I'm hooked!

Not my fault. My sister made me do it.

I was an innocent knitter, happily motoring along on my gazillion projects, and then! my sister started crocheting. Uh oh. Her crochet bug bit me, and now (pun intended) I'm hooked. Resistance is futile; I've been infected. My poor knitting.

Yesterday I was a wee bit under the weather, and had about as much energy as a sloth. So I spent much of the day on my favorite couch surrounded by yarns, crochet books, hooks, and other paraphernalia. It was a sad moment, I tell you. Innocent little knitter me parked on a very comfy couch and in great light and those dratted books, hooks and yarns. What was I to do? My pretty little shawl just sat in her bag, totally ignored, while I hooked by the hour. I hooked and frogged just about the entire day, and the net result is pathetic. 4 bits of projects, one of which is going to bite the dust. What you are not seeing are all the frogged stuff. Lots of it. This hooky business is an addiction.

Here is a winner. I hooked the first square, went "meh", gave it a wet block, and then made another and attached it as I went along. Hmmm. I rather like it. It's interesting to hook.



This motif was done in 4 different yarns and mostly in one color, and then Mandarin Petit appeared at my elbow, and voila, a motif was born. What I'm going to do with it is anybody's guess. I'm thinking of doing another round in white, maybe, just to offset the unbearable preppiness of the colors. I don't know. I don't want to do a blankie all in cotton. It's very pricey, and will be heavy. I'm thinking of maybe some Baby Ull. I wouldn't have to dye it, and it is a lovely yarn, and skinny. Hmmm. This takes some serious thinking here. But I like the idea enough to play with it some more. That'll be attempt #6 on this baby.



Here's a yarn that's driving me crazy. I love love love the colorway and can't seem to settle on a pattern. I'm not wild about this little scarf so far: I love the pattern which is autopilot, but I think the colors get in the way of seeing what I've hooked. So, back to the frog pile yet again. Any brilliant ideas on what to do with this yarn? I'm pretty good at figuring out variegated yarn patterns, but this one has me stumped. I suppose I could yet another pair of Roundabout socks; I know that would work well, but I really want something different. I think a little shawl might be possible. Stay tuned; this yarn WILL be used in something pretty, but what I don't yet know.



Now this one is a keeper. Yet another zigzag crochet scarf, with a different pattern than the others I've done, but very soothing to work on, and the yarn is not too crazy so that the pattern can be seen. This one is in my new Bambi yarn, and I like it very much indeed.



If only I had taken pics of all the stuff I frogged; then you'd really be impressed with my activity, but I didn't.

Today is a vertigo day. What can I say? Sometimes it just arrives and I have to deal with it. Blech. At least I got tons of work done on Mon and Tues. Elder DD is coming out for a visit, and is arriving this afternoon, so I'll have lovely company. I was going to visit the Mommie, and the farmers' market, and some errands, but the world is spinning and I'm not great for driving. Not to worry, it'll go away sooner or later, hopefully sooner.

So, back to the couch and the hooks and the yarns and the books. If you're not feeling up to par, this is not a bad way to spend the day. I think my WOTFT (what's on tap for today) is a bit of laundry, making a bread, and taking it easy. I can handle that. But tomorrow, I want to dye, so this better be gone and soon.

Totally off topic, I'm embarrassed to admit that I can make a pretty mean loaf of bread in the bread machine. Hey, I'm a real bread baker from way back when! I use the machine to knead, and that's all. I love the mixing, the shaping, the smell, the whole 9 yards, but the other day, I had a yen and we were out of bread, and it was really hot, so I thought I would actually bake in the machine. And you know what? The loaf came out very very nice. I used buttermilk, lavender and lemon in it, and a medium crust. OK, it came out as a very light crust, and the bread looked like something that kids would eat: not dark and crusty the way I like it. But, oh the taste! What a bread! So today, in my dizzy spell, I'm going to do it again. Same ingredients because the taste was amazing. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

Off to slave away.

itsJUSTme - I also started doing doilies when I was a kid! Can you imagine? Now my eyes would need magnification for all those tiny holes, but it was fun to do. I put a bread up in the machine again. It's way too hot to put on the oven, no?

Leedra - Yep my head is really really dizzy and the hot flashes don't help much either. Sitting, knitting and hooking are my speed today.

Jadielady - I hear you. My poor knitting is languishing while I try out a gazillion crochet stitches.

the Yarnarian Babbles On.

Not much to show you at the moment. Between Rosh Hashanah, the grandkid visit this weekend and then Yom Kippur, I have had very little time to be productive. Oh, I am knitting and crocheting, but I'm at the point in my projects where there is just not much more to see.

So instead I'll tell you my plans for today. I am going to dye yarn. Are you amazed? I need to dye up some lace yarns for the Mystery Shawl '09; I don't want to be stuck with a lot of yarn when the sign-up finishes, so I'm dyeing as I need. At this stage of the game, with the knitalong beginning on Oct. 10, I can show you the colors.



The colors are Breeze, Latte, Gold and Terracotta. I don't know which one I like the most. I suspect it's Latte. They are not available to the general public; I've dyed them specifically for the Mystery Shawl KAL.

The lace yarn is called Carrie, after my sweet, wonderful niece. It's 80% merino/20% silk and quite tasty and soft and wonderful. Great yardage too.

So what colors am I going to play with this morning, other than the lace colors? I'm thinking purple and/or violet. I was going to do very pale colors, but purple is calling me. That's what I'm saying now; wait until I start dyeing. Then the colors will rule! Pics tomorrow!

I miss my sister! My family has never been good at saying good-bye. We get teary and lonely and bereft. So yesterday when they left, I moped around the house for hours. Me, who never cries, had tears in my eyes a couple of times. When the Mommie lived in her house, she would stand by the door and wave to us as we left, and both she and I were so sad. When my dad was alive, and I came home for a weekend in my college years, the sadness was so overwhelming when I left to go back to school. And yet, my parents never held on to us or prevented us from moving on with our lives. We just cannot say good-bye. The next day, we are all OK again, it's just that parting moment.

And now I'm going to search for my library book which I put down in a safe spot, and of course cannot find now. Sigh.

Jen - What are you dyeing these days?

Linda - If I had a dozen sisters, you would always be my favorite! Love you so much!

The Yarnarian Chats.

We're having a hodgepodge page today.

Tea: You all know that I'm a big time tea drinker. I love it. If I could live on tea and toast (from homemade bread, of course), I would. My sister just introduced me to http://www.steepster.com/dashboard This is so cool. You make comments about the teas you love, and you get to see other people's comments. And, the really fun thing is that you find new teas and new tea companies. I'm "yarnarian" there. Surprise! This morning I'm drinking New Vithanakande tea from Harney's. I prefer this for the afternoon, but there it was, and I was in the mood for it. Mighty good tea.

My sister: The best sister in the world! She recently spent a few days visiting me and we had such a good time together. I feel as if we're back in our childhood and chatting nonstop. She's an amazing crocheter, and is the person responsible for my latest foray into that activity. I wish we lived near each other. It's a good thing for my marriage that we don't. We'd be in each other's houses nonstop, and the poor Hubbo would be quite neglected.

Crochet: Speaking of crochet, why is it that my arm hurts a lot when I crochet? I think I use many more large muscle movements with the hook than with knitting needles. Piffle upon it. I will have to do this in short spurts or I'll mess up my right arm. Piffle yet again!

Piffle: Think of this as a substitute for a really really good swear word, any swear word that you like. I love to swear, but save it for important occasions. but "piffle"! Ah, I can write it and still maintain my ladylike composure. Sounds good anyhow.

Projects: I finished yet another little scarf the other day. I started this thing way back in July and it kept being put on the back burner. I finally got the mojo back to finish it and here it is. The yarn is a self-striping one I dyed, and you can see how well it works here. Plus, quite unexpected for me, is that it is easily as nice on the wrong side as on the right side.




Sad activity: I went to the hairdresser all set to be beautified. Um, my appointment is tomorrow.
Good activity: I popped into the Stitching Bee, which is right around the corner from the hair salon, and treated myself to some Noro Silk Garden for the 10 Stitch Blanket.

Here are some of the skeins. I bought a bunch, and if I run out, I'll get more. The dye lot doesn't matter at all.



AlisonH - I've been drooling over it for some time now. I do have the cute crochet on in process, but crochet is hurting me at the moment, so I need to take some time off from it. Hence, the 10 stitch blankie. (I love the word "hence")

DJNL - Isn't it neat? I like the fact that I can find all sorts of teas from companies I've never heard of. I added you too. Now to figure out how to add other people. sigh.

CathyR - So far I've frogged the 10 stitch blankie 5 times. I like how it looks much better on the "wrong" side than the side we work on. Are you having the same experience? It's addictive, I think.

skepweaver - Yep, I've used it in a scarf and liked it. I think my major issue is the size of the yarn. Worsted is just plain hard on my hands. If I look at my sweaters, some of which go back 20 years, only 2 are knitted in a worsted heft. Everybody else is much finer. It could be because I have small hands; I've not liked knitting with it long before the wrist problems started. What can I tell you, I'm a skinny yarn knitter.

The Yarnarian is Crochety.

My bad sister made me do it. Here I was, a happy knitter, happily knitting, and along comes my bad sister and makes me crochet. It's all her fault. Hah, little sister, if you are reading this!

So what am I crochety about? Take a look at this: http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2008/11/hexagon-crochet.html

Now you see what I mean? Is this not adorable? So, my bad sister forced me to go to the Stitching Bee and buy yarn to make an afghan. She took her crochet hook and threatened me if I did not buy yarn. What was a poor Yarnarian to do? Of course she went and bought yarn. Skinny DK wt, more what I would consider sport wt. In, gasp, acrylics and such. Hey, you think I'm ever going to hand wash this baby? In your dreams. And then I came home and remembered that I had a bunch of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino that would fit in with gauge. So, now I have a large bunch of colors, and am crocheting away like a crazy woman, and it's all her fault.



Why is my husband tooting on a horn at 2:30 AM? That's what he's doing right now. The Hubbo is losing it. Ah ha. He bought an army bugle at a garage sale (who knows why), and he just fitted a cornet mouthpiece onto it in place of a standard mouthpiece. And tooted. Doesn't every Hubs do this?

Carolyn - And most of the colors are acrylic, yep, the evil acrylic! Mwahahahaha!

KV - What is it about younger sisters and crochet hooks? They might be in cahoots with each other!

Margene - Isn't it fun? I'm enjoying myself so much with this. My poor knitting is suffering.

CathyR - It's sort of shabby chic, isn't it?