Randomness

I've had a rather random week...so you end up with a random pictureless post.

• Knitted Rings: Someone gave me the Knitting Pattern A Day Calendar for Christmas. It was a very nice gift, I just wish that the calendar didn't use two days per pattern. It kind of kills it for me. A lot of the big patterns are things that are kind of too suburban for me and just not my style, but I have found some decent patterns so far. I dogear them and then I'll take them out and throw the rest away after the year's over. Well, this week (or maybe last week, since I was away from my office for a couple days I didn't keep up with it as well as I normally do) I saw a pattern for knitted rings. Like, for your fingers. Very novel. there were buttons on them. This seems like an AWESOME stash busting idea. So, you get a Tangled Yoke Cardigan done and you have an extra button? Voila, matching ring!


• The Joy of Knitting Tattoos: I was at a luncheon today with a bunch of people in the publishing industry that I didn't know. I was sitting next to a delightful woman from the New York Times (I have no idea what division, more than likely the advertising one since it was a publishing advertising luncheon) who upon noticing my tattoo asked if I knit. I said I do, and she and another person from another company and I started talking about knitting, Ravelry, Flickr all of it. It was awesome and a great way to break the ice!


• I finally got some moo cards of my own!


• I'm knitting a really adorable frog for a friend's birthday. She found the pattern on etsy. If you're on ravelry, I just added it to my projects, you can click on it through there to find the pattern. It's my first time using Manos del Uruguay. I love the acid green color and I really like the way it's knitting up. It's kinda inspiring me to knit a pair of mittens out of it.


• I finished one of the Cat Bordhi Sky Master Noro Socks. I kinda feel like it's a little too small, but hopefully that won't be a big deal. Also, I ended in the same color I began, so maybe this pair will match! I'll get a photo of the first one soon.


• Also, I almost forgot! Smitten w/Knittin snagged me my sock yarn that I ordered from Annie's! They sold my first order which is pretty upsetting, but at least they more often than not have what I'm looking for when I go there, which is more than I can say for some other knitting stores... Sorry to be snarky, I'm just quite upset about a few things my old favorite LYS has been doing/done recently. That sock yarn will be used for the Over the Knee Stockings take two.


• Also, also, Smittin w/Knittin and I are thinking of knitting exclusively socks and seeing who can knit the most socks between the beginning of July and the end of August. It might be a bit unfair given that I have a lot of travelling planned for those months which is prime knitting time (not to mention Burning Man 08 which is just like a massive time to knit like no other provided I pick up some bamboo cotton yarn). Just curious. If you were going to do something like this, would you set any ground rules, and if so, what would they be?

Well, that's just about all we've got here chez PassionKNITly.

Fresh Ink!

by Agustin at Sacred Tattoo on B'way in NYC. It's about 1-1/2" x 2" on the inside of my left wrist.

It's so rad! It looks 20x better than the cartoony drawing I was working from! Thanks so much to the NYC SNB gals to helped to make it possible!!! Hope you kids like it!!

Why my SNB is the best out there

I love my SNB guys and gals. Seriously, they're amazing.

Tuesday night Adina Klein (I have no idea how to spell that, my issue of VK is in the other room, and the VK website is down) came to our SNB and did a bit of a run through of what's in this issue of the magazine. A few of us got to try on some stuff. Here's a quick look:


Jessaymn models one of the 25th anniversary scarves (I think this is actually the cover project)


Isn't she fabulous!!?? We even managed to get one of our other fancy gals to try on a little glitter!



I tried on a DKNY ski sweater that I've decided I must knit. Excuse the squinty face, but its really a happy squinty face!!



It was so very comfortable, oversized, and knit with Lions Brand Cashmere Blend. I"m not a huge Lions Brand fan...but this yarn was SUPER comfortable, SUPER warm and just super all around. Really made me change what I think about Lions Brand, and if I can't find anything suitable at Rhinebeck to knit this sweater out of, I might even buy some Lions Brand Cashmere Blend for it!

After the VK showcase, we all chatted. There were so many SNBers there! Michelle came for the night, and we've been seeing less and less of Heather! It was awesome to see everyone! On monday, in a fit of excitement I emailed my SNB gals that I'm getting that knitting tattoo I've been talking about for months! I made the appointment for Saturday and decided it was going to be an early birthday gift for myself. Well, on tuesday they all got together and decided to buy my tattoo for me!!! Now, not only will the tattoo have the meaning of my passion for knitting, but it will also be a constant reminder of my SNB gals and how much they all mean to me!!! How awesome are these folks!?!? Seriously, I know I've thanked you all a million times, but I love you all thank you so much!!!

Here's a shot of the card they all signed (isn't it just adorable and awesome!!??) alongside a nifty coin bank my roommate picked up at a quirky store in Jersey.


The smaller print on the tin says "Is wool your dirty little secret too?" There's a woman on the side saying "I need half a gram of wool and quick! I'm starting to come down..." and there's a warning on the other side that "sharing knitting needles can be hazardous to your health" It's so awesome!

Getting back to the tattoo: when I got to the studio on Monday, the dude took a quick glance at the pages of my notebook and said "oh, a knitting tattoo!" There wasn't even really all that much knitting related on it, just a few sketches of balls of yarn, but it was a good sign. When we were talking about when to do it, he suggested a day, i was busy, I suggested a day, he was busy, and then I was like, "well...the weekend after that I'm actually headed to a knitting thing, so it can't be then" and he was like, "well, you've got to get it done before then!" I'm so excited and curious to see what he did with the drawing I gave him. I'll be sure to post photos as soon as I get them!

I had to rip back the Berkshire pullover twice, so I'm on attempt number three. The first one was way too small, the second one was way too big, and this one looks rather on target.

Jack Sparrow's Favorite Socks are about halfway through the faire Isle on the second sock. It hasn't been knitted as much because of the Berkshire pullover. They're so close to completion and will probably be done sometime next weekend.

Overheard In A Yarn shop continues... It's only been around for a week and it seems to be getting a decent number of hits a day. I didn't post tonight cause I've been working on this blog and to be frank, I didn't get any submissions to use. I realize that I seriously need to get the point out. Kimmy mentioned that I should get a contest of some sort. I should find some local or smallish yarn company trying to get its start, get them to donate a prize or two and get the word out. I'm, frankly, thinking this could be a great opportunity to get a good banner and button...I just need to do a bit of research, which I'll do when I get down to it, but I've got a lot of stuff going on, what with the birthday and going to Rhode Island and all that jazz. Looking for smaller yarn folk might be kinda fun though!

Anyway, I desperately need submissions, so keep your ears open, blog about it etc. Submissions can be sent to overheardinayarnsop(at)gmail(dot)com. It's really only going to be as awesome as the submissions allow, and there's only so many times I can post crazy hearings or - worse - my own mutterings at The Point before I even end up getting bored!

Hoping to tide you over for just a little longer...

I'm so almost done with Icarus. I've got three more rows to do before I CO. I haven't taken any photos of it because it seriously looks like just a blue blob of laceweight alpaca. It's extremely soft though. The idea was to complete it before I head to Burning Man on August 24th. That way, it'll have enough time to block on my bed before I come back.

So until then, I've got some more tattoo ideas! I decided the tattoo's going to be my gift to myself for my birthday towards the end of September. Here's all the ideas I had:


Those are all the ideas I sketched up. Two of those really stand out in my mind as to what I want...that random piece of paper over there on the left, the cable that looks like a knit stitch. That's the image I want to go around my left wrist.

If they seriously can't do that (I've been told that it's impossible, but I really don't believe them, below is the other option


I'm toying with the idea of having the banner there or leaving it off, based on the fact that I'm not sure exactly what I want it to say. I want the ball to be a color too, but I'm not sure if I want it to be a red or a purple...maybe even green.

So what do you think?

Protection

This is what happens when you take a magazine around with you everywhere for about a year. If you're a hardcore IK fan, you'll realize that this is the issue with Icarus and the Wedgewood blouse in it. If you're a fan (or let's face it, at this point a casual glancer) of my blog, you'll remember I'm knitting one of these projects, and have finished one of these projects. Icarus is really the reason this issue has traveled with me so much. Even though I copied the charts and was pretty sure of how everything was going to go down, I still felt as though I needed the security the pattern in the magazine afforded (I can be really silly sometimes).

You can see the wreckage done to the interiors as well:


Yeah, I bought another copy of the magazine so that later, if I say, want to re-knit the Wedgewood Blouse, I have a working copy of the magazine.

The condition of this magazine inspired me to reorganize. And reorganize I did!

I took all my loose paper patterns out and put them in page protectors. I organized them all fancy like too. There's a tab for Summer, Sweaters, Socks, Kids, Home, Etc. I made it look pretty cool too:


you can't really see the knitting ball/knitting needle stamp there, but it's there and it looks really cool with the rest of it, trust me! It looks all sorts of organized from the shelf, and it actually fits on the shelf!! :)

On the tattoo front, I changed my idea a bit, I decided that I wanted a bracelet more or less of the knit stitch in a column. I brought my idea, along with a swatch (it was a pretty small swatch though, probaly close to 5 stitches to the inch) to NY Adorned on Second avenue. They told me the idea I had wouldn't translate into a good tattoo because the lines I'd want are too close together. I kinda think this is sorta BS since the idea i have is fairly simple. I think if I'd brought a much larger swatch, it might have swayed him. Right now, however, I'm still looking for good ideas, so if you see any hot knitting tattoos, drop me a line!

What do you kids think of this?

That's just about the size i want it to be. It's small enough to be covered by my watch, which is important cause it'll be on my wrist.

The dangers of Ravelry

Not only will Ravelry suck a lot of your time starting it up and getting yourself organized, uploading your books, adding in all your photos for your projects, adding your stash, finding friends on it, etc. But, the friends you find on Ravelry will more than likely add blogs to your list - adding time to your normal blog regiment (not necessarily a negative thing).

Also, if you're like me, you'll be inpsired by tons of other things too...like this for example:


Combining this with watching Miami Ink for two hours on Tuesday, and I'm all sorts of ready for a new one!