Back again

I came back a while ago, but haven't blogged yet. This is because I have been at my busiest recently, but I gotta blog this newest breakthrough. I think --think only, mind you--that I may have invented a new DK cast-on. Pictures to follow soon!

I'm leaving, on a jetplane

I'm going to Japan tomorrow night. This means no more posts, probably for quite a while. So. No photo of the mitten, because it had to be frogged when I realized that it was a second left mitten. I lost everything down to just above the thumb, and am sadly (and with some profanities) re-knitting it. Purl stitches are a mystery to me. A row of them shouldn't be any harder to get through than plain straight knitting is, but this art is full of inexplicable mysteries.

I can't decide on what to work on in Japan. We have a 14-hour plane ride (!) to get us there, so a girl's gotta knit something. I think maybe another hat or more mittens, but I have considered taking the sweater. I seem to have a bit of a death wish, since I'm unsure where I was in the pattern. Bleh.

Have a good few weeks!

Universe, stop it!

I am having an accident-prone night. (Without much knitting content, be warned.) Here's the lowdown:
1. When going to my brother's room to talk about college basketball (basically, trying to be a good sister) I hit my arm on my door's latch and get a big nasty scrape. Extraordinarily stupid. I curse and walk to his room. I open his door and try to talk. He says: "Go away!"
2. I go back into my room and knit, wincing as my arm bleeds a little. Incidentally, I don't believe in band-aids for anyone older than those who think of an elmo band-aid as the height of cool. Thank goodness I am past that stage.
3. Leaving to go to the bathroom, I stub my toe. The nail breaks. Ouch.
4. I limp to the bathroom and back, then downstairs to complain to my mom. Here's my theory: Complain too much and maybe the universe will want you to shut up by not hurting you more.
5. I sit by my knitting, hoping that my compaining will have protected it from harm.
6. I imagine a wooly grim reaper coming to collect my knitting, wearing a seed-stitch hood and holding a stick with I-Cord on it. Clearly I need sleep.

Inspirational

Check out this link. It is awe-inspiring. This women is my role model/hero.
That's all for this post; I'm still in admiration and shock.

Cabling!

The mitten is done. The second one has almost reached the gusset. The cabling looks good, and so does the slot for my fingers. It is true that I made an extremely stupid choice and decided to cast on 10 stitches to cover the fingers' hole where I should have done 12. So then I increased purlwise 2 more, which i have never done and which looked a little unsnazzy. But that's why we do blocking, right?

Also, in case you noticed and were curious, I have decided to be like the harlot and take photos in fun places. ahem. maybe this looks boring, BUT the cool butoon tin is goodness knows where so I made do. (And it really does have very cool buttons; I'll show you later). Anyway, this has sewing accents. They're kinda ugly. I'll do better next post.

We also have the lovely (er, ok, ugly) fuschia sleeping bag, in order to better display my lovely cable. This cable really does lift my mood. (It's in the second picture. But of course, being smart, you already realized).

Come to think of it, it's almost harder to see the fuschia where the cable is displayed. But come now, I definitely never said I or my pictures were perfect.

Well, I have to go knit a beaded cuff. have to. Second mitten? What mitten?

Mittens make the heart grow fonder!

I love my wool even more. The mittens are progressing quite well, and soon I'll make the slit for the fingers that I already described. I had to frog the stupid thumb because I always knit for too long, and it's still a little long but it works fine for my purposes. I also stopped striping because I want some basic, if boring, mittens that will go with anything. Wish me luck with the hole for the fingers!!

Mmmm....wool...

I love wool. And my favorite of all is Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride. It is the only wool (ok, 85% wool with 15% mohair) or yarn at all for that matter that I have never gotten tired of. I grew out of my Lion Homespun phase just in time to leave me with 2 huge guilt-inducing skeins, for example. This time, the project currently OTN is a pair of mittens. They are two shades of blue and I love them already. The only question is this: should I give them little openings for my fingers? A very smart knitter did just that, but me being not so smart I lost the link to her blog. These were very convenient little slits-- like buttonholes --that went horizontally across for just enough space te let you poke your fingers out. I will knit them, but with a little flap inside so that I don't freeze. (The flaps are my own invention.) Pictures will continue to be posted.

Acrylic is Abominable (not always but this yarn is)

Like the fancy alliteration? Well anyway, my mystery surprise failed to work out. It was supposed to be a bath "bonbon" from knitty. But when I did as they suggested when substituting yarn and washed my swatch in hot water with soap, it got scratchy and it felt completely different from my softer knitting. So now we're back to the drawing board on what this thing could be. Any ideas? Sorry about the surprise letdown!

What is she up to now?

I won't tell you yet. You'll just have to keep reading this. I will say that this is truly the infamous baby blanket. Yes indeedy. I won't say what its new purpose is in life (hint: it sure ain't a baby blanket now) because I have come to my senses. There is not possibly enough yarn to finish a whole blanket. Furthermore, even though I got all its stitches picked up again, I wouldn't want to. It is crappy and acrylic and I do not want to be part of my knitting legacy.


I have, however, knitted a swatch. What for? Well, if I told you I'd have to stab you to death with my size 2 acrylic DPNs. And I wouldn't even wish that fate on the model in Knit It! who got the amazing designer sunglasses. (See my last post if you are confused, as anyone would be after a statement like that.)