Black Sheep

Full disclosure

Okay, it’s time for me to fess up…Basically, that “appointment” that I was telling you about was a job interview at the Spokane Public Library, for a Youth Services Librarian position. As it turns out, I got the job! Yay! I will be moving to back to Spokane by August 16th which is my first day on the new job. I’ve got a lot of work to do .

I’m so excited to work in this field of Librarianship, as well. I’ve been working in Academe for about six years, one of those years as a Science Librarian. And it’s been great. Wonderful experience and the people I have worked with here have been so good to me. It will be sad to leave them. But when I first decided to go to library school my intention, upon graduation, was to be a children’s librarian. So I feel like I will be where I am supposed to be, you know?

Sorry to build this up so much! I mean, it’s not like I’m the first person in the world to get a new job . But I just didn’t want to make it public until I told my boss, which I did today. whew!

I have an FO to show you. It’s my recycled silk afghan. Here she is lounging on my chair. I’m glad it’s done. I did have a MAJOR bonehead moment last night, though. grrrr. I was so stoked because I had finished the mind-numbing task of attatching the fringe and I was in the process of weaving in my loose ends. I did something really stoopid. when I trimmed my “end” after weaving it in, I had accidentally cut a stich. ARG! I was so mad at myself! I’m not having very good luck lately with finishing my knits, am I? Don’t ask my how I fixed it. It was hella janky and I’m embarrassed to say (I thing I just tied the two loose ends together into a knot). I pray it doesn’t come loose someday, but it probably will. sigh.

Here is my progress on the Vintage Cami. It seems like it takes forever to knit a round of this, but the good news is that there will be no seaming, which is great. I am going to focus on fininishing this over the weekend and then I will start my step mom’s Leonora. Then I will finish Lucky Clover.

Oh, I finally got my IK in the mail on Tuesday! I really like a lot of the patterns in this issue. I’m already trolling around for Rowan Kid Classic for the Greek Pullover . But I keep stopping myself. I mean, I’m moving to another state, for crissakes. I do not need to add to the yarn stash. It’ll be there when I get around to it. I also really like Chenille Cutaway Jacket, the Union Sqare Pullover, the Drop Stitch Cardigan (I’d do it in a solid color), and the Blissful Jacket. I wish I could knit faster

11 comments June 30th, 2005

One down…

Finally! I finished a sleeve! The end is in sight! well, I should wait and say that when I’ve finished the other sleeve. Becuase after that I still have to knit a long-ass wrappy band. When I get to that then I know I will be almost done. It does feel good to have the sleeve done, though.

In the meantime, I knitted a bit on my afghan today. Here’s a pic of it. I think this is almost done, too. I cut the fringe for it today and tried to apply it to one end, but soon realized that my crochet hook is way too small. I think I like this afghan. The colors, I mean. At first I wasn’t sure if it was hideous or pretty. At the moment I think it’s pretty. I’m not extremelly fond of knitting with this recycled silk. It has an awful musty smell that needs to go away. I put a Trader Joes Lavender dryer packet thingy in with my yarn, so hopefully that will help take the musty scent away. Another thing I dislike about this yarn is the debris that is tangled in with it. I’ve found all kinds of things spun up with it. Metals, woody material, and today I think I might have found a fingernail. Seriously. It might be my paranoid mind playing tricks on me, but it kind of looked like a fingernail. yuck.

Oh, and I got a good start on the vintage cami this weekend, too! this will be a good “at work” project. It’s knitted in the round so it seems like endless stockinette, which is perfect for reading e-mail and blogs and whatnot.

Better jet. gotta go make dinner. Tortilla soup! yum!

9 comments June 26th, 2005

OSW is the new clappy

This baby knit up so fast, I don’t even have progress pics. I’m not even going to bother with it’s own blog category, so it will be filed under “sweaters.”
Pattern: One Skein Wonder by Glampyre.
Yarn: Cotton Ease by Lion Brand in black. A little over half a skien.
Needles: Denise interchangables size 8 and 5.
Started: June 15, 2005
Finished: June 16, 2005

Click here for a shot of the back. Click here to see it off.

This was a fun, easy project. Nice instant gratification project. And it’s one of those things that you will wear. It looks adorable with tank tops. This probably isn’t the best tank top to wear with it, but oh well. I like the way it looks best with cami-style tanks, better.

While you are here, I might as well show you my progress on Lucky Clover. This is the first sleeve. I shudder to think that I still have ANOTHER sleeve to knit on this. ugh. I’m having a hard time staying with this project. BUT I WILL FINISH. Dammit! This is such a cute sweater, and i can’t wait to finally wear it. It will be worth it in the end. I’ve casted on for a couple of other things in the passt couple of days, obviously trying to avoid lucky clover. I almost knit a complete baby bootie with some Lorna’s Laces sheperd’s sock (Oh, yeah….I bought some more yarn…) Then frogged it all because I think I was messing up the turning of the heel. I was working on these adorable baby sockies from the IK website. I kind of thought they would be easy..I don’t know why. The small size maybe? not so. knitting with size 0 needles is literally like knitting with toothpicks.

I also tried to cast on for my Kiri shawl last night. The KSH from Ei’s birch is calling me with it’s siren song. But I got frustrated. I’ve never done a provisional cast-on before and just got so darn confused! does anyone know how to do this? Here are the Kiri instructions. If anyone can please explain this to me in plain english I would really be very happy!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

P.S. I have some very good news that I will be able to share very soon

10 comments June 22nd, 2005

yarn, yarn, and more yarn

Caution: yarn porn ahead

I bought a sh*tload of yarn the past week. Actually, the yarn binge kind of started the week before last, and then extended into last week. I’m begining to wonder if my hobby really isn’t knitting, but is yarn collecting.

Okay, here are the pics in the order that I bought them.

This I bought with my partner in crime, Judy, when we talked each other into going to Communknity the week before last:

For some reason, I got this urge to knit up a beautiful mohair shawl and had to do it in kidsilk haze, since I’ve never tried it before. Since I don’t feel like ordering the Rowan magazine Birch is in, I will knit up Kiri instead. (But, in reality, I don’t know what I was thinking. Am I really going to knit this shawl? I think I am more into the idea of knitting it up than the actual knitting of it up. We’ll see how this goes.)

Next, as I mentioned in a previous post, I ransacked the shelves at the Spokane Joann’s Fabrics. They had tons of Cotton Ease on clearance, so I bought up quite a bit:

I bought 9 balls of black (why I didn’t just go with 10 I don’t know), 4 of the lilac, and 4 of candy blue. I will use the black, I think, to knit A Good Bias from IK spring 2005. The blue and lilac will be used for tank tops. I already used one of the blacks for the One Skien Wonder. I still need to get a picture of that. I think I will wear it tommorrow and post the pic then.

I also mentioned that I went to a new yarn store in Spokane called A Grand Yarn. I went there twice. I almost made it in there three times but, instead, helped my mom move into her new house. The first purchase I made was this:

I just couldn’t resist these colors! I LOVE them. In fact, they perfectly matched the outfit I was wearing when I bought it . This yarn is from a company I’d never heard of before called Steadfast Yarns, and they are located in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, which is quite close to Spokane. Close enough to be considered local. The yarn I bought is called “wonderful wool.” I will probably make a nice, warm scarf with it this winter.

The second time I went to A Grand Yarn was with my dad and stepmother. She wanted me to knit her a “fuzzy scarf.” So I talked her into going with me to the yarn store to pick out the yarn she wanted. She picked out some purple fuzzy yarn from Trendsetter. (I knitted her up the scarf in about a day and gave it to her already, so I don’t have a pic. ) While we were there, she saw this pretty capelet and asked if I could knit it for her. I said, “yes” and so se bought this:

Now I just need to get my hands on the pattern book. I’m sure I could figure out how this was knit, but since it’s for someone else, I don’t want to take any chances. My dad was in the store with us and kind of freaking out at how much we were spending on yarn. The yarn shop owner politely asked if she could get him a cup of coffee, and he responded, “no thanks, but how about a glass of scotch?” I thought that was kind of funny .

And finally, when I came home I had some Koigu waiting for me:

When I first saw it I was a little bit bummed because it is a lot more purple than I wanted. The old skien has much more blue. But I swatched it up using both skeins, alternating every two rows, and I think it will be okay for my clappy. I think that I will put this away for awhile so I can get on with lucky clover and my other summer projects.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this yarn extravaganza! I certainly enjoyed buying it. Hope you all have a wonderful Monday.

9 comments June 20th, 2005

I’m back

just wanted to let you know that I’m back from my visit..I will post tommorrow with pictures of new yarn!

Happy Father’s day!

2 comments June 19th, 2005