11 posts tagged “knitting”

I'm stick sick with the nastly head cold that plagued me last week...This thing needs to go a way NOW! I was getting better, but then my throat started to ache again. I think the AC at work is helping to make things worse, but with out it on thing would be really muggy and miserable. After today, I won't be working here (I'm currently at work, BTW) eight hours at a time. I get tomorrow off, and then come back on Thrusday and on Saturday. It sucks that I won't be making as much money, but I'm happy that I still have a job.

In other news, my father sent me a message via Facebook telling me that he is getting a divorce from my stepmother. He also tells me that he met another woman, but this was after the shit hit the fan. Honestly, I don't know how to feel. Because he was absent in my life for about 15 years, I don't feel much for him. However, I feel bad for my siblings having to go through this. I mean, even I was put off because the divorce proceedings just started and he is already in a relationship with someone else. It must be hard for them. I haven't really responded because I don't know how to respond. Hopefully he keep them in mind through this thing. This whole summer has been chalked with disfunction family wise, it seems. I just hope it chills out during the school year because it is already going to be stressful as it is.

In good news, I got my camera! I've been tinkering around with it a little yesterday, and so far it seem really good. I got a FUJIFILM FinePix S1500, and from the reviews I've seen, the camera is pretty damn good for the price. Compared to my very first digital camera I brought, it is 100 times better. I took a few shots here and there and the pictures came out really clear. I hope to start posting some picks pretty soon here of stuff, but I have to read the manual first because I don't have too much of an idea of where everything is on the camera, what all the modes are, and such. Maybe today I'll start on my scarf (for real this time) and take picks of my progress.

It is indeed my birthday, and my gift that I received from my co-worker...a head cold. I'm feeling more miserable by the minute. I told her that she should have stayed home during the worst of it, but no. Now I have her cold.

In lighter news, a few days ago while at work, one of the little girls that I work with saw me knitting (I'm working on a simple scarf) and she wanted to learn. I did not have any extra needles nor any ones small enough for her to handle well. Luckily for her however, while I was talking to her, I messed up quite a bit and decided to start all over again, so I showed her how to cast on and how to do the knit stitch. She sort of picked up on it, but because of her impatience she did not listen completely. After a while she got bored, but she said that she would like to learn more someday since she thought it was really cool. This made me quite happy.

I think I'm going to go to sleep now. I just feel so groggy. This is not how I should be feeling on my birthday!

I'm going to try to blog everyday. I know I mentioned that before and ended up not blogging for a few months, but I feel the need to blog now, and have been blogging every day.Yesterday I made it a private blog because it was pretty personal, (it was about a particular guy that I'm attracted to, but can't really be with because of some major differences between us), which is why it's not showing up.

I realize that I haven't picked up a knitting needle in months. I started on a scarf, which I have about a third of the way done and then I stopped. Now I don't like the color and I want to try again with a different color. I also want to take a few classes so that I can really get a good grasp on the basics of knitting, since I'm a complete novice. I love doing it because it soothes me, but things got so hectic that my me-time became more restricted and I just stopped knitting. However, now I really want to get back into the hobby because I really would like to have a scarf this winter, but I don't want to have to pay an arm and a leg for one.

I realize that I really don't want to have a bunch of kids because I would go insane. I don't know how my grandmother raised seven kids, but she did. That is an amazing feat. I say this because for the past month I have been working eight hours a day at the computer lab/daycare, and it has been quite the experience. I love my kids, but I think their parents need to keep them away from sugar because they get really, REALLY hyper. Out of all of this I have learned that I become more and more like my grandma as time goes on, and that I work well with troubled kids (which most of the kids that come in are). I have been considering becoming a foster parent one day, and the longer I work here the more I feel attached to the idea. Of course, I'm not with the children 24-7, but I think that when I'm ready to have kids, I would like to be a foster parent and perhaps adopt.
 

It's...Monday night...now I just ruined the song. That was the jam back in the day. Good ol' Johnny Kemp.

So yeah, I did get paid. It's not that much, but I'm not able to get four hours each day (except for today). My goal is to try to save up money just in case I do get an internship out of state or even across state, then I'll have something for housing.

Grandpa hasn't called me back yet. The last time I called him, he told me not to be bad at him because he usually is off traveling somewhere. Well, he could have called me back that night since he wasn't traveling. The reason why I wanted to talk to is that I want to visit him and the rest of of my family in Florida since it's been about two years since I seen them all. Really he has no good excuse for his lack of communicating with me.

Knitting update:

So a few posts ago I said I was starting on my first knitting project--a scarf. Well, I just finished the border and now I'm working on the middle section of it. I made a few boo boos and it took such a long time for me to fix my errors because I didn't have my handy dandy crochet hook to help me out. It has completely disappeared and I'll have to buy another one. Other than that, it looks really good, and I can't wait until it's done. I love the color (rose violet, so it's sort of a dark pink looking color, and it looks so cool.)

I find that when I listening to the Beatles when knitting I make fewer mistakes than when I'm not listening to anything at all. I don't quite know why, but it's true.

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Today I went shopping for next week's lunch and knitting equipment, and I decided to try Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream. It is now my second favorite flavor (the first being Everything But The...). I love watching Colbert Report, but now I think he should run again for president in 2012. The ice cream did it for me. (Laughs)

Today I completed my swatch for my scarf, and it came out really well. However, I don't know how to keep the end loops from getting so big. I try to make those stitches extra tight, but they still become loose and it makes the sides look bad. Other than that, I think I'm good to go. The color is going to be rose violet so it goes well with pinks and purples since I wear those colors a lot.

In speaking of knits, my mom killed my new favorite cable knit hoodie in the wash today. Normally I hand wash my sweaters, but she offered to wash them. It was a nice gesture. I don't know if she was paying attention or just forgot, but she threw it in the wash. When I got it back it had white fuzz balls on it, and the kangaroo pocket was unraveling.  Now I'm kind of sad, but some day I'll be able to make a cable knit hoodie, so I'm not going to mope too much about it. It's just that this sweater was forty bucks.

The title says it all. So I was trying to knit a swatch for the pattern that I'm going to use for my first knitting project (I'm actually going to attempt a project now. I'm so proud of myself!), which is a pretty simple scarf. Well, I don't know what was up with me today, but I just couldn't focus on what I was doing so I made a ton of mistakes. Then on top of that, my mom comes rushing in talking about my aunt wanted her to take out another loan and she (my aunt) said that my grandma said it was alright, but she was being shady with Grandma and Grandma didn't know she meant getting another loan. Then we get a call from my uncle who found out his wife has been lying about the $900 a months he has been paying for his stepdaughter's phantom loans which was supposed to be going towards college. So with all of this going on, I couldn't focus at all and I gave up for today. Tomorrow I'm going to get some yarn and more needles so I can start on my scarf.

So now for another photo quilt. I noticed that my room has a lack of color. I would love to paint the walls a purple or a lime green or something like that, but my mom wants to paint the walls white since she's going to sell the house. So I was thinking about getting a few prints of artwork that I can hang up. This photo quilt has 25 of my favorite art pieces (and illustrations).

Favorite art pieces

It's a new year and I have started the process of preparing for doing internships out of state. Unfortunately, or fortunately, where I live is not the epicenter of media so I'll need to take my studies elsewhere to get experience in the field. I'm a planner so I love to make lists and plan ahead of time. I'm not sure if I should do internships with film companies in their non-fiction department or if I should look for internships at actual news channels, but I'm looking into both. For a while I was thinking about applying for the BBC work study program in Bristol, England, but I cannot afford it. So now I'm looking at four areas to go: Los Angeles, Atlanta (CNN), Washington D.C., and New York City. So far, when it comes to accommodations for interns, NYC has taken the cake for me. Columbia University, and NYU have summer housing for interns who are coming to the city. I also found NYC interns, which is affiliated with some college (I can't remember which at the moment). They have an apartment building in midtown Manhattan, solely for the use of housing interns during the spring and summer. It is in a very convenient location, and if I were to get an internship at the Time Warner Center for CNN, it would be the perfect location for me. The apartments are fully furnished and all you'll really need to bring with you besides personal stuff is bedding. You can choose to pick an apartment where you'll have either two or three roommates (this is the cheaper route).  I haven't found accommodations nearly as nice as NYC Interns in the other cities, but I'm going to keep looking.

My mom is completely against the idea of me living in another state for a few months, so at the moment she is saying that she's not going to help me pay for the accommodations. I think she just needs to warm up to the idea. She's has finally gotten into her head that I am an adult. (Man, I never really declared myself an adult before...Where has the time gone?) I think in time, she'll warm up to the idea. I'm going to show her the NYC Interns website and just have her really think about it. Although I don't know exactly what internships I'm going to apply for, I'm going to start saving almost all of my checks for this. I'll have to have a good amount of money before December of this year in case I do decided I get an internship in NYC or anywhere else.

On another note, I can't believe my vacation is almost over. I guess it's all for the best. I'm finally taking a class where I can be creative: intro to time based media (a.k.a the beginning film class). It's about damn time I get to work with a camera and learn all of the essentials! I hope we get to make shorts. Right now I just feel so restricted with just doing book work. I need to tap into my imagination and do something with it. I've been trying to write a short story, but I'm so used to not having time to do it, that I had severe writer's block. One day I will write a short story and the New Yorker will publish it, damn it! It would be nice if I could get some extra money from getting something published.

Oh, for the past few days I've been knitting. I'm just trying to get the stitches down and have been making swatches. The yarn I have doesn't feel that great because it's synthetic so I'm not going to make anything out of that. Soon, I hope I can check out the knitting shops here and see what they have. There's this one place called Paradise Fibers and they even sell looms, which I would love to have because I love to weave! (That reminds me, I still haven't finished my bag that I was supposed to be weaving.) Anyways, I've realized that I have some equipment I need to buy, in particular crochet hooks. My mom gave our crochet hooks away (grrrr!) so I need to buy some. I keep dropping stiches so it would be really nice to have that to use to pick it up again instead of me trying to poke the yarn through the loop which takes forever for me to do. See, I'm trying to save money and there's always something I must buy; however, I feel for the love of knitting spending some cash is worth it.

Yesterday I finished my last final at 3 p.m. and turned in my books. I got $160+ back; however, they wouldn't buy back my Spanish books, which were the most money. Grrrr. I woke up and the first thing I wanted to do was knit. I'm just knitting a swatch. With the book money got, I'll probably get some more yarn and attempt to make a scarf.

So now, I'll tidy up my room, send some things to my professors and probably knit more.

Oh, I've been speaking to one of the producers in the non-fiction department at North by Northwest productions and she wants to meet me in January to talk. I've been communicating with her via e-mail for the past year. She's going to teach a Jan term class. I'm registered for another film class that teaches the fundamentals of filming, but we'll get to talk to each other more often and in person.

Today I took my Spanish final today, after working four hours this morning. I was really nervous about taking the test because I have not taken one test in that class and got a good grade. I was really hoping that I could finish strong. Physically, my back was killing me. So I'm trying to cram in a few grammar rules in right before my professor comes in, and Kelsey, my partner I had for a Spanish project, hands me a bag and told me Merry Christmas. I open up the bag and guess what was inside...No, really, guess...you got something in your head? Okay, I'll tell you now. It was 195 yards of afghan yarn and knitting needles. I remember telling her about how I started knitting, and we started chatting away because she had just started knitting too. After that, I was game for the exam. It made my day. I don't even know he that well and she decided to give me a gift. Now I can't wait to take all of my finals, and actually dedicate some time to knitting.

Earlier today I decided to find some scrap yarn we had around the house and attempt to learn how to knit. Thanks the the help of YouTube and Chick Knits, I have completed four rows of knit stitching! Yay! I'm so proud of myself. It's actually pretty good stitching. If I had a camera, I would post some pictures, but I don't. =( But, yeah, I have been successful so I think I'll take it up as a hobby. I think I try purl stitching next. My mother, who is really excited that I have accomplished this feat, wants me to learn how to make cushions for the couch someday. Maybe I will.