Thursday, December 17, 2009

Humble pie

Yup, I'm eating it. I got about 60% through a well-known, knitter-friendly lace shawl pattern (I won't mention the designer because it is so NOT her fault), and then realized about half my lace motifs were unrecognizable. Rats. I was following the chart closely; my stitch counts were good mostly. Huh?

This is ironic because I loved helping customers troubleshoot their knitting projects at my yarn shop job, and I even did pretty well with complicated lace. I deeply admire the amazing lace I've seen. I thought that after 30 years of knitting I should be able to do some lace more complex than "yo, k2tog" across and feather and fan (which I adore for its loveliness and simplicity). I can't honestly blame it on my slippery needles or slippery yarn or (ahem) relaxed gauge. Methinks (since this is not my first try at lace over the last few months) that my head is just not in the lace game right now. Me thinks also I will retry this pattern on different needles and yarn one of these days . . .

Craftwise, I have mittens and spinning and weaving on the brain lately. I want to do some knitting in 2010 for Afghans for Afghans. Did you know that SOAR 2010 will be held in Wisconsin?? I think I'd better start saving now -- I might fall down a lot at the market ;) Any chance you can come? C.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Slack and then slack some more...

Hi Cindy!

I've been a bad blogger and not really much to show for it. I've been doing some knitting and crocheting but nothing really to show for it, at least no pictures. I guess the uncertainty with work has me a bit on edge and I haven't really accomplished much. I started to set up an etsy store to sell some of my excess items but can't get to writing up descriptions and posting them.

We still have no news on the budget. The state legislature met in special session last month but couldn't decide anything. And they may or may not meet this month. The longer they push the decision the deeper the cuts are likely to go. I think my position will be okay since I'm the only one that does the job and I've been with the state a long time (17.5 years if you can believe it!) but the one thing I think the legislature decided on was suspending the personnel rules.

Anyways, enough downer talk. I started painting the bathroom over the weekend. My parents come out four weeks from today so I'd like to have it done by then. I've gotten the cabinet done so far, next on to the walls. We've had fish in there since we moved in, since before we moved in and it was time for a change. It was rather childish looking so it is time for a more grown-up feel. I'm going for a modern, SE Asian feel. The cabinet is a dark purple called Deep Aubergine. I didn't do a deep sanding on it so it was the stained brown to start and the purple over makes it almost a deep claret color. The inside is a bright green, quite a contrast but you only see it when the doors are open. The walls will be blue and cinnamon and the ceiling and door will be a taupe color. It sounds a little weird but it was a color grouping I picked from a layout in a paint suggestion booklet I picked up.

I'll end with a picture of the yarn I've picked out for a baby blanket for one of my friends at work. It will be a feather and fan pattern. They are expecting a girl in February and don't want to go the pink route. I'm dropping the green mix boucle and am adding a deep pink. I knit up a test swatch in the color order I'm going to use and showed it to the dad. He loved the colors and said they were exactly what they're thinking. In fact the wall color for the room is just slightly darker than the mustard color I choose. Gotta love Cascade 220 for their color choices!

Time to finish, Take Care, A