Feeding crackers to your robot head

Solidly into the main part of the leg pattern now, readers.  I have a feeling that the updates for the next few post will be very similar.  Maybe I should start holding it up to an object for measuring the growth each week.  When I got a puppy when I was 12, we took a picture of her every week next to the same stool to see how much she grew.  While doing the same thing with my sock might not be as adorable (that's up for debate), I think it might keep things interesting.

Here's the non-exciting update for this week:

I've kept the Polar Bear Chullo in the dark this week, and I've been working more on my hexipuffs.  It's so satisfying to finish each little one during an episode of American Horror Story.  I finished 3 or 4 of them yesterday (and Netflix asked me at least three times if I still wanted to keep watching my show.  Don't judge me, Netflix!  I'll watch four continuous hours of TV if I want to).  

Most of the rainbow-y coloured ones were done yesterday, and today I emptied out all of my jars of little tiny leftover sock yarn balls from old projects.  Now my project bag is full of new colours to play with, and I've got to start thinking of a formal place to store all my hexipuffs.  With our basement still in a state of chaos from the flood/leak in January, my crafting world is spread all over the basement in the wrong places.  It makes me itchy to think of my stuff being out of order downstairs, so I've avoided going down there for craft reasons.  The rec room will likely be put back together in the spring, once we have a good solid thaw (and probably lots of rain) to confirm that the basement is solid, then the flooring goes back down, and my craft corner can be recreated.  That's still a long way off (today is February 1st, and we just got a fresh dump of snow last night), so I'm avoiding for now.  The hexipuffs are currently living on my living room coffee table, and there they shall stay.

Onward,

vrock 

Sections of couch everywhere!

I think a Wednesday blog deadline might be a bit of a stretch for me, readers.  I definitely finished my required knitting for the week yesterday, but fitting in the blog time didn't quite happen this week, and it didn't happen last week.  I'll aim for Wednesday, but I think I'm more likely to set aside time on Thursday night.  Either way, here's what I've been working on this week:

The sock has another 7 rows on it, and I'm still not even at the end of the ribbing.  The ribbing calls for 1.5" and I'm about a week away from moving beyond the k3 p1.  A handy thing about Week 2 is that the blue-er blue worked out to be exactly 7 rows, which made it super easy for counting my rows.  The grey-blue continues on for a bit more, so it won't be an easy marker for Week 3 unfortunately.

Last week, I also introduced my Home Alone hat idea.  I was struggling to find a pattern that I could rework to fit my needs, and no chart seemed to exist to make Kevin McAllister's signature moose hat.  The best I got on Ravelry was this:






Moose Camouflage Hat

It had the trees along the crown, and the repeating moose pattern, but it wasn't close enough in my opinion. 

So I did what any dedicated Home Alone fan would do, and I made my own chart in Excel.  Fun fact: knitting stitch height and width ratios can be recreated in Excel by setting the column width to 1.67 and the row height to 13.2.  I did this, and then got to work with the best picture of the hat I could find, which showed very clear stitch definition:

Once I had one moose sketched out on the chart, it was easy!  One chart repeat is 24 stitches across from nose to tail, and the diamonds and trees work out nicely.  Just now, as I was typing that last sentence, I realized I goofed on the pine trees in my chart.  It appears that they are in two different styles - one branchy bare tree style, and one solid filled-in tree style.  Shoot. 




Problem solved, I just went back in and fixed it.  But I also realized I can't add a pdf file to my blog post, so my plan to share the chart is not going to happen right now.  I'll get back to you about that.

In other moose hat news, I also need to figure out the rest of the hat pattern so I can actually make it.  I figure the hat circumference would be six moose around, for a total of 144 stitches.  With a head circumference of roughly 23", that means I need a yarn that gives me 6 stitches per inch.  I'm thinking something DK for this one.  Worsted just seems like it would be too bulky and thick for the hat. 

I made a quick swatch in some worsted yarn I had lying around, and it confirmed my suspicions; I want a denser, tighter looking fabric, but with finer stitches.  Make sense?  My swatch was also done flat, so I had to do my colourwork on the purl side.  BALLS.  My first swatch was mostly to confirm that my knitters' graph paper dimensions in Excel were right, and that my moose wouldn't look too squat or stretched out.  The moose look perfectly in-proportion, they just need to be done in the round so I can get a sense of what they will really look like, and so I can do it in the right weight of yarn.  All in good time, lovelies.  I'm in no rush to get this project off the ground, because I have bigger fish to fry right now.

And here are my bigger fish:

This is my progress on the Nordic Mittens I mentioned last week.  I'm on a knitting roll and I threw this right mitten together in a few nights.  The Swish DK was a really nice choice for these.  It's soft and smooth, but completely machine washable, and these are a gift for a non-knitter so that's a definite must.  The left mitten is on my knitting to-do list this weekend so I can present them to my student on Monday when she's back at work.

It's a nice colourwork pattern, my only complaint is that there are some sections with longer floats between colours, and I would prefer a nice neat every 3 or 4 stitches goings back and forth between two colours.  I suppose this challenges me though, so you've won this round Nordic Mittens.

I also received a box full of yarn from Knit Picks last week, and I had every intention of taking pictures of all of my purchases to show you, but then my basement flooded and all my craft stuff had to be emergency evacuated into the laundry room.  The basement is fine, the most annoying thing is that we had to tear up our laminate flooring (which was just put down in September, but can be used again because we acted quickly to get it up off the floor), and all of our basement stuff is currently relocated around the house and it's going to be crowded and overwhelming at my house for a while.  We probably won't put the basement back together until all the snow is gone outside, just to make sure that the fixes for the cracks worked.  In the meantime, here is the gist of what I bought, with pictures courtesy of Knit Picks.

Palette fingering yarn in Cream and Hollyberry for my reindeer legwarmers:




Palette yarn in White, Ice Lily, Mulberry, Hare Heather, and Grizzly Heather for Slim Jim's polar bear hat:







And Wool of the Andes worsted for my lined nordic mittens in Garnet Heather, Gosling, and Pumice Heather:


























Feast your eyes on my yarns, and I'll catch you up next week with my progress.

Onward,

vrock

Circus of values

It's the last day of Movember kiddies, and I say good riddance to bad facial hair.  Anyone who participates in this moustache-growing month should really wear a sign.  I sat through a whole meeting at work today wondering if the nice gentleman I was talking with sports a 'stache year round (and really thinks it looks good) or if it's just for charity.  Moving on.

We begin, dear readers, with a recap of things that happen in my life that aren't necessarily all about knitting.  Kind of a downer, I know, but they all relate to crafting, promise.

For the first time in many years, I got dressed up for Halloween this year!  We were invited to a Halloween party at Fuzzyhead's friend's house, and told to dress up to keep the fun alive.  I spent way too long and way too much money on a costume that I wore for a few hours, but I was proud of my creative spirit.  Here we are in poor lighting in our kitchen about to leave for the night:

 

Do you know what I am?  I'm a sexy hamburglar!  I completed the outfit on the way to the party with a quick stop at McD's for a happy meal box, which I tied onto my skirt.  Fuzzyhead could almost pass for his every-day-self except for the plastic hunting knife tucked into his pants.  He was as Locke from Lost, the shaved head makes him a dead ringer for anyone else with a shaved head.  The scar over his eye (washable marker is good for everything) brought the whole look together.

And we of course carved pumpkins, albeit a bit late this year.  We bought them on the Saturday before Halloween, and carved them on Sunday night.  My pumpkin saw a bit more action than Fuzzyhead's since I didn't cut all the way through the flesh and thus there was less pumpkin rot.  By the following week they were both in the green bin.  Sad.  

Oh no!  A snake-faced Voldemort!

My November was not terribly fast-paced, but I was dragged to Montreal with Slim Jim to find her a place to live.  She starts school on January 3rd at Concordia and didn't think too far beyond being accepted and packing her cat and dog up to take with her away from Momma's mess-filled house.  In case you're wondering, it's really hard to find a student-priced room/apartment where you can bring your barking dog without being evicted.  The dog/cat thing has been pushed to the back burner, and in our whirlwind weekend (took the train in on Friday night, left on Sunday afternoon), we found her a place to live.  BUT, the important part of the story is that I spent some quality time at a knitting store since I was rudely pulled away from my weekend off.

I consulted Ravelry in our hotel room to find nearby knitting shops that we accessible by metro/walking.  One of the forum posts highly recommended Effiloche, just a few short metro stops and a quick walk away from our hotel.  Please excuse the glare on the store window, it was an exceptionally gorgeous day outside.

 

They sell fabric and yarn, and even rent sewing machines by the hour.  So cute!  The fabric was all adorable, no old-lady patterns to be found.  It's exactly the kind of fabric I would stock up on if I sewed.  I wanted to snap a few pictures of the inside of the store, but I always feel weird doing that since some places are all up in your face about not taking pictures.  Really, what does it matter?  I don't like being yelled at so I settled for some shots from outside.

They have a cutesy little display of felted outdoorsy things that I also loved.  I want a felted toadstool. 

I returned from Montreal with two skeins of yarn for Momma's dog walking ear flap hat for Christmas.  I've finished the basic hat shell already and crocheted a border all around the edge.  I'm working on an ultra-warm inner shell to keep her head toasty during winter dog walks.  Fuzzyhead has an ear flap hat and I know gusty winds whip right through the bulky knit, so two layers can't hurt.

Also, I'm a wee bit of a paper crafter, and I spent some serious time crafting up these puppies:

 Fuzzyhead and I host his annual Christmas gathering for his friends, mostly for their Secret Santa exchange, but in recent years, also for me to play super hostess.  We settled on a date many weeks ago to be sure everyone could make it, and I made up the invites more as a courtesy than a true invitation.  We chose our theme months ago, and I patiently waited for Halloween-y themed paper and stamps to appear at Michaels.  I spent 5 or 6 hours crafting the invitations, and only finished all of the wording last night.  Oh, and just because I'm me, I made my own envelopes:

I bought a roll of craft paper (cheap and cheerful and sold by the roll!), and measured around each card to make a custom envelope.  I love the Halloween stamps I bought so I found an excuse to use the big feature stamp image on the outside of the envelopes.  I.  LOVE.  THEM. They're all addressed and waiting for stamps. 

My yoga socks are still around in the background, I've got a pair on my needles right now, but I'm in no rush to produce them.  I had a request through the yoga studio for a pair so I finished up the purple ones I was working on.  The lady who requested them didn't have a colour preference, so I brought all three of the pairs I had on hand to the studio for her to choose from.  I pinned them to an old bulletin board and added some core information, made myself a little display board.  She chose the red pair so I'm down to two pairs in my inventory.  I told the studio to keep the board there since I'm sure people are more likely to buy them if they can touch and feel the finished product. 

Tres cute, non?

I'm working my way through Christmas gift knitting for 2011.  I'm so glad I didn't commit to more holiday knitting, it would kill me.  I finished both of the felted slippers for the sister things and made my way to Michaels again this week for some puffy paint for a non-slip grip on the bottoms.

I used Tulip brand Puffy Paint in white.  The slipper on the left has been "puffed" while the one on the right is waiting its turn.  The paint took more than 4 hours to dry (never blindly trust the instructions kids), but puffed up nicely with some direct heat from a hair dryer (the instructions called for holding a hot iron up close to the paint without letting it touch, but this was way easier).

Slim Jim's slippers, puffed and ready for wrapping.  Note the heart for extra love.

Remember that manly cabled cardigan I was working on.  Done.  Here's its trip through the blocking process, and when it's properly revealed on Christmas morning, Fuzzyhead will be a fine model for the finished product.

Soaking in the tub

The finished pieces are blocked to their final measurements and set out on the futon to dry.  I did this on Friday morning before leaving for my Montreal weekend and I left them to finished drying while I was away.  They were very damp when I set them out since I ran out of wool/dog appropriate towels to squeeze out more water.  

More pictures and updates up soon, I've got lots of knitting that needs to be shown off.

Onward,

vrock

That means he gets results you stupid chief!

Happy New Year lovelies! Fuzzyhead and I celebrated our own little New Year's with a teeny bottle of sparkling wine and back to back to back episodes of Sons of Anarchy season 2. We're totally party people. No official resolutions made, I like it better that way.

Since my last post, I've moved into a new house. Landlords are truly awful people, and they'll sell your home from right under you when you're not on a lease because it means making twice as much money selling two semis separately rather than selling them as a unit to another landlord and keeping the responsible tenants. Ugh, whatever, I've moved passed this - to this! Welcome to my new house readers:

The front entrance, complete with an Oscar guarding the front door. My front door opens right into my kitchen, so we made a small welcoming coat-hanging and key-setting-down area with a mirror to check your face before you leave the house.

The kitchen! It's tiny and awkward, and it isn't a clear winner over the last house's kitchen. Cons - the fridge is teeny weeny. It's apartment-sized to the max. Our Brita filter doesn't fit in it, and a simple week's worth of groceries make it look like it's going to burst at the seams. Also, the fridge door used to open the other way, as in you grabbed hold of the handle from the window side and opened toward the room. I fixed that with a little help from YouTube, the door now swings from the other hinge. Further more, my cupboards are outrageously high. You can't really see it until you try to reach something, but I'm a solid (and most completely normal) 5'5", and I had to bring in a stool to reach the second shelf of all of my cupboards. The stove and oven are now separate, which I hate. People: stop manufacturing, installing, and asking for ovens built into the wall. They suck. On the plus side, I now have a gas range, which I love. I fire-roast a mean pepper ladies and gents. Pros - I have more cupboard space overall, even if it was designed for 9' tall blue Avatar cats instead of normal people.

My living room! The purple couch from the bux found its way into our home (with a little help from Fuzzyhead's burly man-friends). You will notice, dear readers, that our home is covered in hardwood/laminate flooring now instead of the deeply trendy shag carpet that covered the old house from top to bottom. The lack of a dog hair sponge known as a carpet has meant daily sweeping for my poor little stay-at-home Fuzzy. His whining led to me buy a Roomba for Christmas. Cornelius does the sweeping for us now.

Another view of the living room. This little room we are now in is like a mudroom, but is a little too big, and feels like lost potential. Last night Fuzzy and I moved around some furniture to have it make more sense. Our big bookcase used to be in the mudroom simply because it was too big to get up the stairs in one piece. We bit the bullet and took it apart to move it to its rightful place in the office, which means that my knitting is now where it belongs on the main level.

Back of the house shot. This was taken in September when it was nice outside and the Muskoka chairs were in full swing on the back porch. We have a modest backyard with a fence to keep the dog contained, and a shed for storing outdoor tools.

My knitting station! This was very recently relocated to the mudroom area off the living room, and I have re-oriented the cubbies to sit vertically rather than horizontally to save floor space.

In other knitting news, I will sum up my knitting adventures of the last 4 months:

The Knitters Fair in September was an absolute hit. I scored myself some sale sock yarns, and a swift. I chose the tabletop swift rather than the umbrella style that I was eyeing on KnitPicks. I feel like the tabletop takes up less space and transports better. The whole thing comes apart into 4 pieces plus some dowels. I wind yarn like a champ now.

Two stories are told here readers. The first is that the yarn for these two pairs of socks came from the Fair, and were deeply discounted (score!). The second story is that these socks are my first knitting project for hire. I made yoga socks in the summer, and after wearing them to classes, making a sample pair for my instructor, and having him actively promote how awesome they are, someone actually asked me to make them some! These two pairs were for a lady in my Friday morning level 3 class and her friend. She originally approached me in early November with a request to have them for Christmas. No problem. I was working on Fuzzy's Christmas socks at the time, so I figured I'd churn these puppies out in a month. Totally wrong. I was right down to the wire with these, I finished the last sock on Sunday December 19 and gave them to her the next day. I made a cool $50 out of it though. My Monday night knitters tell me that isn't enough for two hand-knit pairs of yoga socks. Thoughts?

Hello Kassa. Guess who has a dog sweater? This people-eyed dog model is Slim Jim's dog baby. I originally made this sweater in 2 days in the summer. It was way too hot for her to actually where it until months later, so I didn't find out until October that the neck was too short. I picked up stitches around the neck and extended the turtleneck, problem solved.

I will leave you with this happy Christmas image of my little family. Fuzzyhead has heartlessly torn down Christmas from our house now, and this is a memory of happy times.

Happy New Year to one and all!

Troll hair

Knitting updates!   
I have learned to spin, as mentioned in other posts, and two weeks ago we learned how to card!  Tamster bought me some hand carders for my birthday (very belated by the way, my birthday was in January and I received my gift in March).  Our homework from spinning class was to first of all spin the primary colours (from roving that was already dyed that we bought at Lily Lee’s).  Then the next week we mixed the roving to make secondary colours (see pictures above).  We spun those up, and then moved on to make tertiary colours.  The assignment was to make a colour wheel.  I’ve carded almost all of my tertiary colours, and I’m not sure how I want to present my final colour wheel.  Our instructor made simple leaves out of each colour and sewed them to a black square.  I think it would be super cute to make 12 little baby skeins to attach to some kind of background.  I love spinning!

My primary colours, spun, washed, and looking cute

My original handspun, with my primary colours, and my adorable sock project bag which happens to be a perfect size for spinning in progress.  My first handspun has now been dyed and I’m deciding what to make with it.

Also, I now live with Fuzzyhead, and this is my knitting corner, conveniently located in the living room for easy access to knitting while watching TV.

Thanks for checking in readers, I think I’ll be having a knitting and spinning day. 

Onward,

vrock

Mr. Bear is a wonderful model

Mr. Bear, modeling the newly finished bamboo baby sweater.  He is not mentioned the fact that I have yet to produce clothes for HIM.

The baby sweater is complete!  This was the first project completed from the Vintage Baby Knits book I got last year, and I adore it.  It hangs beautifully, the shape is adorable, and I love the little hood.  It’s missing buttons, but those will come soon.

Blocking really made a difference with this one, the pattern is so much nicer when it lies flat:

In other knitting news, I have finished chart A for the Bitterroot Shawl.  That’s all 3 repeats of the chart, that’s 153 stitches my friends.  Now it’s on to chart B!
Didn’t end up taking knitting with me on my trip to Disneyworld.  The carry-on rules were getting silly, and it was only a 2 hour flight.  I also didn’t have a lot of down time to sit and knit in my room.  We got up early each day to get to the parks, and because all the dinners were booked for later times (after 7:30), we didn’t get home until it was time for me to fall asleep.  American channels are lovely though, I watched criminal minds almost every night as I drifted off to sleep.
Moving in a few weeks, eeeeee!  I start packing non-essentials tomorrow after I get some boxes from the bux.  We get our key on the 27th, in time to measure and clean a bit before moving week, which starts March 1.  Yay!  My own little home with fuzzyhead!
Till we meet again lovelies!
Onward,
vrock

Going to Bedfordshire

Working on two projects at the same time, Catherine must be rubbing off on me.  I’m diligently making progress on the bamboo baby sweater, which will most likely end up on my naked teddy bears and not on a child.  The progress to date:

The completed torso – front panels, back, button holes and all

 

The first sleeve in progress

One more sleeve and a hood and it’s all done.  I think this may be the simple project I take with me on my trip to Disneyworld at the end of this month.  I’m concerned about knitting needle rules for airplanes, but I might just put it in my checked luggage and work on a bit at night in my hotel room.  International knitting, here I come.

AT THE SAME TIME (and this is big for me):

My first shawl attempt.  Catherine and I were supposed to start at Monday night knitting, but that has been delayed for a whole, so I started very carefully on my own, and I think I’m doing just fine.  It’s not really one of this mindless projects I can do in front of the TV, so it might be slow going. 
Trying to find a nice place to live.  That’s right team, this soon-to-be 23 year old is moving out of the house, in to her very own space with her dear and darling fuzzyhead.  We’ve seen one townhouse so far, and right now we’re looking at other options, even though we liked that first house.  We’re very high maintenance renters from what I can see – we need two bedrooms, laundry hook-up available, and oh yes, pets allowed.  And not just ‘pets’ as in a cat, I’m talking about a medium to large sized dog.  This severely limits most searching, as any place we choose must be pet friendly, AND have suitable space for dog (like a patch of grass for pooping on).  We’ve got lots of time still, we’re looking for something that will be available on April 1.  There are a few more potential places on my list, I’m waiting to hear back about the pets allowed part.
That’s all I got for now lovies,
Onward,
vrock