Insubordiknit

Camp and blogrolls

I'm packed.

I'm ready.

I leave tomorrow at 10 am.

Where? To camp pluckyfluff, east coast style. baybee.

I'm taking my computer so if I can figure out the free internet of the hotel, I may be spending my evening lookin at internet porn. Yeah! Or posting a random update/camp pic.

There won't be a yarnshop update this Sunday. However, I may do one through the week as I'll have more of the monster hat knit kits to post, yowsa, those things are HOT! I've already got a few faces felted, one is named bloody eye, he's not for the faint of heart!

Also, I've left bloglines behind, like so many fast food wrappers that balti-morons throw out car windows (who are these people? the city that common decency left behind?) and am back to a good ole sidebar blogroll. I just couldn't get into the whole blogline interface and I missed looking at people's webpages, as they meant them to be viewed. Plus, without that, it's hard for me to keep straight who I'm reading, I need the layout, the pic, the whole shebang. So, I may have missed adding some of my regular reads but they'll come to me as time passes.

Now, off to make sure there's nothing else I need to add to my 3 66 qrt tubs of fiber!

New knits!

Wowsa! Check out the bounty that Nikola, from Stickywicketscrafts sent me!

Both made outta insubordiknit yarns! and not only that, these jellyfish were also featured in her NPR interview which can be heard here, about 13 minutes in. It's a great interview about bad-ass, tattooed, punk-rock craftsters! and about the Urban Craft Uprising fair on Nov. 6th. Really, I wish I was a little more west coast than east!

The fog of sick, and monster hat knit kits!

The fog of sick has all but lifted, for this 1/4 of the fam, anyway. Thanks for all the well-wishes, if wishes were kisses, I'd be chapped (uh...more than I am).

I'm working on a couple of posts, involving the infamous family step-day, in which we all fall on our asses, and like it; involving the a dog named bettina and her life of crime; involving my LYS wanting to sell MY YARNS! and gushing blush-worthy things about them; involving the raging teenager that has taken up residence on my face, well, skin. WTF? am I gonna grow a baby mustache next?

However, since I've yet to fully develope those posts, right now, all I've got is a big ol' Yarn shop update! Including my newest thing -- monster-hat knit kits! Yep. Follow any of the handy links I've provided (heh) and check out the examples that my magic fingers whipped up while the rest of my body moaned and exuded copious amounts of yellow, viscous materials. ewwww.

Sick

The sickness has descended upon the insubordiknit household, like tiny ants intent on immobilizing and humiliating something quite larger. I have lotsa shop yarn update material and lotsa dirty talk, but none are immediately imminent.

For those of you awaiting e-mails and such, please be patient while I learn how to breathe again.

Sid, seattle weather, and soysilk batts

It came in the big brown truck yesterday and nothing has been the same since. Midnight alley, brick wall, your thrall is almost lost! This monstrosity is what's makin' me hot now! O, shiny, spiky goodness, how you make me ache in all the right places. I'll call you Sid. I threw some green domestic fluff on Sid with smallest bits of green/blue soysilk and hot damn, I had beautiful, fluffy bat of shiny, green goodness in no time flat. I also did some old redish falklands with some shiny red firestar. It didn't take long to get a handle on it, the perfect mixture of rough and gentle.

Damn.

And if that wan't enough, my SP sent me a package! a wonderful package of all the right stuff. I must not be maintaining the level of vauge-ity and secretiveness I intend, because people are getting to know me and shit. Look at this load! It's perfect. I've never knitted with bamboo (outside of what I've spun) so I can't wait, and those just happen to be my favorite color combo, strange, eh? Plus the wonderful book and rockin' tape measure, both of which will get worn out with use, I can assure. My own poor SP, I sent her a package 3 weeks ago and it just got returned to me yesterday (she moved, I think), the only mar on my perfect mail experience. I'll just add some stuff and send it out again.

I spent the other evening doing this. It's four pounds. The freakin' weather change is making the drying process a bit tedious. I don't care for the hot and my fiber doesn't care for the cold, but we all have out crosses to bear, right? I haven't spun any of that load up yet but I've spun others. Here's some of it that's currently stuggleing to dry in my rainy, chilly kitchen (and yes, my kitchen is still rainy, though Christine offerend to come fix it while wearing pasties and a cape, that's how it was gonna work, right? 'Cause that would be the shit!). Hanging there is 400 yards of the most lovely, earthy 2-ply, all the rest are self-striping hat kit yarns, which will be available soon. I've already knitted up 4 of them, they look great! If you look closely, you can see the 2 yarns that contain the fiber that's been through Sid, the sparkly reddish in the front, and the green in the black and green to the right. So cool, though I do need to get used to spinning outta bats rather than top.

Finally, for those of you that come for the cute kid, here's my boy, of his own accord --

Poor papers, undeserved As and poetry

I got an A on the first paper for my Advanced Writing about Literature class. I did not deserve it. Really. I spent little time and even less thought. I think I took advantage of the fact nobody in the class gives even a hint at the slightest inclination to actually read words on a page, much less talk about those words in a semi-intelligent way. Or even talk at all, for that matter. My poor professor, after the first week, actually angled his desk towards mine. It's a 3-hour class where he and I delve headlong into story after story. Oh, how they must hate me. It's not thier fault, young and full of want and impatience as they are. Also, it's a shitload of reading. And I do enjoy the class, and the talks, but it's not for those reasons that I pipe up with my off-the-wall theories and distinctly left-field opinions, it's my because of my need to validate a teachers work. Yep. I've done it since grade school, through high school, and through all of my many times in college. Silence in response to a Professor's questions is an unbearable sound. Grating. Like teeth on a popsicle stick. I can't not say something. And if you know me in real life, that's not a problem, I've always got something to say. This need to please teachers is also the reason that I do my homework, write good papers, maintain As. I just don't want them to think they're doing a poor job, it's such a hard and underappreciated job.

Yeah, so this paper. An A I shouldn't have received. It's not something of which I'm proud. The paper is embarrassing. The ideas and theories posited are solid, but the manner of conveyance is pedestrian and poorly edited. I'm not sure why I didn't put more into it. Bah. Not a shining moment.

Sadly, we're out of the short story segment (after reading 60), and into the poetry portion. Of which I will not shine naturally. I used to love poetry, reading and writing. Of course, this was back in my long skirt and woman with a Y days. I thought I was so good. Looking back now I realize my self-indulgent blathering (heh, don't think I don't see the irony here) had no rhythm or reason. Oh wait, it did have rhythm, lotsa rhythm, lotsa terrible, angsty rhythm. Oh lord.

Nowadays, I just can't get into poetry. I don't want to be this person. I just am. I don't know if they don't provide me the time I need to walk around inside the story, the people, like a story or novel does. I can read and read and read books. I can talk about them all day. Even intelligently. However, with poetry, I lack the skill, the language. Feet? Meter? Enjambment? I find myself skipping over whole stanzas, trying to pick up just the gist. Behavior I deplore in others. Deplore. You can't get the true feel of a story, or a character, without letting all the words wash over you. I believe this. And yet here I'm reading the beginning of Gray, skipping to the end, reading the epitaph, thinking oh, yeah, someone died, got that poem, bring on the next. Feh. Shameful.

My image of myself is becoming murky
outlook not so...perky
...
Did I tell you I was from Nantucket...

Studio Saturday

I call it Two point perspective in Cumin. It's big (you can see it bigger with just a click of your lil mouse)! Notice the pen in the upper left corner. Motherfuckin' B-I-G (notorious), especially for such a pungent wee spice. It's not done yet, I'm still working on the background and the 2nd bottle. If it seems weird (and if it doesn't, who the hell are you?) you'd have appreciated that very faucet of it had you been around for crits in a class of 18 two-point perspectives of the school campus library. B to the oring.

This week has been crazed. My short list looks much like my long list and those deadlines keep closing in. I've been working all week on making some hat kits. These two yarns were spun for sample hats and my own knitting experiments involving them. Both are currently galavantin' around town as actual hats! The kits will have yarn, patterns, and a snappy little suprise for each hat! They'll be an official unvieling next week, I plan on wearing pasties and a cape for it, netcast, even.

Also, B-ill set me up a handspun knits gallery! Check it on the right sidebar! Crazy like a fox, eh? Yeah, so all you knitters out there that have insubordiknit yarns knitted into beer cozies, nose warmers, and thongs, send me a pic and you too can be featured!

So, while I have been all spinny, there's not going to be a shop update this week. Sorry. There are some yarns still available though. I've also been experimenting a bit more with bamboo and soysilk. I tried to make a supercoiled soysilk yarn but failed, terribly. Really. I did, however, spin 120 yards of the most gorgeous handpainted bamboo single ya ever did see. I'm not sure what to use it for, it's a bit stiff. Anyone else experience this, uh, stiffness?

Oh, I've yet to mention the smitting. We've been smitted(?) smited(?) by the all-powerful lord, apparantly. The rain will just not freakin' stop. To the right you'll see a very large bowl, not cumin big, but at least double batch of cookies big, full of a yellowish, green water that smells just a bit less rank than it appears. I've dumped it 5 times since this rain started last night. All thanks to this hole/crack/hellmouth in the kitchen ceiling. Hey, if anyone wants to come put a new roof on my house, I'll don the pasties and cape once more, I'll even let ya netcast it!

Clearly, while I've been spinning, knitting, drawing very large spices, and dumping rain water, my son has been practicing the two-board technique so popular with the young kids now days.

Too many handspun FOs!

So after many weeks working on the handspun green diamond monster sweater (a name that is still in the works), I needed some quick and chunky knits. And since I can't even imagine knitting with anything other than that crazy stuff called handpsun, I dug in my little (okay, very big) tub and pulled out some yummy yarns spun in my recent past.

First I knit something I thought I'd never wear. Ever. A freakin' cowl. Yep, I said it, a cowl, who's very name brings a bitter taste to my mouth. It's like a cow that went rancid with an L. Ick. Where does that little bit of language come from. Anyway, I was drawn in by the loop d loop lure and by the perfect yardage and guage. With each stitch I humphed. Humph.

And then it took shape. And then I tried it on. And HAVEN'T TAKEN IT OFF SINCE. It's amazing, warm in just the right places. I get all toasty without the annoying rubbing under the arms, promoting bitter pit stink. Plus, how much do I resemble Queen Elizabeth? Like exactly, right?

I've gotten several people wishing they knew how my handspun looked knitted up, so here's a close up (click for closer, even) of the stitches. Next to it is a pic of it in hank form, name, dead pools, like his eyes. By the way, a handspun knits gallery is in the works. Soon. Really.

Since that well-written and easy as pie pattern only took a night, I need something for last night and thought I'd give a go to some of my wackier yarn, corporeal glee, to be exact, a self-striping yarn replete with monsterous supercoils and uncarded fiber galore.

It's a nothing knit, no pattern, just knit knit knit on circ with a little decreasing and kitchner at the end. I wanted to leave it simple and let the yarn speak for itself. It was totally fun to knit. I love the supercoiles!

Check out that texture! Beautiful! Check out that guy! HOT! He could be yours if ya play your cards right.

Finally, the tip of the top, the kewlest of the kewl. Check out the first FO picture sent to me by SOMEONE ELSE! Yeah, how freakin' cool is that? It leaves me all tingly inside. Check those mittens! Hell, click on the pic and check those records! Wowsa. The mittens are knit out of 125 yards of shark attack (and there's over 300 yards left, people!) Thanks Emily! You rock my socks.

Corporeal glee hat

Easy peasy no pattern hat to give a go to some of my wackier yarn, corporeal glee, to be exact, 75 yards of self-striping yarn replete with monsterous supercoils and uncarded fiber galore.

It's a nothing knit, no pattern, just knit knit knit on circ with a little decreasing and kitchner at the end. I wanted to leave it simple and let the yarn speak for itself. Check out that texture! Beautiful! Check out that guy! HOT!

Q. Eliz Cowl

Super collar, cowl (a really terrible word, ick) or, as I like to refer to it the queen elizabeth, taken right out of loop d loop and knitted with my own handspun thick and thin yarn, 120 yards.

Such a super easy knit, and took less than an evening total. It's amazing, warm in just the right places. I get all toasty without the annoying rubbing under the arms, promoting bitter pit stink. Plus, how much do I resemble Queen Elizabeth? Like exactly, right?

Studio, ahem, saturday

Here's my studio Saturday post, it's, uh, still Saturday somewhere, right? This week we learned one-point perspective and had to do a big ol drawing using said perspective. This is drawn from a rough sketch and photo taken at the smithsonian train station on the way home from the peace march last week. I can set you up with the towering anit-sam-tall-drink-of-water, he's local English prof and light guy (for rock bands) and according to rate my professors, his very voice can make the girls orgasm.
Notice all the sketchy lines (especially if ya click on either of the pics and check em supa sized, though pay no attention to the hand deformity) and failed first attempts at angles etc, my teacher has us do the whole thing in ink so that she can see it all. I really like it. Much like Jodi speaks about, and I'm probably butchering her sentiment, the draw of art, is often in the history, the journey that a piece took. I don't yet feel that about mine, but I can see it developing. Oh, by and by, this piece is about 50 inches x 30 inches, yeah, call it taped-to-the-wall-to-draw.

I've got more posts in me, much knitting and some exciting pics of homespun, knit by me and, gasp, by another! Maybe tonight or tomorrow. Yes, I'm all about the drought and then the flood.