Sorry it’s taken a couple of days to do the second part after posting that last post I just felt like I needed to get up and  work on a few of those projects. So I did!  the progress shall be seen in a future post. Now on to the knitting segement of my UFO’s/WIP that I’m actively trying to transform into that mythic object that heals small injured orphans and returns the sight to blind men a FINISHED OBJECT! (You  can just about hear the angels chorus sing “aaah”s??) Yet again same disclaimer  as last time this is by far not ALL of my WIP/UFO’s but just the current ones I’m working on.

This is my “big” knitting project, the Queen Anne Cardigan(ravelry link) by Christina Wall of A Knitter’s Life. I’m knitting this in alternating rows of two different colourways of Vintage Purls Sock (2 rows of each colour). I had wanted to do this cardigan for awhile but I didn’t have any sport weight yarn, when digging through My stash I found two skeins each of two colourways that were almost identical. I could totally pull it off with four skeins! I’ve finished the yoke increases, and put the sleeves both on stitch markers and started on the body. I’ve actually added about another 6 rows to this since the picture, but unfortunately its now to big for my purse knitting and is resigned to be for when watching movies and TV(which I don’t do a lot of).

Ah yes these are my Baudelaire’s I finished the first one and this is how far I got with the second one. I really want and need to pick them back up and finish them but just hasn’t happened. I’m still partially mad that these were originally going to be knee highs but alas I screwed up the increases and they were just way too tight so i ripped them back and couldn’t be bothered re knitting them knee high again… maybe next time!

These of all my projects are the ones I SHOULD be working on. These are a thank you gift to my friend Nick who shuttled me around on a very important day! This is thankfully the second sock, But I just seem not to be working on them as much as i should, I think I’m tired of the repetitive pattern(which btw is just from a stitch dictionary) and once i can get to the heel I’ll be sweet as, I hope. The yarns is my own silk merino in the aflame colourway

Of all the projects on this page these will be the ones most likely to actually get finished. I worked on them some today when I was fed up with the cardigan while watching several movies since running to catch the train yesterday(in heels I might add) I fell and hurt my back and legs so now work for me today. I’m half finished with the heel which is good! these are my own design, just goofing around really. This is also the second sock.

And long time readers of this blog know I suffer from real severe startitis(the disease which causes you to chronically need to start things). Over my 28 years on this earth I have had to develop some nifty methods to counter act the disease, usually it’s to cast-on the toe of a second sock, or of a sleeve. This time tho I didn’t have any of those so I dug out this yarn for hubby socks and started the magic mirror socks(ravelry link) for him. As you can see I got REAL far!

So that’s about it for me for now, I guess soon I will have to take update photos!

as I laid out all my WIP/UFO’s that I’m actively wanting to work on a get done soon(some have time limits some just have been on the go for too long) I realized I have a lot of them that I’m currently working on thus why it feels like I’m going nowhere slowly. So in interest in not making and epic post of doomy-doom-DOOM I have split it into two posts. today will be about my needlework(I have more than what is seen here on the go these are just what I’m working on finishing!!

I have the skirt which I haven’t take pictures of cause it’s still just endless stem stitch at this point… but it’s going along fine and will hopefully be finished soon so I can proceed onto other parts of the skirt… It’s hard for me to work on this for too long because it’s such a big project all in white on black which also means I can only do it before 7pm when the lighting gets wonky. I can do maybe an hour before my fingers twitch for something lighter and colourful, although i can say this thank goodness for seat frames.

This is probably the project I want to work on the most cause it’s so much fun and beautiful. I really need to make myself a light box so I can trace designs a bit easier I also need a water soluble pen the pencil isn’t really precise as I would like. I’m loving the colours that I used for this so bright a vibrant, I believe the Victorians would approve. I originally thought this would be the pocket it’s self I think I might be more prone to turning it into a patch to sew onto the pocket. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do about the border part of me is really unsure about doing it all in grey satin stitch, and might have to add blue whipped stitch over it or maybe some green vines with French knot buds, like I did on the stem portion.

This is a tatted necklace that I’m working on as you can see I’ve gotten ever so far… I think I was rather let down when I had to redo 12 hours of work thanks to a stupid mistake that I did very early on! Well I’ve put this on my bedside so hopefully I will be able to get to it a bit everynight!

This project is multi purpose, as I have gotten more into embroidery I have collected lots of needles and need to know what is what, and thus I need a needle book. I’ve also been really interested in quilting lately and started(and put somewhere I cannot find) a English Paper Piecing quilt, in a grandmother’s garden pattern. I figure since I’m hand stitching all the pieces I might as well hand quilt it all too. Finally my fabulous new Aunt I inherited through my marriage gave me some excellent 6inch squares of Aussie fabrics, not really enough for me to do too much with, but enough for a few small projects. This is the back of my needle book which is going to be hand quilted using some of my favorite fabrics from the stash(who knows what else I will do with them :-p ) (p.s. it’s not biased i just too the picture crooked and in a hurry cause a naughty bunny was trying to eat the frame which is loaned to me)

This is a project I started eons ago; before Ryan proposed I got started on a wedding sampler, NOT as a hint, but because I knew we were getting married(we both did) I just knew how long it takes me to finish things. well that was August 2 years ago and we have been married 4.5 months and this is where the wedding sampler looks today… very far from being done…. yes I know! Well I plan on fixing that I hope to finish this this year! one of the nice things about not finishing it till after my wedding is that I can add a band that has the Celtic knotwork that is on our wedding bands.

Wow I have been BUSY! let’s see what has happened since I last posted here, well I got married and went on a fabulous honeymoon(I have pictures somehwere!!!) I’ve been knitting a lot… and oh yeah I started a yarn dyeing business Grrrl Shaped Yarns overall life has been good to me.

It’s weird looking back now it seems like so much has been happening i don’t know where to begin or what I should talk about, maybe I’ve gotten a bit rusty as blogger, I feel rusty.

I can’t believe it’s 2010, 10 years since I was in high school come thus June,  8 years since I transitioned come this July, 2.5 years since I moved to New Zealand to live with my husband. I still remember the feeling of being unsure of where I was going, getting lost often, and in general being confused about my surroundings.  Wellington is so big that there are still parts of it I have never seen and parts that confuse me, unlike the relatively small San Francisco I used to live in.  Still doesn’t feel like home, and I still miss San Francisco at times, but things will change. A New year, a new decade, it seems like just last year we were all panicking about Y2K, or in shock over 9-11. It’s amazing looking back at how much I have changed in these past 10 years.

One thing that new years always bring along with them are resolutions, I haven’t made any resolutions so much as a few goals. and in the effort to help me stick to them I guess I shall share them with you.

1. become a bit more fit and healthy(if this helps me lose weight than so be it)

2. Expand my business to the best of my potential

3. Finish at least 12 items this year(after realizing last year I completed one super simple scarf and shawl and that’s it ALL year)

That’s it just a few simple goals, nothing to earth shattering. I like to think I’m doing good I’m eating healthier and participating in the Couch 2 5k challenge even though i am a bit stuck right now… I’m plotting and scheming business plans. I have finished one item already this year that’s my wedding shawl( yes it was 3.5 months late what you wanna make of it?)

In general I think life is good, and although I am busy it’s a good busy I’m enjoying it! I have so many plans for the next year I hope some of them pan out. and with those thoughts I would like at say, I’m thinking of starting an online crafting magazine, if you are at all interested in submitting a project  or article or review please let me know via email Zine AT brooklynnemichelle DOT com

Sorry I have been gone for so long, this wedding has been taking a lot of my physical time and energy. It’s 3 weeks away and I’m excited! Although it’s just ripped right through my budget and I find myself close to broke now… It’s hard to believe how people can afford this considering how much we aren’t doing. I think it’s going to be okay, I hope it’s going to be okay. actually I’m almost completely out of money and have a lot of things that still need paid off. But I guess it will be worth it.

Some History:
Ryan and I met 5 years ago online. I was in a trans community that was about loveing trans bodies and as such we posted some risqué photo’s. A few days later my friend told me there was this transguy who was blogging about loving my photos, so I popped over and read what he had to say and was deeply flattered. That was a beginning that I wasn’t expecting (Ryan says he knew all along). We started with commenting on each others blogs and then those lead to emails. We became close friends and Ryan was there when no one else was. Through the internet and phone I watch Ryan become more of the man he is today and he watch my constant struggles trying to live on my own in San Francisco. After three and a half years of emails and what became daily phone calls I decided it was time to take the plunge. Bush was till in office, I was fed up with everything and Ryan loved me and I loved him, I packed all my possessions into two suitcases(one of which Ryan can report was nearly full of yarn) and a two medium sized boxes and I left America without looking back. On October 15th, our wedding day, it will be two years since I stepped off that plane and I am incredibly happy that in little over three weeks I will become his wife and he my husband.

I should state that that I’m lucky because while Ryan has been able to legally change his gender to male, transwomen have it harder when it comes to legal gender change thus I’m still legally male, but we are able to express our love and commitment to each other legally. My heart goes out to those everywhere that cannot.

People have asked if they can donate to help my wedding costs, yes they can through paypal (any excess funds will be donated to Marriage Equality We would like to provide Marriage Equality a rather nice donation(in my head I’m hoping for 5,000)

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So when Ryan gave me the amazingly beautiful Vintage Purls yarn as part of my engagement ring package, I knew instantly that something that special needed to be part of my wedding and as a shawl. Next started the search for the perfect shawl, first I checked Elann.com for something and found the luna moth shawl and moonlight sonata but neither were exactly what I was looking for. So my next stop ,should have really been my first stop, was to see Anne over at Knit Spot to have a peruse of her beautiful sexy patterns. Seriously if you thought knitting could never ever be sexy you should check out her patterns. I browsed and many MANY of her patterns spoke to me but none of them were saying wedding to me, tho they were throwing themselves at me they really have no shame. It was while at her site that I realized I wanted something that was vintage since my dress is going to be very Victorian inspired. It hit me suddenly like a ton of bricks exactly what I wanted it to look like I thought I had seen a pattern I like, months maybe years ago. I did and it was at Knitting-And.com(BTW congratulations to Sarah and her new baby son Charlie) it was this absolutely beautiful table cloth pattern from the 1940’s by Herbert Neilbing and updated and corrected by Sarah Bradberry who runs Knitting-And.

This was perfect so I instantly set to working on it. The cast-on was really interesting and fiddly at first but I just kept trucking and soon found it had to transfer it over from 4 DPNs to 6 DPNs It was just going so fast… Well now I have just finished 52 out of 238 rows and I just can’t stop knitting the rows are now getting bigger and more complicated so I only get to knit on it a little here and there. On Average I get about 2-3 rows a session now. I know you want another picture so here is a close up of the texture, I really hope the rippling center blocks out.

Isn’t that just the most beautiful think you ave ever seen? I am absolutely in love with it and think it will make my wedding day just a touch more special wearing my handknit shawl made ith yarn my fianchad dyed to match my engagement ring. If that doesn’t signal a heirloom in the making I don’t know what does.