Monthly Archives: January 2011

January 27, 2011 · 10:19 pm

Three thoughts

Have you run across this book?

It came out last year and I never ran across it until I was browsing through the latest at my library. I was smitten with the cover so I took a look and realized three things:

1. I was really, really excited about knitting these socks. They are thick and warm and up to your knees with beautiful colorwork and stitch patterns. They look warm. Did I say warm? They look really, really warm.

2. Unless you live in a state that borders Canada (like myself) or if of course you live in Canada, or have family in such a situation, you will have absolutely no use for this book.

3. The stylist must have fallen and hit his/her head before planning these photo shoots, because no normal person would make a guy tuck his pants into his socks, especially green pants with white socks and black hightops. If you don’t meet requirement #2 above, I recommend checking this out from the library just to see the poor guy with his tucked in socks.

That said, if you had to pick a favorite sock book today, what would it be?

4 Comments

Filed under books, socks

Tagged as postaweek2011

January 19, 2011 · 11:09 pm

I am easily distracted

So after my last post and a bit of thinking, I realized that despite the busyness, I want to be posting more. I want to be writing more and I miss it. I thought about this challenge:

I can handle that. It doesn’t even need to be anything big, right?

Right.

Then, two things happened:

1. I watched Twilight for the first time, and decided I needed to read the books.

2. I bought a shiny new Nook Color with my Christmas money, enabling me to buy all the Twilight books, one right after the other. For example……while I’m ~~hiding in the kitchen reading~~ cooking dinner or when I’m staying up until ~~1:30 in the morning~~ 10pm.

Needless to say, I was done for and spent the last week and a half with nothing but Bella and Edward on my mind. And yes, I know, not exactly the best writing in the world, but it’s a wicked story and I’m a sucker for a good romance.

So post-a-week had to wait two weeks, but now I’m seriously hoping to get a bit of focus back on this thing. No promises of course, I’ve learned at this point in my life I should commit to very little. But let’s say I’m inspired again and that is exciting. And I can at least promise not to go crackers and turn this into a Bella and Edward blog. I will stick to knitting and sewing and how to raise three boys without going crazy.*

And because I owe you a picture and a finished object:

My Ostrich Plumes shawl, finished and blocked two days before my brother’s wedding. Raveled here.

And yes, the Nook Color is awesome, and I have wasted just as much time messing around with it as I have reading.Not just for reading, it is the new knitting tool of my dreams…..every PDF I have easily carried in my knitting bag, with access to Ravelry wherever there is wifi.

*Hide from them, read cheesy vampire romance novels, and feed them cereal for dinner when they come looking for food.

9 Comments

Filed under finished objects, knitting, shawls

Tagged as KNitting 24/7, lace, ostirch plumes, postaweek2011, Veronik Avery

January 3, 2011 · 11:49 pm

2010 in review (thank you WordPress)

Apparently, WordPress wanted to remind me that I have a blog and people actually do read it. They sent me this nice little report, which reminded me that I have sort of forgot about the poor blog in the craziness of the last few months. I think this might be the longest break between posts that I’ve ever had, at least in an unannounced-fall-off-the-planet sort of way.

Last year, despite what WordPress says, I was a bit lame in my blogging skills and have struggled quite a bit trying to figure out just what to do and what to write. Blogging has changed a lot in the five years I’ve been at this. This has gone from a purely project based knitting blog to a blog about my life. I never intended it to be that way, but it’s made me remember how much I like to write and how much I enjoy sharing my writing with others. And I’m always amazed that so many of you keep coming back to read, whether it’s because you like what I’m making or you like what ridiculous thing my boys have done lately. Perhaps both?

Then there is the whole time factor thing. I seem to have fewer and fewer hours in the day, and more and more that I want to do. And I will guiltily admit that Facebook keeps stealing my blog posts; funny stories with pictures meant to be blogged turn into quick, one sentence musings while the onions fry on the stove and a little boy screams “Mooommmmm!!!” Not enough hours in a day, and so much that I want to do.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Last year I often thought that I should just hang it up, call it a good five years and be done with it this blog. But, I still like writing it and I still have readers. And just like all the other things I love to do, I’d rather dip my toes into a bit of everything right now than give something up. So this will be the year of random accomplishments for me. I’ll sew when I feel like sewing, knit when I want to knit, spin when I want to spin and blog when I want to blog. That means I’m not going to worry so much that I don’t post every week anymore. If I show up here once a month, that’s fine. If it’s more, that’s fine too. I’ll keep sharing what I’m making as well as what the boys are breaking. (The coffee table this week, in case you’re wondering!)

Thanks for reading and happy 2011!! I do have lots of FO to show off from the last two months, but I’ll save that for the next post. In the meantime, enjoy the wacky WordPress stats, and if anyone can tell me what astrakhan.nigella is I’d be much obliged, as it doesn’t ring a bell.

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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 9,000 times in 2010. That’s about 22 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 38 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 395 posts. There were 16 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 4mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was January 6th with 368 views. The most popular post that day was Twelve Years.