Leetle Adipose

I have been very, VERY busy doing things* which are not knitting! Alas, I have not forgotten you, Bloglandistan. I am back with the first of what will be MANY posts updating you all on the little projects I've managed to finish.

This is Adipose attempt #2. After about TEN attempts to get the feet right on Adipose #1, I abandoned him entirely and started over with this lush Andean Silk**. A few notes!

One, I managed to do a proper provisional cast on for the top of the head, making the seaming up there kind of a piece of cake. I'm much happier with this one, even if he does have a bit of a Frankenstein scar going on up there like his predecessor.

Two, I totally made up the hands AND feet this time, loosely basing them on the original pattern*** but going with more tube-like limbs instead of the flat ones. I like! I could not re-create if I tried, because improvising and not taking notes is how I operate best.

Three, I was not able to replicate the awesomeness of Adipose 1's face, but I guess that's okay. This one is pretty cute too. Embroidered, instead of knit & sewn on.

Next up: A NESSIE! Maybe. Also a bat.

*Painting, painting, smelling BPAL (The Buggre Alle This Bible is my current fave, god bless Terry Pratchett), gardening, and being taken out for happy hours numerous times by all my awesome friends. Also looking for a job and I do believe I am in the midst of Career Assessment Test #94.

**AHMG, I want a sweater out of this stuff. But I kind of don't. I know I'd manage to shrink/felt it somehow. I'm already questioning the entire bulky sweater that is almost done, of which I made using non-superwash Cadena (pics to follow, maybe). That was dumb. But this, this is awesome and definitely worth the money.

***I thought a revised, BBC-sanctioned version of this pattern was going to be released soon, but I haven't heard anything yet. I really, really, really wish I had jumped on the Test Knitters bandwagon. Curse my shyness!

Oi!

It's been a while! I've made a squid.



This one's for me. The main yarn is Moda·Dea silk & wool blend. The visual effect is perfect for this little guy, but it's kind of a pain to work with all the shaping.



It's pretty cute!

The eyes are the palest Cascade 220 pink I could find. I also did a slight modification to the eyes— cast on 18 in light color, join in round, switch to dark color, k2tog entire round, k entire round, k1 k2tog last round. Break, run tail through remaning sts. I like that it made the eyes a bit more bobbley. This is probably not actually correct, as the awesomely talented pattern designer tends to lean towards accuracy over exaggeration. (Unless it's a Nessie!) Mainly the original specs made the eyes too big to fit in my allotted area. For this squid anyway... I didn't seem to have this problem with the teal one.

It's hard to knit now that I've discovered Boomshine. No joke!

I CAN'T KNIT WITH ALL OF THIS NOISE.

Hungry brain slug.

The brain slug found a host.



The host is alarmed initially, then realizes that having this thing on his head isn't really going to interfere with his number one directive: SLEEP.



The brain slug loses strength and slides off. The host is unaffected.

WE ARE BACK

I had some tech bloggy problems, but I think things might be straightened out now. And by problems, I mean I had an extreme case of "maybe I should move my blog! No, maybe I should rename this one. Noooo... move it. No. I don't know."

This could be related to the fact that I've had a rather hungry brain slug attached to my head.



A few notes for when I make this again: I used a long tail cast on and skipped the initial row ones which consisted of knitting straight across. This whole thing could be quite easily modified to knit in the round, and I regretted not doing that almost immediately. I am no good at seaming!

In other news, rumor has it that Mazzmatazz's infamous forbidden Adipose pattern will be available in a Guardian supplement come Saturday. Since I do not live in the UK, I must remain hopeful that I can take a peek at the pattern some other way to determine what the bloody hell I have been doing wrong with the feet.



I am actually ambivalent about my little Adipose project. His face turned out very cute, but I'm not happy with my seaming (vile seaming!) nor the acrylic yarn I used. I have a bit of Cascade 220 in a nice off-white, so I'd like to try to do-over. However, I know that a do-over has no chance of again achieving such a face. Squish.

Here is a squid.

squiddy2, originally uploaded by ambulardandelion.

I knitted this for my friend Kristi. Very cute, very squishy, very much of the insanity-inducing type of project.

frogged kimono

frogged kimono, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

This is the "heartbreakingly cute baby kimono" which is, I admit, pretty cute. But I think worsted weight makes the texture of this a little too thick and unwieldy. As I was re-winding the yarn, I realized that there's enough of it (this is one of those ginormo skeins) to make the vintage cardigan, and being 100% cotton, I can dye it too!

I am most certainly going to do another baby kimono, but with a DK weight and probably a mercerized cotton, which is softer.

I hope you brought your defibrilator, mofos.

nessie, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

Because I am Nessie, and I will KILL YOU with my CUTE.

LOOK AT HOW CUTE I AM.

Now bring me a piece of cake.

Nessie

nessie, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

And so, the lesson learned here is that no matter how straightforward an instruction seems, it's best to look it up beforehand so you don't make a GIANT MESS and have to start over.

At least I have half an idea of how to actually PICK UP STITCHES now. Hee.

She kind of looks like a giant pea pod right now. Needs some flippers or something.

SWEATER

SWEATER, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

I MADE A SWEATER OMG.

Heart Scarf

Heart Scarf, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

You know how sometimes you have yarn that you know what you want to do with it, and yet it keeps not working out right, and you've frogged three scarves with it now, plus it's Malabrigo so it's starting to look a little worn, and you're this far on version four and you want to rip this one out too because you loathe your edge stitches and wish you'd slipped them so you didn't end up with these weird lumpy things?

Yeah. That.

I'm not allowing myself to frog this, but I am making note that I need to slip my edge stitches whenever possible on future projects, because I just can't do them properly.

Now the grey one has a buddy.

pair-o-daleks, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

This should absolve me from ever knitting anything with acrylic and metal dpns, like, ever.

Infinity.

Shopping!

I thought I had kicked the BPAL obsession to a mostly benign level—but it turns out, I've just replaced them with Knit Picks.

My Harmony Options arrived yesterday, which made yesterday easily the most exciting day of the week so far! I quickly assembled the 8's onto a 36" cord, and started knitting Arwen (which has grown far beyond what my 12" straights can handle). About four stitches in, I realized I had a serious problem. One of the tips had a teeeeeny nick in it which was causing the yarn to catch. Serious bummer. This was the only project I wanted to use these needles on for the moment, and I couldn't use them!

This morning I called (according to their site, their phone hours are between 5am and 6pm PT Monday through Friday, 6am - 5pm Saturday, oh woe for the rep who has to go to work at FIVE AYEM, that is not even an hour I'm sure exists on this planet) and explained the situation, and was told a new set of 8's would be sent to me. I can keep the bad pair, which is nice because there is still one good tip, and I had kind of taken to using it as a cable needle last night. Since I had them on the phone, I ordered that pretty pretty purple yarn, about five color cards, and the Harmony Wood cable needles also.

Before I called, I had picked out everything I wanted and put it in an online cart. This turned out to be useful, I think, because the rep asked me for item numbers first, and then confirmed descriptions. So, a tip if you phone in your order: Have the item numbers handy.

In conclusion: Beth at the Lab, if you were wondering why I haven't ordered any smelly things lately— that's why. Sorry! My TKO is getting down to the last third, so it'll be time for a re-order soon.

Next project.

As a bit of incentive to finish Arwen, I am going to allow myself to order this Cadena (in the gloriously rich Heath), which will be used to make this Vine Lace Top Down Cardigan. I must be very careful to not drool too much, or felting could unwittingly occur. I also want some color cards which should be back in stock on Friday.

It is complete agony waiting until Friday to place this order. Agony!

I am somewhere on month 4 of working on Arwen, so I am hoping that a sweater knit in bulky weight will go much more quickly. In the meantime... I'm still knitting SLEEVES. They never end!

Daleks in Love

Daleks in Love, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

I'm excited to be nearing the end of Pinky the Dalek!

I may need to someday take the bottom off of the grey one and add more stuffing. The under-stuffingness on that one has always bothered me.

Finished Bag

bag closeup, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

I had to use every little bit of yarn to get the bag finished, but it's done and it's a perfect fit to the Knitting Tarot deck. Take that, gauge.

I just stumbled upon this adorable vintage pattern. But, vintage! Will I be able to find the book?

Easier than I thought, actually. The first google return on Coats & Clark Book #140, Sweaters and Accessories turned up a buy-it-now on ebay for $1.25 and $1 shipping. It took me longer to remember my ebay password, reset it, and sign in.

What is this 'gauge' you speak of.

Gauge, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

I was knitting my plain ol' shiney scarf when I glanced over and saw my Knitting Tarot, which has long been on my list of "things to knit a cozy/sweater for." (Other things on list: myself, cats, wine bottles, teapot, Helo.)

The traditional meaning of this card, Justice, goes something like this: "With Libra as its ruling sign, Justice is about cold, objective balance through reason or natural force." The Knitting Tarot meaning of this card, well, I didn't read it in the book because "BLOODY, SODDING MATHS" sums it up exactly. Gauge is not my friend. We are not on speaking terms. Every time we converse, I consider taking out a restraining order. So it went something like this:

"OH HELLS NO. You know, that deck is pretty big, I'm just gonna throw a bunch o' stitches on there and see what happens, and ... yeah I think if it works out, I'll take it as a sign that gauge can BITE MY SHINEY METAL ASS."

I have about 8 rounds done now, and so on my break at work I stretched it out a bit on the DPNs and took stock. It seemed big. Hmmmm. Now I can't even remember how big the deck is. This could be trouble! But, it's okay. I have the internets! Maybe there are dimensions at the Knitting Tarot website? And what do you know, THERE WERE! Rawk. Except, those numbers just didn't seem right to me. The deck is taller when stacked, right? I forget. It's TALL. I can't even shuffle it properly. But the numbers on the website (3.5 x 1.75) were not even close to what I'd done so far, nearly 16" in diameter. I called the roomie.

"Please go upstairs and measure my tarot deck."
"Okay. *pause* It's 1 and five-eighths high."
"FRAK!!!"

YOU WIN AGAIN, GAUGE.

But actually, I think this will be okay. I'll do a couple more rows, and then decrease a little. This will make the top, above the drawstring, a little ruffley. Which is what I totally meant to do in the first place!

Silky Yarn

Silky Yarn, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

I picked up a skein of this yarn over the weekend. It's a 100% spun silk with European glass beads. It's so soft. Unbelievably soft. And silky. It reduces you to "Oooh, soft. Pritty. Shiney." when you touch it.

Because sometimes you're knitting a sweater and it just keeps going and going and going and you need something else, something small, in the meantime or else you'll just be knitting a sweater from now til 2015.

Casey has a sweatuh

Casey has a sweatuh, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

I think he actually likes it.