Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Feast or Famine

So, yeah... I'm a bit of a procrastinator. But, I've got a ton of stuff to talk about now.

The trip to Cali was a blast. We spent a day park hopping at Disney, we spent 3 hours at Magic Mountain, Mike seemed to have a good birthday and we had a great visit. And I knit.


This is Spammy in his new sweater that I made while visiting. Mike is aware of the boyfriend curse, but that doesn't stop him from requesting knitwear for Spammy. And for some reason I obliged. Cute though, isn't it?

I also knit mom's second sock primarilly on the flight there and back with a little heel turning time in front of the TV while I was there. I finished the toe last night. I love how they came out, and it's purely a coincidence that the striping matched. I didn't want to bother trying to match them and figured they'd come out fraternal, but apparently my ideal spot to start the cast on was in the same place with both socks, so they match almost perfectly. I love happy accidents like that. These have been travelling socks, the bulk of the first one was done on the trip to Denver over Labor day and the second one was mostly knit on this last trip to California.

I also finished a couple dishclothes, no photos. I tried the Garterlac cloth which was fiddly but fun and I'm sure I'll do a couple more in that pattern before Christmas. The first one was in pastels and is one of the two for my aunt from my mom. She has now also requested crocheted towel toppers.

And finally, that scarf I finished before I left. This matches dad's Christmas present perfectly so it's going to him. Not bad for a handful of alpaca scraps bought off ebay for cheap.

Oh, and the rainbow brite story... On my flight home I was seated next to by far the most colorful person I've ever met. Head to toe rainbow. Airbrushed suit with her portrait on the back surrounded by rainbow colors, a matching fedora, big fake tinsel-like eyelashes in rainbow colors, her hair under the hat - rainbow dyed, big fingernails that curled in rainbow colors and a rainbow colored feather boa. I'm kicking myself for not sneaking a photo. The kicker though... while making small talk (I was knitting on mom's socks) I made the offhand stupid comment of "but she probably won't wear them out of the house much, they're a little loud".

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Quick Blip

I made it home safe and sound from SoCal, more to follow soon. Redeye flight home, sat next to rainbow brite, fell asleep in a meeting this morning (thank God my boss has a sense of humor) and now I'm going to go sleep until I have to go to work in the morning.

Watch this space tomorrow for reports of park visits, pig knitting, sock progress, flight neighbor and more. Maybe even the FO post for that scarf I finished last week.

Monday, November 13, 2006

*Insert Evil Laugh Here*

So in conversing and planning with the boyfriend last night for my visit to Southern California this weekend, we were trying to figure out what to do with our open days on Saturday and Monday. He innocently mentioned taking the motorcycle out and maybe finding a local yarn shop or two.

I guess he'll learn. Although he does know enough to know that that's how to get me back on the back of his bike... put yarn at the other end of the ride.

So, does anyone have any recommendations for yarn shops in the greater Fullerton/Anaheim area? They seem to be sorely lacking in web pages, but google maps has a couple within blocks of his place, and several more in a wider area from there but alas no websites or even customer reviews anywhere. How am I supposed to get a feel for the shops before going (let alone hours, selection, identifying photos) without that info available? I'm not big on the whole phoning ahead thing, but I suppose I can in a pinch.

Oh, and the striped scarf is done, I'll finish weaving in ends tonight and block it before taking final photos though. Probably post something tomorrow.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Finished Objects: 2 down, a zillion to go

I've finished two of the purses on that big ol list from last week.

Sophie Bag
Patterns: Sophie Bag with a felted flower pattern for embelishment
Yarns: A navy/purple heathered Cascade 220 with some green Pattons wool for the leaves and some purple Cascade quatro for the flower.

I finished knitting this one the other day, felted it Friday night, and after two conversations with my mom (which added another few do before Christmas knits to my list... note to self, no more talking to mom about knitting) added the flower to the bag. She saw photos of it and assured me it didn't look to kiddish for Aunt Betty. Instead told me how insanely jealous of it my grandmother would be unless I make her one too. So that's one of the new obligations. She's also requsted some knit dishclothes for another aunt as a commissioned gift from her.

I love how it came out though and I love how simple the Sophie pattern is. The bag part of this one took an afternoon, and really finishing the handle didn't take much more than that, even if I put it off (ugh, i-cord). And i knit and felted the flower this afternoon in a couple hours over lunch.

Cousin Bag
Pattern: Cast on 100 stitches, knit in the round for as long as I felt like it. Decreased for a few rounds until there were a handful of stitches left and cinched for the bottom.
Yarn: Cascade Quatro in mostly turquoise hues with a hint of taupe.

The turqoise bowl/hat shaped bag has handles now. the closure thing I'd envisioned didn't really look right, so I think I'm just going to leave it simple. I like how it came out, although like my mom said, now it's all about the flower, so I'm debating further embellishments. I'll probably leave it plain though just because I still have lots to knit on in the next couple months and I'm not positive how this one will be recieved by my cousin, so I don't want to invest too much more time in it. I've got a zillion other things to finish for Christmas so I need to just move on.

In addition, I've made a ton of progress on the alpaca striped scarf this week. It's been the simple garter stitch project I reach for when I'm sitting in front of the computer and I'm getting low on yarn, so it should be done tomorrow, it'll get it's own post once it's done.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Randomness

All sorts of stuff to talk about.

1) Closing weekend - Seasonal park season is over, I spent the weekend in Chicago with good friends riding good coasters to close out the season the same as I always do. It was a great closing day at Six Flags on Sunday even if I had to leave early and drive forever and a day to get home. First time in ages I've not stayed til closing.

2) Saturday on my drive out to Chicago, I made a mini-yarn-crawl. I drove by 5 shops but only stopped for two of them. My Sisters' Knits and Arcadia Knitting. I had a lovely experience at both and picked up some more fun stuff to play with. I got a gorgeous skein of Susie Grougan's sock yarn in a colorway called Fall Harvest and a black sheep tape measure at Sisters. And I picked up some Rowan Calmer for Shedir and some Lorna's Laces sock yarn in the Tuscany colorway at Arcadia. I also drove past the other 3 I'd looked at stopping at but was unable to find parking so I'm saving them for future visits (it's not like I never get to Chicago, this was the second trip in a month).


3)Dishcloth-crazed. I've finished three more dishclothes in the last week. Two more frogs for my sister-in-law and an Illusion Candy Corn that I left with Cameron as a thank you for letting me stay again last weekend. Finally getting the knitting groove back down, unfortunately, that means the dishes and laundry are suffering again. Must remedy that this weekend.

4) On the needles: I've been meaning to do a rundown of my projects for a while, so here's whats going on with my needles.


Striped scarf - I picked up some Alpaca scraps on ebay for like $1 and I've been striping them on my size 4 Addis to make a scarf. Still have plenty of yarn left and I'm liking how this is going so far with the random widths of the stripes. Will continue til I run out of yarn, block severely and probably gift it for Christmas.


Sophie bag - This one in a heathered blue cascade 220, I've got the bag done, just using up the rest of the yarn on i-cord. This should be done soon. Also a Christmas gift for my mom's Aunt Betty.






Socks - Regia cotton second sock is still on the cuff but it's growing slowly when I pick it up. These are for me, so probably will go on the back burner until after the holidays.





Socks - self striping merino for mom. Haven't cast on the second sock yet. These should be ready for Christmas though. I'm thinking that I'll have time to work on it on the flights to and from Cali in a couple weeks.


Baby socks - scrap yarn from my first pair of socks, I made one baby sock with it, and haven't yet cast on the second. These will either be gifted to a coworker who is expecting, or they'll be doll clothes for mom.



Booga #3 - I whipped out the bag part in a weekend, still need to make miles of i-cord for this one and felt it. This is the basis for my sister-in-law's Christmas gift this year. I already have all the "stuff" to go in it ready, just gotta finish the bag and I'll be done with her Christmas gift.



turquoise bag - More Cascade, this was just a mindless thing I'd cast on a while ago and finished a couple weeks ago so I could use the needles for the Booga. Felted into a nice bowl shape and I have some handles to attatch and I'm thinking maybe an i-cord loop closure around a button. Debating between keeping this one or gifting it to my cousin with her Christmas gift.

I also have some fabric to line this one and a few of the other bags I've finished, I'm just not all that profficient a sewer, so I'm not sure if lining will help or hinder.


Random red scarf - Just cast this on last night to play with the yarn and use up some stash. Not sure if I'll gift or keep this one or where it'll fall in the grand scheme of things, it may not be done in time for the holidays and it very well may just end up frogged.

Some of the other stuff I had on the needles got ripped out and the yarn will get reused for something else eventually. I've managed to amass way too much stash (and several amounts of yarn that I like that is worthy of large projects) that I'm going to try to focus on what's on the needles for a while and at least finish some things up and do some stash diving before spending more money. Maybe a coaster-free/yarn-free winter will help some of my credit card bills move in the correct direction for once.

Other than possibly some more dishclothes, and more sock-yarn-scraps doll clothes for mom, and scratching that itch for a sweater, I don't think I'm going to do much more on the knitting front for Christmas that isn't already included in the projects above.

I'm still itching to make a sweater right now. I've got the yarn for several already in my stash, and as much as I'm tempted to just jump right into a Rogue, or a custom design by me, I think I'll hold off and try something a little simpler for my first time out. I'm also a little hessitant to make a sweater while I'm losing weight, but the itch is strong, especially now that I've found KnitGrrl's NaKniSweMo, so I think on top of everything else (because 7 or 8 WIPs isn't quite enough), I'm going to go home tonight and swatch for the Simple Knitted Bodice.

Photo of the Day

So there's this thing they do at work on the company intranet where they feature a photo a day. Either something to go with a corporate communications story, or something someone took and submitted. Whatever.

They were going to do a story about office decor, and took some photos of my cube over the summer, but the story fell through. So, last Friday, I and my eccentric amusement park magnet and postcard laden office were the photo of the day.