Post 59

I've got a new baby, meet my new green iPod. (it's really the black one in a green case) I'm in love. Even though it has a case I'm thinking it's going to need a knitted cover for the case, just in case. I'm a smartie too, I saved 50 bucks by asking for an openbox, yea me! No new knitting, except I have three weeks to get the Habu bag done for my grandmothers' Mother's day gift, I spoil her so.

Post 58

Spring has sprung officially and I made a beeline to Home Depot yesterday after work and bought my first batch of flowers. I am a geranium freak, they are the only flowers I can grow in the front of my house with it's peculiar lighting, and better yet, geraniums like me and I can keep them alive and growing well into autumn!



















This year I'm trying to go for a more european look and hung little clay pots along the fence by my gate entrance, I think it looks quiant and adds alot to the area since it's near my neighbors staircase and is blah.














Funny thing happened while at the Depot buying the plants, two groups of landscapers got into a fight for plants, yes, effing plants, we're not talking an argument, but fists, how stupid, there were enough to go around. So today was the Lorna's Laces tour for the members of the Windy City Knitting Guild. Don't laugh, but I got up early and was there by 8, it wasn't schudeled to start until 10, but I know they only allow 20 in at a time and if there is something in particular you're looking for you need to prepare, I wasn't the first person, I was number 10.

Boy did I score, I was looking for Lion and Lamb to make another Clapotis and picked up 5 skeins in a great teal colorway, and there wasn't that much there to begin with. If you were a sock knitter, this was your heaven, Beth had tons of sockyarn, heck you could have gotten enough of one colorway to make a sweater. This is what I got, the three bundles on the left are for Linda, the blue yarn and group to the right is mine, the Lion and Lamb is the stuff at the top. I love the new watercan from the Depot!














I curse the neighbor that gave the squirrels peanuts last year, they are digging up everything looking for them, and after I spent so much time last evening sweeping the sidewalk and making everything look pretty. I'm like a little ole italian lady sweaping her cracked grey sidewalk, my goal this year is to wear the outside broom to a nub.

Post 57

I did not mean to not blog, FIMS is MIA. Well actually, landlord was over last week, we had some issues with a finicky lock and needed to talk about the lack of proper lighting etc. and guess what I found out, landlord is FIMS! We talked about encrypting the signal and us having access, it's only fair since we do all the gardening. So I'm blogging at a friends house while babysitting. I have a new savings fund, the "I need a new iPod fund". I have decided that my old pod needs to be replaced due to damage, lack of storage and the fact I can't load any new music because when I go past song 2606 it freaks out. So I'm whoring myself (the knit kind of whoring, dirty filthy minds you have) and picked up a couple of finishing projects. I have learned I don't care for British patterns, both of which these were. The first was a fluffy white chenille baby pod looking thing, poorly designed but easy to seam since the fluffy yarn is forgiving, no need to go completely crazy and perfectionist, unlike project 2. This was one heavy sweater! 21 balls of mostly alpaca/silk weighs alot! The pattern was simple, with fairly straight lines and simple design, it's a Debbie Bliss, but the knitter knitted the neck band twice as long as needed, so out that came, and made the evil decision of picking black. I HATE BLACK ALPACA! It's beautiful but a royal pain in the ass to seam, you can's see shit, the light does something funky to the color and the fiber so this project took me longer, but I am very proud of my crochet join, it's clean and neat and I would consider myself an expert at this now.

Oh and by the way double crochet in english is not the same in american, FYI! The last touch for finishing required a double crochet around the edges, but in american it's really a single crochet and chain1, just in case you wanted to know. I picked up those two a couple of weeks ago but put off doing them until the last minute, because basically I forgot.

Last week we had a freak bit of snow.

The big tree around the corner from the house keeled over and died, taking part of a roof and a Benz with it. My neighbor John and I figured it was at least a hundred years old, now there's a big hole on the sky.

I think, I hope, I'm wishing Spring is almost around the corner? I had two major projects planned for the summer, and one is down, cleaning and organizing the space under the back staircase and storage shelves, oiy my back muscles hurt. Chicago has a unique house style, usually the 2-3 flats you see also have a backstair case. If you're lucky the backstaircase is in good shape, if your luckier it's enclosed, which mine is and has a nifty little storage space under the first landing. So summer isn't here, spring barely is and I already have one major pain in the ass projects over!

I returned some crappy yarn I purchased at Joann's, I had plans to make Dentist neighbor a baby blanket, but after 6 inches of 100% pure acrylic, I just couldn't do it, the yarn was so nasty, so hideous feeling, it was unnatural.(she got the green sweater) I returned the unused balls and bought some fleece to make a dog crate pillow, which Bella quicky claimed as her own, I swear she did this herself!

Finally down to real knitting. I only have three active projects and they are taking forever so no need to talk about them. This Saturday is the Lorna's Laces tour, so some of the ipod fund will go toward sock yarn, which I'm sure there will be, I love a good bargain and the chase to be in a room stuffed full of yarn,oooooooh!

Post 58

It's that time of the year. Yup, another one down. Anyhoo, yesterday was the book signing at Loopy Yarns in the south loop, it's up high on the list of favorite LYS's. Amy Singer was present to sign copies of her new book "No Sheep For You", but I picked up "Big Girl Knits" instead. All of my other friends have it, big girls and small girls alike, they pointed out that it has great info on choosing patterns to fit your body, so I finally got it, and yes there are several patterns I would make in there. So once again here's another picture of a yarn store with Linda in it, I prefer being behind the camera.

And a shot of the store for you none Chicagoans.

I picked up another skein of sock yarn, but I'm sticking to the idea that it has to be something new, that I don't already have. I am only allowing myself to buy yarn if I already have a project in mind, not just for the hell of it. My name is Yarn Snob, and I'm a sock yarn addict. True to my 4 project limit, I finally settled down on a sock pattern, Thelonius from my IM bud Cookie. I had a couple skeins of Regia Stretch in a light slightly varigated blue, and I'm loving it, perhaps I have found the perfect yarn that will stand up to the vertically challenged legs? (pun intended)What I really hate about knitting is the variety of yarn and projects. It's common for me to fall in love with a pattern, buy the yarn, get 50% of the way through and have the overwhelming desire to start a new one, I'm not lazy, there's just not enough time to get it all done. When I'm knitting I can't stop my mind from wandering to the next project possibilities, there's simply not enough time in the day. What would be a good thing to do is simply knit more, but not be a hermit about it. The females in my family are very strong, very creative and very stubborn, we have never had a problem staying home by ourselves and doing our own thing. Wouldn't it be great to find someone to pay me to stay home and knit? I had the resolve to get my bike in shape this summer and head out to the local coffee shops to just hang and knit, but the damn gentrification had come full circle to Wicker Park and they will be, by the end of the year, closing the local coffee cafe/hang out and be cool place, damn effing banks, do we really need one on every corner. What we need on every corner are yarn stores! There are lots of coffee shops here in the city, but not many have those comfy grunging couches that you can linger on for hours, all for the price of a cup of coffee. Well, I have big plans this summer for the garden in the back, with all my coffee equipment I could start my own knit/coffee joint!

Post 57

My neighbor next door is having a baby in two weeks, neighbor is a very good fancy dentist, neighbor gets handknitted baby wrap sweater, I get a discount on dental work? I hope so. This is only the second baby thing I've knitted, it's the EZ Baby Surplice Sweater from the new VK done in Sage Green Cotton Fleece. I love that yarn, it is so soft and easy to work with, and this is the first thing I've remembered to put my label in, yea! I actually got the sweater all wrapped up and then realized I for got to photograph it, so I had to unwrap and then rewrap again.

I finished this little scarf last night, I started it on the plane to NYC. We learned this Indian Cross techinique at the last Windy City Guild and I was dying to try it out, light weight yet warm, good for this time of year when Chicago can't decide which season it wants to be in.

The other project I started in NYC will be frogged, it was the right sock yarn for that pattern. I've decided I'm allowed to have four WIP's at one time, sweater, lace, sock and emergency knitted gift (which at anytime can be substituted with a fast project I can't wait to do) Right now I have the Fair Isle Cardigan, the Kool-ade dyed flame lace scarf, I need to pick out sock yarn and I have no emergency knitting. Not bad. I picked up a couple more repair projects, though they look to be just "I'm to lazy to finish, can you piece it together for me" items, easy peasy, I haven't looked at them yet, I hope I don't have to block. Well off to SNB I go, I don't think I'll stay too late, I'm battling a wicked head cold, I thought I won today(I took a sick day yesterday to be safe and try not to contaminate the office), but I'm afraid it might migrate to my voice/throat tonight.