Trish Knits.com

Author: Trish

It Just Keeps Following Me Home!

Stuff from Knit Picks, that is. I’m becoming a slut for Knit Picks Kits. It’s true. Why, yesterday, these three babies found their way to my door:

Three Knit Picks Kits

They are the Maeve Hat and Mittens Kit, The Knitter’s Tool Bag Kit (in purple, of course!), and the Line By Line Mittens to Gloves Kit. I can hardly decide which to knit first! This is the year I am going to master the mitten. These patterns, I hope, will get me well on my way. The Knitter’s tote kit, by the way? It comes with the fabric to line the bag with. Way cool.

I don’t have an extra Rubbermaid tub yet but I do have an empty DVD bin on my side of the entertainment center, so all my kits are going in there. Wait! What’s this?

Cat in bin

For some reason, my cat loves to lick plastic bags, and there’s no shortage of plastic containing the knit kits in this drawer. I caught her in there the other day and so snapped this picture. My cat doesn’t love my yarn, she only cares about the bags it comes in.

So all week I’ve been working on this:

Noro Kureyon hat in progress

It’s a simple top-down hat made out of Noro Kureyon yarn, and I think I’m going to love it! I finally increased it to the size I want at the top and will knit for a couple of inches before decreasing to the size of my actual head. The end result, I hope, will be something sort of beret-shaped. Stay tuned on that!

Oh, and I wound yarn for a new project tonight. But it’s late, so I’ll have to talk about that tomorrow.

OMG Have You SEEN This Kid?

And if you liked that one, you GOTTA see this!

That’s all for now; I’m off to bed at a decent hour for once this week. What? It’s not a decent hour? Well poop. I’ll try again tomorrow.

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September 24, 2009
A Day of Beauty

Wow… what a difference a little sun can make. The sky was a cloudless bright blue today and the weather was warm. I think I feel better today than I’ve felt all week. I hope I can somehow squeak in a couple more days like this one before Fall gets here in earnest.

It started with a yummy dish of Shrimp Alfredo (The Lean Cuisine variety.) After weeks of eating beefaroni from a can and other less than wonderful things, it was good to eat something at least somewhat tasty for a change. Then I went off for a long-overdue haircut. The stylist was running late, but my mom and daughter and I made the most of our unplanned half hour and headed for the Merle Norman store. We went to buy some concealer and face powder for the daughter (Tuesday is school picture day), but I wound up with some eye shadow and blush for myself. How’d that happen? I rarely wear makeup.

The haircut was great! Except when the chick did up my hair with product, it looked a bit like Kate Gosselin, which all at once scared me a little, and made me say, “Oooooh that’s cute!” But we’ll see how I do it when I have to rely on my own hair styling skills tomorrow.

Then it was off to Hecht’s. (Oops, I mean Macy’s; old habits die hard.) The daughter needed a top or a dress or something to wear for the picture. I’ve gotten off easy for the school pictures thus far because they wear uniforms, but because she’s in 8th grade this year, she can wear what she wants. Anything, apparently, as long as it’s black. Her taste, not mine, but she did pick a cute top to go with some pants she already has, and a dress. I guess she’ll decide what to wear on Tuesday morning. So, it was a successful shopping trip.

I then went to the makeup counters at Macy’s, intent on completing my face. At the end of the day, I had all of this:

Eyeshadows, blush, foundation powder, and lip glosses

Hey, when I go after makeup, I tend to get a whole face full all at once. It’s not the cheapest way to go, but it makes me feel good to start fresh every so often.

So, look for me tomorrow, all prettied up with cute (yet scary), Kate Gosselin hair. And I’ll be smiling. Hey, the sun’s out.

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September 19, 2009
Diary of a Knitter, Still Feeling Slumpy

Dear Blog,

I’m sorry if it seems I’ve been ignoring you lately. But you know? Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say.

You know I love you, right? It’s just that lately I’m having a hard time making steady progress on anything at all, and instead, my brain is on one of those crazy junkets where I’ve got a million ideas happening at once, which leads to lots of new projects getting started, but making real progress on nothing at all.

So, despite the new fair isle hat, and the new Noro hat, and the pink scarf that’s still screaming for attention from the bottom of my bag, now there’s this:

Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole underway

It’s the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole from Scarf Style, a brilliant little book edited by Pam Allen a few years ago. I think nearly every knitter I know owns this book. I’ve been drooling over nearly every pattern in it for years, but, as per usual, I’ve never made anything from it. But you already know this about me, Blog. You know that I have scads of knitting books here, and that I continue to buy more, even though I don’t knit from them. Mostly. I will, however, say that knitting books give me lots of creative inspiration. So that makes them worth it. Right?

What I don’t understand, Blog, is why my knitting is making me so antsy lately. Why I can’t just stick to something and get it done. Why I can be so excited at the thought of so many knitting projects, and dreading starting them, all at once. And finishing a project? What’s that? We both know it’s something I rarely do.

(For the curious reader, I’m making my stole out of Silk Garden Chunky that I picked up at Stitches East last fall. I am making it with lots fewer repeats than the pattern calls for because the original yarn isn’t so thick. Plus, I’m finding that I don’t think the 10 skeins will go as far as I wish the would. So, I’m getting a good-sized scarf plus, if I’m lucky, a matching hat out of it. We’ll see.)

Could it be the weather? It’s been unseasonably chilly and gray here for the last couple of weeks. The kind of weather that makes me want to curl up under a blanket and sip cocoa and do nothing but knit all day. Which, since we’re talking about knitting, might seem like a good thing, except that in reality I don’t have time to hide under a blanket. Work is insanely busy, it’s middle school soccer season, it’s high school application time, and so on, and so on…. With the grayness of the sky I have not wanted to keep up with all of these other things. I’d really just rather knit, and sleep. Or sleep and knit. And the fact that I can’t have a life full of such self-indulgent luxuries? Would I be complaining if I said sometimes this just pisses me off?

So, I’d like to find joy in what knitting time I have. I’d like to finish something once in awhile, so I have something to show for my knitting time. Are you with me, Blog?

Great! Let’s kick this slump. Show it the door. Knitting is supposed to be fun! Now I just need to figure out what that is again.

Thanks for being here, Blog. It’s great to have someone to talk to.

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September 18, 2009
I Don’t Feel Like Blogging

I’ve been in a blogging funk all week, so I thought maybe I’d better show up before the few readers I do have start disappearing on me. The truth is there hasn’t been much happening here and I’m kinda stuck, knitting wise, so not much to blog about. I wound some pink yarn last week with the intention of casting on a small, carry-along project in time to have something to take to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, but I’ve been so unmotivated, I haven’t even done that. The truth is I hate casting on, and I’ve been avoiding it altogether. So I’ve been knitting on the sweater:

closeup of tabby cat with knitting

Apparently, Tegan wasn’t too thrilled about posing with the knitting; apparently she is completely blissfully unaware of the important connection between knitting and cats. Perhaps Lucy can fill her in.

I’m just about to the point of the huge knot in my yarn for the sweater. I’m trying to decide whether I should cut it and work on it and start a new ball, or if I should just stick it out? Something tells me the whole ball is just a mess inside, despite being wound on my ball winder. Some yarns are just like that. I swear some of them delight in getting themselves all knotted up into a giant cobweb that would try even the most patient soul. Patience is not one of my virtues, so we shall see whether I painstakingly pick apart the knots in this ball, or I just fling it at the wall instead.

Anybody wanna take bets?

Meanwhile, I gotta figure out what to take with me, knitting-wise, on Saturday. As per usual I won’t be wearing any completed knits (as if I have any) so at least I need to look like a knitter and bring something in progress. Hopefully I’ll get motivated to start something new before then. Taking the sweater in progress to the festival? Out of the question. I don’t want to get any festival ick on my silk.

Ciao for now!

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April 28, 2009