Not Just Regular Dumb

Huh. Apparently I am really super dumb at making berets. I tried making the one out of Hip Knit Hats, and that was a bust, and then I tried the one out of One Skein Wonders. It's blocking (which is dumb because it is acrylic) and hopefully it will turn out okay. If not, I suppose I shall try the Gretel beret and it might actually work, but now I'm really wary of starting another beret pattern that will turn out crappy.

I've finished most of my Christmas knitting, except for something for Shari (which is fine; she still owes me for LAST Christmas) and something for Karlene (but I have bought her two presents already! Cheap ones! Not like the expensive ones she bought me and SHOWED me so that I would feel guilty and buy her MORE things!--just kidding; she's a sweetheart and would never manipulate me like that. She just couldn't wait until Christmas to show me what she'd gotten me! She's really bad at withholding surprises). Hopefully Monique will not look as dumb in the beret as I did. I think it will be okay because her head isn't a giant rectangle like mine is (thanks a LOT, grandpa!).

I scrutinized family pictures today to see who I could blame for my giant masculine jaw, and it is my paternal grandfather. I've been preoccuped with my jaw lately, because it's big and square and masculine, which totally detracts from the porcelain doll image I seem to be projecting otherwise (that and my mini-giant-European-stature; if I weren't so small, I'd be really freaking huge. People who know what I look like understand; the rest of you must just think I'm a complete nutcase).

You know, the only good thing to come of my physical appearance is that during those awkward geeky years when all of my friends were AzN wannabes, I TOTALLY didn't look like the Caucasian loser that I am inside. I am an extreme twinkie, because my insides are so white that they give off heat. LOSER heat. I lie, my insides are pink and bloody like everyone else's.

Wow, that totally went off on a tangent. I should write a novel, so that the other girls that are built with Asian engineering and European aesthetics will know that they are not alone (and that's just the tip of the cultural iceberg that I am! I could save LIVES).

Crunch.

It's crunch time! WHY do I need to knit everything for everybody at Christmas? BECAUSE I AM CRAZY.

I need to knit 8 hats by some time next week. I have knitted 1. Plus there's embroidery involved. OH DEAR.

I've finally split the body from the sleeves on my top-down-raglan-dealie, but now HATS.

Nobody else is getting presents this year. Good thing I finished my mom's scarf already.

Oops (originally typed "Loops").

Well, 1/2 of my dream* has come true! I now live about a 7-minute walk away from my closest LYS! Or rather, there is now a LYS within 7 minutes from where I live, since I have not moved.

Knitty Couture just sort of appeared, and it is such a nice place! Granted you have to walk past a few hobos and a sketchy area (the gas station at Skinker and Delmar, which I am very familiar with and therefore less sketched out than most people), but then for some reason it stops being the ghetto again for a few blocks (mostly because the ghetto seems to run north/south and Delmar is an east/west street) and there's all these OTHER boutiques! And to think if I had never gone to see Hanson at the venue across the street, I never would have known the place existed. And for that matter, if Isaac Hanson hadn't had that pulmonary embolism, the concert would have been in early October, before the store opened, and I never would have known it was there (it just opened a few weeks ago). So, thanks, Isaac Hanson's potentially fatal health conditions!

Oops, I promised myself I wouldn't get fangirl juice all over this blog. Oh well. I also promised myself I wouldn't buy any more yarn but I always feel like a bitch going into a yarn store and then leaving without buying anything. Especially a little one like Knitty Couture, because they'd totally see me leaving with nothing, which would be horribly embarrassing since I'd talked to all the employees. I ended up with 3 skeins of Berroco Comfort to make the Shaped Lace Tee from Knitting Lingerie Style, and the Vogue Knitting Magazine from spring 2006 (I think--it's the one with the pretty pink skirt on the cover) and all in all I didn't spend too much money, but it was also my first visit! However, it is winter and therefore they've stocked a lot of wool, and since I am hella allergic to wool I don't foresee too many purchases in my future. I wanted to get sock yarn, but when the hell did sock yarn get so expensive? I'm not spending 40 dollars on my first pair of socks! I guess it will have to be knitpicks.

*My dream is to live within walking distance of a LYS and a bakery. Preferably, I would live in an apartment above the bakery and have a pole to slide down into the bakery, but I know that is just a pipe dream.

Friend or FO (I'm 2 Clever 4 U)--this will be my hit single when I am a pop star.

I haven't had an FO that I didn't frog since...a REALLY long time! I think not since I made all those hats over the summer. Everything just languishes around now, because I fear commitment (?).

Also, I guess I haven't had that much knitting time, what with the job and the homework and the relentless kanji quizzes (ASK me about my Japanese minor, if I haven't blogged about that enough) and the carpal tunnel and the drugs! Oh, the drugs (not the steroids though. I am proud to say that issue cleared itself up with no side effect of hair growth).

Strange that this is a knitting blog, yet the only thing I've managed to accomplish is soup. And something about Uncle Remus? I seem to recall blogging about that bit of excitement. Then I moved my work-talk to my other blog, because I am ashamed of my Joel Chandler Harris fangirlery, and fangirlery is for livejournal. I should make a T-shirt.

Man, as soon as I'm some sort of celebrity, I can be 9000 other things too! Fashion designer, talk show host, director, cereal spokeswoman, dancing with the stars, the list goes on and on. Now all I need to do is be really hot and in some sort of lawsuit. Or a reality show. Holy crap it's almost midnight and there's totally another one of those awful kanji quizzes tomorrow. But after tomorrow there are only three kanji quizzes left and then I'm DONE with Japanese forever. I'd be sad except that, like most things with me, I've done too much Japanese in my life and now I hate it.

I really hope that taking a carpal-tunnel-induced break from knitting will prolong my knitting-love for a few more years. Then I'll become obsessed with something else, let's say the hammer dulcimer, and the yarn will just hang out in my house with all my other abandoned hobbies such as needlepoint, clothespin dolls (I was REALLY good at making likenesses. I never made one of myself that I didn't give away. I smell a project!), sewing, reading, making those felt chocolate people from that one craft magazine from 10 years ago, plastic canvas box-making (I don't know what that's called, but I made a lot of boxes), and exercising. Maybe I'll take up yoga. I think I might need to relax.

I bought Gretel, by the way, and am delaying starting it because I can't find a crochet hook, and my roommate is too far away (20 feet or so) to ask for one. Plus, OMG KANJI QUIZ. WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF 浅い?! AND WHAT DOES THAT EVEN SAY?!

(it says "asai"--"shallow"--and the opposite is 深い)

Splurge!

WHOO I bought the Phildar pattern books today, from Little Knits. I also bought last summer's IK because I needed to get over $25. I probably should have waited until the winter one came out, since I really like the patterns in the preview, but I also wanted to get the Phildar books as soon as possible since things tend to sell out quickly from that website.

Now, hopefully they're telling the truth about the directions being in English. If not, I'm totally screwed.

I think I WILL buy Gretel this weekend. But by then a pound will be worth like, five dollars. Go America!

Huh.

I totally forgot to mention this yesterday, which is weird because that's why I POSTED yesterday...I just recently discovered Phildar. No, really. I suddenly have the desire to buy every single one of their pattern books because their designs are SO CUTE.

I sort of wish I had taken French now, but then again, I'd probably be terrible at it anyway.

Also, I have yet to buy the Gretel pattern. Maybe this weekend when I'm not just procrastinating. I don't need more things to distract me.

It's That Time of Year

Edit: GUY FAWKES' DAY! But that has nothing to do with the post.

Time for me to make a list of things I have to knit for the Dreaded Holiday Season. Some people are not Gift Knitters. I'm not really a Gift Knitter, but I am apparently a Stash Magnet, and that yarn needs to go SOMEWHERE. Might as well go to other people!

So here's a list for my own reference (everyone is referred to by initials or nicknames). It's much better to have it on this blog that nobody knows about, so the surprise isn't ruined.

K: Dashing armwarmers (her birthday is on Friday and this SO won't be done, so she'll just get them for Christmas--I am the Worst Girlfriend Ever). Probably some sort of hat as well, because I like hats and I like K and therefore they should be perfect together.

Mom: Malabrigo scarf (I chose Palette from Knitty for the pattern--it's almost done already because I started early!)

Dad: Some sort of hat, probably from Hip Knit Hats, because those are hella easy. My dad is really hard to shop for, so I always end up getting him shirts. He's built up quite a collection over the years due to birthday, Christmas, and Father's day getting him six shirts per year (one each from my mom and me), so now he really does NOT need shirts anymore. And I have NEVER seen the man wear a tie as long as I've known him (21 years). Once I bought him sandals. That was probably the most thoughtful gift I ever got him.

SAM: "Peasant Brown" hat, which I am basing off helloyarn's top down bonnet pattern. It probably won't be brown, because neither Shari nor I can wear brown as it is our hair and skin color, respectively. I need to get some screencaps from "the Emperor's New Groove" to find a different color scheme. I will probably make a striped hat and some matching wristwarmers because I'm an overachiever. I just got some blue and yellow yarn. I might do that. I seem to recall that color scheme in one of the hats in that movie.

Mo: Some sort of beret. I want it to be the Gretel beret, but we shall see what happens with that. It might end up being that Pithy hat except I canNOT stand purse stitch.

SKK: Legwarmers! By her request. If I had slender awesome legs, I would want to keep them warm too, but since my legs are covered with bulgy muscles and fat, they do a pretty good job on their own.

SEF: Gosh, I don't know. I know nothing about her anymore, but I'm related to her, so gifts have to happen. I want to make a beret or something by Thanksgiving, and if she says "I love your hat!" then I'll totally have an idea. Something pink. Maybe some pink Fetchings to match the hat I made her last year. That actually sounds like a really good idea!

Various other people who will get hats if I have time: Sue, Aunt Susy (actually, she might get some Fetchings this year. Sue got some last year and liked them a lot. We shall see).

Grandma: ??? She doesn't have space to OWN things! And she doesn't go OUTSIDE, so there's basically nothing I could make for her that I haven't made already. If I had time, I'd make her the Hemlock Ring lap blanket dealie, just because she'd think it was cool and never use it, but who gives a crap; it's the thought that counts. She'd at least be impressed with it, if nothing else. And Grandma is SO not easily impressed.

My friend that I have designated as SAM once posted her Christmas Wish List on the refrigerator, and as her parents bought the stuff on it they crossed it off the list! It was pretty insensitive, and in retrospect, hilarious.

There's a Weird Sesame Street Digression in the Middle

So, I have become the fourth hand recipient of 923947238432 skeins of crappy acrylic yarn. Which is totally okay with me, because I am allergic to everything but apparently cashmere, silk, and Yarn That Is Ridiculously Expensive. That and all my friends are bums who never do laundry and when they do, it sure as hell won't involve handwashing, so I don't feel bad making them gifts out of crappy 2-dollar yarn.

I've also received some of that KnitPicks dye your own merino laceweight, and I fondle it daily with no sort of hives as a result. I'm thinking I'll order up some of the Swish Superwash for...something...just to see if I'm allergic or not. But first, I need to make almost ALL of this stash go away. It's really getting out of control. I might just make some really crappy sweaters. Some of the acrylic I received is in the colors of Ernie's (from Sesame Street) sweater, and I may or may not knit my very own ugly striped sweater.

(A note on Bert and Ernie: I totally don't think they're gay. I mean, I know I have broken gaydar and stuff, but I wholeheartedly believe that if they were gay, they'd have better hair, clothes, and especially eyebrows. My take on their relationship is that Ernie is Bert's retarded half- or stepbrother, and when their parents died, the last thing Bert's mother said was "don't forget to take care of Ernie!" Bert, of course, could not refuse his mother's dying wish, so now he is stuck with Ernie, who he can't stand, but out of filial obligation, Bert cannot take Ernie out back and shoot him--can you tell that my stupid minor is turning me Japanese?).

I have a paper to write for Japanese Lit that is due tomorrow and because it is only 4 pages, I keep thinking "well that's EASY. I can do that in 3 hours or less!" and therefore have been putting it off for two weeks now. To be fair, I want to write it on the reading we had to do for last Thursday, and I sure as hell was not going to read ahead just to see if I wanted to write my paper on that particular reading. I really do NOT like the "choose your own topic" method of assigning papers. I am not good with picking topics that do not end up being done to death, or just so absolutely ridiculous that I sabotage myself (the one exception being my "Holden's-Hat-Can-Predict-The-Future" paper I did junior year of high school--pure genius! I love how I wrote that paper the day before it was due and had been putting it off until I beat Mango Boom!...now I really want to play Mango Boom!).

I haven't really done THAT much knitting. My poor Camisa is hibernating because by the time I finish we will be in the throes of winter. However, I should probably finish it now, just in case my hands explode and suddenly I am no longer a freakishly tight (or loose, depending on the yarn...buh?) knitter. My raglan is hanging out, waiting for like 4 more increase rows that I am too lazy to do. I've started a scarf for my mom in Malabrigo, which should be done in the next month or so (hahahaha I've doomed it) and I'm working on a crappy cheap beret for myself to see if I look good in berets.

I think when I finish my paper, I am going to finally buy the Gretel pattern as a reward. Horrible exchange rate be damned! I want to knit this pattern while it is still trendy.

Soup, Glorious Soup

I've lately become addicted to this potato soup I made. I absolutely love potato soup, and then I found out there is a website dedicated to potato soup recipes! However, one single recipe did not have all the things I wanted in it, so I combined a bunch of recipes together (there was a lot of fudging on my part), and hopefully I have created soup that is as delicious to everyone else as it is to me!

Now for the recipe:

Jenny's AWESOME Potato Soup

Note: I start with the measurements, but I tend to add more of everything than what I'm actually going to list.

1 14 oz. can vegetable broth (more is okay)
3 regular-sized potatoes or 4-5 small potatoes, diced into smallish pieces with the skin still on
1/2 cup diced onions (regarding the 1/2 cup measurements--I tend to make them rounded)
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup diced celery
3/4 tsp. McFadden Farm Bean & Soup Herbs
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
2 tablespoons butter (or butter-like-product)
2 cups milk
water
1/4 cup flour
Salt to taste
Shredded Cheese (I use Sargento brand of the "Mexican" variety)

Dice up all the stuff if you haven't done so already.

Melt the butter in a regular-ish sized saucepan or pot. Add the onions and cook until transparent.

Add carrots, celery, potatoes, and vegetable broth. Mix the flour with enough water to dissolve it and add that too. If the liquid doesn't cover all the vegetables, add more water (you shouldn't have to add too much).

Bring to a boil and cook for ten minutes. Add the soup herbs and garlic powder.

Cook for 10 more minutes or so, until the potatoes are soft.

Add the milk and cook for 5-10 more minutes, or basically until the soup looks all right. Make sure the soup does not boil over.

Let the soup sit a little while off of the heat, and then serve. Add salt to taste. Also, add maybe a handful of the cheese and stir it in to melt.

DEEEEELICIOUS. And I'm not even a fan of cooking. I just love soup so much.

div3 type="CRAP"

And BAM, I'm on another Uncle Remus epic.

Here's the kicker: IT HAS THE SAME CONTENT. Like, the same plantation songs and everything. I'm really tempted to just copy and paste the code out of the other book, except that my meticulous nature forbids this. If this were my permanent full-time job, I'd choke myself (or maybe I would just choke on my irritation).

I've been in a knitting slump, but I've also had a bunch of schoolwork to do. I am crazy for taking six classes and working 16-18 hours a week, but I honestly don't have anything better to do with my time, apparently, than proofread post-Civil-War childrens' literature and read Dickens. Man, I can think of LOTS better stuff, but none of it is blogging.

/div3

Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings can KISS MY ASS because I am hella DONE with it. I even encoded every single small-cap author name there WAS in the back (there were SEVERAL) and now my fingers automatically go to ctrl+v, even if I just want to type a capital V. You have NO idea how hard that was for me just now.

I have a very long and ugly history with that book. Computers are involved. Also a faceless grad student (I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl!). And now that chapter of my life is closed, /div3, huzzah (div1 is my college career and div2 is my job. That's RIGHT I'm making xml/html jokes. That's how cool I am--i.e., not very).

I want to marry Ysolda's Gretel beret. First I want to marry a girl, now I want to marry the idea of a beret (that seems to be female). Conservative America, eat your heart out. The trick will be getting the beret to propose (I guess I'm just old-fashioned).

Seriously, I don't even know if I'd look good in that beret. I generally look dumb in berets (except those weirdo kangol ones, but those are hella expensive). But all the FOs I've seen lately have been done in MALABRIGO, so holy yarngasm, Batman, I think I have to have this hat. I'm seriously tempted to use the Malabrigo I bought for my mom last year to make this hat for ME, although my mom might look super cute in a beret (not that she'd wear one--it would mess up her hair). However, I don't think I'm a neon-pink-beret sort of girl.

I also can't bring myself to pay so much for the pattern, what with the weak dollar and all. Four dollars is NOT that much, but it is when it could totally be cheaper. Stupid economy, and Ysolda's patterns being ALL AWESOME. I'll be poor and blind yet, just you wait. I'm already a crippled drug addict! Poverty would be a lovely garnish on the poorly-tossed salad that is all my medical conditions.

Now I'm hungry.

Jobs and Such

I wasn't entirely excited about this Ravelry business when it first started, so I was a little late queue-ing up for it. I'm not so sure I'm too excited now, since it's probably just going to be another message board I futz around with for a while until I get bored, but hey, might as well get all the futzing out of my system while I'm in college and have few friends and even less stuff to do when not doing homework (or work work...but I can futz around during my boss's lunch break. YOU try reading ONLY Joel Chandler Harris books for five hours and see how thrilled YOU are. Then render everything in small-caps! NOBODY KNOWS MY PAIN).

At any rate, I should probably be on Ravelry in the next two days, and definitely by the end of the week! I'm vaguely excited about joining an "exclusive" club, since it's free (unlike that sorority I almost joined by accident--my roommate is the president and therefore I've attended the required amount of rush events by virtue of the fact that I live where they were held! If this were the only prerequisite, my girlfriend could also join, since she was here for all those events too. I'm just too lazy to go to chapter meetings, and too cheap to pay to join a club I won't go to; as for my girlfriend, well, she DOESN'T GO HERE!).

My Ruffled Surplice makes me cry, my Camisa keeps unraveling of its own accord, and I've started that ubiquitious top-down raglan, which I have merged with the Boatneck Bluebell to create some sort of unholy monster (although you shouldn't quote me on that, since all I have is 3/4 inch of a neckline so far). I'm really paranoid about my FOs being depressing, and may go back to just making hats. There's always someone with a smaller head than mine (there's 99% of the world of someones, judging by those one-size-fits-everyone-but-me hats out on the market. I have this problem with shirts too. I am a rather bulbous individual).

I don't talk much about my job, because it frankly is not even interesting to me even in a "MY JOB IS BORING" sort of way. Its boringness is not really even very interesting. Joel Chandler Harris is vaguely racist in an ignorant, post-Civil War sort of way (as I imagine many people of the white persuasion were), but not malicious, although his rendering of Southern dialect makes me want to bash my face into the monitor until it explodes (quite a feat, as all the monitors in all the labs are LCD now. I miss those old HARD monitors. I did bash my face into one once, and let me tell you, I never made THAT mistake again).

Maybe I'll get in a procrastinate-y mood later this week and actually talk about what my job IS. Or I'll just ramble in a vaguely stream-of-consciousness fashion, which, after all, is what a blog IS.

And on that note, I will laugh at the idea of James Joyce or Virginia Woolf doing memes. I hate being a freaking English major. I don't like that I find that crap funny, or that I've read the intro to Leaves of Grass twice.

So Sad

My parents came to visit this afternoon on their way to Branson (yay?) and my mom tried on the Ruffled Surplice. It looks better on her because she has no shoulders, but since she's so short, it's waaay too long on her. The Sugar 'n' Cream will shrink up when I wash it, and maybe it will fit better (I hope). She also says she doesn't notice the dye lot differences, which is pretty cool.

It wasn't that much work, but I'd still be sad to frog it, especially since I did all that seaming. Also, it's such a cute pattern and such a cute sweater by itself. It's too bad I look stupid in it. Maybe if I had done a solid color instead of that variegated blue.

Of course now I'm even more afraid of sweaters! Augh. I should just go back to generic baggy ones, since those work out in my favor.

I Shouldn't Be Surprised

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

My Ruffled Surplice makes me look like a linebacker. Stupid puffed sleeves and broad shoulders.

Going to go cry now.

Or maybe I'll finish it with all the ruffly bits and it'll look better. But now I seriously doubt it...waaaaaah. If only I were slender, then I could wear nice trendy clothes all the time.

At least I got a new free shirt that actually fits yesterday. That will balance out the heartache...maybe.

Sadpants

I haven't been doing a lot of knitting recently because my girlfriend came to visit (for 10 days, YAY)...except she went home today, BOO. I think I might be a bit too attached to her, as it always practically destroys me when she leaves after visiting.

Also, I'm a bit upset as I have two midterms this week and a paper due TOMORROW (also one of the midterms is tomorrow) that I'm not even half done with. I neglected a lot of schoolwork for my girlfriend too, which is now biting me in the ass. But since this is my last semester here and probably the last time she's ever going to visit me here, I figured it was worth it.

I'm not entirely fond of school at the moment, in case you can't tell. I just want it to be over so I can have a job I hate but at least I'll be getting paid (unlike school). All of my friends are talking about grad school and all that crap, and I'm the only person I know who has absolutely no desire for any sort of higher degree. When I was in high school, I was TOLD that all I needed was an undergraduate degree to get a decent job, and now apparently you need to have more and more schooling in order to get a job that is NOT making sandwiches. If only I made gourmet sandwiches for super rich people, this would not be a problem.

Okay, now I am absolutely miserable.

Plus, the dyelots on my Ruffled Surplice are apallingly and clashingly different. The seaming is wonderful (I like seaming once I get around to actually DOING it--I've been influenced by many people to dread seaming, even though I know I like it! I think it is because I have to actually pay attention while I do it), but the dyelot differences make me cry. I will most definitely be buying some of that Rit dye business and dyeing the whole thing some other color. Purple, maybe. I've recently discovered that I love purple. I'm wearing purple right now! Actually, I loved purple from about age 6 to age 10, but then it lost out to green. Which is why I have a buttload of various green yarn. I do have that Sugar n' Cream that is purple AND green. We shall see what happens.

I Want Pizza

I've finished one of the sleeves for the Ruffled Surplice, and the dye lot of my new yarn is drastically different. I really hope that I can just throw this sucker in the washing machine and it will fade to a nice uniform nastiness. If not, I guess I could dye the entire thing so that the color variation is less noticeable. I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

I also started the Camisa from last year's fall Knitscene. I really love basketweave. I've only ever done basketweave once before and it was for a washcloth for my cousin (I made her more than ONE, jeez, I'm not THAT cheap), and I'm really fond of the stitch. I don't know why. I also really love this TLC Cotton Plus, even though it splits like crazy. That's one thing I have to say about the Sugar 'n Cream: it never split on me. That and I got through the entire 14-oz skein with NO knots, which is more than can be said for Lion Brand Cotton-Ease. I have yet to hit any knots in the Cotton Plus, but I have only used half a skein per basketweave panel (which is all I've accomplished on the Camisa).

However, I think I should probably knit a sweater sweater, as I am always freezing to death in my classes (ironic, as it is in the upper 80s outside). Since I've got the Knitscene out, I will probably start the Central Park Hoodie, since I never really jumped on that bandwagon. But I refuse to let myself start another project until I've finished the Ruffled Surplice.

...I also bought some Softee Chunky for one of the Fitted Knits patterns. I haven't decided if I want to do the Textured Tunic or the Short-Sleeved Cardigan. I'm leaning towards the cardigan, though, since I don't have any of those (cardigans). I also don't have any buttons. This will be an adventure!

As for the subject line, I have been thinking about pizza all the time lately. At first I could not figure out why I was thinking and even dreaming about pizza (even more so than a Ninja Turtle), and then I realized it is because every example in my accounting textbook is for Papa John's. So in order to take a break from the pizza cravings, I decided to post about my knitting cravings.

For some reason I really don't like taking pictures. Eventually I'll start doing that again.

EVENTUALLY.

Ribbit.

I had to frog my Mini Cardi for a second time. I'd forgotten to do the YOs at ONE increase point and it was for the second increase row, so it wasn't even worth it to just rip back until I'd gotten to the mistake. Therefore, I have put the Mini Cardi materials into a bag under my bed to get rid of their bad mojo.

I may or may not have started the Camisa from last year's Knitscene. We'll see how far that goes before frogging.

I just remembered that I have the sleeves to do for my Ruffled Surplice. I'm just really worried about the dye lots being NOT THE SAME AT ALL, MAN. Hopefully the color variations will disguise the fact that it's two completely different sets of colors.

Tingling is Not Good.

I still have the tingling/numbness in my pinky fingers, but that does not stop me from being unnecessarily verbose (totally the opposite of my Japanese class, in which I say the stupidest, most boring sentences in the world).

I've already started the Bold and Bulky Mini Cardi, but I had to frog it because my gauge was too tight. Apparently I am a tight knitter (but not with worsted weight on size 8s--for some reason I always come out too big on that), which is probably why I have the hand tingles. I frogged and restarted it a size up, and hopefully that will fit around my ample bosom (I also have an ample midsection, but I don't have to worry about that with this sweater, yay?).

I tried the YOs the correct way, and lo and behold (or, as OCR renders Joel Chandler Harris: "10 and beholes!"), they're all tight and small instead of huge and loopy. I thought I was just a sucky knitter, but it turned out I was a STUPID knitter! Well at least it is a brain problem and not a lack of skill (again, unlike my Japanese class, which is all bad brain and lack of skill--can you tell Japanese has been kicking my ass?).

TIMMY! or: I've Been Living a Lie

So I finally found out for realsies this time that I HAVE been doing yarn overs wrong for the last two years. Apparently I am super special at this figuring out how to knit thing. First the ssk, and now the YO.

This means I am never supposed to knit lace.

Also, I have two big honkin' mosquito bites on my leg. Like, as big as my thumb tip. I bet I've been scratching them in my sleep.

I haven't knit anything except a swatch since I came to school, and that means it's almost been a week! Not good. And yet, I think I'm getting that not-carpal-tunnel, which is the one where your pinky fingers go numb instead of your thumb/forefinger. Although that might have to do with the way I put my hands down on the desk. No, wait, now there's forearm pain.

In conclusion, I have no idea when I'll be able to knit again, which sucks because I have a buttload of yarn.

Whistles, I might still be able to handle. I don't give Clares enough credit; they're wonderful. Also cheap. That is part of their charm.

Why did I never have an injury-related label before? That's clearly all I blog about besides knitting (and underage female pop stars, but I keep that on my other blog--I don't want to come across as too creepy in TWO places if I can help it). Oh dear, there goes the spine.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Man, so I've been too busy futzing around on IMDB and NOT reading Bleak House, which I need to finish by tomorrow (I've got 180 pages left, and there's Sparknotes, so I'm not entirely worried) that I've somehow NOT been knitting. Which makes me very sad. My yarn for the rest of the Ruffled Surplice (as well as knittyknitter's top-down raglan, Stitchdiva's Sahara, and red TLC Cotton Plus with an undetermined purpose--Joann.com was having a sale, and how can you go wrong with 30% every skein of yarn?! I should have bought some of that expensive yet pretty sometimes Moonlight Mohair) came yesterday, but since I don't know how packages work in my new apartment, they TOOK IT AWAY, leaving one of those UPS stickers that says they'll be back today, and I can only assume it will be at the same time. If it isn't, I have to give a lot of people a stern talking-to, such as UPS and my unreachable RAs. I would probably be a good RA since I'm always AROUND.

But anyway, aside from my runaway yarn, there's not much in knitting news. I'm thinking about waiting until it gets cold to finish my Alexandra top (it's 97 degrees here, or will be this afternoon, and there's a high wool content in the yarn. Well, not really high, so much as noticeable to my uber-sensitive skin). I'm really reluctant to do anything with that ridiculous Cambridge Sweater (which is fine, my girlfriend's birthday isn't for another 2 months). But I do really want to work with that Bernat Super Saver yarn (because I'm cheap and allergic to everything except, apparently, cashmere, and that's a wee bit out of my price range), and I bought enough of it last year to make the Cardigan for Arwen (Winter 2006 IK), so that might get started.

Wow, I had a lot more to say about knitting than I thought! Crazy.

FOR SOME REASON THIS PARAGRAPH GETS DELETED WHENEVER I TRY TO ADD ANOTHER PICTURE AND THEN IT AUTOSAVES AND I AM NOT WRITING IT A THIRD TIME, THANKS A LOT, BLOGGER.

The gist of it is, I went to the Big Whistle site today, and lo and behold:

I already own a Dixon aluminum whistle (the one with the brass tuning slide), but this one looks kinda ugly pretty neat. I'm a fan of the Dixon mouthpieces, although I wasn't at first, and I absolutely adore my brass Trad. I'm tempted to get a nickel Trad as well, since I love my nickel whistles (except the Waltons; that one is a bit awful), and the nickel Trad costs about half as much as this new aluminum deal. That and this new whistle costs as much as my brass-slide aluminum, which I have a love-hate relationship with. I'm not entirely sure I'm sold on the aluminum sound yet, although the brass-slide is the only whistle I've got that goes into the third octave without sounding HORRIBLE. I lie, the Susato Dublin VSB I have can get up there too, but then it REALLY sounds plastic-y. I've gotten my Oak up there too, but it squeaks more often than not.

I hear that the Sweetheart pro models can get up in the third octave. I only know one tune that goes up there (Countess Cathleen, from Riverdance), but I'd be willing to learn more if I had a whistle that didn't sound gross. I keep trying to post a picture, but it keeps deleting my middle paragraph for some reason, so I'm going to NOT do that again. In fact, Blogger has made me sufficiently angry enough to end this post now, which is all well and good since my posts are rambly and long and let's face it, I'm no Walt Whitman...although I could be...if I learned the names of the trees and then listed them...more whistle posts will come, for those of you who are definitely not interested...posts about Sweethearts and Feadogs and Waltons and Generations and Dixons and Silkstones and the Composite Burkes and the Aluminum Burkes and Chieftains(es?)...and that was only funny if you've read Leaves of Grass, and even then it's still a stretch.

I'll Never Win a Blog Award

Man, I've been knitting and stuff, but my camera KILLS batteries like nobody's business. I got some rechargeables and even with those, they die after maybe an hour of using the camera, and then I'm too lazy to recharge them. So I'll just wait until I have another FO, which will be God knows when, to post pictures.

I ran out of the yarn I was using to make my Ruffled Surplice, and I'm almost certain that the yarn I ordered will be of a noticeably different dyelot. I'm thinking that it won't be a big deal, since I finished the body pieces and will only be doing the sleeves and the ruffle in the other dyelot, which might end up looking neat. Worse comes to worse, I wash and dry the thing and the colors will all fade away. I really wish I'd gotten the potpourri color, even though beige looks awful on me (it matches my skin tone! Yaaaay!).

I'm stalling on the Alexandra top because the sleeve instructions do not work for someone with stumpy little arms like me. I've decided to make them long sleeves instead of the 3/4 like the model has in the book because I've already bought enough yarn to do so, and a sweater that warm might as well have long sleeves (this is also how I feel about the Spicy V-Neck, but I'm going to try and find a thicker cotton blend or something. Maybe I'll get a cotton blend yarn and then just recalculate the pattern for a smaller gauge. Yeah, we'll see how that goes).

I've just bought yarn for the Bulky Mini Cardigan as well, which I can't wait to start. If Alexandra was (mostly) a quick knit for me, the Mini Cardi should be even quicker. I love Stefanie Japel's patterns; of the three sweaters I've actually finished, two are hers. I wish I'd bought the wool-ease chunky that was on sale at Hobby Lobby last week, because I've got another of her patterns I really want to make (the bulky cabled sweater or something). However, no more yarn for me. The yarn I bought for the Mini Cardi was basically so I could make ANOTHER skein of yarn in my stash go away.

Oh, by the way, I will be blogging from St. Louis now, as I have returned to the gateway to boredom and allergies (not to mention humidity HOLY SINUS TROUBLE, BATMAN) to finish college. ONE MORE SEMESTER and then I never have to come here ever again. I think I'm getting sick from the location change. Glorious.

Edit: Oh yeah, I finished the Booga Bag, but my camera batteries were dead. Then I gave the bag to my mom. Expect pictures in November if I ever get around to it. I've also got a Kureyon-Chan hanging around somewhere in my house that is 300 miles away from where I currently live. Augh, I hate college.

ADD

So, my Alexandra top still has no sleeves, because I can't bring myself to knit with the wool in the 90+ degree weather. That did not stop me from finishing up the knitting on my Booga Bag (both use the same set of needles...heh). One day I will felt all the bags I've knitted (they are supposed to be felted, but my washing machine is HUGE and has no agitator so I am waiting until I have a bunch of crap to throw in there at once). The yarn I used for the bag is some Fisherman's Wool (or whatever it's called) that I dyed with Kool-Aid, and the only picture I have is this:

Yeah, it looks a lot less gross in person, I swear. I wish I had used more of the green color, but oh well.

Also, I've started on the Ruffled Surplice (the cover pattern) from the Spring 2007 IK. At first I wasn't very impressed with it, as it is in a baby-blanket-yellow which would look nothing short of awful on me, and it was in some sort of bamboo ribbon yarn, which sounds to me like "expensive" and "handwash." However, I saw one on Craftster out of the Sugar 'n' Cream cotton, and THAT sounded like "cheap" and, honestly, that's the most important thing for me.

So I got one of those 14-oz skeins at Michaels on clearance for $2, but I think it will turn out to be not enough, in which case I will have to pay some exorbitant amount for a couple of extra 4-oz skeins from Jo-Ann fabrics or something, as Michaels doesn't carry my colorway (Swimming Pool) anymore. But, considering I got the clearance price, I shouldn't be complaining.

By the way, I've finished the back and am about 1/3 of the way through one of the fronts. It's a really quick knit!

Oh, and I finished the Indigo Ripples skirt. I don't remember if I posted about that. Not saggy, but I have no shirts to wear with it! D'oh. So it's sitting in a tote bag in my closet waiting for the ends to be woven in, and then I can wear it never. Whooooo.

I bought the Sahara pattern when it was on sale at stitchdiva, but I have no yarn to knit it with (most of my stash is Red Heart because I am SUPER CHEAP). I'm hoping to make a joann.com splurge in the near future, when they have another free shipping promotion.

Also, a Harry Potter Action Shot

We were going to get in line to have our picture taken with Harry Potter, but then we found out it was just a cardboard cutout of the cover of the book (you can see it over my left shoulder--your right). Instead we took a picture with the sign in front of it, and still managed to get Harry in the picture, because we are just 2 kewl 4 skewl (I wrote a paper called that once. I think my professor died a little).

Semi-annual Photo Dump

So here we are: FOs!

Rogue and Two-Tone Shrug, hooray!

First, my lovely shrug that I totally thought would be too small and then it wasn't!

And from the back:

And also my Rogue, which was done in MAY but I never got around to taking/uploading pictures. I still haven't washed it yet because I'm terrified it will pill. This picture is blurry but I can never tell on the little window on the camera!

Hood detail, and also my gross room with anime posters of yesteryear (why, yes, I know there are a disproportionate amount of Gundam Wing posters; there are about twice as many on the other wall. What can I say, it was every pre-emo--premo?--girl's dream: angsty teenage boys and mechs).

Gunter glieben glausen globen:

Sleeve detail, sans Def Leppard reference:

Action-ish shot, because standing is the most action I do these days. I look mildly pissed...probably because I'm wearing a sweater in 90-degree weather. I'm also wearing men's Nike shorts, which is HOTTT.

I put the sweater on the floor to take a picture of the whole thing, and the damn cat sat on it. That's what we get for giving him old sweatshirts to sleep on.

Then he didn't even have the decency to stay still so I could get a cute picture. It looks like he has four ears! Damn cat.

Oh, by the way, the shrug is just plain old Red Heart super saver, and the sweater is some discontinued color of Wool-Ease that I got for about 1.50 a skein. And the cat is half Siamese and half tabby, because I didn't want to end up looking like my cat so I got a cat that looks like me. Asian eyes and a big ol' butt.

Pictures TOMORROW, I Promise (For All My Millions and Millions of Readers)

This Indigo Ripples skirt...augh. It's almost not worth doing the 1000-odd bind-off stitches when I know it'll probably turn out saggy and gross on my giant bottom. But then again, I thought my Two-Tone shrug would be awful and it really wasn't...so I honestly don't know. I'm sort of itching to turn this yarn into a Camisa from the fall 2006 Knitscene, but I can always buy more Cotton-Ease in a less fugly color to make something I'll actually wear.

Not that the charcoal color is fugly, it's just not a color I would wear as a shirt. Plus, it doesn't really match any pants I have, except jeans, I suppose.

I wish Cotton-Ease had more colors! I really like how the yarn feels, but I only really like the purple color (and the orange and yellow colors, but I tend to not wear orange and "Chinese people can't wear yellow," or whatever the line is from "Saving Face." I guess that goes for orange too? Except that Chinese people wear the hell out of red, which is the other half of orange. And away I go into parentheses-land).

I've noticed that I post nothing about whistles. Um...I've got a Dixon trad in brass, and the fingerholes are totally all discolored because I play it all the time. I forgot I had it for a while, due to the Freeman Nickel Generation taking up most of my time (I have no idea why I like it so much; you wouldn't know because I'm always dropping it). I composed a waltz yesterday because I am a total dork. I think it's pretty! One day I'll be a whistling, knitting superstar and you'll all WISH you'd read my blog when it was all written in parentheses by me, instead of blurbs written by my assistant's assistant. Yup. Just like my myspace page.

Whoopseedoodles

Haha, I forgot I had a knitting blog, oops.

I was totally going to take pictures of a bunch of FOs that don't already have pictures, but then it was dinner time and then it was dark, and I don't like taking pictures without natural light because artificial light makes everything yellower than it actually is.

So, upcoming pictures:

Rogue
Two-Toned Shrug
Indigo Ripples skirt (although maybe not, because I have the sneaking suspicion it's going to be real saggy and therefore frogged--my gauge was so off on this one but I already frogged it once and was not emotionally stable enough to do it again).

Also, I'm working on a Best Friend Cardigan for my teddy bear I made five years ago (at Build-a-Bear) because I picked the most ghetto clothes for it and then it traded clothes with the gf's cow (her myspace page is all about this cow...I'm not kidding) and as a result it doesn't look like a girl bear (which she IS, I swear). Also her pants got lost. Those Build-a-Bear animals really don't like to keep their pants on, the cheeky scamps.

So, I MUST take pictures tomorrow. There might also be dyeing adventures tomorrow; it all depends on whether or not I am feeling adventurous (probably not. I'm on generic Ambien right now and it makes me feel extremely sluggish, which is saying a lot considering I was already basically stationary before I started the sleeping pills. I was just awake more of the time...most of the time, really). But I did buy an ungodly amount of Wilton's icing dyes, and I do have an ungodly amount of undyed wool yarn, so we'll see how it goes.

I also broke my no-more-yarn rule when the big ol' skeins of Sugar 'n' Creme were on clearance at Michaels. I bought two (they were two bucks a pop), and expect to make several dishcloths...eventually.

Shazzam!

Aaaand I finished the shrug. Yesterday. All that's left is to weave in the ends and that will be fun for about two minutes and then I'll wish I'd just gone with the original pattern's color dealie (i.e. NO STRIPES, what was I THINKING).

I've never had a shrug before and I totally used to make fun of the stupid ones that were in fashion when I was in...junior high? You know, the ones made of T-shirt material that weren't even supposed to reach your boobs (or maybe I was just really busty in junior high? I was fashion-retarded up until about...okay, never mind). Anyway, I'm not entirely sure it fits me right. The back seems to be the right size and the sleeves are fine, but I've just never worn a shrug-like object since junior high, so I'm not sure how it's supposed to look on a not-model (I was no longer a model by junior high, for those of you keeping track--wait, I don't think I've included that bit of information in this blog). I'll post pictures eventually, but right now my hair looks bad, so no pictures today. Maybe tomorrow.

If Knitting Were Video Games, I'd Be My Girlfriend

Yeah, the title is an inside joke that only my girlfriend would get, and even then I might have to explain it to her, because the jokes I make that I actually think are clever are usually inside jokes with myself. It is a lonely person who has inside jokes with herself. And yet, maybe she is the luckiest person of all. What am I talking about?

I've got maybe 3 more rows left on the ribbing of my Fitted Knits (*cough* Gryffindor *cough*) shrug, and now I'm really unmotivated to finish it. This always happens when I'm knitting big-ish projects. The very first sweater I ever knitted needed a neck for the longest time. It just sat in pieces under my bed while I putzed around NOT getting the double-pointed needles I needed to do the turtleneck. Of course, it was because I was a freshman in college and had no transportation to any craft store, and I was only just discovering the world of online shopping (I made my first eBay purchases that year!). I ended up deciding to split up the neckline and do them on straights...BIG MISTAKE, my friends. That was also the year I found out that I bound off too tightly. Also, the sweater itself ended up pretty fugly.

The next sweater I knitted was Stefanie Japel's Bad Penny from Knitty. I got some yarn off eBay and had to resize the entire pattern because the yarn was way thicker than the recommended yarn, which was fine because it knitted up quicker, but then with just the neckline ribbing left, I sort of ignored the sweater for six months. Seriously, I had it almost done around this time two years ago, and I let it sit until winter break. Then I finished it and gave it to my friend and it looked WONDERFUL on her.

So, if you're keeping track, that's one Good Sweater, one Awful Sweater.

The next sweater I knitted was Rogue. I finished all the pieces last summer, including the sleeves, and didn't seam it up for MONTHS. I finished the pieces in August...and then around the end of March (of THIS YEAR) I decided I was too lazy to seam up the sleeves, so I frogged them and re-knit them in the round, put off sewing them in for a few weeks, finally got off my ass and did it, and was done by the end of April (I had other projects I was working on in between). And that one turned out good too!

I don't know why I put off finishing sweaters; maybe it's because of that first awful sweater I made? I want to knit sweaters, but I think there's that fear that after all that knitting, it will turn out ugly, and all my work will have been for nothing. But I've got better odds than I thought, so maybe if I finish up this one TODAY, about two weeks after I started it, I'll break my knitting curse, hooray!

Oh, and as for the inside joke, whenever my girlfriend is playing some RPG or whatnot (Final Fantasy, etc), when she gets close to the end, say, right before the final boss, she STOPS PLAYING. For WEEKS. At first it is just because she is leveling up, but then after that I don't know what her excuse is. It took her practically a year to give back Final Fantasy X-2 (which she borrowed from me when we were seniors in high school...I didn't get around to playing it until my sophomore year in college, but I don't think it's because she took THAT long to give it back), and that game is NOT hard. If I can easily beat it, it is NOT hard. So there you go: metaphor explained.

I think this post was super long just so I could avoid a) finishing my shrug, or b) doing that 7-minute ab workout. Really, that's just seven of the longest minutes in my day, but I'll have ripped, sexy abs just in time to go back to school in landlocked St. Louis, with no beach that I know of. And this winter I'll knit 100 wool sweaters and be finished just in time for summer (I'm kidding; I'm allergic to wool).

Knitting is Dangerous! Just Like Figure Skating (or: Ask Me About My Spinal Injury)

Today I was closing the door while holding up my shrug (with the sleeve on size 6 DPNs) and I guess I wasn't quite out of the doorway yet, because as I pulled the door towards me, I managed to stab myself really deeply with one of the DPNs! Seriously, my shoulder went out for a few minutes and I was terrified.

Then I remembered Heath Ledger had a similar stab wound in "A Knight's Tale," and I felt awesome, because I am lame like that.

Here's a picture of what I've got so far:

That's my beanie baby monkey holding it, because the monkey was there and it's really cute! Hooray for the bar pattern. Those are totally not what the colors are, but whatever. Crazy digital cameras.

Also, here's a felting project I did way back in April. I made a fox and a rabbit (pattern courtesy of craftyalien) and called them Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit and gave them to my boss at the Humanities Digital Workshop, who liked the idea of a neon pink Brer Rabbit. Anyway.

I love the fox, but the rabbit is kind of iffy. Eh, whatever. I also made a cat from one of the patterns and it turned out awful. In addition, I am not so great at felting. These were my first felted projects EVER.

Augh. Seriously.

I just realized I don't have enough of the yellow yarn to do as many stripe repeats as I was planning to do in my shrug, so I've frogged most of it except the first four rows. I just have to keep telling myself that horizontal stripes aren't my thing and it's all for the best that I stopped it before I finished and looked like a giant bumblebee.

But dang it, I have to keep frogging things! It's making me super depressed.

The Last Place You Look

So, I'm always saying that I'll post pictures of whatever I'm knitting/doing/seeing on the street except that I can never find my camera. Then, when I do find it, I need to recharge the batteries. Of course, now that I have finally found my camera and I have some FOs to take pictures of, I've completely lost the battery recharger.

ARGH, indeed.

We'll just have to make do with not-so-very detailed summaries. I've been working on the Indigo Ripples skirt (from the Spring IK), but I'm horribly afraid that it's going to look super frumpy on me, what with the giant rear and not-so-great yarn sub (cotton-ease, which I hear is sort of awful? The fabric feels nice to me but I don't own skirts, knitted or otherwise, so I have no idea how it's going to turn out).

I'm also about a third of the way through the first sleeve of the Cambridge sweater (having finished all the body pieces) from last summer's IK for the gf, but it's just so incredibly boring, and the acrylic yarn (TLC Essentials, which is a LOVELY yarn, considering--my gf has wool issues and I don't trust her not to felt things anyway) on the plastic dpns makes the most awful noise. I can handle nails on a chalkboard, but not acrylic on plastic dpns? I keep throwing the sleeve away in frustration, since I will eventually have to make another, and that is enough to frighten me.

So, I decided to do something quick, and seeing as I just bought the Fitted Knits book and joined the KAL (I have yet to post), I chose the Two-Tone shrug. I guess this summer is all about clothing I don't already own (i.e. skirts, shrugs, etc). I'm doing it in Gryffindor colors and hope to have it finished by the premier of SOME Harry Potter-related thing next week, even though I identify as a Hufflepuff. I had all this burgundy yarn sitting around and not a lot of yellow left after the two Hufflepuff scarves I made a couple of years ago and I've got a self-imposed no-more-yarn-until-some-goes-away rule, so I figured I'd make do with what I've got. I'm about halfway through the body part (not the ribbing) and hope for the best. Anyway, now it's dinner time so I guess I'll end this ridiculously long post. It's because I've got new-blog-zeal.

Call Me Jayyne Johnstone

I'm loving that you can change the address of your blog. I've changed it three times today already. One day I'll settle. Or I'll just keep putting Ys in my address. Hooray!

Huh. Here we go.

So, I made up this blog on a whim so I could start a knitblog, because for some reason whenever I talk about stuff I like to do on my other blog, people (i.e. "friends") JUDGE me (i.e. "I read all that bullshit you wrote about your new tin whistle!"--as though I'm supposed to talk about Canadian folk singers all the time and NOT about whether or not the C# of the nickel whistle is flat in comparison to the one actually made of tin--bear with me; there's a lot of buried angst).

Of course, I'm not entirely sure if my camera will upload to this computer because I have lost the software to install it, but I suppose that is for another day. I also haven't quite figured out this whole blogger dealie, since I have previously been using Xanga (because I am AzN) and livejournal (because I am a Witty College Student), plus myspace (because I am a tool--not that blogging of any sort makes me any less tooly. I kind of like that word, and wish it was my blog name...I will probably change it one day).

Well, that's enough for now. Time to fiddle around with the design schemes because I have little to no html skillz (I can make things bold sometimes) despite the ability to encode ENTIRE BOOKS in XML (it's not that great an ability; I don't actually understand what I am doing).

I will probably eventually get sick of this blog too, but oh well.