It's all in the head

view out of my bedroom window, like it's not smack in the middle of a city

I wasn't going to do it,
I really, really wasn't...

But I did,
I did because I just couldn't help myself.

I just went in there to buy a starterskit (motivatingly pretty yarn that you háve to see knitted up & 8mm needles) for my friend Zita. I wasn't going to look hard, just scanning, getting the kit and 'hop', be on my way.

But they had the black, thick sock wool that I needed...
And they had some really good deals...
And then there was this crazy yarn that looks like it would be worn by a 20's have-been diva, too 'out there' and 'way over the top' to just walk by and leave it. It actually looks like someone ate a peacock, some butterflies and a chameleon and vomited it al out in a twined thread (how can you resist) ...
Not to mention lush green 100% wool to start a new felting project...

I need help!
I need Yarn Gatherers Anonymous!

So now it's saturday morning (I'm late posting this...) and I don't have to do anything or go anywhere until two 'o clock, a great day to lay in bed, take it easy, make a café latte at around 12 and start knitting.
But no... noooo, not this chica... I woke up at 6:30... yup, 6-freakin'-30, my head just overflowing with ideas and plans and yarns and colours and patterns, colours, stitches, presents for others, projects for me, it kept coming, like someone slipped something in my drink before I went to bed.
I couldn't take it anymore, got out of bed, got my notebook and started to write it all down, drawing (very) rough versions of the pattern ideas in my head.

*Sigh*

Now, it's like after a thunderstorm in summer, all is quiet again, calm, silent, peaceful...

Thing is... al these things I design in my head are way beyond my abilities at this point in my knitting 'career'. I'm thinking of all kinds of intricate patterns and I've only done one Fair Isle project ever. Not to mention my lack of fast-knitting skills. If I want to make everything I thought of this morning alone I'll have to give up my job, start ordering meals every day and use a personal shopper for about a year (and lose all my friends and Boyfriend Dear in the process).

So I'm thinking, I know what I am. I'm not a neurotic, I'm not a maniac, I'm not over-eager or just naive...

I'm a Conceptual artist.
That's it... A CONCEPTUAL artist!

Through the generations

What you see here is a long story in short.



There's four knitting women in my direct family, (my own Omi not included since she stopped knitting years ago) in order of experience:
- BDG (Boyfriend Dear's Gran)
- BDM (Boyfriend Dear's Mum)
- me
&
- CC (Boyfriend Dear's Sister)

CC really can knit, has great ideas and loves to do it, but she and BDM have a very fragile knitting relationship. I remember one of our last Knittogethers were CC told us girls she knéw BDM was going to make a negative comment as soon as she would show her WIP (work in progress).
And yes, she was right, BDM díd comment, I was there. The first thing she said was, 'it's too tight!' I will not get into detail but lets just say that their fragile knitting relationship at that point was looking like silk from the 1700's in a museum (falling apart...).

So now the funny bit...

As BDM started this project, she used red mohair and it wouldn't work as she'd like. She started over two times, using different cast-on techniques but it was just not an easy pattern-yarn combination.
When BDG visited, she -apparently- got a strict look on her face and ripped the needles out of the work, saying 'What's this?? This is no good, I'll start over.' The same fragile knitting relationship had not skipped a generation. BDM stood by, a fullgrown woman, with a fullgrown daughter, as her mum destroyed her work and started it over.

So now the extra funny bit...

BDG didn't manage either and so they both decided the yarn was to blame. They went to a yarnshop together and bought a mixture of mohair and silk this time. It worked!
What happy ending!

CC hasn't heard the last part of this story yet, so I decided to write it down for her. This one's for you, CC!
Just so you know, it's nót you, it's the mother-daughter-knitting-teaching-thing and you really should be happy to be part of that chain. I'm not in it, sure, I don't get critisism like you, but that critisism is part of something bigger & better! It really is. :-)


I leave you with these pictures of BDM with her stack of Handwerken Zonder Grenzen and the start of what is going to be the most beautiful shawl ever! (oh, and that straight forward bulky black thing, that's Tempting... I'm getting there, slowly but steady)

Midnight Murder Special

google today...



When my friend Kuno has a birthday, he likes to celebrate it with a twist. So this year he and his girlfriend Miriam (who happens to be my best friend...) came up with 'The Midnight Murder Special'. They planned this whole elaborate quest to find the murderer of all 11 characters played by us, his friends. Every one of us got a character description with information on how and if your character was related to you. This was mine:

Sas F.
Well well, if it isn't miss charming... You started out as the good girl in school, was spotted as the design talent of the new fashion generation. When fame and fortune found you, you decided to get out of it and started to teach knitting to children with learning disabilities! And as if that doesn't take enough out of your social skills, you are also a volunteer at Amnesty International where everyone thinks you're adorable and honest and real. You love to take strolls in the woods. But are you really as cosy and snugly and warm as everybody seems to think, little Miss S.? Why did your fashion carreer end so abrupt? Was it your conscience that made you do it? Because your most important competititor tripped and fell on her own knitting needles, piercing and killing her? It stayed a mystery and it was never directly linked to you. It's that charme, isn't it; it makes you get away with murder...
Oh, and what else, you are not an idiot: you never spoke of the incident since...


I was dressed to match my character: combat meets knitwear

There was an anchor woman, an accountant, a biker, a cigar salesman, a veteran, a guitar player in a metal band (boyfriend-dear), a travelling consultant, an architect, a publisher and a shop owner. But I was the knitting teacher, the knitting teacher who might have killed 11 people. I was (and am) by far the coolest character. I'm sure you'll agree. The knitting teacher... she may kill all, maybe with her needles, maybe with sweaters soaked in poison, maybe by making people wear her first ever FO's (which should be enough to finish them off in a second). I'm the piercing assassin, I'm the knitting killer. Needles to say (...can I go there? Yes, I can!) I was totally up for the challenge and came prepared with the outfit to match. An outfit saying, I'm a combat proof knitter. I wore a knitted cardigan, my Dream Swatch Wrap, my combat hat and hiking boots with knitted legwarmers. I brought sunglasses that made me blend into the dark, I brought a light bulb just in case I needed a good idea, I brought wet naps ('cause you never know...), I brought band aids and sunscreen, toothpicks and a garbage bag. Ofcourse my SAS Survival Guide (a gift from Miriam) and my Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. And most important of all... I brought M&M's!

I was ready to go!



strangers in the dark / / Miriam & Kuno explain the drill

We had to get in the back of a small van and drove to the woods. There we were informed of the general idea. It was 2300 hours and pitch dark. The mystery then unfolded as we went from one murder scene to another where we were told some, but not all, details of what had happened there. The guitar player was hung from a beam but the beam was tempered with, so it broke and he fell, he was left on the ground. The travelling consultant was shot while picnicking with her friend who then mysteriously disappeared. The biker crashed when his brakes didn't work and he was speared at the bottom of the hill. And so on and so on, one bloody story after another. And with each story we saw evidence in ziplockbags, strings with blood, snakes, bolts and rope and of course; yarn and needles. In between murder scenes we walked through the woods and tried to figure out the details by asking around. Some, willing to trade information, would spill. Others kept silent, as their graves...
The hardest part in finding the murderer was figuring out how deep to dig, how hard to think, how far to go. Keep it simple or add some of your own imagination? What would lead to victory? I figured to keep it simple and focus on 'who was where when' and take it from there. But halfway I started to second-guess my tactics and turned to Kim (the accountant). We decided to make a deal and work together. She'd go for the honour of winning and I would keep the prize. (typical...). Thing was, her tactic was the opposite of mine; she was going mad with alibi's and motives and all kinds off details. This wasn't going to work, it messed up my straight forward thinking... But along the way we started to combine our thoughts and came up with the same murderer three rounds in a row... When Kuno revealed, anonymously, round after round the different murderers that were mentioned by the players, we knew -since we were the only ones mentioning this one particular murderer- that we were either geniuses or way, way off...

cigars, can't do without them in a Midnight Murder Special

So lets say we were geniuses... this wasn't all there was to this bloody game. Oh no siree! In between rounds / visiting murder scenes we were asked questions. Each good answer lead to an extra point and a bonus tip. I'm pretty good at random knowledge, always have been. Don't ask me the date of Napoleon's birth or who discovered gravity, but I'll tell you the height of Jon Bon Jovi, I'll give you the effects of food allergies and I can name zillions of old TV shows. So I thought I was in, I was definately going to nail these silly questions, I was the master!

WRONG!

Name the name of the actress in Murder She Wrote, name two Agatha Christie books, name 4 British detective shows on TV, it got worse and worse... I know NOTHING about detectives, I don't like reading them, I don't watch them on TV, heck I even had a dislike for Sherlock Holmes when I was small, espécially the Disney version with the mice! Ok, so I managed to tell Miriam that the 00 in 007 stood for 'licence to kill' and because I was the one that got even close to the real answer, I got a point. And yeah, working together (cheating only a wee bit) Kim and I thought of 4 detectives on British TV. Only because she knew 3 and Miriam accepted 'The Thin Blue Line' because she felt so sorry for me. (It’s a show about a police station, has nóting to do with detectives). Luckily Miriam isn't a very strict game-leader-question-asker, and a very good friend, so she gave me (ánd the others too, don't worry) second questions to make up for our (my!!) lack of knowledge. She asked me the name of Tin Tin’s dog first... Total blackout... Ok, moving on. The next few second questions saved me though; I had to name a serial killer. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dammer, it hardly took me a nanosecond to answer those... So now you now know this about me: I have no idea what the name of the sweat, pink, fluffy actrice that plays Jessica Fletcher is (it's Angela Lansbury, for those who are cracking their skulls now) but I can name a bunch of serial killers in a jiffy...

Guess what?
I won the game! I won the freakin' game!

The knitting teacher with no detective knowledge nailed them all! The fanatic and loud boys, the giggly and louder girls, everyone who was bluffing, everyone who was trying to get information out of me, everyone that thought I was just messing about... EAT MY DUST!! HA!! I WON!!

And yeah, of course I thanked Kim in my acceptance speech, clutching on to my new bottle of faux-champagne!



fun and games with flashlights, don't matter that we're 26 and up... Kim and me

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

Here's how Tempting is coming along:

it blends in so nicely with the decor doesn't it? (spoken in posh English...)

it might not look like it, but it is black, dark & slimming black.

The yarn I use is Scheepjeswol / Isis / 100% gassed (?) cotton in color 804.

The cotton is shiny but not too shiny, it's really nice but I'm a bit worried about loose threads... it seems to get caught on things quickly, so I'll have to be carefull.

It's a bit boring now and I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well when the real shaping is taking place, I don't want to mess up those hours of knit, knit, purl, purl, knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl.

Ok you get it...

Dream Swatch Wrap in action

To make up for the worn out look I have on the last blog, here some pictures with face-paint on, much...much...much better! So here I am, in all my morning glory, showing off the Dream Swatch Headwrap. I could be smiling a bit more though... you'll have to imagine the smile then... ;-)

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Mothers Day

I just wanted to share some pictures of mothersday with you. There's boyfriend-dears mum en his sister CC. Oh yeah, and me.


CC's moddeling the Dream Swatch Wrap that I finally finished, boyfriend-dear's mum is starting on the wedding scarf that's in
Handwerken Zonder Grenzen. She hasn't been knitting for a while, she makes lace (!!) and does embroiderie mostly, but I think I can say that the virus caught on again when we were at the yarn shop in Oudewater the other day.

And yeah, that's me, holding up what is the start of
Tempting

This is my first sweater ever... and oh my gosh, it's taking a while, I'm only two skeins along the way... I need to do at least 6 more, it'll be Christmas before I wear it... (oh well, I'll add red and green ribbons)