As usual, nothing much! Mostly I'm wasting time rather than getting my documentation done :)

I was going to go swimming again but the weather has been very odd all day (it's raining and windy and cool -- in the South, in August? very unusual!). I designed a hat (for the Ravelympics) and I need some pattern testers (send me a pm with your email address if interested)
Here's a picture of the hat:




I learned something new about my husband, namely that he is very enthusiastic about the Olympic games. He went to bed last night at 12:30 and was up again at 4:00 to watch the games! OH! We just had our 4th wedding anniversary, go us.

my moonflower continues to rock the house and be difficult to photograph.



I guess I don't have much interesting to write about -- I've been invited to participate in an art and craft fair in September, so I've been crafting in all my free time so that I'll actually have some stock! I'm going to Georgia next weekend to see my mom and sister and dog, and I'm looking forward to that! :) I did take a homeless guy out to lunch today -- he told me he was a vegetarian but then he ordered chicken wings.

Today I talked with my mom on the phone and told her about the socks I made and she wished to actually see them, so here they are!

First one done!


Amazingly I didn't burn out at this point in the project and actually kept going.

Second one in progress, with Spot's able assistance:
(Good GOD my hair looks awful in this picture. Odds are good it is due to Ursula grooming my head*. Plus I have an appealingly tense "help, I'm buried under cats" look on my face).


And finally, they are both done!




yay socks!

Are they as blinding as you imagined them, mom?

*"grooming" is a euphemism for "GNAWING ON MY HEAD BECAUSE SHE PLANS TO EAT ME IN MY SLEEP."

This whole job thing really cuts into my knitting time, but I have gotten a couple of things done!

1.



I started with the basic idea of the Fake-Isle hat (from Magknits), but I made several changes.

1. I did a stranded ribbing, because I like how it looks. It's not as stretchy as regular ribbing, though.
2. I like the floral effect of the top part of the hat so I wanted to do a pattern that would tie in with that. Additionally, I felt like the black yarn + the Kureyon gives an almost stained glass effect, so I wanted something with strong black accents that would further that effect. I found this pattern in "Traditional Scandinavian Knitting" and it was just what I was wanted! I really love how it turned out, although I feel like there's a fair bit of unrelieved pink. But hey, I like pink!

I had a lot of incentive to get this done quickly -- it's cold and I can't find any of my hats, which is amazing because I should have about a billion of them.

Baby Surprise Jacket: I think I posted about this before? I knit it over Thanksgiving, but I only just finished sewing it up and putting buttons on it. I LOVE this pattern. I was unconvinced until I was all done and folded it up (see my flickr photostream to see how it works http://www.flickr.com/photos/16579858@N06/ ) and it's like magic!
I also made a little hat to go with it. I did NOT Take Time to Check Gauge, and there's no way this hat will fit a newborn, but babies grow fast, right?

My knitting group isn't imaginary, here is proof that they exist!

http://craftswap.meetup.com/48/photos/

Isn't everyone cute?

This was inspired by a challenge from my knitting group to a)figure out what to do with the little bits of pieces of yarn that accumulate in your stash and reproduce when you aren't looking and b)also figure out what to do with all the sparkly, fringey, fluffy novelty yarn we've all been seduced by, brought home, and then woke up the next morning, looked at, and thought "what on earth am I going to do with you?"

So here is a basic recipe to use up those odd (and sometimes VERY odd) bits, and keep your beer cool and festive-looking at the same time (NOTE: you could use these for non-beer canned beverages, say, soft drinks, if you felt so inclined. and then you wouldn't get kicked out of conservative knitting groups).

1: Rummage through your stash and find some bits of worsted weight yarn that look halfway decent together: (I'm sorry the photos are so blurry, y'all. I think the funfur yarn deranged my camera).



OK, I'm not trying to be patronizing here, but remember that they have to be wool (and not superwash wool) or they won't felt and you will wind up with a floppy useless sack (ugh.)
It is OK if the novelty yarn is not wool; if you double it up with a wool yarn, it will felt into the fabric of the coozy (more about this later).

If you want to use bulky yarn, that is cool, but you will need to cast on more stitches because you'll be making a thicker fabric. Check out my other coozy pattern, which was made with bulky yarn.

The basic recipe is this: take your double pointed size 9 (5.5 mm) needles, cast on 36 stitches (if you don't like math, I already figured it out for you, it's 9 stitches per needle -- and if you remind me one day I'll show you a neat mnemonic device for remembering your 9's tables, in case you flunked elementary math, like me). Cast on with your preferred method -- knit on cast on, long tail cast on -- whatever you like, it doesn't really matter. Then you knit about 30 rows, switching colors as you like, and then you make the bottoms like this:
row 1: Knit 4, k2tog (all the way around)
Row 2: Knit 3, k2tog
Row 3: Knit 2, k2tog
Row 4: Knit 1, K2tog
Row 5: K2tog.
Then cut the yarn, and pull it through the remaining stitches (I think there should be 6 left?) and voila, you have a shapeless thing that you will then felt and make a joyful beer cozy of happiness.

What? You want more pictures and a better pattern? Well, all right then.
If you look at the above photo of yarn, I have a fair bit of Paton's wool, so that will be my main color. I also have a bit of blue/purple wool left over (why yes, that is the wool that caused the Great Gauge Disaster of 2007, but I am giving it another chance), and then I have this fluffy stuff that I think might be Lion Brand Fun Fur. Anyway, I cast on 36 stitches of the main color, and knit 5 rows. Then I added on the other wool and knit 6 rows. And by the way, when I am knitting in the round and want to add another color, I just make a slip knot and pull it through as the first stitch, as demonstrated in the following blurry photo:



I don't know if that's the textbook way of doing it, but it works. And, in particular, when you are going to felt something, it doesn't matter if you don't do it exactly right; once it's felted no-one will ever know.

Once the other wool ran out, I took back up with the Paton's wool, and knit 3 rows. Then I added the eyelash yarn. As you can see, I just held it along with the wool and knit the 2 of them together. It's actually easier than just knitting with the eyelash yarn would be, because you can actually see the stitches, and again, if you don't hold them together, the eyelash yarn won't felt and you'll have a strangely non-felted bit in the middle of your feltiness.



I knit about 8 rows like that, and then the fluffy yarn ran out so I continued with the plain wool for 7 more rows, and then worked the bottom as explained above. Then I took my hairbrush and brushed the part with the eyelash yarn because an awful lot of the eyelashes had gotten twisted into the knitting stitches, or wanted to poke out the wrong side, and so it was looking kind of sparse. Brushing gently helped pull them to the front and made it nice and fluffy*.
This is as good a point as any to mention that I would NOT put the eyelash yarn too much towards the top of the coozy, because you don't want to get fluff in your mouth. And yes, I pulled apart the first prototype coozy because I didn't think of that until I had it about half knitted.
When I was done knitting, I had this strange little thing:



Then, I felted it (see previous patternif you want to learn more about felting), and pulled it on a can to shape it, and left it to dry. Now, environmental responsibility forces me to point out that most of the Southeast is in the midst of a horrible drought with resultant water restrictions. Therefore you should combine your felting with another water/soap/heat consuming task, such as laundry, or even bathing. Now I'm not saying that I did this (mostly because nobody wants to know that they coozy they're using was rubbed on my butt), but you COULD put a bar of soap in this coozy and use it as a sponge and that would felt it very nicely while you bathed. It's just a thought. I would not, however, combine dish-washing and felting, because getting bits of food and grease in your coozy would just be nasty.

And here is my festive (and guess what, Sarah, it's TASTY!) beverage!





*Yes, it got fluff in my hairbrush which will ultimately transfer to my hair. But if you knit with any kind of enthusiasm, you probably already have fluff in your hair.

Inspiration: Wouldn't it look awesome with googly eyes? Teeth? Ears?
What if you had green fun fur and made your beer a hula skirt?



P.S. I will design something other than a beer coozy someday, I swear. Actually, I think the gloves I'm making have deviated so far from the original pattern that they now qualify as an original design; I just need to go through my notes and figure out how to turn them into a pattern that will make sense to someone other than me.

I am really, really, ridiculously proud of this project. I made the yarn myself (out of alpaca from Alpaca Day, lightly carded locks from Holly EQQ, sparkly Angelina from Holly EQQ, pink/purple roving from that yarn clearance I went to, bits of yarn that I carded back into roving, probably a fair bit of cat hair, and whatever else I found laying around), then spun it up into a textured, soft, sparkly, thick-and-thin yarn that was a genuine pleasure to knit with. As if that wasn't enough, it's also SELF STRIPING!
My arm is starting to hurt from patting myself on the back so much. But I'm really pleased with this, it turned out even better than I'd imagined. It's also nice and warm!


I have to give a lot of credit to Holly EQQ, not only did most of the gorgeous fiber come from her, it was really inspired by the gorgeous textured yarns that she spins -- it made me want to spin my own colorful, fluffy fantastic yarn too! :) (I love all my other yarny friends' yarns too!)


This is the pattern I used, I think it shows off the texture nicely.

http://presentsknits.blogspot.com/2007/08/show-off-scarf.html

I am losing a fight with my glove. Specifically, with the fingers. D:
Maybe I am smarter than a ball of string and 2 sticks, but it looks like a ball of string, 5 sticks, and 2 stitch-holders are outsmarting me.

Now I understand why those fingerless gloves/gauntlet things are so popular among knitters....

Edited to add: it was a math problem. It seems to be straightened out now, though...

I've had a string of either hitting gauge or hitting close-enough gauge on most of the things I've made recently, so on my most recent charity hat (I hate the word and connotations of "charity", but I don't know what else to call it) I blithely cast on and started knitting, even though it was with a yarn I had never, ever used before. I knit a few rows and realized that what I was making was ludicrously large, but figured I could felt it down to size. Less than halfway through, I ran out of yarn and took up again with yet another yarn I had never, ever used before. I wound up with an immense hat, that I really wish I had taken a picture of, because it was hysterically large. I carried it about in my knitting bag (which it was almost as big as) and used it as an object lesson to my knitting group on the importance of gauge. Then I felted it, feeling confident it would shrink down into a usable garment.

Uh, no.

It shrank CONSIDERABLY height-wise, and virtually not at all width-wise. Plus the 2 yarns did not shrink consistently. So I wound up with an odd broad, flat, puckery thing. It could have served maybe as half of a beret....
Being undaunted I tugged it and pulled it and tried to fool myself into believing it could be blocked into a functional hat.
But it refused.
So I did the only thing I really could to salvage it, and blocked the bottom flat and turned it into a felt bowl (in the bathroom because that is where the best lighting is right now, as it is overcast outside, although stubbornly refusing to rain):



It is a very cute felt bowl and will be very useful for keeping small items in, but it is a total waste as a hat. In case you do not believe me, here is a requisite silly picture of it on my head (my face is not really that shiney, I just smeared shea butter on it because it is in fact quite dry):



(yes, I am going to cut that silly tail off).

So that is a bummer because I really had very good intentions for this thing (http://warmwoolies.org/ in case you didn't see the previous post). But I will keep it at my craft area where it can hold glue sticks and pincushions and so forth, and remind me of the importance of TAKING TIME TO CHECK GAUGE like every single knitting pattern in the universe always reminds you to do.

OK, one good thing about being unemployed is that people have actually been commissioning crafts! now it does not bring in as much money as full-time employment would, but it keeps me off the streets.

I've also been doing some charity crafting too.

( Click here. You know you want to. All the good stuff's behind the cut )

Here's a pattern I made up yesterday! I decided to write it up in case anyone else needs one. It turned out to be a very succesful gift for my hard-to-knit-for husband!



( Click here for the pattern! and it's a really great pattern! )

Edited to add: We tested this out today and it succesfully kept beer cold in 100 degree temperatures. It kinda worked for a beer bottle as well, although if it were skinnier and longer it would have fit better. So if you want to make it for a beer bottle, add a few rows and either felt it skinnier or lose one of the pattern repeats (although that might make it too skinny). I might come up with a bottle coozy pattern too, I'll let you know!

I made an alpaca from a Fiber Trends pattern!
( Here he is: )

Edited to add: I thought there was something wrong with my camera because photos have been a bit blurry lately, but I just realized there was a fingerprint on the lens.

I took a photo of all the things I got at the yarn liquidation sale (scroll down if you missed the story, it was exciting -- in a yarny kind of way). Actually, looking at the photo I realize I left a couple things out, so imagine there's a few more patterns and some sock needles too.



Clockwise from the top left we have a stack of out-of-date knitting magazines, patterns, books, roving of all kinds (for spinning and needle-felting), Dale of Norway wool yarn in purple and natural (for making a Norwegian-style sweater), Frog Tree Alpaca in raspberry, gray, heather, purple, and teal, for making a Fair Isle sweater, more Dale of Norway in Gray for making the tangled yoke cardigan from Interweave Knits, circus-colored sock yarn, purple Malabrigo (mmmmm!!!!!), some fancy Japanese yarn, and wool carders so I can spin some yarn, should I ever run out.

I am appalled at my own gluttony, but at the same time I want to roll around in all my nice yarn. Especially the alpaca.

In related news, I finished my socks. Actually, I finished them a while ago (having to visit horrible grandparents = good opportunity to knit, see, there is a silver lining to every cloud, especially if you are easily amused) but in case you live on another planet, we're having a massive heat wave here, so modeling wool socks wasn't really on my to-do list. In fact, I had to take this picture in front of the air conditioner.



When I started on the second one, I realized I'd done the double decreases on the first one all wrong. That's why on the left one they look all nice and smooth and flat, and on the right one they look odd and twisty. Oh well, it gives them character, and I'm not too hung up on things matching anyway.

I thought I'd go ahead and collect celtic-knot style knit cable patterns. I don't know if I'll make any, I just like looking at them.

http://iandcknit.blogspot.com/2007/03/free-cable-stitch-patterns-featured-at.html
A lot of the "hearts" look like pretzals. I would like a sweater with pretzals on it, I think.

http://www.girlfromauntie.com/patterns/celtic/

http://web.archive.org/web/20041122014232/www.thesmartyarns.com/Celticknotafghan.html

This one kind of makes my head hurt: http://www.ad6uy.com/knots.html

This is about drawing knots, but might be handy: http://www.wallace.net/knots/

Ooh, this is pretty. It's lace, not cable. http://idreamofthesea.blogspot.com/2007/05/free-pattern-celtic-knot-stole.html

http://cdevine.typepad.com/photos/socks_and_small_knits/index.html

not sure why this came up in my search as it doesn't have any celtic patterns, but the lily of the valley cable is gorgeous!
http://www.wiseneedle.com/knit-patterns.asp

http://knituition.blogspot.com/2007/03/sheild-knot-bracelet.html

whoops, gotta go!

These are mostly for me, because I finished my first sock and am finding the second one dreadfully boring, so I'm looking at other projects and fantasizing about what it would feel like to not be knitting a sock on tiny little toothpicks.

seems like this girl and I share similar tastes, I like a lot of the things she has on here!
http://knitting-up-a-storm.blogspot.com/2007/03/free-pattern-links.html

I like the Valentine's cloth a lot, the others I feel kind of meh about:
http://www.geocities.com/tricia_page/freepatterns.html

This page has some really pretty things! And I am VERY EXCITED about the knitted swiffer cover, I am opposed to Swiffers because I just overall dislike disposible things, but they would be really handy if they had a reusible cover. So this is a good idea.
http://smariek.blogspot.com/search/label/Pseudo-Patterns

Since I'm making lists, here are things that have made me vomit recently:

1. Sardine flavored Bertie Bott's Jellybean
2. Accidentally stepping on a swollen tick that had fallen off the dog and feeling it burst
3. The final 30 seconds of the Nathan's hotdog eating competition

I just joined a knitalong!

After graduation, of course -- there's no time now (however, that's only 1 more month! eek!).
I am not thinking of making this particular sweater, but I might like to use this cable pattern on the sweater I do make:
http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/PATTsamus.html

that is all.

I love Eunny Jang

http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/