Knit From Your Stash 2007 revisement

It's insane of me to think I can last a year with no stash enhancement. My question is then are patterns and/or books included? I have enough yarn for a long time. but I do have a book habit to keep up. lol.

Knit From Your Stash 2007

Buying yarn is like breathing air. No matter how much yarn you have hiding at home, you NEED the yarn you come across in the wild. I am very guilty of this behavior. I have TONS of yarn over here, and as my possesions are still slowly making it over to my new apartment.......there's MORE. In fact if it got here, I have no clue where I could even put it. The frig?

it would be highly proactive of me to abstine from yarn enhancement. Especially as money is tighter than I like to believe. lol. I'minabit of denial at this time.

Knit From Your Stash 2007: Guidelines for Pumpkinhead

• The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 13, 2007 and run through December 31, 2007


• Will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:


• If I am knitting something and run out of yarn, I may purchase enough to complete the project.


• Also I am allowed to fall off the wagon one time.


• I am allowed to receive gifts of yarn.


• Trading stash is allowed.


• Spinning fiber of any sort is exempt. (nice loophole)

Sock Wars

Thankfully Friday came and went! I successfully stopped myself from joining the Sock Wars. It was a hard fight. I would make the decision that no way, no how, was I going to sign up. Only to start thinking about if I could teach myself to knit 2 socks at once on the magic loop method. lol! Then I would remember that I truely am busy with school.

I have a paper due in 2 hours, and a math test tomorrow around 1.30 pm. Oh and all the math homework is due for grading during the test! Is it done? NOOOOOOOO. Sleep? What's that? Don't think I'll be getting sleep tonight. :(

Stitch Diva - Simple Knitted Bodice Knit Along

Stitch Diva - Simple Knitted Bodice Knit Along
Another Glampyre knitalong! I need to make this one, REALLLY! How am i going to manage to get the pattern?!

Amazing Lace?

After a crazy week, I drifted over to the main site for the KAL. Don't know why but don't seem to be able to post. So technically I have I missed Challenge #2 as I have no pictures of me doing anything extreme with my many projects all of which are lace.

I've also been reorganizing my stash. LOL! Now that is worthy of a picture. it is extreme! and scary. Here is a mental image for all of you......

I have ADhD, the way it shows up in my personal life when it comes to organization is stacks/piles. I have to have a home/place for everything or else it goes in a pile. Anyone who is reading this and has ADD or ADhD, or is the parent of someone with it knows what this can look like.
When I was little and in grade school all my papers were always all crinkled, my bookbag felt bottomless cause there always seemed to be yet another object loose down there. In second grade I was given a hole puncher that I believe we still have hanging around, the rule was that if I was given a handout of any kind it was to immediately be put in a binder. You should see how many binder I have around this place for my knitting patterns. lol.
What does this have to do with reorganizing? This is only my second semester back at school. When under stress, my normally invisible symptoms come out full rage! I think my personal space (bedroom, all purpose room as I am living in one room) is unforunately an outward expression of my internal feelings.
I have many interests: Knitting, embroidery of many kinds, weaving, spinning, yoga, vedic lit., Reiki (I might have almost every book published on the topic), Self-help (I tend to use workbooks for congnitive therapy, I have been able to make great progress with a book called Mind over Mood <<<
Whatever! It's a complete disaster in this room. Because my brain just doesn't look at things the same way as other people and sometimes lacks the safety net of breaking down a project into sections that are workable. I can break down a project into all it's steps, but it's all or nothing with me. So my stash all got brought out at once! All of it. I decided that the rubbermaid containers were drying out my 100% wool, and that I needed to store them differently. Enter left: mesh zipper bags for delicates. I have been transferring the wool to the mesh baggies and stacking them in a bureau cabinet not being used properly. Ran out of baggies. Yarn all over the place. Then had no immediate cash to run to the store to get more. yarn still all over the place. I've been sharing half my queen size bed with the pile of yarn!

I am so happy not to have a digital camera. To take a picture of this mess and post it on here would be the equivelent of showing you all my dirty underwear with the holes in it. I was making progress on it, but could only work on it in between trying to do work for 14 credits of college work. Than my step-father had his freaky dangerous bi-polar moment with me last week. Talk about throwing someone off thier stride!

Friday, I was afraid to enter the home alone. Mom and me had stayed at a hotel since Tuesday. So after checking us out of the hotel, I hung out at a yarn shop. No one knows yet, but I spent $120 on new stash. Call it anxiety shopping. I deserve it! Then i went and had a full-body Reiki treatment cause energy wise I knew I was completely out of wack. Doing self-treatments was not working. So that was another $6o i spent. The wonderful Reiki Master who I had contacted saying it was an emergency, she sat me down afterwards. She is very worried about me. She happens to be connected to higher realms (spiritual guidance). She's hosted spiritual development groups, (hhmmm how to explain this without sounding like a freak or upsetting any readers) in these groups 5 of us sat there with her. She allows herself to be used by higher beings, kinda like angels who are trying to aid us in this time of turmoil to grow spiritually and be of assistance to humankind's greater good. Over the couse of 5 weekly meetings we each received messages of guidance, hints as to what work we needed to do to be prepared for what is ahead. i like to think of us as all being of energy, and energy has it's various vibrational patterns. What you would like to do is work on increasing the level you are viberating at, as the higher the level there is less of the base strife we witness around us everyday. Not everyone, but a very large portian of the population is stuck in a kind of rut and is vibrating very low (think of a tuning fork and the keys they can produce) Because they comprise more than half at this time, they are influencing all energy on the planet. slightly. kinda like a hook to keep you down or a weight. one by one each needs to work towards changing the frequency just a little so that as a whole all will be affected. enough on that. cause. I know not everyone believes that the planet is a living being and vibrates (think of quartz crystals that make up portians of the planet, and how we use them in TV's and radios etc.) I'm a little of this and a little of that in my belief systems so you'll notice I'm very opened minded.

Well, my friend had trouble doing the Reiki on me, besides an area of blockage as I suspected, she told me the energy around me was all over the place and pulsing outward. I think my body was trying to deal with trauma. She told me to call her no matter the time and I could stay with her, as she is very worried....scared actually for my safety. She picked up something about me being in danger, and felt my step-dad is a very real danger/threat to my safety.

What am I to do? I have been in my bedroom since Friday night. Been trying to get me head into school again. really got messed up emotionally I think. Couldn't meet deadlines, not being productive in my schoolwork. I have till July 1 to drop a class without a penalty to my GPA. Have to do some serious thinking on this, as I will owe money if I drop any classes at this time. Do I take the chance of gambling with my GPA? Or do I go into debt? What is more important? there is also personal health to think about, as emotional health/hygiene is very important too.

Amazing Lace Challenge #2!! Kinda

If only I had a picture of the events of this past Tuesday night!!

I arrived home from my current college math course with dinner (Taco Bell) in hand at approxiately 9:30 pm. All was quiet, not a peep to be heard........got to my bedroom and started taking off the shoes, putting down the bags, etc.

***BANG BAnG BANG*** Pounding on my bedroom door!!
A few posts down you may of noticed i had ranted about a certain family member.

Well, you won't believe what the heck happened! No! It wasn't that he had read what i published on the internet! lol! The idiot isn't responsible enough for his own well being to be able to notice if his medication is not working. The rest of notice if we are super bitchy or cranky. Wouldn't we notice that for no reason at all that we are fuming mad and don't know why? Oh well.

It appears someone's medication for thier bi-polar disorder wasn't working anymore. That might explain his extra crankiness the last few weeks.

To put it mildly, as he continued to scream complete nonsense at me in full volume. he made threats against my life and etc etc. Proceeded to break the hallway table against my bedroom door, and wanted to know why i wouldn't come out. LMAO! Would any sane person?

He made so much noise that luckily other family woke up and called the cops, and even the people across the street heard him and came running to help us! The cops took him outside, interviewed my mom and me. We decided to leave and stay at a hotel. Or as I told my grandparents and friends when i got in touch with them.........I was doing a Cheney and was currently at an undisclosed location.

As I only had a few minutes to grab together my things and get out (all while making sure the cats had food and water before I locked them in my bedroom for safety) talk about dedication! I took my textbooks for college, pj's, and my KNITTING! I completely forgot to take actual clothing. So of course the next morning the tempurature had dropped and it was a complete downpour! my luck.

I am now looking into some kind of self-defense item. I was thinking a stun gun. whatta ya think?

Overwhelmed by all the KAL's

OMG! This is the summer of all kinds of KAL's and they seem to all center around lace in one form or another! I know I can't join all of them. where can I find the will power to not join all of them.

Well the Amazing lace is a blast, just reading all the blog entries of the other teams is sooo much fun. What imaginations everyone has! I love the stories and pictures, look forward to a summer of fun!

The Folk Shawls Group decided on the newest KAL. A bit daunting, they chose the Irish Diamond Shawl. This must be one of the hardest patterns in the collection. At least in the sense of the size of the shawl and for how long you need to keep going and keeping track. *faints*

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/folkshawls/
I will not be able to do this shawl at this time, 1st not enough time available, 2nd. don't happen to have that much yarndage of one yarn in the stash.

Then the Mystery Stole A long was announced http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mystery_Stole_2/
looks interesting. Have enough Cotton Fine in the stash.............have done a swatch on size 3 needles, and just need to free it from the blocking pins to see if it looks ok.

looks interesting

Introducing Team Chaos!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone!
Welcome to Team Chaos! and we hope to live through this summer adventure.

Let's introduce the members:

• The Rose of England (ROE): She is British, and has been giving me a bit of the stiff upper lip. The pattern is from The Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting. And the end dimension aim is for 7oish". Yarn: unknown make as I picked up the cone of 2ply laceweight wool at a Local Knitting Guild Stash Bash for $5.00. It is a lovely shade of lavender. We are now officially on V4.0 of ROE, as we have gone through changes in needle size, dropped stitches, and the horrid experience of the lifeline that broke. Who knew that could happen? *shrug*

NOTE: The pictures of completed ROE are from members of the yahoo Folk Shawls group.

Now for the rest of the team. To pick just who would be on the team in case ROE and myself have a temperary falling out, I have picked the lace in my Frog Pond. I think the Pond is starting to become a BOG it's so crowded with over growth!

• Meet Muffy! She is from Oat Couture, Spiral Petal shawl. We met at last year's Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. I choose her because she reminds me of a Lotus Blossom. Thought she would make a wonderful meditation shawl for myself.

I couldn't leave well enough alone, I got creative with the yarn. The pattern asked for only bulky weight mohair. I chose some mohair/acrylic blend I bought off a fellow knitter in the area. 2 skeins each the largest balls of mahair you have ever seen! on the left hand side you can kinda see the ball that hasn't been used yet. The color is reddish, pink, burgundy. I am also carrying with it, Red Heart in Cranberry. It was the best color match i could find. Thought it would give body. haha!So I now have a shawl at least 75% done that weighes alot.

How did the beautiful Muffy end up in the frog pond? Denise Needles. I was connecting all my cabled together reather than buying the newer long sizes. the sheer weight did it in. While at SnB, she gracefully slide from the needles and floated onto the floor. So there I was on the floor of Border's Bookstore Cafe picking up any stitches I could see, of course this happened on a pattern row so there were yo's involved.

It is Muffy time to become a FO! She deserves it

Note: Picture is from Oat Couture's website of the finished item

• Next up: The Lacey Prairie shawl!

What we have here is a miscount within the pattern repeat that only happens within the first 20 or so stitches of any row having 200 or more stitches. Thinking I was going to one day unknit all the way back, it is still a UFO.

There is also another dialema: I've learned that varigated yarn, even when it is of one color does not do any justice to lace. Yes that is a lace shawl in that picture! Also I am a tight knitter, I went up in needle size. Being more experienced now, I think the pattern needs to be on even larger needles. Do I just finish it and have done with it? Or Rip and start over? Or ***Drum Roll***completely rip and use the yarn for something else? Don't be shy, give me your opinion!!!That's what the comment section is for!!!

Well, here am I being the smart ass that I am, modeling with ROE V3.0. Known by many names as I seem to have a personality that makes people want to nickname me. Currently sticking with Jennifer and Pumpkinhead, either one is good!

Was in a hurry to get the pictures done and posted, hence me playing with the bellybutton start of the shawl! lol! Ever elusive, not liking my picture taken. This will be a very challendging event for me. as you can see i have a lot of ufo's around, and am currently matching wits with ROE. If you look at some of the pictures you will notice that crowding the background seem to be books. I felt they needed to be in there as they will be traveling with the team. You might consider them part of Team Chaos! I am currently starting the 3rd week of a 10 week summer semester of college and carrying a load of 13 credits!

With almost everyone introduced, I would like to sign off at this time. Hope everyone is rearing to go! Can you please remember to check on me every so often to see if I'm alive with all this yarn and textbooks while having pointy sticks easily availible.

Jennifer

The Amazing lace

Well, I'm so behind in setting up this blog for the Amazing lace. I need to be able to post some pictures of the team. Luckily I seem to have a village behind me waiting to help out on us doing a more relay team approuch. i have gone through all my stash, and:

• pulled the Folk shawls still on needles (I know! Shame on me! i'm only the yagoogroup owner!) How many years of pergatory is that in Knitter's hell?

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/folkshawls/

• any remainding yarn I could find to go with them.
• Placed the folk Shawls books in the bag.
• There is currently the Lacey prairie shawl....so close to being finished! but one miscount and it went to the frog pond, it's been there so long the frog's made a nest out of it!. My dilemma.....my skills as a knitter have increased since i had originally started this shawl. so I see the faults it contains. I used reynold's Signature yarn. worsted weight. To my now abit more experienced eyes, i see that i could of gone higher in the needle size. Also the color of the yarn is a variegated of various shades of purple. This takes/distracts from the lace pattern. What element is more important? The colors of the yarn? or the stitch pattern that is a bit on the tight side.

What's your opinion I would love to know! Do I rip a shawl that is over 50% done and reuse the yarn? Keep going to just say i did it. Strike it up as a learning experience.

• Next shawl in the magic bag: the kimono shawl. I think. will have to take a closer look later to just make sure. This one had me cast on a zillion stitches. I was on the border in the beginning when I stopped for some reason. I must of made a mistake in the sequence of increase/decrease and ended the row with a miscount. Thus the crowded frog pond it went. Now for this one, you will be able to see a bit of my renegade spirit. Something to possess me to combine cobwed weight yarns together. 3 yarns each on the same section of the color wheel, yet still completely different. Together they created the most stunning color.

When I officially introduce each of the teammembers i will show the yarns.

Starting anew.....

I've discovered that the weblogging service being promoted through yahoo called pbwiki is not all it's cracked up to be. I misunderstood what it was meant to be. A WEB PAGE.

So now I have to quickly reconstruct what I had built, cause I am short on time and must get this place together for THE AMAZING LACE. Challenge #1 the team introduction needs to be posted.

I am also just finishing my 1st week of the Summer 2006 semester of college. The semester is 10 week long, and it better go smoother than the previous days I have experienced. More of my ranting later when I have my thoughts together on the saga that is the TCC counselor's office.

Sorting the UFO pile for team backup

May 17, 2006

While organizing the stash, I have made a point:
# to pull aside any yarn that belongs to a project on the needles.
# place found yarn with the project otherwise known as a UFO.
# I have pulled the LACE UFO's aside.
They are now competing with one another on the dining room table to see just who is worthy of stepping up to the plate if ROE is unable to fulfill it's duties as a co-teammember.

Currently the Wool Peddler Shawl is being smothered by Princess AKA "The Dirty Butt White Cat" (Pretty Angora from the front but gawd help your eyes if she turns around). Thankfully, I had planned on washing the shawl as soon as it's off the needles.

Knitting Operation

May 15, 2006

I need to go check out the Amazing Lace web page to see the first clue......AND GET MOVING ON IT!!

I hope anyone who is a mother had a great Mother's Day. If you are like me, you have furry 4 legged babies, so happy mother's day to you ALSO!! Giving a cat or dog from the shelter or the street a chance for a wonderful life, is a special thing. You have touched a life.

Currently ROE and I am not doing well as a team. I made a miss count in the pattern, but caught it while still on that specific DP needle. A knitting angel was on my shoulder at the moment. Then she decided to play a joke on me for the heck of it! Thus she shall be called a Knitting Faerie rather than an ANGEL. I unknitted back half way towards where I had skipped a yo or something of the like. Well! the yarn jump off the needle and what is supposed to be a contained open circle in the pattern has come undone. It involves maybe 3 rows total. I spent yesterday trying to repair with extra knitting needle and crochet hook. So far no luck. Just can't get it back up the right way, or at least in a way that looks ok. Figured I could cheat on that portain, and no one would know better.

Wish me luck. I will sit down again with the instruments set out like a dentist, and will rig this baby back to being proactive! :)

Rose of England Reborn

May 12, 2006

Restarted the ROE last night, this time i did a provisional cast-on. Am I trying to plan ahead? Maybe, I have a vision of being able to do a nicer belly button in the center of the Rose when i have finished knitting. Also I changed the size of needle i am using. Figured that since I've had to completely rip, might as well change the needles......it was tight on size 1's. Unable to find my #2's, I grabbed my 3's. Talk about a method to the madness. It's the Oh Well! method. I'll see how it looks in a few more rows and decide if the 3's are just abit too big. Keep your fingers crossed for me on this one.

Have been able to make progress. Last night I was able to knit abit and hope to be almost up to where I was before the ripping started this evening. maybe I'm just wishing, but who knows maybe I will be able to do it.

Yesterday I was on the Lace Knitters yahoo group looking for any hints on if I had made a mistake or not. A year or two ago they sponsered a KAL on the ROE. It appears that I might be in over my head. This beauty took some of the knitters 8 monthes to finish. I hadn't even thought of that. Will have to make sure I write down exactly where I am in pattern everytime i put it down, just in case I don't get to pick it back up in a few days, weeks.....monthes. ;) Would hate to get to the point of over 1000 stitches and not know where I am on it. UGH!

Murphy's Law: Once You Rip Will It Ever End?

May 11, 2006

We are currently in a doomed phase with ROE. Got to row 7 discovered a mistake in Row 3. Ripped again

Merry Ripping......

...originally posted on WIKI
May 11, 2006

ROE has met with misfortune. I made a mistake in how I was doing the m.3's. Thus ripping happened, and we are now starting over.

In Training.....

....originally posted on WIKI

May 11, 2006

For the last few days my partner R.O.E and I were training, getting ready for the Amazing Lace. We have suffered a set back. I had a misunderstanding over the directions for part b of the pattern.
The pattern called for (K.1,M.3)3 times. I did the increases the way I normally do a make one, by lifting the bar between stitches and putting on the left needle.then did a k,p,k into the the loop.

It appears *clears throat* that as this is an older pattern, they have different knitting terms. The book is British and from the late 50's maybe early 60's. It appears they wanted me to take the next stitch on the needle and increase by doing k,p,k into one stitch.

Thus by doing my boo-boo I was increasing by 3 stitches each time I came to that part of the pattern instead of only 2 stitches. in just a few rows rapidly approaching 100 extra stitches.

So frogging insued, and we are trying to get back to our former row as quickly as possiable. Now on row 7, I might of made a mistake on row 3. faints


The pictures are of a rare breed of goat that when startled falls to the ground in a full faint.

The Infamous Rose of England

....This post was moved from the ugly WIKI May 27, 2006

The Infamous Rose of England

May 07, 2006

My name is Jennifer, sometimes known as Pumpkinhead. My partner for this competition is The Rose of England
Please note this is a picture of someone else's completed ROE
The pattern is from The Second Book of Lace Knitting
Currently ROE has been cast-on using size #1's and stash yarn.
The yarn is of unknown vendor, I purchased it at the local knitting guilds stash sale.
It had on brand name on the cone, paid $5.00 for 1 lb. of 2 ply lavender lace weight.
Currently on Row 22, which completes Part A of the pattern which in the photo is the center center section.
I have made modifications in regards to the published:
* The pattern called for crochet cotton #60 ''No way in __Hades__ am I knitting with sewing thread!!!''
* English needle # 12, might be using the same size....can't seem to find my needle size comparison chart
* Pattern is aiming for a 72 in. diameter...we will see how big this baby is gonna get.