Monday, February 25, 2008

So on and so forth...

Well, been taking a little bit of a writing break for the last few days. It was all going well, but the problem is that I'm quite good at writing words down (or typing them anyway), but not so good at thinking, so it was about time for me to have a good old think about Plot before I finished the first draft. Shall probably resume actual writing again either tonight, or possibly tomorrow. In the mean time, I've had more time for knitting, which has been lovely...

Finished my Argosy scarf finally. As I've already said, it ended up shorter than I would have liked, but what are you going to do? I still love it anyway, and that's the main thing.


Here is scarfy boy reclining happily on the armchair that lives in my study. Purdy. Well, even if it did end up too small, this project definitely gave me the Noro bug. It was the first time that I'd ever lashed out and actually bought some intead of just perving on it and surreptitiously feeling it up in the yarn shop (and even that hadn't been going on for very long - it's seems kind of thin on the ground here in Melbourne), and it definitely won't be the last... Shiny, shiny yarn...

Today (glorious, wonderful Monday, the day on which I do not have to vend pizza) I went shopping to try and find some clothes that aren't falling apart to wear to uni. I didn't end up buying very much - I'd forgotten that fashion at the moment is even more hideous than usual, so decent basics were suprisingly hard to find. It seems that the rule currently is that you must hide your waist - no curves here. And this is kind of the opposite of what I go for (the small waist is what makes up for having the disproportionate thighs of doom, dammit)... I digress. Anyway, while it was mostly quiet on the clothes front, I did buy two nice things: Farscape: Peacekeeper War on DVD and Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature.

I'd had my eye on this book for ages after stumbling across a Basalt tank that someone on Ravelry had made - so many interesting construction methods. A lot of the things look more complicated than I'm used to (for a start, I've never been one for charts, odd as that might sound to some), but then again, I also have a tendency to assume that patterns are hard, then actually read the instructions through and realise that they aren't. Anyway, looks like a book I'll get a fair bit of use out of...

And then I went home, watched Farscape and knitted row after row of merry stocking stitch on my Honeymoon Cardigan - figured it was about time I got off my arse on that one, but now it's coming along nicely...

Friday, February 22, 2008

New stuff

Well, celebrated yesterday's day off from pizza servitude by making a pilgrimage to Sunspun in search of some more Noro to finish my poor languishing Argosy scarf. Unfortunately, they didn't have any more of the colourway I needed, so unless Woolbaa has it (which I doubt), it may need to be a shorter scarf than I intended. Never mind, it's still pretty, and I'm sure it'll grow a bit when I block it. I just don't like stingy scarves.

The lesson to be learned from this is that when I'm looking at scarf patterns, I should bear my above inclination in mind and buy an extra ball of yarn that what the pattern states. Problem solved. Anyway, it seemed a waste to spend an hour on public transport and not buy something while I was over there (and heaven knows they have no shortage of beautiful, beautiful yarns), so I indulged:


Hehe, what a weird photo. I was trying to get some good light, so the yarn is sitting on my knee in the kitchen (you can see the blue handle of the dustpan and brush underneath the table in the background)... Still, yarn is beautiful! I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with it. At $16 a ball, making anything large out of just this yarn is totally out of the question budget wise, so I'm tossing up between just making a Dream Swatch head scarf out of the ball that I do have (http://www.knitandtonic.typepad.com/dreamswatchwrap.pdf ), or making Excuses (hehe), which I've had my eyes on for a while ( http://www.magknits.com/Dec07/patterns/excuses.htm). Currently, I'm leaning towards the latter, because I'm not really a head scarf kind of person. I can't even wear shawls without them falling off...
Anyway, Richard's hat is coming along well. The colourwork is coming out nicely; I half wasn't expecting it to work, but it is. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a decent photo of it because it's gloomy and overcast today, and it's hard enough to take a photo of a hat in progress even when there's good light. There'll be a pic of this one soon enough.
Anyway, the day is getting on, so I should go and prise the boy out of bed. Thankfully, I probably don't have an entire night of pizza servitude to sit through tonight (the plan is for me to get everything prepared, and then high tail it when the other staff get in - and I am very much hoping that we stick to this plan), so more work will be done on hat this evening. Also, have written nearly 90k on my story. This pleases me greatly; first draft is nearly done now!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Scarfitty scarfage!

Hurrah, Wavy scarf is finally finished. And to celebrate, I finally got off my arse and walked down to the shops (in the rain, I might add, which probably account for the state of my hair in the photo) and bought batteries for my poor abandoned camera. Oh, and chocolate. I also bought chocolate. Because.


Anyway, behold the scarfage. I am very happy with how it turned out, although I would like to have made it longer if I'd had enough yarn. Meh. What are you going to do?

I look like a fish, and the towel behind me needs to be washed, but the scarf looks awesome and that's the main thing! More scarfity scarfing:



Yeah yeah, I know I can't take photos to save my life. But I can knit apparently. And that's more important anyway...

Felt like it took forever to knit this, just because as previously mentioned, I don't have a great deal of knitting time at the moment. However, I get a few days off work this week - with me going back to uni on March 3rd, we want to make sure that the shop/staff contained therein will be able to function okay without me - so more knitting shall happen then.

I've started knitting a fair-isle style hat for my younger brother - partially because I've been itching to make something for someone else, and partially as a show of big sisterly get-well-soon type concern - he's been in hospital the last week due to some strange and so far unexplained seizures.

But yes, not so much with the actual knitting lately. Lots of thinking about it and designing in my head, but not so much with the physically picking up the needles and making stuff. Basically, in Anna's crazy head, there is always a constant jostle, with all of the creative things that I want to do vying for my attention. Knitting used to win hands down, but currently writing has suddenly gotten opinionate and bossy and is demanding the lion's share of my free time. And I think I'm going to humour it. Writing (and the ability to do it at all - quality aside for the moment) is such a fickle thing, it ebbs and flows. So I don't want to set it aside when it's actually grabbing me by the hand and saying "Come on Anna, let's go!" On a related note, I hit 80,000 words yesterday, so it's time to start winding up on this project. I can't wait to write the last word; it has been indescribably awesome to actually apply my short attention span to a sustained project and have it actually happen.

Knitting's turn will come again, I'm sure. Probably when it stops being summer and all of my creative energy is sucked away by law school. But for the moment, there is scarf. I like my scarf.

Monday, February 11, 2008

My poor brain...

Well, still no photos, because I've been too lazy/broke/tired/leprous/purple to buy batteries for my camera, and it's not like a whole lot of progress has been made on the knitting front anyway (oh golly, gee whiz, my scarf is ten centimetres longer, how exciting!!!!!! *sarcasm*)

Been beavering away on my Wavy scarf when I have time, but unfortunately that is not often, what with nine hour work days, six days a week and all. Tuesday-Sunday currently looks like this:
8am: Get up and go for walk
9am: Shower, breakfast, write and write some more
12pm: Lunch, attend to husband type creature (ie. actually spend some time with him that isn't at work), knit a few rows on scarf, do dishes
2pm: Leave for work. Vend many foodstuffs, wash many trays, shred mountains of cheese
11pm: Home from work. Lie on couch, ingest a beer if have sufficient energy, sleep.

Occasionally, morning has also been used to bore unsuspecting people with my presence in an attempt to prove that I still have some kind of social life. So, not a great deal of knitting time, unless I sacrifice writing time, which right now I'm not wanting to do (the writing is kind of keeping me sane in this time of pizza shop drudgery, because drudgery it is, no matter who owns the business). But, the knitting is still happening, and I'm still enjoying it, and that is the main thing. This is just the reason why it's a little quiet on the FO/WIP front at the moment. We don't really need to see endless blurry photos of my scarf. We just don't...

On a related note: I AM LIVING THE KNITTER'S DREAM (albeit in probably the least exciting and grossest way possible)! Chris has always asked that I not knit anything for him, because he doesn't like the way knitted fabric feels. This is fine by me because I know that it's true, and has always been true (I don't think that there's a single knitted thing in his entire wardrobe - which to be fair, consists mainly of tracksuits - grotty boy!), so I don't take it personally, and spend more time making things for myself (a good system). But the other day I found some really cheap thick cotton yarn (Cleckheaton Fiddle Di Dee), and I made a tea towel/clothy thing out of it. Now, it gets very hot near the ovens in our shop. Hence, the boy has a tendency to sweat a little when he's working near it. So now my beloved tea towel has a new occupation: sweat mopping cloth of doom! Husband type creature is actually using an item that I knitted.

One word: Victory!

Okay, granted this victory would be somewhat sweeter if said knitted item was used for purposes other than the soaking up of bodily fluids, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get. It's being used, right? Err... right?

Oh dear, I just spent several paragraphs talking about my husband's bodily fluids... What was I just saying about how writing was helping me to keep sane? Maybe it's still too early to tell whether or not it's working...

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Um.... oh no *sarcasm*

Finally a post where the poor bloggo is not forced to showcase my amateurish attempts at photography; camera is momentarily out of batteries, and at any rate I haven't made a great deal of knitting progress over the last few days.

The main reason for this is that shop is now up and running: today is our first day of actually being open (rather than messing around in there trying to set things up). So that hasn't left as much time for knitting, and all the other random stuff I like to do.

Writing is the exception to this. I've actually found it a very useful outlet for all the stress and anxiety that's come with getting shop going, so I've now sailed merrily past the 50k mark. I am pleased with this.

Anyway, so in minor knitting news, Wavy scarf is still coming along nicely, and I'm trying something out with my Moana yarn... And that's about it... Can we say uninteresting?