Sleeve one has landed

I repeat, sleeve one has landed.

And it's even been sewn in. Am I an over achiever or what? (Over look the fact that I still haven't started the next one. I'll do it today, right after lunch.)

Here's a few terrible shots of it with one sleeve. It's so hard to take a picture of yourself, and other people look at me funny when I want them to take a picture of me wearing a half-knit sweater.

All it needs now is a sleeve, some odd collar thing-y that I haven't quite decided on yet. (I'm thinking the Norwegian collar. It's in a lot of EZ's books. Essentially a flap with the ends sewn down. I'm sure it looks a lot better than it sounds.) A few ends to be woven in (I do love a wool yarn, for many reason, but one of which is the spit felting method of dealing with the ends.) And then, I should have a perfectly fitting cardigan.

Good News: Considering that I have more than a ball of yarn left for the sleeves and collar, and the first sleeve took less than a ball of yarn, I will have enough to finish. Such a good feeling, and now, I can do as EZ suggests, Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises. I must say that this is a lot easier to do when you don't when you are confident that there won't be any crises.

I love the fit, the drop shoulder really doesn't look to bad on a man (sorry ladies). It's easy to knit, and if done right, quite good looking. I managed to avoid the winged arms look, by stopping the sleeve increases when I thought I should be done. I love how well this thing was seemed. So neat looking, so clean and tidy, and . . . so not me.

So what to talk about today?

I'm kind of running out of ideas. I've told you about my plans to learn a language that is only spoken in one county. I've told you about Project: 333, and how I'm not doing it. You've heard about my knitting, and how I've got only a few rows till I'm done with sleeve one on the V-neck Aran. (I should have come up with a better name for that one.) Desperate Housewives last night lacked the magic that it usually holds for me.

So, in short, I've got nothing. No insect has endangered my life so far. There have been no revelations, whether they be minor or major. I haven't decided to go on a life changing quest (or I haven't decided which one to go on). And I don't think you want to hear my views on whether or not the U.S. really went to the moon. (Which last night's Pan Am really helped me concrete my views on this. The U.S. government will do anything to get ahead.)

So, I'm just going to go (I may be posting more entries, but they are a lot shorter.) Hopefully I'll live to blog another day.

Project 333: and why I'm not doing it

You may or may not have heard what is going on over at Yarnagogo Rachael's place. (Link on sidebar.) She is doing Project 333, which you probably haven't ever heard of. Basically it's where you winnow down your wawardrobe to 33 items, and where them for three months. This excludes things like jewelry, underwear pajamas, ect.

I like the idea of this. I like the idea of only having clothes that you like. It seems really noble to me, but I have got a couple of reasons for why I'm not doing this.

1. I live in Ohio. This means that during the summer I need a lot of cool clothes, because it can get pretty hot here. But it also gets freezing in winter. So I need to have an extensive supply of both sweaters and shorts. I would be find now if I were to keep the sweaters and get rid of the shorts, but what about in a eight months when it gets hot out? Then I won't have anything to wear.

2. I like most of my clothes (or I do now, keep reading). If I look through my closet I see mostly things that I like. While they might be a little outlandish, (At the moment I'm wearing jeans, a cardigan with suede elbow patches, and an "I'm with Stupid" shirt.) I really do like them all.  There are some that I don't wear a lot, mostly because I don't have the occasion to wear them a lot, but I do like all of them.

3. There are days where I feel like dressing differently than others. I have some days where I like to cozy up in sweaters and feel like a collage professor. There are times where I like to dress like other people my age do (to an extent, I hate conformity) and there are days where I like to dress like a free loving hippie. It varies based on my mood.

Still though, I do like the idea of this. So yesterday, I carved out a couple of hours and got rid of the stuff that I don't like. The dumpy last resort sweatshirt went, as did the drop-shouldered monstrosity that is older than I am. I got rid of the tight cut-offs that made my legs look like sausages. The stuff that doesn't fit me went, and the stuff that weighs me down went too. Clothes should lift you up, Right? (Hell, clothes should fit.)

A love affair with all things Italian

In the past few days, my mild obsession with all things Italian, has developed into a raging case of consumption with all things Italian. I've always loved the country (At least the people, the government, a touch unstable) but due to a few recent book reads, and just me being me. I want to know everything about it.

I'm going to start learning the language. I already know a little, mostly gleaned through media, but that's still a start. I want to start taking classes in it soon, I just need to find out where would be a good place to do that.

Sure it's impractical. Sure, only one country speaks it, but you have to figure, at least it's not like the time I wanted to learn to speak Finnish. At least one country speaks this (most Finns use Swedish). And this is an easier language to learn, because it's based on Latin, like English. And this will make learning other Latin based languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese (sic) a lot easier.

And it's so pretty.

In other news, I finished the body of the V-neck Aran. Pic's tomorrow. I really like it. Always a plus.