Only the first post is posted so far (which explains what Ravelympics is), and I’m reminding myself that there’s plenty of time to take and post the photos but I’ve only got about 24 hrs worth of knitting time left before the final bell sounds (closing ceremony Beijing time).

I’ve got a bunch of projects at the nearly done state, namely bunnies and some older WIPs. Going to focus on either working on the sweater bag or finishing the WIPs. No more casting on for new things unless I finish it all with some hours to go. Then I might do Berroco’s Foliage Bear pattern which looks quick & simple.

Will post again when the diary is completely posted. Will back date them to the appropriate days.

Hi there, I plopped onto your profile from the Evangeline site. I have to tell you how much I like your Jayne hats. I showed my son - a Firefox/Serenity fan but NOT a knitting fan and you instantly made me look cool. For the first time in 23 years of his life he spontaneously asked me knitting questions like “How can she do that, just look at a picture and make the same thing?” and ”You can’t do that, can you?”

Definitely good for some chuckles and smiles first thing in the morning! I told her to check out what some other people have done, like recreate River’s crocheted vest and something that the engineer girl wears (sorry blanking on the name right now). What I find most impressive is the attempts to recreate Wash’s aran sweater. They’ve scoured screencaps for every little detail they can see which is difficult because he never wears the sweater as is, usually as a layer. They’ve even tracked down the costumer for Firefly and asked her! I did my part by watching ALL the Alien movies in a weekend because someone thought that it was a reused item from one of the movies’ wardrobes. But never saw it because as it turns out, per the wardrobe mistress for Firefly, she commissioned it from someone she knew. The yarn was even bought at a shop here in LA, Santa Monica area I think.

I’ve no need for a Wash sweater but there’s been things I’ve seen in other movies that I want. Post fodder for a later time

I’m feeling withdrawal now and feeling an itch to knit Jaynes again. I finally ordered some replacement needles earlier this week. Decided to try the Bryspun circulars which were under $10, look to be the same kind of plastic/resin like the Denises, and was basically “free shipping”. I’d had Addis recommended to me but they’re metal and my fingers aren’t used to metal anymore. They should be here sometime next week!

Which means I should see about finishing my related project….

Ravelympics is an community wide event where people are making projects within the timeframe of the Olympics. For example, one event that was suggested by me and accepted: “Balance Beads”. That involves any project that includes beading the yarn. There’s also WIPs Wrestling, Hat Dash, Sock Put, and much more.

My eyes are bigger than my ability to knit (and turns out, free time) but I signed up to do a bunch of things and now let’s see if I do any.

But the first day didn’t start off so well.

I was so anxious to get started on the shopping mesh bag pattern that I’d picked after being motivated by Jen to start making some, that I decided to do one before the Ravelympics started (starts and ends with the opening & closing ceremonies, in Beijing time). But late Thursday night, I was nearly done and couldn’t bear to set it aside to be finsihed afterwards.

Perhaps you can see why now (Click picture for slideshow of more photos)

That was the Grrlfriend Bag by Laura Spradlin done in Roman Sunset colorway of Filati FF Sailor Yarn.

I only got the Roman Sunset color because I thought I needed a reddish color for a different project that needed 4 basic colors (red/yellow/blue/green) but the yarn turned out unsuited for it. I’m now SOO glad that I bought it because it’s really beautiful in knitted form. See the bottom of the bag below? Need to find a nice tank top sideways knitted pattern for it (sideways = color changes appear vertically and not horizontally)

I finished that Friday morning during breaks from work and then after work all my time went into buying the Tent Trailer with Dad.

So no actual Ravelympics knitting done on Friday the 8th.

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(started this post on a Monday - sorry don’t remember which)

Jayne #15 on the needles now. Bought more Mustard (yellow) yarn today since I’ve only teeny bit left which will get used for pompoms.

I need to have a massive ear flap marathon because the hats are as follows:

• Completed: 2
• Body/Pompom’d/Ends Woven in: 9
• Body: 4 (needs pom pom attached and ends woven in)
• PomPoms: 5 made up and yarn laid out for 2 more.

Been figuring that the biggest hurdle is getting the bodies made because that takes the most time (2hrs apiece). And if I set up the rest as assembly line, then it should go even faster for the finishing. Probably should do a finishing run soon but I’m off track for having 40 hats done in May thanks to sidetracking for several days on the facecloth for Dani and attempting to do Knucks for FinnP. I got one finished to the bound off and woven in state. Now it needs a mate and the letters embroidered on both and the window for gifting has passed.

This weekend will see a lot of driving and “waiting” around and etc so hopefully N & N will both do a fair share of driving so I can get needle time. Trying to average two hat bodies a day over Monday-Thurs this week. Made quota last night. Tonight hope to get at least #15 finished and #16 & 17 as well. And pompom’s attached and ends woven in on all the ones that still need it.

Need to make sure I have enough supplies on hand to knit as many hats as I can while on the road this weekend The burnt orange Berella 4 afghan yarn goes a long way. I think I get 5 hats worth out of each one. The mustard Vanna White yarn from Lion Brand? Not so much… I think 3 per skein. Need to check the other Michaels in the area to see if they’ve got more of the Berella 4 in burnt orange… it’s being clearanced out and I got everything that the one near work had.

(Tuesday)

Ok 2 finished hats and 15 done except for ear flaps. Only did 1.5 tonight but that’s ok cause I did finishing work on those plus the others that needed it.

(Wednesday)

Only one hat… ends woven in but need to make a pompom for it. Slow night because I spent effort checking other Michaels for more of the burnt orange Bernat Berella 4. Worried that I don’t have enough for trip since I discovered I’m on my last skein. But found that Red Heart Ltd Soft Yarn has a Tangerine color that’s less “rustic” looking but still suitable. Also got Paprika color in Wool Ease which was on sale for $2. (earflap color) It’s kind of too close to the Burnt Orange but will work fine with the Tangerine. Now need to find a cheaper yellow option.

Tuesday (after the holiday weekend)

Well that was disappointing. I’d hoped to make use of the hours of car time and long weekend to really get stuff done. And I didn’t get get nearly as much done as I hoped. Trying to get caught up on ear flaps and finally have those big numbers of almost finished hats be FINISHED hats got bogged down in the fact that I found myself HATING the process of trying to knit on the earflaps. Just so awkward with the flipping around and etc to do.

I think I got 7 hats moved into the “FINISHED” category and knitted one more body as well. Part of it though is that I decided to use the biggest block of car time that I was awake for to get Jen’s facecloth knitted in time for her party the next day.

Definitely not going to make the goal of 40 for May. Will be lucky to even hit 24 which is the mark where I have to give them a tax form too for reporting. Guess I’ll aim for a hat a night including the ear flaps plus finishing ear flaps on at least one more.

On the upside, I’ve been practicing continental knitting while knitting the bodies. My hands get stressed quickly though so I only do it for 5-10 minutes at a time. And only with the knit stitch, haven’t even dreamed of trying to continental purl.

(Wednesday)

Last night I hit my goal of knitting a hat to completion plus finishing ear flaps on two more (goal is only one). I’m one of those that likes visual charts to check off. Need to make up a calendar chart that I can cross off.

Am out of the Bernat Berella 4 Burnt Orange now So now time to give the other orange yarn a try, it’s a brighter & lighter orange. Hope it won’t look like a traffic cone

Thanks to folks on Ravelry, I found a good source for BB4, cheap w/free shipping and placed an order but I haven’t heard anything from the shop. Need to follow up to see if it’s legit or not. Ok sent them email.

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Conclusion:

I eventually got the yarn from Yarn By Lisa but it was definitely a lesson in “not all dyelots are the same”. Even the texture/feeling of it can be very different. Fortunately a bath of a hat knitted in the yarn showed that it’d soften up. The color was harsher but still worked in the general color scheme.

In the back of my mind I’d wanted to at least get 40 hats. I reached that by early June so I kind of coasted through the month and then did a flurry of 10 hats in a couple days near the end of June. By the end of the first week of July, I had 52 hats!

They wanted the hats shipped early but I was suffering from some kind of severe inertia regarding mailing things at the post office. I finally got the package off on the 11th of July just before closing at 6pm. Sunday, I pulled out the delivery confirmation number and checked it out. It’d been delivered at 10:30am Saturday morning!! It is only a 3 hr drive but it’s still shocking to see a package delivered in 18.5 hours by the US Postal Service! Especially a BIG box.

I was just glad that the box was pretty light despite the size and it wasn’t even $8 for postage.

Emboldened by the ultra fast shipping and the reports of hats selling out in first few hours of the several days long Comic Con, I decided to do some more. I sent off 8 hats on Thursday, the first day of Comic Con, bringing my total to 60.

Today I had this conversation with the guy in charge of the hats:

Me: Hey so how did the Jayne hats do?

CABGuy: we sold out! quickly, too
all hats were gone by friday

Me: Did you get the last minute shipment of 8 that i sent?
hoped that someone would get it and be able to bring it to the booth

CABGuy: yes we did, that helped us on saturday for a couple of minutes thanks!

Me: LMAO

That makes such a funny mental picture in my head. Before this conversation, I’d been reading around for news of how they did since betnoir reported that they’d gotten 134 hats in (52 of which were mine). She also found reports that there were a lot of Jayne hats bobbing around the con so I was hopeful.

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense… 100,000 people go to the con. Plenty go in costume but many don’t have any at all. A single Jayne hat invokes a whole costume. An easy way to fit in with a single buy. Plus Comic Con is full of people who adore Firefly.

So now game on for Wondercon in late Feb. Wish there was something else in between because even though I can always hand off completed hats ahead of time periodically, it’s a long time to wait to get paid. Must look to see if anyone else is willing to buy bulk Jayne hats from me for cons. Or even try selling them online myself? I know there’s another gal out there who has been doing it and has knitted over 600 hats. I could donate part of the proceeds to Dog Angels

Oh man…I just realized!! I could knit my way to Finland!!

And perhaps now I’ll finish my own Jayne hat. It needs earflaps and has been sitting set aside for months now

I’ve noticed lately that the smell from the rancid carpet left behind by the slumlord underneath the topmost layer of carpet has dissipated enough that I don’t notice it when I walk in.

Still need to finish tearing it out and then replace it with something but I’m very tired of not being able to sleep in my bed. Couch surfing isn’t fun in your own apt!

Last night I cleared off the bed and pushed it back into place and made it up. And slept very well. Maybe this will help get my butt in gear to finish with the floor now that I will be in there for more than a couple minutes each day. Some days I didn’t go in at all!

But it gets boring to make the same thing over and over again even with the different colors so I started doing variations. First putting fringe on for weird “why did you do that to the poor dog!” dress-like sweaters. Mind you aside from Almond, the rest were BOY dogs. After I moved to Hollywood, I took it a step further and did collars and even a Santa coat variation!

After that, it was simple hop to extend the collar into a full hood for hoodies.

And then… I was inspired to do a LION sweater by making a mane out of the hood!

I used some of the cheap Lion Brand Suede that I got at the 99c store. This yarn is $7/skein at Michaels! I don’t recall anymore how much it took to make the body, but I did that in a camel color and the hood in a brick color.

Then came the tedious part of adding the fringe to build the mane. I combined the brick suede with copper eyelash yarn but ran out of the latter about halfway through the mane.

Made for an interesting effect. Instead of a Lion costume, I wound up with a Raggedy Ann outfit!

Or even Little Red Riding Hood!

When I finally got around to finishing the mane, the results were…. oh boy.

It makes for a fun picture but it’s not at all wearable! It either falls into his face or becomes the ultimate pimp shag coat from the 70s.

16 photos altogether are on Flickr for your viewing pleasure.

I haven’t decided whether to A) keep it as a costume for photos only, B) rip out the top part of the mane so he can wear it as the Raggedy Ann style which is not too cumbersome for him to wear. The bulk would make it easier for him to snuggle into a toasty ball for napping in the winter. Or C) get rid of it.

Doesn’t seem like any of it is reusable so no D) adapt into something else.

I think of it as a successful failure because I did actually design something on my own. It does make for great photos. But the goal of a wearable sweater for Weston ran away screaming. Last seen, it was in therapy on Dr. Phil.

Now that I’m all into knitting and really enjoying it, I keep getting design inspirations that I don’t want to forget about.

Right now I have at least 4 different ideas for fingerless glove patterns.  Two inspired by movies and it wasn’t til today that I realized the irony that the first movie was Labyrinth and the second movie was Pan’s Labyrinth!!

The one that came today was inspired by Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang, but to use my favorite Lana Grossa colorway with some dark color and a different pattern.

I still need to find a good skirt pattern for that same colorway too.

In other news, TGIF and man do I want to get pizza from Two Brothers (officially known as Stefano’s Two Guys From Italy), cast on for something new and watch dvds for the rest of the day.

Even though I haven’t finished the Grandma afghan, I’m itching to start a new one. Especially the Sunrise Sunset afghan which seems to be an easy project to do beautifully based on the photos on Ravelry!

I recently got some Sirdar Snowflake Magic Chunky yarn for use in baby blankets. They didn’t send all the colors I wanted but I think I might try it with the blue & purple to see how it looks. Yarn might be too “fuzzy” for it. But the pattern looks paw print enough to be accompanied by one of these cute Animal Pillows. (Example made in this yarn that made me want to make it!)

On the DVD player, alternating between Supernatural Season 1 when it comes from Netflix and Alias Season 4 which I already have.

I’m set. Unless I decide to go see Wanted or Hellboy II tonight which are the two movies I want to see that are playing in rear window around me right now.