3KCBWDAY7 Crafting Balance

I knit more than I crochet.   I learned both when I was a child.  My grandmother taught me to crochet.  I had a book with different crochet stitches in it and I’d try them out.  When asked what I was making, I’d tell her I was just playing.  My mother taught me to knit not long after that.  It was a lot harder and I used to get frustrated with it.  I eventually developed my own rather odd method of knitting.   I need to learn a different method of purling, but I don’t want to (see yesterday’s entry).

My skill level with both is about the same.  I knit more because knit fabric works better for me than crocheted.  Crochet is good for things like tablecloths and 3 dimensional pieces like amigurumi.  It’s not as good for things like sweaters and socks because it tends to be thicker and less stretchy.

3KCBWDAY6 Not improving my skillset

I took a look at other peoples' posts about this.  I gave it some thought.  The bottom line for me is that I don't care that much about working specifically to improving my skillset.  There are all sorts of things that could use improving in the crafting that I do.  I'm only motivated to do them if they are already a part of something I want to do.

It probably sounds like a little kid saying "I don't want to!" when asked to do something.  It is a little childish, I guess.  The last four years of the job I'm retired from were horrible.  I was not given adequate training for a job that I wouldn't have chosen if I'd been given a choice.  Now that I don't have to do it, I avoid doing things unless I want to do them.

My existing skillset allows me to work around much of what I don't want to do.  I've been knitting and crocheting for half a century, so I've picked up a few skills here and there.  If the pattern calls for a left-handed traditional Berzerkistani cast on, I use something else.  What if it is essential to the pattern that one uses that specific cast on?  I'd only learn it if I really wanted to make the pattern.  There are so many patterns out there that I'd probably go look for a different one.

Lazy?  Maybe a little.  Unmotivated?  Maybe a lot.

3KCBWDAY5 Touched by a sheep

Touched by a sheep, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

Yarns I touched yesterday. This was random. Most are my favored colors and most are not available (one of a kind, club yarns) right now. Interesting.

3KCBWDAY4 Knitter or Crocheter For All Seasons?

I focus on making things much more than I focus on having completed objects.  I select objects to make on how much fun I will have making them rather than how much use I’ll get out of them once they are complete.  I’m so bad about this that I often completely lose interest in something once it is bound off and the ends woven in.  I’ve been obsessed with sock knitting for about 10 years and got my first set of sock blockers last week.  I can’t be bothered with blocking anything unless forced to do it.  The season does not enter into the process.

The climate/season does have a little influence.  I rarely make sweaters or scarves.  I avoid working on my epic Tardis afghan in the hottest part of the summer.  Climate in other places has an influence on what I make because new patterns appear seasonally.  I’m more likely to knit mittens in January than I am in June because I’m more likely to find a new pattern to knit in January.  The influence tends to be what’s happening in the northern hemisphere rather than the southern.  That’s partly because I live in the northern hemisphere.  I also think that there’s a bigger population of knitters in the northern hemisphere than in the southern.  I think I’ll go look at my globe and give that some thought.

3KCBWDAY3 Your Knitting or Crocheting Hero

Yum, Cookies, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

My favorite thing to knit is socks. My favorite designer of sock patterns is Cookie A. Therefore, she’s one of my knitting/crocheting heroes.
 
Cookie is in the second year of a wonderful sock club that I’ve been in from the beginning. Every other month you get two original sock patterns, two cookie recipes, and a skein of sock yarn. The yarns come from a variety of suppliers and have been uniformly excellent quality.

I’ve knit at least 25 pair of her socks. The picture shows a few of them.  The latest also gives a glimpse of my groovy new llama sock blockers.

3KCBWDAY2

I need to learn more about photographing yarn.  I can usually get a picture that’s in focus.  The problem is getting a picture that reproduces the color accurately.

When this month’s club shipment from Indigodragonfly arrived yesterday, I thought I had a good idea for an outside-the-box picture.  ::bzzzzt:: Wrong, but thanks for playing.  The colorway is Ruxpinosferatu aka Teddy Vampire.  I hauled out Chocolate Truffle and put him on the front steps with the yarn in one arm and a voodoo doll in the other.  The club shipment came with voodoo doll pins which is where I got the idea to take the voodoo doll off of the fridge.  No, I’m not into refrigerator or any other flavor of voodoo.  It’s a magnet somebody gave me in a swap.

The picture wasn’t quite what I imagined and the yarn color wasn’t even close.  Usually I get accurate colors outside.  Here’s a much better representation of the yarn color:

I'm not going to use such nice yarn for a voodoo teddy bear, which is the club project for this shipment.  Maybe there's some clown barf in my leftovers that would be appropriate.

Knitty's got a Tardis shawl

It's in the latest issue but it looks like it was added later on.  Lorna's Laces is releasing a special colorway just for the pattern.  I managed to talk myself out of buying it because a)  I have too much yarn already, b)  I don't want to spend in excess of $50 on yarn for a shawl I'm making just because it has Tardises (Tardii?) on it, c)  the yarn's not available for purchase yet.

I needed a break after completing a Cookie A sock, so I thought I'd cast it on.  It turns out that I don't have all that much appropriate yarn (solid or semisolid Tardis blue).  I grabbed The Angels Have the Phonebox from Sheepytime and worked away.  The colorway's good, but I don't think the Tardis pattern will show up.  I considered doing part of the shawl with The Angels and the rest in a solid blue, but again, nothing in my stash works with it.

Back at square one, I walked away from my knitting and logged onto the computer.  It seems that in my order all the yarn frenzy of a couple of weeks ago, I'd ordered something that looks like it'll work.  It's also from Sheepytime and is called The Oncoming Storm.  A couple of people on Ravelry have made shawls with it and patterns show up okay.

That project's all set to go once the yarn arrives.  I even have a plan to substitute little glow-in-the-dark beads for the bobbles on top of each Tardis.  No new money spent and bobbles avoided.

3KCBWDAY1

It's Knit and Crochet Blog Week Day 1 and today's topic is color.

I'm definitely a process over product knitter. This has a lot to do with the colors of yarn that I like. If I was into making garments to wear, it would all be solid/semisolid dark yarns. Yawn. I like multicolored yarn the best because it is fun to play with. If this results in a crazy flash of color when I wear a pair of socks in public, the public will have to learn to live with it.

I hadn't thought about it much before now, but it appears that color itself isn't the most important thing. It is what the color does as I work with it. I look for multicolors that will entertain me when I work with them. Pools of color can be a royal pain in a garment. I enjoy pooling when I'm making something. It's fun when I come around to a place and the colors line up and create a puddle of the the same color row after row. Self-striping yarns are fun for me, too. Shaping change the thickness of the stripes.

I did a sort by color of my Ravelry stash to see if there were any surprises. There weren't. Look at the picture in the post before this one and that tells the story. I like cool colors more than hot ones, except when I don't.

Hallelujah

regiapile, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

...it's raining ONline.

I also got my sock blockers with llamas on them and the complete (UK) series of Torchwood on DVD. Good mail day? That would be affirmative.

Stop me before I order more

Within hours of my last post where I expressed worry about the size of my stash, I ordered more yarn. I'm pretty careful with my spending in most ways. When I can indulge myself, it is usually with yarn. That's what happened. I had some surprise money and Little Knits had a sale. Sheepy Time Knits had their color of the month. I told myself that it was less than what I probably would've spent if I went to Stitches South. All was well.

Then I started reading some knitting books. I got them with gift cards so I don't feel bad about them. One had this so-cool scarf pattern that uses Noro Kureyon Sock. Aha, I thought, I've got several colors in my stash. I read the pattern more closely. It needs 2 skeins of a single colorway. WEBS has that yarn on sale, so guess what's on the way?

I'll stop. I do need one skein for a project, but it'll not stay in the house long.

The past two weeks...

...have kind of gone by in a fog and I haven't thought of posting anything. Fog has lifted a bit so I'll ramble on about what I've been up to. For Nerd Wars, I made a case for my Nintendo DS, started a Scrooge/Krachit Nightcap, finished a Brain Wave hat and a Perennial shawlette, knit a gargoyle, and finished knitting my dissertation shawl.

I'm debating with myself about doing/not doing some things. Stitches South is next week. I could go and even have some extra cash that I could use to spend, but I don't need more yarn. I'm afraid of being a candidate for one of those hoarding tv shows. I'm also thinking of dropping Nerd Wars next tournament. Or I might play as a ninja (no team affiliation). It's a great group of people, but a few are not and I don't want to deal with them.