What Do You Do?

A couple of months ago, I was reading some article in a regional newspaper where a group had started doing charity knitting for U. S. military personnel...One of the founders of the group was quoted as saying something along the lines of "Knitters don't really do very much charity work, so we thought this would be a good idea!"

It totally blew me away, since everyone I know who does any sort of fiber art is big into knitting/crocheting for charity...I would guesstimate that at least 40% of the yarn stuff I do is for charity...And anyone who took a peek at Ravelry would be mightily impressed at the number of groups steadily toiling away, producing literally hundreds of beautiful items for dozens of different charity projects all over the globe...

If you like animals, you can make cuddly soft blankets for dogs at animal shelters...Dulaan makes warm items for homeless children in Mongolia...Afghans for Angels helps grieving parents cope with the loss of their child...The Ships Project sends warm items to deployed servicepeople...

Comfort for children going through traumatic events? Binky Patrol!

Something soft and warm for a seriously ill child? Project Linus!

Hats 4 the Homeless! The Mother Bear Project! Warm Up America!

Hell, even Plimouth Plantation needs knitters to help out with period stockings for their historic reenactors!

Even if you just need to destash, places like Interim House will take your excess yardage off your hands for their (way cool!) knitting and crocheting rehabilitation groups! (Check out the beautiful projects made with donated yarn here.)

My friends and I have a couple of charities that we work for, the newest one being Mittens for Akkol...Children in orphanages in the former Soviet Union face a very bleak future--Russians rarely adopt children and the common view seems to be that orphans are "defective" in some way...There is no support system when the children leave the orphanage around age 16 or so...Mittens for Akkol makes warm items for all the children in the Akkol Orphanage in Kazakhstan, and puts together special 'graduation gifts' for the teens who are aging out of the system...There's some more info about the project here as well...

Personally, my very favorite charity project is one I've Blogged about several times before, Afghans for Afghans...You can find the latest news about the group's work on a recent NPR radio segment...Also, a Very Cool slideshow with pics of the volunteers out in San Francisco!


"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."--Dr. Loretta Scott

Spidey 'Ghan!

There's one particular Little Man, who stole my heart quite some time ago...Apparently, the Very Best Thing In The Whole Wide World, according to this young gentleman, is Spiderman...We have Spiderman jammies, and brand new Spiderman snow boots, we dance and sing to the Spiderman song, it is all about Spiderman...

So, when his momma found this pattern on Ravelry, I absolutely had to help out...*enormous grin*




It's going more quickly than I thought, actually, but I have now passed the easy part of the rounds and they are just going to get bigger and bigger...Luckily, it is not going to be a full-sized Spideyghan, so there might even be a chance that Santa could put it under the tree...

The downside to all this is that I have had the Spiderman song running through my head all afternoon and evening... What's worse is that I only really know the first line...The Momma tried to teach me the rest today (of course, she has the song down pat at this point, poor thing!) but that just got me to "Spider Man! Spider Man! Na na na something-something a spider can!" Which I suppose is some improvement...

Just Where The Hell Have You Been???

Bad Blogger, no cookie...

But I've been busy, see?


Attending my cousin's Most Beautiful Wedding...


With the best party I've been to in a long time afterwards...Hey, free Grey Goose, what can I say? It's been a month, and I think the hangover is just about gone now...


While I was in Chicago, I had some time to check out Loopy Yarns...Very worth the walk from my hotel...I managed to restrain myself and only got a leetle bit of sock yarn...(Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Jungle Stripe)




Other recent activities were not nearly as fun...Eeeeeew!!!


I ended up splurging and bought myself a 3 part birthday present...

Ooooh, what is it?


Hmmmm...


What could it possibly be?!


YAY!!!


And Mr Swift's good friends came to live with me as well...*huge grin*





I brought some of my jools and things to the local PPD...




Ms Serenity Gulch was nice enough to come along and show off her Mad Spinning Skillz, yo...Which was so cool...Though I am still not going to learn to spin...No, I'm not!




With the impetus of PPD behind me, I finally got my act (ass?) in gear and set up an Etsy shop for all the various bits of jewellery and fibery goodness that I make...Though unfortunately, it made me realize that I really need to get a decent camera, since I just can't get good pictures of my baubles and colors are never right...

I finished up teaching a crochet class at IUPUI Community Education, which was a blast...It was a kind of spur of the moment thing to help out the usual instructor who wasn't going to be able to make a couple of the dates scheduled...But one of my students recommended me to the owner of an LYS, so I am now officially the new crochet instructor at Mass Ave Knit Shop!


Check me out! How cool am I now! *poses for the paparazi* It's too bad the yarn I picked for the samples photographs so poorly...*blushes*

While hanging around Mass Ave, I discovered that I have a serious Cascade 220 addiction...I mean, really bad...A little voice inside my head insists that I absolutely need all the colors...

Luckily, I found an excuse...

Afghans for Afghans has the cutest little vest pattern ever, in both knit and crochet...The In-Vest for Peace by Susan Wills and Sue Clark...It is so wee and so cute, and works up very quickly...With the stripes you can use up little bits of leftover wool doing something good for a little child who needs it badly...



Here's my first one; the edging and buttons will probably be finished tomorrow night...I've already started a new one! *grin*

I have a lot of Yarny things coming up as well...Serenity, Sleepycat and I have commandeered the services of the Sheep Street dyeing teacher in November to start learning how to handpaint sock yarn (I cannot wait!)...And in a fit of insanity, I got talked into a mini Cherie Amour KAL as well, though the idea of knitting lace of any sort scares the bejeezus out of me! Stay tuned for shrieking, moaning, temper tantrums at all hours of the day and night, and the stamping of tiny little feet...

It Pours...

So...

I have an opportunity to teach a crochet class in September...I haven't taught in some time, so I'll probably need to get my sh*t in order pretty damn quick, especially since it appears that September is going to be More Than Busy...I've got a wedding to go to in Chicago, I'm taking a Spanish class to try and brush up, since I haven't spoken Spanish in forever; I'm planning on being a vendor at the local PPD (mostly jewellery that I've made, though I did do good business last year with some funky scarves, and am currently working on some fun fur pillows to take along as well--stash clearing! Yay!) And I signed up to do a stupid LOMA exam for work, and the test is at the end of the month...Am I forgetting anything? I think I am forgetting something...Argh...

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I'm blocking all my Babette squares...I wonder if I have too many...Maybe someone else wants some Babette squares...Maybe I have enough Babette squares to make a bed-sized afghan for everyone in the Midwest...I might have enough to actually cover the Midwest in one giant Babette...

I really am loving it though...I love the colors I picked, and since I usually don't block stuff, or don't make stuff that needs blocking, I am enjoying the novelty...for the moment...*grin* It might get old real soon though, since I have been pinning and spraying a set in the morning before I go to work, then unpinning and doing a new set as soon as I get home, and then one last set before I go to bed at night...You'd think I'd eventually run out of squares to block, but apparently they are breeding, because I keep finding more...*sigh*

Sleepycat gave me a tip for the Best Blocking Tool ever...


Forget the expensive, ridiculous 'blocking boards' for sale at JoAnn's or online, and head on down to Lowe's...In the flooring section, they have four packs of these giant foam squares...I believe they are intended for use in the workshop, to make concrete floors easier on your feet when you're standing for long periods...But they make really great boards for blocking yarn projects! They seem to be self-healing for the most part as well, so I think that my fourpack will last me a good long time...At least through the never-ending Babette...Pretty good deal for 16 bucks, huh?

I Will Be Doing This For The Rest Of My Life

Project Update

OK...I've been a Very Bad Blogger, but I have been doing all kinds of work on projects, fibery and otherwise...

I have done a ton of stuff in my studio room...Pictures will be posted when I'm completely finished and everything is prettied up...I might even dust!

Last weekend I did some more Kool Aid dyeing...I really like dyeing...A lot...*huge grin* And the pots bubbling on the stove fill the whole house with the 'delicious' scent of boiled fruit punch (???) so what more could a girl ask for? HA!

I redid some of the original experimental dyeing...Overdyed the !ORANGE! skein and now it is a lovely orange-red color, which I quite like...


If you squint, it almost looks tonal, like I did it on purpose or something...

I also did the purple one over again, to darken it and take out some of the errors I made when I tied the skein too tight and the dye didn't take under the string...


And I did another skein with some Black Cherry flavor, which made a nice red as well...


I'll probably end up using the yarn for hats for Afghans for Afghans, since the amounts of each color are quite small...Now I'm going to have to hide my credit card in the freezer until after I get some bills paid, lest I lose it and buy that way cool sampler dye pack from Dharma Trading Co. and a metric ton of blanks...

I've just finished a new iPod cozy for my BFF Fred...


His old coat was starting to look pretty nasty...(That's Sticks & String by the way, in case you're wondering...)

And I had a pleasant surprise as well...I had been working away on the whole Babette deal, assuming it would take me the rest of my natural life to complete all 4 billion squares (especially those stupid little 2 round ones!) but when I decided to lay out what I had so far, I realized that I must be just about done by now...Since I'm doing it without a pattern, I fully expect that when joining time comes I will have a few more to do to fill in some gaps, but it seems like I have very close to enough...I was a Good Girl this time, and did my best to work over as many ends as I could, and also took a couple of evenings to just weave in ends, but since I spent a good part of the weekend in a 2 Round Square Frenzy, I have a ton (a ton!) of weaving in to do...*scowls*

The Supersekrit Project is just about complete...There will be pictures, there will be coolness, hopefully there will be no arrests...I'll let you know when it's Mission Accomplished...

Braggart

One of these days, I'll get back to Blogging, and show off some of the projects I've been working on recently, but for now I am still playing on Ravelry...Chatting with Brenda Dayne and David Reidy, and oh so busy answering emails from Guido Two Skeins Stein...

*flips silk scarf around neck and speeds off in her Masarati*

I guess I just don't have time for you plebes anymore...

HA!

*grins and winks*

Unraveled

So I got bitten by a chupacabra the other night, which must be why I haven't posted to the Blog in a while...

Either that or I'm spending all my free time playing on Ravelry...One of the two...

Auf Bitten von die Strickerinbesucher

Online dictionaries are great, aren't they? *grin*

Oh wait...Or should it be Strickerbesucherin? Ack! There's a reason I stopped studying German...It's freaking hard!!! *enormous grin*

Anyway, here's the Noob Dyeing...



You can really see a gap in the color where I tied the skeins so they wouldn't tangle...It's not pretty, but it made me think of a possible future dyeing project--I could kind of 'tie dye' skeins...For example, starting with a white skein, and a couple of ties, and dye it light blue, then tie it a couple more times, and dye it medium blue, and then some more ties and a dark blue...???

The orange turned out...um, really orange...I was figuring that since it was wool, I could use these experiments for Dulaan hats or something...But I don't think I will inflict that orange on a poor defenceless Mongolian baby! All his little friends would make fun of him, and keep making deerhunting jokes behind his back...

The handpainted stuff I did ended up a disaster...*scowl* The primary colors one basically rinsed out (I don't think I microwaved it long enough), and the other one faded quite a bit, except for the red, which went to a hot pink...Ergh...I may try and overdye them, and play with the Kool Aid a bit more...

Still gonna buy a handpainting dye kit though...Anyone need some Noobish sock yarn?

I Think I Dyed And Went To Heaven

This is what I did today...OMGs, so effing cool!!! Hee!


I don't have a swift...Yet...


Ready...




I read online that Kool-Aid was usually acidic enough that vinegar was not necessary, but I put a sploosh in anyway...Belt and braces...


My camera just does not like purple...*scowl*




I decided that since the Kool-Aid dyeing was relatively labor-free, I'd experiment with handpainting some yarn while I waited for the purple to cook...




Ergh...I hope this one looks better when it's done...The gray part was supposed to be purple!


I watched 'Shaolin Soccer' while I waited for the yarn to dry...It's definitely Noob yarn, but it was Such Much Fun to make...I'm definitely going to invest in some blanks and some proper dyes very soon...

The Yarn, It Hates Me

So...

I was working away on the border for a baby afghan that I was designing for a gift...Looked great, very pretty and delicate (which was what I wanted)...Made a little place to thread some matching ribbon through...Nice...Thought that since I was making it to match the baby's room, and it was rather fluffy and eyelet-y, I would put a big ol' ruffle around the edge...Not that I'd ever crocheted a ruffle before or anything, but I know how it should look in my head, and I have the technical skill to do it, so...

No, it didn't really work out, after One Billion Stitches around the edge of the blasted baby 'ghan...

OK, so sometimes if I am trying to work something out, I find that if I put it aside for a day or two, and let the idea percolate through my subconscious, when I go back to it, I can figure out a solution fairly easily...So on to another project and give the Evil Babyghan a rest...

Got the yummy Magic Stripes from Sleepycat...Copy her footies? Easy-peasy! Did the toe, did the instep, did the heel, sewed it all up, edged the top...Too big? It would have been too big for a Sasquatch! 'Unsewed' it, frogged the back part of the foot, redid it...

Too. Big.

Redid it.

Too! Big!!!

Either Magic Stripes is mega stretchy, or I have freakishly small feet...(BTW, I was trying on every 5 minutes at this point...) Finally, Sleepycat posted her instructions for the way she did the heel part, but since I have thrown the gigantic footie down the side of the sofa in a fit of pique, it may be a little while before I am calm enough to attempt them again...

I had bought all that Debbie Bliss DK Merino on mega closeout, and thought I would hone my (non-existent) Mad Knittin' Skillz and do a sampler scarf with stitch patterns from one of my new books...Started off great...Some weird laddered ribbing...Neat! Then moss stitch, just because I love how it looks...Then this basket weave stitch I started on Saturday, while I was sitting with a friend at a yard sale...(I wonder if the reason we didn't have many customers would have something to do with the fact that his compatriot was sitting muttering and counting under her breath, coming up for air occasionally, only to shout, "You know I hate knitting, right?!?" over and over again...) I just can't get the freaking little squares to match up!!! I've frogged at least twice now, and am following the pattern exactly...It is totally driving me nuts!!!

The Sampler Scarf is now also down the side of the sofa, doing time with the Gigantic Footies O' Doom...

So today, I started the Babette...



Wish me luck...

Yarn Gluttony

I just couldn't resist...

Somebody pawned off some sock yarn on me last night, in spite of my best intentions...And I started a pair of Sleepycat's footies before I knew what was happening...(It's Lion Brand Magic Stripes, by the way...) I think the toe looks a little weird because the heel isn't on yet, so my fat little toes are making it poke out in all directions...*grin*

We went to the enormous, huge, giant LYS sale in Broadripple last weekend...It was a complete disgrace...I got some Debbie Bliss DK Merino to play with...


I figured that since I am such a knitting noob, I'd make a sampler scarf with some stitch patterns from the knitting dictionary I got at the Greencastle Fiber Fair, and learn me some new stuff with the two sticks...It needs blocking like crazy already, and though I'm only on the second section, I'm quite pleased with the result...I have four sections planned so far; more will be coming once I figure out how to do them!

Progress

So Tuesday last, I worked frantically on the baby blanket, lunchtime, and late night as well...I made enough progress to think that I might just make it in time for N's baby shower...Then I got an email Wednesday morning at work that the chick who was organizing the do had decided (on a whim?) that the baby shower was now going to be on Thursday morning...No way I could finish by then, so I brought what I had in to show N that I did actually have something for her, and since I had confirmed the week before that her last day isn't until the beginning of June, I have plenty of time to make it all purty for her...Of course when I got home I had a fit of pique at the Organizer Chick for changing the party at the last minute and didn't touch the thing again until tonight...*grin* But N seems to like the Blankie, so I'm happy about that...

Don't Panic!

A few months ago, four women in my immediate department announced they were pregnant simultaneously...(I don't mean it happened simultaneously, though that could possibly have been the case, but honestly, I don't think that's any of my business...) It was at the same staff meeting, OK?

So in a fit of babylust and optimism, I decided that I would make blankets for everybody...Now, one of the women has been fired since, so that's one down, but I am still seriously lagging behind...Today it was announced that the office shower for one of the preggers is on Friday...I only just cast on her baby blanket on Sunday...


Can I do it? Ergh...

I am also having a serious love-hate relationship with this yarn...Baby Bee Lambie Pie from Hobby Lobby...

I am a firm believer in acrylic for everyone under the age of 20, so that's fine...And I adore the fabric it makes...Looky all the swizzles coming out all over the place! I love it!

But you cannot frog it...Also, I have never, ever had a tension problem with knitting (or crocheting, for that matter) but this keeps getting tighter and tighter as I work the row; I really don't know what the problem could be, since it's just individual stitches, and sections of stitches (the fabric created is fine, not too tight at all)...My fix at this point is to knit grotesquely loose, and just throw the yarn around the needle and when I pull through it comes up as a normal-type of tension...

I did finish my blanket for the Afghans for Afghans Mother's Day campaign...Now, before I go any further, I have to explain...The stipulations were for an animal fiber for warmth, and no white or light colors that would show dirt easily...





It's bright and it's cheerful, and I think it is disgusting-looking...*huge grin* I hope it will keep a little girl nice and warm all winter long, but this will be the last time I do a project for anyone, anytime, with colors I can't stand...

I made some hats too, with the same pink and teal variegated, and some in a blue variegated colorway as well, which turned out looking a hell of a lot cuter than this blanket...

Dulaan's deadline is coming up, so maybe I can figure something better out for them...But for now I think it will be a race to get that baby blanket done for Friday...

Cheater

So the Wondrous Chenille That Does Not Photograph Well is fast becoming a shrug...



I was inspired by this idea...Which I will probably make later on anyway, though on my knitting machine, since my tenuous hold on sanity will not withstand 1 billion rows of stockinette, Thick & Quick or no Thick & Quick...I've converted it to crochet (obviously) and ix-nayed the bobbles...I'll probably do something fancy on the sleeves at the wrists and do some edging on the body part as well...

WIPs

Behold! A Sock! I am a Sock Virgin no longer...At least Sherri was gentle...

Very possibly the ugliest scrapghan in the history of Being Crotchety...

So we needed a closeup of the Ug...