knitting school dropout

a few days ago, with over a dozen projects in various stages of completion, i cast on for something completely different.

you see, some people find that candy, ice cream and well, food in general, makes a good substitute for cigarettes*.
i generally knit all my clothing to fit me like a glove and well, nothing is fitting me at all right now.
i figured now would be a good time to knit a shawl. lace is entertaining and a shawl can be knit in a few days, so it fits my short attention span. the shawl will also fit me at whatever weight i am, so there will be no self deprecation while trying it on. the swallowtail shawls i've seen are so pretty, i just had to make one. after about 3 days, i'm on the first lily of the valley chart, and i'm enjoying the pattern, although those p5togs are really slowing me down. it's amazing that when using the recommended yarn, this shawl stands to cost me all of $6.40 to make. i love misti alpaca laceweight, i only wish they had more dark colors to choose from. luckily, i'm going through a yellow faze, so this color was perfect.

my short attention span has affected my reading habits this week too. i'm splitting my time between no one belongs here more than you, labyrinths and the remainder of BITCHfest. i highly recommend all three.

i stopped adding all my works in progress to my ravelry notebook because it's a little overwhelming to look at. i figure i'll just add them in as the likelihood of completion becomes more obvious. like this hat, that my great aunt made for me. i'm working on my own incarnation of it, but it hasn't looked quite right in the different yarns i've tried so far. i'm starting a tweed version tonight.

hopefully i'll be posting a few completed projects this week. stay tuned.

*22 miserable days

p.s. r.i.p. tammy faye. i'm am not a religious person or anything, but after seeing the documentary the eyes of tammy faye, and years later the one punk under god series, i just thought she was really sweet.

Posted by melissa at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

thanks so much for all the sweet, supportive comments on my last post. i'm happy to report that it has now been 16 days since i quit smoking. although i may have had a few many moments of superemotionalwantingtosmokecraziness, i still didn't smoke. at all. instead i went to the gym, got on a treadmill, and sweated my non-smoker ass off. i was cracking up when i saw the title of this book, because it pretty much describes how i feel about this quitting experience. i'm sticking it out though. yay.

i worked on the cloud bolero for a little while this weekend. i'm on my 3rd ball of noro iro #63, which is on sale at webs. i only bought 3, so i'm knitting until i run out of yarn, which should make it quite a bit longer than the original. i'm liking the way the noro is knitting up in the feather and fan pattern:

other than that, there hasn't been much knitting in the past week. we took a trip to MASS MoCA and the beach. i read a thousand splendid suns, which i finished really quickly. i found myself really attached to the women in the book, and had a hard time putting it down.

well today is the last of a string of days off and i'm off to enjoy what's left of it.

happy monday!

Posted by melissa at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

i feel like i can officially type it out loud, since it has been over a week:
DUDES, I QUIT SMOKING!
i'm super proud of myself as i'm adjusting quite well. when i say that i mean i'm still a bit moody and prone to tears, but most of the time, i'm just pretty happy. i've yet to reap any of the health benefits, since i've got a nasty cold, but i know those will come eventually.
if you know anyone who may be thinking of quitting, i highly recommend chantix (this is the first and last time i will give free advertising to a giant pharmaceutical company). it has really helped make quitting easier for me this time.
i've been in kind of a brain fog this week and have had zero attention span, so i haven't been knitting much. this is unfortunate because i've been staying in a lot. i never miss smoking while in my house, because i didn't smoke there. everywhere else is like temptation island, and as a result my relationship with my porch and my car is contemptuous at the moment.
i did have some brief crafty moments:
i tried to learn how to crochet with the happy hooker (i think i am finally getting the hang of it today)

yes, that was acrylic, making it's first ever appearance on this blog.

and after seeing carrie's , i knew i had to make my very own cloud bolero. i'm making mine in noro iro, and calling it the cloudy day bolero because of the gloomy color scheme.

as part of an excessive reward system for being a quitter, i ordered yarn to remake this and this, in the hopes that i'll be able to have patterns written up for both by the end of summer/beginning of fall.

are there drugs you can take to help quit procrastinating?

have a lovely day folks!

p.s. the title of this post comes courtesy of a tribe called quest. the song "can i kick it?" came on in my car the morning i decided to quit and accidentally became my silly theme song to quitting.

Posted by melissa at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (1)

i guess i've avoided blogging this one for long enough:
my arrowhead spring cardigan is finished. i cast off quite some time ago. it was only then that i discovered that the neckline was way too big. i love wide necklines, but if i were to button this all the way down, it would fall off both shoulders.

so i ripped out the cast on edge, knit a few rows, decreased 4 stitches on each row and bound off a little tighter than usual.

it's better, but it's still not right. i'm being a little picky because i was really disappointed with the yarn, brown sheep cotton fleece. after the first time i cast off, i soaked and rinsed it three times and the water was still dark green. i eventually gave up on rinsing, because the color just never stopped running. it even stained the towels that it was drying on. so now i'm afraid to wear it, lest i get caught in a rainstorm and stain all the other clothes i'm wearing.

lace/ button detail shot:

so i've started re-knitting it in some silky wool from the stash. this photo doesn't show much because it's from several days ago, but at least you'll see the color. it's yellow now and i'm switching to ribbing for the edges.

i had to switch it around a bit. it's hard to turn around and knit the same thing all over again. i'm just keeping it interesting.

i've been in the mood for a smaller project lately and after swatching this floral chart for a future sweater, i decided to use it to knit a hat instead, since i'm not really up for another sweater yet. i've only just started, but already i'm in love with the brown and blue tweeds together. the chart is from here. i had to cut out a few columns to make it work for the hat.

the hat is a perfect little project to carry around as i work on my goal of reading more. these are some of the books i'll be reading in july:

next up, i'm reading miranda july's no one belongs here more than you, which i've really been looking forward to. the david sedaris is a re-read. i've already read all of his books, but his stories are so great, i have to read them again every so often. a thousand splendid suns is being read after my mother's insistence that it is better than the kite runner. i'll let you know.

have a great sunday!

Posted by melissa at 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (1)