Good Job Susan

I just realized that the last link takes you right back to the same blog! My apologies. Try again:
http://susanwritesandknits.wordpress.com
Sorry 'bout that!

Moving Day

I moved! I am now at http://susanwritesandknits.blogspot.com. Come see me!

Like a Stone I Fall Into Your Eyes

Back's all done!

It's a lot of stockinette. So much so that I'm a little bored with it, and I'm dragging my feet to get started with the front, as it is basically the same, with different shaping at the top. It's a good thing I have absolutely no interest in making socks, because I'm almost certain that I would have second sock syndrome.

Here is a list I have compiled of hopes that I have for this sweater:

1. I hope I made the armholes the right way.

2. I hope it fits. And not only that, but I hope that it's flattering. Because quite frankly, I have no interest in an unflattering sweater. I can buy an unflattering sweater if I want one. Which I don't.

Shaping on the sides, intended to make it flattering. We shall see.

3. I hope the front and the back match up. I almost made this on circular needles because it eliminates the procrastination that ensues after finishing the back and before finishing the front, and also because it guarantees that both sides will be even. Well, with any luck anyway.

Marshmallow marveling the hem at the bottom, hoping as much as I am that it will match the hem on the front.

4. I hope that I didn't make the wrong yarn choice. I spent lot less on yarn that I could have, or maybe should have, and I hope that it doesn't result in an ass-y sweater.

5. I hope that it really is machine wash- and dry-able, as the label says. I will be royally peeved if it is not.

Anyway, as some incentive to finish this sea of stockinette, I picked out my next project (I can't do more than one project at once. I would never finish anything. Ever.):

http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=105&d_id=9&lang=en

Pretty, no?

I like it because it looks a lot like Juliet, only:

1. It is free.

2. On the model, it is pink. Which doesn't really matter in real life, but it Susan's life it makes all the difference.

3. It is free.

4. It is prettier, at least in my opinion, which in this case is the only one that matters. So there!

Now on to non-knitting news...

It still feels like Spring! It's subject to change of course, but I'm crossing my fingers that it won't. Probably so many fingers that I'm reversing the effect. Granted, it's still, like, 20 degrees out in the morning and my hands are still so dry that no amount of lotion seems to stop them from getting all red and cracked, but the afternoons are downright warm. So warm in fact that who knows how much clothing my grandmother will wear!

Marshmallow the superhero.

Song of the Day:

"Throw a stone and watch the ripples flow, moving out across the bay. Like a stone I fall into your eyes, deep into some mystery." -David Gray, "Please Forgive Me"

Blank Stares at Blank Pages

I've been a bad blogger. It's been almost a week since I've updated, and all I really have to say for myself is that I really have had nothing to blog about.

I almost finished that back of Holly, but I want to wait to show you until I do finish it because it just looks awkward still on the needles. It's just a big block of stockinette with some subtle shaping. It's really boring to knit, acutally.

Other than Holly-ing it up, all I've been up to is blowing up some balloons and contemplating a second job to pay for Dream School.

I am almost too exciting to bear.

You know what I did do though?

I got sick of waiting for someone else to start a group on Ravelry for the fabulishious movie "Say Anything," so I made one myself. For any interested Ravelers, come join the "To Know Lloyd Dobler is to Love Him" group!

Song of the Day:
"I'm unusually hard to hold on to. Blank stares at blank pages. No easy way to say this. You mean well, but you make this hard on me." -Sara Bareilles, "Love Song"

Hold Tight

It's entertaining the idea of being Spring here, in the sense that sometimes its a little warmer, or the sun pokes out for a minute. But then it goes away with no certainty that it will ever come back.

This is an actual conversation that I had about the weather with my grandmother, or as I will call her, Big G. Janice:

Big G. Janice (BGJ): I tell you, this weather, you never know what it's going to do.

Me: I know, it's nuts.

BGJ: I never know what to wear. I go outside in a winter coat and I'm suffocating, but without one I'm freezing.

Me: Layers, Gramma. Layers.

BGJ: Tell you one thing, I am definitely not going out in the nude in this weater. That might scare people.

I am for serious. I kid you not.

Song of the Day:
"Hold tight, wait till the party's over. Hold tight we're in for nasty weather." - Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House"

Everything and Everything Should Be All That You Wanted

I prefer the written word one hundred thousand times more than the spoken word. This is one of the many reasons why I am a writer, and not a public speaker.

When I write, I have all the time in the world to think about what I want to say, and then say it in an intelligent and insightful way.

Well, with any luck, anyway.

But talking? I have no ability to filter what comes out of my mouth. Granted, I can usually prevent myself from saying mean or wildly inappropriate things. I'm not a derelict. It's just that I usually don't think things through well enough before I say them, and as a result, I just word vomit all over the place.

Ewwwwww.

Which brings me to my story of the day...

In English last week, we were talking about the Canterbury Tales. In case you were wondering, they are dreadfully boring except when Chaucer throws in some innuendo. And then they are mildly entertaining in an at-least-this-story's-better-than-it-was-two-minutes-ago kind of way.

Our teacher was talking about how all of the Canterbury Tales have an off-color aspect to them.

"I don't mean just sex, but other gross things," she said.

Now, as I've mentioned in this blog before, I don't believe in premarital sex. Anyone who knows me or Boyfriend knows that. We're not shy about sharing that. Sometimes I make jokes about how having sex can kill you or what have you. So I thought it would infinitely funny to say something along the lines of that to one of my friends sitting next to me, who can appreciate a good sex-related joke.

"But sex is gross!" I said to her.

Only I said it about ten times louder than I wanted to. So loud in fact, that the entire room heard me. Several people asked who had said it because, after all, I am the quiet girl who sits in the back (see above word vomit comments), and they didn't expect me to burst out about the evils of sex.

Luckily, my English teacher can appreciate slightly inappropriate humor, and even had an assignment where we had to write our own Canterbury Tale, preferably with innuendo. (I might post mine later. It's about the party store during the Halloween rush, and a defiled fat-suit stripper costume. We'll see. Let me know if there's any interest.)

All she said was,

"Okay. Sex is gross."

The thing that gets met the most is that I should know better than to talk. Nothing good has ever come from me talking. Especially since the incident in Statistics class when we had to figure out what percent of parents during some obscure year from an outdated text book were married, no longer married, or never married. Naturally, instead of just keeping my mouth shut, I yelled out incredulously,

"But you can't have babies if you're not married!"

To which the teacher said,
"You'd be surprised how many people do, Susan."

Then my friend had to inform her that I was only kidding. Ironically, the same friend who I was trying to whisper "sex is gross" to.

I blame her entirely.

I used to be really shy and had pretty close to no self-esteem. Obviously, I'm happy to be away from that now, and in a place where I'm at least comfortable with myself. But the whole not talking thing I had going on back then? I may have to think about returning to that.

Oh, the shame.

Song of the Day:
"So you feel everything and everything should be all that you wanted. Stay with me. I'm in no condition to be alone." - Howie Day, "Brace Yourself"

Lover's in Love

I have finished the hem on the bottom of Holly, reaffirming my conviction that hemming is not all that much fun. I had to do it on Summertime Tunic too, only that was a little harder because it was sewn instead of knit together. But geez-a-loo, I can never get the sides to match up right. I start out okay, hemming strong, and then the next thing I know, I did something wrong and there's no more cast-on edge to hem to the three stitches that remain on my needles!

That sounds like a poem.

Oh, and that reminds me. I bought 14" needles instead of 10" ones to do this sweater. I'm glad I did because I don't think all 92 stitches ever would have stayed on my 10"s, but I still feel like a cartoon character with intensely exaggerated needles. It definitely will not fit in my Vera Bradley for transport to Boyfriend's house. I'll have to break out the Eddie Bauer tote that I got on sale at one of the outlet stores and that's bigger than some suitcases.

I could probably fit a puppy in it.

Yes, Pharmacy Pete and Shelly. That was, in fact, directed to you.

In other entirely unrelated, yet still super exciting, news...

SPRING!!!

It feels like it.

It was so warm outside yesterday that I was outside with a short sleeved Dream School t-shirt on, and no coat. NO COAT!

But, alas, the undisclosed location that I am from is notorious for being fickle, and today it was chillier. Not cold by any stretch of my fine-honed imagination (oh... guess who just found a new favorite phrase...), but not as balmy.

I celebrated by wearing my Summertime Tunic to school, only it didn't feel very summery on account of I had to wear it under a sweatshirt in order for it to be school appropriate.

Damn the school and their pesky dress code that prohibits girls from becoming the kind of not-so-nice girls they were destined to become!

So yeah. Spring. I like it.

It has been brought to my attention that Rossola has been "recruiting" people to come read my blog. If this is you, welcome! And thank you. And also, SUBMIT TO THE LIT! You know how, there are posters all over the school. I know. I helped hang them up.

Song of the Day:

"This woman was singing my song: lover's in love, and the other's run away, lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay." -Lisa Loeb, "Stay (I Missed You)"

Embrace the World

In case anyone was wondering, decaf coffee doesn't taste like regular coffee. At all. It actually tastes remarkably like dirt. And I don't make a habit of eating dirt, so...

(This is not decaf coffee. This is yummy-licious real coffee. With caffeine.)

On another, more relevant to the usual subject matter of this blog, note...

I have decided that gauge is my knitting downfall. I know that I've mentioned before that several other things were my knitting downfalls (lace, fair isle, craft store crappy yarn, the list goes on), but gauge really irks me.

Apparently I knit to tightly, as I have to go up several sizes of needles every time I make something. Or maybe too loosely... I can't tell. I have trouble visualizing things like that. Which is probably in some way contributing to the issues I'm having with physics class.

"Well, all of the math you just did would be right, except for you forgot to take into consideration that the elevator is going down, so that's a negative, so your answers wrong. Physics is more about conceptualizing than it is mathematics."

*Sob*

But I don't know how to conceptualize, Mr. Physics Teacher. It's not your fault, my head is just so never going to work that way. Which is probably why I'm destined to a life time of knitting other people's patterns, and never designing my own. Yet another knitting downfall.

To be fair, though, I never really wanted to design my own patters. I guess there's really no cause for complaint in that aspect.

It's all good, though. I'm fairly certain that Dream School doesn't even have physics. As long as I pass this year, I'm in the clear.

Oh... speaking of which...

I sent in my acceptance reply to Dream School, telling them that I'm coming!!!! Eeeeee!!!! A future in writing beyond this blog is in the cards for me! Eeeeee!!!!!!!

At some point in time there was a definitive point of this post. Now I can't remember for the life of me what it was. Hmm...

Maybe it was to see if I could set the record for number of ellipses used in one post...

...

...

I count 8, including the last two...

Oops, 9!

Song of the Day*

"And the shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray, and the sun will set for you." - Linkin Park, "Shadow of the Day"

*Song of the Day Disclaimer- I normally don't like Linkin Park at all. Like, at all. I listen to music primarily for the lyrics, with a few select exceptions. Linkin Park's lyrics contain a lot of f-words and really sad, angry, miserable language. Well, to be fair, sometimes I can't tell what they say over the screaming. But I heard this song, and the lyrics are actually kind of nice, even if they are repetitive. And Boyfriend is pleased because he thinks this means that I came over to his side of the Linkin Park Opinion Station. It doesn't. I still don't like them. Sorry Boyfriend!

I'll Show Them to You and You'll See Them Shine

Big happenings in Susan's world!

Well, kind of. The knitting part of it anyway.

First things first:

I finished Boyfriend's Dashings.

*Feel free to insert your applause here*

(I made him hold my book while I took the picture to give him something to do with his hands. I have to read it for a scholarship. And to answer your inevitable questions, yes it's big, yes the print's small, no it's not super interesting, yes I'm going to read it anyway. I read Gone with the Wind just for fun, and I think that might have been longer. If I read that for free, I think I can suck it up and read this for a chance at $10,000 for Dream School.)

They came out pretty good except for the part where I had some serious issues with the yarn (Bernat Cashmere Blends), reiterating my belief that I should spend more money at my LYS, less at Michael's.

Speaking of LYS's....

SUSAN'S FABULOUS LYS ADVENTURE (or local yarn store adventure, for my non-knitting audience, mainly BFF and Rossola).

Boyfriend offered to take me up to my LYS once I was done with his gloves so that I could buy yarn for my Holly sweater. Which is exciting in its own right, to have a boyfriend who volunteers to do that. And, also, it's exciting due to the fact that I get to spend some time in a converted barn filled with all sorts of yarn that I can't afford.

Here is the conversation with the yarn lady that ensued.

Yarn Lady (YL): Hello! How are you today?

Susan (S): I'm good, how are you?

YL: Good. Are you looking for anything in particular?

S: Well, I was hoping to find a cheaper alternative to cashmerino.

(Because YL carries cashmerino, which is what the pattern calls for, however it calls for $85 worth of it. Um... thanks anyway.)

YL: Well, let's look at some of the other aran weight yarns I have.

S: Super!

YL: I have this one over here. This is a really nice yarn, and it's $7 for twice as much yarn as the $8.50 ball of cashmerino.

S: Okay, but how much of that will I need?

(Because $7 sounds nice when you only need one, but...)

YL: You'll need 6 skeins.

(I turned to Boyfriend (B) and made a face as though YL had just kicked me in the stomach.)

S: That's $42!

YL: Yarn's expensive. This is a really nice yarn.

(Granted, I know that I haven't chosen an inexpensive hobby. But damned if I'm going to spend more on yarn to make my first sweater, that I'm more likely than not going to mess up somehow, than I do on a sweater, already made, from a store.)

S: But I only work two days a week blowing up balloons!

B: I'll pay for half of it.
S: No.

B: But I will.

S: No thank you. I don't want you to.

(I already spend enough on my yarn habit without dragging Boyfriend down with me.)

YL: You know what else I have...

Then she pointed up to the very top shelf, where there were about forty skeins of yarn (Plymouth Yarns Encore, 75% acrylic, 25% wool) in all sorts of colors, that sort of looked like they had been thrown up there and forgotten about. And since they were $5 a skein and I only needed 5 of them, they were well within my Party Store Candy Department Specialist's budget.

I realize now that it is unrealistic to go to the yarn store expecting to spend between $20 and $30 for good yarn. I would never ever spend more than $50, but I may have to up my budget for next time. It's just that, for my first sweater, it doesn't make sense to me to spend that much money. I can live with ruining a $24.95 sweater. $42? Not so much.

And, finally, this was the on-the-way-home conversation:

B: Maybe you should just buy a llama and make your own yarn.

S: Yeah, a lot of people do that. I don't think Shelly would like that very much, though.

B: So when you have your own house, then.

S: I'm not sure it's any more cost-efficient to buy, house, feed, and care for a llama then it is to buy yarn.

B: Yeah, but then you get to have a pet llama.

S: Llamas spit. Maybe I'd just get sheep.

B: That's an idea.

S: But I'd have to get a couple, because they live in flocks.

B: Then you'd need a---

S: Farm?

B: No, I was going to say one of those canes with the hooks on them that Moses had.

Song of the Day:
"Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine." - Bob Dylan, "Lay, Lady, Lay"