Knit Crush

I'm not sure how, but I came across this lady (textisles.com) and she is amazing. She inspires awe in me because she is a wonderful designer, a beautiful writer, apparently a very good photographer, and she's recovering from a stroke so she's not even 100%


Plus she's Scottish, and, honestly, how can you not love a Scot?

I kind of want to be her (except for the stroke, of course) or at least have her artistic skill. Alas...maybe someday.

Motherhood Manifesto

I've been reading a lot of mom articles lately and in them I've noticed a theme; it seems that mothers are plagued by guilt, lots of guilt, with a good dose of self-hatred mixed in.

My question is why? What is going on with that? Women who are clearly intelligent, moral people with a multitude of abilities sit around and feel guilty about, it seems, pretty much everything. If they have a job they feel guilty for not staying home, if they stay home they feel guilty for not having a job and not using their education. We feel guilty for having a dirty house, but then we feel guilty for taking time to clean. We feel guilty for not breastfeeding; we feel guilty if we let our babies sleep with us, and we feel guilty if we put them in a crib. We feel guilty for not enjoying every second of parenthood (to that I say: poopy diapers? Really? Aren't we expecting a lot of ourselves?)We practically feel guilty for breathing.

Well, I decided I'm not doing it. I'm not feeling guilty. I'm not feeling inferior. I'm not playing that game. Here's why: I'm pretty sure I'm going to mess up my son somehow and give him a complex about something, but I don't know what. All I can do is hope I get the big things right and manage to raise a healthy, and moral person, who can make wise choices. If I worry about every little thing I won't enjoy his childhood and chances are I will make it miserable for him as well. Besides, most of the things we feel guilty about aren't really problems at all. All of the ladies I know who are mothers are damn good parents. They love their children and provide them with rich, wholesome environments to learn, love, and play, breastmilk or none. We're all doing the best we know how to do. No one sets out to screw up their child.

I think we, as women, need to go a little easier on ourselves and let go of the guilt.

Hmmm...

...It seems I have been absent from my blog for quite some time. Well...so it goes. It's not that I haven't been knitting, I have, I've just been busy, and tired, and in a bad mood because it's winter and dark. I hate the dark. I could handle the winter if it wasn't nighttime ALL the time. Winter in the sunlight is pretty; it's sparkly and nice smelling with crisp fresh air. All of the sparkles and freshness kind of makes me happy, but you can't see the sparkles at night. Stupid nighttime.

Winter tends to make me want to hide in my couch-cave and drink too much but at least it also makes me want to knit like crazy. Which I am doing now. I have three big projects and still seem to want more (but I'm containing myself and focusing on finishing).

The first project is the biggest project I have ever undertaken: my master knitter certification. Right now I'm working on knitting the swatches for level one. So far I have four swatches and one that I need to re-knit because I made an ugly mistake. The blocking on the first four is done and it was a nerve racking process, well all of it is really. I keep wondering which swatches I'll get back. I think I'm going to go forward with the assumption that I will get all of them back and then I won't stress about it too much. So that means I have 12 more swatches left plus the questions and report. I'm hoping to get through level one by the end of the year, well really earlier but the end of the year is more realistic.

I also have two sweaters I'm working on. That's right, two. Yes I think I might be a little crazy but it's working for me right now. The first sweater is this one (this is the bottom):



Hopefully in the end it will look like this (this is the top, pretty right?):


-from Interweave Knits

I'm also working on this one:


-from Interweave Knits

For these I'm motivated by the cold. It's cold and I want to be warm. Plus having two at the same time means I know I'll be warm at some point and I always have something to knit even when I run into a roadblock on one. (Which I did and is a story for another day)

New Hobbies

Along with my baby and normal life I have had another distraction to keep me from knitting: a new hobby, well actually several. Here's a list:

Making lip balm
Making soap
Screen printing T-shirts

Here's a photo of the lip balm, which is the best I've ever had by the way.



I haven't tried making soap or silk screening T-shirts yet but I have supplies and soon...soon...I will achieve world domination! Mwahahahahaaaaa

Epic Project #2: Update

It has begun.

I renewed my TKGA membership and got the updates to the Master Knitter Level 1 instructions that I need. B-T-dubs, TKGA keeps great records and they still had my membership from six years ago on file. They were super helpful and made it easy peasy to start up again.

I've got the yarn and have completed (except for the blocking) the first three swatches. So far I'm a little disappointed in my 1x1 rib, it's a little all over the place, but hopefully it will straighten out when I block it. The other stitches seem to be pretty good. I hope to block the pieces this weekend and maybe answer the questions about them too. We'll see how far I get. My time has been pretty jam packed and it's only going to get busier as the holidays come up.

I'm dedicated though. I can't let this slip through the cracks like so many other things I have started in my life. I want some recognition!

I was a little dismayed to learn that The Yarnery has a Master Knitter Level 1 class that you can take. Those jerks! I want to be the only one! RECOGNITION! I guess I just want my certificate to be special and I don't want a million snooty Grand Ave ladies to look down their nose at me, and be like "oh, you're not special or good, I have that too." ...Yeah, maybe I have a little complex. Oh well, I'm going to get to level three and all of those snooty ladies can...well, you know.

State Fair

The Creative Activities building is always one of my top destinations at the MN State Fair. I love looking at all of the amazing things that people do; the pies, the pickles, the jam and jellies, the beautiful quilts and most of all the knitting. There are some amazing artisans out there. It always provides a lot of inspiration and I find I'm energized to start my next project.

However, I'm always perplexed by the judging. Like this year, the sweepstakes winner was an afghan, yes it was gorgeous, but it was also very simple, the other first prize winners looked like they required much more skill. To each their own I guess. It just shows me that it doesn't have to be ridiculous to be a winner.

Lessons I learned about winners:

1) Blocking, blocking, blocking. All of the winners were blocked to perfection
2) Finer yarns do better. Most of the top finishers were made using sport weight or smaller yarns
3) Fair Isle first. Good color work seemed to do quite well. I saw more color pieces with ribbons than cable pieces.

Of course every year is different, depending on the judges and the entries. What will it be next year? All I know is next year I'm in. What shall I make?

Dishes are Like Purling

I was doing the dishes the other night and thinking how wretched it is to have to wash goey disgusting dishes every single day when I had an epiphany...dishes are like purling!

You may be asking,filthy disgusting dishes are like purling? How?

Well. There is many a knitter out there who hates the purl; hates it with a passion usually reserved for despots and snakes, which is generally how I feel about dishes, but I do not happen to be one of those purl-hating knitters. I enjoy the purls. The purl stitches are the yin to the yang, the down to the up, the cold to the hot etc., etc., of knitting. Once you get the rhythm of them they are very enjoyable as enjoyable as the knit, if perhaps a little slower for the throwing knitter.

Dirty, dishes could also be thought of as the complementary negative of eating, and one could further extrapolate that dishes could perhaps (with difficulty) be enjoyed for their rhythm and regularity.

And so, it is my goal to learn to enjoy the crusted on filth and drudgery that is dishwashing, or at least learn not to loath it so much.