What is the general philosophy on self-striping yarn? I tired to start the second sock in the same place as the first, but the color got way off some where along the line. I'm actually more pleased that they aren't exactly the same, but I can't help but feel a better knitter than I would have been able to alleviate the issue without any problem.
I made a lot of mistakes on the second sock due to my haste in getting them done. But like Nancy says, that's the part in the shoe anyway. (She is SO wise!)
I think I may have to pass along my crown. The crown that I earned by being the worst kitchener in the west. I did work hard at it, but somehow I've improved my concentration and gained a little more patience and with the help of Sally Melville's The Purl Stitch have finally ended up with a toe that looks marginally sane.
So who wants the crown next? Anyone? Anyone?
I'm saving the inaugural wearing of the socks for Sunday at Rebecca's. Mary Kay's in town and I think that warrants a special outfit. These socks go with a sequined thong and leather vest, right?
Yay! I got my tote exchange in the mail on Friday!
The front and back are differing shades of fuchsia pink. The bunny is super-cute and super-soft. And I love, love they yarn. I think the lav is going to be a ruffly pair of girly socks. I'm not sure about the green - I want a pair of socks outta that too, but haven't found the pattern yet. The candy is, well, uh - gone. I love my bag!
Now I can show you the tote I made for my person. Its from a sweater I bought at the thrift and felted.
The flowers are wool felt and stitched on. I slitted the back and stuffed with fiber fill and stitched closed. The center is made from glass beads.
The lining isn't perfect, but I'm proud. I like the contrast to the austerity of the outer.
Yesterday Priscilla and I went to the thrift store and I found 2 more sweaters. We'll see if they work out as well as this one.
On another note, the Week of Eating Badly has officially been declared over. Girl Scout cookies, ice cream, mint chocolate chip shakes, extra cheesy quesadillas, blue box mac & cheese and Fanta strawberry soda does not a healthy diet make. I'm now back in control. Fruits and veggies. Whole grain bread. Water. Low fat yogurt. High fiber cereal. That is my life now.
Luckily I got invited to a BBQ yesterday so I got a big blow out for the last day. Fried catfish, shrimp, cheesy rice, peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream. And some sort of vodka watermelon concoction. All good. There would have been photos, but you can't focus a camera AND stuff your face at the same time!
I admit I have a fascination with small things. (Which you would think would make me more attractive to a great many men, but alas, no) There were so many wee things to choose from! I totally can't resist linking to this beautiful ring which probably deserves its own category. If it's still around after Lent (no frivolous purchases? What was I thinking?!! I am nothing if not frivolity personified!) I may have to get it.
Of course those PB & J earrings are adorable too. 'Specially since that has been my dinner of late. I wonder if she makes PB & J earrings on whole wheat....
Here I am happily working on three little projects. I think I've stumbled on the perfect formula. Three projects at a time. First is a sock - great for travel, easy, knits up fast. Second is a "big" project - one to do at home when you're watching TV, not a lot of counting or measuring. Rows and rows of stockinette are perfect. Third, lace or cables - something challenging when all that stockinette threatens to make you go over the edge. My life is complete.
Here are my special three: the beaded cami, the BFF sock and a little lace scarf I'm doing for the latest a-long with Get Stitchy (forgot what it was). I work on the sock at lunch and alternate at home with the cami and the scarf (oooh sounds like a naughty yarn novel... The Cami and the Scarf: forbidden love never sounded so good....)
Cheeky bits, aren't they?
The taupe scarf is my own "design" in Patons Grace yarn. I got the lace pattern out of one of the Barbara Walker books and added the garter stitch border. It's a present for my friend Anna for her birthday (last February). You know, I can hardly believe that two years ago all I was making was scarves. Now the last two I've done seem like they take eons!
I love my BFF sock and can't wait to wear them. I took a little knitting break but now am sockin' right along. This yarn is lovely, although I was hoping I could get the striping to match better. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough yarn to do the full sock so I shortened it a bit, but looks like I'll have enough after all.
The yarn was getting all tangled up in the center and when I pulled the strand it looked like skein puke. Hee hee! Why yes, it is past my bedtime....funny you should ask....
If this were an actual post, it would have included links and stuff, but I'm too tired for that so put on your imagination caps and see the links in your mind, okay?
I'm thinking of goals, living and just my life in general. I just got the news that yet another friend is leaving southern California. I wonder if that is what the future holds for me. I don't want to leave. I love San Diego!
But the more I evaluate my life, the more I'm struck by the fact that if I want to own a home then I need to leave. Or I need to win the lottery (as soon as I save up my dollar, I'm buying a ticket, y'all!)
While I'm down-sizing (really, I am!) and clearing I find that I'm really not holding on to too much. Just too much for my living space. I mean, I want an art studio. A place that can stay crazy messy and where the color of the walls can change on a whim. I need that space. These hobbies that I profess are my lifeblood. If I couldn't create anything I think I would go mad.
You know how you can take out a sock or something in front of a group of people who don't knit and they just think you're a genius? And they say things like, "I wish I could knit" or "I wish I were creative" (which, really - how creative is it to follow a pattern word for word?). But the key of it is, they don't want to. If they wanted to, they would learn.
I used to work with a woman who made the best chile relleno in the world. If she made some for dinner she would make sure to bring in some just for me. But she always said that next time she made them I would have to come over and she'd teach me. Then I'd have to explain that I didn't want to learn how to make chile relleno, I just wanted to eat it. So it is with those people who say they wish they were creative - they really don't want to be, they just want to make the statement.
So this creating business has grown in my life to the point where I want to take it to the next level. What next level that is, I don't truly know yet. Maybe write books, maybe start a business, maybe have a new job in the craft industry. I do know that whatever I decide it will soon outgrow my 626 square feet of luxurious living.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want a McMansion or a sprawling ranch house somewhere (I'd just fill it up with junk) but I do want a dedicated room for my stuff. Is that something I can get in California? Or do I have to move away? Do I have to leave the friends that I love with my whole entire soul? I think my heart would actually break....
In a place where the average home costs upward of $400K, I'm not sure what I would have to do to make my dream come true. Has anyone out there done it? Boost my spirits, will ya?! I'm feeling down....
I'm always so tired after the time changes in the spring. I could sleep all day! All that blasted, perky sunlight is enough to make a girl wanna cocoon for a month and a half. Ah! Cocoon. Sounds lovely doesn't it? In honor of cocooning, the Friday Five is brought to you by the word "sleepy!" Enjoy!
A semblance of order has returned to my life. It is peaceful. It is calm. It is rows and rows of stockinette knit in the round. After the lacy bits were done it was nothing but pure empty minded bliss.
But don't get the idea that this is all sunshine and roses. No sirree. There's math involved. And something called a gauge swatch. Yeah, I know....scary! The pattern is written only in one size so I have to make the adjustments so I can actually wear it. I'm thinking instead of beads I might use pearls. The yarn I'm using is Baruffa Aerobic which is very soft and bouncy. The color is hard to capture. It's a pale, ballerina sort of pink.
The lace was fun but I was anxious to get to the stockinette so I could watch TV whilst working. What? you want a closeup? Okay!
Ponds
I've been working on the 2nd BFF sock at lunch and it's coming along quite nicely. I'd take a picture, but its a sock - just look at the first one. Cross your eyes if you want to see two.
Anyway, I thought I'd take a picture today while at the reflecting pond.
I guess it's supposed to be calming, but all I can think of is the swimming pool color of the water, yet it's not a swimming pool. It makes me anxious for some reason - it imitates something fun, but it's just supposed to be pretty - kind of like Carmen Electra. The other building has a "real" pond with a little waterfall, boulders with built in speakers and real duckies. We have the Obelisk of Doom (you can't see it, but it's just beyond the tree on the right).
But anyway, the day was beautiful and it's difficult NOT to enjoy that. You folks in winter climates probably don't want to hear that I've had lunch at the beach three times in the last two weeks. However, don't despair - just when your flowers are blooming and you're shucking off that spring sweater and standing ready at the door to greet summer, we'll be huddling under the despair known as May Gray and June Gloom. I don't mind. It keeps us humble.
Speaking of ponds (and I was originally) this sweater is taking a little trip to Frog Pond.
You know Frog Pond, don't you? It's just beyond What the Heck Was I Thinking Alley and round the corner from @)#(&)*#!!!! Road. I just couldn't follow the directions or the schematic. This was the sweater I wanted to make for years. I loved it so much I kept the pattern in the hopes that I would learn to knit one day.
Maybe one day and under the influence of the perfect combination of mood enhancers and tequila I will attempt this again. Or maybe that combo will just make me run around outside in my undies singing "I'm a Little Teapot." Again.
Here's your moment of zen:
Another closeup? Okay!
Two little baby hummingbirds nesting in the tree in front of my friend Priscilla's house. They flew the coop this weekend, so I'm lucky I got this photo last week. Aren't they adorable? She's hoping they come back to nest every year.
Your reward for making it to the end of this meandering post? A funny video. Click here if it doesn't play.
Sunday I went to the Annie Leibovitz exhibit at Balboa Park. It was truly exceptional. I wasn't expecting that. I mean, I know she's a stellar photographer, but I didn't expect that her non-celebrity photos would be so moving. Moving and yet ordinary. Ordinary people doing everything things: living, laughing, dying.
She had a lot of photos of her family and I really love her mother's face and stance. And her father's quiet dignity. And something about the comparison of ordinary people such as Oseola McCarty or citizens of Sarajevo living amidst a war make the celebrity photos look silly and self-indulgent.
This photo of William Burroughs brought a lot of comments. One couple was saying he looked repentant. I don't know exactly what he's feeling, but I don't think it's repentance. At least not in this photo. I'm sort of thinking he may have dozed off a bit.
This was a favorite photo too. Mostly because of my never ending crush on Mikhail Baryshnikov. But I like the lines of the bodies and how concentrated they are even to the points of the their fingers.
There were a lot of photos of Sontag. The cancer photos of Sontag and of Leibovitz's father are very personal and vulnerable. There was one of Sontag standing before the entrance into the stone city of Petra. Really amazing. Wish I could find it online.
Her photos are making me rethink the aging process. There's such wisdom in these untouched faces. it makes you want to know them and hear their stories. They give you glimpses of too much wine in dark cafes over fierce arguments and uncontained laughter. Of 50 year friendships and unbearable sorrows. Of life and breath and love.
As far as celebrity photos go, I'm really partial to this one for some reason.
Doesn't it just say "dedication" and "athleticism" to you? Okay, well
it doesn't say it me either. All it says to me is "yum!" But maybe if
I stare at it long enough. There's another photo of Johnny Depp that is also delish as well as a really nice shot of the family Obama.
There's a, uh, political photo featuring 7 members of our current administration which I titled Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The man in front of me did not think it was funny and started to give me the stink eye until he noticed I was about six inches taller than him and "ethnic" and then he just moved on. Gave me my laugh of the day.
If the exhibit comes to your town make an effort to get to it.
I took a photo of the display outside the museum and I'm rather proud of it
The way the real trees and photo trees are positioned it almost looks like it's not a billboard. Cool huh? Wish I could say I noticed it before I took the picture. But most of it's in focus so no complaints here.
This is the other side of the museum entry. I was trying to get the detail of the hennaed hands.
I smell like cake today. Rum cake. I'm wearing Lush Randy Buttercream and I smell delish! I don't know what they put in this thing... oh, wait...it says...cognac oil. But I smell like I just rolled about in a bowl full of cake batter after tippling the brandy. Yum! I tried to use this cream during the summer months but it seemed to attract flies. But now it's all good. Except for the teeth marks on my arms.
