TAKING BACK [THE KNIT]

I forgot to put up the picture of my crocheted octopus! Here she is:

   I love her! She's so cute but such a pain. I'm just not a fan of working in such small spaces. However, she's so darling that it's worth it. She's being made with Caron Simply Soft and a size G(? I can't remember!) hook. Pattern from someone on craftster.

A couple of really good bead pictures: (If you liked the other one's you'll love these!)

The one on the left is all the beads I have made from magazine ads/catalogs over the years. There is a big group of unfinshed ones towards the top, as I've found it's easier to roll a bunch and then Mod Podge them all later rather than rolling them and immediately Mod Podge-ing one-by-one. The close-up is of some of my favorites. I LOVE the brown ones, and I don't even remember what they're from. They're originals, from when I was making these in high school. (Although, the real originals are the ones I made when I was about 10 from the Americal Girl craft book.) A lot of the newer ones are teal and purple out of a Pottery Barn teen catalog. They've turned out well. 

 There have been a ton of butterflies in my yard lately. I took some pictures today and they turned out awesomely.

 There a literally a TON more pictures in my photobucket, so if you like these there are more there. (beware that they're not really separated by album or subject so there is random/weird stuff in there!) 

There will be some more knitting content soon, I promise!  

You know what I am sick of as a crafter? It's one thing that really gets my goat, or 'grinds my gears', as Peter Griffin might say. I am SO sick of hearing and seeing crafters complain about people calling them grandmas for knitting/crocheting/whatever. YEAH, WE GET IT. There is a stereotype that only old ladies do this kind of stuff. I know it's frustrating, and I often deal with it myself. If you're hearing it so often, shouldn't you be used to it by now?! I just laugh when people call me a grandma when I knit in public. If your grandma knits garter belts, parties every weekend, and is obsessed by Futurama then she must be pretty rad! And I am taking it as a compliment. So why get butt-hurt every time someone doesn't realize that knitting is the hip new thing to do? I just figure in the end, when I'm knitting sweet gifts for everyone but them, they will realize their error. I'll have the last laugh.

I did a little photo shoot today. Mostly pictures of paper beads and flowers (of course!). I managed to forget to take pictures of my Betty, which is coming along swimmingly so far. I am in the process of uploading things at the moment, and will add pictures as they come. I'm downloading the new photobucket drag-and-drop thing at the moment, so expect a report on how that works. (It's taking forever! I'm starting to get frustrated.)

More about the Betty: I got my package from White Lies Designs in the mail last Friday. Due to an incredibly busy weekend of dance competition and craziness, I didn't get to swatch until Sunday. I got gauge on the first try and cast on. I love the Cascade Fixation! It was awkward to knit with at first, because I didn't quite get whether I was supposed to be knitting tightly, with it stretched or loosely. Then it clicked: hello, this is a tight-fitting garment that is meant to stretch, of course it's supposed to be done tightly. I like that the pattern is very clear. It's obvious when you get to the YO columns and when to increase. Also, the purl rows are all plain, so it's easy to get in the zone and get through them. I love simple and beautiful! Also, I was really happy with how quickly I got the pattern, and that she emailed me about the little delay. I definitely recommend White Lies, and will probably shop there again. Perhaps for some stockings to match my garter belt. And also she's in Sacramento, so I have to support that. I've got Sacto pride!

I'm crocheting an octopus. The pattern's from craftster, and it's way too cute. Fairly easy as well. I did a bad job sewing on her legs (tentacles!), so they are awkwardly spaced. We'll see if I can cram the next 4 on without it looking too weird. I don't want to have to redo them. I'm lazy.

You know, I really wish YahooPhotos had a way to view the image in its original size. Some stuff just sucks when it's scaled down.

I knit under the influence for the first time the other day, and I'm glad to report no major mishaps. The next morning while working on Betty at some friends' house, someone asked me what I was knitting. When I showed her the pattern her response was, "That's a project!". Agreed. It is a "project". The real "project"-y part will be sewing on the ruffles, rosettes, and attaching the hardware. Anyway she went on to tell me she knits, but only scarves because they are so repetitive(!). That's the reason I dislike scarves. She's a prospective member of my prospective knitting group, though. I just recently re-taught a friend to knit (she learned as a kid and just needed a refresher) and we are thinking of starting a group. However I also just recently joined the Sacramento SnB group, so I might be going their instead. Or maybe as well. My point is, it's exciting to find out friends are knitters! After seeing the Betty pattern and hearing our conversation, her boyfriend commented, "I think someone's going to be the president of the knitting group!" and smiled at me. Hilarious!

I was my own 100th comment on this blog. Kind of lame.

I am really considering switching to some other hosting service. I am so unsatisfied with blogspirit, and although it hasn't shit out on me lately I am sure it will soon.*** I just don't want to go through the process of transferring everything over. What a pain!

This drag-and-drop thing is going well so far. It seems faster, and I like the browser. Of course, this is after only about 20 minutes of using it.

With no further adieu: BEAD PICTURES!

They're way blurry. Apologies.

The paper these are made from looks like this:

Some more made of scrapbook paper:

While looking for paintbrushes, I found a bunch of these I had made in middle school using magazine ads. Here are some that just got one coat of Mod Podge and strung simply onto elastic cord:

There is a tutorial for these over at being natasha fialkov (link at left.) More pictures should be up or in my photobucket soon, but I am DEAD as it is 2:40 am.  Sleepy time!

 ***Just asI thought, blogspirit lost part of my post as I was working on this. While I now have the drag-and-drop awesomeness, if I hadn't and had been doing it by hand I would have been rather upset.

I have class in 20 minutes. And I am seriously considering not going in favor of knitting and blogging. I need to work on the shrug my mom is supposed to wear to a weddding on Saturday. Yeah, THIS Saturday. I think I'm about halfway done, but I'm not really sure. It's just kind of those 'keep knitting and we'll see how it looks' type of things. This is the swatch, blocking. It's one of those shrugs that's just a rectangle that will be sewn on the ends to make sleeves, and I will add a couple of inches of ribbing. The whole thing is in the drop stitch pattern which is (obviously) the lower portion of the swatch. The yarn is from JoAnn, and is THE softest 100% wool I have ever laid my hands on. It's like a fucking cloud. I am in love with it. I am thinking about getting one of the varigated colorways and making a Clapotis with it. (They don't have them online, but I'm pretty sure I saw them in the store.) My favorite yarn ever, so far. HANDS DOWN. It's even more of a dream after it's blocked.

I have a new obsession: taking pictures of flowers. I was out taking blog pictures and ended up taking some of stuff that was blooming around the yard. Now I am wanting to take a picture of every blossom. I started a flickr the other day, and my monthly upload bandwidth is gone. GONE! There is one knitting related picture. It's mostly flowers. I am glad I have photobucket AND yahoo photos as well. (I do have a system. I try to use photobucket for the stuff I am going to link, and yahoo photos for everything ever because there is no limit to what I can store. yeah) Anyway: here are a couple of my favorites:

I am going to try to take pictures of the paper beads I've made and maybe some more WIP pictures tonight.

I ordered the Betty kit from White Lies Designs last week, and got an email last night saying I should be getting it soon! The lady who runs lists her PO Box as being in my city, so it shouldn't take long to get to me. I'm so excited! I have wanted to knit this pattern since it was in the summer 2004 issue of knitty. I am especially excited because the kit has all the hardware and the little things like rosettes. It would be a bitch to have to find all that stuff on my own, especially the garter hardware. The only thing about this is, I don't know how I will model it once I have finished it. I definitely don't need n00dz! And I don't have a dummy to photograph it on ...

Speaking of photography, I plan on taking some pictures of the paper beads I made last week, and maybe make a few more. And I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with them. Maybe just string 'em up on some elastic and perhaps make some matching earrings. I used to have a crapload of jewelry-making supplies but not so much anymore. We will see.

I finished Sassy Sock part deux numero 1. I don't think I'm going to start #2 for a while in favor of getting other shit down. Like the shrug I promised my mom, which she needs to wear to a wedding on the 16th. Yeah. September 16th as in a couple of weeks from now. I am all swatched, so hopefully I will get that going tonight or tomorrow. It's going to be a rectangle in a dropped stitch pattern (from my new VK book!), with elbow-length ribbed sleeves. Fairly straight-forward. And it's in the softest wool I have EVER felt. I love it.

I have class in 12 minutes. I really don't want to go. I hate my French teacher! To the max!

And fuck America Online! I just lost half my flippin' entry thanks to the horrible combination of those two. Any reccomendations as to other places I might host this? I am getting fed-up with blogspirit.

If there is one thing that irritates me about craftster, it is that there are a number of people there who are idiots. Really. Either that, or they really don't know how to type. Also, "sheep's" is not the plural of 'sheep'! Nor is "scarfs" correct! I don't mind minor speeling/gramar/punctuation errors at all. I even make them myself, every so often. But I try not to, to the best of my abilty! Especially on message boards! Enough about that ... /rant

Here, with no introduction other than this, whatsoever, are my current (as of last week!) works-in-progress:

Sassy sock pair #2, sock one. I like the self-striping yarn for my first pair and wanted to try a different colorway. It's going well so far. It's fun to knit and see which colors will come next, but my god it is ugly! I might pawn it off on someone else. I just can't realistically see myself wearing them, even just to dance class! My opinion may change come winter though. They seem really warm, especially for %100 acrylic.

Oh Caron Simply Soft, how I love thy cheapness!

This scarf has been lying around for about a year. I love the cable pattern, but it gets boring quickly. I'm not looking forward to fringing the other end, either. It will probably be given away. I'm not really a scarf wearer.

 I had quite the paragraph typed up about this littel lady. I'm bummed I lost it. Anyway, the basics: this is a fairly large-scale WIP that I don't want to jinx by discussing too much. Easy to tell what it is/where its from, though. I started one a long time ago (years?) and I feel like I jinxed it by blogging about it too much. I am sufficintely further along than I was when this picture was taken, thanks in large part to my trip to Santa Cruz last weekend. Lots of in-car knitting time and knitting by the beach.

 Next time: general crafty goodness, gardening pictures, possibly a finished sock, and god only knows what else!