sorry for the couple of days off there . . . just don’t have anything new. i’m feeling a lot better but have spent more time catching up on work than knitting. i’ve been doing a LOT of this
i printed, packed, and shipped over 600 patterns in the last few days; the turn of the year brought in a spate of orders for hardcopy. but we’re not complaining! bring it on.
that said, this activity does cut into the old knitting time . . . getting a very large order out the door can take a whole workday. and then some.
and then there is my poor printer, which completely dissolved into a tearful tantrum friday evening, spewing toner powder all over creation (and my patterns), just when i was feeling my worst as well (long day, still sick). and of course, rather than gently cleaning it and coaxing it back into a better mood, i had a complete meltdown over it (i have terrible appliance karma and i do not deal with appliance troubles very well any more).
poor david. he got to witness a monumental descent into the evil rage normally only seen in a two year old.
this is why he gets a handmade red sweater for christmas and i get a weather station.
(and sure enough, dammit, when i looked over at that thing somewhere in the middle of screaming at the printer, indeed, i saw clearly that it was forecasting clouds, dark skies, and precipitation. hmphf—am i THAT predictable?? the irony of it did stop me from throwing said printer through the big window though.).
this situation was not helped at all by the fact the Ugly Season is in full swing. the temperatures have risen over the weekend from single digits to highs in the 50s, and the snow coating has melted, leaving everything looking muddy and brownish-blackish in the soggy, half-hearted drizzle we’ve had all weekend. and the term dark skies doesn’t even begin to describe the light.
so that was friday. i did knit that night but i barely remember what—i think that was the night i started a pavé (AKA paris-roubaix mitts, hat, and scarf) set in this beautiful fearless fibers yarn.
i got almost a whole mitt done, but i didn’t take pictures.
and then yesterday i passed it off to debbieKnitter to finish (it was supposed to be her project to begin with, but i just needed something beautiful to hold and knit), so now i won’t have pix for a few days. i’m telling you though, this pattern is perfect in this yarn—wait til you see.
david has a HUGE house organization project underway, spurred into motion by the fact that i am going to start teaching some classes in our home.
what is supposed to be our “dining room” has long been our disaster area . . . because the path from the back door to the basement door passes through this room, it was soon designated as a dumping ground for constructions overflow and items that get stored while their respective rooms are being renovated. ever since we moved in, this room has been an eyesore, because really, underneath it all, it IS an eyesore.
it will eventually be completely gutted and renovated, and until then, we’ve been covering up the former owner’s ugliness with creatively arranged junk, which believe me, is an improvement (i refer to that guy affectionately as the faux faux finisher, because he fancies himself to have expertise in that art. trust me, he doesn’t.).
so it’s good that he’s clearing it out and making it look like a room again. it won’t really be beautiful (oh gad, you should see the wallpaper . . . and the ceiling!), but it will be spacious, which is what we need.
in the meantime, i’ve been working on a WIP/UFO sweater which has been on my needles now for just about two years. when i realized how long it has been in progress i was so ashamed. one of the problems with this ongoing project is that i had to keep ripping back on it for one reason or another. seriously, it was all the time one step forward and two steps back. and all because of fit issues due to the heavily cabled fabric.
in fact, i remembered the reason i hadn’t looked at it in a while—the sleeve needed to be ripped back for a second time, and possibly the yoke lengthened as well. fixing it did not seem like the daunting prospect it probably did six months ago, so i took it out one night last week and got to work.
this is going to be a relaxing, late-night knit. i am not going to rush, and i am not going to talk about it or photograph it til i feel good about it (somehow, i think the blogging about it has jinxed the project and brought on problems that i wouldn’t otherwise have).
but i do have a new big project to talk about in the week coming up. work has commenced on the next shawl design and my coffee table is swatch central this weekend. i’m slo-o-owly closing in on a ohesive design and body of stitches. here’s a little teaser
more next time . . . what i WISH the sky (or the ground) looked like.
31 thoughts on “i SO got nuthin’”
I’m sorry you’ve been sick! I just can’t picture you in a melt-down! You must be sick! The hat, mitts, and scarf will be awesome in the FF yarn. I can’t wait to see it. Toner?! You need to take the money from the 600 patterns and buy a laser printer. If I get near a printer or a copier, it croaks. I curse them all! I love the new secret project project already. How long do we have to wait??
I had that mood most of last week. And then we got a storm and maybe the air pressure lifted me out a bit, or more likely not being at work, and I’ve finally got a mood today other than “go away and leave me alone under the covers.” That’s not as hard a mood to be in at work as I would’ve thought.
Griping aside – it will be so nice to have the dining room cleared out! (I think every room in my house has a corner or two like that.)
May Monday be a good Monday.
Oh! A new shawl! (You know how excited that makes me.) That sounds like the perfect antidote for the horrible winter weather. Brown is so not fun at all.
I love that FF yarn! Is it the right weight for the zigzag mittens, do you think? I may just have to get myself some 🙂 Feel better soon!
Drats on the printer. I completely relate to the melt down.
Take great care and feel better soon :^)
Ah, Anne, I so share your printer woes! I discovered yesterday that apparently, printers do NOT like spinning fibre getting caught up in their mechanism– in trying to pull out the fibre, I broke the printer…right in the middle of shipping orders! Thankfully, I had an extra printer…
Six Hundred Patterns !!! That is a lot of stacking and stuffing.
That’s nuthin??? It sounds to me like there’s another rabbit hole coming up that I’m going to fall into!
Well, you’ve got quite a bit for someone who so got nuthin’! Congrats on getting the pattern order out in spite of the printer…
Ooh, I hope you feel better soon. I agree, these dark, grey, brown, wet, muddy, yucky days are depressing. My antidote was going to the car wash (best $4.50 mood lifter I know of) and the blues/greens yarns I’m working with. Your “Inspiration” and pale aqua yarns are just what you need brighten your days.
Ah new shawl! what will I do, I can’t keep up! I know it will be beautiful. I also believe you when you say the mitts are gorgeous. You are too funny with your appliance tantrum. Sometimes a tantrum helps. I hope you are feeling better.
Machines can do that to me too 🙁
We just don’t seem to get along well together because I so don’t understand them.
Glad to see you feel a bit better,looking at your new yarns sure does make me feel a bit better on this dark and gray morning 🙂
meltdowns when dealing with broken tools are understandable. aren’t they supposed to just work? (smile)
love the new blue skies project hints – the color reminds me of a robin’s egg.
and I don’t blame you at all for knitting on that lovely fearless fiber yarn – it’s divine (and purple!)
Bummer about the printer. Hope you two are on speaking terms again. Get well! Enjoy your lovely storms. They’re much better than a 7-year drought.
Hope you are feeling better. THose gray dreary days do make it hard to keep a positive attitude. Our winter weather broke and it was 60 yesterday, they are talking 70! today – so I will huff and puff and blow a little unseasonably warm weather in your direction!
Hope this week brings being on the mend 100%. I hate feeling blechy.
Could be partly the post-season blahs. Seems like we tend to wind up so tightly before Christmas and afterwards often a spring breaks! Feel better soon.
Yep….I know the feeling with the beast of a printer we both have. I am less than enamored with it for sure!
I hope you are feeling better soon! The white lace is so beautiful!
Really hope you feel better! Yikes, that’s alot of patterns to put together. Nice to know you are well liked though 🙂 I think there’s printer meltdown in the air too…
I posted some blue sky and sunset photos on my blog if you need a sunlight fix. 🙂
My parents’ house had awful wallpaper when they moved in too. The bathroom had brown wallpaper with chocolate and metallic silver roses. The worst was that it must have been some closeout or sale stuff, because when it was printed the colors didn’t line up. So it was chocolate roses with big silver random blobs all over. It was, um, interesting.
The Silly Season doesn’t exactly help with one’s emotional state. There is all this build-up and pressure for Christmas (most of it self-imposed) and then it’s all over and NOW WHAT? All you have left is a bunch of dishes to clean and paper tossed all over the room. Don’t get me wrong, I do love it, but I find that about three or four days later, I start to feel a bit aimless and unfocused.
That’s the worst part of winter… It’s not so bad when it’s just cold enough to keep the snow on the ground looking decently fresh, but then the warmer days hit all of a sudden, and the slush and grit just makes everything look gross. The same thing is happening where I love, too. We’ve had plenty of snow, a couple of REALLY cold days in a row, and for the next week we’ve got above-freezing temperatures and rain, which I have no doubt will make the world just look grey and unpleasant.
I do hope you feel better. Feeling down, both health-wise and emotionally, is never fun even during the very pretty times of the year, but it’s even worse during the cold season.
I hope you are feeling better!
I’m so glad to hear you’re feeling better, despite the gloomy weather and printer troubles.
I had to laugh about your faux faux finisher. I can so relate to that! We don’t have a clever name for our house’s former owner, but my husband can often be seen shaking his head and saying, “Carl, Carl. What were you thinking?” The funniest thing is that a neighbor told us they had spoken to Carl and when he’d heard that we were tearing things apart and remodeling, he was horrified because he’d put so much work into the place. Hmmm. Work like DIY electrical work (aka giant fire hazard) and extra cabinets in the kitchen that are sagging so badly that I’m afraid to put more than a cereal box in them.
I imagine that your faux faux finisher would be equally horrified at the changes you and David have made 🙂
Oooh. Looks like someone’s working with Sweet Lace! 🙂
Anne- Our previous owner was the cheapest jerk on the planet- so maybe they belong to some club.
Ihave two words of advice for you: laser printer-
get one and you’ll never look back.
Hope the new project cheers you up.
Feel better!
Boy did you describe the weather perfectly! I went outside this morning, and thought I’d normally be DELIGHTED with temps this high, but everything just looks so yucky outside. Oh, and the realization that this warm spell, isn’t sticking around. By Friday we’ll be back to the January cold blahs. Oh.. and the snow.
Oh dear. It sounds like you had a rough day there. I know what you mean about the wallpaper. What we did when I couldn’t stand it anymore (I wanted to sell the house I was so unhappy in it) was go to the local Joann’s and buy some of the cheap solid color slightly textured polyester dress fabric that they had on sale and staple it up on the walls. Instantly much better. In hindsight maybe not my smartest move because since it didn’t look like dog puke anymore hubby wasn’t inspired to fix the room and neither was I. So it’s still covered in the fabric and it’s probably been 10 years. I’m sure it’s at least 8.
printers are evil. period.
and you’re right – it is rather ugly outside right now. so i don’t look. i’ve been saving bee fields for this time of year, when it’s so ugly and i just need something springy. however, i think i’m going to wait a bit longer, until i can’t stand winter anymore and REALLY need spring.
i’m intrigued by that last picture – that’s not the snowy shawl you mentioned a month or so ago, is it?
Ah, the ups and downs of…the knitting life.
Would you be willing to share with us more about your design process? I’d love to see picutres of “Swatch Central”-and learn a bit about how many of these you find/try from books, and how many you design your self. I remember reading when you were starting the Raven shawls-that you went through about 200 swatches. Gads, where to you even find that many?
After your knitting wars, there’s bound to be a slump (and you slump still appears to have been quite a productive one…). And don’t worry; January can’t last forever. I saw pots of daffodils in the grocery store the other day. It’s sort of like having Christmas show up the day after Halloween, but it does mean that spring is coming!
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