A Pattern! Tiny Scarf.

This little scarf won't keep your neck very warm, but it's pretty and the yarn (which I'm pretty sure is bamboo) is soft and smooth against a sensitive neck. It'll look lovely with a little brooch to close it, don't you think?


And because I'm always taking and never giving when it comes to content online, I've written it up like a real live pattern.

Tiny scarf that's really way too easy

CO 24 stitches using the crochet-hook cast-on.
Knit 3 rows, and always slip the last stitch of the row purl-wise with yarn in front.
Begin Pattern:
Row 1: K3, (k2tog) thrice, (yo, k1) 6 times, (k2tog) thrice, k2, slip 1 purlwise wyif.
Row 2: Purl
Row 3, 4: Knit.
Work those four rows until you get sick of them or the scarf is the length you like (Mine will just go around my neck twice with a little stretching), then knit 3 rows (slipping last st), and bind off.

Some things I've been working on are:
Pacman on acid. This is the Sunburst Sling Bag from Just One More Row, size medium, and


Rachel Calado's Fern Clog Socks
(click here for non-Ravelry link). They're lovely in this yarn--Kertzer's "On Your Toes Bamboo", which is 75% bamboo and 25% nylon. I'm completely done with this first sock and have yet to cast on the second, but I totally WILL. I swear.

Log Cabin

It is done. I had finished the knitting and bound off but there were still just a few ends to weave in (I did most as I went) and some ends to trim, and for some reason that was enough to make must just set it aside for a couple weeks.

In this blanket, I'm particularly proud of my picking up stitches, as I got my bumps all lined up.



It's worked in Caron Simply Soft on size 7 needles, and following the instructions for "How to Log Cabin" in Mason-Dixon Knitting. I've got on my ravelry here.

Between each brilliant shine

Yesterday Rachel and I were on our way out to run some errands and saw that someone was already using my car!



But we agreed that lizards are generally safer when NOT on my car, so relocated our new friend.
Since it's spring, there is so damn much life everywhere. Our sago (I totally would have thought it was "seigo" from how my mom pronounces it) has these new fronds that look like they came from outer space. Maybe they did. I don't have a hard time at all believing this plant grew when dinosaurs roamed about just exactly the way it does these days.



For a while, I had difficulty reconciling a despairing attitude on my part with the greenness all around. I would see these instances of life, but just behind them lurked Death. It must be the season for roadkill, and for tiny eggs knocked from their nests, inhabitants dying before they ever knew life. A cat who looked like my dear late Kitty had been hit by a car and I felt all my old scars reopening, not healed as well as I'd thought. I was pretty sure I was losing my mind, as these weren't only emotional scars--one morning upon arriving to work I noticed my wrist was bleeding. Oh, of all the days to not have band-aids in my bag!

The conclusion I've drawn from all this, the only LOGICAL conclusion, is that work is bad for me. I'll have to do something ELSE with my life.

potent ninja

First, the tree:

And also, an absurdly beautiful day. I took a walk to get some vitamin D, and found this flower growing by the driveway:

I don't know what kind it is, but I like it.
Progress on my LogCabin blanket has been embarrassingly slow. I knit maybe three rows today. But, since I've run out of one of the colors, I'll be done very soon.

Tomorrow I'll be sitting at a table at church, hoping against hope that I can generate some interest in my knitting group. Oh yeah! That's the whole reason I got on the computer now instead of going to bed. I'm easily distracted.

The Spirit of Some Friendly Imp

Hooray for noticeable growth on our tree.
During work hours I've been having trouble staying awake. I find myself sort of nodding off and hallucinating at different times, and reading things in my visions which are completely unrelated to the papers I'm reading in real life. Today I read something about Egyptian Cotton, and a phrase involving "paranormal purple papers". Today's title comes from yesterday's hallucination. It's entertaining! But I've got to find a way to stay awake.

Shoots & Leaves

Yesterday:



Today:



Work exhausts me. I can't believe I'm still up at almost 11pm when I know full well tomorrow will arrive too early yet AGAIN.

It's ironic, really. The way that they keep the building air-conditioned to a temperature between "arctic" and "absolute zero" means that this would be a great time to have more warm hand-knits, and yet the fact that I am working this job means I have no time for knitting. I've been squeezing in a few minutes each night to make a little progress on my Log Cabin blanket (no pic now), but that's all. Sigh.

Bleh!

Today's tree picture looks like crap. I thought for sure I had the macro setting on, but it sure doesn't look like it, does it? I'm not even going to upload this one to Flickr. What a drag.

THIS SUNDAY I'm going to be kinda recruiting for my church knitting group. That's great. But I don't know how I'll even LAST till then. I got home from work today and just felt exhausted in every way. And there are four more days of this to go, plus they're talking about possibly having work on Saturday, ick, but it's only optional. However, I have to be at church after all three services, and it looks as though we'll be having company this weekend. The whole thing makes me want to take a Very Long Nap (like until June).

Grow, little tree, grow.

The tree stretches out to soak up all the sunlight it can. It would be awesome if I could photosynthesize too. Of course, I already don't spend enough time outdoors. Perhaps I need to go for a walk?

it's nice having a camera

The Chinese Pistache in the front yard has been growing a lot and I thought it would be fun to take a photo every day and see its progress. I've focused on one particular branch. Yesterday:


Today:


In knitting news, I've finally gotten a pic of my Picovoli in its finished state. Not a GREAT picture, taken in the computer room with indoor light and stuff, but whatever.



And one final thing, a treat. Banzai went into the closet in the computer room (the only walk-in closet upstairs, and ironically the one that is NOT attached to somebody's bedroom) and seemed to be pursuing something. I watched him put a paw in the wire drawer where some of my fabric is stored, and then proceed to put the rest of himself in too.

Yawwwwwn.

I love pictures of cats yawning or otherwise engaged in having their mouths open. This is Timmy, on Rachel's bed.
I made myself a shirt, Picovoli, but I haven't taken any pictures of it since I finished it. I do have one from when I was working on it and hadn't decided how much longer to make it:

I like it, and it fits well. I used size 5 needles and four skeins of Lion Brand Microspun for it, which feels really nice but tends toward splittiness while knitting. It's also 100% acrylic, so it's not the BEST for garments, but whatever. It reduced my stash.
This is a top I may well make again.
Rachel and I both have gotten new assignments at Pearson (used to be Harcourt), so that's good. It's not a job I've been pining after or anything, but it'll be money, and we'll be working together (ish). We start Wednesday--THIS Wednesday--so that makes me wonder whether they were, you know, planning to get some scorers? Was it a case of divine Providence for them that we called? What a mystery!

Oh noes.

I. Am. Terrified. My church is big on --nay, obsessed with--small groups. I support the general idea of getting people connected to one another, because in my brain I know how much we need other people. In practice, however, I like to hide away from humans. I feel like I've failed if I get stuck having to talk to people other than my cats. I usually wear non-descript clothing to avoid drawing attention to myself. My result from the little character-creation personality test at the start of "Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines" gave me Nosferatu. They talk about what a horrible curse that is, what with the hideously disfigured visage and all, but to me, high stealth + the obfuscate discipline? Dream come true.
Anyway, at my church, in addition to the home groups or whatever they're called where people get together every week to talk about stuff, there are "activity groups" which involve getting together to do stuff. There is a "sportsmen" group which involves murdering animals, and a scrapbooking group, which appeals to me about as much. Scrapbooking is, in my opinion, the most useless craft. I thought to myself, "Oh, if only there were a knitting group, I might actually go to that." I made the mistake of thinking this out loud, and one thing led to another.
And so it has come to pass that I will be starting a knitting group with my church. Probably not meeting at my church, and most definitely not meeting at my house, because I think neutral locations are best. I want people to be able to wander away if they think it sucks. It wouldn't hurt my feelings. I guess the point is, I don't want to do this at all. But I kinda know it'll be good in the long run? Ugh.
And double ugh.

In other news entirely, I've gotten very nearly to the end of Picovoli (here for anyone not on Ravelry). I had to start twice but, on the second time it's going great. I fought against this idea of negative ease, but it's gonna be okay, I think. I'm using Microspun in red because I have it. If I love it as much as I suspect I might, I'll probably end up making it again in different (better) yarn. Microspun, being acrylic, isn't ideal for the hot weather we can count on for half the year here. I've got some other things I've been working on, and I still haven't fulled my Market Squares bag... but I HAVE been knitting and AM still alive (yay?).

THAT IS ALL.

Cutie

It's been really hard lately to do much of anything.
My Cutie, best friend of almost 20 years, has gone. He isn't suffering anymore, and for that I am glad, but I am utterly distraught. He was the most gentle and loving cat in the world, and he admirably tolerated such things as my childhood, a mother who chewed off his whiskers, and having to get shots in his eyes. There were many times when we thought the end was close, but he pulled through and outlived any of our expectations.



I think it was about three years ago that Rachel was home alone with him (Mom and Dad were visiting family, and I was in Austin taking a summer class), when he took a very bad turn and she took him to the vet to be told that he had a tumor, and wouldn't last long, so she should take him home and spoil him. At his age, he had little chance of surviving cancer treatment and even if he did, his quality of life would greatly decrease. It wasn't worth it. So we spoiled him, and he stuck around for it longer than we thought he would. Every day with him was a gift.

I've finished the knitting on my Market Squares bag, and that seems like such a worthless accomplishment.
But I think it's good, in my grieving, to keep on doing productive things instead of hiding under my covers all day and wishing I were dead too, so I'm trying.

Bummer and WIP

I finally got my Winter issue of Interweave Knits...


So I wrote them an e-mail as per the instructions on the website. They must be sick of hearing from me about this damned issue. Oh well! It's not really my problem!


At least the Market Squares Bag, which I started yesterday, is progressing nicely.

Banzai is inspecting my work. It's his job. I love the colors I've got, and I'm doing the tiers in a different color sequence because the final color (an off-white not seen in this photo) wasn't added to the project until after I'd started on that beige there and the two next to eachother lacked contrast and that just wouldn't work. And don't worry, according to somebody on Ravelry (I forget who), even the off-white color of this yarn felts. Huzzah.
This is such a learning project for me. Hem, entrelac, felting. And I'm finding that wool is really a pleasant yarn to work with.

Some knitting, but mostly cats

KNITTING

I finished another string bag and it has already been put to that most noble purpose of carrying a yarn store purchase, since we ate lunch at India Oven today and were so close that we had to go to Yarnivore. I spent $40. I am weak. But from that I should get a bag, some socks, and some playing, so it's not TOO bad, right...?

CATS

Cutie, now 19.5 years old, has been climbing the stairs mom made him to get up onto her bed to enjoy the sun that comes through the window and warms it. I love pictures of Cutie sleeping. He looks so peaceful and his back paws are crossed.


This cat below lives in our neighborhood and likes to hang around our yard. I guess she's probably about a year old or so.

string bags

I've been knitting some shopping bags lately, for my own personal use, and of stash I've had lying around. The blue/green/yellow one has gone to my mom, though, when she commented that shopping bags were "really a good idea". These are both of my own design, and very simple. The ecru-colored one is some twine I picked up at the UT co-op, and is done in crochet only. The colorful one, with knitted body and crochet top and bottom, is Sugar'n Cream in "Summer Splash" that I bought a ton of way back when I started to knit because the colors so charmed me. I still feel just as fond of it because it's so cheery.

Every time I take a step, I feel like it's not enough. So I'm trying to remember that no matter how small, a step is a step. And I think that maybe the next step is to try and get everyone I know to use reusable shopping bags. I figure that, with any luck, I could even sell them at like $5 each? I don't know.

Haha, I didn't do any Christmas knitting this year.

I've been knitting the Nomad Hat and Scarf from Interweave Knits Fall 07 issue, which is still the last one I've gotten (Yeah, I could whine about it but my head hurts too much for shrill noises). Instead of the called-for yarn, I'm using Bernat Alpaca because it was cheap on sale. It's soft, I seem to not be allergic to alpaca (score!!!!) and it being a blend (with acrylic) rather than bulky-weight 100% alpaca yarn means I won't be too overheated if I try to wear it, since after all, I live in south Texas. It almost never gets freezing.
This yarn sheds. The photographic evidence shows the yarn's hairs all over my knee. But I really don't mind that much, because it really reminds me of Pooh this way. She was a prolific shedder, and her hairs were similarly greyish white.
Oh, I've made myself sad.

Changing the subject then! I keep forgetting to take a GOOD picture of my laburnum socks, but this will just have to do! I knit them from Panda Cotton in Red Cinnamon, using two balls, toe-up on 2 circular needles, size 1. I used the instructions from Sensational Knitted Socks, except that I used a Turkish cast-on. They bias a bit because of the stitch pattern, but they're comfy and I like the bright colors. They look great with my red Birkenstocks.

Two examples of "Cozy"

Timothy has found my pillow to be juuuust the right size for himself. It's the kind that has an indentation in the middle, and is good for supporting my neck while I sleep, but Timmy discovered its secret other purpose of cat bed. Such a clever boy.
Oh yeah, and remember how I sometimes knit? Well, I've actually got a FO to show, but it's tiny.

My favorite lip-balm, Burt's Bees, had become lost! I was pretty distraught and for a week or so went around with dry lips. My Mom, my hero, bought me a new tube and I vowed to never lose it again, so I made a cozy. Not much later the old tube showed up, but oh well. I used a minuscule amount of Sugar 'n Cream in countryside ombre, and US size six needles. I saw it as an opportunity to play with double-knitting, and I really like the way the yarn makes stripes when I used so few stitches. Now it's attached to my keychain so I can't leave home without it.

Eventually, I'll post photos of my brand new socks! Won't that be nice?

Stripey wrist-warmers

I did not knit these. All I did was cut the holey parts (the feet) off some knee-socks and then make a ruffly edge with the sewing machine. But they're cute anyway, and I like that this photo includes my Banzai inspecting my work.

I suck at titling my posts

Pat's hat has been finished and given to its recipient. If I'd been thinking this morning I'd have brought my camera with me to church to get a picture of the hat on its owner, but I have been feeling dreadful. I'd had this headache for probably 34 hours?
Anyway. I've since embarked on a new project, and photographed the (mid-blocking) swatch: As usual, my photography kinda sucks hard, but I really like this lace pattern and am going to use it on a stole for myself. Though the swatch is in color #80 (ivory), I'll do the stole in #59 (orange) and it will be great. The pattern is Vine Lace from Barbara G. Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns (the first) and is so easy I feel like I'm cheating.

Third time's the charm, eh Vin?

Okay, well. Pat, a woman who goes to my church and loves Newsboy-style hats (I can't blame her!) has asked me to make her the "Headline News" cap from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, in "fire-engine red". I asked what kind of yarn she wanted it out of and she requested acrylic since it's washable.
Monday I went to Yarnivore to get some orange yarn to knit a something to go with my new Earth-mother dress that I love (I got Plymouth Royal Bamboo for that btw) and while there I asked Melanie for help finding a really bright red acrylic. She produced Dark Horse Yarns "Fantasy" and I squeezed the skein. It does not feel acrylic. So I checked the label--aha! It's 50% nylon. Nylon is my guilty pleasure fiber. It's made of coal, so it's not exactly eco-friendly, but it feels as soft as bunnies.
So anyway I've been knitting this dang hat all week, because I'm just incompetent. I didn't like the gap between the last knit stitch and the first purl stitch on my wide ribs so I went down a needle size, which required me to use a different number of stitches and I had a headache. Then I decided to omit the first of two purl stitches at each occurrence then pick up the missing stitch near the end, which worked but it all got cruddy after that as the really loose top stitches didn't match the neat tight stitches below. And so now I've finally decided to just do it as written and hope that some blocking will miraculously make it not so bad (Don't spoil my fantasy). Only now I've lost my cable needle.
Sigh.
So I'm giving cabling without a needle a try, as learned from Grumperina's tutorial here. I've done one round of them, and it looks kiiiiinda messy, but I guess that'll just happen when using worsted weight yarn on 6.5mm needles?