Stricken Knits

2008-07-26T16:15:00.001-05:00

Rules and requirements for functional and enjoyable human-bean-hood.

2008-07-08T15:56:00.008-05:00

1. Thou shalt be crafty and resourceful. If you can't make or do anything, you're pretty much a worthless pile, so you better learn a skill quick, bub.

2. Thou shalt love thy earth, shop local, etc. Driving sucks anyway.

3. Thou shalt be considerate and kind, especially to people who handle your food, pay you, or do anything that is of great importance to your life. Just say thank you and smile.
3a. Tip your server WELL if they do a good job. If they're noticeably bad, tip 10% in small change. If they're rude, eff 'em. They need to be nice too.

4. Mess with telemarketers. Also mess with sidewalk missionaries, but ONLY if they approach you first.

5. Rinse your dishes and cook-ware right away after use. It makes your whole day so much easier.

6. EAT
6a. in moderation. Most of the time.
6b. real ingredients. Unless you have some sort of dietary/health restriction, you better be eating real sugar and butter, dammit. If you can't pronounce it, it probably shouldn't go in your body.
6c. FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. DO IT.
6d. hummus. It's amazing, and I do believe it counts for several of the food groups. You can make it in a blender!
6e. BREAKFAST. EVERY DAMN DAY.

7. Move every day. You can at least walk around the block once; it won't freakin kill you. I'm not saying go running or anything, 'cause I'm pretty sure running is for when you're being chased.

8. Read. Anything.

9. When walking (especially on college campuses): Pick ONE freaking side of the sidewalk. Watch for bikers. We're crazy folk, and we may run you over if you are a bad pedestrian

10. When biking: Wear a helmet. All the time. As someone who falls off her bike a lot, I can tell you this is the key to survival on this earth. Try to remember that even bad pedestrians have feelings, and probably lawyers.
~~~
Knittin:
-Norah Gaughan's "Brea" bag - decided I needed another project, and another purse :) Did the faces, almost done with the gusset, need to figure out strap/lining specs. Navy blue. I want to finish it *now* so I can carry it around and say 'lookit what I maded!' Alas, it is better suited for Fall/Winter, so I have to wait a bit.
-Swiss cheese scarf - need to finish the socks I'm knitting from the other end of the ball :) Then I can finish the scarf.
-Socks from the other end of the ball: simple little ankle socks that I decided I NEEDED to make in the middle of that scarf... This was during a bus trip with 80 middle schoolers. I don't need to tell you I was not in the clearest frame of mind, but they're pretty great socks.
-Secret project: you'll see soon enough :) Not knitting, but knitting related.
~~~
I get to go home tomorrow! Much time shall be spent at Wildflower, plotting world domination through knitting, and squeezing the Koigu. After I come back, photo boy gets here, so by next Friday I'll have picture that don't totally blow ^_^

Meanwhile, it's still Friday somewhere, and I need to go to bed and get my eye to stop twitching. That would be peachy.
Night-night,
--Stricken

It's Friday.... Blog Day!

2008-07-04T21:30:00.002-05:00

Weekly Briefing:

So You Think You Can Dance is amazing. Mia Michaels needs to choreograph my life, and I am so marrying Twitch.

The salsa from the last post is a hit. Make some and impress your friends.

The Lincoln, NE, bus system is not running today, except for shuttles to some fireworks display. Bass-turds.

I listed yarn on Etsy today!
That's about it.
Shake it like a salt shaka,
--Stricken

New Post! Finally!

2008-07-02T11:22:00.003-05:00

To my very very very few readers: sorry! I'm a stinky blog-keeper. Part of that was trouble with stupid google accounts, but really, I seem to have a fear of commitment when it comes to just sitting down and writing for a couple hours.

Blog resolution: shorter and more frequent posts. that way I won't forget to post cool things as they happen. and Kofi Baby, let's DO make Friday blog day! Starting this week. We gonna be so consistent peeps be all like, ring the alarm!
Yup.

So, since APRIL (jeez), I have finished the Lyric Tree sweater pattern (and sold a whole bunch of copies!), took a little trip to Estes (not for the wool market though - more later), moved twice (bleeeehh), applied for more jobs than you'd believe and still haven't gotten hired, knitted a hell of a lot, crashed the bike again, ordered much needed prescription sunglasses so I can drive during the daytime without being a menace, and indulged thoroughly in my secret passion - grocery shopping.

>The Sweater<
(see previous post for pics)
It is keeping me fed. In the mere week and a half since I listed it in my etsy shop it has sold *41 copies.* I am still in shock - very very pleased shock :) I can't thank my customers enough, nor all the people who have shared it in ravelry forums and blogs. You are all a-freaking-mazing. One highlight in particular elicited the biggest happy dance in the history of happy dances - Lyric Tree was featured on Lime&Violet's Daily Chum. Squeeee!!! Not posted by L&V themselves, of course, but I'm hoping they saw it and are finding their way over to my blog and etsy store and figuring out that we're practically neighbors, and then they'll ask me to be a regular on the podcast! Hehe, in my little mind this is the natural progression of the way things should work.

>Tangent<
I just got a call from my DM telling me I received a summons for jury duty back home. WTF? Time to act as biased as possible. I do not want to sit on a jury in traffic court, nor do I want to drive three hours to do it. Blech.

>Recipe<
I've been cooking soooo much! What else do I have to do - I email pdf's all day.
STRICKEN SALSA:
Whole buncha strawberries, 1 tomato, 1 avocado, diced
3 T lemon juice
Salt, black pepper, crushed dry red papper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, paprika, chili powder, to taste
Drizzle of honey
Fresh basil leaves, for garnish

Stir it all together, serve with EVERYTHING, keep chilled, and keep throwing things in so it never runs out - I may add a nectarine to mine later.

I need to go make hummus later...

>Etsy Teams!<
One of Etsy's newest street teams, Lincoln Handmade, is gearing up to kick some tushy and spread the joy of local craftery to the unsuspecting people of Lincoln, Nebraska. We had a lively meeting at a local coffee shop last night, and got quite a bit of planning and brain-storming accomplished, despite a hoarde of writers doing readings of their work in the next room. The discussion of promos and group challenges was underscored by an essay about pot smoking from one writer. (Disclaimer: I am not passing judgement or deriding the Lincoln writers community in any way - I'm sure they are all wonderful, and I support their endeavors, legal or not :-} We just need to not have our meeting at the same time.) Awkward turtle city.
Anywho, to find our shops on Etsy, search the tag LNKHandmade Team, and if you're in the Lincoln area, watch out for a passel of crafty women (and maybe men - I just don't think we have any yet), in matching shirts, posting flyers and taking over the farmers' markets. We may also be cheering.

Craftily yours,
--Stricken

PS, if I don't post on Friday (with pictures), poke me with sharp objects, please and thanks.

ZOMGBBQ!!!! Norah Gaughan!!!

2008-04-14T23:26:00.006-05:00

Norah Gaughan just added me as a Ravelry friend. I feel special :) She's knit-famous, you know. I squealed SO much.

Pictures!
This is my sweater, Lyric Tree. She's quite popular in my Ravelry FO's, and the pattern will be available very soon after school is over. More about where to find it later... My mom took these lovely pictures above with my super-crappy digital cam, and the photos below are by my good friend Nick, who has hand-spun hand-knitted goodness coming to him shortly. He took a whole ass-ton of pictures.

This is the Bag Hat. You can buy the pattern! I have an Etsy store! It's right here :DDown hurrr, we have the Paige Hat, worked in a "twisted stockinette rib," which I sort of made up, but I sure SOMEBODY has used it before. K1 tbl, K1. It's meant to be kinda slouchy, the pattern may get tweaked to make it more so than in the picture, but it is also available in my Etsy Store! Check it out!These are my favorite scarves. They're sort of the same, but different colors, and they're free-form, but they use many of the same motifs. The crimson and oatmeal one is pictured up top, being knitted. I'll be writing up a "formula," for these at some point. They're knit in Adrienne Vittadini "Nadia," which is heavenly alpaca, and I think they'd also be loverly in contrasting hand-spun.
With the school year drawing to a close, I'm getting ready to kick summer's ass with productivity. I need to find a regular job, probably serving booze somewhere downtown, and secure living space for May/June (house-sitting in July! Woot!), but as soon as that is taken care of, I get to do whatever the hell I want!! Much of this will include cranking out patterns and hand-spun for the Etsy store, knitting through the stash, knittin for some charity, and prepping for a viola recital in September (mark your calendars, music fans; Franck Sonata in A, Bach Suite No. 4, Rebecca Clarke "Morpheus," and Bloch "Suite Hebraique"). I have never actually given a recital before, and I am simultaneously exhilarated and scared out of my mind.

Another mission for the summer is to get myself to the Estes Park Wool Market. I was telling a non-knitting friend about this a while back, and he proceeded to do a lovely impression of me getting excited about alpacas. "There will be alpacas; I could touch them! Alpaca is good fiber. I want one. I could pet it!" Thank you Wyatt.

Go listen to some viola music, or find an unknown band, and don't forget to visit StrickenKnits.Etsy.com while you're at it.

Blissful sunshiney knittyness,
--Stricken

Ps, I JUST realized that Norah Gaughan was the Norah who commented on my tree sweater like, two weeks ago. I had no idea it was her until two seconds ago. My brain is so farty.

Active Waiting

2008-03-18T13:27:00.002-05:00

Sometimes in life, whether we want to or not, we must wait. At the moment, I'm waiting for my mother to drive me home for spring break, waiting for my boyfriend to call and wondering if I'll actually get to see him sometime this decade, and waiting to see what my life will like in the next month, year, etc.... Sometimes things are out of our hands, and we have to take what control we have left and make the most of things the way they are. I don't like it - waiting makes me a little nuts - but it happens. At the moment I'm filling my waiting time writing this piece for the few lovely people who read this, but mostly for myself, as I'm sure most bloggers do. I'm also listening to the sweet sounds of Brenda Dayne's Cast-On podcast, and in a bit I'll get back to the packing I so dread.
Waiting is the worst waste of time in the world, if you let it be. Having had plenty of time to myself this weekend, alone with my yarn and my Klaus (yes, my viola has a name), and all my gnawing thoughts, I have learned to defeat the monotony of waiting. Waiting for plans that wouldn't come through, waiting for things that (seriously?) would actually happen, waiting for the J.S. Bach "St. Matthew's Passion" to end already (why does it take FOUR HOURS to sing about Jesus dying???), waiting to see what I would accomplish over the weekend, and always in the back of my mind, the endless waiting for the big picture.
Waiting begets wondering. Will my Etsy store take off? Will the play that is about to eat my soul for the rest of the semester come together? Will I have a decent career as a knitwear designer/viola rock-star/alpaca farmer? I don't know. I am not the psychic sandwich lady from the Late Show, but I also can't intuit the future, the sandwich Rupert Gee made, or even the present, as it pertains to the other people I have to depend on sometimes, but I'm not sitting around waiting for the answers. I'm making my own, as I do with my music, and yarn, and whatever else I need to defeat the waiting. Mom and the bf and the big picture can take their dear sweet time to get to me, and I will not be waiting. I will be making things, and making things happen for me.

~~~~

That said, I've had a very productive weekend to kick off my spring break. StrickenKnits.etsy.com is inching closer to existence every day, as I've spent a decent handful of hours hunched over my laptop at the coffee house typing up patterns that I wrote ages ago, and hoping against hope that people will love them, and buy them, and make them, and post them all over the blogs and the ravelry.
Since my last post (holy hell, that was a long time ago!), I have learned how to spin!!! I have a wonderful drop-spindle, lovingly crafted by ford4him on Etsy, which is emblazoned with my alias, Stricken. It is the best toy ever. Here's my first hand-spun:
Isn't it precious?! I made a lacy head-scarf sort of thing with it, which I have somehow neglected to take photos of... coming soon! It is awesome, and makes me wish I had dreads to wrap up in it. Speaking of dreads...
I invented a super hero. By night, I am (dun dun DUHNNNN!), The Knitter, wielding my Needles of Justice to warm the chilly, and shank villains with my pointy sticks.
This new weirdness of mine came about out of need for a costume for one of our lovely theater-people theme parties that always serve to brighten my mid-semester gloom. I was inspired by the infamous MizV, of Lime and Violet legend. I love me that podcast sumthin awful.

I hope to post more later in the week, but if you've seen my blog, you know this is unlikely. Nevertheless, I persist in my mission of active waiting, doing as much as possible while I wait for school to come back next week and kick my butt, fueled by obscene amounts of coffee and drowning in fiber, which is by far the best way to drown.

May you never wait in vain,
--Stricken

And I said, let me buy yarn. And it was good.

2008-01-11T01:52:00.000-06:00

I was bad yesterday, but they were only five bucks a pair!

Seriously. Thank you, Hot Topic. Not really "my kind" of store, but if they want to sell boots in my size for FIVE DOLLARS, I am not about to snub them.

I'm nearing the end of my winter break, which has been productive for nothing but knitting, and browsing Etsy. I am making it my goal for the month of January to get a couple of patterns typed up to sell (~*NEW YEARS RESOLUTION!*~). When the glorious day comes and I have a shop of my own, it will be StrickenKnits.etsy.com, and you can buy things and support all my habits... like eating... and laundry...

If you're not familiar with Etsy, you need to be. The people on there are amazing crafters, and some of them have been very friendly indeed! One in particular, a spinner/dyer who calls herself TwistOfFate, is sending me fibery goodness just for being the 200th person to "heart," her shop! Now I heart it even more! All this and a Stash.Enhancement.Xpedition. happened on Wednesday - lucky day or what?! Wednesday can be very important: If you haven't seen this, that's sad.

I do NOT win the health lottery this week, however. Evil Death-Cough strikes again, and is keeping me awake, hence the 4:00am post.

As I said, I had a S.E.X. this week! It was much needed, and of course I spent too much, but I am the proud owner of 13 skeins of awesome yarn/fiber that totaled... $51.00! I'm all kinds of thrifty. Kennita has a lovely stack of 3-bucks-a-ball baskets in the back of the shop, which I have taken it upon myself to reduce significantly. I also discovered some new stock in the shop - roving! I do not yet know how to spin, or have suitable equipment, but I am hoping to soon be the owner of a drop spindle, and I'm sure I'll figure it out with some help from the ol' internet.
I has FO's!
My first pair of Fetching
Mom's Christmas present, Flora
We are really cool - can't you tell?

What Blog?

2007-12-27T22:58:00.000-06:00

After a long hiatus from blogging, I'm back! Be excited!

I have just finished the semester from hell, and my GPA has completely gone to pot, but the good news is I got a good deal of knitting done, trying to keep myself sane. I'm now at home, doing nothing for three weeks except knitting, cooking, and watching "That 70's Show" with my mother.

I'm also trying to convince myself to come around to playing my crappy viola again. Two months ago I had an instrument sent to me to try out, and I completely fell in love with it, planned on buying it, and then could not get a loan. I had to send it back to Canada, which cost me (ok, my parents), $300 f#&!*n dollars. Right after my jury. For those of you who have never been music students, juries are performance finals, where the faculty sits around and says 'Dance monkey, dance!' and you get graded. I probably don't need to say it wasn't my best jury ever, since I was trying really hard not to cry the whole time, and I blanked on my stupid scale fingerings - the same ones I've been using for five years! So I got it over with, promptly went to my locker, and sobbed my guts out as I put my bow and music and all the little knick-knacks that go with violas back into my own case. I took the amazing viola back to my dorm, packed it in its box, cried a little more, then went to the UPS store, and it was gone. So since then, I haven't been feeling the motivation much. I'm back to old Klaus (yes, I name my instruments), and he served me well in the bar gig my band had last week, but I am simply not going to get very far in the field of classical performance if I don't upgrade within the next few years. I think I deserve better than this, but apparently the loan companies and my school don't care. Yes, I have no credit history, and no job. I'M A STUDENT. Gimme money.

So anyway...

I'm still working on my Christmas knitting! I finished a Flora scarf for my mother, pictures coming soon, and several friends are getting items that I will post about after they have received them, just in case they actually read this (hay you guys!).

So we'll call this my goodbye to 2007 (even though it's after midnight. Whatever.), and very, very soon (I promise!), there will be a ~*SHINY NEW 2008 POST*~ full of photo-graphy goodness, and optimism for the new year. Maybe there will even be resolutions. Ooh!
Be excited.

Happy New Year to all, and to all, KICK ASS KNITTING!
--Stricken

Pedestrians, Beware

2007-11-07T23:03:00.000-06:00

I ride a bike.

No, more like, I fly a bike.

I realize that in my haste to get to class, I might scare a few of my sidewalk cohabitants. After several months of this, I got my comeuppance today at about 1:30 when the sidewalk decided to come uppance at my face.
WEAR A HELMET.

In knitting news, Halloween has come and gone, and was very successful. I knit a cat costume. A campus cat, to be specific. If you're not familiar with UNL, we have a legendary flock of feral cats, which were originally brought to the campus to reduce the rabbit population. We now have inbred, diseaseful kitties. Good job, Nebraska. It's all knit out of grossie Lion Brand Yarns, which have found their true calling: durable, plasticy costumes for rowdy college parties.

The bane of my existence as a music student, the semesterly opera, is upon us. To cope with the pain of playing Mozart for four hours everyday in a dark, cramped orchestra pit, I'm knitting a cabled mini sweater out of gorgeous lime green-vari Araucania Nature Wool. It makes me feel a whole lot better about my shitty day of eating sidewalk and subsequently having to go to the *#^&$*%$^% Health Center to see FOUR people before someone finally confirmed that I do not have a concussion, to know that I can go hole up with my awesome yarn and bamboo needles. Big thanks to my mother for buying this broke co-ed some quality yarn.

What else is on the needles? Two words:

UGLY BLANKET.

If you're on ravelry, go look at the list of yarns that are in this thing. I'll have pictures soon. It's REALLY ugly, and yet, replete with amazingness. Scraps from almost every project I have used decent yarn for. Keep in mind, for the first three to four years of my knitterly existence, I used a helluvalot of c-h-e-a-p yarn. If I had sequenced the yarns in chronological order it would go something like: Red Heart, miles of Lion Brand esp. Fun Fur, random novelty yarns of all sorts, wools, elasticized cotton, and alpaca forever and ever amen.

There is a set of coral and lime bikini bottoms in hibernation until I do my Christmas/winter knitting. I would like to finish this green sweater before I go to New York in January... we'll see. I'm knitting a little something for my mother's Christmas present, and she probably will never read this, but just in case, I'ma keepin it a secret except to say that it's from Knitty.com

The public library back home in Manhattan, Kansas has a "Mitten tree," every year around Christmas (who says that agnostics can't enjoy the holidays?!), so I'm going to cast on a little hat this weekend to donate, an maybe a matching scarf. I also have a little set of baby socks lying around that I made years ago just to learn how to make socks, so I think it would be appropriate to donate them, since I don't really know any babies...
Since it is getting close to that time of year, I strongly encourage knitters and non-knitters alike to donate, help out, do your part any way you can. Make a hat. Serve some soup. Give away the part of your stash you'll never use. Teach someone to knit!

Speaking of teaching, I just taught my roommate how to knit about a month ago - she is a freaking prodigy! Her first project was a scarf. Not just your standard beginner-garter-stitch-mess scarf, oh no, there is ribbing and patterniness galore, and her stitches are even. [I know - whuuuuuuuuut?] Her second project (in progress), is Elisa's Nest Tote from Purl Soho. IT'S LACE. SECOND PROJECT. EVER. We are going to launch an empire of knitting, blogging and podcasty goodness.

Be safe. Don't smash your lovely faces,
--Stricken

Welcome

2007-10-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

As a former xanga-ist, I am not completely new to the world of blogging, but let's consider this the birth of a new blogger. Most of my posts should be about knitting, but there will inevitably be bits and pieces about my adventures in college-land, viola playing, and becoming a professional starving artist.

Allow me to introduce myself:
My real-world name is Jordan. I'm a student at UNL, majoring in viola performance and often wishing I could major in Domestic Goddessry. My roommate, our yarn stash, the fish, Klaus the viola, my library, obscene amounts of furniture, my Mary Kay bags (Why yes, I do sell the nation's #1 selling brand of skin-care and cosmetics! What can I say? I'm a poor college student.), annnnd I (if there's room), live in a 11'x16' dorm room! If you think your house is too small for your yarn stash, imagine two knitters and all their stuff living in a closet. Then give thanks for your spacious abode.
Besides being a sardine, I also enjoy cooking, live theater, dancing, cheese, chocolate, and hiking when I'm in Colorado. In addition music I'm studying German, hence the name Stricken - v. to knit. It also just sounds sexy, even if you don't know it means "knitting." I listen to Lime and Violet like it's my job, and my pattern stash, bookmarks list, and geek-queendom have all grown exponentially in the month and a half since I discovered the magical world of podcasts. In fact, one of my large goals for next summer is to have my own podcast, co-hosted by my mother and/or my roommate. Mom isn't a big-time knitter, but she's got some 'tude, and she lets the most wonderfully inappropriate things slip sometimes. She also spray-paints our neighbors' porch lights if they're too bright and shine into our living room... You see where I get my badass genes.
Most of my knitting in the past few years has been my own designs, which I need to type up patterns for, and get copyrights on (:-p barf, paperwork...). I tend to make things up as I go, and I LOVE cabling. I hate DOING the cabling itself, but when it's done it makes me very happy, and I've made a couple of garments with really neat cabled trees; I just bought five skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in a bright lime green colorway which is going to become a cardigan... probably with a cabled tree on the back. I am not originally from Lincoln, THANK GOD!!!, but rather hail from beautiful Manhattan, KS, home to Kansas State University, a lively and varied small-business scene, and the world record for most bars within a square mile, Aggieville. But most importantly, Manhattan is home to Wildflower Yarns and Knitwear! Stop by the shop if you're in the neighborhood. I could pimp sooooo many more Manhattan businesses, but we'll just stick to knitting for now.
Welcome to the blog. Should you continue to read my ramblings, I will lead you on a journey of words through my adventures in knitting, music, maybe some dating, and whatever else may come my way that I find it fit to spew on the internet.

Happy knitting!
--Stricken