Resolutions

Hi Everyone!  (Ha! See how I said that like someone is actually reading this?)

So, here's what's going on in my life right now: a week before Christmas, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It sucks. I was shocked. My A1C levels had never been elevated before. Now, suddenly, they were high enough to make me diabetic. I tried not to think about it too much because it was Christmas! But, I knew that as soon as the holidays were over, I needed to make some major changes.

Enter New Year's Resolutions. I didn't resolve to lose weight. I didn't resolve to exercise. I didn't resolve to overhaul my life. I resolved to do just one thing: DO WHAT'S RIGHT FOR ME. In ALL things. Not just for my physical health, but for all of me. My mental and emotional health. My need to be creative. My life. I'm not setting specific resolutions. Instead, I am making decisions as I go using that one resolution as a guiding light: do what's right for me.

So far, it's working for me. I'm spending more time with friends. I've started painting a bit. I've drastically reduced the amount of time I spend on social media. I've started seeking out unbiased news sources. I've almost entirely eliminated excess sugar from my diet. (Seriously: I used to eat Apple Jacks for breakfast. Every day. There's a damn lot of sugar there, which resulted in me wanting sugar the rest of the day. Switching breakfasts to a protein-packed, delicious breakfast sandwich drastically reduced my sugar cravings.) I've started loving my body exactly as it is. I'm not worried about losing weight. I'm done focusing on that. DONE. (It's really quite liberating to say that.) If it happens, great. If not, that's fine too. As long as I know I'm doing what's right for me, that's all that matters.

So here I am, determined to live my best life. Determined to do what's right for me in all things. You should watch and see what happens. Part of my plan is to write more here. I'll still talk a lot about knitting and my other creative endeavors, but there might be some more personal stuff too. Stick around. Let's see what I do.

Gifts: how to get what you want

Yeah, I know that title sounds really selfish. But, let's face it, knitters are super generous this time of year. We love knitting for the people we love. We spend more money on yarn to make gifts than we would spend on just purchasing a gift at a store.  On top of that, we spend tons of time and energy making the gift. Every knitting thing we give away takes a little piece of our heart with it.

So, here's how you help those who love you to get you something you love.

My kids and hubby know I really like yarn, but they really don't know anything about yarn. Fortunately, River Knits allows people to put together a wish list on a little note card.

This is great! However, it still requires my socially anxious husband (bless his heart) to interact with people. So, I decided to make it really easy for him this year.

One day, I went into River Knits and just started snapping pictures of the stuff I like. Then, I took those pictures and used Insta Picframes to create collages and add text. Yeah, I even played around with the colors and fonts and stuff. Like this:

I even did this:

See the "NO" on top of the one little cubbie there in the bottom left corner. There's nothing wrong with that yarn, I just don't enjoy it as much as the others.

If I had taken more time, I would have put together a little map of the shop to show exactly where everything could be found. But, I didn't have time, so he still had to experience a little human interaction.

I know this looks really...um.....presumptuous? Entitled? Demanding?  But, hubby said he actually really appreciated it. His reasoning: "If my wish list involved a vacuum tube store, you'd be just as clueless as I am walking into the yarn shop." Truth. Although, honestly, I don't think pictures would even help me in a vacuum tube store. They all look like weird lightbulbs to me.

Please also note that I have absolutely no expectation to receive all of these things. I just like to give him a lot of variety to choose from.

On that note, Happy Holidays to all of you wonderful fibery folks out there! May your stockings be filled with everything you need to knit your next fabulous project!

Digging out

What a winter this has been!! Between the Polar Vortices that keep swooping down on us with more snow and cold air than we've seen in ages and the school cancellations and delays that result, this has felt like the never-ending winter. And it's only January! Rest assured, I'm warm and cozy and crafting like crazy. I've written several blog posts that just haven't been posted because as I wrote them, I thought, "When I get home, I'll take pictures, then publish the post to the blog." Then the photography just didn't happen. (Queue sad trombone.)

But today, this post IS going to happen. I have so much to tell you about. So many updates to share. And just ONE picture I'm waiting to take.

So, let's go back to December. My last post was on December 5. After that, I focused a lot on Christmas Knitting. I'm not usually one to do a lot of knitting for Christmas, but this year was an exception. Tori put in a very specific sweater request, and I wanted to make her a couple of pairs of socks. The sweater was completed not quite in time for Christmas, but by the Saturday after. The yarn is Noro Kureyon that has been aging in my stash for years. The pattern is of my own (really her own) design. I knit it to match her request. Here she is, mere moments after I completed the sweater. It's a terrible picture, but it's still evidence.  What you can't see: It's a top-down raglan, and it's tunic-length, longer in the back than the front. She loves it.

I only managed to finish ONE pair of socks. The other pair is nearly done, but not a huge priority for me. They are entrelac, and it's kind of difficult to make myself work on them. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the ones I actually completed. The two pairs of socks complement each other in an interesting way, so I'll be sure to take a pic of them together once both pairs are done.

I also worked on my Dreambird Shawl a lot, though it is still not complete. Here's a picture I took some time ago. It's about 3 times this size now.

The green yarn is Malabrigo Sock colorway Fresco y Seco. The purple is Crystal Palace Sausalito colorway 8459 (quite a romantic color name...). I really love these yarns together, and this is quite a fun pattern to knit. But, it does require a lot of attention and many stitch markers. Maybe I'll get it out again, now that I'm done with my Rios sweater (but more on that in a bit).

Once we got through the holidays, I decided to get out my sewing machine. I can't remember if I have talked about my sewing machines before (yes, plural), and I'm frankly too lazy to go back and check. So, here's a recap: I have two sewing machines. One is a Kenmore circa 1973 or 1974 that belonged to my grandmother. It's built like a tank and served me well for a long time. However, its tensioner broke several years ago, and I've been unable to find a replacement or a way to fix it. Even so, I have used it occasionally with poor results. My other machine is a Singer that was also a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law. And it was a hand-me-down to her too.

So, I decided to get out the old Singer on January 4 to make a bag. Things were going okay until I attempted to sew about 6 layers of fabric together--2 lining, 2 quilting cotton, and 2 denim. It was tough. The machine didn't want to do it. But I forced it.....My husband thinks maybe it jumped a gear or something. Impossible to sew on the machine now. The needle bangs into the plate under the bobbin. After much frustration, including taking it apart and attempting to fix it, I got out the Kenmore. What a joke. With the tensioner broken, the seams are a mess. Still, I was determined and finished my bag. From a distance, it looks great. But, up close... well, just don't look too close. 

The printed fabric is fat quarters, I think from Joann's but I'm not 100% sure on that one. The denim is from an old pair of cargo capri pants. I love having the cargo pocket on the iPad pocket. And I love these fabrics. This will be a great bag for summer, if it lasts that long. Given the crappiness of the seams, I'm not sure it will.

Upon completing that bag, I came to a decision: It was time to get a new sewing machine. I'd only ever had hand-me-downs, and both of them were broken. Of course, when it came to shopping for a machine, I didn't even know where to start. I'm very thankful for friends who are avid sewists who were able to help me figure it all out. On January 8, I ordered my new baby.

She's a Singer One, and is very fancy compared with what I had before. I haven't experimented much, but I have been a busy girl on the weekends. The first weekend, I made these:

Left to right: Boxy Pouch from Pink Stitches, a car trash bag, and a Grab Bag (also sometimes known as a Japanese Knot Bag). All were very fun to make and went together like a dream with my new machine!

Last weekend, I made these little puppies. I saw something similar online, but couldn't find a pattern, so I made one up. They are graduated sizes, and the smallest is just the right size to hold my sewing machine cord and pedal. The other three will make wonderful project bags.

Yes, you've seen this fabric before. It's the same that I used for my new Circular Needles Holder. The biggest bag is 8"x8"x12" tall. The smallest is 5"x5"x9" tall. They are really fun, and I have plans to put together a little tutorial here when I have time.

Yesterday, school was cancelled because of cold. So, I was home with my kids. We were lazy all day. We rented a couple of movies from RedBox (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Despicable Me 2, if you must know), and then just lazed about the house. I spent most of my day knitting and managed to finish the Malabrigo Rios sweater I started in October.  I love it so much. It's warm and soft and gorgeous (if I do say so myself; and I do), and fits nicely and....well, it's just perfect. So perfect that I didn't block it before putting it on and wearing it to work today. This is one thing I do not have pictures of. I want to wait until after it is blocked. And, besides, it's worthy of its own exclusive post anyway, so we'll save it for later.

I want to take a brief moment to thank everyone who was praying for the Purdue University family last week when there was an active shooter on campus. Fortunately, the shooter had only one target; tragically, he was successful in his mission. I don't know if we'll ever know the motivation behind his actions. However, I do know that life on this campus has been changed forever. We've all seen news stories about shootings on college campuses, and even at K-12 schools, but we all believe it will never happen to us. I never would have thought something like this would happen at Purdue. Could it happen? Sure. But would it? No way. I was wrong. My office is in the building right next door to the building where the incident happened. I was walking by that building mere minutes before the shooting occurred. Needless to say, I went home that night and hugged my kids and husband tight and told them I loved them. I'm so thankful to live in a world of fast communication and well-trained emergency workers.

Gift Knitting

Gift Knitting. Some people view it very simply: I like to knit; you want something knitted; I'll knit for you. I don't happen to be one of those people. I am extremely selective about the people for whom I will knit. My mom is at the top of the list. She appreciates the amount of work that goes into knitting something, but she also understands that I've made the thing for her to wear and use. She and my dad both love handknit socks. My kids are next. Tori loves knit hats and socks. In fact, she has been known to wear knit hats well into dates and places where the weather and temperature would indicate the lack of need for such warm attire. She doesn't care. And socks! During the winter, getting her to take off her handknit socks long enough to wash them is like pulling teeth. It's kind of gross. Aaron claims to like knitted things, but honestly, the kid is like a walking furnace. He's always hot. But, I dutifully knit him a hat every year, and when he goes sledding, he appreciates it. Otherwise, it just sits in the basket with the other cold-weather accessories. My mother-in-law and father-in-law also appreciate it when I knit them things, but I don't do it very often. I'm also happy to knit for my nieces and nephews, but only if they ask. I don't want to be known as Crazy Aunt Amanda who always knits us stupid crap that mom forces us to wear.

Like most knitters, I have a handful of acquaintances who ask me to knit something for them every time I see them.  I usually just laugh it off, or tell them I don't have time to knit all the things I really want to knit for myself, so....  And it's true. Mostly. I mean, I hate it when people say, "I wish I could do X, but I just don't have time." Well, yes, you do. You have time for the things you make time for. Period. It's not that you don't HAVE time to do something, you just choose to use your time doing other things. And that's the point, isn't it? We knit for people that we like enough to dedicate the time to knit for them. I know how valuable my time is. A lot of love and consideration goes into every stitch I knit.

So why am I thinking about gift knitting? It's that time of year. If you are going to knit holiday gifts for someone, now's the time to get started! Even if you don't start the actual knitting, it's a great time to start planning in that direction.

Plus, I just saw a hat on Ravelry that totally made me think of my daughter! It's a free pattern, and I know she'll love it. I can probably knit it in a weekend. Which means it will be done way before Christmas. Well....her birthday is in November. I could give it to her for her birthday.

Uh oh. Do you see where I'm going with this? I have a TERRIBLE time keeping knitted gifts a secret. I want to give them the minute they are completed. Especially if it's something I know the recipient will love. Like this hat. I couldn't even keep the existence of the pattern a secret. I texted Tori the link as soon as I saw it, and she went nuts. I'm not like this with store-bought gifts. I can keep video games, clothes, books, whatever a secret. But I get so excited about knitted things. I want to involve the recipient in every step. I'm not sure if it's because I want them to share in my excitement, or if it's my way of protecting myself--making sure it's something they really want or not.

Am I alone here? Does anyone else feel this way about knitting for others?

And now it's gone

I had a long, elaborate post written with this title "And now it's gone" referring to summer being gone. Then, I did SOMETHING, and deleted the entire post.....and now it's gone. Which makes me very sad. I'll try to recreate the highlights...

So, summer is gone. I'm not sad about it. As much as I love the laid-back attitude surrounding summer, Fall is my favorite. Jeans and sweaters, cooler temps, apples and pumpkin pie, leaves turning gold and red and orange, and the soybean fields yellowing. That yellowing is usually the first sign that fall is really coming.

Those pictures were taken about a week ago, and now the green in the fields is almost completely gone. The only thing I love more than that yellowing-green is freshly fallen snow, but I'm not quite ready for that yet.

This time of year, I always look back and take stock of what I accomplished over the summer. This year, it wasn't much. Remember in my last post, when I talked about Animal Crossing: New Leaf? Yeah, it kind of ate my summer. I didn't do much knitting or sewing or any other kind of crafting. All of my free time was spent catching bugs, fishing, doing tours on the island, and building public works projects.

I'm still playing, but not as rabidly as I was before. I take time every day to accomplish the "required" tasks, and play some extra if I feel like it. But, I'm not as obsessed as I was, which means I'm back to knitting and crafting.

I'm currently working on River in Summer.  It's a wonderful cardigan/vest/shawl/wrap thing.

The yarn is Briar Rose Wistful in purples and greens. I love the yarn so much that I really can't wait to have the thing done so I can wrap myself in it. The pattern is wonderful--just mindless and rhythmic enough for watching TV or carrying on a conversation, but interesting enough to keep it fun. Love it.

Starting in October, I'm teaching a top-down sweater class. The class is geared toward knitters of all experience levels--beginners can use existing patterns, but more experienced knitters will get help designing their own. I'll be designing my own as well--top-down cardigan with set-in sleeves, a wide button band and collar, and done entirely in diagonal rib. Oh! And I'll be using Malabrigo Rios--I bought myself 10 skeins for my birthday in August, and I LOVE it!

In other non-knitting-but-still-sort-of-crafty news: My husband and kids got me a Nintendo 3DS XL for my birthday. I was super excited and surprised--when I purchased my 3DS in June, I really debated getting the XL, but decided I'd rather spend the extra $30 on another game. So, this was awesome. But, I needed a case for it. None of the ready-made cases appealed to me, so I set out to make my own. Then the kids each wanted one, and before I knew it, I had these: 

The two on the right are for the 3DS. The two on the left are for the XL. The one on the far left is for my friend Sam, who is one of the hosts of the podcast Not Your Mama's Gamer, which you should all listen to right now.

So, once the cases were made, I realized I wasn't thrilled with the boring color of my new toy: black and red. Snore. So, I looked for skins for it. Again, nothing really jumped out at me. I really wanted a Doctor Who skin, but none existed.....so I designed my own on DecalGirl. I'd never done it before, but it was so easy.  And, I couldn't be happier.

In other geeky/crafty news, we went to GenCon in Indianapolis in August. Talk about nerds! Holy cow!  (I mean that in the nicest way possible! My husband and daughter had found "their people." Aaron and I, however, felt a little left out because there wasn't much video gaming stuff.)  Anyway, there was a booth for Three Geeks and a Needle, and I couldn't resist purchasing a small bag and a key fob. But what really caught my eye was the fabric they used. It was sooooo geeky! So, I immediately went online to try to find the fabric. After much searching, I discovered Spoonflower. And the angels sang!  So much beautiful fabric! I ordered enough of this to make a bag. I also ordered several 8x8 swatches of Doctor Who fabrics to make another case for my XL, like this and this and this. I'm so excited and can't wait for the fabric to arrive!!! 

So, as you can see, I'm getting my crafting mojo back. What kinds of crafts are you doing this fall?

Projects for 2013

So, in case you didn't know, it's 2013! I know I'm a little late to the "New Year" bandwagon. We vacationed in Florida with my entire family during the holiday break this year, which was wonderful!

But, it also meant it didn't really feel like The New Year until after we got home and back into our "normal" routine. Plus, I've been battling a cold (NOT the flu!) for about a week, so that put a damper on New Year Projects. But this weekend, it will really begin! 

I like starting the new year by thinking about what I want to accomplish in the year to come. I don't really think of this process as making resolutions as much as goal-setting. In 2011, I established a self-imposed sock club, in which I knit a pair of socks each month. In 2012, I set goals related to getting my home more organized. 2013 will continue the organizing trend and add a few other goals to the mix.

• Kitchen:
• Install crown molding and paint cabinets
• Reconfigure cabinet interiors (pull-out shelves)
• Get rid of our ugly circa-1972 counter stools and get new attractive ones
• Bug my dad to build the trash can cabinet I drew up plans for and gave to him ages ago.
• Front room:
• Build daybed and get rid of futon
• Find a new place for the file cabinet and/or paint it 
• Misc. Organizing:
• Tackle my closet. It's a mess. Seriously. This is a high priority, and I hope to get it done this weekend.
• Sort/weed/purge purse/bag collection. Seriously. No one needs the quantity of bags I own. 
• Label yarn stash bins.
• Cables and Wires: we really need a central location to keep these things, and a solution that allows us to easily put our hands on exactly what we need. I'm tired of wandering around the house searching for a USB cable when I want to download pictures from the camera. 
• Reading:
• Read more, and keep track of what I've read! I don't quite know what kind of measurable goal to set here. I just know I don't read as much as I'd like to. 
• Listen to one audio book each month (I joined Audible) in addition to actual reading.
• Personal Goals (in other words, make my health and myself a priority)
• Eat more healthfully. So far, I'm doing this by eliminating sugary cereals (a huge weakness for me) and taking my lunch (a big salad and cup of homemade soup) to work every day. After a week and a half, I can honestly say I feel tons better all day as a result of this change. I don't get that icky mid-afternoon energy dip like I used to when I'd eat Apple Jacks for breakfast and a burger or pizza for lunch. And, my craving for candy during the afternoons is almost completely gone. I keep a box of granola bars in my office in case I get a little munchy around 3 or 4. For some reason this feels completely different than anything I've ever done before. I don't know if it's the attitude with which I'm approaching it or what. But something is working. I'm not looking at this as a diet. Maybe that's the difference?
• Move. Seriously. Forget about losing weight, although that would be awesome. Just move. Go for a walk. Use the elliptical machine for 10 or 15 minutes before hopping in the shower in the morning, and maybe another 10 or 15 minutes in the evening. Whatever. I just need to get off my ass.
• Knitting/Crafting:
• Spin more. At least one evening a week--Mondays? Wednesdays? I need to establish a specific day. I bought a chair last week to make this an easier goal to meet.  Still need to move my wheel downstairs. 
• Knit more from my stash. This is NOT a stash diet. I'm not going to limit my purchasing. That's just silly talk. But, I do have some really nice yarns in my stash that have been speaking to me. How about this goal: Six projects this year knit from yarns that have been in my stash at least a year (relative to the date the project is started).
• Sew some more project bags. (Yes, I realize this seems in direct contradiction to the bag weeding project mentioned above, but it's really not. Here, I'm talking about small project bags for carrying knitting projects in my purse. One can never have too many project bags.)

I think that's probably a sufficient specific list for now. What are your goals for 2013?


I'll leave you with a picture of Diego enjoying the chair I bought last week

Done! And Happy Holidays!

First things first: I managed to finish my NaKniSweMo sweater on the morning of November 25. It was blocked and I was wearing it on November 29.

I'm pretty happy with it. Is it my favorite sweater? No. But I'll definitely wear it. I have a khaki dress I think will go perfectly with it.

So, then I blinked my eyes and it was suddenly December. What the heck?! When did that happen? 

As I have mentioned before, Purdue does a little thing called "24-hour Library" during prep week and exam week every semester. If you follow that link, you'll see what I accomplished during Spring 24-hour Library. In December, it's a great opportunity to get caught up on (or actually start...) Christmas knitting. This year, I am only knitting for two people: my daughter and my niece, Chloe. 

Tori fell in love with the Tank Girl Socks in the book "Knits for Nerds." She doesn't have any idea who Tank Girl is, but she loves the socks. So, I shall accommodate. 

That picture was taken yesterday morning around 4:30 am. By 8am this morning, they looked like this:

(That isn't really blue, it's more of a turquoise. And, now that I'm looking at the picture, I wish I'd have made the stripes mirror images...oh well.) If you are a knitter and you've actually seen the pattern, you'll notice that I'm not really following it at all, except that I'm using their charts. These socks are toe-up. The pattern is written for top-down. I'm knitting these using Cat Bordhi's Riverbed Master Pattern as the basic sock and inserting the color chart from the Tank Girl socks. The yarn is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport. I was limited to stock on hand at River Knits because I didn't want to wait for something to be ordered. As a result, there's no green, but I substituted orange, which I'm perfectly happy with. So far, so good! 

Chloe, on the other hand, is seven years old. She has an American Girl type of doll that she just LOVES. So, I'm going to make matching sweaters for her and her doll. I did the same thing last year for my other niece, Abby. Her reaction was amazing. You'd have thought she'd died and gone to heaven while riding a unicorn on a rainbow ramp. 

I'm going to use the same patterns (February Lady, adapted for a child's size, and February Doll Sweater). Chloe's favorite colors are Pink and Purple, so I'll be using those instead of green and blue. Abby's sweater took me 5 days, and the doll sweater took about 2 days. So, I don't feel too bad waiting to start them until the socks are done. 

Are you making any Christmas gifts? I think it would be really fun to do a Handmade Christmas one year, where all the gifts are (what else?) hand made. Of course, I thought of this around Halloween, which really doesn't give enough time for that kind of thing. Maybe next year.... but we'll need to make the decision in January, I think.