Current Projects

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Melissa

I have been haphazardly working on various projects, and finishing none! It’s highly annoying. You would think that with the sheer amount of time I have on my hands I would be whipping out the finished objects like nobody’s business, but instead I’ve mostly been back and forth over the following projects:

Rainbow Over Lahaina

These are the Rainbow Over Lahaina socks from the Sock Club book. I like them a lot. They are pretty easy to memorize.

Then we have Jaywalkers:

Jaywalker

I’ve never knit Jaywalkers before, can you believe it? They’re kind of a classic. They’re being knit up in Knitpicks Felici, which I continue to enjoy working with (and good thing too, considering the sheer amount of it I have in my stash. Does one person need this many striped socks? Well, obviously.)

Then we have this Lacy Kerchief scarf (Rav link) that is going to take me for-effing-ever to finish because scarves are boring. This one is less boring, and I actually desire the finished product, so we’ll see how long it takes me. Not super long, I hope.

Lacy Kerchief Scarf

But I’m really like the garter stitch aspects of it. It’s still not quite reversible, but it’s an interesting knit, which is the important thing.

I also wanted to work on a sweater that’s not totally boring like the alpaca blob (but I will LOVE the alpaca blob when it’s done, hopefully by the end of the summer. I like the look of stockinette, I just hate knitting it when it’s not in the round). So one of the things I have been mulling over was making another Forecast. However, I already have one, and I do like the designer’s Bulky Cable Sweater as well. Though I don’t want a bulky sweater – I just want a regular worsted weight sweater. So I hybridized the two patterns and came up with this:

Red Sweater

It’s knit out of the Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe in geranium (a tomato-y red) which I got on sale awhile back. It’s actually pretty nice and is half wool, half bamboo (well, rayon if you want to get technical). A little splitty but nothing my inexplicably sharp Susan Bates circulars can’t handle. Seriously, those things are sharper than the Addi lace circulars, which are pretty dang sharp. What gives, Susan Bates? Incidentally, I really like them. If you’re going to go cheap on your needles, go Susan Bates.

Anyway, I think that’s pretty much it around here on the knitting front. I’ve also been working on some jewelry but haven’t taken pictures of that yet.

I have to go to a meeting for the library gala thing I’m docenting at this weekend and then going to Jason’s after for dinner, so I probably won’t have a jewelry post until tomorrow. But hey at least this whole unemployment situation has gotten me to blog more, right? I’m having fun with it again at long last.

Posted in daily, knitting, shawls/scarves, socks, sweaters | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Happy Birthday to Malvina!

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Melissa

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to one of my very best friends!

Happy Birthday, Malv! I’m glad you weren’t TOO mad at me for stealing Sarah’s seat in front of you in Geometry back in 1994. ;)

We’ve been friends for SIXTEEN YEARS. That’s more than half our lives. And as evidenced by the picture to the left in which we were both 14 years old… We grew up okay. (Yeah I totally scrounged around for an old picture. And I artfully cropped Felicia and Edie out of it. Hee. Incidentally, in this picture we were totally cutting school! Since we were all goody-two-shoes, it was the final day of our freshman year in high school and didn’t get in trouble.)

Hope it’s a good one, lady! It’s a brand new decade! I bet it will be even better than the last one. At least we can ring this one in with copious alcohol!

Posted in daily, friends | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Some Design Work

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Melissa

I like graphic design. I didn’t really study it in college though I did take all the computer design classes offered at UTSA. I took as many of those as I did upper division drawing classes which was my major but they didn’t offer computer graphics or graphic design as a major. Go figure.

Anyway, so last week my sister asked me help her prettify her blog for cold hard cash (or a book, as it turns out) and I was like sure! Why not! The world is a better place for pretty blogs, right? Of course then she’s all, not the WordPress one, the Blogger one. And I was like, *sob*. Because I do not know Blogger from Adam. Actually I do know Adam, he’s my cousin. But I do not know Blogger. I know WordPress. Why, I asked her, did you go back to Blogger when WordPress is so AMAZING???? (This was of course last week, which was Before 3.0 which has changed my life! Or at least motivated me to update my own blog template for the first time in approximately forever.)

Because, she explained. You can’t put Google Analytics on a WordPress.com blog.

I run WordPress on my own server so I don’t know what the regulations are for the blogs hosted on WordPress.com. Since I don’t follow my own stats anymore I don’t know how anything works anymore. Which is partly why it took so effing long for me to get my portfolio website back up and running. My coding abilities were tapped out in about 2004.

But these days blogging is really user friendly. Back in the olden days you actually had to code your own stuff but now you don’t. Sure, I spent a good hour of my time digging into the stylesheet of this particular theme that I’m currently sporting because I hated the default font and font size but if you’re lazy and don’t care it was all automated and you have to do is drag your widgets over.

To make a long tangentially off topic story short (oh so too late) I made Abby a bunch of different headers to choose from. I don’t know what one she’ll choose but here are the ones I made that feature the world famous ROBOSAURUS.

I actually like all of them. I made her other ones too but I was particularly fond of these ones. I took these pictures at the Salinas Air Show I attended last year with my family.

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In which I acquire a bicycle

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Melissa

I got a bike! It is the awesomest bike ever.

It’s a Trek Navigator 3.0 and it rides like a dream with built in suspension. It even has a bell. Once I get into better shape with it I plan on using it to bike all over the place. Today I biked up to the Iron Horse Trail entrance, turned around, came home, and threw up! I fully expect this to be a beautiful relationship.

This was my 30th birthday present from my parents. My birthday is not for two weeks but my dad and I went looking for a bike on Saturday and found this one. What really made me like it was not its lightweight construction or easy maneuverability, but it’s sweet sweet handles. They are ergonomic and awesome. I will eventually get some sassy saddlebags for it, maybe for Christmas. They have these ones that snap on and off and even have a shoulder harness.

The only thing I need now is a lock so I can take it places.  I live about a mile from the Target so that would be an easy ride. I am pretty excited about this whole thing!

I guess the other thing that’s going on around here is that I redesigned the look of the blog, sort of. Full Disclosure: I upgraded to WordPress 3.0, and it is both magical and delightful. I also REALLY love the new default theme Thelonius. I was previously running K2 which I liked a lot, but I’m not gonna lie: Thelonius is way more user friendly plus it spans the entire screen rather than being centered in the middle. And it’s very customizable and includes widgets which is why I was using K2 in the first place. If you haven’t upgraded your WordPress to 3.0, you won’t be disappointed. Plus I am here to tell you that the one-click upgrade from the Dashboard didn’t break anything, which is nice because I totally neglected to back up the blog before I did it.

That is how I roll.

Currently I am working on my jewelry stuff. My desk is a disaster area and here is sort of how it looks on a micro scale:

I will maybe show some of the things I have been working on later.

Plus I’m working on designing a new blog header for my sister’s blog. I hope she likes what I’m working on.

Posted in beading, biking, daily, website | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Hey Look At That

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Melissa

I was whining yesterday on Twitter about being bored, so when my longtime pal Sam from New Zealand called me on it and instructed me to “knit something” I did what anyone else in my position would do:

I took a nap.

And then I finished a project that had been slightly languishing on the needles with only a few more rows to go.

I took this picture earlier this week.

Annis

I started this project about a week ago. It’s Annis from the new Knitty “surprises”. It’s an interesting shawl construction that has you knit the bottom edge and then using a series of short rows, much like the bottom of a sock heel, you shape the rest of the shawl. This causes it to curve and ultimately you have a shawl! I’d like to use the technique again with a different edging.

I soaked and blocked it last night:

Annis

And it was already dry this morning.

Annis

I used Knitpicks Gloss Lace in the (discontinued) Mermaid color. I still have quite a bit left of the skein and another whole skein, which can be used for another shawl of some sort. I’ve never used lace weight before and let me tell you: This shawl weighs approximately nothing. It’s fascinating.

So, yay, I finished something.  This year hasn’t been much in the way of FOs, though I did knit two sweaters, so that has surely got to count for something.

Also considering my current lack-of-employment I really don’t have much in the way of excuses at this point! Hah.

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This is not the end it is only a new beginning

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Melissa

PROLOGUE:

I hella updated my real actual website last week. Check it out! There’s actually a couple of new drawings in there too. It’s still futzy and I’m not totally done with it, but considering it took me like an hour and it was offline for three years, that’s just dumb.

NOW:

Friday was my last day at the job that I have both hated and loved over the last several years. Right now, I’m simply burnt out. I will miss most everyone there but… I need a break. I’ve needed one for a long time, actually.

By lunchtime my cube was super empty! Anybody who knows me in real life knows that I am not a very neat person, but dammit those piles had meaning and organization within them! (You should see my house. Even I am noticing the mess, which is saying something. Should I really be admitting my untold slobbery on the internets? Sure, why not. Still, it’s about 100% better than my wee apartment back in Texas… probably since my house is about 3 times as big. Can you imagine all my STUFF in 468 square feet? Me neither and I actually experienced it. Yikes.)

This week I am going to take it easy and enjoy being off work. I filed for unemployment because I don’t have a job lined up yet (still! ugh!) but hopefully will find out about that soon.

I let myself spend a little bit of post-employment monies and what I got myself was the new Vogue Stitchionary #5, for lace knitting. I don’t have any of the other vogue books, but this one is definitely worth it. I also downloaded myself the fabulous Intwined Pattern Studio, which is a pattern writing/charting program. I first saw it at Stitches West, and I really should have gotten it then (especially since I was wishy washy about buying anything there) but it’s only now that I’m ready to start writing my own patterns.

Here’s an example of what you can do with the program. I’ve only had it since Saturday and I already put several charts into it, including the below Barbara Walker, and will soon work on translating some of the charts from my Japanese books, which I will then write into sock patterns.

Nice, huh? The program itself is only $44 and WELL worth the money I would say. There is also an active group on Ravelry where you can report bugs and whatnot and the actual developers are there to help you out. I have not experienced any problems with it, however, so that is pretty nice.

Here’s some pics of what I’m currently working on. Keep in mind I took these photos at 11:30 p.m. and therefore absolve myself of any particular artistic flava.

wipmosaic

Clockwise from top left we have: Alpaca Blob (a v-neck grandpa cardigan I’m making for myself; it will even have pockets for me to hold tissues and chapsticks), Snow Petals Socks in Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 Pumpkin colorway (awesome AWESOME pattern, and it’s only $1.99 to boot! You can get it via Ravelry or Knitpicks), The Infamous Rainbow Socks (Knitpicks Felici rainbow self-striping; get it while it’s hot, it’s apparently already on “last chance” and dudes, I just made my order a couple weeks ago), and the last blue cuff thing is a test on the above mentioned chart. I like how the lace looks but not in that yarn so I suspect that’s going to the frog pond sooner rather than later.

EPILOGUE:

Anyway, in news that makes me feel like an old, old, OLD person (countdown to the big 3-0, 34 days and counting), my wee cuz the Bean has received her drivers license today and it seems like only yesterday I was fishing fuzz and spiders out of her wee baby mouth. Kid is practically an adult! She’ll be a senior in high school next year! WHAT.

If I remember I’ll write about the Legacy thrift store next time. A thrift store that only has craft items! You will be amazed at what eight bucks and change can buy you.

Posted in adventures, daily, knitting, pattern design, real life, socks, website | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Way Too Much

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Melissa

Hoo boy! I know I haven’t updated this thing since the end of April.  But seriously: SINCE WHEN IS IT PRACTICALLY THE END OF MAY? YES I FEEL THE NEED TO SCREECH IN ALL CAPS.

Since we last spoke, dear blog, I have done the following:

  1. WORKED LIKE A DOG at a job that ends on May 28.
  2. INTERVIEWED at a couple different places; things are promising but not set in stone (I won’t say anything lest I jinx a perfect perfect opportunity that involves me being out of the office most of the time).
  3. MADE SURE MY GRANDPA WASN’T DEAD for 5 days straight.
  4. TOOK SAID GRANDPA to the doctor SANS wheelchair (which was sitting in the spare bedroom in plain sight but I for reals did not see it. It was early, man.)
  5. FLOWN ON AN AIRPLANE to Chicago and from Milwaukee.
  6. GOT RAINED ON in Milwaukee.
  7. CELEBRATED 65 YEARS of my other grandparents’ marriage. Congrats my grandparentals!
  8. CANCELED MY TRIP to Texas (the wedding I was to attend got canceled in a dramatic, heart-breaking fashion in which we can conclude: some men (not all men, come on, but def this one for reals)? Are dogs, straight up.)
  9. BECAME A WEDDING CAKE CONSULTANT for a whole other wedding. I’m having fun checking out local bakeries. My friend lives in Utah and is getting married here so needs some help with that. If the #5 wedding hadn’t been canceled, I wouldn’t have been able to make this particular wedding, so even though that makes me a horrible person, I’m glad I won’t miss this wedding – after all, I’ve been friends with Felicia since we were 6.
  10. FIXED MY CAR to the tune of a broken clutch.  I guess the universe decided to give me a pass on this one because it only set me back like $175.00, including an oil change. BUT STILL. I MEAN COME ON, isn’t the Jobpocalypse enough for this year? Ay carumba.
  11. DEALT WITH RACCOONS living under my house. Raccoons are awful. And noisy. And because I know peeps I got a sweet deal too. Networking! It really does help.

I’m SURE there have been other things going on.  But I am too too tired and fed up to even think about them.

Oh yeah, one thing that has happened that is pretty awesome actually, is that I got my Wii hooked up to Netflix.  They send you a disc that you run when you’re watching something.  I really like it and have added a ridiculous amount of stuff to my streaming queue. Currently I’m watching Farscape, which I missed the first time ’round as we didn’t have the SciFi Channel. I kind of like it but… Muppets/Puppets! Kinda distracting.

I need cake, y’all.

That’ll do nicely.

Posted in adventures, daily, moaning and groaning, random, real life | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Heating Up

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Melissa

It’s kind of hot today so I’m hiding in my dark house with only the glow of the computer monitor lighting the room. I don’t want to turn the A/C on yet!! I plugged in the big fan in the den where it was helping me enjoy the latest episode of “What Would Brian Boitano Make?” (lots of cheese related items, apparently.)

This has been a nice relaxing weekend except for the moment of “OH CRAP” when I was at Walmart buying cake pans and paper goods when my debit card was not in my wallet… but then I remembered where I put it and whipped out the abused USAA card to complete my purchase. Didn’t want to charge it, but whatever. Best that I was prepared! :P

Incidentally, the cake pans I got, which I needed to replace the old ones that are suspiciously rusty, worked out really great, and I say this about Walmart brand cake pans. I’ve actually been pretty pleased with that cheap-tastic brand. I wound up making a Devil’s Food cake with them that turned out pretty much perfect in terms of getting out of the pans all right.  I think I may have over mixed the batter because the cake was more light and fluffy than I care for. However it was eaten up by Malvina and Sam and I brought over a big piece for my dad today.

I’m getting geared up for the Milwaukee trip that is happening in like ten days. It snuck up on me! I first posted about Milwaukee back in February, and since then 2010 has been one big awful blur. So it’s nice that there is an inevitable-already-paid-for trip on my horizon! The only thing that is going to be tough is that I will be on Jason duty while my parents are gone (being that I am not retired or a business owner I am not participating in the road-trip portion of this trip and instead am flying out with Abby to rendezvous with the rest the fam in Chicago). This will entail me going there before work and making sure he has taken his pills and is fairly lucid. Sigh.

I also have another dentist appointment this week, a continuation of the Epic Dental Saga In Which I Have Yet Another Cavity Drilled Upon. I would have rescheduled it but decided to suck it up and go because I’m going to have to go at some point, so.

I definitely feel whiney about it, though.

SO WHAT I HAVE BEEN KNITTING ON? I’m glad you asked.

I finished one of the Laeticia socks and it totes doesn’t fit.

Laeticia

I hope it fits Abby because I liked making it and I still owe her a couple pairs of socks so it would be a nice addition to her collection, plus it looks like falling leaves which I know she wanted. As I was making it I was kind of thinking of this pair being one of hers anyway (seriously, it’s not an “oh it doesn’t fit me so I’ll just give it to Abby” sort of situation).

It has a handsome gusset:

Laeticia

So, with that sock finished I ADD’d over to a sock from the new Wendy Knits book, Toe-up Socks for Every Body and cast on with some Knit Picks Essential in a long discontinued color (which is why I’m saying Essential and not Stroll). This pattern is the Cables and Diamonds pattern for an obvious reason:

Diamonds & Cables Sock

Considering I taught myself how to do toe-up socks long before I learned cuff down, I find it humorous that I’m not sold on them anymore. I just love a top down gusset!! But I decided that I should learn how to do a gusset from the toe-up (rather than a short row heel) and so far it’s pretty interesting. I’m curious about how it will look (supposedly identical to a top-down gusset) once I’m done. It’s a new technique for me, so I hope it works!

Diamonds & Cables Sock - gusset

It’ll be nice to have some socks out of the Essential for myself finally. It’s my go-to yarn for Malvina’s socks because it’s hard wearing and she likes it because it’s soft. I like it because it’s nice to knit with and also dirt dirt cheap, hah. Abby also likes it and the Monkey socks I made for her forever ago still look really good, she says.

Anyway, so that’s what I’m working on right this second in my ADD knitting life.

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SOCK IT TO ME

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Melissa

Papaver

So I finished a pair of socks. I like them. They are Papaver socks from Anne Hanson at Knitspot. The pattern is great and they pretty much knit themselves. I recommend all the patterns I’ve knit from Knitspot. The only thing I modded was that I didn’t do a short row heel because those don’t really fit me too great so I did a stockinette heel with the gusset decreases on the bottom of the foot to maintain the integrity of the pattern edge (blah blah blah, haha).

Yarn is Rio de la Plata merino sock in raspberry. I got it for myself for my birthday about 2 years ago. It was always destined to be Papavers! I’m glad I finally made them.

Papaver

ANYWAY now I’m still working on the yellow socks I talked about last time and also these ones:

Laeticia

These are Laeticia from Twist Collective. It’s a fabulously written pattern, totally charted. Anytime a pattern isn’t charted it makes me want to smack it.

And I am actually pretty much following it exactly except for (haha) the cast-on – instructions call for a rolled edge which makes me want to screech so I did a turned cuff. Doesn’t look too much different. OTHER THAN THAT THOUGH it is by the book.

This yarn is also Rio de la Plata that has been marinating in the stash for awhile. It was briefly part of a shawl before I ripped it out. I don’t recall the colorway as the ball band has long been lost in the sands of time.

At any rate, Ravelry has informed me that Rio de la Plata is out of business, so good luck finding any! :P

It is too bad because their base yarn is great, almost cottony and strong, but all wool.

Posted in daily, knitting, socks | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Melissa

So anyway, the week before my life completely fell apart through no fault of my own, in a fit of fiscal irresponsibility (which always precedes terrible things in my life, so maybe THAT is a sign, :P) I ordered a bunch of the new Knitpicks Stroll Tonal sock yarn skeins. Like, a bunch. They have great colors in this new line, and they’re so cheap! *is weak*

Here’s what I got:

DSC03344

The colors are actually pretty accurate, considering I took these pictures on a cloudy day at 6 pm with flash. And I like most of them… but not the purple one. It’s too gray for me. I’m debating if I want to return it and get the darker purple. The yellow is a great butter yellow and I got that one for my mom, who was super stoked to receive it. (“That’s the last time this is going to happen for awhile, huh?” she joked, referencing the Jobpocalypse. :P)

The brown actually perfectly matches a skein of Dream in Color Classy I have to make a hat with. I was hoping that would be the case. The green is more green than pictured here, and the red has more variation. Red is a tough color for my camera unless it’s got strong natural light and no flash. But for the most part I’m pretty pleased with these yarns and look forward to using them. The yardage is generous as well at 464 yards; that’s more than enough for a nicely sized shawlette.

When I last talked about my current projects I mentioned that I was working on a couple socks and since then the sock WIPs have exploded. I even finished a sock:

DSC03346

This is the Papaver sock from Knitspot. It’s one of those great patterns that basically knits itself. It’s a sixteen row repeat, which has four rows of plain, four rows of pattern, four rows of plain, four rows of pattern. So just when you are getting bored with one thing, a new thing starts. Very cool! This pattern would look fabulous with all sorts of colors, and I wouldn’t be averse to knitting it again. I’m currently knitting it in Rio De La Plata merino sock in the “raspberry” colorway, and it’s great yarn to knit with. I don’t know that this company still makes yarn. I looked at Ravelry to see, and it looks like maybe this is still available but their other lines are not. I got this at my LYS two years ago for my birthday, so this is “birthday yarn”, heh. It’s now past the heel and over a couple of repeats till the toe.

The next project is one that I have meant to make for a long time. It’s the bluebell rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks in (I think) Dye Dreams sock in the “Peeps” colorway. I looked a long time for the perfect yellow and finally found it sometime last year (I think at the Loopy Ewe).

DSC03351

DSC03353

I have nothing in particular to report about this yarn. I like it. But then, I like most yarns.

My work BFF Amy stopped by yesterday to pick up some earrings I made for her to wear when she elopes this weekend and I don’t think she’d been at the house since I painted and put the Expedit full of yarn up. And she said, “Holy shit! You could knit a whole wardrobe!”

And I said, “Yep,” rather smugly.

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