Addams Family

Well, some shopping for thread later, and I have started the project for my brother.
Exactly as you would think, it turned out nothing like I wanted.
Some reasons are: I have a very clear idea in my head of what the finished product should look like. The fabric and threads that I found in my local embroidery store don't quite live up to my imagination. I wanted the Crow to be dark and such a deep black as to look blue, and in silk. I couldn't find anything of the sort. I did find a thread that makes me think of either freshly spilled blood or Gryffindor red. Either way, I like the color.

I will update this to include the picture. Right now, I have refocused my attentions, and will be remaking the pattern on a different piece of fabric, with some color changes. The goal is to make the results into a photo album cover for my mom for Christmas. Thankfully, she never reads these, and so will not know of it. ^_^

Now, here is the prototype of the design, and the first thing that I'd ever cross-stitched (to my knowledge), made sometime in January or February of this year.

I actually have a fun story about this piece. My brother, who is 10 years younger than me is in a very interesting position in life. He has spent all of his life around women, and crafters at that. While he does not currently craft, that I know of, he knows how to do a ridiculous variety of things, including quilting, drawing, knitting, and so much more. So, if nothing else, he is very craft-aware. The first thing my brother did when I showed him the cross stitched piece, was to turn it over and look at the back-side. I think he was actually more impressed with the neatness of the back of the piece than the front!
One last thing that I have in the works, is an Xmas present for some friends. While wandering around on Etsy, I found the most amazing design. Very simple, only 6 colors, 5 if you use the fabric for the background, and it's of the Train Ticket for the Hogwarts Express (Link: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/244967905/bogo-free-hogwarts-express-railway?ref=shop_home_active_5). I feel that it would be remiss of me not to note that I am the Harry Potter Generation. I was 8 when the first book came out, and started reading it when I was 9. I grew up with those kids, and the stories have shaped a lot of who I am. So, finding the Train Ticket was awesome. She also has the most amazing House bookmarks that I have ever seen (link:https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/247210641/bogo-free-hogwarts-crest-cross-stitch?ref=shop_home_active_10) as well as a few other goodies. I highly recommend you check her stuff out. You'll probably seem more pictures of stuff I've stitched from her charts. Anyways:
Craft On!

The More Things Change, The More they Stay the Same

It's been a little over 4 years since I last wrote on this blog, and I figured, with the rise in popularity of blogs, that maybe I want to get back to it.
A lot has changed for me in the past 4 years. When I wrote last, I was just struggling to get through undergrad. The astute among you will notice I specified "undergrad". That would be because after suffering through that Hell, and coming out very well, I might add, I dove back into the fray.
In January of 2013, I pursued my Master's Degree. A significant set of trials later, I escaped clutching a tattered and worn degree, which I immediately put to good use.
So; 4 years later, I am:
-Fatter
-Happier
-Own a car
-Own a cat
-Have my own place
-Have control of my own future

So the tally is: some good, some bad, but overall better. There are a few things I would like to have; a partner and my own place (bigger), but those will come in time, I know.
I also wanted to start using this blog to chronicle my crafts. I bounce between them faster than an ADD squirrel hyped up on Ritalin, so if nothing else, this should be amusing. Currently, I have paused my crochet as it is too much for my hands, and focused on knitting and embroidery instead. In my family, there is a tradition of embroidery, on my great-grandma's side, but I never thought that I would be interested as it didn't seem to jive with my brain. However, it did. I found a pattern online that I loved, because I am an Addams' family nerd. This is the design:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/32/61/d0/3261d0733ac3f6840d59cc5aafd87340.jpg
When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing. And no way to get my hands on the pattern. So I reverse engineered it (as I tend to do to most everything), and, because this is how my brain works, I had to make it better. The Latin used is wrong, and so I found the right translation, and used that instead.
Now comes the next step of the puzzle: To remake the pattern for my brother as a birthday present, either as a pillow or a wall-hanging, in silk and linen. This should be interesting.
Craft on! -Kat

This summer marks the first time in a few years that I have been able to visit my grandparents for a substantial length of time. For me, visiting my grandparents is an incredible treat, and a chance to be spoiled rotten. It is also a time of being judged and found wanting, a time of diets, a time of feeling starvation like a punch to the gut.

My grandma has been dieting, and forcing my mom to diet, longer than I've been alive. This, in turn, makes her think that she is the greatest expert available on what I need in order to be "perfect".
Every year that I visit her, I end up being put on some kind of diet that is heavily enforced. If I go off the diet, I am "bad". Admittedly, I lose weight like nobody's business with that attitude, but I just gain it back, and then some when I go back to the States.

I'm tired of this sick relationship that I have with food. It's not good, or right, or healthy. Instead, I run around with nausea, and a headache, and this stupid constant hunger gnawing at my gut, which my brain refuses to acknowledge.
My grandma's brilliant plan this year, was "re-coding". Essentially, it is messing with the subconcious response towards food. I hate it. Spices aren't allowed. I'm already counting down the days to going back to the States and proper eating. Admittedly, I have learned some lessons that I will take back with me and continue to implement. But the fact of the matter remains. I want to develop a healthy symbiotic relationship with food, not this farce. One good thing is that I will be living off-campus, and be able to prepare my own food. Another is that I won't be on a school meal plan, so I will be dependent on myself for sustenance, not whatever is closest and easiest to reach. I hope to settle into a habit of making myself food on the weekend, for the coming week.

I plan to use this blog as a means of tracking my progress. Hopefully, accountability will ensure that slipping will be minimal.

If wishes were horses, fools would ride

Or at least I would.

I've been spending the last two weeks or so reading the backlogs of Crazy Aunt Purl. The more I read her stuff, the more my own dreams. And desires coalese into a quantifiable whole. I want:
A boy
A cat (preferably several)
Yarn
Control over my own life and finances. I want a job where I do the honest work instead or running around a house and then being berated constantly about the amount of money I have doesn't even though it is necessary for keeping the household fed and taken care of. I want to know how much I can spend on what instead of being given arbitrary conditions to meet that have next to no relation to the real world. I want to live away from my parents, and no be yelled at or berated or put down or mocked. I'm tired of it. I hate it. I want out. But as it stands, I see no way out. I can only hope that my last year of college will give me the skills and sources necessary for carving my own way.
I want a Budget
I want a job
I want my own place, where I can lock the door and no one will walk in unless I open it.
I want my freedom and I want time
I want to grow up. I've done a lot of eit in the past couple of years, but I still feel that it's not enough.
I want my parents to get he help/kick in the pants that they need to settle their differences and go on their way or to get back together. I don't care which.
Gypsy blood thoug I may have, I want to settle down, at least for a couple of years.
I want to graduate with good grades.
I want to loose weight. I hate my body as it is right now, but I still feel too lazy to do anything properly about it.
I want... I know I want more than this.I want a kick in the pants. I want motivation

I also know that what I need is the motivation to work for everything else on my list. I'm well aware that just wanting smething isn't going to make it happen. I know that I must be the change that I wish to see in the world. I just wish I had the faintest ideas of how to go about doing such a thing. Nothing I've learned had ever explained how that happened. I want to work in a yarn shop. I want to help people for all that I'm a pretty closeted introvert. I like to help. I want to find a way out of this terrible ennui that has seized me. I'm well aware that by my own nature I'm fairly lazy, but that if I put my mind to it, I can work like the Horsse that I am. I want to be a person that my grandparents, that my mom, that my little brother would be proud to claim as family.

I wish I knew where to look for a kick in e pants.

On the knitting front, I've broken my habit of knitting only when I'm stressed... At least I like to think that I have, in reality, what's probably happened is that I've become stressed again. Living with parents sucks past a certain age. Currently, I'm trying to finish a blanket that I've started but botched part of and a casae for a new techy toy. I just hope it doesn't get taken away. I might go and knit after this post, since sleep has been a long otime coming as of late.

I will break free of this ennui. I just wish I knew how.

The end of the tunnel (or now)

I have come to realize that I'm not a very good blogger. The problem lies in the fact that I am fairly shy and like to present the best possible image of myself. I generally write my entries out in word, allowing myself the time necessary to edit everything until it sounds just right. Its the secret English major in me. The light has been reached at least for this year. Ive one well.

I knit in times of stress. I thought that with summer here it would be a relatively stress free time for me and that I wouldn't get much knitting done. Unfortunately, several family issues have had me retreating into my little corner of the basement with wool packed around me to muffle the screaming. This time, instead of my usual hat bonanza, I've been knitting lace. That had been a surprise addiction. One minute I've just started my first shaw être next I've got three or four lying around. I'm dazed, I'm shaky, and I have idea where they came from.

Spinning turned out to not be the right pursuit for me. I'm annoyingly perfectionistic sometimes an I though that spinning would go like knitting for me. Knitting, I picked up and it just went and soon I was churning out knitting by the second. Spinning was nothing like that. Instead, my little brother managed to pick it up much faster than I did. He has the same perfectionistic tendencies that I do, but more so. It make for interesting competition.

The light at the End of the Tunnel

AS I sit here, in the ubiquitous computer lab, found on every college campus, I can't help but think.
In the past month, I have knit a ... boatload... of hats, to the point where my knuckles are very swollen, but not painful, and I have a basket full of hats to show for my pain.

Part of the problem, I feel is that I like knitting too much, and that I like knitting for other people too much. I'm worried that my hands will start to hurt if I keep at it like this. I don't know what else to say. But, damn those hats are pretty.

To Knit for me (in order that I don't freeze during this damned winter) :
mittens
knee-high socks (in worsted weight wool)

Hot Potato

This summer, I decided that I had had enough of my endless parade of hats and that I wanted something spicy. Browsing around the interwebs, and bookstores, I began to notice a trend. Socks were hot. And socks were hard. Among many others, the Yarn Harlot was the loudest in extolling their virtue and just how damn smart you’d feel after having finally turned a heel. And they are small, and portable.
I shrugged. “Sounds fun.” I said and dived into my stash. Interestingly enough, my stash had a decently sized collection of sock yarns tucked away, right in a corner. It was supplemented by the Opal yarn that my mom had passed onto me, after her failed attempt at knitting (more on that later). I grabbed some of the Opal (in a colorway that I would have never chosen) and some Patons Kroy in a lovely blue green colorway. I cast on the Opal, knit it up into footie socks, and they disappeared into the abyss that is my mom’s workplace. However, this is not their story (and they don’t count as real socks, since they were only footies) .

This is the story of the Patons Kroy. The colorway is titled “Cyan stripes” and they lived up to their name. I was religious and knit a gauge swatch before starting, just so that I could have a good idea of what I was getting into. Because I’m fairly lazy when it comes to gauge, and because I didn’t know just how much yarn would be enough for a pair. I had two balls of 50 grams, and my research indicated that this should be enough. Cast on for the toe was … problematic. I like DPNs. Especially for tubes like socks. Trying to do a toe with DPNs (especially when I couldn’t find a single cast on that worked for DPNs (which is frustrating)) was a challenge. I ended up saying “Screw it” and improvising. It involved less cursing that I would have thought. After the toe came easy street, knitting in the round. That was my mindless knitting and I took to it with a will. Within a couple days, I had two halves of a sock. Turning the heel wasn’t too bad, given that I had cut my teeth on the footies. It was only after I started doing the ribbing that I realized that there might be a problem.

I tried them on. They didn’t fit. “Okay.” I said, “Grandparents are coming for their vacation in a couple of days, the socks will be for grandpa.” And I happily knit on the damn ribbing which I hate quite a bit.

Grandpa came. I procrastinated. I learned that I don’t like ribbing. Eventually, I preserved and presented grandpa with a fully finished sock. It didn’t fit. Grandpa, with his feet slimmer and smaller seeming feet then mine, turned out to have rather large feet. They were too short, and the ribbing was far too tight for him to be able to wear them comfortably. Grandma took one look at the whole sorry mess and stole the socks out from under both Grandpa and me. It took me at least a week to finish the ribbing on the second sock. During that time, Grandma wandered around with only one sock on. A rather interesting phenomenon. Looking back on it now, I realize that that pair of socks has been a pair of hot potatoes, being passed on from family member to family member until they were cool enough (fit) the person they reached. And now another pair of socks is on my needles, this time for my Grandpa.