Yarn of the Lion WIP

I love patterns with jungle animals-just the heads though. I wanted to make a wall hangy thing for my daughter's dorm room and I couldn't find a knitty pattern I liked so I tracked down a lion crochet pattern. I made a single crochet rectangular "canvas" and then started cross-stitching the lion. Sounds good, eh? However, I made a few decision-making errors right from the beginning. Firstly, the "canvas" was supposed to be made in a simple afghan stitch. Well, I have never mastered the afghan crap, so I just single crocheted the thing. And, big surprise, cross-stitching over single crochet is akin to all twelve of the labors of Hercules. (Don't try it, just believe). Secondly, I didn't check my gauge and what should have been a twenty-four by thirty-six incher became a thirty-six by forty-four monstrosity. I altered the lion pattern graph and thought, "What the hell, it'll be cool when it's finished." Thirdly, and worstly, I decided to substitute the plain old worsted weight acrylic yarn it called for with some hairy, bulky weight stuff to use for the cross-stitching. The lion would stand out! It would have texture!! All the stitches would fill in nicely and the lion would be more solid looking. Ha! Sheer lunacy. Threading a yarn needle with the hairy yarn was difficult, it would start to unwind and "unbulk" after just a few stitches, and the finished stitches fuzzed from handling. After nearly six months of moaning and bitching and throwing it in the bottom of my project basket, and taking it out again and working on it and throwing it, etc. etc. I have decided I'm not going to let it kick my ass. No sir, I'm going to show it who's boss and finish the damn thing. On the bright side, it does look like a lion. I will prune the fuzzed stuff when I'm finished and, always providing I do finish, I will block it and frame it, and give it to my daughter, who, I've decided, really doesn't deserve it. But, I suppose, a parent is meant to suffer and be driven nuts for and by their offspring. I can always play up the martyr end of the whole mess and hope for better Mother's Day goodies.

The Yarn of Pictures

There ain't none.

The Yarn of Befuddlement

I have completed all but one of my projects. Since the recent Frogging of Clapotis the Second I have been stumped by what to begin next. I restarted Clapotis the Second and I'm just not into it so I frogged it after the first few increase rows. I have been buying and petting and swatching new yarns. I go through the Knitty threads looking for projects and I've found soooo many I want to do. The spirit is willing but the brain is on hold. I want to make the Hallowig, the Booby scarf, the Heart scarf, the Viking Chicken Hat (yes, it's ugly but I don't care), a tank top (which I haven't found a pattern for yet)and more. I suppose I'll finish my last project, put all the want-to-do stuff in a hat and just pick one. Or, I'll check out the KAL's...

The Yarn of Knitting

I learned to knit when I was eleven. In the fourth grade there were mandatory swimming lessons at the Y, in the fifth-knitting. There was some sort of LYS plot, aided and abetted by the mom's of fifth grade girls, that ensured the LYS a sale of a pair of size ten and a half needles, a skein of yarn and a beginner's pattern book to every eleven year old in town. Quite a racket. I attended one class; then I was on my own. My first projest was a pair of slippers, or rather a slipper. I knit and frogged, knit and frogged until I finished a slipper the size of Lake Michigan. It was the only thing I did finish for years. The other pattern in the beginner book was for a scarf that started with one stitch and increased at the beginning and end of every other row. My knitting was so tight with so many split stitches it couldn't even be frogged. It was very discouraging and I gave up on the whole knitting mess for a while. When i became pregnant, I had visions of my child clothed in the loveliest layettes, the softest blankets, all made with my own hot little hands. I finished one sweater with some direction from a neighbor-lady, but if I had produced a child that could actually fit into that sweater, I would have run screaming from the delivery room. Still, I kept buying yarn, needles, and patterns. I started hats, booties, and blankets and never finished anything-had quite a stash, though. I got frustrated, gave all my knitting paraphernalia away and took up crocheting....Time passed... When I was thirty I moved next door to a wonderful knitting maniac who became my knitting maven. I discovered that I had learned to purl incorrectly. I had been bringing my yarn under and over the needle. This made my purled stitches twisted? pointing down? well, all screwed up whatever they were doing, and it made knitting purled stitches a real pain. Well, from then on projects just flew from my needles like magic. Okay, that's a lie. But it did make a big difference. I started finishing hats and scarfs. I made a sweater. I learned to CABLE. I STARTED KNITTING WITH TWO, THREE, AND MORE COLORS OF YARN ON ONE PROJECT. BY GEORGE, I WAS AMAZING!...Time passed... A few months ago I found The Knitty, where knitters posted about natural fiber, home-dyed, hand-painted, luxurious, sensuous, sumptuous, slobber-worthy yarns. I was humbled. I felt like the Queen of the Trailer Trash Knitters. I had never used any yarn but poor ole Red Heart from Wally World. I have started buying yarn off ebay, a wonderful knitter in Rochester, New York sent me some yarn skeins and samples: Noro wool and cashmere blend, Debbie Bliss alpaca silk, Queensland Kathmandu merino, silk, and cashmere blend. O! be still, my heart. My knitting mojo (I stole that, Lord of the Copyright Laws. I confess) has been seriously kicked into overdrive (and I am not manic, I don't care what they say). A future of wallowing in my newfound yarns looms before. My project list is endless. Unfortunately, my finances aren't, but... I'll yarn on.

The Yarn of Why?

So, I say to myself, "Self start a blog." "Why?" asks self. "The Knitty people said to," I reply. "Are they crazy?" yelps self. "No doubt," says I. So here I am, a blogger. I have been hugely entertained and educated by others' blogs. I would like to do the same (though I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you). You may notice a lack of pictures here as I have not yet mastered the techy parts of uplaoding them. Oh, and I also don't have a camera. Be that as it may, kindly look at the "About Me" section and picture a terribly attractive fat woman with, pick one: reddish blond, auburn, or light golden brown (that's what it says on the box)hair, brown eyes, and 384,937 freckles. Also imagine a picture of a nearly completed clapotis which does not appear to be a parogranm, parrellograph, er, the shape it says it should be in the pattern.