Day 6: Something to Aspire To

Something to aspire to

Is there a pattern or skill that you don’t yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant? Is there a skill or project that makes your mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft? Maybe the skill or pattern is one that you don’t even personally want to make but can stand back and admire those that do. Maybe it is something you think you will never be bothered to actually make bu can admire the result of those that have.

I'm making a confession. Now that I've done Entrelac, there really isn't any unknown knitting skill I feel like tackling in the future. I'm currently content with where I am. There really isn't a technique or pattern that I feel I can't do when it comes to knitting. I'm not saying I know it all because I'm sure I don't. I will continue to pick up new techniques and skills as the years go by, but I'm pretty certain I've hit all the major ones, and quite a few of the minor ones too.

That doesn't mean I don't have an aspiration in my knitting though. There is one thing I want to accomplish in the worst way. I want to write and publish at least one knitting book that becomes extremely popular.

I started a book shortly after I started this blog. I sat down and outlined what it would be about, how it would look, came up with more than two dozen design ideas, worked on it like gang busters for a few months, and then just stopped. I'll admit it, I got scared. I started making inquiries into the hows of getting it published and ended up feeling horribly overwhelmed and under skilled. When I feel overwhelmed, I start procrastinating. I'm an expert at procrastination when overwhelmed.

So, there sits my 'book', on top the file cabinet, in plain sight, waiting to be finished. Always niggling at my conscience, calling to me quietly "Hello! I'm over here! Please, come finish me?" But the fear of the unknown keeps me paralyzed. I wish I knew someone in the knitting book publishing industry who could/would help me. Sigh. In the meantime I am thrashing around trying to find something inside myself to give me the courage and desire to finish my book, if for no other reason than to say to myself I could do it. How do I get myself back at it?

Live long and prosper. \\//

Quiz Silliness

When do you know, without a doubt, that your daughter is a Geek? When she downloads a free program that makes her Mac laptop sound like a slashing lightsaber when she moves it. Yup, she did it yesterday. Last night she was standing there, in the living room, waving her laptop around like a mad person. LOL! The furkids looks told the whole story-she's a looney bird! (But she knits!)

I got no gardening done. Sweet Hubby decided we would plumb the water line for the coming new refrigerator (no, it's not here yet. There's been a delay in the order). This required a total trashing of my kitchen. What a mess! It also required a trip into Coeur d'Alene to visit Home Depot. Sweet Hubby had bought the wrong size valve, or something like that. Very frustrating for him. I picked up some potting soil, 4 snapdragons, and a pair of cushions for the chaise lounges on the deck. Then we went home and finished trashing the kitchen, and cleaning it up afterwards. After we got done, though, we went to see the new Indiana Jones movie to reward ourselves.

What a blast that was! I loved it. The opening sequence was fantastic! Now we're wondering, can you really survive a nuclear blast in a lead lined refrigerator? You'll have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about. It's a fun one to watch.

After the movie, we went to a new restaurant right next door to the theater called Azteca for some dinner. It's a Mexican grill. Mmmm, is their food ever good! We had a booth by the front window. While we were eating, various of our relatives walked by about every 15 minutes or so-leaving the theater no doubt after seeing Indiana Jones (several showings were going on simultaneously). Heck, we could have had a family reunion right there on the sidewalk. It was funny. The waitress finally came by and asked why I kept tapping on the window and waving. She thought we were randomly waving at folks we didn't know.

Some silliness. I found a couple knitting quizzes to take on the net. Here are the results. If you want to take them yourself, click on the underlined titles.

The results of this first one made me laugh.

What is Your Level Of Knitting Experience

Your Result

You are a knitting god. Seriously, you should be the one writing this quiz. You should have your own fashion line. It is disgusting how much you know about knitting. Get out of my sight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

Your Result

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting and do it all the time. While finishing a piece is the plan, you still love the process, and can't imagine a day going by without giving some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation involves leaving ample space for the stash and supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn ends and you begin.

I got some done on the Pomatomus sock. I've also started diagramming out the next book project. Blue-I want to make something in blue. A few weeks ago, while in Bead It, I impulsively bought a tube of matte blue metallic seed beads that were very expensive as tubes of beads go-13 bucks! They are so pretty, there was only one tube, and the boss was telling me how they came in her order, even though she didn't order them, and she didn't think they'd ever sell. (I guess I was bailing her out as well as feeding my desire to own them.) I found the perfect shade of blue perle cotton to go with them too. So, blue it shall be.

Speaking of the book, I did a bit of reading on the subject of book publication and got to feeling so overwhelmed I almost cried. I've got a lot to learn before I can get this project done. The big question: Do I self publish, or go with a well known publisher? That's what I need to find out. Which would benefit me best? I need to find some brains to pick. Any volunteers?

Maybe we'll get that garden planted today. The sun is shining, so it should be a nice day to do it.

Happy Memorial Day

We Have Grosbeaks

New birds have come to my feeders. I'm SO excited. I got pictures! By the way, if you click on the pictures, they will get bigger.

The Black Headed Grosbeak

Male

He has bed head! LOL! It took him awhile to get that sunflower seed cracked open.

Female

Much more muted in color, but very pretty pale peach breast. The male stood guard over the tree for a long time, chasing away any birds that might bother her, letting her eat in peace. When she was done, then he ate-along with 2 Chickadees, a finch, and a male Towhee. No peaceful meal for this guy!

I am amazed by the birds I am seeing this year. I had no idea there were so many brightly colored ones. All these years I've been envying my Dads Cardinals and Goldfinches, and here I had a whole host of rainbow feathers around. Just needed the right seeds in the feeders. Black sunflowers and thistle. Oh yes,`and shelled peanuts (NO salt!). I swear by them now. Avoid too much millet. They like to throw it on the ground more than eat it.

Knitting news:
I have got some more done on my Pomatomus sock, but to be honest, not much. If you've been a reader of my ramblings for very long, you know how stubborn I can be. I could not leave the bag pattern alone. I'm glad I didn't.

I stopped being so ferociously set on my original idea-basically a fern leaf in lace. I allowed other ideas into my brain. When I did that, the problem solved itself. I got so excited I sat down and knitted up the whole thing right then and there (after I fixed the virus problem on my computer). It turned out absolutely FABULOUS! So much better than the original idea.

While it was still fresh in my head, I wrote up the pattern right away. Took me five hours cos my notes were all over the place. Some parts I'd forgotten to write down, and other parts I'd discarded and forgot to cross out. Most of my time was spent figuring out where the extra 4 rows came from on the front (that was the stuff I forgot to cross out). Eventually, I figured it out. Ah, the joys of designing. I love it!

Now that I have that figured out, I can knit my Pomatomus sock in peace.

Ruth is still working away on her fingerless gauntlet gloves. She is spending a lot of time knitting.

Sometimes, Tommy thinks he is a cat. Silver does this all the time. Tommy seems to want to copy him.



I am going to attempt to start planting the garden today. I've got my seeds, Sweet Hubby gave it another rototill yesterday. Let the growing begin!

Have a good day.

Lace Frustration

AAAARRRGGH!!!!!!

Thanks, I needed to get that out of my system.

I am giving up on trying to make my lace pattern idea work. It doesn't, plain and simple. Well, it does if I want to do a lot of complicated increases and decreases. On size 0000 needles with size 8 perle cotton? I don't think so. I can do it, but most couldn't. I don't want to make my patterns that difficult in this book (it's supposed to be a FUN book!), and since the laws of knitting physics are refusing to budge on my behalf, I will have to come up with some other less dramatically beautiful idea. Phooey! It would have looked so cool if the laws weren't so darn stubborn. There is a bright side to this, well, actually more than one.

1) I understand lace construction better than probably 99.999... percent of the knitters out there.

2) I've become really really good at frogging teeny tiny little stitches and putting them back on the needles-without a magnifier!

3) I've developed awesomely even tension in stockinette stitch on said teeny tiny stitches.

I'm taking a couple days off from this project to clear my head and work on the Pomatomus sock over the weekend. Maybe I can get it done.

Speaking of socks, this morning, to relieve some of the pent up frustration, I surfed the web for free sock patterns. Ravelry lists quite a few-over 1800. But I went looking for some that may not be on Ravelry. Sheesh! A person need never purchase a book on socks there are so many! I thought I'd share a few of the places I found.

Knittychick has a web page devoted to links to almost 600 free sock patterns:

"Sock It To Me"

Boogie Knits has a link list of several hundred:

Free Sock Patterns

Socknitters group:

Sock Patterns

Wendy Knits:

Sock Pattern Links

My sock yarn stash isn't nearly big enough to knit all those.

Have a great day!

WIP Wednesday 5/21/08

A swatch I've made to figure out the current book project.



The back of the current book project. (No way am I showing the front. You'll have to buy the book to see that!)



I thought I had it figured out, but I was wrong. I frogged back half of it this morning. This lace designing thing is harder than I would have thought. I shall carry on. This idea is NOT going to beat me!

This, technically, is still a work in progress cos I need to make the second sock. I just had to show the first Pomatomus off.



This is a pattern that requires concentration, so it's not a fast knit compared to other socks I've done. Oh, but I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the stitch pattern! Absolutely luscious!

Have a great day!

Teaser

I had kind of a difficult weekend. I had all kinds of plans because we were having gorgeous weather, but most of them didn't take place because I acquired a monster sinus headache that started Friday night and I still have it. One of those really really bad sinus headaches. The kind that makes my vision blurry, the eyes sensitive to light, the brain unable to complete thoughts, and doesn't seem to respond to any of my pain killers. So I ended up taking it easy because I could hardly function.

Ruth came home for the weekend. She needed to get away from the drama that has become life with her room mates. This is finals week. I told her to hang in there. Just one more week to go and then she'll get a nice summer vacation. She'll be moving to a new apartment and a new room mate for next year too.

She's coming home next weekend, mostly to drop of Lindy. I'm going to be cat sitting the Grandkitty. The following week after finals she's off on a geology field trip for three weeks. They're going somewhere in Montana.

On Saturday Sweet Hubby and I took care of some necessary pruning. There was quite a bit of damage from the snow to the shrubs and bushes in the yard. I also did some weeding.

Weeds have begun to grow in my flower beds. This year I'm trying a new method-for me anyway. I got me a big jug of Round Up. It's the only way to get rid of the Canadian Thistle. The stuff is relentless. You yank it out, but if there's just one molecule of root left the darn stuff comes back-and brings friends. I'm stepping the war up a bit. I'm giving the little suckers a squirt as soon as they poke their heads above the beauty bark.

I worked on my book for a bit. Here's a picture from the most recent finished pattern.



Yes, a teaser. I've decided not to show the whole projects for my book. Just bits. Besides, I was playing with my camera's ability to take close ups, along with my new Photography for Dummies book. I did not do any editing of this photo, except to resize it smaller. Amazing, huh? Have I mentioned I love my camera?

On Sunday I vegged. Sweet Hubby ran in the Bloomsday Race. I stayed home and worried about him. I mean, he ain't the buff 20 year old he was the last time he ran the race. He arrived home about an hour earlier than I expected. He did okay. He ran the 7.5 miles in less than 2 hours, and he wasn't completely dead when he got home. He was even able to get up and go to work this morning. I am so very proud of him.

I did a bit of beading Sunday. Just a bit. I was trying to work on a pair of earrings for the swap, but the headache was interfering too much. I finally gave up. I decided to sit on the deck and watch the birds instead.

Oh, I did a bit of knitting too. Made some progress on Pomatomus.

Have a good day.

Sunday Ramblings II

Wishing you a Happy Easter!

Our Easter plans are to go to my brother-in-law Chet's house for a family potluck dinner. I'm making strawberry pie and Waldorf salad for the occasion.

I was going to post a bunch of pics I took last Friday. It snowed. I mean, it SNOWED! All day. Five (5) inches! Sweet Hubby had to plow the driveway when he got home from work.

On the second day of spring!

However, when I sat down and looked at the photos, they were so depressing I decided to forget it. Y'all don't need a bunch of colorless pics of snow falling. Yeah, I said colorless. If not for the fact that Sweet Hubby's tractor is blue, I'd have thought I had accidentally set my camera on the black & white setting. I can't inflict that kind of color deprivation on my readers. I'm not that cruel.

Yesterday I worked on the book all day. Sweet Hubby had to go to work (installing new servers for the company) so I put on the Sci Fi channel and worked on a new design. Got it drawn, charted, strung, and knit all in one day. Darn, but it turned out perfect! Exactly what I had in my minds eye. Sometimes I so impress myself.

Book anxiety is working on me though. What if I go to all this work and no one wants to publish it? Is there really a market for a book full of nothin' but beaded knit amulet patterns??? Then I think about my trip to Barnes and Noble last weekend and the truly pathetic set of knitting books they had on the shelves, and I get a little more confident. I mean, if this is what they're willing to publish, my book will be a shoe in! I swear, if I see one more book of 'easy' patterns to knit, I'm gonna throw up! As an experienced knitter, I am sorely disappointed in what 's out there right now. They ain't writing for someone like me. I need something new, something challenging, something inspiring! Sigh.....

The Sci Fi channel was not disappointing. They had a wonderful selection of 'B' movies on. I love B movies. Yesterday I saw movies about a Rock Monster attacking a little eastern European village full of weirdos (saved by the handsome blond American college kid), a giant squid protecting a sunken treasure in what looked like Puget Sound (I missed where they were actually supposed to be), the Lochness monster with a nest full of babies in Oregon (they did not explain how it got to Oregon), and some sort of swamp creature that looked like a slimy cross between a human and a nasty tree that liked to suck the blood out of people-The Man Thing. With fare like that, no one has to suffer a boring Saturday!

Have a great holiday!

The Book Has Begun

I did not sew that piggy together last night. I decided I can sew piggy together some other day, and I started the first model for the book. Just a nice, easy, basic pattern to use as a foundation for the rest of the designs. Took me 10 minutes to figure out what needed to be done (God, I'm smart-hee hee!). Knitted it up in just 3 hours. Now I need to sew the side seams, slap on a strap, and it's done.

Writing it up won't take long. Maybe a whole paragraph of instructions. But I need to do some research to find out what is considered 'standard' notation for bead knitting patterns in the publishing industry. It will mean a quick trip to a dangerous place for me to go--(begin spooky music here) Barnes and Noble. My bank account always takes a large hit when I go into that store. I just LOVE books so much!

Something else I need is test knitters. It's all fine and dandy to write up patterns, but I need folks to test them for me and make sure I haven't missed anything in the proofreading. Where on earth am I going to find test knitters?????? Some of the patterns will be easy-peasy. But some are gonna be bloodcurdling-difficult, so I need knitters who know what they're doing. Hmmm....I will have to think on this problem.

Our tax refund arrived. Hurray!!!! I logged onto Amazon today and transfered the wish list to the shopping cart. Woo Hoo! Gonna love getting that box. It'll be like Christmas. Ordered a few books, couple dvds, and a drill press for my dremel. I'm working on some lovely disc shaped beads in polymer clay (learning how to do swirly patterns) and it occured to me that getting a straight hole through it without mashing it is gonna be near impossible for me. I will bake them holess and drill holes in later-with the drill press.

Learned an important lesson in blogging. Don't use urls for pics on here. Last Fridays blog I used pics in my Yahoo Groups album. Suddenly, they disappeared from the blog. Don't know what is going on, but I'm never doing that again. I place the pic in my blog files, or I don't post it. Yeesh!

Went walking with Jean and Cindy this morning. I was still feeling pretty tough from the bug I caught over the weekend, but decided to brave it anyway. I'm so glad I did. By the end of the two miles my tummy was feeling so good. We saw 3 Marmots. They're living in the rocks along one part of the trail we're walking (bike trail between the river and the freeway). They're so cute! Like giant gerbils. Ah yes...gerbils. Now there's a walk down memory lane, which I'll share some other time.

Have a good day!

More Bead Knitting

Yesterday I got nothing done because I was SICK! I spent the whole day in my jammies, watching DVD's, feeling wretched and being waited on hand-and-foot by sweet hubby. Got a stomach bug of some kind. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Glad to be feeling human again! Not 100% yet cos eating is still a touchy business, but I can function and that's what's important.

Sharing more pics of my bead knitting.

This first one is called Dragon Banner. It's a bead knitted pendant. I made the pale yellow first, for my daughter Sarah, and like it so much I made the purple one for me. This is my own design. The pattern is available for purchase for $5.95 plus shipping should you so desire. Just email me at thebeadknitter@yahoo.com and we'll make some arrangements.

This little bag is also my design. I know, it's similar to the elegant one in Fridays blog, but it is knit quite differently. It's not even the same size when done. That makes it my design. Not published though. Thinking about putting it in my book.

This little pink gem is a Cindy Hulsey design. She calls it the Purple Vessel. Clearly, mine isn't purple. This bag has been sold.




This is the first larger purse I've made. I started out knitting something from an old Interweave Knits magazine, but ended up modifying and altering the pattern so much I ended up with something different. I entered it in the fair and got a blue ribbon, so I'm especially proud of it.


This is another FiberSpace pattern. (Yes, I own all of their bead knitting patterns.) It is also very easy to make, like the triangle pattern. This bag has been sold.



I finished knitting all the pieces to the dark teal pig this morning. I'm anxious to get it put together cos I wanna see how cute it is. That's part of the fun of knitting--seeing what you've created with string. After I get the pig put together I'm going to get busy knitting the models for my book. Some of the designs will be a piece of cake for me, others won't. I expect the pleated one to give me the hardest time. Pleats are somewhat a mystery to me. I'll have to dig out my Vogue sewing book and refresh the ol' noggin on the subject.

Have a great day!