So...

...we've been living in the new(old) house for more than a month now and what have I done, you ask?  Almost nothing - that is, other than being bothered by the heat.

     I've been spinning - occasionally, knit a pair of socks for Joel (Francie), picked up the shawl I started a long time ago (from Wrapped in Lace) and did a bunch of trips from the apartment to the house, bringing the rest of our things.

     Last weekend we finally got rid of the apartment for good and it feels so good, despite the fact that there are still a huge amount of boxes all through the house.

     This absurd heat has pretty much paralyzed me, but despite of it we were able to get rid of  a lot of things that were...clogging our lives: old, falling apart, hand-me-downs, things that didn't work properly, gifts we never liked or used...It inspired me to do a little Feng Shui on some personal relations too.  All of it well over due.

     Today I managed to wash and block a doilie I did a few years ago and was waiting to be washed for a long, long time.  After I had it all pinned down I found two holes in it.  Oh, well...Guess I'll have to knit it again ;)  In case you're curious, this is it.

     One unexpected bonus with this house is the amount of animals that show up on our yards.  This one comes on weekends to enjoy the echinacea:

Not much knitting

    Two weeks ago today I packed up the cats and a few needed items and moved from the apartment to the house.  Life has been chaotic ever since and my head followed suit.
     There are so many things we need to do, so many things I want to do, that I find myself frozen, going into auto-mode, doing only the necessary to live (cooking, cleaning, doing laundry - exciting, ain't it?).

     My knitting took a back seat as I sat around, looking at the trims we need to paint, the floor that needs to be cleared of paint and dry wall stains, the garden that needs tending to.  It was a big surprise for me to go to bed last night and be assaulted by a new idea.  I have a commission to finish, some yarn I spun which I want to make socks from, the cotton Dorothy to knit and two designs to write down, yet, the new idea haunted, nah, nursed me to sleep last night.
     It was really odd, since usually new ideas pester me, keep me up.  I guess I longed for something new so bad, that a new idea was comforting to me.  I slept very well.

     I was without an internet connection (and TV) for a week, so, to keep me busy, I spun - a lot.  I spun a blue lace weight yarn that was sitting in the bin for almost 6 months, spun a purple roving that was in the same bin for more than a year (also lace weight) and almost a pound of brown fiber from The Sheep Shed, bought maybe two years ago.  The latter became a bunch of sock yarn.
     Isn't it funny how some fibers want to become this or the other?  The purple fiber, for example: when I picked it up last week, I was wondering why I hadn't spun it before.  As I put it through the wheel, the answer became clear - it wanted to become lace yarn, but I didn't have the skills before to spin as fine as the fiber wanted...
     The brown fiber?  It was meant to be sock yarn.  After I spun the fiber, I remembered that I had done it before and all the yarn produced with this fiber was sock yarn :P

     No pics today, sorry.  I want to finish this commission already so I can focus on other projects ( I see a lot of woodwork in my future).

Random news

     Blogger had a major hiccup on Friday the 13th.  Many people (temporarily) lost posts.  I don't think I've lost any, but did lose comments.  If you don't see your comment here, it's because it got lost during whatever happened to blogger - I didn't delete it.

     I've started spinning again :D.  I had some red/black singles on my wheel for so long it was getting dusty.  The other day I was directed to a spinning discussion and the need to spin hit me.  I went back to the wheel (poor thing has been giving me sad looks for so long...feeling abandoned), finished spinning the fiber, plied it and started to spin the batt of fibery goodness I had in a bag since last year.
     There is someone who is very dear to me who is going to get the yarn I'm spinning right now.  I put together all kinds of soft, shiny, beautiful fibers I had into a gorgeous blue batt: mohair,silk,merino and some angelina for bling.  It's a pleasure to spin.

     It's been a cold, wet week around here.  I need to go grocery shopping, but don't want to leave the house.  I want to sit by the wheel and spin some more.  I also want to knit on the shawl I found the other day on Ravelry:  My heaven.  Am I crazy to also want to spin some yarn for a new Dorothy I'll be knitting on the KAL?  Oh, yeah!  I also want to paint at least the front porch floor this weekend.

Stash

     When I started knitting again I went a bit completely crazy with yarn purchases.  You see, I love color and organization, so walking into a yarn store with all that cuddly goodness displayed all nice and neat into a rainbow is really, really hard to resist.
     I'd go into a yarn shop looking for one thing and came out carrying a huge (half my height huge) bag full of skeins.  Every.  Single.  Week.

Drained

     I was reading a discussion the other day that didn't please me, but I stuck to it, as some of the insights being shared there could be useful for improving my skills when writing a pattern.
     Somewhere along the many pages of the thread there was this one post that literally drained all my energy.  There it was, full of ugliness, the one aspect of human nature I abhor the most: envy.  There was also a lot of sense of entitlement, but I'm getting used to that.
     That one post accused people with more skills than themselves (the poster) to be selfish and to purposely keep knitters with less experience in the dark by not sharing what they know.

     In my perfect world there would be a way for people to just tap into my brain and use the knowledge that is there.  Thing is, it can't be done.  I want to share the (little) knowledge I gathered throughout the years, but lack the skills and the vocabulary.
     Knitting, for me, is mostly a visual thing.  Sometimes I know how to do whatever it is that is a doubt to some, but lack the words to explain it.  It's very frustrating.

     When I read that post, I felt sad and drained - as in tired, not willing to do anything.  My ideas are still in my head, but right now I don't feel like picking up needles and yarn to work on them.  I'll get over it, though, and once more shy away from those types of discussions for a while.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, those kinds of threads can be useful, but there is so much I can take before speak my mind.

     On the topic of speaking my mind, I don't worry about people not perceiving me as "nice" and thus not buying my patterns.  I burnt that bridge a long time ago ;).

Random

...facts that aren't worth blogging separately.

• Yesterday I partially felted the lavender Dorothy while attempting to spin it in the washer (so I could block it again and do a photo tutorial),
  
• a few months ago the folks on Ravelry came up with a way for us to sell our designs on yarn shops throughout the planet. I don't know yet how well it will work, but I'll keep you posted,
  
• after adding borders to one of Dorothy's charts, finding out they were in the wrong place and wasting time editing the image on another software, I found out I can erase the borders by holding down the right button of my mouse as I trace over the border,
  
• for the last week or so I've been knitting a new shawl pattern and am thinking about trying my hand at all the different construction methods I come across (which will, hopefully, lead to a bunch of new designs),
  
• the ghosts of ideas are haunting me again. They've been keeping me up at night for 3 or 4 nights already. And now they're coming in pairs!
  
• I really, really want to start working on these ghost ideas, but need to put the final touches on the pattern for Dorothy and finish the new design that is OTN,
  
• I've redone the charts for Linda using Intwined and was amazed at how fast it went. Now, I need to re-write it.

Finished, full Pi

Warning:  spoiler photo after the jump.

     All clues are posted and a lot of people are already knitting the 4th clue.  This is my second shawl for 2011 and also my second design for that challenge.  I finished my prototype on 24/03.  My calculations were a bit off, I ended up using 1518.98 meters or 1715.625 yards of fingering weight yarn.  The shawl, blocked slightly (because I didn't have enough space) is 96in (243.84cm) in diameter, which is way too big, so I also released a smaller 4th clue.

     When I started this KAL, I had plans of posting every time I released a clue, wait a few days and then post pics of my progress, but in the middle of this project there was a house :D.  We closed on a house on the very day the last clue was posted, but I was busy working in the background so we could buy the house.  These things got in my way and I wasn't able to post as often as I'd planned (and wanted).

     The photo you see here is of when we first saw the house.  After the jump you'll see a photo of the finished shawl - because this is a knitting blog, after all.

Check list

I usually don't write about what I plan to do because I feel like if I do, I end up not knitting what I had planned. :P
Oddly, this time around I managed to knit some of the things I said I would...Maybe times are changing, maybe it is the stars' alignment...I don't care, I got some stuff done and it's good. :)

This first picture is the hat I knit for the UPS guy. I used the method described on Knitting from the top, by Barbara Walker. I thought this stitch was called brioche in English - I was wrong. According to some of the stitch dictionaries I have, it's called a fisherman rib. Whatever you call it, it's a nice, lofty, warm stitch.
It took me a few tries until I got the number of stitches right - I still have the one I did before, which is suited for a giant...
Once I got the numbers right, it was a breeze. I love how it feels and am now in the process of talking Joel into a pair of socks done with this stitch. The second photo shows how the increases make a swirl.

Good news, everybody!

     I finally got my act together, made the last chart for PPaola, put the document together and managed to get an awesome group of test knitters working on it.
     I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep track more than 2 or 3 people working on a pattern, but I'm changing my mind about that.  With more people testing at the same time, one can help the other when I'm not available, giving me more time to do something else.

It's cold. No! It's hot.

     When autumn officially began (September 22th?) we actually felt a difference in temperature, which I found odd, then it got warm again, then cold, then hot... 
     The first two years I was here fall went somewhat like this: hot (as in who left the door to hell open), a few days of turning and falling leaves (one week at most), then freezing (literally) cold.  Joel told me that this is the way it is, I was disappointed, but what could I do?
     Then, last year we had a real autumn, the temperature went down gradually, the trees kept their lovely colors for a long time, I had time to put my lacey knits away and knit the heavier stuff in time for Christmas; and Joel said this is normal for Kansas too...o_O
     This year, although fall began when it should, we've been switching from AC to heat almost on a daily basis, and Joel?  Still says it's normal.  Apparently when it comes to fall, anything goes around here.

     What does that have to do with knitting, you ask?  Well, it messes up with my knitting - big time.

Latest FO, a few news and a rant

I've been working on my latest FO on and off ever since March.  I don't know why it took me so long to finish it, usually when things go wrong after 4 or 5 tries, I give up and move on, knowing there is some flaw in the design itself and no matter what I do at that moment, it won't work.

Knitting PPaola was an interesting experience because, even though I had all kinds of things going wrong with it - there were at least 4 false starts due to me not being pleased with the yarn and or needles I'd chosen, another maybe 3 times I had to frog because I was cocky and didn't use st markers...

I have no life...

...which isn't really news, as this is how it's been for the most part throughout my life.  The fact that I'm saying, or rather, writing it out loud only means I'm aimless as of now.

There are many things I want to do, many I have to do.  Yet I sit here, in front of the TV (for white noise) with the laptop on my lap and surf the web, pretending to live other peoples' lives, by reading their blogs.

This post is not because I'm seeking pity, it's just a realization, one I've come to many times before in my life and usually it means I'm bored.

I've lead a very interesting life so far, seen and done things most people wouldn't believe or do.  But there are down times.  This is one of them.

I need organization but I loath routine, which makes me pretty hard to please.  A few examples?  Sure.  I'm procrastinating releasing a new pattern, because, among other things, I'll have to deal with it for a few months afterwards and I don't much care for that.  I want to solve a problem and move on.  As a consequence, new ideas are getting jam packed in my head - which makes for a very confusing environment.  If I try to knit on one of the many UFOs, those ideas jump in front of me and I'm caught in a crazy dichotomy: I need to finish what I'm doing so I can move on, but can't because the new idea gets so loud I can't think about what I'm doing at the moment.

Did I mentioned I don't like doing the same thing over and over again?  Yeah.  I've been dyeing and spinning the Arco Iris yarn for more than a year now.  To me, it's a problem I've solved a long time ago.  I keep on doing it, though, because I keep on getting requests for it. 
As I spun this last one I decided this is it.  I'm done with it - at least for now.  I don't want to do it anymore.  When I first did it, there were so many ideas in my head about dyeing and spinning, but they had to be kept silent, as I had to dye and spin yet another skein...I can't remember any of them anymore.
If I kept on doing this same yarn, I know I'd eventually give up on dyeing and spinning all together.  So, I won't do this yarn again.

This post was interrupted to rescue a baby bunny that Hobbes brought home - the second one in 3 weeks. (See, I do have an interesting life - every now and then).  Anyway, I don't remember where I was going with the rant above, so ...meh!

I'll leave you with a few pics I forgot to post on my last entry and cute photos of the bunny (which, btw is now safely outside - the first one had me running around town to find a place where they would take care of it - Hobbes hurt that one).

A bath rug done in crochet and an awful looking yarn (what was I thinking when I bought this kinda yarn):

One of those let's see if I can do this things - It may or may not become a rug or an afgan at some point (if I ever get interested in it again):


Some fiber that I dyed a long time ago and felted during the process.  For some reason I couldn't throw it away and when I got the drum carder decided to run it through it.  Turns out felted fiber makes for a very soft yarn:


The Arco-iris yarn - the last one I'll do for now:


And the bunny that made me forget what I was about to write, which wasn't a bad thing, after all:
The poor thing was so scared that when I put it outside it didn't know what to do and just stood there.  I hope it will be ok and will wise up about other furry creatures.

Things you do when you don't want to do what you have to do

I'm a PhD in procrastination.  I've been meaning to write down the pattern for Linda for the last few weeks, but there was always "something" else to do (right...).  This last Monday, I decided to use some psychology on myself to make me do it - I decided to clean up the studio ;)

When Monday morning came, I had the choice to either clean up and re-organize the studio (aka spare bedroom) or sit down and write the pattern.  I had most of the charts done already and the idea of dragging the vacuum cleaner upstairs wasn't a pleasant one, so I did it.

Well, kinda did it.  I have a first draft ready and sent it out to the test knitters.  It's amazing how much weight it lifted out of my back.  Before writing it, I didn't feel like knitting, or spinning, or dyeing or anything else for that matter.  I feel like I can finally move on and the knitting mojo is back :)

I'm guessing it will be at least a week or so until the test knitters find any problem and I'm hoping I can dye some rovings, practise a little more carding and maybe, just maybe, re-organize the studio.  I won't post before pics, though - I'm ashamed of the huge mess.

Right now, I'm...you guessed it, procrastinating some more.  I have to go to the UPS store to return a pair of shoes I bought online, instead, I'm here writing this entry.  Truth be told, I avoid using the car as much as I can.  We've been having problems with it for a long time now and I never know when it's going to work.  I'm always afraid it will just die on me when I'm driving.

I also want to write two posts here - one about my designing process and another about a few things I've figured out while spinning - later.