Cat in lap

I just took this picture to show you what I see every time I sit down to try to blog. You wouldn't imagine just from looking at this ("look at me, I'm a nice kitty! purr! purr!") how difficult it is to type accurately with a cat happily working his claws into your thighs and trying to nibble your mouse hand at the same time.
p.s. I'm wearing shorts. Sorry about the skin!

CRT, WIP!

from Interweave Knits

I cast on for this baby on Monday and I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm almost done with the back already! The bad news is that it's going to be WAY too big on me, I can tell already. I'll start eating some more brownies...

Cat in Poncho

As if his earlier experience with a poncho wasn't traumatic enough, Mack felt it necessary to dive into another one...

Green Feather Earrings

Yesterday was an amazingly productive day in the city. Among other things, we stopped by Metalliferous. It was my first time there and I just about gave myself tetanus what with all the excitement. And I didn't even see the bead room. Anyway, I made these super-easy earrings that I wore when we went out to Ida Mae last night. Don't tell me this shade of green isn't delicious.
And now I'm all wantin' to get into making jewelry. WTF?! I don't even wear jewelry outside of the necklace and earrings the significant other gave me.

Sheerly Update

I'm up to where you're supposed to join the yoke on my Sheerly...however the pattern is completely losing me at this point. I can see what might happen if I knit it according to the directions--but it just seems a little funny, not being symmetrical and all. I'll give it another Googl-ing (not finding too many FOs of this pattern yet) and then I'll just leap-of-faith it.

Kool-Aid!!!

I get wierd compulsions to try this or that new crafty thing every so often, and every time I do, I lose all patience and MUST have the requisite supplies NOW NOW NOW. The last time this happened for the marble magnets thing and I was skipping out on work to run to the hardware store for silicone sealant...yikes. The latest obsession was experimenting with Kool-Aid dyeing...


Before dying--two sets of various yarns from my stash--I know that cottons and acrylics won't dye, but I was just interested to see what effects would happen with some blended yarns and to the cottons.
The two big swatches on top were from testing out lace patterns for my Cleo.
Second row, L: 100% wool tapestry yarn, sport-weight acrylic, "wool" from China.
Bottom row, L: Paton's Divine, mohair from China, grey mystery wool(?)
On the right, I replaced the sport-weight acrylic with a random crochet thread flower.


While rinsing...I forgot I'd bought three colors and threw in some more random bundles. Upper left: Grape Berry Splash. Upper Right: Orange. Bottom: Grape Illusion.


An overview of the results:
Cotton swatches look, unsurprisingly, like they were stained with Kool-Aid. The mohair and tapestry wool took up the colors BEAUTIFULLY and the Divine might be good if I'm looking for a light pastel. The "wool" from China didn't dye well AT ALL and the mystery grey yarn ended up with a sort of hideous halo of color around the grey center. The Grape Berry splash turned out a little too dark for my taste, but the Grape Illusion (red, at bottom) is a really lovely shade of red.


A closeup of the yarn dyed with Orange flavor. I really like how the mohair looks after Kool-Aid. I'll definitely be knitting something with it as soon as I figure out what it will be.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Pins for my asian coworkers...

White Flower Pin

freehanded while watching Metropolis.

This is for my boss. Why am I still kissing *** when I've already gotten her recommendation and I've already been accepted into a med school? I'm not, I'm just that nice a person.

White Cleo - Finished!

Front


Back

Whoo! I'm going to be one hot mama...if summer or even spring EVER arrives in the city.
I love how the falling leaves pattern looks in this cotton, and it kept my interest going I think more than stockinette would have. I made the front apron about 3" longer to give the pattern more room to develop, if you will.
I liked this pattern, too--how it allows a custom fit and really is beautiful in its simplicity. I only used one band of elastic at the top edge of the lace band, since it seems to be enough to keep the top in place. (And also I only had enough thin elastic for one band...though I have yards and yards of wide elastic, bias tape, piping, lace hem facings, etc. etc.)

Proof my cat is weird.

Please note--this is not a cat in mid-turn, or mid-stretch. This is a cat whose bottom half is sleeping on his back and whose top half is sleeping on his side. Hilarious.

Cleo, Blocking

My Cleo , blocking on the ironing board.
I used a pattern called Falling Leaves out of The Encyclopedia of Knitting rather than stockinette for the main part of the front. I think it's a perfect pattern for the top (though I won't really know until I try on the finished product) but I wish I had replaced the eyelet chevron pattern in the upper band. Before I started, I had spent a while thinking about whether to replace it and decided it would look ok in the finished product, but it does look a little funny next to the lace (you can see in the right of the above picture).
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some elastic to sew in!

Sheerly WIP

I've been working on knitty's Sheerly There, but without the fluffy stripe.
I was having a great completely mindless time knitting the body, but now that I'm on the sleeve, I'm sort of just bored. Let's see if I can finish this in time for spring weather...

I've joined them.

First picture taken on my new camera phone.

I finally figured out that I can upgrade my phone without changing my plan. It still cost me $70 for the phone and upgrade fee, but at least now I can talk to someone in my apartment without my handset glued to the window. I'm sort of experiencing separation anxiety about my old Sony Ericsson T61z, though--for all that it lacked in reception, a lot of the menu design/features were better thought-out than the Morotola V220 (and no, not just because I got comfortable with them over the past 3 years...).

White Cleo - WIP

from Knitty

Yarn: Paton's Cotton DK, #6301 Snowball White
Needles: Denise #9s

From my googling it seems that you can't dye cotton with Kool-Aid, which is sad, because I'm a little worried about see-through on this halter.

Minisweater- Done!

from Glampyre

Yarn: Bernat Breeze in Violet Crush
Needles: Denise #9s

I'm counting this project as done, even though I don't have a front button yet. Looking back the yarn really wasn't a good choice--this shows up in the sleeves which look a bit rumpled. On the whole, though, I'm happy with how this turned out. It's cute, purple, and snuggly.
My modifications: less increasing on the shoulders for less poofiness and added long sleeves (I basically tailored the decreases to my arms, wrote down what I did, and repeated on the other sleeve. I should have just been lazy and done standard decreasing.)