sherriknits

No one but those on Ravelry will get this and not all even then.

I’ve been longing for a Ravelry tote bag since before the Rav mini-mall opened up.  I can’t tell you how many times I missed them when I was watching for them to be added to the inventory.  It has become like a craze on Ravelry….liken it to the Cabbage Patch dolls where people are stalking and waiting, afraid to do anything lest they miss it.  I’m serious.  I got such a kick out of reading some of the threads.  One lady actually considered keeping a rental car an extra day just so she could stay home and watch!

For once, I made myself just calm down and wait.  I figured if I got one someday, great.  If not…I could certainly live without it.

Well, last night I caught that they were being put out there a few at a time and it seemed that they were being stocked in the middle of the night for us west coasters.  I have to confess that I had to get up at 3 a.m. and I actually logged in and looked to see if they were there.  Thankfully, they weren’t because that would only have made me lay awake, I know myself.

This morning, I was actually sleeping in but something woke me up so I came downstairs, turned on my computer, did a few things and came back….I thought hmmmmmmmmm, I should just check.  Oh so calm I was.  Until……………….I logged in, there were 49 in stock!  Oh my gosh!!!  I started filling out the cart info and almost clicked send…then I thought hmmmm, I remember Bunni saying the other day that she was interested in one, maybe I should get her one since she doesn’t have paypal.  I backtracked and then my calmness went out the window.  LOL   I couldn’t type for anything and in just that minute or 2 the stock was down to 44.  I got the order filled out, had a horrible time getting logged in to Paypal and ta da!!!!!  I had successfully purchased them.  I called Bunni immediately to ask her if she really had wanted one and she jumped over to the mini-mart and said there were 33 left.  This is just minutes later.  Then I got an email from another good friend, she casually said she’d order one on her lunch hour.  By then there were 22!  I told her and within a few minutes, she emailed me and said she’d gotten in under the wire.  In minutes, they were all gone!

Now, someone help me with this.  I am feeling so bad for the people who were sitting there doing the F5 thing (which I didn’t know about until Ravelry!) and they did things like…went for a short walk, talked to hubby while he ate breakfast, fell asleep, did a chore..whatever…and they missed out.  I feel bad, but…….

I am so excited cuz now I have one! 

The lesson?  I am so tickled that for once, I laid down my wild desire to stalk the store and Casey’s posts in the forums and realized…I can live without this tote, my life will continue on just fine and I won’t even feel bad if I never get one.  It was true.  I think I’ll enjoy it all the more because of it.  I got it because I like it but it isn’t such a huge thing to me as I have gotten obsessed about other things.  But hey, don’t try to take it away from me now!

Ok, how many people do I tell to knit to the end of the row before laying down their project?  Do I take my own advice?  Hmmmm…..

 This is a reason why it’s not wise:

This poor project has been riding around in my purse for about a week.  I dig through my purse, I take the knitting out and put it back in.  I dig some more.  It may have been feeling neglected so look what happened.

And then notice the weird broken piece just standing up waving for attention.

This baby is headed for the frog pond. 

And I do have some proof of knitting that is happening around here.

Pedicure socks.  I actually am trying these out to be used more like bed socks because I cannot stand my toes closed in at night and I know others who are the same.   It’s been kind of a fun knit although I am tired of stripes.

I do want to thank those of you who emailed or commented on the assessment today.  It went well.  It usually does, his case manager is awesome and makes it feel better.  I’m thankful for good people on our team!

Next week we get to go to a foot casting clinic because he is going to end up in orthotics.   Oh, the joys.

:)  Life is actually good.

Does this sound convincing?  I’ll try again.

i.AM.a.knitter

I really had a struggle with myself this evening.  Yesterday, as I said, I started the first square of The Great American Afghan.  I thought it looked a little wonky but I convinced myself to not make this a stressful project by letting myself do the perfectionist thing.  However, I still don’t like sloppy.

Today I had so many interruptions and I watched Lauri pass me up even though she started hers today.  That was not a big deal because I was busy and I won’t make this a contest.  (for myself)  I also heard from the Diplady that she had finished the inner part of the square and was doing the outer edge. 

My struggle didn’t come from these two knitters, it was my own frustration at myself.  When I got home tonight, I was finishing the second heart which made the inner part 2/3 done.  It became apparent to me that I had skipped a row on the first heart and that was why everything looked odd.  I decided to do the easy thing and rip back to that (after a little struggle with myself).  After attempting to fix it several times, I was thinking about the first row that I fudged a little bit on (and really, it was no big deal because there is a little bit of stitching over the top of that row), but I just wasn’t happy with it, so before I knew it, I had this:

Now, this has become an all too common sight for me.  At first I kind of laughed and then I started to struggle with whether I really am a knitter.  I know that I am capable of doing things, but I think my tendency is to not pay attention to what I am doing.  Once I start making mistakes, I start to lose confidence.

I really feel like I hit a crossroad at this point.  Am I going to continue or do I just face the fact that I am wasting my time.

Suddenly, something started rising up in me.  Am I going to let this defeat me, or am I going to press through and become the knitter I want to be?  This afghan is a great opportunity for learning many new techniques ~ but MUCH more than that, I had to ask myself if I was going to choose to be a quitter or was I going to reach  for an opportunity to improve. I have learned that in many ways, knitting parallels my life.  Will I choose to push through the hard things, the hurts, the struggles, the things I want to see myself do better, or will I just choose to accept defeat and think I am who I am and I can not change it. 

I choose to fight the fight. I will learn the discipline of working with care and I will not make it a legalistic venture by putting unnecessary expectation on myself.  I am human.  I love talking to people while I knit and sometimes this causes me to make mistakes…but I do know I am capable of tackling difficult projects and doing well at them.  All I need to do is do my best.

That said, here is my second attempt:

The lighting is never great at night, but at this point, I need a record of where I made it back to.  I am much happier with it because I found that by missing the row on the first one caused everything to be backwards and there was another mistake I had made that was a simple thing to correct once I actually *read* the pattern.  And this one just knit back up quickly.

I do have a few more things to show.

I have no idea how to get a good photo of a scarf.  The color showed up better in an earlier post but I just can’t get a better look at it.  I have worn it 2 days in a row and I who do not enjoy wearing scarves really like this one and don’t want to take it off.

I knit a very few rows on the Fly*dyed Ruby Redmond sock that I believe will be a Coriolis at this point.  It depends on how the yarn behaves.  I had it with me at Barnes and Noble last night and knit while I read. 

This is the whirlpool toe and I like what it is doing to the yarn.

I finally remembered to get a picture of our Saturday sky.

Rain.

Have a great weekend!  I’m going to go look at Ravelry before I get myself off to bed.

Still working on the Lucky Lurker sock…progress is good but I got a little off this afternoon and stopped for awhile.  I didn’t get much knitting time in today but was too busy talking so I decided to work on the sock later.

I did start a ’swatch’ on a sweater.  For all the knitting I do, I have nothing to wear other than socks.  I am not going to put pressure on myself, but I fell in love with the Minimalist Cardigan in Interweave Knits and tentatively started it.  I love this deep red in Cascade 220.

(yes, I was too lazy to go find somewhere to take the picture so I just did it in my lap.)

Lauri started a group in Ravelry for Fly*dyed Fanatics.  She graciously let me be a moderator.  I went over to her house tonight and we made a banner and a badge for the group.  There are others out there because within no time, 3 people had joined the group.  The other day I started a group for my shop, too.  There is no end of fun over there at Ravelry.

Before I started my sweater, I spent an evening looking at all the sweaters others have done, read their comments, looked at what yarns were used and what people liked and changes they made.  It’s amazing how people will share their experiences and how easy it is to find the information!   Oh!  And until October 15, you can order the Beta t-shirts!  My order is in!

It was a beautiful day even if it was cool.  We were supposed to get rain but it never came.  Of course, I forgot again to get a picture…but the moon really was beautifuly tonight!

It wasn’t quite dark even though it looks like it was.

We had fun last night.  The bride-to-be and fiance and #1 son and girlfriend all met us in Olympia for dinner.  We had pizza and fun.  We were finishing up and who should walk in but the fiance’s family….he comes from a family of 9 kids.  They had just been to the movies and had never been to the pizza parlor we were at.  They had seen our car on the street and thought we were at Pizza Hut next door and they thought they’d just go to Brewery City Pizza and let us be.  It’s funny because our kids had never been there either.  (good pizza and nachos!  great salads, too.)

Yesterday afternoon, 3 of us at work decided on a whim to go get our nails done rather than lunch.  Two of us went over first because they scheduled us for 3 and 3:30.  I went 2nd and he started on mine and buffed a bit and then said I needed to soak (remember my taking off my nail tips myself a few weeks ago?  and remember I said it wasn’t a good idea?)  He got out a bowl, filled it with stuff and stuck my hands in the bowl with a towel over the top and left me to go do my sister’s nails.  I felt like I was in trouble.  He indicated to my sister that I was.  lol.  Sooooo…they got their nails done and there I sat, learning my lesson, and they got to sit and talk under the drying light while I got mine done.  :(  I opted to get tips again and then when they get to the point my last ones did, I will have them removed (properly) and give my nails a rest for awhile.  I love the tips and wonder if I should ever have gotten started on it. 

One of these days I might learn.  At least I’m enjoying playing with my new yarn and beads so I wasn’t too terribly heartbroken at having to start over when I realized I was not following directions.  My yarn came today for my Mystery Stole 3.   My first attempt, which got frogged, I forgot that only the right side of the pattern showed on the chart.  I know better than that, but I got about 8 rows into the pattern and was really thinking it was not very attractive when I realized I was not knitting it right.   I got a good start the 2nd time, but although I could see the lace pattern, it still looked a bit jumbled.  As I was waiting for hubby to pump gas (date night!), I realized that rather than knit on the wrong side, I was supposed to k2, p to last 2, k2.  I am not at all sure why I thought it said k on all the wrong side rows.  I was pretty excited that I wasn’t going to have to purl all those long rows!  I also had another problem of every few rows having an extra stitch, which I just k2 tog at the last of the row.  It was definitely causing the pattern to look a bit off.  When I started over tonight, I still had the problem and sat staring that the chart for several minutes when it dawned on me that in the center stitch every few rows, it said to s1 k2tog psso and I had read it as s1 k1 psso.  I thought it was odd, especially that they used the ^ , which I knew meant to k2tog in there. 

Soooooo, I am now on track and LOVING what I’m seeing.   When I purl the wrong side, it really makes the beads show up a lot more.  I think I like bead knitting so far.  It is slower, but I think it’s worth it!  I wish they showed in the pictures.  I didn’t get a chance to try in daylight since my camera battery was dead today.

This morning I got to go to breakfast to celebrate my friend’s and my birthday.  Hers was Wednesday and mine is this coming Monday.  Another friend takes us out to celebrate both at once.  We had a great time and I was stuffed for most of the day. 

While I was at breakfast, I got a call from another dear friend who said she was leaving her laptop off at my shop for me to use until mine gets back.  I can’t imagine having no need for my laptop until September like she doesn’t need hers, but I am totally blessed by the offer.  I spent an hour at least trying to get it hooked to internet because I had to get it hooked to the dsl modem and I didn’t have my “welcome letter” that I got years ago when I got the modem.  I had to call tech support and they got me up and running, but it was’t an easy process.  I was getting mighty tired of crawling under my desk to read things to him from the modem!

The newlyweds headed off on their honeymoon today and I thought they were pretty cute if you ask me.  When they get home, real life starts.  I have to chuckle because I only got a one night honeymoon!  These kids will be home a week from tomorrow, but they were offered the use of a timeshare and bought the package that covers all food the whole time.  I’m excited for them…but I told the bride not to talk to strangers.  haha.  She said she has to since her new hubby doesn’t speak Spanish and she is the one who has to communicate.

I am trying not to stay up all night working on my mystery knitting, but I started a load of clothes and forgot to shut the lid on the washer so I have to wait to switch them to the dryer before I can go to bed.  It’s just too much fun!

This morning I got up early and headed out of town to find ribbon for the jars for the flowers for the table.  lol  The bride and I found some really cool lantern type candleholders at JoAnn’s….and the great thing is that they were 60% off!

I then went to my sister’s house and we spent hours tying ribbons on jars.  I could not believe that we had almost exactly the amount of ribbon that we needed for the jars.  The last few, I use 3 strands of skinny ribbon on the big jars and they were cute.  We used lots of different kinds of ribbon. 

I left there to race home so hubby could go to work for a short time.  I have spent hours and hours tonight trying to get my email configured on my home computer.  I think I mentioned that this computer is brand new.  No one will ever use Outlook Express but me anyway.  I had to talk to 2 tech support people to get help getting them configured.  I have forgotten so many of my passwords so I spent time getting them set up also.

I called to find out why I did not get my mailing label for my iPod.  Apparently they sent it, but I never got it.  Therefore, I get to wait another 24-48 hours to get another.  I am not a happy camper.  I called to ask them about that, then I asked if this was the number I talk to to get my laptop repaired.  lol   They had to send me to another number.  After I did everything the lady told me to do, she determined it needs to be sent in.  I had almost finished giving her all my info and the phone went dead on her end.  I waited awhile to see if she’d call back, I wonder why I thought she would.  I’m glad I wrote down the number so I didn’t have to call the iPod number again.  I got a guy who finished the call and I think the news isn’t that great after I told him the other issues I was having.  There is a good chance I can get my hard drive backed up before I send it in, though…and that is good news although I will have to pay for it.  It will save me months of work, though.  I hope I learned my lesson on backing things up!!!!  He said they may just replace my laptop, which does not thrill me in the least because it won’t be the same thing at all.  I am really bugged.  I think I want an Apple like my daughter’s.

I had a very long talk tonight with the mother of the groom.  My cell phone died while I was talking to her, though.  It doesn’t seem like my week when it comes to electronics!  I am the gadget girl and this is so amazing to me that I am having as much trouble as I am. 

But…I can laugh and I can count my blessings!  And you know the cool thing that happened to me today?  A friend offered to pay for me to have tips put on my nails!  I have never done that before.  She just wanted to bless me.  I cry these days at the drop of a hat, mostly good tears.

No pictures today, I am too lazy to get down on the floor to attach my camera to the tower.   I might not get back up!