"Be Still My Bacon Heart"

Happy Belated Valentine's Day to all of you!

I knit an anatomically accurate heart for my valentine. And although this Valentine post is belated... the heart was completed well before February 14th.

The pattern is from Knitty... it is called... are you ready for this... Heart. It was a quick-ish knit... or maybe I was just having so much fun knitting it.. and so much excitement knowing that the recipient would adore it that I could not put it down for a minute.

I even knit the whole thing on double pointed needles!!! I could have easily used magic-loop. Which as the entire world knows, i am in love with the loop of magic. But I had so much fun using double pointed needles again. I did use a 32" addi as a stitch holder, I didn't want my addis to feel left out.



As I had suspected... the recipient LOVED it. He has a bacon fetish... well fetish makes it sound sexual... which I don't think it has gone quite that far... but let's just say that he is obsessed with Bacon. So I titled this project "Be Still My Bacon Heart". I made a little banner with the title and our names and the date on it. And of course I did not photograph that before handing this heart over... haha

Broken Mac = Lame Photo Post

My Hard-drive took the big dirt nap folks. The nice "genius" at the apple store said that other than a dead hard-drive, my laptop has lots o' life left in it. In fact he was SHOCKED that it was able to reboot at all considering the state of the hard-drive. He actually gasped, and put one hand to his mouth when he read the "failing" status after running some test program thingy. It's a MacBook Pro- G4... in case that means something to any of you. It's a little over three years old. And with a new hard drive in him... he will be good to go. PLUS.... any day now... well between the first and the thirty first of October I will have Leopard for my newly repaired G4 friend. btw... this is the extent of my ability to geek talk. I really don't know much about this stuff... just the basics to get me by. Really... be nice to your local "genius" at the apple store, they rawk! Mine is named Daryn, and he is truly my hero. Maybe I should knit him a "genius" beanie or something. hmmmm... thinking.

New Vans

Since I don't have my computer... I cannot download photos... So I took some photos with my crappy cell phone cause I just had to share my new Vans with y'all! Aren't they swell? Old Skool OTW (Off The Wall) logo. HAWT I know!!!

And just to throw some knitting related stuff into this post... just one of the MANY things I am knitting... a pair of mismatched, yet matching, fingerless mitts, two-at-once, ala magic loop. The yarn is Lamb's Pride Worsetd, Rosado Rose & Seafoam. The pattern is PuNk rAwK pUrL's & will be available soon. Also.... I was deathly ill over the weekend and knit a to-be-felted hat in one day. It's mustard yellow and plum. The yarn is CascadePastaza, I will get back to you with the actual color #'s. It is gorgeous. I will also get back to you with a better photo of it when my baby is back home.

Just look at those knuckles! Way Cool! haha

P.S. I also do not have my calendar... yep, it's on the mac... so if i have forgotten a birthday, anniversary, or anything important... I apologize in advance!

Rusted Root On Fire... A Real Class Act

Ok... I am having a ton of fun knitting this sweater! As some of you know... I don't do sweaters. More than two years ago I knit this sweater. It was just a couple of months after I first learned how to knit, and well... allow me to recap... As most new knitters, my gauge was ridiculously tight, so I was very careful to swatch and get the correct needles so that my sweater would fit. It was knit in the round, from the bottom up. Somewhere about half way up the torso of the sweater... after knitting 14 inches or so of 2x2 ribbing (besides being bored out of my skull) something amazing happened! I was cured of my wrist numbing tendency to knit super crazy tight! But I had NO idea of that until I was all done with my sweater. I was SOOO excited to try it on... I had gone out and found the perfect ribbon to thread through the top... It was HUGE! The top half of the sweater was gigantic. Way too big to cinch up with my fancy silk ribbon. The thought of ripping back and reknitting that 2x2 ribbing... I would have preferred to watch an episode of American Idol... which for me, would be akin to having my eyes ripped out of their sockets. SOOO.. I hooked it up to the ball winder & frogged the hell out of that mother!
So back to Rusted Root... All of the details are there on my ravelry page. I am loving it! I am still obsessing every 10 rounds or so about the fit... Will the chest be too tight? Will the sleeves be too big? What if I screw up the waist shaping? Is the neck too high? The area between the neck and the start of the sleeve should be bigger... UGH! I modified the hell out of the sleeves. I had read everywhere that people were losing the pouffiness of the sleeves... which HELLO... is the entire feature of the sweater. Lace panel?? What-eva! On the 8th round you are supposed to increase each sleeve to 37 stitches (medium). I increased mine on the 8th and 10th rounds for a total of 49 stitches. How much pouf can one girl handle? I may wind up with too much pouf... we'll see. I am being my usual anal self, using not ONE... but TWO row counters... one to mark the beginning of the round, the other to track which row I am on in the lace panel. So now I am beginning to decrease the sleeves. I am 6 rounds away from slipping those babies onto scrap yarn.


How about some more of that amazing Downtown Oakland architecture?? OK, since you all asked so nicely. This building makes me swoon whenever I pass by. The photo does no justice to it whatsoever. Those tiles SHINE.... oh how they shine. And it's the most gorgeous midnight blue. And the silver... oh man... that silver. HAHA They are in the process of refurbishing it right now. btw... it is not a part of the Sears.
Don't forget.... I will be teaching the coolest summer class this month. Check me out at knit-one-one. Come on down and learn the magic loop. (kinda sounds like a dance at the sock hop) The magic loop method simply rocks! For those of you who are not familiar with this godsend of a technique... it is knitting small circumference items, socks (two at one time!), gloves, cuffs, preemie hats, the tops of adult hats, etc. Basically, if you hate double points or just want to expand you knitting horizons, the magic loop is for you.

We will be making the very cool little lace cuff. It is knit out of a cotton elastic yarn, stretchy and cool for the summer. It can be worn sweet an demure... a little touch of lace at your wrist. OR PuNk rAwK pUrL style... one tough rockin mama (or daddy). (note the cuff in the photo above is not the little lace cuff, it is the little cabled cuff. maybe a class for the winter. hehe)

Ravel-ry Rouser

OH, my darling Raverly ... how I love you so!

Yarn + Knitting + RAD Organizational Tool = An Ecstatic PuNkrAwKpUrL!!!

This site is simply amazing. It's like they read my mind. You will need to have a Flickr account to make it work properly, which is fine by me. I love me my Flickr. And at this stage, the beta stage that is, there is a waiting list. Being a knit-one-one diva, I received an invitation and got in on the VIP list. It pays to know the right peeps. The first night I was there I spent far more time than I have to spare on something that others would judge as frivolous and unnecessary. I went crazy, foaming at the mouth, my eyes darting around the room, looking at the piles of stash artfully displayed, taking inventory and entering it into the site, under the stash page of course. I attached photos, I checked dye lots, I retook photos of certain skeins. Then I started entering projects... wow, I have sooo much more to do. I decided to be systematic about it, I am going to take one shelf, one drawer at a time and catalog the stash that way. As for projects.... I have to decide how far back to go... So much to think about, my head is swimming! Check out the site. If you need to get your knitting world organized, or more organized, or ridiculously anal organized... it will become your new home.

Other news...
or... what is the deal with that big huge photo of your wrist at the top of the page?

New classes have posted on the Knit-one-one site. Check out the Lace Cuff Class being taught by yours truly. Not only will you make the cutest, coolest, hippest, lace cuff... BUT you will also learn the coolest, hippest technique, Magic Loop.

If you haven't heard of magic loop allow me to enlighten you... Using one, count them, ONE long circular needle you can knit small circumference items in the round. For example, maybe something like a little lace cuff, a sock, a leg warmer (if you like that sort of thing, Stevie Nicks!), a baby hat, the top of an adult hat, gloves, etc. It is really ideal for those who are terrified or just annoyed with double points. Which I am not. I got hooked on magic loop because I wanted to be able to do two socks at once, which magic loop is ideal for. Now what is the advantage to magic loop over using TWO circulars to knit small items in the round?? I have no idea if there are any technical advantages. I have not done the two circ method. The obvious advantage to me would be having to only buy ONE needle, and not having to keep track of which needle you are using next.

**btw... except for the cell phone pic taken by me at the top of the page, all of the pretty cuff photos were taken by the ridiculously talented woollywumpus! thank you Emliy! xoxo**