Tangled Grrl

This week has not been good for knitting. Or crocheting. Or typing. Or really anything else that requires use of my right wrist. I went to work Monday as usual and my wrist started hurting. Hurting badly enough that I switched my mouse to my left hand and begged the use of an ice pack. I had to stop by my mom's house after work and, being that she's a mom, she strong armed me into going to the doctor. I am now clumsily typing with a brace on my right wrist due to tendinitis. Lucky for me, the culprit is supposedly my use of the computer and NOT knitting or crocheting. So I only have one lonely sock. And lots of WIPs staring at me all over my apartment. In my car too. I'm supposed to not use the right wrist for 4-5 days, wear the itchy brace and use ice and heat and ibuprofen. There are bets going on as to how long I will actually make it without knitting. Today is Day 4. And I just may break down and attempt to navigate the tiny dpns just to see if I can. Besides, if I'

I am making quick progress of my sock. I finished the cuff, the heel flap, the turning of the heel, which went marvelously, the gusset and I'm almost done with the foot. Just toe decreases and grafting and my first ever sock with be complete. I didn't pick up my stitches right, but since I mirrored my mistake on both sides, it doesn't count (that's what I was told anyway, so I'm going with it). I was so excited I even bought new sock yarn today so I can make the boyfriend socks! Luckily his feet are only slightly bigger than mine so I only have to add 8 stitches to the total and an extra inch on the foot. The greatest part? He wants shorter cuffs!! I'll be finishing my first pair first though. I should have the rest of Sock 1 done tomorrow and will hopefully get to cast on Sock 2!! Once those are done I can start on his. I'm super excited and now wondering why I waited so long to catch the sock bug!! Of course that means my other projects are sitting on my

I'm exhausted. I have a headache, my eyes are crossing and blurry. But I started the heel flap on my first ever knitted sock. I will conquer my fear of heel turnings and gussets. But not tonight. It's too late and I already messed up twice. I fixed one mistake and figured that there should be at least one mistake in new projects so I'm leaving the other. Besides, no one will ever see the stupid thing but me anyway. I really want to stay up and be able to show off a fully knitted sock tomorrow but sanity is overtaking me. The knitting insanity will have to wait until I don't have to get up at ungodly hours. I'll apologize now for the rambling incoherent writing. But I'm a knitter who really needs to learn to sleep at night. Good night and wish me luck. The feared turning will likely take place tomorrow...

I posted a few days ago about the wonderful box of goodies my godmother brought me. Last night I decided I needed to cast on a new project. But first I needed to wind yarn. I have a yarn winder, but I don't have a swift. While the boyfriend is good at helping me be creative enough to use my winder without a swift, he's a bit ADD and it ends up becoming a Tangled mess. So last night I decide to try out the The Handy Adjustable Yarn Skein Winder in place of a swift. My mechanic boyfriend has a box of all types of bolts and screws and miscellaneous hardware, so he found a screw that would work. And I got to use it and wind my yarn without any Tangles at all!!! It's my new favorite thing and I had to stop myself from winding all of my yarn just because I could.    

Knitting lace intimidated me. A lot. So I decided to jump in headfirst when the only patterns that looked interesting were lacy. I knit a leaf lace shawl that I had to frog at least five times before I made it past row 5. Then I would make it to row 10, not be able to figure out my mistake, not have a life line and not be able to read my knitting well enough yet to figure out how to fix it, so I frogged it at least 15 times. I'm really good at garter tabs now since I couldn't figure out how to frog back and pick up where I was still getting the right stitch count. Every time I frogged, I frogged the ENTIRE thing. By the time I reached the end of my shawl, it was 2 am and I was doing a new bind off. I couldn't leave it until the morning because I absolutely had to finish it. So I did what any sane knitter does and stayed up, bleary eyed and sleep deprived and finished binding off. It was fabulous and I completed the thing in almost exactly one week. I was that determined.

My grandmothers and great-grandmothers were crafty. Some through necessity and some simply for the hobby and the joys it can bring. I love the fact that I can connect on some level with my ancestors simply by twisting yarn into loops with hooks and needles. I love that history. My godmother taught me a lot of my craftiness. She taught me how to cut out shapes of paper carefully, how to glue things, how to sew, how to do counted cross stitch. My mom and great aunt taught me to crochet. My Grandma Y taught me to iron and how to have an imagination. My Grandma G taught me to take my mistakes and learn from them. My Gram F taught me to play solitaire "like you're playing the devil and sometimes it's ok to cheat a little." She died when I was young but knit CONSTANTLY. She never taught me to knit and since she was the last in the "alive" grandparents that I ever saw play with yarn, I HAD to learn how to do it. My friend tried to teach me, but I struggled, she thr

I'm a blog lurker. I read blogs constantly. Then I find myself in funny moments and think "I can post that on my Twitter or my Facebook." Except I'm wordy and Twitter would require the posting of eleventy billion tweets and most people on my Facebook could care less about my yarn problem, my sewing issues or my knitting dilemmas. So I decided my own blog would need to be born. So welcome to my own little blog! I hope to write about my adventures untangling the various things in my life. This will be an ongoing process. I manage to get a lot of things tangled. I'm not a good planner. I can set goals, sure. But I pretty much hate to make solid plans. Solid plans = Obligations. Obligations = I'm guaranteed to be stressed and no longer interested in said plans. So I make it up as I go. And then things get Tangled. In my mind, Tangled = Fun. For instance, yesterday I had some free time. So I bought new sewing machine needles to make liners for the crocheted bag