oh no

I just got an email from Webs advertising their Rowan Bamboo Tape for 50% off. I was all excited until I realized that meant it had been discontinued and now I want to buy all the Bamboo Tape I can find and hoard it. But I'm broke so I guess I'll go sulk instead.

more hating on the linen

So I took the advice I was given and got a zero circ to try with the linen that's been driving me crazy. Guess what? I've finally found a needle that's too small. Two more trips to the frog pond. I don't know why I haven't given up yet.

Another corollary to Murphy's Law

If you leave your knitting at home, you will find yourself unexpectedly stuck someplace really boring, without anything to amuse you.

(Glasses broke. Eye doctor's is prime knitting time... when I have knitting, that is.)

I take it back.

Back when I had that other blog, I griped one time about Rachel Matthews' book Hookorama and all the various reasons I thought it was teh suck. But I did say at the time that I didn't want the designers to starve or anything.

I take that back.

Rachel Matthews' latest book shows you how to knit stuffed dictators:

His name is Knitler. Isn't that cute? Maybe in some alternate universe. I have to go barf now.

Shop Hop until you drop

I went to Needle Nook yesterday because I needed to pick up yarn for a Sooper Sekrit Project I'll be taunting you about later, and since I was there I went ahead and picked up a passport for Shop Hop Atlanta. I figured I might only make it by a couple of shops, but since I needed to buy yarn anyway, why not at least get in the drawing? Then I showed the passport to my husband, who read the rules and promptly said "are you crazy? You need to go to all eight stores so you can be in the drawing for the grand prize" -- a $100 gift certificate from each store for a total of $800 in yarn.

I am a lucky girl.

I had a prior engagement in Woodstock yesterday, so I managed to hit Strings and Strands on the way there. I found the perfect yarn for a project I need to get cracking on -- my brother is getting married next month, and my soon-to-be nieces love guinea pigs, so I'll be crocheting them guinea pigs as a bribe to like me a welcome-to-the-family gift. Then to Woodstock and The Whole Nine Yarns, and sadly by this point I was showing signs of yarn fatigue. A nice employee asked if she could help me, and I sort of stared at her with this glazed-over look on my face, and she asked if I was shop-hopping. I ended up getting the yarn to make the adorable fingerless mitts in TWNY's newsletter this month.

Today I set out to Main Street Yarns and Fibers all the way in Watkinsville. I spent a lot of the trip getting lost, but the part I got to spend at the store was awesome -- why must this shop be so far away from me? I picked out some flashy, shiny yarn that has my name all over it and got to meet the shop's pet rooster. Everyone made me feel very welcome and I spent a while just relaxing and enjoying not being in the car. I even was able to fill up the tank for $3.99 a gallon on the way home, so I'd call it a very successful day (there are so many things wrong with that sentence that I don't even know where to start).

I have the rest of my trips mostly planned out and I should be done next Saturday. That grand prize is mine! (See, I'm practicing positive thinking!)

I love you, Linen. Why do you hate me?

So after my last post, I tried again with the linen hand towel, with size 5s. It seemed too... open and lacy for a hand towel. I asked StringTheory2.0 if she thought I needed to go to smaller needles. She laughed at me and said yes. Other friends pointed out that you should not be able to see through your hand towels. I gritted my teeth and frogged for the fourth time. Then I acquired a circular size 3 and tried again.

Yep, still lacy.

At this point I'm running out of lower size needles to try. I guess I could look for some 000s. StringTheory2.0 says that, since linen as a plant fiber doesn't have the memory that wool does, I'm just going to have to learn how to tighten up my tension. How do I tighten up my tension? I'm scared. Someone hold me. I have to figure out how to work with linen because I've been wanting my own Mason-Dixon After Dark Nightie for a long time and if I can't figure it out, I'm going to be stuck with a lot of yarn I can't use in my stash.

Critical mass?

I can't get anything done, and that's because I'm doing too much. Ironic, huh?

I have too many UFOs. And in the back of my mind I'm always wondering "what can I start next?" I guess the next project is always the most interesting one. Not to mention that knitting projects must stay on the needles till finished so I'm going to run out of needles soon. I should probably be doing more crocheting, because you can use a hook for as many projects at one time as you want to. Just not all at once. Your yarn would get tangled.

Current projects I'm actually working on (or rather, supposed to be working on):

• one pair of socks in straight stockinette
• one pair of socks with an actual pattern, unfortunately I think I forgot where I am in the pattern
• the v-neck tank top Nell designed (and I have no excuse for not having finished this one yet, other than I'm chicken that I won't size it right and I've misplaced my tape measure yet again)
• one linen hand towel which I've already frogged twice (started it in feather-and-fan, frogged and tried to do reverse-feather-and-fan, frogged again and tried to do Old Shale) and am about to frog again because I finally realized that it doesn't make much sense to do a hand towel in a lace pattern even if it does look fairly solid in the pattern encyclopedia
• one ball-band hand towel which is going nowhere fast
• a pair of knee socks which are a gift for a friend. I've never made knee socks before and right now I'm paralyzed with fear that they won't fit.
• a poor little cat that I probably could have finished by now if I'd just sit down and work on it.
  

I think I'm going to go frog that linen and try again. Why? I don't know. I think I'm picking it at random.

Learning experiences

A friend and I swung by Nease's Needlework's going-on-the-internet sale today. It's sad to see it go, but I know the owner will enjoy getting to concentrate on needlework through the new web incarnation of Nease's, and as for the brick-and-mortar, an employee named Carrie told us to check back in a couple weeks...

The yarn had been pretty well ravaged by the time we got there, but I did pick up three pairs of Clover bamboo circs. I tried one out tonight on a swatch for a new project, and I learned a valuable lesson. I'm just not sure if the lesson was "I prefer metal needles in size 5 and up" or "Clovers suck."

A momentous occasion in my knitting career, and probably not a good one

I have some Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight in a lovely deep purple that I'd really like to turn into a nice long cloak, maybe with a hood. I haven't been able to find any patterns I like, so I was tossing and turning the other night trying to figure out if I could wing it...

...and then suddenly the thought popped into my head:

Maybe I could steek it.

I'm just hoping it passes...

From the blogger formerly known as the Mad Crocheter

Today is 8.8.08, a very auspicious day according to Chinese tradition and also the beginning of the Beijing Olympics. I thought about joining the Ravelympics, really I did. Even thought of a few possible projects. But in the end I realized, I'm just too lazy. But I figured the least I could do for the occasion was reboot my blog. Maybe the lucky day will rub off on it.

So what happened, Mad Crocheter?

Um... [looks around guiltily] ...I learned to knit.

I started Adventures of the Mad Crocheter with grand visions of making crochet just as respected and popular as knitting. For a while I even refused to learn to knit, I was so convinced that I could do anything with crochet that other people did with knitting.

Um... oops.

I finally gave in and asked StringTheory2.0 to teach me to knit after I practically ruined some divine yarn by trying to crochet it into wristwarmers. And then a funny thing happened: I started really enjoying knitting. It makes a denser, more flexible fabric than crochet. It's far better for tubular shapes like socks and wristwarmers. Which isn't to say it's superior to crochet: crochet has three-dimensional properties that knitting can only dream of.

Over the past few months I've been knitting almost exclusively. I'm not sure that it's really because I like knitting better; it's probably more that knitting is new to me, and I'm fascinated with the possibilities. I'm sure the new will wear off eventually. The best way I can describe it right now is that crochet is easier to learn, but knitting is easier to do.

And dyeing! I've gotten to play with dye and it's fun too! I'm not so sure about spinning but give me time, I may reconsider!

So what I'm trying to say is, I'm not pro- or anti- crochet or knitting. I'm pro-yarn.

A note about the title: Natalia immediately assumed that I was thinking of Patrick Henry when I came up with the new blog name. I'd like to pass myself off as that cultured, but I was more thinking of this Eddie Izzard routine. (Also available with Lego visuals!)