Post-op Paige report

Hi there dear readers! So I have mentioned a couple times on the blog that I have been needing to have another nose surgery to fix last year's nose surgerythat didn't go exactly as planned. So that happened on Tuesday morning. The doctor assured me that this would be a super-easy surgery this time, just going in quickly to grind down some bone and boom! Done!

But it's never that easy, is it? Honestly, it's already been a thousand times easier than last year's surgery even though they did have to re-break my nose (which I'm pretty sure she did with a crowbar- serious ouchies). I have two of the world's worst shiners and did pretty much by the time I got home Tuesday morning. And of course, a most beautiful nose-cast. I'm contemplating putting a Hello-Kitty band-aid on it to make it a little cuter. Or writing OUCH across it in sharpie to add a little humor to the white triangular cast that contrasts so beautifully with the aubergine of my entire face. Anyhoo, I have decided to put away my more difficult projects this time to avoid pain-killer provoked knitting catastrophes. Which could be most of my projects right now.

I've got a magazine thingy that I need to be working on, but I think I'll wait another day or two to dig that out again. These pain meds are like narcolepsy with a ten-second warning and leave me completely unable to focus on anything. Seriously- I've sat through "Meet Joe Black" twice now and still have no idea what is happening in that long strange plot.

So here are my easy projects for the rest of the week:

1. Cross Stitch Sampler. Why I decided to take it's picture 10 minutes in, I'll never know. So far I like it though. It's easy and promises to be quite nice hanging in a kitchen that I probably won't have for quite a while.

2. Mitred Square Blanket. I love this blanket, man.

3. Hooked rug that is beginning to look like a sheep. Hurrah! And thank you times a billion to Laurie who is letting me use her wonderful frame so I can finish this project within the decade. I owe you bigtime.

I need a nap. Have a nice day!

SuperQuickPosting

So I have three minutes to kill and I thought I'd do it with posting pictures my newly finished Seascape and some of my new handspun! Enjoy! Leave any questions in the comments and I'll get to them when I can! Gotta run!

Whoosh!

I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as they go whooshing by. But I love them even more when they give me a goal, a big sign that says "this wedding shawl must be done by....the wedding. Duh." And a sick little part of me loves the challenge. Enter a baby blanket in the fair? Sure! Start said baby blanket 8 days before the fair? I might break a little sweat there. Be simultaneously working a fill-time job, going on 2 dates, having rugby practice and a super-secret project to design and then create (which generally involves more frogging than knitting) and have an upcoming nose surgery looming and finish the baby blanket?

Bring it on. Why don't you throw in a couple handspun challenges just to make things interesting? Let's begin the countdown to the fair like this:

1. Sweater in one color: I'm entering Coraline, a blue sweater I made last year but haven't really worn a bunch. It's Stephanie Japel's Simple Knitted Bodice.

2. Baby item- Blanket: Getting there. For some reason I thought knitting a giant washcloth would go much faster than this.

3. Knitted Lace- Any Item- Is the purple kidsilk haze shawl that I showed last post. I finished it Thursday night at drunken knitting night and am blocking it in the guest room. Pretty close to done.

4. Handspun- Novelty: Done. Very done. About 2 years done.

5. Handspun- llama or alpaca: I have a perfect specimen...I just need to find it. Hmmm....

6. Handspun- plied: I have a couple things that could probably work but I have some merino still on the wheel for this. If it comes down to the wire, I'll take something old.

Not State Fair related: Mystery knitting for a knitting publication that I can't show you until next march. But it's really fun- I promise! Due August 7 with pattern and charts done, would like to have finished by nose surgery July 27th.

And for the people who didn't make it to Zionsville yesterday for the spin-in....

Purple-mania and hot air balloons

As the State Fair entry deadline looms, so does a thick cloud of mohair. After screwing up epically on the green silk lace and throwing it in a dark corner where it can think about what it's done, I decided it was time to bring out the big guns- and by that I mean a shawl that could actually be finished within a reasonable amount of time (like July 25th between noon and 6pm). I began the "Love From Dublin" shawl a little over a year ago in Dublin with some Rowan Kidsilk Haze I had gotten in Scotland a few months before. In all fairness to the Irish, it is a Kieran Foley pattern and therefore it is at least a wee bit Irish. Anyhoo, I've been burning the midnight oil on this one and while I'm not done I can honestly say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it's not the train.Here are a few pictures of "Love From Dublin"...just over 4 feet of nose-itchingly beautiful (I think) mohair lace. And of course, Garden Frog. Even the hot air balloons came out to see the shawl in progress! But I'm pretty sure the butterfly was just there because my shawl looks a little bit like a butterfly bush.

I also finished my good deed o' the week and dropped of D's chemo cap. She acted like she really liked it and said she was so glad that it wasn't pink. Yeah, I can see how you'd get over the pink really fast. I'll have to remember that for my next Breast cancer hat.

So that's really all there is to it! Project monogamy is good for the project but not overly interesting for blogging purposes, but the next post should have a fun baby blanket picture (also for the State Fair. What was I thinking signing up for all this stuff?!) Until then, I leave you with almost-red tomatoes.

Feel-Good Knitting

The thing about knitting when knitting is your life (and it pretty much is) is that it's easy for it to crash and burn because of one little tiny repeat. When you sell yarn for work, knit for fun, write about knitting in hopes of being published it starts to put on a little pressure on something that started out just being fun.

The day after I sent in my entry form for the Indiana State Fair, I noticed a little flub in my green silk lace shawl. Okay...more than a little flub. One side was 22 stitches longer than the other side. So I frogged it. Okay. That's a lie. I took it off the needles and stretched it out, hoping to find the exact point where I began to create these extra 22 stitches. And after about an hour of searching, pinning, swearing and searching some more, I came to the realization that I have no flippin' idea where I went so wrong. But I'm guessing a martini had something to do with it. I put the shawl (which needs to be done, blocked, and at the fairgrounds by July 25th) in a big bag in a dark corner and grabbed some scrap baby blanket yarn. I have no idea why, but when I have screwed up so epically (doesn't make a difference if I screwed up in knitting, in school, in relationships, or anything else) I feel the need to cast on. So I chained 4 in the bulkiest, ugliest baby yarn ever and just went. I crocheted, and crocheted, and when I ran out of yarn I grabbed the next partial ball and kept going and then suddenly I looked down and POW! A Project Linus blanket. Okay, it was a little more time-consuming than that, but it only took a few hours and I have cleared up a little more room in my stashroom/sanctuary. Oh yeah, and helping kids is a good feeling too.

Then I kept going. I made an 8x8 square for T's charity that collects squares and puts them in to blankets for parents that have lost children. Turns out that good feeling was more than just cold medicine.

So I took that feeling and I kept going. I cast on a chemo hat for my mom's friend, D. I grabbed the softest yarn I could find that wouldn't fuzz all over the place and found a pattern I liked. It's a little lacey, a little cabley, and all good juju.

And since I'm still a little angry at the green silk lace shawl for getting itself in to such a mess, I'm going to keep adding on those little bitty squares to my mitred square blanket until I feel like I've casted on enough for a while.

*In case you're wondering about the ugly sock yarn blanket:

1. There is a plan

2. That plan is to make each of the two pieces at least one more column wide and two more rows long. Then I will connect them mitre-style at the middle points there. That way I don't have to seam it. I'll just keep squaring out from the middles on each side until it's a square. I promise to show more details when I get there.

3. Pay someone to weave in the ends for me. That's crapload of ends that I probably should have been weaving in the whole time. But yeah...that's not happening. If I were a smart knitter (and I think we've made it very clear that I'm not) then I would weave in all the ends before I connected the pieces and made....you guessed it- more ends.

4. Applied I-cord edging in a solid color.

5. I'm serious about that paying someone to weave in those ends. Or I'd make you a sweater or something. Anybody?

Orange you Glad these are done?

So you know the dreaded orange socks that I've been working on, on and off since January? I started them simply because I was tired looking at the yarn in my stash (which was probably the first sign I wasn't going to be thrilled with making them) and have been carrying them in my purse for months and months and months and with the help of last night's Dexter re-run, I have finally finished them. Done. Ends woven in and everything. Naturally, now that they are done and fit perfectly, I don't hate them anymore! I almost wish that we have a freakishly cold day in the near future so that I have an excuse to wear them. They're that awesome. Do you know why they're awesome? Let's call it...sockitude.

* Forgive the cheezyness. My photographer (aka Dad) was almost as happy to see them done as I was)

In other news I have been doing a wee bit of shopping. Since my Lantern Moon hookup is too awesome to not take advantage of, I got a few sets of needles and Baabs, the Sheep. Madeline tried to nurse on her! So sweet! And then the evil side of hell-kitten took over and she tried to kill her. Baabs barely escaped and now lives in the Sheep Sanctuary in my room.

And then the sock yarn...(I know. Like I really needed more sock yarn.) I went to the new Broadripple Knits today for the first time and couldn't help myself when I saw the basket of Mountain Colors sock yarn waiting by the register. This is my new sock yarn friend,Moondance. Isn't she pretty? But I'm going to put her in the stash with all of my old sock yarn friends until I finish 2 more pairs of socks. And that's final. For now.