Yearly Archive: 2013

$ cd ~meri > 2013

Review: Lion Brand 1878 Yarn

2013.01.06

If you’re a knitter (and really, if you’re reading this page, chances are good that you’re a knitter, or are just humoring me), chances are good that you know the anguish of balancing yardage and cost, especially when it comes to lace- or fingering-weight yarns. Lion Brand has come up with a fairly decent solution. Lion Brand 1878 Yarn provides you with 2,045 yards (!) of sock / fingering / baby weight yarn, for a very reasonable price. In my experience, 1878 provides great stitch definition, making it a great choice for lacework, and with the amazing yardage, you’ll probably be able to get through even the most complex shawl pattern without having to switch sources even once. The yarn is machine washable, but should not be machine dried. Hey, for about a penny a yard, you can’t have everything, right?

Available in a few colors from Amazon. (It’s even eligible for Prime, as of this writing!) A few more colors available from Lion Brand directly.

Craftiness, Favorite Things, Reviews

Crisis averted, and back with the ick again.

2013.01.05

The designer of the pattern I referred to in my last post responded to my query very quickly, and it turns out that I was on the right track. So, I’m forging ahead. Of course, I made a mistake in the very first row of the new chart, and pondered forging ahead, but I knew that it would drive me completely insane, knowing that it was there. So I unknitted back to the mistake, and now I’m forging ahead… again.

In a ‘the frogurt is cursed’ sort of way, it looks like I’ll have a good bit of time to be knitting this weekend. The ick that was going around our house, that we thought was on the way out, seems to be making a reappearance. Both G and I are back to feeling crappy. I forge ahead with tea and DayQuil and knitting. Hopefully it will clear up enough for me to make a dent in my to-do list before the weekend is out.

Craftiness, EMRT

Knitting crisis!

2013.01.04

Gak.

I’ve been working on the Glenallen Shawl, and have finally finished Chart 2 (of 6), and am ready to proceed to the next chart… except my stitch markers don’t line up. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be the case, or if my work thus far is completely screwed up. I’ve left a message for the designer, but in the meantime, that project’s kind of stalled.

Hrmph.

Craftiness

Creative Pay-It-Forward: 2013 Edition

2013.01.04

I don’t normally participate in these sorts of things, but this one seems right up my alley.

I am participating in 2013 Creative Pay-It-Forward: The first x people (where x is some randomly determined number, or until I’m tired of doing it) to comment on this status will receive from me, sometime in 2013, a special gift – perhaps a book, or a scrapbook page, or a mix CD, or baked goods, or a candle, or a small object – a special surprise just for them. There will likely be no warning and it will happen whenever the mood strikes me.

If you want to receive a bit of meri randomness in your life, please comment, and then send me your mailing address via private message.

There is supposed to be a catch, in that these same x people must also make the same offer via their (Facebook|Blog|Journal) and deliver during 2013. However, I’m not much one for these sorts of conditions. Play along if you want. 🙂

[ An aside: If you are a Gweep, please consider this to be a reminder to update your GweepDex entry. ]

Craftiness

PSA: Resolute communication. (A call for recipients.)

2013.01.02

As many of you know, I went total hermit for a few years, pretty much falling off of the face of the planet. In this past year, I’ve made something of a comeback. I’ve actually made a couple of trips to visit friends, and have reappeared in the online world. These are good things.

But receiving a few Christmas cards this year made me remember just how much I love to get personal, physical mail. And I thought that there might be some of you out there who enjoy the same sort of thing. So, if you’d like to be added to my list of random snail mail recipients, please respond via private message with your name (it’s entirely possible that you’re using a pseudonym and I honestly either have never known or have completely forgotten your ‘real’ name) and favored mailing address.

I’m going to try to write a letter a week, which means I need more recipients soon, or a few family members and a couple of friends are going to get really sick of me really quickly. 🙂

General, PSA