remember knitting?

I found a webring for knitting blogs in the GTA and I've been perusing it for a few hours (oops, I mean minutes. I'm not a psycho, I swear). I remember when I started this blog, meaning for it to be a knitting blog with some personal content. Then it became a blog about school-related rantings, life-related gripings and occasionally, knitting-related braggings.

I haven't knit-bragged for a long time, and not because I haven't produced anything bragworthy. Could it be that I've lost the compulsion to share my precious FOs with the blogosphere? Or could it be that I've lost the readership to even bother updating this blog more often than once in an FO?

At any rate, my needles are currently being occupied by a pair of penguin mittens for my friend and former coworker Raelyn. A penguin enthusiast (apparently such things exist), she collects everything and anything remotely penguin-related. When she saw my adaptation of the alligator mitts into sandworm mitts), she asked if I could produce penguin mittens. I told her I could, but that she's have to be patient; I was working 2 jobs at the time and preparing for the move to Toronto. She agreed to accept the mitts well beyond mitt-season, and lo and behold I'm finally working on them.

The problem with the mittens I initially designed was that I wanted the wristband ribbing portion to be black with white on the inside of the wrist. Think black penguin with white belly, right? The thing is, changing colors when you're knitting in the round on dpns is a bitch. A real bitch. You can't use intarsia because you leave the working end on the wrong side of the color block, so you can't use that end again. Get it? Even if you don't, you can see the complexity of the problem. I was stumped. As such, I have had to make the wristband and heel-of-hand portion all in black, saving the white underbelly for the lower jaw portion (which is knit flat- no problemo).

All this to say that I'll have your mittens to you someday, Raelyn. And on that day, I will blog. And brag.

Somber hangover reflections

I haven't been in a very good mood lately.

I'm stressed by the multifarious pressures of putting together the PhD application, which is essentially designed to be a heart-attack inducing bag of stress. Futher, to have to convince all these schools and profs that you're worth any of their attention at all can be a bit of an ego-crusher. I think the whole point of its tediousness is in weeding out people who say "what's the point?" and throw in the towel, and believe me, I've been close to that point.

Futher to that, when you're feeling stressed and low on self-esteem, any little thing can throw you off your feet. Case and point was last night, my staff xmas party.

I had worked that day, and had grappled with my usual feelings of "nobody likes me here" and "nobody appreciates the work I do here". That happens. Nonetheless, I do enjoy the company of the people I work with, regardless of what I percieve my popularity there to be. And I was looking forward to the party too, especially the gift exchange where I envisioned a big reaction to my thick, soft, fluffy mittens that I worked so hard to have finished in time.

We do a "chinese gift exchange" at our parties, which means that when someone opens a gift, they can swap it for a previously opened gift. The year I made alligator mittens, everyone fought over them all night and my heart soared. The girl who unwrapped my mittens this year tossed them away in favor of something "better" without a second's hesitation, and my heart sank. They wound up going to the new girl, who claims to like them a lot, but seeing them so unappreciated was unreversible.

This is the plight of the handmade gift enthusiast; the odd time someone will not appreciate the time, work and care put into your items. And fuck, does it sting.

On a lighter note, my disappointment culminated in my almost getting into a fight with some girl at the bar. Picture this; Zaphods. I'm wearing a BCBG corset-top and pencil skirt with my highest stiletto heels. I have an updo and elaborate makeup. As I walk along the bar from the dancefloor-end toward the coat-check area, I encounter some congestion of people. My travels slow down as I'm worced to walk toe-to-heel against people in front of and behind me.

All of a sudden, the girl behind me spills her drink all over me. I'm not exaggerating either. I felt it all over my chest and left arm, my top and my leather watch; I even felt it fall down my left leg and into my shoe. I raise my arms and turn to start accepting the profuse apologies I'm expecting, but I don't get any. When I inform this broad that she has just showered me in whatever whe was drinking, she told me to "take it easy", and my cup runneth over.

Details of the event are a bit of a blur; I vaguely recall repeating "take it easy" incredulously. What I do remember in perfect clarity was that she tried to walk away from me, toward the door and down the steps... so I helped her along. I shoved this girl down the steps from behind. I was 100% ready to fight, despite the fact that I was a) wasted, b) in high heels and c) far smaller than this girl I was fronting, even with my high heels on.

For all I know, it would have been a fight I'd have lost, but I'll never know because the girl just disappeared. I looked for her for the rest of the night, but she was probably hiding from the drunk, crazy woman (me).

Anyway, drink-spilling girl, if you're reading this, you need to be taught some manners. And I need to vent some aggression. So bring it!

I was undecided about what to make for the staff xmas party, so I was wise to wait for inspiration. Today, my stash told me what to make.

I had forgotten about this BEAUTIFUL Patons Luxury yarn I found at a salvation army last spring. It's a mohair blend, bulky weight, blackish/greyish. The color is called "starry night" or something like that. I found 4 brand new balls in a bag for 99 cents. It should have easily cost over 7 or 8 bucks a ball!

Bulky weight yarn is good for a quick gift, and the neutral color makes it very versatile. I found a pattern for crochet mitts on Ravelry, and I'm finally inspired! The trainride should fly by!

Today I got my ISIC card, ordered my transcripts and got as much rest as I could. I'm a little weak and headachy, but not sick in the traditional sense of the word. 5 hours on a train is pretty restful too, if you think about it. As long as I don't have a cold; ie- as long as I'm not blowing my nose throughout my appointment with Dr. Forsyth! I'll be ok.

My usual computer routine has a new venue; handmadeottawa.com! Over the holidays when I'm not so insanely busy, I'd like to cross-post many of my FOs from craftster to handmadeottawa.

J and A did a great job starting it up, and it's exciting to be "on the front lines", so to speak, and see it's membership grow by the day! If you haven't checked it out yet, do!

A busy week, at last

Blogger says 15 people have viewed this blog. My condolences. This first attempt at blogging is admittedly halting, inconsistent and probably very random. I'll get the hang of it one of these days.

Points of interest;

1- I bought a domain name! www.undeadclothing.ca/ is officially my property. I'm hunting for a humble graphic design student to design me some logos and get my party started. Exciting! *EDIT* -don't bother checking out the link, there's nothing there yet!

2 - I'm a little bit all-over-the-place with regard to my Chirstmas-mitten-extravaganza. I started swatching on the suggested size needles (which are TINY! US3!) and my guage was still way too big! I'm starting to worry that if I have to go to even smaller needles to make guage, the mittens may take too long to complete by xmas (I'm talking about 4-5 pairs, mind you). I've also started my mom's Chirstmas slippers and alligator mitts for my nephew.

3 - T.A. strike is over, so I'm back to work.

4 - Thesis is not writing itself for some reason.