Polgara Knits

I finished the blanket yesterday–my first crocheted project!  As you can see, it doesn’t lie quite as flat as it should; I had difficulty figuring out how many stitches to pick up along the edges, so it’s….oddly shaped, I guess.  Hopefully washing it will even it out a little, but if not, I’m not too worried–it’s a baby blanket, and babies are notoriously forgiving about such details.  Which is good, because I’m sure you’ve noticed the white isn’t pure white, it’s a baby blend with pink and blue mixed in.  This is what happens when I try to use stash yarn only.  But at least the Plymouth Encore is machine washable, which I think is key for any baby gift.  Alpaca may be the most wonderful fiber in the whole wide world, and would make marvelous heirloom quality items, but what mother of an infant has time to handwash anything?  It would sit in a box or drawer somewhere, lovely to look at, but never actually used.  Hopefully this blanket will be used and abused until there’s nothing left but string (which hopefully won’t happen until well after the baby has grown out of it).

In other news, I had a brain fart, and forgot that this purse was supposed to be finished by a deadline–today, to be exact.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  The knitting part was done long ago, but it needs to be stitched along the bottom and felted.  It’s the felting part that’s been holding things up, since I don’t have my own washing machine, and the water in the machines in my building’s laundry room isn’t hot enough to do the job properly.  I also haven’t tracked down the appropriate accessorizing hardware.  It was supposed to be finished today, because it’s a gift for my friend who took her black belt test yesterday (krav maga).  I suck.  I may show her a picture of the soon-to-be-a-purse, but I doubt it.  I’ll just have to surprise her with it later–hopefully sooner than her next birthday, though.

Also, this picture doesn’t do the colors justice–the red is much deeper and less bright than it appears here. Sadly, I can’t get the colors to be true to life with this camera. Makes me miss my old Powershot A300 sometimes.

All week I’ve been meaning to post about a marvelous LYS experience I had last week.  As I’d posted earlier, I’d run out of the golden Plymouth Encore for my crocheted log cabin blanket.  I’d called all the yarn stores nearest to me (of which there are many, being in Los Angeles), and the only store that had it was Black Sheep Knittery. 

So Saturday comes along, and I get all set to go to BSK, but I couldn’t remember the cross streets, so I went to the SnB mailing list to get the exact address, and lo and behold, there’s a post from BSK, announcing that they would be closed for the day due to a large anti-war protest going on nearby.  Grrrrrrrrrr!  Need! Yarn! Now!

I was too desperate for the yarn, having been unable to work on my blanket for a whole four days, and I didn’t want to wait until it reopened on Sunday.  I had posted to the list earlier asking for LYS recommendations, but the only other two that were mentioned were terribly far away, one in Westlake and one in the far reaches of Burbank, further into the Valley than I’d ever been except to pass through on my way to Yosemite or San Francisco.  Compared to Westlake, though, the Burbank store was much closer, so I printed out a map and away I went.  And no, I didn’t even call first, because if I was going to be disappointed, I wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

But it wasn’t a disappointment!  First, Handmade wasn’t nearly as far as the map made it look, which is a good thing, because it was adorable!  There was plenty of Encore, in many beautiful colors, as well as my favorite felting yarn, Cascade (they could use more 220, though).  The Encore was totally reasonably priced ($5!), which is always a joy after shopping in the more expensive “boutiques” of West Hollywood and Santa Monica.  And  the owner was truly a delight (which isn’t always the case, in my experience).  She was warm and friendly, accessible but not obtrusive, and wonderful to talk to.  She was all decked out in green for St. Patrick’s Day, which was also her wedding anniversary, and the beautiful green stained glass window in one of her interior walls that had been made by her dad years ago proclaimed her to be Irish all year round and not just on the 17th of March.  (Perhaps this is only important to me, being all Boston Irish myself.)

I wish the store was a little closer, because this would easily become my first choice LYS, but even with the 10 miles between us, I suspect I’ll be there again.  Heck, according to Mapquest, it’s really only 23 minutes away!

I ran out of Plymouth Encore 1014 last night right in the middle of a yellow/orange section.  The nearest yarn store to me is too frou-frou to carry Plymouth, and I won’t have time to get to an LYS further away until Saturday.  The only L.A. store that I even suspect carries Plymouth is Unwind.  I see many phone calls in my future to see if anyone closer has it.  I could close my eyes, spin around and throw a rock and hit at least two stores, surely somebody has it!

I know it comes as no surprise to anyone that knitting and crocheting are incredibly soothing activities.  As the yarn slips through your fingers, so does the stress of the moment, hour, or day.  Your mind becomes clearer, more focussed, less cluttered.  It can be difficult to make the world go away, and to do so in a constructive way (unlike, say, vegging in front of a tv–not that I’m against vegging in front of the tv); exercise is the only other way that comes to mind, at least for me, yet exercise isn’t always an option.  For immediate release, there’s nothing like picking up a project and stitching together a few rows.

I bring this up because I did something completely bone-headed this afternoon:  I forgot my ATM pin number.  ?!  Yeah, no clue how I managed that one, but I completely blanked in front of the ATM, and now I have to waste time this afternoon at the bank to clear it up.  But after crocheting a few rows on my log cabin blanket, I’m a little more “whatever” about the whole thing.  Yeah, it was stupid, but I will deal, and it will be fixed, and I will laugh about it next week.  Or maybe next month.

Wait, I think I need to crochet a few more rows…

As of today’s lunch hour, this is how far I’ve gotten with the crochet blanket, started Saturday, February 24th.  Sadly, the white isn’t pure white, but a baby yarn that includes blends of pink and blue separated by stretches of white; otherwise it would be a pretty close approximation of the colors of the Irish flag.  I’m thinking of switching to a double-crochet stitch once I finish this last stripe of white–I believe I’ve mastered the single crochet, so it’s time to move on to something new.

I’m enjoying crochet so far, but I don’t like how eyes-on it is–with knitting, I can afford to look up much more frequently than I can with the crocheting.  Makes it much harder to watch tv while crocheting, which was always one of the plusses to knitting.

And speaking of knitting, this is a picture of a purse that’s waiting to be felted.  I started out following a pattern I found online, but I quickly realized I wasn’t going to have enough yarn, so I veered away to something slightly different.  No clue how the final product will turn out, but mostly I’m hoping the slightly ruffled edge will look ok.

My friend Stevie is coming to town this Wednesday! This, of course, means massive cleaning for me, as I’m not one to clean as I go. I still have to vacuum, clean the bathroom, and finish the dishes. But that’s not the point of this post.

I’m fairly certain no one actually reads this blog, but just in case, I want to share with you the reason Stevie is comin’ to L.A.–the first public screening of her documentary, IRL (in which I’m featured! more than once!):

~~~~~

It’s been a tremendously long road (going on 4 years *gulp*) but “IRL (In Real Life)” aka the Bronze documentary is done and will be having its first public screening in LA on March 10th! (A fitting date —the 10 year anniversary of the Buffy pilot

For anyone who doesn’t know, “IRL” is the first documentary to look at online communities and relationships and what happens to them when they move into “real life.” The film chronicles the life, death and afterlife of an online community called “The Bronze,” made up of fans from the official website for “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.” The film is about online communities in general but specifically about a community of fans and it allows the fans to finally tell their stories directly, in their own words.

The goal for this event is to attract some attention and publicity and hopefully interest a distributor so that the film can actually get to the people who’ve been waiting for it all this time - YOU. In order for that to happen, we need people to hear about the screening and to come, so please, share this info with everyone you can think of, especially those of you in the SoCal area. We need a good turnout and we need to get some buzz going!

The screening will be held at Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles (655 N. Van Ness Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038) at 2pm PST on Saturday March 10th. The screening is FREE though parking in the area is not. Also there is limited seating. You can RSVP to save a seat by emailing IRLScreenings@gmail.com (please put the letters “LA” in the subject line).

As an added bonus, our very own Allyson will be doing a reading from her FORTHCOMING BOOK! “Will The Vampire People Please Leave The Lobby?” before the screening. The two of us will be doing a Q&A afterwards about the Bronze, 10 years of Buffy, and whatever else comes into our heads, I imagine.

If you want visual aids: The trailer is up at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMjya7KqKHg

And we now have a myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/irlmovie

Spread the word! Seize the fish! You can’t stop the signal! etc.

~S.T.

Please note Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com, so go pre-order it! The sis and I are mentioned several times in it!

I’ve added a link to my set of knitting-related pictures on Flickr, under the new header “Links” over in the sidebar.  The set is missing a few things–the scarf and cigarette cozy I made for Allyson, the felted purse I made for my sister, and probably others I’ve forgotten to photograph before giving them away.  I also have two purses waiting to be felted that haven’t been photographed yet, a hat and scarf that needs the ends woven in, a pair of unfinished baby booties, the incomplete pieces to a teddy bear that I abandoned, a fibonacci scarf that’s still on the needles….  Ok, I need to stop thinking about the projects I never finished or I’ll never get around to cleaning my apartment today!

But, the link is there.  And, for that matter, here.

We survived the upgrade!

I don’t know if you heard, but WordPress version 2.1.1 was contaminated with hacker code.  If that’s the version you have, upgrade ASAP!

So last Thursday, I started jury duty.  Knitting needles were not allowed, so I brought a book, a Sudoku book, a computer.  Nothing really satisfying. 

I was put into jury selection for one trial–a murder trial, so selecting the jury took a really long time.  I had to go back on Friday, and they neither excused me, nor finished picking the jury, so I had to go back on Monday.  My diversionary tactics weren’t working–I’d become accustomed to knitting while waiting, and I missed that sense of accomplishment.  So, Saturday, I got out my Plymouth Encore and two “learn to crochet” books that had failed to sink in on previous occasions, and with a project in mind, I set about to learn to crochet.

I spent about four hours on Saturday and five or six hours on Sunday working on a single crochet log cabin blanket. I’d seen the knitting pattern in Mason-Dixon Knitting and figured it couldn’t be that hard to adapt it to crochet, and I was right. Sadly, it’s slow going, perhaps because of the single crochet stitch (I prefer to learn one stitch at a time, same way I learned how to knit), and most certainly not helped by my naturally tight stitching. My hands keep cramping up from being forced into these new positions. I also think part of it is the crochet hook I’m using. It’s exactly the size that’s recommended for the Encore, but I forgot that when I’m knitting, I prefer to go about two sizes up because I knit so tight, and what do you know, turns out I crochet tight too.

But it’s turning out pretty well–it’s already bigger than this picture I took on Monday. It was the perfect project for waiting in courthouse hallways, so of course I was excused from the jury at 11:30am Monday. That’s quite alright, though, ’cause now I’ve finally made a dent in the “learn to crochet” resolution I made about two New Years ago.

Welcome, everyone!  This is my newest, latest blog.  It was created so I could kick the tires of Word Press, as my company is considering using it for a new project and I wanted to see what its bells and whistles (and limitations) are.  I’ve always wanted to start a strictly knitting blog, so now I have one.  Yay!

I will try to limit the posts after this one to strictly knitting–well, and crocheting…and yarn shopping…and related books.  And possibly a story  or two about my cats.