Philadelphia Phillies: 2008 World Champions!!!!!

Harry Kalas: THE Voice of Baseball.
And, hey, check out Chris Wheeler in the background ;-)

BTW: The only way I could stay sane through the 7th and 8th innings was to KNIT. The 9th inning? All sanity lost...It's a wonderful three-out blur!

Philadelphia Phillies: 2008 World Champions!!!!!

Yarn Stew

Handspun Leftovers: Yarn Stew, anyone?

For the past few years, I've been collecting random bits and bobs of my handspun yarn, throwing it in a baggie with other leftovers. Recently, I pulled the baggie out and realized my collection of handspun ends makes for a pretty combination. So, I've been thinking: Randomly striped scarf? Fingerless gloves? Hat? What do you think?

Shalimar Yarns' new bulky weight yarn--soft as butter. Mmmmm...

I do want to say "Thank you" to those of you who haven't given up on me over the past few entry-less months! In August and September, a tendonitis-type injury sidelined me. No knitting for two months? Horrors! (Just ask my husband...)

For a fiber-holic like me, not being able to knit is like giving up cigarettes. I couldn't spend time around knitters, in knitting stores, or even on Ravelry--being completely unable to join in was just too painful. So I withdrew for a while.

During the past five weeks or so, however, my shoulder, neck, elbow, and wrist began to feel a better, little by little. At first I could knit for five minutes, then 20 minutes, and finally to an hour or two (max) here and there. Believe me: Taking regular rest breaks and doing a few hand and wrist stretches makes all the difference. If you feel discomfort, pay attention! The alternative is awful.

Gorgeous Zoe Sock from Shalimar Yarns in a gorgeous clover-honey color

Since my injury began improving, I've focused on much more "original knitting" (AKA: designing), and am spending a bit of time (health permitting) writing my patterns down. Soon, I hope, they'll be available via my Etsy store, and maybe someplace else, as well ;-) Stay tuned!

Shalimar Yarns Zoe Sock in a color I think of as "Country Lane."
Warm socks (new pattern) coming soon!

Happy knitting, all! See you soon...promise :-)

Oh, and yeah: GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!

Yarn Stew

Bad Yarn Karma Reversed!

First things first. Here's some belated eye candy:

The image quality sucks--I snapped this with my cell phone camera yesterday--but those colors were just gorgeous.

Anyway, I've been away for a few days. Not feeling so hot. I had a medical issue last week (Maggie wasn't the only one) and followed up with a doctor's appointment yesterday. I'm sure it's nothing, but it might be exacerbating my usual complete and utter exhaustion...

OK, enough of me. Let me show you some more cell phone photos:

That's right! The striped hat is actually DONE. Bad yarn karma (BYK) banished. And just in time, considering we went out to a Phillies/Nationals game the other night and it was COLD. Actually, I finished it just minutes before the DC United game I went to last Saturday, when it was cold and rainy.

You see, when DC had its faux spring a few weeks ago, we packed all my hats away with our winter stuff. So when the day of the football (soccer) game dawned chilly and damp, I was a bit worried. That afternoon, I rushed home, wove in ends, made tassel, and caught the Blue Line out to RFK Stadium just in time.

That makes two cold RFK visits in one week. And both times, I was thankful for this hat. For months, it's languished in a bag, slung over a chair back (all the doorknobs are taken). This is the pattern you have to knit to accomplish Level 1 in TKGA's Master Hand Knitter program, and I'm not very excited about it. It's OK. Just not the kind of hat I'd choose to make on my own.

But once I got going with the new pink yarn--which extinguished the BYK--it basically finished itself. All stockinette in the round. Knit, knit, knit, change color, knit, knit, knit. Needless to say, I made it in front of the television, watching BBC mysteries from Netflix.

Here's a blurry photo of Pat Burrell's butt--the same way I saw him when I used to go to Reading Phillies games in PA. Funny to see the same view five years later and a few hundred miles away ;-)

As for the Master Hand Knitter program...I've completed all of my swatches and the hat. Haven't answered the questions yet. But for some reason, I've lost interest. Now that I've done the work, I'm just not all that concerned about having the Master Knitter title. I'd rather knit for myself, for fun, for art. Not to adhere to someone else's subjective ideas of perfection.

So, the hat I scorned for so long will go into the box with my other woolies. It's not the hat's fault that someone wrote a dumb pattern. It's kept me warm when no other hat was around...I think I've grown a bit attached to it. And all of my swatches will join their friends in my bag-o-swatches, and someday become part of...well...something. A throw, perhaps?

(I can't toss a perfectly good swatch, can you?)

Bad Yarn Karma Reversed!