Back from vacation

So I'm still swatching, so no pic of that yet.  I didn't take the swatch with me to NC as I didn't feel like fussing with stupid tubes of beads.  Hopefully tomorrow.
Ashville was nice, Mount Mitchell was amazing.  Highest point on the east coast at 6,684 ft.  Lovely.  Look, no fooling. Don't know if I've mentioned this, but I have this ambition to put together a collection of patterns themed around East Coast hiking.  The how to get it published was what kept me from doing it.  I guess I now have no excuse.  Hiking this weekend gave me ideas for 'Mount Mitchell' a men's aran in dark green heathered yarn and 'Trail to Craig' (this pictures were taken from Mitchell, Craig and the trail between them) which would be a bohus style cardigan done in forget me not colors - bright and pale greens, light tan, soft blue and yellow.   There are many other ideas and hikes - sadly, I didn't have a good camera back when we hiked those.  Better get my butt in gear, age doesn't make hiking any easier.

I'm not dead

Just stalled.  I need to take a snap of the finished hat (with tassels!) before mailing it and finally figure out a lace and beads pattern that looks like water for my Ravelry shawl.  I can see it in my mind, but so far my test swatches aren't much too look at.
And I've been going to 1.5 hours of soccer clinics every night after work.  Kids, what a time sink!
:)

Finishing a tiny hat and saving some frogs

The frogs are a lot smaller than the hat.  Dad was mowing and the yard was teeming with frogs, so we needed to save them.  They're very small and fast, but cute.  And no, even if you spend you allowance on a tank, you can't keep them in your bedroom.

Peacock is done, LION

I was going to take a picture of the peacock now that it's done, but it's all rumpled, not blocked and actually quite boring.  I'll hold off for action photos while I dye it.
But here's the final version of the lion hat (took 4 tries)

Some news

Okay, I'm on my third take of the Lion hat, I've almost got it.  Comfy fingering is lovely, I really like the colors, but charts take a couple goes through to get right - on paper you think it will look like something and when you first knit it goes all Rorschach on you.
Speaking of Knitpicks, the coordinator for the Independent Designer Partnership program at Knit Picks asked me if I'd be interested in designing something for them.  I was absurdly thrilled, but not sure what I should do.  Thinking on it (turn the bunnies into a baby sweater in Comfy fingering, a new beaded shawl, ?), if you have a suggestion let me know!
White Peacock is maybe 3 rows from being done, I doubt I'll get to dye it before June or July because I need a really hot day, but my dying last week gave me confidence I can get the colors I want.
AND my spouse got home last week.  Yay!  And last night we finally ventured into the magical land of RiffTrax.  I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
Happy weekend, more pics soon!

October is now available

Pattern now available, $5.00 on Ravelry.  I sized it woman's medium to 3XL - and if you knew me and math, you would know that having done so makes me want to charge $50 a copy for the freakin' thing.  Ouch.  Head.
I slap a link up here in a few days.

Sort of like a litter of kittens

You can tell they're related, but they're all different.

And now for something completely different

I'm going to do some testing for the peacock, see how the greens play together.
Wish me luck.

In mourning

I just finished Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island and I'm sad.

Yes, you can see the ending coming a ways off, yes it's easy as a reader to become enamored of fictional plots that are neat and organized and aesthetic in a way real people never are, but I kind of fell in love with Teddy.  This may say more about my never ending love affair with lost causes than about the book itself, but it was great.

And sad. And why so sad?  If you haven't read the book or seen the movie but want to, I don't want to ruin it for you but . . .

It's sad because the story is so full of loss, and the trope that losing something you love tears away a part of you - part of your soul that you form in these relationships and that you'll always miss and can never recover.  Because love and relationships are far more than the sum of their parts (good and bad parts).  Cawley and Chuck mourn Teddy, Teddy mourns Dolores and yet at the end wishing to save someone you love, even being willing to take the bullet for them if could (in whatever form the bullet takes), isn't enough if you aren't honest, if you won't really do what it takes and sometimes that means admitting you can't fix it without help.  Teddy is trapped and alone, but the novel makes it clear he didn't have to be and he has moments where even he sees the choices he didn't make.  And the novel also does a great job of painting these relationships that are clear and loving and special and that lapse into pathology with fearful ease.

Okay, done now, the next one will be about knitting, promise.

18,200

Something that came up over the weekend - the 10,000 rule.  I hadn't heard of it.
I just figured out I've about doubled that in knitting.  My estimate is 10 hr./week, 52 wk/year, for 35 years.  That's averaging years I traveled a lot and other garbage (dating, you know, junk like that).

Life is dull

You know how you think some quiet time would be nice, so you could get some things done?  And does it ever work out that way for you?  Because it doesn't for me.  I think "oh, that would be nice" but it's not; it's lonely and sucky.
My husband is in Fort Worth at a conference.  I hate it.  Any time he goes away, which is rare, I get very lonely and sad and do nothing but clean the house and wait for him to come home like a lab waiting by the front door.  Knitting, spinning, designing anything like that all loses it's interest for me.  We have Skype this time around so that actually makes things better (I know what a hotel room in FW looks like and can even kind of see the stock yards out his window), but life is very empty and dull.
I just added an early season of MI5 to the streaming queue and I'm nearly done with the peacock blank, so I'll work on that a bit and watch episodes I've never seen.

Pattern request

I got a call from my mom who has been asked to come up with a baby hat that riffs off the Lion's mascot - the parents to be are big fans.  This might work better as a little sweater or a set????  So she asked for my help.
My first excuse to play with Comfy Fingering!  yay . . . .

Thinking about what peacocks really look like

So I'm thinking about dying this shawl as I knit it, and this is making me think hard about how I'm going to accomplish what I want.  Peacock feathers in reality look very little like the picture in my head, though I think most people would get my stylized mind version (I"m borrowing others images, so to give credit where it is due, these come from http://www.tonyhill.net/, http://community.livejournal.com/chicks_with_ink/59453.html; http://www.foxriverbnb.com/tribal.htm).  I think the hardest part will be the iridescent green/gold/purple.  But I think I can get what I'm after by applying those colors to vinegar soaked yarn and letting them work together.  Or, I could end up with something the color of baby poo.  What an adventure.

Fun weekend

Lost more skin from using the Ripstik (elbow and hand, I still have all my teeth and no concussion), remembered why eating S'mores on a windy day is a bad idea with long hair, and tore through the first 30% of a version of the Peacock capelet without beads - I'm going to paint it out in the sun under a black trash bag when it's done:

I can't wait!