FiberTribe

Typepad Blowout

Sorry, peeps, typepad's site was down this morning so no photos were possible. Can't very well post photos from the orifice's computer. So Greta, I'll have to regale you with Koigu Frolic progress later tonight.
Last night was a knitting washout. I stayed late at the desk and after running a few errands arrived home too fried to do more than surf the blogs a bit, send $50 to John Kerry (help him if you can, it's put-your-money-where-your-politics-are time, folks) read a knit mag or three, and close my eyes. I'm really wanting to start Carla just to see how quickly it might go. Since I'm inching along on several smaller gauge projects, it would be great to have some quick knit gratification.
And woooohoooo!! Secret Pal2 is up and running courtesy of the ever gracious Heidi.
And check out Leya's new Knitting Design Source site. If you click on the Elann button there, you pull up some awesome free patterns. Don't know about you, but I regularly browse Elann's new products but seldom look at their free patterns. That's definitely gonna change.. wait till you see...I can feel my resistance to stash enhancement eroding by the second... there are a lovely several somethings in there that are calling to me. Can't you hear them? "Knit me now or lose me forever!" Am I the only one that thinks the Borg were knitters?? (Most famous Borg quote: "Resistance is futile." ...if there are any of you left on the planet who never saw an episode of Star Trek TNG). I wonder what Jean-Luc is doing now? Happy weekend, all.

Stash Archaeology

So. Do I not have enough Ribs of Hell projects going on right now? Koigu Frolic and mom's Halter-Which-We-Won't-Mention-Right-Now... So what do I find while rooting through the stash for a certain needle size? This lovely swatched project from Berrocco's My First Project book from the spring of this year (I think). But aren't the colors just right for Fall? And since we are talking Miami, wouldn't a nice sleeveless tie-up top be so practical? Or maybe I can add some short sleeves. Maybe 4th in line behind the others...
No Carla news here other than mystery solved, Miss Clara sez she slipped all stitches purlwise. Oh, and the Carla Along blog is up and running. I'm revving up, 'cause gentlewomen are starting their engines...hope to start tonight.

Carla Swatch + Love Those Italians

Top of the morning to ya, with my swatch for Carla from Rowan's It's a Tape Thing at the top of the post. Color is Enchant in Cotton Tape. Oops, don't look at the errors near the top but I discovered the hard way that this Yfwd, S1, KI, psso pattern is just about impossible to rip back and correctly restore. So though this will be a quick knit (9mm, US size 13 needles) it will not be forgiving of errors. Gotta go slowly because I hate, repeat hate frogging. Frogged objects tend never to be seen again Chez FiberTribe. I'm loving the color more though it is not so deeply colored in the light of day vs. flash. Can't wait to get started. But though I raved about the Addis, I may switch back to the bamboo circs for better control.

And yes, don't you just love the Italians? The second photo is the summer Vogue Italia. I've seen it on one other blog ('scuse, can't recall which one) but as promised have posted it here. Not exactly a summer cover and not exactly summer wear, but isn't it great to see obviously handknit items on the high fashion mag covers? I'd never wear the skirt but the top has possibilities...
Assuming the camera batteries fully charge, Koigu Frolic progress will be up next. Oh. And since I haven't yet been diving since cracking 3 ribs in an auto accident in May, I've asked the ever curmudgeonly Patrick, pro-diver extraordinaire, to send me some new pics from Tortola. The masthead here does promise dive content so stay tuned... I warned him, though, that Shrek O the Seas (back in June) would be a tough act to follow...

Carla Love

The cotton tape, color Enchant, (sale yarns, Rowan, 100% cotton, cotton tape,view shade card) arrived from Colourway last night for the Carla Along! woooohooo! It's not really red as in the color card, it's more muted, like a dusty rose. I like it but I think Lori's color, Hazy, is much better...Still, distractable yarn ho that I am, I immediately began swatching and hit a British knitspeak brick wall. yes, I can be an idjit but it took me till this morning to figure out how to manage what dear Ms. Hargreaves calls a 'yfwd'. Duh. It's a yarnover. I finally got it worked out but the fabric looks really loose, like an open net on the size 13 needles (9mm for the metric among us). I think I've got gauge but may try a swatch a needle size down just to be on the safe side.
Big shout out of thanks to Clara again for the awesome photos of her Carla and Carla sleevie. Rowan ought to pay attention to her attention to detail. She's a better photographer than whoever they're using not to mention better at page layout.
In Koigu Frolic news, while looking up yfwd last night in Sally Melville's The Knit Stitch, I realized I have used the wrong-way slanting decreases on the right and left sides. So. Will I frog it back and start over? Are you kidding me? No way in hell. The inelegant slants will be buried in the seaming up at the sides and anyway, it's only the first 3 decreases. Heh. Don't tell on me and I won't tell on you.
Pictures tonight, I swear. No time to fiddle with the camera last night after grocery shopping, kitty petting, and cursing at brit-knitting-speak. Fer chrissakes, why can't those people speak English??? (kidding, folks, just kidding... don't beat me...)

Photos at 11

Camera battery croaked this morning so now I have to figure out how to recharge it. New camera, a Canon PowerShot S50. I'm loving it but I hadn't gotten far enough into the manual to figure out the recharger. Want to share the summer Vogue Italia cover with you as well as stash goodness and Koigu Frolic progress.
Have I mentioned lately how great it is to cruise blogs on a Monday morning for inspiration and laughs? Thanks, everyone, for being out there. It's the little things in life, the unforeseen connections that make it so sweet, doncha think?
In discography news, I just got my special-ordered copy of Jessie Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter's new CD. Awesome if you haven't heard it. Her voice is reminiscent of a smoother Marianne Faithful, the style is very different, though. Another great find courtesy of Public Radio. And I'm reading a great new book, Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes. I highly recommend it. Will provide links and images later from home computer. Makes me wonder what have I been doing lately. Don't we all have stories and books inside us? As well as designs and movies and other delights. Here's wishing that all our barriers, real and imagined drop away this year and we all go for it bigtime...I will if you will...

Slow Frolic and Down to Business

Well, am up to row 30 of Koigu Frolic (Rowan #29) and dude, is it slooooow going. Pictures are NOT forthcoming just yet because I depress myself when I see how little progress 30 rows can be. I am just not used to such small gauge knitting. This is gonna take a while, I can just tell. I guess this is another example of giving myself the lesson that slow and steady wins the day, or to put it more succinctly, PATIENCE. My view of patience can best be summed up as what one vulture sitting on a fence said to the other: "Patience, my ass, I'm gonna KILL something!!" heh. Ah, well. In this case the payoff will be lovely, lovely. Anyone for a Mantra-Along?
And hello, I just looked up at the calendar and realized that in a few days less than 2 months, I will be standing on the tarmac at Paro Airport in Bhutan at somewhere between 10,000 and 14,000 feet and likely gasping for air. I am in such crappy non-aerobic state even here at sea level in Miami that I gasp when I walk up the stairs. Ugh. So tomorrow I start running. Or rather, *running for 10 yds. and then walking,* rep to end. heh.
AND I have exactly 4 weeks till the deadline for sitting for my massage therapist's national certification test. ACK. Panic! It has been 5 years since I finished school and of course I have not sat for the test until now. How thick-headed was that? So you know what I'll be doing tomorrow night for at least 2 hours before I can even think about touching the knitting needles. Tonight and all nights for the forseeable future. Christ on a pogo stick, work at the orifice is going to seem like a holiday...
Pictures tomorrow, progress or not. Maybe I'll show you something from the endless stash, too.
P.S. Shobhana and Lori's Carla Along is growing... See the Button, Knit the lovely sweater!!

Judge Not....

No, I am not putting mom's Ribs of Hell halter out of its misery. And yes, Virginia, she learned how to shoot a Browning Buck Mark 22 calibre pistol one day. And she did good, hit a bullseye on her second shot ever, may even have a talent for it. And for the record, she also shot a Glock 40 calibre... Before you wallop me with comments, please understand that it would well please me if the damned things (handguns) were all banned. Forever. They exist only to kill humans and I just don't support that. Of course, in Canada, where they ARE banned, you can still purchase and own assault weapons, go figure... but I have to tell you that there were fewer murders by handgun in the entire province of Ontario as of April one year that I lived there than there are on New Year's Eve weekend alone in the city of Philadelphia. I know because I lived there, too. For 23 years.
So. Why was I shooting a Browning one fine Sunday afternoon in sunny Hollywood, Florida? Because the boy likes guns, owns them and has them around the apartment (his apartment, heh). He's very responsible about such things and wanted me to know how to handle one. And don't I hate to do something and not do it well? Guilty as charged. So now I know how and and I can hit what I aim at.
I should add that that same, gun-toting, badass, ex-Brooklyn boy-from-Marine-Park gets all nervous when I knit in the car with him. He seems to think that he'll get an eye poked out by my vicious, killer circular knitting needles. Gotta love it...
Knitting Content: Am up to row 26 on Frolic... the lovely Koigu blues (see earlier posts for images) continue to unfold... second best part? All the ooohs and ahhhs from anyone who sees me kipping...

Silly Season

Yesterday I saw the best bumper sticker so far this silly season:

W (with red circle and line crossed thru like a no smoking sign)
LET'S NOT ELECT HIM IN 2004 EITHER!!

I howled. Too true...

Got my Frolic on last night but the small gauge makes visible progress slow. I made up a chart to manage the row count for "every x row" decreases and increases. I have a mind like a sieve when it comes to that. The 2x2 rib is nicely mindless so it's easy to screw up the shaping. Pictures when there's a bit more koigu madness to display. The color progressions continue to amaze me. Maia and the Landras are masters of color combination. Changing light reveals whole new color worlds, too. love that.

In other news, Shobhana's Cotton Tape has arrived for the Carla Along... she says she's gonna hold out for the start date but I don't know...am still anxiously awaiting my Colourway package. Then the dilemma will sharpen up. Frolic or Carla? I'm so easily distracted.

Mind of UFOs

First UFO: Mom's Ribs of Hell halter. The picture above is what it WILL look like. One day. It really is an easy pattern for all my pissing and moaning, and the yarn (King Tut cotton) is very nice to work with, very soft and not that splitty. So why do I keep putting it down, bored out of my mind? Probably a combination of the color of the yarn and the ease of the pattern. Not much challenge and did I mention the color of the yarn? I am not and never have been a pink person. My mother tells a story of how she tried to dress me in a beautiful, crinoline-poufed pink dress when I was a toddler. She stepped out of the room for a minute to get a hair bow and when she came back I had literally ripped the dress off my little body. Ripped into two pieces, that is...what can I say? She also says I haven't changed a bit since then. This is usually said with a disapproving hiss. Well, if you hatch a Scorpio child, that's what you get... we love deep reds and indigos and luminous colors and hey, at least we're semi-predictable.

Second UFO: And just above that (because I can't figure out how to insert the photo where I want it, heh) is a long-promised baby sweater, also incomplete. It's a raglan knit in the round from the top down. My favorite quickie baby knit courtesy of a Plymouth Yarn pattern. (top photo) Baby Musik (yes, that's her name) is now 19 inches around and 10 months old, so I better hop to it before she starts asking for the car keys, yes? I love this pattern because you can easily adapt it to whatever outfit or gender (if the parents are into that pink and blue gender rules thing) by running a different colored ribbon (ribbon yarn in this case) through the lace eyelets around the neck. Simple, elegant and high in the oooh 'n aaah quotient, at least for doting friends and abuelas (grandmothers, latin-style).

So am I working on any of these fine, feathered UFOs? Not a chance. Koigu Frolic is still licking my ears and whispering, 'Sweet Thang, knit me NOW..." WWED? (what would elvira do?) Anybody remember Elvira, hostess with the mostess from Tales From the Crypt? heh. Rhetorical question. Now you know what-all I did last night, mostly. NSMJ...

Gratuitous Daily How-to- Be-a-Southern-Knit-Blog-Yarn-Ho Lesson: What does NSMJ mean? (Used as a final salutation) NSMJ = 'Nuff Said Mung Jennelmen (sic)

Knitting Discipline?

No, we're not getting kinky here Chez FiberTribe, it's all about no knitting progress last night but a good dinner with a friend and much good talk. Woman does not live by Knit alone, eh? But the Koigu Frolic is calling to me. So tonight, while watching a Tom Clancy movie (Sum of All Fears), I expect to make some good progress. Am I the only one who can't seem to get it all done in one day? If I keep it together in one sector of my life, something slips elsewhere. Sigh. Here's a reminder to all of us to not sweat the small stuff and that it's ALL small stuff.
Meanwhile, of course there's time to cruise the blogs (how not?) so these folks do not lack knitting discipline, heh. Have you seen Rachael's lovely Brick? Or Shobhana's finished front of Tom Tom?
Like Jack Nicholson (as the Joker in the first Batman movie) said, "How does he DO that!?!"
I guess it's like Pogo said, "We is surrounded by insurmountable opportunities..." yup.