The Ghost of Knits Past

So, I've decided on a project for the knitting olympics, this hat. I tried to knit it last winter, and did in fact succeed, however, instead of being my size, it was infant sized, because working with two colors is a tricky business. Therefore, this year I will succeed!
Now, here's the catch. I will be traveling for the first six days of the olympics. I'm doing a college visit up in the Godless North (Massachusetts) that week, but first I'll be in New York to see my favorite musical of all time, Next to Normal (If you don't know Next to Normal, you should). Those of you that talk to me regularly are probably going, "What?? Since when are you going up north next month?" The answer is, since this morning. Every single decision was made then. It wasn't even a possibilty that we would go up next month until this morning, so that's why none of you knew.
Anyway, this presents a bit of a problem. That's six days where I will have uncertain internet access. I'm not sure what the plan is yet, but in order to keep my one post a day thing running, I must do something! Any suggestions? I'm thinking a) Get a guest writer b) Write six posts before I leave and send them to someone I can trust to post one each day. Thoughts?
Anywho, I've haven't knit at all today (bad Gardiner!), and God knows I'm going to need that cardigan while I'm in New York. Think I could manage a pair of mittens before I get there? Those would be REALLY useful. Perhaps THAT is what the Patons Yarn was meant for? A pair of striped mittens? How does that sound?

That's all for today.
Thing to be grateful for today: My mother's insane skills.

Ideas

So, I'm still focused on the sweater (I'm almost halfway through the second sleeve), but I have all of these ideas for other projects to work on once it's over in my head, and between trying the three major things I have going on, all of which need to be done in February, I think February is going to end up being more of a knitting month than January.
The first thing I need to be knitting in February is my mother's shawl, which was supposed to be her Christmas gift, but ended up being her birthday gift (don't worry, she still got a Christmas gift). Her birthday is the twentieth of February. I'm over halfway through with it, but I've still got a ways to go. It's beautiful, though it may end up being an afghan if it ends up being very LARGE (which it very well might). I would put up a picture of the shawl, but my mom hasn't seen it yet, and I'd like to keep it that way (she of course already knows that it is a shawl).
The second thing I want to be working on is assorted little projects that I'm planning on selling to raise money for Haiti. I'm thinking hats, little bags, and maybe a couple of scarves. This last piece actually ties into my third goal for the month, the knitting olympics. Now, I know some of you are going "huh? Those crazy knitters!" Well, let me tell you, the knitting olympics are pretty awesome! The basic idea is that you choose a project that will challenge you, but that you can knit from the time of the beginning ceremony of the olympics to the time of the ending ceremony. This year, I'm thinking I will knit a lace scarf.
My logic behind the lace is simple: I can knit it in the time given (hopefully), it will be a challenge, because my experience with lace is minimal, I can sell it for Haiti more easily because we are in Texas and the winter is ending here, so people won't be looking for warm handknits neccessarily.
So, that's the plan. In february, I am knitting little projects to raise money for Haiti that I can carry around with me when I'm knitting on the go, my mother's shawl, which will be an at home project because it is rather large and woolen, and finally the lace scarf, which while it is still for Haiti, is in a category of it's own because it is for the knitting olympics as well.
What do you guys think? Can I pull it off? Any suggestions for little projects? I'm thinking about this scarf. If you don't have a Ravelry account, that won't work, sorry.

Thing to be grateful for today: The Tower.

What I'm Knitting Now

So guys, I have scary news. To meet my goal of being finished with the cardigan by the stroke of midnight on February the first, I must have finished the second sleeve, the back and left shoulder, have picked up the stitches along the sides and created a button band, blocked the piece, sewn it together, and attached the buttons by a week from Sunday. That is ten days. Here's what it looks like.



(Does that back look a little...wide...to you? It fits me loosely when I've wrapped it around me, but I'm scared that once it's been blocked it will be HUGE!)
Now, I calculate that it will take a total of four days to block/seam the thing (blocking can take a while), plus I'll probably need the only spare mattress in our house on Friday the 29th, which means I can't block it there (I suppose I could block it somewhere else, but I can't imagine where at this point in time). I could, if absolutely necessary, make it two days , so I would pin it for blocking Saturday morning when the mattress can be reclaimed, put in under a fan, and take it off Sunday and seam that whole day. What do you guys think? Is that a plausible finishing up plan?
On to the next problem. Where do I get eleven awesome matching, wooden buttons of a biggish size? Anyone? Ask your family, your friends, yourselves! I have NO idea!
Even assuming that I can get all of my finishing up in two days, that still only leaves me eight knitting days left. The cardigan body is under house arrest because it is much too big to be toted around for knitting now, so the second sleeve is my out of house knitting. Here's where the problem lies. I got over three inches of sleeve done out of the house today. I know, you're thinking, "That sounds pretty good. How's that a problem, Gardiner?" Here's how! This means I only need five major out of house knitting days, right? I have seven, I'll probably have the sleeve cast off on Sunday, because it's my major out of house knitting day(It still doesn't sound like a problem, does it?). Well, that leaves me five more out of house days. With no really good, cardigan-related out of house project, and with the deadline looming so close, it looks like I'll be forced to bring the entire body with me to school every day next week to finish...which kind of sucks. In a perfect world, I will have finished the shoulder and already picked up the side seams by Monday, but that won't happen, which means that I will be doing lots of fiddly bits to and from school...this sucks. Any tips from my knitter readers on how to transport large, fiddly projects to and fro?

Anyway, I DO actually have other projects on the needles right now. Remember the blanket and sock? They've been getting neglected this month. As has this little morsel I started in December.



Now, the coloring is a little off, because this glove is actually a bit lighter (though I wish it was this dark because then I might wear it). So far, this glove has no owner (that is not an invitation to ask for it, I might have an owner in mind).

So, that's what I have on the needles right now. To put things in perspective I thought I might show you guys something.
I have a lot of yarn.



See that smaller, opaque bag? That's the bag of yarn that I have a plan for...that other bag? It's yarn that a) I once had a plan for, but forgot/gave up on b) was given to me and does not yet have a plan, or c) I bought because it was pretty/soft/cool even though I had no real plan for it. That's quite a large amount of yarn I don't know what to do with...

On a final and totally unrelated note, my mother is absolutely hysterical.



This car has been sitting in front of our house for a couple of weeks now, unmoved. It has been slightly blocking our driveway, so yesterday my mother decided to take action by making this sign.



(Here's a close up so you can read the smaller writing at the bottom.)



She then placed said sign on the car, though no sooner had she done so than it's owner shows up to tell her that its battery has died, and he will push it out of the way for us. Though her sign worked, my mom was rather disappointed that most of the world did not get to behold its glory. She then insisted on going outside for a photoshoot with her sign, so that I might blog the occasion.



Thing to be grateful for today: Learning that I've been doing the tree pose in yoga wrong for seven years.

Eight

So, I'm giving you a list of eight things that happened since my last post:

1. I tried to find more Patons SWS wool/soy blend so I could make a scarf. I did not succeed.
2. I went to the orthodontist, and all they did was take a mold of my teeth.
3. I started my German Rosetta Stone program. I now know more German than I did yesterday.
4. Despite screaming to the heavens that I would not draw "The Tower" card when I got home, I drew "The Tower". I'm trying to remain positive.
5. I had odd dreams (these included sunglasses, hospital visits, and study sessions).
6. I took a day off of school to do homework, rest up, and find my lost center.
7. This was javascript:void(0)taken well by all as far as I can tell.
8. I slept in.

Other than that, let's see...I'm feeling so much better having taken a small break from the world today, and now I think I'm going to bed. Good night all.

Thing to be grateful for today: Understanding teachers.

Pumping Iron

It's time for some good 'ol fashioned peer editing guys.
Now, most of you know that I write a lot of poetry, and that I love poetry (maybe even as much as knitting...please, hold your gasps of horror and shock). I say "as much as" and not "more" because they are two totally incomparable arts. I like to think of knitting as being more under the category of playing music, which sounds totally kooky, but I have an explanation. When you, say, play a Bach piece, you are pouring yourself into the piece, but it is still laid out there for you to do, as it has been written, with perhaps a few modifications depending on your personality type. Knitting is just like that. You knit what the pattern tells you (unless you're one of those really inventive knitters who comes up with their own patterns, personally I like to tweak age-old motifs to fit my needs), and the knitting will of course reflect your feelings and experiences during the project, if for no other reason than that your stitches will get tighter or looser depending on how you feel, though I like to think that knitting is affected on a deeper level than that by what we experience when we're working (more on that on another day).
Writing, is like musical composition. It is taking your emotions and experiences, and creating something totally new and unique out of your own head using all manner of symbols and sounds. This is why writing and knitting are incomparable, and why I love them both. One provides the calm, security in knowing that one stitch looks one way and the other looks the other, and when you do weird things with them they make clothes, and the other provides the ability to expand and throw yourself inward and outward into some magical pool of words and feelings.
What's sad about this is that, though I've talked a lot about knitting, I've talked very little about writing. This is partly due to the fact that I haven't written a poem in almost a month, which is a rare and depressing thing for me, so right now I'm trying to get back into the groove of things. I thought that I'd do this by putting up a couple of my poems, and asking you guys to critique them, so I can get those poetic muscles moving again.
These are from my submission to a competition last fall:

Glass Hearts

In the spyglass I see

An image distorted and cracked,

And I know the cracks were made by me

With a single selfish act.

Our hearts are fragile things,

Composed of hopes, love, and fear,

Held together by glue and knotted strings,

That we offer to those we want kept near.

In the looking glass I see

A self that understands you

Grinning out triumphantly,

Because now, I’ve been selfish too.

I’ve taken someone’s heart,

Tender and trusting,

And I’ve taken it apart;

Abandoned it for my desiring.

Is the mirror fogged or clearing?

Is the image my soul revealed, or has your breath,

Upon my lonely fearing

Led to my kindness’s death?

Having once forgiven you,

Myself, I can now forgive

For breaking his heart too,

Because after you, my heart still lived.

The End All, Lose All

A young man, stumbling,

(Blind.

Broken.

Heartless)

Towards the end all,

Lose all.

The shade of suburbia

Lies

Shattered at his feet.

Burning oil drums line the pavement.

(So many lost boys

Holding candles of hellfire,

The wax dripping

Down their burnt digits.)

The light catches his eyes,

And you’ve seen them before:

When bombs are dropped

On innocent souls in the night;

When sweaty burgers are shoved

Down gullets into swollen bellies;

In the faces of chemotherapy skeletons

Lying prone on hospital beds;

In your own face

(Creeping closer).

He falls to the dusty concrete,

Shallow cheek pressed to the ground.

Next to him is a fallen barrel,

Its oil spread into a sticky pool.

He lifts himself up on quaking arms,

Stares deep at his own reflection in the pool,

And with a self-satisfied grin,

Collapses,

Not to breathe again.

So, tell me what you think guys, leave comments, all that jazz.
Night.
Thing to be grateful for today: Peer editing

Grounding...FAILED

So, I had planned to write a post on getting grounded tonight. Basically, the idea was that being grounded is important, and lately I've been searching desperately for that grounding center that I've apparently lost somewhere along the way in the last months. I even got myself nice and grounded for writing by returning to my musical roots (I'm listening to Joanna Newsom, if you don't know her, you should try her. If you don't like her, I understand, I used to hate her).
Anyway, I found out a couple of minutes ago that I have an essay due tomorrow. Ok..."found out" is not the right phrase, "was reminded" is better. Either way, I have lost any sense of groundedness (again) and am currently FREAKING OUT! I had to write something tonight, because if I didn't I would not forgive myself for failing my goal of writing on here every day, but today, because History of Music is a truly trying and difficult class, this post is basically an "OHMYGODILOVEYOUGUYSBUTCAN'TWRITEAREALPOST" post (If you read all of that coherently the first time, I'm impressed). So, now I really must go write about music (which I'm not that good at anyway). Toodles.

Thing to be grateful for today: V-V, one of my best friends in the world, who is the one that reminded me about this essay five minutes ago.

Sleeves 'N Things

So, because the body of the cardigan got way too big to be conveniently portable, it has become an "in-house" project. Therefore, because I still insist on finishing the project by my deadline of January 31st, I began the sleeve.



I've been working on it in my spare moments these past few days, and today I was planning on getting quite a lot of it done, because I was going to be out of the house for several hours, however, I foolishly just grabbed the project without considering the fact hat I the ball it was attached to had basically no yarn left, so I knit for about half an hour and then I was done...yarnless, and hours of prime knitting time gone. I was none too pleased. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Now, on to future knitting. I was given a ton of yarn for my birthday this year, but these are my two personal favorite skeins:



The colors are a little off (sorry about the distance, it was the only way to get the colors to work at all).
Anyway, these are two beautiful skeins of "Patons SWS". They're 70% wool, 30% soy, and they're beautiful! They are so soft, and have a lovely halo. Now, the question is, what do I knit them into? Thoughts knitters? Or non-knitters? Everyone should give a suggestion, even if you don't normally comment!

Anyway, yesterday, I swore to clean my room, and here are the results:



Much better, no? That thing that appears to be a pile o' crap on the right side is my bag of yarn. That is a cat on my floor; his name is Steve.



Isn't that nice? I think so.

Now, the desk was not so much fixed:

And that, my friends, is tomorrow's task.

Thing to be grateful for today: Pillow-top mattresses.