AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

a snowy new year's eve

My first finished creature from the Creepy Cute Crochet book was the skeleton bride.  I shunned the extra work of making sculpey eyes (though I have the materials to do so, and will probably make a round of eyes some otherwise empty weekend) and instead used some of the black yarn to do the eyes and body as embroidery.

So, it really is not a sperm no matter what the head with the yarn tail looks like. 

2008 is nearly at a close, and there is a birthday party/ringing in the new year tonight.  Parties mean food, so last night I got myself to work researching and prepping my first homemade ice cream cake.

Not a perfect specimen at the moment, because the cake portion is still waiting for me to finish the ice cream portion and layer them before sticking them back in the freezer.  This morning's ice cream batch (maple brandy ice cream with vanilla) was a little too runny even after churning.  I'm going to stop by the grocery store on my way home and pick up some whipping cream and fix the ice cream batch. 

If this works, I'll have a few pictures of the finished product.  I love reading the food blogs, but I am not nearly so talented a photographer to have gorgeous pictures of the process (too bad, because that is one of my favorite parts of reading them).

Happy 2009 to everybody!  See you on the other side!

yeah, footsball!

My little fantasy football team, Extra Sharp Cheddar Monkeys¹, which started out the season with a pretty hefty losing streak, has risen above itself to become the League Champs!

I'm shocked, because so many of the teams were really good this year.  If my opponent in the last game had his optimum players in the last game, I would have been overwhelmed. 

Now that the fantasy football season is over, I'll actually have to pay some attention to teams rather than just rooting for my individual players.  That's OK, because football still makes a decent background noise for knitting and announcers exist for making people like me feel smarter. 

Footsball is not the only thing that has been on my mind lately.  Now that the bulk of the holiday crafting is done (I just have Henry to work on, which is both good and bad, because I haven't been working on it), I have been finding the time to work on my crochet skills.

During the pre-crafting rush, my hubby and I were at the local Borders and picked up Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More!.  The book is not really ideal for the crochet beginner, because the only real instructions are for the magic ring technique and the clean finish.  However, if you already have the basics of crochet down (single crochet, reading charts/crochet abbreviations, slip stitch, chain, and reading your crochet), then this book is a cute addition to your crafting library. 

With my group of friends, I can probably make one or more of each little toy and gift them over the next year or so.  I started off with the ninja (still unfinished), and decided that my crochet skills were rusty enough that I really needed to work with a lighter colored yarn so I could see what I was doing.  So, I pulled out a skein of the white Encore that I had for another toy, and got to work on one of the other pieces.  A few components under my belt, I decided that one of my friends (who loves bears) needed a toy and that I could actually make it for her using the basics from the book.

So, I did some online research and made my friend her very own Jewish Bear.  Now, I wasn't sure if the toy was completely recognizable, but when she opened it she immediately called it Jew Bear.  A job well done if I say so myself.

Crocheted from some brown Encore Worsted, the eyes are satin stitch from leftover Silken Straw, the nose and mouth are pearl cotton, and the yarmulke is leftover Regia Silk.  I stuffed the little bear with some basic polyfill that I bought ages ago (it's good that I'm finally getting around to using it).

When I sat the bear up initially it wouldn't stay upright.  The book describes using the pellets at the bottom to help weigh it down and then using polyfill for the rest.  Being sans pellets and having already stuffed and sewn up the creature, I took a bit of the brown yarn and crocheted a ring around the bottom of the bear to give it a sturdier base to stand on.  It works pretty well and is a quick fix.

Since then, I've finished a second creature and most of the body parts for a third (arms and ears left). 

I'm not a very skilled crocheter.  I've never made garments (other than scarves) despite the fact that I started off with crochet quite a number of years ago.  For a while I was doing some heavy dabbling in filet crochet, but even that went away.  Maybe that's why even though I am a better knitter I'm more comfortable whipping up with minimal pattern guidance something in crochet.

¹Hey, half the reason to do fantasy football is to make up funny team names. The loser league names are even more eclectic.

a quiet holiday

My holiday weekend was really nice despite the dental news, and the use of antibiotics (on amoxy, on peni!) has helped kick the related infection in the butt!  I'm about to head out for dental round 2 this morning, and hopefully that will be the end of it.

The weekend wasn't all dental pain.  I made some cute little things that I'll probably write about for tomorrow, and managed to not work on the scarf or any of the other knitting I wanted to do (I would like to get Vestish done, because I have one pocket to knit and then just the pockets to sew on... really don't want that lingering into 2009).  Instead I made cookies and cinnamon rolls, reveled in having a functional pot again, and played Thurn & Taxis and bridge.  I also walked to the mall and back for a bit of exercise.

This weekend looks like it will be more of the same.  There will be too many cookies, not enough exercise, and just not enough time for all the things I want to do in a day.  Now I'm off to see if I can make a stuffy for tomorrow (it's something to work on while I wait for my appointment).

Happy holidays!

Edited to add:  I'm apparently not so bright and didn't look at the date of my appointment.  Not this Monday.  Next Monday.  My tooth and I will be good friends for another week.

ow!

It's hard to stay all bright and cheerful about the holidays this year.  It's not the holidays themselves that make this problematic or even the amount of crafting that I have done or even how the show completely interfered with getting other things done (something I always forget when I sign up for one of the fall shows). 

It's discomfort.  As far as I can tell, I had a filling come out on Saturday, and so the tooth and its side of my jaw are sensitive to pressure and are experiencing discomfort.  I have a really high pain threshhold, so it tends to range from annoying (most of the time) to could I have my dental appointment already?

I have about 15 more days until this is fixed, but there are times like right now where I just can't wait for it to happen.  It's always an adventure trying to eat with only one side of your mouth!

I've been playing around with crochet (amigurumi) and working on Henry, but as time goes on I keep wanting to work on something new (a bad idea) or at least on one of the projects I set aside for the holiday knitting.  I have the next four days off, and other than a run on Friday don't have too much planned.  It will be nice to get at least one more project done before the close of 2008.

me, oh my, how happy am I

Saturday I finished the last pair of socks for my MIL, but I wanted to wash them in the washing machine and dry them just as the final test of quality.  So, I took both pairs of socks, turned them inside out, shoved them in my falling apart lingerie bag and ran a load of wash.  They weren't dry quickly enough to get them in the gift mailing on Saturday, but my hubby sent them out yesterday.

My MIL wanted two pairs of socks:  one red and one black and dislikes wool, so I bought two skeins of Comfort Sox in the appropriate colors.  Comfort Sox is a nicely soft yarn, but it is a bit splittier than any wool-based sock yarn I had worked with in the past.  I wanted to make sure that the socks would wash well, because I dislike including special care instructions with items.  Invariably at some point the instructions are missed or someone does the laundry who just doesn't know or understand that some things are delicate.

Happily, these came out of the wash and dry looking fine!  I was nervous, because I hadn't planned ahead enough to knit and wash a swatch in the washing machine.  I really need to plan ahead better in the future!

(See the pictures below the fold)

boston has snow

Or rather, Braintree!

  
 
 
 

Views from our windows (with more probably tomorrow).  

I love storms like this.  They start off a little slow, but then they get heavy and steady.  Our snowfall started around 1p.m. on Friday and was almost constant until about 3p.m. on Sunday when the snow turned into freezing rain. 

I spent the weekend knitting and reading (finished Monstrous Regiment and the socks for my MIL), which was really nice after the last week of the show.  Of course, I was supposed to go running on Saturday, which just wasn't going to happen.  Nothing gets shoveled or plowed quite fast enough to justify a run on the bike trail.

Christmas is in just 3 more days.  It feels like it couldn't possibly be here already! 

recovering well

The blog definitely fell down the rabbit hole while I made sure I was healthy enough for Pirates, Week 2.  Our shows went well, and it was a lot of fun even when it illustrated exactly how overscheduled I am.

Saturday was our final show, a matinee immediately followed by strike.  I left strike (with the unloading of the truck left) at about 10 p.m., but we had a ton of people and had made pretty good time.  Part of me wishes I had stayed, but I had a race the next day.

Sunday was the Somerville Jingle Bell Run, a short 5K loop that I will run again when I run Ras na hEireann in March.  I haven't really done much training with the show schedule completely sidelining my sleep schedule, but it wasn't bad at all.  My pace was 11:44, and I was running with my bag over my shoulder.  I could have run faster, but I was mostly concentrating on finishing well and in good condition.  A group of us went to Sally O'Briens for brunchy goodness. 

Monday, I spent the day at home.  I was supposed to be knitting, but mostly I sat around and read some books.  I finished Sanctuary (by Mercedes Lackey) and reread Trickster's Choice and a random graphic novel.  Of course, I started another book this morning:  As I Lay Dying.  Quite a different choice from the other books. 

Tonight I'll be knitting up a storm.  I have a toe and a complete sock left for the sock gifts, and then I can go back to knitting my FIL's scarf.  I'm about 20 percent of the way done (a bit under that, but not by much), and I don't want to take too long a break on the project.  I am finally getting used to the rhythm of the project and don't want to lose that! 

pride and sickness

So, I caught one of the various bugs that has been going around the cast, which is really too bad.  The past day or so has been marked by fever and coughing and sore throat.  It's probably just a cold, but I have a doctor's appointment tonight to be certain one way or an another. 

I didn't knit yesterday, because I could perform or knit not both. 

Of course, I did knit on Saturday long enough to realize that my chart was flawed.  Whoops!  I'll repost it once I've made the correction, but the essence is that every time I was supposed to put in the information for row 1, I instead used the information for row 3.  I'm still working my way through the first repeat of Henry, so I'm pretty sure that I won't get it done before the holidays are upon us.

Oh Henry (exasperated)

It took me almost 90 minutes yesterday to finish one row of Henry.  That feels a bit excessive.

Now, this pattern isn't hard, but the edge stitches (often a variant of k1, sl1, k1) are pretty easy to mess up.  Stupidly easy to mess up actually.  Yesterday's mistake was doing the edge stitches as k1, sl1, k1 and then proceeding to k3 (resulting in an extra stitch).  This pattern, when done correctly, results in each pair of slipped stitches with their corresponding bar of yarn overlapping the set of stitches below by one.

 -- 

 --

  --

For example. 

So, I decided to chart out the edging stitches and one repeat of the pattern, just to have a visual representation of what is going on.  Now, this is my first attempt at charting with a program (following Wendy's handy guide), and the main flaw is that the edge stitches (the first and last 3 of each row) are always slip stitch with yarn in front. 

I should pick another symbol for those, but I'm lazy and this was just a quick exercise.

Download Scarf Chart - Henry

Opening Night

Just call me freaked out, and you've got the picture!