Laundry Day

Ugh, I do not like the summer. It's too hot to breathe, let alone knit anything substantial. So I've been knitting tit-bits for my oncologists' office and doing a bit of laundry:

Robin Hood's Fireside Boots - Sky by Cat Bordhi in

Valley Yarns Southwick

All my hand-knit socks.

Dollar and a Half Cardigan by Veronik Avery in Knit Picks Totem & Top Down Button Front Capelet by Bernat Design Studio in

Noro Bonbori

Hey, Teach! by Hélène Rush in Valley Yarns Colrain & Emerald by Amy Swenson in Rowan RYC Soft Tweed & Family Henley - Mans by Knit Picks Design Team in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes

Pole by Joji Locatelli in

Newton's Yarn Country Sport Weight Merino Print

Next time, Boob-a-palooza!

Wendy

Yesterday was really too nice to be inside all day. It was still sunny and a little hot, but a very nice breeze made it livable. So, I took Wendy outside and did some spinning al fresco.


Wendy is a Clemes & Clemes Modern Wheel bought as a kit at Stitches West this year. It is a very sturdy wheel with a small footprint and a treadle that pivots at the heel as well as the toe.

My favorite part? I got to finish it myself.











Wool is 100% superwash merino from Copperpot Woolies on Etsy.

Love it love it love it.

Two Sleeves

The first sweater I ever knit was Mariah, a lovely pattern designed by Jodi Green and released by Knitty.com.

At this point I had just discovered the online knitting community and Knitty was a revelation. All of the knitting books at my library were at least twenty years old and full of unappealing patterns.

Although I had technically been knitting for at least 10 years, I was still a relatively new knitter. I had just figured out the purl stitch a few months earlier and the whole knitting world had just exploded for me.

So, I bought a metric ton of Wool of the Andes and got started.

The body of the sweater was simple enough, however I severely overestimated my girth and made it size HUGE. I think every knitter starts out with the mindset that it's better to knit a flour-sack than have the project come out too small. Lesson learned.

Anyway, we're here to talk sleeves, and the sleeves on this sweater were epic.

Cables and cables and shaping and yowza! I love love love cables, but in retrospect this may have been a little much for my new knitting brain to handle at once. I wish I could tell you that I re-knit the sleeves more times than I could tell, but I actually still remember. Left sleeve: 4 times. Right Sleeve: 2 times.

These sleeves brought about the first knitting "fight" between myself and my husband/boyfriend at the time. In the midst of my vetching and moaning about having to reknit the sleeves AGAIN, he pipes up with, "Well, you like knitting, so it's just more knitting for you."

He survived, but I'm still not sure how. Maybe he's 1/16th ninja or something.

So, long story long, I now knit my cuff-up sleeves at the same time on a long circular needle. It is definitely a slower process and takes away the fun of whipping out a quick sleeve, but when I screw up royally I at least screw up on both at once. And that, my friends, is what we call a "design element".

Constructive Feedback

I have been meaning to write, honest. I will even do something and think, "I should really blog about this". Sometimes at night I will even write out the text in my head while I'm desperately trying to sleep.

Today, however, I will blog because someone ticked me off. Someone wrote to me and let me know that the pattern they bought off Ravelry was "disappointing" and how they had to rip the whole thing out because it wasn't the shape she thought it should be.

Chibi Kitty is not square.

For a moment I got all defensive, "what do you expect for a $1 dishcloth pattern" and blah-blah-blah. But really, I was mad at myself, because I have really been meaning to go over those patterns and adjust them for the I-Likes-My-Dishcloths-Like-I-Likes-My-Sammaches crowd (you know, square). So I sent her a refund, asked if I could send her a new copy when I republish it, and thanked her for the feedback.

I don't want to be one of those half-assed designers, I want to design with my whole ass. In that spirit, I will be placing aside one morning a week for blogging and officially adding the pattern re-writes to my list of stuff to do. Eventually this will involve writing new patterns (hurray!), but I feel like I need to clear out old business before I start new business.

Speaking of new business:

I will start writing my business plan this week. Yes, I am the kind of gal that will get logo art started before the freaking business plan. Updates will be following. Mad props to Maranda at Maranda Charlene Greetings on Etsy for designing the logo.

Why SafeSearch is Important

I was looking for a picture of cherries to make up my masthead while I work on my logo/next tattoo. For the love of all that is g-rated do not type "cherries" into Google image search with SafeSearch off unless you want to be surprised by testicles. Just sayin...

Chapter 1.0 - Review

Hello. My name is Becka and I'm a knitter. And a student at Long Beach City College. And one of the dwindling number of phone company minions.

I also used to be The Knitting Wounded, and if you really want to read through my messy 20's you're more than welcome. There's a lot of good information in there about my going through chemotherapy and radiation (I'm much better, thank you). I'm just opening a new chapter in my life and felt that a reinvention was in order. Thank goodness for the internets.

I am also on Ravelry, Twitter, Flickr, and all sorts of nifty places as Cherry Bomb Knits, so look me up and find out who I was and who I am trying to be.

No, you will not be tested on any of the previous material.