Remember Me?

Dear Katyaflutes,

I remember when you didn’t know how to knit and you looked at me longingly in Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

You said I was too hard, but then you tried Ms. Marigold and you were willing to give me a shot. You casted on, you got pretty far a long, started one of my sleeves in fact. You were so, well, into me, that you (were stupid to forfeit the obvious DPNs and instead you) invested in a 12 inch circular needle to do my sleeves.

But then you got greedy. You saw the Central Park Hoodie about the same time that you finished your Irish Hiking Scarf. I knew it was deadly but didn't think you'd put two and two together. But you did - Gorgeous sweater plus cables (which you now know how to do) = betrayal. Then you went and joined that KAL.

I just want to remind you of the fact that until either you or Hart get home from work before 8pm (and I’m sick of you whining about that), you’re not going to take any decent pictures of CPH. I also want to remind you that you were smart enough to take pictures of me when it was bright out. You're not Brooklyntweed, okay? You need light and the stars to line up (and a new camera already, right?)

And man, look at how gorgeous I am. I'm orange, I'm bright, I'm soft and let's be honest - you were smart enough to have seen an Inconvenient Truth. Yes it is sort of still cold but at this record, that CPH is only going to suit you for a short while longer. You need me.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

Sincerely,
Hourglass.

*******************************************************

Dear Hourglass,

Point taken. I’m back.

Love,
Katyaflutes

more details to come, but

the finished line has been crossed. more (and better) pictures to come but i finished my Central Park Hoodie this weekend. I'm very excited and pleased.

Stopping and Starting

Today is a somewhat big day for me. Every day in this journey is “big” but today is an anniversary. It is 6 weeks sans cigarettes.

I remember on January 1st saying that I wanted to pull together a resolution list. That I would post it shortly…but I never did. Part of why I never did was that quitting smoking would be #1 and I just was scared that like usual, I would break it immediately and feel like a total failure. I now feel that I’ve got this under my belt and I’m now ready to actually pull together a list. It’s funny that with the smoking thing out of the way, I am excited about making a list of “resolutions”. I see resolutions as opportunities, and I do not look at them with dread. I’ve always been pro-self improvement and with the weight of this lifted, I seriously feel that I can do pretty much anything. Within reason, of course.

This now brings me to getting healthier in other ways. I want to start exercising and I want to love it. And for real, I want to start cooking. I am a planner and I will sit down and come up with a plan, detailed, with goals and milestones. This may sound weird but because I neither exercise nor cook, it actually requires planning.

Finally, knitting is actually incredibly helpful in this entire process, and along with all the other fun and exciting reasons to knit, keeping my hands busy with sticks and yarn has been a godsend for keeping me occupied.

And for this, I bring you my latest progress on my CPH. I had really hoped to have finished this over the weekend but well, blocking takes a long time and since it was a bottleneck in starting the hood, it just didn’t happen.

So happy anniversary to me. I am very proud of you.

Happy Valentine's Day

I heart Detective Stabler.

Artist Brandon Bird. Thanks to Carrieoke for the tip on this.

Hobby #200 that I'd like to take up

It’s only a matter of time before I jump on the Apartment Therapy bandwagon. It’s not out of lack of desire; it’s about lack of commitment. And fear.

Every morning on the way to work, I do not knit. If I close my apartment door behind me at 8:40, I am turning on my computer at the office at 9am. I always wonder how Brooklyn-ites get so much knitting done – it’s the commute time. Instead, I read anything that doesn’t require major mental involvement because as soon as I get into something, we’re at Grand Central. I can’t even get through Talk of the Town.

I bought my Apartment Therapy book about 3 weeks ago and have been reading bits and pieces on the train to work. I won’t sit down and read it cover to cover because it will bring me too close to actually having to take action. I don’t have a style bone in my body and it’s quite frustrating. I’m the person who would buy a modern chair and stick it in a country room. So part of it is being overwhelmed, part of it is commitment and part of it, a good part of it, is cost.

In the meantime, I am getting quickly entrenched in these design blogs and just this morning discovered design sponge, which I love.

As for knitting – I’m almost done with the CPH! Here is my sleeve.

With my better half off skiing this Presidents weekend, my agenda includes finishing CPH, going to Woodbury Commons and perhaps selling off the rest of my old records on ebay to perhaps fund something gorgeous like this:

wishing i was in central park

What a b.a.d. week. Last week, that is. Remember when i went skiing two weekends ago knowing that my entire strategy plan was due? Yeh, we'll i didn't work on it in VT and paid for it dearly.

Things settled down over the weekend but at this very moment, I'm in the glorious state of:

I do have some progress to show on Central Park Hoodie. Bad shadow action on the picture, but you get the idea. As of this shot, I had the back done and almost the entire front left finished.

Better news is that i am almost finished with the right side, thanks to my 3 1/2 hour flight from NY to Arkansas this afternoon. When packing last night I probably devoted as much time to knitting project packing as I did to clothing, etc. While I tried to remember everything, I noticed on the plane that I forgot my size 6 needles, which are required for the cuffs/edging on everything to do with this sweater. So basically my 7 hour trip back tomorrow (you'd think they'd have more direct flights to Walmart-ville!) which was was to be entirely devoted to CPH must now be devoted to the sleeve of my Hourglass Sweater, which is feeling fairly neglected these days.

And finally, check out this hot window!