destroyer

as so many plaid-wearing, whiny emo-core i-am-jack's-left-nipple-and-profound-sense-of-douchery channelers before me, i felt like destroying something beautiful.

as of today, socks-a-plenty is no more. it has been appropriately laid to rest with a solemn nod of the head and a shot of whiskey.

new things are brewing, spewing and splattering all over your face at fluffandhustle.com.

kindly update your bookmarks, as we used to call them back in 1996, and never show yourself here again.

thank you, qapla', fuck yeah.

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. "

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.

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.

miracle on 21st street

and it happened, that the boy and i took a little weekend getaway in san francisco recently. we saw the bridge, and rode the trolley, and climbed up and down the steepest hill ever known to man, because on top of that hill was where our hotel was.

it was all good and fun.

then, on day three, we headed to a funky bohemian district of the city for a photography session the boy had booked.

it was a sunny day, and a brutally cold day. i was wearing layers upon layers of woolly things, many of which i had purchased the day before, because not knowing anything about northern california weather i had only packed skimpy little tops and shorts teetering on the verge of vulgarity and general disapproval. topping everything i had my precious deep red line break shawl, and being thusly wrapped i walked up the street feeling happy and content.

somewhere along the way it got a bit warmer, though, and i took off the shawl and handed it to the boy so that i could take my sweater off, and again it was all good and fun.

we reached the photography studio and the boy was getting ready when i asked him for my shawl back.

his face went blank as he exclaimed, "i don't have it."

"what do you mean you don't have it?" i asked, with a profound sense of discomfort emerging from somewhere in my belly.

"i don't know where it is," he mustered as i began frantically looking through my bag, his bag and everything around us, not seeing the signature red colour anywhere.

"i must have dropped it on the street," he said, and before i could respond, he darted out the door and ran down the street where we came from.

fifteen minutes passed, with me standing there in the studio, explaining to the very busy photographer why the photographee wasn't there (because he lost something very dear to me), and why i couldn't call him to come back (because my archaic canadian phone doesn't work in the states). the photographer obviously wasn't happy with the situation, nor was i, so we stood there in an epically awkward silence.

finally he came back, sweaty and panting, his tail between his legs, and a terrified look on his face as if he was waiting for the fury of god's own thunder.

"i couldn't find it," he said.

"you are a terrible person," the photographed said.

i held back tears as they went to take the photos, and decided to walk up and down the street one more time. i looked under every car and every dumpster, and stared down every person walking past as if my imaginary x-ray vision could see into their bags and pockets and souls, telling me which one of these horrible, horrible people took something that didn't belong to them.

but i couldn't find it either.

so eventually i went back to the studio, where the boy had finished the session. i told him i couldn't find it, and he said he was really sorry, and tried to comfort me in every way he could. i tried to appear brave and indifferent, while in reality i was completely heartbroken.

"we'll go ask every store on the street if anyone found it and brought it in," he said as we walked out.

and that's exactly what he did - he went into every single store to ask for it, and in every single store they said no.

after three blocks and dozens of stores i stopped and started sobbing, because even with his noble attempts to make things better, the constant rejection just made me feel worse.

"i don't want to do this anymore", i said, my eyes so watery i couldn't see.

"i'm so sorry", the boy said and hugged me. "i know how much you loved that shawl."

so we kept walking, not really knowing what to do or where to go next.

then, at the corner of valencia and 21st, a homeless guy crossing the street had something red draped over his shoulder.

"THAT'S MY SHAWL," i yelped before my brain realized what was going on, and the boy darted after him with speed and determination i'd never seen before. i hobbled after them, crying with a newly found hope in my heart, and heard the boy plea for the shawl.

the homeless guy was stoned out of his mind, and seemed mildly terrified, possibly because he had just been grabbed by a tall bearded brown person who, true story, gets questioned every time at the airport because he looks like.. well, a terrorist.

"it's not mine," the guy managed to stutter, "my friend gave it to me." his voice was soft and confused, like michael jackson on sedatives. "but i can take you to him and you can ask him."

the boy hesitated, obviously recognizing that following a homeless person anywhere could be a terminally bad idea, but seeing me blabber made him go for it anyway.

so we went to another homeless person who had set up a little yard sale in the street corner, with stuff that people had "lost" and he had "found". he was a grey-haired elderly man, with a hawaiian shirt, no teeth and glasses so thick his eyes were completely distorted.

and again the boy pleaded: "that's my girlfriend's shawl and she made it herself and it means the world to her, is there anyway we can have it back?"

the man looked at me, and i looked at him, and all i could say was "please", over and over again.

finally he smiled, took the shawl from the younger guy, and handed it to me. "i can tell it's handmade and it's obviously really important to you, and i'm glad to return it to the rightful owner. i found it on the ground and was just going to sell it for five bucks or something."

i grabbed the red bundle and pressed it tightly against my chest, my first thought being THE YARN ITSELF IS WORTH 50 BUCKS ARE YOU COMPLETELY DEMENTED, and the second one being of such profound joy and gratitude that i literally lept and hugged him.

he was stinky and gross, but i didn't care.

the boy offered him money in return, but he refused. "i just want to do the right thing," he said.

and so we walked away, thanking him profusely, and still i sobbed, but now for a different reason. i held the shawl in my arms like it was a newborn baby that i was terrified of dropping and smashing his little skull.

through some divine intervention the next store we passed was princess animal, a lovely little shop that sells our yarns, and we went in, me still shaken and burying my swollen eyes into the sweet, sweet woolliness of the skeins hanging on the walls.

having heard the full tale of what just happened and discovering my employment relations the owner of the shop expressed some completely unexpected admiration and fangirl behaviour, and insisted on giving me a discount, which i fully and happily accepted, and grabbed three of the most luxurious skeins i could find.

upon finally reaching the register and reaching for my wallet the boy interrupted me and pushed my wallet back into my purse.

"i got this. you deserve it."

and i gleamed with joy as we walked out with 80 dollars worth of yarn in my bag, and had all kinds of fun the rest of the night.

afterwards i felt silly for getting so worked up over such a small deal. but i really do love that shawl.

and the boy's pretty sweet too.

loverly

by this time you should all be aware that when it comes to knitting, and reporting about knitting, i am not a here-and-now kind of a person. let's just say i'm very easily distracted.

so it shouldn't surprise you that i'm coming forth today with yet another FO that has been finished for ages. seven months sounds about right. although this time a lot of it really has to do with crappy cameras, which, i'm glad to tell you, have recently been replaced by awesome cameras. cameras capable of giving knitted things the vibrancy and depth they so thoroughly deserve.

lovely by melissa kwan

ravelry link

sweetgeorgia superwash dk (65g / 4mm)

it's a test knit for a cowl that was designed by my good friend, vigorous enabler, and cohort in all things yarn-related, melissa. she put the pattern together back in the winter and was brave enough to ask me to try it out (i say brave, because... well, all of the above). which i did, in two days, because i'm fast and awesome.

the cowl is the perfect one-skein project that doesn't take that much concentration, but won't bore you either. i used smaller needles, like i usually do, so the size came out a bit smaller than the pattern measurements. but since i like my cowls to be fairly close-fitting anyway, i can see how it could work even with fingering weight yarn. i can also appreciate the fact that the girly-girly heart motifs are balanced with rugged cables every now and then. i have my manliness to protect here, for god's sake.

so in short, it's a must-knit. go out and knit it, or else.*

in addition to all her yarn-related escapades, melissa periodically locks herself in a closet (literally - i've seen it) and sews project bags. she is too modest to believe it, but they are known throughout BC and beyond. so much so, in fact, that they don't even make it to her etsy shop before they're grabbed by knitters who notoriously hoard stuff and aren't afraid to use their elbows in the process (while being brain-burstingly, ever-smilingly passive-aggressive about it).

THESE ARE MINE SO BACK THE FUCK OFF, DEAR

but it just so happens that melissa is going to be a vendor at both fibrations and knit city (her first live appearances!) so this is your chance to have a look in person and get your own. act fast though, before some greedy skank buys them all. i'll be the one who's armed with zombie machetes and a pair of wolverine claws. what's your plan, bitch?

*or else what? exactly. 

triple threat

baffled

life is awesome.

that is all.

giggle & swoon

i have a solid excuse for being so quiet lately. two solid excuses, actually.

the first one is, i'm freakishly busy these days. they turned me into a full-time dyer at work recently, which is awesomely nice, but also awesomely time-consuming.

the second one is, i've been getting me some. feel free to speculate over that one. i'll wait here in the corner giggling while you do.

giggle giggle.

despite all this i've been churning out FO's like an ambidextreous monkey on LSD, but again, the quality of my photography is so abysmal with the equipment i have that i'll just rather keep you all squirming with anticipation for now than post pictures that make me look fugly and untalented.

so, to distract you for a little while longer, here's a recap of our recent trip to vogue knitting live in seattle.

in short, it was awesome beyond all human expression. even with the thoroughly magical plane of day-to-day existence i'm lucky enough to occupy in my life right now, i want to go back and curl up in the fluffy cloud of creative energy, sheer talent and white angora bunnies that was bellevue that weekend and never come home again.

THEIR LITTLE NOSES WERE TWITCHING

i took classes in two-colour knitting, steeking and knitwear design, which were all taught by people i never ever expected to be allowed to occupy the same temporal space with - such as gudrun johnston, who's so nice and charming and cute that i just wanted to take a piece of her with me and place it on my mantelpiece (that did not come out right).

in addition to spending lots and lots of quality time with the best knitterly friends a girl could ever have, i met a whole bunch of new people and generally acted nothing like the awkward, socially disabled trainwreck of uncomfortable silences that i once used to be. what an empowering feeling to find yourself talking to a complete stranger and not want to curl up and fucking die of embarrassement afterwards.

on friday we caught a jeff bridges show in downtown seattle. oh, what a long wavy gray hair he had, and a stage presence that made me really really like country music.

and of course, i bought some yarn. a little bit of yarn. not that much. 12 skeins is not that much. one skein of hazel knits artisan sock, a few skeins of BT loft, some shetland spindrift for colorwork practice, two skeins of icelandic laceweight and a few local sportweight columbias. the purple knitted wit skein made me especially giddy since through some cosmic miraculous coincidence it's the same color and dyelot of featherweight rambouillet i got at TNNA, so now i have enough yardage for a proper shawl.

i bought my first pair of signature circulars too. and a whole lot of tea. but it's really quite challenging to go all the way to bainbridge island and churchmouse and not buy a whole lot of tea. it could've been a lot worse. that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it.

also also, at some point during the weekend, well, uh... this happened.

receiving this plastic trophy the size of my production manager's baby basically meant three things:

a) me being called up on stage during a stupendously expensive gala dinner, which i was completely and utterly underdressed for, to knit as fast as humanly possible with terror-stricken sweat-clad hands and a digestive system ready to burst into a diarrhetic dungfest of comically exaggerated proportions while being gawked at by 200 people who obviously were not familiar with the many perks of continental knitting;

b) me actually being the fastest of the final three and therefore receiving abovementioned trophy and a whole buttload of free stuff as well as an unexpected additional round against the likes of amy detjen and lily chin which, in some post-orgastic knitting euphoria i also totally dominated;

c) random people coming up to me in a semi-continous stream for the next two days to congratulate me and casually touch my seemingly magical hands, which was extremely weird and uncomfortable, but also kind of cool in a LOOK MA I'M FINALLY SOMEONE kind of way.

what also happened later was me standing in line to pay for my churchmouse purchases when somewhere from my left a hipstery form of pure magical talent, lovely body odour and general swoon-inducing awesomeness emerged, and it was jared flood, who had specifically sought me out to congratulate me and tell me how very impressed he had been with my performance, and i stood there staring into his beautiful eyes and mentally masturbating myself and it was all very very not-uncomfortable.

in fact, after having my entire purpose of existence fulfilled in such a way the universe promptly expanded to an extatic mushroom cloud of yarn and bunnies and unicorns and then collapsed in on itself, leaving behind nothing but faint memories and this black and white hologram of wobbly knees, heaving chests and unsurprisingly retarded smiles.

retard... with a trophy
(photo: melissa)

exactly

hiatus

so you've probably noticed the lack of action around here.

it's not that stuff hasn't been happening. it's more on the so-much-stuff-is-happening-that-my-head-will-explode-any-minute-now side.

as you know i recently packed my stuff and moved to vancouver, to work a stupendously unexpected but equally stupendously appreciated job at sweetgeorgia. to the question, "how on earth did that happen?" i can only respond, "i have no idea, but it did, and it's pretty freakin' sweet".

can you spell "dreamjob"? can you spell "the most singularly awesome thing to ever have happened to my poor tormented adversity-ridden soul"?

the smell of wet wool in the morning is intoxicating.

it's been three weeks and only now am i starting to comprehend just how lucky i am. mostly due to the fact that wherever i go in the lower mainland i keep meeting yarn people who, after hearing about my current state of affairs, at first smile politely, and then lunge forward to try to scratch my eyes out. good thing the walking dead has taught me a lot about self-defense.

the downside of all this is, i had to stuff my entire life into two bags and pretty much start afresh. meaning as of right now i have no books or patterns or equipment to take proper photos with, and in the midst of all this excitement i also seem to have run out of witty things to say. i'm knitting more than in a long time, but the results won't make their way here until i get a lot of stuff sorted out. i'm hosting a non-knitting-related travel blog though which you're welcome to follow, if finnish is your bag, baby.

so in the meantime i wish you all a merry christmas or whatever it is that you're celebrating, and thanks for your patience.

oh, and to all of you vancouverites out there, feel free to drop me a line if you want to hang out or something. but just so you know, any envy-induced attacks on my person will be met with a zombie death punch.

checking in

no, i'm not dead.

first, i've been traveling, as you know. second, i've been recovering from said travels and their aftershocks. have you ever taken a 10-hour flight during which every single waking minute felt like someone was giving your brain a colonoscopy?

other than that, the trip was a success beyond all expression. you see, with all the infernal trouble i've had with my health during the past several years, i wasn't supposed to be able to fly overseas ever again. or anywhere, for that matter. but exactly one year ago certain events caused my life to take a completely different direction from what anyone, including myself, expected. and so, after 2.5 years of pain-induced limbo i forcefully took back my health, went back to work, and earned the money to fly over.

so it wasn't just any random two-week holiday. it was me proving to everyone that i'm in control of my own life again.

which i thoroughly celebrated by meticulously going through every yarn shop in vancouver, victoria and seattle and hoarding so much yarn that i had to get a separate bag to carry half of it as carry-on luggage, and at every single border crossing explain to the disbeliefed officers that all that yarn is really, truly, honestly for my personal use only. i guess their suspicion was valid, considering the final tally came to 34 skeins of yarn and four braids of fiber.

at the time 34 skeins and four braids of fiber seemed perfectly reasonable.

(as a humorous interlude and a testament to the exuberant niceness of the canadian national character, the baby-faced immigration officer at YVR, after seeing the project bag in my hand and thus hearing about my plans to have a very knittingy holiday, had only one question to ask:

"how do you feel about yarn bombing?"

much hilarity ensued.)

sadly, though, looking at the credit card bill back at home forced me to release half of the loot back into the wild. but the ones that got to stay with me are truly something i call "rakkauslanka".

so thank you maiwa supply, three bags full, wool is not enough, urban yarns, sweetgeorgia, beehive, button&needlework, knotty by nature, and last but not least, churchmouse yarns, where they just so happened to have a brooklyn tweed trunk show going on. the urge to stuff as many samples in my bag and run out like the wind was great, but i managed to resist it. scoring an armful of BT loft and two pounds of tea helped.

and a very special thank-you goes to melissa, the mastermind behind miso crafty, who graciously took me in for a full week, and even though i managed to catch a horrible cold on day one and left her house swarmed with used tissues and snot-related bacteria, provided me with the most relaxing time i've ever had in canada as well as the best knitting/gossiping/movie-watching company ever. and being the sneaky little devil she is, she had gotten two skeins of sweet fiber yarn for me, just because i had earlier mentioned in a casual conversation how i'd like to get my hands on some of that. melissa, you rule.

finally, as the ultimate cherry on my proverbial cake, the trip brought up some unexpected but pretty interesting prospects regarding my life, my universe and everything. at the risk of jinxing it i won't say anything before it's 100% confirmed, but if and when it is, it may become necessary to make some woot woot noises again.

calling all canadians

well, not all exactly. but more on that in just a second.

i am painfully aware how silent this place has been lately. painfully aware, literally. because i just spent the last four weeks in the most agonizing pain god has ever chosen to inflict upon me. as if that murderous c**t hadn't put me through enough already, but i digress.

the short story is i had to have emergency surgery last week, but i'm fine now.

so fine, in fact, that i can go ahead and board that plane to canada, which i bought tickets for 9 months ago but couldn't be sure i could ever even use because of aforementioned health problems, which would've been entirely avoidable but ultimately weren't because every single instance responsible for treating such problems refused to do so until the originally harmless little annoyance had become a brain-wrecking, spine-bursting, motherfucking steam engine of a pain-induced death sentence that punched me off my feet and left me wailing like a banshee skinned alive (my brother will never look at me the same way again). at which point i scored four emergency room visits in six days, as well as so many shots of morphine that my sXe membership card instantly withered away and died.

but like i said, i'm fine now.

so for the next couple of weeks i'll be roaming around the pacific northwest, doing what i do, i.e. mainly hoarding yarn. if you're in the vancouver-victoria-seattle area and feel like hoarding with me, drop me a line.

i'll enable you if you'll enable me.

people = shit

forgive me the raunchy title. how it takes me back to year 2001, a year covered in heartbreaking teenager angst and soundtracked by a certain iowan 8-piece with a well-noted affection for such raunchy titles.

but i'm not really a people person. i see that now.

this week, at work, i've witnessed so much astonishingly assholistic behavior from all and every direction that i'm currently on the verge of losing my faith in mankind.

you see, there's a very special symbiotic bond between you and your LYS worker. the store wouldn't exist without you, and satan would use your hands for masturbation without the store. an open and creative dialogue with mutual respect among all parties is encouraged and nursed for the benefit of the individual, the community, and the entire human race.

some people choose to treat this sacred bond with the loving proverbial curb stomp instead.

please note that while there is a certain responsibility on my part to be the smart one; to not get dragged into childish feuds and unending he-said-she-said bullshit; to be polite and show respect even to the douchiest, most outrageously inappropriate people--which thankfully sometimes pays off--there's a limit to anyone's endurance, including mine.

i am not your BFF, or your therapist, or your general piñata-style punching bag.

and if you're having problems which i, at that particular moment, for whatever reason, cannot help you solve, then go home and cry in the dark like everyone else, YOU MISERABLE ASSHOLE.

that felt good.

and thankfully each day, after another day's worth of trying to cope with all the shit described above, i get to come home to this.

all sarcasm and ironic moustaches aside, for real, seriously, i truly honestly shit you not--

--this is the most enjoyable knit i've ever had on my hands.

it's a  BT lace wrap with three simultaneous charts and 40+ row repeats, but i don't ever want it to end. normally i'd rather go all gaear grimsrud on myself than volunteer for lace. especially during times of great emotional discomfort.

here, there's a sense of pure zen-like relaxation when i'm creating these stitches. a perfect pairing of the exact right texture of the yarn and smooth wooden surface of the needles. the meditative repetitiveness of the garter stitch. the sense of achievement after a completed chart. just one more row, i keep telling myself, and lose myself in the silky grey haze.

forget all about the stress-induced zombie nightmares. the panic attacks. the lunchbreaks spent crying in the kitchen.

that there, my friends, is what knitting is all about, and what will keep me going through anything.

awesome

you may recall that i have an awesome brother.

now it turns out i have another awesome brother.

(i also have a sister, who admittedly has an awesome washing machine as well as some fairly awesome food at my disposal, but until she offers me some kind of a knitting-related near-life experience as described below, or saves me from the depths of a mental institution, or something, for now she herself will remain slightly less than awesome.)

this brother flew out to the great new york city recently and, in between doing all sorts of manly man stuff, dutily made his way down to broome street, where at number 459 there lies a soft humble haven, a holy destination for knittery pilgrims everywhere, called purl soho.

obviously not the crafty type himself, he had generously agreed to act as a surrogate buyer for certain yarns that are scarcely available elsewhere. i didn't even have to bribe him, or make him feel guilty, or beat him up with a traditional finnish musical instrument, as i vividly recall doing back in the early '90s.

all a testament to his awesomeness.

and so, with my meticulously crafted shopping list in hand he stepped into a world completely unknown to him, and summoning up an admirable amount of pioneer spirit proceeded to complete the list down to every last detail.

a cardigan's worth of brooklyn tweed loft in almanac, a perfect deep blue with perfect little specs of turquoise. and with delightfully imperfect little flecks of plant matter wedged between the plies, which some may find crude and offensive, but which i just find adorable. snooky-ookums. poodgy woo.

another two skeins of loft in woodsmoke and old world, already on their way to become a bayard hat. not the most creative choice of colors, but then again, i never claimed to be creative in the first place.

two skeins of BT shelter in homemade jam. i'm planning on a rosebud, but reserve the right to change my mind. gorgeous heathered color nonetheless.

and to top everything off, a skein of spud & chloë fine, a sinfully luxurious blend of merino and silk, in an aptly named colorway of burnt orange called orangutan.

"really fuckin' expensive," brother awesome commented on the total sum when i later went to collect my hairy babies from him, pointing out in a loving, brotherly manner that, after all, it's just yarn. to this i was unable to respond, because i had my face buried in the lofty loftness of the seven loft skeins, fighting down tears of overwhelming emotional movement.

how anyone would consider this expensive is beyond me

the only thing that irks me now, the thing that is driving me absolutely berserk, is that he's now been there and i haven't.

MY BEANSTALK ENGINEER OF A BROTHER HAS BEEN TO PURL SOHO AND I HAVEN'T.

he's awesome, but still. @!#$%.

sign me up

i've recently joined a club.

a very exclusive club.

one that grants me access to heavenly joys of unfathomable proportions. and a $70 bill, but let's put that aside for a minute.

let's shall.

these are my brand new 2.5mm, 8" signature dpn's, which i lovingly allowed myself (read: my visa) to purchase. because i totally deserve all the crazy-ass hi-fi knittingy gadgets out there.

because i just do.

you may well ask, "what the hell is all this brouhaha about signatures? they're just needles, for pete's sake."

in short, they're long and pointy. and sharp. so sharp, in fact, that they'd gone straight through the fancy little pouch they came in. i thought my suzanne ebonies were sharp, but these babies are so much sharper. they tore my left index finger right open when i first swatched with them, that's how sharp we're talking about.

dear ebony--consider yourself usurped

but sharp is good, and pain is better. blood and blisters are a small price to pay for catching stitches more perfectly than jesus himself ever could, and i bet jesus was a really awesome knitter. of course eventually i'll develop a calice the size of texas on said finger, which not only makes knitting even more pleasurable, but also attracts guys like a freakin' cock magnet.

what's possibly even more important is that they have the perfect grip. and i do mean perfect. if you've ever knit with them ponies or pretty much any metal needle (except kollage squares, who's my five-headed lesbian mistress) you're familiar with the distinct 'cling' sound you get when the needles slip off from the stitches, and also the 'fucking fucking fuck' sound which inevitably follows.

signatures are textured ever so slightly at the shaft, rendering all such traumatic experiences null and void. no more clings and fucks, just an adorable, cheerful wooshing sound as you gently move the stitches towards the tip. "ribbed for her pleasure", as knittersreview affectionately wrote--which not only provides the singularly most awesomest selling point for knitting needles anywhere, ever, but also proves once and for all that i'm not the only one with a warped mental connection between knitting and sex. fancy a threesome, clara?

you can't see it but it's there--also applies to my lady bits

they're also pretty. very, very pretty.

see? pretty.

add to that all sorts of hi-tech industrial newspeak, a lifetime warranty and an awe-inspiring balance between weight and material, and an apparent care for the environment too-- i don't know how exactly, but they use words like 'brite dip', 'anodizer' and 'EU directive RoHS', which simply must mean they're saving our fragile little planet one fossil-fueled machine-carved needle at a time--and i'm completely sold.

so in total, signatures are the perfect combination of snooty exclusiveness, outrageous pricing and humbling precision that inevitably, irresistibly makes me want to throw my money at them like it was burning a searing hole in my butt pocket. bob's scolded me on such behavior before, but i don't care. even the fact that you have to pay an extra $10 to get the fifth dpn (which by any other standards would qualify for the biggest douche of the universe award) somehow seems totally reasonable when you're convinced you're on the brink of the greatest discovery ever recorded on the history of mankind.

of course, you're not. they're just needles, for pete's sake.

but they're pretty fuckin' cool nonetheless. and fuckin' cool is plenty.

oh, midsummer

for some people midsummer means absolutely nothing.

for some other people it means going out, getting drunk, and drowning in shallow water.

for me it means getting a free day off, eating pie, and making button bracelets with my favorite imaginary friend.

best day ever.

march of the sinister knits

well the crochet thing is off. having trudged through 400 meters of yarn in one sitting (with this lovely shawl in mind) i somehow just went "meh" and moved on. the construction and shape didn't feel right. or maybe the butch trucker lesbian side of me's just not ready for pink lace. how sweet is the taste of giving up.

but i do have something to show you instead. throughout the spring i've made lots of stuff which i haven't had the time to present here, due to an unexpected and outrageous lack of spare time. being currently sick with flu offers a welcome break to do some blogging as well as the inevitable jurassic park marathon.

and so, a terribly long and incoherent cavalcade of finished knits follows.

seasons by jared flood

ravelry link

size 3

brooklyn tweed loft (70g / 3 & 3.5mm)

i got the brooklyn tweed seasons kit as soon as they went on sale back in march or something. i just had to get my hands on that loft yarn. (it's totally hot, by the way.) my colorwork is rather, um, amateurish, but the colors themselves are heathered enough to cover up a lot of my inability to comprehend the concept of "color domination".

the hat was a little snug when finished, so i wanted to block it to a nice generous slouchy look. a delightful little encounter ensued at a local department store, where i just happened to walk past the flower section with some completely unrelated business in mind, and saw a white flower pot that, when turned upside down, just caught my eye as the most perfect hat blocking device ever. so i took it to the counter and asked the girl what the circumference was.

"the diameter's 19 centimeters," she said. "no no, i need to know the circumference," i replied and made her look at me like she couldn't understand the words i was vomiting out. i was then forced to explain how this particular pot seemed the perfect size to aid me in wet-stretching a knitted garment which i couldn't pin down and flat-dry because i didn't want the side creases and how the pot needed to be between 60 and 65 centimeters because my head is 58 and i liked my hats a little loose, and i just needed to be sure about the pot size before i bought it.

she was probably lost at "wet-stretching".

but in eerie silence she took out a measuring tape anyway and announced that the circumference is 62 centimeters, to which i responded with some joyous hand-clapping, to which she in turn responded with a look as if i was actually intending to use the pot in some completely different affair, possibly relating to eating babies and/or having sex with leather-clad muppets.

just imagine what a girl can do with a pot like this

but i took it home anyway and blocked the hat, and it's perfect. never mind the fact that i'm probably on some stockmann persona non grata list now.

"i never should've fallen for that muppet"

speaking of hats, back when it was -25C outside i made me a wurm to keep my precious, precious ears warm with its double-layered edge. the size was perfect at first, but after blocking and in use the yarn got all droopy to the point where it's almost too slouchy. so next time i'll be making a smaller size.

wurm by katharina nopp

ravelry link

size biggiest

lana grossa cool wool merino (70g / 4mm)

then i made two of these ruffle necklaces, one for me and one for a friend for her birthday. i had to adjust the pattern a little because following the chart i couldn't get the edges symmetric.

ruffle bib necklace by stefanie fail

ravelry link

mayflower cotton 8 big (25g / 3.5mm)

mine totally look better than the originals, by the way.

then there's a couple of socks i made as presents for some nice people who are working hard to relieve me of my family curse of hideously crooked teeth. yes, i should've gotten them fixed back in the 90s. yes, i'm a 27-year-old with braces. no, i'm not very smart. but just a couple more months and i'll be stunning. yeah. take that.

a girl at work, a.k.a. miss R, a.k.a. my partner in crime in all yarn-related mischief (no it's not an oxymoron) taught me broomstick lace because, as it turns out, i'm not inherently the ultimate master of all knittingy and crochety bits. so with this newly-acquired skill i made some bracelets. they make me look all pretty. and cool.

the yarn's schachenmayr catania in various colors and there's 10 repeats in each. one bracelet took maybe 5 grams.

and finally i made another shallows, this time with some egyptian cotton and one less chart repeat so it sits a little snugger. also i took a crappy photo of it with a warped perspective, distorted colors and dismal white balance. it's all part of the process.

there. i'm all puffed out now. i shall be dreaming about jeff goldblum tonight.