Tag Archives: thoughts

On not standing in the way of goals

005fef6c6e6a11e28bf022000a9f139a_7
I made another Sorbetto top! Actually technically I just harvested the guts from my turquoise Sorbetto and used black knit instead.

There are going to be some changes around here in the near future. I mentioned wanting to blog more in my New Year’s resolutions post and then again when I changed up the layout a bit, but I’m still not completely happy with where things are here.

A huge part of the problem is the state of my laptop, and another issue is general shyness.

My laptop is over three years old. It’s sad and dying. Editing photos literally takes hours because of how slowly it loads things and how often I have to start over. I bought a Wacom tablet last year that I’ve barely been able to use because it’s hard enough to get used to writing on a tablet without dealing with lag.

And then there’s the shyness issue. I bought a camera last year wanting to learn all about photography and use my blog as a way to learn as well as showcase crafty projects. I read piles of books (I have tons of recommendations if anyone’s interested!) and watched hours and hours of instructional videos. The one area where I had trouble was actually taking my camera out to play around with it.

It seems counter-intuitive, right? Most people get a new toy like that and can’t wait to run out and try it out immediately.

I really have no explanation. Except that I had no idea what I was doing and I was terrified that people would stop me on the street and and disdainfully demand to know why I was bastardizing the art of photography.

Totally reasonable fears, I know. *cough*

Anyway, I’ve decided I’m tired of holding myself back. My old apartment had great indoor lighting, and I was able to post fairly regularly, but I would only take outfit photos when no one was around. Needless to say, having to work around my own schedule plus my roommate’s absences was not exactly ideal. My current apartment faces the wrong way and has no good place for outfit posts. We do, however, have a lovely huge rooftop filled with plants and decor that would be perfect for outfit shoots. I’ve been meaning to go venture up there to try it out for ages but have always managed to come up with an excuse not to.

But no more! I’m doing it this weekend. If not tomorrow. I want to learn photography! I spent three hours yesterday looking at blogs and Pinterest and photographs and I’ve got all kinds of inspiration running through me. I don’t expect to end up with anything resembling an amazing photograph but I’m never going to get there if my camera just sits sadly neglected in my room while I read books and watch videos.

So yes, roof. Tomorrow. And yes, I will probably freeze.

And to address the technology issue, I have a new laptop coming in the mail tomorrow! *squee*

Which basically means that if I’m still unable to achieve my goals, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

Logic fail

Things I’m proud of this week:

-The 1 hour, 33 slide, 6 page paper my group and I wrote and presented on Monday

-The Rae #2 I finished this morning

The 10-12 page research article critique I’ve been working on all day instead of knitting and am currently on page 9 of even though it’s not due until Thursday It’s done!! All 13 pages. Did I mention it’s not due for two days? This has never happened before. Yee!

-The sweater in progress I finally finished instead of ignoring in favor of buying shinier new yarn for new sweaters

Therefore I have decided that getting homework done on time and refraining from buying yarn means I get to splurge on Madelinetosh for my next project.

-glee-

(And yes, not buying yarn means I get to buy yarn. The logic of a knitter.)

In other news, I now have two shiny Rae’s to keep my necksicles warm.

CIMG2107

Apparently there is no such thing as “enough” yarn.

Oh, hello there!

I could start off with an excuse about how busy grad school has been and how I just haven’t had the time to post, but that would only be half true. Apparently when I bought all of that yarn I forgot to account for the fact that I would immediately start every project and ignore every other aspect of life. My mistake.

In any case, I now have tons to post and will hopefully be less of a lazy blogger. Hopefully.

In other news, my friend came to visit for the weekend and I may have dragged her along to a delightful yarn shop I discovered near my apartment. She needed some yarn for Christmas presents and I may have come up with several excuses (that I can no longer recall) for why I needed to buy more yarn.

They had a ton of Madelinetosh that I wanted to crawl in bed with, along with some gorgeous multicolored skeins of a brand I didn’t recognize (and currently can’t remember the name of). I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with yarns like that. They’ve absolutely beautiful on the skein but I never like how they look knitted because they colors mesh together and it never looks as pretty as they did before. Sad.

I came away with this:

Suri surprise

60% alpaca and 40% merino wool. I’m drooling just looking at them. I’ve started projects with both of them (seriously, it was impossible to resist. I dare you to try.) and they’re SO lovely to pet knit with.

Project photos coming up!

Distractions.

It’s Thursday! Which is my Friday. Which means that while I’m physically still at work, my mind is already taking a day off.

I’m being torn in two by the prospect of free time. Part of me is relishing the idea of cozying up in bed with Beatnik, Little Birds, and Peaks Island (oh dear lord, I’ve started to refer to them as though they were people..). That part is imagining steaming mugs of hot chocolate and pajamas being worn all day.

The other half of me is imagining speeding off to Jo-anns with the coupon they just emailed me and attacking the yarn section with it. This is the same part of me that just bought two patterns from KnitPicks. Specifically, this one and this one. In my defense, I’ve been looking for a nice bootie/slipper pattern on Rav for ages and have only ever run into booties for babies, which, while they are adorable, could really only fit my big toe and are therefore useless. And the bag is really cute. -squee-

And technically the slippers are crocheted, which isn’t even knitting, so it doesn’t really count as cheating on my current projects.

I guess I’m going yarn shopping.

Hmmmmm now I just have to decide what color to do these in. I’m thinking of doing the bag in a baby blue/lime green combination but I can’t decide if that’s too cutesy/springy for my wardrobe. And I have absolutely no idea what color to do the booties in. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to make eight pairs in different colors. (I’m only half-joking.)

In other news, I went to Border’s last weekend determined to buy a knitting book but left empty-handed because I had no idea what to get. Any suggestions on must-have knitting books? I’m not really looking for anything specific, just anything with nice patterns or good tips.

Wrinkly.

Little Birds ribbing

I have a feeling this sweater is going to sneak up on me.

With my current work schedule I’m mostly brain dead by the time I get home, so when I sink onto my bed, turn on Lost, and pick up my knitting, I’m mostly zoned out. It’s only the ribbing, anyway. I stop every half hour or so just to make sure I haven’t gone over the number of rows before the next buttonhole but other than that I don’t even register most of what I’m doing.

So I was kind of surprised when I actually looked at it last night and realized I’m more than halfway finished with the ribbing. I still had that “I just started and it’s going to take forever to finish” feeling.

Now, it’s more like, “I’m almost at the birds!” -twitch twitch-

In other news, last night when I was pulling more yarn from the skein, I noticed that I was down to the middly bit where the yarn starts looking small and wrinkly. For some reason this was amusing and worth photographing.

Little Birds yarn