minnamade minutes

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Calmer, Indeed

I've lurked knitblogs for a while. There's a lot of zeitgeist knitting going on out there. I'm not a non-conformist, but it took me a while to come around on a lot of "trends" (see also: Charlotte's Web Shawl). This was partly because I was trying to get my skills to catch up with y'all, and partly because I'm a cheap bastard and my last few yarn substitution experiments were duds (see also: The Knit Stitch Accidental Einstein "Vest" and "The Kepler that Almost Kould").

Well today, about a year and a half late, I'd like to let you know I'm One Step Closer to Audreyphilia.

I started on DarkityMa's second chemo cap last night. It's the Shedir pattern from the special Breast Cancer Awareness issue of Knitty that Elle (no blog, but she's on blogger, hi!) pointed out to me a while ago. I'm knitting it in a soft pink shade of Rowan's Calmer and OMIGODYES. It is the most lovely yarn evah.

I'm having minor splitting issues, but that's probably because I'm trying to cable without a cable needle and I went down to size 2 Addi Turbos... so I'm poking my stitches this way and that way with little metal spears.

Seriously? When I win the lottery (which follows "when I actually buy a lottery ticket") I'll be splurging on enough Calmer to finally make Audrey so that I can patpatpat my tummy on not-so-good days.

Next up: learning how to TXT MSG people on my cellphone. (Why is everybody hatin' on the vowels?)

Thursday, November 17, 2005

I'm present...

... but not really here.

Y'all have read about my mother and her ongoing struggle with breast cancer. Add on top of that worry the recent MIL house fire. What I didn't mention in my last post is that she (MIL) is an obsessive compulsive hoarder. We felt it necessary to make an emergency trip Back East to help her through all the changes happening in her life.

Long story short: a lot of work got done, a lot more is left to do, but the MIL seems to be handling it all pretty well.

I'm in the interminable part of the PiAreSquare Shawl for my own mother. Currently I'm averaging about 30-45 minutes per row. I'm not freakishly fast with the knitting, but I can usually garter stitch at a pretty good clip, so that's... a ginormous number of stitches on my needles at the moment.

At this current rate, I'm guesstimating I'll be done with the shawl just in time for my parents' visit here in mid-January. Right now I've got about 40-ish garter bumps (or 80 rows) until the shawl body is done, then picking up stitches (how the heck am I gonna do this?) for the edges, and the 16 rows (times a kazillion zillion stitches) of lace to finish it up.

I have a few other side projects in the works, but I really, really want to get through the shawl o doom first.

Having said all that... no update pics to post as it'll just be more o' the same purple/fuscia/greenish blobby what-the-heck-is-that-thing. I'm trying to stay positive about the project. My usual MO is to ultimately curse the snot out of whatever it is on which I am working at the moment, but this is a special project for a special lady, and I don't want her to pick up on the HATE with which I usually imbue my work.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

One row forward, two rows back.

D'Oh!

Picture, if you will, the triumphant smirk I smirked whilst knitting the last row on the main part of my DarkityMa Shawl. It was Billy Idoleque in smirkitude. Downright athletic.

I had my lace pattern all set for contemplation in it's little plastic sleeve.

I was warm and content in my smirking.

Sure, the shawl seemed a little short. I figured the lace edging and aggressive blocking would set it to rights.

Then, just for sh*ts and gr*ns, I read back over my instructions.

Hold up.

A fourth increase row?! Followed by up to forty eight garter bumps (smug brain churns painfully to do the math... That means eighty ninety six rows (see, still can't do the maths)!)?!?!?! And a ka-zillion-zillion stitches?!?!

!!!

Yeah, that smirk dropped right off.

Ah well. This will give me plenty to StupidKnit on the plane back to NC, during any freetime I can snag during the excavation process, and whenever I need to cool down before having a temper 'splosion.*

DarkityMa finally got her purple 'shroom chemo cap ('cause I finally sent it). She looks friggin' adorable in it. Still too thin, though. Hopefully a warmer noggin will give her the strength to eat back up to her pre-chemo weight.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I have to go and reset my progress meter. Dag nabbit.

*-for those not following along in my LiveJournal: the MIL had a small fire in her house. She's OK, but we have been enlisted to help clear out her valuables in preparation of the (re)construction crew. Long story short: she's in a place mentally that will only allow certain people to go through her many, many, many things. We are her only help.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Sweater Weather


... back at the ranch


When last we left our heroine, she had bravely ripped back four whole stripes to reknit a slightly tighter right hand on the last armwarmer.

Said armwarmer is finally done, and both are currently drying so that they can be sent to MommaSquared.

Also:

So is the brown chocolate flavored?


I knit this candy corn cat toy for a BPAL Halloween package exchange. It took me so long to get my stuff together that I ended up sending a Dia de los Muertos package.

And finally:

Imagine this times, like, a thousand.


The DarkityMa PiAreSquare Shawl. I'm almost done with the main part (I think I'm about eight rows away) but I'm also to the point where I have 400+ stitches on my needles right now.

I'm planning on doing the fancy lace edge from E.Zimmermann's book as well, so that'll probably take another couple weeks. Me+Lace Knitting=true StitchNBitch.