big self-hug. Oh yeah.
I'm hoping that in the ball-winding process I might be able to pry it apart from itself and salvage the yarn. I think I can, it just might not be so easy. Oh, I so desperately need a swift and winder... For now I think I'll use a chair back (or someone's hands) and a homemade nostepinne (read: wooden dowel from the hardware store) to try to create my own probably very messy version of a center pull ball. We'll see how that works. :)
Meanwhile, I am finished with the roommate's socks, I just have to fix one little thing. I've moved onto the second of my first Kool Aid dyed pair, however there's a slight change. I knit the first sock on size 2 needles and it is a SUPER tight knit. I'm knitting the second on 3s. I figure if I like it, I'll finish it and knit a third on 3s and then just do something fun with the tighter sock. Rip it out and make something cool, or just felt it and make cute little flowers to put in funky places. Oooh, that's a good idea... It would make a fine lapel pin, I do think.
So I'm realizing that I may have to miss the next two OR THREE of my regular Stitch and Bitch meetings! BUMMIN'! It's just gonna be a crazy month I'm entering into. Moving into a new house, moving in with that guy... Lots to do. I have two trips planned for October. One very exciting one to Martha's Vineyard with ma bitches, and then to EXCITING OHIO for a wedding. I have to SING at this wedding. This makes me nervous.
To soothe my nerves I think I'm going to sign up for the February Sock Club at Yarn 4 Socks. I figure if I sign up and pay for it now, I'll forget about it entirely and come February, my birth month, I'll be surprised with a nice little yarny package!
Yay for little yarny packages!
Which reminds me, the boyfriend and I were having a (very serious, of course) conversation about dong cozies (koozies?) on the T a few weeks back, and what color he'd like his to be, were I ever to knit him one. I said, "Baby pink?" He said, "Please. Royal blue." I told him Royal blue was simply out of the question but that I might consider Navy blue, to which he replied "Canary!"
So it's been kind of a frustrating day. Coworker issues.
I'm taking an hour for lunch so that I can dye some yarn with Kool Aid. I figure nothing to calm the irritated soul like a little childlike play and Carly Simon's "Into White" album.
Currently I am dyeing KnitPicks Bare 100% Peruvian Wool (fingering weight, of course- I have become a sock knitting addict) with two packets of Cherry and two packets of Pink Lemonade. I'm hoping for a little variation, but if the two colors decide to blend perfectly and create a gorgeous bright pink/red, I'll be more than happy with that.
I also want to take my recent FAILURE and futz with it a little. It came out like really bad tye dye, Ice Blue Raspberry, Changin' Cherry (which, it turns out, is emerald green) and Jamaica (what the hell does Jamaica taste like? Salt, dirt and BO? Meh, it's red) with a lot of bleeding into one another (yay, brown!) and some white spots. Yeah. Not pretty. Looks like a Grateful Dead concert, and not in a good way. I've decided to add a nice little overlay of Lemonade over it. I figure that's the least offensive color to mix around.
My hope is the red will turn slightly more orange, the green will turn brighter and the blue will turn a bit more like a spring green. The white will turn to yellow and the brown... well... the brown will just get browner. Which, actually, sounds like it could be even more hideous. Wot-eva, we'll see what happens. What are the successes without the failures, right?
Currently I'm writing this in my non-knitterly blog, which I'm realizing is just wrong. Hold on, lemme cutnpaste.
Ahhhh, here we are.
So I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason I NEVER update this blog is because I feel I need pictures for each post. I don't have a digital camera, I just use that tall guy's, so as we are not yet living together it's difficult for me to actually carve out time to take pictures, upload them and bring them over here.
In the interest of being more faithful to this here knittersome blog, I hereby declare myself free from the obligation of posting pictures!
Now that that's been taken care of (ooh! I think only two more minutes in the nuker!) I'd like to share some unbelievably exciting news with you which, GASP, hey! It actually comes with a picture!
Ahem:
We move in in two weeks! LESS THAN!!!! It is absolutely amazing to me how much buying a house (um, well, senor tall guy buying a house that I get to live in) inspires me to be every ounce the domestic goddess I so emphatically scorned as a super-liberal 7th grader discovering all the patriarchal injustices of our society.
Yeah, well, she AND her bad perm are gone and now I just can't wait to bake and CLEAN (WHAT?!?) and spin and knit in my new house.
First off, though, I'm painting my room. I have claimed the one very small extra bedroom as MY room. Well, what I call it is really dependent on the context of the conversation. If our friend Betsey is visiting, it's Betsey's room, if Jack is visiting, it's Jack's room. If anyone else is visiting, it's the Guest room. If no one is visiting and I'm doing something crafty in there, it's the Craft Room and if I just want to get the hell away, it becomes MY ROOM.
Ken can have the garage. ;) Kidding, the rest of the house will happily be his, I just want a room I can paint a bright, happy, funky color of appley green and sew in, with a bed that fits my back, should it ever go out again. Or, rather, when it eventually goes out again.
Ok kids, the yarn is done. Maybe someday I'll post pictures.
Okay so that title is straight out of Are You There God, It's Me Margaret and I know that didn't escape a single one of you, but WOT-EVA BECAUSE I GOT MY WHEEEEEEEEEEEELLLL!!!
Seeeeeeee, my lovely boss decided to give us all a sweet-ass bonus, which just happened to be enough to buy me my dream-first-wheel... a Kromski Minstrel in a lovely walnut finish! Beautiful!
I have been dreaming and lusting after this wheel for months and months and months. Literally dreaming about it. I have never wanted something so badly (cue the Def Leppard). Wasting no time, that night I drove down to Middleboro, MA, about an hour south of Boston, to see the GORGEOUS Cheryl at Spin-A-Bit, to buy my wheel.
And ooohohohohoooo my lawdy is she beautiful... We made sweet, sweet love aaaalll niiiiight looooonnnggg...
The following are selections from the near-pornographic photoshoots I've done of my wheel and my first skeins of yarn. (You're a demure little kitten. NOW YOU'RE A TIGER!) There were so many photos, these are only the good ones. Sure, I could have narrowed it down even further, but ummmm, it was a big moment and it's my blog so I win!
First, I present to you... The Wheel (she is as yet unnamed)
Ahhhh...
Here we have the very first yarn I've ever spun- this was made from the combed merino top I got at the Gore Place Sheep and Wool Festival this Spring with my knittas
Plus some lovely brown Romney wool that I got at the MaS&W, of which I do not have a picture.
I spun 'em (having, mind you, no effing clue what I was doing) and then plied 'em, and this is what I got:
Still on its bobbin:
And here we have Ken, TBF, displaying and presenting the bobbin:
Letting The Yarn Commune With Nature
And finally, here are the two skeins I finished last night, which will eventually become light mittens, I think. Oh, they are so soft! This was spun from the hand-dyed bat I got from Cheryl when I bought my wheel.
Never had ONE lesson! Whaat?! Whaaaaat?!?:
I am such a happy Jenny right now! What's funny is that my boss, when he was but a wee long-haired, semi-mulleted bass player in the late 80's/early 90's, had a band called Spinning Jenny. IT'S LIKE IT WAS MEANT TO BE.
So now, I'm still knitting my roommate's socks (big man-feet+stockinette=NEVER ENDING SOCKS), but I have so many projects I want to get started on! At least I know I won't be spending money on yarn anytime soon. Maybe a few more sets of needles, though... And MORE ROVING!!!
Sooooo, me and my knittas got together recently to do something we've been dreaming of for months now... To Dye.
I began the very exciting day by sending them a clip of Keifer Sutherland in the movie Flatliners saying "Today is a good day to dye." Because of course he was talking about permanently adding pigmentation in various shades to skeins of natural yarn... Well, as were we, my friends... as were we.
So, first let's start off with the undyed yarn (Bare 100% Merino fingering weight sock yarn from Knitpicks):
Aaaaaaand, the pictures post-Kool Aid:
The darkest color is Tropical Punch, the lighter pink is a mix of Pink Lemonade and Cherry and the orange is, of course, Mandarina Tangerine.
Pretty kick ass, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, I'm knitting a pair of socks for my awesome new roommate Nathaniel Daniel. He picked the yarn which, at first, I was not a fan, but now that it's knitting up I'm really liking it! I've decided to really go off the reservation and try a TOE UP pattern! Crizazy, y'all. I'm loving knitting this way, btdubs.
Here's the picture so far:
Okay so not a very beefy entry, granted, but I've not been in a blogging mood lately, so I'm just happy I put anything in!
Wheel Update: Still don't have one! But I'm hoping in the next month I will get my wheel. Hoohhhh I can't wait...
