barney

having grown up in a time and culture where children's TV programming mainly consisted of DDR propaganda, extremely disturbing PSA's, and german detective cartoons where every episode contained at least one plotline involving strippers and/or boobs, it's probably not surprising that i never got to know barney.

sad face.

i would probably be a lot more pleasant to deal with, a lot less troubled with negative emotions, and a whole heck of a lot less burdening to others today, had i learned very early on that happiness is the only acceptable state of being, disagreeing is futile and disrespective, and your own needs are always infinitely less important than those of others.

again, sad face. but i did learn a lot about boobs.

either way, a while back i offered to make the boy a pair of socks for his birthday, because he has the soul of a pensioner and thus suffers from cold feet (and increasingly greying hair). i even went so far as to let him pick colours.

of all the colours in all the world, he picked barney's.

to be fair, i rejected his inital choice of the dr. seuss-esque combination of red and white, just because it was in my power to do so.

oh, what a girl wouldn't do for his love muffin.

zombies

i've been busy. lots of things happening around here. many of them good, some not so good.

things changing across the board.

despite all the insane and outrageous and preposterously rewarding life-changing choices i've made in the recent years, i'm really not very good with change at all.

change is something unknown and uncontrollable. it scares the living fuck out of me. change may open doors, but you know who else uses doors?

ZOMBIES.

i'm taking very slow and apprehensive steps towards a direction where there's nothing but intuition. i don't know what's going to happen. there's no precedent in my life for any of the things i'm doing now.

is the road going to be awesome and inspiring, or am i going to end up flatlining on the side of a highway somewhere? how do i know what to take with me, and what to dump along the way? how do i gauge what happiness is, or what it could be?

is this what being a grown-up is?

there's a sense of changing weather in my fat belly and there's just no way of knowing how good or bad it's going to be.

so i'm just kind of sitting here, knitting something, and breathing, and going, "okay, yeah, let's see how fast them zombies are. "

the big reveal

the secret is out. part of it, anyway.

i'm sorry it's not a box with an embarrassing spongebob photo inside. but it's pretty sweet anyway.

please give a standing ovation to my first published pattern. let me repeat that last bit. it's a pattern. which i designed. on my own. i'm awesome.

i give you nineteen twenty.

as of today it will be available for your purchasing pleasure on ravelry or the sweetgeorgia shop for a very reasonable price of $6.

it's a weird but oddly fascinating combination of a wrap, and a shrug, and a cardigan, and is modeled here by the ever-gracious jing, who makes everything look good, for which i hate her.

it's made with 2 skeins of sweetgeorgia merino silk fine, in a brand new fall colourway called mink (i know it's not fall yet, but we're thinking ahead, like newton, or vanilla ice). it comes in two sizes, both of which can accommodate a wide range of female anatomies. the pattern comes with instructions on how to customize the sizes too, to make it more or less drapey and to fit those oddly shaped bodies which are still (mostly) beautiful.

buy it, and make it, and wear it, and post all your praise in the comment section below. thank you.

sick

being sick is not fun.

in moments like these i find myself gazing longingly to the east, to the mildly socialist republic of finland, where you can be as sick as you can and miss as much work as you want, and the friendly government will always be there to cover your medical costs and reimburse you for the paychecks missed. they will patronize you, and belittle you, and humiliate you with endless red tape in the process, but at least your ability to pay rent and buy food is not compromised by the choice of some testicularly challenged dickwad to sneeze all over you in the skytrain.

but at least i have this.

it's a sock. the stripes me happy make.

stresslessness

i feel like i've just given birth.

today i've brought to conclusion an unprecedented, three-part project which i carried out with much determination and poise, despite all the dangers and uncertainty inherent in such projects.

as the boy would surely testify, upon agreeing to take on this adventure i was not fully aware of what a project of such magnitude entails, and granted, there were many a moments when faith was almost lost, and gods were almost denounced.

but with steady hands i gracefully steered my proverbial boat through gushing winds and every other nautical allegory until arriving at the safe harbour of calm and quiet and stresslessness. hopefully it will all soon translate to fame, riches and global awe.

it's all so very, very secretive.

oddly, being stress-free feels an awful lot like bronchitis.

smelly

there was a sheep, and the sheep was smelly.

the sheep ate grass and some other things too. sometimes the sheep slept and dreamt sheepy dreams.

then the sheep was sheared and turned into yarn, and the yarn was dyed and then some tool made a sweater out of it.

a sweater that smells like sheep and grass and other things and sleep.

carpino by carol feller

ravelry link

size modified 35"

sweetgeorgia bfl sock (224g / 3.5mm)

canada, fuck yeah

news have been received.

they were received through an unassuming e-mail on a groggy tuesday morning, upon receipt of which the undersigned went cold and limp and called mom and cried, as she so often does.

the ministry of jobs, tourism and skills training of the province of british columbia somehow found me and my unique set of skills and personage indeed worthy enough that they decided to not only support the continuation of this canadianic adventure of mine in the form of a new work permit, but also recommend my personage to the federal government for permanent residency.

IT'S SO FUNNY HOW THINGS HAPPEN.

IT REALLY REALLY IS.

stephen (the) king

while we are still waiting for news about my future, be they positive or negative or absolutely anything as long as they can be interpreted as news, i humbly point you all to the direction of the most fascinating interwebbery conversation this industry of ours has seen in a long time. possibly ever.

the comment section of stephen west's newest sweater pattern.

it's an exhilarating, passive-aggressive tug-of-war between the clockworkers and daybreakers, who have finally snapped under their grave frustration from witnessing their once-idol slip further and further away from their safe, conventional and practical design preferences, and the art hipsters, who would not actually wear anything that's not safe, conventional and practical but who in the name of civilization and open-minded liberalism appreciate the gesture anyway, or at least like to be associated with those who do - with, of course, the obligatory can't-we-all-just-get-along people crouching apologetically in between. it's the mother of all controversies, and everyone's invited!

i've never felt more alive.

go on. i'll be here eating my 10 dollar ice cream and enjoying the ride.

limbo

i have been quiet, because there is a revolting air of terror hovering over me.

for the past 12 weeks i have been waiting for a new work permit, the obtaining of which, or alternatively, the un-obtaining of which, determines whether i will stay permanently in canada and play with yarn for a living until, supposedly many happy years later, i die peacefully in my sleep - or move back home and come up with some kind of a plan B.

it's too much to bear.

my mind is going. i can feel it. i can feel it.