Recharging

I've got a pile of knitting to share.

It's been months. MONTHS.

I finally ordered a new camera charger.

This is the dawning of a new age, y'all.

There's always something...

I can't find my camera charger.

It's the one thing post-moving that i'd really like to locate. I'm about 99% unpacked at my new place. I've got luxuries like a bed skirt, candles and plants all taken care of. I'm in the process of hanging art.

And of course I can't share any of it because I can't find my camera charger! I've been knitting lots of small projects this summer; socks and market bags mostly. I've got sage green socks waiting to be photographed and a bright teal cotton bag on the needles. Of course, my camera is dead.

That's the thing about moving so much as a young 20-something college grad. 18 hits and you become a sort of transitive personality in so many way. Each year can bring an entirely different personality, group of friends and set of expectations. Freshman year quickly becomes a post-grad existence which consists of lugging Ikea furniture from dorm to studio apartment. Jobs change, friends take jobs in different states, and moving becomes a significant chore. Whether for a job, a significant other, or just because, moving is an upheaval. And let's face it, it really sucks.


This is the 4th time I've moved since graduating in June of '09. I am hoping that I will stay in my lovely studio apartment in Andersonville for at least 2 years. I'm nesting, so to speak - drilling holes in to the wall signifies a sort of permanence. My goal for today is to finish putting up shelves and finally unpack my yarn.

Once my crafting supplies are finally unpacked this place will be home. Hopefully for a while.

And hopefully I'll find that last missing piece...my camera charger!

I'm like Houdini, only more sporadic

I'm back. Again. And guess what? I've moved, again. Life has been so crazy in the last year sometimes I feel like I'm just along for the ride, holding onto a run-away trainwreck for dear life.

In late March I realized I needed a change. Living alone in a rural area of Illinois was taking a toll on me, physically and emotionally. My friends were in Chicago and Michigan, my family in Evanston and my partner at the time in New Orleans. I thought I should "stick it out" and stay in Putnam, but after losing almost 35lbs I realized how unhappy I was.

So I moved. And started over again. That's one of the joys of being 23 -the only baggage I have is my student loans and mini-menagerie of animals. No mortgage, no kids, just aging dogs and a vague sense of what I wanted.

I'm getting there, finally. I just moved to a studio in Edgewater  and am working two part time jobs. I'm trying to figure out how to organize my stash, sewing machine and spinning wheel into my "craft nook", already have my bookshelves in place and have found the closest (and truly amazing) place to find craft beer. I'm also a 20 minute walk away from Hopleaf, one of the most amazing beer bars I've ever seen and am fully enjoying eating and drinking my way through the North Side of Chicago.

My time in the country was certainly not ill spent. It gave me a lot of time to analyze what I want, to come to terms with my goals, feelings and outlook on life. It strengthened some relationships  and illuminated the need to move on from others.

The biggest struggle I have faced since graduating in 2009 is how to synthesize all the aspects of my personality. I knit. I brew beer. I love living simply but I also love shoes. I am a feminist who likes gentlemently men and romance. I am a feminist who takes very little crap from people. I love dogs more than I like most people, but love dressing up and going to social functions. Like most people, I am full of contradictions. Trying to figure out who I am is an exciting and terrifying journey, but I am very glad to be able to do so in Chicago, surrounded by amazing friends and opportunities. And also really good yarn stores and bars.

Tips of the Trade - on Recycling Sweaters

More from the sweater obsessed, recycling savvy, simple living girl currently buried under a pile of yarn. I've been doing nothing but working and spinning. Get up. Drink coffee and spin. Check email. Spin. Unravel sweater. Spin. Go to work and think about spinning. Come home and spin.

A year or so ago I posted some great links on how to unravel sweaters. Unfortunately I can't find that post now so I thought this topic was worth revisiting! So many of us are self-professed thrift store addicts, including whole groups on Ravelry dedicated to this very topic. Yet, if you are just joining the dark side, er, the thrift store loving crowd it can be frustrating. Where to do you get the best sweaters? How do you know which ones are worth it?

You may be thinking, "This isn't fun! I just spent an entire episode of "Lost" trying to unravel a shoulder seam. I'm surrounded by pieces of yarn, scissors, and empty beer bottles. How am I ever going to get a skein of yarn out of this #$%^ing sweater?"
This is normal. First, pick up the beer bottles and put them in the recycling. Then, get more beer. We don't want people to think you're a lush or weird sweater crazed cat lady (glances at cats), so cleaning up is key!

Second, check out these links. Read them. Take them to heart. You don't have to learn from your mistakes, learn from ours.

• Here is a GREAT and picture heavy tutorial. Read it and weep (with joy). 
• A great intro to recycling sweaters, including "good seams and bad seams" from the Twice Sheared Sheep. 
• A great Ravelry post from the Thrifty Knitters group to help guide your first cuts. 
• And yet another great tutorial!

Third, get another beer. Put on another episode of "Lost," and dive in. Here are some tips from the cave of sweaters past, and yarny goodness present!

1.  It is okay to cut sweaters. Seriously. If you have weird shoulder angles, or a neckline that just won't cooperate don't beat yourself up over it. Shears are your friend. In drastic cases I'll cut a straight line across a sweater and just start unravelling from right above the armpits. The remainder can be felted and used for cat toys, quilts, or other small projects. It can even be *gasp* thrown away. Keep in mind wool can also be composted, and scraps can be thrown out for the birds to use in their nests!
2. Don't unravel sweaters you don't love. It's just a chore. If you can't wait to get the balls of yarn skeined and in your grubby little yarn loving hands, don't bother. Save the time for that deep blue, heavily cabled Aran sweater in men's XXL you saw at the Salvation Army. That is worth it.  
3. Speaking of cables, they are your friend. As a knitter you know how much yarn cables take. So, if you can find a cabled sweater in a nice quality wool you've hit gold. Buy it. Have fun.  
4. It is alright to buy sweaters with surged shoulder seams. You've already learned how to spot serged seams, and don't buy sweaters with surged side seams. Shoulder seams, can, however, be chopped off. See 1. 
5. This is a great time of year to dive in. Everyone is going through their clothes and downsizing. Salvation Army and Goodwill are overflowing with clothing, furniture, and sweaters. Ask me how I know this. 
6. . Most importantly, have fun. If you're unraveling sweaters and dreaming of Malabrigo, even your simple-living heart might not be contented by the outcome. However, if you can enjoy the process, save some money, and still love your new knitting yarn, recycling sweaters may be a new addiction.

Making

I don't buy yarn, I buy sweaters.

I realized during this move that I can't remember the last time I went to a yarn store. I ordered some yarn from knitpicks.com, but it was for a Christmas present. As a general rule, the only way I "buy" yarn is from recycling sweaters.

Clearly I am not at a loss for yarn: I have skeins of wool, silk, linen and cotton stacked in boxes and stuffed into corners. Yarn turns up in unexpected places. I seriously don't need more yarn, and yet I keep finding myself unraveling another cardigan and carefully skeining  the reclaimed wool.

It's the process. I like making. I like creating something beautiful from something decidedly unattractive. I like admiring cables, or lace, only to see it melt into a pool of kinky, soft wool, then knit back into an afghan or a stole. I like thinking outside the box, and taking the simple act of reusing and reducing to a new and creative level.

For me, it's the ultimate act of simple living to give something a new purpose; to make something beautiful out of an every day object. But it also guides me to attempt this on my own life. I quit my job because I wasn't happy and now I must examine the parts of my personality and put them back together. What do you want? What are your goals, your desires, your abilities? How we knit these pieces together is as simple and essential an act as putting needle to wool, and creating.

The idea of breaking something apart, admiring it, and then rebuilding it seems like an important life lesson. Too often we reach for what is simply on the shelf, or what is popular, or perhaps what is familiar. This has gotten me into trouble throughout my life. We follow roads that are expected, and stock our lives with finished products. Now that I find myself soul-searching, unraveling each sweater is an act of meditation and rebirth. I examine the whole, question the parts, and put it back together as something new, something exciting, and something I have created.

I don't buy yarn, I buy sweaters. And from those sweaters, anything is possible.

A time of growth

The last few months have been insane. Hectic, wild, wonderful, horrible…overall a bittersweet learning experience that continues every second of every day. I’ve made a lot of decisions and continue to live in a state of flux.

 This state of confusion, flux, transition and learning has brought me back to Chicago six months after I left. Under-employed and frustrated with my mother after only a week of staying with her while I get back on my feet, I feel I am the wiser for the decisions I have made and the events of the past six months.

Photo courtesy of jpctalbot via Flickr.com

Living in Putnam was a wonderful experience and I am already missing the starry sky, abundance of deer, and horse farm. However, I have learned the hard way that I am not cut out for the idyllic country life, if it means living alone. With Morgana’s broken leg, Merlin’s old age (he’s now 13), and Eric being in New Orleans, I found myself incredibly isolated, with too much responsibility and too many commitments. Too many bills, not enough friends. Too many hours at work because I had nothing else to do. I spent a lot of time joking that 2010 was the worst year ever. After all I had been (badly) bitten by a dog on New Year’s Eve, Morgana broke her leg in January, and it only seemed to go downhill from there. But, it was a heavy realization to comprehend that it would stay this way until I changed something. Armed with the William Blake line from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” I kept in mind that “he who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence,” and gave my notice, packed up, and moved back to the city to seek new employment, eat new food, and drink new beer.

  I am glad to be back. I did downsize drastically, and now find myself in a state of rebirth. It’s spring, after all. Spring is a time for the new and the exciting. I am a wiser person, whatever that means. And I feel a sense of true excitement in a way I haven’t felt for a while.  I’ve already found a great knitting group, reconnected with some old friends, and started a joint blog with Eric that I think will motivate me to new knowledge and make me get out more.

                Spring has sprung, and I’m on my way up!

Stashbusting

I am a knitter who does not like to have "stash." As a general rule I do not like a lot of clutter in my life, although I am predisposed to fold up brown paper bags for later use, save beer bottles for homebrew, and use old spaghetti sauce jars for everything from cat food containers to planters. I love reusing and repurposing, but I hate clutter.

This is a hard balance to find, and I often begin to err on the side of stuff. This is especially true when it comes to yarn. One ball turns into five; the box of yarn I've been carting around for the past several years is suddenly a 20 gallon Tupperware with the lid busting off. This yarn is saved for a sweater, that ball of wool for a certain hat pattern. Too quickly the beloved "stash" becomes "clutter", and a sense of horrid obligation replaces any actual enjoyment.

The bane of my existence is partial balls of yarn. What do you do with those balls that are too small for a whole project, but too big to throw away? Recently I have been favoring the put-them-all-in-a-big-ziploc-and-donate-them approach, but this is only due to serious spring cleaning, and a move in my near future.A lot of projects I see for stashbusting are again for things. I don't want a beer bottle cozy, or a cat toy or a headband. Those are simply more things I will forget to put away and that will end up in the box the cats drag their "prey" to. I want projects with a purpose.

Lately I have been favoring two major ways to de-stash, de-clutter, an really craft. The first is the Log Cabin square. Make a pillow, make a blanket, whatever you'd like. Just start knitting until you run out of yarn! The beauty of the log cabin technique is that it works beautifully with knitting, crocheting, quilting, and probably many other crafts as well! It's perfect for beautiful scraps of fabric, or those left-over stunning balls of hand-dyed yarn you've been hanging on to. My goal for the month of April is to knit another log cabin blanket like this one, and use up even more scraps. For now, gather up those odds and ends and check out some of these great log cabin instructions!

Knitting-And.com has very clear instructions for a basic log-cabin square: http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/afghans/log-cabin-square.htm

A great you-tube video from Mason Dixon Knitting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phn76Pt6ypY

And more great instructions from Mason Dixon Knitting, one of my favorite blogs! http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/2004_02.html

What are you waiting for? Log cabin blankets are perfect for stash busting. Pour yourself a glass of wine or a pint of beer, pop in your favorite DVD, and just start knitting!