AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Finished!

It's a bit of a silly thing to make. Or at least it is a silly reason to make it.

Pattern: Short Row Capelet from Scarf Style
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride - 2 skeins of silvery grey and one of purple
Notes: I started this project on a Sunday night and was done within a week. I finished this after I finished the Olympic knitting (but before I was smart and finished the Olympic weaving in of ends and blocking). The pattern is pretty easy to memorize after the first few repeats and while there is an error in my book it is a simple one to correct. I decided to make mine a little larger, so I could use a button clasp to close it rather than ties. I also used half double crochet for my trim rather than single. I am not sure how much of a difference that made beyond the striking difference in using a contrasting yarn for the trim. I attached the buttons with purple thread and small purple seed beads.

See a little detail for the button?

Taming the Flying Spaghetti Monkey Monster

Or how to weave in ends and ends and ends.

Today over lunch, I started weaving in monkey ends. I started with the brain end, a slightly less dense patch of ends north of the nose. Between bites of no-longer-frozen burrito, I wove in black ends, slate-y ends, baby-blue-y ends, and some true-blue-y ends. Ends woven in: 18. This is just the area between the top of the head and the midpoint of the ears. I broke away from the weaving every once in a while to try and straighten some of the stitches from the front using the tapestry needle. I will probably have to go over the entire thing before washing and blocking it, but it already looks better than the fearful thing it was when I put the monster aside last week. Rahr!

Sleep, I'd rather sleep.

I think that the schedule needs to change for the figure skating. There are probably tons of people like me (only smarter) who want to watch the figure skating, but know that they are getting older and have to forgo (which looks misspelled) the pleasure of seeing the skating.

I want to see the costumes, the moves, the flash and sparkle. I want to hear the music and the sound of the blades on the ice. But sleep? It calls me like an annoying drunk, who doesn't understand that I am not interested.

*le sigh*

At least there is no figure skating tonight, so I might catch up a bit.

Intercon F

Intercon F is a convention for live action roleplaying games. Instead of rolling dice and using the numbers to determine the success of your actions (like D&D), you act as a character with decisions arbitrated by a team of GMs, normally the writers of the game.

F is only a couple of weeks away, something I realized just this weekend as I realized that I actually had all of my characters and needed to make costumes. Lots of costumes.

One of the great joys for me is to make at least part of the clothing I wear. One year I was playing a zombie and put red gel and dirt on my face and in my hair. For that costume, I bought a cheap dress from Ames (remember Ames?), and had a friend artfully cut and tear it while maintaining modesty. It was great fun!

This year there is a little less money for just buying stuff, so I have delved into my stash of fabrics. Random cloth that I will never actually sew into its intended garments is now becoming costuming, bedecked with ribbons, sewn together (or just cobbled together with double fusible ribbon), and combined with normal clothing from the closet to make:

Emmeline Woodruff, a professor at Boorworms (an American sister school to Hogwarts) Academy of Magic (making short row cape by Teva Durham from Scarf Style).

My musical character, which shall still remain nameless, which is getting a dress and some accessories.

I am also playing a historian who is getting a simple robe that will be laced shut on the sides and worn over normal clothes and a fanatic (trump-based game), which will feature my large back tattoo as a primary element of the costume.

All of the costumes need to be made by mid-day March 3rd. This is more like the knitting olympics than the knitting olympics ever was for me!

Ramping up for the finish

I finished knitting the gusset on Sunday. I have been taking a breather for a bit before blocking and weaving in ends, which I will be starting tonight. The fabric is ordered for lining the backpack.

Generally, I am making good time.

However, I did have a couple of other pieces that I planned to do for the knitting olympics. To that end, I started the finishing work for a Dulaan vest yesterday. I just have to pick up stitches around the armholes and the neck to do the final ribbing and weave in a few more ends.

Success!

(This doesn't really have that much to do with the Knit Olympics, really!)

I just got my little buttons made, my galleries created, and my first couple of pictures for the Knitting Olympics up. I'll actually probably write some more about doing the intarsia before my brain atrophies, but now it is time to go home and practice my music for Deceit.

Happy long weekend!

㿊㿄㿧，㿊㿄㿧，㿊㿄㿧，去る？

For some reason I just have this silly Japanese children's song stuck in my head. I'm changing the words a bit, because I am plowing through on the largest of my Knitting Olympics projects. I have finished the intarsia (if you can call my blob intarsia), finished the upper front and the back. I have only a few pieces of knitting left to do: straps and gusset. I still need to buy fabric (does anyone have some bright yellow fabric with monkeys and bananas on it?), which will probably be a lunch trip either Thursday or Friday this week followed by a few early morning blocking sessions.

Pictures will definitely be forthcoming. Someone should learn from my intarsia mistakes if nothing else.

Odessa!

Pattern: Odessa, from the latest MagKnits Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft DK (as called for) in black Beads: 1 vial of size 6 glass beads in green I started stringing the beads on the subway Thursday, February 9th.  I finished stringing the beads over lunch that day.  The hat was finished by Saturday morning (February 11th) in time to start the bulk of my Knitting Olympics project!  A quick way to start the Knitting Olympics.

Casting on

I wanted to go to Doyles with all of the cool kids, but I had an obligation that came first.

I wanted to start the Knitting Olympics with my Cascade 220 and the backpack, but had to rely on the hubby to pull the pattern, needles and yarn for me and bringing them tonight.

So, I didn't knit on the monkey backpack. But I am casting on now (no pictures of casting on, because they are boring), and will be swatching part of this night/early morning. By tomorrow I will have decided whether I am going to continue with my stash of Cascade 220 (the pattern actually calls for Lambs Pride Worsted, which I find to be a thicker yarn) as the pattern is written or if I will increase the size of the background to make the backpack a little larger.

(Knitting pictures tomorrow, because I believe I will have something finished that is not either the monkey backpack nor any other Olympic-related knitting... umm, I must be extra stupid to be knitting projects that aren't the Olympic ones right now).

Pink thing!

I think I love you!

I have been complaining about my week pretty much constantly for four days. Knitting went to the backside, despite copious amounts of yarn flowing into my home. I just got up, went to work, moped, came home, moped. Pretty much moping was the thing to do.

Then yesterday I went to Windsor Button. I picked up a small size 4 circular to work on Odessa with and I picked up some hot pink Malabrigo (Little Lovely colorway). This is for Dulaan - a cute quick scarf that is not quite off the needles yet.

Pink!