Domestically Challenged

The Day of the Dead Arm Warmers

Last Fall, I was obsessed with skulls. We had only been living in SD a short time and, with our close proximity to Mexico, had already been inundated with Day of the Dead images and paraphernalia. I really wanted to knit some Day of the Dead themed mittens for Kristin for Christmas. I don't normally knit Christmas presents for my friends, but she had designed the banner for my shop and deserved something special. Besides, she digs skulls. Now there are a lot of skull patterns out there, but nothing that really did it for me. That's when I had a brilliant idea...I'll design my own skull pattern! I thought I was a genius. I would design the pattern, knit the sample and release it into the world right before Halloween (it was only a few weeks away). Ha! Now it's July and I'm still working on that mitten pattern. In the meantime, I started a spin-off arm warmer pattern. I figured that the arm warmers would be a faster knit and I wouldn't have to worry about the fiddly thumb. Besides, Kristin likes arm warmers (right?). I didn't meet the Christmas deadline either. There was more to this designing thing than I thought. 

Then things got busy. I started a new job and a line of photography props. I was so busy that I hardly thought about those balls of black and white yarn languishing at the bottom of my stash. That is, until I booked my flight to Toronto for a summer visit. I had a new deadline: June 20th. I decided that the only way to get these done was to employ all of the goal achievement and time management strategies I had learned in my thirty years on this Earth. I broke my big goal into little goals and mapped out those little goals on my calendar (i.e. Friday: "Knit one motif"; Saturday: "Figure out that f*#$ing thumb"). Every night, amidst long hours at the office and a long list of Pinch Knits orders, I knit a little bit on the arm warmers and despite all of the frogging and re-knitting, they were done with plenty of time left for me to write up the pattern for you.

$4.00

Congratulations, Steph!

My friend, Stephanie Robin, just had her photographs incorporated into an ad campaign in Norway!

You can read more about it on her blog. Congratulations, Steph! Your photos are amazing (especially that hanging shot).

Surfing

When you live in California, there are many things that can prevent you from knitting. First of all, the weather is gorgeous and will make you feel guilty for staying indoors. The proximity to the ocean is another and the revolving door of house guests doesn’t help the knitting cause either. But it’s the combination of all three that is the deadliest of them all and can often lead to the abandonment and neglect of even the most enticing project.

 

Last week, my husband’s best friend, came to visit us. We spent a lot of time doing this:

 

And a bit of this:

 

But mostly this:

Needless to say, the knitting suffered. If you are waiting for a custom order from Pinch Knits, I will have it out soon.

(Did I mention that Andrei is single and knitter-friendly?)

Something new

I have way too much knitting going on right now. There are a ton of things I am supposed to be knitting, but my rebellious side just wants to knit anything but. I want to knit socks, armwarmers, sweaters - anything but what I'm supposed to be knitting. As a compromise, I have been working on a pattern I began designing in OCTOBER between Pinch Knit orders. I've been knitting this intermittently for so long that once I finish it, I think a huge weight will be lifted from my shoulders. Plus it's a very belated Christmas present and I get to use teeny, tiny needles which I have been longing to do as most of my Pinch Knits merchandise is knit on gigantic needles. I think I have about a week's worth of work left, but it will be so nice to finish something that is not infant-sized. 

I've also pulled out the cowl I started in March. It's the Ithacowl (Ravelry link) by New York Minknit and I used Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light on US7 needles. This pattern gives very loose directions on how many stitches to cast on - I used 115 sts and am up to 38 rows. This is not quite enough to get the same effect as shown in the pattern, but I still like it. I'm not sure how much longer to make this, though. Should I cast off at an even 40 or should I push it up to 50? This UFO is so close to being an FO I can smell it.

It was 95 degrees in San Diego when I took this photo. I have no idea what that is in Celsius but trust me, it was hot; especially with a 50 % wool/50% alpaca cowl on.

John Black School of Acting

My good friend opened up her very own etsy shop. Not only does she have some cute bags for sale, but the name of her shop cracks me up. Did/does anyone else watch Days of Our Lives? As embarrassing as this is, when I was in elementary school, there was a period of time when I thought John Black was hot, eyebrow and all.

 

 

Best of luck, Choochie!

Baby Hawk

I don't know whether it's all of this getting older business (only two days left before the BIG day), but I've been haunted by the image of a baby mohawk hat for almost two months. Last weekend I decided to neglect some pressing matters (what taxes?) and knit it. Here's version 1.0:

It's so cute, I may knit up an adult-sized one.

I NEED a Ball Winder (Part 2)

Seriously, I need to bite the bullet and admit to myself that this is what I do almost every night. Luckily, Minchie likes to help.

(I also need a hair cut - it almost looks like a mullet back there. Can you tell I dyed it blonde in January? After an hour of highlights, I was surprised to find it almost exactly the same colour as it was when I went in. Oy. Also, I did not get implants. I just haven't been running.).

Oops!

Sometimes I just play around with yarn and an FO magically appears. This is not often the case, it's rare, but it sometimes  happens. Sometimes I even write down the "pattern" in hopes of recreating the piece, but sometimes I forget before it is sold and in the mail. Oops!

It's a good thing I took some pictures.

The Yarn Fairy

Today was a particularly long day at the office because I had absolutely no work to do. I hate those days. Luckily, the yarn fairy came and made it all better. I love getting yarn in the mail.

 

These are both hand-dyed, handspun skeins of Falkland wool from a fiber artist in the UK. They both look like they should taste like candy.

Personal Knitting

One downside to knitting for my etsy shop is that there isn't a lot of time left at the end of the day for personal knitting. In fact, lately there has been no time left for personal knitting. This is a big problem because I still have outstanding Christmas presents to whip up. Christmas presents! It's freakin' March and I need to find time to make belated Christmas presents. What a disaster!

   

Tonight I hope to start one of these cowls I found on Ravelry (cashmere cowl no. 2 - lace rib or quickie cowl) . I have some Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light that I think will be amazing. Of course, it won't be until I actually "swatch" (a.k.a starting knitting and ripping) that I'll know whether I will actually knit either of these cowls out of this particular yarn or something else entirely. Hopefully I'll be able to suppress the guilt of not working long enough to make some headway. This would be a perfect bus project.