Saturday, June 18, 2011

Reelin' in the stash.

I cannot believe I am so behind on blogging. Well, okay, I can believe it—mostly because I am behind EVERYWHERE. My work blog, my personal blog, my knitting blog. Behind, behind, BEHIND. The good news is that I haven't stopped knitting; I've actually been working hard at getting some pieces done (yes, the cardigan redux is complete! w00t!), but I seem to have gotten stuck somewhere. I think it's because my Ravelry stashing is in ruins. I've done quite a bit of adding to the coveted stash, but I haven't documented it—no pictures, no entries, no nuttin'. And of course, that makes it tough to add a new project in Ravelry and link it to my (non-existent) stash entry.

See how this goes?

Also, JoeCollege is back from school for the summer and has taken residence downstairs in my workroom. His summer job has him working nights stocking shelves at Walmart, so during the day he is downstairs hibernating RIGHT NEXT TO MY STASH. Do you know how difficult it is to play with my yarnporn when there is a growly teen next to it? And now when I feel empowered to actually update it, I know I'm missing significant additions and I can't go down there because the petulant night stalker—errr, stocker—will growl at me so really, what's the use?

Grrr. Aaargh. (And we'll speak of that later.)

So now I'm surfacing from a particularly hectic week of conferencing, followed by a particularly nasty bout with bronchitis, and I'm feeling like I might make a tender stab at rectifying the horrific situation that is my Ravelry stash. Oh, all you knitters that keep asking me about my yarn; some of this is already long gone, just not updated. My bad.

But I'll see what I can do.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Knitpistolwhipped at the Grange Fair.

After the runaway success of last year's Grange Fair knitting competition, the Knitpistols were on a submission frenzy this year. I had finally agreed to enter some of my things (well, okay, almost everything I've knitted that turned out half decently) and even got our paperwork hand delivered on time. Wexlermoon and Unraveling were set as well with their incredible horde of apparel, pillows, and little birds. Really, I am continually in awe of their expertise. I myself was putting in my green Wisp, my sister's Noro scarf, my Wisteria scarf and matching Aspen hat, one of the twin's baby leaf hats and booties, and my Rose Brown hat. Sadly, the cotton tweed cardigan I was working on did not get finished in time, so I was going without on that submission. Had that been the only disappointment of the event.

Opening day arrives, and we caravan to the Grange to submit our knitted pieces at the proper building. That's where the drama begins. We go first to the submission table, but are told to go get our paperwork and tags from the other end of the building. So we grab our paperwork and work our way back to the submission table. Upon further examination, we realize there are only about half the tags for the number of items we actually entered. It appears we've each got a single entry tag for each general category classification and we all have multiple submissions in several categories. So the women at the submission table tell us to take our tags back and explain our problem to the women at the paperwork table so that they can correct it, and we dutifully trudge back to the table to show them the error of their ways. THIS, my friends, is where we learn of the existence of the unwritten, unspoken rule I like to call the Invisible Knitpistol Clause. Because we are told at the paperwork table that we are not allowed to submit more than one item for any category classification. Not having entered last year, I cannot speak to this firsthand and decided to stay in the background, because I was with two knitpistols who knew their entry regulations backwards and forwards. (For the record, the 40+ page rules handbook states that each item can only be submitted in a single category, but nowhere does it state that submissions are limited to only one item per category.)  Let me grace you with a brief snippet of the exchange:
"Hi. We're missing some of our submission tags." 
"Ah. I need to speak with you over here." 
"Is there a problem?" 
"No, but you can only submit one item per category." 
"Really? Where does it say that in the rule book?" 
"It doesn't." 
"Well, we did it last year." 
"No, you didn't." 
"Really? Because we did. I still have all my submission tags and can show you if you'd like." 
"No, you didn't. I've worked this for 18 years, and we've never allowed multiple entries in a category." 
"I'm sorry, where is this in the rule book?" 
"It isn't there."

You get the gist here. So we took our limited options and returned to the other side of the building to the sympathetic women who couldn't do anything about it, and picked out what we hoped would be the best of the best of what we had to enter. As we waited for them to process our items, we looked over the other entries and I felt somewhat confident. But hey, what is it they say? Pride always goes before the fall? Yep. That's the one.

Fast forward to Saturday. I was busy moving TheDude into his freshman dorm room at Lock Haven University, but noticed Wexlermoon checked into the Grange Fair and so I kept an eye out for entry updates, but Twitter was suspiciously quiet. Finally unable to wait any longer, I tweeted that I was waiting for Grange knit updates, and only got the following response from Audrey:

"Yeah about that... you should give @wexlermoon a call. She is the one who is at #grange."

If you can't read between the lines, let me help you here. Decoded, that reads:

"Yeah about that... you should give @wexlermoon a call. We got fucked."

So it turns out that the Invisible Knitpistol Clause also extends into the competition itself. Some stuff placed, but it was disappointing, and clearly they were determined not to have the wrong side of the valley take over the competition this year. Do I think Audrey and Hannah got gypped? Definitely. As for me, apparently my three items placed in second or third, but my stuff really wasn't that intricate (except, now that I think about it, for Rose Brown. That lacework shit was hard). Do I really care about the Grange? No, not really. Yes, it's a competition, but clearly the BlueHairs got their perms in a snit, and cold cocked us with our own knitpistols to protect their territory. I don't think we're looking for a turf war, quite simply because I couldn't give a crap about the fair. I don't think the quality is there, so I don't think it's a realistic comparison. Let the BlueHairs have their acrylic granny squares, and I'll take the mohair and alpaca and luscious natural fibers and atypically beautiful and intricate designs.

Fuck 'em if they can't take the heat.

Friday, July 16, 2010

A kick butt slogan.


I know I've been off the radar here, but things have been rather busy in the real world. However I *have* been knitting. Honest. And I promise I'll update soon--both Ravelry and blog. I've simply been blogging so much for work (among other things) that I'm a tad tired of listening to myself jabber on and on. But I thought this would help. I mean, srsly, how can knitters not rock this kind of motto?

Squee!!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tattoo you.


creative commons flickr image by new_sox
I'm starting to worry about myself. Lately I've been seeing more and more tattoos that cause the "Ooh, I like that. A LOT." thought to skitter across my brain. This is another one that looks funky enough to trip my knitpistol trigger. Brought to my attention by long time friend and new knitpistol fruittart, I totally dig it--especially the way the yarn wraps around her wrist to twist itself around the other needle. Didja catch that part?

Very cool.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Oh, My Giddy Aunt!

So today I sat down to do some stash updating and attending to my Ravelry account, and look at what my inbox had in it:



Holy smokes!!! They like my mobius so much that they want to put it on the Life Is Uneven Cowl Ravelry page??!!!? That's so ... INCREDIBLE! Not to mention unreal. And right, like I'm not gonna approve this request? You have GOT to be freaking KIDDING ME. Approve! Approve! Approve!

This is what I get for channeling Audrey. :) w00t!

Friday, April 9, 2010

Once more into the yarnporn.

I have something to confess: I have been studiously ignoring my Ravelry account. Ever since Ravelympics, I have been so burned out on maintenance that I've been afraid to go back in. There's still seven messages in my queue, which are full of Ravelympic badges that I won for all the work I did, but that three week push just did me in. I know it sounds pathetic. But it's taken over a month to gather the strength to go back in and start cleaning up, putting things into place, organizing new stash items (and even moving some to the "Will sell or trade" category, believe it or not), and just generally wading back into the waters of yarnporn. Yarn that has been sitting in limbo is now getting pulled out and pictures taken, and the time has come to upload and update the stash.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

....And on the Nth Day, Robin Rested.

It is done.

The Noro scarf for my sister is finished. And it is beautiful. I know that several of my posts here were a little frustrated, but it was more with my learning curve, and much less with the scarf itself. I've learned a lot:
  • How to create a neat, finished, slip stitch selvedge
  • How to finish the edge of a 1x1 rib so it doesn't look wavy
  • How to get around Noro's occasional sudden color change by knot
  • When to tell that the color play really needs to be pulled out and fixed. Clearly, the more contrast, the better the scarf.