I'm Laura. I am female, 27, a codemonkey, a linux enthusiast, a gamer, a bookworm, a knitter, gothic, musical, pagan, vehemently geeky and occasionally ineptly artistic.
Wherein we detail the list of awesome Christmas presents!
I still have yet to use the Fyberspates gift card from my in-laws; I'm a) waiting for them to repopulate the website post-Christmas, and b) waiting for myself to use the yarn I have (i.e. finish something already) so that I don't feel like I'm carrying coals to Newcastle.
The Signature US #1 needles, on the other hand, are employed as we speak. And yes, best beloved, they are exactly as wonderous as you've heard. Completely worth the outrageous price. (And I've heard they're starting to make circulars. Be still, my beating heart!)
Dan gifted me a Yankees hat and jersey, which is made of awesome. Also an Evenstar pendant straight out of Lord of the Rings, which is beautiful and sparkley and supremely geeky!
On the aforementioned end table are the following:
The Midwest Gardener's Cookbook, by Marian Towne. This book looks incredibly interesting, and is filled with common sense recipes which are simple and look delicious. It may cause me to rethink what I usually plant in my garden!
Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel. There's one particular project in here which I very much want to make, but I'm going to have to do some serious finishing of projects before I can even contemplate starting it.
Home is Where the Wine Is, by Laurie Perry. I loved her first book, and am halfway through this one already. (Just don't tell that to The Anarchy Archives or Way of Shadows. I'm fickle.)
Victorian Lace Today, by Jane Sowerby. This has become a ubiquitous lace-knitting book since its initial publishing. The patterns do seem to uphold the book's reputation, and I'm excited to start using it!
Scarf Style, by Pam Allen. There are some truly cozy and interesting projects in here, which is good since while useful garments, scarves are my kryptonite. I'm hoping that some of these will be enough to curb my impatience!
And there you have it. I hope that your Christmas was equally pleasant and fruitful!
Unlike the rest of my weeks, this Saturday was very knitterly indeed. It started with Knit Morning at Borders in Brentwood, went through dropping off Georgia's christmas present at Hearthstone in south county, and up through a three-hour techniques class at Kirkwood Knittery.
I enjoyed that class very much. We learned Continental knitting (which I speak fluently), English knitting - a.k.a. "throwing" (which I did not speak at all, despite that being how I was originally taught), and progressed on through Finnish (I think?) and Norwegian purling, and ended up at Portuguese knitting.
Of them all, the Portuguese was the most surprising. I'm actually rather likely to use it when knitting something unpatterned, or ribbed (to wit: my half-finished Margot); despite looking wacky in the extreme it's amazingly fluid and uses very few movements. I wouldn't want to try a k3tbl with it, but for knit and purl it's very cool.
I also had my first attempt at trying stranded knitting using one color in each hand. My swatch looks rather dismal, and only some of it can be blamed on my 'strands' coming from the inside & outside of the same ball -- in other words, they're the same color and it looks not at all impressive from the right side. But hey - however inept it may have been, I have done it, and that means it's no longer scary!
My experiments in crochet are proceeding apace; I've produced one mushroom, which I think is rather cunning but which Dan thinks should be shorter and squatter, in order to more accurately resemble a Mario mushroom. My tension is abysmal, which is to be expected.
Beyond that, I have done exactly nothing. There is a sock in my purse only because there always is, but I haven't touched Snowflakes or TQS in weeks. I think the rush to get the last-minute shawl completed before Christmas started the burnout and the even-more-last-minute pair of office gloves put on the final touches this year. And if I have learned anything at all about my creative process, it is that there's no use in forcing it. What I am still learning is that I don't need to feel guilty about it. I'll go back to eye-crossing lace when I'm ready for it, and not before.
You may have noticed that the book cover also promises a pattern for a Fruit Fucker, although I am sure that the writers did not intend their alien-robot thing to be interpreted in such a manner. Or maybe they did, and they're just trying to give children an early and well-rounded introduction to gaming culture? Regardless, I fully intend to make a pair and send them to Gabe and Tycho.
In other Michaels-related news, I have finally located a large-sized wicker basket with a lid** -- O frabjous day! -- and it now resides under the end table next the couch. Said end table no longer looks like a wool factory threw up on it, and my living room is consequently neater. I do so enjoy encapsulation!
Also, I have Christmas cards. With luck and a break in the space-time continuum, they will actually be sent out prior to Christmas.
* Letting me go into a craft store unescorted is the first sign of trouble.
** You would be surprised at how rare these are. I would have thought that more of the crafting community had cats, but surely their sales figures know best.
Christmas-In-November recap (now, with absolutely no pictures!)
Posted at 30 Nov 2009 03:26:19 PM
I do realize that this post would be a lot shinier if it included photographic evidence, but I didn't take any, so you'll have to make do. :)
Dan's family often does a Christmas present exchange at Thanksgiving since that side of the family isn't the same one that gathers in December. And although I'm still unused to the adults in the family being given presents as well as the kids, who am I to say no when the gifts included a SIGG water bottle, a gift cert to Fyberspates and a set of 2.50 mm Signature needles! The water bottle has already been pressed into service at work, and am eagerly anticipating using the others.
If you haven't checked out their website yet, Fyberspates dyes amazingly gorgeous yarn. I took a look at their current stock the moment we got home to a computer, and although I found a few things that I liked I didn't find anything that I was over the moon about just yet. The holiday shopping season seems to have taken a toll on them, not that I mind; the more they sell, the longer they stay in business! (And oddly enough I feel badly for acquiring more stash when I have so many projects that I can't see to relatively immediate completion. One, I can deal with, but right now the WIPs include Snowflakes, TQS, a hat, two shawls, a several-month-old sock that I still haven't kitchener'd the toe of and an immediate queue of fingerless gloves and something out of the bright red Habu laceweight that found its way home with me after the Habu class & trunk show in Kirkwood. Don't even ask me about my planned LoTR scarf; I can't bear the thought of it.)
I'll go shopping once I've knocked some of that off the needles & can buy more guilt-free yarn :-)
OK, I lied. Here's a picture:
(As yet unidentified project, knit in Cascade Heritage Handpaints sock yarn on .. 6's, probably. Stitch marker by WeeOnes @ Etsy.)
In non-knitting news, we finally found a car for a cousin who'll be turning 16 in a bit over a year (if memory serves). To preserve the surprise, I won't say what it is on here, but it's a good one that doesn't need as much work as some that we looked at. Looks nice, too!
We did some of the easy stuff on it this weekend (or rather, Dan did while I helped and learned) like changing the fluids, screwing with the interior, and running Seafoam through the engine. There's apparently a rather big job to be done with the clutch, but we have to order parts for that.
This evening the internet kept dropping. We decided to take that as a sign, and went out for dinner. With no place in particular in mind, we explored the Central West End and ended up at Duff's restaurant. It turned out to be a fantastic choice; they had some really great food in the smaller portions that we're trying to look for, and a hole-in-the-wall atmosphere which I happen to love. Later we took a walk down to my new favorite coffee shop - Coffee Cartel - and walked by the St Louis Chess Club.
Once home, we got impatient, and decided to open Christmas presents tonight! Most of them, anyway... there's one each that we're holding back until actual Christmas.
We each got some pretty awesome stuff, if I say so myself. He received a bunch of parts for his car, some shirts & a hat he's been wanting, which seemed to make him pretty happy :-) He got me an awesome loose tea infuser, amazing polarized sunglasses (no more crappy $10 sunglasses!) and A SWIFT. A real swift! No more draping the yarn around my knees and trying to keep it tensioned while winding!
And to keep my promise of moving the desk out of the main living/dining room once my dress was finished (which it has been for at least a month now...), I cleaned out the drawers and organized all of my fabric, bias tape, elastic and what not into my various bins. Once it was empty, we moved it temporarily into the spare bedroom, where I continued the organization to the yarn stash. My very overstuffed underbed container now has room again, and there's actually a method to my madness now!
Completely blanked on the Classic 99 trivia contest on the way in. Any other day would've been fine, but today I couldn't have come up with "Prokofiev" as the composer of Peter and the Wolf if my life depended on it. (Stupid, too - I probably have the CD in the car.) Guess the hamster wheel in my brain just isn't spinning fast enough this morning!
In other news, this is guaranteed to make anyone feel better:
The gang's all here - we got my brother moved into an apartment a couple of hours south of St Louis last week. I use "we" loosely -- our part consisted mostly of spare furniture transport.
While Mom was here the four of us took a trip down to Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston (yes, home of the throwed rolls). The rolls were as airborne as advertised, and absolutely delicious. I don't know why they bother having you order sides with your meal; waiters come around every couple of minutes with pots filled with various other sides that the chefs apparently just felt like making, so we got a taste of everything!
Final review: A+, would definitely go again.
I was taking a vague look at Penguicon this coming year; it both looks like something I'd be interested in and something that may not be worth the trip. Halp D:
The project that the Ravelry Heirloom Knitting group has been working on - have I mentioned this before? - is nearing completion. "Nearing" is a sort of relative word, as large parts of it remain to be done, but it's at least at a point where those not spending all their time trying to chart the border corner can cast on for the middle section.
So I have. 271 stitch provisional cast on in laceweight and gossamer: hear me roar!
This officially means that I have two giant lace shawls in the works, and one thankfully not at all complicated sweater. It's amazing; the gossamer that I'm using for Queen Susan is so fine that when I switch back to the laceweight cashwool for Snowflakes in Cedarwoods it feels like I'm knitting sock yarn... >_> Trouble with these shawls is that both are of the type which require concentration and long spans of time in which to work on them, or I get something like half a row done which doesn't feel at all productive.
And what with Dragon Age Origins*, and Torchlight**, and Real Life***, I don't really HAVE long spans of time to work on anything. Aaagh.
Contemplating a trip to the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival next year. I could probably stay with some family in the area, and there are highly tentative plans from said HK group to have a mini meet up at the festival. I think it would be fun :D
And maybe next year I could actually go to Rhinebeck!
* Excellent game.
** VERY Excellent game. Nowhere near as srs bzns as DAO, and quite a bit more addictive.
*** Always excellent :-)
Just a quick update: Mystic Light done. Not Monday night at 1am like I'd hoped, but last night at 9:30 works as well. Pictures later once I get it unpinned, etc.
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