Of Writing and Knitting, Tunes and Balloons

All right, here it is:

http://withpointedsticks.wordpress.com

Yay!!!!

On occasion, there are things that you are forced to realize are over.

For instance, yesterday I was going for a walk and the ice cream man drove by.  I was forced to realize that he was not actually an “ice cream man,” rather a kid who barely looked old enough to drove and listened to gangsta’ rap over his Pop Goes the Weasel bell, then tried to peel out at the corner.  Therefore, my ice cream man days are over.

Another is that I have totally and completely outgrown this blog.

When I first started this blog, I was just learning how to knit.  I was excited about every new technique, every new kind of yarn.  And that’s what I blogged about.  Now, I’m not learning so much as practicing what I already know, so I’m at a loss of what to write about.  It’s not exciting to talk about the process of making a sweater when I’ve done it so many times.

I look back on my old posts, and I don’t even recognize the style they are written it.  The voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore.  Shelly keeps saying, “You’re a writer, you should be blogging.”  And she’s totally right.  But I feel so disconnected from this blog.  It’s amazing the changes that occur in the course of a year when you go to college, make new friends, start writing for real, become suddenly single, get your first big-kid job, and live in the city.  Most of the changes I’m really happy about.  Some I wish hadn’t happened like they did, but no one asked me or gave me a choice.  Either way, I’m okay with change.  People have to change.  Change is exciting.  The point is just that this blog hasn’t changed with me, and I don’t envision that happening.

I’ve known that my blog was done for a long time, I just ignored it.  I’m going to start a new blog, probably soon.  Since the majority of my traffic is from Ravelry and Facebook, I’ll update the links there once it’s up.  I’ll post the link here too for awhile, until I decide if I want to delete this blog all together or leave it for posterity’s sake.  But I’m very excited about it, and I’m going to take the time to make it’s what I want it to be before I put it up.

Thank you for reading Of Writing and Knitting, Tunes and Balloons.  I had a lot of fun.

Knitting: Something I do a lot of.
Blogging: Something I do very little of.

I have no excuses.  I do, however, have several finished objects to show for the time I did not spend blogging.

First up:

Pattern: Adia by Norah Gaughn
Yarn: Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace

If you recall, I started this, oh, perhaps a year ago, and finished it over winter break.  At any rate, the scarf’s pretty nice, and it was a good first lace project.

I took the picture over winter break too, and then it sat in Pharmacy Pete’s camera.  And sat. I don’t even know why, other than I inexplicably hate posting pictures.  It sat for so long that we are now at the point that I don’t even really look like that anymore.  This project is much more recent:

Pattern: Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon
Yarn: King Tut (left over from Shelly’s Printed Silk Cardigan)

And also this one:

Pattern: Tie-Back Shell by Connie Chang Chinchio
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Prima

I love love love this sweater.  It’s the first sweater I’ve made that fits me, yet is not simultaneously fugly.  Which is nice.  The yarn was decent.  It’s a little scratchy, and a few of the balls were in pieces or had knots.  Not unusably damaged, just annoying.  I think the biggest problem I had with it is that I’ve never used Debbie Bliss before, so I had it so built up in my mind that there was no way that it was going to be as good as I thought it would be.

Plus, nothing is as good as Malabrigo.  Nothing.  I guess that’s not Debbie Bliss’s fault though.

The scarf was really fun to knit, and went quickly.  It was a great use of the leftover yarn that had pretty much just been chilling at the bottom of my stash box (the box is purple and sparkly and from my balloon-blowing, candy-department-specialist-ing, party-store-working days).

I’m on a lace kick, partly because it’s not too hot to work on during the summer (not that’s it’s been seasonable here. It’s pretty much rained for the past two months), and also because I have time to concentrate on it.  The Tour de France is going on now, which occupies much of the television-watching hours in our house, and just does not require that much of my attention.  Ideal lace conditions. 

To wrap this picture party up… Regina Spektor.

Song of the Day:
“Two birds on a wire.  One tries to fly and the other watches him close from that wire.  He says he wants to as well but he is a liar.” – Regina Spektor, “Two Birds“