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Talk to the Palm

Yesterday I learned that the lovey Palm green Bernat Satin that I’m using for Hailey’s star afghan has been…wait for it…discontinued. Can you say panic? My usual supplier (Stitches from the Heart) was sold out, and had been out for quite some time (damn you, tedonitis, for making me skip the summer!), so when I got home last night I’d barely put my keys down before heading for Google.

Fortunately not everyone is sold out yet, and I found a lovely store in Tennessee named Decherd Needleworks that was still listing it. I ordered five skeins, not because I expect to need five skeins, but because I love that green and want to stock up before they’re all gone. They emailed me today to let me know they only had four skeins left and did I still want them (Hells yes!). Here’s to hoping their follow-through is as quick and efficient as their follow-up, since I only have two more rows to go before I need the green again (although I probably have enough left to last me about three rows before running out).

Honestly, I’ve been using that green for nearly four years now, about as long as I’ve been knitting–never in a million years would it have occurred to me that they’d discontinue it! Such a pretty color. *sigh* Sad now.

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Links

I'm back, baby!

It finally happened–the PT gave me dispensation to start knitting/crochet again! Woot! I’m on the easing-back-into-it program, started at ten minutes, a couple of times a day, and I’m up to about 20 minutes at a time now. I’m working on a crocheted star afghan in Bernat Satin for my niece, and it’s now large enough that I can’t finish a full round in my allotted 20 minutes, but that’s ok. I don’t want to rush it and ruin all the progress of the last four months, not when we’re this close to Christmas and winter knitting.

In knee news, it’s also progressing slowly. I’m back at work, but I’m still using a cane, as I can only go so far before the knee gets very, very tired. PT has banned me from big stores (Target, Michael’s, etc.), given how much walking one can do there without even realizing it. The couple of times I tried Target, I came out totally exhausted. But I can walk around my office suite without the cane and not feel pain, so that’s a plus, especially since the cane use is starting to screw with my back and hip.

I’ve been slowly, slowly emptying the shelves of the bookcases that I’ll be swapping with the entertainment center. I have no idea where I’ll put the bookcases in the interim, but they need to go somewhere so I can paint that wall, hopefully next weekend. I was going to paint it green like the attached smaller wall, but I’m also considering a complimentary blue. It will most likely be green, though, since I already have the paint for that, and I’m more of a path-of-least-resistance person.

That’s the it for now. Hopefully now that I’m back with the yarn I’ll be updating more frequently again. Yay yarn!

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Knitting and Crochet Shopping

Off the yarn wagon….again

So last week, as I had mentioned, I went yarn shopping at Stitches from the Heart, and as we all knew would happen, I bought more than I’d planned. That’ll teach me to carry my vacation credit card with me when I’m no longer on vacation! First it took me forever to decide on a yarn for Haley’s blanket–cool colors, soft texture and machine washable is a tough combination to find!–but I finally chose Universal Yarn’s Classic Worsted LP (20% wool/80 acrylic) in the variegated “purple allure” (aka 11418) palette. But before I decided on that, I’d kept returning to the Bernat Satin wall o’color. So many bright and beautiful colors! I’d been wanting to do some amigurumi work, but you need a good acrylic for that, so the stitches don’t stretch and leak stuffing all over the place. In the end, I couldn’t resist all those beautiful colors, and ended up with twelve balls of Bernat Satin, in twelve different colors.

Of course, now that I have all I need for a cute amigurumi doll, I can’t decide on a pattern. Sigh.

But yes, I bought a ton of yarn last week, so hopefully that’ll carry me over the summer. There have been many yarn sales lately–at WEBS and at Unwind (one of my LYSs), but I haven’t even glanced at either one, so as not to tempt myself.

So back to Haley’s blanket–I started a crocheted log cabin, but so far I don’t love it. The yarn is great, but it’s the pattern–no matter how many of these I do, I still can’t nail the right number of stitches to add when crocheting across the side of a row, so some sides are longer than others, and there’s a folding/pinching issue where I picked up too many/didn’t pick up enough. I’m thinking of frogging it and making a star afghan instead. If I do that, then I think I’d switch to the Satin, ’cause the pattern would benefit far more from different colored yarns than from one variegated palette. And the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a “Haley’s Comet” blanket. Hmm….

In other yarn news, I haven’t done anything lately with the sparkly market shawl, the too-big pink slouchy hat, the pseudo fair isle tam from Knitty, the scratchy my so-called scarf, or Kristen’s hat. I really suck at finishing, yo.

And finally, on a completely unrelated tangent, I rejoined Weight Watchers this week, and had my first meeting yesterday. My plan is to relearn how to eat properly. Lindora did great things for me the first six months I was on it, but it just went downhill from there, and I’d like to be able to look at a potato again without freaking out or binging on them (or is it bingeing?).

That’s all I got for today. Have a great Memorial Day tomorrow!

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Knitting and Crochet

Slouchy hats and porn stars

First, I hate the new WordPress interface. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time, design-wise. I wish I could revert it back. Blech.

Second, I feel the need to note that many of my posts are made when I’m avoiding something else–this time, my long list of weekend chores. At least I can feel like I’ve accomplished something once I’ve made a post, though.

Slouchy hatOk, so, more important than all that–I seem to have recovered from my knitter’s block–woot! While I was waiting for the Wildwood to arrive, I started and finished a Puffy Slouchy Hat (left) using my Berrocco Foliage that I bought at Handmade last fall. At first, I was verra disappointed in it–too small! WTH?! I still liked the idea of it, though, so I started another with a worsted weight variegated in pinks and browns, adding stitches, adding rows, essentially making it enormous. During this second hat, I realized my mistake with the first–it need to be wrapped around a plate to block the crap out of it. Oops? So I did that, and of course the hat came out awesomecakes! Except, then I had this enormous pink and brown hat to deal with. I finished it anyway, in the hopes that maybe it would work out fine by skipping the blocking step. Um, not so much. So, I frogged it back 3/4 of the way last night and now I’m making it more to the pattern (still with a couple of extra rows, though, given the smaller gauge)–the yarn was too damned cute not to try again. It’s like pink cammo!

And of course, the Wildwood arrived on Thursday, so once this hat is finished, I’ll be getting back to the sparkly shawl. I hope it turns out half as well as the hat.

Oh, and in other news, I realize that I never followed up on the Little Coco. Back in November, I posted about the hit count on my flickr picture of the Little Coco bag, and how absurdly high it was at 98. Well, the hit count is now at 2,673. And the reason my pink purse is so popular? Apparently Little Coco is also the name of a porn star. ?! BWAH! I had no idea, and I wonder if the designer of the bag was aware of this and did it on purpose. It cracks me up that people looking for something to whack off to are instead finding my cute purse.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got for today. I really should get started on that chore list now. *sigh*

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Knitting and Crochet Shopping

Wonder Twin Willpower, Activate!

One of the LYSs here, Knit Cafe (and omigod how much do I love the colors of its website! THIS much!), is closing (temporarily until they find new digs that don’t charge actual body parts for rent), and from what I’ve heard, the sale is impressive and not to be missed.  And yet! Here I sit, resisting! And oh my, does it burn. Burn! I can hear the yarn and the books and the needles calling out to me from a mere two miles away! *sob*

But alas, I am on a Budget now. The Budget isn’t so bad, actually, and I sometimes have money left over at the end of a week, but this week that money went to two skeins of Wildwood ’cause the shawl I’m working on is going to be way too short without them*. So, no clearance sale for me. *sigh*

But you should go without me. Seriously, I won’t mind. Much. 🙂

*Ok, in the interests of full disclosure, I did also purchase two books from Amazon: the new Kelley Armstrong and the new Dresden book. Two of my favorite authors came out with new tales within a week of each other–there’s no amount of willpower that can withstand that!