Perfectly good enough

At least it's done.  This is the idea I should focus on considering that I'm a perfectionist.  I suppose being a perfectionist might be a good thing if I had more motivation; but, as it stands now, if I don't think I can do something perfectly, I won't even try.  Now, this is absolutely no way to live a life.  That being said, being any different seems to be just this side of impossible.  What can I say?  When I try to do something, "good enough" I usually end up feeling like a failure.  Like the Frondly Yours pattern.  People have been kind enough to correct me on the number of errors I made while writing the pattern.  Stitches left entirely unmentioned, or given the wrong number for repeats.  I wasn't sure about publishing it when I did, and probably should have waited until I completed it once more; but I had been sitting on it for months, shouldn't it have been at least good enough by now if not perfect?

Then there's the other side of the coin.  This week I've been over watching Daniel's sisters.  Remember the heirloom blanket I was asked to mend from my post 'Out with the Old'?  Well, I found the pattern; and if you're interested in making one like it, it's available for free on Paton's website, though you do have to register with their site.  Anyway, after much hemming and hawing, and a bit of swatching, I got out some matching yarn and gave it a go.  It was surprising how little that hole actually took.  I had to recreate a few stitches and one popcorn with the new yarn, but it was mostly just figuring out what stitch came from what row.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like the end result is flawless, far from it; but unless you're looking for it, the mending isn't blatantly apparent.  Despite my perfectionist streak, I'm actually kind of happy with the way it turned out.  It's not gorgeous, but this time I'm more than satisfied with good enough.

 

Out with the Old?

Since it's timely I almost feel the obligation to post something about New Year's resolutions; especially since those that follow the Mayan calendar suspect that this might be my last opportunity to do so.  This is usually the time of year when people start fresh; and along with organizing priorities it's not unusual to resolve to get more organized in a tangible sense.  Time to clean up your life as well as your living space.  So, a number of people throw out old clothes, papers, broken items along with their old calendars.  But what about those things we keep?

This year I spent the last day of 2011 with my boyfriend and his family.  About an hour before the ball dropped, Daniel's stepmother, Judy, was doing her Wonder Woman-esque feat of managing sleeping arrangements.  Before you think I'm exaggerating, I should probably mention that a number of relatives were in town, bringing the total of butts needing beds to a delicate 15.  Not surprisingly, this was an opportunity to  find throw blankets that aren't used on a regular basis.

One such blanket was a wedding gift when Daniel's father and Judy got married.  This lovely antique white afghan was lovingly crocheted by hand, with fringe and bobbles.  This blanket had been in the family long enough to predate the addition of their two girls, as well a number of pets.  One member of the family, Buster, an Australian Shepard, wanted to make his impression on this heirloom.  Buster busted a hole about the size of a snout in the wedding afghan.  Fortunately it wasn't torn asunder; just a little too loved on.

And now back to New Year's eve.  As we sat around alternately gaping and giggling at Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper, Judy came down with the wedding afghan.  She knows about my addiction; that I knit and crochet and figured it never hurts to ask.  Knowing that washing would have helped unravel what Buster had begun, she refrained from doing so.  After studying the pertinent area, my mind unhindered by liquid holiday cheer, I told her I thought I might be able to fix it.  I hope I can actually deliver!

I love that I've been given an opportunity to mend something special.  In our society of disposable goods, it seems wonderfully fulfilling to fix something instead of chucking it out and getting a new one.  The lines from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World keeps coming back:

"But old clothes are beastly," continued the untiring whisper. "We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better …".


"Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches; the more stitches …"


Eerily prophetic, considering it was first published in 1932.  Despite the dismal similarities between the world of 2012 and the dystopian future Huxley presented; I'm grateful that it's not completely the case.  I'm finding personal riches in stitches, and I'm certainly not ending my mending.  The thought of heirlooms still being used and loved warms me more than this afghan ever could.  So for me it's in with the old and new; old heirloom new stitches and a new lease on life for this piece of family history.

Secretive Storms

I can't tell you how relieved I am to finally get this secret out.  Literally.  After seeing the number of views to my blog skyrocket from posting Stalwart Staghorn, I've been stitching my little heart out at a fevered pitch just trying to finish up this pattern in time for Friday's post.

Kelli, Kevin's sister (yes, it's the same Kevin from this post), celebrated her annual 29th birthday this week.  Now, I had wanted to send her one of these hats, but (selfishly) I've been too busy trying to hammer out this pattern.  I'm hoping to make it up to her by sending her the prototypes that I came up with, and naming the hat pattern after the Storms family.

Ok, so I know it's free, and I'd probably make more money posting it for sale and selling three copies, but I can't tell you how much I've appreciated having free patterns available to me.  While I'm in no position to donate to those designers, I'm hoping to pay it forward a bit by contributing a few of my own.  That being said, I'm delighted that due to ad clicks from people visiting, my blog has earned 75 cents in the past week.  No, I'm not being sarcastic when I say delighted; seriously, anything helps when you're unemployed and have been for as long as I have been.  Blah!  Enough of pesky reality which is certainly NOT warm and fuzzy.  Anyway, thank you folks for visiting, and here's my second pattern "Secretive Storms"*.  Oh!  Again, if you notice any issues, or mistakes (such as the one Ms. Morris let me know about in my other pattern), please email me at daniaerickson@gmail.com.

Oh!  And about the pattern... don't be intimidated (easier said than done in my case, as evidenced by this post).  I swear, if it's your first time with some of the techniques... I'll be gentle darling.  And you know what?  You will walk away with some good experience and a lovely showing of your talent and dedication.

*All rights to the design and pattern "Secretive Storms" are protected by copyright.  Dania Erickson 2011.

Stalwart Staghorn Cable Fingerless Gloves by me!

I love cables.  Love.  I might consider leaving my boyfriend if it came to him or knitted cables, but fortunately neither one has given me the ultimatum.  Daniel thinks my addiction to knitting and passionate adoration to cables is a little odd, but in a cute way.  Poor man, I don't think he realizes the depth of my affection for these twisting winding stitches.

One of my favorites is the Staghorn cables, with its lovely branches spreading outward.  Since I'm forever knitting things for other people, it's a particularly nice choice since it doesn't shriek "girly".  By not being overly intricate or lacy, even burliest bros in your life aren't threatened by this cable.  Personally, I think that this cable is a wonderful balance between the simplicity men typically desire and something that won't bore you to death while knitting.  Of course, that being said, it's not like the staghorn cable is exclusively in the boy's club.

Putting the stag back in staghorn

So now, may I introduce (drum roll please) my first attempt at writing a pattern (TA-DA!).  After careful perusal, and then a more leisurely glance; I'm pretty sure I've worked out the kinks.  Then again, it is my first attempt, so it probably looks as if I've had ti many martoonis before writing it.  If you happen to find some, or perhaps it makes about as much sense as a mad hatter, send me an email at daniaerickson@gmail.com.  Otherwise, without further ado, here's a link to the pdf for "Stalwart Staghorn*.  (and three cheers to Google docs!)
*All rights to the pattern and design "Stalwart Staghorn" are protected by copyright. Dania Erickson 2011.  Updated on 11/17/2011

Rolling in the Fog

Jordan's wee gloves

Continuing on about the project that has been very much apart of my life for the past month, I think I might be done making Vancouver Fingerless Gloves for a while.  In an earlier post I blathered on about how I got started with this pattern after my boyfriend suggested that I look into making some gloves.  I suppose that excuse only lasts for one pair though.  The rest are going towards gifts and *gasp* one commission. 

Jessica's pair in progress

My boyfriend has two half sisters.  Jordan, who seems to be a force of nature at times is nine years old.  Whenever I've visited with my boyfriend, she's been wonderful with her attention.  There's always some new thing that she'd like to show me.  Not only that, but she seems to enjoy my knitting and crocheting.  As soon as I start working my way through a project, she gets her embroidery floss and begins working on this interesting knot-work which makes bracelets, necklaces, keychains, and bookmarks.  I showed her the gloves I had just finished, and before I knew it, I was thinking about working on a set for her.  The only problem is that not only is she nine, she's also small for her age, and the pattern is for adults.  I'm hoping the smaller needles and the sport weight yarn will work out.

Daniel pointed out that it's not kosher to make a present for one sibling and not the other, so I immediately got to work on a pair of gloves for Jessica.  Jessica is fifteen and has the opposite problem of her sister.  She already towers over me, and I think she's taller than Daniel as well.  Not surprisingly, her school's volleyball team has snatched her up, where she excels.  The color choice was easy, it's one of her school team's colors.

Debbie's Vancouver Fog

In an email to my mother letting her know what I've been up to recently, I attached a few pictures of the projects.  Since my mother is the personification of "supportive", she forwarded the pictures to one of her lifelong friends, Debbie.  Not a knitter, but a crafter, Debbie exclaimed over the gloves, and commented on how cold it gets in Iowa asking if she could buy a pair from me.  Does it get better than that?  A few days later I finished the fourth set (the second pair in royal blue), and that Friday I went to the post office and sent them off.  Can you tell I was excited to have a commission?  With any luck, I could get a few more people to use me as "needles for hire".

Very foggy lately

It started off innocently enough.  After completing and sending the baby projects (the Green Lantern Baby Blanket and Converse Style Booties), I didn't have anything particular to move onto.  I wonder what kind of hell I put my boyfriend through when I don't have something on my needles.  After he gets home and wants to relax by playing a video game, I'm there sitting next to him twitching, fidgeting, restlessly playing with my knitting needles, crochet hooks and whatever yarn is in the caddy next to the couch.  This only lasts for about ten minutes.  By that time I can't stand it any longer and I'm trolling the Ravelry website looking for some new project to leap out at me.  Still, he doesn't get any peace.  It doesn't take me much time to get updated on all of the recently added patterns, and then the whining starts, "aaaahhhh!  I don't have any projects!  What should I make?"  Stoically, he makes nice suggestions which I usually shoot down like skeet.  The good news is that he'll usually say something that gets me at least started in a direction which leads to a new sort of annoyance.  Once I've settled on a pattern I become consumed with working on it.  Sitting next to him, I tend to count under my breath, reach over to click my row counter, require the light on for pattern reading, and all other sorts of obnoxious things.

Recently, when I began my itchy-no-project routine, he pointed out that here in Chicago winter is ever so slightly different than it is in Southern California and I might want some gloves to wear.  In fact I think he said I -WILL- want gloves.  Oh, and maybe he said need, not want.  Onto Ravelry, searching, and searching, and even more searching; not finding anything that blows my skirt up.  Then I caught sight of Vancouver Fog Fingerless Gloves on orangellous blog.  Sure they wouldn't cover my fingers, but just look at those sexy cables!  I quickly dove into my yarn stash, and casted on.  All too soon I finished my first pair of Vancouver Fog Fingerless gloves, with no intention of keeping them for myself.  At that point I sighed and thought about my lack of projects.  Silly me.  As of yesterday I finished my fourth set; though I probably blather about the other three in a different post.

Promising Musical Scholar Falls Victim to Fashion Related Head Injury

This morning I got an email from my cousin, Dmitri (aka Moosa to family from his younger years - don't ask me how he got the nickname... I just heard it and it stuck). One of my previous knitted-gift victims, he can be seen wearing the Navy Twist hat I made for my dad.

Anyway, my cousin has the same incredible knack for music that is present in his nuclear family. His considerable talent is currently being nurtured in Bennington college, set among the woodland scenery in a deliciously rural part of Vermont. What does this mean? Well, aside from him having (hopefully) the time of his life in college; he's also in a cold climate. To me this means he needs LOTS and LOTS of knitted goodies to keep him warm.

Fortunately, he doesn't seem to protest. In fact, he indulges me by asking that I make him some goodies. This past summer while he was at home in Santa Monica for a few weeks, he went and selected some yarn he liked. My job was to turn it into hats with cables (he liked the hat I made which ended up being a chemo-cap for his mother, Aunt Randi). This was just as I was finishing my purse project, and soon my needles turned out two hats for him.




Well, as I was saying earlier (much earlier), warm fuzzies ensued this morning when I got the following email:

Dania,

My hats are so beautiful!! Thank you so much! Whenever I wear them and say my cousin made them they stop and say "wow, really??" They're quite awesome.

How you doin? Fall colors are SO unfortunate, I have to look outside my window and see all these glowing gradations between red and orange and yellow, and then see brilliant sunsets at the end of the day. Sometimes, when it's really shitty, there's snow on the mountains on a clear day, and you can see the colors and the snow. Shit.

Hope you're doing well, and thank you SO much for the beautiful hats (I bother my girlfriend by wearing them both at once, then rolling up the bottoms and clowning around)

Muah!
-Moosa

If you're interested in the patterns, the red hat was made using Cherry colored Red Heart yarn and Lizzy Grant's Garmish pattern (Click here for the Pattern if you're a member of ravelry). The second hat was made using Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice in Olive done in a pattern by Nancy Hand called Cabled Hat (again, click here for the pattern if you're a ravelry memeber) I found on Ravelry. A bit of warning though... that particular pattern wasn't as well written as I would like and on quite a bit of it I had to fake it. Still, for being a free pattern it's got some amazing cables, and was very close to what I imagined my cousin had in mind.




While I'm busy patting myself on the back for churning out those two projects relatively quickly; it should be noted that I also promised him a scarf that has yet to come into existence. Personally, I do hope I manage to get it done before he graduates, but no guarantees. Heehee, oops.

Navy Twist

This little hat has a bit of a story. Originally I made it for my father, who seemed to desperately need it. While late October in Southern California is relatively mild, it’s also not the ideal temperature for sitting outside in the middle of the night playing with your ham radio set trying to get some rare DX contact. The Ham Shack, called such because it’s the hobby room that my father has for Ham (or Amateur Radio), was undergoing major construction. Well, it’s always been under construction, but at this time, a wall was missing. Needless to say, it got pretty chilly in there.

Finally, I could finally take an interest in Ham Radio, at least so much as I could knit something to keep the pops a little less like a popsicle while he scanned the airwaves. So, within an evening or two I whipped up this hat with some navy colored Red Heart yarn and the Basic Cable Hat pattern from Debbie Stoller’s Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation. I gave it to my dad, who seem pleased enough with it.

However, fairly shortly after this hat reached my father, my mother decided to visit my Aunt Randi. In something akin to crayon pictures stuck on a refrigerator, my mom took some of my completed projects with her. Scarves and hats returned with her, with the exception of two beanies. My dad’s Navy Twist and another one, Cool Head (more on that project later), ended up being borrowed by my uncle Eddie and cousin Moosa for a trip back East to look at perspective college campuses.

Can I say there is little more that feels better than having someone look at something you made and go, “Hey! That’s cool! Can I borrow that?”. Perhaps the only thing more flattering is them flat out stealing it. Anyway, my heart was warmed more than their heads, I’m sure. Anyway, this hat was borrowed by my cousin Moosa, who ended up taking it not only to the East coast, but also to Europe. Warm fuzzy. Though I am slightly jealous of this well traveled hat.

Braid Panels

I like braid cables; according to the snooty these are actually plait cables. Anyway this is going to be a disgustingly warm blanket. After I make the fraternal twin of this panel (instead of one braid going up and one going down it will be reversed); I will have used nearly eight 12 ounce skeins of yarn. This means that it's going to be SIX FREAKIN' POUNDS of yarn! Oh, and I'm not done yet.

Well, this is what I've been doing with my spare time.

Even more blanket!

Luscious, is it not? This is is a modification of a pattern from Debbie Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The pattern is called "Triple Braided Diamonds" and I just multiplied everything in there by two so that it would kind of measure up with gargantuan nature of this blanket. I think this one is going to be the center panel.

Perfect for those freezing So. Cal winters!

A few months ago I bought a ton of denim colored yarn on sale. In fact I got 96 ounces of this yarn for the low price of $32.00 (plus tax of course). With such an abundant supply; I had little choice. I needed to make a blanket. I found a pattern I liked from Lion Brand's website and got started. Here's what it's supposed to look like....

Cute, right? Well, it calls for a really thick yarn... No problem; I get the same gauge when I hold two strands of my denim yarn together. Then I decided that I wanted to make it long enough to cover my queen sized bed. By repeating the pattern so that it's more than twice as long as originally intended, I got a panel that looks like a very long version of the panel below.  Right now I have two of these long little babies waiting to go. I need to post a picture of the other panel I did for this blanket, but this is enough for now.

Lace and Cable Beanie

I made this lace and cable beanie a while ago and for the life of me I can't seem to find the pattern online anymore. For some unfathomable reason I made it using Lavender yarn. Know of anyone that would love and appreciate this lovely one of a kind lace and cable beanie? Currently it is residing in a basket of finished projects.