A blog of indiscriminate crafting and random thoughts on life.
I’ve been doing a little bit of knitting this spring/summer. Very little really, but enough to produce two hats. Both are the same yarn, because I liked it. :)
Conversationalist hat in Knitcircus Ringmaster (worsted, Lambeau Leap)
Parrotfish/Pomatomus Hat in Knitcircus Ringmaster (worsted, Beach Glass)
Bolting is finished! It only took 18 months and 4 days to do it. That’s not to say I was knitting that whole time. I wasn’t. For instance, I started the cast off back in September, and was just under halfway through it, and it sat there for months because I hated that fuzzy shit I was using for the edging. Don’t get me wrong, I like how it looks, I just didn’t want to knit with it. At. All.
Most of the details on it can be found on Ravelry as usual. Specifically, here. And now I am onto other things. I’ve had a sock started in waiting I’ve got to work on, a mistake ribbed cowl cast on for simple mindless knitting, I want to cast on a double knit hat, and mug cozy. I’ll be impressed if I managed to get all 4 of these things done by this time next year, but we’ll see.
Happy Holidays and what have you!
Holy shit I actually finished a knit! Two if you count them as individuals.
After a long ban from homemade socks, shmoo managed to wheedle himself back into my good graces when I said I was knitting socks because I wanted a small project for our traveling, and my current shawl I’ve been working on for the past year is just too damn big to be drug around everywhere now easily.
So, he got socks.
If you are intersted in more than the photos, the Ravelry link is here:
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/soapturtle/climb
If you just want to see them, then I got you covered.
I’ve finished my Bertrand Louis just one week after cutting my hair off at chin length again.
Despite this, I am very happy with both the hairs that are cut and the resulting hat/cowl thing.
I did normal brioche instead of half brioche and it is thick and stretchy and cuddly and yum. It’s a great stitch for handspun, and I can totally see using it again for another handspun project.
I’ve read a thing for someone on the internet.
If you like podcasts and Fantasy Short Stories, check out Podcastle.
In fact, if you like, you can start with the story I read here.
I have photos of the Rainbow Campfire Mitts finally.
I finished the Cat’s Cocoon thing, which he loves and will actually get in and not just lay on, but damned if he’ll stay in it when I am trying to get a photo of him using it.
It’s just not happening. He did make sure to guard it while I took a photo of it however, because he’s most definitely sure that it is HIS and he is NOT going to share it. Shmoo tried to raise it up a bit for me and Bri huffed at him and put his foot down on it so he could not.
I also knit a [Minecraft] slime as a Christmas Gift for a 2 year old, and it was a hit with most everyone but the recipient. This is to be expected of course, he’s 2. :) Even shmoo said he was really impressed at how it turned out, which he rarely says about any of the knitting anymore.
That’s it! Here’s your photos.
Ok, as mentioned in my Thanksgiving Recipe post, I’ve had a perfectly good reason for not posting the majority of this year.
I needed to move web-servers. We kept saying we were going to do it soon and then not doing it, and because it was going to happen “SOON” I didn’t want to add anything that would alter the backups we had already made. Never-mind that of course when we went to move the site, the first step was to take brand new backups.
Regardless, it is done now, so I should be back to posting with semi-regularity, aka, about once a month if prior habit still holds true.
I have broken this post into different sections below so you can just go to the sections you are interested in and skip the part you could care less about.
It’s a long-winded ride, so settle in!
I am no longer with bluehost. That felt so good, let me say it again. I am not longer with bluehost!! I am no longer paying anyone for a shitty shared hosting platform. My site is on my very own server in shmoo’s data center. We have complete and total control.
All back end work is being handled by us with him doing most of the SysAdmin heavy lifting since he got to choose the OS. We bought the server at the beginning of the year, got it up and running early February and have generally only used it as a Minecraft server ever since. Mind you, Minecraft was not the intent for the server, but it has worked out nicely to use it as such. I have migrated my WordPress and Gallery installations over finally this weekend, and made sure that they are up and working correctly.
Part of this migration involved upgrading Gallery2 to Gallery3, and this has killed the plugin that worked for using Gallery photos in my blog, which makes me sad, because I loved it and it’s silly to put the same photos in two places on the server, and now I have to go back to using full links again if I don’t wish to do this. While this doesn’t make me happy, it is liveable. I don’t care for any of the Gallery3 themes, but overall it’s still the best photo gallery software out there, so I’m still using it. What I won’t be doing is going back and fixing any of the links that worked with the WPG2 plugin. I used it for years, and I just don’t care that much about fixing it.
Blog-wise I am using a theme I used several years ago that really isn’t widget compatible. Well it is for the left column, but not the right, and I can’t figure out why, and after a few hour I just gave up and fixed the right column without widgets. I’ll likely be looking into other themes later, but for now, I don’t cringe at the thought of this one and thus it shall remain. I always quite liked this theme, I just moved on because I liked widgets more.
I went to MSW and bought a bunch of stuff.
I did Tour de Fleece this year and spun 40 ozs of fiber, but haven’t done much spinning since. Nothing really of note at any rate.
I did take Felicia Lo’s Craftsy class on Spinning with color, and found it quite useful. I wish I had taken it a month or two before TdF so that I could have planned out some of the techniques to try during that time. Also, Craftsy is pretty awesome. If you like taking classes on your own schedule, at home, in your pajamas, without other people… it’s totally the way to go. Pretty affordable too and they have sales every so often too.
Since the Dim Sum, I have knit a new Nalgene Cosy in broken rib.
The Misogyny Networks Mankini Top
Made with the finest acrylics money can buy!! This fabulous fun fur and fuzzy yarn creation filled me with a dirty shame.
It was so bad that shmoo said my knitting license should be revoked, and he didn’t even have to wear it.
Regardless it was perfect for its intent and I was happy to compromise my knitting standards to help make a point in my industry.
Sometimes you have to take one for team….
A Pair of Campout Mitts for my Nana.
Mod was adding the extra i-cord at the bottom.
The gray is Alpaca and the pink is the same stuff the nalgene cosy and tea pot cosy were made of. I am finally almost out of that yarn. ALMOST!
A Pair of Campfire Mitts for myself.
I still need to take a photo of these, or wrangle shmoo into doing so while I wear them. Maybe next week!
Made these with the two Rainbow yarn bumps I spun up.
I had finished one armwarmer at the end of last year. It got ripped when I changed from the made up as I went along pattern to Campout Mitts.
Made them longer and added a band of garter stitch at the bottom.
I’ve been working on an Entrelac Infinity Scarf for my aunt. She’s been waiting about 3 years for me to make something with this yarn, and I am about half done with it.
Hopefully I’ll wrap it up before 3 more years go by.
I’ve also started a cocoon thing for the cat, but it’s crochet using random scrap yarns. It might end up horribly ugly. It probably will be. If he likes it, he won’t care, and neither will I. If he doesn’t like it, the dog will.
Daisy and Bri are both fine.
Daisy had another spine/neck disc rupture this spring but seems to be ok and able to live with it. She’s old and has a more limited mobility than she used to but over all is still a happy healthy dog. We took her to Florida this year with us, and for a dog who absolutely hates water, she absolutely loves the beach and St. George Island. Even shmoo noticed how much she liked it there. We took her with us on our morning walks, and she wasn’t interested in touching any little bit of the surf AT ALL, but she would every now and then and not totally panic. Mostly she loved the warmth on her old bones, the sand itself, and the interesting smells.
Bri is doing well. Evil as always. He’s gone to a meat twice a day diet and I am the one that feeds him. I am less worried he might kill me in my sleep and he has stopped peeing on my things, or rather, only on my things. Now when he gets mad at us, either of us might suffer the wrath. I am OK with this because I no longer feel targeted by him. Shmoo is less pleased, especially when I get to point and laugh at him.
Work is good. Always busy, always a challenge but I am happy.
I have stopped doing Letter Exchanges because I am a bad pen-pal and haven’t written a letter to anyone since I got sick back at the end of January from shmoocon. I was sick for over a month, ended up missing a week of work total, and did 3 different rounds of drugs. It was awesome, if by awesome I mean, totally sucked.
Facebook and G+ still suck.
Twitter is still my social network of choice.
I broke my Kindle3 keyboard and had to get a new one, just in time for the Paperwhite. I love it other than really missing the side keys for advancing the page quickly.
The game FTL is awesome.
We still aren’t playing WoW, though we have started playing GuildWars2 since they came out with a Mac client.
It’s not as fun as WoW but it doesn’t have a monthly sub price so I don’t much care.
Minecraft has replaced WoW for me for the most part. It’s the game I spend the most time in, and I like to see the things others have built.
That’s it, you’re all caught up!
Though the cat is an undeserving bastard, I cranked this out today while watching the Packers and Lions play at the pub.
Pattern is from knitty. ( http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring03/PATTdimsum.html ) I’ve also taken a bit of leftover white stockinette from where I changed up the Naughty Reindeer hat and used the sewing machine to whip up several more. They aren’t pretty, but the cat was stealing them from me as I made them, so they must be a hit.
Here’s the photos of the finished hat and the one armwarmer. I am semi-pleased with the hat. It’s awesome, and the concept is great, but I think it might be too small for Todd’s head with the reversible side in, and there’s some pulling on the patterning that I don’t care for, but it’s intarsia in the round, so it is what it is.
I love the armwarmer and can’t wait to wear them one day, but I still need to finish spinning the yarn for the second one…
I started socks, but they were too small so I had to frog and restart. I’ve gotten about 15 rows into the redo so far. I think I am going to rip out my hand-spun arm-warmers and change the pattern I am using and go again. I’ve found one I like better I think.
I’ve also started knitting log cabin squares from my hand-spun with the aim of at some point having enough to make a king sized afghan at some point in the future. I’ll be happy if it’s something I can finish in the next year or two. In the meantime, I’ll just keep knitting squares as I can. Near as I can figure, I’ll need around 48.
But I have finished something! A Snug Habor cat bed for the cat. Though finish is a loose term. The cat took it before I was completely done with it.
It is neither stuffed nor are the ends even woven in, and yet, he doesn’t seem to care. All’s well that ends well!
Ok, it’s not the first sweater I have knit, it’s true. I’ve done 3 baby sweaters and a kid’s sweater. But this is my first sweater for me! Also, my first adult sized sweater. It’s really quite overdue as a knitterly accomplishment in my opinion, but none of my previous attempts made me happy and so they got ripped or postponed forever.
Radiate, done in Cascade 220 Peach, however has been an easy knit and I am fairly satisfied with how it has turned out. It’s not AMAZING! but it fits like I wanted it to and it is what I was seeking. A comfortable wool sweater. It was a really easy knit too.
I am still not happy with the button bands, but I’ve done them twice now, and I’m just going to live with them a while. I think I’ll try to put in a hidden 2 ended zipper though, because I’d prefer a smooth line anyway than just have the buttons all pulling and gaping. It’s not that it won’t fit around me buttoned, it does, but even having gone down several needle sizes, the bands are still just floppy. So I am thinking ribbon reinforcement and hidden zipper will fix it right up. Regardless, I’ll be waiting on that until I have worn it some and can see what I really think.
Other mods were making the sleeves 3/4 bell type sleeves by knitting longer and leaving out the decreases, making the body longer, and adding a line of crochet along the inside collar to help with keeping the neckline from stretching out.
The color is not really correct in these photos due to crappy lighting, but they are what I have for now. And it’s on to the next project! Hopefully it will be finished and posted about in May, as planned. :)