Armed with Pointy Sticks

Two?

Don't get excited.

I'm gonna make some changes around here.  I'm in the works of designing an Armed with Pointy Sticks button, I'm getting all of my friends' and heros' buttons fixed up, and I hate the color scheme.  I guess I wanted my cat, who's reading over my shoulder, to know. 

Night!

Think I'm Just Another Pretty Knitter?

No sir!  I bake.  I bake not the brownies of Duncan Hines, or the sheet cakes of Betty Crocker.  I bake as an artist paints.

Stifle that giggle.  I'll have you know that I have a grown man willing to dress up as my flower girl for one of my cheese cake. I'm not going to take him up on it... I think, but its nice to know that I can use that for a tag line.  "Cheese Cake so Good, it'll get you a 5'10, bearded flower girl!"

I love to cook, I love being culinary.  In the summer, I prefer to bake because I can set it up and get the hell out of the kitchen. But I especially love my cheesecake.

I'll admit, I'm a little obsessed but the results are always well worth it.

My grandmother is an amazing cook.  She raised kids, and she was a lunch lady back in the days that you really had to cook for the kids.  She bought me my first set of cast iron skillets, and I love them.   I aspire to her level.  I'm still trying to get her doughnut recipe.   

All right, that's it.  I'm being crafty, and if other knitting blogs get have to share with sewing and crochet, this blog will share my cooking, from time to time. 

Cheers!

Too Quiet on the Front?

Did you ever take a broken appliance, say a toaster, or an alarm clock, that wasn't working quite as it should, if at all, and stuff it in a closet only to take it out months later and have it work fine? Neither have I, but I hear that it happens sometimes.

I think I am experiencing something akin to this phenomenon with my Mary Jane.  It sat for months as an UFO, and was elevated to WIP yesterday.  I finished a whole, lace sleeve.  It's as if the cardigan knows that one dropped stitch, one broken thread, one cold breeze and it will be banished to the UFO pile again.  I'm enjoying this honeymoon, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I don't want to take this too fast, I don't want it to catch me making wistful little moon eyes at the pile of cashmere that sits behind me.  I don't want this cardigan to believe for one second that there is anything in this world besides itself.  I'd hate to have to throw it into a little puddle of knit by the television.  I've got the body and one sleeve done.  My practical self tells me that there can't be that much more left... did you just hear someone laughing?

I'm seriously creeped out.  I'm gonna go put together tomorrow's lunch.

Sir Patrick, the Enabler

If ever I were to knight him, that would be his title. 

In Nashua, NH, not too far from me (a 35 minute drive) lies a beautiful yarn store known as Ewe'll Love It (and I'm pretty sure ewe will).  It's not the most convenient yarn store to me; the Elegant Ewe is a bit closer, but its Saturday, and a nice day for a drive, and I almost never make it there; so when I discovered that I needed 16" size 6 Addi's, I took off for Nashua. 

I've got the needles in hand, I'm walking around (they moved things around since I had been there for this year's Superbowl sale, its very nice) and I see this sweater hanging on the wall. This is the perfect sweater. If it had a tag I could have just found out where the pattern was from, bought the book, and be gone. It didn't. I had to ask Patrick.

Patrick is one of the wonderful people that work at this LYS. He's absolutely delightful.  It is obvious that Patrick loves to knit, and he wants everyone else to reach the full, beautiful, far-reaching potential that they are capable of.  Whether they know what they are capable of or not.  Looking for a sorta cardigan with a wrap, maybe made with silk type pattern?  He knows exactly what you want and what book to find it in.  Want a yarn that feels like Manos Cotton but at a lower gauge?  He just brought something home to work with (to see what it could do) that would be perfect.

Patrick found the book (a Knitter's Stash, which is so worth the money, as it has another four or five patterns that I'd make.), showed me the pattern, and said "You know what this would look great in?" I'm a little blurry after that. I think he showed me eight different yarns. We finally settled on some Louise Harding Kashmir DK, which has the same fiber content of the Debbie Bliss cashmerino, but its woven, so it doesn't pill.

As we were leaving (yarn, book, needles and all.  Yes, I remembered the addis that I came in for) Chris asked me "So, is this the third or fourth sweater that you have the yarn for?"  I reflexively told him to shut up, but then I started thinking.  Yes, that might be a proper estimate.

 
• The Mary Jane Cardigan from Knitpicks. This is what I was getting the 16" needles for.  I'm at the sleeves
 
• Liam from Wendy.  I have some hand spun merino all ready to go.  My big purchase of the last S&W.  I've even got the dye.
 
• Rouge from The Girl from Auntie.  I've got the yarn to make this... twice. 
   
 
• Baby makes four.  I hate it when he's right.

I don't knit for myself a lot.  I do a lot of abstract knitting that isn't really for any one person until it's done.  In fact, it seems that the biggest kiss of death for knitting is to designate an owner.  That can't be true, can it?  I did Kadin's blanket... and it only took 9 months.  But that was like 6 square feet of stockinette in the worlds most unforgivable acrylic.  Kadin's sweater is still in cuff stage.  Steph might get a sweater. Dad might get a sweater.  Well, I seem to be between projects right now, save my haul-around socks, so I guess its time to cast on a sweater or two.

Yeah.  But first I'll finish that Mary Jane.  I dropped it for my Olympic project of doom, and after Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi shawl, well, I just didn't want to do anymore lace.  Lace found me though, in a sock.  I just finished Cookie's Hedara, from Knitty, and I figured, what the hell.  I was bored enough to pick up the puddle of yarn, find the pattern, and figure out where the hell I was. Got to the arm, couldn't find the 16", didn't look to hard though, because they were addi bamboos, and I just wasn't loving them for lace work, and then... well, you know how my day went.

Speaking of Hedara, I'd like to take a picture of them with my marmalade cat and submit it to Knitty's calendar contest this year.  Maybe tomorrow with the sunlight.

Knit Hard!