Knitty Gritty Thoughts

Keep on keepin' on

I know I've been a bit quiet lately, not only on my own blog but on commenting, responding to comments and general email chitchat.  I'm going through a quiet, reflective period in my life. 

As many of you already know, my hubby is currently deployed to Iraq.  I certainly am familiar with deployments and separations.  We've been through multiple deployments and even when he's "home" he's never really "home" (fellow military wives know what I mean.)  My husband has been gone almost 3 and a half of the last 5 years.  Yes 5, that is not a typo.  It can be tough, but you get used to it quickly.

We recently hit the 12 month mark time frame that he's been gone, this is the time when normally he would be home.  For me, the 12 month mark was like running full speed into a brick-wall you never saw coming.  It was painful, I never expected it to throw me off balance as it did.  I've had other friends in the same situation who went through the same thing also say that the 12 month mark was hard for them.  The good news however is that when he comes home this time, after out-processing and all that by the end of summer, he'll be home for good.  That sounds so nice I'm going to say it again, for good. 

I come from a long line of procrastinators which may seem funny when I say I'm not a patient person.  When there is a decision to be made I like to review my options and make it quickly.  When he returns it means he's going to get a regular job, that we'll most likely move again even though I just moved less than a year ago to NC, but this time it should be permanent.  It means that we'll be settled down, that we'll be getting on with the rest of our life.  And I'm anxious.  I'm anxious to start making those decisions, to make plans and I'm having a very hard time standing still, being patient for that time to come.

Decluttering in it's own way has been cathartic for me, I've moved so many times that I know that I don't love much of this stuff enough to drag it around again.  I'm working hard to simplify and refocus my life so I can enjoy the big things without sweating the small stuff.

I've also been reflecting on what is important to me in my own life and rethinking what I want to spend my time and energy on.  Instead of doing things just because I've always done them I want to reassess -

• are they making me happy?
• do I enjoy doing them?
• if not - then why do them?

Obviously some things you "have" to do even if you don't enjoy them but I've found that you can keep those to a minimum.  Even cleaning is simpler now with decluttering.  There is quite simply, less things to keep clean, less things to put away and a place for everything.  I recently finished up my closet and bathroom cabinets and it feels so good!  I'd be happy to share tips if anyone is interested.

I'm trying to slow down, to find happiness in the little things - getting up early to sit outside and watch the sun come up with my dogs.  Curled up in a chair reading a book.  I'm even rethinking my knitting projects, trying to focus on those that bring me enjoyment.  Anything I feel like I have to slog on is out the door and I'm having fun casting on, on a whim, just because.  Try it, you'll enjoy it. =)

Anyhow - so you'll have to forgive my silence for a bit longer as I begin to refocus, to re-find my voice and discover anew who I am and who I want to be. 

I finished Tiramisu - it was a lovely, easy crochet project that I would highly recommend for a beginning crocheter' (is that even a word? ;)  It took me a long time to find the perfect, coordinating ribbon, in a lovely slate grey.  I don't have a recipient in mind so for now it goes into my gift cabinet until the perfect opportunity comes along.  Ravelry details here.

I also cast-on for a lovely little scarf.  It's a kit and the yarn is hand-dyed by Kim (woolen rabbit) and the pattern is from Ann. I love, love, love this beautiful, cheery green colorway.  And for knitted lace (patterning every row instead of a rest row) this is a fast knit.  (Ravelry details here)

I must say I miss chatting with you all - I hope all is well with all of you! =)  Happy Thursday!

 

Thar she grows!

I ordered some more Rowan Pure Wool DK from Elann after Erica and Amandasan clued me in that Elann had gotten their order in stock (and at 40% off!).  I did check there before ordering the first time but they must not have got it up on the site yet.  It's a good deal for this wool, and allowed me to expand my color palette a bit.  Done you just love those new colors together, even on their own?  I think they would be perfect for a baby blankie. 

Now we're up to 21 total balls, but I hope not to use them all!  Each ripple (2 rows) takes up 20 grams of yarn.  So I can get two full ripples out of each 50gram ball.  Now I just need to figure out how tall I want to make it.

I've done nothing but ripple for the past week, knitting needles have been put in standby as I enjoy stacking up the little spots of color.  When I hit a spot I don't like, I crochet furiously to add a few more color ripples to balance it out.

It's all a little game of balance- too much color, too little color.  I hope looking at it from an overview once it's all done it will be fine and look properly intertwined.

In other news, I received the loveliest of packages from Vanessa, I had sent her some fiber when she was interested in trying out some of the brown fiber from that cheap fiber bonanza a few months back.  I told her she didn't need to send me anything, but she insisted.  What a sweetie!  She sent me some lovely fiber that is just ready to be hand-dyed, and I can't wait to try it out with my dye kit from Hello Yarn.  Also enclosed was an amazing tissue holder that she not only knit up but spun the yarn herself, WOW!  A beautiful hand made pin cushion was also enclosed that made it's way onto my sewing table immediately.  And the piece de la resistance?!- She spun some of the fiber I sent her, and sent it back to me to knit with! What a truly amazing and special present, this is my first skein of handspun and I have to admit I carried it around with me all day when it arrived, petting it and setting it on my desk so I could imagine what it will become!  Thank you so much Vanessa for such a wonderful and thoughtful package!


~~NEED FEEDBACK, please read below~~
You may have noticed I haven't been around as much lately, it's been really hectic.  I've been spending my weekends driving up to North Carolina to go house hunting.  My weekends are my errand/cleaning/relaxing time, so it's so hard when I haven't been getting any of that.  I'm feeling tired and also hubby came home last week too and while I'm excited - well, there goes my crafting time! ;)

Anyhow, I took him up to N.C. to look at my top 5 houses I had found the previous weekend and here's the good news, WE HAVE FOUND OUR DREAM HOUSE, yea!

Now here's the kinda bad news...(isn't there always something going wrong when you try to buy/find a house?)

It's perfect- it's the size we were looking for, has a lot of nice features and is on 2 acres which is exactly what we wanted.  I need space, and I like some land to spread out and give the dogs a place to run.  However the very same thing that is so very good can be where it goes bad.  We would be living so far out that the standard internet like cable or DSL would be unavailable and we could only get satellite internet.

Now, the issue is that I work from home and telecommute into work.  I'd love some honest feedback if any of you have tried satellite - is it good?  Is it fast enough?  Have you had connection issues?  I'm very concerned that we end up buying the house and then find out later that the connection isn't working out, then where would I be with work?

Any advice/suggestions very much appreciated, thanks!

Have a great week!

Ripple, ripple

Is it just me or is the time changing kicking anyone elses behind???  My sleep schedule is waaay off, I'm tired all day and wide awake at night!  So- I'm just popping in for a minute to show you the yummy yarn that was waiting for me when I got back into town. 

It's for the ripple blanket and I ended up choosing rowan pure wool dk from here.  My number one reason for choosing it was the incredibly large palate of colors to choose from, there's something like 40 colorways, all gorgeous.  Plus it doesn't hurt that it's a brand new yarn from Rowan which I'd been dying to try out.

As most of you know I've been looking all around for the perfect yarn for this blanket, I wanted it to be superwash, number one.  Number two it had  to have a large availability of colors.  I was flexible on whether it was a dk or worsted weight.  And finally, I had to actually be able to ORDER a large variety of colors and that truly is the tricky part.  My other runner up was cascade 220 superwash that also comes in a large variety of gorgeous colors, however I could not find a store on the web that stocked even more than a few of them together, I would have had to order from like 5 different places!  Anyhow - I was lucky to stumble on the place I ordered from, they were very helpful getting me a few colors that were out of stock and best of all they give you discounts off the final order (10%<100 or 15%>100) (no affil by the way, just happy customer) that dropped the prices close to what I could get it off ebay for, and they carried a ton of colors which was the clinching point.

I ordered 14 balls to start, and I used the duvet cover below as my color inspiration for the blanket.  The yarn layout is also inspired by Jane's pretty posings.  I did pretty good on the colors, ordering them sight unseen- except for the two random balls at the top.  Can you see the bright green and burgundy?  What was I thinking!?!?!  I think they'll be able to work themselves in somewhere, we'll see how it goes.

I've started rippling already, ~220 stitches with a 4mm hook is giving me a blanket that almost covers the top of my queen bed.  Starting it was the biggest pain, I almost gave up crocheting into the base chain, however after that it's been smooth sailing -er- rippling.  Very easy pattern and easy to memorize as well.

This is fun!  Don't forget to visit the knitalong for lots of other pretty blankets!

A bit of this, a bit of that.

The name of the game today is all about random.  I've been doing a great deal of sewing the past week, fufilling one of my goals this year to sew atleast 1 day a week.  I've churned out a few zippered pouches, inspired by Joanna, but nowhere near as nice.  My zipper is always wonky and the lines never appear straight.  It probably has to do with the fact that I can't sew or cut a straight line to save my life.

Everyone knows this, even when I called my mom to tell her I was sewing again, she said, "But Keri, you can't cut a straight line.  You've been that way since kindergarten."  Thanks Mom.

So - I sent her this zippered pouch.  Love the fabric, it's a japanesy- mix from a old quilt shop I used to haunt in monterey when I lived there.

I've also made about a ka-jillion sock bags, each one improving upon the last.  I've experimented with interfacing, 1 pocket or 2, reinforced pockets and finally the mother of all sock bags - 2 pockets reinforced, with sewn slots for DPN's or Magic Loop needles complete with elastic to hold the tops in.  It's pretty darn nice if I do say so myself.  I've made more than a few to get to this point but I won't subject you to pictures of those.  Suffice to say the next iteration will probably be tweaked for colorwork with snaps on each side to hold your yarn in place and elactic to hold your yarn in.  One of my petpeeves in colorwork is the balls constantly tangling. 

More sewing continued - I made my first practice Artist's case with cheapy fabric to get an idea of the construction.  Both fabrics are from JoAnn's $1/yd clearance sale that's going on.  So I think that it cost me about .75cents to make, plus drawing paper and twistables.  Now that I know what's going on I have some nicer fabric from the local quilt shop to cut up.

Which finally brings me to crochet.  CROCHET?!?! you might be thinking, I thought she was going to show us some knitting!

I actually "crocheted" long before I knit and I'll use the term crochet loosely because that was sort of what I was doing but I wasn't very good at it.  I made hubby a blanket out of Homespun and it was rippley.  Not in a good, doing it on purpose way, but more of a I have no idea what I'm doing way.  I've come back to it many times- there's that crochet edging on charlotte's web (note - I almost didn't link to it since it's on my old blog and the pics are so bad they make me cringe but why the heck not?  One of these days I'll get my old photo albums updated) and I've tried to granny square with no luck.

There are two blankets in the world I have always wanted to crochet.  I was deeply inspired by Yarnstorm's gorgeous ripply blanket and now Miss Posie is making one as well.  Last weekend when I was at AC Moore with a 40% off coupon burning a hole in my pocket, I found the book that they're making it from.  It's 200 Ripple Stitch Patterns by Jan Eaton.  I sat down and practiced all my stitches, then started swatching for the blanket in Rowan Cashsoft. 

The second blanket that's been on my list is flapjack from the colinette marmalade book.  Once I learn how to spin, I'd like to make it out of handspun.  Notice how I decide I'm going to make things without knowing how?  In this case I need to get good at crochet AND spinning before I take this one. 

This past weekend I started practicing granny squares as well and by jove, I think I got it!  For the first time, my hands made the stitches and my brain was "reading" the stitches and understanding what came next. 

It's such a great feeling when you learn something new!