Wednesday is for "How the Hell Did This Happen?"

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

OK, Somehow, I am worth a freaking mint. I have no idea how, other than that I must be finally cashing in on the deity thing. Hey, I'll take it any way I can get it. But can I buy more yarn with it?

Three days of slacking and I still finished Coronet!

I am the slack knitter. Right now we are playing host to my parents until they return to N.O. and start the cleanup/rebuilding project. So I started Coronet Friday and worked on it in odd moments over the weekend and still got it finished by last night. I changed up a few things. First, I didn't want to do it with the flip up band, I just knitted it straight. I used a different yarn and had to change needle sizes to get gauge. I didn't wait for Grumperina to post her instructions on picking up the stitches before I forged on ahead, and then I reversed the direction of the knitting to do the hat knit side out. Then I went crazy and put a row of 6 5-stitch i-bobbles a la Annie Modesitt just above the band. This was really interesting because I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I got something bobbley out of it, so I didn't do it completely wrong, which is pretty surprising. So here is yours truly, looking a little Blair Witch, but there you go - oh well, it is the season for it.

I think I am going to make another one now, the right way, do the flippy cable band, drop the bobbles (I like them for this hat, though) and make it red. Just because.

Pattern: Coronet
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino Aran Color 325702 - 2 50g balls
Needles: Aluminum dp's size 6

W00T! Cable Enabled!

Instead of slogging through a frustrating Forbes Forest scarf, I decided that maybe a single cable project would be a gentler introduction to the world of cables. I chose Coronet from the Knitty site and achieved almost instant success. Instead of aggravation, I have a lovely and addicting pattern going, and I am enjoying it so much that I'm sad it is so short. I started the band last night and I'm nearly done. More than just learning to cable, I also had to learn about a provisional cast on (which I sort of figured out myself and I might not have done it right, but the end product will work just the same so who cares) and I will soon know the joys of grafting and picking up stitches. I await Grumperina's instructions on picking up stitches "the pretty way" so that I can learn the pretty way from the beginning. We'll see how that goes, but so far here is the cable band.


I am using Debbie Bliss Merino Aran instead of the Lambs' Pride the pattern called for and so I have had to switch to size 6 needles to get gauge, but that just means I am already riffing off a pattern which is pretty cool considering how new I am to knitting. I am considering making other changes (get a little confidence and I go wild), so we'll just have to see how this all turns out in the end.

To be continued..........

Mistake Rib Scarf and Yet Another Cat!

So for mental health reasons I skipped out on Forbes Forest and leapt into cloning the awesome scarf I saw at atypicalmom.com. And my strategy worked beautifully. I finished the scarf today (it's a real quick and fun knit, even for a slow-bee like me) and I am ready to tackle cables afresh. I have been working so much I don't have any brain left to be wordy or to attempt cleverness, so in lieu of all that, let me simply present Sophie, another of the Magnificent Eight, modeling the new FO.



Pattern: Mistake Rib Scarf - CO multiple of 4 plus 3, K2P2 to end, K2P1 turn, repeat.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon Color 88
Needles: Bamboo size 8

Me and Mr. Noro, we got a thing going on (or the evil Japanese conspiracy)

I am firmly convinced that Japan really is designing exactly what I always wanted solely to force me to buy it. Is that a bit conceited perhaps, that an entire country would be somehow involved in a conspiracy to separate me from my cash by making stuff that makes me want to own it? Well, let me tell you that being saddled with the responsibility of being a chickengoddess was quite enough of a shock, but once you get comfy with the idea of being a deity to poultry, then yeah, it's pretty easy to see a pattern emerge that has me written all over it.

First came the Nissan Murano. OK, it is the coolest car EVER. It looks cool, it drives cool, it has a cool transmission, cool dash panel, cool colors, and is named after the island of Venetian glassworkers, which heaps coolness on an already awesome car (for a glass making poultry deity like me). It was obviously designed for me with me in mind, thankyouverymuch Nissan. I knew the first time I saw it it haaad to be mine in that special way that makes you feel a little worried. So the whole purchasing thing was pretty secondary considering it was all over from the start, and Japan knew that. I know they did.

So about two months ago I thought I'd take a knitting lesson. I needed a stress reliever and a change of pace from my ordinary hobbies, and my LYS had a sign posted in the window advertising knitting lessons, so I drove my awesome Murano over and signed up. One, I had no idea that knitting could be so expensive! Two, I didn't know it at the time, but Japan had once again anticipated me, and this time it was a trap that would probably cost me as much as the Murano given time.........

Noro.

I know I am not the only one who has fallen under the spell. Crazy Aunt Purl has recently waxed rhapsodic about it in a way I understand oh so well. I just want to know what it would be like to actually fill the Murano with Noro and drive it home. And then roll around in it all for a while. Every time I go looking for yarn I find some new perfect yarn, in the perfect color or texture, only to pull it out and see that black label. So out of the 4 WIPs I have going on 3 are Noro, and my FO is Noro, and now I will have to do something with that Transitions. It's an evil Japanese conspiracy, I tell you.

Meanwhile, if I save enough of these labels I should be able to completely cover my dining room table in them. Decoupage, anyone?

If you're happy and you know it Clapotis!

Love can make you happy. And I am in love with this pattern. Not only is it fun, but I have been using it to fill up waiting room time at the zillions of doctors offices I have been in lately, and I no longer care how long I have to sit alone in a cold room waiting - my clapotis keeps me warm. I actually got disappointed this morning when the doc finally came one row before I got to another set of drops! That's pretty pitiful, I know, but finding a high point of any sort has been rare enough since Katrina. Knitting has really helped so much; it has become my therapy through disaster.

I am originally from New Orleans but I moved about 13 years ago and all my family was still there. Most of them lost their homes after the levees went, (don't think Led Zeppelin hasn't played in my head quite a bit since then) and have been displaced 400 miles in the opposite direction from me, so sitting here all isolated has turned me into quite the bundle of nerves. Good news is all the people are fine. Better news is my folks are coming to stay with us for a while. Best news is now I can knit them all clothes to replace their ruined stuff. But nothing with cables yet...... I haven't had enough beer to try that again.

Anyhoo, I am totally into this pattern, thank you Kate Gilbert, you goddess you. And now that you all know more about me than you wanted to, let me introduce yet another of the "Magnificent Eight". This is Merlin, and he's all about the Silk Garden.



206 really sets off his sleek blackness nicely. Not that he's vain or anything. Oh, no, not Mr. "of the shining fur". He's not fat either. Whatever you say, cat.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hedwig

the Angry Inch

At least I have proved to myself I am not totally cable impaired, merely cable challenged. I'm gonna go knit something else for a while.

Lost in the "Forest"

OK, did I mention that I'm new to knitting? I don't know what came over me, but some deranged part of my brain said I ought to be able to handle cables. Hey, I'm a college graduate, I can knit and purl, no problem!

The most positive thing I can think of at the present moment is that I am learning just how much frogging this yarn can stand before it totally craps out and I have to cut it off and start fresh. I believe I may have identified a special talent I did not know I had. I can poke myself in the glasses with a tiny cable needle from about a foot away, and I wasn't even drunk at the time.

Undoubtedly I'll post a picture of the first proud inch I can manage. But for now I am having much less of the relaxing stroll through Forbes Forest I had imagined and going at it more like having to machete my way through a jungle. Ah, well, one day I'll look back at all this and smile serenely.

Right.

I'd like a slice of Kitty Pi please.

Actually I had Fletcher from Simply Noro on the needles at the time. Being my first ever kniting project that included *gasp* purling, and also the first thing I have ever tried to knit solely from instructions, I had frogged an entire front section and several partial sections until I was beginning to hate the project. I put it away for a while and decided to knit for my cats. I had seen this cat bed on lots of other knitblogs and it looked simple enough, so I ran to my fave LYS and scored Big Kureyon, fizzly things and big fat needles and settled in for a few days knitting.

Now, I have eight cats. Yes, I know, but they rarely gang up on you all at the same time, so it's actually more like having 2 cats constantly with you. The cats just keep changing. Anyway, seven of these eight cats completely ignored me. Mind you, I was knitting for them. Ungrateful little furballs. When I had been knitting for myself they were "all upons", but knit for them and they scatter. Except one, the youngest, the saber tooth boy, our "action" Jackson. He loved the yarn in a slightly worrisome way...


...and I could not keep him away from it the entire time I was winding it up. He would stalk me while I knit it and since then I have not been able to keep him out of it long enough to felt it. I guess this FO is on hold for now.


Pattern: Kitty Pi
Yarn: Noro Big Kureyon Color 1 - 2 skeins
Trendsetter Crisantemo Color 3 - less than 1 skein
Crystal Palace Fizz Color 7303 - less than 1 skein
Needles: Wood dpn Size 11 Bamboo Circulars Size 11

I may just be here to serve as a warning to others..

I know that I have had fun knitting, so lets see if blogging about it is a neat as it seems. I have lots of projects to blog about, but I'm sticking mostly to knitting with the odd glass project. I don't really have much computer skill, so I expect I'll be learning as I go.

I am a lurker on the clapotis KAL group and am just learning about the SnB groups in my area and about all these swaps and secret pals and other fun stuff. Since I am new to knitting I get lots of help and ideas from seeing what other folks do, and maybe one day someone will be able to learn from my stuff.

Or just get a good laugh out of it.