We Have a Winner!

I enjoyed all the links you sent me so much that I decided to choose the winner randomly. After writing down everyone's names and mixing the pile around again and again, I picked out Suzie's tiny scrap of paper. Congrats, Suzie! You win the Malabrigo laceweight and Reisenthel shopping bag!

Thanks again to everyone who entered...I am having a lot of fun with some of my new bookmarks. If you haven't checked them out yet, here's a list of the entries:


http://www.bookmooch.com

http://cuteoverload.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa_7P5AbUww

http://goofyblog.net/

http://www.craftzine.com/blog/

http://men.msn.com/articlemh.aspx?cp-documentid=3872767&page=1 (ed note: BEER! did you know I was a beer fan?)

http://bonnieboheme.blogspot.com/2007/03/obligatory-hat.html

http://www.greenchairpress.com/

http://www.bored.com/nosepilot/real.html
(hint: Click a language to enter and then at the end put the cursor over the cat and it will continue.)

http://www.addictinggames.com/escapethebomb.html

http://aurgasm.us/

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/

http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/index.html

http://whatnottoknit.wordpress.com/

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

http://destash.blogspot.com/


I would at least write the subject of each link, but I am currently using my new laptop and apparently Safari does not compute most of Blogger's blog-writing tools.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you: I got a new computer! A MacBook! I have always been a PC person, but I think Apple has the best hardware out there for notebook computers, so I decided to go with them. I am finding, however, that my suspicions about their software were warranted. I don't like OSX! To me, OSX is to Windows as crocheting is to knitting. I DON'T GET IT! I don't like the way it looks, I don't like the way it feels, I don't feel like I'm doing it right, and I DON'T WANNA LEARN! So I'm getting XP on this machine as soon as I can. Thank goodness for the new Mac-Intel setup. (I will likely partition my hard drive and run both, using OSX for some stuff because I know it has good photo editing, etc...so if you are a Mac fan don't think I don't see some of the upsides!)

Also, I forgot my USB cable for my camera and now that my sister went back home, I have no one to borrow one from. Lame! So no photos till I'm back in Berkeley.

Man, running that contest was FUN! I'm going to do that more often now.

Home of the Handmade

When I come home to visit my family, I realize it's no wonder I became a crafty person. There is evidence everywhere that I grew up in an environment where making things was encouraged daily. Just walking around this morning, I snapped a few photos of the handmade things in our house so I could share a little bt about my roots with you.



Face casts of my mother and her two sisters. I love these.



A plate made by my mom She has made a lot of plates and bowls that we use every day in the kitchen. She tends not to like them but I love them.



A cross-stitched pillow that my mom made for my little brother. Boy did he love that. (Next to it, not handmade, my brother's teddy bear, Happy.)



A print that hangs in my kitchen, made by my brother. He was tooling around in the darkroom one day and just put these x's and o's over the paper, then exposed it for a while. I have some of his actual photos in my apartment, too.

The rest of my family is always making things, too. My stepsister loves to paint and collage, and both my stepdad and dad are talented an creative carpenters. I have a large bookshelf made by my dad many years ago, and he once made my brother a bunkbed. Last year my stepdad made me a wooden tortilla press, and he is bulding all of our kitchen cabinets in the new kitchen. Just the other day my aunt called to ask me how to decoupage things onto cigar boxes. I attract them, too; my boyfriend is a musician, homebrewer, great writer, and probably many things I don't even know about yet.

Do you come from a crafty household? I know it's the main reason I even have the self confidence to make (and show, publicly) all the things I do.

Remeber, the contest is open until midnight tonight! There's a 1/15 chance of winning still - that's pretty good! I am loving all of your links! And thanks for de-lurking, those who did. I seriously love to know who is reading this and I promise to come check out your blog if you have one. Thanks!

100th Post Extravaganza!

Actually, I don't have much to wirte about since I've been writing my Spanish 2 composition ("¿quieren casarse? ¡Felicitaciones! Hay mucho que ustedes deben hacer antes de la boda, pero yo estoy aquí para ayudarles en todo...")

But, since this is my 100th post on this blog that's been so much fun, with readers who've been so wonderful to me through the good and the bad, I'm giving stuff away.

CONTEST!

12:08 am: contest is now closed. I will announce the winner sometime Thursday. Thank you ALL for entering!

I spend a lot of time on the computer. It's always just there, turned on, in front of the only chair in my room, so I end up sort of half-assedly "being on the computer" while I'm knitting, reading, etc. Next week I'm going to buy a new laptop, so I imagine I'll be spanding even more time surfing in between rows/pages/cups of tea/Rachael Ray episodes. You all seemed to enjoy my Links post, so that's the idea behind the contest.

Leave me a link, in the comments, to anything on the web. Literally, anything. A blog you like, an interesting article, a fave wikipedia entry, a cool photo, ANYTHING. Got it? Also, please leave your e-mail address in the body of the comment (blogger doesn't save them) or if you aren't comfortable with that, e-mail me to let me know which comment was yours.

Contest will be open at least until Wednesday at midnight, so you have plenty of time to find something fun to enter with. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. The more links we get, the more fun we all get to have. But there's also a real prize. (2, actually!)

YARN!



One hank of Malabrigo laceweight in the gorgeous color Tuareg. Speaking of wikipedia entries, Tuareg! 470 yds of super-soft merino. Yum.

NON-YARN!



One Reisenthel Mini Maxi Shopper, size L. I own one of these in red and I loooooove it. I want to keep this one, too, but I am giving it away because it's too awesome for me to own two. It's a reusable shopping bag that folds up and fits (oh so easily) in this matching zip pouch. I keep mine in my purse and use it whenever I go shopping. You could use it for groceries, but I actually use it anywhere BUT the supermarket (I have other bags for that). It's stylish enough to use as an alternative to store bags when you are out in SF, buying great shoes and cute summer clothes. It's also sturdy enough to use at the drugstore when your'e buying your giant econo-size bottle of Garnier Fructis Long & Strong. Just yesterday I found out that it holds a whopping eight rolls of toilet paper! I'm impressed!

Of course, feel free to use it on yarn crawls, beach trips, picnics, laundry day...whatever.

Alright? Link me!

Square One

The first few layers of the first of four squares for my Gee's Bend-inspired blanket.

I'm sure that to everyone I show this to, it's not much cause for excitement, because out of context I admit it looks a little lame. My plan for this blanket is so exciting to me, though, and to see it finally coming together after at least six months of planning (since my De Young visit) is enough to make me a little giddy. I am trying to keep it under control :)

I have to say, though, that I feel so connected to this project. I sat in front of the original (in corduroy, of course) in the museum and drew out a log-cabin scheme for it in my little notebook. I searched thrift stores for old cotton sweaters, picked them apart thread by thread, unraveled them, washed the yarn, dyed some of it, and hand-wound the balls I'm working from. Once you start knitting, it's sort of anything goes. Gauge changes with different yarns from different sweaters, you reconcile it by estimation only, picking up maybe four stitches for every five on the cast-off edge, placing short rows to make up for bulges and deficiencies. Will it lie flat? Does it matter?

As I work on it, I'm thinking of where in my apartment it will go, who will nap with it or cuddle under it. Will it make people feel welcome? Will they appreciate it even if they don't know that it's not just some crazy blanket I made up, but actually sort of a tribute to a tradition in textiles? Mmmm. I get drowsy just thinking about it. In a good way.

Well, this is my 99th post, so the next one will be my 100th Post Contest! Yes! Look for it Friday! It will be easy to enter, anyone can submit an entry and I won't make you work too hard, like write poetry or search my archives or anything. The prize will be bitchin. Trust me, I'm already jealous of whoever wins. So check back Friday!

AIDS Walk San Francisco

OK people, I got a call from Isaac down at AIDS Walk SF this morning (I was his FIRST CALL! I think that means we're like, the FIRST TEAM REGISTERED! You know it.) and we are officially signed up

Knitters Against AIDS!

Team #7429

Isaac, the teams coordinator, was pretty amazed to hear about our online activities. I mean really, who would ever guess that thousands of people had blogs about knitting? Anyway, he was excited and I don't want to let him down, so read on to find out about getting involved.

Who/What/When/Where?
You! Me! A 10km walk to raise money to fight AIDS in the Bay Area. Sunday, July 15, 2007. Sharon meadow, Golden Gate Park.

How?
Register for the walk by clicking this link. It will automatically register you on our team.

Ask your friends, family, neighbors, knitting group buddies, co-workers, blog readers, etc. to sponsor you, online or by check. Bring offline donations to the Walk, or mail them in.

Can non-knitters join the team?
Heck yeah! Invite your friends and family to join you on the walk and get them to join our team. The more the merrier.

How much do I have to raise?
That is up to you. There is no minimum or maximum. I have set a team goal of an average of $200 per member, but please join even if you don't think you can raise that much! This is about having fun and showing support!

How many people...?
My goal, for now, is to get 20 people signed up for the team, since if we have at least that many, we get a sign-in table. Of course, you know, 100 knitters walking together in GGP would be even better :)

What can I do to get others involved?
Grab a blog button (please save to your server and link to this post from the image!) Coming soon, flyers and other materials for your knitting group, LYS, etc.



I already know I can't make it, but I'd like to contribute.
Great! Sorry to miss you, but feel free to make a general team donation by clicking this link. Thank you so much!

Will there be, uh, prizes? 'Cause I like prizes.
I plan to make at least one prize available, details of the raffle/contest to come. You'll be eligible if you join the team or if you make a general team donation. If I can get others to contribute prizes as an incentive to join or donate, that would be even more awesome. I'll work on it.

Also, I am working on getting totebags made for team members who raise a certain amount. More info soon.

I have another question that you didn't answer!
Leave a comment, dude!

Please check back here for updates. This post will be the "headquarters" info post for the team. The permalink is: http://hotcoalsonly.blogspot.com/2007/03/aids-walk-san-francisco.html

UPDATE: I started a blog just for this so I could post flyers with an easy URL. All the info will still be posted here at my blog, but will also be available at http://knitawsf.blogspot.com.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sign up! This is going to be so much fun.

Sick Day/Great Idea

I wish I could stay home and knit up more and more of this yarn! I suppose I can do that tomorrow. I do have a gnarly cold though, so I won't be going to work today, but I have to clean my apartment and cook some stuff for my brother's birthday party tonight. I hope I don't send everyone home sick.

If that looks like a lot of yarn, it's because it is. A bunch. And that's not even the full extent of the yarn I have for this project, it's just what's been dyed (or is already the right color) and weighed. My new scale is awesome, and I think pretty accurate. Many of those orange skeins are pushing 200g. This blanket is going to rock your socks (just an expression - no offense to sock knitters!)

Things to do this weekend: knit, do Spanish homework, knit, go to LYS to find awesome CONTEST prize, knit, drink lattes, do crossword puzzles, apply for jobs.

I think I can manage.

BEST IDEA EVER

Ok that might be an overstatement, but I am really excited about this. Someone probably had this idea before, too, but whatever. AIDS Walk San Francisco just put up their registration page for the July 2007 walk, and I started a team for knitters! It hasn't been officially approved/created yet, but when it is I'll do a post just on that and start getting this organized for any Bay Area people that are interested. If you are sitting at your computer right now thinking, I'm so signing up for this!, just wait a couple days until you can sign up on our team, OK?

This will be my 8th consecutive year doing the Walk, and it's an event that I really love and care about a great deal. If you've never done it, I highly recommend it. The energy is just amazing and it manages to be REALLY fun while still being very mindful of the incredible toll AIDS has taken and is still taking on the world.

While we wait for our team to be registered on the site, I just want to gather early support, so if you live around here or know knitters (and non-knitters) who do, send them my way or give me their blog urls if they have one. I think this would be one great way to get the West Coast involved in the Represent[ing].

There is also a Walk in Los Angeles in October, and if anyone down there could get a knitter/knitblogger team going, that would be awesome.

We would be just about the MOST fun team there, seriously! I am already scheming about printing t-shirts or tote bags and doing prizes and stuff. So excited. So let me know if you are interested, and brainstorm about how we could get a lot of people involved!

Plan B!

and no, I don't mean the emergency contraceptive...

I was not accepted to UCLA. This year. (Hear that? THIS YEAR suckas!) Yes, I plan to reapply, but lately I've been thinking more about design-oriented planning as opposed to policy-oriented, which is what UCLA has to offer (mostly). So it might turn out that I want to end up back at Berkeley, or somewhere else, in a year or two. Meanwhile, I gotta find a JOB! (Bay Areans: if you know anyone hiring...)



While I wallow for just a day or two (I knew it was a long shot, as I have no work experience and should probably go out and get some, pronto) I'm taking pleasure in small things that remind me that someday my life will be what it's supposed to be. I'll have a nice house with nice dishes and friends to entertain. The above plates were purchased yesterday in anticipation of a dinner party I'm throwing this Friday for my brother's birthday. Do I love them? I love them. I got them at Ross. For a whopping $11, total. I also bought a second pair of tongs, because who wants to throw a dinner party on just one pair of tongs? I use my tongs for everything in the kitchen. They are my favorite utensil.

I took a break (hah) from my WIPs to make this. I love it so much. I might make these exclusively from now on, I don't know. It was about a metric ton of fun to knit.



Inspired by the crazy swatches over at nonaSwatches, tutorial here.

I am thinking about entering a knitted piece in the art show my scholarship organization is holding this April. Perhaps it will be a study in wonky knitting.

Ok, I'm off to class and to repeat my mantra for today:

Plans are nothing, planning is everything.

Hot Hot Hot!

Look at that! Yay, perfect yarn-dyeing weather! I did re-dye the orange yarn to make it more yellow, but the dye didn't saturate all the fibers so it's a little mottled now. No matter, I think it's cool, and I am seriously not doing it a third time with this big old batch of yarn. I started knitting it up yesterday. Here's a quick shot of what I've got so far; more to be revealed when it starts to really take shape. I don't want to get too far in before my scale comes and I can weigh all my hanks.



I missed log cabin knitting! The only issue here is that it's all stockinette, so I can't just pick up one st per row without getting some puckering. Also, since this is recycled yarn, the gauge changes and I have to accomodate for that. It may not lay perfectly flat in the end. I think I can live with that.

I've also been working on my $1.50, though I have to say that knitting the whole back AGAIN isn't the greatest motivator. I brought it to my brother's fencing tournament Saturday, though, and have gotten a few inches done here and there. Here's where I am, one front done, halfway through the back.



I am liking the color more and more as I knit it.

Ok, so I'm trying to make more use of both flickr and bloglines. If you have a flickr account, find me and I'll add you as a contact. I love the little feed of my contacts' latest photos, it's so much fun to poke around and look at all your crafts and things! Also, leave your blog link if you have one as a comment or in an e-mail and I'll subscribe. Cool!

No word yet about grad school, but I did make Phi Beta Kappa. I didn't know much about it, but my grandfather belonged so my mom was really proud.

Chasing Apricot

I don't have any photos of my $1.50 in progress; it's kind of boring to look at. I finished the right front last night and have re-started the back in a larger size. It turns out the photos in the magazine are flipped around, and in the instructions the cable is actually on the left, rather than on the right as in the photo. This was terribly confusing for me for a minute, and I really questioned my ability to distinguish my right hand from my left hand, then wondered if I might be losing it altogether, but in the end I was correct and I've e-mailed IK about it. I also wrote a tutorial for the infamous Row 7 of the lace pattern, which seems to have done some good.

My dyed yarn is finally dry, but I decided after all that I'm not 100% happy with it, so I think I'll overdye it this weekend with yellow only. The good news is that I did have a sweater unravelled that was basically the same color that my dyed yarn turned out to be, so now I can throw them all in the yellow dye and come out with, I hope, roughly the same apricotty color. See?



Yeah, the light is different, but take my word for it: they're very similar.

In light of all this recycling and dyeing, I finally broke down and bought a scale. When I saw that there were different colors, it really hooked me:



It was only $24.99, which seemed like a good deal, as I can also use it for kitchen stuff and postage. The only problem was that I wouldn't qualify for the free shipping unless my order totaled $25.00. I needed to buy 1 cent more worth of something that qualified for super saver shipping. This led me to the very bowels of Amazon.com. Searching their entire inventory, ordered from lowest to highest price, I tried to imagine whether my life would be enriched by owning any of the odd things for sale.



Parakeet food: $2.25



Pack of replacement dog toy squeakers: $2.25



Handpainted doorknob: $1.55


Intrigued by the idea of buying my very own doorknob, surely a first step to homeownership, I checked out all of the products by this brand. I could go with the cheapest, of course, an unfinished wood knob. It got a fantastic review:

One Great Knob, January 12, 2007
Reviewer:
Sixblackbelts
(Tulsa, OK USA) - See
all my reviews

This has got to be the most fantastic knob on the
face of the earth. Well maybe not but it served its 69 cent purpose.

In the end, rather than scraping by with the 69-cent wooden doorknob, I splurged on a $2.89 novelty knob.



I can picture it now: someday I'll be fixing up an old, possibly thrifted cabinet of some sort, painting and sanding to make it match my decor, and all the while I'll be thinking, gee, if only I could replace that crummy old wooden knob that came with this...

Dyefest 2007

That's what it felt like around here yesterday. I decided to just do it...the weather is beautiful, who knows when that will happen again in the next few months! I don't have any "before" photos of the yarn, but just picture about 9 hanks of pale yellowish cotton unraveled from two Goodwill sweaters.



At first I put the dyebath outside, but for the second batch I just put it in the bathtub because I had to do so much adjusting with the color as the yarn soaked it up. Not enough dye, too much red, TOO MUCH DYE!, a little more yellow...et cetera. Rather than use a 5-gallon bucket, I just went to the drugstore and got an 18-qt Rubbermaid box with a lid, so I can actually use it to store my dyeing stuff (and yarn) in. I guess I could do that with a big white bucket, too, but it would just look weird in my closet.



I was going for a muddy apricot sort of, but the red just got away from me. This is turning out to be a great color, though, especially as it dries and lightens a little. I am SO happy with it.

I had all my hanks drying last night, then I realized that I hadn't gotten all the dye out of them yet so they all went back into a tub of water to be swished around until they only gave off the slightest pee-yellow hue when rinsed. One thing that bothered me about the whole process was how much water it used, first for the actual dyeing, then to rinse the yarn. It was insane! I tried so hard to be conservative with it, and reuse rinse water until it was pretty much saturated with dye, but I probably used at least 15 gallons, maybe more. I know we use a lot more than that for our showers every day, but it seemed incredibly wasteful. The thing I tried to keep in mind was that if I were using brand new yarn for the project I have in mind, it probably would have used WAY WAY more than that, plus a whole lot of energy, in the industrial spinning/dyeing process. I can't know for sure, but that's my hunch.





Anyway, it's pretty, it's perfect for what I'm using it for, and it's forcing me to keep my balcony door open, which is making the apartment all fresh and breezy this morning.

So, thank you so much for reading my goofy blog and sending the grad-school vibes. It's so cool that we have this community; I really love being a part of it. And you know what? I suck at commenting, too, and at replying to everyone's nice comments. Some bloggers out there will e-mail you back every time. Blogger doesn't give me your e-mail addresses, so it's a little hard. But I want to try because, hello! communicating with you guys is the whole point of this knit-blogging thing. Also, I vacuumed. :)

Partly Cloudy

It's so one of those weeks. I have been knitting, but I think I need to snap out of the denial that my $1.50 is going to fit me and knit the next size up. I don't know why my gauge is so different - I can't even imagine getting the called-for gauge from a size 5 needle - but it is, and I don't want to change my needle size because then my knitting will look funny. So, down go a back and half a front. But I LIKE knitting, so it's ok!

I've been somewhat unable to do much of anything lately, including homework and vacuuming my room. My grad school admissions decision comes in in a couple weeks, and I feel that probably, this weird paralysis is due to that and will continue until I know what I'm doing after I graduate. I missed my blog-anniversary, which wasn't all that important to me anyway, but I would like to do something to mark my 100th post, which is coming up. This blog has been a really fun experience for me, even though it seems that my 15 minutes of 8-comment-per-post fame is up, and even though I know I haven't been posting much lately, I'm always wondering how to put a good post together and how to take decent photos of my knitting in my lame west-facing apartment. I HAVE finished Kyoto, and I want to post about it, I just haven't. Put it in the category of vacuuming my room.

I know that this state of relative inaction will pass. I need to make some lists, think about things, finish things (I did my taxes! That's something!) and center myself around a nice big fruity black pot of pu erh, my new Weekend Tea (it does not come in convenient 1-mug bags, like Morning Thunder, my Weekday Tea). There are accomplishments pending at my job (big, BIG energy-saving projects) that will really give me a boost when they're done. I need to spend some real, non-exhausted, empty-of-homework time with my boyfriend, who has been working like a dog lately and is probably about to get a much-deserved break. I need to go visit my mom.

Seriously, though, watch this space in two weeks. I might have big news.

PS I know there are people who do read this blog regularly, and I just want to add that I am deeply honored that anyone would read my stuff, put me on their bloglines, etc. To my 0-3 commenters per post...thank you so much! You make me feel connected, every time. Didn't want you to think I don't appreciate it so, so much.