Friday, December 28, 2007

Knitting Resolutions

Happy Holidays everyone!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful whatever-they-celebrate. I myself spend much of my time in Maine unconscious. Apparently I had a touch of consumption and had to take leave to my sickbed. Or in my case, the couch buried under crocheted afghans. Whoops, there I go coughing up my spleen again! I do have a few finished projects but since I can not get to flickr at work (bastards!) I will have to show them off at a later date. I am especially fond of the tree I made for Meg since I am all about silly, kitschy goodness.

Which brings us to the subject at hand. Resolutions. Every year, I go out and buy a few sheets of pretty stationery and an envelope. Then at some point on New Year's Eve I take a few minutes to write my big life (with a capital "L") resolutions and then I seal them in the envelope and write on the outside "Do Not Open Until December 31, the next year". Then the next year I open the envelope before I write that years resolutions to see how I did, re-resolve, chuckle at my stupidity, etc... I have been doing this for over 15 years now and it is now just one of the things that I always do.

As much as I do love to knit I do not think knitting will appear on the Big List this year unless I suddenly resolve to become an alpaca farmer, which does not seem likely. But it struck me that I have some knitting resolutions for the upcoming year and unlike The Big List these I will share.

Don't Apologize For Anything I Knit

A few weeks back I said that in the upcoming year I was going to knit like a grown up. Stop making toys, only make mature, sophisticated items. Well, screw that. I'm me. I like toys. I like silly and kitschy and weird. And as long as I find happy homes for my toys (so I don't become crazy, old, stuffie lady with her apartment full of toys that watch you as you walk from room to room) then I should be okay. I will also make other mature things but I won't feel bad about knitting what I like.

Treat Myself to Nice "No Purpose in Mind" Yarn

I almost always buy yarn with a specific project in mind and thereby focus on price, gauge, number of skeins needed etc...instead of just allowing myself to go "Oooh pretty, me like-y, must have" . Actually I do almost all my own shopping this way and almost never splurge on myself. As stated earlier, screw that. I deserve it and this year I am not going to forget to remind myself of that.

Knit for Who I Am Now, Not Who I Want to Be in the Future

I am not going to put off making that pretty sweater because I keep saying I want to wait until I am a smaller size. Pretty self-explanatory and clearly the whole weight issue is an item better suited for The Big List.

Surround Myself with Amazing, Supportive Knitters

This actually should have gone on my list last year if I had one because now I can pretty much check it off. I was very, very lucky to find a group where they are cool with whatever you are knitting and whatever yarn you are using and understand that knitting is about enjoying yourself and others and what you are doing rather than passing judgement and causing drama. And it's great that they laugh (a lot) and bring food. Now all I have to do is stay funny and charming and don't break any copy write laws and they seem willing to put up with me.

As with all of my lists, I reserve the right to add more on later. I hope you all have a Happy Healthy New Year and may all your skeins be knot-free.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Bastards

So I managed to travel to and from Albany without having to complain about my company to any major degree. In fact the people I met with there were great and I was glad to finally meet them in person.

But then I get back to the office and as I am doing some blog reading I am noticing that pictures don't seem to be appearing on a few of the blogs. Not all, just some. Then I am on Ravelry and I notice none of my pictures are appearing. Hmmmmm.... I click on Flickr. And I get a big message saying this is a Forbidden Site. Wahhhh!!! Not only can't I get onto that site but any picture from that site is blocked. In the case of ravelry that is ALL of the pictures. Is it just Flickr? I click onto Snapfish - blocked.

I am now going to be forced to do my ravelry browsing and blog reading at home! How will I fill the hours of boredom I have at my office? When I have horrible days at work I usually look at a few Michelle photos (my niece) to make me smile. Now I can't. I am sad - so very, very sad. Trust me, I am pouting.

The only bright spot of today is that I an evening with my SnB'ers and some margaritas to look forward to that may take away some of the pain.

Scariest part of this is the realization that this may be the thing that truly motivates me to take action and get serious about looking for a new job. How screwy is that?

Thursday, December 6, 2007

A momentary knitting pause

I had to take a quick break from my knitting to work on this embroidery piece. The project it's for is Super Secret so I can't tell you who the recipient is but I really like how the Diner Girl came out so I had to share her.
Diner Girl

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

I can't seem to stop!

Clearly I have a problem and I'm willing to admit it. I can't stop knitting toys. Luckily my latest creatures are off to good homes and will not hang around my apartment taunting me with looks of "Aren't you too old for this?"

In my stash busting I came across one skein of Lion Thick & Quick, yes just one skein. Why did I buy this? When did I buy this? What the hell am I going to do with this? Thanks to ravelry I found the Berroco Air Bear pattern. So this little guy who looks a bit more like a fox than a bear will hopefully bring a smile to some child's face. I am doing some charity knitting for Christmas in the City that I found out about from lickmysticks on ravelry.


DSCN0881

And then while my cousin (a recent knitter) was going through my knitting books and patterns over Thanksgiving she goes "Oooh robot" and I knew that I was going to have to make her one of the Jess Hutchison robots. I gave him a heart in duplicate stitch which I think turned out very well.


Celeste's Robot