geek squad activate: fighting migraine but still posting

As I martyr myself on a giant bamboo needle for the great goddess of knitting, I give thanks that the top I'm working on is red...the blood won't show. I'm fighting the migraine from Hades...two days and counting. What, you may ask, are you doing blogging then, you silly girl? I wonder the same thing. But I finally got a chance to take some pics of knitting in progress. Not all of it mind you, I don't have an image of the red top yet, but several things in progress, two which are new! First: I finally cast on for the Plimoth Plantation stockings! My first piece of "charity" knitting....interpreters need new stockings? Enter Ravelry and within about a week they had more knitters working on this than they could shake a stick at. I've been a bit remiss, as I just cast on for these and I got the yarn back in November. But I had holiday knitting, then deadlines hit, then I had to skein and wash the damn yarn, so here we finally are: the end of March and I've got 4" done. Of one stocking. Each one is 22" long plus an 11" foot. I'll get these done in time for fall. I hope.
Next: The project I'm calling "Embers for a lady." It's loosely based on the Lady Eleanor entrelac stole...but I didn't like the yarn or the final results all that much. But I did want an entrelac scarf/stole....starf??? so I cast on for this with the amazing Trekking Handpaint yarn in colorway "Feuderland" Yum. or maybe charcoal briquettes...you decide.
Finally, I'm making slooooooooow progress on the Cosmic handspun raglan cardie. Sloooooow. But I'm planning on spinning for most of the weekend, so that may help the yarn situation some.




So there you are: 4 projects hot on the needles, several more in slumber, and another pair of socks (I'm thinking Queen of Cups in Plymouth Happy Feet Burgundy) to come....now wish me luck on finding an apartment in Seville! (Yep, I'm agoing to Spain kittens!)

Dash it all and then some handspun

Well, I succumbed after all. I couldn't resist you see. I had to cast on for something and it simply would NOT be those d*mned socks. So I am beginning my top-down raglan again, using my merino handspun. I will have to spin up the entire pound in order to finish the sweater, but it will be worth it: a deep turned collar, tweedy soft yarn in my colors, a knitted-on button band...all perfect. simple. wearable. I hope.

PS: see what I mean? FUGLY yarn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Socking angst

So I have been trying to do the SKP 2008 but nothing I try (yarnwise) is working. Claudia's handpaints in bootcamp? Great yarn, good colors. fugly with this pattern. The handspun, handdyed yarn I was dreaming about? Note to self: do not depend on natural dyeing to produce acid dye results. Or anything predictable. Much less to be able to blend colors with great finesse on your first try. Result? fugly yarn. So where does that leave me? With a started sock in bootcamp and no pattern that I like. believe me, I've tried about 4 by now. So I'm making it up as I go along. It's looking like I'm doing a set of 4 cables across the instep and then will pick up the cables at the top of the heel flap when I get there. Or I may make them travel around to the back and leave the front in a plain stockinette 'V', I'm not sure. Fun! And it means that I haven't started the Jacobean sock, nor have I finished spinning my fugly yarn...which I will overdye to fix, nor have I started my charity knitting for Plimoth Plantation...which I should have started LAST YEAR. I'm a bad knitter, I am. I think my knitting mojo is on hiatus, because I keep picking up projects, knitting two rows, then putting them down again. I LONG to cast on for a big sweater project but I can't afford the yarn and keep telling myself that I should spin it rather than buy it. But I want instant gratification. Enter the knitting emo. ya, that's me.
In other news, I really really want to go to this: The browncoat ball. Yep, I'm that geeky. Off to try and write something. I have a presentation at the end of the month, I haven't picked my books for this summer's class yet, much less started to write the lectures yet....ack, where are my needles?

My celtic horoscope--scary accurate!

You Are A Pine Tree

You love agreeable company, peace, and harmony. Compassionate and friendly, you love to help others. A natural poet, you have a very active imagination. You are very soft on the inside - needing affection and reassurance. You can fall in love deeply, but you will leave if you feel betrayed.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

new shoots

So I'm branching out here and discussing other *gasp* things besides knitting....Namely, music. I have just "discovered" the coolest group. They're called "Chambao" and are from Malaga, Spain. Their new album, called "Con Otro Aire" is fantastic. I especially like "Papeles Mojados" and "Capricios de Colores." Check them out, they're worth it. Three women singing trance flamenco with Moorish and other world flavors. Very very cool. I adore them. I've also been listening to a great deal of cumbia, especially Fanny Lu, Fonseca, and Erika Ender. I adore fusion sounds, so the group Salsa Celtica also holds enormous appeal for me...a mixture of Salsa sounds with traditional Celtic music. Fabuloso! And for those of you living under rocks who haven't heard of Rodrigo y Gabriela yet....listen to "Diablo Rojo" and tell me you could keep your feet and bum from moving! Do yourself a major favor and invest in the whole album. From Mexico City but living in Dublin, Rod y Gab create intensely layered acoustic guitar duets. They are not, as they will tell you, flamenco. But their sound has a hint of that flavor. Their deep inspiration is metal music...Metallica's "Orion" anyone? I can't stop listening to them.
Can you tell I'm gearing up for the possibility of going to Spain this summer? Keep your needles crossed for me kittens!
Oh, because I can't help it, I have picked up the gf's Weasley again...one sleeve half done. And I'm waiting desperately for my wool to get here so I can start spinning the yarn for my Sock Pentathlon challenge...we get the pattern at midnight tonight, so I have to accept that there's no way I can win with my own yarn on this one I suppose. sigh. Keep 'em clicking!

Green leaves of evil-with apologies to my favorite poet

A Landscape

"I would, when I compose my solemn verse,

Sleep near the heaven as do astrologers,

Near the high bells, and with a dreaming mind

Hear their calm hymns blown upon the wind.

I'll watch the singing, babbling human bands;

And see the clock-towers like spars against the sky,

And heavens that bring thoughts of eternity;

And softly, through the mist, will watch the birth

Of stars in heaven and lamplight on the earth;

the threads of smoke that rise above the town;

The moon that pours her pale enchantment down.

Seasons will pass till Autumn fades the rose;

And when comes Winter with his weary snows,

I'll shut the doors and window-casements tight,

And build my faery palace in the night.

Then will I dream of blue horizons deep,

Of gardens where the marble fountains weep,

Of kisses, and of ever-singing birds--

A sinless Idyll built of innocent words.

And Trouble, knocking at my window-pane

And at my closet door, shall knock in vain;

I will not heed him with his stealthy tread,

Nor from my reverie uplift my head;

For I will plunge deep in the pleasure still

Of summoning the spring-time with my will,

Drawing the sun out of my heart, and there

With burning thougts making a summer air."

-Baudelaire, translation by F.P. Sturm in The Flowers of Evil, edited by Marthiel and Jackson Mathews (New York: New Directions, 1955 ed), 75-77

yowza

Two weeks! Sorry about that, but I've been a tad busy. I know, I know. Don't look at me like that. Will this make it a wee bit better? There, I thought so. I've been working on this for about 1.5 weeks, off and on (booooring stockinette and my crappy intarsia skills made for a knit I wanted but didn't want to knit...does that make sense?) Here's the story: I hate most felted bag patterns I see. They're either bland, poorly designed, or something I would never ever carry. Enter my nonexistent pattern-making skills. I knew I wanted something that would let me use my leftovers from the cosmicpluto 2.0. I knew it had to have leaves on it. I've been very inspired by the stitch designs in Haiku bags, but I didn't want one of those. Too sporty for me. So I give you the Bag of Holding(tm). It's the right size, the right depth, the right color and it has leaves. I even worked in some nifty "folksy cool (tm)" stitches as "drop patterns" for the falling/spinning leaves. get it? I only wish I could have done a leather handle instead of a felted one...but the gf didn't have the right kind of leather in her stash (she makes things too..not those kinds of things. ART, people, ART). So here she is and I'm almost perfectly happy with her. I'm almost done with the Baudelaires too, just the last little bit of ribbing and the sewn bind off. I've just signed up for the sock pentathalon...5 pairs of socks in 6 months, she who finishes first wins. I've decided (stupidly) to spin and dye my own sock yarn for this competition, thereby making me totally ineligble for the whole "winning" thing. But I'll have fun damnit. And it means cooking with bugs and roots. That's always good, right? I've got cochineal ( a little red bug that lives on prickly pear cacti and dyes things brilliant colors), cutch root (I kid you not)-which dyes shades of warm brown, and henna (brown to yellow) on order. Fun with the drum carder will soon ensue! Meanwhile, enjoy this image of my fav feline doing her best Bill the cat impression.