mama-of-purl

Yay! I just found out yesterday that there is a new German knitting podcast! I've listened to all three episodes (in German, of course) and I totally recommend it!  Andrea has a nice voice and an entertaining narrative style. She's doing a great job reviewing patterns and sharing her knitting WIPs and UFOs- she's a cast-on addict  just like me, that always ensures that there's plenty to talk about;-)

So all you German speaking knitters, check out Schneeschafs Podcast! 

Many of us knitters have been knitting away during the scorching heat this summer, so what makes you stop knitting (as much as ususal)?

I haven't knit for four days. Well, maybe 3 or 4 rounds on the socks I wanted to get finished Sunday night, but I just can't focus. I'm soooo fidgety and can't sit down, but I don't really know what to do with myself, either. And my stomach feels cramped. Recognize the symtoms? 

Yes, I have a crush on someone. We've sort of just met and nothing happened yet, but it's looking good (uh, so is he) and it's almost too exciting to handle. Ouch, my stomach hurts again!  

I totally forgot to mention some new fellow knitters I've met recently-

one of my mother's employees passed on a woman's phone number who was looking for someone to teach her how to knit and when I called her she turned out to be a young-sounding teacher who knew the basic stitches but wanted to learn about knitting math and further techniques. We met up 2 weeks ago and she's this really nice MATH teacher (no calculator needed knitting with her;-)) who's the same age as me and we're going to meet up regularly now. We talked on the phone last night and she's making amazing progress on the sweater she's working on and has done some great studies on gauge since we've met. She's totally got it and came up with changing needle sizes for the striping in the pattern that she has two slightly differing yarns for. Woo-hoo!

Then today I had to go to the library again to freakin' pay my overdue fees again. Grrrr. I'm REALLY trying to remember to extend the books but I screwed up the dates again. *Sigh*

Anyhow, I got to the library early and decided to go to the 'Pony Bar' to get another latte and work on the Alberta sock. Their DJ played an entire Janis Joplin album and I was mouthing along the words getting great mileage on the Albertas:-)

When three girls sat down at the table next to me, the hippie chick among them said she really wanted to knit socks for herself but couldn't figure it out and, of course, I had to jump right into the conversation and offer to teach her.

Now the only thing we need to do is figure out a way to get the three of us together and start the Hamburg Stitch 'n Bitch:-)

Oh, and here's a shot of Johanna finally modeling the Crimson&Clover sweater I knit last year. The yoke is kind of puffy when she puts her arms up, but it's still cute.

I'm so proud!

My good old friend and former room-mate Doroshi left an excited message on my answering machine this week-end that she'd just bought a pair of circular needles and some balls of yarn and she had already started with the cuff of a shrug. Woo-hoo! She hasn't knitted in years, as her last knitting experience turned out to be a bit of a disappointment (funny story, LOL!), but she's been complaining about having cold shoulders while she was writing her master's thesis, so I recommended she knit a shrug! I kept sending her online patterns assuring her it was a real easy knit and ummm, she is a master of procrastination like me, always willing to dive into a new distraction, so I finally succeeded!:-))

She underestimated the importance of gauge or rather, didn't know about it, and cast on the stitches by rule of thumb, so she said the sleeves were a little too wide. But I talked to her yesterday and she was more than half way done already, that's so cool!

So wanna hear the knitting related story? A few years back (TOO FEW years!), Doroshi had a little adolecent relapse and madly fell in love with Brandon Boyd, the admittedly cute and hot singer of Incubus. We'd been to a show just before the band got very popular and when we got tickets for a show in Cologne, she decided to make something for him to throw on stage. I was in my hat knitting frenzy and she wanted to make a had for Brandon as well. We designed a really cool surfer-style beanie together and kind of took turns knitting it;-)

At the show (of course she was in the first row), she managed to have one of the bouncers pull her across the bleachers so she got close enough to throw the beanie on stage. She was so excited about actually getting a chance to 'give' the hat to Brandon AND the little note with her name and e-mail address, LOL!!

At the end of the show, though, Brandon saw the hat, picked it up, took a quick look and then tossed it back off the stage into the crowd.

He probably thought someone had 'accidentally' thrown it there and wanted it back. You can imagine Doroshi's disappointment and resulting knitting aversion...

I love remembering that story. What a fun time that was... I just wish we had actually been teenagers at the time....

you go to the zoo, see the Alpacas and all you can think of is: 'mmmh, what a nice color! I wonder when they shear these animals!'

Well, I'm glad nessienoodle and Carola commented on my non-participation and the button- I was getting nervous about the silence after that post!

It's definitely cool to hear that the Knitting Olympics have more participants than the actual Olympics and I'm going to be an online spectator- hopefully you're all going to have a spectacular casting-on parade as well. I want cheesy music & emotions!

Now the hard part: have you all found patterns for your sockapaloooza socks yet? I've had a few nights where I - kid you not- lay awake in the middle of night contemplating which pattern would be perfect for my pal, whom I know faaaar too little about. No blog, no further personal info besides foot measurements and color preferences. Deeeeep sigh!! So far, I've somewhat settled on Steph's Mata Hari Socks in a variegated teal yarn. I tried a folded picot edge for the first time last night and was very pleased with it, but I should've known better than to knit it with the same needle size I intended to use on the rest of the sock. Even after only a few rows of the cuff, I know the edge will be too bulky and loose and it will lean towards the outside... I'll try it again tomorrow (pix later & links later, okay?)

Aaah, what a beautiful sunny and chilly day we had today! I spent most of the morning outside, meeting an old friend, drinking coffee outside and enjoying the sunshine. I just had to take the day off:-)

Heading back home, I found this in the mail:
The Paton's pattern for the Savary Shores Sweater Ande knit. I'd seen it months ago and fell in love with it!! She also wore it a lot on the pictures she posted, so my mouth just kept watering:-) I actually picked up yarn back in November with this sweater in mind! So I couldn't help but asking her if she could somehow make the pattern available to me as I couldn't find an online store that'd ship it to Germany. She kindly agreed to send me the Paton's book:-) There's even another sweater in there that looks awesome! Uh, and I found out 'Savary Shores' is not the sweater's real name, it's only called 'Peruvian Yoke Pullover'... Ande's name for it is so much cooler:-)

Anyway, I was so excited about getting the pattern, I'd barely taken off my coat when I busted out the needles to knit a swatch!! My gauge is a little off, but I may simply knit the sweater in a size smaller (does that sound familiar, Ande?;-))

Well, this week I've been distracted from my projects by two little bunnies- the Professor's student I met on Monday asked me if I could help him modify some stuffed pets who will be starring in a movie they are going to make at his school. I added some lead weights to one bunny's paws and behind so Bertrand (the student) could make a string puppet out of if, and turned the other one into a hand puppet (I know, that is one KINKY weird picture!). Wasn't as big a deal as I thought, and he's paying $$ as well! That Monday was so fortunate, I should try to find out what my horoscope said that day;-)

I also finished one of the Jaywalker socks Monday night and did the cuff of Mr. Leftie. Grafting with the Kitchener Stitch is such a pain in the butt, ahhggrrrr! Didn't turn out that well... the sock fits perfectly, tho. 

It's SIGN-UP DAY, people!! It's my first time, I'm so excited!!

THE EXCITEMENT! I've been knitting in public again;-)

Took a trip to the library to drop off some books that were only 2 business days late and got charged an arm and a leg for it... scew them...

anyhow, I took my Jaywalker sock along to knit on the bus and when I went to this café/bar later on, I really felt like knitting despite the student/urban hipster crowd... So I got out the sock and having tried it on now, the needles were FLYING! I'm ready to start the tip! Well this professor (?) with a VERY colorful crocheted scarf and a student were discussing at the next table and I had to force myself to stop eavesdropping at times, as they were talking about students having to be extreme go-getters during the course of their studies in order to make it on the job market later on. My favorite topic! AHEM! THat always gets me into such a crappy mood.

Sure enough, the professor started asking me about my knitting at some point- if I was knitting a hat. It'd be a little too tight for a hat, I replied, but we had a conversation going. He was really interested, admired the jaywalker and also complained about his hat being too boring. He ended up ordering a striped hat for himself! I took his head measurements with yarn from the other end of the ball and gave him my e-mail address:-)

I hope he's going to contact me now, cause I've already got a design for the hat and knit a swatch:

also Christoph, wenn Du das liest, welche Farben möchtest Du- das grün mit blau, oder mit beige? (Bild zum Vergrößern anklicken) Ich würde die Streifenübergänge etwas auflockern mit den abgehobenen Maschen- gefällt Dir das? Klick auf das Bild, dann gibt's ne größere Ansicht. Ich meine die Maschen, die bei den Übergängen in die nächste Farbe übergehen.

Apart from today's progress on Jaywalker, I didn't get to do any knitting at all the past few days, as I was hit by a weird virus that gave me monsterous head-aches, joint pains and an upset stomach. It was awful! Luckily, my DD was kind enough to be very low-maintenance on Saturday, happily bringing me picture books to look at with her and entertaining herself quite a bit, which is so not like her most of the time;-)

Look at this! My friend and I went to IKEA again on friday, and I found a little container to put most of my knitting tools in: 

aaah, I love how neat it looks right now. Neat according to my standards, that is;-) I wonder how long it takes until this baby is overflowing with other non-knitting related stuff.

When I moved all the needles from their old box into this container, I realized that I had 3 different types of lip balm and two different kinds of dental floss among my tools. Weird, huh? Not so much the lip balm, I guess, but the floss? But I simply like to do some teeth cleaning in between rows...

I should start a new meme... 

What kind of non-knitting related items do you always keep handy while you're knitting? Any pictures?