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Welcome
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.
Hi!
Keep track of new posts! 
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I'm not dead yet
Posted at 22 Aug 2010 11:56:03 AM |
I'm not dead, I promise. I may have dropped off of Facebook and my AIM presence is sporadic, but I'm still here - knitting, spinning and occasionally getting out of the house.
More of the latter than the former, it seems. We sweated last weekend while watching the Cards soundly beat the Cubs, and yesterday I went along with D while his bike group went on a half-day ride around St Louis and some of the state parks to the south. (Note to weather: stop being hot. Please?)
Next weekend we'll be in Iowa, and the weekend after that in New York. I think it slows down after that.. but don't quote me.
Despite my newly-renewed resolution to experience more than what I can see from my computer chair, I've actually gotten quite a bit done. It didn't feel like much at the time, but when gathered up like this I look rather productive:
( Click for the rest )
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Tour de Fleece, day 11, and FO: The Math Hat
Posted at 13 Jul 2010 08:17:09 PM |
Bob Sheppard, the only Voice of Yankees baseball I can remember, passed away on July 11th.
George Steinbrenner passed away today of a heart attack.
Needless to say, this is not a good week for Yankees baseball. They both contributed so much to the team and to the sport, and will sorely be missed. RIP, boys.
In happier news, I've hit the halfway mark on my Tour de Fleece spinning. I may have said earlier that it was 2oz of alpaca/merino; wrong. It's 4oz in total. The 2oz I've spun are already more than I've done in a month before (wheel spinners out there, stop laughing; I like my spindles!) and I'm happy with the singles thus far. They'll be chain plied (another new skill) as I couldn't be arsed to divide the pencil roving into 3 even piles beforehand.
Lest my stash get too small (I thought I said stop laughing!) I used a Groupie credit at The Loopy Ewe to buy a lovely 4.9 oz braid of Polwarth roving in Subdued Rainbow. I'm hoping to spin it up in laceweight looooooong color repeats, either divided for 2ply or chain plied.
I also picked up the yarn for the start of the knit and knag World Heritage KAL this fall, not because I have any hopes of starting on time, but because Jen the dyer has a 15% off sale running right now and I've been curious about the yarn since seeing it pop up in the Blocking thread on Rav. The yarn, lest I forget to tell you, is Nightfall from FibroFibers.
My knitting doesn't have much to show for itself lately, since my attentions are entirely focused on a secret project or two, neither of which will see the glowing light of your monitors until the end of the year. Rest assured, it's not just stash acquisition going on around here.
Oh! I nearly forgot.
Here: have a hat. I finished it last night (and hopefully it fits the recipient. It's certainly huge on me, which is a good sign). The goal was to have the grey stripes decrease at the same rate that the blue ones increased, while still ending up with a hat of a specified height.
This involved Math. Evil, evil math. I think this is Hat Mark 3. Hat Mark 3.5 if you count my first disastrous 150 stitch cast on...but I don't.
Pattern: my own, but the specifics are on Rav
Yarn: Berroco Lustra
Needles: US 4 for the ribbing, US 5 for the body.
I still have comment logging turned on, and I sincerely apologize if my website eats your comment or decides that you are spam. I'm trying to reproduce the problem so that I actually have some legit non-spam logs to look at, and hopefully fix this once and for all!
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WWKIP Day
Posted at 26 Jun 2010 10:46:29 AM |
Is anyone else confused by Worldwide Knit in Public Day?
It's a concept which sounds so straight forward and yet is so mind boggling. For one thing, almost all of the cherished traditions of knitting and other fiberworking - just within my limited experience there's Fair Isle, Shetland/Orenburg/Estonian lace, Latvian mittens, Gansey sweaters, Peruvian spindling - come from countries where knitting was a household activity if not actively taught in school and performed daily for income. I cannot possibly believe that worldwide, it's necessary to demonstrate that knitting is a normal hobby.
They know already.
So, if we rename it to "American Knit in Public Day" ... It still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We don't have a "Hunt in Public Day" or a "Make Miniature Railroad Cars in Public Day" (to my knowledge at least). What, exactly, are we trying to prove by taking this particular hobby to the streets?
If you want to dispell the myth that only grandmothers knit, try taking your crafting with you all the time. You'll reach a lot more people that way, and do it more subtly and effectively than a whole bunch of people having a knit-in on a subway or public landmark. That just comes off like LARPers do: "Oh hey, a whole bunch of people being weird in a group" rather than what I think is the intended effect: "Hey, someone doing something which is clearly a normal activity for them."
But hey, what do I know about making statements? I knit and spin every day in the lunchroom at my office, in line at the grocery store and in the waiting room at the optometrist's. Making a deliberate trip somewhere else to sit with strangers and do exactly what I would have been doing where I was doesn't make much sense.
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Maryland Sheep and Wool wrap-up
Posted at 05 May 2010 05:59:53 PM |
I know that I won't be able to squeeze in all of the pictures that I want, but nobody can say that I won't try!
Last weekend, I drove out to Maryland to spend some time with my aunt, uncle and cousins, and oh yea -- to see some sheep!
To save everyone's page loading times, pictures are under the cut:
( Click for the rest )
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I made yarn!
Posted at 28 Apr 2010 04:44:07 PM |
My very first handspun, thanks to Ali!
It's 34 yards of 2ply which average around worsted weight (maybe a bit heavier after having been washed). Spindle spun, plied on her Majacraft Rose. I don't know anything whatsoever about wheels, but hers was wonderful fun!
*cough* I want a spinning wheel now. This one.. *cough*
I'm hoping to get a lot of experience (and loot) this weekend at Maryland Sheep and Wool. It's rather a trek for me, so I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon directly from work, staying briefly in a hotel overnight, and doing the rest of the drive on Friday. I've been counting down the days, and let me tell you: I am stoked!!
I am remembering to bring my camera. We'll see whether I remember to use it.
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What have I been up to?
Posted at 26 Jun 2010 10:50:44 AM |
What have I been doing with myself lately?
There has been a little of this...
And a bit of this...
And, thanks to Quantum Tea, I've been learning to do this...
(There's some of this for me as a reward:)
Beyond that, there's been a whole lot of small-project knitting going on. I've sort of burned myself out on complicated lace in the last few weeks, so I've been making tiny baby things for my SIL (no pictures; it would spoil the surprise). After 1 and a half tshirts, three pairs of booties and a planned kimono, I think I'm just about ready to tackle some lace again :)
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Very tiny needles!
Posted at 26 Jun 2010 10:50:35 AM |
Happy Discount Candy Day, y'all :-)
Friday on the way home from work I checked out a new bead store up near O'Fallon called Dizzy Beads. It's really lovely in there, and the owner (I presume she was the owner) was very nice and helpful.
So this morning I refreshed my soft-loop stitch marker collection:
I worked a bit on Evenstar, but my fingers kept going numb so I only got about halfway through Chart 3 before I had to put it down. Well, that and we had to get ready to leave for Easter dinner.
I'm going through a Russel Stover candy box full of old needles which were my great-grandmother's. My aunt mailed them to me, saying that she wasn't much for sock and lace knitting, so maybe I would like to have the smaller-sized needles?
And she was not kidding about that "smaller" part...!
With a US #1 for contrast...
Anyone want to venture a guess at what size those are?
There's this tube of joy as well!
Which, to my surprise, contains...
I need to try and get some of the rust off of them, if at all possible.
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I'm sure that I could be a movie star...
Posted at 26 Jun 2010 10:49:44 AM |
The paperwork is now signed, so it's official: I have a new job. No, I won't post the details here but suffice to say there won't be a gap between when my current contract ends and the new one begins.
Nevermind that I might like to have a bit of a gap, considering my extracurricular work load.
Of rather more immediate note, however: CoffeeMate's Hazlenut creamer is delicious.
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My brother and I took a trip last weekend to Kansas City, for the specific purpose of taking in the Billy Joel/Elton John Face2Face concert being held at the Sprint Center. As anticipated it was amazing and not an experience that I would ever regret having. It's the second time we've seen Billy, and the first for Elton, and both were just in fantastic form.
I couldn't help but notice some professional cameramen stationed at the edge of the state, and it makes me wonder whether it would be possible to obtain a recorded copy of the concert... note to self: look into this.
Emotionally speaking, I held it together for Italian Restaurant and Norma Jean, and then lost it completely at Piano Man. It wasn't unexpected... that song has always held particular significance for us.
As I said, I'm grateful for the experience.
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My Olympic project had its debut that same night, and I'm ridiculously happy with it:
Yarn: Kid Seta mohair, 3 25g balls
Needles: US #8 (5mm)
Pattern: My own, if it can be called a pattern, but I'm happy to share it if someone would like. ETA: Pattern link is in the sidebar!
Knitwise, I'm beginning to feel buried. This evening begins the Franklin Habit whirlwind, which hopefully I can get to in time owing to an unexpected mandatory drug test for the abovementioned new job. Tomorrow will be a slightly elongated Lace class, and then the Photography class, about both of which I am unreasonably excited.
I seem to have started a pair of Leyburns with the Fiber Optic sock yarn I'd bought from TLE a bit ago. It's a screamingly bright purple mixed with black and while it looked neat in plain stockinette, I decided after the cuff & a few inches that I really wasn't happy with it. The Leyburn pattern came to mind, and it seemed to me that it would help with the blotchiness.
Thus far, I'm pleased with it:
Snowflakes is on Chart J (there is no spoon Chart I). I made a bit of a goof in chart H wherein I merrily knitted along the top of some trees without noticing that I was simultaneously supposed to be starting the bottoms of some others. Rather than frog it or rework all thirty some repeats, I decided that the next set of trees would just be a bit short and non-overlapping. It's not a bug; it's a feature.
Evenstar is on a bit of a hiatus. The pattern is lovely but I didn't really like how the reeled silk was knitting up, to be honest. It's not particularly hard to work with; it just knits up like a ribbon yarn and ends up feeling coarse and inflexible. I just don't see the point in continuing only to get something which I don't really like. It's in time out for the time being, and when I start again I'm going to knit the silk along with a strand of black Baruffa Cashwool. Either the wool will tame the silk, or the silk will corrupt the wool - only time will tell. But I AM dreading starting this shawl for the fourth time...center-out beginnings drive me straight up the wall.
I've chosen a pattern to make for my nieces as a part of the New Baby package that I'll be giving their parents (no link to preserve the surprise (and also in case I end up disliking it)), and also a pattern for my parents for Christmas (ditto). I picked up some Cascade Elite Premiere on sale at the yarn shop in KC which I plan to make into a collared shrug. The yarn for my surprise gift as well as the Christmas gift is on order, and I think that both of them will be lovely even as I'm starting to panic about the number of things to which I'm "committed" in 2010.
( Click for the rest )
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Rare finds
Posted at 26 Jun 2010 10:49:19 AM |
I never did get around to sharing what I found at Kirkwood Knittery a week or two ago:
And as if that wasn't exciting enough...!
and
I don't know whether I'll be able to knit from them in the near future; my queue is pretty loaded (how awkward is that? It's only February, and I'm booked until Christmas). Still, a girl can dream.
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Gold medal, please!
Posted at 24 Feb 2010 10:05:10 AM |
My Olympic knitting project has been started, worked, and is finished. Pictures to come!
Snowflakes - still not done. It was put on a two week hiatus for the Olympics.
Evenstar Clue 1: Also not done; same reason.
I have, however, successfully grown one thing: my queue (/facepalm). I've decided on my parents' Christmas present, which true to form is enormous, and also on a wedding present for a good friend. The latter involves a custom dye job from Laura at The Unique Sheep, who was responsible for the amazing gradience colorways used by many people in the Evenstar group.
My knitwear design classes at Kirkwood Knittery continue apace; I'm loving the class, but longing for the return of lazy Saturdays. It won't be for a while, though: my brother and I are going to Kansas City this weekend for the Billy Joel/Elton John Face2Face concert (I still cannot believe that he was able to get tickets! Dan, if it involved selling a kidney... just don't tell me) and Franklin Habit (fangirl *squee!*) is coming to St Louis the first weekend in March.
He's both doing a talk & book signing, and teaching classes on Saturday. I've signed up for both the lace intro class and the photography class. I wouldn't have taken the lace one if I hadn't been assured that there is going to be adequate space and I won't be taking a spot from someone who really needs the "Intro" part; mostly it's that I greatly admire his knitting, and for however much I know about lace I am sure that he knows more!
The Blues' Sticks & Stitches game is 3/21, and I need to get a hat or something knit up for that.
Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade are going to be here on 3/31, and I've got to get their crocheted Fruit Fucker in the works.
I'm still going to MD Sheep & Wool in May, so if anyone reading this has anything they want from the festival, let me know beforehand! I'm planning to drive there, so there's no worry of not being able to transport things.
P. S: Little Big Planet, with the little knitted sackboys? Fantastic game. I'm thrilled that not only does there exist a recent game which is third person perspective'd, I have friends with a PS3! And after years of WoW, I find myself getting bored with single player games; having to play at someone else's house means co-op!
P. P. S. My sackboy is a tiny knitted penguin.
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