Jennifer is celebrating her second blogiversary with an Oscars contest. Send her an email with your guesses by midnight PST on February 24 and the person with the most correct guesses will receive a fibery prize!
JennyRaye bought some gorgeous yarn for a shawl and is looking for pattern ideas. Submit you suggestion by midnight EST on February 24 and you could win some yarn.
Reading Update
Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World by Sarah Vowell. I’ve read and enjoyed all of Vowell’s books. My favorite essays from this collection were “Thanks for the Memorex” (about mix tapes) and “Drive Through Please” (about Ira Glass trying to teach her to drive). This was my second TBR Challenge book, so I’m staying on track.
No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Margaret Mason. I’d recommend this book if it wasn’t $19.99 for a very slim volume… Even the Amazon.com $13.59 seems a bit steep for what you get (bless the library). Instead, I’ll direct you to Tink’s list of post ideas. (And note that if you photograph your lunch real pretty and write it up in an interesting way, people will care what you had for lunch – it’s all about the presentation…)
Frogging Update
After contemplating all the wonderful responses to my question about whether the mobius cat bed should stay or go, I pulled it out and looked at it Saturday morning. May joined me.
“It looks a little lumpy to me, Mom.” -M
I pulled it off the needle… Check out how big it is – my foot is a womens’ size 11 (European 42)!
Still plenty off knitting to do to fill in that big hole… Not to mention the joy of felting such a monster. Ripping it out and knitting two felted square cat beds instead definitely held more appeal, so…
Flushed with my success, I pulled out another unfortunate UFO. This tank was too bulky. It ended up too short, so I added the frilly bit on the bottom and then put it aside when I finally recognized it wasn’t something I would wear.
“Haven’t I seen this before?” -C
“Y’know, I think that yarn would make a really cute baby sweater for May to model…” -C
It’s amazing how much lighter I felt after ripping out those two stagnant projects! In the past three weeks, I’ve ripped out three of the six projects pictured in my first UFO post way back when. Of the remaining projects, I probably will eventually weave in the ends of the otherwise finished washcloth. That single sock for my dad? For now, it will stay a single sock – I’m not sure it’s worth ripping out, since I wove in the ends and washed it (once upon a time). And the black tank top with the tourniquet armhole edging? Hopefully I’ll pull that out and fix the edging before the weather gets warm again, because it is a really great tank top otherwise.
Now the real question is – would I have done all of this if I’d joined one of the UFO resurrection challenges??
Hmmm…you’re tempting me! I have one in mind I’m thinking of ripping out. For the 2nd time.
Those are such cute slippers! Where did you get them?
Yay for frogging! I’ve got a few WIPS that I plan on ripping. Just as soon as I can find them…..
Someone else with big feet. My soul sistah.
WOOHOO!!! Good for you for ripping it all out!! I never realized how big it was until you stood in the middle of it!!
um…that tank would have been something I would have worn…would you mind making it again 😉
BTW – a friend of mine made that felted cat bed and was disappointed with the final results – she also spent months tracking down the right kind of tire to block it with.
Just think about all of that yarn that you have now. Kitties can always find a nice spot to sleep and mine like to change up their spots often too.
“I need Light, Air…” reminds me of Fried, Green Tomatoes…
Isn’t it freeing sometimes to R-I-P???
(((hugs)))
That’s one way to resurrect the ufos 😉
I’m proud of you!
Well Chaos and May have more toys, erm , yarn to play with now 🙂
You’d like to see what I had for lunch if I photographed it stunningly? You’re on. (Actually I do have a stunning photograph of one of my least favorite meals ever eaten in a restaurant. Blog fodder, yup. Thanks for the idea.)
I guess if you can do it, I can too! When I find them 😉
I’m hugging you tightly. “Seeeee!!! Doesn’t that feel GOOD!?!?”
Chris- The slippers, I love the slippers!
Chaos and May don’t appear to be too upset. I guess the cat bed wasn’t meant to be.
I bet May and Chaos look at your slippers and think, “we better behave or we’ll be Mommy’s next pair of slippers.”
Congrats on frogging! I don’t know about you but joining a challenge or a knit along just seems to paralyze me. I seem to make even less progress than I would normally.
Now, didn’t that feel good?
You have been a busy little frogger, but don’t you feel renewed.
Chris – sometimes those projects just need to GO! I would finish the socks though – I’m not one for the single sock syndrome since I usually can’t wait to have a pair of new socks! Dang my size 11 feet!
Congratulations! I am always for frogging. At least you have photos to show you’ve made it, and now you can enjoy the yarn again! (Whoever said you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, was NOT a knitter.)
The only Sarah Vowell book I’ve read is Assassination Vacation, and that’s because when I picked it up it flipped open Lincoln’s assassination and her trip to Springfield, Illinois, which is the ‘big town’ near the little town where I grew up. Anyway — I loved it, and I heard her distinctive voice all the way through the book. I really should read the rest of her books.
What cute kitty slippers! I have what I hope to be very exciting news – BR has decided (or at least talked about it once) to try and conquer his cat allergy and we just might be able to get a cat! I really hope he wasn’t teasing me ..
Completely frogging something can be so cathartic! Instant release of guilt.
V at Knitting Spells http://knittingspells.blogspot.com/ always has the most interesting lunches, so I tend to agree with you. But it depends on the person and the presentation for sure :o)
Yay for frogging! It feels good sometimes doesn’t it? I get the same feeling when I clean the baseboards…is that normal?
Good for you! (love those kitty slippers!)
I have found that sometimes ripping a UFO is so much more freeing than actually finishing it.
Perhaps the UFO challenge is just about finding all the WIPS and reassessing whether or not they’re worth finishing? Maybe get everything that’s in progress either seamed up if it’s worth keeping, or frogged if it’s not. I didn’t join that KAL, but I hope you weren’t bound to finish something just to finish it, if it really should be ripped. I ripped the two year socks that weren’t going to fit, and it felt sooooo good. Gave me the courage to tackle the remaining 3 WIPs, which are worth finishing, so then I can start something free of guilt. LOL
If you are looking for a fast, easy cat bed, I highly recommend the Princess Snowball one in the SnB book. A garter stitch circle for the base, a long garter stitch scarf for the “walls” (folded in half), and then seamed to the base. No felting or anything fancy involved, and it still keeps the kitties warm on these cold days.
Hope you are having a good aft!
Temporarily crying little moebius-shaped tears about your cat bed…RIP. But I do understand about how liberating all of that ripping-out can be! I frogged a lace scarf a couple of months ago that I had started over about 3 times and still messed up! And when I got home, I started attacking UFO’s in my knitting basket, and ripped out two more projects that were bugging me just for good measure! Yee-haw, that was fun! Sometimes, your just not feelin’ the love for a project any more, so away to the corn field with it!! 🙂
I just figured it out! Do you know WHY I wouldn’t be a good knitter? Because I don’t have the patience to roll that crap back up if I make a mistake. My first thought would have been to buy some more.
Good for you! Rip away girl!
But then you couldn’t knit it again, Tink.
Anyway, Chris! Hi! Doesn’t it feel great to RIP and rewind? Now they’ll have nice new lives as something more worthwhile. The UFO Resurrection seems to have galvanized me, but all the book challenges are starting to paralyze me, like Sydney mentioned.
I’ve got Assassination Vacation on my TBR shelves but Sarah Vowell has such a distinctive voice (Uh. I didn’t mean vocally, but that too.)
Doesn’t it feel better when you finally rip a project that just didn’t work??
You go girl! You probably would have eventually solved these UFOs in one way or another, maybe more slowly. You do a very nice job of winding the yarn into balls!
Honestly, frogging a project can be a freeing experience. Seriously. If I haven’t touched a project in a year, I frog the sucker.
Frogging can be fun and relaxing! Now you can use the yarn for something fabulous that you love.
every time I have sleeping projects I can’t tell you how much I LOVE ripping them out. it feels so liberating no matter how much time I had invested in them. this is one of the things that I love about knitting. you know, learning to let go…
Wow you’ve been busy with the unravelling (and with two curious kitties to help – that must have been a trying couple of hours!) ;o)
Ripping can be soooooo satisfying. About the cat beds, I have to say I really enjoyed knitting Wendy’s Kitty Pi.