Neomera Knits

Well, I actually wrote a post yesterday while I was at work (yes, I wrote a blog post out longhand.  On paper.  With a pencil.  What?) but it’s already out of date.  The theme of the post really was that boy oh boy am I stressed out.  Too much to do and not enough hours in the day to go to work, get my chores and errands done, make all the meals I need to make (dinner, lunch for 2 for the next day, breakfast for tomorrow if I have a physical therapy appointment…) and then collapse in bed.  No time for me to do any sort of me things.  It’s a horrible way to go screaming through life.

This evening, however, my Significant Other  called me to tell me he’s calling off the diet we’ve been on- since Saturday.  I’m a bit disappointed, but I can’t force him to eat or not eat anything.  He is, after all, a grown up.  And I have rather been wanting to start drinking coffee again anyway.

I tell you, though.  Living in California isn’t easy.  All my friends are back in Maryland (also my family) or up the coast from me (San Francisco, Eugene, Portland, Seattle…) so I don’t really have anyone around here to talk to aside from the S.O.  And he’s a wonderful intelligent person whom I love very much… but he’s only one person after all.

Well, Saturday is International Knit in Public Day and there is an event nearish by here that I think I’ll go to.  If I’m brave.  Maybe I’ll meet some folks there.  We’ll see, yes?  Maybe I’ll be SUPER brave and take my half finished Hidecote Shawl.  Well, honestly I’m not sure it IS half finished- these triangular things are hard for me to figure.  All I know is that both lace knitting and geometry are some kind of magic, and I’m just heppy to be allowed to play with them. 

I keep meaning to blog, but well…  I keep thinking that I want to put pictures in of what I’m working on, but then I have to find my camera cable, and then i have to process the photos for the blog, then I have to upload them… and that assumes that I’ve taken the pictures to begin with…  It just starts to feel like work.  Ah well.  I want to write though I think, so here’s what’s going on.  I am knitting, among other things.  I’m actually knitting Miriam Felton’s Hidcote Shawl.  I’m also thinking about a sweater vest and some other stuff.  And spinning.  Lots of spinning.

I’m actually feeling a bit insular lately.  I moved out here to California  to follow my Boy, and he’s being wonderful and all that, and we do get out to hang out with people on weekends usually.  Thing is that while we’re being all social and such and hanging out with really cool folks, I don’t really have any friends of my own out here, which gets me down.  I’m thinking that I should find a stitch and bitch or take a class or something, but I’m kinda shy of looking.  Probably just being lazy, but once you get all hermitlike in your habits it can be really tough to break out of that mindset.

Well, I guess I’ll look around a but and see what’s out there.  Right now, though, I’ve got some chicken soup to attend to.  Maybe this week I’ll get brave and make something complicated out of my Korean cookbook.  I’m not betting on it, though.

I’m going a third round with the federal background check paperwork. It wasn’t perfect enough the second time, and now it’s gone and learned a new trick! I get to go have my fingers printed tomorrow morning at the Irvine PD. I know, it sounds so very thrilling, doesn’t it? I’ve actually been out on a few jobs now, and it’s amazing. I feel like a real girl again. It’s so nice!

Three days of not quite full time work isn’t going to pay my bills this month, but it’s a start. And there’s more work on the way- especially if I can get this damn paperwork done. And there’s my Etsy store! Didn’t I tell you about that? I’m taking inspiration from WoW, mostly. Anyone have any requests? I’ll see what I can do.  I finished the sock yarn combo - the purple/red is really pretty, but I think I still like the yellow better.  I just have to finish spinning up the nylon reinforcement and I’m good to go.  Pictures hopefully this weekend.

Oh man, I spun up the yellow from the sock kit, and I think I might be in love.

There’s a penny in this one, for scale:

There’s about 160 yards of worsted/DK weight yarn, and I think I want to sleep with it. Oh man, it’s so nice.
:D

Well, I’m all signed up at a temp agency, but if the agency isn’t getting asked to send temps out, then I get no work. Ah well. I had plenty of time today to run errands. I got through the lines at the DMV pretty well- the guy who processed my forms plays WoW so we got to talk server-guild-raid gossip, which was awesome. I have brand spanking new California license plates now. kinda too bad- I had my MD plates memorized. Ah well.

I also had plenty of time to hit th epost office (after I found it…) and get a bunch errands run, and I got to spend the rest of the day spinning! I managed to spin up a bunch of samples of fibers I have in my closet. Ok, so I let my S.O. hang a few shirts in my fiber and yarn closet, it’s still my fiber and yarn closet.

That’s from left to right: the llama that I bought at last year’s Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, some natural brown/grey/cream colored wool I bought at a different stall at the same place, and some really pretty tussah silk from Spunky Eclectic in a holiday colorway named ‘Grinch.’ I navajo plied the silk, but I’m not sure what I’m going to end up doing with the whole top. I might just sit here and fondle this little sample for a while.

This is all a Spunky Eclectic sock kit in Daylit Passion. (I think… the color is written by hand on the label an dI might have smudged it a bit…) I have 2 oz each of a sunny wonderful yellow and a dusty pink and purple, and I’m not sure what to do with them, either. So I tried each color spun back on itself, and one sample candystriped with one of each. I don’t know which I prefer!

I might have to fondle all these a bit, and think on it for a while…

Well, life is moving along here in sunny California.  I’m on the rolls at a temp agency, my car passed emmissions inspection, I have a new driver’s license in the mail, and the dyepots are overflowing.  so much, in fact, that I now have an Etsy store!  I’m having some fun, I’ll admit it.  I’d really like to have a job I can start working next week, but we’ll see.  I have to call them to check in, I think…

I’ve finished a pair of socks (Monkey, done in… um…  I have no idea.  Stash sock yarn, Cherry Tree Hill, i think…) (I love, love, love this pattern!)  and started a new pair in a hand dyed color that I’m not going to talk about since they’re for someone.  So there.  So there is plenty of stuff going on on the knitting front, but I have to be honest.  I am ITCHING to start a sweater.  I really want to do something light and cheerful that I can wear in over air-conditioned offices over the summer.  I dunno, though.  Any suggestions?  Would bamboo be nice for that sort of thing?  I haven’t really played much with knitting bamboo yet…

Well, I finished the sweater, and there are no photos because I kinda didn’t do very well.  I’m afraid that the two or three year hiatus totally screwed my gauge, and the fuzzyness of the yarn involved prevented any thoughts of froging, so the whole thing is lopsided and unfortunate.  I love the yarn though.  LOVE.  White Lies does send such great yarn to play with that I can’t wait to order another kit.  I’ll even try the sweater again.  But I’ll do it all at once next time.

Eh.  Anyway, to take the disappointment off my mind, I’m whipping out some wrist warmers.  Mmm, warm wrists…

Ok, so I have now moved.  Officially.  I am now a resident of Southern California.  Yes, I know it’s been a while since I posted.  I really don’t feel like I need to defend myself- when a blog starts to feel like work it’s time to step back, you know?

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to share a bunch of stuff lately and I haven’t got the outlets I had back on the East Coast so I’m back here now.  I’ve been knitting like a madwoman the past day, working on a UFO.  I picked Sarah’s Shawl Collared Cardigan back up and I’m blasting through the collar now.  I am in the home stretch and with a bit of luck I’ll have finished photos in the next day or so.

I want to get started on a bag idea I’ve had also.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’ve been on Ravelry, too!  It’s a really fascinating place to play around it, but again, it started to feel kinda like a job.  It’s tough to have so many places to check in every day- blogs, webcomics, Facebook, Ravelry, writing posts and remembering to edit photos to fit and stick links in so they work…  *sigh*  Ah well.  I’m on the internet now and there’s little chance of getting off.  I’ll just have to make the most of it, yes?

Now… where’s that sweater…

Well, I’m in tech for the new show at Signature. It’s kinda slow, actually- the designer is pretty happy overall with things so there aren’t many notes. Which is how I am able to update this blog right now!
The other thing I’ve been doing is getting the new blog up and running. Don’t worry, I’m not abandoning this one for that one. It’s to go with the magazine, so all the fiber geekiness will still go here! But go! Check it out! http://www.spwug.com

So since all I’ve been doing is working on a show with no notes (but 56 channels of ropelight chasing up a curved staircase in two colors…) and setting up another blog, I really don’t have much to say. I’ve been knitting scarves for family and working on some Christmas projects, so I can’t talk about THEM here. Spinning up some really yummy alpaca/silk blend that I got at the MD Sheep & Wool festival, but I am at a theatre and not at home to take pictures. So… I’ll leave you with thius photo.

That’s me spinning up some bamboo on my Ashford plain jane drop spindle in what will be my living room. The light is wonderful for spinning and knitting and such things. And oh man, can I tell you how much I love spinning bamboo? It was like little strands of happiness sliding through my fingers. I have GOT to get me some more of that!

Ok, so I’m terrible at this ‘blogging’ thing. What can I say? I’ve jsut sorta felt empty of words I’ve wanted to share lately. I’ve been knitting. I’ve been spinning. Oh man, I got a spinning wheel for my birthday, AND we hit the MD sheep and wool festival. HOO BOY have I been spinning. I’ve been doing freelance theatre work here in the DC area. Nothing much new.

Oh! Except that I got into a serious relationship (which has surprised me more than you’d think it should,) and I’m moving to California come January, so there’s a bit of a change there. Diginin Publishing is doing fairly well, for a company as young as it is. There is a new blog in the works that will not rely merely on me and MY pathetic updating skills, so that’s fun.

I am going to try to be better at regular posts, moving forward, though. I am coming a bit out of my shell again, which feels good, and so I figure if I’m going to have this thing out there, I might as well use it, hmm? I’ll post again later about actual fiber stuffs, and have some pictures for you to look at, and maybe even tell a joke or a story.

And after all that… dancing bears juggling mimes! WHEE!!