Yarnausea

It's been forever since I knitted like it was my hobby instead of yarn collecting (which, I think, is my actual hobby). I have amassed quite the collection of yarns and tools and toys to pursue this 'hobby' that I don't do. 

Sympathy for the Donners

How's everyone enjoying being cooped up inside with your family? Or alone?

I'm...well. I haven't bitten or killed anyone.

Yet.

Ah, yes. An oldie gif, but a goodie. And I still pronounce that hard-G GIF, not jiff. It's a moving picture, not peanut butter!

But I digress. Between washing my hands almost to stumps and trying not to day drink (I'm working from home...mostly), I can honestly say it's been an adventure. My father died last October (thankfully for him; he'd have gone absolutely spare if locked up like this for any length of time), so it's just me and my brother here taking care of Mom.

You'd think that three people could handle being confined to a 3,000 square foot property without something absolutely tragic happening, would you? Well, 1,000 feet of that is a damp, chilly basement with a cat who does NOT want us telecommuting from his home, and each of us needs way more than 600 square feet of buffer space to maintain civility. It's been maybe four weeks since I started working from home, two and a half of which has been at the "no, we're not going for take out" level of isolation, and we started snapping at each other this weekend.

I fear for people who live with a domestic abuser, I truly do. We like each other, and it's this hard.

Anyway, I found some old yarn and have decided to make blanket squares. It's probably full of asbestos dust from when I used to knit at church (or maybe not; back then the church was cleaned regularly). Although if the fibers are that fine, I'm not sure it matters. Well, I may have 30 years or so to find out.

In other news, I have been making progress on my reading stack. Not reading at my record pace, but...I'm reading. I'll take that as a win. I've also been working on the bread baking. I made an oatmeal bread that probably shouldn't count, because while it rose and baked, I underbaked it, so it collapsed under its own weight. On the whole, a fail.

Ah, well. I still have a ton of yeast and a bunch of flour. I shall bake a proper loaf of white bread! I shall!

Here, have a pretty picture to remind us all that we will come through this!

I can't wait to go back there....

Yarn Hangover, Bread, and What I Want Out of Life

Sorta sings, doesn't it?

Thank the LORD yarn crawl 2019 is done. I was busted by the time I got to the last two shops, but then I had my car battery go out -- when the hell did car batteries go from $50USD to nearly $200USD? And why? This one lasted half the time of the $50 jobbie in my last car -- and Rex has been to and fro the vet's, and all manner of money shit and shenanigans have gone down.

And today is St. Patrick's Day, and I made stew, and bread, and Mom made corned beef, and bread pudding. And I ate way, way too much of just about everything, and the stuffed feeling I have from the food is about the same feeling I have when I think of my stash.

I will be skipping the June fiber festival, methinks. Yarn producers in my home state will just have to make bank without me. 

Which takes us to bread. I have been trying to bake a yeast loaf for years. Apparently the fact I cannot raise a yeast loaf means I'm a witch. If only I weighed less than a duck, too! So today I made a soda bread, which just reminded me that I have, for years, had a goal to make and raise a yeast loaf. I have the bread flour and two different types of yeast (quick rising and regular) and honey, if I want a honey-sweetened loaf. Now I just have to, you know, do it.

I think I'll clear a day out of my schedule next weekend to devote to the art of bread making. People have been baking risen breads for centuries! My own father is a retired baker! He is shamed by my lack of success in bread making! I must regain family honor and actually raise a loaf of bread, and then bake it into submission. I shall not fail you, ancestors. I will make a loaf of yeast bread.

Which leads to the 'what I want out of life' bit. I miss the days before all-consuming social media in my life, you know? When I actually wrote and baked and cooked dinner and did stuff. I miss that. I didn't realize how much head space digital media took up until I started thinking about abandoning it. Maybe if I hadn't gotten into Facebook and Instagram, I would have actually managed to raise a loaf by now.

And it's pernicious. You start to think that your presence there is important somehow, that you are necessary to the people you follow or watch. But on the whole, it's not. They'll tick along without you.

Humility is a thing, you know. And it's an understanding of how insignificant you actually are in the grand scheme of things. It's amazing, really. Being so small means that you can vanish here, turn up again there, do anything you want because even if I run away tomorrow -- pack my little hobo bundle on a stick and take Rex away to Somewhere Else -- there will be people to pick up the slack. I'm not irreplaceable.

I need to let people take up the slack. I've gotten in the bossy bitch habit of pushing things through because I think I'm the only one who could possibly do things, and it's more stress than I need to put on myself.

So I'm 'running away'. I'm ditching a lot of social media, going back to knitting and baking and reading and writing and trying to cope with having a dog that's smarter than me.

And honestly, no one will mind. No one but me, and I don't mind any of it. I'm looking forward to the peace and quiet, and I think it will only do me good!

FML

Well, I still have a job. I'm conflicted about it -- it's stressing me right the hell out, and it's not meeting my needs anymore (and that's totally my fault), but. It pays well, and the bennies are fabulous. I guess I need to figure out how to meet my work needs elsewhere? I mean, lots of people work jobs that don't inspire them just for the money. And the work I need to do to feel purpose doesn't pay (and I work for a not for profit -- think about what i'm saying here and weep), so unless I hit the lottery, I need to learn to suck it up, do my job, and just deal.

It's also the height of yarn crawl season. But I have a job and it pays money, so...yay?

AND WE'RE ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH.

I'm going to be so poor, aren't I? But...yarn makes me happy. Yarn and Rex and Olaf and home and tea.

Which leads me around to the topic I need to write out. Life, living it, what I want out of living it, and where I want my focus to fall. I follow lots of dogs on Instagram, and lately two of them have become sick with cancer and are either still keepin' on keepin' on, or have been let go for their comfort and happiness, and it's ridiculous how much I'm grieving over dogs I've never met, never will meet, and how this grief is distracting me from the dog I have sleeping right next to me.

In order to preserve my mental health (stop laughing), I'm going to have to stop with the Instagram, like I stopped with Facebook. I can't handle it; the immediacy and false intimacy of seeing into people's lives that way.

I mean, I'm sorry for those dog's humans. But it just reminds me that I need to focus on Rex, and enjoy Rex today, because tomorrow is no guarantee.

Even though he just let out a fart like you would not believe, he is my sweet baboo. I want to enjoy him -- and my life, such as it is -- while I have him (and it), and I don't think modern social media is conducive to that. She writes in her blog, but let's be honest, I'm my only audience. No one reads blogs anymore. So it's more like a journal, a place to organize my thoughts, and therefore is a safe space in which to write them, air them out, feel the shape of them on my fingers and understand if they fit me or not.

Humans are visual beings, and I think it's that window into the other people's lives, the photographs, the videos...they give you an immediacy and a feeling like you know them. But you don't. You can't, not at the level of interaction Insta or FB give you, you have to reach out and communicate in other, deeper ways, but that illusion is still there. And I think it is that illusion that is what is distracting me from the joys in my own life.

Even if that joy just farted AGAIN. Ugh. What are we feeding him?!?!?

Unexpectedly good.

I freehanded some Alfredo sauce tonight. I'm shocked that it was actually quite tasty. Considering I did it to get rid of some of those chunks of snack parmesan cheese, I am quite pleased.

Granted, Alfredo is one of the simpler sauces to make. I just have to take what reassurance that I'm not a total loser.

No jump cut today, I don't have much to report. Other than I am probably getting fired within a month, but whatevs. I can tell my burnout is bad because while I'm sad about it...I'm not really. I do need to get my resume together, and I'm going to give them a presentation about precisely where my burnout came from (as if they'll care), but otherwise, I'm pretty cool with this.

Which makes me sad, because I really loved it there. I should have known better than to take that promotion.

Anyway, above you see some yarn! Lorna's Laces Sport Merino. V. v. pretty, isn't it? It was on clearance, and I just had to rescue it. I should have had them cake it up, actually, because the urge to just knit right in is very strong. It's so soft and warm and pretty, all things I really need right now.

I do have my Amish swift....

Holidays Got Me CrayZay

I hate the holidays. Have I said that before? I hate the holidays.

Although I took two weeks off work this year, and it was helpful. The Rex had his surgery (now he has his second bionic knee), everyone came to the house, ate all the food, I caught a cold and slept for four days straight, and then I bought some yarn.

Crazy, right?

I'm an Arrogant So-and-So, Wot

Here it is, the yarn I mentioned before! The one I got for freebies from a Rav friend when I had to drop out of a swap unexpectedly? Ain't she purty?

Well, it's pretty, that's for sure.

I took a commission from a friend a month ago, to make an infinity scarf. It is taking a blue forever, for reasons I've whined about before.

I love Rex, I really do.

Anyway, I bethought myself to finally take a picture of it. I screwed up the night-time knitting project (the one I keep in my bedroom to knit on before I go to bed) and will need the assistance of my knitting group to repair it. So this project, herewith called "Water Melons", has been promoted from knit night knitting to bed time knitting. I'll work on both of them, alternating, until one of them is finished. Or I'll go crazy and eat my own yarn, one or the other.

Here is a picture of Water Melons:

The stitch pattern is called "melons", and I found it in my favorite yarn porn book evar: Victorian Lace Today, by Jane Sowerby.

And I just about fainted when I looked up that link. The book is now under $10 cash American. I won't tell you what I paid when it was brand new, but I'll tell you what, just looking at the pictures is worth every penny.

Anyway, the yarn is Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Pearl in the color "Blue Lagoon" -- hence, Water Melons.

Hey, I've been getting more and more tired lately, all my wit and humor burned off well before I get home, and all that's left over is the burnt out husk of a woman who used to be absolutely clever on this blog. Cut me some slack on the stupid puns, ok?

I probably need more protein. And maybe some exercise. And to be not dehydrated (why oh why can I not keep myself in the habit of drinking water? Yes, I know it's bland -- I mean, duh, it's water -- but you'd think I would remember how tired and headachey and miserable I get when I don't drink it and just...do my duty to myself, you know?)

Anyway, Rex is looking a bit sheepish. He knows I've outed him for his luxury yarn fetish.

You'd think it would be a point of common ground between us, wouldn't you? If only he'd leave my stash alone, it probably would.

Dear Pioneer Woman,

I've thought long and hard about this, and your French toast casserole just isn't going to work out.

I mean, it turned out nice and moist and fluffy:

 And the inside was just as lovely.

But...as much as I loved the crunch on top, this casserole really needed the maple syrup. It was bland without it, and if it's a good French toast casserole, the maple syrup should be gilding the lily, you know? Particularly when it's not a listed ingredient in the recipe, it should almost be too much.

Tomorrow's recipe (I forgot to buy bread for today) has maple syrup as the sweetener. It's the Taste of Home's Maple French Toast Bake. I'm a bit hesitant to make a French toast that has cream cheese in it, but I'll try anything about once. Maybe twice, if it's decent. But I've loaded up on bread, milk and eggs, and there's sausage for sides (to be fair, they all have to have the same sausage side; that's science.) We'll see.

I have a feeling I'm going to end up using bits and bobs of several recipes to make up my own Workhorse Recipe. If the custard mix (the egg and maple syrup blend) of the new recipe works, then I may use that with the cinnamon/sugar/flour streusel of Pioneer Woman's recipe.

But that will be a decision for after the five weeks are fully up. Due diligence and all that.

In other news, I have a friend who asked me, politely, to knit her an infinity scarf. And she offered to pay for the yarn. And basely flattered me -- she's an organist. She plays an instrument that requires her to use eight fingers, two thumbs and both feet at once, and she said I had a great talent. Knitting vs. playing an organ -- to my mind, not really a comparison in terms of talent or ability. But I'm weak and easy, and easily led, so I said fine.

There was much yarn wank and pattern wank, and then I changed up the yarn I wanted to use. I went with Crystal Palace Yarns' Panda Pearl. But I had no idea which color she would like! There was a beautiful green shot through with purple called Green Glades, which I favored.

Then there was a beautiful blue and black blend that my mom preferred, called Lake Blues.

Then I got a third yarn, as a compromise, called Blue Lagoon.

Unfortunately, she chose Blue Lagoon. This left me with a quandry: Would I be emotionally strong enough to take the other two back?

No. No I'm not. They're going in the stash.

Sigh.

Rex laughs at me and my weak will.

Haha! Look at my little pink butt! It's pink.

I am so losing my destashing game again this year....

I stopped to pick up my layaway silk yarn and this wanted to come home with me:

You can't tell from this picture, but that's some silk, merino, nylon and a silver strand all spun up together. Sparkles, my kryptonite.

I think it's going to be wanting beads, too. I'm so pathetically easy, you know?

At least Rex is keeping my chair warm:

That's some pretty yarn there. May I chew on it? No? Ok, then. Whatevs.

To start the new year....

Have I posted at how random I find the Western New Year's Eve? Because I do. It's just past the solstice, which to my thinking would make a way more logical place to start a new year, but not quite to any change of weather or astrological season. It's...bizarre.

And pointless. Any day can be the start of a new year for you. You just have to make it so.

However our culture decreed (at some point in the dim and misty past) that this would be the start of a new year. We would measure our trip around the sun by this day.

Stupid.

Oh, well. I do have this to console me:

Well, I have the pink one. The green is languishing in layaway until tomorrow, when I get paid and can ransom it. But then they will be together again.

The bottom one is a bamboo-merino wool blend (superwash) and the green is a silk-merino (ALSO superwash!) I'm thinking I may need to design my Pi Shawl and work it in two colors. Or something like that -- I've got some serious yardage working between the two. The pink is 520 yards, the green over 600.

Either way, if that's what celebrating the new year gets me, pass the champagne!

A year in review

It's another turn of the Roman calendar year. I really have nothing more to say about this past year, so how about we just keep moving forward?

On Ravelry, I play two de-stashing games. This is good, because I have accumulated a crap-ton of yarn. I need to get rid of a bunch of it, and my preferred method is to actually knit with it. However, as I am as slow as molasses when knitting (and now have the yarnivorous puppy to contend with), it means I de-stash a whole lot more slowly than I re-stash.

For instance, just at Chrismas, I ended up with a load of lace yarns, luckily all free:

Not even going to confess how much fingering weight I got, never mind the worsted stuff. Sigh.

And those are just the highlights. There's more. Much, much more.

I need to actually use it, you know? So one of the de-stashing games I'm doing is setting challenges for us. The first challenge is to use our oldest yarn. Then, we're to use our Precioussss -- you know, that one skein that is just so super special you want to just hug it and love it and call it George?

It's hard to pick just one for that second challenge, I'll confess. Although that will end up being a project finish instead of starting something new, methinks. Let me rummage, see if I've got a picture....

That's my first skein of Malabrigo, ever. Ain't it purty?

So there's my goals for 2015: Find time to knit, knit with my oldest yarns:

Probably my multiple colors of this, Rowan Kidsilk Haze

 

Finish my oldest project (because it is my Precioussss), and maybe knit with this:

Mystery merino, lots of yardage, won in a contest early on

 

I know exactly what it's going to be. All that on top of the other stuff I'm knitting, plus my work and my writing...I'm going to be a very busy bee in 2015, Bob willing and the creek don't rise. 

We'll see how I've followed through in 365 days, won't we?

Aughnonononononono!

So, I was working on a Giftmas present for Nieceling. I got a yarn I thought was going to work, finished up two days ago, popped it in the washer (it said it was machine washable yarn) and....

It pilled up!!!

I am so verklempt right now. It was adorable and now it's just...just...fuzzy.

I will have to promise her to make one out of good yarn. Sturdy yarn.

I'm off to KnitPicks now, because say what you will about their policies, they have some sturdy as hell acrylics that are soft, durable and do not pill. 

Here is Rex, to cheer me up:

Come to my pillow fort, we can snuggle

Productivity

My desk went from this:

 To this:

Tonight.

I also vacuumed up the cobwebs in the ceiling corners and along the walls.

Now, I just have to vacuum up the couch, treadmill and the back of my cedar chest of yarny goodness tomorrow, and do my bedroom Thursday and Friday, and I will be done with my cleaning. I've been slacking on it, and I'm worried it's a sign of depression. I typically only let it build up like this when I'm down, so you can see why I'm worried.

I'm going to clean everything up and try to maintain it -- Saturday mid-mornings are not busy times, and I can do some spot-cleaning and tidying and get it out of the way so my environment doesn't get so icky again.

And my yarn isn't endangered by bugs anymore. Which is, ultimately, the most important thing!

Fiber Deficiency

I can't knit at work anymore, because I now have a job where I actually work, you know? And I can't knit in my chair at night because Rex. He's cute, but he chews anything he sees, at least once, if not twice, just to see what it tastes like.

He's lucky we love him.

Anyway, I'm sadly fiber deficient.

I also had a moth scare the other night. Yoda caught a moth in my bedroom (no one was more surprised than I am; he's not exactly the Great Fluffy Hunter, you know?) and until I verified through someone outside my own head that it wasn't a wool or clothing moth, I was tense. Here, have a lookey-lou:

Consensus is that it's just your average, 'round the ole porch light moth. But Yoda did bring it down, single pawedly (well, he used two paws, but who's counting?) and I tossed it outside. But then I took precautions and put all the projects and yarn that had been in my room into the freezer. Just...in case.

Now that I know it's not the dangerous sort of moth, I'm taking them back upstairs. I've got...my Double Cross Scarf, my Victorious (picture in case you've forgotten it):

And my new stash -- the mill ends in my last post, in particular.

But now that I know they are safe and secure, I will be taking them back up to work on up there. And some new yarn (well, not really new; I got it on yarn crawl this past winter):

and am going to cast on and knit a Mountaineer Hat. I've had the pattern for a while (a friend designed it; don't I have the most awesome friends!??!) but not the impulse. However, I now sit beneath an air vent at work.



I need a hat. Like, yesterday. Or, to be more precise, the eigth of July. Maybe I should go with something less...fitted, so I don't continually smush my curls....

More finished things!

I may have to make a tag just for finished things, and go back and tag posts where I've celebrated casting off. I have a hard time keeping track of things like that, and it sometimes feels like I never finish things.

This week I did finish a ting. Nemesis has come off the needles and had fringe put on. I don't have a current photo, I apologize. I'll get one up as soon as possible, I promise. But Nemesis is BIG -- at least 15" wide and probably 6' long. The fringe adds another foot, foot and a half to that length, too. I'll figure out how to get the whole thing in frame...eventually.

Anyway, I've got some other pictures to share, if you'd like to see....

I spoke last week of mill ends and me, right?

 

Aren't they awesome? Since they are mill ends, they were't labeled with the colors. But I spent some time on their website and think I've correctly guessed what they were supposed to be.

This one is "Jellied". Since there are no color flaws obvious from the outside of the skein, I'm going to guess it's one of the 'mis-spun' skeins. Or maybe there's some knots. Whatever. It's awesome.

And this is (I think) Liquid Sunshine. With a color flaw at the bottom. But who cares?

Not me. I will be enjoying this yarn...lots and lots and lots!

Mill Ends and Me

So, it's been a rough month and change since I got home from vacation. Had that vacation been truly restful, or had I not gotten an immediate promotion/transfer upon returning to work, the past month wouldn't have been so difficult.

Even good change can cause angst.

Last week, I got wind of a sale at Blue Moon Fiber Arts and picked up a mystery bag of mill ends in the heavier weight that's available. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm quite eager to see what I get. Then, today I went to Joann's for some earring backs, and found this:

It was in a bin that held bags of mill ends -- more mill ends! One pound per bag. You may not be able to see it in my craptacular photo, but the darker green thread is sparkly. We've had the discussion about me and sparkles, haven't we?

It was a pound for $8, and it's fascinating. $8. Considering I blew over $100 on books alone this past week, not even to mention the $40 I spent on my Blue Moon mill ends, I figure what the hell. So now it's mine.

I have no idea what yarn it is, all I know is it's a pound of acrylic/polyester/rayon/wool, and it's a mill end lot. It looks like four skeins of yarn, but the ends are all connected. I cut them apart. I have no idea what sort of mileage it is, although I suspect that as a super bulky yarn (you can't tell, but it's that odd sort of chain yarn -- not spun and plied, but chained up and looking a bit like a huge icord) and at a pound, it's about 400 yards.

I'm just guessing here.

Ah, well. Now I have about 400 yards of bulky chain-made yarn to figure out what to do with. And it's machine washable -- so that's about all I know.

I do love a good mystery!

The only other thing I accomplished today was getting my helix piercing out of my ear. I wanted to put my hoop back in. Unfortunately, the hoop was a capture ball.

The small ball has to be pressed between the ends of the hoop wire (which is closed with a jewelry plier as you juggle the hoop and tiny ball with one hand).

Needless to say, the hoop plan didn't work, but I did manage to get the rose on a post out.

So I cleaned up my ear, the earring and all, and put it back in. I feel slightly better for having control of the earring now. I'm leaving it in -- technically, it's not healed up until the end of August -- but knowing I can take it out makes me feel a whole lot better about it.

Maybe I'll find another hoop, one that doesn't require pliers to make work.

Awesome.