What's worse than running out of yarn for a project? I think it must be running out of yarn that, unbeknownst to you when you bought it a mere four days prior, is now discontinued.
And look how little of Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino Aran in Brick Red (611) I'm in need of?!?!
Not much at all! I have a scant 2 rows left to complete on the body of the mitt and then just a bit of yarn to knit up the half-thumb!
After a frustrating experience with the ladies at my LYS I came home and scoured the internet. Everyone, it seems, needs just one skein of this to complete some project or another. I finally located a ball on some online shop I've never heard of. I'm waiting for the "Sorry, we're actually out of stock on this item" email. In the meantime my fingers are crossed.
Oh, so the ladies at my LYS? So not helpful! First they told Mr. Pear (he's my yarn errand boy, owing to the fact that his office is 'round the corner from my LYS) they didn't even carry this color (never mind the fact that I bought it there) and then when I went down there to ask them to special order it for me, they claimed to have no way of knowing whether or not the color was discontinued (my theory as to why they did not have this color listed on their color card). There was also, apparently, no way of knowing if this color was included in the replenishment order they made last week! I asked if they couldn't just call their supplier and ask (or, gee, this is a stretch, how about keeping accurate records of your inventory?). The owner (yes, the owner, not some low paid lackey who couldn't care less if they lost my business!) shrugged and said she supposed they might sent that information via email, but she doesn't have email, so how would she know?
Wow. Way to stay in business, grandma.
All griping aside, aren't they cute? They are a wee giftie for someone (or they will be if I ever get the yarn to finish them).
Posted at 03:59 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Scarves grow on trees, don't they? The black one I knit up for my dad. It's knit on the diagonal, based on Michele's Holy Bias Scarf (Thanks again for writing up the pattern for me!!). I wanted something that wouldn't irritate his sensitive skin. This stuff is 100% soybeans and it drapes beautifully. I'll be using it again, I'm sure. It would make a very pretty little knitted top. Hmmm...
The orange one hasn't been packed off to its owner yet. I saw the pattern on Knitty a couple of years ago and never got around to it. I had put the yarn aside for a certain someone and was hunting around for the right pattern and then I remembered Wavy. It's super snuggly. I'd rather give [Name withheld so as to not ruin the surprise] a hug, in person, but a hand knitted scarf will have to do.
Look! In the background! It's BAD DOG trying to make an escape under the gate! There's just enough clearance for her to burrow out. She's already been maced by our postal carrier once. Not that she's learned her lesson;( Bad and not so smart.
And while I enjoy a good mindless chat at the park and not have to bother counting rows kind of project, it's time for something a little more challenging. The very beginning of my first pair of fingerless mitts. I had to learn a cable cast on and how to wrestle with double-pointed needles for this one. And while I've knit up little swatches with cables, I've never actually used cables in a project before. Little red fingerless mitts! For my freezin' fingers. Although this afternoon, I must admit to sunning myself on the patio, stripped down to my undies and a t-shirt. Apologies to all of you experiencing a more authentic sort of winter weather.
Posted at 10:18 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Actually, I don't. Those are No Pudge brownies from Trader Joes ("Just add yogurt!") and I thought we'd test run the stencils before trying them with other people's children at the Halloween Carnival tomorrow. For some reason, I thought a cookie decorating station would be fun and festive! And it might have been, except the carnival was originally scheduled for last week, not on Halloween itself (Let's get the kids all revved up on candy!!! Then we'll let them run through the neighborhood in their sugar-fueled rush for more candy!) and not the day after the Halloween Party at the Dojo (candy, limbo, candy, musical chairs, candy, costume contest, and more candy). I am tired of making treats and trying not to eat them and I am tired of little boys dressed as ninjas and it's not even Halloween yet.
Incidentally, Mini-Pear won Most Original Costume this evening for her Unicorn get-up. I didn't get a great photo of it as we were running out the door, but you get the idea. Made by yours truly - it started out as a pile of white yarn and a pair of long underwear.
Posted at 09:34 PM in armed with a needle, food, glorious, food, mini-pear | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I haven't made one of these in ages. Out of blue, I had a needle case to construct and get in the mail to a customer. It's pretty, but for whatever reason, there's nothing like a little cash for craft to make me completely unmotivated. I procrastinated on this like nobody's business. I scrubbed toilets rather than puttering about on this! How weird is that? Actually, I have a long history of failing to follow through on requests for my artsy fartsy skill set. I guess not being extrinsically motivated isn't the worst thing in the world, but a little income on the side would be nice.
There's the inside - lots of pockets for your needles and crochet hooks, etc. I should make one for myself sometime. I keep my needles in an old biscuit tin and my notions in an old zip up case from a Burt's Bees gift set. Yeah, that's the Queen Mum celbrating her 90th birthday. Glamorous, no?
Posted at 09:25 PM in armed with a needle, artsy fartsy, inertia | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
For someone who knows she isn't allowed on the couch, she sure looks comfortable. She also sure looks like she doesn't give a damn.
Three days into mini-pear's camp and I finally hit a groove. Monday was a bit too errand-y and yesterday was all about wandering around with my man, drinking smoothies, decompressing, eating secret chocolate and downloading bad teevee off iTunes. I did use that time on the couch to deconstruct a project long gone wrong so I supposed I redeemed myself a bit there. I PUFFY HEART my seam ripper.
Today, I holed up in my studio. All that seam ripping allowed the project to stew around and redevelop in my noggin, so by lunch time I had a much clearer vision. After dinner, Mr. and mini- sat down to watch my boyfriend in Pirates of the Caribbean (2), and even though it was my boyfriend, it was back to the design wall and my sketchbook and fabric swatches. That has not happened in quite some time. In fact, I was secretly afraid that I was all over and done with making quilts and that I'd amassed this ridiculously large stash of fabric and books and needles and such that was going to make me feel guilty for the next five years until I faced facts and donated it to some deserving person or another.
Posted at 11:06 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This morning, while Mr. Pear read his newly acquired Harry Potter, and mini-pear watched The Chronicles of Narnia (again), I paid a little visit to my LYS. It shares a parking lot with Mr. Pear's office and it's spilling over with the some of the softest, yummiest fiber on the planet.
I needed some odds and ends to add into the mitred square blanket. Shopping for odds and ends of yarn is so nice. There is no calculating of yardage and I can seriously entertain the thought of purchasing tiny balls of wildly expensive hand dyed fiber. Actually, I was pretty restrained. Clockwise, starting in the upper left-hand corner, we have Filatura Di Crosa's Multicolor mohair/acrylic blend, Debbie Bliss Pure Silk (that lovely pale celadon green), another ball of the Filatura Di Crosa (in green this time), a little bit of bright blue Bam Boo from Classic Elite, Tahki's Cotton Classic in purple, Berrocco's Bonsai in that subdued blue with the little shiny flecks (more bamboo! but with a little bit of nylon) and smack in the middle is the very pretty Ty-Dy in 100% cotton. I guess we are never washing this blankie, but it will be very pretty indeed;)
Posted at 02:30 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
I've wanted to make a blanket of mitered squares for ages. I started this a few months ago. It's some mohair I bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival probably about four years ago now interspersed with some hand dyed and hand spun stuff from Springwater Fiber Workshop.
I have a ton more squares to go, but as I arranged and rearranged these first few, I just wasn't quite feeling it anymore. Yesterday, I tried them another way...
I'm not sure if I love it, but it has sort of a dragon scale-y feeling that I think I like a whole lot more than how I'd been arranging it before. Plus I can now intersperse some squares like these...
and I like the idea of that very much.
I can't decide;(
Posted at 06:06 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
was spent at home. Not many other places we are welcome with the pox. Actually, this suited me fine. I deflated the aerobed and set up my studio space again. I painted my worktable white (the top used to be our coffee table, so it was red for the longest time) and hung my design wall. It feels good to have a space set up and even better to actually spend time in it;)
Apparently, the dog likes it. I say if it keeps her from napping (and drooling) on my bed, she's welcome to kip on the floor.
I'm not sure if it's cabin fever I have today or what. I just can't quite finish anything on my To Do list. Something in the fridge smells. Or maybe just the fridge smells as there isn't really anything in that is mouldy or smell causing. A smelly fridge is not par for the course with the Pear household, so it causes mild distress. Mild.
I keep thinking about all the things on my To Do list and then thinking how many of them would not exist if I simply had less stuff. Last week I boxed up what felt like a lot of clothes. If I don't need to dig into the box within six months, I'm going to donate it without opening it up again. I felt better for a bit after that, a little lighter. But then, over the weekend, after picking through t-shirts, abandoning shirt after shirt before deciding what to wear I wondered why I'd chosen to keep the ones I deemed unwearable this Saturday?
There are some things I just keep procrastinating over and over again. Our car still isn't registered in CA. I have all these papers that need filing and I bought new folders and a new file box to assist, but I just can't quite get into the job. I look at the piles of paper and wonder why I need to keep them. I need to find someone to update our adoption homestudy. And it seems I sort of can't be bothered to cook this summer.
Posted at 04:41 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 11:08 PM in armed with a needle | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)