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Showing posts from 2013

the sock conflict

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i'm starting to think i'm the only knitter out there in internet-land who doesn't love knitting socks. i mean, i like sock-knitting.. but it's not a love. but i keep wanting more, somehow, like i just want to have knit them and be done. i think it may be partly (or mostly) to do with the fact that i don't really like doing the same thing twice. recipes, paintings, day jobs apparently... so i do tend to prefer fraternal socks. and yet, here i am with twenty-two sock patterns on my ravelry queue. some, since 2007. i need to get a grip on reality. why must the call of self-striping sock yarns be so strong? i've been thinking of this lately because of these . i found some lovely coffee-colored yarn on etsy to make a little something for my lovely coffee-fiend boyfriend. i had intended to start & finish them in a couple weeks before his birthday this spring. that didn't happen. fine, i thought. plenty of time for a christmas gift. ri

knitting in november

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so much to be done. every year (every. single. year.) i say that i will start gift knitting in july. this has never happened. this year, at least, i have about half a sock going for the boyfriend (but really this is only because i was trying for his birthday earlier in the year..). though now i am feeling drawn in to all these november knit-a-longs going on. could i do it all?? there's wovember of course, where you knit with nothing but 100% wool for the entire month. this sounds excellent, but i tend to use blends and machine-washable fibers when making stuff for other people. aww. and then there's naknitswemo , in which, much like nanowrimo, you must knit a 50,000 stitch sweater within the month of november. this i could do! i have some handspun intended for a sweater, and a pattern lined up for it. however... there's also the indie design gift-a-long , which would be great gift knitting encouragement. but can i do that and knit a sweater at the same time

skoodlet in progress

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hello october! my favorite month. (: so at long last i have started the skoodlet . i'm a big fan of leethal 's stuff - fun thinky knitting! i've only had this yarn balled up and ready to go for skoodlet since the summer. erm, of 2011. anyway. after a few false starts, it zoomed along until i realized that, tragically, i had underestimated the amount of yarn i would need. daaaaamn. good thing i waited two years to cast on so there's no way i'll be able to find some from a matching dyelot, right?? sigh. i actually only have part of the scarf bit left to go, so a single skein should do it. i found someone destashing some on ravelry, so i sent out a message to her today.. fingers crossed!

summer's end

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the dreaded time of year.. the end of summer. bah. we did okay though... june: 1. outdoor concert at waterplace park in providence. 2. at the beach in matunuck, ri. 3. sunset. july: 4. the columbus theatre on broadway in providence. 5. the newport folk festival. august: 6. the zipper, at the washington county fair. 7. cape cod seashells. 8. gondola rides during waterfire. 9. the end. im memory: an end of summer treasury. i'll get over it soon enough.

on knitting with art yarn: a cowl recipe

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so what i wanted was to knit with some handspun. i also wanted one of those scarf-type things that you wear around your neck like a cowl, and can pull up over your head like a hood. this did not end up to be one of those things. just means there's more knitting to do, is all. never a bad thing. but i got to knit some handspun, and really, this is something that one just needs to do that every so often. there's something that feels more real and dirty about it, you know? in the best possible way. lumps and fluffs and lanolin, a bit of hay every so often. real life, real yarn. i had a particular skein picked out. a big reason for it being that it has been in my stash for so so so long. embarrassingly long. years. i was never quite sure how to do it justice. now was the time. after much swatching, i found that the best stitch pattern for this would be.. garter. just garter stitch. on big needles, for some nice drape. but it wouldn't really look, or stret

wordless weekend

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new handspun. inspired by the random yarn generator : (on ravelry ) merino top dyed by play at life fiber arts : (on ravelry ) okay, almost wordless.

wordless wednesday: works in progress

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digging

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so since google reader is going away very soon (boo!), i have been sorting through old things. it just occurred to me that i might be losing all my starred stuff from way back that i still haven't gotten around to re-reading. pages and pages of stuff, going back to 2008. sigh.. some were just for lulz . others are articles and things i'm glad i saved. share? a lot of stuff about becoming "unstuck".. getting out of creative slumps . and havi brooks' post on asking why that i wish i remembered more often. also, why don't i have an artist statement ? (not that i show anyone my "art"...) and tons of crafty tutorials , but i guess that goes without saying. i was also reminded.. should i be using evernote? because it seems like everyone is. hmm. so i've switched over to feedly , and i'm liking it so far. nice clean interface, and it has an iphone app. works for me! and i've discovered today that my stars will be comin

so, the new flickr...

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yeah, so i'm not so sure how i feel about this flickr redesign. really not a fan of all these huge images running into each other and taking over the screen. space, please! also annoying is the fact that they seem to be beta-testing it on all of us, with all the bugs i keep running into. sigh. maybe it just needs some getting used to... i've been there since 2006, so i'm not going to just up and run off to another site just yet. i did set up an account over at ipernity a few years ago, but i'm not nearly as active there. buuuuut i think i could fit a lot of stuff in a terabyte.... and the coolest thing so far (for me!) is getting my old photos back that had run over the photostream limit. my very first upload. it's been really interesting to see all these old forgotten photos, although some of them did make me a bit melancholy (see: shana, the college years). time for a bit of weeding out, i suppose.. coney island. maybe flickr will actu

hmm

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did i really not post in all of april? jeez. (photo by wonderlander on flickr) i'm hoping that the impending sunnier weather and things will help improve my mental block. sometimes you just feel sort of stuck, you know? damn stuckiness.

foodage

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hi. i'm shana, and i have a problem with food. well, maybe not food, so much as going out for food. well.. here's the thing. the boyfriend and i don't spend a lot of money going out. we don't go out to shows, or movies, or for drinks, or anything all that often. (and we work totally different schedules, which makes going out a little challenging!) when we do go out, we go out to eat. and we live in providence. there are a lot of options. we have good italian, indian, mexican, middle eastern.. sit-down places, take-out, food trucks.. i've been trying to cut down on my "going out to eat" spending, so i do a lot of groupon , livingsocial and restaurant.com sort of things. (it's okay if i give you my referral, right? i don't want to be rude.) still, i'm thinking we need to cut back. sigh. and with so many tasty baked goods to be had... but yeah. it's gotta be done. so, this month i must stick to my guns

last year

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2012 review via instagram. too bad i started in april or so... click for biggerness. 1. april, roger williams park in providence. 2. cupcakes (with easter chocolates inside). 3. daphne. 4. westminster st, providence. 5. may, lincoln woods in lincoln, ri. 6. friendly freckles. 7. massachusetts sheep & woolcraft fair. 8. july, bridge to prospect mountain in lake george, ny. 9. cannonball express. 10. just before seeing andrew bird at the met in pawtucket, ri. 11. september, sugarush cupcake. 12. winter squash at the farmers market. 13. october, my meager knitting of the year. 14. december, christmas candles. 15. flying to arizona. 16. a warmer christmas.