Chaos and Anthropologie

Wouldn't that make a great title for a dissertation? Just kidding. I'm all nerdy right now because I flipped over to the Science Channel after 24 last night and got all jacked up on learnin', man.

Anyway, I have been seeing all these really sweet-looking sweaters on Craftster... The Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet. And I've been thinking... "Oh, man, one of these days, when I don't have forty-leven projects going, I'm gonna make one of those!"

Well, last night, despite having the newly rolled numbers for the Chaos Sweater, despite the unfinished Textured Raglan quietly whimpering "please, I need another sleeve," despite the Kittyville Hat demanding ears... I cast on for The Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet.



But... I have to qualify here... This will be for M-- A birthday present. She will look cute in it. And I will use the light yellow yarn that she likes so much. Mmmmm.

The pattern is written for Medium size. No big whoop to downsize to M's Small. Actually, no biggie to supersize for my Large, either. I really want one for me. But I wonder, on someone more... ahem... amply proportioned than a small or medium, will this thing scream "Look at my boobs!"???

To be clear, that's not the effect I would want.


Oh, and I finally took some pix of the Chaos. This is the back, an up-close of the pattern. (Though, to be honest, the whole point of this sweater is that there is no pattern.)

Working on the front now. About halfway to the sleeve hole. At this rate, I should be finished around... oh.... June.

Tales of Chaos

So, T finally got around to rolling the dice a bunch of times for me. So I guess I will be picking up the Chaos Sweater again tonight. (But not during 24. Got to watch that closely to see if that dumbass President Logan will let his wife get jacked by the terrorists or if Jack will get there in time to save her. Ooooh! Excitement!)

I put down the Textured Raglan for the moment because A)the pattern was starting to give me the flaming jim-jams, and B)I fracked up attaching the sleeve and I'm going to have to frog back. Boucle. (This is my sad face.)But, I really should get around to finishing it. Once the sleeves are attached, it's pretty much smooth sailing from there, right?

Ha! Ha! You ever notice how, whenever people say "Oh, it's smooth sailing from here," something really bad usually happens to them right after that? Like the Universe wasn't really paying attention to you for a while and you thought it was done messing with you. But then you say "It's smooth sailing from here," and the Universe goes, "Whoa, hey! Wait a minute!" And then something bad happens to you.

I probably shouldn't have said it was smooth sailing in reference to the Textured Raglan. Sigh. I will only have myself to blame, I guess.

Anyway, I had to keep my fidgety hands busy these last couple of days, so I did a Cabled Hat, a Flowered Hat, and two fuzzy scarves, made with some Dollar Tree yarn. What's that? Yes, I know I could have finished Kittyville. I didn't. Okay? Get over it.

Oh, one more thing. I've posted pix of Zeus and Gracie already, but not of Gab-Gab. I didn't purposely leave Gab-Gab out, I just don't have a picture of her to post yet. She's not a fan of the paparazzi, you know.

I get this mental image of me, trying to snap a quick shot while she is unaware, and Gabby turning on me suddenly. "What the !@#$#* do you *$#^@$ing think you're #&$*#@ing doing, @#$@!!" She'll growl at me, as she shoves the camera into my face. "Did I !@#$ing say you could take my !@#$%*ing picture?"

Yeah. That's pretty accurate.

So today is Thursday...

...and T is actually home from work. That means I won't be watching Dancing With The Stars, I guess. Not that I couldn't just turn the channel. But, then he'd be incredibly bored, and frankly, I only watched it because he usually works on Thursdays and I have nothing better to do.

Oh. Not that he's the something better to do. I don't want that to sound dirty. I mean, that would be something better to do, certainly, but that's not what I meant by that. What I meant was, I would rather spend time with him.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

So, I finished sleeve #2 of the Textured Raglan and I am ready to join sleeves to body and begin the yoke portion of the sweater. Well, actually, ha ha, I did join one sleeve while I was watching a show on Discovery Channel last night. But I was pretty into the show and... ahem... forgot to join the second sleeve. So, since I am unwilling to amputate an arm, I will be frogging back a bit.

Frogging boucle. Did I mention how much I enjoy that?
Here's the yarn I'm using, btw. It's the blue one. This is Sensations Rainbow Boucle from JoAnn. There's more than enough yarn in one of these skeins to make a sweater, something like 880 yards. I'm not sure what I'm doing with the red one yet. It's got a neat variegation that I'd like to come out in whatever pattern I use. Oh, yeah. I had to post this shot because Gracie saw Zeus' picture with the mouse and she was all like, "Hey, HuMom, how come MY picture's not on your blog?" So I was like, "Oh, yeah, be cool. I'm getting to it."

Gracie loves to get her picture taken. I think she's a reincarnated super model. When we shot an interior scene for that last movie in my living room, we had to make Gracie move. I think she was "ready for her close up, Mr. DeMille."

Hm. T is off work tonight. This is a good time for him to roll the dice for the Chaos Sweater, I think. (He's so funny. He always asks "How many rolls do you want?" And I say "About 2,000." Hee. Hee. Didn't know what he was getting into, did he?)

Apparently, I'm an ape

So I'm knitting away on the sleeve to my Textured Raglan Sweater. Watching Constantine. Not really paying attention to what I'm doing. That's okay. I'm so used to/bored with this pattern by now that I can just slip into Beta and do it without thinking.

And when I finally decide to measure the thing, it's too frackin' long! Like 4 inches too long. Ye gods!

So, since my arms are not likely to grow any more (except maybe grow more flabby, ha!), I commenced frogging back. Frogging back boucle. You know what I'm talking about.

It would've really put me in a bad mood, except that today I woke up with a short story idea, and wrote a first draft right away. I think it will clock out to be about 4,500 words, which will put it right where it should be for salability. Yay me!

So not even frogging boucle will cheese me off today. Not even M killing the charge on the cordless phone. Not even R and friends drinking all the Coke.

(Happy dance!)


Oh, by the way. My cat caught a mouse. I think that's funny. No one else in the house does, though. Sigh.

I Think I May Have Knitter ADD

.... or something like that. What is it that I cannot just have one thing going at a time? Or two? Or seven?

Anyway, I have all the pieces of the Fuzzy Sexy Lingerie completed, but they need to be seamed together. It looks pretty nice, too. I tried it on, so I could pin the fuzzy bra cups into the proper place. Sweet. I just never seem to have enough alone time to piece it together.

Maybe I'm just being weird. I knitted the whole thing right there in the living room, watching TV, with everyone coming and going the whole time. No one ever pays attention to what I knit. Nobody asks "Hey, what's that?" That's why I felt so completely comfortable knitting it.

So... R's friend comes by last weekend, with his gf and her friend. And so the gf just looked right over at me and said "You knit? Cool. What are you making?" And I FRACKIN' PANICKED! Good God! Can you imagine what would have happened if I had said to this eighteen year old girl, "Oh, it's a fuzzy thong for my fuzzy lingerie set"?

Cough. Cough. Ack.

So I just smiled and said "A sweater," which was completely stupid because it was one of the bra cups and it so DID NOT look like a sweater. But, she said nothing, so maybe she just took me at my word, or was not all that interested anyway.

But the point is, I'm just really nervous about piecing this thing together with people around now. WOW.

So it is unfinished. As is the green sweater I'm doing for myself (and honestly, I have no idea where I stopped in the pattern repeat, since I lost my little posty with that info on it.) The Chaos Sweater is still in flux, too. T (poor boy) has been sick these last few days and has not rolled the dice in a while. So I am stalled on that. The Textured Raglan that I started knitting in the round is progressing. Body is done. One sleeve is half done. But the pattern is starting to bore the !#$#@* out of me. Oh, and poor Kittyville Hat is just sitting there with no ears.

(Is this story getting too long? Maybe I actually have ADD? Like I can't stay on topic?)

Anyway, I was home alone again. And I wanted some instant knitting gratification. Like, something that could be done RIGHT NOW. (Ooo, come to think of it, I should've just finished Kittyville, eh? Oh well.)So I whipped out some Microspun and some red beads and I knitted up a little Change Purse.



It's done on #2's (But I'm a loose knitter. You might use #4s) It's garter stitch, slipping the beads according to a chart. I wanted to use the SnBN Broken Heart Chart, but couldn't find the book (Someone should clean this mess up.) so I just graphed a heart and star out on my own. Came out pretty nice, I think.

Pretty useful, too. I left my regular purse at home yesterday and took it to the grocery store with me. It held cash, coin, Kroger Card, credit card, shopping list. And it slipped comfortably into my coat pocket. And I completed it all while I was watching "Dancing With the Stars." (Don't tell anyone I watch "Dancing With the Stars," okay?)

Anyway, it's back to the big projects for a while. Hopefully, I will finish one of these suckers to post soon.

Stay tuned. Same Pat-time. Same Pat-channel.

What to do with fun fur yarn?

I've been in this "Let's knit something lacy and romantic" sort of mood lately. I dunno. Because it's February, maybe? Valentines Day? I did the Romantic Lace Sweater (see previous post) already. And I had all this fun fur that I got from the Dollar Tree. And nothing says sexy like fun fur, right?

See how I jumped from romantic to sexy right there? That's the way my brain works.

So I'm thinking... Thong? Bra? Furry restraints? Masks? (Yeah, okay. Sorry. I was in the moment right then.)

So I whipped out my needles and just started playing around with this Monet-painting-colored Boa-type eyelash yarn. And before I knew it, I had added some short rows. Hm. And then, OMG, it made itself a kind of teardrop shape! And then I made another one! Ha! And then I added some baby yarn in a lace pattern. BAM!

I am not going to model this. But I will post pictures once I put all the pieces together.

Stay tuned for the Sexy-Fuzzy Lingerie!

Curse of the Disappearing Post!

Yieeeeeh!
I made a post the other day about the lovely StashBuster Cowl I made from Emm's pattern! And now, I notice it's gone! What's up with that, anyway?

So, here it is again...

It's done from one skein of Jiffy (I'm pretty sure it was Jiffy. It had no label when I got it. It was my yarn from the speed knitting contest at Michael's 5-Hour Event a couple of weekends ago. And what's up with that, anyway? Who gives someone fuzzy yarn for a speed knitting contest? Sheesh!)It knitted very quickly--like, in the time it took me to watch "The Jacket" on cable.

I started making a Kittyville Hat from Caron Simply Soft (black) during the Super Bowl. But, with the game, and food, and stuff, I didn't finish. Hat part is done and one ear flap and tie. Just needs the ears and the other ear flap. Oh, and pom pons.

'Cause I loves me some pom pons!

Superbowl Sunday!

I am a little excited about the game. It is the SuperBowl, after all. But I guess I am more charged up about the fact that it's the SuperBowl than the teams. Hard for me to be too excited now that my Colts are not in it any more. Sigh. I thought they were going to go all the way this year.

I can't believe how quickly these so-called "fans" turned on my guys! As soon as Vandy missed the kick (which only would have tied the game, btw, not won it)everybody was all like "They don't deserve a new stadium" and "They need to fire that kicker" and all kinds of really poisonous remarks.

Jeez. Lemme tell you, I have had some really bad days at work, too. I'm just glad there weren't 10 million people watching, you know? But, the sun still came up the next day. Life still prospered on the Earth. It's just football.

I know that sounds blasphemous coming from me, especially. But really. Nobody wanted to win that game more than my Colts. They played hard. It just didn't happen. Hey, at least the Patriots didn't win, right?

Still, I will be making some SuperBowl Nachos (just my regular nachos, with a SuperBowl title), some Football Brownies (regular brownies), maybe a Cheese Football (regular cheese ball, you get the idea here), Super Bowl Dip, and some other junky food for us to eat while we watch. T is not working tonight, so it should be a good time. (As good as it can be without the Colts winning, at least.)

I've decided to either knit a red Ruffled Scarf or a Kittyville Hat (both on my to-do list) while I watch, since I won't really need to look at either one much while I'm knitting.

Next year, Colts. Next year.

How many UFOs are too many?

I hope there's no limit. Seriously.

I was so proud of myself because, so far in 2006, I have completed:
1. Purple slippers
2. Book sweater
3. Ridiculously Easy Mary Jane Slippers
4. Romantic Lace Sweater

I was patting myself on the back, saying stuff like "Who rocks? I rock, baby!" Then I realized, I have almost as many UFOs. Hmmmpf.
1. Chaos sweater (almost finished with the back)
2. Textured raglan for me (knit in round, about 4 inches done so far)
3. I forget what the pattern is called--Green sweater in TLC Amore (almost finished with back)

And what is on my to-do list?
1. SJ's Forecast - with customizations, for me
2. Some kind of shawl. A nice lightweight, lacy white or off-white one that I can wear over fancy spring dresses. I'm thinking maybe of using that new lace weight yarn from Patons (Lacette). I saw it at Michael's the other day.
3. A spring purse done in cotton. I like the Isabeau Purse from ChezPlum.
4. Something in that light blue color with black trim. I just really like those colors together.

I may actually crochet something, too. You know, my previous exploits into the world of crochet have been limited to baby booties, the trim on knitted items, joining afghan squares, and one baby blanket. But I won a free class at Michael's 5-Hour Yarn Event last weekend, so I may take a crochet class and learn to do something like a hat. (?)

Dollar Tree has YARN!

Dollar Tree now has yarn! It's novelty yarn, similar to Boa and Fun Fur. They also have some of the railroad-like yarn (only with one rail) in aqua. I got a bunch of the stuff. See?


What will I do with it? I don't know. I usually make about ten novelty yarn scarves every year for gifts, because I think they're neat. But maybe I should do something different? Like a pillow, or fuzzy purse, or a stripe or trim on a sweater?

I don't know. It will come to me. Besides, it's not like there's anything wrong with having yarn in your stash that you aren't using, right? (Twitch-twitch. Must use yarn. Must... use... yarn.)