PDXYarnHo Knits

I have a slight social phobia. By slight I mean I have an enormously hard time being around people. Especially people I know. That doesn’t make any sense, does it? I know. Strangers I can deal with because mostly I don’t have to make eye contact or talk to them. People I know.. well, that’s anyone reading this, I guess, I have a harder time with because I always feel that I’m somehow letting y’all down when I’m around, like I’m a big drag.

Not that my upbringing conditioned me at all! Geez.

Tonight, I’m too fat to leave the house. I saw myself in the mirror as I changed to leave for knit night, and got too depressed, so now I’m sitting on the floor typing. That’ll solve it. I think I got spoiled in my apartment having mirrors that only showed from the waist up, at least I couldn’t dwell on what I couldn’t see, right?

so that’s my general predicament. If I’m not actually feeling physically drained (which has been the case quite often recently), usually I still can’t bring myself to leave the house. It’s just so much fun, let me tell you. Tried a shrink, that didn’t help much. But I did stop having the gory accident visions.

So, I guess what I’m saying is I’m sorry I’m not at knit night tonight. Part of me really wants to be there, but a much larger part of me won’t let me go. It’s something I live with every damn day. I’ve got to tell you I would love to know what it’s like to be able to talk to people and relate in a normal healthy way. It was easier when I was closer to average size and working out all the time. Now… not so much. So here I sit. Thanks mom.

In other news, in case you were wondering, there is in fact a brain in my head, and eyeballs too. What there isn’t, though, is any abnormal swelling or deposits that would indicate that my vertigo symptoms are actually related to my inner ear (this is very good news). I haven’t gotten the ‘official’ report, because my ENT’s office scheduled me with the wrong doctor (seriously!) so I haven’t seen mine for the follow up. But I have looked at the MRI results, read the technician’s notes, and asked my chiropractor to ‘decode’ some of the things I didn’t understand. The worst of it looks to be (possibly, won’t know till I talk to the ENT) some scar tissue in my frontal lobe and some sinus buildup. All-in-all, not bad. MRIs are really odd. The machine sounds like mid-ship on a cruise vessel.

So far, of the three docs I’ve now seen about this, the idea that this is a mechanically triggered vertigo seems to be the closest to my symptoms. (the ENT suggested that I had Meniere’s, but there’s no way I could dance on one leg with my eyes closed if that were the case. The GP just wanted to give me drugs, no diagnosis needed.) The vertigo hasn’t totally gone away, naturally, but after my last few neck adjustments I can sleep flat for the first time in years. I look forward to the day when I can once again look up at the stars I know I can dance now, because I went dancing a couple of weekends ago. It was great!

I do miss my muscles. Since being on the weight restriction, my body has turned to a pile of goo. It’s terrible. I tried to pick up a 50lb sack of compost and I couldn’t lift it I had to have V-man pick it up. That does not help the ego. It does help my shoulder muscle, though, which is slowly knitting itself back together. See? i can talk about knitting on my blog! Ha! I also haven’t dislocated either of my shoulders now in several weeks – I really am making progress. You have to lose to gain sometimes, I guess. Maybe when I get back in the gym and stop eating so much I’ll lose the newly-converted-to-fat-muscle before I gain new muscle, and get to be a normal size. Yeah right.

I have been doing some fibery things, though I’ve been largely feeling uninspired by everything. I got a bag of scrap roving that a co-worker had bought from Sheep Shed: it’s a Brown Sheep roving, so it’s mohair and wool, but it’s unblended.

It spun up ok, but the yarn is not plied too well (thanks mostly to distraction) and the singles aren’t even. Because the fiber wasn’t blended, there were several areas where the mohair content was higher than the wool and vice versa; that changed the ease of spinning and other fun things. The brown fibers are all wool and the white is mohair. Weird. The mohair actually came off in clumps at some points, even after drafting!

So I’m going to go over to my co-worker’s house and try out her drum carder on the rest of it to see if I have better luck. It’s very soft, and I love the color, so I’m not entirely displeased with it I might just make a hat out of it.

Well, it’s shower time, and V-man just got home with a headache, so I guess I need to go play nurse!

Tags: Not Knitting, Spinning, social knitting by Kerin
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A little, at least!

We are all moved. Things aren’t totally perfect yet; we have a few boxes yet to unpack, and we haven’t painted any of the bathrooms yet. But overall, we’re in! A little sneak peak..

Woo!

My office is pretty awesome. I managed to fit all of my yarn, beading stuff, metalsmithing stuff, sewing and fabric and com puter and office-y and all of my other craft stuff into this one little room. And there’s still more room in there! Wicked. The only thing that isn’t in there is my spinning wheel and fiber – that’s all in the living room, right when you walk in the front door.

I’m so flipping exhausted from the move. Sleeping will be pretty nice this weekend, if I manage to get some!

And I have been knitting! My as-of-this-moment-sleeveless sweater has just been dubbed Grape Squishy.

And a back detail, with the little extra lace at the back neck:

It’s done in Malabrigo worsted (squishy) in the Velvet Grapes color (grape). Hence the name, yadda yadda. Dollar-twenty-five please, thankyoucomeagain.

Obviously the body is done. I was going to do the button bands next, but I decided to hold off and just go for the sleeves next. So far they’re four inches of ribbing – not exactly thrilling blog fodder, so I haven’t photographed them yet. They’ll have the same simple lace pattern up the center. I found fabulous buttons for it while I was in Seattle – I can’t wait to wear it! Not to mention it’s taking so little yarn – the body there took about 2-2/3 balls of yarn, and I bought seven total. So I should have enough left over for a matching hat and gloves! It’s so exciting to be knitting again.

I went to the Knit and Crochet Show for work today. It was a lot smaller than I’d expected – but then the only knitting show I’ve been to has been stitches! It was fun, though, to see so much fiber. More fiber than yarn I think. I wasn’t going to buy anything (what with OFFF in two weeks), but I did plunk down a little dough for some lovely Crown Mountain rovings. But that’s all for now. I especially don’t need any more yarn. Seriously. But I actually have to get my spin on if I’m going to let myself buy more spinning fiber!

I think I figured out my spinning issue, possibly – my wheel and its bits are really too lightweight for what I’m trying to do with it. I’m going to try weighting my bobbins and possibly the wheel itself; I’m also planning on getting some plying bobbins to see if that fixes some of my stupid. But we’ll see. If all goes well, i’m going to truck my wheel a whole five houses down to visit Alison and see if she can get me going.

Well, now I must be off to bed. V-man and I bought a bunch of gardening tools tonight, and tomorrow we will wage war on the overgrown yard from hell!

All of this, of course, barring an arrival – my not really sis in law is in labor, and she’s expected to pop tomorrow! We’ll see how Rachel feels about her inevitable entrance into the world. But our cell phones are on, and no definite plans were made, so whenever she’s here we’ll be there! Total craziness.

Tags: General Knitting, Spinning, gardening, social knitting by Kerin
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Don’t believe it. I don’t care what they say about me. I’m a normal, modest, quiet and respectful person. Teh intarwebs, they lie! I never did anything to call attention to myself. As if! You can’t prove anything.

snicker snicker

Tags: Announcement, social knitting by Kerin
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Not that I didn’t intrinsically know, I mean, it’s a woman thing. But I’m getting a niece! my very own little minion life to corrupt enrich. It’s a special job to be an auntie, and well, I’m …special. Now I can start making frilly, ruffly, girlie-tastic pink things – yay! I’ve been waiting for that signal to begin my knitting craze… and now I know, and I have 4 months or so to prepare. Geez, only four months! Aye carumba.

In other news, the PDXKB pins that I’d been working on came in today – and they look awesome! I took a picture, but I’ve been too busy to get it uploaded. I’ve been preparing for the Yarn Harlot’s visit tomorrow – making sure I’m bringing enough knitting, my camera is charged, and I’ve got a very flat friend to bring along. You’ll just have to wait and see!

Well, it’s nearly 1 am. I’m so damn tired. I need to start sleeping regularly.

What a day!

Tags: Announcement, Geek Alert, social knitting by Kerin
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Holy Moly. The time is flying.

My brain is nearly full. Work is going well, but i’m just so busy. I don’t have enough time during the day to get my stuff done, so I’ve been taking work home with me every day – except tonight. I just couldn’t. And I knew I wouldn’t get to it anyway, since I hung out with the Knitbloggers tonight!

I’ve gotten even MORE yummy stitchjones wonderfulness in the past couple of weeks. This yummy delight:

Andes Mint – how totally delicious!!

And today, a beautiful specimen, bestowed upon me by the venerable and kind-hearted Duffy:

She’s doing roving now! Holy pants. This could be dangerous! Four ounces for $10. Seriously people.

But that’s not all I’ve added to my inventory. Let’s just say that during the office move, we had some clearing out to do:

I’ll give you a cookie if you can guess how many balls of yarn that is! I couldn’t believe it either. It’s mostly stuff I probably won’t find a use for any time soon, but there’s a lot of interesting sample stuff and mistakes in there. I like weird stuff. And then there’s the brain skein. What exactly is a brain skein? Well, it’s a ball of bizarre Italian novelty crap that, at first glance, I remarked looked like a brain. And somehow when I got home it was in my stuff. I really don’t know how. Really. It kinda creeped me out actually. The photo doesn’t do it justice.

It looks like a creepy oozing brain.

I think I like it.

So, moving on. I have done a little knitting recently. And by little, I really mean that. Most of my knitting hours are spent on work things, so it’s rare these days that I have time for me. But I did make an excuse to cast on a new pair of socks for myself:

Yeah, they’re a little past cast-on now. I like them. I decided with all of this insanely gorgeous Stitchjones stuff staring me down, I needed to make use of the oldest and least appealing things in my stash so that I wouldn’t feel too guilty diving into the prettiness. So, here are two discontinued and kinda ugly colorways from Blue Moon. As ugly as they are, I think they work well together. They’re much better together than either on their own, so with the leftovers from this pair I’m going to make another pair in the opposite color pattern. I don’t think I’ll use this exact stitch motif, though it is pretty; it’s very bulky and impractical for colder seasons or heavy shoes. And since I don’t wear wool socks as often in the summertime, there’s not much use in too many pair of highly textured socks. But they are darn pretty. The stitch I chose looks like little ears of wheat:

too bad it doesn’t like to be photographed!

I got a good action shot of the Boring Charcoal Socks too:

He’s only had them a few weeks and they’re already pilling like the dickens. It’s crazy how much he really wears them. I’m proud He will be getting many more.

Besides work knitting and a few errant socks, I’ve been working on the Lisa Shrug for Twisted. They gave me this project to do a week before I got hired at KP, and I feel terribly that I haven’t finished yet. The darn thing has been really plagued with weirdness. First of all was the swatch. The gauge was nearly square, and is measured after machine washing – I had to swatch over and over and go up two needle sizes to get it. Even then I had to block the heck out of it to get the row gauge right. I’m thinking about washing it before I sew all the pieces together, but I don’t know. Haven’t decided yet. Anyway, as I was going through, I kept thinking that there was a lot more than meets the eye with this one. It looks really really simple, but I was really having to pay attention to it. Turns out it’s rated “Experienced.” Who knew! It looks good so far, though.

Well, I have a lot left to say, but my time is growing short. I’d have been in bed already but my downstairs neighbor is watching something pretty loud and indiscriminately yelling at her cat, so it’s not very peaceful here at the moment. This too shall pass

Now that I’ve finally got some pics uploaded, I can post about stuff again. So I’ll post again soon But for now, it’s off to dreamland for me.

Tags: General Knitting, general, social knitting, work, yarn by Kerin
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I’m taking a break right now. It’s supposedly my lunch break, yet my lunch is only about 5 minutes long. So, I have 55 minutes to hang out and do whatever. Include blogging

I’ve been diving through wool for the last couple of days. The office is moving, and I’ve been taking inventory of what we have here in the office. It’s been a welcome diversion from pattern errata, I can promise you that.

The heels look awesome:

What I think is really interesting about these is that all of the pooling took place on the instep – the sole is all one-row stripes. How odd! I really like them, though I wish I’d decreased a little more at the ankles.

*insert argh – my site went all bonkers while I was writing this, so I lost the rest of the post… I’m finishing it now that I’m home.*

So I finally picked up the Boring Charcoal Socks again. I’m about two inches into the ribbing now. I don’t think they’re going to be very tall – maybe 5″ of rib.

I also messed up the heel; I started the gusset too far down the foot, and so they didn’t really increase as much as they should have. Because of that the heel flap is really short, and there’s much less room in the heel-to-ankle diagonal than I had hoped. They still fit V-man, albeit tightly, and he said he’d still wear them. So I will power on. I hope to have them off the needles this weekend. Sooner if possible! Why, pray tell?

Because – what could possibly be better than this colorway?

I’ll tell you what – Its name.

I sincerely hope that V-man is as chuffed as I am. I can’t wait to make him socks out of his own colorway! And special thanks to Sharon for doing such an awesome job. YAY!!

I also have to thank Bobbie and Tool man for my brandy-new spinning chair – I haven’t taken a pic of it yet, but I’m so excited to have a chair that fits! Wooooo!

Not to mention, I can’t wait to see the photos she has of all of us knitbloggers stroking, petting, licking and otherwise doing lustful things with Sharon’s new yarns. Of all she brought, I think she went home with one skein. Hehe Not bad!

Well, I actually brought some work home with me tonight (the office is not a concentration-friendly place what with all the moving), so I’m going to go do a little of that and just have a nice relaxing evening.

Tags: social knitting, work, yarn by Kerin
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As long as by natural you mean stash, and by enhancement you mean procuring more of said stash. All you have to do is run into Sharon and her twisted Mary Poppins bag of doom!

I mean, seriously. Was I supposed to resist this?! The colors are just yummmmmmmy. The worsted weight yarn is destined to become a happy flappy hat, I think. It beckons me. The sock yarn might be socks. Or it might not. That depends

And some other sock yarn that is not socks:

Hmmm, wonder what that is? Well, I can’t really say. Soon

So I finally got a good look at what I’d bought at the coast. My Yarn Shop is cramped and kind of dark (especially where this yarn was – she’d just gotten a huge shipment which was in front of these shelves!), but I picked this out and just figured “what the hay.” Turns out it’s fantastic. See?

375 yards of aran weight bliss. I mean, wow. Awesome.

And last but certainly not least, the wonderful fiber I got from Heritage Textile Arts Guild:

I’m not sure what to do with the mogit Romney. I just thought it was so pretty. They had some eesit too, but I had to pick only one. The alpaca is destined to be a hat for V-man. Hopefully we’ll have a winter cold enough for an alpaca hat next year, hehe.

So glad I finally got to hang out with the Knitbloggers again. It was hard to leave early, but there is that whole bedtime issue… sigh. And if I’d stayed any longer I’d have come home with even more yarn! hehe.

Ok, eyes are droopy…. off to bed.

Tags: social knitting, yarn by Kerin
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I love bacon. Love, love love bacon. Bacon makes everything good. Broccoli? Add bacon! Toast? Get that bacon! Donuts? Bacon, bacon bacon. But somehow the good folks at Berlin restaurant didn’t realize that and put this weird “sandwich” thing around my bacon. How dare they! But I still liked it. For it had bacon.

(in case you’re wondering, that’s a pretty standard sized burger bun there. That is abnormally large bacon. But do I complain? Oh no. No no no. For it is bacon, you see.)

So, I got up (too) early and headed out with the lovely lassies of the PDXknitbloggers on a little jaunt over to Yarnia. We didn’t quite overwhelm the place, but we came close! I hadn’t had the chance to take photos of the place last time I went, so I took the opportunity this time.

Here we have some of their pre-blended cones:

The wool selection:

And the winder doohickey, hard at work:

I was a good girl and didn’t buy anything today. I have enough yarn. Seriously! But it was really fun to hang out with all the gals (and finally meet Monica!). Can’t wait till next Wednesday. And to see all of their photos of me and the bacon monster.

I also had lots of traveling time to work on my gloves:

And with the cuffs extended:

It looks like I’ll be able to make convertible mittens and still have plenty of yarn left over. I’ll probably make a headband with it. Sweet!

Anyhoo, I’m pretty beat and also dehydrated from the bacon. (had bacon for breakfast, too) So, I’m gonna have some agua and hang out with the V-man a little. *yawn* And then some coffee would be nice Then, it’s time to tie up the loose ends on that Shibui pattern – ran into Sandy today, and told her I’d be heading her way tomorrow to drop it off.

Tags: general, social knitting by Kerin
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But it’s for a good cause!

I don’t do well sitting down for long periods of time. For some reason even comfy chairs hurt my rear after a while. But sit I did! Went to hang out with the lovely PDX knitbloggers at the Tanasbourne Starbucks. (my spell checker is having a field day with that sentence.) I got there at about 5:30 so that I could concentrate and get some work done on the fair isle chart for a cardigan pattern, and I actually made really good progress. This one is based on a medallion-print Spanish silk from the 16oo’s. It’s very organic, yet modern somehow. It’s translating pretty well to a chart, though it’s far more detailed than the chart will be. Such is the nature of translating prints to knitwear!

At any rate, the gals all started pouring in around 7, and merriment abounded. There was yarn ogling, yarn fondling, all of the usual goodness But the night didn’t end there – ohhhh no. I was offered a ride home, and given the choice between that and 20 minutes in the freezing rain waiting for the bus, I definitely accepted a ride! In my usual fashion, I ended up sitting in the parking lot for two hours, musing on marriage, benefits of aunthood (you get to give them sugar and then give them back!), education, and petroleum based bubble gum with Kathleen. Suffice it to say, my voice is nearly gone and my ass hurts. But it was so much fun! These gals are really a great bunch.

I’ve got a wee bit of pasta on the stove (tummy’s a-rumblin’), and it gave me an inspiration for the neon tam. I might have to go swatch. Thank you, ziti.

That’s one of those things I love about knitting. I can get my inspiration anywhere.

Hopefully I’ll be inspired to hit the sack soon, since I have to get up early tomorrow (crack of 10am!) to take the 2 hour ride to Tualatin to go to some unemployment seminar thing. As much as riding the bus can be a pain, that’s four hours of knitting round trip. Score!

Tags: General Knitting, social knitting by Kerin
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Ok, first – the yarn crawl!

I met up with the Portland gals at Union Station and had a great time talking stitches with them for a short while before the Seattle group showed up. What a fun bunch! I met Charisa, who I’d been chatting with on Ravelry for a while. She’d done a really cool version of my Transitions Gloves. Unfortunately, me being my unphotogenic self, I’ve got my mouth open in all the pics! I’ll spare you that.

So cool to meet everyone, it was kind of overwhelming! Since I knew the area really well, and my yarn budget was rather dismal, I decided to play tour guide, and helped the Seattle folks get around. It was fun, I traveled with different folks between all the shops – it was really great to chat with all of them. I did buy a little at Dublin Bay, where I’d not been before:

The fiber will need to be saved until I know a little more about preparing wool (woo! two pounds of it, though), and the laceweight shetland and fingering alpaca will be for the glove patterns i’m writing.

After that we wandered on to Knit Knot, which was so small and crowded I ended up hanging out outside with some of the other Portland ladies. We can always go back

Then we moseyed on to Knit Purl. I was a bit hesitant to go in, for reasons I don’t care to mention here, but all was well, and I even ended up with a request for a new pattern.

I’m working on it… can’t post too many pictures until it’s published, which kinda sucks. I’ve got one fun swatch done, and I’m going to be doing another, to get it just right.

Anyhoo, after that I broke off from the group and went over to Powell’s for a cup of coffee and a break. I headed home only to find that I was taking the same train home as the Portland gals! How random and cool. Hopefully I’ll be joining them at the Wednesday knit night this week, too!

****

So, I finally have Amanda’s gloves done:

I think they look great, i just hope they fit her! They don’t fit me, for sure – my hands are much bigger, but I could squeeze one on for the photo.

The V-man’s gloves….. another story entirely. I’d finished three fingers, and had him try them on – they were far too short! rar, I’d already woven in the ends on those. So, I’ll have to probably cut the tops off and keep going from there. Bummer! I put it on the back burner for now, but I’ll get back to it once I’ve got the new pattern off to Shibui.

His socks are coming along ok, though:

Boring, but good.

****

So on Sunday we decided to head over to Ikea, since the whole two-people, one-chair living room situation was a pain. He bought himself a new chair, and I got some new shelves!

I know it’s a bad idea to be spending this kind of money when I’m unemployed, but I really need the organization. Writing so many patterns at once, and having far more yarn and supplies than the poor bookshelf can handle is too much. So I bit the bullet and just got it. Don’t get me wrong, though, I do really like it. I’m just now even further into debt than I’d like to be!

That same day I also finished what I’d been spinning:

The colors are so pretty, but my spinning sucks, so it’s all unevenly plied and stuff. the singles were the most even, by far, in terms of thickness and twist. So, that’s good, but I still suck! I can’t quite get the plying thing down yet, I guess. I’m working on it.

****

SO, yesterday was Twisted’s inventory party! A bunch of us were invited to come and help them do their inventory, and I jumped at the chance. Got there at noon, and started counting! It was a lot of fun, and we got lots of snacks and refreshments during the day. I also found out that Hot Lips Pizza makes vegan pizza, much to my delight Since I’m not actually vegan, we had them put pepperoni on it, lol. Way better than a regular cheeseless pizza! It was really, really yummy.

Anyway.

The process was fun and quick, and we got goody bags! We were each allowed to choose one bag of freebies to take home. I got this:

That’ll be a pair for me, and a pair for V-man. Woo!

They also are now carrying Blue Moon STR, and since we were there before it officially went up for sale in the store, we got first dibs. I got some Puck’s Mischief and Covelite, two of my faves, and some awesome neon goodness from stitchjones:

So awesome. I can’t wait to use them! But I’ll have to wait, considering I have about a gazillion other things to knit right now.

Speaking of that, I’ve made no progress on the afghan. Oh well. I will at some point! Right now my hands hurt from crouching and crawling around on the floor all day yesterday, so holding the blanket actually hurts. I’ll stick to smaller things for a time.

Well, it’s an absolutely gorgeous day out. I’m going to go and play.

Tags: General Knitting, Spinning, social knitting by Kerin
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