WANT

Mod Cloth is crushing it today. I'm in need of summer skirts and dresses, but this is beyond basic need fulfillment. It's just lust at this point:

Want

Hell Yes

Shut it down

So ugly, yet so RIGHT

I'll take two

New Summer Uniform

Puts me in mind of a childhood favorite:

Cardigan Update

Slow and steady wins the race, people.

Admittedly taken during my lunch break after some productive CTA Knitting

Oh, that's right. Your eyes do not deceive you. That is a nearly completed SLEEVE and it took me almost two weeks. Whew!

Doin' and Doin' It

Maybe it's because I've been staying up later, maybe it's because I heard Jimmy Fallon interviewed on the Nerdist Podcast or maybe it's because I watched The Karate Kid remake and have the Smith family on the brain, but I'm starting to think that I legitimately like and prefer this version of Whip My Hair:

Or maybe I'm just old and caucasian.

Yikes, that's probably it.

Et tu, Bootie?

I promise I'll tackle more subjects than just my artsy little addiction, but my 3-5 readers (we're growing, you guys!) are local to Chicago and understand just how much rain and gloom we've had lately. It's nice to come home to projects that aren't laundry, giving the dog a bath or boredom eating.

In the interest of not totally boring you to death, let me take one moment to say that for the first time I ever in my life, the person I wanted to win a reality show competition from the first episode actually won! It's a nice feeling and incredibly unsatisfying, but you need to embrace all victories in life! So, congratulations RAJA  for reading those other queens to DEATH on RuPaul's Drag Race. I've loved you since the moment you walked in the stage door and I realized you were the makeup artist on America's Next Top Model. Love her, mean it.

You're a CHAMP-I-ON

So great. Seriously, if you haven't been watching, drop everything and watch that shit this minute. This MINUTE, I tell you.

Back to Adventures in Knittery with Great Auntie Doogs.

I was able to complete the pattern with no problems this time around! I picked a different scrap yarn because I had more of it and it still had a wooley feel to it. I'm pleased that I finished a bootie that actually looks like something:

This is where the good news ends. The problem with teaching yourself to knit by trial-and-error is that, unsurprisingly, you make many, many errors. In this case, I have a bunch of yarn that I can't identify and therefore don't know what it's actually made of. In order to "felt" a project, the yarn has to be animal fiber that locks itself together through exposure to hot water and agitation. I threw the bootie into the wash on "hot" with an extra pot of almost boiling water to make sure things were nice and scalding with heavy towels to make sure it got a good beating. And it came out.... looking exactly as pictured above. I'm guessing that the yarn may feel wooly but may actually be a blend or superwash wool that is designed to not felt. The OTHER problem could be that I'm knitting too tightly because I'm using bigger yarn than the pattern calls for.

The solution is clear - I need to test swatch some of my scrap yarn and see if I can get any of it to felt. This is not a huge setback or anything, I'm just hoping to use yarn I already own instead of buying more. Ebay yarn is going to ruin my life, you see, and even though I'd be a really well dressed street urchin, you can't eat SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Cayenne. I'm just kidding - I don't own that yet, it's on my "watch" list!

It's my duty to make that bootie

I'm in the middle of working on a cardigan for myself and it is taking a long, looooong time. This is because it's knit in a smaller gauge than I've ever knitted before - I'm using sock yarn which is very thin. Sock yarn is also known as fingering weight (gross) or 4 ply (sounds like toilet paper).

To keep myself from going crazy, I'm trying to start smaller projects that can be finished in a few hours just to remind myself that I actually am capable of finishing things. The smallest projects of all, of course, are things for babies. To clarify: these are items FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S BABIES thankyouverymuch.

I'm also trying to increase the skillz in my knitting repertoire, which is how I arrived at the great idea to make the Felted Baby Booties previously mentioned. Last night, I got home from a long day at work, brought up Easy A on Netflix on Demand (I give it an easy B in terms of entertainment value) and started the pattern. I was so pleased at how fast and easy it was to work on something for a tiny foot. It was looking like I was going to have a whole bootie done before heading to bed! But then...

Oh, what's that? I mis-read the pattern and didn't build the other half of the cuff? Greeeeat.

Reading is my strong suit, it's counting that does me in!

Aw, well. I've had to re-do many a project due to a careless errors like this. I'm even thinking about ripping back the sleeve on my cardigan that's taken me a week to build because I did some of the stitch decreases in the wrong order. But I'm going to table that and just start the booties over again. It will be faster this time now that I've done the pattern 90% properly, right?

Then the real fun begins - felting in my lil' washing machine! Hoooboy.

In conclusion - Booties: Can I Kick 'em?

The best... around!

I think we all need a little Karate Kid theme music to get us through this week. Seeing the sun this morning made me feel like spring will eventually come and I'll just need to do a couple of high kicks to sail on into the weekend.

In other news, I'm going a little over-board in the arts and farts and crafts department. I'm in the middle of the aforementioned cardigan project and it's taking freaking forever. Therefore, I'm picking out a few quick hits so I can actually finish something for once. What's the fastest thing over? Baby booties, of course. Tiny feet, little work. I can deal with that. The inspiration for the next project came from the site Ravelry.com, which is basically Facebook for knit and crocheters. SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

Mmmbut seriously, folks. Just look at these. Look at them:

Via a fellow Ravelry member's (northpoll) photo stream

Wooden apple button. I don't care who you are, that's fucking adorable. A. dorable. The fuzziness comes from a process called "felting" which will be a new skill for me if all goes well. If not, no harm done, for it will be a minimal loss of resources.

Uh-oh

I'm super swamped at work... which can only mean one thing: I MISS BLOGGING.

Hey, it's cheaper than buying yarn and sundresses on e-Bay. Whatever, ya'll know ya'lls JEALOUS. 

What's new with me? Quick hits:

More knitting:

This will be a cardigan. Just in time for summer!

For a very tiny person or stuffed animal of some sort

It's a 'cowl'. For warming your neck. Only it just kind of lays there and is not warm. Oh, well.

New Relationship:

His name's Brian. He's a nice young man.

Same dog, same job, same house.

There. I think we're all caught up. Want to see what's on the docket for impulse online shopping?

The swimsuit I've always wanted:

Mod Cloth FTW

Shoes that remind you to call your mother:

Rangs:

I'll never own this, but a girl can dream

Knitting a version of this:




More to come, because I miss my two readers on the five blogs I've started in the past five years.