Wiggin’ Out

I’ve done enough double knitting in the past 25 days to have made a small blanket or suffocate a 500 lb man. I’ve also added about a foot and a half to the never-ending-scarf-from-hell. The scarf isn’t photo worthy, and I’m too lazy to try to figure out how to fit 8 feet of garter stripes into the frame of a camera while still being ‘creative’ without the aid of drugs.

So! To keep myself from taking scissors to everything in a moment of clarity, I’ve been practicing on a spindle for about an hour a day. A couple of weeks ago I bought some Pigeonroof Studios roving up in Oakland, and have since spun up approximately 350 yards of laceweight. It’s been whacked, soaked and now it’s drying. Once it’s dry I’ll take some pictures and share them with ya’ll on the interbutts.

I’ve also been spinning up some Lizard Toes Top, very slowly, and have been practicing long-draw with some merino that was sent to me by Jill (scroll down) recently. Lizard Toes has available a bunch of fiber, really awesome stitch markers , earrings and yarn that is reasonably priced (it’s a fucking deal) and shipped for free. I suggest that you go at least check out what the LSGer Lizardsmells has to offer, and maybe accidentally buy some too. Like I did.

School starts on the 27th, and so does my 3-4 hour a day commute. There might be consierably less frequent blogging over the next few weeks but I’ll try to keep up my weekly updates. Who knows, maybe all that time sitting on a train staring at old men will lead to a more active blog… but I doubt it. So, if I don’t post for a couple of weeks don’t send me 10 million emails asking if I’m okay. Just send one or two.

Heffalumps

I’m not sure who thought it was a good idea to let me on the internet. Obviously they have poor judgement. In fact, I think that the first thing I searched for online, once my parents were away, was either poop or boobs. I remember the first time I REALLY used a dictionary. I was in 3rd grade, sitting in the back of the classroom hunting for naughty words that started with ‘p’ and ‘b’. I was caught red-handed trying to slip the dictionary over to a friend who needed to know what other secrets were in this book that adults let us look at. 

There is now a chart for humping elephants on the internet. The pattern is available on Ravelry (obv.) as well.

Presents from the internuts (NSFW)

LSG members will call you when you’re depressed and try to cheer you up. They’ll send you random cards in the mail with bad words in them. They’ll overshare terrible bathroom experiences, or describe the worst dates they’ve ever had (that aren’t pathetic sex and the city scenarios) where the guy pukes all over himself/their shoes/in the girls car-then-sink-then-purse-and-on-the-dog. They’ll band together and violently support you if you’re friends/spouses/pets get out of line. In the past year I have a list of 5 things that have caused me to dance in my home:

1. passing statistics

2. discovering that making pie is really easy

3. finishing my community college career at drop-out-central

4. hard apple cider + guinness 

5. lsg

Jill (Hate2Swatch on Ravelry) sent me one of the most insanely awesome packages I’ve ever received. She filled it with Merino roving, candyyyyyyy for my fat arse, stitch markers (that could also be used for nipple rings I bet), a reasonable substitute for a hand carder that I would have never thought of, merino-silk roving AND a masturbating GI Joe doll with an enormously generous personality:

Click over here for a recorded a video of Joe celebrating his national pride. 

Jill, thank you soooo much. There’s nothing better than knowing that there’s no such thing as being lonely when I can sit on the couch and chat with intelligent, witty, beautiful and generous women while practicing to spin.

Blog silence

Between practicing using a drop spindle, knitting Ms. Leapmans swatches and paying close attention to the clusterfuck that is Israel Vs Hamas I’ve been ignoring the blogging duties. 

But, I really don’t care enough to apologize. Here are some pretty pictures of what’s been going on:

This is as much of the secret knitting as I’m willing to show you. Mostly because I am too lazy to take more pictures, but also because it’s ’secret’ knitting and if I shared it I’d ruin Christmas forever. I’ve been doing so much k1p1 double knitting that I have prepared my will and chosen the urn I want my ashes poured into after I gouge out my eyes and throw myself off of Hwy 1. If you think that miles of stockinette is murder, miles of k1p1 while alternating yarn is the hiroshima of the knitting world. The result is nice, though.

Today I played hooky and took the train up to Berkeley, then bussed my little ass over to Oakland to visit Article Pract. This is one of my favorite yarn stores in the bay area (the other two are Purlescence in Sunnyvale and Imagiknit in San Francisco) because they take a small space and turn it into a cozy room full of yarn, roving and color. They carry every brand of needle that I love (Addi, Inox, Grafton, and Susanne Ebony) along with many of my favorite yarns: Malabrigo, Noro, Buffalo Gals, and Curious Creek. Not only do they have all of THAT stuff but they also have some roving from Pigeonroof Studios, spindles and some bitchin’ classes on their schedule AND buttons that kick ass. 

The roving (pictured above) I bought is 4.5 ounces of Pigeonroof Studios Superwash Merino in the “Venetian” colorway. Once I get more consistent with the spindle I’ll plow through this, but for now I’m going to end this post and eat some lasagna and have a beer or eight.