A moment of silence . . .

. . . For I have lost a knitted item. My trilobite hat, which I have loved and cherished for all of six months, is gone. I have looked, cleaned my room, searched high and low and appealed to the mercy of the hat gods for two days and despite all my efforts, the hat is still gone. Apparently, I am not meant to have a third hat. Every time I have one, it gets lost (though the first one wasn't my fault. My mother borrowed it, and then she lost it, not me).

I suppose it's possible that the problem is not that it's a third hat - perhaps the problem is that it's a green hat, since the other lost hat is green as well. It will probably require a certain amount of further study to determine the exact nature of my hat curse, and I suppose in the meantime I should just turn my energies to mourning . . .

New Recruit

SO I've sucked another person into the vortex that is the world of knitting. She's hooked. Really. As in, I taught her the basics and her first project was a cowl. Knit in the round, that is. No fooling around with scarves, no awkward stitches, and best of all, no irrational fear of trying new things.

Her second project was a sock. She hasn't finished it, (she got bored) but she's done the toughest parts - the heel is turned, gusset decreases finished, well on the way to the toes. It's just boring.

Did I mention she was fast? She churned out a couple of hats after that and got started on a lace ribbon scarf which she has finished, by the way! And even as we speak, she is sitting next to me with a further couple of cabled hats under her belt, working on a scarf knit almost entirely with a spin-off of a short row technique.

She's been knitting for about 9 weeks. I've created a monster. A really awesome monster who knits.

Confession Time, Again

Ok.
I've got startitis. For anyone who doesn't know, startitis is a debilitating knitter disease that can strike at any time to bring down the most able-bodied of WIP finishers. Symptoms are characterized by what seems a completely uncontrollable urge to cast on and (often) complete the first part of project, and then, without finishing that first project, casting on for a second. Or a third. I'm up to seven, not counting the two different pairs of gloves that I might frog. For the love of all things fibery, someone save me from myself!!

It's not that I don't love the projects. (I don't love the gloves, and I don't love this particular pair of socks that make me angry for some reason, but that still leaves six other projects that I think are great.) It's just there's something so fulfilling about setting out on another knitting adventure. I love the Laminaria I've been working on, but there's something really exciting about pulling out my brand new cone of Valley Yarns 2/14 Alpaca Silk and whipping out a few rows in that lovely shade of springy green! I could work on my 2-at-a-time socks in my lovely Neighborhood Fiber Company sock yarn, but there's this bright lovely yellow calling my name and begging to be a brand new pair of bright yellow monkey socks.

Maybe it's the colors . . . maybe it's the notion that my Ravelry queue is growing every day and I'm barely getting any relal knitting done - and certainly not enough to offset all the patterns I add in a given week!

Oh well. Homework is for losers, anyway.

Let's get some pictures in here, huh?

I mentioned discovering cowls. On Ravelry it seems that cowls are a well known and much beloved alternative to the masochism of scarves, but I've found that outside the world of knitters, no one seems to have heard of these crazy things. For my non-knitter friends out there, a cowl is a sort of tube that you pull over your head and let sit around your neck, so that effectually, it's a scarf that you don't have to tie or fiddle with, and, far more importantly, you don't have knit for millions of inches before you're done.

I am so happy to be a knitter instead of an ordinary person. Ordinary non-knitters, or people without knitter friends don't seem to have cowls. They don't seem to have heard of them, poor fellows . . .

Anyway, now that I know about them I need never fear the neck garment again. I have a secret weapon!

By the way, here's my first cowl -

Sorry about all the shadow. You stick your head into one of the short ends and pull it down until you get your head out of the other side, so that the whole thing bunches about your neck. Much warmer, but much less bulky (and way more fun to make) than a scarf!

Now I'm completely addicted and have already got another on the needles!

Okay, I'm back now.

I'm sorry, I've just been completely distracted, but now that I'm back at school and back to my normal student-y behavior I'll be posting regularly again.

As far as updates go, I'd better do some filling in on what I've been up to knitting wise and otherwise for the past several months.

First of all, I've made a lot of hats. Four, actually, and three given away for Christmas gifts. I'm working on a fifth - story to come, but hats remain a satisfying and quick project for me.

I've discovered cowls, cabling and 2-at-a-time socks as well as gotten back to work on my fantastic Laminaria-to-be! (I promise there will be postings about these!)

Also . . . if you take a look at banner at the top of my blog . . . there's an aspect of the blog description that hasn't made much of an appearance yet, and that is because, dear (though possibly fictional) readers, I had lost my mojo. But part of what has inspired me to get back to my blog is the fact that only two weeks ago, my first love came flooding back to me! I can write again - and my goodness, it's like being able to breathe again. Really.

So it is with great pleasure and excitement that I take up my electronic pen once again!

The Plan

I felt it was important to make one. So I would know what I was getting into and what kind of schedule I ought to be keeping . . . at least until I go back to school:

September: Laminaria (going well , I might add) and Pomatomus socks. Oh, and Schnitzel.

October: SECRET. And at least half of Sam's socks.

November: MINI-SECRET. The other half of Sam's socks. And a hat for my sister.

December: un-secret. alpaca glovie-things.

January: A mystery, but maybe a sweater and a hat . . . we'll see.


So that is the plan . . . and let's see how well I can keep up with it between an internship, seminar class and a thesis. It'll be a good time, I'm sure of it!

Shhhh . . .

So. I'm nursing a SECRET. Yes, that's right. Hopefully, I can gather up the coins necessary to turn this unsubstantiated and possibly doubtful SECRET into a real one. IT's a SECRET involving [deleted for security reasons] and for everything to work, I have to be sure to finish IT by [deleted for security reasons]! I think that even with my new internship and all the other [deleted for security reasons] I have to do between now and then, I should still be able to finish IT in time. At least, I hope so.

Oh, and for the plan to work all the way, I also have to find the time to make the MINI SECRET that goes with IT. It's gonna be a busy [deleted for security reasons].