Time to think

I was going to go run 17 miles today. Well, it was humid. I felt like crap. And I figured that if you can hear yourself breathe over the music, it is probably not a good sign. So instead I walked 17 miles. I had a lot of time to think. What did I think about?
- The Garden Variety Collection of shawls led me to this blog. I decided to start from the beginning. I came to this post and stopped short. It's a sunflower wreath! The thing is, I've been wanting to make a beaded sunflower wreath. I have a fall berry wreath. I need a wreath for the other 3 seasons! Perfect inspiration. So I worked out how to do the lavender. I've worked out how to do the small sunflowers. I've got an idea on the leaves to do for the wreath. I'm thinking of doing a 3 class set. One for lavender, one for sunflower, one for the wreath. You can pick however many classes you want.
- Work related...I worked out how to start going down a new path for a dialer. I did manage to enforce my self imposed rule of not working outside of the usual hours unless absolutely necessary.
- At knitting, Lisa mentioned she wanted to do the Swallowtail Shawl but as a stole cuz she didn't do the whole triangular shawl thing. Of course, that was like throwing down a challenge for me. The only reason I never truly got into knitted lace design was because I've got too many other damn things to do. However, you want me to modify lace, hell yes, that sounds like fun. So I've been obsessed with this thought and the need to start swatching....even though I have plenty of holiday knitting to get through, Nutkin to finish, and the Maple Leaf Shawl to finish up before the Just Our Yarns trunk show at Bead Obsessions in November.

Compliments

I like compliments. Last weekend, Beth told me of an incident with her mom's orchid. Beth had commissioned a beaded orchid from me last year to give to her mother as a birthday present. Her mother loves orchids. There's a table in her house on which she likes to keep a flowering orchid. When the real ones are bare of flowers, she puts the beaded one out. One day, a friend of hers came over. This friend was also an orchid lover. He saw the orchid sitting on the table and exclaimed "You didn't get that one from me!" She told him to go look at it up close and ta da! No she did not get that one from him.
As a designer, I like hearing that. It means I'm doing something right. I'm not one for abstract flowers. I like to try to stick as close to the real thing as I can.

Whee!

Holiday knitting is moving along. Holiday scarf #1 - one skein down, 2 more to go. Whoo hoo!

Lace Ribbon Scarf

Lace Ribbon Scarf
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

I had sworn off scarves a couple of years ago because it was a never ending repeat. I guess I'm just in need of mindless knitting to do. In combination with short pattern repeats, it's just enough to keep my attention focused. This is coming along and I'm finding that I don't mind knitting it through.

Are you f-ing kidding me?

I am trying to work on the class piece for a new class. I'm making use of those peyote stars. I'm trying to get this into the shop by Oct 1. Well...Thursday night, I start. When I went to trim the tail ends with my thread zapper, the zapper was a little over heated and zapped not only the thread I was trying to trim but thread holding in a row of peyote stitch. I put it aside and go back to my knitting and call it a night. Friday night, I pull apart the previous night's work and start over again with my thread. First a bead snaps from the tension, then another. Finally the thread snaps. Mother f-er. Again, I put it down, pick up some knitting and eventually fall asleep on the couch and call it a night. This afternoon, I've napped and eaten after my run. I settle in and first pull apart the work I did yesterday. I start again on yet another piece of thread. As I'm working through, a bead cracks. I continue. The thread breaks, AGAIN! Seriously, are you f-ing kidding me?

Sahara

I finished. I like bamboo. It's soft.

People are evil

People are evil, taunting me with their yarn. As it is, I probably don't have time to knit through what I need to knit through before the end of this year and therefore, I should not buy more yarn. But of course, evil people are there taunting me with their stores and pictures and blog posts.
Exhibit A: Spritely Goods. I bought a skein of sock yarn from Cloverhill Yarns at MD S&W. I keep thinking about it and I wandered back to the online shop today and can't stop thinking about the yarns. I want some of the to be retired colorways.
Exhibit B: mmmm, green. That is a really awesome shade of green and everytime I see it, I want to go buy some.
Exibit C: F'ing Malabrigo on sale Thanks a lot, just what I need to look at. At least I'm getting good at practicing the art of resisting. However, I think my goal for the fall yarn shopping season is to just buy sweaters worth of Malabrigo. I'll sell off whatever I don't use.

Wash and Block!

Sahara is done. It turns out I didn't need the extra 3 skeins of Be Sweet Bamboo I had bought so I'm going to return those this week. I'll post pictures once this is blocked. I'm hoping that the bamboo does ease out a bit cuz it's at about 0 ease right now.

Why I love beads

In certain lights, the mix of colors is just amazing. These pictures were taken with the purpose of documenting some floral assembly. I'm not going to be using these but I just had to share.

When I make my own...

I will be using larger needles. These are 2.25mm. Those are so not going to work for my hands. When I separated the thumb, my hand feels compressed with these. Eunny either has tiny hands...or she knits loose. Or my gauge is off.

French Beaded Hyacinth

French Beaded Hyacinth
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

And now the pattern writing "fun" begins.

Open flowers, closed flowers, leaves. A bulb and yes, even some beaded roots. I've always had a fascination with beaded bulbs.

Purling...Be (Not) Sweet Bamboo

So Sahara. Knit in the Be Sweet Bamboo. It's nice to work with...when I'm knitting. I'm not liking the purling so much. I really have to pay attention so that I'm not splitting the yarn. Boo!

Design Shop

I've moved my design shop. You could say that I've finally just admitted to myself that I don't want to maintain a website in my spare time because I already spend 9 hours a day, 5 days a week doing that. So, you will now find it here. I've also updated the link over on the side.

Lazy Weekend

Yeah, I used the excuse of the storm yesterday to hide out at home. It was nice. Friday night, I started in on my Christmas knitting. I'm making multiple pairs of the Anemoi Mittens by Eunny Jang. I'm using size 1 (1.25mm) needles and it's a bitch. I'm limiting myself to about 10 rows a day so that I don't kill my hands. My progress so far:

The back of the right mitten

The palm of the right mitten.

It's true, the corrugated rib makes the ribbing quite unstretchy. I can barely get it on my own hand. Good thing that the person this is for has smaller hands than me. Well, she is of a smaller stature so I sure as hell hope her hands are smaller than mine.

It's good to know that it fits!

This is Sahara, knit in Be Sweet Bamboo. It's the first time I've tried it on and I'm glad it fits! My gauge was knitting slightly smaller than what was required but I figured it's not that bad and it's bamboo and it should stretch. Hope to finish it soon, along with the hyacinth. I'm stuck on the hyacinth cuz I ran out of the beads I need and I don't know where the other tube is. Doh!

Marathon running

It's amazing to watch the Olympics and the worlds top marathoners run. I watched the women last week and now the men. After an hour and 40 minutes, the men were somewhere around mile 21. For some perspective...I did 8 miles in about 1 hr 36 minutes. Yeah...I'm slow. I am happy that now that I've now seriously picked back up with the marathon training (really late in the summer), I'm back at the 12 min/mile form of last year. Whee! There is a bit of pressure. I managed to pick up a transfer entry into the Marine Corps Marathon for this year so I'll be doing that at the end of October. In addition, I'll be hitting up Memphis at the beginning of December. Yes, I'm already looking forward the greasy burgers I will be eating for dinner after both races.

Oh, and I really hate all the metro maintenance on the weekends. I was at the Braddock St. metro and was trying to get back to Rosslyn. After the Pentagon stop, I just went "Why is the train crossing the river??? It's not supposed to cross the river!!! OH SHIT!" So that kinda messed with my plans for the afternoon and didn't get to my nap until just after dinner.

Next week, we go for 10 miles and a long nap on the couch.

Finished nightie!

I decided the picture doesn't show THAT much...

But it's done. I haven't blocked it yet, but it's done. It is quite comfy. I really may have to take the balls of lavendar GGH Silk that I have and make a nightie out of that one!

Things people do while watching the Olympics

The second picture gives you an idea of scale. I was hoping to do this as a class next quarter.

It's becoming a habit

Where I have a lot of pictureless posts and then all of a sudden, I throw up some pictures of projects in progress or finished projects. So, here we go. First up a work in progress. Here are the Nutkin socks and yes, they actually fit now!


And then a nightgown. Those straps you see are my bra. I've weaved in all the ends. I just need to go pick up some black bra straps and sew them on. No, I can not wear this as a strapless dress. That fuzzy fuchsia section up top is looser than the black silk part so the top falls down.


Finally, the hyacinth. Now I have to start in on the next one and get some pictures for the instructions for class but at least I can finally bring this into Bead Obsessions.

Yes, that is a bulb and yes those are some roots.

Nightgown

Well...I'm about the join the last ball of yarn. I sure as hell hope I've got enough. I'm about to start in on the chest increases. What I might do is find an accent yarn to do the upper lace border. Let's see what happens.

I have moved on from obsessively watching NHL playoffs to obsessively watching the Tour de France to obsessively watching the Olympics. It has been a good sports year.