I would have thought that with the semester of grad school ending, I'd have so much free time. Boy, was I wrong. Between state testing, reading assessments, pregnancy woes, and family deaths, I had a lot of subbing to do through the last two and a half months of public school. I'm definitely not complaining, but I sure wasn't expecting that much work.
Because I work so far from the apartment (1hr15min to get to work, at least 1hr30min to get home), I felt like I had no time to get things done. My room- now the biggest disaster ever. I've been working on cleaning it though. Same with my desk. But in all that craziness of subbing, a lot of other stuff has been going on in my life too.
Knowing unemployment is coming sucks. It's like there's a deadline on your income. So yes, now I have no job (you'd think I'd have so much free time...ha! I wish). Correction- I have no "traditional" job. Thanks to the wonders of Ravelry, I am now an Independent Contract Knitter (or at least that's what they said on my contract). Either way, I'm being paid to knit. It's something that will carry through the summer so at least I'll be making some money. Basically, I'm knitting these super chunky (size 15 needles) pieces that will be components of the final project. I get paid per piece I make which gives anyone the freedom to do as many or few as they like/can each week. Since this is all I've got for income, I've been very exclusively working on these...until I ran out of pieces to make and the designer can't meet with me until Friday. There's my drawback of the job. I have to see if she'll be willing to give me yarn for a loooooot of pieces so I don't have to harass her as often to do a switch.*
That being said, I have accomplished some other knitting. Since a friend is preggers and baby Autumn is due early October, she has been my focus for knitting these days. First, I've made her a cute blanket based off the Big Bad Baby Blanket from Stitch 'N Bitch (the original)
. I actually started this project on our Florida trip back in April using Caper Sock by String Theory purchased at Gotham Fine Yarn. Somehow we messed up my order because as I was knitting double stranded, I realized I only had enough yarn to do half the blanket. FROG. I started it again single stranded, reworking the stitch counts to still get a good size with a more appropriate gauge, but it just didn't have the same feel that I loved about it double stranded. FROG (not technically, the knit fabric is still sitting needleless in a bag with the yarn waiting to be ripped out and then relaxed). So I was at Dad's house looking for my old acrylic to donate to the Guild (more to come on this) when I rediscovered all this wonderful yarn I'd bought at a destash almost a year ago. In it I had some wonderful Cascade Sierra Quatro in a colorway that stranded pink, light pink, periwinkle and lime green together. I reworked the stitch count again to get the size I wanted (extra large) and made and finished this blanket. Well, ends aren't woven in yet, but close enough. Boyfriend kept asking me why I was trying to make such a big blanket- I wanted something Autumn could use outside in the summer (80%cotton, 20%wool). This time next year she'll be about 8ish months so she'll be sitting up and maybe crawling a little. A large blanket that they can just throw on the grass and let her play on will be perfect for her. Friend has seen this while it was being worked on, but not the finished product yet.While I was finding my yarn at Dad's, I also found a bunch of Cascade 220 in bright blue, purple, and 2 skeins of a brightish pink. Perfect for baby girl stuff! I decided I wanted to design a blanket for Autumn and have my idea all drawn out until I realized- Friend may not really want a big blanket that has to be handwashed. I haven't seen her in a few weeks so I'm holding off working on this for now until I can ask her about it. If she decides no, I'm so using some of that yarn to make myself a Wicked Sweater seeing as how I've still never knit myself (or anyone else) a sweater.
But wait! We're not done with Autumn's knits (can you say spoiled already??). I've been working on a test knit for someone on Ravelry. It's a summer dress made to look like a slice of watermelon...sorta. I mean, she's not gonna be wearing a triangle shaped dress or anything. It litterally just follows the colors of watermelon- dark green, light green, white and pink make up the chest part while the whole skirt is red. I love this pattern except that the sizing is way off. I'm working on the 6-9 month size for her (because of course that will be how old Autumn will be when she can wear it next year) but it's large enough to fit an 18 month to a small 2 year old. She's very frustrated needless to say, but I'm trying to help her get the sizing right because it's just too cute of a pattern. I might make two- finish this oversized one and give it to a friend who's daughter is just about to turn 2 (she has no baby fat that kid) and make another one for Autumn. I will have to buy more red yarn, but I have enough of all the other colors leftover for Autumn's dress.
As for the Guild, we've had so much going on! We have a website (www.brooklynfiberartsguild.com) designed my moi. Ok so it's not really the greatest yet but I'm still learning how to do a lot of stuff and now I'm self-teaching because my web design class is over. Also, I haven't been able to work on it because my at-home Dreamweaver trial has ended and I certainly don't have the $400 to buy it. I do have a very old version on my computer I never installed (thank you free software from undergrad) and Pace has it on their computers but I just haven't had time to head to campus to work on it more. We also have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account. We held our WWKIP Day event which was a major success! We signed up about 55 new members that day and have since signed up more. I'm organizing a Stitch n Pitch at the Brooklyn Cyclones for people which rocks. So we've had a lot going on.
I'll have more for you soon, but I think this post is long enough right now :o). I'm off to read some blogs. I haven't had time for this since before Easter so I have a lot of catching up to do. Expect random belated comments on your blogs now haha!
*If anyone is in the NYC area and would like to partake, last I spoke to her, Designer is still looking for more knitters. Store are requesting her pieces like crazy for the fall and they want to get production up as fast as possible. Her requirements are you must be able to and willing to commute into NYC (she will not ship back and forth) and have cabling experience (but no worries they're pretty simple cables).
For someone who's unemployed you sure sound awfully busy! And getting paid to knit sounds like a dream. Best of luck with it!
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