Here's where it gets deep.

The day I realized there'd be 52 days left before I left for college, I started counting down with a deck of playing cards, arranged from 2s to aces: spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts. When I first clipped the two of spades to a hanging magnetic basket next to my monitor, I was about as gung-ho about leaving as anyone could be. I was going to Philly, my already-adopted new home, and away from everything I considered a "problem". In Philly, my mom couldn't get mad at me for not putting away the laundry, my art teacher couldn't tell me I was devoting too much time to academics (even if I take an art class, I'm going to an Ivy League school...), and I wouldn't have to watch my grandparents suffer and die. In Philly, I'll have a great gelato place within walking distance, classes that interest me, opportunities to date some of the brightest young gentlemen in existence, and a roommate who has agreed to put up with my yarn stash.

I'm up to the five of hearts now, and I'm not so sure. I don't know what it is that prompted such a change. Maybe it's noticing how sick my grandma is or how much I miss my friends, even when I've only not seen them in a few weeks. Hell, maybe it's the idea that my entire stash just can't come with me. I can just envision it: My parents show up after a 3-hour car ride, bag of yarn in hand. "Nooooooo, mom! It's not THAT purple merino. It's the superwash! Now I won't be able to start my sweater for another month!" Perhaps, though, it's the idea that I'm going to have to start over again. Everything I've established during the last 18 years just won't mean much. It's time to start over, make new friends, develop new interests, and prove myself to a whole new set of people.

This should be interesting.

My grandpa died this morning. After about three years of terrible sickness that transformed him from the 78-year-old man who beat 35-year-olds at tennis into someone who could not walk, could not swallow, and could not leave his bed, he is finally not suffering any more. I love him with all my heart, and right now I'm just too sad to be thinking about Project 365, which will return as soon as everything has settled down.

I intended to write more, but I don't know if I really have much to say right now. Thanks, everyone, for reading, and I'll be back with more pictures soon.

Project 365 1/4/09

Photo of the bread my mom and I made today that I'm painting for AP art. Proooobably not going to be done on time. *snoooore*



P.S. I'm totally cheating. It's actually 2:41 AM on the 5th, but I forgot to post earlier. I did take the photo on the 4th though!

From Now On

I think that I have not blogged to my full potential. Having read some truly excellent blogs lately, I've been coming up with tons of ideas, and I have decided to try going in a new direction. Instead of just trying to post about projects or the yarns and rovings I've dyed with occasional interjections of (gasp!) real life, I think I'll spend a bit more time discussing exactly how knitting relates to the things I, a 17-year-old "yarn tycoon" (thank you, Valin), do every day.

In the same vein, I present Molly 2009, as inspired by the Knitmore Girls.

But first: Molly 2008. Molly 2008 was generally pretty unhappy, disorganized in certain respects, and unusually forgetful (for me). Molly 2008 focused too much on the things that weren't working out for her and let her stresses get the best of her. In order to remedy the shortcomings of Molly 2008 and become a generally happier human being, Molly 2009 will do the following:

Enjoy my artwork.
I remember there being a point at which I would draw and paint because it was something I loved to do rather than something I knew I loved but wasn't enjoying. I have chosen my AP art concentration, and I will stick with it until pigs fly. That's right, no more caring when people tell me that certain pieces aren't good enough. What I get on the AP doesn't mean anything if I hate working on the pieces because it's hard to really like a piece that you didn't enjoy making.

Take more photos.
The last year has gone strangely undocumented, especially for someone who always used to carry around a camera. Yeah...think that about covers that one.

Spend more time with friends.
'Nuff said.

Read at least one book from "the stack" each month.
When you have a huge stack of books that you bought because you want to read them, it doesn't make much sense that you're too busy to do it because you have too much (school) reading to do. I think I'll start with The Other Boleyn Girl even though my copy has the movie cover, and I hate movie covers.

Find and catalogue every. single. skein. of. yarn.
Because it's a mess. Really, that's all. And my room looks like a yarn shop (not that that's a bad thing!).

Wear colors that make me happy.
Being a colorful sort of person (note the yarn that I dye), I find that wearing colors I like tends to generally brighten my day. More hot pink. More brown. More of the Knit Picks colorway Asparagus (in WoTA) even though they don't make it any more.

More orange juice!

More PJs!

Spend more quality time with my mom before I leave.
Because now that the adjacent room is clean, she likes me better.

Think more productively.
Because for someone who thinks all the time (all the time.), I don't tend to think of anything all that useful. Less thinking about bad stuff.

Lighten up.

Project 365
More about that tomorrow.

Aaaand that's all I've got for now. Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Edited to add!
Molly 2009 will learn more of the things she wants to learn and teach the things she knows to other people who want to know them. This year I will teach one of my friends basic photo skills (he asked), I will teach someone to knit (if it kills me), and I will tell everyone who asks everything they want to hear about all the "weird" stuff I do (because wool is a "weird" thing to like when you're 17). I will learn intarsia, how to spin on a wheel, and how to cook new and interesting things, especially ones that'll be easy to cook in college kitchens. I will take a class at Penn that's totally impractical but that I know I'll love, and if I can get my hands on a loom, I'll learn to weave. I might even try to learn to sew something that isn't made out of an old t-shirt or jeans. Who knows?

I am alive! I promise!

It's just that...APs and my research paper kind of ate my life for a while.

But I am back!

Possibly with vengeance!

Or maybe I'll disappear for another two and a half weeks. It could go either way.

I think my problem is that this blog is really only about fiber, which doesn't suit my personality very well.

So...about me...lately (**WARNING** RANT **WARNING**). Honestly, everything here isn't so great. My family is a bit of a mess due to my grandma's fourth cancer surgery. There's been a lot of fighting, and, being a kid, there's nothing I can do but watch. On top of that, my favorite teacher refused to let me make up an essay because I missed it while I was sick and didn't know about it. I was really sick, and I missed school so that I could be there for HIS musical (I'm a techie). Now, no matter how hard I work, my well-deserved (I work hard. Really hard.) almost perfect average is going to decrease by several points. Right now it's more than ten points below where it should be because of the zero factored into my grade. There's nothing I can do about this either because I had planned on having him write one of my college recommendation letters. I can't go over his head, and I can't try to find a way around it. I've been sad almost non-stop for three days, and all I want to do is sit around and eat and buy several hundred dollars worth of stuff on etsy and listen to Pride and Prejudice on CraftLit. I don't want to knit, crochet, dye, spin, or make jewelry or stitch markers. I can't concentrate on my homework, and I can't fall asleep. My parents are sleeping, and my boyfriend's computer died in the middle of our conversation (again), and at 3:32 AM, there's no one to talk to. I don't feel like myself at all, and that's what I want more than anything.

Well, now that I've shared way too many personal feelings with "teh interwebz," I'm going to go try and do a bit more work and maybe see if I can get some sleep. Hopefully my next post will be a bit happier in tone with pictures of the wonderful things Beth at WhorlingTides sent me for my birthday and news on new etsy posts (I plan to do a lot of them as soon as I get a chance).

Anyway, faithful readers: good night.

I won't be getting any Knitwars points for this.

No pictures today, so no Knitwars points for me. Hmmf.

Well, the last few days have been pretty uneventful in terms of knitting because I've been spending a lot of time in the hospital with my mom (who's fine now) and my grandpa (who's doing alright for now) . I did do some work on Shedir and will hopefully get around to posting some pictures soon. I hope I'll be able to finish it sometime before my friend's next birthday because it is the SLOWEST HAT EVER.

You meet interesting people when you knit in a hospital. One woman asked me whether what I was doing was knitting or crochet. This didn't come as a surprise to me, as I've heard many stories of this, though I've never been asked about it myself. What did surprise me was that the woman who asked me then said that she loved to knit. Another woman I spoke to had never seen a circular needle before, even though she had knit several sweaters. Are circular needles really that new? I guess, being a younger knitter, I take such things for granted. Some people I spoke to were impressed with the idea of DPNs, too, tough I'm sure they've been around for a long time. To be completely honest, I don't really want to think of a time when circular knitting wasn't an option...eeegh.

On a lighter note, I'll be starting the entrelac socks from Interweave Knits Spring 2007 in the not-too-distant future because a wonderful family friend (who also knits) offered (well, no...she kind of insisted, but I'm not complaining) to buy the sock yarn of my choice as a birthday present. My birthday is in May, but she said that's okay. At the moment I'm stuck between Louet Gems and Shibui Sock. Knitters are the nicest people in the whole entire world...for the most part...I've met some that aren't so nice, but they're definitely in the minority.

Well, I think it's time for me to have some ice cream and start getting ready for bed. If you read this, let me know what you think. I'm very new to this whole knitblogging thing.

Thank you, and have a nice day. :)

Bandwagon, Hive Mind, etc.

So why a knitblog? Why just one more knitblog when there are so many perfectly good ones out there?

This is why:

Sure it's kind of creepy that I found one skein of ridiculously expensive sock yarn so gooooorgeous that inspired me to make a knitblog...but...but...but...yarnpr0nz!?!

No, that doesn't work for you?

Errr, well, it's pretty. It also made yesterday, which could have been a really bad day, a whole lot better. I won't bore you with the story of my whole day, but I will say that I took 4.5 hours worth of SAT, found out my mom was in the hospital for a minor surgery, and got in a pretty bad fight (verbal, I assure you, I'm far too weak and spazzy for any other type). After all that, my dad bought me girl scout cookies (mmm) and took me to the LYS, which was probably a bad idea on his part because I was mad, and he was paying. I bought two skeins of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino to make Shedir from the Knitty breast cancer awareness mini issue for my best friend's birthday, four skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight in navy for Henry (also) from Knitty, one skein of Reynold's Andean Alpaca Regal in the Cranberry colorway for a hat, and, of course, that Schaefer Anne, which I may use for a pair of Pomotomus...Pomotomi...something like that, which also comes from Knitty.

I should probably let you know about some of my WIPs, but that would take a while because I am definitely a process knitter. Check out my Ravelry page (link is that-a-way >>>) if you'd like to see some of my past and current projects.

So I guess a more in depth "About Me" than the one you'll see to your right is in order. My name is Molly. I am a young but very avid knitter who especially enjoys KIP-ing around high school and confusing those who don't know that knitting is actually very cool. It's possible that I'm really as big a dork as they think I am...in fact, I'm pretty sure I am. My mom likes to tell people the story of the time she walked into my room without knocking and found me abruptly turning off the monitor. Your average high schooler might be buying drugs or looking at pornography, but no, not I. My vice? Excessive stash, perhaps. Knitting when I'm supposed to be doing other things? Too many "Just one more row!"-s? I believe that was the time she realized I was an addict.

Now, I've only been knitting for about a year and a half, but when I start doing something, I get really, really into it. I'm almost entirely self-taught through various internet sources, so I was able to learn as quickly as I wanted. After about a three days, I bound off my first scarf (turquoise acrylic, some garter stitch, a bit of ribbing, and about six inches long) taught myself to cable, and made a belt...which I never finished because it's 80% acrylic. That's when I realized I was a fiber snob. Ever since then it's really been downhill. My stash has grown to fit a shelf and two drawers (not to mention the 10+ WIPs...), which is a lot when your stuff is confined to a room and a half or so, and I knit all the time and everywhere. Add this to an AP-heavy high school workload, and I don't get much sleep, so if my rambling is incoherent at times, that's why.

I think that's enough for now. I'll post...when I feel like it! Yeah, that sounds good. Questions, comments, concerns, etc.: leave a comment! Just don't ask if you can lick my Schaefer Anne. It is mine and all mine and no one else can lick it. :D