Evilsciencechick » craftiness

magical myrtle

ESC — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:16:20 +0000

Maybe lace knitters are weird. I mean, weirdER. All knitters are weird. And all knitters are familiar with delayed gratification, of watching the object slowly take shape on your needles. And when someone asks “are those socks?” “is that a sweater?” “..is that a hamster???” you can smile and nod and proudly show off your work.

But when you knit lace, well, it always starts out just fine.

You have gorgeous yarn! Pet it, it’s so soft!

Look at that progress! I’m making lace!!!

OH MY GOD, I’M STUCK IN A BLACK HOLE IN THE NO-PROGRESS EVER ZONE!!!

This is about the time people start looking over your shoulder and asking you if you are knitting dryer lint. Your knitting looks like wet dog ass. You’re starting to look around wistfully at the sock knitters, who have knit 3 socks since you started. There’s that brand new knitter who just started coming a month ago, and she’s already finished a sweater. Stash yarn you haven’t thought about in years is calling out to you: “Kniiiiitttt meeeee….I want to be a fancy haaaaat! A haaaaaaaaaaatttt!!!!”

But you persevere. Uhhh….well, maybe you take a really long break and knit that hat. And some socks. And a bunch of other lace projects. BUT EVENTUALLY, you persevere. And you pick it back up and you keep knitting and knitting and HEY that wasn’t so bad, because now you’re done, and now you have a pile of wet dog ass that’s no longer on the needles.

That is progress.

And now is when the magic happens. Because that lump of wet dog ass looks NOTHING like the picture in the book. NOTHING like the delicate, wafty, intricate lace that you had pictured in your mind when you started this journey. Nothing about what you have just knit looks like it should be.

Until…

And the lace EXPLODES!!!

Even on the blocking wires, it’s hard to tell. It’s a little too stretched, too cold looking. Too…clinical.

It’s not until you take it off the wires and lift it up in your hands that your lace comes alive.

And it was all worth it. Because YOU DID THIS. And THIS…THIS IS AWESOME.

Myrtle Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. Knit out of Kidsilk Haze.

It’s a birthday gift for my mother. Because I am a gooooood daughter.

And then it’s time to start planning the next lace…

Time spent in pictures

ESC — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 03:29:14 +0000

Finished a shawl

shaved the dog…

spun some yarn…

and then knitted it

finished two small shawls

and rocked them

Staying busy

ESC — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:54:13 +0000

Facebook and Ravelry have killed my blog. Here it is, gasping for breath, and I finally DEIGN to post. I should be dragged out back of wordpress’s headquarters and shot.

HAHAHA!

OK, so. Just some pictures.

My mom visited:

Oh wait, I didn’t take any pictures. It was mostly us shopping – at the mall, in Helen, GA, at the outlets…

Stitches South! Fun and uneventful. Perfect!

I got a hair cut (FINALLY):

And I’ve been doing a lot of knitting:

My model works for dog biscuits.

Depending on how things go for me over the next couple of weeks, I may be getting A LOT more time to knit very soon. *siiiiigh* Not. Ideal.

and now, a special message from Sadie

ESC — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:24:39 +0000

iz been ruff week around here, let me tell u. dere waz penut butter too far in jar for me to reach.

dere were stuffies to be nommed

wut?

u want to nom stuffie too? pls? I’z so bored. Mama’s sick and bizzy with her strings.

she made arm sox

and one feet sox

is boring. so i nap

and nap moar. iz hard life for a dog.

Cramming a week into a post

ESC — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:07:55 +0000

OH hey, hi.

Last weekend we drove out to Birmingham, AL, which is our halfway meetup point to hang out with my in-laws. They needed their turn to celebrate Kev’s birthday with him, and I needed an obscene amount of seafood – it was win-win! We met up at the Fish Market (warning, creepy Greek dude talks to you on that website). Most of the restaurant is self-serve, where you order and pick up your food at a counter. But we sat in the small full service section, and had a New York City boy as a waiter – surreal. The food was awesome, and after we gorged, we wanted around the fresh fish counter and gourmet food market. The persuasive fish monger talked me into buying a dozen frozen deviled crabs, some imported greek feta, and a large filet of amberjack, which he swore tastes like mahi-mahi.

note – it does! I blackened it and served it in tacos. YUM!

Afterwards we wandered out to the parking lot to say goodbye, when we discovered that an impromptu Mustang party had showed up. So we hung out and admired the pretties.

oh yeah, baby

This week DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGED on as I counted down the days to VACATION.

I’m still counting. Vacation starts Monday.

In the mean time, I’ve been distracting myself as much as possible.

With fiber:

252 yards of BFL singles

and knitting:

Myrtle leaf shawl, halfway completed, for mom’s birthday…which was Thursday. Whoops!

Pretty nice, huh? Right Sadie? Sadie? SADIE!

she never listens to me when she has a pig ear

I’ll be MIA for the next week – roughing it on the sunny beaches of South Carolina. With my entire family…hmmm…this could be really awesome or really horrible. Either way, I’ll blog about when I get back!

lovely lace is lovely

ESC — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:46:24 +0000

I believe when we last left shipwreck, it was still unfinished and looked like…well…like boiled ass.

sort of a deflated, sparkly gay sea urchin vibe going on

Well, this is what it looked like earlier this week:

on guest bed, blocking. sans guest.

and THIS is what it looked like earlier today:

only made more gorgeous by my pale legs under khaki shorts

So whew! That was a process. Exactly two months start to finish, and that was with me being my lazy self with a fairly mindless lace pattern.

This next time, I will have to apply myself:

the multicolor yarn is for the cast on edge and the lifeline…it is not a horrendous design decision

This is the myrtle leaf shawl from Victorian Lace Today. My mother, in SPITE of me pointing out all the glorious non-mohair yarns at Knitch, and in SPITE of me showing her numerous simple shawls on ravelry, picked this yarn (Kidsilk haze) and this pattern for her birthday shawl. Because she is my mother and is destined to torture me for all my days.

don’t let her innocent wii bowling pose fool you, she IS evil

So I am knitting with mohair during atlanta summer with only a portable air conditioning unit to keep my hands from getting sticky. And I have until the end of August to finish.

Not a problem.

I am focusing on soft fluffy things right now, because other things have happened this week that make me sad. Things are OK at work, but they could be better, and I wish I was more certain of my future there.

My dad lost his job. He’s 60 and can’t retire yet because the economic clusterfuck of the last year has trashed their retirement savings.

Prop 8 was upheld by the California courts – champions of ignorant bigotry rejoice.

A champion of women’s rights was gunned down in his own church. A woman will never have full and equal rights in this country unless she has control over her own body.

All these things make my heart hurt.

So I focus on other things. Things that make me happy. Like my knitting. And spare ribs. And beer.

I focus on the small happy things that make me happy.

thank you, thank you very much

ESC — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:52:01 +0000

Helloooooo kids! How was your memorial day?

I spent it with the King. Well, at least with some of his friends and relatives, who were tour guides at his birthplace. You can see all the excitement here:

The rest of the weekend was spent eating, eating some more, going to see Star Trek, eating, giving Sadie her summer haircut, eating, squirt gun fights, and oh yes, EATING! Good god, I’ve been waking up in cold sweats at night with the terrifying echo of “do ya’ll want any more banana pudding?” in my ears.

Sadie had fun playing water ballons.

step 1. fill water balloon

step 2. throw water balloon

step 3. fetch water balloon

step 4. put balloon in bucket

Do not question the logic of Sadie. She knows what she is doing.

She also has a spiffy new haircut.

In other news, I FINISHED SHIPWRECK! I blocked it tonight

big shawl! that’s our full sized guest bed

I didn’t block it harshly – I couldn’t figure out how to do that without weirdly warping the center circle, which is the only thing you’re supposed to block. the “faggoting” lace on the outside (shut up, that’s what it’s called) with the beads is just supposed to dry naturally, for a more organic feel. Speaking of beads…

That’s a lot of beads. And it’s only around 3500 of them…not the 5000 beads the pattern called for. WHAT KIND OF SADISTIC BITCH WRITES A PATTERN USING 5000 PRESTRUNG BEADS??? OK, OK, it’s an awesome pattern, so I forgive her. And she gave me good advice – string 1000 at a time. Then when you run out, break the yarn, string 1000 more, and join.

The only alteration to the pattern was to the 3rd chart. I was told the pattern was wrong, and some friends of mine came up with a corrected chart. I didn’t knit the 3rd chart, so I don’t know if it was true, or if it was and the pattern has since been fixed. But it turned out looking just like the picture, so I’m satisfied with the fix!

I can’t wait for it to finish drying. I am going to wear this sucker EVERYWHERE! ESPECIALLY in september when we’re at the beach. I am SO going to imitate the pic on the pattern page – wind sweeping through my hair and the shawl, waves in the distance…oh yeah, it’s goig to be a AWESOME!!!

Show and tell

ESC — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:22:29 +0000

Show and tell day!

Remember the contest from last week? Sponsored by Andrea, and won by Pam? Because she’s a sweetheart, Andrea made me a thank you gift!

Isn’t it adorable? I love it. It holds my lace project perfectly, and closes securely. So nice!

Speaking of lace:

For some reason, it is unbelieveably difficult to photograph silver sparkles. So please imagine this with silver strands throughout, making it MESMERIZING. So much so that I think when I’m done with it, I will have to carry around a baseball bat to thwack potential thieves in the shins. This is the Shipwreck shawl, and it’s coming along nicely, thanks to an altered 3rd chart provided to me by Chickengoddess, though I think Archergal was the one to figure it out (correct me if I’m wrong, ladies). SO if you’re knitting this pattern and something is looking wrong…the third chart might be borked. Sorry.

The beads came last week, so when I start adding them, I’ll take more pictures.

I did some spinning! I procured some of Gale’s new alpaca/silk blend from Knitch and ooooooh my god, it is lovely. I spun it as thin as I could, and left it single ply.

I got 300 yards out of it, so I’m keeping an eye out for a nice cowl or scarf. It is soooo soft…I want it close to my face so I can feel the softness all the time!

Unless I can knit a bra out of it…yeah…that would be…awesome…

SADIE TIME!

rageless sparkles

ESC — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 03:47:36 +0000

Only two more days to enter the contest!!!! Ends Friday at err…umm…whenver I get home from work and work out a way to randomly pick a winner.

*****

Remember this piece of crap? Forget it. It’s shite. I frogged it. BECAUSE! I started THIS wonderful thing using the same yarn. AND I managed to find the DESPERATELY NEEDED YET ELUSIVE 3rd skein from a very generous person on ravelry. So DESPITE rumors you might hear of ravelry’s suckitude from mentally deficient, paranoid uber-conservafreaks with a persecution complex, ravelry is TEH AWESOME, because no way would I have been able to do this project with this yarn otherwise.

Isn’t it beautiful? You can’t really see, but there are strands of real silver in the yarn, making it SPARKLY! ZOMG SPARKLES!!!!! I am so easy to please.

****************

Am I the only one who’s sense of moral outrage is just broken at this point? I just can’t care anymore. I’m trying. I’m trying to work up the rage required to be properly offended by the comparatively tiny amount of AIG bonuses given out with relation to the bailout…but I can’t.

I can’t get worked up by idea that even though he’s been in office for, like, TWO WHOLE MONTHS, Obama hasn’t fixed the economy and made unicorns real. (Dude, the unicorn thing is ALL O’REILLY HARPS ONE! Let it go man…ain’t gonna happen). What’s he been DOING all this time, anyway?

I don’t giveafuck about which mouthpiece is hoping our government fails. Who cares what they think? Only other mouthpieces! I can’t find anyone who cares about this one, actually.

Your evilsciencechick…once so full of MOSTLY RANTS…is ranted out. Wake me up when it’s all over, OK?

In the meantime…let’s talk about…firemen.

pretty yarnz

ESC — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:27:02 +0000

I spent my snowy exile being productive.

8oz of Knitwitch‘s 100% merino, in the color “Michelangelo”

a little over 400yds, 2ply

This was LOVELY to spin – but of course it’s merino, which just slips nicely through the fingers. I think my plying is getting a lot better, I just wish I was spinning a little more evenly.

Sadly, I don’t get to keep it. It’s for a swap I’m participating in on ravelry. And some of you will point out that I said I DON’T DO SWAPS but shut up. I just better not get burned.