Adventures of The Mad Crocheter

Reboot

2008-08-08T23:09:00.001-04:00

In light of a shift in topics, I'm moving my blog over to Yarn or Death. Hope you'll check it out!

Crochet does too have advantages over knitting

2008-05-29T22:10:00.005-04:00

Yeah, I know. I have been totally neglecting this blog. I could argue it's because I've been doing things instead of writing about them, and that would be a good defense if everyone didn't know I love to babble.

I had a scare tonight. I went out to rifle through my crochet bag in the car looking for DPNs. I was actually worried they were missing, but I found them right off, no problem. The problem came when I came back inside and Good Kitty went running out. She hasn't tried to do that since a few years ago, when she dashed out and got menaced by the landlords' Jack Russell (oooh, scary!) and cried for her daddy to come rescue her. (Good Kitty adores the Mad Husband and only tolerates sharing him with me because otherwise the box would never get cleaned.) Luckily for me, she just wanted to wander around and gripe loudly for a couple minutes. Silly Good Kitty. I may have to give her a new nickname.

So anyway. Back to the yarn...

I'm discovering one reason that I'm better suited to crochet than knitting -- wait, two: crochet is faster so I have less time to get bored and start wondering what else I can start, and crochet hooks don't have to stay with a WIP like knitting needles do so I can start something else when my willpower fails.

Now would be the perfect time to start crocheting something, but I'm still burned out on crochet from the Customer Spotlight Sale so knitting it is.

I want to start some way-easy socks for the Mad Husband out of Trekking XXL. I have a free set of #0 DPNs, and a free set of #2 DPNs. The #1s are occupied (and I need to post a picture of what they're occupied with). The #1s would probably be the best choice for Trekking, but they're not available. I'm leaning toward the #0s because I tend to knit loose, but at this point I'm still rooting through all the Trekking socks on Ravelry trying to see if there's a clear favorite. Actually, there is: the #1s. Ooooops.

ETA: Tried the #0s. They sucked. Frogging and getting out the #2s now. If those suck, I'll just have to wait till I'm finished with the project using the #1s.

This is another one of those Murphy's Law corollaries, right?

2008-05-19T17:50:00.002-04:00

Now that I have all this beautiful sock yarn, what I really want to knit is... linen hand towels.

See, I have my bases covered.

2008-05-14T17:39:00.008-04:00

StringTheory2.0 says you should always have three projects on the needles.

One that's about at your current skill level...

...one that's a bit of a challenge...

...and one that you can do while drinking.

The Klingon crud

2008-05-05T21:15:00.004-04:00

So I managed to drag my sorry butt to the Customer Spotlight Sale on Saturday, where I made a grand total of... ten bucks.

Oops. I guess people don't need chapstick cozies.

But I had a good time hanging out with Lizardsmells, who sold a ton of her awesome stitch markers, and visiting with other crafters. And overall a lot of money got raised for ovarian cancer research, though I probably would have helped raise more if instead of making my own things, I had used the money I spent on supplies to buy everyone else's lovely wares!

So now the sale is over and I'm free to work on whatever I want to, which would be totally awesome if I actually felt up to knitting. Whatever bug I've got (I'm calling it the Klingon crud) has wiped me out to the point where I needed a nap after watching a basketball game and knitting. Whoa, really intensive activity there. Worse, I've managed to misplace one DPN. I'm close to done on the first Saucy sock (the one I posted a while back) so I'm faking it with four needles until I can get a replacement, which feels weird. I see why StringTheory2.0 keeps pushing the circs. I'd lose my own head if it weren't screwed on.

This is not good.

2008-05-01T23:27:00.003-04:00

I'm down to 38 hours till the Customer Spotlight Sale, and I thought I was prepared for the last push to the finish... I've got the yarn, I've even taken a vacation day tomorrow so I can stitch all day. So what's the problem?

I'm sick. Some kind of unidentified crud. My throat is killing me.

I'm not saying this is the worst possible timing or anything, but it's not promising.

Also, hand felting? Not nearly as easy as it sounds.

what I want to do vs. what I need to do, and The Sock Yarn Mania

2008-04-27T22:06:00.005-04:00

I've been crocheting exclusively the past few days trying to make things for the Needle Nook's Customer Spotlight sale, which is May 3. That is, this coming Saturday. And I am so not ready. And I am so wondering why I thought this was a good idea. Both StringTheory2.0 and the Mad Husband have informed me that they knew this would happen. I procrastinated, as I tend to do with everything, but I still think I would have come out okay (if you're going to make a habit of procrastinating, you had better be good at it) if I hadn't fallen victim to The Sock Yarn Mania.

And when I speak of The Sock Yarn Mania, I'm not just referring to my own. If it were just my own, it wouldn't have nearly so many capital letters. It seems to be the season of the sock; I hear rumblings about Red Heart and Lion Brand introducing new sock yarns, Malabrigo sock yarn is already on its way, and my friends are constantly telling me about some new sock yarn, frequently indie, that I have to check out... I see lots of people knitting socks at every knit night, and if sock yarn is about to invade the big-box craft stores, The Mania is likely to grow. (And to shatter our illusions that we're cool and hip because we knit socks. As Natalia says, "trends go to Wal-Mart to die.")

This might be me overthinking it, but I wonder if it's these uncertain times that make sock knitting seem like a sensible thing to do. You only need one skein, which can be had for less than you'd spend making all but the cheapest sweaters, and it keeps you occupied for hours. Then you can show off the finished product! I imagine the stalwart matrons of wartime England putting on a kettle of tea and knitting socks while scanning the sky with binoculars. Kind of like Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but substitute knitting for magic. (That would be a very strange knitter cult movie that everyone else would fall asleep during.) Could something in our cultural memory recall schoolchildren knitting socks for the Great War, and thus it makes sense to knit socks, even if they're actually handpainted merino treats for ourselves and those we choose to spoil this way? (I was thinking the ultimate symbol of devotion would be to knit so many socks that the Mad Husband could wear hand-knit socks every day, but I was also thinking that there's biting off more than you can chew, and then there's biting off so much that you choke on it. Anyway, I don't think he wants pink socks and I've got an awful lot of pink sock yarn to knit up...) And it's a sensible way to indulge your passion for colors without getting stuck with a finished sweater that looks like a clown threw up on it.

Or is it all actually the market itself, cleverly playing on our economic worries and suggesting that we can feel good about knitting socks because they're solid and practical... thus absolving ourselves of guilt as we binge on handpainted merino and gleefully reassure each other "it's sock yarn, it doesn't count."

It's not that sock yarn doesn't count as stash. It's just that I have an entire separate stash of sock yarn.

See? Even when I'm refusing to allow myself to knit socks because I need to crochet for the sale, I'm still obsessing over socks. That's just sad. I am so regretting this.

Jayne is a girl's name.

2008-04-23T15:57:00.004-04:00

Carat asked which pattern I used to make my Jayne hat. Well... I haven't exactly made one yet. It's on the to-do list, and has been for some time, as evidenced by this conversation from a couple months ago...

Me: ...and I need to make [the Mad Husband] a Jayne hat...
StringTheory2.0 (confused) : Why are you going to make your husband a lady's hat?
Me (trying to sound all River): Jayne is a girl's name.

And then I had to go and find this for her. Though if you have no clue what I'm talking about, this will probably be more helpful. If you're not inclined to watch YouTube and don't know what Firefly is, the short version is Firefly was a Western set in space, and Jayne was the shoot-first-ask-questions-never mercenary. His mother made him this hat and he thought it was the greatest thing ever:

Not surprisingly, Jayne hats are all the rage with Firefly fans. I think I actually squealed at DragonCon last year when I realized one guy in costume as Jayne had an honest-to-goodness crocheted Jayne hat. Purists may insist that the hat must be knitted out of the most dreadful acrylic you can find. I think I'd go more Cascade 220, but to each their own. At any rate, I'd better make sure the Mad Husband has one of his own by DragonCon or he'll be sorely disappointed.

Happy birthday to me!

2008-04-22T22:34:00.002-04:00

Today is my birthday, and it's one of those landmarks... it's the big 3-0. And despite my past claims that I was just going to stay 29 for a few years, I'm pretty excited about it. My twenties were so weird, in particular the beginning and middle, but improved so dramatically towards the end that I figure the thirties will continue the trend. I've become more confident in myself, and less concerned with what others think. You know what that means? Much more knitting and crocheting in unusual places to come. Possibly while wearing a Jayne hat and feeding birds and laughing maniacally for my own amusement.

No time for love, Dr. Jones

2008-04-19T23:02:00.002-04:00

I am totally in love, or at least in lust, with sock knitting. I frogged the cuff on my Saucy Sock (k3, p1) because I didn't like it, and I'm liking the more conventional k2p2. But alas, I must set aside my lovely socks and get to work, because the Customer Spotlight Sale draws ever closer and I haven't done even a fraction of the work I need to do. Yet I keep surfing The Loopy Ewe and Etsy to look at the pretty, pretty hand-painted sock yarn.

Tonight I got out the hooks and got to work on a smaller version of the Jester Bag. I'm making it with Plymouth Happy Feet, and this stuff is terrific. I'm looking forward to using it for socks at some point. Man, though, now that I know how to knit, crochet just seems to rip through yarn. Maybe that's because it's so much faster, so my ball of yarn is gone that much quicker. The colors are beautiful!

Houston, we have sock!

2008-04-17T15:23:00.004-04:00

Hi! I'm a sock!

Sock has personality.

Now I, too, can stick my foot up on the table next to people's food and drink to show off my SOCK!!

Pattern: Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula
Yarn: Numma-Numma Saucy in Marinara

little help?

2008-04-14T23:02:00.004-04:00

So I mentioned that Needle Nook is having a Customer Spotlight Sale to raise money for ovarian cancer research. (You can click that second link for more information on the sale!) I hope lots of you will come check it out.

But I need your help. What sort of things would you like to see at a sale like this? It's spring in Atlanta, so I don't think anyone's looking for hats or scarves. I've got a few different ideas (that I'm not going to spill the beans on just yet), but I'm curious to find out what people are interested in.

Oh, No No Bad Kitty has a new favorite snack -- bamboo DPNs. Plus, this morning she pounced on Good Kitty while Good Kitty was trying to use the litter box. I'm starting to suspect that No No Bad Kitty is the devil.

April 13

2008-04-13T21:27:00.002-04:00

Today the Mad Husband and I celebrate our first anniversary.

We had planned a big wedding, but ...stuff happened, and we told our parents "we're going to the DeKalb courthouse next month, show up if you wanna." Less than twenty people, a two-minute ceremony, and lunch at Wahoo! Grill.

And you know what? It was just about perfect.

Love you, sweetie.

Sock progress

2008-04-12T23:31:00.004-04:00

First of all, I've learned never to say "I'm knitting a sock." Because then every smartass in the world will say something along the lines of "just one sock?" and think they're hilarious and oh-so-original. I've even gotten it from my mother. Gee, thanks Mom.

I've learned how to fix my dropped stitches with a crochet hook (thanks Lizardsmells!) and I'm getting better at it, but they still look kinda wonky so I'd rather just not drop them at all. Practice, practice, practice.

Sock yarn is the fiber artist's equivalent of Pokemon. Gotta catch 'em all.

I'm really loving knitting with numma numma Saucy. It's a little splitty, but the fabric is to die for -- wicked soft and I love the interplay of shades of red, pink, and orange. Don't worry, pictures soon. Oh, and when I try on the sock it feels so nice. Okay, I finally get the hand-knitted sock thing.

It's getting much easier to work on the double points. I'm not jabbing myself with the extra needles nearly as much as I was. I have had some issues with letting stitches fall off, but that's where I got the practice at fixing them, so I guess that's not so bad.

I'd say I'm about halfway done with the foot of sock #1. Sadly for my newfound addiction, I'm going to have to set the sock knitting aside in order to make inventory for Needle Nook's Customer Spotlight Sale. It's to raise money for a great cause -- ovarian cancer research -- and I'll be badgering you all to come out and see the cool stuff. Badger badger badger. (Wow, that link just totally freaked out No No Bad Kitty.)

Another cool thing about Ravelry

2008-04-11T00:32:00.003-04:00

I figured out something else I like about Ravelry tonight: If I see a nifty-looking indie yarn or something else I'm not familiar with, I can go to the yarn's Ravelry page and click on "stashed." Then I can see lots of pretty yarn, but I can also see if any of it's up for sale or trade. If absolutely no one who has it is willing to consider parting with it, I have a feeling it's good. (And then I want it. I really need to spend less time on Ravelry.)

I need to have my head examined.

2008-04-09T23:59:00.002-04:00

I frogged the sock.

To tell you the truth, it sort of happened by accident. I'd made a couple of mistakes on the foot, and I was warned I'd be able to feel them when I wore the sock, and I had one on each side so I couldn't just make the side with the mistake the top, so I started frogging, and then I was so close to the toe that I said screw it, I'll start fresh.

I'm now trying yet again. I just finished the toe and started working in the round (joy!). I think I've made fewer mistakes this time around, but I know they're still there. But I'm pretty determined that I need to finish this sock come hell or high water. Otherwise I'll never learn anything about knitting a sock start to finish.

At this point, my only hope is that the sock is wearable.

In other news, I like knitting with double points (bamboo, baby!), but I don't like dealing with the three double points I'm not knitting with. I guess I'll get used to it. It'll build character.

can't sleep, sock will eat me

2008-04-07T01:34:00.002-04:00

Now that I'm about three inches into the sock, I'm starting to feel like I know what I'm doing. Which means I'm starting to see the mistakes I've made. And the insane stubborn perfectionist voice in my head wants to ditch it and start over and do it better this time. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, right?

The sensible voice in my head says this is a ridiculous idea, because even if I do the toe right this time I'm bound to screw up on the heel. Because it'll be the first heel I've ever made. Just like this is the first toe I ever made.

Natalia said I should just keep going and I "can always make this first sock into a foul-mouthed sock puppet." I like this idea.

Stupid cast-ons

2008-04-06T19:04:00.003-04:00

The good news is I'm making my progress on my first sock.

The bad news is everything else.

Eve valiantly endeavored to teach me Judy's Magic Cast-On today. Multiple times. I could just not get the hang of it. Maybe it's because I was working on dpns rather than circulars, but first I couldn't get the loops to interlock, and then once I finally managed that, I couldn't manage to knit between the two -- it was too tight. I think the most I got was six stitches before the whole thing fell apart.

After watching me rip, curse, and try again for about an hour and a half, Eve pronounced me "stubborn as a mule." I told her that was one of the nicest compliments I'd gotten in quite a while.

The provisional cast-on as directed in Knitty's Toe-Up Sock Formula drove me crazy (me not liking a crochet cast-on? There is clearly a disturbance in the Force) so I was really hoping the Magic Cast-On would do the trick. Curses, foiled again.

So the upshot of all this is I've decided wrap-and-turn toes aren't so bad after all. I'll have to post a picture of my first one so you can see what happens when you forget to slip a stitch on the second half of the toe. I might have frogged it and tried again if I weren't already so sick of frogging, but since this is my first sock and I know it's going to have mistakes no matter what, I decided to suck it up. Lizardsmells tells me that's easy enough to fix. (Oh, there is good news! I got to hang out with Lizardsmells which definitely makes me cooler than you are. Envy me!)

Oh, and in other bad news, the tip of one of my #1 dpns has been chewed on. *looks meaningfully at No No Bad Kitty*

Six (long-winded) things about me

2008-04-04T23:11:00.005-04:00

DeuceMom tagged me for this meme. I don't usually do memes, but with this blog I've made a concerted effort to just talk about yarn, so I thought it might be fun to reveal a few non-yarn-related things about me, especially the ones I'm usually doing while knitting and blogging. (What can I say, I like to multitask.)

1. I love to watch so-called reality TV, the trashier the better. I watch most of the VH1 Celebreality block, snarking the whole way. I know it's fake, and in a way that makes it more entertaining -- it's a genre like comedy or drama, and as an English-major genre-freak, I like to try and figure out how the storyline's being manipulated. (English major moment: Trashy genres are nothing new. Bloody revenge tragedies, which frequently ended with everyone killed in ridiculous ways, were all the rage in Jacobean England.)

2. I also like to watch sports while I'm yarning. The NBA is my absolute favorite -- it's just as nutty as any reality show -- but I have a passing familiarity with just about anything covered by SportsCenter. I also gripe a lot because even in the middle of a really tight and exciting NBA playoff race, SportsCenter would rather talk about baseball and football. No one's even playing football right now! Steve Nash is my favorite player (I've actually followed his career since he was a skinny college freshman hitting all his free throws to give Santa Clara the upset win in the NCAAs) and I refer to him as my "basketball boyfriend."

3. I was a contestant on Jeopardy! My episode aired in June 2004, during Ken Jennings' reign of terror. I really think I could have contended if he hadn't had the buzzer timing down perfectly after two weeks of filming. I was the only contestant to get the Final Jeopardy question right. I wore a red jacket and Alex Trebek called me "the lady in red." I made the studio audience laugh by complaining about an email forward I'd gotten titled "Things You'll Never Hear a Southerner Say" which included the line "I'll take Shakespeare for $1000, Alex."

4. The Mad Husband and I like to think of ourselves as tea connoisseurs (kinda like wine connoisseurs, but less drunk). We're constantly making trips to Teavana to stock up on loose-leaf tea.

5. I collect rubber duckies. I have a row of them on top of my desk at work and they're really a great icebreaker.

6. I swear like a drunken sailor. This blog is one of the few places I try to contain it, because I don't feel it's appropriate here, but sometimes a few words slip out. As the makers of Gone With the Wind discovered, "frankly my dear, I really don't care" just won't do, and frankly "darn it to heck" out of the mouth of anyone over the age of twelve just sounds ridiculous.

I'm not tagging anyone specific for this, but let me know if you decide to list yours.

In lieu of actual content, pictures of my stash.

2008-04-04T17:01:00.012-04:00

Because I know you guys are all about the yarn porn.

This Creatively Dyed sock yarn was the skein I fell in love with during Lent and wouldn't shut up about. Now it's mine!

Natalia kept taunting me with how awesome the Dream in Color Smooshy was until I just had to try some for myself. I justified it by having the Mad Husband pick out a color he'd like for socks. I didn't expect him to go so purpley (not that you can tell from my crappy photo).

Trekking XXL, with bonus swatch.

Numma-Numma Saucy, with bonus toe. (plz ignore ugly scrap yarn, kthxbai)

Fibre Company Canopy, which is going to make some awesome fingerless gloves.

Handmaiden Sea Silk, from a Ravelry destash. I think this will make a lovely shawl (not that I'm exactly a shawl person, but the yardage dictates it on this one).

And now that I have these lovely yarns... it's time for another yarn diet. *sigh*

Stuff I Don't Get: Crocheted Food

2008-04-03T23:17:00.004-04:00

I love amigurumi. At least, I love the finished product that is amigurumi. They're so cute and kooky, and I love kooky. But the process of making amigurumi... I just haven't been in a hurry to make any more after the first two, because the tight gauge is hard on your hands. I play with yarn because it feels good, so something that doesn't feel good is low on the priority list no matter how cute the finished object is. But I still love looking at amigurumi and amigurumi patterns.

But there's a popular type of amigurumi that's just lost on me: the cute little food with eyes. Especially cupcakes. I see them everywhere. And yes, they're cute. But when I look at them all I can think is, "mmmm, cupcake." If I crochet a cupcake, well then I'm going to want to eat a cupcake, and if I keep my crocheted cupcake around, I'm going to end up either eating cupcakes all the time or craving cupcakes until I go crazy. And I don't even really like cupcakes that much. I mean, I like cupcakes, but they're not chocolate mousse or tirimisu or something like that. If I'm going to put myself in a position that's going to lead to me craving desserts, cupcake doesn't even crack the top ten.

Why did I think this was a good idea?

2008-04-03T00:54:00.002-04:00

I've been absent lately owing to my inexplicable desire to knit some socks.

First of all, sock yarn is crack. I think the fascination with socks on my part is mostly so I can justify buying lots of pretty sock yarn in outrageous colorways. Who was it that pointed out that you can get away with color combinations in socks that would blind you in a sweater? I'm going to have to go on another yarn diet. Sadly I'll probably be sick of all these pretty colors by the time they're all made into socks, but, well, whatcha gonna do? At least with socks you only have to buy one skein to finish a project, even if it is a $20 skein. Three pairs of socks are still cheaper than a sweater and will probably provide hours more entertainment. And being entertained means I'm not running to the LYS. I hope.

I picked Knitty's Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula as my first sock pattern -- straightforward enough, custom fit, seemed like a good introduction. Well, it is a good introduction to sock knitting -- the frogging, swearing, and wondering how the hell these stitches are ever going to resemble a foot parts of sock knitting. I've lost count of how many times I've ripped out this thing and started over.

I had probably the most issues with knitting the double-wrapped stitches, but Eve and this utterly adorable little book called Knitspeak helped. I think I know what I'm doing now -- well, at least I thought I did, until a few minutes ago, but I'm tired and I'm hoping it'll look better in the morning. I sure hope so. This thing is finally resembling a toe and if I have to frog it I think I'll cry.

Home again, home again

2008-03-28T23:29:00.005-04:00

The good news is, I'm back. The bad news is, I brought the Mad In-Laws strain of viral bronchitis with me. This means I have no energy and can't really do anything that involves being away from my bed for more than an hour. That's okay though... I have plenty of yarn.

(Interrupting this post to bring you Breaking News: I really can't believe how much I enjoy knitting on these tiny little bamboo DPNs. Oh wait, that's only news to me. Carry on.)

Through the wonder of Google I learned a fast and easy way to swatch "in the round." I spent most of my knitting time on the trip swatching the Trekking, and NeedleNut said it looked ready to go, so I could be starting on socks for the Mad Husband right now... if I hadn't misplaced my tape measure. Again. I'm starting to wonder if I should invest in one of those really nice decorative tape measures because maybe if I spent that much on something I'd make more of an effort not to lose it. On the other hand, anything that would cut into the yarn budget is questionable, and I'm not sure if it would even work anyway. By the way, Trekking is much nicer than I used to think it was when I saw other people working with it. It's nice and soft and the color changes are awesome.

So since I can't start his socks yet, I'm doing another fake-in-the-round swatch with Saucy. This stuff is sooo nice and now I really want to hurry up and make it into socks before I switch to sandals for the summer. I'm really starting to understand why so many people claim sock yarn doesn't count as stash.

By the way, Good Kitty is delighted with our return and is requesting lots of pets and lovin'. No No Bad Kitty is... well, being bad. She stopped just long enough to scarf down the guilt treats, including Good Kitty's share. Good Kitty was uninterested in said treats because her love is freely given, not bought. Whoops, gotta go, No No Bad Kitty is trying to eat the Saucy. It's just called Marinara, you dumb cat!

Why hello there!

2008-03-26T01:16:00.002-04:00

I know I promised you yummy stash pictures, but I ~~ran off to join the circus~~ went to visit the Mad In-Laws. (And I know what you're thinking, and don't bother, because not only is my stash booby-trapped, but No No Bad Kitty might follow you home.) Having a great time and learning lots of interesting things:

You never know when stash will come in handy. The perfectly lovely Louisa Harding Kimono Angora in brown, blue and green that I picked up at the Needle Nook post-Christmas sale and ever since have wondered what I was going to do with? Turns out it's the perfect color combination to match the Mad Brother-in-Law's wardrobe.
When stash does come in handy, you'll curse not having the whole stash with you. I've got more of the Kimono Angora at home, but in the meantime, I'm not sure who's getting the one hat I can crochet while I'm here, the Mad Brother-in-Law or his girlfriend. If only I had a bag of holding...
Most people really don't know the difference between knit and crochet. This means you will look like a genius when you crochet most of a hat during one movie.
Robert De Niro is an adorable cross-dressing pirate. If you don't know what I'm talking about, treat yourself and watch Stardust.
New rings will throw off your gauge. The Mad In-Laws gave me a lovely early birthday pressie: a beautiful tanzanite ring, and it even fits! However it must go on my left index finger, where it is currently confusing the yarn.
The Mad Husband does not think it is adorable when I MST3K a bad movie he's trying to watch. You think you know a person...
I do not care how much it will cost me in Euroflax, I want the After-Dark Nightie and Robe. The bad movie was not all a bad thing, as it drove me upstairs to enjoy Mason-Dixon Knitting.
Drinking is hell on your gauge. 'Nuff said.

I can has yarn!

2008-03-23T21:02:00.003-04:00

Happy Easter! And you know what that means: Lent is over and I can buy YARN!! I swear for the past few days I've been like the dog in the commercial, only instead of "BACON!!" I've been jumping around going "YARN!!" So this afternoon I headed to Knitch for a little retail therapy. I kept telling myself on the way there that happiness doesn't come from material things and I didn't have to buy anything... I'm sure you can imagine how well I stuck to that.

What a great day! I ran into lots of fellow fiber junkies and ducked out for yummy sushi at Harry and Sons with the illustrious Megan. And oh, the yarn! I got to touch lots and lots of pretty yarn. I was gravitating toward the sock yarn, because 1). I'm obsessed with learning to knit socks and 2). I heard somewhere that sock yarn doesn't count as stash. The Mad Husband was all "so. Will you knit me a Tom Baker Dr. Who scarf?" and I was like "how about some socks instead?" I found some beauteous Trekking XXL in blues that will match his Hawaiian shirts wonderfully. (He really likes Hawaiian shirts with dragons on them. Basically, he's Wash from Firefly.) Funny, I had never really thought that much of Trekking before, I didn't think it was very soft, but this feels really nice and I'm thinking about starting these first. But then again, I am really impatient to play with my Numma Numma Toasty (a Knitch exclusive!), in Marinara. The colors make me think of strawberries more than marinara. I tried to convince myself that it would still be there after I used up the other yarn, but in the end my lust for yarn won out and I convinced myself that it would be okay since my total would be about the price of one of the Mad Husband's video games. It's sooooooo pretty.

But I've saved the best find for last: New Fibre Company! I am totally obsessed with the Fibre Company, and their new yarn, Canopy (so new it isn't even on their website yet), may be their best yet. It's fingering/sport weight, 50% baby alpaca, 30% merino, and 20% bamboo, so I can make love to my alpaca and continue my torrid affair with bamboo at the same time! I picked the Purple Passion, which fades beautifully between lavender and pastel blue. It's going to make me some yummy wristwarmers. If you've avoided the Fibre Company because of the price, Canopy is $13 for 200 yards. Which I know is still more than some of you will want to pay, but it's so soft and pretty and luxurious and life is too short not to spoil yourself sometimes. Pictures tomorrow!

Sometimes you can get what you want

2008-03-20T17:19:00.002-04:00

I was walking out the door at Needle Nook last night when I said something along the lines of "wouldn't it be great if Malabrigo had sock yarn?" and NeedleNut said "here!" and reached behind the counter and handed me a tiny sample skein of Malabrigo Sock Yarn. It's superwash, very soft, and lovely Malabrigo color as always. I'm really looking forward to this one.

Actually, I'm really looking forward to a lot of yarn. With Easter nearly here, I've lost sight of the contemplation that should go with my yarn fast, and I'm just acting like a really hungry person who can smell dinner cooking. I'm really a little afraid that I'm going to lose it and go on a massive yarn binge. I guess it's a good thing that yarn stores will be closed on Easter to slow me down.

....Oh, it's gonna be bad. I just found out Knitch will be open on Easter.

I confess

2008-03-19T22:40:00.003-04:00

Light Wading called it. I'm not going to make Fuzzy Feet.

GottaKnit made a really convincing case for Fuzzy Feet as a first sock project: it's felted directly to the feet, so there's a lot of leeway. But while talking with Natalia, she said "if you made them, would you ever wear them?" And the answer is totally no. The designer lives in Norway, but I live in Atlanta and I already run to hot. Full booties like that, in wool to boot? My feet would sweat and it would be gross. The Mad Husband might like that. Hey, maybe that's an idea for an anniversary gift -- fuzzy slippers personally felted to his feet while he plays video games? Yeah, I think that beats paper.

But yeah. I agree in principle that it's good to start with all the basics and then build on them, like a set of blocks. But honestly, I can't think of a way to lose interest in knitting faster than making myself knit a garter-stitch scarf. (I'm not the only one who thinks garter stitch is ugly and bumpy when used as a main stitch pattern rather than an accent, am I?) I practiced the knit a lot before I learned the purl, I purled a lot before I learned to cast off, and I tried knitting some increases and decreases in scrap yarn just to get used to them, but then I had to start a project. For me there's just no other way to learn how to swim. And I think I'm learning a lot more from trying things in a pattern, where they do stuff and I can see how they work with each other, than just practicing them into a void. Plus, a finished object I can actually use and show off is always a good motivator.

This is all a long way of me saying, I bought my first DPNs tonight. Bamboo, two sets, sizes 0 and 1, from Needle Nook. I thought about taking a learn-to-make-socks class, but that called for worsted weight yarn and I just don't want to make worsted-weight socks right now. I was flipping through Into the Wild, and Krakauer's prose is seductive about the joys of doing crazy things, and socks on DPNs seems like a reasonably crazy thing to do that doesn't involve anything actually unpleasant or dangerous. As long as I remember not to sit on the DPNs.

Do or do not, there is no try.

2008-03-18T22:51:00.004-04:00

I can't believe I just said that, because after the prequels where he behaved like a complete jerk (and a total wuss in Episode III), I've got a bone to pick with Yoda. Bail Organa was the only real hero (and likable character) in all three of those ill-considered Star Wars prequels. And I never thought I'd have reason to mention this here, but since I'm on the subject, Light Wading has been after me for a long time to blog this, so I'll call it her birthday present: After the prequels, Princess Leia represents the triumph of nurture over nature. Look at the genetic material she was saddled with: whiny, violent Anakin and whiny, passive Padme. Neither one of them could string together a coherent sentence! The whininess was full force (pun intended) with her twin brother, but at the same age he was whining about wanting to go to Tashi Station, she was a diplomat, a Rebel Alliance leader, and a better shot than any stormtrooper I've ever seen (as opposed to her mom -- was the entire character of Padme proof that feminism is dead?). Bail Organa, you did good. You'd be the reigning Father of the Millenium if you hadn't gotten blown to bits in Episode IV.

But I digress... (and how!)

As I was saying to Nell earlier, jumping into a pattern truly seemed like the best way to learn. I can practice increases and decreases till the cows come home, but I'm not really going to learn anything about them until I put them into practice. And so far, the experience is bearing this out. Not only have I successfully increased, I've made short rows. Short rows!! The way I hear knitters going on about short rows, I thought they were the hardest thing on earth. I was surprised when StringTheory2.0 and Natalia explained how simple they were, and even more surprised when I navigated some with no difficulty, save knitting into the wrap and twist, and I didn't do that the second time. It's like magic!

So I can actually talk about the pattern and have it make sense, I will reveal here that I'm knitting Norberta. At this point it only needs to stay secret from the Mad Husband, because he loves dragons and I want to surprise him. I came across her and it was like fate. She's made with KnitPicks Crayon, which I actually had in my stash -- I'd gotten it on sale, but the one time I tried to crochet with it, it was a mess because it's boucle and I couldn't see where to put the hook. Turns out that whatever its failings for crochet, it knits up beautifully. The pattern calls for two strands held together and it makes such a lush, velvety fabric. And it's machine washable! At $1.99 a ball, I'm going to have to reconsider this one.

At this point I've knitted the main body up to the neck. I'm curious to see how the head's going to come together, but the pattern's been so well-written so far that I'm not worried. I am a little nervous about the decreases, since I'm combination knitting, but the boucle texture should disguise any decreases leaning the wrong way. The Ravelry project gallery has been totally helpful; I even modded the pattern a little to make the tail longer after reading other knitters' suggestions. I'm having so much fun! I hope I can finish her before the Mad Husband figures out what's going on.

Never mind

2008-03-18T15:23:00.001-04:00

I found the missing knitting needle this morning. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm going to blame it on No No Bad Kitty, because when you have a cat named No No Bad Kitty, you blame everything on her.

Oh no...

2008-03-17T23:24:00.002-04:00

I want to work on that new project I was talking about. But I can't. Because I seem to have lost my needle. One of my new #6 bamboo straights that I really, really liked. That's going to cost me $4.50. And now I can't knit.

(The Mad Husband: "Don't say you don't have anything to crochet. Because that's a lie. A dirty, dirty lie. Kitty slaps you for lying." Good Kitty allows him to pick up her paw and smack me with it.)

Okay, now I understand why StringTheory2.0 was encouraging me to invest in some circulars. Damn, this is embarrassing.

This is a momentous occasion

2008-03-17T17:31:00.003-04:00

Last night I was multitasking, which is to say I was gabbing with Natalia (what did we do before cell phones and the ensuing free long-distance?) while surfing back issues of Knitty. And lo and behold, I came across a pattern I liked, which called for a type of yarn I had in my stash. And just like that, without getting anyone's opinion on whether I was ready for it, I started knitting it.

It's tough. It's exhilarating. It's the best way I can think of to learn how I need to do my increases and decreases. This is going to be fun!

And no, I'm not going to say what it is just yet. It's a secret.

I want socks.

2008-03-17T00:14:00.003-04:00

The day I started learning to knit, I came home and was sitting on the couch trying to knit and failing when the Mad Husband turned to me and said hopefully "So. Knitted socks?" (That night he also told me to give StringTheory2.0 a message to teach me better so I wouldn't be so cranky, but I digress.)

And now I'm thinking "yeah, socks." NeedleNut said "Mad Crocheter, no" but I can't help it. I keep thinking about socks. Light Wading is always so happy with her socks. And I bet if I made the Mad Husband some socks, I might even get taken out to the Brazilian steakhouse or something. (Screw flowers. For me, the epitome of romance is the Brazilian steakhouse.)

And I don't just want socks, I want real socks. Made with pretty sock yarn. I don't wanna make big bulky worsted weight socks.

I know GottaKnit said I should wait on the socks and my first socks should be Fuzzy Feet. Intellectually I know she's totally right but I'm being all pouty about it anyway. I can't exactly show off Fuzzy Feet to everyone I meet during a day. Which will lead to me fishing for compliments from the cats. "See, No No Bad Kitty? Aren't Mommy's Fuzzy Feet awesome? ...No, don't eat it."

So where should I start? I'm debating ordering the Tsarina of Tsocks' Learn to Knit Socks Kit, but maybe I should start simpler than that. Like figuring out how to knit in the round. Okay, I promise I'll try and do the Fuzzy Feet first.

Swatching, continued

2008-03-15T22:22:00.003-04:00

Though I wasn't so sure about the Rowan Damask for the Shapely Tee after my swatching session, I took it in and showed it to StringTheory2.0 anyway. She agreed that it might not work for the pattern, but thought it was worth trying to knit more tightly. (Actually, she looked at the loose part and asked if I'd been drinking at the time.) I've been trying that, but I think I'm about ready to set it aside for a while, especially after finding out from NeedleNut that it's really more sport than DK. But I'm not freaking out about having that project delayed, since I picked up a copy of Knit Simple (which coincidentally has one of the most adorable crocheted hat patterns I've ever seen) and it's got a adorable and very straightforward pattern called the Rolled Edge Tee. I want to knit it in Mission Falls 1824 Cotton -- my knitting pal Risa passed me some of her surplus and I fell in love. Now I just have to wait till Easter so I can buy the yarn.

Giving up yarn for Lent has been... interesting. It's been a good lesson in self-control and a valuable reminder that happiness does not come from material things (though as NeedleNut pointed out, "but happiness does come from yarn!"). It really hasn't been that hard up until the past week or two, but now I'm very ready to be done with it. I just hope I'll be able to hang on to some of that self-control, because over the past five weeks I've seen a lot of yarn that I want.

So this is why we swatch

2008-03-13T23:41:00.003-04:00

I started my swatch for my first "real" project (the Shapely Tank from White Lies Designs, though I may add the sleeves and make it the Shapely Tee) tonight, and man am I glad you all convinced me I needed to swatch. I'd planned to use Rowan Damask, and I'm learning all sorts of stuff about it. Like it doesn't like me that much.

I didn't realize this yarn had such a thick-and-thin texture to it. It doesn't seem so pronounced until you realize how small the yarn is in general, so relatively it does make a difference. My only crochet experience with thick-and-thin was Araucania Magallanes, and it was a disaster. So far I can't say I'm liking the knitting experience much better. It seems to be messing with my tension, which StringTheory2.0 says is very good for a new knitter, and that makes me unhappy. Also, the suggested needles are making a much more open fabric than I expected or am really comfortable with for a pullover. I can get smaller needles, but I don't know that that will fix all the problems.

Also, I'm becoming less enchanted with the colorway (Silicia) as it knits up. It becomes less pink and more magenta, which isn't what I had in mind. I knew I should have gone with one of the blues instead. Maybe it will grow on me. And maybe I'll swap it for something else.

Plus I've discovered for myself just how much tension can vary depending on the amount of tension you have -- the part I knitted right after I got home this evening is much tighter than the part I knitted right before bed.

I plan to use combination knitting on this one. I was just overwhelmed by the response I got to my post on combination knitting, all the kind comments and especially the help, both in person and virtually. I'm embracing combination knitting, and will buy my own copy of Confessions of a Knitting Heretic as soon as it's back in stock. StringTheory2.o got me started on binding off and increases and decreases today, and I was kinda amazed when the increases and decreases were just as "easy" as someone declared to me at Needle Nook yesterday. ST2 is encouraging me to look at the different increases and decreases in my knitting books and try them so I can discover which ones work for me. I'm increasingly thinking that I really can figure out how to make patterns work for me in combination knitting. This is all kind of amazing to me; I'm used to crochet, and crochet doesn't really have so many different ways to do one thing.

It kind of feels to me like crochet is playing with Legos, where individual blocks snap neatly together, and knitting is more like working with live wires, where things are much more intricately connected and easier to screw up. I'm getting a little more comfortable with the wires though.

Finished object sighting!

2008-03-13T16:31:00.004-04:00

Presenting... my dishcloth!

And the back!

Yes! It is just a boring dishcloth made out of Peaches 'n Cream cotton! And it rolls up on the sides! But it is MY dishcloth, and I knitted it! Combination knitted it even! I am so thrilled with my stupid little dishcloth!

But what I'm even more thrilled with is that StringTheory2.0 thinks I'm ready to tackle a pattern! I showed her the one I had in mind and she said to go for it! And I've got the perfect yarn waiting for me at home! I'm so excited I'm going to run out of exclamation points! I didn't even realize I had used one to end each sentence!

Bear with me, because this is going to sound ridiculous.

2008-03-12T23:24:00.003-04:00

For the longest I was stubbornly monocraftual. Others might hop into the yarn store with every technique they met, but not me. I was faithful to my first love and insisted to everyone in earshot that the charms of crochet alone were enough to keep me satisfied.

The louder we are, the harder we fall...

Now I'm sneaking out to knit nights for fast and furious stockinette sessions. I'm intoxicated. Heedless of the danger, I want to learn everything about my new paramour -- increases, decreases, the works. The Interweave Crochet preview leaves me cold; I'm too busy adding knitting books to my Amazon wish list.

I'm getting careless. I'm leaving all my supplies in the same craft bag. I know I'm going to get caught but I just don't care.

And if that weren't enough to deal with, there's this new craft coming around, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. I'm trying to stall spinning as long as I can, but I just don't know how much longer I can hold out...

Blasted different knitting techniques

2008-03-10T10:15:00.002-04:00

I should don my flame-proof jacket for this one...

I was knitting at Knitch the other night and sitting next to Kim, the owner of Knitch, and she happened to mention Annie Modesitt to me. I'm not really sure who Annie Modesitt is, but I do know she's a Knitting Goddess and Most Definitely a Big Deal. In particular, Kim mentioned that Annie was going to be teaching a class on combination knitting. Since combination knitting was what I was accidentally doing recently, I was pretty intrigued that a class was being taught on what so many knitters had told me I was doing wrong, and I finally remembered to go check out the class description. (It was a busy weekend. And by "busy weekend," I mean "lots and lots of video games.")

This is not the knitting you are used to! Learn to knit using the Combination Method -- easy to learn and quick to execute, this method is a combination of the Western or German/American/English style of knitting and Eastern/Islamic knitting. Easier and quicker than traditional Western knitting, this method, creates a very even tension with less "rowing out" less wrist strain. If this method is different than how you've been taught, give it a try and you may discover a new love of knitting blooming! If you're a first time knitter - enjoy! You can master this right away!

So I'm reading this and going WAIT A SECOND!!! I was doing this wondrous technique and people kept telling me I was doing it wrong! And now I'm not even sure if I remember how to do it now that I know it's the best thing since sliced bread!

So now that I know that combination knitting is actually a totally acceptable way to knit (and a technique people will pay a lot of money to learn), I'm determined to learn the tricks I need to know to use it. I was already planning to use it for dishcloths and such, but I'm going to figure out how to do the increases and decreases (which I haven't actually learned in any style yet because StringTheory2.0 believes in getting the basics down first) too. I really like combination knitting, for the simple reason that when you're combination knitting, purling doesn't suck.

I know that all the advice came from a place of good intentions, but I just wish someone had taken a minute to explain what combination knitting was (though in all fairness, Nell did explain about the orientation of stitches and how it would be problematic when I started trying to follow patterns) and how it wasn't necessarily wrong per se. I wonder if some people didn't think I knew anything about different knitting styles? I know I'm just a crocheter, but give me a little credit. Isn't it counterproductive to say "knitting must be done this way!" when everyone already knows about variations -- i.e., English vs. continental? A couple of people even implied the person teaching me didn't know what she was talking about, which really made me see red.

Maybe it's just that as far as I know, there's only one way to crochet, but I've never seen this behavior from crocheters. The most you'll get is a "oh, you hold the hook differently than I do," and half the time that's said because the speaker is considering trying that hold herself. One person (and I will not say who, other than to say it's absolutely not me and it's a knitter) surmised that maybe crocheters are generally nicer than knitters. I'm not making it up, folks, just reporting what I'm told.

Also, is it just me, or do some knitters seem to subscribe to a "it's not a real technique until one of the Knitting Goddesses approves it" theory? That doesn't seem to happen in crochet, maybe because we don't really have Crochet Goddesses. Except people who can crochet really fast, we like those.

Out to conquer the world with Teh Cute

2008-03-07T14:10:00.004-05:00

Introducing... Sabrina the Pretty Kitty!!

Sabrina (impulsively named a few minutes ago) is actually the first amigurumi I started, but I set her aside while waiting for her eyes to come in. (Aren't her eyes great? I think they make the whole amigurumi. You can get some of your own at Suncatcher Eyes -- they have fast shipping and great prices as well as a beautiful product.)

I embroidered her face, and I think it turned out better than the Big Blue Birdie's. Here's a close-up:

Hi! I see you!

The pattern is Cat and Mouse by Ana Paula Rimoli. If you like it, you'll want to check out her new book, Amigurumi World. I only got my copy last night and haven't gotten to look at it much yet, but I'm thinking it's seriously the best of the amigurumi crop so far.

Oww, my wrists

2008-03-07T00:02:00.004-05:00

As fascinated as I am by the two newest obsessions, amigurumi and knitting, I have really got to make some time for one of my old-style loose lacy crochet projects. Afraid of getting rusty? Not really, but the extremely tight single-crochet gauge used in amigurumi is rough on my fingers and the unfamiliarity with holding the knitting needles makes me clutch the needles till my hands hurt. I really need to do a project that's going to feel good. Yes, I love the creativity of amigurumi and I feel erudite learning the basics of knitting, but part of why I got hooked (oww, pun not intended but staying anyway) on crochet is the sheer sensual pleasure of doing it. I wish that didn't sound dirty but I can't think of another way to describe it. Well, maybe I could compare it to a fine meal, but engaging the sense of touch over taste. Sensual isn't synonymous with sexual, after all.

I should have a pair of compression gloves around here somewhere, if I can dig them out from under the piles of yarn. They've never really worked for me before, but if there's a type that's worked for you, let me know. Or maybe I just need to get the hand muscles into shape? (Do we even have hand muscles?)

It's like the Crochet Corollary of Murphy's Law or something

2008-03-06T18:46:00.002-05:00

My F hook went missing. I looked in all of the obvious spots and in the meantime used my E hook and finally I resigned myself to the fact that it was gone, dropped somewhere along the way or perhaps ferreted away by No No Bad Kitty (or even Good Kitty, she likes stuff) and I just couldn't keep using the E hook. I mean, I could, but I didn't want to.

So I bought a new F hook, Susan Bates, same color as the last one, totally indistinguishable from the last one in fact. And I said to Eve as I paid for it, "Now that I've bought a new one, I'll go home and find the old one."

Sure enough. Within mere hours, I opened a purse pocket I never use (and I don't even remember why I opened it) and found the original F hook.

The crochet gods are laughing.

KnittingHelp.com is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy

2008-03-05T20:27:00.004-05:00

So since I started knitting in public I've discovered that knitters are not shy about telling you you're doing it wrong. I know it comes from a good place, but that still doesn't stop me from wanting to cry and fling my needles. (I tend to take these things personally, can you tell?) Not to mention I was getting extremely confused by all the different terms flying about. Combination knitting? The heck is that?

Finally after having to relearn some stuff (with Nell's patient guidance) I came to my senses and surfed over to KnittingHelp.com. Oh my gosh. Suddenly things started making sense. Turns out I was combination knitting, which is fine for stockinette dishcloths but not so great for patterns that call for increases and decreases because of the way stitches are oriented on the needles. So it's probably best to learn straight Continental now rather than have to figure out workarounds for combination knitting.

It was totally amazing to me to watch the little videos and finally understand what was going on. The motions of knitting have never made sense to me, but now they do. It blows my mind how quickly I'm picking up things. Not that I can do anything beyond knit and purl yet but... I think part of the reason I was so anti-knit was because I didn't think I could do it, that it was too hard, and I'm so happy to be proving myself wrong.

I was just thinking this morning that the Internet is such an amazing resource for knitters and crocheters. I can't even imagine how much all this information has increased my learning curve, to say nothing of the joy of looking at other people's beautiful work and sharing my own. It's a really good time to be a fiber artist.

Meet the Big Blue Birdie

2008-03-03T13:51:00.006-05:00

Over the weekend I decided I really wanted to finish an amigurumi NOW, so I grabbed some yarn and got to work on the first amigurumi pattern I'd added to my queue on Ravelry -- Birds of a Feather by Hannah Kaminsky.

Meet the Big Blue Birdie.

He's a big birdie. That's what happens when you feed your birdies bulky yarn.

He likes sunshine, lollipops, and getting drunk.

I still have to walk before I can run and why is knitting so complicated?

2008-03-02T00:33:00.003-05:00

Biting off more than I can chew is nothing new to me. O RLY? I can hear StringTheory2.0 rolling her eyes from over here. So it was only a matter of time till it happened with knitting. The basic stitches are starting to feel natural, so I'm naturally starting to think about what I can make with them. I can now hear StringTheory2.0 beating her head against the wall.

The really funny thing is, ST2 and I were just having a conversation with a third party the other day about how people want to learn to knit and crochet so they can make pretty things and then a lot of them aren't willing to learn the basic steps first. I believe at the time I reassured ST2 that if the urge got to be too strong, I could just go crochet a finished object. See me sticking to that right now?

So I've been doing a little scouting on Ravelry tonight looking for the perfect first knit pattern. And the more of these patterns I try to read, the more befuddled I am. Use a what kind of cast-on? What's wrong with the cast-on I already know? You mean I have to learn another one? I'm starting to remember why it took so long for me to give knitting a chance. I better go crochet a bunch of stuff before my head explodes.

Happy National Crochet Month!

2008-03-01T15:45:00.004-05:00

As I learned recently from the Crochet Liberation Front, March is National Crochet Month. I had some great ideas for promoting crochet this month, but then I got distracted by shiny things like amigurumi eyes and learning to knit and Vanderbilt basketball and half-price Valentines chocolate.

So I am going to go with one small idea: If you can track me down in person during the month of March, I will do my utmost to teach you to crochet.* I cannot make guarantees as to my skills as a teacher, as so far the only person I've taught is my ex-future-sister-in-law, and I only managed to teach her the chain stitch. I still consider this quite an accomplishment on my part, as ex-future-sister-in-law is as dumb as a box of dumb rocks.

(I just realized I have two ex-future-sisters-in-law. Both of whom have the intellectual and moral fiber of Cheetos. I think I feel kinda white trash. Oh wait. I am white trash.)

So if you've ever thought you might like to learn to crochet, even if only for edgings on your knitting, by all means, hit me up! I even promise not to smack you if you say things like "crochet sucks. Knitting is better." Though since I am the teacher, I might tell you to write "I will not disparage crochet until I finish learning how to do it" a hundred times.

*This offer available on first-come, first-served basis. Bring your own yarn. Offer not open to ex-future-sisters-in-law. No morning classes. Other restrictions may apply. Offer void where prohibited by law.

Something fun for Leap Day

2008-02-29T23:24:00.002-05:00

This picture makes me so happy:

No, NO... bad kitty.

2008-02-28T23:05:00.005-05:00

No No Bad Kitty has had ambitions of mountain climbing recently. This is not good. She'll climb to the top of the cat tree (that is supposed to amuse her so she won't do dumb things like this) and look longingly at the top of the entertainment center where things made of glass are... The Mad Husband and I both yell at her to stop, but she totally ignores us and does whatever she wants to. Occasionally this involves knocking something over.

She just killed my piggy bank.

Of all the things that she could have broken, you would think a piggy bank would be one of the least problematic... it cost four dollars at Wal-Mart and is still available. But I'm all sorts of bummed, because I got that bank in 2000, the summer that Natalia and I lived in Nashville with a guy known as "Chow" (wasn't Asian, but wanted to be) in a crummy house that smelled like dog pee. One night we went "wild" at Wal-Mart (we were so innocent then, we actually drank wine coolers while watching "Pokemon: The First Movie" which we had rented to see how bad it was) and bought a bunch of dumb stuff for the house, including that piggy bank. It always made me think about that summer, and it just kinda broke my heart a little bit to see it lying in pieces on the floor. I didn't know I could get that nostalgic. I must be getting old. ;)

Maybe I should crochet a piggy bank. Bet No No Bad Kitty wouldn't be able to break that. She might eat it, though. No no, Bad Kitty.

Look Mom! I'm purling!

2008-02-27T21:32:00.008-05:00

So today StringTheory2.0 decided I had the knit stitch down well enough to move on to purling. Naturally we had to liveblog this too.

Says StringTheory2.0: "The purl face isn't as happy as the knit face."

And getting less happy by the minute.

Now we move on to the swearing.

StringTheory2.0: "Finally, a smile!"

Though really it's more of a sardonic "I can't believe I'm letting this yarn get the better of me" smile.

But even though purling hates me with a passion, it's okay because ST2 says she's never seen anyone work so hard and learn so fast at knitting and I'm "a bit of a fiber prodigy." It's one of the best best best compliments I've ever gotten and it's from the best knitter I know so I wanted to brag a little. Thanks ST2!

Fun with amigurumi

2008-02-26T22:37:00.009-05:00

The first meeting of the amigurumi group at Needle Nook was a smashing success. I had worried it would just be the organizers staring at each other, but we had a full table. It was a very fun, relaxed atmosphere (it's hard not to have fun when you're looking at cute, cute amigurumi animals). And bawdy too! I was supposed to blog some of the naughtier moments, but now I can't remember exactly which ones I promised. Two words: willy warmers.

I'm getting close to finished with my first amigurumi -- the cat (but of course!) from Ana Paula Rimoli's Cat and Mouse pattern. I've just got two legs and the ears to go. Of course, I've run out of yarn, but providentially I was using the leftover yarn from my Cupcake sweater. The gauge was off on the first sleeve I made for that sweater, and I almost threw it out a couple of weeks ago, but now I can just frog and finish. For the finishing touch, I'm ordering cat eyes from Suncatchers Eyes, an amazing website I found through the amigurumi group on Ravelry.

It's kinda ironic that I'm so taken with amigurumi right now, considering they use single crochet, my least favorite stitch, and the gauge is so tight that crocheting them is kinda hard on my hands (I'm thinking about making felted thimbles). But all the cute little creatures I want to make keep me going. I'm normally much more of a process crocheter than a product crocheter; I primarily crochet for the pleasure I get from the process, and the finished object is just a nice bonus. But I've always loved cute little toys -- so many times during my childhood, I came up with an idea for some little doll and begged my grandmother to make it for me. I wish I could show her the things I'm making now.

Haven't gotten much crochet or knitting done tonight, but I have a good excuse: I was watching my alma mater, Vanderbilt, whip our cross-state rivals, Tennessee, who just happened to be ranked the #1 basketball team in the nation. Heh. When Tennessee beat Memphis on Saturday night, I turned to the Mad Husband at the buzzer and said "good. That means Vandy will get to beat another number-one team on Tuesday." We'd beaten the last three number-one teams that came to Memorial Gym, so I knew it was just a matter of time. And thank you for indulging me, because I know this paragraph is complete jibberish to most of you.

Stitch-Stirrers: Tools of the Trade

2008-02-25T10:29:00.003-05:00

The latest prompt from Stitch-Stirrers:

Hooks, yarn needles, and stitch markers are all common tools of the trade, but are there any other things you use with your crochet that might not be so common?

Ha. Hahahahahahahaa.

Sure, I have crochet tools. I just rarely have any idea where they are. I'm notorious for saying in a really pitiful voice, "Does anyone have any scissors I can borrow? And a tape measure?" The only reason I manage to keep track of my hooks is I carry them all in my purse. Which can get me some pretty funny looks.

But what's really entertaining is when I start improvising. Like the time a few months ago when I was at a Stitch 'n Bitch at a bar and grill and I cut through a piece of yarn with a butter knife. Don't try this at home, kids.

Too much to do

2008-02-24T01:34:00.003-05:00

I should be asleep. Instead I'm torn between practicing my knit stitch and making an amigurumi for tomorrow and writing a long comment on Ravelry that actually has nothing to do with yarn.

The wonderful thing about learning to knit is now there is a whole new world of patterns opening up to me. The bad thing is... there's a whole new world of patterns and I want to make all of them and my Ravelry queue was already so out of control even before I started looking at the knit patterns that this is not looking good for me actually finishing anything anytime this year.

I've been dutifully practicing the knit stitch this weekend -- for one thing, StringTheory2.0 won't teach me the purl stitch until I get the knit stitch down cold, and for another, I'm just kinda amazed by the whole process. I could barely do this or even figure out how it worked on Tuesday, and I'm still not sure how it works, but I'm doing it, pretty comfortably even, though the sharp points are hurting my fingertips. I wonder if it would be overreacting to get some thimbles. Also, my right arm is sore, probably from the way I'm holding the needle. I hope that goes away soon.

Even though I'm still irritated over the whole Son of Stitch 'n Bitch debacle (notice I don't even bother explaining it anymore, because I've griped about it so much that I figure anyone who's talked to me in the past three months has heard about it), and even though I don't think the definition of "edgy" is "put skulls on it", I picked up a copy of the original Stitch 'n Bitch today. What can I say, when it comes to beginning explanations and diagrams, Deb Stoller's the best in the business. That I know of. Feel free to disprove me by sending me other books. :P

In other news, my cousin's picking up crochet again after a long break and just posted her first project to Ravelry -- a super-cute grocery bag. So awesome!

A tragic tale with a happy ending

2008-02-22T12:20:00.004-05:00

Last night I was practicing the knit stitch (which is going better -- Eve also learned to crochet before learning to knit so she was able to give me some good advice) and then finished a row and put the yarn, with the needles sticking up out of the ball, on the coffee table. Good Kitty got curious and climbed up on the table and started gnawing on the rubber bands around the ends of the needles. It was absolutely the cutest thing ever and I just regret that I didn't have the camera handy so I could share the cute.

This morning, it had ceased to be so cute. Because someone had, in the dead of night, dragged the yarn off the table, removed the needles, and generally made a mess.

This has happened to my crochet in the past. But crochet doesn't have to keep the hook in place. Knitting has to stay on the needles. Talk about learning the hard way...

So you may be wondering, what's the happy ending in all of this?

I looked at what had been my learn-to-knit swatch, realized it was beyond salvaging (and covered in cat hair), shrugged, cut it off, and guess what?

I know how to cast on!!

Continental cast-on, even!

In fact, I had so much fun casting on that I cast on way too much and ended up having to frog it because it was falling off the needles.

I had no idea! Maybe knitting-by-osmosis does work.

You got me to knit. Don't push your luck.

2008-02-21T20:02:00.005-05:00

Natalia has been tremendously supportive about the whole learning-to-knit thing -- she even soothed my feelings of betrayal with "I'm going to crochet a baby blanket. We can be bi-crafty together!" So I thought I could use her advice:

Me: So I was wondering if you could recommend a good beginning knitting book.

Natalia: Oh yeah! I've got just the book for you...

Me: And I don't want a book by anyone who makes fun of crochet, so Elizabeth Zimmermann is right out.

Natalia: ...Oh. Well, I guess I don't have a book for you.

She was going to recommend Knitting Without Tears. I'm sure it's quite wonderful, I'm sure there are very good reasons that EZ is the goddess of knitting, I'm sure I will check out her work eventually, but right now I'm just not in the mood to learn from someone associated with the phrase "crochet is for servants." Of course I cannot find backup for that incident right now and at any rate I'm sure I'll be accused of blasphemy and burnt at the needles. I'm working on it, people! You don't reorder your worldview overnight!

...The Mad Husband just told me the reason I've had more blog hits lately is because I started talking about knitting. See, I'm even getting it from the non-yarnies.

Mmmmmm, amigurumi

2008-02-20T21:40:00.005-05:00

Eve is a crafty yarn pusher (pun intended). She lured me out to Needle Nook's knit night tonight by calling to let me know that the book I've been anxiously awaiting, Amigurumi Worldby Ana Paula Rimoli, had come in today. SO FREAKING CUTE. I think it's my favorite of the amigurumi books so far (though Eve and I are both impatiently waiting for Creepy Cute Crochet.I mean, who doesn't want to crochet a ninja?). Between all the amigurumi books and the needle felting cute animals books,it's a really good time for people who want to make cute animals. Though I must confess some irritation that the cutest kitty cats I've seen are knitted. Good thing I'm learning to knit, huh?

(Speaking of cute animals, Good Kitty is sitting on my feet to keep them warm. No No Bad Kitty is trying to sit on the space heater. No No Bad Kitty is also known as No No Dumb Kitty.)

I hadn't been to the Needle Nook's knit night before and I think I'm going to start making a habit of it, as the location is extremely convenient and Wednesday is the Mad Husband's night for tabletop RPGs with the boys. Everyone I met was really nice and I'm looking forward to learning from them. (Can you learn to knit by osmosis? Because if you can, I'll just handcuff myself to StringTheory2.0 and save some time.) Unfortunately I was running late tonight and just about the time I felt like I was getting a groove on in my sad little learning-to-knit swatch, it was time to leave. Also, while I've felt very little temptation to break my Lenten vow the past couple weeks, there were some beautiful new shinies that turned my head tonight. In fact, I asked Arlene if Needle Nook would be open on Easter Sunday (answer: no). I'm pretty sure that by Good Friday I'll be sitting on the sidewalk outside the yarn store scaring the people coming out with their purchases. "Hey man... can I sniff your yarn?"

Speaking of, now's a good time to mention that Eve and I are starting a crochet amigurumi group at Needle Nook this Sunday at 4 and if you're local, we would love to see you there! Actually, we'd love to see you even if you're not local, but we'll understand if you can't charter a plane to fly you out for an hour and a half.

Stitch-Stirrers: Favorite Thing About Crochet

2008-02-19T23:35:00.002-05:00

And to think that before I started trying to learn to knit, I was going to pass on this prompt because I couldn't think of anything that wasn't cheesy and boring.

What is your favorite thing about crochet?

My favorite thing about crochet is that I get to use a hook to grab that yarn and pull it through, as opposed to a couple of slippery sticks that I'm supposed to grab yarn and transport it with, but instead the yarn slides off and so do a couple of stitches and then I stab myself in the fingertips with the double points and MAN does that hurt.

*huff, huff, huff*

No, of course I'm not cranky. Whyever do you ask?

Look, Mom! I'm knitting!

2008-02-19T19:15:00.005-05:00

Well, kinda...

StringTheory2.0 says it's a compliment to me that she started with trying to teach me to cast on instead of casting on for me because she didn't think I could handle it. I choose to believe her, because the alternate is she's trying to drive me crazy as quickly as possible.

Don't let the smile fool you. I was swearing like a sailor. "In, sweep... shit!!"

The face of frustration...

At one point I dropped a stitch and let out a noise of frustration. ST2 was all "you just meowed when you dropped that stitch!" I wasn't intending to meow, but in retrospect, that is what it sounded like.

Valentine Wristwarmer #1

2008-02-18T13:55:00.004-05:00

Here's my poor, tortured wristwarmer:

Those loopy things? Those are supposed to be cabled X's... you know, XXX for kisses. Since I was making this as a valentine and all, per Stich-Stirrers' challenge. They look pretty darn lopsided in the picture.

Also, the picture mercifully doesn't show it, but the thumbhole is way too big. As in, half my palm was uncovered. Gotta fix that next time.

Confession time

2008-02-18T10:15:00.005-05:00

No, I didn't buy yarn. My confession is not that bad and yet, immeasurably worse.

I have asked StringTheory2.0 to teach me to knit.

[pauses for all the gasps, murmurings of disbelief, and projectile objects thrown by CLF members]

ST2 says she's "highly amused at [my] feelings of pseudo guilt and betrayal." All I can say to that is, it ain't pseudo. Wasn't I dedicating myself to finding all the awesome in crochet? Didn't I insist I'd rather be really good at one fiber art than mediocre at two? Haven't I just caved to the pointy-stick peer pressure?

Entirely possible. I would tell you why I've decided now is the time to learn how to knit, if I had any idea why I'd decided that myself. For unknown reasons, one of the voices in my head has declared that it is time to learn to knit. It's not explaining why, I'm just grateful it isn't telling me it's time to run around with a raw turkey on my head.

So there are really two questions at this point: how quickly will I take to knitting, and will I like it? I know more about how yarn works than the average beginning knitter who hasn't worked with yarn before; will that help or hurt? And what if I like it? Won't I be betraying the crochet cause? I think I need to go chew on my fingernails now, and I don't even chew on my fingernails.

If nothing else, I'll be better able to speak to the differences between crochet and knitting once I learn to do both. Also, I'll probably get more of the knit jokes I hear. I'll find out what an ssk is. That's got to be worth something, right?

ST2 is trying to tell me that the fiber arts are all one big happy family, and I'm not cheating on crochet if I learn to knit. If I find a dismembered amigurumi head in my bed, I'll know she was lying.

A curious compulsion of mine

2008-02-17T20:43:00.003-05:00

I was just longingly making goo-goo eyes at the Amazon Top 100 crochet bestsellers (something I do at least three times a week) and once again found myself lusting after all the stitch guides.

Secretly I am convinced that each new stitch guide I see contains special, super-secret stitches that cannot be found anywhere else and will revolutionize my crochet once I find them. The fact that I haven't really found any of these new special stitches in any of the last five stitch guides I've bought does not dissuade me. It just makes it statistically more likely that they'll be in the next stitch guide I buy, right? And so the cycle continues.

And I don't even really want to buy all these stitch guides! I'd rather save my book money for books with actual patterns to make cute clothes and adorable little amigurumi! Probably the only two of my stitch guides I use on a regular basis are The Crochet Stitch Bible and Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Crochet. And yet I keep looking at every new stitch guide I see and half the time I order them anyway.

I think the saddest part of all this might be that I've even read the part of Crocheting in Plain English where Maggie Righetti explains how she fell prey to thinking a stitch guide would solve all her problems and then when she got it it was all just variations on filet crochet and I still fall for it.

On second thought

2008-02-17T18:15:00.003-05:00

After taking a while to cool down from the disappointment of how the wristwarmer turned out, I got it out again and tried it on. It's not great (or even good, in my opinion), but it's not bad for a first try. I'll try to get some pictures of it up this week.

It's a relief to realize that even though it's not the perfect image I had in my head, it's still something I can be proud of. I'd never made a wristwarmer before, and I wasn't working from a pattern. And the next one will be that much better for what I've learned.

In fact, I probably wouldn't be bummed at all if it weren't for the fact that now my beautiful Road to China is all fuzzy...

One down and... how many to go?

2008-02-16T22:58:00.004-05:00

This evening I finally made myself sit down and finish the first part of the Mad Husband's now-belated Valentines gift -- the first of a pair of wristwarmers/fingerless gloves. He seems pleased enough with the first one, but I'm not. I know you have to sit down and make things in the first place before you can make them better, but I'm greedy. I want to hit the ball out of the park on the first pitch.

(The Mad Husband is confused. "Weren't you making it up as you went along?" Well, yes, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with it.)

The really special thing about these gloves is the yarn -- it's Road to China by the Fibre Company. Well, I really should have contained myself and practiced these in crap yarn first, because now the lovely lovely yarn has fuzzed. And the more it fuzzed, the less willing I was to frog and try again, because I didn't want to mess up the beautiful yarn any more. This is a problem. It's no good to have beautiful yarn if you're too scared to use it. I'm so bummed. Also, the thumbhole is too big and looks unwieldy. I might have enough Road to China left to make an all-new pair once I get my pattern figured out, but I'm not sure.

I made pattern notes, so I guess now it's time to get out some crap yarn and fool with it until I feel like it's refined enough for another try with the Road to China. I might also look at some other wristwarmer patterns to see how various designers handle the thumbhole. I thought about it earlier but really felt it would be cheating. I still kinda feel that way but now that I've tried it myself, I want to learn about better ways of handling it.

I may have to walk before I can run, but I don't have to be happy about it.

The problem with Ravelry

2008-02-16T01:11:00.003-05:00

Me: This is awful! I'm spending so much time goofing off on Ravelry that I'm not getting any crocheting done!

Natalia: You and everyone else on Ravelry.

Waving the white flag

2008-02-14T17:34:00.004-05:00

I have spent far too much of the past week involved in various knit vs. crochet arguments on Ravelry, ranging from... ridiculous to more ridiculous, but it's okay. I've worked through it now, and I can even show you how.

The Five Stages of Grief Over the Relative Unpopularity of Crochet

Stage 1 -- Denial. "There must be other crocheters out there... somebody said somewhere that there are three times as many crocheters as knitters. I don't know who said it, but I've heard it everywhere so it must be true!"

Stage 2 -- Anger. "What is wrong with all these knitters? Why don't they like crochet? Why do some of them make fun of crochet? What's wrong with them? Is the Mad Crocheter going to have to choke a bitch?!"

Stage 3 -- Bargaining. "I can show people! I can get knitters to love crochet too! I can crochet really cool things and learn to design and then they'll all see that crochet is cool too!"

Stage 4 -- Depression. "This sucks. I'm going to quit Ravelry. And hide under a rock. A really big rock. No wait, screw that. I'll just hide under my yarn. It's softer."

Stage 5 -- Acceptance. "Ah well... now I have more time to crochet!"

T-minus 45 minutes and I think I give up.

2008-02-13T23:16:00.003-05:00

The current challenge over at Stitch Stirrers is "Crochet Your Valentine." When I read it, I thought "what a great idea!" I'd had a project in mind for the Mad Husband for some time and figured it would make the perfect Valentine's Day present.

I just frogged the whole thing.

I'm not sure what keeps going wrong with this one, though I'm starting to suspect it's the short deadline. First I forgot to take it to knit night, then I kept missing up my stitch count, then I found out I don't know nearly as much about crocheted cables as I thought I did, plus the yarn is fuzzy so fibers started sticking together, and I think that's the part that made me decide to let 'er rip and come back to it later with fresh eyes because honestly, that yarn is too nice (and too expensive) to screw around with.

It's times like this when I really wish I knew more local crocheters that I could turn to and ask what I'm doing wrong. My knitting friends and I can coo over each other's projects and discuss yarn and snark on bad patterns and all that, but while they can turn to each other for stitch advice, I'm on my own. While in some ways I think it's been good for me to have to figure things out myself, I can't help but think I could really use some help right now. I visited a really awesome crochet meetup recently so I think that will change soon, but it's not much help tonight.

If I can get this concept out of my head and onto my hook, I think it'll be my best piece of crochet so far. The problem is getting it out, but I guess there's only one way to learn that. In the meantime, I've still got a Valentine to take care of. I wonder where I can get a copy of Ocean's Thirteen at this hour?

Hello, temptation. I've been expecting you.

2008-02-11T12:27:00.000-05:00

I should have known that the first week of Lent was the easy part.

I was feeling so proud of myself for not being tempted at all... until this morning, when I got the email announcing the KnitPicks fall yarn clearance. Oops. Pride goeth before a fall yarn clearance.

It's okay though. I'm hanging in there. Mostly because my stash boxes are overflowing and I've got to get some of this stuff crocheted up before the cats eat it.

To frog or not to frog, that is the question

2008-02-07T23:39:00.000-05:00

Today I marked a project on Ravelry -- the Unseamly Sweater from SnB: The Happy Hooker -- "hibernating." I don't think I've worked on it since last August, and technically it's wearable; I think I weaved in the ends and all that's left to do is the lacy edging, which I could leave off anyway.

But you know that feeling you get when you realize that something is just never going to happen? Yeah. While theoretically I could knock out that lace edging in one evening, I just don't think I ever will.

I was so excited when I started that sweater. I picked it out of The Happy Hooker as my first "real" garment, as opposed to hats and scarves. And that was right around the time I started going to Knitch, and I was so excited because they had the recommended yarn, Cascade Sierra, in dozens of gorgeous colors. And it was the most I'd ever spent for one project, but that was okay because it kinda felt like my first real project, with sleeves and everything! I was so proud when I brought that yarn home. I felt like I was finally becoming a real crocheter.

And I learned a whole lot from that sweater. The initial chain stitch was way too small, and I did the seed stitch in the middle section all wrong and had to take the sweater to Needle Nook and ask Beth for help. I had to frog that thing so many times.

And back then, I thought I just couldn't figure it out and it was my problem, but now that I'm on Ravelry and can look at other versions of the sweater other crocheters have made and posted, I can see that a lot of people had some of the same issues I did. So later on this sweater helped me learn about design flaws, and trusting myself and finding workarounds (or, actually, begging on the internet for workarounds).

So the Unseamly Sweater is a bit of a nostalgia item for me, but it's also a sweater that I doubt I'll ever wear because I don't think the tight-fitting seed stitch middle is particularly flattering on me. And now that I've admitted I'll probably never finish it, I find myself thinking about what I could do with 1300 yards of Cascade Sierra in ruby.

It'll probably take a while for me to take the leap and actually frog the sweater, but I'm something of a packrat (actually, a huge packrat would be more accurate) and the fact that I'm willing to tear up something with sentimental meaning to get at the yarn really speaks to the depths of my yarn addiction.

Momma's got a brand new bag

2008-02-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

After I made my frustrated post last weekend, I decided it was time to find a project that was nice, easy, and quick. Something to get my confidence back, if you will. So I got out the skein of Louet Euroflax Linen I'd picked up at the Lucky Duck Sale at Knitch last year. I'd gotten it specifically to make this nifty crocheted bag I'd seen in the Pattternworks catalog, but by the time I'd gotten the yarn, the pattern was no longer available and I stashed the yarn. Friday night I dug through about a hundred crocheted bag patterns on Ravelry until I found one that was like what I had in mind, the Crocheted Eco-Friendly Carryall from Canadian Living. The only thing I know about Canadian Living is it has some pretty darn cool crochet patterns.

Once I wound the yarn (and that was a project in itself), I got started. It was my first time working with linen, and I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed working with the Euroflax, especially considering how different it is from the yarns I usually prefer. It's rough, and very splitty. But, I don't know, there's just something about working with linen... cultural memory, maybe? I remarked to StringTheory2.0 about how I had always thought of linen as being very fine, since all the Renaissance poets wrote about "flaxen hair," and I guessed it was just because it was the only fiber they had. ST2 pointed out that making linen is really elaborate and time-consuming, so it could have been the expense that made the poets think of it.

But you don't want to hear about a couple of English majors geeking out on Renaissance poetry. You want pictures!

So there it is. So far it seems very nice and sturdy, and I plan to use it for grocery trips. See? It's green and it's green! And now I feel energized to tackle something new.

Oh! And since this was yarn that had been in my stash since last August, I've finally gotten started on Stash Knit Down 2008!

Step away from the yarn, and put down the credit card

2008-02-06T13:08:00.000-05:00

I have never observed Lent; I grew up Southern Baptist and Southern Baptists are into depriving yourself of everything fun all the time, so Lent is sort of beside the point. I didn't discover until just a few years ago that some Protestant denominations do observe Lent, and this year I feel moved to join them.

So I'm giving up buying yarn for Lent.

(Natalia: "Oh honey, are you going to be okay?"
Me: "I thought about giving up booze, but I didn't want to totally set myself up for failure.")

There are spiritual reasons I'm doing this, but I'm not going to bore you with them. Unlike American presidential candidates, I think there's something to be said for keeping one's faith a private matter. But I have practical reasons too (are you allowed to have practical reasons for what you give up during Lent, or does that negate it?):

I have made no progress on the Stash Knit Down 2008. In fact, I've bought more yarn in the new year, so I've actually made less than no progress.
I'm running out of places to put yarn. Also, I'm running out of the not-really-places I put yarn when I've run out of places to put yarn. It's either this or storing yarn in the sink.
Likewise, I do not need to be spending money on yarn. Or anything else, for that matter. I'm going to have to watch myself carefully to make sure I don't fill the yarn-shaped void with BPAL.

But truly, the big one was last week when both the Mad Husband and StringTheory2.0 told me in less than a 24-hour period that I was a slave to instant gratification, I was embarrassed. Not mortally, but enough that it bothered me. I want to prove to myself that I can do this.

I had myself a mini-Mardi Gras of sorts on Monday, when I dropped by Knitch for one last purchase. Tempting though it was to drape myself in beads and go wild, I only got four skeins though, all for projects I'm going to need to finish in the near future. Believe me, I thought about the wild spree, but then thought if I did so I would be quite probably missing the point.

I'll probably chronicle a little bit of this here, and yes, if I fail I will admit it. And I fully acknowledge the irony of the co-mod of lazy, stupid and godless giving up something for Lent. I've already gotten laughed at quite roundly, so I don't mind if you laugh too. It builds character.

Mmmmm, Skinny Cotton...

2008-02-05T17:24:00.000-05:00

I dropped by Knitch yesterday and the incomparable Nell let me play with some of Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Cotton. It's so brand-spankin'-new that it isn't up on Knitch's website yet, but it will be soon.

First impression is always how the yarn looks. I saw a beautiful display of colorful yarn in an old-style washbucket and asked Nell what it was, not realizing it was the very yarn I've been so eager to see. Nell was casting on with one skein and offered me another to hook with. I pulled a G hook (the yarn is sport-weight) out of my purse (crochet hooks, don't leave home without 'em) and went to work.

Skinny Cotton is reallllly nice. The texture isn't as fluffy as BSA Dyed Cotton, but I guess that's probably not feasible with such a small yarn. I was so excited that I think I crocheted too tight, but I'm really looking forward to trying it with different hook sizes to see what happens. I think this is going to be a really great yarn for crochet.

If at first you don't succeed...

2008-02-04T16:55:00.000-05:00

...frog that bitch.

This is as far as I got with my beautiful silk lace gloves before realizing they weren't going to work, no way, no how:

See what I mean? Not so much gloves as an elementary-school friendship bracelet gone horribly, misshapenly wrong.

Now imagine how satisfying this was:

Don't cry, pretty silk lace yarn. You're going to a better place, as soon as Mommy finds herself a steel crochet hook.

Look! In the sky! It's a ...FO!!

2008-02-03T23:19:00.001-05:00

After recent frustrations, I spent the weekend getting my crochet back to basics and it's been a good change of pace. And rather than stressing over what I haven't finished lately, I'm going to show off what I have finished.

This is Laurie Rossbach's Cold Shoulders Capelet, from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. I'm generally not big into capelets, but I was really taken with this pattern, and I'm really, really pleased with how this one turned out. I was afraid the Suri Dream from KnitPicks might be too heavy to be a good substitute, but I think it worked out just beautifully. The alpaca is light but very warm. The pattern is clearly written and very easy to follow; I think it would make a good first garment project. I plan to keep this at work for days when the air conditioning is just too chilly.

I have a bit of a sentimental attachment to this project because it was the first thing I brought to knitting group that got passed around the table and cooed at. Though I dare you to pick up some Suri Dream and not coo. It's so soft.

Thanks to the co-worker who volunteered to model (the shirt I was wearing would have clashed horribly).

Not according to plan

2008-02-01T21:30:00.000-05:00

I was dead beat when I got home tonight and just wanted some really easy crochet to work on. Somehow I ended up with the Looks Knit Great Fit socks. In retrospect, I don't think "really easy crochet" and "socks" belong in the same sentence.

Originally I was worried the socks were going to come out too small; now it seems like the left one (the only one that's gotten past the cuff) is probably going to be too big. And I should have learned more about the anatomy of socks before getting started. I'm not sure where the heel flap is supposed to end. Does it go to the bottom of the heel and then stop? What if I don't have the right number of rows yet? Normally I'd probably set about experimenting and making it up at this point, but it's been a long week and I'm tired. And I don't think I have any mindless crochet projects currently going, aside from a baby blanket that I'm just not in the mood for.

I'm wondering if I should just frog the whole thing and start over. I think making that decision tonight would qualify as rash, though. I guess I'll just go back to screwing around on Ravelry. Carpenoctem invited me to co-moderate the lazy, stupid, and godless group (intentionally lowercase because we're too lazy to capitalize), founded to mess with those who declare anyone who occasionally enjoys a good swear as "lazy, stupid, and godless." It's off to a smashing start!

Whose sisterhood is it anyway?

2008-01-31T19:50:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned coming across a rather negative online discussion of a crochet pattern. I said I had no problem with that, and I want to elaborate on why, because I think it's an important issue. And because I feel like ranting.

I've said in the past that there seems to be an attitude in the yarnosphere of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." To a certain extent, I think that's a lovely idea. After all, what can really be gained from snarking on a brand-new crocheter's first lumpy finished object? Nothing. It just leads to hurt feelings, and I can see how in a worst-case scenario it could turn someone off the fiber arts and/or blogging. We all have made projects that didn't turn out like they were supposed to -- that's why Ravelry has UGHs! Saying someone is smelly and fat just for shits and giggles may fly on some parts of teh intarwubz -- that's the main reason I've never started an NBA blog. But it isn't acceptable in the yarnosphere, and I think that's a good thing.

However, I am extremely skeptical of people -- who often also happen to be designers -- who carry on about how fiber artists shouldn't say anything bad about anyone or anything because fiber arts are a "sisterhood." If you are going to put a pattern out there and charge people money for it, then you should know that people will discuss it, up to and including "OMG this pattern sucks I cannot believe anyone would have the gall to charge money for this." If designers cannot deal with this, then IMNSHO, designers should not charge for their patterns. Or at least should not go looking for criticism and then get bent out of shape about it (I know, easier said than done, but there's a reason they tell the American Idol contestants not to go on the message boards). As for designers who rely on the "sisterhood" claim to avoid criticism, all I want to know is, if fiber arts are such a sisterhood, then why are you trying to make a buck off your sisters?

Grrrrr. Arrrgh.

2008-01-31T16:09:00.000-05:00

So I put the finishing touches on the thing I was going to offer up as my part of the Bloggy Giveaways Winter Carnival, only to discover mere moments later that I was too late, as spammers had forced an early end to signups. It was like a metaphor for my current issues with crochet. And by "current," I mean "last night." It seemed like a really big deal at the time.

I was winding some Alchemy Bamboo in hopes that I could get started on the project I wanted to submit to the first Crochet Liberation Front pattern collection -- a lacy nightie. I'd had it in mind ever since I first saw the yarn in another Ravelrer's destash list. It was going to be so pretty.

But in the process of winding, the yarn got tangled, and one of the Mad Cats (the younger one; we'll call her No No Bad Kitty, as she probably thinks that is her name) started trying to eat said yarn, and then I realized what should have been a short project had taken two hours, and then I realized that I had no clue how I was going to make this beautiful nightie in the first place, let alone adjust the pattern for different sizes and whatnot. And then I thought about the discussion I'd seen online yesterday savaging a new designer's pattern (and I have no problems whatsoever with this, for reasons I'll describe in another entry), and I thought about how I really didn't want to put bad stuff out there and cause people to think I didn't care about doing it right. It was all enough to make me think I should give up on designing.

And then the Mad Husband got home and I told him all of this (well, most of this summarized in the interests of not putting him to sleep), and he said, "Your problem is you want instant gratification."

StringTheory2.0 not only agrees with the Mad Husband, she's kinda astonished that I, the instant gratification junkie, ever got into fiber arts in the first place.

It does give some perspective on why I'm so bad about buying yarn, though.

So, after talking to our Fearless Leader, I feel better about revising my goals for this go-round from a lacy nightie to something simpler. You've gotta walk before you can run and all that. Man, I wish I could think of a way to end posts that doesn't involve invoking a cliche.

Perhaps I'm not so resolute after all

2008-01-29T23:36:00.000-05:00

Since we're nearly done with January, I thought I'd review my list of New Year's Resolutions and see how I'm doing.

Restraining myself on yarn purchases -- Well, there was the one day I went to Knitch (during a sale, no less) and managed not to buy anything. I get points for that, right? Enough points to make up for indulging in Webs alpaca closeouts?
Designing my own patterns -- Was making progress on my scarf, till I realized I was one stitch off and though I could have just ignored it like I do when I'm working from other people's patterns and worked around it and no one would have noticed, I frogged the whole thing because it's my pattern, so it's different.
Using up stash yarn -- Ha. Bwahahahahahahaaaa.
Crocheting socks -- I've got two cuffs and half an ankle. Compared to my other resolutions, this qualifies as positively impressive.

If I didn't mention a resolution, assume I haven't even tried to keep it yet. But I'm not worried, I still have eleven months to procrastinate, I mean keep my resolutions.

Stitch-Stirrers: Crochet Resources

2008-01-28T23:19:00.000-05:00

From this week's prompt at Stitch-Stirrers:

If someone new to crochet who had never really picked up a hook or someone who wanted to advance their skills were to ask you for some good materials for learning, what’s the best resource(s) you've found on the subject of crochet, on-line or otherwise that you would suggest?

I kinda hate to give such a cliche answer, especially with the whole Son of Stitch 'n Bitch debacle still fresh in my mind, but I really have to give it to The Happy Hooker: Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet by Deb Stoller. The how-to-crochet instructions and illustrations are simply the best I've seen anywhere, and I had been looking for instructions I could grasp for years. Maybe it's the bright colors, or maybe Stoller's just speaking my language. Concepts that I just couldn't make sense of when they were accompanied by grainy pictures in my grandmother's tattered crochet booklets suddenly made sense. The book also provides fun patterns that were good choices for my first garments (though check the errata).

As for other resources I'd recommend as absolutely essential (at least for myself), I have trouble resisting any stitch guide, but my favorite is The Crochet Stitch Bible by Betty Barnden. And I know I say it all the time, but for stitchers, Ravelry is the best thing since... ummm. Maybe ever. It's that good.

In the interest of full disclosure...

2008-01-28T00:06:00.000-05:00

I have seen a shrug pattern that I like.

This is the Maui Shrug by Jennifer Reeve (pattern available at CrochetMe with registration). I think it's way cute. I also feel a little embarrassed that I have to eat my words on shrugs that quickly, but still, it's one cute shrug against dozens of not-so-cute shrugs, and I did say I liked lacy little bolero jackets, and this is one of those, even if it is called a shrug.

It's cute though, and I have to give credit where credit is due. Now I think I should make a post complaining about the lack of crocheted sock patterns in the hopes that I'll suddenly start finding those once I've publicly stated that I can't find them. Might as well work the eating of words to my advantage.

I'm the Goldilocks of yarn.

2008-01-27T22:19:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping to put my first pattern out in the world this week, via Ravelry and this blog. Well, at least I was. After tonight's stitching, I may have to revise that estimate.

The pattern is for a men's scarf, subtle, with clean lines. It's just seemed to me that there are very few scarf patterns designed specifically for men, and most of the crochet patterns for scarves are so frilly and/or lacy you wouldn't think of a man wearing them. (Of course, if the gents want to, more power to 'em. I support everyone's right to wear outrageous crochet, as long as they respect my right to go to What Not to Crochet and snicker. Come on. You know you've all done it at least once.)

I originally started this scarf in Louisa Harding Kimono Angora, but gave up on that yarn pretty quickly once I realized the fuzzy texture of the angora was going to obscure the subtle design I was trying to incorporate. Then I tried Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK from my stash and got a bit further in before deciding the alpaca was too drapey and the design was unlikely to show up. Then I was thinking merino, something with good stitch definition. So I went to the Needle Nook (I needed more Panda Silk anyway) and asked for recommendations on a nice smooth yarn, not too much drape, and good stitch definition, and the one Arlene recommended that I liked best was Wool Bam Boo.

I really, really like working with the Wool Bam Boo, don't get me wrong. (Hey, between the Wool Bam Boo and the Panda Silk, I think I'm having a wild fling with bamboo. Man, I hope alpaca doesn't find out.) But now I'm thinking there's yet another factor I forgot to consider: yarn weight. As much as I believe in DK-weight for the average crochet project, this one might benefit from worsted-weight or even bigger. So now I have to come up with a worsted or bigger yarn, smooth, not too much drape, and good stitch definition. And then I have to buy it. And then I have to keep the Mad Husband from becoming the Really Mad Husband once he realizes how many different types of yarn I've bought for this one project. And in the meantime, what do I do with the Wool Bam Boo? Do I continue on or frog it? Finish it and stick it up on Etsy just to see what happens? Dude. The smallest part of energy I've expended on this one is the actual designing of the pattern. The devil's in the details.

Sock stress

2008-01-27T12:32:00.000-05:00

So last night I finished the second cuff of the Looks Knit Great Fit socks. Then I stared at them in delight for a while because they're just the same size. Then I looked at the next part of the pattern and that's when I started getting nervous. Heel flap? I'm not even sure what a heel flap is, exactly, and I've been wearing socks my whole life! This is going to be the hard part, I can tell already. I've kinda lost the gauge because I had to make the cuffs bigger to fit me, so I'm not even sure that the directions will hold water now.

But I will persevere. Because socks may be intimidating, but the Panda Silk is worth it. The socks, they will be mine. Muahahahahahaaa.

Shrug, I don't get it.

2008-01-24T19:58:00.000-05:00

Can somebody please explain to me what is the deal with shrugs?

Oh, don't get me wrong. I love the look of crocheted cardigans, crochet and cardigans go together like peanut butter and chocolate, and even I can appreciate a lacy little bolero jacket to cover your shoulders in an evening gown or spaghetti tank. (Though I hope we're talking about two different boleros for that, since I haven't seen many that would go with both.)

But shrugs? The solid ones that look like regular sweaters that you cut off and tied together right under your boobs? I just do not get those at all. To me they look like the Daisy Dukes of sweaters. For one thing, they generally look like you were making a regular sweater when you ran out of yarn. And what would that missing yarn have covered? The stomach! It's like addition by subtraction -- my eye just gets drawn to what's missing. And I may be fairly comfortable with my body, but that doesn't mean I want to walk around wearing a flashing neon sign that says LOOKIT MAH BELLY!!

And even for those of us who would like to show off our tummies... Daisy Dukes, man. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

As for the shrug patterns that avoid the belly issues by not having a front part and just being sleeves connected in the back... those just don't look comfortable. Wouldn't they get all twisty and stuff?

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't think so. Otherwise I'd be seeing shrugs on the other addicts at the yarn store, and I can't remember seeing a single one. Yet there seems to be a rule that every crochet publication -- book, magazine, what have you -- must include at least two shrugs. Someone must be making them. Or is this some rule I don't know about, that every new designer has to crank out a shrug pattern? Kinda like hazing? And then once you're in, you sit around and drink beer and laugh at all the shrug patterns?

I wondered if this was just irrationality on my part, so I pointed the Mad Husband to a couple of particularly bad shrugs (no, I'm not posting them here, I'm the Mad Crocheter, not the Bitchy Crocheter Who Calls People Out) and he said "yeah, they're trashy." However, you shouldn't take his word for it because I'm pretty sure when it comes to crochet, he just agrees with me. I just asked him if I did a 180 and made a shrug, would he claim he liked it because he'd be worried if he said otherwise, I wouldn't make dinner? His response? "Ding ding ding."

The joy of sox

2008-01-23T01:03:00.000-05:00

I'm really starting to understand why so many of my knitting friends are obsessed with socks:

They're portable.
Sock yarn comes in all sorts of wild colorways that might be scary in sweaters, but are fun in socks.
You can splurge on the good yarn because you only need a ball or two.
You get hundreds of yards out of that ball which will keep you busy (and hopefully not buying yarn) for a while.

While I admired my friends' socks, I didn't think I was interested in making them myself, because for me socks are boring and utilitarian. I don't even really have my own socks -- the Mad Husband and I share a large stockpile of black socks because they match our shoes. But now I get it. Handmade socks are beautiful little works of art.

The Looks Knit Great Fit socks are made in the opposite direction of most of the socks I've seen knitters working on -- you start with the cuff. Luckily I'd learned a lot about how important to try socks on as you go by watching those knitters, so that didn't come as a surprise. Camanomade suggested making the two cuffs first so I could make sure they're the same size, so now I'm happily hooking away on cuff #2. I was so excited when I reached the point where I understood how this big flat piece I was working on would become the cuff. It sort of clicked and now I'm all sorts of excited to see how these turn out.

Though frankly, even if the pattern weren't making sense to me, I'd still be enthralled because of the Panda Silk. I might marry this yarn if I weren't already taken.

For all the Hello Kitty fans...

2008-01-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

Ravelry users are totally the best.

Recently I saw Dustinthewind's adorable kitty on Ravelry, and followed the links to find the pattern she had written in French. I noticed her profile was in English, so I took a chance on being called an ugly American and wrote her to ask if she was going to translate the pattern. She responded very graciously and here's the pattern in French and English:

Kitty en tuto

I am just blown away by her generosity and creativity. Check it out!

Two skeins long and bulletproof

2008-01-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

First of all, before I start telling you about this other project, you all, but especially the sock yarn addicts, need to run out and get some Crystal Palace Panda Silk. It's the bomb. Light and soft and fabulous colors. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way...

I mentioned the Crochet Chocolate Top from Moda Dea that I've been working on. Not bad, huh? The picture quality isn't the greatest, but you get the idea. Unfortunately, this photo doesn't really show the things about the pattern I really like. The main stitch is a single crochet/double crochet combination that I initially thought was a misprint, but it's really attractive and makes a pretty solid fabric. I'm making it in Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton, which is wonderful to work with. So fluffy.

Unfortunately, I fear the yarn is unwittingly contributing to a common crochet complaint: The fabric is pretty stiff. Or as some knitters would say, bulletproof. The yarn is worsted, just as the pattern calls for, but I think the incredible loft (which I love, don't get me wrong) of the Blue Sky makes it thicker than the Moda Dea yarn the pattern was designed for.

However, so far I'm still liking this enough that I'm sticking with it. I've decided if the thickness makes it too heavy for the warmer months, I'll just make the sleeves longer and make it a winter sweater. I'm not sure what I'll think of the sleeve construction, which appears to be drop, but I'll work with it. I definitely like the pattern enough to take the yarn companies' free patterns a little more seriously. I know many will look down their noses at that, but with the shortage of high-end crochet patterns, we have to get creative.

One more thing about the Blue Sky: I'd love to crochet a bathrobe out of it. It would probably be prohibitively expensive and not the most sensible use for such wonderful yarn, but it sure would be fun!

Snow and socks

2008-01-19T15:40:00.000-05:00

This morning I looked outside and much to my Southern joy, it was snowing! Sticking, even. Snow is always a cause for panic and celebration in the South. Panic because we don't know what we're doing and can't drive in snow and must all run to the grocery to buy milk, eggs, and bread if snow is predicted. Even if we don't even use milk, eggs, and bread. It's a tradition. And celebration because everything in the South tends to shut down at the sight of snow. And we Southerners sure do like to sit in nice warm houses and look at the snow and/or go outside and play in the snow (though it's rare that we have enough snow for a snowman). And it always melts before we have to shovel it or anything unpleasant like that. So to us it's just fun. Hopefully now this makes a little more sense to those from regions with lots of snow. I hear snow gets old really fast when you have it six months out of the year.

Of course the snow is a little less exciting because it's happening during a three-day weekend.

Even so, I did venture outside in the snow because I managed to lose my I hook this week and I can't do any work on my Crochet Chocolate Top without one. Can you believe that pattern is from Moda Dea? They're making some real progress, I think. I'm doing it in Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton which is like crocheting with a big fluffy cloud.

Of course this is where the problems started because Needle Nook has a $10 debit card minimum and the hook was only $2.25. Luckily (or unluckily for my supposed yarn diet), I fell in love with Crystal Palace Panda Silk sock yarn in the jade colorway. It was so pretty and soft, and also machine washable, which Alpaca Sox is not. I'd wondered if alpaca socks might be too warm for Atlanta, so I think you can tell what happened: I got the Panda Silk and I'm going to frog the Alpaca Sox and use the Panda Silk instead.

I hope I didn't give the impression last night that I didn't have faith in the Looks Knit Great Fit pattern. I do. It's myself I'm worried about. But I know I've got other great crocheters to lean on (including the designer -- luv ya, Fearless Leader!), and I want to have cool socks to stick on the table at Knitch too. So here I go. It's 408 yards of sock yarn, I've got a crockpot full of chili, half a clue what I'm doing, it's snowing and I'm wearing glasses. Hit it!

You're never too old to break some rules.

2008-01-18T23:51:00.000-05:00

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

This is an excellent piece of advice which often in my life I have considered and then ignored. Only I used to ignore it in regards to boys in berets and drinks that glow in the dark. Now I'm ignoring it to crochet socks.

Let's have a moment of silence for my misspent youth. Man, it was fun!

Truth be told, I may have gotten married and developed a bum knee, but right now the thing that's making me feel the oldest is that I was supposed to be out tonight swilling margaritas and instead I stayed home to crochet.

So yeah. Back to the crocheted socks before someone starts screaming at me for claiming to be old.

I've actually agreed with a few knitters that knit is better than crochet for some things and socks are one of them, but I should make a least a token effort to keep a new year's resolution. Plus lately a whole bunch of hookers over at the Crochet Liberation Front and other assorted crochet spots have been talking about crocheting socks all of a sudden, so I can always blame the peer pressure.

Truth is, I have no idea if these crocheted socks will even be wearable. But I have to try. I have the Looks Knit, Great Fit crocheted sock pattern from Laurie Wheeler (also known as the Fearless Leader and Big Cheese of the CLF) and some very pretty Alpaca Sox yarn (I needed one more skein to bump my order up to free shipping).

I'm not at all confident this will work, but I have nothing to lose. All together now: It's just yarn!

And if nothing else, working with that C hook is going to be good practice for when I get around to keeping the new year's resolution about lace. Wow, that hook is small.

Crochet malaise

2008-01-17T12:36:00.001-05:00

I haven't picked up my hook since the Bay Blue Hat went to hell. I'm not sure what's going on, but I do have a few theories:

I'm so annoyed with the Bay Blue that I'm not in the mood to try and fix it right now.
I have some really nice yarn that I'm dying to work with, but after the Bay Blue mishap, I'm scared I'll mess it up.
I could do a dry run of the projects intended for the nice yarn with crap yarn, but right now I don't want to work with crap yarn. Not even for kitty beds.
I have some ideas for my own designs, but I'm so out of sorts I'm pretty sure I'd screw them up if I started them now.

...Oh well. Only way out is through, right? The only thing to do is pick up the hook and get to work. After all, I've got basketball to watch tonight and for me, basketball and crochet go together like white beans and sandwich bread. (Which is to say, for everyone else not so much.)

Stirrin' some stitches

2008-01-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

Over at the Crochet Liberation Front (don't all my posts start that way?), Tracie of Shade Tree Crochet talked me into joining Stitch Stirrers. I'd heard mentions of Stitch Stirrers but wasn't sure what it was; Tracie describes it as "a blog of prompts and other fun stuff for crocheters." I joined up last week, and today was rewarded with Mission 2008, which is for everyone to crochet a really nice afghan of our own design by December and then share or submit the pattern.

Pretty awesome idea, huh?

It's a good thing I have almost a year, though. Because I have no freakin' clue what to do.

The last afghan I did (aside from some baby blankets, which I'm not going to count because they were just rows and rows of hdc) was back in September. I was on a deadline for it (it was a retirement gift), and I blame the deadline for the fact that by the end, I was about to puke every time I looked at it. Which is too bad, because there's a neat story behind how that one came about: My grandmother had passed away last April, and since I'm the only other crocheter in the family, I inherited all her crochet things. (Her stash was actually very small, as was my other grandmother's too, but that's for another time.) One of those things was a booklet from Wal-Mart with instructions for a sampler afghan. At first I didn't think I'd have a use for it since I wasn't really interested in the sampler, but then I got to looking at the stitch patterns for the different blocks and realized I could repurpose those for other stuff. One, the Snapdragon Stitch, became that afghan.

But that wasn't designing -- it was using someone else's stitch pattern back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It seems like by now all the basic stitch patterns must have been invented (though they probably haven't; crocheters are endlessly inventive). Maybe I should try something with color -- I've done next to no colorwork. Oooooh, this means I'll get to get some more yarn, right?

For now I'll just keep this mystery afghan in the back of my mind. I'm sure something will hit me eventually. And if not, well, I've still got Granny's booklet.

Ribbon Yarn: The Revenge

2008-01-15T12:56:00.001-05:00

Apparently ribbon yarn can read. And it knows every bad thing I said about it the other night, and it is out to get me.

Crocheting with the ribbon yarn gets much easier as you get used to it, and though I'd previously wondered if the Yarn Cocktail ladies were actual crocheters, I was actually amazed to see the huge circle transform into a little ruffled one that I was quite taken with. It was kinda like magic.

Now imagine my horror as the little circle kept decreasing... and decreasing... and decreasing...

See that cute little ruffle? See that look on my face? That's because it's way too tight.

I have some ideas on how I might be able to make this work, but unfortunately they're going to involve frogging and I doubt the ribbon yarn's going to like that. Also, they're probably going to involve messing with the pattern, which has the potential to be disastrous. I had a bad feeling about crocheting a hat from the bottom up in the first place.

I have gotten some helpful suggestions for alternate uses:

garter
sleeve trim
Renaissance faire garb

At this point I just want to make something else that is no challenge at all. Maybe I'll work on the baby blanket that's just rows and rows of hdc. Yeah, that's the ticket.

How all this looks to a non-yarner

2008-01-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

A little while ago I set down my computer, picked up my hook, and said "I've been spending so much time on Ravelry and my blog lately that I haven't been crocheting enough."

The Mad Husband threw both his arms in the air and shouted "WOO-HOOO!!"

I looked at him in confusion. "I already knew that," he said.

"Well, what was the 'woo-hoo' for?"

"I thought it would take you another month and a half to figure that out. I'm proud of you."

(Of course, then I had to post this on my blog, which may render the whole conversation null and void.)

Ribbon yarn and other crochet hazards

2008-01-12T23:12:00.000-05:00

This week at the Crochet Liberation Front forum, someone was asking for suggestions on patterns to crochet with ribbon yarn. I've been planning on making the Bay Blue Hat from The Crocheter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails for a while and in fact had bought the Berroco Zen yarn for it just recently, so I decided to bump it up in the queue and report back to the CLF.

Somewhere along the way when I seriously got into crochet and started shopping at yarn stores instead of Michaels, someone must have told me that ribbon yarn was not good for crochet. I say "must" because I don't specifically remember someone saying it, but for quite a while I've had a sense that crocheting with ribbon yarn is something to be avoided at all costs. But the Bay Blue Hat was cute, and only required two hanks. And now I had incentive. So today, I accidentally fed the yarn to a pug, shrieked, retrieved the yarn, and then got started.

Initial impressions of crocheting with ribbon yarn:

The ribbon yarn is going to twist. I can't imagine a way around it. So I figure either you can put on your thinking cap and waste a lot of valuable crochet yarn, or get used to it.
The twistiness makes counting your stitches hard, so if you lose count on the base chain, you're screwed.
Foundation chains are even more unpleasant and time-consuming with ribbon yarn. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was even stitching in the right place.
This may just be particular to Berroco Zen, but... here, have a look at the structure:

See how the yarn is constructed, with three threads running lengthwise and all those little ones running between those threads? Yeah. Holy snagging on my crochet hook, Batman. I'm starting to understand why we leave this stuff to the knitters.

All that said, crocheting with the ribbon yarn did get easier as I got used to it, and, perhaps more importantly, as I got past the foundation chain and had distinct stitches to stitch into. Despite an initial suspicion that the ladies behind Yarn Cocktails were just knitters out to get our money, I'm liking how the hat's starting to look. That said: I would not recommend ribbon yarn for process crocheters. If you like the look of the finished object, it may be worth the frustration, but if you mainly crochet for the sensual pleasure of yarn running through your fingers (does that sound dirty? It's not supposed to), I doubt that ribbon yarn has got what you need.

Actual pictures forthcoming at some point. (I've recently learned that half the people who "read" this blog don't actually read, just look at the pictures, so I'm trying to react accordingly. Don't say I never gave you anything.)

And here's something pleasant for a change

2008-01-10T17:06:00.000-05:00

I am really just thrilled to death with this awesome pattern called the Cuddle Bed, designed by the also awesome CrochetKitten as part of her wonderful Cuddles for Kitties project. Bob is too, from the looks of it. Bob is that handsome fellow reclining to the right. He is my parents' cat and unlike the Mad Crocheter, he is never mad about anything. (Speaking in the third person. I get 50 Pretentious Points! Woooo!) When I gifted Bob with this bed, he promptly attacked it, but my mother has since sent this picture to assure me that Bob has figured out what it's for.

The Cuddle Bed is really an excellent charity pattern. It's fast and simple -- it uses three strands of yarn so it grows fast, and it would be great practice crocheting in rounds for a beginning crocheter. And it's gotta be acrylic for easy washing, so it's a great way to use up your scrap yarn (or as I call mine "crap yarn"). I guess you could do it in wool if you really wanted to, though I'd recommend washable unless you want a tiny little felted kitten bed. (Which would be wicked cute, come to think of it.) My knitting friends liked the nice structure crochet gives this. And Tabitha the office cat at Furkids (the cat shelter where I volunteer when I'm not crocheting or wreaking havoc on teh intarwubz) is giving it two paws up, when she's awake that is.

So if you have a couple free hours and some acrylic you need to get rid of, consider whipping one of these up for your cat or local animal shelter or better yet both. Because cats are so cute in them, and one thing the world definitely needs is more pictures of cats being cute.

The last word on Lidsville

2008-01-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

I just saw a young woman at my workplace wearing a very cute newsboy cap -- the same style of cap as Lidsville. I studied her cap as I walked by, and that's when it hit me.

Was the "inner band" actually supposed to go on the bottom rather than the inside? That probably would have helped with fit and making the cap "longer" like my dad wanted.

Then again, I found a comment on Ravelry from the designer saying no, the inner band was supposed to go on the inside. But I still don't understand the brim construction.

Maybe I'll figure it all out once I make a Lidsville for myself... but with so many new projects on my plate, I think it'll be a while before I'll come back to one I've already done.

It is kind of hilarious that I'm sitting here still obsessing over this hat weeks after it's been finished and gifted, though. Clearly I need more new projects to take my mind off this.

Can you resist the fig-leaf bikini?

2008-01-08T22:53:00.000-05:00

I may live to regret this, but tonight I think I'm going to break one of the cardinal rules of yarn blogging and say something negative. Please hold your rotten tomatoes till the end, folks. I promise you'll get a chance to throw them all.

In a discussion at the Crochet Liberation Front board at Ravelry, ProperTrappings (who for some reason does not have a blog I can link to, boo) asked if anyone else was familiar with this book:

So far, I'm the only person to admit to seeing Hookorama, and, as I explained to ProperTrappings, "and to be totally honest, I’ve since cited it as one of the reasons knitters think crochet is crap."

Hookorama is filled with bright, cartoony patterns for things I can't figure out a single use for. The thing everyone, myself included, brings up first is the Garden of Eden section with the fig-leaf bikinis. It's not that I'm opposed to crocheted bikinis (though you'd have to be daft to go in the water in one) or even fig-leaf bikinis, necessarily -- I imagine there are designers out there who could make them look beautiful. But unfortunately Hookorama's version looks more something the goofy middle-school kids playing with construction paper came up with. (I can't find a picture online, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it. Or not.) And then there's a lot of cartoony fake fruit... I cannot recall a single pattern I felt would be useful enough to make. ProperTrappings rightfully points out that it's probably aimed at the teen market and anything that gets people interested in crochet is good, but to me, I can't help it, it looks like a crochet joke book.

But why does that bother you, Mad Crocheter? Don't you have a sense of humor? You really are mad, aren't you?

Well, to answer those questions:

1). It bothers me because for some reason, Hookorama is one of the few crochet books I've seen in multiple LYS (local yarn stores, Mom, just in case you're reading). Yet I can't find a copy of Everyday Crochet -- a book hailed for its creative yet wearable garments -- in any of them. Maybe Hookorama looks like a cute, fun, colorful book, and I'm sure lots of people have picked it up. But I'm equally sure most of those people put it back down -- only two Ravelry users have done projects from the book, and one was a contributor to the book and the other one frogged the project . And I'm also sure quite a few of those people were knitters who, as they put it down, made disparaging remarks about the fig-leaf bikini, followed by "but what can you expect from crochet?" I understand that there's not as much of a market for crochet as knitting right now, and therefore I don't badger my LYS owners to stock more crochet books, knowing I'm just one person and I barely know any fellow locals who crochet. But when that precious crochet shelf space goes to a kitsch collection, how will anyone ever know there's more to crochet than that? My Google research suggested the book was originally published in 1980 -- if true, that's a long time ago. There's been a lot of innovation since then, in both knitting and crochet. Why can't we have new stuff instead of kitschy reprints? Is the market really that bad?

2). I do have a sense of humor, and sometimes it even intersects crochet. But amigurumi takes care of my humorous crochet needs just fine, thanks. With style and creativity in spades. The Japanese are currently reinventing crochet, but I'll save that for another time.

3). Not mad so much as frustrated. The cycle as I imagine it: LYS owner doesn't know much about crochet. LYS owner stocks book because it looks bright and colorful and will look nice on the shelf next to SnB: The Happy Hooker. Crocheter picks up book. Unless crocheter has a fig-leaf fetish, crocheter puts book down, figuring LYS has nothing for crocheters. Knitter picks up book. Knitter puts book down, figuring crochet is just as tacky as they've been told. Book doesn't sell. LYS owner figures no one wants crochet, and doesn't stock more crochet books.

And now, because even though I broke a cardinal rule of yarn blogging and am now a jerk, I don't want to be a super-duper jerk (by yarners' standards; I think those are stricter than most bloggers' standards): If you are one of the writers or designers of this book, please understand: I don't want you to starve, I don't hate your work, I know there's a place for it. I just wish there were a place for the new things too.

Lidsville, Completed.

2008-01-07T17:23:00.000-05:00

I finally have a picture of Lidsville, so I might as well explain the last few snags in its making.

I arrived at my ancestral home to discover that in my hurry, I had left the plastic canvas brim behind. Swearing ensued. My mother helped me improvise with a piece of cardboard. Then came yet more problems with figuring out exactly where I was supposed to sew stuff together. I asked my mom for advice; she said she had no clue. (It seems for a lot of us stitchery skipped a generation, huh?) I finally got the hat slapped together about two minutes before giving it to my father. He put it on... and immediately wanted me to make the back longer.

He may be getting a Chia Pet next year.

I added a few rows to the back and some decreases to make the hat tighter. Then, in what I would call a true stroke of irony, I found plastic canvas in my late grandmother's stash and had to figure out how to swap out the cardboard for it. Finally I handed it to my father, who put it on and said "that's good." I replied "it better be. I'm out of yarn."

I would say I'm... content with the final product, and might even try making myself one someday. However, I had an issue with the pattern, and based on the comments I've seen on Ravelry and some of the Google search strings this blog has gotten, I suspect some of you had the same problem: The crochet instructions are just fine, but there is very little direction on how to do the sewing. I'm a crocheter, not a seamstress, and I didn't really know what to do with directions like "sew the brim to the hat." Where, exactly? I realize that I sound like a dolt, but, well, when it comes to sewing I am a dolt.

I'm not saying this is a bad pattern, because I don't think it is. I think it's a good pattern. But with clearer sewing instructions, it could have been a great pattern.

Not dead. Yet.

2008-01-05T20:11:00.000-05:00

For those of you (all two of you) wondering where I've been, I've been knocked on my butt by what is by my standards an exceptionally bad cold. Even with all the ideas floating around in my head, I just lack the energy to crochet or really do much of anything other than lie on the couch idly surfing Ravelry. Oh, and buying yarn online. I'll be living in a cardboard box by the time I get better, but at least I'll have all that yummy yarn to keep me warm. Worse, I gave my bug to the Mad Husband so now neither one of us has anyone to take care of us. We just take turns grunting at each other to get the orange juice while we're up.

If I could just motivate myself to pick up the hook, I figure I'd probably feel better or at least distracted, but right now that's just not enough motivation. I may just hand-roll some skeins into balls because it requires no brainpower and at least I'll get to play with the yummy yarn.

(The Mad Husband has begun referring to really soft yarns as "yummy." It's wicked cute.)

Addendum on Lace

2008-01-02T19:47:00.000-05:00

So not so long ago I seem to recall giving a bunch of you grief for not knitting lace. Well, now, after my own failed go at the lace, I understand a little better why people don't knit and crochet lots and lots of lace: Because it sucks.

Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. But the lace will definitely take some getting used to. It's so freaking small. (Yes, I know! That's why they call it lace-weight!) The yarn's small, and the hook's small, and the stitches are small... Wow, I have a whole new respect for thread crocheters. Actually I already had a pretty healthy respect for them, but now I know that thread crochet must be even tougher than lace, because at least lace-weight yarn generally feels better than mercerized cotton thread. Thread crocheters are really dedicated to their art.

Despite these misgivings, please don't misunderstand: I'm not giving up on lace crochet. I can't. I bought all that yarn.

Is this one of those learning experiences?

2008-01-02T17:01:00.000-05:00

So over my holiday break I sat down with a design in mind -- not just some random design, but a very special design, one that I had sketched out in my Very Special Crochet Notebook (bought at a stationery shop in Japantown, San Francisco -- I'm telling you, this paper is buttery) and all but finished in my head. It was beautiful, it was functional, it was brilliant. Now all I had to do was crochet it.

Not so fast, Mad Crocheter!

Oh... crap. What the hell was Snidely Whiplash doing here? I did my best to ignore him and soldiered on.

Before I get any further in this sad tale, let me tell you about the yarn I had selected for this project. Better yet, my yarn, let me show you it. (So I think I'm a lolcat. So sue me.) It's Kaalund Enchante from the good folks at Knitch, lace-weight Australian silk, colorway Pawpaw (so I like pink, so sue me. Again. It's not like I have any money, I spent it all on yarn).

From the moment I brought this beauty home from the store, I knew what I wanted to do with it: lace fingerless gloves. They would be delicate and luxurious and so, so beautiful.

And this is where it gets really embarrassing.

See, at this point I had already received my copy of Camanomade's Secrets of Yarn Project Guide. And there it was in black and white. Silk. Stretch Memory: None. But I was so determined that I knew I could work with it. So I picked up my (tiny, tiny) hook and got started.

And then after a while it dawned on me that not only was this not working, it hadn't even put forth the effort to call in sick. The total lack of stretch was not going to do anything for warming my arms. The yarn just kind of hung on my arm, looking like a stretched-out-of-shape friendship bracelet. That beautiful vision in my head? It dissolved in a ring of loopy triple crochet.

And now I'm actually feeling kind of upbeat about it.

I figure massive miscalculations like this one are part of the whole process of learning to design. Didn't Anne of Green Gables say something about making mistakes was okay, because then she didn't make the same ones again? You always learn more from your failures than your successes (and when I say "you", I mean "me"). I learned some information that I'm in the process of repurposing. And I think I've still got enough silk left for a pretty little scarf. (Actually, I don't really wear scarves, not as a fashion accessory, but I think I'd better start.)

Of course, none of this was a consolation at the time. This is one of the benefits of getting some perspective before blogging, unless of course you'd rather read an entire post of "#$@*&$ %@$#%& *#@^$*@!!"

New Yarn's Resolutions

2007-12-31T01:36:00.000-05:00

The good hookers over at the Crochet Liberation Front have been discussing their New Year's resolutions in relation to crochet. Luckily, I've been thinking about mine for a while (as they are ever so much more interesting than the usual resolutions that I break by January 5 when I realize yet again that living on spinach makes me crazy. I mean crazier).

The Mad Crocheter's Crochet Resolutions for 2008:

When purchasing yarn, there are certain questions I will ask myself, such as "what will I use this for?", "do I like the color?", "am I already making something like this?", "do I have room for this?", and most importantly, "can I afford it?" I will consider the answers to these questions before buying because the answers are all more important than "WOOOHOOOOO!!! This is ON SALE!!"
When I am gifting someone with a piece of crochet, I will wait until I have actually finished said piece before telling them about it, lest I be greeted every time I see them with "where's my tarot bag, bitch?" (this resolution dedicated to Donna)
I will continue to work on designing original crochet patterns and finding publication options for them, even if it's just posting them here.
I will continue to do as many nifty things with crochet as possible, in interests of promoting the art and showing knitters that crochet doesn't have to suck.
If I crochet a gift for someone, I will keep perspective and not hover over them going "so, do you like it? Say yes you love it or I'm never making you anything again."
I will use up yarn in my stash, even if it is cheap acrylic crap I bought before I knew any better. After all, you can't make shelter cat beds out of cashmere. (Well, you could, but you would deserve a swift kick in the butt for it.)
I will actually finish the projects I've been working on forever, if only to mark them finished on Ravelry.
I will use Ravelry as the excellent organizational tool it is for matching up yarns and patterns so I won't have moments like the one tonight where I looked into a plastic bin full of yarn and said "I don't know what to crochet."
I will felt something. On purpose.
I will crochet some socks. Just to see what happens.
I will do something cool with lace, even if it kills me.
I will take pictures of my stash so I can stare at it lovingly when I'm bored instead of meandering onto yarn sites where I will tempt myself into breaking other resolutions.
I will do whatever my overlords at the Crochet Liberation Front tell me to do.
I will continue to seek out all the awesome there is to be found in crochet and share it here.
I will remember that this is crochet, not life or death. I will be unafraid to try new things, because in the end, it's all just yarn. What's the worst that could happen?

YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!!!!

2007-12-29T01:36:00.000-05:00

This is actually related to a deeper thought, but why save it for the deeper thoughts when you've got a really awful (I mean awesome) one-liner?

For a long while now, StringTheory2 and I have been discussing the massive amount of planning involved in one of her knitting projects (go look at 'em, they'll blow your mind, her work blows my mind on a regular basis) versus the sheer spirit of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants that goes into mine ("Hey, that's not as long as the schematic says it's supposed to be. Guess I shoulda done a gauge swatch. Oh well, no worries, I'll just add on a few rows and figure out what to do with them later!"). After these conversations, I suspect that knitting appeals to the more orderly minds among us, the ISTJs, those whose brains, if brains were houses, would be neat small rooms connected by geometric halls, while someone like me, an ENFP whose brain resembles my desk, which is to say cluttered, with everything I own thrown in one big pile -- "and that reminds me of this! Which reminds me of THIS!" -- naturally prefers crochet, and clings to it stubbornly no matter how many cool things I'm told I could be knitting. (Might also explain why I sometimes confuse knitters -- while I'm merrily prattling away about what's going on in my tangential brain, the knitters are having to rush down that hall in and out of the different rooms of their brains to keep up with me, and who has time to do that while futzing with needles and charts? Yeah, I'll keep telling myself that's why I freak out the knitters. Yeah.)

So (and this is an awful lot of buildup for a joke that's not even that good), all of this came to mind while I was replying to a comment on Ravelry about how some fiber artists are dead-set on yarn usage -- i.e., if it's sock yarn, you must use it to make socks -- and the concept of rules in art, and what came out of my keyboard was:

Maybe it’s the same principle at work here – knitters seek rules, while crocheters say “really they’re more like guidelines”?

And then all I could hear in my head was Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush et al explaining that "really they're more like guidelines" and all I could think was "hey! We crocheters are the yarn pirates!! YAARRRRRRRRRRN!!"

I know. None of the knitters I know have ever insisted that sock yarn must be used for socks only and my entire orderly knitting vs. freewheeling crochet theory might not hold even a teaspoonful of water here, but let me have my delusions that I'm a pirate. If you need me, I'll be running around screaming YAAARRRRRN!!

Not for nothing does ST2 call me the Pirate Hooker...

As promised, the incoherent (though sober) update.

2007-12-27T02:00:00.000-05:00

Have reached the point where hat construction no longer makes sense (and neither does using pronouns). Have nagging fear hat may be too small. Cannot figure out how top of hat is supposed to go on. Too sleepy to care. Will try again in the morning. Praying cat does not eat hat in the meantime.

Procrastinators unite!... some other time.

2007-12-26T22:35:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm going to visit my family.

That means that tonight, I have to finish Lidsville.

I know, I know. I've been working on this damn hat forever... well, a month according to Ravelry, but it sure feels like forever. Oh look, and two weeks ago I posted that I was nearly done. Well don't I feel silly? I would, if I had time to. Of course, instead of actually finishing it here I am blogging and puttering around on Ravelry.

Don't ask me what happened with this one, because I'm not sure myself. I suspect it was a combination of "oh yay! I'm nearly finished! And I've got plenty of time! I can goof around!" and my utter intimidation over the construction of the hat. I've spent more time fretting over putting this stupid hat together than I have actually working on it. And what am I doing now, instead of working on it? Fretting on teh intarwubz. There's a lesson in this, but I don't have time to contemplate that even though it is totally obvious.

At least the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK for the inner band was at the top of the yarn bin, so I didn't have to stumble around searching for it and waking up the Mad Husband.

...And then, as if on cue, my computer went down, forcing me to get to work. Computer has recovered, back to work now, cat is trying to eat the plastic canvas that's supposed to be the hat brim, expect an incoherent and possibly drunken post announcing success/failure around three in the morning.