Monday, January 25, 2010

tired

My husband took the kiddo away for the weekend so I could spend it dyeing. Worked my butt off, but I'm still terribly behind where I need to be. Plus I have to do my city and state taxes this week (ugh!), and dye for my yarn club.

I've come to the unhappy conclustion that I am just a slow dyer. I can whip through colorways that involve just one or two dye solutions, but the more complex colorways just take forever. I don't know how other people do it, but I wish I knew their secret.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

obsession

I have been in an obsessive knitting mood these past few weeks. After the obligations of Christmas knitting, I felt so free. I enjoyed the projects that I made (and need to do a post about them sometime), but they were still projects with an immovable deadline, and that took just a bit of the fun out of them.

Anyway, so I've been wallowing in pattern crushes since then. I've wanted to make Laminaria for months--buried myself in it and finished last week. Fell madly in love with Bitterroot, but since I didn't have just the right yarn on hand, I started knitting a Clothilde instead, with some beautiful Elliebelly yarn that I've been hoarding. (Beautiful, simple, but not boring pattern, incidentally.) Lots of photos to come, of me and my shawl fixation.

But first I must tell you about my newest crush. It's a sweater by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I am not an EZ groupie, since I only heard of her a couple of years ago. (Heresy? Perhaps.) But man, I do love this sweater.

I've always thought of sleeve decreases as something to hide. It would never have occurred to me to make them a design feature. These sleeves have utterly charmed me. I've been sifting through sweater patterns for months, waiting to fall in love. And now I finally have. Or maybe it's Jared Flood's beautiful photography in the article. I would have glanced at the pattern publisher's photos and moved on, never noticing the presence of those wonderful details.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

what I've been up to

My family and I spent Christmas week taking turns throwing up, far from home. First my parents got it, then my kiddo, then me, and then my sister. My husband got the Blitzkrieg bug the night before we flew home. Good times.

But now I'm back, and busy dyeing again. This month I'm kicking off my first yarn club, with these two selections. They're called Heartfelt and Garnet. More about their origins after my club members get their dyer's notes.

Heartfelt - Jan club selection

garnet semi-solid - Jan club selection

I've got just one knitting resolution this year, and that's to finish up one unfinished project each month. Or throw it away, or whatever. I've got two giant knitting bags and a few boxes filled with miscellaneous partial projects, and I can't stand it anymore. I'm sure my husband passed that point long ago.

No specific 2010 goals yet. I actually met my 2009 goals well before the end of the year (go me!) so I've been pondering where to go next for a while. I'm working on my next wholesale order for the Loopy Ewe, so I should have a fair amount of time contemplating my objectives for the next 12 months.