The Last Unicorn

...is my flatmates favourite film of all time. And I have decided, in order to curb my 'must-start-a-new-project-itis', to make a crochet bag with unicorns all over it with all the leftover yarn in my stash. This not only keeps me busy but empties my stash of half finished balls and is a project that is quickly finished (God Bless the speed of crochet!) thus giving my a nice FO in no time at all. And I am learning a new crochet technique called tapestry crochet, super cool! I also keep getting song ideas while working on the bag, and well that is just good no matter what! :) 3 songs and counting since the block lifted...


This being said my knitting has kind of ground to a halt. No more work on anything. And at a stage where I am pretty close to finishing a number of things. Oh well, it comes in waves and right now, with finals just over the horizon, the crochet project makes way more sense.

I also received another amazing parcel from my dear Secret Pal...I know, another one!! Enclosed was a lovely lipbalm, ylang-yland handcream (just want to sniff my hands all day, getting funny looks from DB!) and a pair of the most beautiful earrings you have ever seen!! Now let me tell you that my passion for earrings knows no bounds. This addiction was inherited from my mother and has lead to use both having pretty sizable collections that we sometimes swap between in order to make sure that every beautiful pair get a wear. However, these earrings will totally be off limits. They are just too beautiful. Little blue beads clusted around a bottle green, glass leaf with gold hook. Perfection! Thank you SP, so much. What an amazing gift.

Ramblings of a crazy woman

Even though it has been a short week, I am pooped. Really and truely I don't know where all the energy goes but by Friday evening I have none left for myself. I think DB not being here after me getting used to some company and help around the house, is really showing. I miss him really badly at the moment. The shorter periods of time apart are waaaay more difficult than the extended periods. For those you gear yourself up and know that the next visit is too far in the future to really grasp hold of. But less than a week away and I am a jibbering mess. Not cool Knatty, not cool!

And when I am tired and grumpy (that time of the month ladies) what do I want to do?!?! Start more freaking projects rather than finish the ones I have going on now. I am crazy! I have been doing some crochet swatches to try and take the edge off, and also be useful (I am planning to make the 'Violet Beaudegard' skirt from 'Happy Hooker'), but the knitting urge is hard to resist. I want to make little Spring tops and Summer dresses. I especially want to make socks. Socks on the brain. All I want to do right now, as I sit in work not completing the assignment *so* important to the running of my college (NOT!), is cast on some of my newly dyed yarn and knit in circles all afternoon long in the sunshine.

I am going to see my friends band tonight. They have come all the way from Ireland to play a few gigs in NY and Boston. They are called Fred and are just brilliant live. There album is even available on iTunes. Two of the guys from the band I have known since I was little, though they were in the older crowd from me, so I would tag along with them and generally be the annoying little person :) My mother knows all their parents from way back in the Irish Baha'i community. It is so nice to be seeing them here and that they made to effort to contact me and get me in the gigs. Sweet guys. Should be a fun night, though really all I want to do is curl up with my knitting, a good film and a piece of cake...I have some lemon and almond cake from Wholefoods, with a big mug of milky tea = HEAVEN!! You are all more than welcome to come round for a slice :)

p.s. Do you like all the new lists and links on the side bar or is it a little too much? I kind of went nuts the other night.

The rain washes me clean and suddenly I can!

Well, it was raining...all weekend long. The most rain Boston had seen in years, though for me it just felt like home. In fact it was quite nice and cosy to be inside, hearing the wind howl and the rain patter the window panes. And it made for a very creative and restful weekend. It started with a bath and an impromptu poem on the wall (see previous post) on Friday night. That evening I also started my dyeing experiment for the first time and these are the results. (I have really shaky hands and try as I might none of these photos would come out in focus, do I just want to apologise now for the rubbish shots!!)



I was so proud, bounding about the apartment like a school kid. The colours didn't come out as vivid as I had hoped but I think I put too much water in the dye, so that will be something to try differently next time. The first skein (I used KnitPicks superwash sock yarn) was dyed with a sky blue and bright yellow. The green formed from mixing in the pot. It really reminds me of the beach, which I haven't seen in an age, with the yellow sand, green/blue sea and seaweed...it feels lovely and fresh. Very springtime :) And the other colourway was for Project Spectrum, using the colours for this month; yellow, green, pink. I decided to go more 'citrus' and used a lime green and a more orangy pink. It kind of reminds me of a big beach ball, but again is really zingy and fresh. I took Brookes advice (thanks Brooke!!) and just followed my instincts with the colours. I had such a good time and can not wait to try some other methods of dyeing.



I think both of these are going to end up as socks, probably nice lacy ones that I can wear in the Spring and Summer. I have been really craving some summery projects recently and once my Clessidra socks are done I am going to start on some crochet halter tops and other things to get me in a sunny mood. Spring is in the air! And speaking of more projects, here is a photo (finally) of the gorgeous sock yarn my SP10 pal sent me and a little swatch. It has taken all more will power not to cast on another project with this, but patience is a virtue and it is for the best. I think it is destined to become a pair of Queen of Cups or Baudalaire socks from Knitty, though I am a little dubious about starting another chart based pattern after the Pomatomus affair.


The Clessidra are going great however and here are 2 finished legs...WooHOO!!! Just the feet to go and I am done. Brookes yarn is so so soft to work with and the way the colours are coming out, well, lets just say that the heels of these might need replacing annually :)


But of all the knitting, dyeing, poetry-writing and fun-having, the best part of the weekend was that I finally ended my year-long songwriting block. I was blocked BAAAAAAD, hadn't written any original songs in so long and was kind of starting to give up hope and then, BAM!! After a lovely, relaxed weekend I couldn't sleep on Sunday night and at 4am I got hit with a brainwave and by 5am I had a song (I have written most of my songs late at night/early in the morning...just seems to work for me). And then, after getting a few hours sleep and saying bye to the DB again (back off to Ireland to sort out visa stuff...America is great but the immigration stuff makes me want to scream) I was messing about on my guitar I got hit again, hard. This song basically came to me nearly fully formed and even the parts that weren't there immediately arrived after with little effort on my part. And this is the first song that I really wrote with my guitar, my playing has now got to the stage where I can play what I need to accompany myself. I am hoping to record them soon and then when I get them on my myspace page I will be sure to provide a link so you can all hear. I would love your feedback and criticisms.

I am so happy and relieved to know that I haven't 'lost it', and just buzzing with energy. All I want to do is CREATE...anything...just create!

Ingredients

I wrote this in the bathtub the other night, with a sheet of ingredients for a new aromatherapy soap I got and accidently dropped in the water. I ripped up the wet words and stuck them on the bathroom wall. So much fun to be had just bumbling about in the bathtub!

ingredients

pure and extra sweet hand of Thee
HANDMADE me
small batches of highest quality.
skin soft, deep well.
Original Natural willfully
carefully

I gotst tagged

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. Go on an Arts retreat and explore my creative with no restrictions or worries.
2. Travel around the world with Kolya.
3. Play at Glastonbury music festival, on the John Peel stage (my biggest musical wish was to be a guest on his radio show until he passed away...great man!)
4. Learn to speak Persian so I can talk to my family and one day visit Iran.
5. Have kids :)
6. Learn to relax and let go more...everything will be OK, I am OK, even when things aren't OK it doesn't as much as you think...because it's OK.
7. Make a living making music...bliss!

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1. Touch the unglazed parts of pottery. I swear, it is the worst feeling in the world, turns my stomach.
2. Not procrastinate.
3. Not nap on that patch of sun on my bedcover. DB thinks I was a cat in a past life.
4. Keep my desk tidy.
5. Be OK with making phonecalls to people I don't know.
6. Hold a spider.
7. Not smile at someone I am passing on the street.

Seven Things That Attract Me to…...Knitting
1. Colour!!
2. The sense of power that comes from creating something out of nothing. Randomness to order.
3. Making things MY SIZE! Stupid national averages for women...I am not average, I am unique!
4. Being part of a shared history, present and future.
5. Relaxation.
6. The power to express my creativity via a different, more-unusual medium.
7. The sense of achievement and acceptance that knitting offers. My pattern might be wrong, my gauge might be off and I might have droppped 10 stitches but I made it, I still love it and noone tells me off for it. It is only wrong it I think it is wrong and that never happens :)

Seven Things I Say
1. What's the craic?
2. BRILLIANT!
3. Kolya, you Goonesbury!
4. Oopsy...
5. Feck off (er, Irish slang for 'F*#k off' but considered milder...my Ma wouldn't give me a slap for saying it to her)
6. Ah for feck sake (usually directed at knitting...or Kolya)
7. I'll watch the footy with you Kol, if I can knit through it?!

Seven Great Female Artists...
1. Joni Mitchell
2. Carole King
3. The Bangles
4. Norah Jones
5. Dolly Parton
6. Nina Simone
7. Cyndi Lauper

Seven Good Movies:
1. Chocolat
2. Sliding Doors
3. Mary Poppins
4. Shakespeare in Love
5. Love Actually
6. Clueless (will love it 'til my dying day!)
7. The Nightmare Before Christmas

OK, so I changed it slightly, but that was fun :) And now, because all the people I would have tagged on this Brooke already has, I invite anyone who reads this to take it as an official tag and to do this Meme too. Thanks Brooke for the fun. Photos of WIPs, dyeing and fun to come this weekend...TFI Friday is all I can say, this long weekend is needed after the week I have had! :)

Curl up and Dye!

Lol, there is a hairdressers in the town next to mine at home called 'Curl Up and Dye'...heehee!

I have had colour and dyeing on the brain recently, what with Easter and the riot of colour that it is, and also the article from Knitty that changed my perspective on dyeing yarn. I am so excited to try it. I just received a parcel of virgin yarn I purchased from KnitPicks (what a shop!) and have bought some food colouring and now I just have to go for it. So exciting! What wonderful colourways could I come up with? Or will I just make a big, muddy mess? Either way excites me, mess or no mess. I am also really intersted in incorporate the Project Spectrum colours in a colourway. The colours for the next 2 months are green, yellow and pink...such vibrant, Spring-time colours, and really interesting to work with since pink and green are contrast/clashing colours. I have been trying to find inspiration for colour schemes, and this is what I have come up with so far...

Sweet pastels...

Citrus brights...

Old school cool (who doesn't LOVE the Pink Panther?!)...

Street life...

And natures response (nature always wins in the colourful battle)...


Modern art...

A taste from home...

Kitch classic...

I interrupt this broadcast for a special news bulletin...

I have been lying low this week, concentrating on school and enjoying having my DB about. His job unfortunately didn't work out in NY (company were trying to screw him round) but all is not lost as he has contacted some of the other companies he had interviewed with and wanted to hire him, and with a bit of luck he will be employed elsewhere and not be deported! Phew! The stress of it all, but on the upside I have loved having him with me 24/7. I have missed him so much as part of my 'everyday' life.

The knitting has been going really well too. I have finished the first leg of Clessidra and am loving the pattern. I have decided to start the second leg instead of finishing the first sock completely, as I have a sneaky suspicion that I won't have enough yarn to finish both. Looking into purchasing more, silly me not to make sure before I started. I was also prompted to start the second leg after receiving ANOTHER parcel from my secret pal. I swear, she is spoiling me something rotten. She actually made me a 'magic loop' knitting kit, since I mentioned wanting to learn how to knit on 2 circular needles in my SP10 questionnaire. She recommended this as a great place to start and, well, I was powerless to stop myself casting on and trying it out.

The kit included Addi Turbo circular needle (I have never tried these before and really didn't understand what the fuss was about...I get it now!!), a skein of beauiful Lisa Souza purple SOCK! yarn, directions on how to knit socks the 'magic loop way, chocolate and hazelnut tea and a packet of Haribo gummy bears :) I was so happy I immediately knitted a gauge for the SOCK! yarn, just because I wanted to touch it and then, after scouring the net and not finding a pattern that really looked worthy of this gorgeous yarn, I had a brainwave...cast-on the second leg of Clessidra! Needless to say, I am a very happy girl and was all weekend. Thank you so much Pal...YOU ROCK!! Photos to come.

...And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming :)

FOs, UFOs, Flying Saucers and Little Men from Mars!

What a week!! I am so completely and utterly wiped it is not funny. School is stressing me out and I am not handling it well at all. I know I seem to complain about it a lot here, but I should say that I have been depressed for some time now and have been seeking help for it. Things, between here and home, have been pretty rough recently but I am working through it and, whether things change or not, I am determined that my state of mind will. So there! :) Thank God for KNITTING! And really supportive and understanding DBs! Don't know where I would be without that boy, he brightens my day no end.

I did have lots of lovely suprises waiting for me when I got back from Nashville. Firstly, I received my only Naw-Ruz card of the year from my amazing Secret Pal, who wasted no time in also sending me my first parcel. Such a thoughtful person. Enclosed was a bag of dark chocolates (no photo of them, sorry, but they vanished all of a sudden...fairies me thinks!) and some handmade, personalised cards and envelopes. How amazing is that? She designed and crafted the cards herself and then personalised the envelopes with my address as sender. Look she even made half of them with a fairy motif on them...how well does she know me :)


A few days later and what did I receive but an aaaaaaaamazing parcel from Brooke, for our washcloth swap. In it was herbal tea, chocolates (including a chocolate frog, didn't even know they made them...I got a Snape card in it), a knitting magazine, a ball of Sugar n' Cream cotton, a card from herself and a Harry Potter postcard from Eli. It even came in a box with sheep prints all over it, heehee!



AND, the best bit, my very own washcloth crafted by herself! So beautiful that it lives in my bathroom, I couldn't bring myself to use it as a dishcloth, it was too pretty. It deserves a life of bubble baths and facials.


On the FO front, I finally finished my wristwarmers I had been working on for ages. I love them so much already and they are so much fun to wear. I am also pretty proud of myself that the pattern was my own, nothing particularly crazy, but still my first creative venture in knitting.


I am still working on a slew of other things, including Clessidra socks that I started in Nashville. Also my little shrug, that I whip out when things get too much for me and I just need some stocking stitch pronto! My mothers socks have not progressed in the slightest. That woman is so patient with me. Another highly patient person is my dear Sockret Pal, Michelle, who's socks I am finishing right now and then posting tomorrow morning (you are so good to me, Michelle!) But I am happy and knitting is good!