its a brand new day.

Lace Cowl Experiment

2009-07-16T14:14:00.005-05:00

Oh the joys of trial and error. This is my first original lace cowl attempt, and all things considered, it turned out okay. Not really as lacy as I hoped, but whatever. It actually turned out as a lace rib, which is perfectly serviceable if not as feminine as I was going for.

It's an 8 stitch pattern repeat: *k4, yo, k2tbl, k2tog, yo* on the odd rows, and knit all on the even rows. (Knit in the round, of course).

I used a 9 and would probably have liked it better with a 7, and I think it's a little too wide and too short, but I'm my own worst critic, and I'm sure my friend will love it.

The pictures don't really do justice to the color. It's the Knit Picks Palette in Rainforest Heather, which=gorgeous! The main color is a DEEP teal, with little bits of magenta and yellow.

Fail-ted Bag Win!

2009-07-08T01:14:00.010-05:00

So, mama always said, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I am not a huge fan of tired, cliche adages, but this one is worth something, or at least applicable here.

This bag started as a laptop case, then evolved into a tote. When I felted it, the dimensions were all wrong; it was a complete catastrophe. In other words, it was "fail-ted". I don't have any pictures of its ugly duckling phase, mostly because I didn't want any photographic evidence.

I had pretty much written it off by this point, but it continued to haunt me.

Slowly, over the course of several weeks, I began to get ideas about how I could fix it.

When I attempted another felted bag (you can see it here) with only slightly better results, I dug this one out to finish it, and hopefully get some gratification.

I cut the excess material off of the top of the bag, then cut it into strips to use for the handles. The flower was also made from the excess, by cutting out the petals and hand sewing them on.

And voila! My personal fail-ted bag win, or The Lemonade Tote.

Look what I got in the mail !!!

2009-07-08T00:57:00.005-05:00

My long awaited (10 days . . . ) package has arrived! 600 g. of beautiful imported silk yarn, hand spun from sari waste. Gorgeous.

I think I'm going to make the Okranana bag from Ravelry. Any other suggestions?

It's a slightly smaller gauge, and a little over twitsted, but perfect for a bag or garment.

One step at a time

2009-05-09T13:27:00.011-05:00

So my Mom had an idea for a cool (Grand)Mother's day present--a homemade mosaic stepping stone out of all the dishes we kids have broken over the years (my Mom collects blue and white china, so there was already a color scheme in place). We bought the stone mix and the molds at the craft store, so all we had to do was finish smashing up the plates. I have to say this was my favorite part, not because I was so good at it, but because I love breaking things--especially when I'm supposed to. This is our full mold and broken peices, pre-assembly.

They were super fun and easy to make--we just pressed the peices into the top of the wet cementy-like stuffs, leaving a enough cement-space between the china pieces to hold them in.

Voila! Here are the final products, still in the drying phase:

Super cute! Just like the toad we found . . .

Rrrrrrrribit! (Do toads say "ribit", or just frogs?)

The Hissing Couch

2009-05-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

So I am dealing with the transition to Houston really well. My kitty on the other hand, is having a little tougher time. After several days under the passenger seat of a Jeep Cherokee (I would like to state for the benefit of all the PETA members that this was where the cat chose to be. I like to think it's because that's where he felt safest-- a warm, dark, small, isolated place. I offered him in flight refreshments, but he was uninterested.) I finally deposited him safely in my parents laundry room. They have two cats and I wanted him to adjust a little before making the "introductions". He spent the first 36 hours behind the washer, but given the whole family of six thing eventually my Mom had to do laundry. This turned out to be an excellent form of motivation for the kitty to seek out bold new life and new civilizations, like under my parents bed. He hung out there all day yesterday, much to my chagrin. This morning I was really starting to miss having him around, but no one could seem to find him. As the inhabitants of the house cycled through on their daily business, every one took a turn looking for the kitty, but to no avail. He was simply not to be found. By dinner time, I was a little upset. After I had a minor meltdown, my gallant little brother took it upon himself to find the damn kitty, come hell or high water.

And found him he did! Using a revolutionary new method known as "kitty-to-kitty sonar" my genius little brother was able to locate the kitty by carrying his own pissed off cat from room to room until they started hissing at each other, ultimately betraying my cat's clandestine location inside the couch. I am totally serious about this. Every time Adam (the little bro) tried to gesture towards the couch to show me where the cat was, it hissed at him. I didn't believe it at first, and was poking and prodding all over the couch, with no response. Adam gestures, and the cat hisses. Pet love is darling. We pulled out the hide-a-bed and the cat ran off, but I felt a little silly because I was sitting on that couch knitting and missing my cat all day.

Sagaciously

2009-05-06T22:30:00.002-05:00

having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd

prurience:

2009-05-05T20:11:00.001-05:00

having, inclined to have, or characterized by lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc.

Welcome Home

2009-05-05T14:07:00.005-05:00

There are so many wonderful things about being in Texas--I don't know how I managed to stay away for so long. The nights are warm, the booze is cheap, the people are so much friendlier! And then there's the shopping . . . oh, the shopping! The dichotomy of my emotions is overwhelming--on one hand I love shopping, on the other hand I am all too aware of the havoc cheap over-seas goods have wreaked on our economy. After watching The High Cost of Low Prices I feel guilty even looking at a Wal-Mart, but I let myself have one small indulgence:

That's right, the wonder and beauty of a real craft store. Acre after acre and aisle after aisle of crafty goodness. Seattle has lots and lots of wonderful things, but they are seriously lacking in decent craft-related emporiums. Texas, thankfully, is not.

After perusing the handles at the craft store I have officially decided I am not making a laptop cover, I am making a purse. I made a mistake on the color variation, but I think it actually looks better. My gauge was off, so I've ended up with a fairly wide tube; hopefully this will yield a fairly spacious purse. (You can't tell in the pic, but that bottom stripe is a very limey green.)

Chronic Project Identity Crisis!!!!!!

2009-05-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

Why can't I ever just make something! Ggggrrrrrr. I decided I was going to make a felted laptop cover for myself, but of course I can't just leave it at that. Oh no--6 inches, 1600 miles, and 36 hours later my humble laptop cover has magically morphed itself into a theoretical purse. (In reality what will probably happen is I'll work on it until I run out of yarn or get bored with it. Sigh.) My indecision and lack of follow through in my knitting life is far too accurate an epitome of my actual life.

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I was stuck in Beau's truck the whole time, just knitting and thinking. Is being open to evolution even that bad? Isn't making things supposed to be fun for this exact reason?

Whew. Okay, now that I've worked through my ~~personal~~ knitting issues, lets talk laptop cover:

Here's what I have so far: 130 sts in the round in worsted weight on a #10.5.

I'm afraid that i was too impatient with my color changes and they won't show up (or show up and be ugly) after felting. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. That's supposed to be the fun part after all, right? RIGHT??!!

On the road again

2009-05-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

Givin' a shout out from the lovely Denver, Colorado! The first half of the drive is successfully completed. We're staying here for an extra day to hang out with Beau's childhood friend Ben, then it's south and Texas Ho! Oregon was absolutely gorgeous--the Columbia River valley was amazingly beautiful. We stopped at this beautiful waterfall along the way.
Pretties!

so long, Seattle

2009-04-28T00:24:00.000-05:00

So we're leaving for the Old Country (Texas)!
It's a 2,400 mile trip, so obviously I need something to knit. I pulled this yarn palette from my stash--it's an assortment of regular and heather Cascade 220. I love it! The colours are so yummy! I'm going to make a felted laptop cover for myself. I was thinking about a colour graduation, from the pink through the purple(s--there's another, darker purple I didn't include in the pic) to the blue and greens. After much careful deliberation I have decided to kit it in the round, from the flap up, then close up one end of the tube by grafting it together.

Originally I had planned to cast on with the Turkish method, but I only have cirular needles, and it didn't seem like they would work for something that big. Of course all of this dawned on me after I had started my swatch/test Turkish cast on. I decided to just roll with it and make myself a cute little bag. I was excited to see that I had pulled off the whole Turkish thing, for awhile there it was looking pretty messy. I used this really great tutorial I found here. Mad props to yarnivorous!!!

So this is my *pouchy* mid-way point pic! She's pretty cute, and super easy. I think I might switch to DPNs, now that I think about it. :) Right now I'm using a 16" in. and a ahem 32" in. circulars. Needle-ess (pun intended) to say, it's a might cumbersome.

All these great ideas for fuzzy/funny little creatures occur to me whenever I look at the pouchy. I should make some wacky, macabre little stuffed guys. I know my Mom had tons of buttons, notions, etc. Hhhhmmmmm. Stand by, creatures to come!

Vocab 101

2009-04-25T23:40:00.003-05:00

In a continuous effort to improve my vocab here are the words I've looked up recently:

Obfuscation is the concealment of intended meaning in communication, making communication confusing, intentionally ambiguous, and more difficult to interpret.

Halcyon (IPA: /ˈhælsiən/), a term that originates from the Greek myth of Alcyone, is used most often to mean golden or marked by peace and prosperity.

An epithet (from Greek) is a descriptive word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing, which has become a fixed formula. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and biological nomenclature.

Look forward to many informative and educational word related posts!!!!!

My first blog post

2009-04-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

So it's official. I'm leaving Seattle. I don't know if it was the rain or the hipsters or the litany of completely shitty jobs or the cold or wtf, but I'm done here. Back to Tejas for me. Of course, I have to go in style--no depressing one way flights for this cowgirl, oh no. Beau (pictured on the right) is going to drive ! It's a long haul, but he loves that stuff.