Leonine Ponderances

The Adara yarn from Elann came yesterday which means I could finally start the Ravelympics Grrlfriend Bag projects.

I casted on and got through the fiddly part. Perhaps it’s just me but Laura talks about it in the pattern itself too. It’s VERY hard to keep the DPNS (double pointed needles) from falling out after you’ve divided the stitches from the cast on. With two stitches on each needle and the yarn held loosely because you’re trying to be sure you’re attempting to knit from the correct needle and not accidently cabling… there’s nothing to really hold the needles in place so they keep falling out.

I finally solved it by dividing among two needles instead of 4. With that few stitches, you can get the first couple rows knitted before it becomes an issue with laddering and by then, you’re enough on the way that you can hold the yarn snugger and the needles will stay in.

One thing that was advantageous about making the pattern once already was now I know the pitfalls of how easy it is to mess up on the K2tog/YO row. If you get off at all, the lines of the stitches start reversing and going the other direction up the bag or branching instead of being a proper grid like a chain link fence. I didn’t mind it in the first bag so I left the mistakes in and instead just practiced on making sure I was on track.

The trick is, when you knit the 2 stitches together, the 2nd stitch should be the knitted YO from the previous row. If it isn’t, you’re off. So just pay an iota of attention to whether or not the 2nd stitch is correct and you’ll be fine.

Also be sure to remember the final YO at the end of the row, it’s very easy to forget when you hit the stitch marker that marks the end of the row!

I got the bottom done and about 5″ of the sides when I needed a break.

So I dug out the icy aqua balls and casted on for the Moon Beads since it’s crochet and not knit which makes it a very different project.

It said to chain loosely and to use H hook. I of course was bad and didn’t do any swatching so I was trying to figure out as I went along. When I got to 200 of 234 to chain, I held it around my shoulders and it already seemed too big. Decided to stop there and move on to the pattern.

After 3 rows of V Stitches, I finally decided that I didn’t like how loose it was coming out. I think the charm of the cowl requires tighter/smaller Vs. So I frogged it all (using the ball winder to wind up the yarn that had been used – that was tricky cause there’s still the original balls!) and started over using an F hook and being sure not to chain so loosely either. At 200 chains, I still thought that it was loose around the top of the shoulders so I went again with that number.

Didn’t make it to the V rows because it was time to go to bed and I was drooping. I couldn’t even finish the episode of Battlestar Galactica that I was watching.

I can see why people love the new BSG so much. I did the knitting & crocheting for today to the initial miniseries that kicked off the remake and then started the formal season episodes.

Today, I was made of fail for devoting anytime to knitting.

I couldn’t help it, the ball winder had arrived and I just had too much fun finally taking care of numerous half used ‘about to be a complete snarled mess’ skeins of yarn and winding them into neat yarncakes.

I even did the opened skein of expensive Colinette Giotto that was already too messed up to be able to use easily. Now I think finally all the mental obstacles I had about starting my Waterlily Top project with that yarn have been eradicated.

I took care of my “being afraid of making my first garment for myself in an expensive yarn only to wind up with something that doesn’t fit at all” fear by knitting it first in a cheaper yarn (Berroco Zen Colours). Now the “oh god it’s too much of a mess to be able to knit with, I’ll be stopping every 20 stitches to untangle another yard’s worth to knit with” is gone too cause no more mess!

I was so into it that I even dug out some snarled messes of Microspun skeins that I bought because it was on clearance for a great price and I knew I wouldn’t mind unsnarling it when the day came I finally got myself a ball winder. And I was right!

I am sometimes, so easily amused.

I think the only knitting I got done was a few rows of a new square for another Fuzzy Bunny. When I finished the Tudora, A & I were talking about the Fuzzy Bunny and how a mutual friend adored the pictures of the pink one I’d made. She suggested that I make one for him in all black and I was holding the remainder of the skein of Patons Brilliant which was plenty for making a square for Fuzzy Bunny with. Perfect! It’ll be the smallest one yet as I think I finally hit the recommended 6″ size from the pattern. Will just have to figure out something suitable for tail, something silvery I hope.

Today I finally got some good knitting time in.

I casted on and bound off, the Sparkly Tudora, a present for a friend that was supposed to have been made months ago but I kept sitting on since I knew I wasn’t going to see him anytime soon.

He wears mostly black so but is fond of high avant garde fashion and etc so I looked for a black sparkly yarn and I think Patons Brilliant was perfect. It’s glitzy but not over the top. I just hope it’s not too rough for him but he’s the kind to suffer for fashion anyways.

The only other thing I did was to lose the patience battle on waiting for the ball winder that was arriving the next day. I dug out the cone yarn of a mystery icy aqua color fingering weight yarn I got from Ebay a couple years ago (seller: knititems, he still sells it).

Recently I figured out the trick of winding your own center-pull balls by folding a piece of paper into a 2-3″ stick and running the yarn down the inside of it before starting to wind the ball around the paper itself. When you get a nice ball going, you can pull out the paper (from the direction that the yarn end is hanging out of) and then wind up the “loose” edges left behind. You end up with nice balls with a piece of yarn sticking out of it coming from the center.

I made two as the yarn will be doubled for the Moon Beads pattern (by Lily Chin, published in Wrap Style by Interweave Press, I hope to make the Tapestry Garden one too someday), a beaded cowl that will be my “Balance Beads” and “Cowl Jump” event entry for Ravelympics.

Again the day got eaten up with tent trailer stuff but that night I finally got to work on some stuff.

* I finished knitting the white square for Fuzzy Bunny #1. The Bernat Caress yarn is a nice one, thick and fluffy but you can still clearly see the stitches unlike the yarn used for Fuzzy Bunny #2. No pictures yet.

* I added the red fringe to Candy Cane Scarf #2. Just need the white and it’s finally done but no idea where it was. The scarf itself has been finished for months but I had finishitis and didn’t make it past weaving in all the remaining ends.

If I make another scarf in this pattern, I’m going to do the “slipping of the final stitch” that I’ve learned that helps make the edges neater looking.

I also really like how soft it is. Made it from Lion Brand Microspun yarn which is probably annoying to some to knit with because the plies come apart so easy. You have to be careful that you’re not sticking the needle THROUGH the yarn. But my only beef with it is that its so slickly soft that the ends keeps slipping out. I worry that if I keep having to trim the little edges sticking out, it’ll eventually get snipped back to the bind off point.

First off, to explain Ravelympics, you need to know that Ravelry is a fantastic community site for knitters and crocheters providing not only community boards for discussing our projects on but also a huge database of yarns and patterns for inspiration.

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.

So hard to catch these moments on camera but I got lucky…

Preface: This post ended up being an ongoing diary to myself about knitting Jayne hats for the CA Browncoats to sell at Comic Con 2008 in late July.

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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

Here’s the ticket, courtesy of Ms. Mary

The first one I’ve had in a while.

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!

As I mentioned sometime ago in a post (as in more than a year ago), I’d gotten back into crocheting because of the dogs. Weston with his nakedness really needs sweaters plus Captain likes them too (and so did Almond – miss you girl). I officially started in summer 2004 while in PA when I was bored and needed something to do. I had only Bastian at the time and he was much less than impressed that I’d found a cool basic dog sweater pattern that was basically multiple rounds of hdc.

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.