Rick's Second Hat

Rick is one of my favorite people at work. He is one of those guys that you think, if I was ever single, I'd snap him up like that! He is smart, sweet and funny. His last girlfriend turned psycho and they broke up (another plus for him, he doesn't like drama) and he is pretty sure she made off with the crimson and cream hat I made him last winter. I'm making him another one, this time one which will hopefully fit better than a yarmulke.
Like me, Rick lost his dad, but in a much worse way than I lost mine. He was one person I needed to talk with after dad died, because I knew he would know how I felt. I will make him any kind of hat he'll ever need!

Yarn Shortage

I'm running out of yarn. *sigh*
I have plenty to do something with, of course, but all the colors are browns, greens and some weird off whites that don't match each other. I can't yarn shop for now, certainly, so maybe I'll come up with something amazing to make in the colors I have.
Working on a green and white stocking cap. It's soft wool, I think the kind Tabby gave me, even though when I was picking through the basket I thought it was brown. I am really going blind. Last night I had to put my glasses on to read Gutenberg online. Ugh! What next? I keep asking that and it keeps getting answered with more and more awful things.
If I can get through July. I swear, someday I will take the whole month of July off, hide in the house and never come outside again.

Raspberry Sorbet and Pink Lemonade

Sounds yummy but it's a color combination, not anything good to eat.
I love this hat on. I'd keep it if I didn't already have a bunch of hats.
I don't know what to choose next, color-wise. I'm thinking trying the newsboy hat. It looks like a challenge.

Pinks

I am about to run the course of knitting pink stuff, for now. I finished the baby jester hat and now am working on an adult size pink...stocking hat, maybe. We'll see what happens. I might switch to blue next.
My pile of hats grows, I need to get the stuff to Linda's but really, I don't think she's up to it and the shop is closed for vacation so I will just keep knitting.

Chloe

I love my animals, but Chloe is special. She is so funny, and curious, and a companion the likes of which I've never dreamed. She makes me laugh. And she loves me as much as I love her. With Ember I always felt a little like a groveling peasant seeking favor, which is normal with a cat. But Chloe...she is as happy with me as I am with her. She is amazing.

Lace Hat and Scarf

This was a mess.

Hats

Finished the double puff, which is just funny. I'm posting a few other hats because I finally took pictures of them.

Lace Scarf

I've almost completed the lace scarf. Might make a baby hat to go with it. I think the exercise has been to train my eye to see when I've made a mistake. I don't think that's happened, but it's been a lesson.
Linda, my business partner, hadn't answered the last couple times I called her. I was getting worried and saw her last night, learning that she's been in the hospital where she was given 4 units of blood, and she was looking white as a sheet when I saw her last night.
I need to get my pile of things over to her, but I don't want to give her more to do than she's up to. Might wait a few days. She was so pale. She's tough, though. She'll be alright.

Epic Fail

I gave up the ripple stitch, for now, and found an easy lace pattern that nonetheless is still hard for me. During this stretch I have felt like the biggest knitting failure and the most awful idiot on earth for NOT BEING ABLE TO GET IT. Or, yeah, I got it, it just looks like shit. And moreover, there are insidious mistakes I can't repair. And I'm too stupid to figure it out. Damn damn damn...unravel, unravel, unravel.
Maybe I just tried to learn something when I was too old. You can't teach an old dog new tricks...and then I think of dad's articles for his work newspaper, You can teach an old dog new tricks, it just takes longer.
Oh, dear. Don't give up. Do give up. Keep at it, change to something less challenging....I don't know. I really don't know.
I'll probably just keep doing it. Badly.

Quest for Perfection

Perfect stitches evade me. I unraveled the ripple stitch scarf a dozen times then finally gave up entirely and went back to the hat knitter, disgusted beyond belief by the uneven edge and fuck-up-ability of the straight needle nightmare. I may try to put some decorative yo's in the hat, but I'm not promising myself anything. The last time I regarded the 5 or 6 inches of ripple stitch, I thought, that's kind of cool. I just need to keep my stitches loose....then, oh, look at that mess. FUCK IT! I wound it back into a ball and got out the size 6 hat knitter and started 1x1 rib stitch. Something I can at least do competently.
I've been off the Chantix over a week and I feel...different, anyhow. I am sort of afraid of that shit. I plan on not smoking two packs a day. I wish I didn't plan on smoking at all.
I need to get a small errand to the CU done today, since it's Monday and all. And then...I need to call my mother. But that's angst for another blog. Haven't talked to her in a couple weeks. If anyone had predicted this a year ago I wouldn't have believed it.

I Met a Girl

I was sitting outside work last night waiting for the old man to pick me up and a very nice woman came up and said, it's cheaper to knit than it is to gamble, isn't it. That's very true, even factoring in the yarn and needles. She has been knitting for 30 years and works through Etsy. She is also on Ravelry. I was charmed and delighted and now can't find her on either one. She was so nice, as knitters usually are.

Ripple Stitch

I'm like a dog with a bone.I'm trying to learn this stitch and I'm at the point where I've unraveled it so many times the yarn is turning to string. I've even gotten a few inches done, then a mistake occurs (how I do not know) and I end up trying to correct it, then undoing it, and swearing a lot. I WILL learn this stitch. No matter what. I hope.

No Pic

I knitted a thong for my dear friend David- I knitted it on size 13 needles with heavy chenille yarn and it was hilarious. I am a sucker for visual jokes anyway. I took the thong and draped it over his radio antenna, ba ha ha! Only problem, there's no way to follow that up.
Melissa gave me a baby blanket book and I'm thinking of making something with that. Everything's on size 11 needles and I don't know if I have any. I think I might...I don't know.
Well, I have 10.5 needles but they are circular. And casting on 139 stitches....whew! And then screwing up before I've gone 15 stitches...boo! I just don't think I have the attention span for a blanket. I wish I did, but it's not looking so good right now.

Sarah's Bikini

I love Sarah's top. It's the height of greatness. And more importantly, it looks wonderful on her. Now I'm off to the bottoms.....yes, I'm going to try and make a bikini bottom. Not out of wool, either. We don't want to go down that road again.

Nothing

That's what Louis XVI wrote on the day the Bastille fell- or the day the French peasants stormed Versailles. Or maybe both days. Maybe it wasn't good hunting that summer, but there it is. Nothing. And that's what I'm working on right now. I can't recall when I haven't had something on my needles. NOTHING!
I may, indeed start a pink and white hat today. Maybe.
Called my dear business partner and left a message about the things I'd like to take to her for the booth. Really, I am sick of thinking about the booth, but I have a lot of junk to get rid of. Next knitting project will be hat for Julie.
Dropped off the bikini top off last night and saw that work was a riot- call-outs and connection problems. Glad I wasn't there.

What! Another BLOG???

I am considering a blog to deal with my personal issues- you know, things that don't have to do with mom, knitting or costuming. Like my struggle with cigarettes, weight loss and everything in between. A lot of that stuff sounds like pissing, moaning and bitching, and I don't want to pollute the pure creativity of my hobbies with it. So. I am converting my Live Journal blog to what it should have been all along- something besides knitting, sewing and mom's crazy reality that affects me every minute of the day. Plus, in facing and dealing with these issues, I may be able to make some progress.
As for knitting, I have a pic of the pistachio top, which is so funny and whimsical. And I'm about 1/4 of the way done with my Sarah's other cup!
God I'm going to miss that girl. I still have Tabby, thank God. For now, until she decides to transfer to a job more fitting to her magnificence. And Jeff. And so many other dear, dear friends who make work worth showing up to. Honestly, these people have NO IDEA what they have meant to me when times have been tough. And they have been worse than tough, brutal, and awful. My friends see me as I would like to see myself. I have been overly blessed with great people at work, as well as a job that I really love.

Sarah's Boobs

I am knitting a bikini top for my dear Sarah, who is one of my favorite people of all time. I've worked with her for years and always found her to be damn near genius. She is also naturally blessed with a giant rack, a full bouncy, beauteous pair of ta-tas which I have cast on 63 stitches on #8 needles to accommodate. The problem here is, I really can't recall what number needle I knitted the pistachio top on.....we'll see! This might be a debacle.
I picked a red which will go with her beautiful tan. She's like me in that she is, in winter, exotically pale, with her dark hair and eyes- the kind of pale an olive skinned person who never gets outside, until she gets outside and becomes bronze in about five seconds. I, unfortunately, freckle and blotch, instead of toast. It's sick, because I really do think tans look prettier and healthier, but personally, with skin cancer in the family and my own scare...well, let's just say you'll see me outside in long sleeves, a hat and a big umbrella. I am looking at my hands right now, which are the only thing ever exposed, and they are kind of brown...and not even a good brown, just, sharecropper, farmer tan brown.
Oh how I would love to be sleek and tan and toned...but I'd have to be sleek and toned first, and that's a lot of work, and probably, at my advanced age, not even possible..I'm cottage cheese-ish, and sort of lumpy, and my skin tone is disturbingly similar to a defrosted turkey, complete with big blue veins just under the surface. YUCK-O! Ain't no tan gonna help that.
So I want to create the perfect showcase for my dear friend's boobs, and since she's going to the lake on Wednesday, I got a time limit. So I should be knitting. Right now!

Things To Do

I am watching the women's finals of Wimbledon and getting ready to finish the purple hat for Arlene. Then...drumroll please...I am starting Sarah's bikini top. I am so excited about that!

Hm.

I started this blog as 'nervous knits' because of the quitting smoking thing. I was delighted to focus on something other than cigarettes. I had lost about 94 pounds, and I was ready for a change. Then I found out my knitting sucked, and changed the title to "Bad Bad Knitter" because I was one.
Since then I have battled the weight, and since quitting smoking in May I have put on a few pounds which I am trying desperately to lose, and my knitting isn't that bad. So I feel, to inspire me and make a change, that I am going to edit the title of my blog. I'm gonna be "One Bad Knitter". Since I am one.

To-Do List

I am making a gorgeous purple hat for Arlene and a red bikini top for Sarah G. Who I love above all other people, of course. She is so smart and wonderful I am sure I will miss her something dreadful.
The bikini top is something fun, the first one I made was black and looked like two eye patches on a shoe string. The second, made out of a gorgeous 100% wool (useless!) in pistachio green with an adorable daisy between the cups. I think it's just funny.
Knitting is such a comfort to me. Thank God for yarn!