well, hello there!

I was delighted – if a little amused – to find that people are still “following” this blog, which clearly hasn’t been updated in years.  And then I realized that this is probably, at least partly, because the link to my “new blog” is now pointing to a website that I couldn’t afford to maintain & doesn’t exist.  D’oh!

So, people wishing to find me can actually find me here:  http://caseyknits.wordpress.com/

Much has changed, so it’s hard to say whether or not my previous “followers” will still find me interesting… but I do still knit, at least, so maybe so.  ;)

Hope to see you there!

moving day!

No, not in a physical sense (you didn’t miss any big news, no worries!), but in a virtual sense:  after years of free-blogging it, I once again have my own domain.  You can now find me at

CASEYKNITS.NET

It’s even still a wordpress blog, so you shouldn’t have to register anything in order to comment… yay!

See you there! 

once upon a time…

…I had a boyfriend who wanted me to make him a scarf.  He picked the yarn, a hand-dyed alpaca, out of my vast stash.  I picked the pattern: Vice Versa, crocheted but soft and supple and very decidedly not crochet-like.  The pairing of the yarn and pattern was a match made in heaven, resulting in a beautiful dappled weave-like scarf.

I worked on it for months – on and off, granted, but months, nonetheless – usually while sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms and things like that.  When the scarf was finally finished, and I proudly presented it to the boyfriend, he… didn’t like it.  Said it was too scratchy for his sensitive neck.  I could have cried.  I mean, he was with me the entire time I was working on this scarf, more or less… why didn’t he voice his concerns before I invested so much time and energy into making it?

When things went south, I took the scarf back.  (I mean, it’s not like it was really his anyway – he never wore it!)  But I’m really not a heavy-bulky-scarf person;  I get the tail ends of scarves caught in car doors, or they drag on the ground, or get forgotten in the trunk of my car when I throw it there out of frustration.  So I started to think about embellishing the scarf and selling it.

There were a few miscues, but at long last, the scarf is finished.  And I think that my idea of embellishing it was a good one, because the scarf sold (to a high school classmate, granted, but still! it sold!) within 5 minutes of listing it.

I don’t talk about it much, but I have a lot of problems selling my handknits.  I mean, not selling them, per se, but pricing them to sell.  I know damn well that I’m asking prices that are ridiculously cheap for items that take me weeks, sometimes months, to make.  On the other hand, I look at my stuff as “nothing special”, something that the average Joe or Jane could easily make for themselves for about $5 if they took the time to learn a couple basic stitches.

This scarf sold for $35 – less than the cost of the yarn used to make it, and never mind the investment of time to crochet it, or the fact that those appliques took me about 5 hours to make and apply.  But at this point, in this case, I’m just happy to have found her a good home.

dear phoebe & phaedra…

It’s hard to believe that yesterday you were cute little puffball kittens, and suddenly, I turn around and you’re the size of Thanksgiving turkeys.  It’s even harder to believe that you’ve been in my company and care for 8 years, and we still have to have this kind of “talk”.

Phoebe:  When you circle my office chair, meowing and pawing at my leg, for well over half an hour, and make a couple halfhearted attempts to jump up into the chair, I am naturally going to assume that you want to be in my lap, and I’m going to help haul your 20lb tuchas in that direction.  Spraying me and rendering my office chair unusable for most of the day is NOT the way to thank me for this effort.

Phaedra:  I know darn well that YOU know darn well that I tend to wander around the house during dark hours.  So, please stop sleeping in random locations on the stairs.  I know you’re trying to kill me, but trust me, all I’m going to do if I fall down the stairs is break a few bones at most… and then, dude, you’re on your own with the whole “food” and “clean litterbox” thing.

Phoebe:  We (ok, Woody) just spent $80 on a jungle gym thingy for you to scratch on.  Please use it.

Phaedra: Just a reminder, poop goes IN the litterbox, and your dirty little paws stay OUT of dinner plates.  Thank you.

Both of you:  Picking up knitting needles, needle and thread, or, especially, a tray of beads, is really NOT your cue to climb into my lap.  And by the way, if I remove you from my lap, this doesn’t mean that I want to play the “see how quickly kitty can get back on the lap” or “see how many times kitty will get back on the lap before the human gives up and leaves her there” games.  Truly.

And while we’re at it:  Phaedra, please stop trying to steal Woody’s soul while he sleeps. That really isn’t very nice.

Anyway, I’m glad we could have this talk, even if it really meant the two of you falling asleep on my knitting 30 seconds into this.

Love,
me

shop update…

…although, honestly, one that’s quite a bit smaller than I’d hoped for.

I’ve had a hell of a time with my knitting the past couple weeks, and I’m not sure why.  My math’s been worse than usual. Converting lace patterns from flat to round has resulted in disaster.  Yarn choices have turned out to be… terrible… and a lot of the designs that made sense in my head were less than pleasing when I actually materialized them.

My goal was to put up a larger update all at once tomorrow, but with the way my luck has been going in that department,  I figured I’d better not tempt fate, and just put the 3 items I had finished on there, as soon as I finished them… so there they are.

Zibbet shop: http://www.zibbet.com/atomicknits

Etsy shop: http://atomiccreations.etsy.com

I’ll have another few items tomorrow or Saturday morning, including a scarf that I really AM going to be very pleased about, if I can get the embellishment to transfer properly from my brain to the wool… attempt #1 really didn’t go all that well.

Sigh. 

long overdue

Once upon a time, there was this girl (me!) who was introduced to the internet by her brothers, who had been on it for a couple years already. The year was 1997. The girl took to it like a moth to a flame, and quickly discovered the magical world of message boards. One, in particular, called The House o’ Chatter, introduced her to many wonderful people – most of whom have become real-life friends over the years.

One such person was Wolf, a talented bead- and fiber-artist in the Roanoke area. But despite the fact that they even had lived in the same state for a few years, they never met.

Sunday, after knowing each other online for over a decade, that all changed.

photo courtesy of wolfsilveroak.insanejournal.com

Meeting people you’ve only known in a virtual realm is not the novelty that it was back in 1997, so it’s highly unlikely that anyone reading this right now HASN’T, at one time or another, met someone that they first encountered online. I’ve been doing it since… shoot, 1998. Heh. But you know, it’s still just as cool as it was back then. And when it turns out that you really do click, and it really IS like you’ve hung out with each other for years? Priceless.

Wolf was up from Roanoke, visiting her folks in Battle Creek… which is only about 1 1/2 hours from where I am now. Her parents hosted a hell of a barbecue, the weather was absolutely perfect, and it seriously couldn’t have been a better day – unless, of course, it was twice as long.

We had so much fun that I drove back to Battle Creek on Thursday to go to the zoo with her, her husband, and her niece and nephew.

(Be sure to check out the other pictures in the set, too!)

Once again, a fantastic time was had by all: a day full of giggles, goofiness, and all-around good times (sometimes at the expense of other zoo-goers, but hey, it’s not our fault if you’re an idiot who can’t tell a kangaroo from a deer, a’right?). (And yes, that totally really happened!)

After the zoo, we hauled our tired butts back to Wolf’s parents’ house, where her mom made a delicious salisbury steak dinner, and we sat around the table talking about our day like a bunch of excited 12-year-olds. Haha. I hung out for a couple more hours, till it was just starting to get darker, and then figured I had to be on my way; I don’t see well to drive at night. Hugs all around and a long goodbye… again, I just want to say that it’s so (wonderfully!) unusual to find a bunch of people with whom you’re so darn comfortable. Wolf’s mom told me to “stop by anytime”, and I know she meant it.

Wolf, thank you for the fun & laughter, and I hope the rest of your trip is awesome!

ouch

In case you wondered, this is what $240 worth of course materials for a dietetics student looks like:

Yep, that’s it… and I still have 2 classes (plus general supplies) to buy for, and all of this is out-of-pocket. That saran-wrapped book on the bottom? $120 alone. Say it with me: ouch!

I have lots, lots more to write about, but right this second, I have to go lay down and take a nap; spending that much money on stuff I’ll never use again after December has me feeling a little woozy. LOL