Since I hear that Canada and North America are currently being subjected to some mind-bendingly hostile winter weather, I thought I'd share a very small collection of warm fuzzies.
By "Warm Fuzzies" I mean a few photos of Dralion with a crocheted blanket.
Last year The Long Thing got ripped up and reincarnated as a Yarn Eater Blanket, and the first time I put it down Dralion staged a hostile takeover.
I kid you not, this cat wastes no time at all when it comes to warm objects -.-;
It's still growing slowly whenever I can pry it out form under her, which honestly isn't very often because she just looks so darn CUTE I can't stand the thought of waking her up.
At least during November I had an excuse for not posting. Once again I competed in NaNoWriMo and just barely dragged my sorry carcass across the 50,000-word mark.
Now though?
Just plain lazy ^.^;
To make up for the long silence, I have two completed shawls for you.
The first one is a simple stockinette shawl knitted from some unidentified handspun acquired at Seriously Twisted down in Port Chalmers.
The yarn knitted up fairly chunky, despite being rather variable in thickness. Rather a pain to block when you're using polystyrene and sewing pins! It still smells clean-sheepy good.
The second is the Dia De Sol pattern from Ravelry, executed with John Q Sands' "Impressionista" sock/lace yarn in the Garden Path colourway.
I don't like the John Q Sands yarns in general, but I will admit that they do make a nice 4ply. Both the Impressionista and the Jewel lines are very smooth to knit with and the colours are an absolute delight.
Really, my camera doesn't do it justice.
There wasn't quite enough yarn in the first skein of Impressionista to finish the shawl, so I had to go back and acquire a second skein just to do the final chart of the pattern. It is pretty expensive, so I wasn't very happy about that.
I'm going to have to find something to do with the last bit of that skein when I can find it. I'm STILL not sorted out from moving flats! It will have to be something with a fairly simple stitch pattern, though. I feel like the wonderful colours I saw on the skein got rather lost in the final product.
I love wearing them and I love looking at them, but actually making them comes in pretty low on the list of activities I enjoy and actively seek out.
A few years back I got pretty desperate for PROPER fingerless gloves, so I broke and made myself some.
Warm hands? YES PLEASE!
Purple possum-merino goodness.
If they're so pretty and snuggly warm, why do I dislike making them? BEHOLD THE REASON:
Successful juggling of all the needles and stitch holders requires that you posses approximately the same number of arms as the average Hindu deity.
Yeah, seems legit.
Did you know that threading the on-hold stitches onto a circular needle makes thing much easier?
I do now -.-;
These are Glamour Nana's Wintertime Driving Gloves, in the same Corridale she used to make herself a cardigan. There wasn't quite enough there is grey possum/merino to pad it out.
I really shouldn't watch Doctor Who while knitting. Fingers are different lengths, silly Topaz!
I've been thrashing last year's NaNoWriMo atrocity into shape and taking notes in preparation for this year's event. Sadly, that doesn't leave much time for mucking about with yarn :(
When NaNo2013 starts I'll put a little widget in the sidebar so you can stalk my progress if you feel like it :p
To celebrate the finish of the first edit, I shall be following some advice found in the NEV Knitting Squad's Library:
(Yes, most of the books were purchased at Library sales. They're in a better place now)
A while back some family friends moved all the way to the other side of the world.
After Mum went to vist them and took the lastest permutation of her hat, she decided they all needed hats of their own for Christmas.
Guess who can use DPNs as is easily bribed with Blackpool Rock and Jaffa Cakes?
*Slowly raises hand*
-.-;
With those incentives dangling before me, I put my latest pair of socks aside and sat down to the task of knitting four hats.
FOUR.
"One for Bruce, one for Allie and one each for the girls"
A nice lady hat, a manly hat and two hats that are similar-but-just-different-enough to make each girl feel special and not cause fights.
Well, there IS rock candy involved.
And Jaffa Cakes. . .
. . . CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
First Round: The girls
I used Ashford's Tekapo 8ply in colourways that would appeal to both the girly-girl and the tomboy. Pure wool to be snuggly warm in the frozen wastes that Mum swears can be found in the UK at that time of year.
They both got the 'Boyfriend Hat' pattern, with an extra 1.5inches of 2x2 ribbing around the bottom to circumvent this pattern's tendency to become loose and floppy with long wearing.
The basic similarity of the hats should also prevent arguments over who gets which one.
Voila!
Next up: Bruce
I find the absolute dearth of patterns for blokes rather annoying. Is it somehow perceived as not "manly" for guys to knit or design things that THEY would want to\wear?!? I for one find that things male relatives buy for me, while well-intended, don't fit my taste at all. Personally I find a guy that is willing to make some of his OWN clothes the way HE wants them to be to be quite attractive ;)
Unfortunately I forgot to bookmark the pattern I used for Bruce's hat. I'm kicking myself because the decreases at the top look so awesome that I really want to make another one!
The yarn is an unidentified 10ply I leaped on at a sale before realising I already HAVE a billion hats and there wasn't really enough in the ball to make anything else.
This was pretty much how I felt upon discovering this:
So Bruce got my pretty yarn *Sniffles*
Those colours, though. It looks like a woodpile in snow. *Sniffles*
Finally: Allie
I really wanted to find her something fun and a little different. The Double Double Cloche from Mary Keenan on Ravelry looked just right. (Except the pattern broke my brain a bit to start with)
Mum knows what colours Allie likes, and she chose a gorgeous colourway of Cleckheaton's Country Tartan for her that I wanted to steal for myself.
I resisted the urge. Are you proud of me? :p
The yarn doesn't knit up to look very tartan-y, but the colours are so pretty it doesn't matter at all.
I was told that the hats got to their intended wearers just in time for the first snow of Winter 2012, and they were every bit as warm as I had hoped they would be.
Excellent!
Remember, everyone: Knit fast; Winter is coming.
(Yeah I know it's spring for me. I just wanted to say that!)
As part of an ongoing losing battle um, attempt at stash-busting I got out my leftover bits and bobs of Opal sock yarns and made myself some "Dobby Socks"
They are so named because of the wonderful little scene in Harry Potter where Harry gives Dobby some socks and Dobby says they've made a mistake at the shop for giving him two the same. (Then Ron came to the rescue with another pair for Dobby so he could mix them up properly)
So, simple little just-over-the-ankle stockinette socks with Opal's "Fisherman", "Florist" and "Electrician". All I did was make sure the bands were the same (To make it easier on me when I have more than one pair) and changed yarns in the same order.
I'm so proud of these heel flaps. NO HOLE AT THE TOP! BOOYEAH!
Um, we may have a problem here. They kinda match a bit. . .
There is a lovely person in England who has adopted me as her sister, even though we live on opposite sides of the planet.
Her General Awesomeness level is so high she was on my Sock List within 4 months of meeting her.
So, as her birthday approached this year I started dropping little hints as to what her Gift Package from Sheepland would include.
"Hey, do you like vanillia?"
"Mmmmm, lattes are AWESOME"
"The berrylands a a nice place to visit at this time of year."
Well, I guess that berry orchards would be nice to visit at this tome of year if you lived in the Northern Hemisphere. Down here they're all brown and bare and contemplating the effort it will take to grow the next lot of leaves -.-;
So, what did my super-sneaky cryptic hints mean?
SOCKS, WATSON.
SOCKS.
This year's Birthday Socks were the Vanilla Latte Socks created by Virginia of Ravelry.
I thought this pattern is a lot of fun to knit. They worked up a lot faster than others I have done because the two-row ribbing pattern provides just enough "Oooooh fun time!" to keep you going while not being too complicated for Newbie Sock Knitters or too boring for those with more experience.
Of course, the yarn also provided enough curiosity-arousement to keep me from putting them down in boredom and going to find something else to do.
I used Touch Yarn's Magic Merino for Socks in the "Berrylands" colourway.
The patterning that comes offyour needles changed depending on the number of stitches you have, the tension you're using, the stitch pattern you're using. . . Yeah. Magic. I really want to get my grubby mitts on the other colourways in the series to see how they turn out!
That yarn really must have been designed by a Mad Genius Dyer after a midnight encounter with a unicorn. I did NOT intend for the two socks to come out looking so nearly identical!
I have no idea what went on with that. They were a bit late, but were much appreciated and I've been told they'll be put into use when England starts cooling down for winter.
