Memes

Oh, that's right. I have a blog. Forgot there for a minute. Actually, I started a new job and haven't had much time for anything, but I have some FOs to show off when I get a second to take some pictures!


Now, Twinsanity tagged me for five random things about me. So here we go.

1. My first car was a Honda Accord, which subsequently got the front and back end smashed in, so it was dubbed the Honda Accord-ian. *rim shot*

2. I know how to hand toss pizza dough. When I was 18, that skill got me a job. I went to an interview at a mall pizza place, and my interview consisted of them asking me to make them a hand-tossed pizza. That job sucked. Moving on!

3. I can read stenotype. /TPAOER /PHAOEU /AU /SUPL /SKEULZ !!!!!

4. In my sophomore year in high school, I failed English but passed Spanish 3 with a 100%. Figure that one out. I then went on to use English and grammar in my job and call myself an expert. Ha.

5. I worked out with Franko Harris. Whoopdedoo.

Now, this other one. I just wanted to do it. Nobody tagged me. Is that against Meme rules? Who cares. Bold is what I have done, italics is what I plan on.

Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with bananafiber yarn
Domino knitting (=modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
toy/doll clothes
Knitting with circular needles
Baby items
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffitti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button Holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colours
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cosies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items)on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone elses handspun yarn
Knitting with dpns
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars simultaneously
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with selfpatterning/selfstriping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/armwarmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

About that sock nirvana...

Frogged. The yarn was just not solid enough to show the pattern the way it should be shown. So I started the Bayerische again in some maroon solid yarn. This time I was careful to knit the row before the hellish increase row extra, extra loose, and it was much easier.



But I did finish my Pomatomi! Pictures whenever it quits fucking raining. After finishing them, I really wanted to get back to some wooly wool. Don't get me wrong, I do love the merino/tencel, but it's just not very give-y. I need a break from it. That was another reason the Bayerische got frogged.

At least I have blog nirvana. I really do like the new look. I am forever in Ms. A's debt.

A little late for YPF

But here is some yarn porn all the same.

The first is from Merlin The Cat on Etsy (and Knittyboard). It was so much fun to spin. I spun most of it at a demo, and people kept petting it and commenting on the colors.

WPI: I have no earthly idea. Eyeballing it, it's DK to sport weight.
Yardage: 350 yards
Fiber: Pink superwash merino, gray Peruvian Wool, white mohair, gray bamboo




Next up, some merino that I bought at Heritage Arts in Grandview. It was soooooo gorgeous I couldn't resist it. It looked like it was dyed in the locks and then processed, so it made a nice heathery yarn.

WPI: 24 WPI
Yardage: 550 yards
Fiber: 100% merino




On the Blogger issue, MAD PROPS to A at PinkPorcupine Knits. She is seriously awesome and has put in way too much of her personal time helping clueless me. Thank you! And go look at her blog. She is not only talented with the HTML, but has some serious sock yumminess over there.

Dame Wendy, I tried your suggestion but it didn't really fix it. :(

Edit: LOOKIE! Ms. A fixed it for me. It's great! WOOHOO!

sarcasm>Yay for new blogger/sarcasm>

I am warning you, there are filthy words in this post. If you are a small child or offended by four letter words, just move on, because I am NOT in any mood to cater to your delicate sensibilities, mmkay?


So yay! New Blogger, huh? Isn't it GREAT!?


What a pain in the ass. Seriously! UGH. No, really, I don't think my frustration is getting through.

AHHHHHHHHH!














Nope, not quite.























Just about...




















There we go!


Anyway, I've got a beaded row counter for anyone who can tell me why, FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK, after messing with everything I can think of I have my blog title showing up under my header image and why it's so far down on the page.

If you can be pretty useful, I'll send you something pretty and useful. The row counter is red and yellow. Yes, Nicole, I know. Shuddup.

All together now...

"Awwwwwwwwwwww."

Too bad.

Yes, I'm an evil person and I'm going to hell. Whatever.

I'm not sure I buy the official story. If you're having trouble keeping up, why have 300 items for sale on Etsy? Why not cut back instead of closing the store entirely? I think it might have something to do with the fact that "yarnknitter," a user on Etsy that bought ONLY from Mystical Creations, 20 pages of feedback worth, and who always showed up to leave a page or two of feedback after MCY got a negative or neutral, is no longer a registered user. Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

Again, this is just my opinion.

Socks, glorious socks

By now I'm sure you've heard about the ridonkulous 52 pairs of socks in a year KAL, right? I'm not quite that crazy. I am, however, crazy enough for the Slow-Poke Socks KAL. Woohoo!

In other sock news, I finished my RPMs but they refuse to photograph nicely.



Pattern: RPM, Knitty
Yarn: Socks that Rock Fire on the Mountain
Needles: Size 2 Knitpicks DPNs

And I finished a Pomatomus. Just one. This is a source of much mockery from Lauren who finished BOTH of hers ages ago. Yeah, I'll get around to it.







I finished this while I was visiting Blogless Betty™ the other week. Oh, what fun we had. We OD'd on yarn shops. We chatted. We ate (which reminds me, if you are ever in Dallas and go to the Shabby Sheep, right next door is a little restaurant. Go there and order the chocolate pudding cake. You will orgasm right there). We Starbucked. It was so, so good. Also, she let me shop her stash in honor of my birthday, and I picked out this Ruby Sapphire Luster Sock (50/50 merino/tencel, 400 yards, DELICOUS purple).



I knew before I even left her house what I wanted to make with it.



Yes, that's Bayerische. First, let me say this. It is a lovely pattern and well written and Eunny is a goddess. I love it. Last night when I started it, however, I was thinking Eunny was a goddess kind of like Kali, the Indian goddess of death. Just evil.

Cast on, did the ribbing, all was well. Then there was an increase round straight from the fiery depths of HELL. Maybe I made it harder on myself than I needed to, but when she said M1 purlwise, I assumed that meant pulling up the bar and purling it through the back (which now checking the comments, yes, that's exactly what she intended), which was nigh on fucking impossible. Then I started the first pattern round. Want to guess how long it took me to knit that one round?


Just take a wild stab in the dark.


10 minutes? No. 20? Nope. 35 minutes. For one round. Of a SOCK, people! I know this because I listened to an entire podcast which was 35 minutes long while doing that round. Jeezopete. I don't think every round will take that long because my stitches were tight from all the inspired-by-demons increases, and then trying to do those wicked 7 stitch crosses without a cable needle was needle acrobatics. So yeah. I got through another two rounds before I hung it up for the night, and they went much more smoothly. So Eunny is back to benevolent knitting goddess status in my mind. I'm so grateful that she puts up such gorgeous patterns for free on her blog. She is so talented.

Okay! So as a treat for making it through that craziness, I finished up another iPod neck thingy to hold my Nano while I knit or clean or shop or whatever. It's from the leftover STR from the RPMs above. I love it.

Alpaca demo

Yesterday I went down to BFE, Texas to a seminar where they had a bunch of alpaca farmers explaining things to people considering buying alpacas. We were there to demonstrate handspinning and the farmers were literally like, "Here, do you need some fiber? Take this. Here, take this too." I got to meet this chocolate brown alpaca named Domino, then spin his wool and knit up a little swatch. I also got to spin some Suri, which was *drool*. Oh! I also got a carding lesson from BJ and carded what I spun too.

Fun day!

I should have pictures of the cute alpacas a little later. I didn't take them, so I'm waiting for my friend to send them to me.

In the meantime, have some yarn porn.

This is the yarn. The top is Suri and the bottom is huacaya, which BJ and I were calling "Peanut butter cup.



















This is a close up of the two. I tried to spin the suri with minimal twist and make it nice and furry. I haven't washed and whacked it yet.

How about some more crappy pictures? Huh?

I swear I need a new camera.

Also, it's hard to take a picture of your own hand. This is one of my Fetching gloves, knit with my very own handspun! This is the first I've knit my own yarn. I was amazed at how knitting it covers up so many mistakes rewarding it is to knit your own handspun. ;)












And here is a crappy picture of my Pomatomus (how DO you pronounce that?) in STR Seduction (50/50 merino tencel) in the Puck's Mischief colorway. Lauren has some of the same yarn, so we're making twin (well, quadruplet?) socks. I can't wait to see hers. She is like a monster fast knitter, so she'll have hers done and I'll still be at the same point. Just you watch. The first one is more accurate as far as color, but the second one shows you the glorious shiny sheen. I love this yarn. I love this pattern. I have achieved Sock Nirvana.

















Regarding the disappointing yarn in my last post, BJ, being brilliant you know, had a simple suggestion for me that made me go, OH DUH! Of course! She suggested I overdye it with some blue so that it'll be more purpley like I wanted. I may salvage this yarn yet. I have only dyed one other time and it was a disaster, so this should be interesting. Stay tuned.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

First The Good.

I got a new spinning wheel! Yes, I know I just bought two new wheels a few months ago. But I was in LUST with this wheel. I had to have it. So I bought it, and I'm so, so glad. I'm selling the other two. It's a Kromski Sonata. I received it Saturday and my Wheel Lust developed into full-on Wheel Love. It spins so nicely. Pictures? Well, okay.





















Here it is all folded up and ready to go into the neato padded bag. Notice Super Harmony in her Girl Power cape holding the wheel up for me. Super Christopher is hiding behind it.


















So that's that. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The Bad

Remember the RPM socks I was doing two at the same time using double knitting? Yes, well, I got to where I was going to start the heel and put them down for a long time. I found them the other day and decided I should get back to them. So I started knitting and realized this wasn't fun anymore, and in fact it was making my hand cramp. So I took the needles out and separated them and WOW holy gauge issues. The outer one was huge and had weird bulges and the inner one was itty bitty and wouldn't go over my heel no how no way. So I frogged it and am starting over. :(


The Ugly

I ordered yarn from Etsy for the first time ever, and it was not a good experience. I found some gorgeous Tencel laceweight that was a pretty purpley pink and blue/black color. I ordered two skeins on the 4th and paid right away. Four days later I hadn't heard a word about it, so I contacted the seller. She was kind of snippy and said she was busy and my yarn was due to go out in four more days. So that's eight days from when I paid. Ugh. Anyway, I wait and wait and wait. 16 days after I paid it finally came. She did not ship it when she said she would. She shipped it 11 days after I ordered. That is just unacceptable to me. The worst part is that the color is TOTALLY different than what she showed. She enhanced the hell out of the pictures so that it looks nothing at all like what I got.

Judge for yourself. First picture is hers, second is mine.

Bad! Bad blogger!

But I'm a bad blogger with a wonderful Secret Pal!

Yes, ANOTHER post about her awesomeness. It just can't be stated enough. She's great.

Today, I got one last package from her. It was some GORGEOUS roving from Luxe.


Here it is lazing on the front lawn along with some goodies from her last package, which I was a BAD BLOGGER and didn't blog about. I'm so embarrassed. Look, I even knit half a sock with some of it and haven't even blogged about it. I totally suck. But look, I have pretty things!




Here's some yarn I spun. It's 100% merino, and it is TO. DIE. FOR.


You want it? You can have it! Just go to http://www.twinshock.net/forums and look for the 2007 Make-a-Wish Charity Auction. We're raising money for Make A Wish Foundation, and this yarn along with a book and some rosewood needles is up for auction. 100% of the proceeds go to Make A Wish. Giving! Getting! Yarn! Happy! LOL

Pictures

My monitor is still screwed up, so I can't tell anything about the color of these pictures. I hope they are pretty accurate.

So first, the promised pictures of the iPod Cozy. I finished the i-cord on the way up to Roc Day at Beaumont Ranch, which, by the way was a BLAST. I met so many new spinners, got to try spinning some llama, met a lady who's going to sell me an angora bunny, and brought home some simply gorgeous bamboo for this year's Fiber Challenge. We're supposed to take the bamboo and turn it into something "in the style of the Orient" and bring it with us next year.

Anyway, here's the cozy.



Peeping out



Second up, here's some more of that Lorna's Laces handpainted top that I spun some more of. I plied it at Roc Day with the help of the wonderful BJ.



This I plied up last night. This is spun from the roving that my darling secret pal sent. It is sooooooooooo soft and drapey and just awesome. She picks out good roving for a non-spinner, don't you think?





The two skeins wanted to go sunbathing. You can see the purple one is quite a bit smaller than the teal one. The purple one is about 85 yards, 13 wraps per inch (DK weight) and the teal is 185 yards, 16 WPI (fingering weight).

iPod Nano Cozy

My mom got me an iPod Nano for Christmas. Yay mom! I love my Nano. Love. I had a problem, though. I usually wear things that don't have pockets, so I had nowhere to put it while I was cleaning or whatever. So what do I do with things I love? Cover them with knitting, of course.

Vague pattern-ish thingy:

Yarn: Artyarns Regal Silk - 100% silk (This is just what I used. For subs, ball band says 5 stiches per inch on size 7s, but personally I think they lie. It looks more like a DK to me than a light worsted), a very small amount.
Size 3 Knitpicks DPNs
Guage: Bwaaaaaaaahahahah! *gasp* BAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA. (no really. I just eyeballed the whole thing. I'll measure it, I swear.)

Cast on 30 stitches, join in round

Knit one round, purl one round
K1, YO twice, k2tog k13, YO twice, Ktog, knit to end of round
Knit next round knitting only one stitch into the two YO's, dropping the second loop of each YO off the needle after you knit the first one (if that makes any sense)
Work four more rounds in garter stitch
Begin working in stockinette, and work even until tube is long enough to hold your Nano
Place 15 stitches on one needle and 15 stitches on another needle, with working yarn at end of one of those.
To make the bottom flap and a hole for your headphone plug:
Work back and forth in stockinette stitch for 2 rows
On next row, P2, YO twice, P2tog, purl to end of row
Knit next row, treating the YO twice the same as you did before.
Purl next row.
Turn the piece inside out.
Connect with stitches on other needle using 3-needle bind off.

Knit a length of I-cord as long as you want to hang around your neck. Thread each end through the two holes in the garter portion and tie each end in a knot to secure it with the knots on the outside.

Pictures of this later. I'm still doing i-cord. *twitch*

Happy New Year

I'm behind on blogging, I know. This time of year is CRAAAAAZY with work for me, so I've been pounding the keyboard and not much time for knitting or blogging or anything else. :(

Hopefully this week I'll have more time.

For Christmas knitting I made a pair of socks for my mom, Knitty's Broadripple in pale green, blue, pink and yellow self-striping. She loved them. I didn't get a picture, though. :( I just finished binding off the toe on Christmas morning! Eeek!

I also made a coffee cup cozy from the Knitpicks pattern for my sister, but I haven't felted it yet. I started one for my brother-in-law, but it's not done.