NaNoBlogMo 30 - In Summary

Welp, I did it. This entry marks 30 entry for the 30 days in November (not counting the short entry about the name of my project). After this post, my self-imposed NaNoBlogMo challenge is complete.

I couldn't decide what I wanted my last entry to be about. I thought about doing some leftover bits that I had to talk about that didn't seem worth a full entry. I thought about talking about projects that I am currently working on. I thought about talking about upcoming stuff. So, in summary, I think I am going to do a little bit of all of that. Coherence be damned.

Here is a picture showing all my current knitting projects. Or at least all the ones that I could think of/find. Going clockwise starting from the top left we have the back of the body for my first attempt at knitted chainmail, a lengthwise knit scarf in a pattern called Henry made with a lovely baby camel blend yarn, my Pippin scarf (which I am thinking might be a bit too bright, but I'm ignoring that voice and keeping on with the knititng), and a simple garter stitch scarf with Homespun on my lightup needles that I started while watching a movie with friends and continued knitting since the lightup needles were helpful during the power outage.

For Thanksgiving, I made an apple pie. I wanted to try something a little bit different. I did my usual crust, tossed the apples in my usual dry mix (sugar/cornstarch/spices), but then before I did my lattice top I poured a bit of caramel sauce over the filling. Not sure how much of a difference it made, but the results were tasty.

On the improv front, Sea Tea is doing great. My teammates won the most recent improv cagematch, we have another monthly show at City Steam Brewery on December 11th (hosted by the fabulous Kate), we got our cast picture framed and hung on the wall of the comedy club (which we've been looking forward to forever), we just started some more long form classes with a pretty talented comedian/writer/actress as our teacher, and I will be making my City Steam hosting debut in January. Keep you eyes on THIS page for news about upcoming shows!

My friend Emily sent me these lovely pictures a few days ago. This scarf is one of the first 5 I ever made. I remember picking out yarn in the tiny yarn shop near my college before I even knew how to knit, planning out my first projects. I thought this warm orange color would be perfect for Emily and her sunny smile. Its been so long since I knit this that I can't really remember much, other than that this was made back when I used to wear each scarf I knitted out once when it was done, because I was so excited it was done.

So there are my leftover bits and bobs. I suppose I should be all reflective on this last month or something. Honestly, a huge part of me is going to be glad its done. I don't have too much free time to begin with, so giving myself a daily assignment was a bit much. I think my fledgling gym habit might have suffered a bit this month. And posting has given me another excuse to hide from my very sad (and full) inbox.

On the whole, though, I'm glad I did it. I set a goal for myself and I met it. It has been a great opportunity for me to collect pictures and stories from projects as recent as this weekend and as old as seven years ago. As for the reason I even started this project, to revamp my blogging mojo, whether or not it has worked remains to be seen. I did mention to a friend that I was slightly worried I would be so sick of blogging after this that it would have the opposite effect, but I don't think that will happen. I am again finding myself phrasing in my head the blog post to go with a project while I am still physically working on it. That's probably a good sign. It will probably be most effective if I give myself a new assignment, such as making sure to post at least once a week. I think that might be a schedule I can keep, as long as I keep busy enough with projects to write about. What do you think?

Thank you to everyone that helped, everyone that sent me pictures of old projects, everyone that suggested topics, everyone that has been commenting and reading. I really appreciate it. It helps a lot to know that I'm not just sending these posts out into nothing but that people are reading them. Thanks for coming along for the ride. I hope you'll stick around.

-S

NaNoBlogMo 23 - Using "Leftovers"

I am a pack-rat. I have a hard time getting rid of anything. I am terrified that the moment I let something go I might end up needing it. This does end up being helpful sometimes. For example, I happened to have a spare single shoelace (the other broke and when I got new ones I couldn't rationalize throwing away an unbroken shoelace) which I was able to use to tie the battery pack for the musical skulls to my belt for my Mystique costume.

Yarn is one of those things that I just can't bring myself to get rid of. If when I am done with a project, the leftover yarn can make a ball bigger than a pingpong ball, I can't just throw it away. Often these bits and bobs can sit for a long time, but they can come in handy. I made a rather insane scarf for my friend Claire using many different leftover bits of yarn. If the main project is big enough, the leftover yarn can end up becoming its own project. Or in the case of my Lizard Ridge Blanket, two. Now, when I say the leftover yarn was enough to make two more projects, I don't mean the extra skeins of yarn (that ended up going to make the Paintbox blanket I made for my parents anniversary). I mean the pieces that were leftover from the 33 skeins I used to make 33 squares in China. Most left me with a pingpong or so ball of leftover yarn in a wide range of colors.

My first idea with how I could use the leftover bits of yarn was to make a scarf. It was just about Christmas time and I figured I could make a "leftovers" scarf for my mother and send it to her as a gift. It would also give me an excuse to knit something other than squares for my blanket. I unraveled all my bits and tried to connect them in a way that made some sort of coherent color scheme. You can see the scarf's color changes clearest above, but since my mother showed up to have her picture taken wearing the scarf like you see here on the right, I had to share that one too.

I was a bit worried that my mother wouldn't like the scarf as I hadn't seen her wear anything like it before, but she assured me that she does like it. Its a bit psychedelic with its odd color changes, but that is apparently my knitting style if my Ridiculous Scarf is any indication. I also like that this scarf is like a bastard cousin to my Lizard Ridge blanket. I ended up using up all of my leftover bits I had at the moment to make the scarf.

However, I knitted more squares and ended up with more yarn leftovers. That's when I came up with another idea. The yarn is 100% wool and I hadn't really done much felting before, so I thought I would try to make a felted guitar strap. In a more obvious homage to my blanket, I cobbled together a version of the Lizard Ridge wavey pattern and once again knitted all the leftovers that I had. I tossed what I made into a pillow case and ran it through the washer and dryer a few times, then did a bit more hand felting to get it all a bit more even. It became pretty apparent that what I had made was going to be a guitar strap cover and not a guitar strap in and of itself. I think it's pretty.

The only real problem is that I never actually use my guitar strap or fancy handmade guitar strap cover. Whenever I play I am usually just sitting cross legged on my bed with an audience of only myself. But its still nice to know that if I ever do decide to go and play guitar in a situation where I need a strap, I have a very unique one that screams knitting-dork.

I think I have gotten better recently at buying only the amount of yarn I need for a project, which both fortunately and unfortunately means I am left with less leftovers.

NaNoBlogMo 22 - Knitting My Lizard Ridge Blanket

There is one project that I knit for myself that has more meaning than any other. Perhaps I am cheating for writing about it in this blog when I already wrote about it in my blog from when I was in Shanghai, but not everyone knows the story, its not really all in one place and I am running low on material for my NaNoBlogMo challenge.

A while back, I fell in love with THIS pattern from Knitty.com. I thought it was beautiful and I wanted to make it. The only problem was that the yarn the pattern calls for, Noro Kureyon, is a bit pricey. While paying $7-9 per skein isn't too bad if you are making a scarf or other small project, when you need to buy 20+ to make a blanket, the cost really adds up. So I put the blanket on my knitting bucket list and didn't think about it for a while.

Then came the genius idea. I can't remember if I came up with this idea by myself or in conversation with my friend Bonnie, but the idea came and I loved it. I was a senior in college, just about to graduate and planning to live in China for a year (which ended up being 2 years). What if I asked all my friends and family, if they wanted to get me a graduation/going away present, to buy me a skein of Noro. They could pick whatever color scheme they wanted, I would keep track of who gave me each skein and knit the blanket over the course of the year. I would knit the squares in China and think of the people at home that cared about me and when I got home I would have a blanket to remind me of my time in China.

People were far more generous than I was expecting, although the continued generosity of the people in my life never ceases to surprise me. I figured I might get 12 or so skeins, which would give me a good sized lap blanket and if I wanted to make it bigger I could fund the rest myself. I ended up receiving over 70 skeins of yarn. Family. Friends from high school and college. Former coworkers. Family friends. All together I had yarn from a wide variety of the people in my life.

Some colors that people got I am sure were random or just picked out because they liked them. I got a lot of a particular blue colorway (as you can see from the pictures) that could be because blue is one of my favorite colors. One woman said she picked the colorway she did because it looked like a sweater of hers that I loved and complimented often. A family friend picked a colorway that reminded her of army fatigues because her son (and my former classmate and 7th grade sorta-boyfriend) is in the army.

I packed one skein of yarn for each person/family (as some people gave me multiple skeins). I was panicking about needing to pack everything I thought I might need for a year of my life (take for example that I knew I would never find bras or dress shoes that would fit me in Shanghai), but I knew I needed to pack my yarn. I ended up using those vacuum bags to pack all the yarn. They ended up being one of the first things I unpacked when I arrived. From my first days in my Shanghai apartment, I had one drawer in my living room dedicated to craft supplies.

I was already knitting blanket squares on the airplane ride there. I remember knitting in the airport lobby in Shanghai after I arrived while I was waiting before taking a taxi to the school. When I was asked to be the teacher adviser for the school knitting club, I was happy to agree. I often brought whatever square I was working on to the club meetings and knit and chatted with the students. One square, though I can't remember which one, has one row knit by one of my former students.

I knit a lot of the squares in the beginning of my first year when I was frightened and nervous about being in a foreign country. Knitting actually helped me to reach out and I ended up meeting up with two women who lived in JinQiao (the area I was living) to have coffee and knit a few times. The more I started getting out and doing things, the less time I spent squirreled away in my apartment and knitting (but of course I still found time for it).

I knitted all the yarn I brought with me while I was in China for the first year and brought it back to me when I came home to visit during the summer of 2009. I realized I could knit about 3 more squares and have a 6x6 blanket, but when I laid the blanket squares out it seemed just a tad too small. So I decided to bite the bullet and knit 9 more so I could have a 6x7 blanket. The fact that it totaled up to 42 squares, the answer to life, the universe and everything, only finalized it for me. I knit 9 more squares, this time not keeping track of who each skein was from, since everyone already had their representative square.

If I remember correctly, this was the first project where I did blocking. Because the squares were slightly bubbled and all various sizes (despite being knit of the same yarn on the same needles by the same knitter), it was pretty much essential. It was unbelievably worth it, too. I spent a lot of time going back and forth about layout. I tried to keep like colors separate and have some good variation between lights and darks. Once it was decided I started to sew the squares together.

Once all the squares were sewn together, I used my carefully documented pictures to identify who had given me the yarn to make each square and labeled them, partially for my own sake and partially so I could show everyone where their gift ended up on my blanket. The 9 blank squares are the ones I knitted to get myself up to 42 squares. They are still yarn that was given to me by someone whose name you see on the blanket, I just didn't make a note of who.
I was so excited once all the squares were together and the blanket was actually blanket-shaped that I curled right up in it for the next few days. Even though it was August and a bajillion degrees out. Knitty was having a contest at the time to have people to take pictures of projects made using their patterns for a calendar, which explains this clearly staged picture below. I never ended up submitting the pictures, but I still like them.
The blanket is still unfinished, technically, even though it has been on my bed and I have been using it ever since. I still plan on adding the crochet border that the pattern calls for, or a border of some kind....eventually. Maybe. The longer the blanket sits there, still being wonderfully blanket-like, the more it convinces me that it doesn't need a border.

I loved this idea and how well it turned out. I love that my friends and family were a part of a project I did. I think I would like to do something like it again someday. Maybe something for if/when I get married. Have the guests give a skein of yarn and then knit a blanket with them during my first year of marriage.

Thank you again to everyone that gave me yarn that ended up in this blanket. Everyone was so kind and giving and took my idea to heart. I love my blanket and I really do use it every night. And I love telling the story about the blanket to anyone who asks (and sometimes to people who don't).

<3

NaNoBlogMo 20 - Knitting While ... Anything

While I was looking through Facebook (which has apparently become the record of my life) for inspiration of what to do my next blog post about (cuz I am 20 days into this project and I'm starting to feel like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel already), I noticed something. There are a bunch of pictures of me knitting. Not like, taken specifically to show me knitting for a blog post or taken at crafting events or even pictures of me knitting in the comfort of my own home/dorm/apartment. Pictures where I am out in public and knitting. Take for example this picture of me knitting a scarf that I donated to charity while at Improv rehearsal back in college. This made me think of one of the reasons I like knitting so much. Unless I am doing a hugely complicated pattern or something where I need to do a lot of counting, knitting is something I can do while I am doing something else. I like multi-tasking. Its helpful for someone who can't sit still. When I was younger I used to volunteer to cut coupons for my mother because it gave me something to do with my hands when I watched TV. I also used to build card houses while I watched TV, because I didn't just like sitting. Really, I was primed to be a knitter before I ever picked up my first pair of needles and skein of yarn.

Back in college, I knit in one of my classes. Just one, because it was the only one in my four years where it felt appropriate: Sociology of Management. I will be completely honest and say that I used to doodle a LOT in my notebooks throughout my entire education. It wasn't because I wasn't paying attention, it was because I needed to be doing something with my hands but didn't feel the need to take notes. So for this class I came up and asked the professor if I could knit. I promised that it would actually help me pay attention (which it did), I promised that I would still be part of the discussion (which I was) and that it wouldn't affect my grades (which it didn't). The professor was very cool about it and we agreed that I could as long as it didn't distract the other students. For the rest of the semester I brought in my most mindless knitting and it kept my hands busy while I took part in the class.

I love that I can knit while I travel, or knit while I hang out with folks, or listen to music or watch TV. The only thing I can't seem to stretch my mind enough to do is knit and read at the same time. Which also means that I can't watch movies with subtitles or my brain a'splodes. At the same time, I worry that sometimes people were/are insulted when I knit in front of them. Like how I get annoyed when people are constantly on their cell phones when I am trying to talk to them. I promise I am paying attention to you. If its bothering you, just let me know and I will put the needles away.

NaNoBlogMo 17 - Jackyll & Hide

I have this rule when it comes to making things for people. I don't mind making something odd, ridiculous or otherwise out-there, as long as you promise to actually wear it. I don't want to take the time to make something, especially a specially requested item, and then have it just sit collecting dust somewhere. One of the weirdest things I remember making was a scarf made entirely out of large pom-poms, but as long as it's getting use, I'm happy.

That being said, I have come across a few things in my looking at knitted goods or traversing around knitting blogs/websites that have peaked my interest, but seemed impractical to actually make. As amusing and fun as I'm sure it would be to knit a wig, or a pair of musk ox slippers or a...uh...womb...who do I know that would actually use/wear these things often enough to be worth it? The "Jackyll & Hide" pattern was one of those things that I saw and wanted to make, but didn't think I ever would.

Meet my friend Sarah (on the right). She was my coworker and one of my absolute favorite people to hang out with while I was living in Shanghai. We went out drinking at our favorite skanky dive bar (Windows). We took turns cooking for each other. We watched movies and drank tea/hot chocolate late into the night. One of the things I missed most when I moved back to the USA was no longer having Sarah living right down the hall from me. Luckily, she was able to visit for two weeks earlier this year and we continue to stay in touch. I've been told that I'm invited to her wedding, which on top of being awesome in and of itself, would be a great excuse to actually go to England for the first time ever.

I forget how it actually came up, but somehow we were looking at the knitting website Knitty together and the Jackyll and Hide pattern came up. I mentioned how I thought it was a fantastic idea, but I would never wear it and didn't know if anyone would if I made it. She enthusiastically responded that if I made it...she would wear it.

Together we picked out some yarn. Since it was going to end up being right on her face, I wanted to make sure she liked whatever yarn I ended up using. This is one of very few times when I used a pattern and as an even rarer occurrence I actually followed the pattern. Learning from past mistakes I did a gauge swatch and took some measuresments before I even cast on the first stitch. Usually with a hat you only need one measurement...head circumference. You can take a second measurement for length if you want. For this project there were a lot of things I needed; circumference being the most straightforward.

I measured the distance between the crown of her head and her eyes. The distance from her eyes to her chin. The length of her neck. The size of her eyes. The distance between her eyes. This was definitely another example of how sometimes its best to have the recipient of your gift in the know so they can try it on as you go.

Sewing on the spooky mouth was my favorite part of the whole project. What do you think of the finished project? Its been a while since I made this, but I remember it being surprisingly heavy and warm. You'd probably have to wait for a bonechillingly cold day to actually need or want to wear it. I also seem to remember it being a little tight when she wore it as a skimask. I hope it has either stretched out in time, or that I was just being nitpicky or that I am remembering incorrectly. Either way, Sarah rocks the hat in both looks. Thank you so much for taking these pictures and sending them to me!

I really like making things for people. One of the main reasons is that I hope that whenever someone uses/wears/sees something I made for them it makes them think of me and know that I care about them. It becomes even more important when its a friend I don't get to see as often as I would like, such as Sarah. Miss you, Shanghai Sister.

NaNoBlogMo 15 - C2/Rainbow/Pride Scarf

I pretty much only make things once. Whether I am knitting, cooking or making jewelry, I would prefer to try to learn or create something new than remake something I've already done. That being said, there is one project of mine that I have remade so many times I've really lost count.

Let me backup. My junior year of college I spent a lot of time with my friend Carolyn (or Crazy Carolyn or C2). We would go on wild adventures together to get sushi or to secondhand stores, and we could always tell if it was a successful trip if we got a good parking space back on campus. One day, Carolyn was describing to me how she wished she could find a scarf that was essentially a rainbow: six lengthwise stripes going from red to purple. I was thinking how hard it would be to constantly switch colors every couple of stitches in each row when it hit me that you could just knit the entire scarf lengthwise. Suddenly a whole new universe of knitting opened up for me in my mind. I saw through time. I tasted colors. It was pretty epic.

When I told Carolyn I could make that scarf for her, we immediately went off on another adventure, this time for yarn. She picked out Caron Simply Soft Brites in the colors she wanted. We made a deal that I would make the scarf for free if she paid for they yarn and let me keep the leftovers.

I cast on what felt like a million stitches onto some circular needles and started knitting. I think it might have been this project that helped me to realize that I really preferred knitting with circular needles over straights. When I switched colors, I left the tail ends of the yarn long and just hid them in with the two tassels per stripe I added when the scarf was done.

My biggest thing I had to learn or overcome with this project was the bindoff. I had only ever had short bindoff rows before at the end of scarves so it didn't really matter if it was a little tight (as they always ended up being). However, a tight bindoff for a lengthwise knit scarf would mean an uneven and likely uncomfortable scarf. I read a bit about different bind offs, such as a suspended bindoff, or using a yarn needle. However, I ended up just knitting the last row before the bindoff extra loose and then doing a normal bindoff (also extra loose). It worked, so I ended up doing that for every scarf.
I ended up making a bunch more. Above, you can see me selling them (as well as some knitted cell phone covers and chainmail jewelry) at my college's craft fair. I have no idea whose hand is sneaking in to feel the scarf, but I don't blame them. The Caron yarn isn't the best quality, but it is very soft. Also, I promise I was having a nice day at the craft fair despite how I look in this picture. I was just tired because I had just gotten off a train to get back to college after spending the weekend at home. Travel always makes me sleepy.

I sold a few at the two craft fairs I went to in college. I sold a few directly to people that wanted them just out of my dorm room. One of these scarves was the first thing I ever sold during my short lived stint as an Etsy seller. I made one and donated it to my college's GLBTQ alliance to be given as a prize at an event. And I still have at least two in my stash ready to sell (if you are interested, let me know!). If I had to guess, I would say that I probably have made about 12, but I haven't kept track. The only picture I have at the moment of someone actually wearing one of the scarves I made is from my friend Michelle, who was kind enough to take and send me this adorable picture when she heard about my crazy NaNoBlogMo project.

I am really grateful to Carolyn for helping me design the scarf and pick out the colors. I haven't deviated from the original design/colors/yarn (other than the length of the scarf, as people have different preferences) since the very first one I made for her. In my mind, this will always be the C2 scarf.