Cattywampus

What am I doing these days?

I'm not sure.  It seems like I must have something to write about, but somehow nothing comes to mind.

My knitting time has been monopolized by Christmas knitting (hush, I know I said I wasn't doing any and I'm almost done not doing any so don't worry about it) and Simurgh.  I can only show you so many pictures of neck gaiters and stockinette hats, it's just not fun, there's not even interesting construction to talk about.  I can show you shot after shot of Simurgh, but until it's done and we can see the money shot I'm really only showing you a dark, lumpy pile of yarn.

Here's something!  I got a bonus at work last week (totally unexpected) and decided to splurge on some completely unnecessary & luxurious yarn for myself.

With flash it's VERY shiny.  Shiny things are sooooo pretty, right Jocelyn? ;-)

This is Brooks Farm Primero, I fondled this at SAFF but I didn't buy any, I found this on their website in the 'Widows & Orphans' section, I'm positive I looked at this colorway at SAFF & am very happy I found it - on sale too, how much better does it get? 

This stuff is divine.  It is SO HEAVY, it's crazy!  Not heavy in a bad way, heavy like...like...like...okay, it's just heavy.  And it is SO smooth.  I don't like brushed mohair, it's itchy & it makes me sneeze, this stuff is smooth and lustrous and so beautiful I simply can't stop thinking about what to knit with it.

A shiny picture again...and then an overexposed picture.  What can I say?  I was trying to take pics this morning before work so I could use actual daylight, so I was in a rush.

I also picked this up from Yarn Chef, it's Creme Brule - a silk/merino blend - in Cherry Tree, I think it will make a very nice little neck scarf.  I love the depth of the color.

And last but not least, a skein of absolute gorgeousness from Briar Rose.  I've heard such amazing things about her stuff, I wanted to see for myself, and at $42, 1200 yards of this DK merino weight was a pure bargain!  But it's not here yet... 

I don't know what I'm doing with any of it.  I'm thinking of maybe making a really lightweight sweater with the Primero - similar to the Hourglass sweater (ravelry link), but not exactly like that.  I want something really plain so the yarn can be the focal point.

I know I want to make a neck scarf with the Creme Brule, but I don't know what...probably something out of Victorian Lace Today, there are many gorgeous options in there.

As for the Briar Rose dk weight...maybe a lap blanket, maybe a sweater, maybe a stole...right now it can be anything.

Isn't that part of the fun?  I mean, imagining all the things the yarn can become - all the possibilities, all the options, all the perfection that can be achieved in the mind's eye.  Of course, that's rarely the way it works out, but sometimes...sometimes it does, and that's why I keep knitting.

The Season of Gift Giving - A Challenge

***Today (12/31) is the last day of the contest, donate by midnight tonight and your name will be entered into the drawing!)***

Thanksgiving kicks off the official gift buying season and the charities start going full force to remind us that there are those who aren't as lucky as we are, who don't have as much to be thankful for.  Me, personally, while I might complain day in and day out about the things that aren't going according to plan in my life, I am incredibly grateful for family and friends, for loved ones to spend time with, for my adorable pups, and for this online knitting community that keeps me connected to this craft, I am grateful for so very many things.

Some people I know give gifts from Heifer International for Christmas, I think this is very admirable, but my problem is that I still want to give people gifts, so I've never really been keen on the idea myself.

I have decided to take a new approach to this problem.  I have purchased a sheep - dudes, you can buy a sheep! - in honor of our *little* online knitting community.

I challenge you to donate whatever you can this holiday season.  Heifer International takes donations as small as you can afford - you can buy one share of a sheep for $10.  If you have alot of extra cash laying around, you can donate a Knitting Basket for $500.  (seriously, how cool is that?)

So, I say, let's give back some of the wool that we're using on gifts this year & make a difference in the world.

Here is the ecard I made all of you.  The picture is very cute, you should click on it.

I will donate some yarn out of my stash as prizes - let's just call this my own personal version of stashbusting.

This is 880 yards of laceweight merino that I dyed myself.  It's got some variation between a blue green and a lighter yellow-green in the skein.

The Accidental Knitter Superwash Merino 4 oz, 390 yards.  I would call this one Easter Egg colors.

Cherry Tree Hill Superwash Merino Sock Yarn, 4 oz, 420 yards - grass green, varied blues & earthy brown.

Misti Alpaca Lace, 2 skeins, 437 yards each - a deep, dark burgundy.

Berroco Cotton Twist, 2 skeins, 85 yards each, turquoise blue with some variation.

New addition to the prizes!  Yarnarina has generously donated a kit of her adorable Tiger Hat & Malabrigo.

Just added 12/12 from Carol - 3 skeins of Noro Silk Garden in color 230, 45% silk, 45% kid mohair and 10% lambswool.  50g balls of 100 meters. 

Rebecca has donated a shawl pin, she will make one in whatever colors the winner would like!  Here is an example of one of her pins.

Rebecca has donated 2 (two!) skeins of Schaeffer Anne, a merino, nylon, mohair sock yarn AND one of her patterns from The Garter Belt - winners choice!

Anne
Originally uploaded by rehatcher

Ronni has generously donated 4 skeins!

Yarn Pirate sock in Crocus, 100% superwash merino 121g 480 yrds

Schaefer Yarn Lola in eggplant/navy/red/copper/olive 100% superwash merino 112g 280 yrds 5st/in

All Things Heather sock yarn in Club Med (orange/green/teal) 100% Superwash Merino 114g 360 yrds

Scarlet Fleece It's Tubular x 2 fingering in Red Velvet Waters (plum/teal) 80% Merino 20% nylon 100g 480 yrds

Added 12/21 Chris of Briar Rose Fibers has donated a $40 Gift Certificate to Briar Rose!   

If you donate to Heifer International, please send me an email telling me that you donated & how much (I'll keep track & post the total so we can see how much good we've done) and I'll enter you into the contest.  I don't know how else to make that work, so we're on the honor system here people.

I will run this contest for the entire month of December to give everybody the opportunity to donate & take us through the holiday season.

If you would like to donate something to add to the prizes leave me a comment & I'll email you & we'll figure it out.

Things we saw.

Lochness Monster made out of Legos.

Dogs made out of Legos.

Things that make you wonder and make you just a little afraid.

Pretty things.

People standing on waaaaayyyyy too many chairs on a windy day.

People doing insane bendy things.

Seasonal Things.

 

We had fun.   We are exhausted.  We also saw the Dixie Stampede Christmas Show which was very fun but I wasn't allowed to take pictures of it & we spent lots of time with DH's family which I didn't document and which we don't usually get to do, so that was very nice.   (Run-on sentence anyone?)  As you can see, they kept us quite busy!

Check out my Indiana Jones! (please ignore the strap...)

Assorted Oddities

Hey Look - it's fall!  (finally)

Another gaiter for an unnamed person - Christmas secrecy & so on.  This one is in knitpicks Swish, Squirrel Heather.

Here is the Stonington Shawl, which I haven't gotten very far on with the xmas knitting (which I know I swore I wouldn't do, but I'm doing little things and since I had planned socks & other much more complicated things I think this is a nice compromise) and the Raven Stole, which has a real name, but I don't know if it's public yet, so I won't use it here.

A cashmere scarf & fingerless mitt set for another unnamed person.  Fountain Lace scarf in Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere, I replicated the pattern on the back of the gloves. 

And finally, what I know you all really want to see, though I'm sure you'll be disappointed b/c the yarn is so dark there's hardly anything you actually can see...the Raven Stole (aka test knit for Anne)

See?  Sorry about that.  Soon enough she will be blocked and soaring, but for now it's just a small pile of bumpy yarn that is gorgeous in person but doesn't look like much in the picture.

ETA:  a less blob-like picture but the color is all washed out from the flash.

I guess I'm not really worried about people seeing what they're getting for xmas.  Nobody knows who is getting what, so I figure it's all good...it's still a surprise Christmas morning!

DH & I are traveling to the land of sun and disney characters to visit his family, fun & YUM!  Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

Beginings

Big, Giant, Gorgeous skein of Laci in Thraven - thank you Anne!  To test knit the rectangular version of the raven shawl.  I still think I might need to make the faroese version at some point.

Very.  Bad.  Ballwinder.

Isn't it pretty?  I know you can't really see the colors, but it's this these lovely blues & greens with black overdyed and it is just soooo lucious in person.

Also, today is DH's bday, birthday events will abound!

Overheard

A conversation had in complete seriousness:

College student number 1:  "Hey man, what day is Thanksgiving next week?"

College student number2:  "Thursday"

At least he got the day right. 

I am not even going to include the rant.  There's no point.  The conversation says it all. 

ETA:  In context, the question College student number 1 asked was what day Thanksgiving fell on,  as if maybe sometimes it happened on a Wednesday or a Friday, and he was checking just to be sure.

WHERE THE HELL IS MY CHIFFON???

That season, when they showed this clip over and over and over again, DH and I went around yelling 'WHERE THE HELL IS MY CHIFFON?' whenever we were looking for anything.  He wasn't even watching the show with me, he was just gaming in the same room, but you can only hear 'WHERE THE HELL IS MY CHIFFON?' so many times before becoming curious enough to find out what's going with that.  And really, it's just fun to say.

Anywho.  Project Runway starts Wednesday, 10:00 p.m. and I am totally excited.  I will admit it out in public.  I LOVE that show, I love Tim Gunn, I love the whole shebang.

Crime and Punishment...and punishment - a confession

I read about Dailylit on somebody's blog and I thought it would be a grand idea.  I looked at a lot of books and settled on the classics, Crime and Punishment to be specific.  I have never read it, I've never had to read it, and I know it's not the kind of book I would ever pick up in the bookstore or at the library and think 'Oh Joy!  I'm going to go home & curl up to this and read far into the night!'

Um...no.

So I thought that a little bit at a time would be the best way to approach it, and it probably is because I can't imagine reading it for more than 5 minutes at a time.

I was doing okay for the part up to the crime and then for a little bit after, I was actually intrigued and wondering how Dostoyevsky came up with this crime and if he interviewed criminals to get the thoughts and feelings worked out or if he just made them up based on what he thought the criminal would be thinking and so on...but now...I have reached the part where the mother & sister are in town *forgive me if you haven't read it and this is incredibly nonsensical and boring to you* and there's all this back & forth about the fiance and who has insulted who and I gotta tell you...I just don't care.

I have 103 of the 241 installments read and it really seems a shame to stop now, but it's gotta get better or I'm just going to have confess myself a horrible student of literature and cry uncle and give up completely. 

Next time I will most definitely pick something a bit less...Russian.

But you know what's funny about that?  The little things get me, like all the different names they all have - it confuses the heck out of me.  It's interesting how I can read something from British Lit from the same time period and understand it, but the Russian culture combined with when it was written is proving to be a little bit more than I want to deal with - to the point that it becomes so much work to understand what is really happening that it's just not enjoyable anymore.

Sigh.  So much for expanding my horizons.

But my audiobook A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, which I have read in book form before, is completely absorbing.  I love this series, I think he is the only fantasy author I have read who regularly allows bad things to happen to main characters.  I find it crushing when it does happen - I can get so absorbed in the book that it feels a bit too real sometimes - but it makes the characters who survive more real, more relatable, more empathetic.

Oh, so good!

And, if you are a fantasy fan there was a bit on NPR this morning with recommendation for good fantasy reads.  I've already put one on my Christmas list!

Look - Knitting! 

Neck gaiter for unnamed recipient in black Laine Du Nord Royal Cashmere (2 balls)- cast on 72 stitches on size 10.5 needles, knit in 2x2 rib until you run out of yarn.  Approx 10"x9" (ribbing unstretched - sized to fit a man)  Makes a nice vase cozy, don't you think?

Knee highs!

A quick FO - Knee highs, just improvised pattern in 3x2 rib & a bit of increasing up the back.  In Anne, I used about 3/4 of the skein -there's a LOT of yarn in those skeins!

In the pic below I swear the increase sections are even, but I have one heel slightly in the air, you just can't really see it very well in the pic.

A Nasty Habit

I have this habit.  How it happens is like this:  I finish something I REALLY like, the Endpaper Mitts for example, and I decide that I MUST make AT least 500 million of them.  For everybody I know.  Oh and I have to find other patterns using the same techniques because it was SO MUCH FUN and it doesn't matter if I don't need 10 pairs of mittens or gloves or whatnot, I want to knit them ANYWAY.

The one on the left has been blocked, the one on the right needs to be.

So here are my Endpaper Mitts.  I adore them.  I love them.  I want to wear them ALL THE TIME.  And they were so much fun.  I wasn't sure how the whole fair isle thing was going to work out for me, but it turns out that it's almost addictive - I know I am not the first person to feel this way.

Now.  What did I do today?  I went onto Ravelry and found a bazillion other very pretty fair isle mitten type things to make.  They are all marinating my queue right now.

And also people - I can use stash yarn for these things, so it's all good, all the way around!

Like these very pretty things on Karendipity Etsy's site and Eunny's Anemoi Mittens and this converting sock patterns to mittens recipe on Natalia Knits caught my fancy - Space Invader Mittens anyone?

And let's not forget the fabulous mitten book I have - Magnificent Mittens by Anna Zilboorg, which sadly appears to be out of print.  Everything in there is sport weight, but I might be able to convert it to fingering, and if not I'm ABSOLUTELY positive I could get my hands on some sport weight yarn.

And then there's the Norweigan Mittens from EZ (Ravelry Link), in worsted weight, I definitely could do those in leftovers too!

Ah mittens, pretty, pretty stranded mittens, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways...

Y'all have a great weekend, I'm off on my annual Christmas shopping weekend with my BFF.   Woohoo!  There will be zero knitting content to show Sunday, and that's just gonna have to be okay.