More Socky Goodness
You may be fed up with hearing about the sock, but I’m absolutely in love. This is my first sock pattern that I’ve put a lot of thought into and plan on making a pattern of it. (pssst test knitters don’t do chart three and four cause I’m going to change those) Keeping track of what I’m doing has been a bit of a challenge for good ole me who just kinda wings it a goes with the flow, but that’s what I’m doing. Once it’s all completed and such and I have it completely test knit then you can buy it! I hope. I haven’t actually worked out my webstore’s kinks and such, but hopefully you will be able to buy it! Okay I can hear you all enough of the chatter bring on the pictures. So I’m halfway through chart 2(not that, that information helps you much now does it) which is the point in which the cable starts it’s journey inward.
Work, turn to the left
Work, now turn to the right
Work, sashay shante
I can hear you all go ooooh look at that texture. This shot is just for you.
It don’t matter what you wear
They’re checkin’ out your savior faire
And it don’t matter what you do
Cause everything looks good on you …supermodel
Look at thos bump and ridges. Little morsels of colour popping out at you. BAM! BAM! BAM! The more I knit the more I fall in love with this yarn especially the colours they are just YUM! If your just tuning in the yarn is Vintage Purls Sock in Gondwana. You can buy some by clicking on the link over there ———————->>
Finally after all of that tough modeling work the sock was sweaty and dirty, and my bunny decided that it deffinitle needed a bath. she thumped and thumped when I put the sock away. Maybe I’m not the only one in love.
procasti….oh i’ll do that later
What did I do yesterday?
- I organized my desk.
- I made a pot of tea.
- I watched the second series of The Catherine Tate Show.
- I decorated my desk with blue tinsel.
- I asked Ryan what he was doing 327 times.
- I posted 42 posts on ravelry.
- I clicked refresh on ravelry 2,891 times.
- I knit one row on the back of my asymmetrical jacket.
- Read some of “No Plot? No Problem?”
- I fondled some yarn in my stash and planned another cardigan.
- Organized my desk again.
- Researched the nutritional fact of Orange Juice.
- Took blue tinsel down deciding that it looks naff.
- Pondered the oddity of the word “juice”
- Watched more Catherine Tate.
- Put blue tinsel back up after realizing I *AM* naff so thus the tinsel fits in!
- I finally sat down and tried to write for NaNoWriMo.
What didn’t I do?
- Finalise my plot details or character details yet for NaNoWriMo
- Clean of the bench from the part on Friday night!
I should get up and clean the bench then finalise my plot and character details…
Bah I will do that later!
Feeling…
Lately I have been feeling rather like it’s time for a change, so I updated the look of my website. I think It’s rather swell, but then again I designed it. So I have had a website for a year and this blog now for a year. It’s interesting originally I thought I was going to make both the website and my blog strictly for my fashion design but in the past year I have noticed that I really need a website the encompasses all of me, the activist, the fashion designer, the performer, the web designer, the writer, all of me. So keep a look out in the next couple of weeks for a new format and some new content.
Speaking of web work I have too many sites to do and I just got one more!! But I hope to have one of them done soon, and thus be able to move on to the other ones.
In other news sometime in the last few weeks my brain fell out of my head and turn to a liquid that was asorbed into the carpet. I know you aksing your self “what the bloody hell is she on about?” Well in a great moment of stupidity I signed up for NaNoWriMo and if that wasn’t enough I decided that I would do al the writing in blog form. So if you want to read the nonsense that I will be writing throughout November please feek free to follow my blog over at http://brooklynnemichelle.com/grrrlshapedthing.
SO what HAVE I been doing.
I suppose there are many of you(who come for the knitting content) that are curious on what exactly I have been doing knit and maybe even craftwise!
I have been knitting! I have been working on a Katia pattern, the asymetrical scotch tweed jacket, in a lovely shade of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. and it totally my usual fashion I have completely rewritten the pattern! the mathe has gotten a little sticky so I’m stuck at the arm holes trying to figure out how often and how much to decrease here.
Other that really the only other knitting project I’ve been working on is the recycled shawl(yes I’m still working on that) I get maybe one or two rows done on it at a time because there are so many stitches per row easily 600+ and increasing 1 stitch each row! It may not look much bigger in the picture then the last time but really it is.
I ripped out alot of things which is how alot of my knitting is ending up lately because I just seem dissatified lately with alot of what I knit. I have tho been doing some embroidery. Infact one of those pieces is taking up all my spare time which isn’t a lot lately. It’s this really wonderful and quirky canvas work pincushion.
(note: the bunny decided she needed to be seen at this moment and in a way that you all couldn’t avoid looking at)
I have also been working on a cross stitch sampler, based of a pttern orginally printed in a 1930 burda magazine. The pattern is a tunisian tree of life pattern. This is going to be my own wedding sampler which I have always wanted to do and Ryan is okay with me starting so that seems good!
So that is really all I’m working on right now(yes I know there are some things some of you all know about that aren’t listed but i’m not actively working on those so thus they do not make it to the blog) and with that I leave you a picture of the cake I made for the cafe I work for.
New look for the blog!
I got bored… that’s all
I have been tagged!
Dianne has tagged me to reveal 6 random facts about myself. Here they are:
- I really like trees, and find them fansinating and often take random pictures of random trees I like. I can feel the spirits inside old trees and feel like I can hear their stories and tales of their life. I really love this tree that is right next to my work.
- I am 25% Native American, and am really into that part of my heritage. My tribe is the Potawatomi, and I really want to learn the language seeing as it is slowly dying out. Only a few of the elders still speak it and it has only been written down for the past 40 years or so. The only problem is that I would have to go back to Michigan to learn Potawatomi
- I have been knitting and crocheting for more than half my life I learned when I was about 12 which was 15 years ago. It really pisses me off when people assume I have learned to knit within the past few years.
- Among many things I am a writer and have been working on a novel for the past year or so, I haven’t actually started to write much of it, mostly I have been doing research for it. It’s amazing how much work goes into a simple sci-fi/fantasy novel
- I love music more than anything else in my life, and one of my biggest dissapointments of life is that I am not actually musical in anyway. I can’t carry a tune or play an instrument tho I have tried both. I also love just about any type of music. My ultimate favorites would have to be Punk, Jazz, Country, Musicals and Opera
- I don’t really believe in having idols and heros, I try to make sure that the person I consider a hero or an idol is myself. I am happy to state this is actually a reality for me too I think despite all the adversary and crap I have had to deal with, that I can function, survive, and even have a postive outlook on life is absolutely amazing!
Now the people I choose to tag are: Melissa, Ryan, Anne, Duffy. Krys, and Stephen
Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.
—-
In other news this hopefully means I will be back posting more often….
Been Awhile…
I am so very dreadfully sorry It has been awhile. I feel like I have been so very busy but now that i sit down I am trying to figure out what exactly I have been doing…. I haven’t been knitting too much… I cast on posey then ripped them. I also have somehow lost ryan’s sock in progress, I have no idea where it is! GRRRR…
Wow! I just took a look at my blog and realized how much growth I’ve got on the recycled shawl! So I just ploped it on the desk to take a picture of it and alas it was too big. So it went on the living room floor… but that meant miss nosey-bum had to investigate it!
It was rather impossible to get a picture without miss bossybum! but as you can see (using bunny for scale) it is about halfway done and looking just lovely I can’t wait to have it finished…. Also soon I should hopefully have some pictures of my fabulous split sweater, which I technically finished ages ago but have only just recently woven in the ends. and unfortunately that is all you are getting for today… I will try to be back soon then a month :-p
Another one bites the dust!
Yep that’s what Ryan’s sock looks like. I bet you were wondering about the progress and where I had gotten with it! well that’s where I had gotten. Oh before you start to think that i ripped out all that work i guess i should show you another picture of Ryan’s sock.
Yep that’s right I finished the first sock and isn’t it a lovely sock. Look at the way it just splays itself along the desk lounging gracefully. It is already begging me to become a model, despite my attempts to remind it of the evils of the fashion industry. For those of you not paying attention this yarn is Lorna’s Laces Shepard Sock in the Shadow colorway. I love the way it stripes causing a nice look.
I have always maintained self striping sock yarns are not for control freaks these socks only prove that matter! I have already noticed that even though both the skeins are the same dye lot they are not perfect. The second skein has more black and mess whit and in general seems darker. I don’t have too many issues with this and nor does Ryan so it should be fine. We will have to see after they are finished. They have been moved up to bus socks so thus they should be finished sooner!
Now I bet you have been wondering what has happened to the bottom up deep ocean vest I’m working on. Well I’m working on it but darn that slip stitch doesn’t want to grow. I really looked at the ribbing and realized 3 inches was much more appropriate than 4.
It’s currently in a total of 4.5 inches long and looking good, the disadvantage of the linen stitch is that it takes two rows to equal one. so this is slow going but at least it’s going! here’s a nice close up of the beautiful yarn! I reall love this color too!
Also a couple of weeks ago I was doing the shopping and saw some beautiful blue and green food dyes that came in pretty decent sizes for fairly cheap I grabbed them and some vinegar and came home and did some dyeing! This is the fruits of my labor! some dyed roving and some blank yarn i had and finally some over dyed yarn (that was a really ugly country blue nasty color)
(Sorry its fuzzy I could NOT get a clear picture of this yarn for the life of me!)
Pieces
Lately I have been thinking a lot about quilting, so I went out and bought these two fabrics to start off with to make a quilt I think I may get two more colors maybe a nice dark blue and maybe a black I’m not sure nor am I sure what kind of quilt I am going to make but it’s gonna be cool! I like the idea of quilting and haven’t done one before but I am hopeful. I like the idea of putting something together piece by piece and it making this large item that can last generations… I want to use a wool batting for inside the quilt so that it will be nice and warm in the winter…I knit you know that right? I don’t always talk about it but I do knit! what am I working on right now well let’s see…
First we have a a simple triangle shawl that I’m knitting on on US5 needles with some thick and thin super soft cotton yarn that I rescued from a tragic Old Navy sweater that my mum got me for the holiday two years ago. It was always too big and would fall off since it was a scoop necked sweater after about a hour the neck band would have slid down my shoulders and be at my finger tips. It just wasn’t good. But I LOVED the yarn and the feel of it… So I sat down a week ago and carefully undid all of the seams and unraveled the whole thing, leaving me with three large balls of yarn and one medium ball of yarn, thanks to the front, back, and each sleeve being one solid piece of yarn, and then the wide ribbed neckband, so I definitely have enough for this shawl and maybe even enough when I’m done for a loose knit tank top.
Then I have socks, this is Lorna’s Laces pin stripe I believe or something like that anyway. I have been “making” Ryan socks for a little over three years but something always happens… well not this time! I’m going to knit them and finish them, this is sock number one, and I have been working on it for awhile but It doesn’t get a whole heck of a lot of work done since it sits on my desk and i have been working a lot lately! The heel is my own modified short row heel.
Finally we have my new top down cardigan made of Touch Yarn’s merino… Sooo soft this is a new Zealand yarn company and their yarns are just beautiful, especially their possum merino blend. I know many Americans are prolly reading this and thinking “ewww opossums” but this is a different animal to the American Opossu, this is a soft cuddly creature… imagine cashmere and alpaca blended together and thats possum! This sweater is made using the top down raglan sweater wheel. very simple…Well I want to get back to knitting and I’m sure you do too I will hopefully continue to update frequently… talk to ya all laters
Novel…
I’ve had several ideas in my head kicking around begging to be made into a novel, and lately I’ve actually been working on them and doing lots of research… research that involves biographies of Queen Victoria, history books focusing on Victorian England, and Science Journals… do I have you intrigued? gooood… I really like writing always have… I know grammatically I’m not that great of a writer but the ideas oh those I have in spades…. I think my biggest problem when it comes to writing is the over thinking… I take what could be a really cool image and over think it and then over write it to the point that the writing can be dreadful… I’ve been really studying authors whose writing styles I like and how they tell their stories and what format that they use… I have been copying whole paragraphs from some of my favorite books then slowly making changes to them to describe a scene from my book(all the same scene) but in the way that they would have wrote it and really enjoying the differences… I know I can write essays I’ve done it before(In fact I have a job writing a column for a Australia transgender magazine), I know I can write a slam poem, I can even write a short story(that won several awards) BUT can I write a whole novel? Can I stick with it long enough to finish and write a book? I just have to remember to calm down and stop thinking and just let my fingers write. Too often I try to make my first copy my final draft (and with essays this often is actually the case) but I am allowed to and even should go back change things rewrite them and move them around… I need to step back and just let the scene unfold from my fingers.
