Monkey and Pomatomus

Now of course, because I am a terrible blogger, I have no pictures yet of any finished objects. But I have pictures of partly-finished objects.

My first Monkey sock! It’s a beautiful sock and I’m very fond of it. I knit it in about 4 days while visiting colleges and then started on the second one. The second one has met this unhappy demise:

Ran out of yarn. I’ll have to go down to Lovelyarns sometime soon and find a similar dye-set in Schaefer Anne to finish these. I loves them.

Also the ankle will have to be longer on Monkey #2.

Here is the first Pomatomus sock, in progress:

And here it is finished (and blurry):

The yarn is KnitPicks Dye-Your-Own that I dyed with KoolAid in green/blue and red. I spent the whole time knitting this sock cutting out the red. The inside is full of knots, but I simply don’t care. I think I like the sock. The second one is on hold because I got bored.

Instead, I’m knitting these:

for S, whose hat (remember this?) looked like a nipple on top. She wasn’t going to wear it, so she asked for legwarmers. I hope she’ll wear these. If not, I don’t really care. They’re quite a bit longer now, but she has a 14″ knee-to-ankle length, so I have a bit to go yet.

And that’s what’s in progress!

J is being lazy and won’t take pictures of the Blanket for me, so I’ll get them on Saturday. And the Diamantes are in the wash, mum says.

Surprise.

Oh wow, so, I’ve actually been blogging for a year. Not on this blog (though mind you I got confused), but about knitting, certainly. I posted my first post in my old Blogger blog on March 8th, 2006. So, this isn’t an occasion to get excited over, but hey. Cheery!

Today I worked on S’s iPod cozy and finally finished it. It needed a few finishing touches, and I finally went ahead and did them. I’ll put pictures up when I remember to take them. I’ve also started the increases for the gusset part of my backwards heel-flap heel on the Diamante socks for mum.

The blanket sits unattended in my old desk chair, waiting for it’s last 10 rows in black Lion’s Brand chenille that I don’t have. I got some from K at the knitting group (2 whole balls!), but it’s run out. Ridiculous blanket. It’ll be done soon. I want it done before Friday at least so I can take it to the beach and do the weaving in ends and things. And so on.

Yup. Also I’m playing with blog themes, so excuse the random changes.

trips, progress, and new friends

So, this past weekend was a long one, and I went up to J’s school to visit it and him. On Sunday my adorable family came up and we all went to visit Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA.

We visited the library!

Us, out for breakfast Sunday morning.

On the 4 hour drive– attributed mostly to snow; the drive back to get my car was only 3.5– I worked on this…

which is now finished and awaiting a mate.

I broke a needle (bamboo) and filed it to a point again with a nail file. Now, of course, I’ve lost it and am working with 4 instead of 5.

Here, my parents have broken the windshield wipers and are trying to figure out new ones!

In Pittsburgh, of course I didn’t take any pictures of the college, but here’s a picture of a dinosaur wearing a scarf.

Earlier, I had turned the heel on mum’s sock, and have since started working on the pattern of the ankle. The heel was very fiddly and somewhat frustrating, but not impossible. I probably won’t use it again for toe-up socks.

Anyway.

Now I have new friends! This post goes on forever with so many pictures and little talking! I have two new mice, so that’s a total of three. Sparkles:

was joined by two new ones, Cookie (black on top, brown underneath, like a Burger’s Cookie (which are a Maryland phenomenon), and Cowface/Skeekums, who doesn’t actually have a real name yet.

They’re the sweetest! Cookie is very active and runs in the ball on the Hamtrack and around my desk when I let her out. The other two are more shy.

I love pet mice.

More work on the blanket has been done! And soon I’ll get to start some Swat Team Kitties. ^_^

Snow days bring…

Great fruits of labour! Here’s what I did today:

Click to enlarge. That REALLY SHINY one is light green and soft, like another square that for some reason you can’t see. Trust me on this one.

I worked on this for a few hours today, and I’m so thrilled! By this evening I managed to get all the stitches onto the one needle! Squee! That means I have to add about two more squares before I can start the final edging. After that comes the long process of binding godknowshowmany stitches off, and then I have to weave in ends and sew up some holes.

Hooray!

Mmmm, exotic.

These are my newest obsession. The yarn is my treat from J for Christmas. It’s Qiviut, which is the soft softsoftsoft downy underfur of the Musk Ox. It’s absolutely delicious. I’m working these wrist warmers on size 1s, but I’ve just switched to 0s to do some twisted stitch ribbing at the cuff. So yum! I made them long because I always find gaps between my coats and my gloves.

Also, because I’m clearly a complete moron genius, I will also wear them whilst on my computer in my cold house, because my right (mouse) hand always gets colder than my left (lap/blanket) hand. Surprised? Me neither.

As it is with cameras, the flash shows the color, the non-flash (orangey ones) show the texture more.

Okay, so I didn’t actually work on these today, but yesterday I started increasing for the heel. It’s the reverse of the flap heel; that is, like the top-down flap heel, but worked from the other direction. It’s not the regular flap heel worked from the toe. Blah blah blah. Look at the pattern. Anyway, started increasing. I’m liking this pattern more than I thought I would, actually, because it’s simple enough for class, but still interesting enough that I keep the pattern around. Know what’s the best invention evar? Post-it Picture Paper. I printed the chart on an index-card sized piece, pulled off the backing, and have stuck it to my homework notebook. It’s brilliant.

At any rate, I probably will have school tomorrow, weather willing, so I’d best be off.

Happy snow! And valentines!

Edit: Okay wait, wait. Best search engine term reference ever?
“kitty made out of yarn”

That is all!