Crack

Warning! Mature content! Not for the weak!

It can be addictive.
It can rule your life.
You think "but everyone else is doing it" or "I don't have an addictive personality, I can try it and leave it.....".
You think you can pick it up and just do a little.
You know people who have tried it and haven't had lasting side effects.
You also know people who have fallen into the cycle of highs and lows.
It is expensive.
The high may last for a full day before cutting you off.
The rush is incredible, It draws you in and won't let you go until its done.
You will find yourself scraping the bag for any last little bit until its all gone.
You may have to get more....




What am I referring to?


This.














The Dream in Crack Tulip Sweater
Isn't it just too cute! Aren't the colors too sweet!

I didn't think I would succumb to the trendiness, little did I know that when faced in person with this kit..... The wool fumes overcame me. I saw the kit. I had to knit it. I cast on immediately. I was halfway done by dinner. I would have been done in 24 hours if I hadn't picked up the button band like I was actually on crack. I ripped it back, then reclaimed the high by knitting the sleeves and I'm about ready to re-attack the button band. The baby I'm knitting this for isn't even due until October but I will be done in a total of 3 days (if not for the crazy button band it would have been 24 hours).

I paid more than it is listed on that website... but I still have this much left over...













I'm going to make matching little hats for the baby and her big sister. Just to prolong the high.

You've had your fair warning. Good luck.

Creating without (many) pictures

I think I am a creative person. I like making things. The things I make may not be gorgeous but I always enjoy the process and seeing results, whatever they may be. Lately I've been branching out a bit.... the county fair is a good starting point, I entered the Potato Pirate contest and the Marshmallow monster contest.
My potato is the big ship on the blue (so stable that they leaned a less sucessful entry on it!) I called my pirate "Yukon Goldbeard" and my marshmallow monster is Cuthulu in green on the far right with the blue base. Both won 1st place.

I also spent some time throwing pots at our school arts day a couple weeks ago. I nearly got a minor in pottery in college but hadn't thrown in years. Lots of fun, I won't have pictures of my creations until next fall (they didn't manage to glaze them before summer!) .

And... I'm making sourdough bread! How cool is that! I even started my own starter (Thanks to the naked chef...). I'm going on week 3 with it and it keeps improving. The hardest part is letting it rise then getting it in the oven without deflating it. It requires a 10-14 hour rise time (natural yeasts are much slower than the store bought kind) so it has to be protected. It also rises better if its moister. So I'm rising the current batch in a little glass pan that I can transfer directly to the oven and I have it in a big ziplock with toothpicks tenting it to keep it from touching (read: deflating) the dough. I'm glad I'm doing mini-batches because this stuff produces bread every couple days and we can only eat so much (especially since I haven't been getting the best results yet...) Pictures to come on the bread.

1 more day of school!

I'll Blog again soon.... Really!

SO... I suck. I haven't blogged in ages. I've knitted all sorts of things, lemme sum up:

1 pair of socks for last year's TA
1 pair of little socks for a 4 year old
1 little baby hat for a teacher at work
1 really little pair of baby socks for someone I don't actually know, but she loved them.
1 eye patch for the county fair (2nd place)
2 potholders for the county fair (3rd place)
1 silly bag (still needs handles)
1 green scarf for this year's TA
1 pair of socks for this year's other TA

I got a new cell phone and my horse has learned to canter (without bucking anyone off).

School's out in 5 days, look for more posts once I'm on break!

The little things...

Its been a rough week. So right now I'm trying to focus on nice happy things... Like...

The cutest little baby hat I have ever knitted!
Its a Bitter Melon! Really! I looked it up and the blossom and the color matches. :)
There will be many more of these to come, and I'll probably post the pattern too!

The Epic Sweater visits the Frog Pond

Weeeellll Sheeeit.

Epic sweater take 5. Or is it 6?

So I was whizzing along ( as much as an epic sweater can really whiz...) and arrived at the correct number of stitches to have a 40" around sweater. Good, right? Wrong. What should have been 9 or 10 inches of length to achieve that width turned out to be more like 6 inches. Lets look...


That is the sweater I'm basing this whole affair on. Note the length of the raglan lines. Mine is the same (or nearly) width. Shit.






Lets take a closer look...















And now the reasons why this whole thing will be redone... again...

1. Raglans are not supposed to have sleeves at 90 degree angles.
   
2. K does not have arms at 90 degree angles.
3. K is not built like a football player
4. K is not planning on taking massive amounts of steroids which would cause him to look like a football player.

As a bit of a pain reliever I have been knitting a little baby hat. Its going to be a veggie hat. It now has a stem! :)












This yarn is just basic Sidar acrylic in a color I like to refer to as "Don't lose the Baby!" If you can't find your child in this then you shouldn't breed.

The Epic Sweater

Epic, very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); "an epic voyage"; "of heroic proportions"; "heroic sculpture"

This is an undertaking. Its a commitment to excellence that I rarely even aim for. But when its for K I go all out... I'm knitting him an epic sweater. It is in Fisherman's Rib. It is in nearly natural wool (very little dye, not superwash.) . The wool took me 4 months to procure. I bought sample skiens. I did test knits for ribs, cables, needle sizes, and color. I examined and repaired the old sweater ( a welsh import) for gauge, structure, and stitch.

I began knitting from the top down, and cut it loose.
















And cast on to smaller needles, and knit 1 inch... and ripped back.

And tried again with less stitches... and messed up the ribbing and ripped it back.

And tried again with different markers and was doing okay until until I realized I didn't have the right number of stitches for the rib, and cut it loose.


















Finally... Cast on 96 stitches. 5-m-5-27-m-5-11-m-5-27-m-5-6-m (m=Marker)

Joined around, and began to knit. Fisherman's rib is tricky. I need an extra marker for the round as well as for each raglan miter because you have to switch from knit to purl every round. It goes slow, what looks like a row is actually more like 4 rows. I'm on size 4 needles and getting something like 4 stitches per inch. The increases are tricky too, they have to be done in pairs to maintain the rib but not in the same round, so I actually am knitting a 6 row pattern.


1: Knits and increase
2: Purls
3: Knits and increase
4: Purls
5: Knits
6: Purls










SO Each of those added ribs along the miter is 6 rows of work!

I am up to a 24" needle now but only 1/3 of the way down to the sleeves. I'm going to do the whole thing seamless to avoid having my nice work botched up by seams. But I am going to add plain 1x1 ribbing at the neckline, hem, and cuffs.


So Epic. So worth it. So handsome.*

















*Him and the sweater! I can't wait to put them together!

Spring Rush

AH.... back to knitting and blogging. I've been a lazy ass on both accounts for some time now and I mean to rectify! Here's the lowdown on the spring knitting crazy:

• the county fair is only 2 months away
• I need 'thank you socks' for my TAs (oh, and another pair of socks for last years rock'in TA, she wants a pair for graduation, she loved the last pair so much!)
• I finally have yarn to knit K's sweater
• There are 2 teachers having babies at school, so they need baby blankets, 1 down 1 started
• I have my sweater to finish

That's still lots of knitting. I'm not sure what I'm entering in the fair yet, we'll see what's finished! I really want to enter one of my baby blankets. The only one I've ever entered was a half finished piece of crap that got a 3rd place.

Here's my most recent start on a baby blanket, my mitered blanket pattern (I just love it!) in vaguely girlish Easter egg colors....














I've also started K's sweater, for the 4th time, this time on smaller needles and with the correct # of stitches.















I also need to go to Trader Joes ( a good place to knit socks in line)
because my last batch of daffodils never opened! How sad! nothing worse than springtime without pretty daffodils!