Becca's Blog

Sometimes it suuuuucks to be a grownup.

I got a nice bonus a few weeks ago, and ever since I've been fantasizing about how to spend it: A real, grownup bedroom set? Yeah, I've wanted that for a while. Down payment on a new car? Yes indeed, I want that. Long overdue big vacation (destination of *my* choosing)? I think I want that most of all.

Here's where the money's gone so far: Teeth cleaning for Tina (damn); deposit to IRA (double-damn); extra credit card payment (triple damn). The majority has gone into savings, and the secret, childish part of me believes I'll never see it again, and certainly not in the form of fun. I don't believe I'll get to choose how the money gets spent; I believe I'll get told.

Twitter is turning me into a lazy blogger.

... as if I wasn't already. When I can plop random thoughts into Twitter, and I know they'll appear on my blog page, it kinda blunts my motivation to sit down and organize multiple thoughts into a coherent post.
... which reminds me that I have to write a post about some Twitter-related apps for my company's blog. I'd better get on that--I think it's due tonight.

Small successes.

Today I got two ladies through the knitted cast-on and their first two rows of garter stitch. And I had a helper, who taught another woman the long-tail cast-on.  I hope they come back next week.

What my students want...

is someone to teach them to crochet. I need to study up, because I can barely crochet with two hands, a map, *and* a flashlight.

Edited later to add: I must say that Lion Brand has some great, free knitting and crocheting instructions. Very helpful.

Using my powers for good.

I'm kind of excited because a couple of days ago I found out for sure that I'll be leading a knitting group once a week at a center for low-income women in my neighborhood. This will be the first time I've taught knitting in a formal setting, although I taught my niece, and ages ago I taught my best friend in college. I really didn't know what I was doing, though, and she was lefthanded. I didn't know from continental-style knitting back then.

I don't know exactly what will happen, what I'll end up teaching, or what supplies I might need help rustling up. I do think I'm going to hit up Knitty for permission to reuse of a couple of simple patterns, though.  I'll keep you posted!

The Stitches West haul.

Finally, here's the roundup, roughly in order of acquisition:
Mission Falls Simple pattern book

and SWTC Karaoke soy wool (nine skeins! half-price!) from Full Thread Ahead. I think this is going to be a cardigan of some kind. And I must stop buying greige yarn now.

I felt like I was really going overboard at the Hemp for Knitting booth, but spent all of $22, on three patterns

and one swatching ball of Hempwol.

I should have bought more.  They had a sample in the booth of a very pretty cardigan in the Hempwol, so it's on my wish list.

At the Yarn Barn of Kansas booth I bought a set of 5-inch size 7 dpns, for knitting the thumb of my Maine Morning Mitts on the train home. Of course I didn't get that far, but they did come in handy while I was finishing them.

And I bought a silly gadget that I've always been curious about. (Just $4! No shipping! I'd be stupid not to!)

(I just learned that this is called a teleidoscope.) You can get them from KnitPicks, among other places.

I was fine while browsing through the Habu booth, and Webs, and that alpaca superstore behind the Webs booth, but as it grew late and I got a bit tired, my resistance wore thin, and I found myself at the Brooks Farm booth.

I have to say this was quite tangly while I wound it, but it sure feels nice to handle. It will be interesting to knit up.

Momentum. I has it.

The Lopi-esque pullover is coming together: Last night I finished the second sleeve, and this morning I re-read the instructions, this time carefully, and realized that I've made the body more than long enough. So I joined the sleeves to the body, refiggered the rate of decreases for my stubby torso, and pulled out my grocery bag 'o Lambs Pride to take another run at the color combination for the yoke.

Four colors--how hard could it be? Hard enough that it took five swatches and sixteen possible colors to come up with the right set. I really thought I was on the right track with a warm olive green, two warm browns, and charcoal, so I knit up complete repeats of both color charts, loving it all the while. When I stepped back and looked at it as a whole, it gave me a great sense of the pattern, but sadly reminded me of the carpet in the house I grew up in. Too many earthtones. Too dark, too soothing. I went back to a purply-blue that I really like in the skein, but it didn't work any better next to the browns than it did the first time I tried it. 

After a little more thinking, I believe I have hit upon the solution. But I'm going to wait to show it until I have a good-size swatch knit up.

I'll try to finish the arm decreases, and maybe get a start on the yoke, tonight during The L-Word. I'm curious to see what happens with Alice & Tasha after last week's Officer and a Gentleman-type ending. (Trouble adjusting to civilian life for Tasha, which she takes out on Alice, is what I predict.)

Clarification on East Bay knit night.

A few people have expressed interest in the knit night I mentioned, so let me give some details--I should have perhaps been a bit more specific in yesterday's post. This group grew out of the Gay Bay group in Ravelry--it's been christened the EBLGBTSnB. You should pop in  to the Ravelry group and introduce yourself, and join the Yahoo group we set up for a calendar.

So far we've met on two consecutive Tuesdays, at Cafe Gratitude on Shattuck in Berkeley and at Village Grounds in Berkeley. We're still trying out different places, but the criteria are that it be in the East Bay and accessible via BART. We're on for this coming Tuesday, but I'm not sure of the location.

It's a very mellow group, and anyone nice will be welcome. That said, there are other knit nights in the 'hood that don't self-identify as queer, so there are plenty of groups to check out and find one that's sympatico. Off the top of my head, I can think of these:

• Thursday nights at Village Grounds, which is just an informal thing organized by Sarah, one of the co-owners. She's extremely nice, especially to knitters. I haven't stopped in on Thursday yet out of sheer laziness.
• The longtime Berkeley stitch n' bitch meets on Wednesday nights at Caffe Trieste on San Pablo, starting at 6, I think. I've been to this a couple of times.
• Knit-One-One's regular knit-outs at Rudy's and Sweet Adeline's in Emeryville and South Berkeley.
• East Bay Knitters meets the first & third Mondays of the month at K2TOG, 1230 Solano (between Evelyn & Talbot) in Albany. There is a small charge for using the space that is shared among the attendees.
  
• Stash at the top of Solano has a knit night on Wednesdays.
  

Finally, RuTemple did something brilliant: She has been Google-mapping all the knit-outs people have posted to the Bay Area meetups forum on Ravelry.  Even if you're not on Ravelry, you can see the map here.