Sunday, August 27, 2006

Reader, I have gibbed. If Guitar Hero can be considered gibbing. For some inexplicable reason, I'm just not into console games. If it has a joystick or a controller, it's not my thing. I even resisted guitar hero for weeks.

No longer. Granted, I'm not as badass as Autercakes or the Lad, but I can now not only happily head bob along, knitting away as they rule the school, but I will also avail them of the guitar so they may refuel (read: drink, as we've noted a distinct improvement in scores the drunker we are) and I rip through 'Hey You' en route to a new high score.

I'll point out this means there are now two things I do that I said I would be too clummish for: gaming, and knitting.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Gibbers for Equality!

So, gibbing tends to be somewhat underrepresented on this August Forum. (Angeltiger, a little bird told me that you've been facing ZZTop in honorable combat until the wee hours of the morning . . .).

But I see a new dawn for gibbing and it is Live-Action Gibbing.

My Sisters Let Us Let Uwe Boll Be Our Guide!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Checklist

Bunch of Nashua handknits 'Cilantro' (cotton/poly) in eye searing red for skirt? Check.
Instructions from C? Check.
Size 9, 24 inch circ needle on which to cast on one hundred fucking thirty six some odd stitches? Why no, because she and I had discussed needing long straights for this! Fucking fucker FUCK FUCK.

Hi, I'll just be calling C.

In the meantime, I cast on the Clapotis on size 10s. After working up the color on the 'set pattern' first chunk, I looked at it and thought, "This is a meeeeee colorway, not a colorway for K." I was thus presented with a challenge: do I frog, go buy yarn in a very K colorway, and cast on for her? Or do I....slant my gaze over at the Be Sweet Magic Ball I picked up 2 skeins of for a song (given they normally retail for $37.50, getting two for that was ridiculous) in a co-op. One skein and a pair of size 13 needles equals a fabulous, funky scarf which one can feel all smug bleeding heart liberal about. It is shameful how easy it is to make something gorgeous from that yarn, making it look like one has slaved all fall on a Christmas present for someone when, in reality, you've been greedily making a clapotis for yourself. I began to slide the clap off of the needles.

The little Matilda-devil popped up on my shoulder and hissed something about my shameful, shameful lack of self knitting this year. While I have acquired yarn for projects for ME ME ME, stuff for other people has taken priority (even during the Knitting Olympics when Autercakes lectured me about knitting for me and ripped me a new one when I thought about using the time for a sweater for someone else. I banged out 2 sweaters for meeee, but I continued to knit for other people, cracking out some baby hats). The little Matilda devil began to remind me of all the luscious, wonderful things she's knit for herself, while I have a rollicking RSI and nothing to show for it but thank you notes and one hat which my child has promptly attempted to claim for his own (I don't think so, pal, but I will make you your own).

Tonight, I'm winding one of the Magic Balls.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Irony, you whore

So, once upon a time, the manager at the LYS put out a call for pattern testers for a book of hers. Sure, I emailed her, signing up. It's a book of objects small-by-necessity, thus, it shouldn't take long to knit these things up, right?

Wrooooong.

The pattern I tested had been edited into a shell of its former trig and sensible self. C. had written a brilliant, straightforward pattern, which the editors had then fubared into an unholy incomprehenislbe nightmare. So I knit it once, it came out like ass, I had to knit it again, in this damn variegated yarn so I had to start pulling yarn from elsewhere in the skein so it would match up, all the while cursing and swearing because i-fuckin-rony, it was for a purse. Me. Knitting a purse. As anyone who knows me can tell you, the concept of wench ever willfully acquiring- much less making with her own two hands- a purse is a sign of the apocalypse. (Which is not to say I will not someday make, say, the farmer's market bag, or zeeby's bag. These are bags, useful for toting larger objects. They are not purses. Still, they apparently tread too close to the purse line, as I have yet to make something as damn easy as a bag)

Today I was in the midst of work hell, pleasantly letting myself think about casting on a gauge swatch for the clapotis (survey says: size 8s for the 100purewool hand dyed merino turns a gorgeous yarn into tight, inflexible cardboard. I'm levelling up to 10s for this), when the phone rang. C breathlessly explained new editor, new publisher, they've asked her to add in a few more garmenty patterns, and she needs people to knit these things up fast and she thought of me and she'll swap me yarn and pretty please and she's so sorry she accidentally called my husband's cell first and he said he could pick up the yarn and pattern at the store tomorrow for me if I said yes.

Sure. I said, thinking of the pleasantness of banging out a wee sweater, knowing it'd likely be donated to the women and children's shelter the store supports when all was said and done. Granted, it means I shouldn't cast on the Clapotis till next week. How big are we talking, what are the skills involved, when do you need it by. Sept 4, 700 yards of worsted weight, knitting in the round, yarnovers. And then, the words that put a chill into my heart.

Oh you'll love it, she said. It's a straightforward flippy little....skirt.

Monday, August 14, 2006

I'm going in!

I am finally making a clapotis. For one of my favorite people at work, for Christmas. I need to buy the yarn (artyarns supermerino 8), and I don't think I'm even going to get this sucker on the needles before October. But after months of looking at the pattern and whining, I'm finally just taking the damn plunge.

And then I will, in all likelihood, fall in love with it and order yarn for myself and crank it out again, because that's the kind of dweeb I am.

First, however, I must finish this goddamn albatross of a baby blanket, and Sean has informed me in no uncertain terms I must make him a hat just like mine (the two-tassel cable hat from Hip Knits, in Rowan Big Wool periwinkle. Yes, I made myself a stash reduction hat, and now he wants one too) and finish his mittens.

Mittens?
Oh that's a story. For later.

Friday, August 04, 2006

I skipped the 25% off Christmas in July sale at the Studio, under the logic of my PMS fueled rage meant subjecting myself to hordes of avid knitters all trying to get at the goddamn Noro and cashmere blends would not be especially wise if I wished to avoid getting to spend significant time in lockup in County.

So instead, I hit the web for good deals. Like 40% off Jade Sapphire Keja 100% pure Mongolian cashmere, in lilac. And 40% off Blue Sky bulky in fawn, and 100% alpaca sportweight in a variety of colors. For socks.

YES, ANA, DID YOU HEAR ME? I BOUGHT SOCK YARN.
Pure alpaca and cashmere for socks.
I apparently felt I needed to treat myself.