unrequited

You’re content. Your life is as full of yarn as you can handle, and then some. You spend your days and your nights with furpiles that knead you and wake you and bat at your hair and hork and sit on your yarn. But also blink at you and purr and drool.

Your days are filled with dvds, and your nights are by and large restful. You’re getting better, slowly, surely, finally, and you’re at the place, at long last, where you can say you’re not feeling too bad. You vaguely wish you could find a “real job”, and you wish the job interviews you had went better, but by and large you’re okay. You’re doing well with the yarn dyeing business, and that amazes you. You cover your expenses, you have yarn in the stash, and your gramma comes by every Saturday.

You’re able to live your true dreams, slowly but surely. Soon, you know, you’ll be able to share them with others.

And then one night, the dream comes.

A mix of hyperealism and longing, where probably in real life there was a Picasso in your arms, but in your mind and your soul and your dream, there was the baba in the flesh again. Her softness, her feel, her smell, and always, her tongue.

The chasm is there.

It always was.

I’d just forgotten, for a little while.

I finally deleted the emails from a year ago today, emailing me support and love and memories and condolences. I just…. It was time to acknowledge the truth. I’ll never be ready. I’ll never be less lonely, less sad. I can never reply to them without tears. So I am sharing this here with you now, in a concentrated way, perhaps you’d say, and letting you know that your words, they have all touched me, and they meant a lot to me. They were a comfort, and they let me know I wasn’t alone in loss.

I wasn’t alone in being shattered by my little girl leaving.

But I am lonely. It’s a special kind of lonely. The kind where you wouldn’t change anything and everything happened just as it should have, and yet.

And yet.

It’s a year later, and it’s a year without. The best baba I have ever known, and life went on without her. Surely that should have been impossible.

There are days I forget entirely, and moments I feel sad about that. The forgetting.

How could I forget? How dare I?

All love is unrequited, some claim.

For 14 years, Daphne Rachel Marie and I had each other, me with my hugs and my voice, her with her licks and her pokes. She followed me everywhere and slept in my arms every night. When we were apart, I missed her and she missed me. She greeted me at the door every time I came home.

I was hers and she was mine.

I am still hers.

And she…. she is not mine. Never again in life.

meow-choo

It’s just one of those weeks, and I need a little levity around here.

It’s a darn good thing I staff a certain (giant) boy named Matisse. He is so very goofy. And cute. See?

What is this pose about? Did he have a headache? Did he try to cover his eyes and miss completely? He is so very silly!

It always looks like it should hurt when a catchenal unit has his head upside down! It should. But then they stay like that seemingly forever, so maybe it doesn’t. But Matisse is cute. If painful to watch. Like this, isn’t he?

And then he woke up. And promptly set himself on fire. Don’t worry, he’s fine. Just very stinky with burnt fur. Ew! I’d put a candle on the coffee table, far enough away from his usual reach that I was reasonably certain that he would be flame-free. And well, that worked well. It did! Until he put his tail into it….

It’s a good thing he’s a longhair. And his fur gets stinky long before he could really hurt himself.

no words

There are days (weeks) where all you (I) can do is sit and knit. The mind wants to focus (fixate) and it is better than the alternatives, so why not? So you (I) knit and the next thing you (I) know, it is dark outside, time to go to bed again.

Rinse. Repeat. Somehow do it all over again.

And find knitting tumbling from your hands. Inspired by the knitty professor, I picked up the long long long neglected sparkle motion socks. Cripes! JUNE! That’s when I finished the first one? Sadly that’s not my worst offense sockwise, but I digress. They’re all done! Done! And I’m underwhelmed. Oh well. They’ll soften up and I’ll be happy to wear them in the fall, right?

Speaking of fall:

I am not convinced. I think fall is mythical. It’s supposed to be 74 today (it was 93 monday and tuesday, you understand the source of my skepticism) and all I can think of is how I want to make a sweater to wear in Chicago.

Because I love fall. And I’m deathly afraid it’ll never come.

PS: Kiefer, I love you. But hire a damn chauffeur, would you? You’re better than Paris Hilton.

juliet all done

Only took me eight days to do. I like her… she fits well. What do you think?

She looks good with pants. She looks good with a dress. She definitely looks good in black.

The skirt has just the right amount of swing. If you’re counting, there’s only eight repeats of the lace pattern, but that’s because I wanted six rows of garter stitch and I wasn’t tall enough to accommodate that and the ninth six row repeat too. I’m not tall! I think the length is good.

And the top fits my little parts (the shoulders) and my bigger parts (Need I mention? Ahem.)

I like her. Now please, fall, be fall.

a study in texture

Juliet grows… not as quickly as I’d like. (Is knitting ever as quick as we would like?) but definitely as pleasurably as I could hope for. The garter stitch yoke satisfied my process craving. (Those garter stitch raglan increases are wild!)

And the skirt part of Juliet? The back and forth stockinette bothers me much less than I expected. (A surprise. I don’t ordinarily handle, much less enjoy, all that much knitting. Especially on large needles. I’m a purler by choice. Rilly. I purl my socks. Rilly. But that’s another post.) And the lace goes quickly and predictably. I love that I can do lace without needing to refer to the pattern! It makes me feel like I’ve grown as a knitter.

Simple, yet elegant. Chunky, yet not sloppy.

For now, I revel in the details. The contrasts. The large needles, the heavy yet fluid drape of the double stranded Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. How the “columbine” color sometimes sometimes appears blue, usually reads as periwinkle, yet from time to time, when the light is right, it almost looks grey.

Garter stitch against stockinette.

Stockinette alternating with lace.

I like the directional decreases, and how imperfect they look… call me odd. I had to switch k2tog for the prescribed skp and ssk for the prescribed k2tog, but that’s par for the course. Lefthanded knitter, switched directional decreases, you understand. I’m so happy I’ve developed a quick and easy ssk technique that requires no right handed googly mooglies. And doesn’t require a crochet hook anymore. Faster knitting, better results. Who wouldn’t love that?

And three eyelets per diagonal… I love the number three. Three three three. I can promise you that the skirt will end up, more likely than not, with a repeat derived of threes. Perhaps nine in all, we’ll see. I’m on the sixth repeat now, so soon, very soon it’ll all be done, I think.

Smooth wood against garter stitch.

I love these buttons so much. A trifle outsize I know, and definitely not subtle… but handmade buttons, irregularly shaped, with no two buttons similarly textured? And inexpensive? Love at first sight. The holes in the buttons were large enough that I could use the yarn itself without unplying it to affix them…. how about that?

And yes. I attached buttons to an unfinished sweater. Have a problem with that?

thinking about color

From Kristi, an interesting color questionnaire:

1. What is your current favorite color?

White. But I don’t often knit with white. For knitting, I love pink and blue and periwinkle. And red. And. And.

2. Had your favorite color changed over the years?

Yes, definitely.

3. Is your current favorite color one that is currently trendy? (Do you see it in the fashion rags or on the clothes rack or in the linen aisle right now? How about 5 years ago?)

Not really no….. although sometimes I’m lucky enough to find pink things!

4. What is your favorite color combination?

Brown/red/lavender/light blue

Blue/teal

Blue/lime green/white

Pink/white/black

Tan/black

Pink/green

Pink/brown

There’s tons more… I love color combos!

5. Is that combination a popular one? (Is it use in prints you see in the stores and catalogs and magazines now? How about 5 years ago?)

Yes and no. Sometimes I find it in yarn, which is neat. And sometimes I find it in accessories (I collect silk scarves) which is even more fun!

6. What is your favorite way of using color in your knitting? (Are you a stranded knitter? Do you prefer simple stripes? Do you prefer just accents at the hems/collars?)

I like stripes! A lot! And I like accents too. Someday I’ll try a stranded project.

Which is to say, I like color! I like texture too though….. so I tend to use variegated yarn when I want all over color variations.

7. What colors look good on you?

A lot of colors… but especially pastels and greyed lavender and pink and all different blues. And grey. Oh yeah. Also dark red. Brown and lavender together is good on me.

8. What colors look bad on you?

Orange, bright red, yellow.

9. Do you wear colors that don’t look good on you just because you like them?

Thankfully I don’t have that problem…. because what I hate, convienently, is what looks bad on me.

10. What is your favorite neutral color? black/white/ivory/tan/brown/gray – if brown or gray do you prefer cool or warm versions of those or does it matter? And, how dark?

Omg I love white! But white isn’t neutral!
White is complex, and gains interest from texture. Oh yes….. currently on the needles is still gramma’s headscarf, out of Dale Svale, a viscose/cotton/silk blend that’s both matte and shiny.

Grey… love grey. But I prefer a more complex grey than just here, have some grey. Like wool mixed with silk blobs….mmmmmm. Cleckheaton Country Silk 8 ply, for example, is thebomb.com. Ohhhh. Steely grey with light grey blobs. It deserves to be a simple sweater tipped with tealy blue.

Brown…. brown is harder. I prefer cool colors in general. I do like some browns, but I’m definitely more picky about brown than any other color. Oddly though, I’d been in the market for a simple plain brown wool yarn to use with a simple ribbed raglan turtleneck. So there you go…. sometimes it just really depends on the vision.

Black I do like but unlalike Chris it’s an accent color for me, at most. I own very little in black yarn…. I like seeing my stitches, thank you.

11. Is there a sweater pattern that uses more than one color that you’d like to make, but you wish to change the colors from what is published? If yes, which one? What do you not like about the published colors?

At the moment all I can think of is Véronik Avery’s Enid cardi, which I definitely dislike the set colors of. Just because they’re muddy and browned out and don’t seem to pop at all. Especially that middle row of circles. I love the design though, and have thought about it off and on for a long time.

Getting it all out

It seemed so simple. Get a migraine. Take a new migraine med. Feel better! Right? Right.

Maybe not so much.

You don’t need to know the details, except that I was Very Sick from the migraine med itself (Irony! Please stop visiting me. Thank you.) and needed to visit the emergency room last night to finally get better. I was quite itchy from the feel better meds, but trust me, itchy is a happy thing in comparision.

On the one hand, ugh. On the other hand, it was my first er visit since July….. Trust me, it’s progress. Even if it didn’t feel like it. You understand.

Sleepy today. Which is preferable to the rest, so. Sleepy it is.

people are strange, and google tells us so

In the just because people have ears doesn’t mean they have brains category:

meaning D.E.A.F. does that mean I’m the girl from A.U.N.T.?
deaf in gen 2: 17 I don’t wanna know.
definition of being deaf a deaf person is… deaf? Huh?

In the dead muppets still live! category:

dead grover I knitted a dead muppet scarf. Have a problem with that?
grover with yarn knit blog I would hope the dead muppet doesn’t blog, though.
muppet crochet The only thing that could make fun fur worse.

In the die, ants, die category:

knitted ant I don’t know, aren’t real ants bad enough?
pink ant Pink ants… no. Still bad. DIE.

In the evidence my catchenage are googling whilst I’m asleep category:

kitty wtf Honey, you’re WTF no matter what you do.
sofa picasso There’s something painfully meta about googling yourself on the sofa whilst on the sofa, no?
matisse Of course I blog about you, Matisse.
cat in trunk Eep!
bonk splat What did you knock over? And WHO DID IT. Ahem.
staring BUSTED, Matisse!
Doctor Who Vogons Matisse, Vogons are from the Hitchhiker. Too much fur on the brain, mayhap?
couple at table picasso Who are we having over for dinner?!?
cat rubbing I… no. Don’t want to know.
sweater kittens I’m not knitting you sweaters. You both sleep on mine. The end.
cat stick figure Completely busted for depicting my catchen in stick figure cartoons. Sorry about that. I’ll do it again, though.

In the my blog is a fetish destination category

legwarmer fetish
weird high heels
wet sweater
pornmags
pajamas in socks
FETISH SKIRT PATTERNS
hot thirteen year olds
busty moms
mmmmmmmmmm
make out paradise
crutching sock girl
toe cleavage
tweens pantyhose
i’m not a plastic bag I don’t know why but this cracks me up so much!
sweater mistress

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, in the wow, are tattoos popular or what? category, we have:

daisy tattoos on toes
ring tattoo
toe ring tattoo
daisy tattoo
picasso tattoos
cat tattoo
tattoo art designs webs
ring tattoos
cherry blossom tattoo
girl scout tattoo
toe ring tattoo
big tattoo
ring tattoos
tattoo ring
toe tattoo
ring tattoo
toe ring tattoo
daisy tattoo
cherry blossom tattoo
toe tattoos
daisy tattoos
ring tattoos
toe ring tattoo pictures
tattoos on the toe
daisy tattoos
tattoo lost

(and there were TONS more)

My favorite search is definitely this though:

Legwarmers punch Chris.

Because? HUH?!?!?

form follows function

After the gauge incident I haven’t touched the phyllo yoked sweater, I confess.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about sweaters. Far from it. Lately, I’ve been thinking about a lovely cardi of some kind. A top-down raglan, to be precise. Yes! Only problem? I wasn’t interested in doing stockinette back and forth. Ugh. What to do? Well, thanks to the wonder of Ravelry, I was able to find awesome examples of Forecast, with modifications I love much more than I liked the original pattern. Ooooh! Top down raglan! No purling! Hmmmmmm. Cables. And it looks purty! And I even have some Cascade 220 superwash in stash.

I think this one just may happen. Yes.

But before that? Also thanks to the wonder that is Ravelry, I discovered Juliet.

And this one, I think I’ll cast on for very soon… I even bought the pattern this morning! I’ll use Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece I have in stash… columbine. A lovely periwinklish color. Garter stitch. Not too warm for the not too cool weather we’re having. Lace. Back and forth. Raglan. What’s not to love?

Just goes to show there’s definitely a design for every mood. I like that.

thank you for you

I don’t know what I’d do without you all. For real. Thank you for your support, your emails, your comments, and your belief in me.