i made a pretty

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)

northern non-summer

i'm back. sort of.

inspired by fellow bloggers, and encouraged by my employer-turned-mentor, i've decided that when it comes to presenting finished knits, even super duper late is better than not at all. you may direct any objections to that brick wall over there.

so in the following days, or weeks, realistically speaking--which we always are--you will see some very very random posts about stuff i've made. mostly from last year, because since moving to canada i seem to have caught a really sturdy case of i'm-just-gonna-wind-this-yarn-and-knit-a-few-rows-then-move-one-to-something-else-hence-the-pile-of-eleven-simultaneous-WIPs, and haven't been able to finish much stuff.

to start things off, this here is a shawl i made.. last... spring.

northern summer shawl by jo kelly

ravelry link

wollmeise pure in olio vergine (170g / 3.5mm)

i know it was spring because i was watching the ice hockey world champs on TV (we lost) while working on the lace edging. you know, the type of edging where you're effectively binding off exactly one edge stitch for every two rows of lace? sheesh, omg, lol. i thought it would never end.

i also remember going completely berserk when someone interrupted me on one of the last chart repeats, causing me to lose track and having to frog back at least 15 rows. with all due respect to my family, friends and the entire humankind: which part of this concentrated, constipated look on my face when i'm knitting lace does not scream "DO NOT FUCKING SPEAK TO ME RIGHT NOW PLEASE THANK YOU" to you?

i just don't like to be interrupted, is all.

i also also remember that i ran out of yarn with just two chart repeats left. i'm not gonna go over the details of that gruesome episode because it hurts too much. but i somehow managed to find a lovely generous person willing to part with her leftover yarn from the same wollmeise update (!), so i was able to finish the edging a couple of days later.

the pattern had some pretty significant errors here and there, but i trudged through anyway and i think the finished shawl looks fine. there's enough weight there to make it drape nicely and prevent the edges from curling, which is the sole reason most of my scarves and shawls are plain garter stitch. so in this case the yarn works--so much so, in fact, that this was one of only three hand-knit scarves that got to accompany me to canada.

(notice the decidedly un-springy scenery in the photos above. they were taken in mid-november, because for the actual northern summer i was locked up in the cave of fluorescent lights and windows facing a concrete wall that was my previous workplace. many thanks to miss R for helping out anyway.)

but the more i've worked with wollmeise the less i'm liking the base yarn--OMG SHE DIDN'T JUST SAY THAT--because the plying really really puts me off. an 8-ply fingering-weight yarn? are you fucking serious? yeah and we'll make the plies really loose too, so that we're effectively taking out all the luxurious squishyness of merino and replacing it with these lifeless little straws of fibre that split and fray like a mofo and completely disintegrate when drawing from a center-pull ball. why, in short we've taken a luxurious merino and turned it into something that resembles cheap cotton.

i really really want to like the yarn, because the colors are so amazingly vibrant. but i think my wollmeise hoarding days are over. surely it can only mean that my taste in yarns is becoming more and more refined? and surely that's only a good thing?

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.

happiness is..

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. @!#$%.

birthday giveaway

greetings from planet barf. the stinky place between bed and bathroom where strange stuff just keeps coming up. hence no knitting here lately. remember to wash your hands, people.

now that the gross part is done.

this blog was rather immaculately conceived exactly one year ago. a lot of completely irrelevant and boring stuff has been said. stuff that only vaguely relates to knitting. and stuff that does relate to knitting but in a fashion that i hardly imagined would interest anyone. but apparently i have some surprisingly magnetic tractor beam-like qualities which forces some of you oddballs to keep coming back. for which i both apologize and skip around triumphantly.

so to celebrate your loyalty and persistence as well as my own, i'm throwing a sequel to my christmas giveaway!

the grand prize is...

this once-in-a-lifetime baby from the finnish fibre artist ilu, who dyes her unique colorways in tiny batches at her studio in pukkila. they're virtually impossible to get both outside finland and in, as the batches usually sell out before you even realize the shop's been updated. you may begin gasping in awe now.

the yarn is a fingering weight 100% merino, running a full 400 meters per 100 gram hank, in a gorgeous shade called "matkustaa" that mixes lovely fresh mints and greens with subtle greys. a perfect reminder that spring is coming - and perfect for any one-skein project you might have.

do i even need to remind you that you probably won't find this yarn, in this colorway, anywhere, ever?

all you have to do is leave a comment, preferably one that makes some sense, by 11am (CET) tuesday, march 20. the winner will be randomly selected and notified the next day. that's it!

good luck and may indeed the luckiest bastard win!

oh, and check out the new brooklyn tweed collection. i already got me the winter seasons kit. because i need to finally fondle the loft yarn in person. despite the $13 shipping charge. jared and his f***ing flagship stores.

it had to be done

i went to a crafts fair today.

next time i'm wearing a shock collar.

i'm not dead

jesus. it's been two weeks already?

i'm alive and working and abiding by the holiest of guidelines when it comes to parlance, which roughly goes that if one doesn't have anything remotely interesting to say one should save everyone the trouble and shut the fuck up (and stop referring to oneself as 'one'). in effect...i'm a dude...who abides.

so here's me not stooping down to pointless smokescreen jabber and empty sentences of the fancy long-winding sort, which some other asshole out there might well do just to fool you into thinking that some extremely relevant and immensely wise content is, in fact, being said, when all the while it is clear for anyone to see it's all a lazy attempt to hide the subject's inherent lack of substance as well as any kind of respect towards the intelligence of his/her readers and therefore, vicariously, the entire human race.

that's just not me.

instead, i'm presenting you with some distressing evidence of my recent hoarding.

i'm gonna go grow an ironic moustache now or something.

friday is the cruelest day

bob: get a hold of yourself, woman.

liisa: whatever do you mean?

bob: i know it's friday and all, but sheesh.

liisa: i haven't done anything.

bob: really?

liisa: really.

bob: haven't done anything?

liisa: uh-huh.

bob: so what you're saying is you didn't set the alarm for the 9am wollmeise update, race through the stock list like a rabid dog and get three 100% superwash colorways, only one of which being a colorway you ever  intended on purchasing in the first place, and none of which you actually need or have any plans for?

liisa: well...yeah.

bob: and i suppose you didn't stalk the 4pm handu update either, right?

liisa: obviously.

bob: you do realize i can see everything? and by that i mean i know you're lying?

liisa: umm... uh..

bob: what a sad, lonely, obsessive little person you are.

liisa: well look here now--

bob: just because it's friday and the supply is there doesn't mean you need to go out and buy everything you can get hold of.

liisa: but i really really want to.

bob: well sure, because you're such a hysteric hoarder. and easily fooled by group mentality. but it's not like the world's gonna run out of yarn, you know.

liisa: i'm terribly afraid it does.

bob: look. you know anything about marketing tactics? stuff that's elusive, seemingly unique and in limited quantity creates hype around itself that makes it seem way past its original value. it first creates artificial needs by making exclusiveness a virtue and a point of social reference, and then forces people to grab whatever they can for whatever the price before it sells out. so in effect morons like you make hasty decisions based on false needs and still somehow come out thinking they've made a really good deal. i'm not saying that wollmeise shit ain't pretty goddamn awesome, but don't go foaming in the mouth at every update unless there's something there you really like. by all means buy it if it genuinely makes you happy. but keep in mind that buying stuff just because you can is stupid. and the colorways, they're all more or less repeatable. they're not forever lost once the update's through. it's all in your head. you don't need to buy that 21€ skein just because it's there.

liisa: but i like getting expensive yarn online because when it arrives i get to make myself pretty for the postman and then i can arrange the skeins in perfect little piles and sing to them and pet them and rub myself against them and then we can all have a little tea party where i'm queen fluffalot and the skeins are my royal court. and the postman's the chambermaid.

bob: you serious?

liisa: uh.. the thing is.. i, uh.. yeah.

bob: well i've seen all kinds of shit in my time, but goddamn.

liisa: i know i need to change but i'm not sure i want to.

bob: suit yourself, then, as a lazy tailor would say. i'm done watching this horseplay of yours. bob out.

liisa: don't leave me, bob.

bob: you've made your choice.

liisa: you can't do this to me.

bob: i already did. get over it.

liisa: well fuck you too, bob!

bob: ..what did you say?

liisa: oh god. no. wait. wait--

on the kindness of knitters

the doorbell rang this morning.

having just come out from the shower, i was naked. completely, utterly naked. i cannot emphasize enough how naked i actually was, because nakedness was crucial to the unfolding of events.

i figured it was the postman trying to deliver me something that wouldn't fit the mail slot. usually i'd just open the door and see what he wants, but, as it's been established, i was naked, and getting dressed fast enough was quite impossible.

at this point i realized i was not expecting any packages, because the 80€ yarn shopping spree i had conducted two days earlier surely wouldn't have its goods delivered so soon.

for a moment there i thought whether i should just let him come back another time, or open the door in some type of "why mr. postman, do you have a package...for me?" routine.

my dirty thoughts were cut off by the sound of the package being forcibly forced through the slot. it made a horrible screeching, ripping and twisting sound as it was squeezed through inch by inch. all i could do was stand by and pray for the packaging to hold up and protect whatever was inside.

eventually it came through and i leaped like a hairless panther to open it. a very inconspicuous package it was, but my heart started to pound when i noted the sender was familiar. and that it came from canada. because nothing but nice pretty things comes from canada.

my heart began to race even faster. the contents felt soft. could it be..?

OHMYFUCKINGGODITSSWEETFUCKINGGEORGIA

in finnish there's this word called 'ilopissa', which roughly translates as 'being so convulsively extatic with receiving unexpected free stuff in the mail that one loses control of his/her bladder, speech and consciousness'. after realizing this ridiculously gorgeous skein really was for me, and for no other reason except the giver being endlessly benevolent and the recipient having once lobbied (apparently very successfully) for the acquisition of said skein, i went ilopissa all over the place.

melissa, i love you, i will marry you, i will dress up like tinky winky and do the hula if you want me to. bob bless you and your futile attempts to rid you of your stash.

ho-freakin-ho (aka giveaway)

christmas is nigh. i'm finding i have this inexplicable urge to be nice to random people, which is scary, but works in your favor if you choose your words wisely. because it's time to lure y'all out of your non-commenting holes with a festive little giveaway.

the prize is...

a set containing one 100g hank of louhitar from louhittaren luola, and a pack of six stitch markers made by my own humble self.

louhittaren luola (knitlob's lair) is a brand of unique hard-to-get handdyed yarns that hails from oulu in northern finland (anything above and beyond helsinki is north by my standards). the yarn is 100% finnsheep wool that's been both raised, sheared and spun in the exotic, arctic domain that (supposedly) is finland. the tourist board says hi.

the 2-ply texture is sort of rustic but still soft enough to be worn against the skin. you'll get a good 240 meters out of this 100g sport-weight hank for any smallish project you might have. and as you can see, the color's freakin' gorgeous.

the self-made stitch markers combine silver-plated wire with all sorts of fancy shmancy beads. they fit needles up to size 6mm (US 10) and, incidentally, were made by me. did i mention i made them myself?

all this wrapped in a nice recycled packaging that makes for a lovely gift too. unless you're a selfish bastard and want to keep the prize to yourself.

the rules are simple. leave a comment stating why you need to win this set by 6 pm (CET) thursday, december 15. best comment/argument/death threat wins.

be sure to leave some contact info, which will be used for contact purposes only, not for any evil dr doofenschmirtz type of scheme. and as always, feel free to tell me how awesome i am.

the winner will be announced on december 16.

here's to friday

i have two words for you, people.

ruffle yarn.

you know. this type. lady with the shit-eating grin sold separately.

source: diamondyarn.com

i don't know what the shiznit is in the real world right now but in most of finland ruffle yarn is the shiznit of the season. in genuine, scary, all-encompassing i-will-rip-your-fucking-heart-out-if-you-touch-that-last-ball magnitude. the sheer amount of speed and agility these (elderly) people seem to summon up whenever ruffle yarn is in sight is almost awe-inspiring. and being a member of the entrepreneurial party and thus witnessing such agitated behavior daily all i can do is sort of smile and accept their money. ka-ching, baby.

which is not to say i actually either approve or encourage the use of such yarn for any other purposes than providing a cautionary example of inexplicable mass hysteria. that and glittery acrylic toilet paper.

because even though i thoroughly support all kinds of handicrafts, and am willing to overlook many, many types of fugly in the name of DYI, ruffle yarn is the satanic mother of all fuglies and should be treated as such.

and some day, presumably around 20 seconds before i get fired, i will take matters into my own hands and begin preaching my gospel called THOU SHALT NOT USE RUFFLE YARN OR ELSE.

but being a martyr is kinda cool too, right?

cancel christmas

warning. an image-heavy post follows.

so i made a rather impressive performance at a handicrafts fair last sunday. in terms of buying stuff anyway. screw christmas. consider my presents opened.

the fair was 150 miles away from me so mom came along and we staid overnight at a hotel. ate bad burgers, farted, giggled, farted again. like any other normal mother-daugther pair would do.

the fair seems to get bigger and bigger each year and this time there were almost 600 exhibitors trying to lure me to the dark side. an alarming number succeeded. oh well. i may be a servant of satan now but at least i've got stuff. much, much stuff.

and i really made a point to only buy stuff that's ecological, domestic or otherwise inherently good as far as consumer conscience goes. this awesome necklace from intoa is made out of old carpet rags. look at the scrumptuous color! look at it!

it obviously calls for a matching set of earrings. because sometimes i like to dress up and feel like a girly girl. these enameled beauties are from pauliina rundgren.

filling up my needle stash. i never knew knitpicks needles come in packs of 6. now i can break one just for the hell of it! oh snap!

then i found some gorgeous undyed dk weight lamb's wool from honkarinteen lammastila, which is an organic farm in southwest finland. the yarn's so gorgeous and soft that i want to wrap myself in it. sleep in it. make love to it. can't live without it.

i met the farm owner too, which is absolutely the best thing about these fairs. what an amazingly nice person. it's one thing to buy mass-produced yarn at a department store, and a completely different thing to buy yarn from someone who's fed and sheared the sheep herself and then spun the yarn with her own hands.

some hand-dyed sock yarn from hopeasäie...

some ridiculously soft, i-have-no-idea-what-i'm-gonna-do-with-this-but-i-had-to-buy-it-anyway merino from kirkkomäki...

a set of sock blockers from succaplokki... although in my shopping craze bought the small size instead of medium. rendering them somewhat useless. oh well. they're pretty and i supported eco-friendly production. so money well spent i guess.

and finally i found the most perfect bag ever. it's exactly the right size, opens with one hand, works both as handbag and shoulder bag, and fits an amazing amount of stuff in it. and it's made out of recycled army materials. globe hope, please allow me to build you an altar where i shall worship you for hours on end. naked if necessary.

what a fruitful sunday it was. same time next year, folks!

oh and you may have noticed that the art of photography is getting increasingly crappy here. choosing to live in arctic latitudes means having zero natural light this time of year. but fear not. only five more months of fumbling in the dark. it's not that long, right?

...right?

spinning is hard

hoarding

the following post contains offensive religious material and should not be read by anyone.

so it's obvious my life is not turning out the way i wanted it to. the ass-shattering pain is still there despite the surgery, and i'm having an infernally hard time adjusting to the thought that it may never go away. i've also come down with the flu which makes thinking and overall taking care of myself gazillion times harder.

i blame god. i don't like him and he doesn't like me. so we keep throwing steaming balls of turd at each other until one of us gives over. i do appreciate the oxymoronic nature of a fecal fight between myself and a (supposedly) bearded astral figure who i have no subjective experience of even existing, but somehow i still wake up nigh every morning with a fresh batch of baby green on my face. while he gets away squeaky clean. what a douche.

and now that we're on it, wasn't it therapy? that once accurately sang "god kicks with both feet and keeps his shoes clean"?

it's also obvious that the only way to provide any immediate or long-term relief for such unfair and unpleasant fate is to buy yarn.

which i did. i bought 17 skeins of yarn.

sparkly yarn. fluffy yarn. yarn that makes me forget all about god and his douchy, enigmatic ways. a little felted tweed. couple of cashmerino blends. a flavia or two. some silk wool. and other blissfully soft stuff i couldn't keep my hands off from.

i have no idea what i'm gonna make with all this stuff. i still have an untouched bag lying on my floor with 400g of viking eco ull, 500g of both drops alaska and karisma and four million skeins of raggegarn from my previous god-hates-us-all shopping spree. which, oddly, i do in fact recall being soundtracked by slayer at the time.

but again, the point is to have them before i need them, not after. in my mind this makes perfect sense.

p.s. i'm sure this blog will eventually return to idyllic representations of my actual knitting instead of going on and on about planning on knitting, preparing for knitting and/or failing at knitting. in the meantime.. oh well.

p.p.s. check out the new villavyyhti in helsinki. now.

comfort yarn

i feel so unbelievably shitty right now. i don't know if the surgery worked or not. i don't know if i'll ever get better or not. i'm alone, i'm bored and i'm in pain.

so. much. pain.

but at least i have my cascades.

and my tosh merino light.

i can't go home until the shark bite in my ass heals. and of course i don't have a single pair of needles here. so i can't even knit.

but i can hold the hanks in my arms and pretend they love me.

hiatus schmiatus

in case you had any doubt about my borderline OCD dedication to yarn, please note that today, sunday september 11, exactly five days since my entire right asscheek was sliced open, pronged into and stapled back together with 21 shiny pieces of industrial metal, i rose from my sickbed and forced myself into a car, drove 20 miles and entered a crafts fair where i promptly acquired six hanks of yarn and a pack of square dpn's while mowing down passers-by with my crutches and causing some general alarm because of the please-god-let-me-die look on my face (as well as my clockwork scarf, which apparently is so goddamn cool that it actually forces random people to stop and tell me how cool it is) then turned rather laborously around and drove back home.

where i now lie dying.

but still, i rule.

christmas came early

i deserve all this stuff. i really do. because i'm such a good person. who happened to be in a desperate need of a yarn swift.

and who also happens to be very much in non-platonical love with the color yellow.

better start punishing myself for such objectionable folly. satanic waste of hard-earned cash, guaranteed to cause premature death in some gruesome, goresome yarn-related incident.

no, wait. fuck this. as of right now i refuse to feel guilty over the yarn-related stuff i buy. i don't care what anyone says. it's my money and my obsession. there's nothing wrong with prioritizing yarn over food if it's hand-dyed and pretty. and whether i have any immediate use for it is irrelevant, because the hanks are indeed pretty to look at and in their wonderful woolly texture offer soft consolation for my tear-stained, petless, husbandless soul. besides, a wise woman once said...

"i always feel a bit of a need to apologize for the yarn i buy. i feel like i should justify it or explain it or excuse it. but really, that's silly. this is my business, and it requires yarn. so i bought some."

some meaning 16.

so in this industry i'm still considered moderate. which means i need to go buy some more. now.