Long Time, No Posts

Well, the blog was "down" for a bit while I revamped some stuff, I've also been busy busy with knitting.

So much so in fact, I've managed to make my wrists ache (potential RSI, most likely.) I still have quite a bit to do. Hats, cowls... but the blankets for my nieces are done, thankfully. Row upon row, upon row of garter stitch to make two almost-afghans for the 5 and 8 year olds. Don't think it's a lot? Together there's about 2km of string in those blankets! At least they love their hand knits. The 8 y/o asked specifically for a new blanket after the smaller one from last year had a run in with their one cat that sleeps on her bed.

Speaking of loving hand knits, a lot of people DON'T appreciate them, and call them cheap etc. In fact, there was one young poster on Ravelry who commented that her best friend wasn't supportive of her knitting, and when she said she was going to open an etsy shop and sell knitted things, said friend (or "friend"...) laughed at her and said no one would buy knitted stuff. It got to the point of the poster pointing out that her friend wanted a knit scarf and the friend said "Yeah, cause it's FREE, no one wants to BUY knitting!"

I did show a friend the basic breakdown of just how much work goes into a simple item. Well, okay, the hat I used isn't a HARD pattern, but it has cables, which can be considered a bit challenging (and I'm sure the intricate ones are!) I used the Katherine Hat I made as the basis of my example. The hat and pattern can be viewed at the original blog here: http://today-i-made.blogspot.com/2009/12/katherine-hat.html

So here we go...

Twisted ribbing of hat band - 80 stitches per round, 11 rounds, 80 x 11 = 880 stitches
First increase round of hat body = 120 stitches

Second increase round of hat body = 126 stiches

Sixteen repeats of a row in pattern - 126 x 16 = 2016, which leads to...

A pattern repeat is 4 rows, therefore... - 2016 x 4 = 8064 stitches

First row of decreases - 90 stitches

Second row of decreases - 90 stitches

Third row of decreases - 63 stitches

Fourth row of decreases - 31 stitches

Final row of decreases - 16 stitches.

GRAND TOTAL OF STITCHES: 9190 stitches!

I simplified it down a bit when I showed my friend the true cost of making a hat, as in as a "job". I figured out a simple 2x2 ribbed hat, made in cheaper acrylic.

Cost of yarn, approx $4 ($3.97+tax, minus a bit since the WHOLE skein doesn't get used, did not figure out the cost per meter or how many meters in a hat.)

Ontario minimum wage - $10.25/hr

Approx time make hat - I've done it in about 6 hours, maybe less, probably longer depending on what I do etc, but we'll take 6 as an average.

6 x 10.25 = $61.50
$61.50 + $4 = $65.50.

$65.50 for a basic ribbed hat, nothing fancy, in cheaper acrylic yarn. And that's not even with tax. Sales tax in Ontario is 13%, making the cost of the hat $74.02. And who REALLY wants to pay that much for a hand knit they can buy at Wal-mart etc for $6? I didn't even try figuring out how long it took me to make the Katherine hat LOL.

Sooo the above are why a lot of knitters knit only for the knitworthy, or won't take "knitting jobs", or will give you a "shocking" price for an item that a lot of people just don't think about the cost before asking someone to knit it for them. That said, plenty of knitters do knit for money, and will take "less" than what I figured out from the above. Also, a lot of knitters will knit stuff for people in general because they like knitting, but don't need all the stuff they knit. I knit mostly for other people, but I have some stuff I need to work on for myself too!

First I have to get through these x-mas gifts, then rest my wrists. So excuse me while I go back to marathoning The Big Bang Theory and knitting.

Knitting Product Review! Interchangeable Circular Needles

Hello to everyone who may actually read this blog! (which I'm finding more and more to be people I don't know that actually leave comments lol.)

It's been a while, a lot has been happening. I started my prep course for college about a month ago, give or take, and studying/memorizing has taken over my existence, among other things.

So my first post back is a product review. Yaaay. Please keep in mind, I'm not being endorsed by the company and all that jazz (although if they wanted to give me free products to review it could be negotiable LOL - not overly likely to happen but you never know!)

Recently I discovered the online shop, KnitPicks (www.knitpicks.com) and I don't really remember how or when, but I think I was looking at shawl patterns and falling in love with those, and I went looking for lace weight yarn that preferably wasn't sheeps' wool, as a lot of my family members (as well as myself) are sensitive/allergic to it. And I found they have lovely alpaca wool! But that is NOT what I am reviewing today! As I haven't had a chance to knit it yet :( (SOON! SOON I SHALL KNIT IT!!! And there will be photos!) It feels great as a skein though!

So today's review is about the Options Interchangeable Zephyr Acrylic Circular Knitting Needle Set by KnitPicks.

How this all started was that the shawl pattern I chose (Shipwreck circular shawl from Knitty.com) is knitted from the center out, and therefore is started on DPNs and then moved into circulars of increasing length and sizee as the shawl grows. I found myself needing 1 set of double pointeds, and then 7 sets of circulars of varying lengths and sizes. I found a very good deal on bamboo FIXED circulars - 15 pairs for $25 - but the downfall there was that they were all the same length (and I was looking for 40-47" longs!) Chances of me using the majority of those needles again was very very slim, due to the lack of versitility (and outside shawls or afgans, what am I going to knit with 40-47" long circulars? That's a bit big for a hat...) And also, who wants to be knitting 600+ stitches off one set of needles onto another, when with the other set is merely a change of tips?

Having already ordered my yarn from KnitPicks, and in casual browsing, seeing the interchangable needles, I started looking for those. My family is very frugal (often bordering on the side of cheap whenever possible), I searched for something in the $20 or less range. I found a couple hits on eBay, but I don't like in the US, and all the listings that were cheaper, didn't ship there. Then came the time to convince myself (and the money source, since I'm sharing the set with my mom), that the KnitPicks ones were better because they really did indeed offer more options. I did the math, and all that, and it was settled. We were going with the interchangable Zephyrs.

Their listed retail price on KnitPicks is $67.38 for the set. They seem to be on the website all/most of the time (at least for the past few months) for $44.99. This price is at least 50% less than the next lowest priced set offered by another company (not one of the other sets offered by KnitPicks, which are $60-75, but still much more affordable.) The set includes 9 sets of needles (Size 4 US/3.5mm to size 11 US/8mm), 4 cables (2 each of 2 different sizes [24" and 32"]), 8 screw on end caps (these are to be screwed onto the cable ends to keep your current project from sliding off if you need the needle tips for another project), a vinyl zippered case to hold the needles (it fits everything), a clear plastic case to hold the cables, and 2 cable keys to help lock the cables to the needle tips.

Very easy to use. Just screw the tips to the cables using the cable keys. And DO use the cable keys - I originally hadn't, and after a while within the first week of knitting the project I was testing them on (a wrap) the needle tip started coming off the cable. I tightened it with the cable keys and it's been on there for months with no sign of loosening unless I want it to. The needles and cables also have a very smooth join, I have yet to have yarn snag, and I'm using yarn that likes to split.

The tips have some amount of give to them, making them easy on the hands compared to a lot of metal needles I've used. The tips are also sharp - it hurt a bit at first to poke myself with them until I got used to it. They're not super super sharp as in "they're going to hurt me" sharp, but it's sharper/pointier than most plastic and metal needles I've worked with.

The other fun part about this set is that you can expand what you own for it. They sell needle tips individually ranging from $4-$7 a set, you can buy a cable binder case that's bigger than the cable case they give you/more organized than the one with the set. You can buy more cables in other lengths. You can also get cable connectors to join multiple cables together for a longer cable - I bought these. It's about $2 for 3 connectors, and they come with instructions and a cable key. I bought a set of these, they seem to work well - they join tightly and smoothly (there's a little bump, but the yarn travels well over it.)

Honestly, I think the only "complaint" I have about them is that the needles all look the same (they're all clear acrylic) and they're not engraved or stamped or marked ON THE NEEDLE as to what size they are. They come on a piece of cardboard that has their info on it, but that's no good if you take them off that or they fall. Personally, I don't really own a needle gauge thingie. I do, however, own an engraver, so I can hopefully fix that without messing up how smoothly the yarn travels.

Oh, and a second product review, just a little one! KnitPicks also sells knitting needle coil wraps. They're awesome! They hold pairs of knitting needles together when not in use. So handy, even with a knitting needle wrap case thing! They sell lots of neat little things, and lots of pretty yarns! I do recommend you check their site out! :)

Happy knitting!

(And again, I'm NOT getting anything from the company for this review)

Knitting Octopi

So I've wanted to knit an octopus since forever but I can't knit on double pointed needles worth crap (at least not yet... if ever...) but I found this pattern through Ravelry.com (you must have an account to look at patterns on there, but it's free to join and there's TONS of stuff! Be warned, not all the patterns are free though.) A lot of people have their patterns available for ravelry downloads, or with links to their blogs/websites (or both). So here is the link to the blog the octopus pattern is on at Haun' Knittit for Aristotle the Octopus

The two I knitted are these ones, as baby/big sister gifts for a friend's children

The rust coloured one is actually double the size of the pattern given on Haun' Knittit. Easy enough to do, except you have to remember to make the tentacles wider - which I think I did by going Cast on 100 stitches, KB1, then K row, KB1, K row, KB1, K60 stitches then for the next 40 K2tog to end, then bind off.

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I doubt anyone really noticed lol. I'm starting to work on my new blog, which is an alternative to a webcomic since I can't draw worth crap. It will focus on a more occult theme...in and of the fact it's a blog about my plush penguin Aleister Crowley - except in this blog, it's the actual Aleister Crowley who has been trapped in the body of the plush penguin... but more on that later when that blog is actually ready to debut :-P

Also, you may have noticed I've changed the blog layout - I did this because I was rather annoyed at how long and thin my posts were, and how often I had to squish the photos down to be smaller (at least on my monitor I did, and I'm like the only one who reads this, so it might as well be something I like lol) Forgive me if the font of the old posts is small (it looks really small on my screen) I may or may not fix this... most browsers have zoom functions so you can use that if you have to lol

Ahhh Relief...

So Tuesday was my mom's luncheon, and in total I had 12 adult sized hats knitted, 3 kids sized ones, a scarf I knitted a while back, and a pair of tiny child sized store bought mitts. Apparently one of the ladies asked if I needed more yarn - my mother politely declined lol. Hopefully this has inspired some of the ladies to try a bit harder/do a bit more - Mom says some of them show up with 2 pairs of mitts from the dollar store and think they've saved the world (and it's not like spending more than $2 would hurt them, if you know what I mean...) I'm thinking that when I get bored I'll just knit some more of these hats and stockpile them for next year.... I may very well need more yarn after all lol.

The storm from last week seems to have cleared a bit. But that is good. I freaked, I know I did, and it didn't end well on a few fronts, but those have been understood and repaired (I hope...) And after the storm, the answer seems rather obvious. I've missed horses a lot. In the past week or two I have watched like every single horse movie on Youtube (which is A LOT.)

Tomorrow/later today I'm hoping mom will be well enough to go shopping and to the post office (the pizza we had for supper isn't agreeing with her, nor is it agreeing with dad. Must have been the meat - I'm not feeling too bad, and I had a veggie pizza tonight, so it must have been the meat.) I have 6 packages to mail off. Yay Christmas/Yule!

And since I'm going to the post office, that means my quilt is DONE!! YAAAY! It has some boo-boos, but I don't care. It adds character. Not that it doesn't have that already. It's also fiesty and fights back when boxed...as evidenced by the sheer amount of tape holding the box closed lol. And now photos to finish! (Remember to click for bigger images, photobucket wasn't cooperating so I actually had to upload these ones to Blogspot)

Quilt front, features water, land, sky, and a Tree of Life/World Tree with oghams. The sky is quilted with 4 pointed star designs, and the water is quilted with swirls and bubbles. The green edges just have a straight line border design.


Quilt back. The designs don't really show up on the backing in this photo.

Rough Week

It all went BOOM today. Been stirring since about Tuesday, after the tour, in which I found out I'm not eligible to apply to university until at least 2011. And if I do apply and get in, it's going to take me an extra year or two to complete the course. Joy. Don't have that kinda time, or the cash. Sooo here's hoping I didn't completely shoot down my chances for getting back into the local college.

That may sound good - but it's not. Not really. Mainly because I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I can't imagine doing any one career/job for my whole life.

I thought I was getting better, but the hacking cough is still hanging around, as is the runny nose, and the sore throat has returned, and it seems to be toying with the idea of going after my ear too. Fuuuuck. I don't think bawling my eyes out is helping either, but who knows.

Fuck, at the rate I've been going this week, I fucked up pretty much every aspect of my life. I have no life really. I'm alive, but that's not a life. Thought I was managing to work through shit, but nope. Still there, rearing it's ugly head and causing everything to go BOOM, and crumble and collapse.

Everything I touch turns to shit.

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Hat Knitting Update

In the 11 (now 12, technically) days I've been knitting to make hats for my mom's ladies luncheon, I have 10 teen/adult hats, 3 child's hats, we scrounged up a scarf I knitted a while back. This brings the day count to 11 and the hat/scarves to 14. We also found an infant/young child sized pair of mitts we'd bought that don't fit my neices, so the total items to go so far is 15.

Let's see how this turns to shit now...

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Amendment: Okay, so, right now, even my pillow is betraying me or telling me to cheer up - I bawled my eyes out and the tear stains made a smiley face. A.J. is inhabiting my pillow... EEK! lol.

Hopefully, I am done crying. I'm hoping I am - this is wreaking havoc on my throat *sigh* I'm kind of letting myself cry if I want to though - getting it out of my system and then hopefully think rationally soon. I need some better form of catharsis/or outlet in general. I cry and everyone calls me emo. Yeah, that's right, I make a comment ebout my crying kind of being like bleeding out the poison, and I get called emo. I'm never using a metaphor or a simile again! (which will be horribly boring, and won't last long, but oh well!) Besides, if I was emo, it wouldn't be bleeding out the poison, it'd be CRYING BIG TEARS OF BLOOD AND THAT IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!! And there'd be lots of messy eyeliner and cutting! (And yes, I'm aware I made wishing for death comments at one point today, but we all know if I wanted to kill myself I wouldn't sit around talking about it!) And yes Darien, I know this doesn't help my not being emo argument. But I'm not trying to blame any of this on anyone. It happens. It kind of feels like being bucked off a horse and trampled on at the moment, but it happens. Therefore, I am not emo!

And this wasn't meant to turn into a rant about emo-ness... but it does make me seem horribly bi-polar... but anyways. Here's hoping that I'm done and moving on at any rate... And I really need to stop randomly attacking Trystn during these fits. It's not nice, and he doesn't like it... and it really doesn't make me happy either. Sorry Trystn. Of course I apologize to him on the blog...which he never reads... brillliant... Anyways, I'm going to bed now.

Stress Stress Stress and More Stress

It's that time of year again. Or still. Something like that. Although most of my Christmas shopping is done, so it doesn't matter there lol.

My hat goal is changing, as mom's luncheon is about 10-15 days earlier than I expected it to be - it's on Dec. 1st. I'm still going to knit as much as I can, and we've also raided some of my older knitting for scarves and unfinished pieces to be taken apart for yarn because I plenty of those from when I was starting to knit. So far though, since my last post on Wednesday the 18th, I've knitted 5.5 hats (the .5 is the one I'm working on right now) and we've got one scarf (haven't raided the other finished projects, and I knitted a lot of scarves to be given away, or they didn't get finished so we disassembled them.) My yarn collection is shrinking, and in some cases I wonder about actually using the yarn for this project because I don't know how men (since the items are going to a men's mission) would react to the colour of the yarn - i.e. dark purple, or more "girlie" colours. That could just be me being a worrywort, but just because they are in need of the items doesn't mean they will enjoy wearing an item, and I mean, I don't want the icky nasty people-who-are-the-scum-of-the-earth-and-don't-deserve-to-be-called-people to beat someone up because they're wearing some girly hat I knitted because it was all the shelter had and they needed it. I would hope that wouldn't happen, but recently there's been a bit of a jump in hate crimes, and my brain thinks too much and I would hate to be part of the reason someone got beat up or something. But as I said, not that that will happen.

I got a university tour confirmed for Tuesday. Hopefully I get over this cold by then, or else it could suck a lot. I've been rethinking thanatology, but until I get in there and find out who I can talk to (which means most of my questions won't be answered Tuesday, but that's okay because they use student tour guides, and they may at least be able to point me in the right direction) and find out what my career options are afterwards, or if I need to do like... psychology AND thanatology or what.

Of course with my second guessing myself - which happens even more when I'm sick and feeling crappy - comes people's true opinions. Like I really shouldn't go into it because my mood won't improve because my brain hasn't had enough time. To be honest, I've kind of always been like this. Although having 45 people die in 4 years is rather rough, but sometimes that's just how it goes. It takes time to get through, but unfortunately, it doesn't "go away." And when you have a lot of people dropping dead at once, everything kind of gets supressed. The reason I chose thanatology was half as therapy, and half because people come to me for advice and for help. Often times this is related to death. My mom thinks it's a good idea because I am pretty much already doing it. I say I'm doing it because I'm tired of all the whining grieving idiots who get stuck in the "I refuse to let go!" and "I must be a selfish brat for the rest of my life!" stages. And I should know. I was there/am there. I have dealt with family members who are/were there. I think the main reason I don't want to go through with it is because I'm just doubting myself and my own abilities to do it, and there's so little information on it that I can find that I don't know exactly what will be required of me. I don't want to spend $30,000 getting a degree I can't use because I have to do another degree first/after. I can't afford that. Fuck, I can't even afford the $30,000 to get a thanatology degree. I'm going to sell my soul for it pretty much. But I shall wait and see who I can talk to about it etc. I will look into and apply for scholarships...at least that doesn't have to be done within a month or less, that can be done later, once I've applied and been accepted.

Anyways, my sick muddled brain has lost train of thought so I'm going to watch more horsie movies on Youtube and knit while I blow through forest after forest of kleenexes.

Hats, Lots of Hats

So my goal for the end of November and beginning part of December is to knit as many hats as I can. One a day, hopefully.

My mother is part of their church's ladies group. And Every Christmas they get together and have lunch. They used to do a Secret Santa type thing where everyone brought in a small gift and the numbers were matched up, or some such. Then they decided to change that and now they bring in bags of hats, mittens/gloves, scarves etc and they donate them to the Men's Mission, or another charity similar to it.

My dad, having seen all of my knitting for Christmas/Yule presents, and also being forced into being a pattern dummy for sizing for the things I changed from a ladies pattern to a mens and wanted to ensure a fit, suggested that since I was knitting them for something to do (Wrong, I was knitting for Christmas gifts!) that I knit up a bunch for my mom to take to the luncheon for her contribution to the charities.

Well, today I asked mom if she wanted me to do that and she said sure. No wonder why, she then handed me a massive bag of yarn and said "Knock yourself out." We're talking something size of a garbage here folks. Some of it I wouldn't knit hats for guys out of (like the super fuzzy bright purple stuff), but most of it will work well. So, the goal now is to knit one hat a day basically. Each one takes me a few hours.

The pattern I use is this one here, just a very simple ribbed hat.
http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/hatnmitts.html

And another plus side to this - it gets the yarn out of the house for us since we probably wouldn't use most of it (yay impulse buys...) and it goes to a good cause :-)

I think I have about a month until the Christmas luncheon... so I should be able to get 20-30 hats done. I think I shall set a numerical goal at 25. A bit less than a month, but since I don't know exactly when the luncheon is, that works, and it gives me a couple days grace to rest my hands/wrists, or for the days when I just don't have time/energy/health or whatever to knit.

So, total count so far - 1 of 25