libertine knits

New!

2011-11-26T19:48:00.001-07:00

New!, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

New!

Turkey

2011-11-24T18:54:00.001-07:00

Turkey, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Turkey

Desk, before

2011-11-20T12:52:00.001-07:00

Desk, before, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Desk, before

Habitat

2011-11-18T22:40:00.001-07:00

Habitat, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Habitat

Finished Habitat

2011-11-18T19:24:00.001-07:00

Finished Habitat, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Finished Habitat - excuse the crazy face, my phone's camera is super slow.

View from my office

2011-11-10T16:10:00.001-07:00

View from my office, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

View from my office

Pumpkins

2011-10-31T20:13:00.001-06:00

Pumpkins, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Pumpkins

Apple pear pie

2011-10-31T19:10:00.001-06:00

Apple pear pie, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Apple pear pie

Before the snow starts...

2011-10-25T17:17:00.001-06:00

Before the snow starts..., originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Before the snow starts...

2011-10-22T19:30:00.001-06:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

2011-10-22T19:29:00.001-06:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Zombie

2011-10-22T15:35:00.001-06:00

Zombie, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Zombie

2011-10-18T20:21:00.001-06:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

2011-10-16T12:43:00.001-06:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

2011-10-16T12:42:00.001-06:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

2011-10-16T12:39:00.001-06:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Hey there.

2011-10-10T14:03:00.001-06:00

We're (mostly) settled into the new place. I have yet to uncover my storage container with my needles in it... but I know it's somewhere around here. I keep putting things away so they don't get damaged or so "I know where they are..." But, of course, I promptly forget where I put them to be safe, so that plan isn't really working out well.

I think I managed to ~~complete~~ finish knitting ONE whole project in the month of September:

A vest for the lovely Norah.

I still haven't managed to block, weave in ends, or sew on buttons yet. I just found buttons a few days ago in my jars, so I need to get on that considering it should already be in the mail now! Derp!

I started a new job as well. I really like it so far and I hope it goes well. I'd like to be somewhere good for a while so I can feel like a normal person for a while.

I'm still here

2011-09-11T13:00:00.001-06:00

Wow. I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. I've been cameraless most of the summer, with brief moments of it working perfectly...

And then totally dead again. Being cameraless means that there aren't as many random quickie photos for me to blog about. I've also been severely slacking on my knitting. I haven't knit a stitch since Thursday and that was the first time I had touched it almost a week. I'm trying to finish a hooded scarf before the end of the month for a friend's mom. I really need to get on that one! It's been my traveling project, but car knitting hasn't been very appealing to me lately.

It's been a busy summer. Got a new job - for all of 3 weeks. Now I'm hunting again. We signed a lease on a new place on Friday. I'll be living in the next town over and leaving Boulder's odd little bubble for the first time in 4 years. Bug (and Vince) have moved to New York, so my wee doggie love is gone which was heartbreaking beyond belief. Luckily, at the new place, I can get a Shiba face and have fur everywhere again. I've been hiking a lot, which is wonderful. We did 2 hikes this week, one on Labor Day that was about 10-11 miles, and then one on Friday that was about 6-7. It's been great getting into RMNP so often. That $80-annual-any-National-park-pass has already paid for itself.

September is my 10-year knitting anniversary. Since I'm moving, I've had a lot of interaction with the stash, which is always interesting. There are things that I've found that I can instantly match up with the idea of what it was going to become and others just make me tilt my head like a confused puppy. Our new place isn't all that large, so I'm thinking I'm going to end up having to get a small storage unit somewhere. I don't want to live in a crowded apartment again after being in this tiny place for 2 years.

I'm off to pack more! Most of the stash is in the car right now and I need to drop it off at the storage place we have right now for the contents of my place. Sadly, move out/in dates didn't line up well, so I'll be living out of a suitcase at Blaine's until our place is ready.

On the hunt

2011-06-28T17:42:00.000-06:00

I'm job searching again since I've decided to stay in Boulder until at least December. After that, it's all up in the air. I have no idea if I'll stay here, a lot of that will depend on what kind of job I can find. If I'm honest with myself, I made the decision to move back East under stressful circumstances. I was battling severe depression and social anxiety. I hadn't really left my apartment on a functional level in months. I wasn't seeing my friends. I wasn't even really knitting that much, at least, I didn't actually finishing much of anything.

It's a struggle even now to maintain a "normal" life and schedule. The last 2 weeks have been rough. I've been sociable. I've seen friends and done things, but my schoolwork has been slipping. I need to get this in check seeing as classes end this Friday and I need at least a C- in both of them. I don't know what's going on and why my brain isn't working correctly right now, I can't find a certain trigger that's making me struggle again. I'm just trying to get myself back in gear and gain some motivation back.

Making huge life decisions when I can't figure out what to eat for dinner most days isn't the wisest thing. I was trying to get out of Colorado so badly, I wasn't dealing with the fact that Colorado isn't really the issue. I am. So I am going to finish this part of my life. I'm going to stay, finish school, no matter how much I am struggling through it. I just want to be done with it, but I've lost all of momentum. I lost it when I started at CU. I try to get it back at the beginning of each semester, but soon enough, I lose it again. I don't know why. It's not boredom, I enjoy the classes I'm taking. I find the classes interesting, I just have issues.

So I'm applying for a lot of jobs in the hopes that I find something that will allow me to move into an apartment with an actual bedroom and perhaps allow me to have a dog. I don't want to live like a deranged college student anymore. I kind of miss being an adult. I miss being able to call friends for an impromptu dinner or evening out. And being able buy yummy yarns. That whole being able to pay bills and maybe knock off a chunk of students loans would be nice too.

Estes Park

2011-06-11T19:15:00.001-06:00

img023.jpg, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

Had a blast at the festival. Tired now. Nap needed.

End of May roundup

2011-05-29T19:15:00.001-06:00

I was just commenting on a friend's blog and realized how many WIPs I have. Not that this is anything new, but it's something that always annoys me, and I continue to do it!

1st - Hey, Teach! I knit this SO fast and have not touched it since April 25th. No reason for that, just sheer laziness about not wanting to do shaping. And the shaping isn't even that hard!! I have the sleeves done to the caps, the fronts do to the sleeve shaping, and the back is completely done. It would take a long movie to finish the knitting. Then it needs to be seamed and blocked before the button band is added.

2nd - Dandy Neckerchief This honestly could be anywhere between 70-995 complete. I can pick how large I want it to be and since I haven't decided yet, I haven't worked on it! Stupid. This is another thing I could easily finish in a night if I just made my mind up about the size. I'll have enough of the yarn left for matching mittens and probably a hat.

3rd - Pole I only have the sleeves left. Those haven't been started yet because I want to add some short rows to the caps so the fit is more appealing. This is a few hours work of work, but it's still sitting there, waiting to be finished. The body has been done since May 15th. I really would like to finish this before June 1, but I don't know if that will happen given my work schedule and some work I need to get done for a class.

4th - Eskimo This poor thing hasn't been touched since fall! I flew through the back and the first half of the front panels, but then I left for Christmas break and didn't want to take it with. After Christmas, there were just too many new things to knit! Part of my slowness is also due to the fact that I've almost had to redesign the entire sweater since I'm using such an odd yarn.

5th - A hooded scarf This is for my friend's mom. Unfortunately, there aren't any great patterns that I've found for this item. I'm sort of making it up as I go using ideas from two different patterns. We'll see how that goes.

Written out it seems like a manageable amount of work, but also a lot of work at the same time! I also have to make the Hexacomb cardigan to wear to a wedding on June 10th. I might not be able to accomplish that, but I'm going to try. Which means I really should go dig for my contrast yarn... I thought it was in the in-apartment stash, but I can't find it anywhere.

I have finished a few things lately:

My 7th hat for 11 hats in 2011 - Lotus hat

This was NOT a fun knit, but that's down to the yarn I used and my inability to count.

My 8th hat for 11 hats in 2011 - Appalachia
It was a really fun knit and the decreases on the crown are really cleverly done.

Hiphip Hurray!

2011-05-21T13:29:00.005-06:00

Today is my 4 year Ravelversary!

In the 4 years since Ravelry has come around, I've logged 282 projects (that number could actually be much higher because I didn't start keeping track of everything, including random dishcloths, until this year).

I've finished my first sweater, my second sweater, and a few others by now.

I have learned how to do crazy new things and how to improve on things I learned the first night I struggled with ugly purple yarn and shiny needles.

From my first project logged into to Ravelry to the one I completed last night for a massive KAL/CAL group, I've had learned so much and have spent more hours than I care to count on those green and white pages.

www.flickr.com

Jesmy's knitting photoset

Snitch

2011-05-14T01:12:00.000-06:00

I'm a big geek and am doing a Harry Potter thing on Ravelry. This weekend was the first Quidditch match and the assignment was to make a Golden Snitch. Luckily, I had just pulled a bunch of tapestry wool out of the stash earlier this week and had the prefect colors.

Byebye

2011-04-29T17:05:00.002-06:00

April 24, 2011, originally uploaded by Jesmy.

I sent my FLS to the great frogpond in the sky Sunday night. I tried to make it work, but there was no way this thing was ever going to fit me right.

Oops...

2011-04-10T13:42:00.000-06:00

I started another sweater.

I'm mad at my FLS which is about 2 hours work away from being done, but I'm still angry at it and can't really work on it right now even though it somehow keeps creeping onto the middle of my couch overnight.

My Eskimo got a whole bunch of love and attention in November and is embarrassingly close to being mostly done too, but I haven't touched it yet this year. Well, I did shove the rest of the yarn into the bag when I stash sorted earlier this year, but I don't think that really counts for much. It's such a fast knit with that giant yarn and giant needles, but I'm a lazy ass, so I haven't done anything with it in ages. I suspect that my urge to knit it will return when it's 104 degrees outside, or whenever I rescue my bike from it's winter storage place behind my couch. The Eskimo and it's bag of wonders are currently living on my bike.

So instead of working on either of those or finishing the Lotus hat, I decided that I needed to cast on another sweater. (The Pole doesn't count yet. I just did the back section to make sure my yarn/gauge was right. There's an official KAL in my knitting group that kicks off in about 2 weeks.) Granted, it's a sweater that's been in my queue almost as long as I've been on Ravelry (my Ravelversary is coming up soon, I shall try not to forget it again this year!) and the year I'm using has been in the stash since 2007 as well... But since I'm a spaz and tend to buy yarn, print the patterns, and then never actually pair the two together to MAKE the sweater, I still had both floating around. Since I'm planning a big move in August and would rather pack boxes full of sweaters, hats, and other knitted items than yarn, I'm really trying to get some FOs in the bag this year.

I was also peer-pressured by Lauren. Okay, not really, the sweater was already on my to-knit list for the year and I had thought seriously about starting in March or April.

It's going quite fast. I took it to a movie preview thing on Thursday and got the back done up to the ribbing on the waist during that. I'd never knit in the movies before, but since we had to be there for a while before the movie started, I thought I'd give it a go. Emily brought her green thing along, and we both knit away for a long time. The girl sitting next to Emily asked if we'd keep knitting once the lights went down which was kind of funny. I didn't really think that people around us might find two young women knitting in a theatre while waiting for a stoner comedy to start odd or different... But then again, I've been knitting for almost 10 years and don't really notice it when other people are doing it in non-knitty places. I could keep knitting in the dark, since I was just doing row after row of stockinette. I basically just went until my hands got sore, which turned out to be exactly the right length. Go me! I did the shaping and the ribbing once I got home and was going to start the lace portion on top, but then realized my pattern had printed without the lace chart. I'm still clueless how that happened, but it's a happy accident because I was able to print the chart on a sheet by itself and was able to make it quite large, so I can read it much easier. In the meantime, since getting the printer attached to the computer can sometimes be annoying, I cast on for the fronts and did a few inches of those.

I got through the first repeat of the chart last night. It was one of those lessons for me where I just had to breathe and trust that the chart, the designer, and the 2003 people who have knit it are smarter than me. It all worked out fine, in fact, the only part that I messed up and had to redo was something that I just miscounted. I'm hoping I can get another big chunk on of it done today. I do have some actual school work to do, but I can probably knit at my desk and get a few rows in here and there.