Tuesday, March 14, 2006

finished things


Here's Rachel wearing the Anarchy Irony hat from The Happy Hooker. I finished the hat part last night, but then had issues with the anarchy sign. I ended up just freehand surface crocheting that part on. I think it's crappy but acceptable. Turns out I'm a very loose hooker. The pattern called for a size J hook, and to match gauge with my Simply Soft yarn, I had to use a size G. I found this hard to believe. I thought I must be wrong in the way I checked gauge, or something. So I read the instructions again, checked again, had to keep going down in hook size... weird. So for the first time in my life I'll have to learn to tighten up rather than hang loose. Damn you, crochet! You've flipped my world inside out!

I also finished my left armwarmer and the stripes don't match up with the right one but that's okay with me. And of course they're finished just in time for me to not need anything even remotely warm for at least half a year.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

I'm updated! Oh boy!

This scarf is meant to be shaped like a fish. In retrospect, I should have continued the shaping more because right now it looks like a giant necktie. I plan to add some fins and eyes to make it look more fishy. It was just gonna be a plain old scarf, knitted garter stitch from some Yarn Bee Italia (100% nylon and 100% so soft!), but after I started the colors reminded me of koi. So it's a plain old garter stitch knitted scarf with some shaping to make it look like a tail and head. A little.

Here's my right armwarmer, which has been finished for a few days now. It's made of Moda Dea Sassy Stripes in Stormy (I think that's the name of the color), #6 DPNs, and the worksheet from the Snowball's chance in Hell armwarmers from the Anticraft.
Its mate is still in progress, but I'm actually working on it. Honest.






I've also been learning to crochet, and my first FO was a square for Warm Up America, which is boring so I'm not posting it and my second is also kinda boring but I consider it a HUGE success:
It was really simple to make, mostly just chaining and slip stitching. The pattern came from JPF Crochet Club, and more specifically, from http://www.jpfun.com/patterns/14misc/spidercattoy.shtml
So anyway, it was successful in that Banzai chased it down the stairs tonight, and we played with him with it in the kitchen and in the living room, and a jolly old time was had by all, then he went and took a rest by the door and Cutie, the Grumpy Old Man cat, who's 17 and a half in human years and like a million in cat years, came and played too! He batted at it and caught it in his paw and bit at it... It made my heart so happy! And for such an old cat, it was a lot of playing. Anyway, I'm happy, so happy. Gonna go now. And I really do intend to update this thing a lot more often... I'm just so bad at it.