Seven Things of Happy

I'm not much for memes, so bear with me. Jesse tagged me; 7 things meme, and I'm going to go for seven knitting things that have given me pleasure recently, because knitting goodness is something I shouldn't forget.

I'm not going to tag anyone, so you're all safe, and any and all complaints can be directed to... well, me.

1) designers who dare.

2) the store I work at: http://badwomanyarn.com/

3) the fact that people there want to take my classes.

And the rest are pictorial, because I'm short of words today:

4) The complexity of lace








5) basement bargain arty (artful!) yarn









6)lace needle-tipped addi turbos:

















7) .... and the versatility of string. This is hanging from my wall.

Capecho: This May Be a Disaster

This is the start of Norah Gaughan's modular capecho from last year's winter Vogue Knitting.

I have no idea what's going to come of it-- but I'm not good at resisting this kind of temptation, so I decided I absolutely must (this is as crucial to my continued existence as air and water, I swear) give the crazy construction a try, and not only that, but I had six skeins of black lion brand wool-ease to do it with. Because, you know, Vogue Knitting would choose lion-brand for a project.

That's the first thing changing the knitting dynamic here-- I'm knitting the size XS, but it's going to shape into a L. That's part of my grand plan, honest.

I should mention: I don't have a copy of the pattern. I'm not going to graft the pentagons onto each other during the knitting process-- I'll sew them together afterward. It's also not going to be a bolero by the time I'm done with it-- I love Gaughan's designs, but I'm too busty for boleros, and I've seen in Flickr pools that Vogue managed to photoshoot it and the model in peculiar ways. So by the time I'm done, this will be a cardigan. Probably V-necked, not sure yet. And my snowflakes are going goth.

Fini, Fini, Fini Pomatomus

They're finished and lovely, but I swear I can't get a decent picture of them-- I've given up trying. Just be assured that they're adorable, all right? And I'm going to have to wash this GGH wool, because itchy is something it is very good at.

I actually have a third of these socks lying around-- the cuff was far too long for me, but I only decided this when I was halfway done with the foot. I ended up decreasing the cuff length by one pattern repeat, and the foot by half a pattern repeat. Cute, and fun, but an easy pattern to drop a stitch in (also one that's not terrible fun to rip out. I hate ripping out lace).

I think I need to buy myself a pair of addi's in a size 1 or 2; these socks have been the project in the bottom of my backpack for about three months now, and I was forever misplacing single dpns in the lining of the bag. This meant a lot of cursing at work.

Crushed Hopes and Pranks

I had great plans for this weekend-- I was going to pack myself into a car with a bunch of friends, head out with some GPS coordinates, and spend a day crawling around in damp, cold caves enjoying the last days of summer (when they're not bat habitat).

Sadly, it was not to be. I had a really lame accident (I lost my balance and skidded across some bricks, skinning my knee to the point of losing significant flexibility) that I can set a sort of hip spin to (I collided with a parkour guy). So I'm staying behind, and will spend the weekend consoling myself with Buffy and lots of knitting.

However....These should be making their way into one of my friends' backpacks as we speak. He will, uh, appreciate having enormous pink mittens made from some 1970s acrylic rug yarn.

This picture understates the pink by quite a bit. These things aren't salmon-colored. Oh no. Hardly. They are "folly" pink, by which the manufacturers clearly meant "That color worn solely by five-year-olds that approximates blood on snow, covered with a gleaming varnish."

It's a long story. Suffice to say that he made one too many kitten jokes and, well, kittens have mittens... so I gave him miniature mittens which he sent back (with a marionette kitten that scares me a little) with a note that they were too small.

These aren't.

Skeins of Doom

A couple years ago, in a fit of poor taste and dubious circumstance I now regret (why did you give me yarn, mom? And why, oh why, did I wheedle you into giving it to me?), I acquired two skeins of Sensations Rainbow Boucle in colors that don't really pair up to my satisfaction.

Two skeins. That's 2x 853 yards (lawks, a whole 1706 yards!) of soft, prissy, gormless yarn that's soft, prissy, and gormless mostly because it doesn't have the constitution to knit up into things I would actually, well, knit. I'm not a big blanket/formless sweater person. I gave it a stab, I did: I produced one entirely forgettable 3-ft squared blanket for the family cats.

Aside from that, these blue and grey watermelons have been taking up stash space for a very long time, annoying me to varying degrees depending on how finicky I'm feeling when I remember I have them (they take up a lot of stash space).

Well, no longer. I was glaring at them in a fit of pique yesterday when I had a revelation: I've never knitted entrelac, and that is One of Those Things I Really Should, At Least Once.

So, an entrelac blanket it is. Let's see how many years it stays half-knitted on my floor. Cast your bets now.

Just a note...

I am Jabberwocky at Ravelry. Not very original, but there you have it, for what it's worth. I feel trendy to the point of silliness because of it.

Class: Convertible Glottens

I'm still hammering out the kinks on these mittens (will pick up some stitches on the thumb, write up the pattern, come up with a crafty loop to pin the mitten cap back onto the button when they're in their glove phase instead of their mitten phase). I should write the pattern up this weekend, too.

But this is really just a teaser-- this is the other pattern I said I'd be teaching a class for.