Oh...Hi Again

Good morning...or afternoon...my days blend together after a while.

I'm thisclose to getting out of my pajamas after sleeping for eleven hours, writing two articles for my column (here is the one from today...the other one gets published tomorrow... http://www.examiner.com/article/fall-is-the-time-to-ramp-up-your-knitting-skills-with-a-class), and planning out my afternoon.  Doesn't sound very exciting until you think about the fact that I finally, finally have more time on my hands.

See, I got divorced.  And my ex husband moved out a week ago.  And I spent the week after that cleaning up the crap-storm in my house.  Now I feel like this is MY space, and MY time, and I can successfully move on.  I'm not exactly looking for a date but I was looking for the chance to be in my house, at peace with everything, and not feel like I am distracted with my life.  I think I'm there.

Today, I'm going to start a design with a deadline.  Not my favorite way to knit, but when Renee Jones of the Carolina Fiber Company tells you, "I want to feature your designs in my booth at Vogue Knitting Live," you grab a ball of HER yarn and design something with it.  Vogue Knitting Live is the first weekend of November.  I had best get cracking, no?

If heaven forbid any of you reading this don't knit, the equivalent for non-knitters would be an up-and-coming band being asked to play a set at Lollapalooza.  Who knows?  Maybe Debbie Bliss will walk by one of my scarves and say, "I need this girl to design with my yarns.  Do you have her business card?"

So yeah...I'm a bit out of my mind.  And flattered beyond recognition.  But I would rather promote her yarns in return, and I have an idea for a hat and mitt set that I think would be cute.  Here's to hoping it works on the first try so I can succeed in taking this sucker down to the wire.

Other than that, I was going to try and finish my Debra Newton Vogue Knitting 30th Anniversary sweater before VKLive, but I'm not sure I'm that awesome.  Or that I have that much time.  But we'll see.  I also have the socks I'm designing in the hopes of making Sam Boice, owner of The Wool Dispensary, famous, and the baby blanket I'm knitting in my car.  Basically, I have four projects on needles and I figure to finish them all at the same time.  Which is good...it would save me several trips to the inbox or FedEx office...I could do them all at once.  And then crash and burn, no question.  I'm certain I'll need a nap by November 4th if I finish all I want to finish by then.

My column, it should be noted, is moving in a new direction.  I am now setting up an email list for all of the Chicago-area local yarn shops so I can ask them about trends in their stores, with both their customers and vendors, all at once.  Stay tuned for a much more worldly, but still Chicago-based, knitting column.  One thing I did tell all of the shop owners, though, is that I'm not in this for the money.  I just want to promote knitting and yarning and other yummies like that.  In turn, if you ever want to share my stuff, I hope you know you're more than welcome.  The only exception to that is the patterns you may purchase...please do the right thing and do NOT share those.  Thanks!

Okay...time to get off of my bum, buy some appliances, and go knitting.  Because I can't do that enough this month.  The knitting...not the buying appliances.

Road Tripping

Good day!  So, I work four nights on and four nights off at my day job, which means that even though I'm completely zombified for 50% of my life, I have an odd amount of spare time.  Well, sometimes I use that big chunk of time to catch up on life, paperwork, and whatever else needs attention.  Other times...like last week...I went on a road trip.

I drove to California.  Stayed for maybe fifteen hours.  Then flew back.

But the great thing about road trips is you can knit little things when you stop, so I did.  I finished that green scarf in the last post, and I also started and finished the Half Dome from knitty.com in 2006...Jesse Loesberg, you're cute AND you're a great designer!  Here is my installment of the hat with, if I do say so myself, a pretty flawless mattress stitch.  See, the hat is knitted flat.  Would you ever guess I sewed the sucker up if it weren't for the rolled brim to see the underside of the seam?

I had a dear friend pick me up from the airport and bring me to my car, but of course my car was at work, so there was a bit of an unexpected (duh...I actually SHOULD have expected it) hiccup there.  No worries, though...I felt accomplished for finishing two knitting projects on my days off.

Never mind the fact that I also own a real estate investment company, and there is PLENTY of work to be done on that front.  But whatever...that stuff will get done also.  Since I don't have a choice and all real estate stuff has...you know...deadlines and a legal expectation of customer service.

So now I'm designing the socks that I hope will make the yarn-dyer famous (yes I'm serious), and I went back to the Asymmetrical Tunic from Vogue Knitting's 30th Anniversary issue.  I have the two short pieces done, and I have started the first of the two long pieces.  The pattern is actually perfect for me, because it's knit in eight pieces and then sewn together in this cool, unique construction at the end.  While I won't ever agree, I've been accused (that's the wrong word...more like it has been suggested to me) of having ADHD because of my penchant for doing sixty things at once, and just finishing them on my own time.

Little teeny bursts of knitting, and feeling like I finish something every time I bind off on a piece?  Sign me up!

Meanwhile, I have a new place I love to hang out in the house, but Bluto will do all he can to prevent the place from being as happy as possible.  Basically, I have this purple chair and mismatched ottoman that I bought on Craigslist, and it's in the kitchen between two huge windows.  Great place to knit, neighborhood-watch, listen to Pandora (my favorite stations are Sara Evans, Doobie Brothers, Debbie Gibson, and the Grateful Dead), and basically chill out.  Until Bluto gets involved.

See, Bluto likes sitting in the chair as well.  I am used to sharing a chair with this dog, of course...if you have followed my blog, you have no doubt seen that he sleeps on me in the red chair...but this chair is half the size of the other one.  He sits behind me, and his fat ass pushes mine right to the edge of the chair so he can stalk birds and squirrels in the back yard.  Suddenly, knitting a cable pattern with five different charts, all with a different number of rows, becomes a challenge.  Bluto just sits peacefully for ten seconds, and then licks my face for no reason and completely out of nowhere.  Here is the evidence:

It doesn't matter what I'm doing...he feels the need to sit there.  Sometimes he brings Kong, which he then drops, and of course freaks out and runs over me to retrieve it because that's what Kong does to dogs.

My column will be picking up again in a few days...this week is particularly stressful, but a lot will be better after that.  I have one more property to buy, the home-situation thing is semi-resolving, and then I'll be able to nap with the best of them and be fresh to get some work done.  Until then, I have pretty much given up getting everything done.  I just don't have the mental energy.  But I will.  So I shall knit.  Oh, and finally, as I was wrapping this up to publish, Bluto stopped chewing on my hair long enough to just sit peacefully for a photo.  See?

I'll keep publishing the progress of the Vogue sweater...it's really beautiful even in pieces!  I hope it looks that great when I sew it...this may be one of those instances where I cash in a favor and say, "Umm...friend...can you put this thing together?  I'll f*** it up."

Humidity and Wool

Good evening, everyone...I'm sitting in my little nook in the kitchen, wishing my house would sell and wishing I could get a renter for my condo, and contemplating Life In General.  I have so many secrets to share, but I can't, for a few reasons:

1.  I work for a big, big company.  While I'm not doing anything that would ever jeopardize my job, I don't want to every say anything that could be misinterpreted by the higher-ups in a public forum.  So there are those secrets relating to things that don't directly have to do with the job, but people tend to get the wrong idea about whatever they want.
2.  There are some things I promised not to talk about.

So here I am, knitting some easy stuff and designing a bit.  The "knitting some easy stuff" part comes in the form of a scarf.  See, even though it's currently 82 degrees and humid (at almost ten o'clock at night), it will soon be scarf season.  And I love scarves.  Wearing them, knitting them, encouraging others to get their freak on with them...all of it.  So I have temporarily replaced the garter-stitch squares in my passenger seat with scarves.  Here is the first one, made out of Laines du Nord Prancer (replaced by Romeo; one ball gets you a comfy, decent-length scarf):

This yarn is brightly colored, not wool-itchy, lofty, and has enjoyable color changes.  What's not to like, I ask you?  Oh...and the needles are the Clover needles from the set I won at Wool and Company (as if Lesley weren't fabulous enough without prizes).  The pattern is just moss stitch (meaning two rows of K2P2 ribbing, and then reverse K2P2 ribbing for two rows), so I can whip this sucker out while I wait for the Bensenville train and never get lost in the pattern.  Score!

Then, even though I said I was going to take a break, I decided to get my design on and try my hand at a pair of socks.  I knitted the gauge swatch for both the heel and the instep, and busted out my US2 Knitter's Pride Cubics for the first time.  Before I go any further, I'd like to say I'm a huge fan of these needles.  The only struggle I have had is that I am a death-grip knitter, so tightening the first stitch on a new needle is more difficult when the needle shaft is square instead of circular.  All is well, though.

The problem is me.  I'm an idiot.

Usually I design projects that, if I were ever to get discovered (or, you know, submit my designs to a publication and actually be fortunate enough to have them picked up), would end up in Knit Simple or another publication which appeals to the masses.  Anyway, I busted out the pencil and graph paper, started writing stuff down, got a very solid image in my head, and then I started knitting.

The reason I'm blogging right now is because I thought K1P1 ribbing for, like, ever was a good idea.  It is not.  At least it's not for someone who has the attention span of a stoplight, such as myself.  The thing is, this yarn is just begging to be made into something awesome.  If my design turns out to be only okay, the yarn on its own will make it awesome.  It can be purchased through Sam Boice, owner of The Wool Dispensary.  I bought the yarn at Yarn Con and I chose Useful Irradiant in Danse Du Ventre.  There are sparkly threads and rich cool pinkness and a great hand and...I could go on and on.  The yarn is great, Sam is great, and it will not only do my pattern justice...it will make it great.  

Either way, though, these socks are going to be a labor of love for anyone who decides to knit them.  I am purling in unnecessary places, ribbing in unnecessary places, probably patterning in unnecessary places when I get there...drrrrrr...

Here is the yarn.  Stunning, right?

Finally, after helping out Knot Just Knits and introducing myself as the Plot Twist Shell pattern designer during the Chicago Yarn Crawl, my mom saw my design and decided she wanted one made for herself.  I had already made two of them, so I asked Elizabeth if she would make one for my mom and call it even for working for her, and she agreed.  My mom is not a fan of wool because it makes her itchy, so I told her to go into the yarn shop and pick out what she liked.  She went into Knitche and, to hear her tell it, her head fell off her neck from all of the choices and she had to be mopped out the door, too overwhelmed to make a decision.

But she did...she chose Misti Alpaca Chunky in Natural Cream (because if anyone knows my mother, she's one of those teeny people that can get away with wearing off-white and not look lumpy, fat, or even generally undesirable...it's unfair).  Elizabeth did a great job on the sweater but I was amused at how much heavier it was than the one I made in Eco+, and even the one I made in Queensland Kathmandu.  It, well, it weighs as much as my mother.

I'm going on a road trip next week, so hopefully I'll knit more than two rows of K1P1 ribbing on these freaking socks.  Maybe...if I'm feeling extra-saucy...I can make it all the way down to the heel.  Hell...a girl can dream...

By the way, if you know anyone in Chicago who would like to buy a house or rent a condo, send them the hyperlinks in this sentence and send them my way.

Location, Location, Location

Greetings, fellow yarnies!  Or real estate friends...this post will mostly be about real estate and how I haven't had any time to knit.

That's not entirely true...I did review Viking Odin Superwash in my column today...here it is:

http://www.examiner.com/review/product-review-viking-odin-superwash?cid=db_articles

The pattern was the free exclusive pattern during the Chicago Yarn Crawl at Wool and Company in St. Charles...if you didn't get a chance to pick it up, definitely purchase it.  You have enough yarn for one pattern-length cowl and then one one-section-shorter cowl if you reverse Colors A and B in the pattern, so for two balls of yarn you have two Christmas gifts out of the way!  Also, since it's knit in the round and the colors show up by slipping stitches, there ain't a purl in the bunch (save for two rows).

You know how much I hate to purl...actually, you know how much my friends Kathleen and Dawn hate to purl...

Anyway, I have been in Donald Trump mode this week, which is why I decided to do a yarn review this week in my column.  The pattern takes literally a few hours to make...GREAT instant gratification knitting.  I closed on a three-flat yesterday (for those of you in Florida or Texas or anywhere else where there is no basement, a "three-flat" is a three-unit apartment building that looks like a big house).  Then today, I put my own house on the market and am getting ready to list one of my rental units.  Basically if it isn't about rent or mortgages, I probably can't hear you.

Here is my finished cowl, by the way...

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go and fix a dishwasher for one tenant and bring boxes and a bottle of wine to another one.  Seriously.  Then I have to wash the walls and floors of my house, put a few items in boxes, introduce myself to my new tenants, and I'm thinking I'll pick up my knitting needles again around November or so.  God help me.

Yarn Crawl Hangover

Good evening!

I have one more Yarn Crawl article left in me, but for now, I just thought I would recap.  Especially since I actually...gulp...finished a project this week!  See, this is what Zauerballs are for...

See, I got to a point where I had to, HAD to, finish my Zauerball socks.  While I was laid up like an invalid and still working at both Planet Walmart (I got kicked out two days in a row, and a doctor at Elmhurst finally told me, "You're not planning on standing at all, are you?") and Knot Just Knits, I had plenty of spare time all of a sudden.  For those who don't know, I knitted two socks at a time, from both the inside and the outside of the ball.  For all of you Zauerballers, I know the company recommends not pulling from the inside of the ball, but I had zero problems.  And if you go from left toe to right toe, you see the colorway from the outside to the inside core of the ball.  Note the approximately eighteen inches of yarn left on the top of the socks...that's how I roll.

Crazy Zauerballs should not be wasted.

Anyway, the reception to my pattern was overwhelming...I was so very thankful for that.  For those of you not in the area, here is the listing on Ravelry:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plot-twist-shell

Now, it's time to get back to the Vogue Knitting pattern.  I have one panel of...I don't remember...eight?  Ten?...finished.  Slowly but surely, both knitting-wise and life-wise, I'm getting back on my feet.  The first major thing was checked off the list, and the second major thing should be checked off this week.  The Yarn Crawl was not really something to check off my list, but at the same time, it gave me an iota of confidence that I had lost over the last couple of years.  I also heard a tiny bit of negative feedback through my Ravelry group about the Yarn Crawl, which is still positive because small businesses are just like any other company; they need to hear where they can improve.  There certainly wasn't a bunch of negative feedback DURING the Crawl...I ran into more friendly yarn enthusiasts than I can even count, and I even got used to Renee pointing to me and saying, "Amy here is the person who designed this awesome pattern!"

On second thought, I still turned slightly pink when she called that out.  But it's a big deal to me...after the following picture was taken, two more balls of Eco+ were sold to make my pattern.  Now, Eco+ is pretty lofty but it did take up two thirds of the table when the Yarn Crawl started...that's four feet of table reduced to eight inches of table:

Anyway, I was also so happy to help out Elizabeth, who has been so good to me and my creativity pretty much since she opened.  I remember going in there ten days after her doors opened for business...I had no idea a yarn shop had opened in Oak Park, but I happened to walk by and look in the window.  I doubled back, and of course a beautiful friendship was born.  Elizabeth is a good yarn psychologist.  She handed me a ball of Kauni in their rainbow colorway and said, "This has yardage for days, the colors are great, and it felts like a dream.  Walk around with it.  See if it speaks to you."

It did.  I purchased it.  I made the hat in my The Fiber Friend facebook page and that photo was taken at the UPS store, right before I sent it to its intended recipient, one of my favorite members of the military EVER.

Oh yeah...that hat was worn in Afghanistan.  This hat:

Have a good night...I'm going to compile my feedback from the Crawl.  Or knit.  Or think about walking, which I can't do much of.  Or make sugar free pudding with almond milk.  Or...

The Other Side Of The Coin

Good evening!  It's Yarn Crawl and Stitches Midwest week, so I have had a lot to write about, but I've also had a lot of knitting time, thanks to a few key moments.  The first one is that I went to the Pacific Northwest for a few days, and...well...the flight was a bit long.  I was knitting my Zauerball socks, but there is one pattern on the front and another on the back, so I have to be able to see the instructions for both sides at the same time.  This is what I came up with:

Then, I finished my size of the Yarn Crawl pattern for Knot Just Knits...here is the listing on Ravelry if you'd like to see it:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plot-twist-shell

I made it in a different yarn, figuring I needed to make sure it could translate.  It did, well enough where I wore it to work one night.  On the first day of the Yarn Crawl, I worked at Knot Just Knits and the first person I encountered was gushing about my pattern.  Every nerve I had about thinking, "I hope everyone but me doesn't think it's ugly" vanished in a millisecond.

So that's when I decided to post the pattern on Ravelry before the Yarn Crawl ended...Elizabeth already told me she didn't care, so I knew it wasn't a big deal.  Within 24 hours, I had sold three patterns and 74 people had favorited it in their library.  Wow...double thank-you.

Then I spent Day Two at the Woolly Lamb...they are usually closed on Sundays so I wanted to see what Crawlers were coming in.  If I can get my butt out of bed in the morning, I'll write an article about it...such a great store.  Great yarn.  Great atmosphere.  Great help.  Just great great great...I can't say enough nice things about the place, and of course they are the Chicago-exclusive distributor of Bergere de France, which is the most heavenly of the heavenly yarns, ever.

Tomorrow, I am heading back to Knot Just Knits for a work day...it is so interesting to me to be an employee versus a manager.  I am the first to admit that I'm not the best at my "day" job, but I am decent at managing a crew, making good decisions, and getting people to be productive.  It has been a long time since my only job was to basically sell stuff and make the customer happy, but yep...here we are.  It was actually GREAT fun, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  Knitters are simply awesome.

By the way, I'm wrapping up my coverage of the Yarn Crawl with a Best of the Best list...if you have any feedback, please do contact me privately with your thoughts.  I can't actually do the Crawl this year since I'm an employee, but I want customer-driven feedback on what they like about the Crawl.  Specifically..

Best atmosphere 
Friendliest employees 
Best free pattern 
Best raffle prize 

Best LYS neighborhood…where are the best surrounding restaurants and shopping? 
Best yarn selection

Best non-Yarn Crawl sales and deals

Please also share with other Crawlers...either have them email me at amy.e.kaspar@gmail.com or contact me through Ravelry at thefiberfriend.

I'm hoping to finish the Zauerball socks (in the photo above) by the end of next week so I can get back to knitting the Vogue 30th Anniversary asymmetrical tunic pattern...that Cascade Eco+ and one and a half finished panels keep staring at me, but I'm already doing one confusing pattern with cables.  Makes more sense to finish that sucker and then put the Zauerball socks on my feet while I knit the tunic.  Who's picturing it?  Oh by the way...I'm knitting the Zauerball from the toe up until I run out of yarn, meaning they will probably be knee-highs.  Enough of a visual?

Let me know how the Crawl is going...I'd love to hear from you!

It's Been A While...

Hello?  Is this thing on?

My apologies for the silence, but I've had a thing or two go on in my life that made me feel like I could barely get out of bed.  So I'll recap the last couple of months, being as vague as I'll allow myself, and then you can go ahead and judge away.

As it turns out, I hate surprises and I hate waiting.  So there is something going on in my marriage that's pretty much splitting me in half, and it got to the point where I would postpone pretty much everything for another day, and then the next day would come, and I would postpone for yet another day.  I didn't write my column for over a month.  Then, just as the one thing was coming to a head, the other thing actually DID snap me in half.

My dogs were in an unfamiliar situation, and to make a long story short, Penny attacked and killed two little dogs.  My sweet, unassuming animals that are afraid of pretty much everything and say hello to the smelly garbage man every Tuesday.  Penny, who had the chihuahua at the dog park at Berteau and Central bite the back of her leg and she would just turn around and look at it like, "Seriously?"

So I have done pretty much nothing of value except cry and feel sorry for myself for the last, I would say, eight to ten weeks.  To top it off, I was struggling in my head by screaming, "Get out get out get out get out!" to one problem, and then screaming "Get me out get me out get me out!" to another.  Basically, I just needed to shake out all in my life to reset things to where they belonged.

I have succeeded, sort of.  One issue is resolved, I had to put Penny down (which isn't resolve but it is closure, as awful as it was), and a few others are on the horizon.  But because I can see the future, I am finally starting to feel better.  So I have that going for me.

I finished a pair of socks, and after ripping the first one out when I was all the way down to the ball of the foot, only to start it on a larger pair of needles, I decided I still didn't like how they looked on ME.  I mailed them to someone with a similar foot size.  The person was pleased.  So then, so was I.

I finished a garment...it is the sample for the Chicago Yarn Crawl.  Perhaps you have seen it...Cascade Yarns featured it on their website.  If you want to get it for free, just stop by Knot Just Knits during the Yarn Crawl.  If you want to buy it, give me a few days and I'll have it up on Ravelry.  It's called the Plot Twist Shell, and here is Elizabeth modeling it in her store:

Now I'm knitting one the next size up for me...the least I could do is wear my own design, right?

Anyway, then I finally started the Vogue Knitting 30th Anniversary issue aran tunic designed by Deborah Newton.  I have finished one panel and plan to bring the ball with me when I leave town next week, so I can maybe finish the second panel and start on the third one.

Oh, and finally...I will by tomorrow have completed Steve's harmonica cozy.  I hope to remember to post a photo of it...basically, Steve (our rhythm guitar player and my former roommate on Laporte) only plays the harmonica on one song, so he doesn't want to bring a music stand to shows just to hold his harmonica.  I knitted him a harmonica sock that hooks onto his guitar strap, so all he has to do is reach in and grab the sucker.

So yes, I have been knitting.  But I have been extremely depressed and lacking direction and wishing things would change...they are.  I no longer lack direction.  I am getting there.  Hang in there with me and keep those needles clicking!

If you want to indulge in a sale or two before the yarn crawl, here are some stores offering discounts in the coming week or two:

http://www.examiner.com/article/weekend-yarn-sales-are-brightening-chicago-crafters-weekends?cid=db_articles

Speaking of writing...which I only sort of was, but still...

...I think I'm going to have an AWESOME speaking gig next year relating to my column.  Stay tuned!  Big things happening because of my silly little column...yay!  Guess that means I have to keep blogging...