retail therapy

We had some fantastically good news this week - just yesterday in fact - the news that Peggers was selected as a teacher's aide for a special education program at our local high school, which is just wonderful. Unfortunately, though, I have also been (mentally) slammed with a ton of bad news this week as well.

And unfortunately, the bad column currently far far outweighs and outranks the good.

My paternal grandparents are having some major medical problems at the moment - my 91 year old grandmother is beginning the slow, painful descent into dementia. And as my 89 year old grandfather - her sole caregiver - is currently in the hospital recovering from hip replacement surgery, this is a difficult time for the family.

On my mom's side of things, my stepfather, who has finally recovered from cancer and appallingly painful and complicated gallbladder surgery just a few months back, found himself back again in the O.R. this week - a blocked bowel that had left him in severe pain & horridly emaciated. The surgery went well, overall, despite their having to remove over 2 feet of bowel, however this morning he has no feeling in his left arm from the elbow down- - a new - and obviously unwanted - concern.

Then, the final thing that absolutely sent me over to the retail therapy edge seeking some relief, was the news last night that one of the dearest, sweetest people in the world - a college friend who means the absolute world to me - is back from her life abroad in South East Asia due to health concerns. An ultrasound earlier in the week shows a large mass on her liver, and she's at the urologist today finding out what information she can - but thoughts of liver cancer are certainly at the forefront of everyone's mind.

So I ran to do a little buying/knitting therapy - thinking that I needed to create something for myself that is soothing and comforting - something I can wrap up in and hunker down with to ride out this latest wave of pain and fear that is heading our way. And so I have discarded my thrifty plans of recycling an old wool sweater into a custom dyed version of Linear. Instead I just purchased 8 skeins of this in a shade that only Brooklyntweed can properly do justice. Not the original colour I had in mind, but certainly a beautiful shade that I'll happily wear any day.



{In my defense of my original plan to pace myself (vis-a-vie my progress on the silk tank I'm knitting up for Gryphon, seen above) let me say that I finished the knitting & re-knitting on the body just last night. I'm casting on for the two silk/cashmere side-panel triangles tonight & will work on them like the devil.........only taking breaks to pet my new yarn (once it arrives!) every now and then.}

Nothing like the shiny-bright promise of a new project to get a girl moving along!

WIP update

I've been having a fantastic time working on a silk shell design for Gryphon - knitted up in her most luscious 100% heavy-ish weight 'Klee' yarn. (NB - she just dyed up a ton of this stuff - keep an eye out for when she updates her shop, and grab it before someone else does!!!)

Klee in the back - the heavier & darker shaded skeins -
while the pale blue-green bundle in front is Gaia
(55% silk/45% cashmere)

Working with this yarn is just lovely - I find myself stopping while knitting to say something or look up to see what the Munch is doing, and find myself petting the shell or stroking the skeins while doing so.

Neckline shaping.

The stuff is absolutely faboo. It does get a little.....furry at times, but a careful petting and/or stroke here or there quickly gets rid of that. And working with this yarn has *totally* blown my previous notions of silk being delicate and fragile.

Strong. Strong, strong, strong, strong. Like, "I-can't-break-this-with-my-bare-hands" strong. Don't try it - it hurts a LOT if you even attempt it. Take my word for it, learn from my mistake, and let me be the only one with stinging fingers. Use scissors.

Plus, there's the colour. How can you not see this and not want to just dive right in? When I've worked on this in public, folks have walked across a room to take a closer look at it - the colour hooks 'em, and then the luxury of the pure silk reels them all the rest of the way in.

{sigh}

The only bummer about this shell? It's totally not mine - standard design protocol, but heartbreaking nonetheless. It's also knitted a size smaller than I normally wear. Now, I'm designing it with some positive ease, as I don't want it at all to be too-tight and tartish, but positive ease withstanding, I still don't know if I could squeeze my 36C sized chest into it. I might be able to get away with it, as it's a split-neck top, but it might be a bit too tight for me to modestly wear out in public.

......but I sure as shit am going to try it on in the privacy of my own house before I send it off to Gryphon, you can bet your whole stash on that one!

:)

I'm such a liar

Yesterday I left a post for Emily, commenting on her daughter Ellie's adorable booties. When I've done baby knitting, I've never ever been a booty knitter - sweaters, hats, bibs even - but never socks or booties. I always figured that those little suckers would slide or fall right off those little smooth baby feet - so why bother? Yet all it took was one picture of Ellie wearing her Saarjte booties and I was a goner. Of course, I swore up and down to Emily that I wouldn't cast on for a pair immediately. Because - you know - I'm currently quite full with WIPs, thankyouverymuch. Dad's socks (50%), my May Day Sock Swap socks (70%), Gryphon's tank top (40%), and swatching for my brother's Inga hat.

Ahem.



Yeah.......right. (Humming softly to herself: "Liar, liar, pants on fire......")

I've already cast on for a second - larger - pair as well. It's the perfect project for any knitter who is a bit stuck - not only does it use up such a tiny amount of yarn that you can't tell that your ball of leftover sock yarn has actually changed in size whatsoever, but they're quick, they're adorable when you're done, and you feel so damn clever once you take the flat construction and seam them into something so cute and rounded and twee. For my first pair I used size 1 needles and leftover basic sock yarn - some handspun that I bought via Gryphon at the farmer's market last summer - spun by a friend of hers and ultimately turned into a pair of Monkey socks for my mom - topped with some of the SockPal pink bamboo/wool that Jessie custom dyed for me when I pulled Ava as my Sockpalooza 4 sock pal and with which I made her a pair of lusciously pink knee-highs.

It was really fun to work on these, too, as it gave me the perfect excuse to finally pull out my buttons.



And ducks, I have lots of buttons. I was gifted all of these - and honestly, not to brag or be at all snotty, but they're pretty much all vintage-ish - by a co-worker's wife who was an incredible sewer, but was both downsizing her crafting activities and switching full-time to weaving.

I have lots. And lots and lots and lots. Of course, I couldn't find four of the ones I first wanted for the booties, and so had to 'settle' for the pearl ones instead, but still. Not exactly a hardship, huh?

A ton of the buttons in the big cardboard shoebox are huge funky woven leather ones that would only be suitable for a jacket or a manly cardigan. But still, if I ever decide to make a good three dozen manly cardigans, I'll be totally set in terms of buttons.

My excuse for why it is more okay than not to work on the booties instead of my other official WIPs is that I'm home today and tomorrow with the Munchkin. He has fallen prey to a nasty virus that is hitting roughly half the town. He started running a fever in the middle of the night - restlessly rolling from side to side and moaning, while scalding hot to the touch all over his body - and today he's spent 90% of his time on the couch passively watching movies when he wasn't sleeping for a solid two hours. This is such an active child - for him to be this still, I truly know that he's sick. Not terribly - and not anything that so far needs a doctor's attention - the virus just needs to run its course - but for him to stay this still this long? Other than the first week of his life, this might be the most passive I've ever seen him. From what I've heard, the virus takes about 4 days to run it's full gamut - by Sunday he should be up a bit more, and by Monday all that should be left is a dry cough.

Now all I can do is hope that I don't catch it as well!

Once the second pair of booties are finished, the silk tank top is next. I swear. With Dad's sock and the May Day sock worked on between in spare moments and before bed. I want to get the front of the tank finished and get started on the lace panel insert by this weekend. Ook, that reminds me, I need to e-mail Gryphon about the designing contract that I'm supposed to sign. She trusted me with some very valuable silks - not to mention a skein of silk and cashmere! - I need to make sure that I do right by her - and the fibers as well...

Wee Tiny

It's that time of year again!



Emily is once again running the Wee Tiny Sock Swap - and this time it's open to everyone who'd like to participate!

I had a good time doing the W.T.S.S. last year - it really is a fantastic way to "break into" the swap world. One teeny weeny sock - and just one! - and an envelope and a regular ol' stamp. Can't get much easier than that!

In fact, I still have my official W.T.S. posted on my bulletin board next to my desk...


I'm afraid that I don't have any knitting to show you. I *have* been doing lots of knitting - I finished my dad's boring grey engineer sock and am casting-on for the second one tonight. I'm churning away at full speed on the silk tank top I'm designing for Gryphon - last night I pinned out the front piece & lightly spritzed it to block it so that I could get a better sense of where & when I want to start one of the larger design elements, and I'm starting on a Inga hat for my brother out of some Malabrigo that I've got. However I'm not too certain which colour of the Malabrigo should be the design and which should be the background, so I'm swatching a small hat with only two pattern repeats - one colour dominant on one side of the hat, and the other colour dominant on the other side of the hat. I'll finish a full chart repeat then pin, lightly block, and then photograph and get lots and lots of feedback from everyone to help me decide!

But of course, I have no pictures of any of this, so sadly I am a Very Very Bad Blogger so far this week. Can we blame it on a Crazy Monday & a slightly less Insane Tuesday?

;)

48 Hours: Sunday

A little mosaic to cover what happened on Sunday.

1. Heading to March Spin-In - - traffic jam!, 2. Heading to March Spin-In, 3. March Spin-In at Gryphon's - Adrianne, 4. March Spin-In, 5. March Spin-in at Gryphon's - Field Artillery, 6. March Spin-In at Gryphon's - Lauren & Jen, 7. March Spin-In. , 8. Gryphon's Massive Attack Coat, 9. Silk tank top materials, 10. Kate's silk/cashmere & Gryphon's silk, 11. My tank top design - after 1 night, 12. Silk tank top under construction

First a 45-minute traffic jam while I drove up Gryphon's way (thank goodness I had some Harry Potter CD's and a sock-in-progress to work on!) then loads of fun spinning and laughing at Gryphon's. I got to watch some extremely talented spinners make it look way easier than it actually can be (at least, easier than newbies like me think it is!) and got an eyeful of some beautiful fiber in Gryphon's shop. [Ahem] In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that a skein of one-off sock yarn might have fallen into my basket.

Deep blues and dark browns go so well together, don't they?

While at Gryphon's we also got to see her coat. Her (this is my name for it) Massive Attack coat. That thing weighs roughly a million pounds. It's truly a feat of knitting.

The last row of pictures is the luscious, gorgeous, and absolutely amazing Icelandic silk that Gryphon has given me to knit up a new design with. She supplemented her silk with a hand-dyed skein of Kate's cashmere/silk. I came home and jumped right on the knitting. I can hardly wait to see how these two fibers knit up together!

I'm home with the Munchkin for the rest of the week. Today our fun activity is to make some home-made baked doughnuts. Tomorrow our fun choice is home-made bagels. Jessie reminded me of how good fresh bagels are, and I'm going to bust out the recipe that my brother and I used to make when we lived in Botswana - with our non-traditional peanut butter addition and all!