Knitting Sutra

Not Sure I Deserve to Post Anymore

I've been away far too long. So long, in fact, that my Blog software has been upgraded, and I'm not entirely sure how to use it.

That's really pathetic.

I've basically been way overbooked, which is good in that we are once again a two-income family here at Casa O'Postraphe. I didn't have a job for a year and half while we lived in Holland, and that... well that sucked on a lot of levels. I did knit and blog A LOT. But, we didn't have much cizash, and all my pals were virtual. It's good to have money, but I miss some of the free time I used to have. I'm hoping to restructure things a bit in the coming months, relax a bit more, snuggle up in front of our new fireplace, and knit - lots!

Oh, yeah. You didn't even know that we had to move - AGAIN! One day last July we were negotiating a renewal on our lease, and then the next day they were kicking us out. We were only in the house 10 months! That wrecked my whole summer, and I'm only just now catching up. Oh and then there is the Wii. --shakes head in shame--

Needless to say, I haven't been knitting. Like at all. Way back when, I did finally finish the Peruvian hat that I was ripping off from "Real Simple." I frogged it several times, but finally came up with something that worked. It turned out AWESOME and the recipient loves it, even though I gave it to her the last wintry weekend in DC. I want to write out the pattern and knit another for myself this Fall. Any excuse to knit with Misti Baby Alpaca Chunky is a good one.

I also finished my "secret socks" only to totally ef up the cast-off. The leg holes are so tight that I can't get them over my heels. I must have lost my mind because who does a regular cast off for socks? I tossed them into my basket in a huff, and am too scared to look at them again. We're talking two colors, two socks at once - a hefty project. I don't know how to recast a cast-off. Anyone?

I plan to start knitting again tonight - working on B's sweater, the one he no longer believes he'll ever wear - while we watch the presidential debates tonight. I'm actually pretty close to finishing the back, and I'm hoping the sleeves will move quickly.

I have another pair of socks on the needles using the hand-dyed yarn Meghann sent me last year. I started them sometime back in the winter, and now I don't remember what pattern I was using. D'oh. Sigh.

What I really want to knit is a wrap - specifically the striped poncho thing from "Wrap Style" (Ravelry link). Problem is that I don't have the yarn for it. And I really should be knitting with all that yarn I have. Bugger. What to do? What to do?

Anyway, I plan to photograph old FO's, and post them over the weekend. Then I hope to transition back into my knitterly/bloggerly life. I hope some of you still have my pathetically untended blog listed in your Bloglines, and that you'll eventually come back.

Knit On, ya'll!

Shwoo! What a Week (or two)!

Hey hey! It's been ages! How are you?? You look great! Really! I've never seen you look so vibrant - is that a new haircut? Well whatever you're doing, it's working for you. I need to get me some of that.

How long's it been? A week? Two? That long? Oh man, I'm so sorry that I haven't been in touch. You know how it is when you move. Can you believe that I went for days where I barely glanced at my email? It's just been so crazy! But it should all settle down now, well you know... until our stuff arrives.

You Either Sink or Swim

Thank you all very much for the little notes you've left in my comments. I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to each of you, but it has meant a lot knowing you're out there watching my back. :)

It really has been a whirlwind, lead primarily by my big splash in the deep end of my new yoga teaching career. I'm teaching seven classes a week! Seven! Some of them require more planning than I'm used to, so when I have had some time at home I've been working on that. In between yoga and organizing the house, I've been running around shoring up my freelance gigs, catching up with old friends and trying madly to find some Peaches & Creme double worsted.

Peaches & Huh?

Those of you who have the Mason-Dixon Knitting book will know that many of the patterns call for the elusive Peaches & Creme yarn. I say "elusive" because no one but Wal-Mart seems to sell it. Before I'd even been here a week I hit up Michaels and A.C. Moore (btw, they're the same store, so no point ever going to both in one trip) with no luck. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say that only saccharin-sweet baby knitting happens at Michaels or A.C. Moore. Honestly, I'd never seen so many giant skeins of fluffy, pink floof in my life. It's like the Easter Bunny's rabbit hole in those stores, man. Yikes!

So, I sucked it up and went to Wal-Mart. I don't hate Wal-Mart, but I don't like giving them my money. Things are super cheap at a price, and what they do to keep costs down rubs me all kinds of the wrong way. My goal was to have a squiz at the colors before ordering yarn online. Had they had thee cones of the double worsted (aka 8-ply) in a color I was looking for, I might have had a problem. They didn't; moral dilemma averted.

Crafty Bastards Rule

Sunday marked the 4th annual Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair here in the nation's capital. B and I braved the gorgeous weather to scout some funky home decor. Instead we went a bit kooky for fun t-shirts. The latest trend in t-shirt fashion is definitely sea life, particularly squids and octopuses. Unfortunately, we had to head out before we found the Woolarina booth. I was so hoping for some local yarn. Next time.

BTW, I have managed to knit a bit here and there, particularly during the season premieres of my favorite TV shows. Indeed, I'll be binding off during "Heroes" tonight. Save the Jitterbug. Save the FO.

We Made It

This is just a quicky quick note to let ya'll know that we made it to Virginia just fine. The monsters are doing very well. Much better than expected.

We're full steam ahead trying to make an empty house livable, and it might be a couple more days before I can settle down long enough to write a proper post.

See ya soon!

Meta: Fancy, New Domain Name + Contests

I was doing some behind-the-scenes blog maintenance yesterday and checking up on the latest Typepad features. I like to know what my options are, even though I never implement any of the new widgets.

But something caught my eye - Typepad lets you map domain names to their servers. I thought, "Hmm, I wonder if www.knittingustra.com is taken." It wasn't, so I grabbed it. Muwahahahaha! This is my first step towards total world domination. In Jen World, we will do yoga every day, make sure to pet an animal at least once a day, and have block parties once a week to get to know our neighbors (unless they're cranky, old bags). I will also dedicate resources to developing low-energy transporters to eliminate the need for cars. You can count on it.

Oh wait, I was talking about the Web site...

*In theory* everything should still work if you go to www.knittingsutra.com or continue to go to akaijen.typepad.com. However, if you subscribe to my blog's RSS feed you might need to update your feed (Bloglines, Google Reader, etc) if you want to be notified of new entries. I'm having trouble testing whether it's working or not.

What a bugger that is. I guess it's the price to pay for world domination. Sound good?

Contests in the Knit Blogosphere

Becky is giving away 10 skeins of Rowan 4-ply, a discontinued yarn, if you help her decide what to do with her other gazillion skeins of the 4-ply. Her contest ends on Sunday, September 16. That would be tomorrow.

She who gives good contest and frequently, The Esoteric Knitter, is giving away your choice of Yarn Pirate, Fleece Artist, Cherry Tree Hill or Koigu sock yarn if you guess which sock pattern she's currently knitting. It's not listed as a WIP in Ravelry, I already checked. HURRY! Her contest ends tonight!

Track Your Progress, A Public Service Announcement

As I was sipping my latté this morning and reading blogs (now you know why my comments are often incoherent), I noticed some nifty progress trackers on Laura's blog. I'm always on the look out for ready-made progress bars because I'm too cheap to pay for the super-customizable version of Typepad and code them myself. OK sure, I'm just being lazy on that last point.

See my new bars on the left? I got them from Yarn Tomato, who not only has a handy-dandy little Web form that will help you make your own bars in your favorite colors, but she also has sets of pre-made bars that you can just download without any fuss. I did the latter, because I'm, uh, lazy.

Unlike other trackers that expect you to muck around in CSS code when you're ready to report some progress, Yarn Tomato's tracker is comprised of individual graphics representing each level of percent done you want to indicate.

So, all you do is download the graphics, upload them to your server, and add them to your blog the same way you add badges. Pick a different image for the level of progress you want to show. That's it.

Another Reason to Love Ravelry

For some, this progress tracker could be a stop-gap because...

Casey, the Ravelry Code Monkey, recently added a progress meter to the projects page, allowing you to indicate how done your WIPs are. The obvious next step is to offer a widget that will allow you to post a tracker on your blog that pulls the progress data directly from your Ravelry page.

In fact, they've already coded such a widget. They're planning to release it when they open Ravelry to the wider public. Brilliant.

On Ravelry Beta

I have to confess that I'm finding it harder and harder not to casually mention Ravelry all the time on my blog. I hold back because I know some of you are still waiting to get in as a beta tester. If you are still rapping your fingers on your desk wondering when your time will come, hang tight and make sure you subscribe to the Ravelry blog for updates.

The latest news is that they're going to be adding people in larger groups once they move to a professional server. Can you imagine that the whole thing is currently running on a machine at their house (at least I think it is, don't quote me)? I make my real money developing Web sites, and I can tell you I'm amazed they've opened it up as much as they have given that situation.

So, it's coming and I think reasonably soon.

Speaking of Progress and Things That Are Awesome

We rented "The Last King of Scotland" last night (Awesome!) to honor our last evening with the TV. Some nice folks that just moved here from Houston found my ad on Craig's List (How did people survive before Craig's List?), and came to fetch it this morning. They also bought the TV stand, the food processor, the clock radio, and a lamp, which is most of the stuff. Woohoo!

What I really mean to tell you is that I managed to finish the feet of my step-mother-in-law's socks last night, and will work on the heels today. I'm going to save myself a bit of torture and just do some short-rows. Nothing fancy.

I also squeaked in another order for some Wollmeise sock yarn AND some worsted-weight merino. I placed my order at the last possible moment because Claudia says she's closing the shop for four weeks starting, well, now. Sadly, I can't read her blog because my barely passable Dutch only gets me so far reading German, but the buzz on the net is that she's improving her ordering system. The woman is truly a saint, taking every order by hand via email. I love the personal touch, but that's gotta be overwhelming.

And, I also ordered the yarn for my upcoming cable sweater. I don't think you can buy Bergère de France in the U.S., so it was now or never. I ended up going with the silvery, blue color. I have their yarn catalog, but I think you glean only so much from a two inch snippet of yarn. Hopefully it doesn't suck.

Lots more photos coming next week. You still have time to upgrade your Internet connection to handle the download. ;)

Design Update

Hot on the tails of my productive weekend, I had the urge to update the design of this blog.  I even changed it's name!  I'm on a roll, man.  Watch me fly!

I got around to Googling "Jen Knits" only to discover that another Jen (there are so many of us) has a blog with that title.  "Knitting Sutra" just came to me as I was contemplating the similarities between knitting and yoga.  A "sutra" is a "thread" in Sanskrit.  It holds things together.  This just makes so much sense to me.

Once I hit on a name, ideas for a design finally started coming to me.  This isn't much, but at this pay scale Typepad has limitations.  There are a couple of noodley things that Typepad has locked down and I can't fix.  Still, I think the look is peaceful and pleasing, and will do for now.

I want to give special thanks to the designer of the Indian embroidery-inspired border I found on iStockphoto.com.  A woman named Heidi at HiDesign Graphics made it along with dozens of other similar items.  She's obviously a kindred spirit.  Heidi, if you're watching (and you might because I'm going to email you), thanks for offering these on iStockphoto.  I will add your copyright info as soon as I can make Typepad bend to my will. 

Greetings

Hi. Welcome to my knitting blog.

Pardon my dust!
If you have a look around you’ll notice that I've only got the basic foundation of a blog set up. Normally I would spend hours on design before getting started. But I worried that it would kill my motivation. So, I’ll be renovating my theme while I settle in. Hope you don’t mind change.

Why a Knitting Blog?
I learned to knit a couple of years ago while learning to teach yoga. The two really go hand-in-hand. Funny thing is, my mom was a big knitter in the 80’s, but you couldn’t have paid me to knit back then. This time around I was particularly lured by the idea of knitting sweaters that actually fit me.

I tend to knit in spurts, which means that I haven’t finished many major projects - only two sweaters to date! It used to be that I was just too busy to knit much more than a scarf here or a hat there. Organizing and coping with an overseas move (we live in Holland) while planning a wedding left little room for extra-curricula.

But when B, my husband, and I returned from our honeymoon, I suddenly found myself with a lot less to do. Last November I threw myself back into knitting and finally finished a couple of languishing projects, including the above-mentioned sweaters. Now I’m getting started on my next big project - a sweater for my sweetie - after frogging the front of a sweater for myself.

I decided to start a knitting blog to help motivate me to actually finish projects, and also to connect with other knitters.

So, drop me a comment and say hey.