Saturday, May 13, 2006

It's amazing what two weeks, some Midol, and a day away from the munchkin with the awesomest miss Renee can do for one's outlook.

First, let me offer up the photos I promised. As usual, the little thumbnails are clickable.

Here, finally, is Crackie's Pi bed knitted, but not felted. He likes it. He kneads on it. I really need to get it felted soon though, before he gets used to it the way it is now. Eh. Eventually.



Next we have gloves. Yes, amusingly colorful gloves. Can't say much more about them now, but I promise you you'll hear more about them soon. And get better pictures, too. Really.



Here is a bit of entrelac, and just a little snippet of something else that's in the works. You'll, again, hear more about it soon. I hope. Really need to get off my lazy behind and get working on stuff.



This lovely wad of autumn-colored fluff is a scarf for Robincat. I found the fluffy stuff when I was reorganizing my stash. I have no idea why I had it, but I did. (Orange isn't usually on my list of colors I like.) I set it aside, not sure what it wanted to be, and it promptly snuggled up to this big ole cone of kelly green fingering weight wool. I couldn't let such happiness go unrewarded, so I'm making it into a froofy-butt scarf. I was hoping the fluff would go farther and make a stole/wrap kind of thing, but alas. It's happy, but it's skinny. I plan to gift it to Robin at knitting tomorrow.

I got a $100.00 gift card from work, everyone got one for hitting some random number goal that management liked. So what did I do with it? I bought yarn, of course! I got seven skeins of yummy SWTC Bamboo in that purple variegated that I like so much. (The swatch photo is a more accurate representation of the color.) So I knitted up a swatch on size US8s, my most comfortable needle size...and WTF? I got SIX stitches to the inch on my gauge swatch. Bizarre, considering the ball band says a recommended gauge of 5 stitches to the inch on US6 needles. I'm so confused. Oh well. It's gonna get washed and I'll re-measure then. I will say that I LOVE the way the colors land as it knits up. THANK YOU RENEE for not letting me buy any solid-colored yarns! :)

And that's the end of my little pictorial for today. Well, except for this bit of silliness. It's a crocheted hyperbolic plane, based on the ones I saw in a scientific magazine article, then found again on a website that someone posted to the Knittyboard. Yes, it IS screaming pink. I'm considering making another one in a more sedate color for my dad. He IS a math teacher, after all. Hm, maybe I can make him a full set. Moebius scarf, klein bottle hat, and hyperbolic plane...something or other. Yeah!

WIPs: Finishing up the froofy orange fluff scarf for Robin (It WAS done, but the cast on edge is WAY looser than the bind off making the whole scarf curve like this: (, so I'm painstakingly picking out the cast on and I'm going to bind it off like I did the other side. It should lay flat after that, I hope.) Also still working on lace insanity, and it's been picking up speed. Probably because Helen is now test knitting it for me and she's WAY fast. So I'm having to speed up myself to keep ahead of her so she has instructions to follow.

Peeking out of the UFO pile are Ceci's Checkpoint Duo top (I need to get another ball out of stash to keep going on it); mom's Vebjorg (found out I can only work on it where there's GOOD lighting 'cause dark eggplant-colored yarn on black ebony wood needles makes for very squinty knitting); spinning is still verboten in this house, but that's okay. I can always take Joy with me to Renee's house and hide out there for a few hours at a time; my "Wobble" drop spindle that I made has really enjoyed the new and improved hook I put on top and is much less wobbly now. I have a decent amount of the Falkland wool lovely Seven sent me spun up on it, heavy lace weight singles that I"m planning on 2-plying into a laceish to fingering weight; and....uh....is that it? I don't have any other real WIPs anywhere? EEK! MUST...START...SOMETHING...ELSE!!

entrelac at 11:23 AM :: |


Monday, May 01, 2006

Three finished objects in three days. It's unheard of for me, it truly boggles the mind. Granted, two of them had been in slow process for at least six months each, so it was about damned time they were done. There will be pictures when there are pictures. Until then, deal. But what to work on now...

Lace Insanity beta test is going slowly because I'm at a point that I need to be writing down the numbers as I'm knitting, and I haven't been. So I've been going back and reading my knitting to figure out what I did, and the numbers aren't adding up right over and over again. Very frustrating, but I know it has to work somehow. Because I did it. I'm just really glad that there's no time requirement on this thing because there's no way in hell I could finish it on a deadline with all the damned interruptions around here.

I've decided that Vebjorg, as lovely as it is, hurts my hands to work on. The boring stockingette is of course just fine. It's the cables that make the garment worth knitting that are killing me. Dangit. I'll try again some more and hope, but I think I might (sigh) have to frog it and find a simpler cardigan to make for mom. Thankfully, she's one of the skinny people and there is no shortage of good patterns for skinny people.

The umpteen million things I have on the needles for Ceci (okay, two) are going to continue to wait until I can get her to stand still without a brat hanging off of her long enough for me to get some new measurements. I'll be damned if I make her umpteen garments then find out none of them fit anymore.

No, I'm not knitting anything for myself right now, so stop asking. Nothing inspires me anymore. I've been there, done that, hated this, got bored of those, and just have a general case of the whatevers. Must be nice to have the inclination to whip out things for yourself, the kids, the cats, the bars of soap, the trees...

Still can't do any spinning unless I lock myself in my room and make Ceci pout. The monster has learned that my spinning wheel has some really cool moving parts and he WANTS to play with them regardless of the risk of serious injuries if I dare to *gasp* use my spinning wheel for its intended use (instead of letting it be a toy like everything else in this house). He also likes to lean all of his weight on the flyer which is the number one big no-no for my Joy. So big a no-no that the wheel's got a warning label on the bottom of the foot pedals. So, for now (which means until that kid is at least FOUR) I can't use my spinning wheel without looking like an antisocial bitch. Oh, and drop spindles are no better. He WANTS those too, and screams bloody murder if I refuse to let him snatch it out of the air, shred and eat the spun yarn on it, and slam it against the floor to shatter the whorl. One wonders why my Lollipops and Greensleeves spindles are hanging unused. NOT.

Why, yes, it IS morning. And yes, I did not get enough sleep. And don't you DARE effing tell me to go eat something, damnit. I will when I am damned well ready. Until then, leave me the hell alone. Now pardon me while I go shower and get the hell out of this house BY MYSELF for an hour or two.

entrelac at 9:02 AM :: |