Yes! I finished something

I did get the Purple Patchwork Sweater done! And immediately figured out that when using an old pattern you have to keep in mind when it was generated. The way the shoulders fit me I'm guessing this sweater was designed to have those shoulder pads in them to make it look like I'm a football player. Remember those? It's no biggie, well, yes it is.

I don't want to pull out all the seams to redo the shoulders.....yes that was meant to be read in a very whiney voice. I don't like the sweater enough to put any more time in on it. Have to find someone to give it to. Or it's sweater weather now, that means Operation Warmth will prolly be getting started real soon now. It'll all work out. Good thing I made a hat to go with it.
That'll make it more attractive, well that's not fair, the sweater does look really good, I just don't like the way it fits me. I don't like the way anything fits me right now. Since I got fired from my job I've lost over 40 lbs and it makes a difference in the way your clothes look on you.


And now I know NOT to make this sweater again. Or, if I do make it in a lighter weight yarn, a different color, a different collar, maybe.... Nope, just don't make it again. There are plenty of patterns out there to be tried rather than going with one that I don't like.

Projects...more projects

Well the shawl is done and it's now listed on Etsy. I've started another sweater, one that will use up some of the leftover purple tones out of my stash. It's a patchwork sweater. I found the pattern in an old Workbasket magazine. I'm going through all the Workbaskets I've accumulated over the years and am putting them in an index. Everytime I wanted to find a pattern I'd remembered seeing, I'd sit down with a stack of magazines and start going through them. Which meant I'd lose hours as I got distracted with all the neat stuff in them.

As soon as I have at least half of them set up I'll post it on my creative web-site, n2 Imaginations Design. Still working out how to publish a multiple page workbook as a .pdf. Guess I'll have to get the HTML workbook out again and start going through the chapters. Always something new to learn.

So I ran across this patchwork pattern in the Workbasket I'd entered and just started it, which is very bad timing on my part. I have special orders coming in for sweaters from my Etsy presence and really need to work on them. Which I am, but those are all in the design stage, still setting up the motifs and working the gauge swatch and changing the pattern calculations and you just want to pick something up and watch it take shape under your hands. At least I do (or I could just be rationalizing). So I started on this sweater. I may have needed to put some more neutrals in it but so far I'm still charmed with the idea of it. The pattern calls for a 4" ribbing at the waist so I've finished the front and back panels and am sewing them together before doing the ribbing to avoid the seam. I can do a raglan sweater in one piece from the top down or from the bottom up but I'm still figuring out set-in sleeves (not having done too many of them) so I want to take it by the numbers before I start playing with the sweater design. 'Course, I could always get another book - Hot Knits which will help me with the instructions.

Bad Nancy, you have enough books. Get back to working on that sweater.

Labor Day

Was in fact a labor day for me. 'Course with my new business in a way every day's a holiday for me so working on a holiday seems to make sense. Since I pet sit for people, of course I would work on the holidays. That's when people need pet sitting. But it's all good.

I'm working on another Space Invader sweater. I have a feeling that I'll be able to post these on Etsy through the end of the year and still find buyers. So I ordered a bunch more black yarn. I'll need that for another sweater idea that I have so it'll all be used one way or another. Black yarn usually is.

I need to take a break from the Space Invaders and work on my Panda Bear design. He's right there, almost done and ready to be fabricated. Just have to take a day and get all that finalized. This one worked out really well also. Once I have a good picture I'll get it posted.

In the meantime I'm almost done with the shawl.
When the momster had surgery a few years back and one of the sisters was in an awful car accident I made them Prayer Shawls to use after they got out of the hospital since it was in the middle of winter. Since then I put a shawl in the rotation every now and again. I really need to do another blanket for Project Linus. I have two blankets ready to go and had decided last year that every 3rd or 4th project would be for charity. That was before I was liberated from my corporate job and started re-ordering my priorities. Can't let it go though. I had decided on that commitment and I should uphold it or formally release it and I'm not ready to release it yet. So I guess my next project is a charity blanket.

Oh, and I just picked up what looks like a swell reference book 1000 Great Knitting Motifs by Louise Roberts. I've been slowly building my library of motifs to knit and this has a lot of cool examples in it. Has a lot of really bad color combos also but that's a great visual for me to avoid them. I'm going to sit down and go through it page by page but right now it looks fun. I'll write a more complete review after I've really looked at it.

Good to know what the line-up should be. Space Invaders, shawl, book review, panda bear, charity blanket, polar bear...by the time I get all those done I'll have a whole other list of ideas to work on.

And the charity blankets really help to work down my stash items. So it's a win-win situation. I haven't quite gotten to the point where I can release the yarn that comes into my home to the Destash site or a garage sale. My other clutter is clearing out nicely but not the yarn or the books. Still working on those. And the Destash site is a dangerous place for me to be roaming around in. And you know exactly what I mean by that.

Who Knew....?

The video game sweater has just taken off. The viral Internet has embraced it to both praise and distain it. Do I care? Not much. I got the pattern done and out onto Etsy.com and onto my crafty site so people that want to make and wear the sweater can do so.

And people that don't...won't. I find it interesting the comments that have been made about this idea. People that would never dream of making a comment about an African patterned dress or a Hawaiian shirt take great delight in showing their distain of this sweater. Prejudice shows up in a lot of different ways. If it makes them feel cool to show their intolerance in public then rock on.

On a side bar I got the blanket done for Alisha's baby.
He's not here yet and his name is Gage. He should be making an appearance Just Any Time Now. Her due date is this week. This should keep him warm once the autumn weather starts in on the Midwest. It's made with Yarn Bee Icelandic Jewels Yarn. This is a Hobby Lobby house brand and this is the first project I've used it for. If it washes well I'll be using it again. The blanket was made with 10 1/2 needles and it came out nice and plush and cozy. The color intermix is well done and I think there's about 12 color choices that they have. I'm interested in trying a sweater now with a size 11 needle. That'll be warm this winter when I have the thermostat set at 68.

I'd forget my head if it wasn't fastened on....

So I go out to Target to get this and that and then something else, walked out spending $ 20.00 and still didn't get camera batteries. Which was a high priority item on my list. So, I can't post the pictures of the ghostie sweater or a new shawl that I'm working on until I get the batteries.

I'm almost done with the shawl already (thanks to the new DVD Dresden Files">that I got). One of the women in my Stitch n Bitch group just growls when she sees Jen or myself talking, reading or talking about watching TV while we work. We keep telling her she'll get there, she keeps telling us, she won't. And since it's her belief system, she won't.

And I don't care what the network thinks, I liked 'The Dresden Files'. Yes, it's been cancelled. I started out reading the books Dresden Files">cause I'm a fan of the mystery genre and someone recommended them to me on that basis. It's like Mickey Spillane with magic thrown in the mix. The investigator usually manages to get the snot kicked out of him at some point in the story but the characters and detail of the plot line are entertaining enough that you can get over the formula detective plot. Now the TV show is nowhere near the stories in the books but that makes them even more entertaining. It's interesting to see how they've changed the story to conform to the media that they're using. I was lucky enough to see Jim Butcher at the Oread Bookstore in Lawrence, KS and he thought it was great. The book sales were going well and the paychecks he was getting from the TV show, as he put it, paid for his families health insurance bills for a year. Not a bad deal for him considering he's an independent contractor being a writer.

Mistaken

"You can never learn less; you can only learn more. The reason I know so much is because I have made so many mistakes."
~~ Buckminster Fuller, mathematician and philosopher who never graduated from college but received 46 doctorates

I keep going back and forth on whether I know a lot. I've made tons and tons of mistakes on a daily basis....if I'm lucky, they're not the same mistakes on a daily basis. But for so many of them I played the victim game of 'That wasn't my fault. It's someone elses fault, not mine.' So if I failed to take responsibility for the mistakes that I made, did I learn anything from making the mistake? Other than avoiding to put myself in those same circumstances again.

The standard process is -
a) try something.
b) fail (really, how many times have you succeeded at something the first time you tried it?)
c) absorb the lesson
d) repeat steps a-c until you succeed or give up

In the victim mentality, it's so easy to claim 'it's not me, the universe is against me!' when all around us there is ample evidence that with a bit of self-confidence and a whole lotta pluck (or stick-to-it-ness, or stubbornness, or monomania, take your pick) people are accomplishing amazing things everyday, even though the universe is against them. They learn their lesson and start right back in again until they've gotten what they wanted.

So I do know a bit, now that I'm taking responsibility for the decisions that I make on a day-to-day basis. And I'm learning more every day as I make more decisions. And I think I'm learning as I examine the past experiences and decide, 'No, it wasn't XXX, it was me that caused that event.' So maybe I know more than I think I do.

BTW, the Universe isn't against you, it's all for your success, you just have to take the time to listen to it. One way that helps to listen is the new ambient music that is designed to set your mind to the Alpha waves. That's the relaxed but alert state that makes learning a lot easier. Sunday evenings thre's a program called Night Tides on KCUR, a local NPR radio station. For more info on the different brain states you can Google (not a product endorsement ;>)) it or look at the Psychology World site. There's good info there.

Gotta get focused

I keep telling myself to finish what I've started, in this case, the pattern for the video game sweater so I can put it out on my craft design page and what do I do? I sit down and work on another sweater. But Halloween's coming up fast so this little ghostie sweater will come in handy. And, if I want to get this pattern set up for people to make their own sweater's then I need to go through it once (or twice) to make sure that the bugs are worked out of the pattern.

That was one of the toughest parts of deciding to be a knitwear designer. Deciding to make items more than once. And frogging the items that while they looked OK, didn't really live up to the vision that I had when I started the project. I still have a couple of projects hiding in the spare bedroom that need to be frogged but since I haven't decided what to do with the yarn instead, they've gotten a bit of a reprieve from the process so far. But it will happen, it will all happen. A little bit each day.

"The only permanent change will come from a change in consciousness." - I'm not sure where this quote originated from, but the guy who said it was so right. Until I change my consciousness and the way I approach things then I'll continue to scatter my efforts instead of focusing on what I really want to accomplish. And focusing in a way that will have each project with a beginning, a process and an end. And not hieing off to the next project while one project still hangs in limbo waiting for the finalization to be finished.

Oh Man! That sounds so much like self-discipline! Somehow I knew that would come into this sooner or later.

Have you seen Etsy yet?

If you haven't you really should check it out. I've been posting my crafty items there for a few months since I was 'liberated' from my corporate job. And people are starting to find me even amongst the wealth of cool, artsy stuff that is listed on Etsy. Here's the link for Etsy.com and if you want some excellant and unique giftie for yourself or someone special, this is definitely the place for you to shop.

Here's a picture of the sweater I just finished, it turned out really cool, but I'm already thinking of ways to adjust it for the next version.

And, if you need a sweater, check this out -Video Game Sweater
And, surprise, surprise, the woman who inspired me with the socks that she submitted to Knitty contacted me about it. I should have known someone that creative would be on Etsy also. It was very cool to have someone whose skills I respect contact me.

As soon as I get some more adjustments to the graphics done, I'll post the pattern for knitter on Etsy and my craft web site - n2 Imaginations Design.

Try this again

I had a blog started earlier this year but took some advice on how to change the settings and now it's permanently linked to my business website. When you go to the blog, you don't see my witty and relevant commentary, you see my business site. Which, unless you happen to live in the KC, MO area, really won't do you that much good.

So I've accepted the fact that I've messed up the first blog and can't remove/change/edit the address due to the limitation of the free software that I'm using. I'm moving on.

We'll see whether I can keep this blog viable.