"WIP It Girl": Or, A Tale of Works In Progress

So I've begun Forecast. Here's a close-up of the 3-stitch bobble that I'm using, a popular adaptation ever since (I think) Winnie's version of Forecast first appeared.




Here's Forecast a bit further along, now resting outside. I'm using Cascade 220 (for the first time) and I'm loving it.



The back view...


Can you tell that I'm in love with this pattern, and that I'm loving taking pictures of it?



Other things as WIPS: the My So Called Scarf manages to go nowhere these days. I really like the stitch pattern, but given that it's now March (practically), there's really no sense in making a thick, warm scarf like this. So to the back-burner you go. (Besides, if I were to be making a scarf these days, it'd *definitely* be a rip-off of these fantastic ones everyone is talking about these days...)


So, instead of continuing with the SoCalledScarf, I've *finally* finished Kiri (see left margin for free PDF pattern). That's right, this shawl has been languishing for a long time. The reason? I ran out of yarn when casting off. Seriously, I only had about 40 more stitches to bind off when there just wasn't any more yarn left. ARGH. So then I had to wait until Elann restocked this color (Serenghetti Sand), so that it could be completed. It's blocking today, so FO photos will come later this week.



Lastly, I quickly knit up another We Call Them Pirates Hat because the first one I made was immediately too small for the newborn and the parents kept telling me how much they liked the hat. This one, made from acrylic yarn left over from this, doesn't look too hot. Mind you, I haven't blocked it yet, but I'm not sure what difference it'll make, really, b/c of the acrylic. Oh well, I just need to get it to them before the cooler temperatures are completely gone, and before the baby girl grows out of this one too.

BTW: Thanks for the feedback regarding "blogger etiquette". I'm going to write a "reply" post to this, summing the comments/suggestions up, sometime later this week.

Awww.....

....shucks! Look what Carrieoke has designed for me. A better, improved, longer banner that's cleaner, clearer, and with a great new font to boot. What a girl, she is! It's no wonder Jacob (the Pants?!) wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

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Now I just need to see if I can get this new image up on the banner space in my template. Let's hope so. And THANKS, Carrie. I really do love it and appreciate the time and effort you put in for me. Man, I love this knit-blog community!!

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Now, speaking of this awesome knit-blog community; MamieKnits Bits left this comment regarding my previous note on the fact that I wanted to learn "proper" knit-blogging etiquette: She writes, "If you find any essential etiquette tips out there, will you post them? i wonder at times if there is some code of honor to learn though it seems like the knit bloggers in the world are a really gentle bunch."

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This is also how I feel. I've been reading blogs for about a year now, and then started my own in May 2006. But I've always wondered if there is an unknown code or etiquette that I should be following. Specifically, I never know what exactly to do about comments and responses. If someone asks me a specific question in a comment, then I will respond to their question (or try to). But if it's a comment where no specific response is required, then I usually don't. The main reason for my lack of response is that Blogger doesn't seem to allow an easy, "hit reply to respond" and so it involves going to that person's blog, finding their email address, and then going back to my email account to reply. Now I know, people, that this is not that big of a deal, and really doesn't take a lot of time and effort. Also, I know that many feel that if someone takes the time to comment, then one should take the time to reply. What I usually do is go to that person's blog and leave a comment on their blog, and so hopefully, in this way, we begin a blogger relationship/dialogue. But I'm also wondering if I am perceived as rude for not replying to everyone's comments individually. Okay, okay, I know I don't get many comments, but I do get a lot of student-work-family emails each day that I *have* to reply to, so for the blog comments, I don't want to begin to feel that it's also a part of my work day--being obliged to reply to everyone's comment. I DO NOT want my blog to begin to feel like work instead of play.

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Because I soooo love playing here with y'all, but I do want to make sure that I'm being a "good" playmate at the same time.

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So am I out of line because I don't respond individually to every comment, even despite the fact that I am not getting 243 or even 12 comments a day? Am I being rude? You can tell me if I am. Like MamieKnits wrote, if us newbies aren't aware of an honor code, then someone should (gently) tell us of it so we can play nicely too. And are there other aspects of this unwritten code? Does anyone know of a (in)formal knit-blog etiquette that helps us get along? Or do we just follow our intuition and decide for ourselves what's best and what works?

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Just wonderin' 'cause I love this community so much that I'd hate to exclude/alienate myself or others from it [especially when there are such nice people such as Carrie helping us to make beautiful banners and such :) ]

Another To Do/To Make List

1. Learn how to make my banner stretch out nicely like everyone else's. Mine looks terrible, but I can't waste any more time fooling around with it.

2. Buy a bedwarmer from Dogged Knits's etsy shop, and some soap from KnittingPhilistine.

3. Knit a skirt, after seeing Julia's at MindofWinter, to wear this summer.

4. Actually start piecing together the squares on this quilt-to-be instead of just rearranging them all the time, and then restacking them. Given my sewing skills, I'm nervous to start for *reals*.

5. Post some progress photos of Forecast, which I'm loving right now; I'm nearly at the arm-holes.

6. Sew some beautiful (but *easy*) blinds like these. (Shoot, I can't find the flickr photo of the blinds I wanted to sew....argh!)

7. Post some photos of the new blue living room that I painted this past week.

8. Learn proper/standard/acceptable knit-blog etiquette.

A Poem for Us All

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

-Raymond Carver, Late Fragment*

A day of love and peace to all of you,

and much love to the man who brings much music into my life.

(sorry for the blurred photo but we were just so excited to get to the concert)

With love, with faith, with kindness, with compassion, with patience, with understanding, with forgiveness, with determination, maybe even with luck--with whatever it takes--

here's to many more trips to the lake; here's to many more concerts in the park....

(*I was reminded of this poem when reading A Bird in the Hand's blog recently.)

The Beret, The Banana Republic Coat, and...and....The Bedwarmer??

Okay, I mentioned a while back that I'd show you the finished beret, the Banana Republic coat found at a thrift store, and the bedwarmer made after seeing Ashley's. Here, folks, are two of the three. The third has yet to be photographed. Soon....very soon.

BTW: Have you seen this new flickr group: Handknit Street Style? It was begun, I believe, by LollyGirl, and the requirements are that you post a photo of a handknit actually being worn--no WIPs, no sweater artfully laid out on a bed, no hat positioned on Hemingway's head. I like this idea of Lolly's because so often we never get to see people actually wearing their handknits and this must change! For one thing, I'd like to see if a garment is wearable before investing my time and money in making it. (I know, I know, it's supposed to be about the process, the craft, the artifact created, the feel of the silky wool between your fingers, but quite frankly, I'm also very much interested in the utility of it as well--hence, why we are considered to be both craftspeople *and* artists!) So start wearing your knits, people, and then show us that you are indeed wearing them, and how, and that it isn't simply for a staged photo shoot. (For instance, the photo above was taken on my way home from campus, in the university washroom. The entire time I was hoping/praying that one of my colleagues or students wouldn't walk in. How embarrasing would that be?)

(Silent) Poetry Reading

The Creation Story

I'm not afraid of love
or its consequence of light.

It's not easy to say this
or anything when my entrails
dangle between paradise
and fear.

I am ashamed
I never had the words
to carry a friend from her death
to the stars
correctly.

Or the words to keep
my people safe
from drought
or gunshot.

The stars who were created by words
are circling over this house
formed of calcium, of blood

this house
in danger of being torn apart
by stones of fear.

If these words can do anything
if these songs can do anything
I say bless this house
with stars.

Transfix us with love.

--Joy Harjo


**(And because one poem is just never enough...)***


Sonnet XLIII: "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why"

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay


**Last One!**


My Makeup

on my cheeks I wear
the flush of two beers

on my eyes I use
the dark circles of sleepless nights
to great advantage

for lipstick
I wear my lips

-- Rochelle Kraut