Friday, December 30, 2005

Picture Free is Good! Really!

Well, Christmas has come and gone. I managed to finish, at about 1:30 in the morning on Christmas Day, the last of my stockings, and they were all hung by the chimney with care. They were, however, unusable, since I had only lined the boy's and didn't trust my slapdash "tie a knot in it if it moves" yarn end dealingwithitness. Sorry. Having a lot of trouble coming up with appropriate wordiage. You know. Like verbiage. Only wrong. Anyway, they were up for decoration, at least, and here's a pitcher fer ya.

(picture currently in picture limbo to come soon)

Aren't they stunning? I was pretty impressed with myself. Especially since I pretty much made the design concepts up as I went along. I used a couple of free charts I found on the web, as well as modifying them or making up new ones as I went. The blue ornament shapes on mine (Mama) were a scary disaster at first. I just modified the snow flake chart to make an ornament shape, and put in a bow in red to maintain the fair isley-ness. However, once knit, I realized they looked like blue pumpkins with little faces. Angry blue pumpkins with angry little faces. I had to rip back and rethink, but they worked out eventually.

The Papa stocking was my personal nemesis. It was the third one I did, the one where I thought I knew what I was doing while actually having no idea what I was doing. I kept making really stupid counting mistakes and then not catching them until I was ten rows further on, necessitating much frogging and cursing. Very much cursing. You have to remember, this was happening on December 21st, and I still had two more to knit. And a house to clean before my family got here.

But let us not dwell on the past. Let us rather focus on the future, which I hope will be filled with many more of these:

(again, picture limboity)

A Panta, pattern written out here. My new favorite headcovering. Takes about five minutes (in knitting time, which is admittedly not the same as regular clock time), looks cool, and functions as intended. The perfect handknit.

Okay, okay, the previous was written before I had finished my cabled Newsboy hat, from the wonderful Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation. IT is now by favorite headcovering. In fact, I don't even know where Panta has gotten too. Both were knit in leftover Caron Simply Soft, which I have six tons of, and which will be knitted into anything and everything, just to lighten my currently acrylic-heavy stash. But the Newsboy? Oh my gosh. Love it. I love a hat that works with my short hair to make me look like a cross between a flapper, a 1920s tennis player, and a jockey. I'm serious. Pic will come, as soon as I can figure out how to upload more photos to my currently stuffed full hard drive.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Sweeeeeeeet....

5 great iPhotos
My good friend Xan, unwrapping
5 great iPhotos
what has turned out to be
5 great iPhotos
her favorite present of all time, and, as she says (quote), "This is not faint praise, as I was once given a talking yoda."

So, one Doctor Who Scarf, completed. I really wanted to get a shot of all 10,000 feet of it as I was knitting the last couple of inches, but never did manage to. I did get it done by my deadline, by the way. In fact, I beat the deadline by two days, which must be a new record for me. All I can say is, if you are a friend or family member and you would like me to knit you a Doctor Who Scarf, you can FORGET IT. Never again. Unh-unh. No way in hell.

All right. Maybe. If you are really really nice to me. And pay for the tendonitis treatment.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Okay, so, I'm an idiot...

Hi! Long time no see! I was on a rather extended vacation to my mom's house in Ohio, and never made time to blog. And now? Now that I am home and have a million things to tell you about and a million pictures to show? I left my camera's download cable AT MY MOM'S HOUSE. Yes. Applaud my stupidity, please.

So, this shall be a picture-free entry, which would be fine, if I hadn't finished some really cute projects. For example, the Dr. Who scarf was delivered to its intended recipient. I finished the first of the Christmas stockings. I made my mom a non-knitted gift by the seat of my crafty pants. Crafty pants. I like that. I think I shall make a new blog, and it shall be titled "By the Seat of my Crafty Pants". Very nice. Probably someone else has it already. Crafty pants. Don't ask me why, but the more I repeat those two words, the funnier they get. You have to overemphasize the first syllable of "crafty" and de-emphasize "pants" (CRAFT-ypants) to get the same effect as my completely random brain. Crafty pants, crafty pants, crafty pants. Say it with me. I know you are.

I just cast on for the second of the stockings, and decided to do it in the round rather than flat as the pattern calls for. Now I am regretting it. Is it just me, or is it horribly difficult to knit on dps when you hold the yarn in your left hand, continental style? Is there some trick I'm not getting? A little explanation: I used to knit with a sort of cheater style where I gripped the yarn in my right hand with little emphasis on maintaining tension, counting on the size of the needle to do that for me, resulting in a pretty tight gauge. I decided, a few months ago, to move to a continental style, which sped up my knitting considerable (especially in ribbing, or anything involving alternating k and p). But I only ever knit on dps with the old style, and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to do it without cursing the double point gods everytime I get to the beginning or end of a needle. The yarn catches on the next needle, or wraps itself around it, or the needles do a kind of sliding shuffle and the yarn is nowhere to be seen. Very, very frustrating. Pointers, anyone? Or do I give up and go back to the ol' grip 'n flip?

Sorry, horribly technical paragraph, that.

Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. Or, at least, that you aren't sitting panting on the couch, paralyzed by fear, while the million things you have to do/buy/cook/knit dance through your brain like those damn sugarplums. Stupid, stupid sugarplums.

P. S. Just got back from dinner at a new I-talian chain restaurant where I had it confirmed, from several independent sources, that we do indeed have the cutest little boy in the entire universe. I knew it.