The reason I haven’t been blogging is mostly because I’ve been knitting. I’m trying to cram as much as I can into the few days (less than a week, now!) before I go back to school. Plus, I got old (passed my 30th birthday), so I don’t have as much energy as I used to and it’s made me a little slower at doing things.

So, what have I been knitting? Well, I started and finished a Sophie for my Secret Pal (to whom I haven’t been a great SP, but she knows what’s been going on with me and she will get all of her packages, they’re just going to be late, and she swears she’s okay with that!) — it was my first adventure in felting and WOW! It was so much fun. This was such a quick and easy little project, I’ve decided I’m going to make one for myself really soon.

Click for larger image

Pattern: Sophie, from Magknits
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun in color “Chuck Berry”
Needles: US 11; US 9 (for the icord handles) For the record, I used my Denises for this, and I am still soooooo in love with those needles.

This was such a quick and easy knit, it almost felt like cheating. I had great fun felting it, too! It felted really easily and, I think, really well. I am so happy with the finished product; now I just hope my SP will like it too! (And I’m glad I don’t have to be secretive about it, because I’m a dumbass and got my posting names mixed up, so she already knows who I am.) I liked the finished product so much that I went and got myself some of the same yarn in a gorgeous green color. (And yes, I know I have got waaaaaay too much stuff either on the needles or waiting to go on them really soon.)

I also started another new project that has a deadline — a baby blanket for a baby due in early September. I am using the Pinwheel Baby Blanket pattern by Genia Planck. So far, I’m liking it, although the circular beginning was a bitch. I used Emily Ocker’s cast on and while it worked, I think, like it was supposed to, it looked quite a bit wonky to me. So I did some creative disguising with the left over tail of yarn, and overall I’m pretty pleased with how it looks in the center now. I’m going to do lots of practicing with that circular beginning, though, before I start anything else that requires it.

Click to see center finagling

I bought only two skeins of the variegated blue and yellow yarn (it’s Plymouth Dreambaby DK, which I’m finding pleasant to knit up and will be nice and easy care for a baby blanket), plus a third in solid blue for the border. I don’t think it’s going to be enough yarn to make a reasonable sized blanket. Unfortunately, I bought the yarn at a different yarn shop than the one I usually visit, and the two variegated skeins were the last two they had. (It was my first visit to Yarns 2 Ewe and I was very impressed with both the shop and the saleswoman. I wish they were a bit closer; I would go back often.) I’m afraid I’m going to have to order online if I want more. For some reason, I prefer not to order yarn online, though I can’t really put my finger on why. Oh well; it’s a necessary evil, and maybe it will give me an excuse to order more yarn for me — after all, why ship just one skein? (I really, really thought about going on a yarn diet — but somehow couldn’t convince myself to do it — I’m still new enough to this that I don’t have much of a stash, so I need to get working on that.)

So, those are the two big knitting developments since my last post.

About 100 years ago, Laura tagged me with a meme (what the hell does “meme” mean, anyway?). This is the first time I’ve blogged since then, so I figured I’d complete it now. (By the way, I’m really new at this blogging thing, and I have no idea what blog etiquette is in regards to — well, anything. So if I fuck up and don’t do something I’m supposed to, or do something that I’m not supposed to, someone please tell me rather than just letting me be ignorant.)

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy
n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies
A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.

Write down five of your own idiosyncrasies.

1. I have a thing for pens. I’m almost obsessed with them. I must have, in drawers and boxes and pouches and other nooks and crannies all over my home and work spaces, literally thousands of pens. It’s nearly impossible for me to go into a store that carries pens (even the grocery store) and not buy new pens — even if I already have 30 of the exact same pen at home. I choose which pen I’m going to write with great care, depending on my mood and various other factors. It’s really enough of an obsession to almost be unhealthy. (I really have a thing for most office supplies; pens are just the worst manifestation.)
2. I enjoy writing things longhand, and a great many things that I type on a computer are first handwritten — and important things are always written out first. My handwriting changes based on — well, anything you can think of, really. And it doesn’t just change a little bit, it changes a lot — enough that I’ve had many people flat out not believe me when I told them I wrote both item A and item B. (I think that comes from studying calligrahpy for so long; I just love playing with letterforms.)
3. I am an obsessive journal keeper. I’ve been keeping a journal since I was in the 5th grade, and I still have all of them. If I go too long without writing in my “book” I get to be a miserable, horrible person. I carry my journal with me almost everywhere, and you can find anything in it. I am forever obsessing over finding the perfect book to keep up with everything I want to have in my journal (photos, drawings, poems, quotes, drivel . . . everything). I own almost two shelves worth of books about journaling.
4. I have an intense, deep-seated phobia about talking to anyone other than my nearest and dearest on the phone. It is a gut-wrenching ordeal for me to call and order pizza. I have been known to have a panic attack when trying to call and talk to a customer service representative. I would laugh at myself for getting into such a panic, if I could breathe when it happened.
5. I like to organize things (a lot, I get a real kick out of it) but I hate to keep things organized. The process of getting things organized and sorted and neat is therpeutic for me, but I get a little stir crazy if things stay that way. I have almost as many books about organizing as I do about journaling. (Maybe you’ve gathered that another idiosyncracy of mine is that I buy a LOT of books? A really lot. If there’s a topic that interests me, the first thing I do is go buy books about it. I love books, and much prefer them to reading information on a computer screen, so I always end up buying books even about things I could learn about online.)

As far as tagging anyone else with the meme, I’m not going to because I don’t know anyone in the blog world well enough to tag. I still very much feel like the new girl at school!