Insubordiknit

Slippedandlockedsweater

It's been done for a long while but I finally got it seamed and (lightly) blocked. It's a bit big, or at least long in the arms, which is a good thing right? 2 seasons instead of one?

This is his reaction --
When it gets too small for me, my brother or sister can wear it, and then the next 8 babies we have can wear it, and then we can sell it.

Clearly I'll be busy for the next 15 years and you can put a price on handknits. Yep, I'll be the one with the mess 'o kids sharing one ragged sweater and pulling my uterus behind me in a radio flyer.

For more pics, check the flickr FO gallery on the right, I just set it up and damn, flickr rocks my world. I mean, there are things, and there are things, but flickr, flickr is THE thing!

Here's 275 yards of a lovely 2-ply that I spun up yesterday for a trade. Sometimes it's so nice to spin some even 2-ply.

Spinning a song

The shop, it's updated, and it's a big one, and it's kinda strange. I decided to spin a song. Yep, I've spun economics, and world leaders, and pop culture, now a whole song! So as not to make it too easy on me, I let Bill pick the tune, he picked Come Sail Away, by STYX. Nu-uh. Yes, he did. Really. So here are the yarns, followed by the stanza each is spun for. Yep, it's never normal around here! Next, I plan on finally trying to spin every (mainish) character and villain from each season of Buffy!

Ohh, and don't for get to check out this week's barter yarn! Whatcha got? Also, there won't be an update next week as I've got to spin for 2 shops and for kpixie (monster hats!).

I'm sailing away
set an open course for the
virgin sea
For I've got to be free
free to face the life thats
ahead of me

On board I'm the captain
so climb aboard
we'll search for tomorrow
on every shore
and I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try
to carry on

I look to the sea
reflections in the waves
spark my memories
some happy, some sad
i think of childhood friends
and the dreams we had

We lived happily forever
so the story goes
but somehow we missed out
on the pot of gold
but we'll try best that
we can to carry on

A gathering of angles
appeared above our heads
they sang to us
this song of hope
and this is what they said

I thought that they were angels
but to my surprise
we climbed aboard their starship
and headed for the skies

For descriptions of the actual yarns, check the shop, I'm too tired to cut and paste, plus, nobody wants to see an entry that's 5 miles long. sheesh.

Funky scarf swap scarf done

Saga of the funky scarf swap scarf, in pictures, click any pic for a close-up.

First there were the batts, including everything I had that fell into the purple/blue/turquoise/green arena, so there's lotsa different wool, soysilk, tencel, and bamboo. The the single, spun not quite even but not quite thick and thin either, 120 yards on US13s. I also spun up 30 yards of all tencel in limes and turquoise, for the details blobs.

Finally the scarf:

It's really, really long.

But you can wrap it and make it more...medium.

You can even wrap it three times and make it damn short.

Or, you can just throw it on a heap on the floor, that's really short.

I hope my swappee likes it. She didn't seem to want it supa dupa funky, at least not what I think of supa dupa funky, so it's long and skinny with a flare at both ends, lots of tenticles coming off (not just from the edges either!) with little shiny blobs on the ends. I think it totally rocks but we'll have to wait and see what she thinks.

Jaywalking

My very first pair of Jaywalkers! And they rock! Seriously, I love these socks, why did I wait so long? A simple pattern that does everything it should. Thanks Grumperina!.

I'm also knitting away on some other projects and working on the podcast (which should be done as soon as I get the audio from 2 people). Oh, and spinning, much spinning, and a lovely update on Monday.

Happy first day of Autumn, we celebrated, did you? Bill just fixed my comments so you can once again comment, heck, you can even go back and comment, iffin' ya felt the urge!

I'm off to finish my funky scarf swap scarf swap...scarf.

Monster hat knits @ kp

For all you monster hat knit kit lovers, Kpixie, one of my favorite places to sell to and buy from, just listed the kits and yarns I sent them last week -- 10 hats and 5 yarns! Get 'em, get 'em, those evil little monsters go fast (must be those 2 ladies awesome marketing skills!).

Losing control

Sixteen weeks. That's where I am and I'm finally starting to feel pretty okay. Except at night, that's when I feel akin to the goodyear blimp, like something that needs to be popped, a balloon or pimple, or something. It's why, I think, I'm not getting any podcasting done, I usually do it at night when the house is quiet and the natives are sleeping. I'm also just stuck on this episode, trying to emcompass, include, I don't know...talk about the last few months, and it's sticking me. Bill suggested I just skip it and do the next episode, which I've got nothing for, got anything, send it my way!

I did finish my clapotis a few days back, and baby hasn't left my back. Seriously, the last vestige of youth just left me, I'm now a knitter, with a potbelly, who never goes out, who's gassy at night, and who wears a shawl all the time! I'm gonna have to knit another, but not a clapotis, jeez, as much as I adore it now, I despised it half through the straight section. Tedium. There will be pictures but not until after Saturday when I get to don it with my non-maternity slinky dress for a rockstar wedding, yeah baby! Stay tuned for those pictures.

I updated the shop yesterday, as promised, but it's mostly sold out now. Only one yarn left, I think. I love my speedy fast customers. I've been trying to post at different times on Mondays because I've been getting complaints from people in different countries and timezones, hence the 4pm update. This yarn is not a representation of this, but I've been experiementing with less neat spinning. I'm a very neat spinner, in case you didn't know. Even in my wildest designs, I spin neat. I like smooth or controlled texture. I don't like fuzzes, unplanned lumps, over-spun bits, underspun bits. I like it neat, and most of the time I like that I like it neat. I'm trying to be able to let some of that go (not all the time, just occasionally), but giving up control has always been hard for me. It used to be a major problem, the major problem in my relationships. But apparently it is possible for me to concede, as is evidenced by the 3 loads of dirty laundry and 2 loads of clean laundry in the basement. Bet that's a bit of control Bill wishes I'd take back.

So yesterday I spun 2 yarns from uncarded scraps all tossed together in a bowl, all different stuff, spun as it came. It was hard but I think I could grow to like losing control occassionally. The yarn to the left is a lovely soft 2-ply that I love. I'm giving it 2 days and if it doesn't sell, it's gonna make me some mittens!

Oh, update next week will be new and different, also, will have a barter yarn. Yay.

I was a video teenage rock chic!

When I first met my partner, Bill, he was in a band in San Diego called Pure Milk. In fact, it this band he was playing with the instant I saw him, all crazy eyed, jumping up and down and belting out angsty lyrics from the stage of The Velvet, Cocain Andy's club at the time, later to be sold, renamed The Crowbar, and made into a haven for less than friendly skinheads. Late 1995, I, not even legal myself, worked the door, checked IDs, and generally acted cooler (and subsequently lonier) than anyone else. I saw lots and lots of bands that year, most of them lost in the sea of crappiness that is a local music scene. His band, however, stood out, but maybe that was because he stood out, to me. From the very date we met it was 2 months exactly before we decided to gamble our young (I was 20, he was 23) futures on each other and hit Las Vegas for a little Merlin-may-you-marry-us.

Early the next year a SDSU student with a thick german accent and 80s rock sensibilities decided Pure Milk was the band for his Senior Thesis: the video. I wish I could find stills of that footage, if you could see anything though all the lazer lights.. I was the girl, all young and fresh, being sung about with such venom and angst and and and, was that barely-covered love? Yes, I think is was.

Hans took it upon himself to write a little backstory into the songstory -- apparently the reason we (the guy in the song and me, the girl) never worked was my social-climbing-whoredome. Yep, the one scene to really show the viewer this facet of my cardboard performance is me gazing longingly into the window of a little clothing boutique, it's shot from the side so you get me, my reflection, and the well-dressed dummies. Mostly I remember Hans saying, in his thick accent "you want to be the dummies, you wish you were just like them...be...wish...the dummies..."

Yeah, good times. Last month it had been 10 years since purple-y clad merlin heard our I DOs. We know live across the country from where that masterpeice was created, Hans is doing and you will know us by our trail of dead videos (probably) and Bill is in a band I wouldn't cringe to be in the video of, except they wouldn't have need of me with all the bikini clad girlies throwing themselves at the stage whle squirting waterbottles down their taut, tan fronts. Anyway, they've got a new myspace page where you, yes you, gentle knitter, can listen to 2 songs and then go out and tell all your friends, or better yet, your crazy powerful, not to distant, record executive relative to give us some money (because we're already having to move our car to a new location around the neighborhood every night so it doesn't get repo'ed. heh).

Check them out!

Living, in theory

You know when I said I was working on a mini-audio play? Yeah, well that was in theory. In theory I'm working on a mini-audio play. In theory I'm working on the next podcast. In theory I'm updating more regularly. And in theory I'm not napping endlessly and complaining to anybody that has ears to listen. But all that is over...well, not over as much as, well, not over at all. I'm still going to nap and complain but now I'm going to get off my arse and write the audio-play, record the podcast, update. In theory, of course.

Honestly though, I am feeling a little more motivated and a little less depressed, and it's not just because the government has finally seen my inner value and called me to do my civic duty -- yep, this gal's got jury duty and I'm strangly pleased as punch. But back to feeling better, which I am, mostly.

I've been depressed, wanting to scream at this growing belly why don't I feel better yet?, and I know it's not the fault of the baby, but still, in my mind I call it bad baby and imagine myself dressing it in acrylic handknits until it's 4, as punishment. Bad Baby! Which is actually a bit better than it's other working title -- Pipilotta Pinecone. Yeah, we're not so good with the serious names around these parts. Little Bit was almost Collapso, heh. Don't you wonder what his true moniker is?

And now down to bidness (oh my, too much netflixed the wire, which is so good it actually makes me love and fear my city at the same time). I didn't knit at all during my times of woe but in the last 2 weeks have started back with half a vengence (the other half being reserved for Pipilotta Pinecone, do you think a granny squared flounced jumper might be suitable?) Here are some things I've done or am working on, plain handdyed socks, handdyed jaywalkers, a clapotis and last night I CO for sizzle in bamboo (not pictured).