my life in stitches

hunk of monkey love

long time no post, eh? in the past weeks i felt as though i'd reached my saturation point when it comes to talking / writing about knitting. as a blogger, i began to feel somewhat pigeonholed. while i still love to knit, there are more than enough people writing about it and there are plenty of other things that i would enjoy blogging about, but would anyone tune in? in order for to me be feel inspired to show up here and occasionally write about knitting, i think i'll need to spread my wings a bit and write about some of my other passions - food, film, fashion, literature, mid-century modern design, overpriced footwear, handsome men with foreign accents, and trash tv. my new obsession, and certainly not trash tv, but definitely trashy in a good way is the british show Shameless. i think it's maybe the 4th best show ever made for television (following The Wire, Six Feet Under, and Homicide.) i just watched back to back episodes of season 1 and i can't believe how brilliant it is. i also can't believe that it's now in it's 5th season and in america you can only get season 1 on dvd! i am unreasonably upset about this. what the hell will i watch now? counting the days until the return of Lost. oh, i have to say that the most recent episode of The Office was so good that it hurt. the discomfort was palpable. during my visceral television watching i finished Signe's pillow. this was my contribution to our hand made swap. i received this super cool hunk of monkey love in exchange. at the moment, he's calling himself Neville. what else? i'm about 60% through a Raspy that i recently cast on for. not sure how i feel about this pullover, but i'm determined to see it through. oh, and my Justina is a mess. it completely falls off me now. i'll need to take out the top waistband and a) reduce the number of stitches significantly and b) knit it in a rib in order to make it fit. yeah. i'm sure that will happen. (she says with a hint of sarcasm.)

happy valentine's day

cushion cover #002

meet cushion cover #002. well, this is the start of it. i'm making this for my new internet friend, Signe, in exchange for a custom made sock monkey. with this cushion cover, i'm trying to branch out from my usual palettes and try something new. it's seems like everything i've been knitting has an undertone of greyish-lavender. it's really weird/hard not to fall back on that, but i don't like to get myself into a rut. it's always good to stretch your creative muscle.

i feel like i'm on a roll with these pillows. i have a lot of ideas for them. i'm hoping to create a few to sell on Etsy. i'm  debating whether or not i should create a pattern or two to sell.  maybe you guys could leave me a comment and let me know whether or not that's something that you might be interested in?

justina is coming along nicely (though i should be careful not to jinx myself by saying that!). i love this project and i feel like it has restored my knitting mojo! i'm working on the cushion cover during the day. that's when my mind is clear and i can make good decisions about color and design. i'm mostly knitting justina at night when i'm in bed watching television.

i've done something terrible to my back, so i'm propped up in bed with a heating pad and i've made this my center of operations for the day. i really can't stand to hang around in bed, but instead of bitching about it, i'm just being grateful that i work from home and have the luxury of working from bed when i need to.

FO and what's a girl to knit next?

i have completed the cushion cover for the upcoming workshop at gauge. i am really pleased with how it turned out. these colors are difficult to photograph, but believe when i say it's really lovely. there were moments when i was really worried that it wouldn't turn out the way that i had envisioned it. and there were things that happened that i hadn't really planned on, but i managed to successfully incorporate these detours into my design. all the fancy design work is on the front (shown here). the back is knit using the instructions from the Potluck Patchwork Pillow in Yarnplay At Home.

aside from the usual ongoing pair of socks, i have nothing on needles now and i have no idea what to knit. it's strange not to be lusting after some design and eagerly awaiting the moment when i can finally cast on. the weather is so unpredictable and freakishly warm that i can't muster up any excitement to cast on for a sweater. the only design that is even remotely tempting is Justina. if only i had the yarn for it in my stash. i suppose i could make a trip to my LYS. however, because of my chronic lack of follow through and my growing pile of ufos, i feel that i couldn't, in good conscience, fork over the cash. that and i bought a Diane von Furstenburg wrap dress today.

taking shape

the workshop cushion cover is finally coming together i finished the button band and facing this morning. i contemplated blocking it, but i don't want to run the risk of having any of the colors run. my guess is that a cold water wash would be fine, but considering that i had to redo the buttonhole band several times because of various stupid mistakes and miscalculations, i had better not take any chances. even the simplest of tasks becomes complicated when i'm operating under PMS brain fog. there's not enough chocolate in the world to bring me out of it.

i blocked the back this morning. i sort of regret that i didn't knit the button band in a color different from the rest of it. for the aforementioned reasons, i decided against ripping that part back and reknitting it in another color. knitting disasters almost feel personal when i have PMS, so i thought it best to avoid creating one.

workshop cushion cover

this is the front of the cushion cover that i'm creating for my workshop. next, i'll add a buttonhole band along the top, block the front and back and sew them together. to be honest, this is the stage in my designs where i don't always get how the final piece will come together. i felt the same way about Potluck in Yarnplay At Home. while i was creating it, i couldn't stand it, but i loved it once it was completed. it's a weird thing. it almost only happens with projects where i'm using a gazillion colors. i think i just reach a point where i OD on all the colors and i just want it out of my sight. i'm a little bit undecided as to whether it should be vertical, as shown, or whether i want it horizontal. vertical was my original intent, but i like the way it looks horizontal, too. this is the kind of detail that could hang me up for days. i need to make a decision before i can add the buttonhole band. and i'm anxious to do that because i need to look at this project and not see a hot mess. it's just something about gazillion colored, over the top projects... i only want to look at them when they're completely done.

the knitters taking the course won't be knitting this exactly, but using this as a template from which to create their own unique cushion cover. at least, that's what i hope they will do. with this kind of project my aim is always to get knitters to color outside the lines and not follow a design word for word, for lack of a better way to put it.

apropos of nothing, i managed to hook up my new TV and dvd player to my cable  box all on my own. i feel like a total genius! now if only there was some fresh, new television to watch. i'm counting the days until the new (and final) season of The Wire begins...

shelter knitting

happy holidays! my xmas season has been quiet. i vacillate between feeling content and fighting the existential dread that always faces me at the start of a new year. i've spent a lot of time de-cluttering and redecorating my living space. that cheers me up immensely. some of the pieces from Yarnplay At Home are fitting in rather nicely with the new decor. stay tuned for photos during the upcoming Yarnplay At Home blog tour. the project in the photo is a cushion cover i'm creating for a workshop that i'm teaching at Gauge on January 19th, entitled Yarnplay: Knitting From The Stash. the photo is rather lackluster, i admit. however, it looks great in person. the tweedy bit is the back of the cushion cover, pretty straightforward with a button band and facing at the top. for that i've used the pattern for the back of the Potluck Cushion Cover in Yarnplay At Home. the front is more free form. it doesn't look like much now. in fact, in didn't look like much for quite a while and i was really, really worried that it just wasn't going to work. now i can see where it's going and i'm really pleased. more photos to come.

it is finally cold here! i've been wearing my sweaters and loving it. today, i am at home knitting, watching shows about art on Ovation TV and making soup, yellow split pea with sweet potatoes. i cook a lot, though lately i guess i've been eating quite a lot of pasta, evidenced by the sudden too tightness of my jeans. ugh. the problem with being skinny is that you don't realize that you've been eating too much of the wrong things until your clothes no longer fit. i've always eaten pretty much whatever i want whenever i want. i guess that's no longer working for me. i'm off the pasta, bread, and ice cream for the foreseeable future.

i can't believe that the television strike has gone on this long. what are you watching while you're knitting? suggestions please...

 

keeping it simple

i have a tendency to make simple projects super complicated. i'm always amazed when someone knits up something and makes the job look both easy and elegant.

i've been redecorating my apartment over the past few months and it is sorely lacking beautiful, handmade things. both my bed and my sofa need gorgeous cushions! i already have a few 16" x 16" pillow inserts in my closet. i have plenty of scraps and leftover skeins from my book projects. so... here are some leftover bits of Araucania and Patagonia Nature Cotton. i'm going to use it double stranded, so it knits up quickly. the problem is the pattern. do i keep it super simple and knit it in garter stitch? a rib might be nice, too! maybe a broken rib? do i go completely over the top with the mix of pattern and colors? or do i go for straightforward striping in garter stitch? this is where i run into trouble. if it gets too complicated not only will it never get finished, it may not even get started! wish me luck!

since i began knitting, i've watched far more television than i've ever watched in my life. let me be clear about this - i have no shame about it. i'm not one of these people who are so very happy to tell you that they threw out their television years ago and never looked back. nor am i one of these people who go on and on about how bad television is for you. alcohol, chocolate and a few other things that i regularly consume are also really bad for me, yet you won't see me giving those up anytime soon. anyway. i like to watch television while i knit. all of my favorite shows have recently come to an end - the amazing race, american idle (typo intended), thief, 24, grey's anatomy. my question is this - what are you watching now? please don't mention HBO. i'm pissed that i don't have it and i refuse to fork over the gazillion dollars that you pay for premium cable now. any suggestions? i watch a lot of dvds, but because i pay for those i feel like i need to pay a lot more attention than i'm able to give when i'm knitting.