Apparently I'm knitting again with a vengeance! This is technically my sixth FO in a month. Ok, ok, three were hats that only took like three to five hours to make each, but whatever! FOs!

I have finished my Owlings and I LOVE them. (Link to my Ravelry project here.) There are a definite giant smiley on the Ravelry scale. First of all, they are super cute. The beads are adorable if I do say so myself. But mainly, they are so soft! I cannot figure out a way to convey the softness of these (baby alpaca) mitts through blog medium, so you just have to take my word for it. Or track me down and pet them. Trust me, I'll be wearing them if you find me any time soon. These babies aren't leaving my side until it's 90 degrees out.

Pictures!



(Please ignore my shoddy thread-work. I sewed on the beads with no scissors handy and haven't yet trimmed all the ends off.)

Labels: fair-isle hooting, FO, owlings, pictures

I'm cross-posting this to both nattily and knittily because I'm so pleased with the finished product. What is the finished product? IT'S THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!


I turned this mess of i-cords and suspicious looking balls:


into His Noodliness Himself!


If you have no idea what is going on in this post, please think back a few years to Kansas schools being forced to include intelligent design in their science curriculum, and then visit this page to see the most logical and appropriate response to that decision ever.


Major thanks to HistoryWeaver for this fantastic pattern, as time consuming as it is.

Labels: FO, fsm, presents

I finished my Dayflower Camisole! It's lovely, or at least I'm satisfied. It got a super smiley face on Ravelry. Pictures? A close up and an awkward I'm-taking-a-picture-of-myself-try-not-to-look-too-stupid one.

Labels: dayflower cami, FO

Done with Sicily!

I am...disappointed. The pattern does not account for underbust (yes that is a word, I deem it so) space, so like, the bust darts are actually ABOVE my bust. Super weird. As an added result, the cable band is not, like, underbust. It's just, well, bust.

STILL I think it looks fine/is wearable. Not nearly as long as I'd like, but logic began to tell me that continuing stockinette was doing nothing to repair the damage, and really I was just starting to make some sort of funky popped collar looking thing.

So here is a picture! Me and Gilroy chilling in my living room. I am doing my obligatory don't-look-at-the-camera thing because it's just what I do. Please ignore the not so attractive face and focus on the shirt.

Labels: FO, pictures, Sicily

My Phoenix Pullover is done. Most finally done. Took long enough. That whole knitting two sleeves at one time thing sort of got me down. I mean, on the one hand, once you're done, you're done. No second sleeve to deal with. But on the other hand, it just takes so long and you feel like you're getting nowhere. Horrible feeling. Oh well. It's done now, and I have proof:


and


It's clearly not what I was hoping for. Also, my face requires decapitation in these shots. Anyway, it's not long enough, and I don't have any more red yarn to pick up stitches. Still, not a total loss. While it is no good as a regular old sweater, I hope that it will be a rather fabulous warm up for ballet. We'll see, but I have confidence.

Anyway, moving on now. I have things queued up for myself (socks, namely, which I have never ventured into the realm of), but I must be a good girl and knit Christmas presents first.

Luckily, the two presents I'm working on now I really like, and I (I forgot this was possible) enjoy knitting them.

The first is a bag for my mom. I have dubbed it: Swirlygig Purse.


The idea is, this orange and green swirly bit will be the front left panel of the bag, while the remaining three panels are (probably) just going to be a nice dark brown. I may throw some color in on the back if I am bored. Now, for this, you just have to know my mom. She is BIG. I mean, no no, she is very very far from fat. I mean her personality is Big. Big. Big. She is through the roof on every level, and any sort of bag has to match, so for this one, I chose the colors to do that. Typically, these would not be my idea of meshing colorways.

And also, I'm making a pillow (Vine Pillow) for my Grandmaman. Not a Home Sweet Home pillow, because I would be ground into a pulp and fed to a million angry French Canadians. Instead, I hope this pillow ends up being classy and a little quaint-ish without any sort of corn or cheese factor.


It's based on the Leaf and Vine Pattern from Vogue Knitting's Stitchionary. I took that picture after one repeat. I have three now, and the piece is about one square foot. I figure I'll keep going and do another three repeats, then fold it in half and seam it together for pillow goodness. So, this one is a 24-Row repeat. Lame. But actually, not nearly as bad as I expected.

I do have to admit, for the first 12 rows or so, I didn't realize that the right side is the purled side, and I was confused as hell as to how having a thicker yarn could completely change the result. Note: it didn't. I'm just an idiot. Funny how I was looking at the right side for 6 of those 12 rows and still couldn't figure that one out.

Labels: FO, grandmaman, mom, phoenix pullover, presents, swirlygig purse, vine pillow, WIP

FO: Natalie's Corset Top Love
Pattern: Annie Modesitt's Corset Tank Top
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend
Yardage: No fucking clue.
Needles: US 6, bind off with US 8

I really am done. I can prove it now.

Behold these pictures of completion, and please ignore my face/body where it's visible.



and




Do you believe me now?

So, things about this:

• Made it about a million times as long as it's supposed to be (stupid Natalie torso).
• I'm really glad I did the garlic knot twist instead of the zig-zag in the pattern. For some reason it just didn't feel right to me, even though it looks spectacular on other people (like angelknits @ rav)
• Because this cable uses eight stitches instead of seven, I just sort of randomly picked a number of stitches to go between the cable and the garter button seam (because it can't be centered around a single stitch). I picked six. Turns out this was a good choice. You can't see it so well in the pictures, but what happens is that the inside edge of the cable sort of comes out of nowhere, while the outside edge fades into stockinette. I really like it.
• Added about two inches before the bust decrease. I have tiny ones, but adding length helped make the cable start at the ideal position to maximize my um, potential.
• Armpits are super tiny. I may in fact try to go back and adjust to make them a little looser. I'm just not sure how. I think the pattern said to bind off/cast on 21 stitches for a medium, but I'd really say more like 26-28. And it's not like I just have super flabby armpits. Seriously, they are pretty standard armpits as far as I can tell.
• The lace edging on the bottom is so much prettier than I expected! And I mean, I expected it to be pretty. That's kind of why I made the pattern, you know? It's really lovely, and I really like the effect of it only occurring four times around the hips with ribbing in between, instead of just excessive lacish-ness. Also my chosen cable blends into the lace very nicely.
  
• The buttons are not buttons. I mean, they are buttons, but they aren't really doing the whole button thing. I sort of just seamed one edge of the work to the inside of the other garter edge, so it made a sort of flappy thing. Then I went to Loopy Yarns (LYS yay - they stayed open late for me) and scavenged for appropriate buttons. I failed, but the owner came over and immediately found the perfect ones. Can't really take a pictures of them, because it's just all about how the light hits them. Sewed them through both garter edges. The goal was to make it look like they actually served a purpose (hence the flappy thingy) when really they are just chilling out making me look thinner.
  

That's all, that's all, I promise. I am so so in love with this project. It was definitely worth all the hassle. And believe me, there was hassle.

(AND I got it done in time for Ravelympics. So there.)

Labels: angelknits, corset top love, FO, pictures, ravelympics