I've never thought of myself as crafty or, really, very creative. I can't even make up a joke, much less draw. I think my one high point in my drawing career came in Mr. Parrot's elementary school art class when I drew circles in the background to represent a ton of people. impressive I know. but apparently this was amazing for a third grader to figure out, or maybe it was just amazing to him. I tried to learn piano, but didn't care for it. I learned to play the guitar, but my family eventually got pretty sick of that. I did find photography in high school and decided to go with that path.

somehow that path led me to grad school, where I wasn't just thinking, breathing, and eating photography, but I was delving into other crafts as well. I fell in love with embroidery and started to devour it. I couldn't get enough of those little cotton floss packs, patterns, or stitch books. I don't even remember what I was stitching and I can't find anything I made since I gave most of it away. but trust me when I say I got good, so good that I didn't need those transfers anymore. and then I moved on. I think just the fact that I own anything embroidered tells you why I gave up. there was another reason though, a sewing machine.

If I remember correctly, I learned to knit and sew around the same time, but sewing interested me more because a)it's so much faster, b)I wanted some skirts, c)it's fast, d)it can be a lot cheaper to pick up (especially if you receive a free sewing machine), e)the fabric! my god, the fabric!!, and f)you use a machine, which is fast. like most people, my first few projects were skirts and some tote bags. I liked it enough, but eventually I realized that I did not have the patience for it at all. all the cutting, aligning, lining, unjamming and everything else that went with it got on my nerves. unlike knitting, where it's you, the yarn, and the needles, in sewing I had this machine that I didn't really understand and it didn't want to cooperate. if my knitting tension is off, I switch needles. if my sewing tension is off, I spend an hour figuring out which way to move the dial, realizing that I should have only turned it 1mm, and then trying to get both the bottom and top threads to to play nice with each other.

needless to say I don't sew anymore. the doctors said it wasn't good for my blood pressure and I have to agree with them. by the end of grad school I only had time for photography and knitting kind of worked itself in there (it's light, portable, and I can stuff it in my camera bag unlike, say, a sewing machine). unfortunately, I haven't really had time for the 'art side' of photography in a long time. forget about using big, bulky cameras and going to the darkroom to develop film and to print. I 'sold out' and went digital while my film sits in the freezer waiting for me. it's pretty depressing to think about how I haven't shot anything worthwhile in maybe a year. that is life, what can you do.

and what does all of this have to do with anything? I've decided to let go of a few things I know I won't be using. maybe somebody out there will want or appreciate what I ignore, so on every monday there will be a give-away following bugheart's 'great monday give-away' guidelines. I have enough to entertain me, so why not spread the love?

Posted by bitter purl at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

why didn't anyone tell me I woulnd't get a chance to knit this weekend? I obviously had no idea that someone else's wedding could take so much of my time. I worked on the sunrise circle jacket a bit on the drive up and down, but it pretty much looks the same...not new picture worthy I'm afraid. I did get to work on my pink cashmere sock on the train from long island to manhattan*, but again....not new picture worthy. so let's move on to a random post:

I can tell you that the whole weekend was filled with me wishing I had knitted a shawl, a blanket, something. on the drive up the weather was around 80 degrees, but once we got out of the car the sun was fading and eventually the temps dropped to about 45 degrees with rain the whole weekend. no one had packed for this. all I had was my wimpy river stole, who's sole purpose was to shed all over my black dress and to start looking like a drowned rat in the rain. can someone remind me to knit a few wraps this summer, that aren't gifts?!

*have you ever walked the streets of harlem, at night, in the cold rain, wearing a dress, with jeans, with flip-flops, and a wet mohair stole along with a guy in a suit and a guy in khakis and a shirt? twice? I have. not fun. eventually you stop worrying about how ridiculous you must look and start focusing on trying to miss every puddle between 141st and 135th street and wondering how quickly frost bite starts to take effect. ahh, the things you will do for your boyfriend and his friends.

I'm pretty behind* on this month's project spectrum, yellow and orange are pretty hard to find in this house. I think twice in my life I have bought something in either color, though I'm not sure what that says about me. no worries though, my mind is already on next month's color: green. it's hard not to be when you get a fat hank of yarn like this:

till then, I have yet another yarn I get to play with:

Posted by bitter purl at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

That I finally moved my site from blogger! Why did I wait so long? I love the design Diana came up with (she came up with some beauties) and I'm so happy to finally be free.

That I actually managed to get this done! I really thought I was going to be one of those losers that didn't get their socks done in time and then had to hide from the knitting community for a year. On Wednesday I decided to carry the sock with me to get some kip time and who knew that would work!? The second sock got to see the train, a cafe, and a salon.

I've been busy, so I had that excuse, but I was also just sick of this project. It felt like the socks kept going on and on, which seems to happen a lot when you don't work on them and when the socks are big. I think the fear of an ill-fitting sock kept me away as well, the measurements seem right but what if my pal hates them or if they are too small, or too big!? Let's keep our fingers crossed on this one, shall we?

I do like the end result though, the simple yarn-over cables give the socks some textural interest, which my pal had asked for, and keeps these from becoming boring grey socks. I'm hoping that the ribbing gives them a nice snug fit. We'll find out in a couple of weeks I guess. They still need to be soaked in hot bath and to have their ends weaved in, but they are done!!! And now I can knit for memememe!

Well, I kind of already started a little something. I'm in a little yarn swap with Jacq and I took total advantage and helped myself to some yarn for the Sunrise Circle Jacket(pdf). She came up with Rowanspun Aran in Gables...AWESOME! I bought myself a skein to swatch and somehow ended up with a sleeve and part of the front. The rest of the yarn arrived this week, perfect timing for no-guilt knitting. I'm headed to a wedding this weekend (sort of why this post seems hurried) and this baby is coming along with me. I may still bring some socks with me, but my plan is to give the jacket my full attention. I love finishing a wool jacket just in time for summer. Really. I do.

Posted by bitter purl at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (44)

and a bit of a new look.

I finally got the site* back up earlier this morning, weird that it happened today no?

Happy Easter! I'm going to rest up and, who knows, maybe work on my poor sockpal's sock.

*some of you may need to update your links

Posted by bitter purl at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

You guys are amazing and insane! Thank you soooo much for the support, the response has been incredible. I can't believe it. This is the first time that I can finally get on here and post, I'll try to answer each and every one of you later today.

In 24 hours I had over 15 thousand hits. Not what I expected at all. And not something I was able to test. I had to put the store down for maintenance so I can get it to work faster and better (there have been some bugs reported). During the downtime I'll change up some things, like even bigger pictures! You can click on the thumbnails now to make them bigger but somepeople haven't realized it. I'm also going to rewrite a few things so you guys know that you have a coupon in your mailbox. If you have any suggestions let me know now so I can implement them, I want to make this the best site I can for you.

I hope you guys don't hate me! I should be back up in a day or two....and I heard some amazing new products are already on their way.

I'm still baffled and amazed...now back to packing!

Posted by bitter purl at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I'm not quite sure how to start this post, do I come out with it short and sweet and go back into hiding? or write a long story on how things worked themselves out?

funny enough, today is my blogiversary. I can't believe it's been one year since I decided to start blogging. what a weird thing to just decide and do, let me knit stuff, write about it, and maybe discuss it with other knitters. do we realize how random that sounds? but I'm glad I did! I've learned so much about knitting and have made some amazing friends. who else would understand my yarn addiction or my need to constantly be knitting 20 dollar socks? it's gone beyond that though, to where I know more about my knitting friends' lives, the ones I've yet to meet, than the friends I've made in high school or college. I'll stop myself before I get really sappy here.

anyway, what do I have planned? what's my little secret? no, it's not any sort of contest, I'm not quick enough to think of that (though I was tempted to do one about my name, for Sandra's sake). instead I'll come out with the biggest knitting project I've undertaken....and there were no needles involved. for the last i-don't-know-how-long months, I've been designing a yarn store. let me rephrase that, I've been designing my own yarn store. I started to get the idea last fall when I was tired of not finding what I wanted at other people's yarn stores. why not start my own and carry what I want, harder to find yarns created my smaller companies? simple enough idea, though I had no clue how long it would take. it was pure kismet when purly and I came clean to each other, I finally had someone to be in cahoots with (one of the best people to be scheming with) and the impetus to get going on it.

after months of coding, designing, and waiting for yarn orders to arrive the day is finally here! pureknits is my little baby. I hope you like it. the selection is a little small now, but there's a ton more coming. (if you want to keep updated on this, subscribe to the store blog's feed)

I really couldn't have done it without purly, knowing that one of my good friends was going through the exact same thing as me was comforting. thanks for being there for me when I would send you all those crazy emails! Amy kicked my ass through all of this too, in the totally encouraging, sisterly sort of way of course. she handled my, 'woe is me' emails like a champ.! she'll always be known as customer #1. now Amy, finish that sweater! Stef's been another little partner in crime, who's been there to figure out all this 'business' stuff with me. I can't wait to finally meet up with her at TNNA! and let's not forget the boyfriend, the poor guy has lost a ton of closet real estate for this little venture and was totally ok when I woke up one morning and said "I'm going to open a yarn store".

ok, so.... let me know what you guys think. and if you have yarn/products suggestions, let me know

Posted by bitter purl at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (57)

1. eat at odd hours, if I eat
2. bake 4 dozen cookies in the middle of the night
3. play with the bf's computer and look through all the fun files he has
4. eat cookies for dinner and lunch
5. knit a hat:

Posted by bitter purl at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)

L for looooser. As used in: "I've been a knitting looooser this week."

You wouldn't believe me from my lack of posting, but I've been knitting A LOT this week. Really. I have. I've been knitting, but I haven't knitted anything. Big difference. I think I might have angered the knitting gods this week, they stripped me of any good luck I had in me. Why would they do this to me? Maybe because instead of diligently working on my sockpal socks and casting on for the second one, I tried and tried to get some selfish knitting in. I have no idea why all of a sudden I just needed to cast on for something, ANYTHING, else. Sometimes I would pass the time by staring at my stash, as if somehow enlightenment would strike me. It didn't.

I did finish the first sock in the sockpal marathon:

Posted by bitter purl at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)