FOs, 2010 Edition - for my Tootsies!

I'm finally getting around to posting some of my 2010 FOs. At least I'm squeaking them in at the end of January. It's like thank-you cards - you are allowed a month to get around to it, right?

First up are my Purple Fairy Socks:







The pattern is Absinthe from Knitty (Spring 2009) and the yarn is Jill Draper Makes Stuff Splendor Sock Yarn (Merino/Nylon/Cashmere).

These took me a little less than a month to knit. The pattern is awesome. The yarn is heavenly (and I still have a bunch left - not enough for another pair of socks, unless I combine it with something else). I purchased the yarn at Rhinebeck because I had had a dream right before we left that I was knitting socks with purple yarn. I cast on for these about a week later.

They've become my go-to comfort socks, because they are so soft. They are haloing a little bit, now that I've had them for a few months, and the halo is bright blue!

Next up are my felted mocassins:









These are from the Town & Country Slipper Kit from Knit Picks. I had to link to the Ravelry page because it seems to be sold out. The mocassins are in the "Country" set, which also has mary janes and cowboy boots. The "Town" set has high top sneakers, shoes with spats, and penny loafers. I purchased both sets last summer, when they first went on clearance sale at Knit Picks.

I wear these every day at home. They work better with hand knit socks, because they are a little wide, and I had to stretch them lengthwise when I blocked them, but I believe I only ran them through the wash twice to get them felted. I'm hoping to make all of the options (since the kits come with enough yarn for that), maybe to use as "guest" slippers in our house.

I just counted on my FOs 2010 set on flickr, and it looks like I made 15 things in 2010 (including one sewing project -- that counts!). There are at least three projects that I don't have photos of. Damn. For someone whose year was mostly taken up by a move, I sure did get a lot done!

A WIP and some FOs for the Head

Well, I had some good intentions, right? Now it's been three weeks since my last blog post, and although I HAVE things to post, I haven't gotten off my ass and done so.

I guess I'll WIP it out before I flash some FOs:



Okay, so this is a crappy cell phone photo but it's better than nothing, right? The pattern is called Cross Stitch Cable Beanie and it' a free Ravelry download. I'm almost done with it, so I'll take some good detailed photos of it when I am.

It's for Mike. The yarn is Interlacement Toasty Toes and it's been in my stash since December of 2006. It's about time I use it, right?

I also have some FOs to show. These ones go back to October of 2010, so you can see how lazy I have been.

I have a stack of hats:



I also do not have a good detailed photo of this hat:



It's the Horseshoe Cap from the Summer 2010 Spin-Off. I appear to be the only person on Rav who made it, or, at least when I uploaded it the pattern wasn't in Rav's database yet. The yarn is from a local vendor, Hamden Hills Alpacas, who sets up at the Farmer's Market outside of my building. She also sets up at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool, and at Rhinebeck.

I also made another Foliage hat, this time in chunky yarn (Valley Yarns Northampton Bulky, from WEBS). It's fun for a girl



or a boy!



I also have something else that garnered me quite a bit of attention in late October: BOOB HATS.



Can you tell which one is meant to be the Lotus Boob hat? (Note: if you have never seen the Lotus Boob, you may want to think twice about doing a search for it. The first time I saw it, I had no clue what it was. My first impression was a boob with road rash, and I think I screamed and closed the window. My second impression -- yes, I looked again -- was a boob with beebees shot in it, which is as bad as a boob with road rash. It's neither. It's a photoshop job of a boob with a lotus pod - complete with seeds -- cropped over it. Even after knowing what it is, I don't need to see it again.

The funniest part about these hats is that I made them specifically for Rhinebeck. Mike and I presented them at the Rubberneckers meetup, and minkeswim's baby took the bait when presented with the Lotus Boob, as you can see on my Ravelry projects page. (I made that page public-access, so you don't need a Rav account to see it. I should do that with all of my projects, unless they are SOOPER SEKRIT).

Oh, and I made those with some Red Heart Super Saver that I got at a yard sale a few years ago, and I could only get black Pony Beads in packs of 1,000. I may give both to charity, because the RHSS killed my hands. That's never happened before; I think it's because it's older yarn and thus not as soft as the acrylics of today (I very charitably say).

I decided to cut this short RIGHT HERE, because I realized that I have two more FOs for 2010, and three FOs for 2011 - wait, four!!! FOUR FOs! Can you tell it's been a harsh winter so far? I need to get my bearings, and not write a teal deer post, so I'll do a different post for my 2010 FOs for the feet, and then my 2011 FOs.

Four? Really? And here I was, being an underachiever and only joining the 1 for 2011 group rather than the 11 for 2011 group on Ravelry. . .

A WIP, a FO, and something extra

Early this month, ZMrK and I went to a meetup for the New England LSGers at WEBS. WEBS itself was a bit of a whirlwind, which is a good thing, considering that I did put myself on a yarn diet this year. I went in, got what I wanted (I was allowed to break said yarn diet considering this trek was right before my birthday, or at least that is how I justified it), paid, and went off to lunch at the Northampton Brewery. It took a while to get there because I stupidly didn't do any sort of mapping to the Brewery, and the folks we followed (who had used MapQuest) weren't familiar with the area, so we were a bit late getting there. It turns out that we knew exactly where it was - duh - if only we had been told that it's near the parking garage! Once there, it was the typical LSG fun:





(You should have seen this by the time we were ALL done with it!)



I'm wearing my Sinful Dickinson Pullover (more on THAT later!)

I'm telling you about this trip to set up that fact that I got the yarn and pattern for the Aurora Shawl Collar Cardigan there (designed by WEBS' own Kristen Hipsky). Something about this pattern called out to me -- it may have to do with it being the middle of winter, and the pattern being for a warm, soft, sweater done with a warm, soft yarn.

Anyway, the damnedest thing has happened. Every time I take a progress shot of it, I'm too lazy to do a blog post. So I'll give both progress shots here:



I took this photo on February 17, in the morning. I had called in sick that day, with an awful head cold (my nose was so stuffed up that taking a drink was a struggle. I've since recovered from it, but passed it along to ZMrK, who has been sick all week and is now recovering, although still coughing).

I was completely finished with the body by the end of that day (knitting while watching zombie movies = WIN), and had a good start on the sleeve by the weekend:



Now, I am completely done with the left sleeve, and have about 25 rounds on the right sleeve done, but I'm too lazy right now to take a photo and upload it.

You may have noticed that it is in the same color as the pattern image, and the sample knit in WEBS. Some may call me unoriginal for that (I have, believe it or not, seen threads on Ravelry where people have deemed those that use the suggested yarn in the color the designer knit in "unoriginal". Seriously. But, any of us who have spent time on Ravelry know that there are some dipshits on there who feel the need to judge what others are doing. Oh, more on that later.). I originally went there to get the yarn in the "gold heather" colorway of Northampton Bulky, but I found the color to be more of a golden tan than the mustardy gold that I prefer. Since the light green heather is a perfect color on me, I decided to go with that (although I have to say, the ocean heather is also gorgeous in person!).

So that's where I stand with that. The pattern is easy -- super, super easy -- but at this point it's not transportable so I only work on it at home. I also need to keep it hidden in the back room, because a small black cat who shall remain nameless really likes that yarn and likes the DPNs even more -- so much that one day he chewed on one and pulled it off the stitches (which I was luckily able to get back onto the needles without trauma).

I did a bit of sewing last weekend. I have some low-nap zebra upholstery type fabric that I got at a yard sale a few years back, as well as some purse handles that I had purchased for an ill-fated project. Put them together and I've got this:



TA DA!! It hasn't left the house yet, of course, because I usually carry one of those big ol' purses that I seem to keep my life in. I plan to use it some night I'm out for fun. I didn't line it -- I fully intended to, but then the fabric I was using for lining was being a $$^&*@$# (seriously, a word that I won't even say!), so I decided not to line it. The zebra fabric doesn't shred at all, so I'm safe with it.

Okay, now I'm at the "something extra" part. I was the center of a bit of controversy on Ravelry this week. Yes, me. Now, I know that I blogged well over a year ago when I finished my Dickinson Pullover. There was no controversy there. Well, at the beginning of this year, ZMrK and I had a fun photoshoot involving me wearing said pullover with nothing else. I was too chicken to post the photos to Flickr at the time, but uploaded them straight to Ravelry just so I can have a cheeky little thread on Rubberneckers not Rubbernecking about them. They're cute photos, and were within the Ravelry Terms of Service, and the only one that may have been a little questionable was put down at the bottom (ahem!) of my project page. I forgot about them, and didn't see a thing wrong about it.

Earlier this week, there was a thread in LSG asking which if your projects were favorited the most. I posted that project, as well as my Weird hat, both of which had been favorited 13 times. I went on with my day, la la la. That night, I go to see what's what on Ravelry, and I have a comment on that project. It reads "You are gross!". I thank the person for commenting, and point it out to a couple of people I'm friends with, thinking it's funny. I get a few positive comments from my friends to negate the person who thinks I'm gross. I later get another comment (which has since been deleted by the author) that reads "Congratulation. [sic] You got the attention you wanted." I'm like, Um, okay. . . maybe the earlier commenter clutched her pearls and sent it to her friend, much like I sent the earlier comment to my friends.

Then, a couple of people give me the "heads up" that my pullover has become a topic of discussion in another group, where the photos are called "obscene" "very inappropriate" and of "private parts". For reals? By the time I saw the thread, other people had found it and had come to my defense. I was willing to just let it roll off my back until I saw a post that read, "Actually the cellulose on those thighs is what I didn’t want to look at". OH NO SHE DI'NT! Putting aside the hilarity of the thought of me growing plant fibers on my thighs (does that make then spinnable?), I had to go and defend myself. Here's my response to the thread (Rav Users names have been redacted so as to not cause further drama):

Hello! Since I’m the person being talked about here, I figured I would chime in.

As far as I can tell, my photos do not violate the Ravelry Terms of Use any more than the projects of thongs and pasties that [redacted] linked to do. Just to cover my own butt (heh, heh), I did use the drop-down menu when uploading said photos that tags them as “Mature Content”. I’m not sure how the Mature Content filter works, but I would suggest that people do utilize that feature.

That being said, I think that calling the photos “obscene” is a little over the line. I personally do not find the human body in its natural state obscene at all, and further, I’m not naked in the photos. A Victoria’s Secret ad shown on television during prime time shows more.

As far as the “cellulose” (sic) on my thighs goes that [redacted] so kindly pointed out, well, I do what I can with diet and exercise, but the reality is that all women get it at some point. I’d rather that than have to live with a mean-spirited soul festering inside me that has nothing better to do than snark at someone else’s physical shape.

The moderator of that thread chose to lock and archive the thread, since there were some pretty inappropriate things said there. I'm really glad that I was able to defend myself before she did, though. I was fucking shaking like a leaf as I wrote it! I'm not terribly good at confrontation, even when it's not in person, but I was so glad to have friends to back me up on this. Very glad.

What I find VERY curious is that the thread, as well as the comments, started within an hour of me posting a link to the project in an LSG thread (all by people who are not members of LSG). There is talk that people read LSG just looking for things to be offended by (LSG means "Lazy, Stupid, and Godless", and the group was started after a thread called "Is swearing allowed on Ravelry?" went kablooey, so that those of us with potty-mouths can hang out together and not offend others). I do believe that the whole controversy started because someone was looking for things to get offended by in LSG. It's too much of a coincidence otherwise.

I did have a conversation with TPTB of Ravelry (which I initiated) about whether my photos violated the Terms of Service or not. One of the photos did show a bit of my buttcheek, and was considered "borderline", but TPTB never deemed it inappropriate but recommended that I might want to take it down. I thought about it, because if it causes drama once it may cause drama again, but decided to reach a compromise that should please everybody except for those who are offended by a bit of cellulite (and those people can bite me):



For those who aren't on Ravelry, who may want to see the rest of the photos, here they are in all their obscene inappropriateness:











So. . . what's the verdict? Am I a filthy slattern? Should I be ashamed and hide my cottage cheese? I "get" that the one that showed my buttcheek was a little more risque than the others, but I don't think that's the only one that people objected to! From what people were saying, you'd think I was flashing some beaver or nipple in the pics.

Good things came out of it: I got a good story to tell, I discovered that I have many people on Ravelry willing to come to my defense, and I made a few new friends, as some of those people who defended me were folks I hadn't had contact with before. It also gave me some good ideas for Flash Your Stash day (Muahahaahahaha!) that may offend a few pearl-clutchers yet not violate any rules.

So, let me know -- AM I a filthy slattern or just a girl who is not ashamed of her body? Don't make me write this big ol' post for nothing (I know I haven't been the best blogger lately, so I want to get the lurkers to come out and comment).

Belated FOs Post

Folks, I've been remiss in posting some of my FOs. I actually took these photos and uploaded them the same day I made my last post; however, two blog posts in the same day bugs the tiny bit of me that is anal-retentive, and I also didn't want to put my FOs in with my Rhinebeck post because they wouldn't fit in there. Again, a tiny bit of me that is anal-retentive (if you saw my housekeeping you would surely see that that bit is not only tiny, it's microscopic. I would say that I'm anal-expulsive, but that's just gross).

Getting that out of the way, here are my fabulous (and still in the to-be-handwashed-pile-since-that-very-day) Socks That Go To Eleven:





This yarn was FUN! It's superwash wool from an Etsy seller called Sharing, who sells really lovely yarns and project bags. This colorway is called "Neon Lights". I used the Chevron pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, and size 1 needles.

Here's a little something I came up with on my own (well, sorta):



I used a houndstooth stitch pattern from an old stitch dictionary book put out by Spinnerin. I was too lazy (yes, I was too lazy, and will be the first to admit it!) to figure out how to convert the stitch pattern to knitting in the round, so the houndstooth part is knitted flat, but the ribbed parts are knitted in the round -- I cast on provisionally so I could pick up the stitches for the cuffs. I had to sew up the seam, of course. I may try to improve on this idea by converting the pattern to the round, and maybe make them fit a little more snugly, especially around the fingers.

It was a stash buster project -- I had a tiny bit of that cornflower blue yarn leftover from some blanket squares I made, and the red was leftover from one of the pairs of alligator mittens I made 3 or 4 years ago. At the time I started these mitts, I didn't know if the yarn was Cascade 220 or Lion Brand Wool-Ease, but I think now that it is Cascade 220, meaning I can't put these in the washer. Crap. The cornflower blue is washable, probably some kind of acrylic.

Speaking of stash busters and blanket squares:



These are some of the squares I knit up for the Pine Street Inn Knit-a-Thon on November 8. I've knit 12 in all, all of them machine-washable. The Pine Street Inn is a local homeless shelter/assistance program, and the blanket squares are knit to raise funds to help the Inn place homeless people into permanent housing. Several knitters will meet up on November 8 to sew the squares together to make blankets as "housewarming presents" for every person going into his or her new, permanent home. I'm not completely whoring for donations here, but if you want to, my pledge page is here.

Luciano says, "Oh no you di'nt!"



I have a few other projects on the needles. My Swallowtail Shawl hasn't changed much since you last saw it. Shit, that was right after Ken died. I was reluctant to work on it with Luciano around, and it is in a safe place but has a thin layer of cat hair on the top. I really need to work on that soon.

My Lacy Waves Sweater is under the couch. Remember back in June when I had a fit over it and threw it across the room? I started to work on it again, and decided that I just don't love it enough to finish it. Attempting to frog it, with all of the bound-off stitches along the neckline and sleeves, caused it to get off my lap and fly across the room again, so for now, it lives in the box that the yarn came in.

I started a pair of socks for Mike with some of the yarn I purchased at Rhinebeck. That link will just take you to my Ravelry page for them, and the only photo is a photo of the orange yarn I got at Rhinebeck. It's the "Sam" pattern from Cookie A's book "Sock Innovation". It's a slow-going pattern, but it's really interesting with the moving cable and all.

I've been working on a secret project for Mike. It's not a secret from him, but it's a secret from everybody else because it's using intarsia and I've been askeered to say I was doing it in case I mess it up and frog it. Hopefully it's at the point now that I can talk about it. I often have grand plans for things that I want to make, but I don't want to be one of those people who always talks about all these GREAT things she is going to do and how COOL it will be, only to have it never happen. I'm sure y'all know exactly the sort of person I'm talking about. I don't want to be one of those, although I think I in generally come clean when I've fucked up. I hope I do. After all, it's only yarn, it's only projects, and I'm only human.

In the "only human" department, I certain haven't spun in quite a while. Oopsie. I started spinning some gorgeous blue stuff months ago, but I don't think I have a photo. I know I have spun since we got Luciano, because I was surprised at how well-behave he was with my wheel. Since then, he has run around with blue fiber hanging from his mouth -- he pulled the end off my spinning. All fibery things need to be locked up from him, as well as all needles and plastic bags (since both he and Ellie will chew on them). Cats. . . what a concept.

Hopefully soon I'll have some good WIP (and maybe FO) photos for you!

Full of Fail turned into Full of Win!

I feel so full of fail right now. Not only have a barely blogged this summer (summer? don't you mean YEAR???), but I finished my socks two weeks ago and haven't posted them yet.

I hope to now turn that fail into a WIN!





Gratuitous Ellie shot:



Hopefully I can gain some readers back by posting cute kittie pictures.



It's never not funny when Luciano does this. He looks like a cat skin rug. Or a leaf gecko. I can never decide which one.

He does Pilates too:



And delivers the smackdown to his poor big sister:



The funniest part of that picture? Ellie's face!!! She looks like she's thinking, "Holy shit -- here it comes!" I've seen her give him an unprecedented wallop a couple of times, though.

Last Saturday's brunch was also full of win:



I'd weigh a million pounds if I did that every week. We only go to this diner on the way to one of our hiking spots. For the record, it's the "50s Diner Special", which is 2 eggs any style, choice of 2 meats, home fries, choice of a short stack of pancakes or French toast, and a bottomless cup of coffee for under $9. I've never finished it.

Another win is putting grapes in your cheeks and lips and taking funny photos:



It's really hard to do without cracking up, and thus looking like the Cowardly Lion:



A cute baby, laughing and trying to grab at your camera -- that, too, is full of win:



Okay, so I was going to post about some crazy internet drama (relating to the Yarn Harlot, Ravelry banned members, Sock Summit, stalking, moebius panties, etc.) that is full of fail, but decided to turn my post into one that is full of happy things. So there, drama llamas! :-p

There's no excuse

No, really there is no excuse for the three week or so (no, I'm not counting) absence from blogging. I may have bored the shit out of you if I had blogged though, 'cuz there's nothing going on.

I did finish the Here There Be Pirates hat though:



I've worn it, quite a bit in the past few weeks.

I lost a bit of my mojo lately. I have been attempting to make Frankensocks since the first of the year, but the pattern is just not working out for me. I moved to crochet to try the Chronium Star Baby Blanket, but I don't think my crochet skills are there yet.

So I made some amigurumi food instead:







Thinking that I warmed myself up on crochet, I attempted the star blanket again, but no go. Then I tried the square hole crocheted hat from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders with some Noro Kureyon that I purchased on eBay about 4 years ago. Mind you, this is the third time I've attempted this pattern. I had to stop the first time because I found out there was errata, but the errata had been taken down from the publisher's website while they've revamped. I did attempt, with the errata, to crochet this but it just looked like a big fugly head doily, so I decided that this pattern isn't a good match for me.

Instead I knit a different pattern from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders:





The hat came out great, and it fits both of us. I made it yesterday while sitting on the couch watching Beverly Hills 90210 on DVD.

This was my first time knitting with Noro Kureyon. My thoughts while knitting with it ranged from "wow, this stuff is cool" to "*I* could spin yarn like this". The thick/thin can be really apparent when there are spots in the knitting that are "gappy" due to it being thinner. The bulges from it being thicker don't bother me though. I have one more ball of this colorway, so I'm making some mittens, using some label-less deep purple Lamb's Pride-like stuff* for the cuffs.

*It's like Lamb's Pride in the sense that it is a single and feels like it has mohair in it, but I don't think it's Lamb's Pride because it is a bit thicker and doesn't seem to felt (I tried).

In other news, it's snowed about 5 times since I last posted. Twice this weekend alone! We also had a week of weather that was between 1 and 15 degrees (I hope that is over). I'm ready to kick winter in the taint and move on.

Also, Ellie had her annual appointment and has been put on a diet. I wonder why:



She's on Hills R/D, which we can only buy at the vet's office, and is really expensive. It's okay for Ken to eat it as well.

Speaking of Ken, he's doing pretty well. He bit the shit out of ZMrK's hand this morning, and tried to eat some of my yarn. He also enjoys lunging on Ellie and biting her, and had an obsession with the walls of my closet one day:



I wonder if we have mice.

I discovered that that fucking orange cat that I call Curtis has been pissing on our front porch. I don't know whose cat he is; I think he belongs to the people next door. He's out all the time, and the lady behind me feeds him. He's not neutered, so he travels all over the neighborhood, pissing off all the other cats. He likes our yard because we feed the birds. I've seen no evidence of him killing any of the birds, yet, but it could happen one day. We've had up to two dozen birds in our yard at one time. ZMrK came home to find a hawk in one of the trees, so the large number of birds is attracting predators.

I just hope that the landlord doesn't think the cat pee smell is from us, you know? They've been showing the upstairs apartment (which has been vacant since Sept. 1; know anyone looking for a 3-BR?), and I don't know if people are picking up on the cat pee smell. I can just assume that others don't have the awesomely fine-tuned nose that I do. Fucking orange cat.

I won't promise that I'll post more often, but I'll try.

Springing Forward towards 2009

Seriously, that was the best title I could come up with. I'm sorry.

What I'm not sorry about is finishing my Spring Forward socks:



Mmmmmm. They were a little big, because I had swatched and machine washed the swatch and knew exactly what would happen. I washed them once, and they shrank a bit and now fit ever-so-perfectly!

I love the snaking rib down them. It reminds me of the game "Chutes and Ladders" (which is sometimes called "Snakes and Ladders", but the version I had was "Chutes").

This freed me up to work on another project:



That's the "Here There Be Pirates" hat from Hello Yarn, made with some Dale Baby Ull. The colors are brighter than the photo suggests, but I was too lazy to work at a better photo. At first I was really slogging through this pattern, as each round takes between 5-10 minutes, AND it requires following a chart. I'm definitely becoming a more intuitive knitter, and/or I've memorized the chart, because it has become much easier.

I would love to be done with this by midnight on New Year's Eve, making it my 13th FO of 2008, but I know better than to push myself. It's my first attempt at colorwork, and does require a bit of attention, and each round takes between 5-10 minutes, so it may be done over the next weekend instead. I'm about halfway done with it, though, and it is quite a fun knit.

I also set aside some time for spinning:



This is the turquoise and gold Coopworth/Merino/Silk that I purchased at the CT Sheep and Wool, and I finally finished plying it! I had to go out have ZMrK drive me to A.C. Moore and purchase more gold metallic thread to ply with it. I had hit my sweet spot and I didn't want to stop until it was done! The remaining bit of plying took about 2.5 hours -- I watched "Demons" (1985 super gory Italian flick) and "Macabre" (1980 kinda sleazy Italian flick) while finishing it up.

Here is the single I worked on to warm myself up for plying:



The photo color is crap, but it's pink, black and white merino. ZMrK had purchased this (7.5 oz) for me at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival a couple of years ago (2007, probably). It looked lovely, but inside there were several clumps of the fiber in the different colors that weren't blended. I have blended those clumps with my new hand carders, and I'll spin up a bobbin of that. I'll have to show that off too.

I really need to take photos of my Christmas gifts. I got THREE skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn! Damn, I could probably post that somewhere on Ravelry and have people get all pissy with me for "hogging" it all. Hey, they were gifts from my pets, and who am I to refuse them? Man, they are so gorgeous. I got another skein of sock yarn that is purple, yellow, and orange, but I don't know who the vendor is. ZMrK also gave me "Knitting Lingerie Style" and "Romantic Handknits". I think I'll be very busy in the upcoming months.

I think my first project for 2009 will be Knitty's Frankensocks, done in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn. I could change my mind in the next four days, though.