Adventures in Yarn Dieting

I have a bit of time left in my lunch period so I thought I’d update everyone. 

I’ve been doing a lot of stashbusting. Well… trying to at least. I printed out the patterns for seven projects, cast on one and haven’t really touched the others.

I also realized that a stashbust is really hard when you only have one or two skeins of all the yarns in said stash. I can’t make sweaters because they require about 1000 yards, I can’t make a vest because it requires about 600, I can’t make a proper shawl without 400 yards and I can’t really make much more than scarves and hats with my mish-mash stash. I already have about a thousand scarves and I wear my Tams rarely.

Instead I took two skeins of red Cascade 220 Superwash and cast on Clapotis. on Saturday last week. I’ve been working on it since and I’ve gotten through about 250 yards of yarn with a decent amount knit. However, I’m running out of yarn and won’t be able to finish it without going back for more yarn. This isn’t something I wanted to do because I’m on a self-imposed Yarn Diet. I only went on this particular diet because I thought I had a lot of yarn (this is proving to be a dirty dirty lie) and I didn’t have the funds to go willy-nilly buying anymore.

However, when you’re extremely limited in the stuff you can make, it makes finding patterns and interesting items to make very hard.

I have a few options with Clapotis: I can rip. This would make me extremely sad but I can rip it back and make less increases so it’s not as wide and, thusly, less yarn consuming. Or I can go buy more yarn. This seems like a much more appealing option since I’ve already done a considerable amount of work on Clapotis and I’m kind of liking it. Plus if I ripped it back I think mom would cry.

I also have a lot of single skeins of a little more than 200 yards so I’m going to make a melee of 198 Yards of Heaven shawls for friends’ birthday and Christmas gifts for as long as they hold out or until I get completely sick of the pattern and run out of yarn. I figure I can make about 8 and have enough for some major stash busting. Right now, I’m not really digging the pattern when I could be knitting Abalone.

Abalone, the beautiful vest… If only I had 600 yards of worsted weight that wasn’t already allocated to a sweater. The first thing I buy will be two skeins of Cascade Eco in a gorgeous neutral.

I’m still working on the traveling eyelet scarf. It’s going very slowly since I don’t have all that much downtime to knit on it while I’m out of the house.

Finally, I made the decision today that I was going to figure out how to make a shrug with no excess yarn in the arms. I want something like a cardigan but I don’t want to have to deal with the cardigan. I also want to make something with 200 yards of worsted weight yarn, so it will be cropped but I don’t truly have faith that I can make anything that would fit properly unless I did it flat and seamed it at the arms which isn’t want I want to do at all.

Saturday means the end of the yarn diet. I totally believe that I can’t do anything without having higher quantities of each type of yarn so I’ll be attending the Sheep in the City festival in South Milwaukee tomorrow where I intend to buy yarn and roving. And lots of it.

And I will not feel guilty about any of it.

Some external news: The Marine comes home very soon! And I’m going to Homecoming!

Sucktacular Monday

This morning:

Woke up, amazingly enough, on time but dawdled and got out of bed at 5:20. Rushed around for 20 minutes getting everything ready and putting on pants before going out to warm up my car, which proved to be almost impossible since my door wasn’t budging for a good few pulls due to the ice-rain-snow mixture falling from this sky ALL DAY yesterday. I turned on the car, cringing while it whined and bitched about being woken up early- I apologized and it finally turned over. I went back inside to finish my getting-ready process.

Finished getting-ready process, put my coat and wellies on and walked out with five minutes to spare thinking that’s how long it would take to de-ice/snow/rain my car. I put my coffee in its holder and my morning breakfast of a yogurt cup on the glove compartment between the seats.

This is when things went from bad to worse.

I spent a good 15 minutes trying to get the MOUNTAIN of good snowman-making snow off my car. Upon throwing the ice scraper to the side, it decided to jump over and knock over my yogurt cup.

All over the drivers seatbelt latch and side of the glove compartment. A few thousand choice expletives, running into the house to get a washcloth and towel, and I was mopping up the mess of vanilla-M&Ms yogurt inside my car, all the while wanting to burst into hot tears of anger and frustration. 

More expletives followed as I almost tripped over the cat making a second trip with a rinsed washcloth and the same towel. A few baby wipes later, I had the mess cleaned up as best as possible and I was on my way. It was 6:15.

Now, a thing to know about the town I live in: It’s not a town- it’s a village. It’s also so small and unnecessary  to plow our subdivision until the snow is basically done that we’re always stuck sliding around town. I drove far too slowly through town because every time I thought about picking up speed, I’d slide and almost take out a stop sign. It’s honestly not that hard to charter a plow to clear out our area?

I finally make it onto the freeway thinking I’ll get to Sun Prairie for work at a decent time and not lose out on any hours but nope: I get stuck, on the perfectly clear roads, mind you, going 5-10 under the speed limit for a good 20 minutes before I can get around people and into the open road. I was 20 minutes later than usual to get to work. Luckily, I’m within the time range I need to stay for a full 8 hour day, but really?

Upon sitting down, I took a sip of my coffee, then felt some moisture on my shirt. Yup. Got some coffee on my white tank top and heathered red shirt. More expletives.

For some reason, I seem to be feeling sick all morning. It may have something to do with the multi-vitamin I started taking again but I’m just feeling generally crappy.

So that’s my morning so far. I’ve wanted to go home and knit on Clapotis since I left. I’ll be going home as soon as possible today, getting a quick run in(yup! I’m running again!), cleaning up and going to Stitch n Bitch.

Anyway- I’ll update tomorrow probably with my weekend adventures into StashBusting.

Quite a week

It’s been a good amount of time since I last updated and I’m sad to say I haven’t done all that much knitting. To be honest, I’ve been finishing projects instead.

I gave two items from the store to Murphy for her birthday and told her to throw out the old brown hat I made her last year since it was a poorly made hat and I got her the matching cowl. She had a great 21st birthday and I hope she’ll get some use of her presents even now with the random weather we’re having.

 

I finished the orange headwarmer but never finished it with weaving in the ends and such so I finished that about an hour ago.

I wear my hair up in a pony tail most days so I needed something to cover my ears on those extremely cold mornings when the sun isn’t even out until I get to work.

It’s been very balmy out lately so I haven’t had much need for handknits. BUT! I made this:

I made a pair of mittens from this same combo of yarns and decided I wanted a pair of fingerless mitts so I can have the use of my fingers. So I used the Stupid Easy Mitten pattern but stopped it short on the fingers and thumb. Mom says I look like I have teddy bears on my hands. I haven’t finished the second one but I’ll probably cast it on tomorrow.

I also made a sock.

I know. Take a deep breath. It’ll be ok

I figured I’ve been knocking the whole sock myth enough that I should make one and confirm that I don’t like it. So I did. I took my size 3 needles and my Louet Gems fingering weight yarn and taught myself Judy’s Magic Cast On and made a sock in two days.

I am not a fan. I feel every purl when walking and the Bind Off row was terrible so I have a new duster!

I haven’t really had all that much time to knit what with work and being exhausted after work and going to bed at a relatively early time. I plan on doing some major stash busting this weekend by casting on lots of projects including a sweater. Yup- a sweater.

Should be good.

A Feminist Rant

I’m sorry for the tangent but I absolutely cannot keep this in any longer.

In May of 2006, I was recognized for my efforts in the span of one year in leadership and community service for the Girl Scout Gold Award. I was given this award with four other ladies, two of whom I worked with on the project.

I am extremely proud of this award and I am proudly still a Girl Scout because I then got lifetime membership. I am incredibly supportive of the Girl Scout corporation and, when I become more established in my working and personal life, I will be an ambassador for the GSUSA corporation and, possibly, become a volunteer leader.

I have also had exposure to the world of Boy Scouting: between the ages of 13 and 21, I volunteered my time at Camp Ammon, a Boy and Girl Scout camp that we give our time for State Fair. The camp was very regimented, very militaristic and very Boy Scout-oriented. I loved the camp as a camper and only realized how the men at Ammon felt about Girl Scouts during my staffer yeasr and especially my last summer there.

For those of you unfamiliar with the GSUSA and BSA corporations, here we go:

The Boy Scouts of America was created by Robert Baden-Powell in the 1911. Boy Scouting is on the basis of (according to Wikipedia) “train youth in responsible citizenship, character development, and self-reliance through participation in a wide range of outdoor activities, educational programs, and, at older age levels, career-oriented programs in partnership with community organizations.” The BSA has many different ranks based on your age and achievements and merit badges. The highest level of rank you can get is the Eagle rank.

The Girl Scouts of the United States of America was founded by Juliette Gordon-Low in 1912 after she was aquainted with Baden-Powell. She created the Girl Scouts with the direct intent of giving girls the same experience that the Boy Scouts created but, at the time, it was geared more toward the actual needs of a woman in that time. In the last 99 years, Girl Scouting has evolved into something more toward the modern woman in that the goals are very similar in that they (also from Wikipedia)”…aim to empower girls and to help teach values such as honesty, fairness, courage, compassion, character, sisterhood, confidence, and citizenship through activities including camping, community service, learning first aid, and earning numerous badges by acquiring other practical skills. Girl Scouts’ achievements are recognized through rank advancement and by various special awards.” The ranks and awards are also contingent on age and badges they receive. The highest awards for Girl Scouting is the Gold Award. Juliette was also a Boy Scout and received her Eagle Rank.

My issue comes with Boy Scouts claiming the Gold Award is a “little sister” of the Eagle as if it’s 100 percent less than the Eagle.

Context: One of my Camp friends is a volunteer leader for the Boy Scouts. Five of his boys were just accepted for their Eagle rank and he congratulated them on his Facebook status. Sarcastically and glibly, I commented knowing he would view it as a joke, “You’re almost as awesome as a Gold Award recipients.” and “That’s not what the president says” when he went back to the ‘BSA is better than GSA’ deal. He played along. However, another man from Camp didn’t quite get the joke. “Politicians lie” was what he said and I instantly became outraged.

“I am so sick of you boys de-valuing your counterpart’s highest awards. You must think all the Girl Scouts do is sit around and craft and make shit out of lanyards all day. Just because the Gold Award isn’t as well-known as the Eagle doesn’t make it less of a HUGE honor! I was grandfathered into the shorter program but the Gold takes so much dedication and a lot of time to complete. Hell, it’s even hard for your program to be accepted! There’s a reason why only a few women receive it every year- it takes a lot of tenacity and passion to get this far in Girl Scouting. I think it’s sad that the Boy Scouts think we’re nothing but a bunch of silly girls with our crafts, and that you’re so superior. The Gold Award has just as much weight on my resume as your Eagle and I, like many other Girl Scouts, am so proud that I have MANY letters of commendation from the most important people and organizations in this country for receiving the highest honors of this country in Girl Scouting.”

The situation didn’t stop there. When this man commented that “I started it” and saying I was being sexist and offensive when he’s the one who called me “dear.” I retalliated:

First off, ****. Don’t call me “dear” ever again. I find it de-moralizing and makes you sound like a pretentious jerk.
I also find your interpretation of my comment sexist and small-minded.
I did not “start” anything. I sarcastically (hence the emoticon) commented. you’re the one who said ‘politicians lie’ which infers that the fact that my Gold Award was recognized by the leader of our country (as well as a whole host of other leading politicians and military organizations) but they don’t really care but oh, if they recognized the efforts of an Eagle, that’s a different story.
I never said “only girls can make crafts” because I know plenty of male knitters and I’m all for them! But if you decided to properly read my comment you’ll see ‘you must think all the Girls Scouts do is sit around and craft…” meaning that’s all you people think we’re good for- that the GSA is about making us into little housewives from the time we’re Daisies. You do “proper” training like learning how to survive in the wild (something we Girls do too, thank you very much) so you’re better automatically.
The Gold Award is no “Little Sister” to the Eagle. They are both the highest awards a Scout can receive and they are both nationally recognized as such. They are EQUAL! The Gold Award name has been changed over the years making it less well-known, but not, in any way, less prestigious.
It really doesn’t matter what I say to you pretentious Boy Scouts- you won’t budge from your holier-than-thou ledge so here’s my Flounce.”

I have the utmost respect for the men in the Boy Scouts of America but when you start pulling out the ‘I’m better than you’ 1950s “your job is to make a home for me and have dinner on the table when I come home from being home the bacon’ I think it’s time for you to step back and figure out what year we’re living in.

This is purely the feminist in me but I couldn’t just sit placidly by while my entire gender as well as the work I spent a year doing was being attacked. I spent one year getting my Gold Award- that was the timeframe I was given. Boy Scouts have from the age they’re 15 to their 18th birthday to get Eagle rank. Eagle rank requires you have 21 merit badges and only 12 of them are specific to have during the process. Girl Scouts have to had achieved leadership awards as well as log volunteer hours before being considered for the award. Both awards require major hours of diligence toward leadership and philanthropy during the course of their experiences.

These two awards are on different levels; however, they are of equal importance to one another. The Gold Award is, in no way, a “Little Sister” to the Eagle Rank.

And how dare you tell me that my achievements, that were recognized nationally, are any less than yours. I am one of 5,000 recognized Gold Award recipients. More than 2 million young men have received the Eagle Rank. The Eagle rank is like the American dollar: let anyone get it and give them 3 years to do it, and it’ll be of less importance with every year that passes. Let anyone get it and give them one year to do it, and you’ll end up with a much more elite group of people of whom you can call sisters.

I am freezing…

I’m working on the last few moments of my lunch break so I thought I’d pop on and write a little ditty. So here’s a randomly random Friday post

I’m at my desk with the space heater on high and on the hottest setting and I’m still freezing. The space heater is also making the air in front of the monitor do that wavy thing that makes it look like my monitor is a mirage. I’m so tired that I wish it were, indeed, a mirage.

Why is it so cold? I have no idea. The studio is set to a colder temperature but today is particularly cold. It’s like someone left a window open with our -2 degree weather. Not to mention our delicious -10 degree wind chill. My car has been sluggish to start in the mornings since this wonderful freeze.

Valentines day is Monday. I will not be one of the mushy gushy people while I’m at work. I will be a sourpuss until I receive a phone call from my love and hopefully go home to find a large box of flowers on the doorstep from him as well.

I am still working dilligently on Murphy’s cowl for her birthday. We’re all getting together at a restaurant on the East side tomorrow night to celebrate her 21st. This cowl is very large and has cables; two aspects that aren’t the best idea for making a cowl under deadline. I told her I will do my best to get it done in time, otherwise I’ll be knitting at the restaurant trying desperately to finish.

I have so much work to do over the next three hours. So many pairs of shoes haven’t been uploaded into the system so they’re not yet on the site and, quite frankly, I’m going to want to do it because I’m anal like that.

I decided to start on a couple items to keep me from buying any yarn since I’m still on this yarn diet kick until I get my tax return and a steady paycheck. However, I am going to buy a couple sets of KnitPicks circular needles. The fact that their cables don’t kink and they’re anti-memory is really truly appealing to me. I might give myself the birthday present of an entire options interchangeable circulars set so long as I’m not allergic to the nickel plated.

I will be starting a sweater soon. I have so much of the brown and blue cascade 220 still so I’ll be doing a blue upper and brown lower. I’m working on finding the perfect top-down raglan sweater pattern so I can make something simple that I know will absolutely fit. I’ll be making it on size 6 needles and I’ll be casting on this weekend, so long as I find the perfect pattern.

I’m also working on Rosalee-that’s a Rav link. Sorry to you non-ravelers- no link for you. I’ll post a picture once I start working on it. I’m making it with my Carolina Homespun roving in a laceweight and size 7 needles. It’s going to take some thinking about and trial and error but I should be able to get some work done on it soon.

I’m still plugging along on the simple eyelet lace scarf for Carol in London. It’s very slow going but I’ve not had a ton of time to do much since I come home and crash right away.

I’m going to hug the space heater for a while longer and get back to work.

No pics…

I am fully aware of the fact that I haven’t blogged in about a week… I am sorry for this because it means I am not sticking to my initial plan of blogging daily or every other day… I have a good excuse!!

I have been knitting, but taking pictures of said knitting and then e-mailing them to myself has proven to be tough since the work computers don’t allow you to access Gmail. It’s unfortunate for me because I like my E-mail and I like how easy it is to get pictures to post to the blog. This is unfortunate for you, my reader, because it means I can’t post a picture to go along with my knitting unless I write it at home, where I spent about three waking hours as of right now.

I am on a yarn diet. What is that, you’re wondering? A yarn diet is the act of not buying any new yarn and using the yarn in your stash to make all items until a certain point. My certain point is when I get comfortable with money; or until I get my tax return and a steady paycheck- so a month or two from now. I’m thinking my birthday will be a good time to break the diet. I’m using up as much of my stash as possible while knitting presents and coming up with the perfect way to use up all my Cascade 220 in a sweater that doesn’t look like barf.

I finished the new Baby Bringer blanket at Stitch n Bitch on Monday and only four days after Baby Ellie Reagan was born. Kate says she has a new appreciation for pink so I’ll be making the little bairn a pink sweater once I get some pink yarn. Needless to say I’ll be making a nice large size sweater so she can grow into it and it won’t be useless after 30 seconds.

I also have a present to make by Friday for Murphy’s birthday. I started a cowl on Sunday, took it apart on Monday, picked up a new yarn and cast on a new cowl on Tuesday. I’m hoping to finish it soon, but it won’t be the easiest of items to make- Lots of cabling and thick yarn.

I’m working on a lace scarf for the mother of one of my childhood friends. It will be making its trip over the pond to England to warm her neck. I’m hoping to finish it soon. It’ll be an asymmetrical lace scarf in which I simply did a *k2tog, yo for the entire scarf. I have two skeins of Cascade 128 in Cranberry and Cherry reds.

Tonight I am driving from Sun Prairie to the house, then from the house to Hartford for Open Knit at Main Street Yarn Shop. From there I’ll be going to the Mineshaft with Cheryl. It should be good. Until then, I’ll be the one describing skate shoes in the corner slowly going blind from the constant flash of a camera on the other side of the office.

Amy Pond-The Pandorica Opens

It’s long overdue that I wrote the pattern for this scarf. Amy is seriously so beautiful and warm and awesome and about 30 other synonyms for how great this scarf is and people on the Doctor Who boards on Ravelry have been asking about it constantly so I wrote the pattern for this scarf.

I’m a huge Doctor who fan and, in the final two episodes of Series 5, Amy Pond was wearing this gorgeous and super long cabled scarf. After staring at the photo for days on end, I finally figure out the perfect cable for this scarf.  Amy was a labor of love but it’s so warm and really makes a statement when it’s done.

Hardware:

5 skeins Cascade 220 wool in cherry red. You can also use the superwash version but it costs more.  The yarn is held double in this pattern.

Size 11 needles

Stitch Markers- Optional

Terms:

C12F- Slip 6 stitches onto cable needle, place it away from your body. Knit 6 stitches. Knit 6 stitches from your cable needle.

C12B- Slip 6 stitches onto cable needle, bring toward your body. Knit 6 stitches. Knit 6 stitches from your cable needle.

Cast on 32 stitches

Link (Horseshoe) Cable: 16 row repeat

A traditional Link cable is only 8 rows, but this pattern is lengthened because the original has a very ambiguous pattern. There is also a Garter border on this scarf which will curl to the back when worn.

Rows 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15: (RS) K4, P24, K4

Row 2: K4, C12F, C12B, K4

Rows 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16: K

Repeat this pattern until the entire piece wraps around your neck once and reaches your knees without the fringe.

Fringe:

The fringe is about six inches long so take your yarn held double and pull out a foot-length of yarn then pull it through the bottom stitches.

This scarf needs to be blocked and laid flat so it won’t completely curl into a circle. This scarf will be VERY heavy when wet and takes a couple days to dry completely if you wet-block it. When you lay it out, give it some bunching space so it stays cushy and fluffy when it dries.

There is also a .pdf here Amy Pond-The Pandorica Opens2 NOTE: I WILL BE UPDATING THIS LINK TONIGHT BECAUSE THE CABLE PATTERN WAS WRONG. PLEASE READ ABOVE OR PRINT OUT THIS POST AND YOU’LL HAVE THE CORRECT PATTERN.

Today features a day of pattern making so here’s the first one! I’ll have another posted this afternoon because I feel bad about not posting in so long!

GO PACKERS!