Chickenlips Knitting

Spent the day pretty much knitting, except for a little shopping this morning. I picked up an essential component for carrying out my master plan...(rubbing hands together fiendishly). If all goes well, I should be able to begin next weekend, and I'll blog my progress. Even though it's a visual thing which I'm afraid would sound lame without pictures, I do hate keeping secrets from you. It's so dysfunctional. ;) Give me another couple weeks, tops, and I'll tell all.


I also went downtown and visited the Button Emporium for some silk ribbon, as I am making more of those lace-up mitts. My co-workers love them. You'd think I'd have the pattern memorized by now. Almost there.

I went ahead and listed the pink/black clutch and lace-up gloves in my Etsy shop. Also ready to offer for sale is this item:

I do like the way it came out. And this little project also gives me the opportunity to show off my bling, which I tend not to wear in the summer months. I have a spectacular brooch which my brother and sis-in-law gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. They went to NYC in November 2005, and bought it for me while shopping in the East Village. So posh. I use it as a shawl pin.


We can also stick a fork in the Digital Socks.



What I like about this pair of socks isn't just the yarn. It was my first time with the Sensational Knitted Socks book, and it was so easy! I'm an impatient knitter, and too many directions give me MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over). But I highly recommend. You've gotta like a sock book that gives you directions for using either 4 or 5 dpn's, and takes the guesswork out of it by telling you how many stitches should be on each needle every step of the way.



I had Shelly's beautiful yarn just sitting there waiting for me to knit it up. I thought I could wing the French Girl "Violette" hat pattern, because I'd bought a length of silk ribbon. I figured all I needed was to do a roll brim, throw in an eyelet row and Bob's-your-uncle, I'd have that hat. However, it's a little more complex than that. There's a cable in there too, and there must be a rib to keep the bottom edge from rolling. So I decided to save the ribbon for another project.



Vibrant colors, no? Now I have a Christmas gift made!...for someone. I'll figure that part out later.



Grow Up Already


I'm bummed to see that Super Eggplant is gone. Apparently SE and her brother are feuding, and he deleted her website. But instead of just disabling the URL so that it goes to a "Not Found" page, he continues to post a steady stream of nastygrams about his sister. It looks like neither of them are doing much in the way of handling their conflict like adults, but I mean, come on. Pretty weak, dude. I really enjoyed Mariko's blog, and I hope she'll start another one.

Have a lovely rest of the weekend!

Since having taken the oath not to buy any more knitting stuff until late September--yes, I know it was less than a week ago, but it seems so much longer!--my blog posts are going to be fewer and farther between. It was a classic "aha" moment, realizing that during my "charge it" phase, I was on here chirping about this or that new yarn three times a week, but with only FO's to blog about, I won't be posting nearly as much.


These days, my head is bent to my knitting projects every free moment, but I'm surfacing to tell you that last night, I had the mother of all brainstorms for a project. I want it to be a total surprise, so please bear with me until I can set this thing in motion. It's fiber-related, but on a grand scale (for me) and the details just seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. Or maybe they were rattling around all along in one of my hemispheres (there's a clue!) and the big picture just became clear. All I know is that I spent last night's prime knitting time feverishly writing up plans. And today I bought the first of my supplies. (It's not stash! Honest!) I'm sorry, I know I'm teasing and I myself hate it when bloggers do that--it's just that I'm completely stoked, and this could actually work out well.


I've got just one puny thing to show you, and it doesn't even count as a FO, because it isn't felted yet. But here 'tis.

Another ruffled felt clutch. Just wanted to post a pic to show the color. I'm hoping it will come out as pretty as the hot pink/black one I made last month.

You Complete Me

Thanks everybody, for celebrating with me as I recently got to see the Holy Trinity of rock. They rocked my ass off! Your comments kept the fun continuing, and helped spark up an otherwise drudgery-filled week of work, and various and sundry crap like The Dryer Situation. The evil Home Despot (great minds and all, Kiki!) is scheduled to deliver the new dryer tomorrow "between 9:00 and 1:00," and we all love those precise delivery times, don't we?! At least I'll be here instead of dashing to work, and maybe I can get in some felting.

Sunday morning, struggling to wake up--10 am, yikes! Haven't slept in that late on a Sunday since The Kid was born. Sore ankles and aching legs, why? Oh yeah...2.5 hours of standing, jumping up and down and dancing. Throat dry, scratchy and raw--what's up wid dat? Memory returns slowly...singing at the top of my voice, cheering and screaming.


Wearily throw off covers. First cup of coffee--better. Breakfast? Sure. Now, at noon, I'm feeling enough like myself to tell you that last night, I had as much fun as one can have with one's pants on! (hee)


Ready for some pictures?


Sharon and Jason, about to leave for the Rush show. The cherry-lime bomb was workin', I gotta tell ya! I needn't have worried about a jacket. Once in the amphitheater, it was warm as a sauna. Body heat, bright lights, pyro effects and all. I was mopping myself down with my hanky.

Oh, the show. In addition to songs from the new album, Rush played some rarely heard, all-but-forgotten gems. As a fan for the past 20-plus years, I was impressed by how the band drew from their impressive body of work to play songs that are relevant and pertinent to today's state of world affairs. We were treated to "Between The Wheels," a song they put together in "about twenty minutes" in the studio back in '83 for Grace Under Pressure:

Wheels can take you around/Wheels can cut you down/We can go from boom to bust/From dreams to a bowl of dust/We can fall from rockets' red glare/Down to "Brother can you spare"Another war/Another wasteland/And another lost generation...

Going Digital

The second song of the setlist was "Digital Man." It was during this song that I tried to take a cellphone pic of my socks in progress. (thank you, Ms. Harlot, for the traveling socks concept!)

( my sock, and Geddy Lee. Geddy!! My man!!)

The socks are a slipstitch rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, (a book which I'm really enjoying, btw,) using Claudia Handpaint yarn in Purple Earth. I was vaguely irritated by the fact that I was knitting socks without a name. I mean Monkeys, Jaywalkers, and Pomatomuses (Pomatomi?) are instantly recognizable, every knitter knows what you're talking about. Well, thanks to Rush, these socks have been dubbed "Digital Socks." What can I say, I'm hoping it'll catch on.

And here's the first one, finished.

The only drawback of last night's concert was that we were unfortunately seated next to an obnoxious drunk pothead who kept trying to talk to us, instead of letting us just enjoy the show. I would have told him point-blank to shut the f*ck up, except that he was the size of a small mountain and might have taken a swing at me! He actually tried to pass us his dope pipe. Jaysus. I mean, I understand folks like to toke up at rock concerts, God knows I used to do it myself when I was young, but this is Rush, people. I do not need any artificial substances to enjoy their music. To me, they are the drug!

*sigh* And with that, I'm afraid the coffee break's over, and I must get back on my head. (Really old, really bad joke there.) We ordered a new dryer from Home Depot, or Home Despot as I like to call them, but it won't be delivered until Thursday. So I'm going to spend the afternoon washing clothes and then hauling them to the laundromat. At least I can knit!

"Watching other people buy yarn is the next best thing to buying it yourself." -The Yarn Harlot

I’m in a critical startitis situation—I’ve got so much stuff hanging off my needles that even the small projects aren’t progressing. There is only enough time to do a few rows of this, a few rows of that, and meanwhile stash is everywhere. I adore stash, mind you, but it wants to get knitted soooooo bad and I just can’t get to it. For that matter, it’s not unrealistic to expect a fall contest here at Chickenlips, in which I send one of you some of my orphan baby yarn to love, knit, crochet, felt, or possibly all of the above. So my friends, it is with sadness that I announce my decision to curb my wild, orgiastic yarn buying and money spending, at least for the time being. (sorry, Kelly!) Be assured that I’ve loved glomming onto that sweet sweet yarn with reckless abandon, and your comments tell me you’ve enjoyed watching me do it. But Capital One Mastercard and Wells Fargo Platinum Visa, (bastards) heinous killers of perpetual joy that they are, say I’ve got no choice but to put the brakes on. And in order to succeed at this, as painful as it is, I need to do it in the form of a contract.

Here goes.

I, Chickenlips, for a period not to exceed 63 days*, do hereby pledge to refrain from purchasing the following: yarn, knitting needles, notions, patterns and fiber-related books. In order to avoid temptation to break this contract, I make these additional pledges:

1. I will not go to any LYS, especially after work on payday. I’ll go directly home and knit.

2. I will not visit my favorite online yarn retailers. Should I find myself hovering the mouse over their links, I’ll interpret that as a sure sign I’m about to go off the wagon and get off the computer and go knit.

3. The time I normally spend kvetching about having enough time to knit, I’ll use instead, well, you know.

This contract is in effect until I attend the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival on 22 September 2007, at which time I will (go apeshit) allow myself to carefully select products for purchase, staying within the constraints of a predetermined budget.

Duly witnessed this day, 20 July 2007, by Elwood the cat.

"zzzz....yeah....whatever....zzzz"

Signed,

Chickenlips

* days remaining until Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival.

Happy days

The news ain't all that bad; quite the contrary. There's cause for celebration around here, because J. has been given (finally) a clean bill of heart health! After a stress echocardiogram, and nearly a week's delay in getting the results, the cardiologist finally announced that there was no significant blockage to be found. And I am so proud of him--he's staying on his diet, and well on his way to his ideal weight.

Me? Oh, that's another story. Pass the chocolate-covered anything.

And we take you now back to the mundane.

Our clothes dryer is kaput. We'd purchased it used back in 2000 or so, and it performed admirably longer than we expected. Now it spins without any heat, and won't shut off, so appliance shopping has been added to tomorrow's agenda. And I made it known that I'm not keen on buying another used model. If we can take care of it early enough to have one delivered tomorrow, that would be schweet. But I'm not willing to bet we would be that lucky.

I finished my cherry-lime bomb in time for tomorrow night's Rush concert. Yup, that's right, in less than 24 hours from now I will be mere yards--make that meters--from my favoritest band in the universe, the fabulous Canadian power trio! Naturally, when it's supposed to be glorious midsummer weather in the Pacific Northwest, it's cool and rainy, with no improvement expected over the weekend. It's an outdoor show, but at least we'll be under cover if it does rain. And bundled up in jackets. But does any of this faze me? Not when it's Rush! In the immortal words of Carl from Aqua Teen Hungerforce, "I do not need instructions on how to rock!"

Happy Bear isn't talking. But I bet you can guess why he's so happy...



I finally finished the bear I promised I would make for my niece, Alaina. Michelle tried to steal it as soon as it was done, but my sis-in-law (Alaina's mom) paid for the yarn. Bear is now wrapped in tissue paper and ready to ship to Spokane.



Um, the empty booze bottle? It's...ah...a prop. Yeah, that's it!



I've Got Bupkis



Nothing much happening right now that's blogworthy. I started a couple of projects: another felted clutch, this time in turquoise, and the Lutea Lace top from Interweave Knits. I'm not sure if I'm sold on how the color and yarn type will look on me, but it's gravy to knit. One thing's for certain, it's a sensory shock to go from knitting with Calmer, which has elasticity to spare, to Summer Tweed, which is cotton and silk, but it's like packing twine in that it's got absolutely zero yield. I'm going to forge ahead with it.


Today was a long, leisurely day off for me. Our two-person department was unanimous: I had earned it. I spent a couple of hours here, having a PMS session. (Wait a minute--isn't she done with that business?!) Yes, I am. I meant "Pamper Me Silly." J. had given me a gift certificate to the day spa for Valentine's Day, and I spent it having a deluxe facial. Queen of Sheba. I'm definitely more relaxed, and my face is as smooth as a baby's butt. Now, if only my spousal unit was home instead of in Chicago! Stupid trade show. Grumble.


I already have all the yarn in the world, but when you feel glowing, it's your day off, and your man's away, well what's a girl to do?


The stashing continues.



A final purchase made at Lint on Saturday. Koigu is good anytime. I won't be able to go when all the inventory is being sold off, so I sucked it up and put it on the Visa. I thought these colors together would make a nice, fallish, Chevron Scarf. No, the dark yarn on the left isn't eggplant, aubergine, or damson; it's an espresso brown. By now, everybody must be sick of me bitching about my camera, and I could actually buy a better one if I'd quit spending so much money on yarn! Uh oh, something deep inside of me just emitted a piercing shriek at that thought. It's true, though. Not only would better pictures make for more enjoyable blog viewing, but color accuracy on a knitting blog is kind of a no-brainer, right?



The day spa being just a quick dash across the river to Abundant Yarn, I picked up some Kureyon and some basic black for the Fake Isle Hat from Magknits. I'm not a hat gal--any kind of hat, except perhaps those wide-brimmed jobs the Queen of England wears, makes me look like a pinhead. However, there is no shortage of recipients for warm handknit accessories. I've already got a scarf and hat tucked away for charity when the mercury drops.

Off to knit!

Farewell, Lint

One of the prettiest yarn shops in Portland, Lint, is closing its doors for good. I always enjoyed shopping and knitting there, and I have to say I'm sad that it's going away. At first the shop was offered for sale, and although details aren't available, I'm guessing that the owner needs to get out of the business for whatever reasons and nobody was able to put together the right offer to take over the shop. Of course, I could be full of canal water as I often am; maybe that's not it at all. Nobody's talkin'.

At one time, I entertained the notion of becoming a yarn shop proprietress. However, upon deeper reflection, I realized that I just wanted a huge stash, but the funny thing is that there wouldn't be any time to knit! It's a huge amount of work to keep any small business afloat. So, although I sometimes feel constrained, and/or oppressed, working for someone else, it also frees me in certain ways.

The dust has finally settled with regard to the events of last week. The car is back in the driveway, and the fines have been paid. My A-number-one daughter has her dad to thank for that; I haven't the wherewithal. As always, I appreciate your supportive comments. And Ellie Bee is right--at 16, the kid damn well better know she screwed up, and it is her fault. I was just experiencing mommy guilt, which some say never goes away. (Crap.)

That's what I'm doing, along with planning projects--I can't imagine doing much else. For me, knitting is way beyond a preoccupation, and I don't even know if "obsession" is a strong enough word to describe its hold over me. And I'm not even that good at it, not really! But I'm grateful that it's in my life, because in many ways, it is my life, and that's OK. I'm also grateful that I'm a knitter in the 21st century, where we can have any yarn we want, any pattern we want just by clicking the mouse. We can see what knitters across the country and around the world are making. The yarns available to us are breathtakingly beautiful. Right now, my knitting is a protective cocoon, a safe place to dwell if you will, and I need it, because life being life, it's bringing some suckage my way.




My DH has a rich family history of heart disease. Both his parents have had heart trouble, and it has claimed the lives of two of his three brothers. And now, at the age of 47, J. has some possible blockage. Naturally, the tests are still ongoing. All we know for certain, after his stress test, is that there is an "abnormality when the heart muscle is vigorously working." (And we let doctors get away with this shit?!) Next up is an echocardiogram, and if that's inconclusive, they'll have to inject dye-- sorry, can't come up with the name for that procedure. He's been put on a statin drug to lower his cholesterol, has been given a prescription for nitroglycerine, and ordered to drop 18 lbs. Now as we women know, we have to practically kill ourselves to accomplish that, but men--at least the ones in my life, my husband, dad and brother--seem to be able to do that in a nanosecond. My husband will, I know, because not only does he exercise, but he's put himself on a very strict diet, avoiding fat and salt. He doesn't smoke or drink. But still, the evidence is in our faces now, and it's scary.




I've been writing this blog for a year, yet I still hesitate to put personal stuff on here, because my credo as a blogger/writer is, "only write what you would want to read." I know people come here to look at my FO's and WIP's, (glad we don't have to explain such anagrams, or something like the Knitting Olympics, to women of a century ago who had to knit for the survival of their families,) to see my yarn du jour, and have a chuckle. Yet the knitblogs are rife with life in all its forms from the beautiful to the bizarre, so I'll give myself license to vent when I need to.




Christmas in July





I bought myself a couple of nice pressies recently.

I figured it was about time I got myself a really good sock book, and I do like this one. I've started a sock with a six-stitch pattern repeat, the slip stitch rib:

Please bear in mind that my blasted (read: cheap) camera distorts purple and makes it look blue. This is Claudia Handpainted fingering weight in "Purple Earth," a treat from Stitches West. It's only two rows, a K3 P3 rib and the slip stitch row. Should be a quick knit, too. I pick this up when I need a breather from the Cherry Bomb, which is about 2/3 done. Next in the sock queue is the Monkey, and I plan to make them with this:

Was going to use the Purple Earth for Monkeys, but it's so saturated with color that I think it'd obscure the lace pattern.

I've been a bad Shawl Ministry member lately--I put aside the stole I was working on in the TLC Cotton Plus, I guess I just got bored with it. And I did something which I still can't believe. Last month, I told a fellow knitter I'd finish her shawl, knowing full well I didn't want to, but she was tired of it and really seemed to want to hand it off to me...co-dependent to the core, at your service. At least we have several shawls ready, should there be a need. Tomorrow is the monthly session, but it's also the last day J. and I have free before our daughter comes home from grandma's on Sunday, and the weather being warm, sunny and gorgeous, we've planned a mountain hike. Just the two of us--not even Buster and Jimmy are invited.

I'm going to stroll in the mountains, and not look back.

This is the front. I like how this is going together so far. Waist shaping and short-rowing for the bust...really not complicated at all, I was able to watch the Mariners game yesterday while working on it. If I could finish it by the 21st, then I could choose between it and the orange Chickami to wear to the Rush concert...hmmm! Love these kind of dilemmas, if for no other reason than to give me the oomph I need to finish something.