Thursday, June 26, 2008

Stringy Theory Fashion Tips

Always match your yarn to your cat for extra cuteness:





Btw, the yarn is the color Journal from Knitivity. It's super soft and there's 435 yards of it!

Also, you may notice it's not my usual colors. It's for a swap. I remain as personally obnoxious as ever.

Pippi Longstockings

I've decided these are my Pippi Longstocking socks, and none of you should be surprised. I continue choosing only colors that appear in the 8 - crayon Crayola box. These I specifically started for two reasons: 1. I didn't have any socks that went with kelly green, and that was bothering me, and 2. The last socks I made for myself were plain black.




I got the yarn nearly a year ago at Stitches. It was a Regia stretch sock yarn that came in small skeins (take two, they're small). I love these socks. In summer, I rarely wear socks at all, and I have alread worn these twice.

They are what is now my standard toe-up formula.

It's a rectangle toe:



And the fleegle heel:


I knit up into normal sock length, then increased into the ribbing as I described before. Yep.

Loud, obnoxious, predictable. Perfect for me.



In summary:

Yarn: Regia stretch in obnoxious colors, 2 skeins, superwash/nylon sock blend

Pattern: My standard toe-up: Rectangle toe, Fleegle heel, stockinette body with 2x2 ribbing at the top, EZ sewn bind off

Needle: Size US 1 (2.25mm) dpn

Time: A few weeks of as a purse project

Cost: About $15 I think, which is less than usual

Things I haven't blogged about : Clogs

These were a class at Peggy's that I never blogged about: the Fiber Trends felted clogs. They're extremely popular, and for good reason. They are very easy, with one caveat: don't try to talk and follow the pattern. Just don't.


Obviously these are my colors, but one was left unfelted as a before and after kind of thing. Isn't it silly and clownish? I need to go shrink it down so I can schlep about in these things. They're actually really comfortable. I believe the yarn is Brown Sheep, the new twisty colors for the body, and plain for the cuffs.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Adventures in Cat Wrangling

One my favorite timewasting websites is Cute Overload, which, in addition to compiling the cutest pictures ever and making me fall in love with Fennec foxes, also lists the Rules of Cuteness.
Rule 35 of Cuteness is that if you're caught doing something bad, it's cute.
Yep.

This little one knows how to cause a lot of trouble.


Worfy had this cat tower for months before Duncan came along, and sat on it very prettily. Duncan likes to attack it. He would chase his tail around the base of the pole until the whole thing was shaking. Eventually, the bit at the top no longer connected well to the ceiling. I wedged a wooden block in there to keep it stable. That lasted about a week. Duncan soon figured out that if he hit the pole at just the right speed and angle, he could make the block go flying across the room. He found that incredibly amusing. Recently, he discovered that he could in fact knock the entire tower down. It pretty much hasn't been upright for 5 mins since. I've basically given up. I tried to put it up the other day with some cloth wedged between the pole and the ceiling, but Duncan attacked it immediately. Then he likes to surf down the pole as it falls, as seen here. I don't know about this cat, I really don't.
Luckily for him I cannot resist this speckled belly

or this little face.

He is so lucky he's that cute. So lucky.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Things I haven't blogged about

This was a bag that Lorna talked me into doing this Bar Harbor Shell Bag for a class for the LYS. It's very pretty, don't you think? Well you better think so, cause that was approximately 84 shells of switching back and forth every 10 or so stitches with lots of color changes.

Not that I'm annoyed by that fact at all. No seriously, I'm glad it was for a class, because otherwise I would have never finished the thing. Some people had no trouble with them, but I found it incredibly fiddly. It's really beautiful though, especially the bottom.



Mine is felted, which is a little scary to do when you've done this much work. It's nice unfelted too, but then you'd have to line it, and I'm lazy. As soon as it came back from the shop (where it was a sample), it immediately became a project bag.

Also, I am once again extremely predictable with my color choices, but this one was kind of intentional. The best advice I've ever gotten for how to combine colors (barring some crazy color theory) is to take a skein of varigated yarn that you like, and pull out the individual colors from that. This is from a skein of sock yan that will eventually become something chevron-like (no, not jaywalkers).


In the Meantime....

enjoy a little Worfy.



Lots of knitting content coming soon though.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Knitting Slump

Every relationship is bound to have its down times. This, I'm afraid, is a temporary lull with my love of knitting. Seriously, I'm just not too inspired by any projects I have right now. I'm not even all that inspired to cast on. Sure, I'm still picking it up about once a day, but my heart isn't in it. Must be spring fever or something.
I'm sure it will come back. In the meantime, the only updates are likely to be about my cats. Also, I want a fennec fox.