Slightly More Progress

The Clementine Shawlette! (Almost half of it!)
Nuclear Pumpkin Yarn! 420 yards of it! (I probably need about 2,000 yards total, plus a little extra for swatching.)
The colors in the yarn are actually a little more, uh, NUCLEAR, but these photos are a pretty good approximation. The oranges are more vibrant in real life.

No Progress

This weekend I knitted and knitted and knitted and knitted without stopping, hellbent on finishing at least one project.

Goal #1: The Froot Loop Socks. Surely, I thought, if I knit the last sock for just four more hours, it will be done. I knit the sock all week during carpooling time. I knit it after work. I knit it during lunches. I knit it through a movie. I knitted the froot loop sock until I thought my arms were going to fall off. It is exactly the same size as it was at the beginning of the the week.

Goal #2: The Clementine Shawlette. I decided to add more length to the first half of it before starting and finishing the second half over the weekend - a good plan! Not so naive after the Froot Loop experience, I counted the repeats I had done so far - 11 - and decided it shouldn't take me more than 1/2 an hour to make it 16. So I knitted and knitted and knitted it. I knit through movies. I knit at bedtime. I knit during the day during spinning breaks. I knit on the bed, I knit on the couch, I may have knit on the toilet. Last night I counted my repeats again. 11. (And the second half has not, despite my best efforts, been started.)

Is it time for me to admit to myself that I am a SLOW knitter? Is there some reason that projects which would take a normal knitter a week to complete must take me months of nonstop knitting? Is this fair? I need to find out who assigns people their knitting speeds and ask for a recount, or something.

Halvsies

I haven't been great about taking and posting pictures of all my work this week, but that is because I have so many things in a deplorable state of Half Finished. I have half a pair of Froot Loop Socks knitted. I have half a Clementine Shawlette knitted. I have half of one Random Sock Of No Particular Pattern knitted. I have half of the singles spun up for the Nuclear Pumpkin sweater. All that work, but not much of anything to show for myself. Although, I'll end up finishing ALL of those things in one week and then I'll think I'm superwoman!

I also have a lot of yarn waiting patiently to be knitted, and with my spinning, the yarn pile grows bigger and bigger every week.

My plan of attack for this week is (and I'm making a list here more for my own organizational benefit than actually thinking all of you REALLY CARE how I'm going to get things done):

1. Photograph all the stuff I bought a few weeks ago at Yarn Barn when I went with Jennifer, and put it all up on the blog. I bragged about going right before we went, but never followed up with the results!
2. Finish the Froot Loop Socks during Car Pool Waiting Time.
   
3. Start a new pair of socks to knit during Car Pool Waiting Time, possibly with the dark purple KnitPicks Gloss yarn I accidentally bought while ordering needles for Blugly. (I need to find good, complex pattern for this project.)
   
4. Start on the 2nd half of the Clementine Shawl during Weekend Movie Time.
5. Knit the Random Sock Of No Particular Pattern during times when I can't really concentrate on counting and just need something mindless to keep my hands busy.
   
6. Learn a new spinning technique - Spinning From The Fold.
   

I think I shall put off really going nuts on the Nuclear Pumpkin stuff for now, because if I get any of it plied and skeined, I'll want to start knitting it right away and I have so much yarn to get through. I'm just going to keep plugging away at the singles. I did predraft a lot more of it this weekend. I'm guessing that I'm going to have a lot of NP fiber left over after this sweater. Yay!

Photo Mosaic Thingie

Here's a fun photo-mosaic thing to do!
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

I cheated a bit - when I typed my name in, I scrolled through several pages trying to find a picture that did NOT include Mariah Carey's boobings. They are everywhere. It was quite traumatic, really.

Encouragement

And now I'd like you all to take a look at JENNIFER'S NEW BLOG! Here's the link:

...

What? You say there's no link there? Hmmm. Let me examine the problem. AHA! There is no link there because Jennifer does not HAVE a new blog. Which is a tragedy, really, because even if it's only for the enjoyment of a few select people, it's the modern way to show-and-tell pictures and stories of your yarn and your kids and/or pets to your out-of-town friends. I bet James and Melia would love to see a blog from Jennifer. How about Jennifer's sisters? I bet they'd like to see pictures of little Bailey Boo and hear about Jennifer's knitting-and-spinning adventures. How about Cathy, and that one slutface girl? I bet they'd like to read a Jennifer blog.

My detective work reveals that the main obstacle to Jennifer's blog-starting is that she can't think of a new name for it. I understand - I picked a crappy, "top card" name for my blog because I didn't think I'd stick with it, and then the ol' center-of-attention thing kicked in and I can hardly leave it alone. So that gives us not one, but TWO contests:

1. Come up with a really good blog name for Jennifer. (Her blog will likely feature knitting and spinning, updates on her kid and, I would guess, various rants on the topic of Common Sense - see, we've peaked Maxim's interest already.)

2. Think of a much better name than I already have for MY blog. (This is not as urgent as a name for Jennifer's blog, though. It's all about Jennifer today.)

You can submit your suggestions in the comments or email me at Cry954@gmail.com. The winner(s) may name a non-secksyoouhl prize (unless Dug is the winner) of his or her choice, as long as I can afford it.

Off topic here, but I was talking to Dug in the car this morning, and I caught myself referring to a common, everyday thing as A-MAY-ZING. Ack! I can't believe I did that! I said "a-MAAAY-zing," you know, how GIRLS say that all the time, when they are uncreative and cannot come up with original, non-trite ways to describe things? Ugh! It was awful! It was like hearing someone else talking out of MY mouth. I feel sick. My vocabulary has already been partially infiltrated by "awesome"; there is no room for any more of this sort of thing. ("Thut's like ossUUUUUUUM.") Okay, I'm going to go read the thesaurus now. Geezis.

Next Up

For the past few days I've been working on various odds and ends, with the intention of using up stashed yarn and fiber, and the realization that there's not much point in spinning all this yarn if I'm not going to KNIT anything with it. After much consideration, I have decided that my green-and-white Faux Cashmere will become a version of the Clementine Shawlette from IK Spring 2007. Shawls and wraps and similar girly items are not usually My Thing, but I want the super soft fake cashmere to turn into something I can snuggle with. Then Dug pointed out that I could put this particular wrap around my shoulders when I'm sitting at my computer, which is right in the path of our window unit air conditioner - which means I can now attach the word "practical" to this project and forge ahead guiltlessly!

I've started it, but have no photos yet. I do have this picture of the one lily growing in my yard, and since it is traditional for knit-bloggers to dazzle everyone with pictures of gardening when they have no knitting to show off, that is what I will do:

It isn't all that dazzling if you know that this is the one and ONLY flower that has ever grown in my yard, ever, and that it is quite hidden in a large expanse of overgrown weeds. But since you don't know that, you can go ahead and be impressed with my gardening prowess. (Hey, I mowed the lawn once, when I was around 13 years old - that's gardening, right?)

Best Compliment Ever

"You would still be awesome if you were only make-believe."

FINISHED!

Blugly is finished! All I need is one 1" button. Here it is blocking. (Color is not really accurate in these photos - it's less green and more Makes-Your-Eyeballs-Bleed-Turquoise.) This was the first time I've ever properly blocked anything, and it was not the ordeal I was expecting - I just soaked it in the washing machine and ran it through the spin cycle, then pinned it to the board so that it would hold its shape as it dried. Easy!
Here I am wearing it over my jammies. In the background you can see my spinning wheel and my Mickie Dog lying on his blankie.
On the 357th try, I finally got the button band looking halfway decent.
And it actually fits me! JOY!

Check it, yo:

Carey's Yarn on Paradise Fibers! How cool is that?

In other fiber related news, Jennifer and I get out of work early today, and we are thinking of heading off to The Yarn Barn in Lawrence, KS. (Founded by the same Lawrence who founded YOUR home town, Zoetrope - I think this guy just meandered across the continent starting up Lawrences.) I have promised Dug that I won't buy anything until I am done spinning Nuclear Pumpkin, The Random Red Stuff, and the Gigantic Bag Of Wool I Haven't Even Dyed Yet. However, it would not be cost effective to make a trip out there, not buy anything, and then have to make a SECOND trip out there, what with the price of gas these days. So, if I purchase anything today, it will simply be out of consideration of our budget. (We have a budget?) Also, I intend to hold Jennifer to our plans buy promising to do the driving and pointing out that I owe her a PRESENT. I know she can't turn down a present from Yarn Barn! I wonder what she will choose!

I shoulda brought my camera with me today.

Elephant Jokes

Today I have a real treat for you - pictures of actual fiber! I haven't been showing off a lot of new projects for the past couple of weeks, because I've been working so diligently on this:
This is "Faux Cashmere" from ParadiseFibers.net. I dyed it myself with Country Classics dye, also from ParadiseFibers.net. It is very soft, very easy to spin, and little strands of it adhere to the inside of your nostrils like you wouldn't believe.
It is very beautiful and silky smooth. I have no freaking clue what I'm going to knit with it. Any suggestions? I'll have 3 skeins of 300 yards each. That's a lot but not enough, I suspect, for a short sleeved tee, which was my original hope. I even had the perfect pattern queued for it on Ravelry. Here's a conversation I have been having with my mom (whom you'll recognize in the comments as MickieMcDog) about it:
Mom: I think you really should knit a T-SHIRT with it.
Me: I had a pattern picked out that would have been perfect, but I don't think I'll end up with enough yarn for that.
Mom: I think you'd be happy with a T-SHIRT out of it.
Me: I don't think I'll end up with enough yarn for that.
Mom: You need to make a T-SHIRT with it. Wouldn't that be WONDERFUL?
Me: Yes, but I don't have enough yarn for that.
Mom: Ohhhhh, I think a TEEEEEEEE SHIRT.
Me: See, I have a lot of yarn, but it is only 900 yards, and fingering weight, so it would take me 3,000 years to knit it and then I'd run out of yarn.
Mom: [and so on]......

Dug told me I need to show the process of predrafting Nuclear Pumpkin, and I suppose he is right.
I have been taking strips of the roving, dividing them up lengthwise, trying desperately to spell "lengthwise" correctly as I type, spreading the fibers out and gently pulling on them to make the spinning process much faster and easier on my hands. When I dye fiber myself it does tend to felt together just a wee bit, so putting all this prep time in at the beginning really helps. It's all worth it, because look at the pretty colors! It is not simply my Madd Camera Skilz making the oranges and blues glow like that; "Nuclear Pumpkin" really is a fantastic name for it. I absolutely cannot wait to start spinning it! Sadly, patience is needed here. I have bobbins of Various Crap to complete so that I can free them up for this project (which will make the "epic" Blugly sweater seem like instant gratification), and tonight I am going to ply the last of the Faux Cashmere. (Oh, and work on knitting Blugly. Yeah, whatever.)

[missing segue alert] When I was about four years old, my mom gave me a book of Elephant Jokes. It was, and still is, my favorite book. I have carried the wisdom that I gleaned from its pages, at the tender age of four, with me throughout my life. So, I would like to end our post today with a gift of profound insight for you all:

One of these things is gray and weighs two tons. The other one is an elephant.