Last Year's Resolutions

I am late posting this wrap up - when I went back through the old entries I discovered that I set these resolutions at the beginning of August, not the end. So after 13 months, this is what I've got.

Accomplished:

• Tell people when they piss me off rather than get all angsty and hurt.
• Ice skate at Tenney Park
• Go to the Farmer's Market whenever possible
• Make steps to get the sleep thing sorted out
• Join/start a knitting group
• Try to get into Camp
• Get some healthy strategies for letting work go
• Go through the stash and list unloved yarns for trade on Ravelry
• Go through the house and take things to Goodwill every 3 months
• Put all the music on the computer onto SB's old iPod
• Read new books, not just the same old favorites
• Go to Thursday music at the Terrace
• Celebrate Jorah's graduation in style
• Visit The Fold
• Go to a Badger Football Game
• Don't let being nice mean I'm not tough with people who deserve it
• Call people I want to hang out with and ask to see them

Not Accomplished:

• Submit patterns for publication
• Finish the Madison Heartwarmer using the weaving technique
• Get a Tattoo
• Get back in the habit of going to the gym
• Put at least 1 pattern a month up on Ravelry
• Update the blog frequently (at least 10 times a month) and use photos
• No knitting patterns by other people until after dinner
• Walk the Lakeshore path out to Picnic Point
• Go out on Lake Mendota on some form of a boat

The accomplishment I have enjoyed the most would definitely be the reading goals. It has been great getting into all these new books and it's definitely something I'll keep up for this year.

Obviously the design related goals will be taking a front seat in the next year. I'm working on a new list to help keep me on track during what is going to be a very busy fall.

Still need to get that tattoo though.

More Socks Than You Can Shake a Pointy Stick At

These are today's socks!

First up are the March Shipment of the Rockin Sock Club - Slip Jig Socks in My Wild Irishgirlie.

I pronounce this a delightful and enjoyable pattern to knit. I would also like to say that I love this colorway. In fact, I love it so much that I see it again in my future. I think it would be amazing for girlie babies, and as it happens, I know several.

Let me also direct your attention to the cunning little circles on the cuff. They make me think of dancing, and the whole time we did this little photoshoot I was ballerina-girl. Something you may not know about me is that once upon a time, I was quite the dancer.

Next we have a pair of prototype socks.

This yarn is Three Irish Girls Beckon Stretch Merino in the colorway Father Time. I also have some baby booties in this colorway around here somewhere, if I could just hunt them up.

And here are the socks that came from the Prototype Socks pictured and characterized above. I name them Skoosh Socks. Here they are in Socks That Rock Spy Say Guacamolay - again may I just say, this colorway rocked my socks. It rocked them hard.

I'm putting the final touches on the pattern, and working through the smallest size - a gift for a friend. I've got to tell you, they are taking forever. It's probably because they are smaller than my usual sock and I expect them to go faster.

These are Happy Hands Toe Jamz, colorway Spirit In The Sky. I love these colors too - and this song is one of the great songs of all times. That's something cool about Happy Hands sock yarns; they're named after songs. I have some Brown Eyed Girl in my kit that's going to be some beautiful socks one of these days.

I'm working on some other behind-the-scenes stuff here, but I am going to try to get the Skoosh Socks up and running later this week. Very exciting!

Arbitrary Thursday

I have a bunch of little things to post about so here they are, in no particular order:

1. I have three pairs of socks to photograph and blog, but I need a photographer's assistant, and he is at work. I also have a pair of yoga socks to photograph and blog, but I can't find them.

2. It is allergy season and I am sniffly, cranky, and tired.

3. I love my new studio! I need to get a few more things in place and then I will take pictures to show you.

4. I have spent most of my time in Texas designing a new free pattern for some socks. After I get the photos of it (and finish knitting one more test pair to make sure that everything is up to code) I shall put it up on Ravelry.

5. My dog Lucky has a felted flower toy which I must throw for him every 3 minutes. A day in which he does not find the flower 6 or 8 hundred times is a day wasted.

6. I really wish I had practiced drawing more after I got out of school. Just now realizing that would have been a good skill to have.

7. I could have started gathering information for this whole Becoming a Knitting Designer thing a long time ago. Why do I not yet own copies of Knitting From the Top, Sweater Design in Plain English, and The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design? I especially want the Knitgrrl one.

8. I think I'm going to really love this job.

9. It was late last night and dinner never really happened so we went to the Austin Culver's. It was just like being at home. Oh, Wisconsin, how I miss you.

10. Going to a yarn store later today with a new friend from the HPKCHC. Always a good thing mixing knitting, yarn stores, and Harry Potter.

11. Big plans this weekend!

a. UW @ UNLV - we're going to go to watch the game at a bar with all of the other UW alums here in Austin. (Not to mention that football is starting, my favorite time of year!)

b. Going to see an interview with and then a one man show by Kevin McDonald - our favorite Kid in the Hall! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. Kids in the Hall is one of the best things on the planet!

12. And Monday is Labor Day! Even though I don't really get days off any more that is still exciting!

Home Again Home Again

Well, I got to Austin on Monday night, so today is my second day in the new place. It is so great seeing my husband and dogs again - it already feels like I was never away. I completely love our new place as well - big rooms, beautiful floors, it's great. I have a studio of my own with a ton of light, we have a dishwasher(!) and we have laundry hookups, so we're looking for a secondhand washer and dryer to hook up to them.

My main project right now is not so much knitting as it is getting everything organized in this house. There are still boxes everywhere and I have a ton of unpacking to do. I do like organizing things though, so that's a good.

I definitely think it's going to be weird though, not leaving the house to go to work. I did it yesterday for the first time and just kept feeling like it was time to get going. Last night I started to work on a pretty cool project though, and now I feel like I have some momentum.

I'm off to work on unpacking and organizing for a while. In other news, yesterday I had my laptop blaring music while I was working and kept thinking, "Oh, no way! I can't believe this radio station is playing this song - I love this song!" and then realizing that I was listening to iTunes and of course it would be playing all of my favorite music, because it's my music. Very smart. SMRT.

Weaving Addition

There are many different ways to use math in weaving but let's look at this one.

Today I took this:

put it with this:

and ended up with this:

Then I took this:

put it with this:

and ended up with this:

So all of the ingredients for a great day.

Unfortunately, it has been a pretty rotten day. My allergies have arrived, but I am loathe to start taking the Zyrtec I brought because it knocks me right on my butt and makes me want to sleep for 18 hours a day (it's the only thing that works, even though it wears me right out.) I may cave in and take some next time I go back to my room though - I'm already exhausted so what's a little more exhaustion, right?

In good news, it's Tuesday, so there was a new The Guild up, and also my favorite podcast. This also means that I will be home a week from today - a new home, but home all of the same.

I hope they don't have Ragweed in Texas.

****The first weaving is a random mix of blue and turquoise 5/2 cotton with Mountain Colors Bearfoot Ladyslipper and the second is six different pinks and lavenders also in 5/2 with Socks That Rock Lightweight Mist. Both patterns are tabby.

GASP

I was reading old blog posts of mine (because I'm a dork like that) and came to the one where I lamented that Lover's Leap STR wasn't more red because I wanted to knit My Vampire Boyfriend socks from Knitty. I totally forgot about this and now True Blood Red is out and it's super red and bloody and vampirey!

Don't you just love yarn?!

and vampires?!

Home?sick

I've been feeling a little betwix-and-between lately. This is a fun place and there is lots to do and see here, but I'm homesick for three different places. As my mom would say, I've had enough fun.

I miss Madison. I miss Lakeside-That-Was and mostly my friends who worked there. I've been thinking about them a lot today, the Lakeside Ladies. I flipped through the new Twist Collective, and it made me realize how much fun I had at the yarn store - how I would feel when the new fall yarns would come in, every box full of new colors and textures. Every fall filled with possibilities. I want to go have dinner with them all at Taj Indian (as an aside, I long for food with spice!) and have someone say, "Have you seen the new Classic Elite books?" and have someone else say, "Oh, I have one in my car, I'll be right back!" I love my ladies.

I miss Virginia. I spoke to my mom and my grandma briefly yesterday and they were making homemade ice cream and Peach Conserve. It's been really nice here recently, like Virginia in late September, and I can't wait to visit home this fall. I'm going back for the Waterford Fair - the big craft show in my area. I may spend up to two weeks at home and I can't wait!

Weirdly, I miss Austin, even though I've never been there. Maybe I'm just excited to get my life going again. I want to be there with my family in our new house and get settled into a routine. I want to have a cell phone again so I can call my friends in Wisconsin, Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia and not have to rely on Facebook. I am ready to develop a routine and really get down to designing and knitting and working on my LIFE.

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Silver Bay has a Labyrinth (a replica of the famous one at Chartres Cathedral) and I finally tried it out this morning. You may know that I'm not a religious person, but I am a spiritual one, and I have heard about the power of Labyrinths from various readings and friends. It was quite the experience. Most of the wisdom I gleaned from it came in the form of cliches, it's true, but cliches are cliches for a reason. There is a difference too, between having someone mouth platitudes to you when your soul is tangled up and realizing them yourself.