What to Knit

I literally have no idea what I want to knit. I know I do want to knit, but not what I want to knit. I haven't gotten the yarns I ordered from Webs, yet (I know, I know, I just ordered it last week), so I can't start the girl's dress. I haven't found a pattern I like for my Lang Venezia, either. So, I have the entire world of my stash to consider, and I think I'm on overload. My stash has way too many possibilities in it for me. I can't decide if I want to do something challenging, or something simple and quick to knit.

My new classes for my Master's start the same day I go back to work teaching, which is next Monday. Once that happens, I won't have much free time, between lesson planning, grading papers, reading course materials, writing the assignments, etc. Oh, and PTA work, since I'm still the president of that. What little free time I will have has to be divided between reading (not professional books) and knitting.

So, perhaps something quick, now, before I lose most of my knitting time. If I can find a pattern I like. In yarn I like (and have). Or maybe I'll just pick a yarn I like, pick up my BW, and make a pair of (modified) rectangles using a new lace stitch or cable pattern. Just seam up the sides, do a quick neckline of some kind, and voila, something to wear over a plain blouse. Something that will keep me a bit warmer in my almost Arctic classroom. Decisions, decisions.

New Year Resolutions?

There's been lots of talk around the blogosphere about resolutions. For them, and against them. I can see both sides to resolutions, but I think I come down on the side of making them. Not as hard-and-fast rules, but as guidelines for where I want to go in the next year.

I do spend some time in the week between Christmas and New Year's thinking about the past year, and how I want the next year to develop. I think about the things I've accomplished, the things that I fell short on, the things that turned out to be not something I really cared about, but thought I had.

Sometime before midnight, Dec. 31st, I set down a list of things I'd like to work on for the next year, and save it in a file I've called "Aspirations". (and I save a copy of that file on a CD, because I don't want to lose the accumulation of years I have in that file!) It's interesting to go back and look at previous year's aspirations, to see trends, to remember successes and failures. It makes me laugh, and sometimes go "Hmmmm", which is good for my soul, right?

My aspirations cover all facets of my life, of course. I don't separate them into categories, because I believe everything we do affects everything we are. I know some people can neatly separate the different parts of themselves into compartments in their mind, but I can't do that, and I don't think I even want to. Life doesn't come in neat little packages, clearly labeled. It flows onto you like a wave, sometimes buoying you up, other times overwhelming you. Occasionally, it tries to drag you back out to sea with itself, and sometimes that's a good thing. Growth is change, and change is messy, and not always pleasant.

One of my "aspirations" for the coming year is to finally knit a pair of socks. I owe it to myself (and my cold feet!) to master this knitting feat (heh). My mother always claimed she couldn't knit, but she knit argyle socks all the time. I can knit, but I can't knit a pair of plain socks for the life of me. I intend to change that, this new year. I have never used DPNs, and I rarely use circulars ( collars and such, usually), so I have no preference for which to use for socks. I just know that this year, I will make a pair of socks. Maybe more than one, but at least one pair.

I also want to knit more, in the coming year. This past year I knit very little, and I missed it. And, of course, knitting more will mean a decrease in my stash, which would be a good thing, too. And while I'm knitting more, I want to actually finish more things, all the way through seaming them together, and weaving in the ends. I can't count the number of items I have finished knitting that are sitting around in bags and baskets, waiting for me to sew them up, weave in the ends, and wear. It's ridiculous.

Another thing I want to do more of this coming year is sew. My fabric stash isn't much smaller than my yarn stash, and I want to decrease the amount of space all that fabric takes up. Plus, I'm not really a fan of much Ready-to-Wear, given that I'm a petite woman (not just small, but petite, with shorter arms, different proportions, etc.) and sewing allows me to make those adjustments in the beginning, not pay for alterations after the fact. (I like to sew, but I hate alterations and would rather pay someone to do them.)

Probably the most important aspiration I have this year is to get organized. This is, no surprise, a repeating aspiration for me. I have massive collections of books, yarn, fabric, patterns, pattern books, and magazines. My collections take up space in every room in my apartment, and the disorganization of all of them is making me a little crazy. It also causes me to buy things I already have, which isn't smart or financially wise. So, while I made some small progress on getting organized last year, this year I need to really dig in and become organized, not just work on it.

There are other aspirations, of course, but those are ones I don't think I'll post online for the world to see (although based on the number of comments I get, I really shouldn't worry about that!).

I don't know that I'll post again before the new year, so to everyone, I'll wish you a Happy New Year, and hope that it brings you love and laughter and many happy surprises!

A Change in plans for my Lang Venezia

Well, I just don't like the fabric my Venezia creates when using the 7s or 8s that are recommended. It's much better on 6s, but I'm thinking it will be best on 5s. I'll swatch tomorrow, just to be sure. I don't have any patterns for vests that use 5s or 6s. For that matter, I have very few patterns for anything that use needle sizes below 7s or 8s. I'm not a tiny needles person, although I have knit with them (I have needles down to size 1, for that matter, even though I can't remember what I knit using them). Guess this means I'll be doing a pattern search through my rather extensive stack of knit magazines.

The Venezia is a dream to knit, however. It's 50% mohair, but it behaves like it was silk, instead. Just glides off the needles. (Frogging the swatch wasn't as easy, however, but considering the mohair, much easier than it could have been.)

Tomorrow will be a day spent dreaming. I'll haul out the pattern books, and encounter all those sweater patterns I marked as "someday"s, and wonder what in my stash would work for them. I'll encounter patterns that didn't impress me back when I bought the magazine or pattern book, but suddenly catch my eye now, and wonder what in my stash will work for them now. I'll start going through my stash to answer those questions, and find things I didn't know I had. And return to the pattern books and mags to see if there's a pattern there to work with that fabulous yarn I just found.

Thank God I actually have a few errands to run, or I would spend the entire day running back and forth between my stash of patterns and my stash of yarn, and get nothing concrete done.

And, just to prove that my good intentions about knitting from my stash were just so much smoke, I dropped in on Webs today, and ordered 22 balls of yarn to add to my stash. Half of them, at least, are for that darling little girl's dress I mentioned, that my niece will love. In a purple she'll love. In a washable wool that her mother will love.

The other half are Laines du Nord Cash silk, just because. Webs is having its year-end sale, after all. I mean, cashmere and silk, for $3.99 a ball? I just had to, you know?

A Book Review (a yarn book!)

I just finished reading The Knitter's Book of Yarn, by Clara Parkes. What a joy it was to read. I learned things about yarn I didn't even know I wanted to know, but am passionately glad I do now know them. She writes in an engaging way about the stuff yarn is made of, the effects of plying, dying, twist, and special effects. She includes patterns that are designed to show off the qualities of the yarn she's just discussed. She talks about washing handknits, and felting (on purpose). She provides guidelines for telling how a yarn will perform, before you buy 20 skeins of it for entirely the wrong project. For once, I feel as if I truly understand why a particular yarn will tell me what it wants to be, and why some yarns just don't speak to me at all. I heartily recommend this book. It makes for great reading! (This book was a Christmas present to myself, one I'm really glad I got.)

In other news, I haven't knit a single stitch in days. I did come across a beautiful girls' dress that caused me to eye my stash a bit (I have a niece who would love it if I knit it for her), and I'm still pondering what to do with my Lang Venezia in that lovely royal blue. I'm almost sure it wants to be a vest, but I'm still waiting to hear if it wants to be a cabled pullover type, or a patterned, button-up type. I don't go back to work or school until Jan. 7th, so hopefully, we'll have made up our mind by then.

I did receive some new yarn from my favorite online yarn source, Elann. I picked up some Austermann Inka, in a sort of faded mulberry color. This is an alpaca blend, and it's incredibly soft. It came, with 11 balls of Inka, with a pattern I quite like, and may even make out of the intended yarn (not a common occurrence for me). Or not. I never know.

I frightened myself while I was eying my stash, looking for a yarn for that girl's dress. I have wayyyyy too much yarn. Seriously too much. I may even have to commit to knitting from my stash for a while or so (or move to a bigger place). A long while, even. Years. (If I retired today, and lived another 30 years, I honestly don't think I'd *have* to buy another skein of yarn, and would be able to knit every day.) Of course, having to buy yarn, and wanting to buy yarn are completely divorced feelings. Is there a Yarn Junkies Anonymous out there somewhere?

Merry Christmas!

I know I've been a very bad blogger, but life has been so much more hectic this year than ever before. Finally, today, my Master's program class is over, and my work has ended for 2007, so now all I have left to do is wrap presents, buy a couple of presents I still haven't found, and wrap presents. I got my nephew a telescope for Christmas, and I don't know what I was thinking (that maybe it would need assembly?), but it arrived in this huge box, and when I opened it, there was this HUGE package inside. Maybe I should have read the telescope's dimensions, eh? At any rate, I still need to find wrapping paper for it, since none of the rolls of the stuff I have are enough to cover the box. Maybe they don't make wrapping paper big enough for it? Ah, well. The paper won't last long, anyway, so if it's a bit patchwork, who will care?

My sister in law wanted crochet hooks. She has lost the bundle of hooks she had (she has a daughter, 8, who loves to play with them), so I got her a set of eight with ergonomic handles ~ I don't crochet much, but after holding these, I'm going to have to buy myself a set of them! Then I went looking for a case to put them in, something bright that would be hard to lose, and couldn't find anything. Oh, I could find cases, but all of them came filled with cheap crochet hooks, the slots weren't big enough, and they weren't very bright. I finally settled for a needle case in black and fuschia, which is rather bigger than I planned, but that should just make it harder to lose, right? I also found a neat crochet booklet on Ebay, which I snapped up for her. Oh, and the latest Kinsey Milhone mystery (I got her addicted to these). She's an OR nurse, and works two jobs, so her gifts are all about leisure time, which she doesn't have enough of.

I still need to find something for my former teaching partner. She's rather hard to buy for, and I just haven't found anything that says "Betty" yet. But I still have two days, right? Piece of cake! (heh)

I hope this holiday season brings you joy and laughter, love and hope, and all the good things you'd wish for yourself and your loved ones.

Alive, on Ravelry, and the funk is beginning to lift!

My cold has finally said goodbye (yay!), parent conference week from hell has ended (double yay!), I got my invite to Ravelry, and started listing my stash (I need pictures, and a Flickr account, but it's a start, anyway), and I do believe my knitting funk is beginning to ease up. I've been eying some gorgeous royal blue Lang Venezia, wondering what I can make with just six balls of 130 m each. It says it knits 18 sts/4" on 8s, but I haven't swatched yet, so I'm not sure. It's 50/50 mohair/acrylic, and it feels incredibly soft against my skin. Maybe a pullover vest?

I don't wear scarves or hats, or mittens or gloves, for that matter. I mean, this is SoCal. Not much use for those sort of things. (Not much use for wool or mohair or alpaca, either, but that's never stopped me. I just wear them to work, which is air conditioned on the cold side.)

My Masters program is eating up a lot of time. It's crazy, to be honest. This is just the first course, one course! ( A 6 unit course, but still), and it has 2 to 4 assignments each week, as well as 3 to 5 required discussion posts, and feedback requirements for those posts, as well. Seems like a lot to me, considering this is a program for working adults. But I haven't been a student in a long time, so maybe this is normal, and I'm just out of touch. I have about 500 -1000 pages of reading each week, which has to been done before assignments and/or discussions, and I'm finding that I have to give up being online much at all in order to complete the readings, as well as having no time for recreational reading or blogging. With this past week being conference week, and me never being home before 7 pm, it was a very tough week.

A week ago Friday I had a personal disaster. I walked outside to go to work that morning, and my car was gone. I immediately thought it had been stolen. Talk about panic! When I called the police to report it, however, they assured me it hadn't been stolen. It had, however, been damaged in an accident very early Friday morning, and they had towed it to a towing yard. When I called there, they would only confirm that they had it, but couldn't be bothered to tell me what condition it was in. He just worked in the office, you know? I scrambled to write emergency lesson plans and emailed them to work, scrambled to call in for a substitute when none of the numbers we'd been given for the new system worked (I finally logged into the new website, and was able to request a substitute, but no one ever showed up. My kids were taken by a 4th grade teacher all day ~ that woman deserves a medal for coping with 35 5th graders on top of her 35 4th graders!), and then finding someone who would give me a ride to the police station for a release, and then to the towing yard. Where I found out my car wasn't just damaged, it was totaled. Completely. Whoever hit it (I'm still waiting for the police report, so I have no idea who, or how many, hit my car, or whether they were insured), after smashing the backend into my backseat, flipped onto the roof, crushing it, blowing out the back window, and fracturing the front, which held in place a million fragments, but leaned inward onto the steering wheel. The roof was resting on the seatbacks. One rear wheel was parallel to the ground, instead of vertical, and the front driver side wheel tilted at a 45 degree angle. The driver side passenger door was bent badly enough not to be able to be opened, and that window was also gone. The front end was crumpled, but not that badly considering the rest of the car. It's a total loss

I had the towing yard tow the car to my mechanic, who agreed that it was a total loss. I had my ride drive me to a car rental place, where I was able to rent a car for the week (and now a second week). I drove (the same car like I had, in a different color) home, went inside and threw up. I was a bit stressed, I think. Then I just sat down and cried for a while. My insurance company won't do anything until I get the police report (10 days, they say), and we find out who hit me and if they're insured. (Please, God, let them be insured. I need a break!)

So, my life has been a little strange lately. And it's likely to continue being strange for a while longer. But after all this, my knitting funk is beginning to lift, and that makes me feel hopeful. Something I haven't felt in a while, and have missed, greatly. Now, if I can just find the perfect project for that Venezia!

Apologies

Okay, so I'm not much of a blogger. I'm sorry. My life has been so hectic lately, I've had no time to do much of anything blogworthy. My Masters program has started, and I'm knee-deep in reading, writing, and researching for that. I just got made the PTA president, when the former president unexpectedly resigned. I'm on the Leadership team at school, and am responsible for researching and recommending a new vocabulary program for our school. Parent conferences are coming up in a week. I've had the cold from hell for the last two weeks, and it hasn't yet shown me it's leaving.

I haven't knitted a single thing in weeks. I haven't even thought of knitting anything in weeks. I have added to my stash (Webs had their sale, you know, and it's sacrilege to ignore it, right?), but even that hasn't inspired me to pick up a needle, or even search through my voluminous supply of patterns and stitch dictionaries. I'm in a funk, and I don't know when it's going to end. And with the amount of work my Masters program seems to be generating, even if the funk ends, I may not have time to do anything about it.

So, I apologise to any readers who may have noticed my absence. I have no FOs or even UFOs to share. I have no knitterly advice, no knitterly questions, no knitterly progress. I just have way too much to do, not enough time to do it all, and no knitting mojo at all.