So I found this poor, neglected blog update on my thumbdrive, and though it best to post it here on my shiny new wordpress blog. The file was dated November 11, so I would imagine that was when I wrote it, but one can never be too sure.
I’m trying to be a diligent blogger, really, I am. It’s just that I have so many other pressing activities going on at the same time—for example; school is kicking my proverbial arse this semester. Not in the context of difficulty, because all the classes I’m taking right now are introductory-level. Fall has simply been chock-full of major life events.
In order:
1. I moved into a new apartment with my boyfriend, after having lived at home for the past two years, after having had a horrific, messy breakup with my ex-boyfriend (Did that make sense? Yeah, not to me, either). This was strange on two levels: First being that I am no longer used to sharing housework with so few people. I used to live with four other people—now I live with two. This may not seem like a huge difference, but trust me, it is. Second: It would be a VAST understatement to say that my last cohabitating relationship left a bad taste in my mouth. Now, I love Adam very much, and even though I know, through my razor-sharp powers of logic, that my last relationship failed because of reasons other than the sharing of living space, it is still slightly frightening to be moving in with a boyfriend again. So far, so good, though. I would even go so far as to say it has been incredibly lovely.
2. My grandfather passed away in September, the first of my close family to do so. He was, at one point, very close to me, and had been sick for a very long time, so his death did not come as a surprise, but his funeral (in the typical style of family gatherings on my mother’s side) was a time for remembering his life, and all the good times, and what have you. Now generally, I think this is exactly the way to go when orchestrating a memorial service. However, I sort of skipped out on the last three or so years of my grandfather’s life. I had never had anyone close to me fall ill, and I did not know how to deal with it, so in typical Cora-style, I avoided that which made me nervous. So in conclusion, the entire ordeal left me feeling like a huge jerk. This, coupled with the fact that I had not spent much time mourning for my grandfather while he was alive, meant that the full force of his death hit me all at once, sort of like a pile of bricks, if you will.
3. I haven’t technically started a new job, but I’m back at a job I was laid off from last winter. The job isn’t particularly stressful, but I’m a very nervous person as a rule, so any new (or newish) job makes me a bit anxious for the first few months.
4. The father of a friend of mine also passed away a couple weeks ago, after a year-long battle with cancer. Obviously very sad, and made worse by the fact that his illness could have possibly been alleviated—or even avoided altogether—with simple health insurance that should have been provided by the VA. Not surprisingly, he was denied benefits on some silly technicality, and then buried military-style; a neatly folded flag gifted to his widow like some perverse souvenir of corruption.
But I digress. This is a craftblog, am I right? In that vein, let’s get to the crafting, and/or yarn porn!
So I dragged my sweet, fiber-compassionate boyfriend with me to Rhinebeck, and WOW. I was not prepared. I managed to curb my spending relative to my starving student budget ($50, if anyone’s counting), and came away with some lovely hand-painted merino/mohair roving (no pictures, I devoured it too quickly), which became:
my first navajo-plied yarn (w00t!), which, in turn, became:
Urchin, by Ysolda, size large—sort of.
Knit in my own handspun (Bulky to, er, bulkier weight. Let’s just say I’m still working on evenness.)
Mods: Due to my general unwillingness to swatch and the…creative nature of the yarn, I ended up casting on the recommended number of stitches for a size large, and then worrying I would run out of yarn until I realized the beret was large enough to go around my head with only seven wedges, and slouchy enough to satiate my need for hats that hide the teeniness of my head. I even had enough yarn left over to crochet up a couple jaunty flowers!
Notes: Once again, I LOVE YSOLDA. That’s pretty much all I have to say, except to note that this was my first Navajo-plied yarn, and I think it’s pretty damned good.
I also nabbed some un-dyed tussah silk roving, and this:
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL YARN IN THE WORLD. Seriously. Srsly. I’ve heard people say things like this, and I thought they were just rationalizing, but this yarn SPOKE to me, as can be clearly seen in this photograph:
It called my name. If I were a dude, I would have had an enormous erection over this yarn. I totally didn’t even care that it was $26 for 250-ish yards. I have no idea what I’ll do with it—maybe use it to swaddle my firstborn.
For anyone following the Great Socktoberfest Saga of 2007, I finished my socks…last night. Somehow “Sockvemberfest” just doesn’t have the same ring, but I do quite like them, so I suppose there’s no harm done.
No too much to say here. They’re Jaywalkers, they fit, they’re not very stretchy. ONline SuperSocke Holiday colorways rule.
