the Akamai Knitter

Does anyone remember this?

I started that way back in January. That’s right. January. I finished the knitting in February, but I could not get myself to sew the inner lining to the body of the hat. It was just a heinous chore that I couldn’t bring myself to do.

But last week my wonderful friend Veronica graciously came to my rescue and did it for me. So now, at last, we have a finished hat.

Pattern: We Call Them Pirates

Source: Hello Yarn

Yarn: Knit Picks Telemark

Needles: size 3US needles (2 circs)

Started: January 18, 2007

Finished: July 7, 2007

No modifications were made.

I had a ball making this hat. Fair Isle is such a fun technique.

The obligatory inside shot.

And here’s a shot of the inside lining. Look at what a wonderful sewing job Veronica did! (Thanks so much, Veronica!)

There is some non-knitting news. I didn’t get much knitting done in the past couple of days because I pretty much wrecked my hands while getting some furniture put together. I finally have a decent chest of drawers. I’ve been doing without for the past year or so. You don’t want to know where I’ve been putting my clothes. As for the night stand? Ha! Let me tell you about the nightstand.

I started assembling the nightstand and remember, I am no carpenter. I thought I was doing so well. Up until I tried to put the drawers in. Now this was one of the last steps. The bottom two drawers went in smooth as silk, but. But…

… I apparently I put one piece in the wrong way and what was supposed to be a 3-drawer night stand is now a 2-drawer night stand. Basically, there’s no way the third drawer will fit into what is now a tiny space of glaring failure.

I’d take pictures, but I’m still too pissed off about it. I’ll probably put the drawer front over the mistake to cover up the ugliness. I swear the directions were too vague for inexperienced me to have known which way to put the damn sleeper thingamajig in right.

Assembling the chest of drawers went much smoother, even if it did take over 4 hours. It’s a 5-drawer piece and there were a lot of screws to drill in. Mistakes were made, but they were easily corrected. My hands basically felt and feel like mush, but it was worth it.

Despite the nightstand fiasco, I’m very proud of the job we did. The chest of drawers is functioning as it should and I find it amazing that we were able to do it considering our lack of wood working skills.

And the nightstand? Well, I can live with the mistake as soon as I make it pleasing to the eye. I don’t really *need* 3 drawers. There are worse things that could happen in life then a deformed nightstand.

Earlier this month a friend asked me to test knit a pattern for her. Despite my best intentions of a speedy start, I only got around to starting them this weekend. So while I watched Deja Vu and The Devil Wears Prada (both excellent movies), I got busy with my first project as a test knitter.

Despite my dislike for the yarn, I’m really enjoying the Periwinkle Sock Pattern. It has just the right amount of lace to keep me interested, yet it’s easily memorized so that I can easily work on them with my attention divided. Even though I switched to a size 2.0mm needle from a size 2.5mm after 4 repeats, this sock is a winner as the fit is fantastic.

Speaking of needles, did you all see that Knitpicks has started carrying size 2.25mm needles? I am so elated that I even forked over the money for their pricey shipping to Hawaii. I figured out that even with the shipping the needles would come out to about $7 a pop, since I bought 4 pairs. That still makes them a better buy then Addi Turbos.

I do have a question for all of you, have you ever tried Lisa Souza’s sock yarn? What does it compare to? I have been suffering from some serious sock yarn lust lately, but I’d like to make some informed decisions before I take the plunge. I’m trying to stay away from too many impulse buys, but who knows how long that will last.

Also, I read the new book by the Yarn Harlot over the weekend and I absolutely loved it. She really knows the depths of passion and the overwhelming obsession we knitters have and I was so sad when the book ended. I wished it were a never ending story.

I wanted to run out to show all my non-knitting friends excerpts of the book so they could understand me. This is what I what I have been trying to say all these years, people! How I wish I had a quarter of her writing talent. Maybe I’ll just buy extra copies of the book as presents for my muggle friends. I’m sure they’ll all be extraordinarily delighted with my thoughtfulness.

When I mentioned this idea to Quincy, he kinda gave me a look. Hrm. What do you think he’s trying to say?

The stress of the family drama has left me without the will to blog, but now I’m back. And I’m back with the sad news that my uncle passed away yesterday morning. I take some consolation in the fact that he’s no longer suffering. I want to thank everyone who has left a comment or has emailed me about this. Your support has been incredibly appreciated.

To get me back into the swing of things and because I was tagged not once, but twice by both Jeanne and Susie, I’ve decided to partake of the current meme floating in the blogosphere. The rules are simple. Each person gives 7 random facts about themselves on their blog. Then they tag 7 others and leave a note on their blogs.

1. Even though I only lived in Korea for 2.5 years, we managed to move from apartment to apartment approximately 8 times.
2. I knit right-handed, but I crochet like a leftie.
3. I’ve been near-sighted and wearing glasses since I was 7. I tried wearing contacts when I was 19, but it was a total disaster. I kept losing the damned things!
4. At one time I was a crazy ADD crafter. I learned how to tat, bobbin lace, crazy quilt, cross-stitch, needlepoint, lots of beading, and a little polymer clay. Lately though I’ve been dedicated to knitting and spinning.
5. My knitting group has managed to addict me to Beard Papa’s cream puffs. I have to have some every week now. I try to limit myself to just one a week, but sometimes I just can’t help but have 2.
6. I used to hate all shades of pink, but now I’ve suddenly acquired techno-gadgets in hot pink. My phone is hot pink and so is my iPod. I’m not really sure what this means. There’s probably some deep-seated Freudian reason that I’d be better off not knowing.
7. I love to re-read books. There are some books that I’ve read at least 5 times. This is especially true of serials like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.

Tagged: Lisa, Kim, Barb, Keohinani, Joy, Jen, and JennyK

And finally, look who’s been coming by my lanai to visit?

Yes, that’s Bosco. Look how much he’s grown! He is still a sweetheart and I’m so glad that he’s still a part of my life even if I can never call him my own.

RSS/Bloglines Dilemma And A Confession

After reading about the Pros and Cons of offering the full feed versus the short feed, I decided that trek had it right. After much hunting, I figured out how to change my own feed to the short version.

One of the main Pros of going to the short feed she mentioned was the decreased comments on the blog. While I haven’t noticed a significant decrease of comments of late, in fact I’ve noticed quite the opposite (thank you!), I would like to see if offering the shorter feed will generate more comments.

Truth be told, I am a comment whore. (Haha! I just called myself a whore!) I really thrive on the feedback of my fellow knitters. Not only does it encourage me to keep this blog going, but it encourages me to keep knitting. I’m not saying that I would stop knitting and blogging if I suddenly got a drop in the popularity vote. What I’m saying is that I would definitely enjoy it a little less. The kind words and constructive criticism I get keeps my confidence up, when I tend to have very little.

I’ve never considered myself to be a very good knitter. This is not meant to be fishing expedition for compliments, it’s just the simple truth. I know that over the last year I have greatly improved, but I still go through bouts of mass insecurity. It’s during those times that the blog and all the wonderful people I have met here has come to my rescue.

So I’m going to experiment with the short feed for now. I’d love to hear what you all think. Hate it? Love it? Don’t care?

The Forest Path Stole

I am plugging away on the FPS and I’m on Tier 3. I would have taken a picture of it, but it is really dark here today. We’ve got the tail end of a storm system moving through the island chain and the sun is just refusing to come out to play. Hopefully I’ll have pictures later this week and then I will have more to report.

Hidcote Garden Shawl In Action

At the last Aloha Knitters meeting, I took my Hidcote Garden Shawl. Blogless Michelle was kind enough to model it for me as she is tall and willowy.

Look how huge the shawl is! You can’t quite see, but it just hits her knees. To give you some sort of comparison of size, here is the shawl on my short figure.

See how it extends way past my wingspan? And I do believe it goes way past my knees. I nearly gave this shawl to Michelle right there and then, but I’m not ready to give it up just yet.

I am so grateful for all the wonderful comments on the shawl. For a change, I am really proud of how this one turned out. I adore the colour and the way it floats around like a cloud.

Socks!

Last, but not least, did you all see that Cookie A. has got her shop site up? She did a fabulous job with it. Go and look! Go and drool! Go and shop! Then please be sure to let her know how much you love it by leaving a comment on her blog. I think she deserves to know just how much of a success she has become.

With all the excitement of finishing the Hidcote Garden Shawl last week, I failed to mention that I got a very special package. It contained 4 patterns from the ever talented Cookie A. from the oh so generous Agnes of Knitting In The Valley. She had read about how much I coveted one of the patterns and offered to pick it up for me when she went to Stitches. She also included the cutest little sock blocker keychain ever!I tell you, I continue to be amazed by the kind souls in knitting blogland. I was really overwhelmed by Agnes’ offer. Thank you again, Agnes!

Somehow I missed including one of the patterns in the picture, but the ones that I now have are Twisted Flower, Gothic Spire, Thelonius, and Mona. I’m hoping to add to my collection once the others become available online. For now I am simply ecstatic with the ones I do have. Now for the story of the other goodies in the picture.

For some reason I have been on a green spree of late and I really wanted to make the Twisted Flowers in dark green. I bemoaned this fact to my muggle friend Jon, who is really not a complete muggle since his wife is a knitter as well. What do we call these knowing friends to the craft that don’t practice it but understand the nature of our obsession? One friend suggested Mudblood, but that’s not exactly a complimentary term. Maybe a half-blood? Or how about a Squib?

I digress.

I also ranted to Jon about how shipping rates are rather outrageous when it comes to Hawaii. It’s a sad day when it’s cheaper to ship to Canada then to one of the 50 states. I understand the brown trucks can’t swim. I understand I’m in the middle of the ocean. I just don’t like it. This may just be part of the price of living in “paradise” but I get pretty tired of paying for it day in and day out.

Incoherent rant over.

So as a belated Christmas gift Jon offered to purchase some goodies for me! More likely, he offered to get me to hush up on the injustices of shipping rates to Hawaii. Either way I received 2 more size 1US 24″ Classic Circular needles for socks, and 3 skeins of Essential Solid in Pine. That’s right, 3! I only asked for 2, but the sweetheart threw in an extra!

They say that the best things in life are worth waiting for and as far as Christmas presents go, the ubiquitous “they” just might be right.