Knit it like you stole it.

I feel like a failure - look at me - one post per month - sad! You deserve better, my readers. The thing is, my knitting right now is really indicative of my life in general - a lot going on, but not a lot getting done. I currently have three projects going (all of which might have been finished weeks ago), and a few ideas of projects I'd like to start - but I'm kinda standing around scratching my head wondering where all the time goes. I've been back into lifting for a few weeks now, and that's cut into my usual amount of free time quite a bit, now that I think about it. Maybe I need to sit down and evaluate my priorities.

First off, the copper socks. I finally finished one of them, and started the second one. I tell you what, the first two inches of an 80 stitch sock take forever. But, once I get past that, it starts rocking.

Secondly, is the Confection baby shrug: this is an extremely fast knit, but I'm just not getting a lot done on it. Forget the excuses - this shrug needs to be off the needles and blocked, and in the mail well before Easter. From now on, I will be knitting it like I stole it. Pun intended.

Third, is the Habitat. I had hoped to finish this before the cold weather was over - as long as there was cold weather, having another hat around couldn't hurt. But the cold weather is over - which rocks so hard - even if the hat isn't finished. Anyhow, for this one I need to follow a chart, which isn't really good for knitting with my comrades at the Nook or when its late at night and I'm feeling kinda wonky - which is when most of my knit action happens. Cold weather or not, I'll finish this one, if only to get my no.8's back.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this weather is freakin' invigorating. Saturday! what a God-send it was... woke up late, started some laundry, finally got the stupid Vista update to take on my computer, ran some scans after that, put the laundry away, then Bill came over, and lo and behold we still had the whole day ahead of us. So, we went to get some lunch, ran some errands, I got a tight haircut, did the grocery shoppin' and then it hit me! What the heck, its only 5:30, its absolutely beautiful outside, and there's 2 whole hours of daylight left! So we hit the park and took a really slow walk; it was crowded - babies, dogs, couples, runners, picnics - someone even had a kite out. We got back to the house, I cooked a pizza dinner, and baked a loaf of home-made bread while we watched the entire first season of Father Ted (which is hilarious), and then I fell asleep with all the windows in the house open. Not too shabby.

Today, I went to Vi's housewarming party. What a pot-luck! I haven't seen the likes in ages - and I'm a Baptist for crying out loud! It was great to sit around with friends, laugh, knock out some solid knitting, and get absolutely gorged on some phenomenal home cooking. Vi really knows how to throw a party. Wish I'd taken pics, but I'm sure somebody did.

I came home after the party and baked four more loaves of bread, while I worked on the Confection. I had no idea bread was so time consuming - but it is totally worth it. I made two whole wheat honey loaves, one molasses, and one maple syrup. Crap, the kitchen is a complete wreck.

I'd rather be knitting than blogging. Until next time - which won't be next month!

Fall, Froggin', F-bombs, & F.O.'s

Get this: I actually put off writing a blog for so long, that Blogger blocked my blog and I had to put in a request to keep it from being deleted.

I don’t have much of an excuse for not writing, other than just getting busy doing other stuff. Personal Stuff which is not appropriate for blogging. If you want to know what that is, you'll just have to come to SnB and pull up a chair like everyone else haha.

But here’s some of idea of what I got into during the months I didn’t write: Rocktober rocked really hard this year; I went camping in Red River Gorge for 6 days/5 nights, and also got in a day of hiking in Bernheim Forest at the start of November. Both months didn't involve a lot of knitting. Which is kinda lame, since Rocktober was when I started knitting - and what a great year its been. I mean check it out everyone, I am an established knitter. I have a freakin’ blog about my knitting for crying out loud (yeah, sorry - it will get a lot more posts in the future!). I won’t say accomplished, but yes, established – and I give a most hearty shout out to all my comrades in yarn at the Knit Nook, Lou.KY for all their help, advice, and wit - here’s to many many more yards of yarn together!

Rocktober - 6 days/5 nights in the Gorge. Fun times.



A view from Bernheim, early Nov. - nice, eh?

Eh, December might as well of not happened. Moving on.

Since my last blog, I have finished the worsted weight socks, and while working on them, gave some thought to the reactions I get about my knitting. Some like it, most don’t care, but generally, everyone points out that I am a man who knits. Just for the record, Balls of Yarn isn’t a “man’s knitting blog” – it is a “knitting blog”. The blog used to be called “Ballistic Knitter”, but I changed the name to Balls of Yarn because my friend D and I had a laugh about it. Yeah. And now I’m stuck with it since Blogger won’t let me have the old name back. Yes, we are stuck with the hairy testicle reference URL for my blog… sorry, world.

But hey, back on topic: being a guy makes no difference in how a knit or purl turns out... But this is an ironic argument for me to make. Feminists have used a similar argument to justify wanting to fly jets, shoot their enemies, and go into space - you know, typical "man" stuff; women can do it just as well, so why shouldn't they? Here's the irony: I ascribe to the school of thought which thinks is should be men crashing into mountain sides, running through foreign slop catching bullets, and die screaming in the black cold silent vacuum of space - call me old fashioned for not thinking gender roles are completely outdated... It's not that I want to put women in a box, so much as them keep them from ending up in a pine one. Moving on.

I admit it – what other people thought about a man knitting – it bothered me at first, and that’s why I didn’t knit much of anywhere other than the Nook. But I also had this in the back of my mind: I went to Ethiopia a few years back, and while there, I paid a weaver to make a gabbi for me. The weaver supported his large family working a simple loom made of tree limbs. He worked with native hand spun cotton to create a sturdy fabric which was then sewn together to make the traditional uni-sex clothing (the only difference, the women's had more 'color'). The weaver was skilled, and extremely proud of his work. In all the areas I visited around Lake Tana, I never saw a woman working a loom; women cooked, carried stacks of wood larger than themselves, fetched water, bartered and haggled in the market, and washed the clothes in hippo and croc infested waters - but weaving was apparently men’s work; it made an impression on me. Evidently. Now, wood is freakin' heavy, and hippos and crocs are lethal, but somehow, this was the woman's work. Go figure. I think the guys did the weaving because, really, its grueling work - and come to think of it, a good source of income. Income is power, and... well, okay, I guess I might as well stop. Culture, mores, gender roles - I figure knitting fits into all that somehow, but I don't know enough to explain it, much less understand it.

Another reason I picked up knitting: it fits. I’m good with my hands; I like to make ‘stuff’; I have a humongous utilitarian streak. Breaking any sort of convention had nothing to do with it - gender or otherwise. Nowadays, though, I have to admit that knitting is unconventional for anyone to do... I can see the appeal knitting might have for all the DIY’ers out there wantin’ to buck the consumer culture, and even for those seeking to connect with something traditional (ie. something older than themselves)… I don't think that's really my reason, though. My friend Deb (who gave me my first knitting instruction) told me the old adage a long time ago, “He who cuts his own wood is twice warmed” – aaaand that’s about as complex as it gets for me.

Recently, I completed a few hats. I made another (larger) butterfly hat. I also knitted an Epitome hat (a Tonya Wagner Shiz Knit design), and it turned out great. I used Malabrigo, double stranded, and manoman is that some great yarn – and it only took one ball! The Epitome was given away to a friend already – so I don’t have a pic of it. I may just make another.

I still have a copper sock on DPs, which needs to get finished. When, I have no idea.

Here’s the worsted weight Cascade 220 socks I finally finished. You have no idea how warm these things are. All of Sept – Nov with no heat in the house? Not a problem. I knit them on US 3s.

Yeah, they are as comfy as they look. I plan to perfect the fit on my next pair.

I also started a Habitat (Jared Flood/Brooklyn Tweed design) - I'm about 1/3 of the way done.

And my roomie had been hankering for a handknit scarf, so I got some Rowan and knocked it out in about 3 days – it was part of my Thanksgiving knitting. It was a simple knit one row/knit-purl one row, then alternate the 'wrong' side when I switched colors.

the roomie's scarf

I had purchased some yarn to make a jacket for my brother’s baby (who isn’t here yet. The kid was a complete surprise, so, its not like I had to think hard about what to make). But then my friend Deb sent me a pic of Aurdrey Jane (5 months), and the idea of a pink/green striped jacket for her took over. Seriously, knitting for red headed babies - if you haven't done it, go find one, and knit something - you'll know what I mean.

I have a confession to make. In the course of making the baby jacket for sweet Audrey Jane, I had to frog. Twice. The first time, I’d been about 3 hours into it, before I began questioning what was happening. I reread the pattern (EZ’s and the another version I had of it), and not finding an oversight, just carried on for another 4 hours or so. And then I realized it – I wasn’t knitting every 2nd row. So, I bit the bullet, and frogged it. When I started again, I kept going for about 8 hours, and then realized I had been making a different mistake – I hadn’t been moving my marker, so… yeah. I dropped a few F-bombs, and said some things about EZ's pattern which I absolutely entirely wholeheartedly regret. So many regrets.

But don’t sweat it – I finished it a few weeks before Christmas, found just the right buttons for it, and mailed it to Audrey Jane's very appreciative parents (they get it!). And get this: the pattern is awesome and I really like it a lot. Yeah, yeah, nevermind my stupidity earlier. Once I mailed the first, I immediately started the other one for my brother's kid, due in a few more months.

Begin with a bit of inspiration...




...to quote EZ, "ALL GARTER STITCH. All in ONE PIECE." - Knit Workshop pg.100





...sew up the seam with a crochet hook...





...add some buttons....





...insert baby, aaaaannnd...





Happiness!

Next time I completely bomb a project, I'll try not to F-bomb the project - I could end up loving that project and getting tons of thanks for it. I'll just begin rippin’. I'll try not to cuss – it does not help; I will only say things I'll regret. Frogging – its not just the balm, its the cure.

Which makes me recall a favorite book of mine, Emily Upham’s Revenge, or How Deadwood Dick Saved the Banker’s Neice: a Massachusetts Adventure. I loved this book as a kid. It was a smartly crass hybrid of a moralistic children’s tale, and a cheap Western dime novel, and it was hilarious. Here's a poem from the book, “Don’t Tell a Lie Dear Children:”

Don’t tell a lie, dear children,
No matter what you do,
Own up and be a hero,
Right, honest, brave and true
The rod but hurts the body,
While lies destroy the soul,
So, don’t tell a lie, dear children,
Keep your spirit pure and whole

You have no idea how hard I laughed when I first read this as a gradeschooler. I'd recite the poem to myself whenever I needed a laugh. Good times.

Next blog: the Habitat (!), another Baby Surprise (!!), and will I ever finish the copper socks (!?!)? Stay tuned!

Knitting: the result is always greater than the sum of its yarn.

Here's the pics I promised!

my first pair of socks!


Jan, dutifully modeling the Butterfly hat described in my last post.
The hat is a wee smaller than anticipated -
but that won't bother my sweet neice Chloe Reese.


my decreases are the shit.



I made another Thorpe for Jan, just because.
Sara is posing the hell out of it, and I'm just doing what comes natural.

Since completing the butterfly hat, I got two more hanks of Malabrigo - the stuff is just that good, people. I don't know what you guys did this Labor day weekend, but I watched all the Harry Potter movies back to back, got two hats started, and finished this sock. The sock is Cascade 220, 60 stitches cast on, size 3 needles. Yeah, this did involve my roommate coming into the living room at 5am on Monday, seeing me turning the heel, getting a drink of water, and going back to bed. This sock represents a lot of ideas/frustrations/realizations I've been having about knitting, and you can bet I'll still be hashing this all out while I work on the sock's mate. Maybe by the time the pair is finished, I'll have figured something out worth sharing.

Its a SOCK!!! (and a half)...

The 'ol ankle, fresh off the choppin' block!



Here it is - the sock! And my ankle two weeks after the above pic - nice, huh!? It's healed up super fast - must be my mutant healing factor... it's a real answer to prayer. My doc did one helluva stitch up job. Maybe he should knit??)



Here's the Cascade 220, and the Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn I've got in the stash. And the sock and a half. Maybe they'll fit better when blocked... oh well - I'm all about finishing them!



A green tomato. Yeah, that's duct tape; I used it to create the supports between the bamboo stakes. To make the supports for the pepper plants, I used a really ugly Joseph and the Technicolor Acrylic Yarn. Chris from Highland brought into the Nook one day, thinking one of the Nookers had left it there (my bet is it was purposefully abandoned). See, acrylic yarn is good for something! (Lord only knows what it'll end up as next...)


Check out the garden! I accidently deleted some photos I took a two weeks before the above photo - I wanted to chronicle how fast things are growing. This pic compared to last months seems kinda ridiculous... seriously, this is just under four weeks of growth. The oregano is really taking off. The basil is doing okay, too. The lavender is a bit of a slow grower. The onions? I botched it; most of the onions are dead, I think. I'm going to dig them up, maybe plant something else instead.


Cilantro - it does this all the time... I need to plant more of it!

Reading and Recovery (with socks on the side...)

I'm just gonna apologize for the non-bloggin' and get that out of the way - I'm sorry for not bloggin'! I just spent a couple weeks recoupin' from getting my ankle cut on (for the 2nd time in 9 months). It kinda hurts. I'm okay, though - I can still hold knitting needles. Really - I'm doing well. I'm already walking on it and everything. It's like E.Z. said, "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises."

But, to my shame, I didn't actually hold onto the needles very much during my down time. I did make some progress, though. I visited some friends the weekend before my surgery, and managed to finish the first sock, and then I ran around swingin' it over my head and causing a ruckus, hittin' people with it, holding it aloft like a mighty weapon 'o war and such, etc. No one was really impressed - except maybe Deb and me (I easily impress myself). And then I went under the knife a few days later, and after about 4 days of some (very good) drugs, I cast on the second sock of the pair. I just turned the heel on it - it won't be long now... After that - more socks. I've already got the yarn - some more Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn. In case you didn't know, the socks I'm making now are Rich Red - the yarn/colors I've got in stash are Copper and Olive. I also got some worsted Cascade 220 (a basic grey/tan and burgundy).

But, I did get a lot of reading done. The first day of recovery, I finished reading Jane Austen's Persuasion (Captain Wentworth is the shit, btw), and then read Farenheit 451. Day two I read Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Day Three I read Austen's Pride and Prejudice in one sitting (granted, there were a couple of nice naps involved - but its one heckuva page turner!). The next day, I put in LATRG (Lars and the Real Girl) and started the other sock, and then spent the rest of the time off from work looking for a new ride (the Ranger is awfully close to kickin' the can). Stupid leakin' slave cylinder.

Right now, I'm reading Sense and Sensibility, and its off to a great start - I'm only about 3 chapters in today, but I can already tell Marianne is gonna be Trouble. I'm actually kinda worried about this book; in regards to the rest of Austen's novels, I am a (typical) total ignoramus about them until I actually read them - never having seen any films/movies/miniseries of them - and yeah, thinking they were, (a-hem) "girl" books. But it's actually a good thing that I've been a total ignoramus, because the novel's plots and characters strike me in an unadulterated fashion; they aren't ruined by having some famous actor attached to the face of one of the main characters - I can more readily imagine them as Austen wrote/describes them. Anyhow, this isn't the case with Sense and Sensibility; I saw the movie a few years ago - so even though I may already know the basic plot, I'm hopeful it's still going to be a great reading experience.

So who else is going to the Stitch 'N Pitch?? What an awesome freakin' idea. If we had to vote for the best damn Local Yarn Store, Kristen and Cindy win, hands down. (...aaaand I just repeated "Knit Nook Wins! Knit Nook Wins!" in my best Harey Carey... to myself...)

And that's got be it for now (i'll add some pics later). Sleep is awesome!

Feel the burn!

This morning I and a couple of friends rode our bikes down to the Waterfront to take part in Mayor Jerry E. Abramson's Healthy Hometown Hike and Bike. Yeah, Jerry was there - sportin' some spandex and everything. blarghfph! It was a lot of fun. A few month ago I got a new bike, and have been riding the H-E-double hockey sticks out of it. Today was no exception. I didn't realize it was a 16.1 mile ride until I got there.

I was a bit anxious that my single gear bike wouldn't allow me to keep up with my friends, but this wasn't the case. There were a few hills which got me up off the seat. It was a lot of fun - I'm definitely gonna do it again next year. During the ride, I even ran into a couple of people I haven't seen in a long time - one of which was a college friend I ran a couple of minimarathons with back in the day.

I think I ended up finishing in about 50-55 minutes? The friends I started the ride with finished in 58 minutes, but I got ahead of them at the end (I was riding with my friend from college at the end). Next week, I am seriously considering riding my bike to church. Right after I invest in a new bike seat, or some serious butt padding. Oh yeah, some major glute pain is happening, folks.

In other news, the sock I'm knitting is too small. Yeah, I'm knitting socks - my first pair. I'm close to actually finishing the first sock, and when I do, I'll make a post about it. But right now, I don't feel like writing about a project gone awry. There is no way I'm gonna frog it - it's a perfectly good sock. The problem I have now is to think of someone who is badass enough for these socks I'm knitting...

Life is good. I mean it.

This past Thursday, at SnB at the Nook, I finished my Jared Flood Cobblestone Pullover. Kristen taught me to Kitchener stitch, so I could stitch up the arm pits (thanks, Kristen, you rock). It looks great, and it fits, too - that's always a bonus, huh?

um, i'm too lazy to put of a pic of me wearing it. so here it is, on the hood of the Ranger.

In other news, I've started reading Jane Austen's Persuasion. I've never read any Austen, but lately, I've seen the movies "Becoming Jane" and "The Jane Austen Book Club", and it got me interested in her writing.

I also read Steven Weisman's Chewing Gum in Church last night before going to sleep - I love this guy's comics. And I just started James Kolchaka's The Cute Manifesto, which is sort of an apologetic for creativity.

I have a new favorite movie. I think my favorite movie before this was Amelie - so I'm actually kinda reticent to say it, but its true - I have a new favorite movie. I watched Lars and the Real Girl this past Thursday night (to celebrate the pullover being done), and then Friday on the way home from work, I bought it, and then watched it again. The only other movie I've done that with is Amelie (I had to order it off the internet, because I couldn't find it in stores at the time).

You know what else is weird? I can't freakin' watch a movie without seeing knit/crochet stuff in it - its freakin' everywhere! In Lars, there's a lot of hats and gloves, and he uses a baby blanket his mother knit as a scarf (um, its complicated).

Um, what else... oh yeah, the garden! Its going great. Yesterday, I woke up early and got on my old jeans and boots and dug up more ground for planting. I remade some mounds around the plants (to keep the leaves up off the ground), raked the soil to get rid of any weeds that might be trying to start, and then planted the green, cayanne, jalapano, and banana peppers. Later on, H-bomb and I hung out, and that's when I picked up a habanero pepper plant at the Lowes across the river, along with some sage and two lavender plants. I don't plan on using the lavender, it just smells awesome, thats all. This morning, before church, I was back out in the garden, planting everything I picked up last night. I have a few more spots I could plant something, but I have to quit sometime. And I got a nice tingling sunburn to boot. Folks, it is summertime: get off your duff and go outstide.

the garden


greek oregeno is a good looking plant

Tonight, I'm watching baby Job, so his folks can go out; I'll prolly read, watch Lars and the Real Girl (again), and work on the socks I just started (they'll kick a lot of butt, I'm using Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn, 100 gram skein of a superwash/mohair/nylon blend - the color Rich Red. Ah man, I gotta go, I'll be late for dinner!