The Sweatshop of Love Blog

I’d like to preface this post by saying that, while acknowledging that I’ve got a lot on my emotional plate right now, I had to crop my crying face out of most of these pictures, and that is a bit of an overreaction.

Minimalist Cardigan Fail. And I cried. I’m staring at it right now, actually, wanting to cry. It’s like knitting masochism.

Curly Front, Pre-Block

These pre-blocking pictures kill me. Had I known that this would be the last time I’d be wearing and loving my sweater I wouldn’t have just thrown it over the long sleeved t-shirt I wore yesterday.

Nice Normal Sleeves!

I also would have cleaned my mirror before taking these pictures.

I was just finishing up the sleeves in my last Knit a Sweater a Month Challenge post. Sure, I was getting sick of the double moss stitch, but I was still rocking it out and loving it so much!

Remember how in love with this sweater I was when I started?! I still felt that love, even if it was a little boring.

So I finished knitting up the sleeves, seemed it all together, and I thought it was looking good! The size was right on. The only problem was that the front panels were super curly, but I saw that while I was knitting it. I knew a quick block would take care of it, no problem.

Stupid Huge Sweater

As soon as I had it in the bath the light bulb went off:

Fingering weight yarn+larger than gauge needles+lacy stitch=STRETCH

Really, Really Big

I mean, look at those sleeves. Look at the length! It’s supposed to be a cropped sweater with 3/4 length sleeves. I just look like a midget. With wide shoulders.

Stupid Wide Shoulders

But that got me thinking. What if I re-seam the shoulders to make them hit higher? That would pull the sleeves up and at least make it look like I knew how to dress myself.

Pinned? Maybe?

It puckered in the front but kind of cutely!

Back View... hmm

It puckered in the back in a not so cutely.

Not Re-Seamed

Re-Seamed

And, while seaming the shoulders up did make it look a little better, I snuggled it, dried my tears, and decided to give it to my mom for her birthday.

So, happy early birthday, mom. With a tear, because I really wanted this sweater! But I know you will love it. Because it is psychotically beautiful, and your favorite color, and will look fantastic on you.

I’m glad it is getting a good home. Now I’ve got to get more Woodland Sage Knit Picks Gloss because I need this yarn to be in my life. In sweater form.

Sigh. Double sigh.

Last night my friend Jamie hosted a Jersey Shore party. I, along with most of the people at the party, had never seen Jersey Shore. Apparently it is the most amazing show on television and I’ve totally been missing out.

I mean, I know my reality TV and the trashier the better. If I can string together 12 episodes of The Real Housewives of New York I’m happy for… well about 12 hours. What can MTV teach me that Bravo can’t?

1. Muscles are HOTT.

The Situation

I had no idea. I’ve been living my life thinking skinny white boys who don’t even know what a gym is were cute. Clearly, I have been way wrong forever. Pictured above is ‘The Situation’. He has so many muscles that his stomach looks like… well, kind of like 6 cartoon hearts dancing around a hot hole.

2. Boys Should Tan and Wax. A Lot.

Jersey Boys

Again, this is probably the Midwestern thing, but I’ve been dating boys with beards and pasty white skin WHEN I COULD HAVE been dating boys who wax their eyebrows and tan three times a week. Even Vinny is tanner  than any boy I’ve ever talked to and he looks albino compared to the rest of them.

3. I Don’t Know How to Dance.

Here I’ve been bouncing around adorably to cute hipster pop when I could have been rubbing my vag on people and doing back flips to show off my thong, attracting boys left and right!

4. I Get This People of Walmart Reference!

I haven’t seen her fist pump, but I bet her Jersey shore name is “Cindy Lou Who”. New Jersey

5. And This Slaughterhouse 90210 Reference!

“The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

6. I Don’t Know How to Dress Myself.

Jersey Girls

I do silly things like wear pants, specifically pants with no holes in them, when I leave the house. I also like to wear shirts with fronts and backs to them. And a bra. And I wear that bra as underwear and not as an accessory.

7. My Shore Nickname? McBoring.

When I go out I grab a couple beers with friends, go home, and in the morning I remember everything that happened. I go to work on time. I don’t bring strangers home, or sit naked in a hot tub with them. I don’t have screaming fights because a boy I’ve known for 3 days is talking to a different girl. I don’t threaten to leave the premises if no one is paying attention to me. I don’t make out with girls. I knit. I knit a lot. And read. It’s almost embarrassing.

So, thank you, Jersey Shore. Watching you is like watching the National Geographic Channel when they profile animals that no one knew existed before being discovered by a special rain forest explorer.

My Bow Headband!

Project is now called Detroit Tigers Bow Headband, and available as part of the Summer Tour 2010 Ebook.

I can’t stop wearing it, and now you can knit your own and wear it like a crazy person, too! I finally got it together and wrote the pattern for my Bow Headband.

Finished Measurements:
Length: I-Cord Tie is between 16-18 inches long. Bow is 5 inches long.
Width: Bow is 4 inches wide and 1 inch wide at Bow’s Loop.

Materials:
Yarn: Leftover amounts of Fingering/Sock weight yarn. I used Kitchen Sink Dyeworks Luxe Merino Fine in Trafford.
Needles: Size 5 straight needles for Bow and Bow’s Loop. 2 size 3 double pointed needles for I-Cord Tie.

Gauge:
On larger needles, 24 sts and 36 rows = 4 inch square in Double Moss Stitch, but gauge isn’t very important in this project.

If you’ve got any questions about the pattern before or after you buy it, be sure to send me an email. The pattern is included in the price of my Bow Headband Class! See if it fits into your schedule here.

People go through unimaginably hard things every day. I’ve been staring blankly at the tv screen with everyone at the pictures coming out of Haiti, like I did after Katrina, the tsunami in Indonesia, 911. I can’t imagine how anyone makes it out of any of that.

So after all of that, one life doesn’t seem like it should matter. If people can make it through those things, I should be able to make it through one dying Papa.

My grandfather, who has been known to make an appearance here every once in a while (we went on a hot trip to the casino last summer!), has lots of cancer and the one kidney he has got left is almost completely dead. He is sick of the all the treatment, and no one can blame him.

And I’m saying sentences like, ‘Hospice is covered by medicare!’ and ‘kidney failure is just a natural shutting down of the system, where if it were the cancer that were going to get him first that would be a lot more painful!’ and ‘they can just bring a hospital bed right into their house!’

I’m very lucky to have grandparents for as long as I’ve had them and to be as close to them as I have been. My grandpa is much more like a father to me than my actual dad, and is the reason I don’t have serious daddy issues. I’m thrifty because of him. I’m naughty/funny because of him. He has always been supportive of my decisions while making me really think about them practically. He is my financial adviser. He lovingly pointed out that I was fat when I was and noticed every pound I lost. He always wanted to know how I was going to do my hair for special occasions when I was a little girl. He bought me fun school outfits my mom would never buy me.

We talk sports and he listens to me like I know what I’m talking about and is interested in my opinions; something no other man in my family does. He knows the names of all my friends. He knows about all of my jobs. He knows about all of my knitting classes. He loves to hear about all the parties I’m going to each weekend. He knows about all of my boy problems. No other man in my family knows anything about any of these things.

We are still talking about the Tigers like he is going to be around when the season starts. That kills me.

But it doesn’t kill me. I’m here. Healthy and staring into what will be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And I’ll do it because I don’t have a choice, like everyone faced with hard things. You wake up every day and you eat and work and try to be normal because that is the only option.

So I’m eating and working and trying to be normal because that is my only option.

Feet? Check.

HOTT? Check.

I got a sweet idea while I was getting ready to go out Friday night! I know some knitters have trouble styling their knits, I sure did when I first started knitting. So why not show examples of how I wear my knits to help show how easy they are to work into perfectly normal outfits?!

Enter: Style Your Knits!

(I should have thought of this when I was rocking my bow headband on New Years Eve, but better late than never)

OOhhh Belt!

So here we’ve got my cabled party belt that I finished last week worn over an Alternative Apparel tshirt PT won off a blog contest and didn’t like and under a black cardigan.

Full Disclosure: I was worried about the belt slipping off since there was no real way to secure it, since it’s not a belt buckle but a purse handle, so I used some bobby pins to make sure it didn’t go anywhere. This was a great decision! There is no way it would have stayed on all night otherwise.

Also, it was really hard to sit in. When I sat down it would slide up unattractively because the buckle was so big.

Worth it? DUH look how cute I look.

Feet: HOTT

And here we’ve got some purple toe up socks I knit over the summer with purple peep toe heels I bought a million years ago at Target. They are Isaac Mizrahi for Target, that is how long ago I bought them. I went a little crazy because all the snow is melting and it was like 25 degrees Friday night! I love how my long jeans look with these shoes.

There you have it! I styled those hand knits and I can safely say that no one in the world was wearing the same outfit I was wearing on Friday. I love that about making my own clothes.

Shirt: Alternative Apparel deep V

Sweater: Kohls

Belt: Hand knit by me, Vogue Knitting pattern

Jeans: New York & Company low-rise bootcut

Shoes: Isaac Mizrahi for Target

Socks: Hand knit by me, my own toe-up sock pattern