Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Knitting at work

There have been lots of meetings and classes lately, so I've managed to finish a sock in about a day.




I don't really feel bad for knitting at work, since it is actually keeping me paying attention in class when otherwise my thoughts would stray (as they do for many of my coworkers), but I think it might have been a tiny bit distracting for the presenter yesterday. Whenever she would pause or search for a word, she would stare at my sock. I couldn't figure out whether I was the cause or the symptom of her distraction.


In other news, I've been listening to so many knitting podcasts. I keep thinking that eventually I'll catch up and NPR will get its chance again, but then I find another one. And of course I'll have to listen to all of those as well. My current favs: Cast On, Lime & Violet, and Sticks and String. They can all also be found on iTunes, which is where I found them.


The only thing I have against them is that they all play from the podsafe network. Of course I think it's a wonderful thing that there is such a thing and that they use it, but they all have similar tastes, very dissimilar to my own. I think if I hear Skullcrusher Mountain (look towards the bottom) again I will scream. I think at least three of my podcasts have played it.


Anywho, on to the second sock!

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The ugliest sweater



This is the sweater of dooooooooooom!

I made this sweater from Charmed Knits, which has patterns inspired by the Harry Potter series. This was supposed to be a Weasley sweater, done in almost magical time. It took me about 4 days, but I hadn't had time to quite finish it before the party on Friday. I had it all seamed and had the ends woven, but hadn't had time for the neckline. The results, as you can see, are so ugly that I busted up laughing and refused to let Orion wear it to the party. That would just have been mean.

Maybe I'll finish up that neckline and try to auction it off on ebay or something. Give it to the homeless. Anything, just to get it out of our home and out of my sight!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Lots of knitting, but not much to show

Considering how long it's been since the last time I've posted, you would think that I would have a ton to show for it, right? Wrong. I've done a lot of knitting, but I don't feel like I've gotten very far.


So here are the socks made from that beautiful Interlacement yarn:

I had wanted to make them toe up two at a time, but had messy problems with the cast on. I should have documented that, but was so frustrated at the time that I didn't think of it. What happened was that the endmost stitch kept getting longer and longer. No matter how I tried to tighten it, it kept getting bigger. I finally gave up when it was about an inch long. Then I would frog my work and do the same thing all over again. Ech.


Here is the progress on my mystery stole:

What we have here is a little in on clue 3. I forgot to take a picture after finishing clue 2, but that was only about 6 rows ago. I couldn't block it for this pic, though, because I would have had to turn on the light in the living room, which would have woken Orion. I can't wait to have that one-bedroom. I'm tired of being forced into the kitchen every morning.


Here is a soft little side project I did because it was mindless enough to bring to my first Stitch'n'Bitch meeting:

As a sidenote, the people there were awesome, but I had unwittingly stumbled in on bring-your-kids-to-SnB night. I have decided that I shouldn't have kids. I just don't know how to deal with them.


And finally, here is some lovely yarn that I bought since I loved that sock yarn so much:


The purple is my first Koigu. I had been eyeing this particular colorway for a while now, but hadn't wanted to pony up the $24 a pair of socks costs. After feeling just how nice it is to work with yummy sock yarn, I caved. The green is Jitterbug, and costs about the same. They are both so nice that sometimes I just touch the yarn. Does that make me crazy?


My final project, not documented here, is to make a Weasley sweater for the Harry Potter release party on Friday. I decided to do this Sunday night, rushed out to buy Charmed Knits (a book of Harry Potter-inspired patterns), and went to Michael's to buy some cheap-ass Red Heart yarn. 5 days. I had originally, insanely decided that I was going to make two of these sweaters. It would have been really hard, but not impossible. They have no shaping and are drop-shouldered, so they go pretty quick. However, I got so sick yesterday that I couldn't knit at all. There's no way that I can do it now. At least Orion will have his sweater. He's letting me read it first, so it's only fair that he gets the awesome costume. Even if it is Red Heart.