Taueret

a good hat these days is hard to find.

So you know how you want to FIX things when people are sick?  I love all the beautiful shawls and wraps fibre people create for their ailing loved ones (or for strangers!) but I know I'd never manage one- I'd buy the yarn, and cast on, and my stitch count would be off on row three and I'd put it down in disgust never to return.  Maybe at some point I will weave a wrap, maybe not.  I feel like maybe I wove Red Riding Hood for this occasion.  Not sure yet.  Anyway, my friend's news hasn't been good, the beast is in her lymph nodes (which they took out) so she'll have to have the works- in addition to the radical mastectomy, she'll also need chemo and radiation and hormone therapy.  Too much to take in.  I saw her yesterday and she was upbeat and we laughed a lot and cried a little- I can't imagine how she's faring today.  Because I was hoping to ward off the need for chemo, I started knitting hats a couple days ago. Knitting a hat that doesn't *look* like a chemo beanie or make the wearer look deranged is not easy:

MROWR! ok, i *am* deranged, and the offical kittyville hat (from 'Stitch and Bitch' by Deb Stoller) is super cute, and I can imagine it on my friend. 

Then there's the "floppy brimmed hat" for which I lost the pattern and winged it and made something more like what the baddies used to wear in Batman comic books when I was a kid:

ha!  Do you now understand why I force my teenaged son to model my wraps etc in my Etsy store?  LOL.

I rejected this slouchy beret today (Hot Cross Slouch Beret, interweave crochet winter 2007)

because 1) I can't actually crochet (I can do the stitches but that isn't the same thing) 2) the BEAUTIFUL hand dyed sock yarn I was going to use somehow becomes the ultimate in baglady chic when crocheted up.  I guess it will have to become a pair of Jaywalkers like I always planned.

So, if you have a hat pattern or know of one, free or for pay, that you think would make an awesome chemo hat for a youngish woman, please suggest it- I'm working in cotton because it's getting hot here now.  I am searching Ravelry of course but I always like suggestions from friends best.

I also visited my dad (who has been in the hospital since March, complications following a double knee replacement) who is so much better- which is great.  He is still so frail (which he wasn't before his surgery, but I won't get into that) but he has his old sense of humour more or less back.  Thank goodness.

oh- housekeeping- Typepad used to aways email me when I got a comment, so I would usually reply in email.  These days that's hardly ever happening, so that's why I am hardly ever repying in email any more.  I am replying in the comments thread, though!  Just wanted to mention that in case anyone had noticed the change in habit and wondered why. 

white knuckle knitting

My baby is sick :-(.  I'm sure she's not in any danger but it's so awful.  I had the 'flu for about a day, and got better.  4 year old, similarly.  Baby L, she's been sick for 5 days now.  I know it's a virus and there's no point but I think I'll take her to the doctor tomorrow.  Poor little thing, I wish I could have been sick instead of her.

I couldn't bring myself to continue MS3 with all the mistakes, so I started over.  And over.  And over.  I honestly think it wouldn't be exaggerating to say I ripped out (can't say frogged, sorry) and started over 10 times.  While the Yahoo group associated with the KAL is insanely chatty (including the obligatory threads about how we shouldn't talk about certain topics that go on, and on), it has been a good thing for me to at least scan the posts most days (I enjoy the theme guesses, mostly) because there are still people starting- I don't feel so far behind.  I am exactly one week behind the pack- I finished the last row of Clue 1 just as Clue 3 hit the server.  No worries, if I finish only a week late it will be nothing short of miraculous.  In the end I ditched the beads (after ripping out 10 times, they just didn't matter to me any more) and went down to a 3mm needle.  I like the definition of the YOs better now, but I wonder about the final drape.  Whatever.

Here's what I wanted to share with you.  You know how people say they knit to relax?  I'm not so sure about that, for myself.  My determination to finish the first MS3 clue was so string that I BENT MY NEEDLES with my grip o' death:

Me the joiner.

I'm probably the most solitary person I know.  I like the idea of groups and joining, but the reality is never really satisfying somehow for me.  I like the social aspect, but I hate the committment to being somewhere sometime, no matter what.   So I lurve, LURVE online communities.  I like the way you can waft in and out, and no one minds, I like the way you can be as involved or uninvolved as you feel able, the way you can offer help or ask for help or sign off altogether, and no one gives you a hard time.  I may have gone a bit overboard- Melanie  infected me got me into the joining mode by announcing MS3, which I immediately caught joined, of course.  I was member #5... now the group is almost 3000! 

Having to wait like 3 weeks for the start of that KAL has lowered my immunity, so I fell prey to the Spindlers' choose-your-own-adventure-CAL.  Sounds like fun- guaranteed to be easy enough for my basic crochet skills- lots of help available if when I hit a snag (the CAL will start mid July, I think.  Join or go to Spindlers and look for recent messages from Spinningmin with CAL in the subject).

Then, today, looking at knitting blogs, I came upon the Tour de Fleece.  I think I almost joined this last year, but not having any interest in the Tour de France stopped me (and I was probably spinning every day anyway).  I would like to make myself spin even 15 minutes a day for the duration of the TdF:

"You will set yourself a personal spinning challenge.  You will begin spinning on the first stage of the Tour (July 7th), and finish on or before the last stage (July 29th).  You, of course, may spin on those days designated rest days for the riders." (I'm copying that here because I will undoubtedly be as unaware as ever of when the actual Tour is!).  I hope I stick to it!

HEre is a pic of the scarf I gave my sister for her birthday.  She said she liked it, but I'm not sure.
 

projects

I've had to take a deep breath and calm down.  I veer between days where I feel pure delight at having my choice of projects and materials, and days where I don;t know where to start and time goes a wastin'.  I hate wasting time!  Right now is the one time in my life where I have enough- if I play my cards right.  I can probably find at least a couple of hours every day to spend on fibery pursuits- as long as I have a plan.  Then I can go straight to work when someone goes to sleep or whatever.

I think I am soakered out for the moment, but perhaps having a pair OTN is not a bad idea as they are nice mindless knitting.  Let's see what I am up to and what I want to be up to:

OTN:
green heartstrings sock #2 (yes I finally finished sock #1, and I am a few rows into the lace cuff of the second.  Thrilled, I am!  These are fun to knit and I will like wearing them lots.  Not mindless for me tho, til I get to the stockinette foot).

- sari silk shawl:  I have had 500g of recycled sari silk since I bought it a few months ago, possibly for a clapotis.  It has resisted incorporation into ANY project- it's strange yarn, unbelievably beautiful up close, not so lovely from a distance.  VERY roughly spun.  I finally settled on Glampyre's City Shawl for it, as it is a SIMPLE garter stitch/open lace shawl in which the yarn can star.  It's coming out okay... while I am still not as in love with the yarn knit up as I am in the skein, at least it is the best use I have had for it so far, and it is GETTING IT OUT OF MY STASH!  Yay.  It also qualified as mindless knitting so I think I will keep it as my car project for the moment. 

That is all I actually have OTN right now.  Reid is started, but I will re-start from scratch when I get to it, because I have gained a little confidence from knitting the green socks and I think I'm ready to tackle that lacy little devil again.

I was inspired by the felted crocheted, embroidered hats in the current Spin-Off which I picked up yesterday in Borders for TWENTY DOLLARS.  Sorry, I lose my mind a little bit whenever I remember that I am on the island of 20 dollar magazines.  I feel better now.  Deep breath.  Anyway these little crocheted beanies and just lovely and I am going to make some.  The magazine is upstairs next to a lseeping baby, so if anyone doesn;t know what I mean you'll have to wait to see a pic, sorry.

I was thinking about how we Australian knitters are at a disadvantage due to seasonal things- not only is it rare to get really truly cold here (BUT our houses are a lot colder inside than the average centrally-heated American house, so that kind of evens out, I think)- but seasonal gift giving is affected by the heat we have around Xmas- you're really not going to give a wooly scarf or hat to someone when it is 40 degrees C outside.  Do you?  And it's a shame, because I think knitting as a saleable craft would be so much more viable here, if it was cold 'round Christmas time.  Those embroidered hats would be fast to make and I bet would sell like hotcakes at the markets- but theywould sell a lot better if people were thinking "gift" when they saw them.  So, on my list now are these hats.  They looked GREAT in natural colours like tan and brown, which is good because I have about 100 kg of tan and brown fleeces to spin up, and no intense urge to wear a tan jumper :-P.  Crochet is so fast too... I can;t wait to get stuck into some of these babies.

So we have
green socks
city shawl

coming soon
embroidered beanies
Reid

spinning:
the grey fleece!
and soon, some tan or brwon, worsted weight to make those hats!

I also asked my dad's wife to measure him up for socks and a jumper as I would like to knit him something... to complain about!  LOL.

Again with the flowers....

Here's what my obsession with crocheting flowers has wrought:

Finally with the flowers!

I am so excited to report that I finally have SORT of got the idea of the crocheted flowers!  I have been mumbling and swearing over the instructions for a week or so... each night it's like one more part of the instructions sinks in.  Today I suddenly *got* it- well at least some of it.  I am still muddling a bit and fudging a bit- but that's the fun thing about crochet, you can do that.... or at least Ihave been.
First a natural-light shot of the yarn...

And here are the flowers I have done so far.  They are really addictive!  I want to find more patterns to suggest more ways thay can be made- if you know of any good sites please let me know.  Now that I'm doing flowers, I wish there wasn't so much green in this yarn.  I get really excited when I come to a pink or yellow bit.  I see a scarf of flowers in the future... preeeety.

I am a crocheting FOOL!

Well that totally sucked.  I posted this long chatty post and then accidentally closed the window it was in without publishing it.  DUH.

Short version- finished 'stripes and stripes' scarf from "happy Hooker".  Stuffed up the tension, it has a CURL in it because my forst row was too tight (or the rest too loose).  Blocking it may help, but I am not optimistic:

Fiiinished!

I finished the little newborn jumper, from Debbie Bliss.  It is utterly simple and so soft, and I like simple.  Babies are beautiful enough, I never like gilding the lily with too much fancy stuff.
If the baby is a girl, I would like to embroider a few flowers around the neck, maybe.

I also finished the little mini-me purple scarf for Tara, and got good mileage out of the last bit of purple wool.  I'll get a pic of her wearing it tomorrow.

I'm hooked.

Sorry for the cheezie post title, but it's true.  After sitting there, night after night, growling and swearing over my attempts to single crochet into a small chain of 20 or so stitches- I am finally off and running.  As I suspected, it was simply that I was doing it wrong (well duh).  No I mean REALLY wrong.  I knew it could NOT be that hard, or no one would have invented crochet, much less actually made anything.  My spinning teacher (and all round wise woman) showed me that I was basically trying to stick my hook where it didn't belong, hence the difficulty.  SO anyway, I decided to do what all the newbie knitters seem to be doing these days, make a scarf.  Since I am not the kind of girl who can make 28 garter stitch dishcloths before being ready to move on to 29 stockinette scarves (or whatever), I chose the "one skein" scarf from "the happy hooker" (Stitch n Bitch crochet handbook).  Ta daaaah!  Here is is being blocked.  I made it in like... 4 hours?  And the first hour I was going  "ok, single crochet.  What does that look like... flip pages.... stitch..... ok, sk1.  What's sk?  Ok skip... sc?  WHat's that? oh single crochet again?  Hang on how do you do that?.... flip pages....stitch.  Shell stitch?  What?  Flip pages... aggghhhhh..." and so on.  Then suddenly it just clicked and I whizzed through the rest.  I used about 110g of 12 ply wool, and I'm making Tara a little scarf in the same
design from the remains of the last ball.  I now have Single crochet, double crochet, and shell stitch embedded in my brain, and a REALLY pretty purple scarf.  It actually is way nicer than it looks in that pic, honestly.

Because I like scarves, I am going to make the "stripes and stripes forever" scarf from 'happy hooker' next- although it is just row on row of single crochet, so I am kinda "meh" about that!  I do like it though so I think I'll make it anyway, I did buy the yarn already.

So yippee!  I have always liked a lot of crocheted things, especially the kinda kitschy, "ironic" items that make me laugh, and I am so pleased to be able to have fun with this cool craft now.

One thing that is interesting, is how much YARN crochet uses!  I reckon it uses 3-4 times as much yardage as knitting.  I would have to think long and hard about using any of my precious handspun in a crocheted project, but I love what you can do, fast with bought yarn.