Rainbow Knee High Socks

My mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas last year and instead of saying, "yarn" and sending her into a yarn shop with no clue what to buy I added 700 dollars worth of shit to my Knit Picks wish list and sent it off to her. Don't hate about the dollar amount, it was about having things on there for her to choose from, VARIETY.

Anyhoo, I added 4 balls of  Felici Self Striping yarn in Rainbow to the list. I wanted Rainbow knee highs.


BAD.

Lo and behold my mom picked the rainbow yarn, my mom rules everything. She's so smart.

What my sofa looked like during the holidays. Sorry family.

As soon as I finished my holiday knitting I decided to start on the Rainbow socks except my pattern disappeared. I decided to write my own. It was both harder and easier than I thought and educational. For now I'll leave pattern writing to the experts.

The socks turned out great. Here are some pics.

 My laptop sometimes does double-duty.

 I had to try it on. Disregard my dry ass legs, it's winter.

 Who doesn't love turning a heel?

 Detail of the decreases.

 OMG. This gusset was the worst thing ever.

Hey look, they match!

It took me 4 seasons of The West Wing (how I measure time) to make these. I'm super pleased with them and I get compliments on them. There is nothing more satisfying than saying "Thanks, I made them."

Finished.

New Ink

I will update on projects later. I've been seriously slacking on that, sorry.

I got a new tattoo last Friday and it fucking rocks!

Metal Mike at Tiger Rose Tattoo did an amazing job. I had been thinking about getting a knitting tattoo for years but had no idea what I wanted and doing a google image search for "Knitting tattoo" brings up a lot of yarn balls with knitting needles. I wanted something completely different.

When I finally decided that I was going to bite the bullet I emailed Mike and explained what I wanted and that I wasn't warm to the idea of having a ball of yarn and knitting needles. He replied saying not to worry about sending him pictures of tattoos from the internet but instead send him pictures of things I've made and like. I sent him pictures of my needles, a cake of yarn that I really liked, my scissors, other notions, and a very cool project I did. Here are some pictures.

The outline. My mom was so excited I had to text her this pic.

The top photo is Mike working. The bottom is the outline still being done.

Before color.

Finished.

I love that the needles look like Knit Picks Harmony's, the detail on the handle of the scissors is fantastic those scissors look like exactly like the ones in my knitting bag. The deathflake is a fair isle piece that I crashed and burned at but I still love the way it looks and I will make it again and I will succeed (you always have to get back on the horse). 

Time to finish this sweater I've had in my stash for a year now.

Pattern Writing.

So, I decided to write a pattern. Calm down, it's just for socks. The thing that lead me to writing the pattern was Rav, I could not for the life of me find a pattern for knee high socks that would accommodate my muscular calves. I like my knee socks fitted so they don't slip and literally nothing was to be found on Rav. I did find this guideline which has been super helpful. But math! I'm not great at math but I'm not terrible at it either.

So here I sit. Writing this pattern as I go, I've started decreases, my laptop now serves as a table on the sofa of doom to hold my notebook, pencil, eraser, and phone (it has a row counting app).

The good news is that after the first one is done the second one will be easy. Right?

This Post Has Nothing To Do With Knitting.

For a long time I have teetered on the edge of Atheism and Agnostic. Events in the last few days may have just shoved me right into Atheism. I pretty much abandoned faith a really long time ago, I've never prayed, I have relied on myself and family to get me through the hard times. I've never ha a problem with people who have faith, love Jesus, quote the Bible, and things like that. They are very free to believe whatever they want, it's not my business.

However.

Recent events in America have prompted some (not all) to scream that we need religion in school. Simply put, no we do not. If I want my children to read the Bible, pray, and all of the other things that go along with religious teachings, they will have those things. The separation of church and state are a thing. It is not OK to force religion on anybody, EVER. If you're so serious are about religion in school there is an option for you, private school. Those people are also operating under the assumption that Atheists and Agnostics have no morals. I assure you they do. In fact my Atheist friends in most cases have better moral compasses than my Christian friends (see: Loving their fellow man is #1 on this list). I am raising my children without a religious background, if they want to learn about God, religion, the Bible, I will most certainly provide them with the tools they need to make their own decision about God. So far though, they aren't curious.

The other elephant in the room these days is guns.

On Friday the 14th 28 people were murdered in an elementary school in Connecticut. I will not name the shooter here because quite frankly we all know his name.

Some are advocating arming teachers. Let's think about this for a second......

What if teachers don't want to be armed. Are people advocating the forced arming of teachers? Probably not but the implication is there. Would an armed teacher have saved lives? Maybe, maybe not. There is no way of knowing really.

I'm not a fan of guns, my extended family owns guns and they hunt. I'm ok with that. They are all responsible with their firearms. I personally reject guns, I don't want one, I don't need one. People keep telling me I need one because I live in a "high crime" area of Minneapolis, it's high crime because my part of Minneapolis is the one that makes the news when something horrible happens. That's another rant entirely. Just so naysayers are aware, the crime rate in Edina is higher than in my neighborhood of Minneapolis. They ask, "well what if someone breaks into your house?" I've had my house broken into twice in 15 years. If they steal my TV that's fine, I have homeowners insurance, being broken into is why I pay for it every month. I hope that person really needed the money they got for my possessions. If I had a gun in my home and it was stolen in one of those break ins it would have been another gun on the streets used to commit a violent crime. If somebody broke into my home while I was home, a gun would be completely worthless to me in part because I wouldn't have a loaded gun in my home, people who store loaded weapons are asking for trouble in my opinion. Even if I brandished a weapon at a potential intruder I doubt very much that I could fire the damn thing to defend myself, I could end up being pistol whipped and raped or something. These are all scenarios my husband and I have come up with when talking about getting a gun. We decided a gun just was not worth the trouble.

A real conversation on two topics needs to be had in this country though. A meaningful conversation about gun control needs to be had. I would endorse bringing back the assault rifle ban, maybe flagging ammo for large purchases, large capacity magazines have also got to go, gun shows need better regulation also. If anyone can provide me with any evidence that these requests are unreasonable I will gladly listen, but if you say "because Obama is Hitler and will march us all into death camps". I will lose my fucking mind. Obama expanded hunting on national parks and gave you .45 caliber ammo. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave him an F rating for failing to push gun legislation. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Obama and the liberals (count me in that group) don't want your guns, we want people to not get killed by guns anymore.

The other conversation we need to have, mental health. Most of these shootings are perpetrated by people who are mentally unstable. We do not value mental health as much as we should in this country. Depression, anxiety, other problems for people are so much more than those commercials that usually show what looks like a really sad person in their bathrobe, while a gentle voice tells us how the medication may make your loved one want to kill themselves anyway. Dealing with a loved one who has bi-polar disorder has shown me exactly how important mental health is. It's more than moping around in yor bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. It's not being able to quiet your brain down so you can have a single thought. It's knowing that your family loves you but not being able believe it because somewhere inside your head something is telling you it's a lie. It's being on a high swing and everything is fantastic and then you feel the downswing coming and you struggle against it because you don't like how you feel when you're down. These are things that people deal with every-damn-day and we treat it like they're just sad. I get sad, my family member does not get sad, that person gets emotionally, and mentally abusive to themselves. Watching it happen from the outside is difficult. You spend much of a downswing trying to convince someone that you love them and that you are just trying to help them, even though you know it is futile. You try to hold this person, you love so dearly, together. You  see the downswing coming, you prepare for it. Things that you normally say in jest are sometimes taken too seriously, you really concentrate on thinking before you speak to avoid a meltdown. This is not being sad, this is a goddamn disorder. We need to start talking about and treating these things. Mental health is just as important as physical health, yet we seem to value neither.

I am debating on turning the comments off for this post, keep it civil so I don't have too. Because as you all know, I'm lazy.

Why I Won't Knit You Anything.

I love knitting. LOVE IT. I hate knitting commission pieces. Anytime someone asks me if I will knit them a sweater or mittens or anything, I get a little cranky. The only exception to this rule is my mom. My mom can ask me to knit what ever she wants and I will happily oblige.

Reason #1.
You can't afford my time. I'm really not trying to sound like I'm full of myself the fact of the matter is you really cannot afford my time. After working on Norma for the last two weeks I figure I have roughly 52 hours invested in her. She is a gift for a family member for Christmas. If I was to knit something similar to Norma for someone and charge for my time (say minimum wage) they simply would not be able to afford the piece. I'm uncomfortable quoting people what my time would cost blah, blah, blah. Stop asking me. I'm more than happy to teach you to knit though.

Reason #2.
Knitting is my hobby, not my job. I get paid to do things I kind of don't want to do, I like my job but it's not knitting. Knitting is the thing that I do when I get home from work since setting things on fire is illegal. When you start offering to "pay me" (see reason #1) my hobby starts feeling like a job. So, no, money never sweetens the deal.

Reason #3.
I have crafty ADD. Chances are if your asking me to make something, I've already made it. I've moved on to the next shiny object in my Ravelry queue unless I really liked making that object I probably won't make it again. Quit trying to drag me back to "that one thing" you saw me post on my Facebook page. I'm not exactly "loyal" to my projects. I have multiple things on needles and I switch between them often. I would hate to have you waiting on something because I saw a super cute something or other that I HAD to start. Also, only knitting one thing at a time because I have too makes me hate that thing and I no longer want to make it.

Yes, I know this sounds harsh and mean and I'm sorry for that (not really). I make things for people because I know they will love them and because I want them to have it.

Am I the only knitter that feels this way?

Why I'm A Horrible Mother

*Note this post may be rambly and error filled with run on sentences, poor grammar, and punctuation abuse. I don't care. It is for my mental health that I write this.

I am a bad mom.

There I said it.

I can't stop crying as I write this.

I fear I may have screwed up my children for good. I have 3 kids, I adore them. I love them and cherish them. They are brilliant, but they have me for a mother. I am angry, loud, unapologetic, and I just generally don't care what people say or think about me. I have yelled, screamed, and on some occasions said some really horrible things to my kids and I regret all of it.

I'm only writing this now because I just scheduled my lovely, sweet, daughter to see a child psychologist. She is violent and angry at school. And it's my fault. I failed somewhere. I failed my 6 yr old little girl. I did something along the way that turned her into an angry monster. I don't know what I did but I did it. I tried to show her love but I failed at that also. I'm starting to think I'm completely incapable of purveying the emotion of love the way one is supposed too. I know I love my family but perhaps they don't know I love them. Is this even possible?

Why can't I just love my children like all of those other moms who happily dote on their children? Why can't my entire world revolve around them? That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it? Why don't I feel that way?

I'm selfish. That's the only answer. I like my time. I like things a certain way.

This is going to be hard for some people to read but I was abused (ok , that woman beat me) by my step mother who really wanted me to be someone that was seen and not heard. I was not to step out of line. If we went out to dinner I was to be quiet and sit still. If I picked leaves off the trees to make "soup" I would be punished by having my hands beaten with a rubber spatula. If I didn't like the raw zucchini in my salad because it tasted like a musty sponge smelled I would have to eat it and then I when threw it up at the dinner table, because I wasn't excused, I would have to stare at it until dinner was done. When I wrote on my hand with a Sharpie, cleanser and a green 3M scrubbie thing were employed to remove the marker from my hands. If I fell asleep in the corner while standing in it for 90 minutes I would be slapped on the back of the head so hard my face would slam into the wall.

I have done none of these things to my kids but because I was raised in this fashion I expect things that I learned out of sheer terror to be second nature to my kids. I have actually said out loud "Why won't you just sit still in this restaurant?" Like they're just supposed to know that you're supposed to sit perfectly still and not say a thing while eating out. Who really expects kids to do that? I did. I have no idea why. I wouldn't take my kids out to eat for the longest time because I wasn't sure how they'd behave and I might be triggered in some way. That I might lose my shit in  some way and be just like her, like my step mother. I still get nervous when we go out and I do micro-manage the shit out of my kids, I can't help it.

The only thing I've ever tried to do successfully as a mother was not be her. I'm not her. I still yell too much and sometimes there is some favoritism, but I love these kids all the same.

This is all can write for now. I need to think about how I can make this better....

Risk Vs. Reward

I've only been knitting for three almost four years. I'm not a new knitter but I'm not an expert either. That being said, I will try to knit anything. Those things on the pattern that tell you how difficult it is, I ignore them. If I was confused about something on a pattern I looked it up on youtube or googled it. Knitting in the internet age is probably easier than it ever has been. When I first taught myself to knit I made all things dish clothes, I made lace ones, cable ones, straight stockinette, and knit on the bias ones. We had cotton dish clothes coming out of our ears. My husband actually said, "well, you've mastered dish clothes are you planning on making something else?"

I decided I would make an afghan. The pattern called for 15 x 15 seed stitch squares that would then be seamed into a larger blanket. I got real bored real fast but I have an afghan that my husband stole and loves even though the seaming looks like garbage. The point is I learned a lot.

Next up was the project that made me quake in my Chuck's.

The Twilight movie had just come out and there was a pair of mittens in the movie that everyone wanted. The Bella Mittens. A friend of mine wanted a pair. I thought I can do this even though I've never knit in the round and have no idea what Magic Loop knitting is. I'm a smart girl I can figure it out. I did figure it out and made like eight pairs of those mittens.

My point is, do not ever be afraid to take on a challenge. The internet has a ton of resources to help you figure it out. Other knitters on twitter will help, my favorite person to ask for advice is @atknitsend. She is so full of knowledge and her knitting is fantastic. Go check her blog. Now.

I guess what I'm saying is, be confident in your abilities, be bold, try something you never ever thought you'd be able to do. Forget the voice in your head telling you that it's too hard. That voice is an asshole.

What was the biggest challenge you took on as a new knitter? Were you successful?