Picatures!
So, I was wandering around Old Town Alexandria today when I found this necklace:
For those of you who only know me through cyber space, this necklace may be pretty, but that's it. But for those who know me, a twin to this necklace lived on my neck since I bought it off of ebay four years ago. Last year I got drunk at a party and when I got home I wasn't wearing it anymore. I'd pretty much given up on it, but hey! Lookie there!
Also, I've finished my first hat-a-thon hat:
This is actually a Bucket-o-Chic pattern, and I've decided that as a pattern, it needs some work. The brim needs to be a few rows longer and the middle band about two or three stitches shorter. The black roll is supposed to be steamed flat,
after seeing a blocked version, I'm more inclined not to. And it's such a pretty line!
This was supposed to be my boy cap, too. Sigh.
So, everyone remember
my metro yarn guerilla attack?
It's
Lion Brand Magic Stripes in the "denim" colorway.
Though, as
Brainy Lady pointed out, it could easily be
Regia 6 Ply Crazy Color something or another.
Hrm. Once again, Lion Brand copies the more expensive brands. But down to the colorway? That's harsh, yo.
My goodness!
Somebody actually
made a hat from one of my patterns!
I've decided I need a
cell phone cozy because only one of my bags has the automatic holder.
Then I charted out a caduceus to knit intarsia (intarsiatically?) on the back. For those non pagans in the crowd, the caduceus is the symbol of Hermes, Greek messenger god, and the one I think of as in charge of communication & transportation - the one you talk to about getting that email or making sure your car works. (He's also a prankster, so occasionally the email you wanted comes from the guy you didn't want, or your car runs fine but then you fall off your bike, etc...)
But while I have this, people are going to think I'm a doctor on call. At least this time I'll remember to
not make it a black cell phone caddy.
Edit: Last night I had a dream where I was a young Joan of Arc searching through yarn to find enough to make said cell phone cozy. Interpret that how you will.
I have two things I need to do this weekend.
Laundry and blocking.
50 cents says I don't do either.
Stashing
Following
Yarnhead and
Artichaut's examples, the following are projects I would like to have either on the needles or finished by the new (calendar) year:
Moly's Sitcom Slut (needs literally two hours of work... but with Molly there to model)
Mom's forsythia shirt (blocking & sewing)
Kittenlid hat (on needles)
3 Hat a thon hats (one on needles)
2 more christmas presents (one on needles)
Braided Cables (at least cast on and body shaping done)
And the rocking wrist warmers
It looks like a small list. But there's 4 hats, 2 sweaters, a vest, gloves and 2 surprises on there. Please catch me before I faint.
Also, I may break the yarn diet - but only if I get yarn gift certifictes for Christmas/Yule (for convenience's sake, I call it Christmas - I celebrate it only in that there's a tree and presents and turkey. I'm a pagan, but with all catholic relatives, except for the quiet atheists). I've mentioned that yarn gift certificates would be good gifts. Look, I'm mentioning it again! But a yarn gift certificate would go towards some Noro for a
Booga Bag.
This post brought to you by Christina, the knit blogging sheep.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
This image courtesy of http://www.inwap.com/u/john/. No copyright infringement is intended. Please don't sue me, I'm broke anyway.
Oh yeah...
Tomorrow, I go to West Virginia. I'm frightened. Very frightened.
But on the bright side, I get to knit a lot and have Thanksgiving dinner a week early.
What knitting project(s) do I bring? Erica's scarf is so close to finished I can taste it, and I need to start Nina's. But then there's Mom's forsythia which needs to be seamed and Kittenlid's Oprah hat and the Charity Hats...
Oprah and Bucket Hats are both online patterns, so unless I get the printer working...
There's some quote - We don't know where we're going, but isn't it fun to get there!
Son of a...
I'm making
Bucket-O-Chic for the hat-a-thon, with a skein I got from the Knit-Out in September.
I ran out of yarn finishing the top. I still have the brim to go, and about six yards of yarn left.
I did see this coming, and I was thinking of mingling this black I have with it. Hopefully, that will make everything ok. It's also silly to wind yarn make a hat that will required doubled yarn, especially when you have one skein.
And I hate to be all critical of other people's work and everything... oh, wait. No, I don't. Not really. I occasionally kind of enjoy it.
The Camp Jacket currently pictured on the front page. Yeah. It's a really pretty back, but oh the little old lady look on the front. It's not that it's a bad pattern and I think other people will love it... I just think it's ugly.
Sort of in the same way some people think it's acceptable to wear white shirts and khaki pants. (No. You're not. Deal.)
But then, she did the
eyelash bucket hat after
I did. So, she does have some taste. =)
drool...
KniTattoo really makes me want to get my tattoo.
( )0( on my left shoulder, for those who are curious)
Blogrolling problems...
It seems everyone's blogrolling links have been turned into a link to some bint's blog. Of course, now that blog is down because of bandwith issues.
I've deleted all 50,000 links and am attempting to start fresh, but these are the only knitting blogs I have links to at work. The rest have to wait until I get home to find their way back onto my blogroll.
It's nothing personal. Unless you're some bint named Laura.
And don't forget to work on your hats for charity!
Edit: It's fixed.
Thanks Blogrolling!
HAT A THON!
Much like the Mouse-A-Thon, I'm starting a hat-a-thon for charity. Click the button for more information and start knitting for a cause!
....
Yes, I know, you can see the tumbleweeds moving across the blog.
But interesting things will be coming soon. I have a plan. Oh yes, I have a plan.
Once I have a free hour or two.
Joining the Club...
Mama Kate and
Steph have the right idea.
Yarn diet. No more yarn. At least until February or I actually knit all the yarn I have in DC, whichever comes first.
Dear Gods People!
Why is it so hard to find a simple, short row sock pattern for DK weight yarn (for free)?
I want nothing fancy. I hate the other heel flap. I just want two inches of ribbing, maybe 2"-3" of calf flap, short row heel, foot, toe decreases, kitchener stitch. It's not rocket science.
And is it so damn hard to include shoe sizes in your sock sizing? Medium says NOTHING to me. Medium (women's size 4-9) tells me that the sock will fit me!!!
I've got skeins! They're multiplying!
For the love of the gods, PLEASE do NOT let me near any more crafting stores!
I went to Michaels to return the leftovers from the Crowns stuff and get Nina's eyelash supplies.
That wasn't all I got.
The theme for the day seems to be purple.
The Lionbrand MicroSpun purple acryllic and eyelash are for Nina's scarf. The two skeins of white-blue-purple Patons Grace are for socks for me. The Lionbrand sport weight white yarn with glitter shot through it is for the
Rock Along. I want to make wrist warmers/fingerless gloves/hunters mittens with a triple moon on the left hand and horned god on the right. I figure corrugated ribbing too. I have some green sportweight leftover from past mittens that would work quite well.
All in all, DON'T LET ME BUY ANY MORE YARN! I have waaay too many projects as it is. But I really enjoy the potential in yarn. The way you can look at a skein and see what might be there. I might see socks in the Patons, but you might see mittens. That sort of thing. I love that.
Which is why yarn stores are bad. As are Michaels. I need to stay out of them. I also need to go call my mother.
Detangling Finished! Result... eh.
So, I just finished making the big mess I made today.
Now, it's my own fault for not getting them to wind it for me at the knitting store. I don't know if they could have, but hell, I should have asked. So, when I got home from the yarn store, after a movie, wandering around the metro and a drum circle, the loop of loose yarn looked like this:
Yeah.
So, I split and balled the yarn. That took about 4 hours. Then I had more mohair than ribbon, and I realized it looked bad because the ribbon was twisted.
So, I split them again, winding them now around boxes to keep the ribbon from twisting. I finished that tonight. It took probably about 8 hours when all's said and done. Maybe more.
Of course, throughout this, the fuzzy soft mohair got less and less fuzzy. I always fuck up projects with unforgiving yarn. Don't get me started on the chenille scarf I made.
So, I've knit a few rows on my 15s in garter stitch. The nice lady at the yarn store said I wouldn't know the difference. Oh, but I beg to differ:
So, I'm thinking seed stitch. Or maybe k1p1 rib.
Either way, I'm just grumpy about it.
More Unintelligible Noises...
So, last night, I took the metro home, and on the yellow line, there was a girl knitting either a very thin scarf or a belt tie on wooden needles. k1p1 rib with selvage stitch. It was kind of obvious from the way she held the needles that she was a new knitter.
But the color scheme was a blue, white, red and tan random stripes that I really liked, and since I didn't see any ends, I gathered up my courage and walked up to her (she was about 3 feet away from where I was standing).
"I really like your knitting. Are you using multiple yarns or is that yarn variegated?"
"Oh, thanks. Um... what?"
"That yarn. Are you using a lot different colored yarns or is it all one piece? I knit too, mine's in my bag" and tapped my handbag, where, indeed, Mom's forsythia sleeve was nestled.
"Oh, it's all one piece."
"Really? What brand is it?"
She reached into her bag and pulled out a skein. "See, it's all one piece."
"Do you know the yarn's name?"
"Oh, no. No, I don't know it's name."
I went back into my corner and got off at Pentagon. Dang. Oh well, they weren't really my colors anyway.
In other news, I'm tring this
National Novel Writing Month thing. Of course, I'm going to end up writing a screen play, but same difference. So who knows how knitting will be.
Blarg.
No real updates.
I've been trying to get my wireless to work (first it did. Then it didn't. Now it does again. I don't know why), and untwisting until I think my head's gonna explode.
And I was really disappointed by Law & Order last night.
I'm going to
Matrix: Revolutions tonight. And I'm going to knit. I don't care what the people next to me think, it's the only way I'm going to get through that piece of crap, but I gotta see how it ends.
The Insanity Continues...
Despite my dog eating my brain, I had a minor revelation about why I had an extra few yards of the mohair at work today. Anything rather than, you know, work.
The ribbon yarn of the mohair/ribbon yarn combination was getting twisted around itself, looking not unlike DNA.
So, now I'm splicing the double strand (AGAIN!), winding the mohair around a bandaid box and the ribbon around an envelope box with the hopes that this will reduce the twist, untwisting as I go. The problem is this sends the twist up the ribbon yarn, so now I've about a foot of twist to deal and I'm only halfway through the ball of yarn.
I'm going to rewind onto a box again.
I think this project is doomed.
Has Anybody Seen My Sanity?
I think I left it by the couch.
So I think the dog ate it.
And now back to your regularly scheduled surfing the internet.
Oh my goodness
I am officially the
worst at winding yarn that does not come in a skein or a ball.
I just spent three hours detangling a loose coil of mohair & ribbon yarn (pics to come). Then I rewound it and had more mohair than ribbon. This vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.
If it didn't cost $25 a skein, this stuff would make a BEAUTIFUL sweater.
Edt: I love how, through no fault of my own or blogger's, the site just fails to load. Oh yeah, reliable service baby. Have I mentioned it's free? Can you tell?
Blogger, you suck.
I had this nice long entry this morning. I researched all my references and linked and everything.
Then blogger ate it. Stupid blogger.
Basically, I had a dream where I got some unspun wool, an afghan, an ugly sweater a size too small for me, and a couple of skeins of Noro Iro from a yarn store that was going out of business.
So I went to the yarn store and the lady working there said I needed to give it back, that they'd gotten their loan. I was unhappy because I could never afford Noro yarns.
She said she'd give me the cardigan for $30. I figured I could make a
Silk Garden with it.
Then I woke up and tried to find good prices on Noro yarns on ebay and google. Didn't really work. Not a whole lot at the $5 a skein I'd be willing to pay that didn't immediately get bumped up to $10. Some stores were selling at$20 a skein.
Anyway, I gotta go walk the dog.
I bought the most GORGEOUS yarn for Erica's scarf today.
It's expensive, so she better like it.
I just remembered... I already bought Jerylyn's Christmas present in July. It wasn't
beer earrings, either.
Hrm. Maybe Erica gets the bracelet and the aunt gets the scarf?
