Purlene’s Corner

(ames)

I’ve got copious amounts of free time right now, as I was laid off from my job a couple of months ago.  (If you know of any legal jobs or benefits/HR-related jobs in Chicago, let me know, resume available upon request.) You’d think this would translate into a massive knitting fest, but it has not.  I blame Plants v Zombies, lots of reading, and the startling realization that I am a situational knitter. When I was working, I spent two hours of every day on public transportation, which is prime knitting time. It would be me, an audiobook or DVD commentary, and the current knitting project. I would do it all on the train – a sweater, delicate lace, hearty socks, a blanket. When I came home, I would sometimes knit, but would be just as likely to read, play on the computer (FFXI ftw), chat on the phone, or do anything else. But those two hours a day of dedicated knitting time got me through many a project.

But now I have all the time in the world to knit, and little inclination. I have projects that have actual deadlines, projects that have been hanging around for far too long, a sweater that is one re-knit front and a buttonband away from being finished, and umpteen million other ones that I want to do (gloves for a friend, socks for me, another sweater for me) – and yet I don’t do them.

What I do instead is read!
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – a great book set in a small village in China back in the 19th century, a place where women’s feet were bound. It’s a gorgeous story of the deep friendship and love between two “old sames” – Snow Flower and Lily, bound together at age 7 in a ceremony designed to form an emotional bond between them that would last a lifetime. The girls’ friendship is immediate and powerful – they send each other small gifts andnotes, but save the most important messages and life events to write on their shared paper fan, which is sent back and forth.

Hyperion – Written in the style of Canterbury Tales, this is the story of seven pilgrims who journey to a world named Hyperion to answer the mysteries of their lives. It’s the first in a series, and I’m eagerly waiting for the next one to be returned to the library so I can get my greedy little hands on it. The seven stories are each fascinating in their own way – the father, the priest, the warrior, and others, each with an unresolved question that they hope to have answered. Loved this book, and sent it to my older brother almost immediately after finishing it.

I’ve been watching tv! Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Fringe, a re-watch and finishing of Pushing Daisies (which ended far too soon, but beautifully), and a rewatch of the entire 10-season run of Friends. It may be cheesy, but Friends is my desert island show. I love it, I love that I can see my friends and myself in it (Erin = Ross, Meg = Monica, and apparently I am Ms. Chanandler Bong), and it still makes me laugh and cry. I’ve been watching Horatio Hornblower, and have plans to go see the new George Clooney movie next week.

I’ve been taking long walks along the lakefront, although not nearly as many as I should. My tendencies towards sloth and laziness are strong and hard to fight, but I will prevail. I’ve been job hunting and interviewing, although not much has come of it. And yeah, I’ve been knitting a little, but finishing almost nothing.  I’m heading out to the burbs in a few hours – there’s a day trip to The Fold on the schedule tomorrow, and I’m very excited about it!  And there will be knitting. I’ve got a nice hefty commute out there and back today and tomorrow, and projects need to be done.

In conclusion, here are some things that were finished recently. Phew.

Hat and mittens for Baby D! I have to make the mittens a little longer, and he was completely befuddled by them, haha.

Frilly wristwarmers, from leftover Manos. They’re kind of silly, but cute, and I knocked them out in an evening.

(aya)

I can’t believe it’s already November!  Sadly, my funemployment is coming to an end. I start a new job in one week. It was a good run while it lasted though.

After finishing Mom’s FLS, I got into a spurt of needing some quick knitting projects. So, I knit a hat:

And I knit some fingerless mitts (it is very hard to take a picture of both your hands when there’s no one there to help):

That was using some remnant Malabrigo that I had, and to finish off the skein, I made a coffee cup cozy, which would look nicer if it was actually pictured around a cup of coffee:

I’ve also started a scarf, with the yarn that I bought in Charleston:

Also, while knitting on the scarf, I started knitting on a sock from Cookie A’s new book, Sock Innovation, called Devon. It’s not much to look at yet, I’ve only gotten as far as finishing one repeat. Actually, the picture shows less than one repeat.

It’s a bit challenging. There’s a double decrease in a couple of rows of the repeat that took me a few tries to get right, since it involves taking a stitch from the previous round. But the results will be spectacular, and totally worth the effort. Here, have a Rav link of finished Devons. I think that my yarn choice will show the pattern really well. There’s  just a slight shading difference in it. That’s Malabrigo sock yarn in Lettuce, which I totally scammed from sparkli in a yarn swap (she got my noro sock yarn BLEGH and I got this gorgeous stuff).  The pattern is a bit lacier than I’d expected, but I know that I’m going to love it.

Speaking of Cookie A’s new book – I really like it. It has about 50 pages just on sock architecture – how to put together a good sock, its components, and techniques. Then it has about 15 patterns, most of which are pretty involved. Which is not unexpected, given that it’s Cookie A.

I was looking at my stash the other day, and I was stunned, that aside from the yarn for Mom’s FLS, that I’d only bought two skeins of yarn this year – the yarn in Charleston, and some Malabrigo sock yarn (another color than the one above – called violeta africana). I guess unemployment will do that. Talk about stash management though! I’ve gotten my in-home stash down about 20 skeins with the knitting that I’ve done. Of course, that’s all out the window once I start getting a paycheck again!  ;)