Trish Knits.com

Category: blog

  • Another Boring Sunday…

    payin' bills, and loving it
    payin’ bills, and loving it
    Today’s been a quiet day around the house. I’ve gotten exactly one half of one row knit. I’m supposed to be paying bills, and I will, but I thought I would blog first.

    Tomorrow’s the first day back to school after a 10-day spring break. As usual, the mom and dad are glad to be getting back to some semblance of routine, but the kids? Not so much… BoyZilla just had a twelfth-degree meltdown, figuring that if he didn’t go to bed, then maybe tomorrow wouldn’t come. I know kid, ends of vacations bite. Suck it up.

    I’m teleworking tomorrow, and I’m glad, because I really hate Mondays. Don’t tell the BoyZilla, but I have a colossal meltdown EVERY Sunday night, only a telework Monday seems to soften the blow. At least a little.

    Spring seems to be making an earnest attempt at hanging around now, which makes me happy. And the pool is opening in about a month already, and I’m kinda kicking myself. This year has flown by! (My mother told me it happens when you get older… it sucks, doesn’t it?)

    The thing is that this was the year I kept telling myself that there were a lot of things I was going to fix. So far, none have really happened. Get organized. Exercise. Eat well. Lose weight. (A LOT of weight.) Sleep more than three or four hours at a time. Be nicer to people. Sounds like quite a list, doesn’t it?

    That’s the problem. My list is so long, I don’t even know where to start. I feel pretty alone and overwhelmed by my goals most of the time. So it’s like I have them on a shelf, right next to me. I can see the goals nearby, staring at me and taunting me. I know, I should tackle them one by one, and in little bits at a time. And then I think that they’re ALL so pressing, each one needs to come first. They’re all important. I’d probably feel better if I just somehow did all of the things on my list, and then so much more would be possible because I did. And yet, it’s all too overwhelming.

    So what do I do? I blog. And I knit. And I generally spend too much time on the computer, pushing all of the things I really need to do out of my mind, and out of the way.

    It’s not what I’m supposed to be doing and it’s not really working. Someday, I’ll sort it all out. But for now, I gotta pay bills. Argh! See you later.

    And now, I leave you with a smile:

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  • Saturday Sweater Report: Week 4

    If you’re a knitter, you know how it is with garter stitch. You knit and you knit and you knit, and after what seems like forever and miles of knitting? What have you got to show for it? Next to nothing, that’s what. Such was this week for me:

    a lousy half inch of progress on my sweater
    a lousy half inch of progress on my sweater

    It’s all I’ve got, after knitting my fingers down to little nubs. A half inch. At this rate, my sweater will be done in about, oh, THREE YEARS! Nah. I swatched. The lace section goes a lot faster. At least I’m telling myself it does. (It does, right?)

    Here’s to hoping I don’t lose the mojo. I’ve got a couple of events coming up over the next couple of weeks that should keep me excited about knitting. Next Saturday promises to be a day of knitting with friends, and then in TWO WEEKS, it’s the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I go with Steve every year, and so far we’ve lucked out with decent weather each time. I’ve already made dinner reservations for The Melting Pot for that evening. Should be a great day all the way around.

    Here’s to hoping I’ll have more to show next week!

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  • Is It Art?

    I’m having a backwards sort of day. I woke up early, fully intending to work, but then just could not make my body go. I was cold and shivering, and I don’t really remember anything that happened before 3:00 p.m. when I finally woke up. Sigh.

    I don’t normally take something I see on someone else’s blog and run with it, but I saw this YouTube clip on Brenda Dayne’s site today, and I really can’t get it out of my mind, so I thought I’d share:

    My 13-year-old daughter has been touched by the painting muse in recent weeks. This is a kid who normally would have the goal of doing any project as quickly as possible, and then wonder why they never seem to come out as polished as she had hoped. She’s been working on posters for her upcoming school play. And I have watched as she has been spending days at a time on each one, adding little sparkles or dabs of color here and there, until they are just right in her eyes. I’ve never seen her take such an interest in something, or ask her dad several times in one week to take her to the art store for more colors of paint. I’ve been trying not to make too big of a deal about it all, because well, you know how young teens are. If I did gush, that would be the end of the painting. And I’d really just rather her keep figuring out how to express herself in such a beautiful way.

    I never could paint, or draw, or do any of those things that most people would consider to be “art.” But then there’s the knitting. Is that art? I never quite understood the whole “art vs. craft” debate. I mean, does it have to be one or the other? And I know we’ve all seen handcrafted items, be they knitting or some other thing, that would count as true works of art. And of those, I am in awe. (For an example of what I mean, check out the work of Debbie New. Click on the link for the slide show and prepare to be amazed.)

    But MY knitting? Is it art? Not really, I think, most of the time. But then there are those times when an odd color combination or a strangely freeform knitted hat express some quirk about my personality. So maybe, occasionally, knitting is an artistic outlet for me. This blog sort of fills that bill, too. Still, most of the time my analytical side smothers the artistic one. I don’t often throw caution to the wind with my knitting, just to see what will happen, and that sometimes makes me afraid to try new things. Two things I really want to conquer: colorwork, and sweaters. Sometimes I think I should have just dove right in and made my first sweater a colorwork project instead of a plain February Lady Sweater. But, the analytical side won out, and I became chicken at the last minute. Not that I don’t love my sweater-in-progress, but part of me just wishes I could be a little more brave.

    So, this video clip today got me to thinking. And I will work on my artistic side. Maybe I’ll start with small bits of colorwork here and there, if I ever need a sweater break. Maybe, I, too, can learn to “paint” with my yarn. who knows what will happen? I just know I have to try.

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  • Everyone Knows It’s Wendy*

    Wendy Knits book coverThis afternoon I got a raised eyebrow from my teen daughter as she espied yet another Amazon box on my porch. “ANOTHER book, Mom? Really!” she groaned. She raised her eyebrows again when I told her I’d been waiting for this book for six months.

    I lied. When I logged into Amazon tonight, I got a quick reminder flag at the top of the browser, reminding me that I’d already ordered this title, in JULY. Way more than six months ago. This was more like waiting for a baby to arrive.

    But let me tell you, when I finally got to unwrap my long-awaited copy of Socks from the Toe Up: Essential Techniques and Patterns from Wendy Knits, I was not disappointed. The photos are stunning and numerous. The illustrations are clear, and the writing makes the techniques described in the book incredibly easy to follow.

    I do have to ‘fess up and say, if you don’t know this about me already, I’m reeeeeeaaaallllly not a sock knitter. I’ve made one pair in my life, and it was done as a tutorial, so that I could wrap my head around how socks are made. I think the primary reason for my being a not-sock-knitter is that, well, I wear orthotics on my legs and so I don’t wear anything more than knee-high hose. So the big reward of knitting socks has never been there for me.

    So why did I buy this book? Well, if I were a sock knitter? I’d knit them all from the toe up. So at least I can imagine myself making these. The whole idea of top-down socks is a major turnoff for some reason. So the patterns in this book are at least speaking my language. Second, with only a few exceptions, nearly everyone I love has feet, so making socks for someone else certainly is a thought I can entertain. Third, the socks in this book are so PRETTY! For someone who hasn’t ever really knit socks, I do have quite a collection of sock yarn, so these gorgeous patterns fit the bill. They embrace techniques that I love and want to learn more about. They’re simply lovely.

    There’s a lot of variety in there, too. Everything from basic socks (to help one learn th techniques), to simple lace, then complex lace, interesting textures, Ganseys, cables and more. All toe up. Simply wonderful.

    Well done, Wendy! You might just make a sock knitter out of me yet.

    *with apologies for the only semi-unintentional earworm that this post title might have caused…

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  • SABLE?

    (SABLE = Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy)

    I think I’m there. One of the other boxes that came this past week was from Webs, and you see, well, they’re having a huge sale on Cascade 220, and that is a weakness of mine, and, well… look:

    Cascade 220 in various colors (photo by Diana)
    Cascade 220 in various colors (photo by Diana)

    I got a bunch of single skeins in lots of different colors. Some of the things I’m planning to do with them include:

    In short I guess there are lots of things I could do with so many colors. I like collecting large amounts of many colors. It allows my creativity to flow!

    dark eggplant colored yarn
    dark eggplant colored yarn
    Also in the box was a sweater’s worth of eggplant-colored yarn for a sweater for me (someday). Did I mention that this yarn was on a HUGE sale? I felt like it was a good opportunity to get this yarn at such a good price. I have a fantasy of someday having a yarn room with a whole wall of shelves full of yarn in many colors. I think I’m on my way there…

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  • Random Friday

    It’s been a crazy long week here and I’m tired. I haven’t knit much this week, so there hasn’t been much to blog about. I haven’t even gotten to the second buttonhole on my February Lady Sweater yet. How lame is that? I am hoping somehow to be there by tomorrow. We’ll see.

    So, I thought I’d post an update on another project I haven’t shown in a while. I haven’t actually touched my mitered squares blanket in a couple of weeks, but it’s been a long time since I photographed it. So, here it is:

    mitered squares blanket in progress
    mitered squares blanket in progress
    In case you’ve never seen this before, I’m doing mitered squares a la Vivian Hoxbro, but for the layout of the squares I’m using the diagram from the Babette Blanket as a guide. I figured out that if I make the squares sized so that the stitches along the sides are some multiple of a common number, that it all works out and they fit together nicely. So, this will be my “go-to” project for probably years to come, for those in-between times when I’ve just finished a project, or lost my knitting mojo. I like it so far. It really has filled the void that often creeps into my knitting downtime.

    Thinking Ahead

    Last weekend the yarn bug bit me really hard. Thinking of course that I ordered from three different vendors, all with different customary normal shipping times, I didn’t think it would be too hard explaining it to the hubster when it trickled in in drips and drabs. No such luck! It ALL arrived on Wednesday. (gulp.) Here’s the first thing I got:

    Dream in Color Classy yarn in various colors
    Dream in Color Classy yarn in various colors
    This is a pile o’ Dream in Color Classy yarn with which I plan to make the adult version of the Tulip Sweater. I know, that’s probably crazy, given that I’m less than three inches into my current project. But it’s a bad habit of mine. When I sit and knit, I’m constantly letting my mind wander about what I want to knit next, or next-next, or even way into the future. Maybe 2009 will be the year of the sweater.

    We’ll see…

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