Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Welcome to my blog


Good lord, that sounds so dang technical! I have a blog!

Twenty years ago, if we had heard this phrase we would have thought a blog was some sort of strange disease.

Anyway, I got to thinking that anybody who likes to yak as much as I do about knitting ought to, really ought to have my own blog. So here it is and I hope you enjoy yourself while you're here.

Now on to knitting content. This is what I am working on. It is a Sirdar pattern and I started it maybe 2 years ago. It is for my second daughter who is 8. I am almost done with the back.

I haven't been knitting in a long, long time. Luckily, I pulled this project out of my knitting bag and it will still fit my daughter. I'm pattin' myself on the back. I know me and I always start sweaters for my kids 2 sizes bigger than they are wearing just in case I don't finish what I start right away. When I stopped last time I was about 1 inch into the second set of blocks, so for only working on this for a few days, I'm smokin'!

The yarn is Sirdar Rio and it is a cotton/acrylic blend that is very nice to knit with. I hope to finish the back today and start on the front. Why is it that patterns always start with the back? I have a theory:

It's usually the biggest piece to knit, so once you get that out of the way you feel better about doing the other pieces, i.e. the theory of delayed gratification or getting the worst out of the way first.

Plus, if you make big howling mistakes, you are more likely to make them right away and since this is the back of the garment, at least they won't show as much.

Anyway, that's my theory and I'm stickin' to it.

Yes, I really had mostly stopped knitting, except for a pair of socks I kept for emergency waiting times. Recently, though, I needed a gift for a friend. I remembered a scarf I had stuck in the stash; one that I thought she'd like, so I managed to churn that out in 2 days and I was back, baby! Here's the scarf:


Pretty, yes? This is a Sassy Links scarf from Wool in the Woods. I had 4 hours of drive time over the holidays and most of this was done during that time.

What I have been doing in the past couple of years is tending to my Stampin' Up! business. I've been very busy and creative there, but knitting is still important.

Some of you may remember me from my Knitlist days. I've been a member of the Knitlist since 1995 or thereabouts. I'm also now a proud member of KnitTalk.

Now, back to the current WIP. I'd like to you to observe this:


On the cover photo, these hearts are shown as having 15 rows, but in the pattern, there are are only 13. I am already to here and I look at the cover closely and see that my hearts don't match the models. This is the sort of thing that knitter's just hate. I like the model's hearts better, but no way am I going to frog all of this just to change it. I even contemplated dropping down each stitch to expand the heart into the existing rows, but it's too headache-making. I'm just going to have to keep going the way it is.

Once I finish this sweater, my son has already put his order in. If you are from the Knitlist, you will remember that he is the famous Squatter. The Squatter got his name in early 1999 while yours truly was waiting for his arrival on January 22nd. Since the squat's lovely sisters had each arrived 3 and 2 weeks before their due dates respectively, I was really thinking that this baby would get here at least two weeks before his due date and when he didn't appear, I posted to the list that this child was a "squatter", i.e. someone who was occupying premises without a lease. It stuck and he remained the Squatter on the list ever since. Naturally, I don't call him that to his face!

He even had his own e-newsletter for a while, but after I stopped writing it, it disappeared from egroups and I've lost all the content from it. So if you have a Squatternews archive you've managed to save, I'd be very interested in hearing from you!

2 comments:

Dawn said...

Hello!

It's sad, but I'm afraid that I too am the sort of person that lives one obsession to another. Life just doesn't seem worth living if you don't have a driving force. I blame this on my mom. She is the ultimate "one obsession to the next" type of person. At least she can blame her manic swings from Bi-polar. I've got nothing to blame that makes any sense other than "I was raised this way".

I don't think my stash will ever be as out of control as yours though. I do wish that I had yours. I could use the yarn in a stash so I don't have to wait until I can go to the store to start a project. I feel bad spending $30 on yarn, especially if I haven't consulted DH before hand. Oh well, I look forward to seeing what you are making and living vicariously through your giant stash.

Jessica said...

Hi Jan:

I remember you from Knitlist when you were pg with the squatter! :) (Does he know about his nickname by now even if you don't call him that to his face? If not, they DO learn to read! LOL)

I'm glad to see you have a blog... I found out about you on YH's site and clicked on the link... I've got a blog, but don't keep up with it religiously...