Circling Along

Another week gone already, and my goodness, hasn't it been a week of yarn crafting?!  Well, it has for me, anyway.  Friday I attended my first monthly meeting of my new church's prayer shawl circle; since I didn't yet have their pattern, I just took along some yarn for a new baby blanket I've been wanting to start and got crocheting on it while I got to know everybody a little.  So, two crochet baby blankets in two different colorways going at once right now, and one of them is almost finished.

The big victory this week, however, was that I cast on a new project onto my newly-acquired CIRCULAR NEEDLES!  Are we so proud? Because I am.  Yes, after five years of scheming, dreaming, and several disastrous failed attempts, I am finally making some headway on the Ravenclaw house scarf I have dreamed of knitting.  Indeed, it was my ambition to make this scarf that drove me to learn to knit in the first place!  It's slow going, obviously, since I'm a very new knitter.  Even the halting rhythm I have slowly begun to build up with regular needles still hasn't developed yet on the circular ones, so it's definitely going to be awhile before it begins to look like a scarf, instead of some kind of yarn covered halo, but still I'm terribly pleased with my progress.

 

For any Harry Potter fanatic like me who may be wondering (because I would be, if I were you), yes, I will be using the Ravenclaw house colors as described in the BOOKS, blue and the closest I could find to bronze, rather than the blue and silver of the films.  Anything worth doin', etc., you know?

And what have I been reading in the interim since we last met?  Nothing less than one of the greatest writers in the history of the English language--yes, I have finally read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.  I feel almost as proud of getting through that thrilling but linguistically challenging tome as if I had written something monumental myself!  If you've never read the book, let me just say that while the effort is absolutely worth it, the way that Jane Austen's language twists and writhes in this one may leave you feeling like you're trying to navigate a dense maze without even a breadcrumb trail, let alone a map.  Don't give up, but be sure to bring a lot of patience and your best attention with you!

Yarning and Yarning and Yarning Along!

OMG! Okay, people, after last week's slump, I got the push I needed to get back into yarning WITH A VENGEANCE!  I don't mean I got enthusiastic; I mean I crocheted for about 6 hours straight one night.  My hands...went numb.  Yeah.  Not even kidding.

So, why the big explosion of all things Yarn Craft?   Well, it was a confluence of several stimuli, actually.  First of all, remember I promised last week that I was now going to turn my attentions to my first true knitting project, my lovely scarf?  I actually did so early in the week, and though it may not look like much, I was almost giddy with excitement at my little beginner level of progress.

So much so, in fact, that I got ridiculously ambitious and tried to jump straight into the scarf that "started it all," the Harry Potter house scarf that I've been determined to make for almost 10 years.  Which has to be knit in the round.  Either on circular needles, or double-pointed needles.  And the only circular needles I had in the house were waaaaaaay too long.  And the only double-pointed ones I had in the house were my husband's bamboo ones.  Size 5.  And I already knit too tightly.  It was a very painful, evening-long fiasco.  (Yes, Michal tried knitting once.  Get this: he was great at it.  He just didn't like it that much.  Prefers spinning and weaving.  Don't men make you SICK with shit like that?!  It's like how they can't cough without losing 30 pounds off their gut, but I can't lose weight anywhere except in my breasts, the one place I would like to KEEP it.  Okay.  Deep breaths.  I feel better now.)

ANYWAY, obviously, that trauma was so great that I really did walk up to Good Man Michael and say, "This incident is dead to us.  We shall never speak of it again."  True story.  I swear.  Also obviously, I had to move on to some stellar crochet triumph with a ridiculously easy project IMMEDIATELY to re-boost my spirits and confidence.  This is where the second stimulus comes in.

My new church does yarn crafts to give to local charities--baby blankets for teenage mothers at the local high schools particularly caught my eye, so the poorly-taken picture above is a little granny square afghan.  It makes me go all dewy eyed every time I think about some sweet little bundle being wrapped in something I made for him or her.  Notice the sort of soft, garden-like colorway I chose; I figured, it's suitable for boy or girl, and it's as close to pastels as I'm ever going to get, because I hate most true pastels.  Anyway, nothing rebuilds your faith in your own crafting ability like a fall-off-a-log easy granny square.  Hurray!  I bought enough yarn to make four little blankets, and maybe enough left over for a matching hat to go with a couple of them.  I'm pretty excited, I must admit.  It feels good to be part of a community again, and I hope my little blankets will let someone who is going through a rough time know that someone out there cares about them.

P.S. I had to go with all acrylic, because it's cheapest, but if anyone wants to help me make blankets for these little ones out of softer, better quality yarn, all yarn donations will be gratefully accepted, and I'm sure the church will be happy to give you documentation for tax deductions and such.  If you're interested, let me know.  Either way, thanks for dropping by the blog today.  :)

Barely Yarning Along

Okay, confession time--and that's an ironic choice of words on my part, as you'll discover momentarily.  Last week's boldly stated plans for yarning greatness certainly did not materialize.  There has been great upheaval in my family's life recently, all of which came to a head in the past week, and crocheting and knitting were among the first casualties of my distracted state of mind.  That's unusual, really, because normally, when something major is going on, I'd expect to want to crochet or knit MORE, to soothe my mental agitation, but this week, I was too busy reading.  The tale unfolds thusly.

Or actually, this is the very short version of the tale, because I wish to avoid all muckraking.  So, in a nutshell, this week saw the culmination of a long process for the Good Man Michael and I of deciding that we could no longer in good conscience be members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and of our departure to the Episcopal Church.  My week was spent reading, researching and preparing to commune for the first time at my new church, our local installment of which is St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

In short, knitting was not part of my existence this week, and my only crochet accomplishment can be seen in the photo on the right: yes, I added about 2/3 of a row of ruffle trim.  Granted, this is the FINAL row, so if I ever manage to finish it (and to weave in the ends mentioned last week which at the moment are still blissfully free to flap about), the Christmas blanket that will never end may, finally, end after all.  We'll see.  As for what I've been reading this week, the enormous stack of books BEHIND the one row of trim should tell the story more than sufficiently, don't you think?  Hope your week was more productive, and a little less momentous.  Once in a while, momentous is necessary, even a good thing, but I think I've had enough revolution to last me a while, thanks.

Purl Along

OMG!  OMG!  OMG!  OMG!

I did it, everybody!  Using a life-saving combination of books and YouTube--thank you to everyone who posted such helpful videos--I conquered the dreaded knitting needles.  Obviously, I'm only a beginner, but I did actually figure out what I had been doing wrong in my previous attempts, and am well on my way to making my first scarf that actually lies flat.  Hurrah!  So far, I can create the garter and stockinette stitches without difficulty, and this scarf is coming together with the extremely simple rib K1P1.  Still, it makes me ridiculously happy to think that I can now actually KNIT!

Meanwhile, the Christmas blanket is coming along beautifully.  Granted, it's now December 27th, but throughout my childhood, we always left everything decorated until New Year's Day, and now that the Good Man and I have established our own household and family, we stick to the old tradition of the full Twelve Days of Christmas, so I'm hoping to have the blanket basically finished by Epiphany (January 6th).

On the reading front, I actually read an entire book since last week's Yarn Along.  I picked up Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and could not lay it down until I finished it (review coming as soon as I finish recovering from this plague I've caught).  Now I've moved on to Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber, but it is in my Kindle, and a picture of that wouldn't be terribly exciting if you've ever seen a Kindle, so here's the cover image for you to enjoy.

Happy Yarning, and Happy New Year!