Support Autism

Thanks to Dayna for sharing this with me.

Please view this video and send to everyone
you know...every little bit will help....thanks!

The band, Five for Fighting, is generously
donating $0.49 to Autism Speaks for *each time* the
video is viewed the funding goes toward research
studies to help find a cure.

When you have a moment, please visit the link below
to watch the video and pass it along to your friends
and family.

They are aiming for 10,000 hits, and hopefully we can
help them to surpass this goal.

Click here for video

I love my niece who has Aspberger's!

Thanks everyone.

ETA: Since we're on a support-ish note here, I would also like to take a moment to mention Heath Ledger. The cause of death is none of my business (or anyone else's besides his family as far as I'm concerned) and regardless of what it is, it's a terrible tragedy. He was but 28 years old, a great talent of our generation, and from what I understand, a pretty cool guy who really loved his daughter.

While I wasn't a die-hard Heath fan or anything, in his death, it seems his name doesn't come up without Brokeback Mountain being mentioned and along that line, there are actually hate groups that were planning protests at his funeral for playing a gay man and people saying disgusting things about him. I just want to say on that note that I feel that both Heath and Jake Gyllenhaal made a courageous career move in playing those roles and did what any good performer would and should do by putting the art and their craft first. I don't believe either one of them are gay in real life (although I can dream about sweet Jake) and even if they were, they were doing a job that they were paid to do and touched the lives of many in doing so. The fact that we lost such a young and talented life is devastating enough, but to muddy his name over something like that is just inexplicable. People seem to forget that celebrities are people too that have families and friends and people who deserve to mourn over their loved one in peace, and peace is what I am wishing for them at this difficult time.

-kb out

yeah

so i'm exhausted and don't feel good, but i just had to say something to someone and blogger doesn't mind if i poke at it at 4 a.m.

when i was younger and it came time to make the bed, the fitted sheets, whether they were twin, full, queen, or king, were rectangular shaped, and had small bits of elastic at each corner and there was no question as to which way the sheet went. nowadays, i see, fitted sheets really are mostly shapeless wads of fabric with elastic spreading from edge to edge making it far more difficult (or in my case, near impossible) to get the sheet on properly the first (or second or third or fourth) time. someone please tell me this isn't just me because i am seriously starting to wonder if the degenerative changes truly do begin at age 30 and only progress from there. (yes, I'm 30 now, I let the dirty, smelly, seeping, feral cat out of the bag. i will never admit to it again, if you tell anyone, i will insist you are a lying raving madperson because i am not a day over 29 (can I get away with 27??? I think I can.)) the only cool thing about this is i help make up part of the largest demographic of ravelry... actually i think 30 might even be #1, but my poor old eyes have yet to be able to successfully follow the lines in the graph from the high point to the numbers on the left. any help from a whipper snapper out there?

ok, knitting blog, knitting blog... right. i'm knitting sometimes. the yarn gallery in dunedin is going out of business and everything is 50% off and I bought yarn I shouldn't have and can't afford and thus have begun about 27 projects in the last 4 days. that's over now because i have a more pressing project to return to that i took a brief hiatus from. my digital camera is still semi-broken and i am still too fully lazy to attempt pictures, but i will try to get some of the sEx soon. i got sweater quantity of noro kochoran, and nashua julia, some sock yarn, and other little tidbits. i have actually NEVER made a purchase of this volume. i once bought 10 balls of Swish from KP and that was officially my largest order ever. My stash is sizable, I think, which can be seen in the flash your stash shots of '07, but it was accumulated piecemeal over 3 years. i have sweater quantities of only 4 yarns, 1 batch of which was a gift, 2 are only a week old, and the other is the pea soup for the kenobi jacket that i have been picking up a few hanks at a time for like a year, which is ridiculous. so this is like big news for me and i simply CANNOT buy any more yarn for a seriously long time except for picking up the last of pea soup, which i hope to do this week.

and now that i have successfully wound down from the bed-making ordeal, i bid you all good night. :)

-kb out

a quickie (or not)

Hi everyone!

The lovely Manda pointed out to me that it's been forever since I posted anything, so here's a quicky. Who's Manda, you ask? Well! She is one of the ladies who organized a REALLY LOCAL TO ME Stitch n Bitch group along with Gnat, who is recently engaged, by the way, go wish her well! (and tell them how awesome they are for setting this up!) :) I have only made it twice because of work and pet-sitting, but I've already met some awesome people and I'm having such fun there, and a bonus is it's a VERY socky group. :) Manda is also a spinner and does fabulous dyeing, check out her etsy shop I am actually the proud owner of some her dyeing handiwork that she kindly gifted to me and I will take a pic of that next time I deal with the broken digi so you can see the fab. (and a super duper bonus is she is like the FIRST spinner who is like REALLY local to me! She lives SUPER close! Maybe I'll be a spinner some day yet! ;-))

I am currently working on socks for ME DAMMIT. I have yet to make socks for myself. I am INSANELY behind on making promised socks for BFF (I think I told her August) but after finishing Marigolds and trying them on, I was like, you know what, the next pair is MINE. (sorry BFF, yours are SO next I promise) I started out making just a simple garter rib number in CTH Supersock in Peacock and made it all the way to the heel turn (which subsequently wound up being Wendy's toe-up gusseted heel because I realized I don't love short rows as much as I pretended and didn't love the look of the picked-up gusset toe-up heel I did on the Marigolds, so wanted something new. I FREAKIN LOVE IT! I think already knows how awesome Wendy is, but GO WENDY LOVE YOU!!!!! I didn't even realize people did gusseted heels for toe-up socks. I was pretty freakin excited.

I digress. The sock wound up being huge on me, though, not only too long, which of course can be fixed, but too LOOSE. I was going to just deal with it since I'd gotten so far, but since it was my first pair of ME socks and I loved the yarn so much, I ripped. I am not sure why this happened, though, still a little puzzled. I didn't do a gauge swatch when I began, which I don't usually when I do Judy's Magic Cast-on because I have a pretty good idea of what gauge I get on sock yarn and size 0, 1, 2, and 3 (which is usually 10, 9, 8, and 7, respectively.) For whatever reason, on CTH yarn, I got 7 on 2s, which was new for me, so instead of casting on a ghastly number of stitches to fit my fat feet, I went with 64. This equals just a bit over 9 inches around, which is the perfect number I get when using the calculations for negative ease. (Yeah I really have to make socks 9 inches around WITH negative ease included, you figure it out, but don't make fun) The garter rib is definitely a looser rib than say a K2, P2, but how it was like THAT huge on me, I will never understand. For it to feel big on me, it had to be at least 10 inches around if not more... Maybe if I washed it, it would have shrunk down, who knows.

The aforementioned Gnat had sent me a different toe-up version of Monkey from Ravelry called Los Monos Locos (crazy monkeys) to which I replied, I wish I knew about this a couple days ago before I got up to the heel on my sock! Ergo, when I decided to rip, guess what I decided to make! Jaywalkers, exactly! NOOO, just kidding! I think I'm punchy (and babbly) at this late hour. However, I did make some modifications because I just will NEVER use another cast-on for toe-up socks besides Judy's Magic Cast-on It just does NOT get better than that, period, and I am like FOREVER indebted to that Judy. I don't think she reads my blog, but just in case, JUDY I LOVE YOU! I AM FOREVER INDEBTED TO YOU!!!! Actually, I have previously written her with questions and comments so expressed that to her already, but just so you all know, she's the freakin shiznit.

Where was I? I think I should just pepper this entire post with "I digress" randomly and it would all make sense.... Anyway. I digress. Los Monos Locos, right. So I used Judy's Magic Cast-on and also realized I REALLY missed the purls so I went ahead and just did the original Monkey lace pattern and it's just going to be in the opposite direction. here's some pics! (finally!)






did i already say my camera is broken? it's the view screen... don't know if it will be fixed ever, so we have to deal with kinda crappy pics for a while. it works, but i have no idea what i'm taking pictures of. i don't think i really got one that really shows off the monkey pattern, so I'll have to try that next time. also difficult to see is the Eye of Partridge heel that Jennifer wrote in her Los Monos Locos pattern, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE. The entire heel is awesome, and she did an amazing job adapting the pattern. For those of you who are new to toe up or magic loop or anything, that's a great place to start because it's so well written. If I'm not mistaken, earthchick did monkeys with an eye of partridge, as well, which may have been from this pattern, i am not even sure.... i think it was her. anyway, I love it. wait, she did, i found it, look! here's wishing i didn't find it because her eye of partridge looks SO MUCH NICER and different than mine. :( I think maybe I goofed. I know the pattern is correct because I tried an eye of partridge on the last sock, I am thinking I just did a yuck job. I love it anyway! i've wanted to make monkeys since the first time i saw them over at Christine's pictured here I think I can officially say there is a trend of pattern stealing from Christine going on here. :) i asked her immediately if they were too girly, and she said they were kinda girly, but she knew another male who wanted them, and also made a great suggestion about replacing YOs with M1s or something else less hole-ey. i started them several times, including starting them for sockapalooza so i can have them vicariously through someone else, but they never really made it into reality. because i love this pattern so much and have lusted over it for so long and love this yarn so much and this is officially my first sock, i decided to say 'screw it' and 'i don't give a damn if they're girly,' although i ask anyone who will look at them if they are too girly at least 10 times. but really i don't care! but really, i ask you, what makes them girly? is it the holes? i bought the teosinte sock pattern and that has holes! she calls it "man lace" as a matter of fact! (coincidentally another pattern idea from Chris, I'm not sock stalking her, I swear) a more traditional male might even consider the Peacock colorway girly, although I find it pretty Unisex.... are knit socks with ANY pattern girly? I think Becka of Whimsical Knitting Designs has beautifully and lovingly proved that's not the case, as have other designers. so what's the big? am i obsessing over it for nothing? (who, ME?!?!) maybe I should ask Cookie herself? am I going to be running around one day and have a scene at the mall or something with people pointing and staring at my girly socks? (sigh) i'm a lunatic sometimes. last night when i was looking at them and having recently seen The DaVinci Code again, I decided they were totally unisex because they contain both the symbol for male and female. (giggle) really, though, any thoughts?

okay enough about that, i swear. i really should be working right now, but i started writing this like 4 hours ago and totally forgot, so wanted to finish it. i have nothing else new to report really. oh wait, i'm lying. i did get my free set of Flat Feet from conjoined creations for finally returning the sample knit here it is, but i got only one photo of it (which was actually really lucky because I hit the off button thinking the camera stopped working and was moving away when it snapped it) because I gave up on messing with the broken digi. i'll try to get better ones next time or at least when i start knitting it:



I LOVE IT SO MUCH! I don't know if it's me or not, but these flats feel even softer than the one that I test knit, it's pretty luscious. i only know of Paradise Fibers selling it currently, but I'm sure it's available elsewhere. It looks like they're only down to 3 already!!!! It was debuted at TNNA, which is going on currently, that might have something to do with it. They recommend a size 3 needle on it, and I'm hoping that I can find someone working on it with a size 3 on Ravelry so I can consider that too. The only socks I really use 3s on are Cascade Fixation, but maybe I'll try it with these. I just love the color and it is really SO vibrant in person, can't really appreciate it in the pic, nor was I really able to show off the gorgeous dying, but I'll try that again too. I told them how much I fancied the test color and I would love something along those lines that was colorful but not too girly (does someone have a complex?) and I think they did a wonderful job selecting it for me. I am lucky. :) just so you know, the fray-ey looking spots on the flats are waste yarn from when they were knit up into flats and so you can easily unravel an end to start knitting. they also feature a section of waste yarn in the center for those toe-up lovers out there so you know exactly how much yarn you have for each sock and can stop knitting appropriately, if necessary.

okay, i'm shutting up and going back to work for serious. hope all is well with all!!!! hugs!

-kb out

FO as promised!

teehee. i giggle why? well, my big FO i promised is ONE sock. :) it's my test knit for Conjoined Creations Flat Feet. The pattern is Marigold from Flint Knits (free at her site) It was a REALLY fun pattern and rewarding because for a fairly easy lace repeat, you get a gorgeous design. Big thanks to Chris for showcasing it so I could lust over it and thanks to Conjoined Creations for giving me an excuse to knit a pretty woman sock. :) Just a quick stipulation, my dica is apparently broken. It works, but no preview screen or any way of seeing anything, so forgive me for the mediocre shots.







as a side note on this, i modified the pattern in two ways. one, i did judy's magic cast on (here) because i will never do a provisional again and i also did Pauline's heel, which I thought I hated because it involved picking up stitches, but I actually pulled out the short-row heel I once loved in favor of it. As far as I know, it's her invention, but I don't want to say that for sure because someone may have come up with it before. Basically, though, it's a toe-up like normal and you get to about 3 inches from the foot length and start working a stockinette slip-stitch heel flap like in a top-down, then do the heel shaping like a top-down and the picking up stitches and decreases like a top down, so it's basically like a backwards dutch heel... i really like it!

oh and guess what! Paradise Fibers asked me to use my earlier photos to show how Flat Feet works. Check it out!!!! How awesome is that!!!! :)

all in all, i absolutely adore this yarn and highly recommend it. the colors were absolutely gorgeous and it was fun watching to see how the colors would unravel into the sock. it's nice and soft, spun well, and an overall pleasure. the only *tiny* thing I found *slightly* awkward is when I ripped out the short-row heel, I wrapped all the excess yarn around the flat and that was a little weird, but really I guess no weirder than if I was working a center pull. It is barely worth mentioning, really, and I'm an obsessive ripper, so others might not run into this issue. :) while a center pull ball of sock yarn is generally portable, I REALLY loved how EASY this was to tote around and how for times when I was standing and knitting, I could just lie the flat on my shoulder and knit away without having a cumbersome bag of any sort to hold the yarn. It also never got tangled ONCE and that in itself is a miracle for me. I give it 2 thumbs up and snaps in the shape of a sock. ;)

-kb out