Funky Georgia Demise

Well since this post is about 3 things I decided to combine them all into one title.
Funky sneakers.
Georgia business trip.
Untimely Demise of a wonderful crochet hook.

You may recall my yearning for some new funky sneakers a couple weeks ago. Well, I took the plunge and ordered some off the internets after not being able to find anything good in local stores. They arrived right before I headed down to GA and I'm just in love. They are the awesomest. And I'm so glad they fit since they were limited addition and I had to order them in men's sizing and hope they fit.
Since my sneaks are so ridiculously good looking, I thought they merited two pictures.


















Next on the agenda is the trip to Athens and then Atlanta GA. Nothing too fun and exciting in either place but I did get to stay in a hotel for one night and it was a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright so the architecture and design of the place were pretty amazing (Emory Conference Center). Everything about it, down to the light fixtures and pillows were designed with Wright in mind and I think that it was a fitting tribute. I had a balcony overlooking a beautiful courtyard where I had planned to sit and eat my breakfast (room service! for the first time!) but sadly it was cold and rainy when I woke up. Sigh. Only 1 day of warm sunny weather made for a bummer of a trip. It even snowed the last day I was there! Which of course freaked the sh*t out of the Atlanta airport and caused massive delays.










Swanky bathroom and view from balcony. And only one night to enjoy it.






After having been gone for what seemed like forever my lovely fellow Yarners and I were finally able to get most of the group together for some knitting at Panera this week, where I worked on my almost completed Reasonably Hip hat. It was during our little SnB session that I discovered the horrible and untimely demise of a wonderful little crochet hook that had lived in my wip bag for quite some time. The sizeless, brandless, and possibly ageless hook was my great grandmothers and I inherited it with the rest of her collection of semi-antique hooks of various sizes and materials. (she started to crochet around 1910 and stopped in the 1980's and her hooks aren't exactly dated so I'm not sure how old they are). The little red plastic wonder was, before its death, the perfect size to quick fix any knitting mistakes. I adored it. But I suppose a possibly 90 year old plastic hook just cannot last forever stuffed in my wip bag and carted all around the country. Sigh.
In other news I went to go see Persepolis with M (new guy alert!) right before I left for Georgia - it was really good despite its abrupt ending. I highly recommend it. After I returned we watched Shaun of the Dead, which was really quite hilarious for a British zombie movie. Also managed to chat on the phone for 4 hours!?! and barely notice that it was that long. Feels like high school or early college all over again, but in a silly, laughy, fun way. (:{

New adventures and challenges

This past Monday the Yarners got together to learn how to crochet and to record an episode of the FiberCult podcast. As promised, here is a picture of my very first crocheted circle.

Since I wasn't following a pattern, and I was increasing at will (which is not as random as I would have liked it to be) it doesn't exactly lay flat. BUT, it does resemble a circle, which is entirely the point on a first go. Catherine was a fabulous teacher and showed me how to begin the circle. Very excited. I can see more crochet in my future!








The second thing I have to share is the starting of my Luna Moth Shawl! (This picture gives a better idea of the pattern, but in a different yarn).

You probably do not recall, but I posted a while back professing my love for this particular shawl (in the Callista yarn color pictured and everything) to go with my espresso colored strapless dress for my cousin's wedding in August. In this post I also asked everyone's opinion on knitting this pattern and whether it would be too much for me, or too difficult. Well, no one commented. So I took that to mean that it was manageable. Then, a month later when I was ready to start, I took the pattern to our Monday night Stitch and Bitch and asked some questions to clarify the pattern. Some of the ladies tried to give me a good dose of reality considering the trickyness of lace patterns and my time deadline. I dont like to hear reality if its discouraging. And who would?
Being the obstinate chicky that I am, I decided to just go for it.
Also, those words of discouragement actually had the opposite effect: I'm even more determined to knit it now than I was before. This commonly happens with me, if someone tells me I cant do something, and I think I can do it, well then I'm super motivated to prove them wrong.

Since the pattern called for a crochet provisional cast on, after the mini crochet lesson on Monday all I needed was some quiet time to begin. The pattern is actually knit as increasing semi-circles so you have to start by turning your stitches into a semi-circle. I'm not very good at reading a pattern and envisioning it in my head so I wasn't exactly sure that what I was doing was correct, but once I started knitting it it became clear to me. It actually took me 3 tries before I got it right and could start the actual pattern work (I kept losing my stitches when I would unzip the provisional cast on -- my fix for this was to put the needle through the stitches and then unzip -- took more maneuvering of the yarn, but it was only 3 stitches so it wasn't that bad). But it could have been worse.

You can see the fruit of my labors in the picture below. Pretty nice eh? (:{ Notice the wonderful lifeline, and the nice arch of the semi-circle.

The only complaint I have so far is that I've already run into some yarn yuckyness and had to cut it out and re-attach the yarn. I really hate when that happens. I see a complaint letter to elann.com in my future. But other than that, so far, so good.
And I'll be sure not to make the same mistake I made with my first attempt at lace work: I will not bring it to Stitch and Bitch. Lest I get to talking and mess up all my beautiful stitches. This is strictly a quiet me time knitting project due to the concentration I want to give it. And yes, because of this I may not finish by the wedding, but I will finish. (:{