We interrupt the silence to bring you...

In lieu of yarn content (I've been too lazy to upload pictures), here, watch this awesome stop motion claymation video for the song "Charlie Darwin" by the Low Anthem. It's a beautiful, meditative song.



The character in the video is wearing a little crocheted sweater. Does that count as yarn content for this blog?

I did order more yarn for the Buncha Squares blanket, so that might be done sometime soon. I took a picture of the progress. Maybe you'll see it soon. :-P

Dispatch from a deliquent blogger

Ack! Life has gotten in the way of my blogging. I've transitioned to working night shift, and I'm having trouble with the whole sleeping during the day aspect of it. Today I got a full 8 hours (thank you ear plugs and eye mask) but most other days I've gotten between 5-6 hours. It's a bit rough. Also, there's the stress of moving the cat into Raj's apartment. He seems to be a bit more at ease today (perhaps due to all the cat pheromones I sprayed around?) and hopefully each day will get better.

Many of the nights at work have been sloooooooow. Slow to the point that there's really nothing left for me to do besides knit. That's right, I get to knit at work! This might be the best. job. ever. Hehe. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the next clue for the TTL Mystery Socks, and in the mean time I'm working on the 2nd purple blob. I'm not sure how far I am into the 2nd purple blob. I kind of just want to knit until I run out of yarn. We'll see.

I do have a couple of finished things to show. I finished my Autumn Bandit more than a month ago, and captured a picture of it before shipping it off to a dear friend for her birthday.



I didn't have enough Trekking to finish the border chart. And instead of ripping back one pattern repeat, I decided to use some sock yarn remnants in coordinating colors. I like the way it turned out.

I also whipped up a quick brown Porom for a sister's birthday. Turns out that sister isn't too keen on the slouch hat look, but the other sister loved the hat, so it went to her instead.



First sister will get some knitted fingerless gloves instead...just as soon as I get reunited with my stash. Maybe these, or these.

And still plugging away on the Buncha Squares blanket. I think I have 6 complete blocks now. It looks like I'm going to have to order some more yarn. Hopefully just a couple more skeins. We'll see.

Fall!

1/4 done with the Buncha Squares Blanket. So far, I've been getting about 1 block per week. If we assume that I continue to knit at this rate, I should finish the blanket right around Christmas time. But this doesn't take into account Christmas knitting. I've been banking little projects (mostly socks) throughout the year that I can give out this year at Christmas, but I do have a few larger knitted Christmas gifts in mind for this year, so I would be surprised if the Buncha Squares Blanket was finished before the New Year.

Fall is here! Yesterday I pulled out the February Lady Sweater I made last year and took my honey to a pumpkin patch. We went to Carpinito Brothers, down in Kent. It was fun. We did the corn mazes and got a medium-sized pumpkin. Raj has never carved a pumpkin either, so we're going to do that maybe next weekend.

As I type, the Selbu Modern is blocking on a balloon, so I should finally be able to get a good FO picture of that soon. I'm working on a Porom for my sister's birthday, using some brown Rowan Felted Tweed. And I'm about to start the TTL Mystery Sock. Yea for fall knitting!

Some small projects

I have been knitting, I swear I have! I'm half way done with my 3rd square for the Buncha Squares blanket. It's been an adjustment, going to work 5 days a week. And after a day of work, garter stitch is just the thing I need. :) It's also been an adjustment wearing regular clothes to work instead of pajamas scrubs.

Last weekend, I finished my Selbu Modern. It remains unblocked. I think I want to try to block it over a balloon. I'm not so keen on the idea of blocking it on a plate--I want more of a softer slouch shape. Since I'm not sure when I'll get around to block it, here's a horrible unblocked picture to give you the general idea of how it looks.

Little sis starts college this week at UW. So, in honor of that, and her 19th birthday last week, I whipped up this purple and gray striped hat today. The yarn is Karabella Aurora 8, which is soooooo soft! This hat should keep her warm at all those Huskie football games she has tickets for. The pattern is improvised, the details are on Ravelry.

A few weeks ago, Raj was complaining of having chilly feet, so I decided knitted slippers were called for. I ended up using this free pattern, slightly modified. I used the heel modifications described here, and then picked up stitches around the opening and knit about 1 inch of 2x2 ribbing for a little bit of ankle warming.

The yarn is left over from my first sweater, some scratchy aran weight wool that I ordered from Elann a few years ago. It's Austermann Naturwolle, which is apparently out of production. It made a very warm sweater--too warm for me to wear except for maybe 2 days a year. The color and scratchiness of the yarn remind me of camping, so I called it my cabin sweater. But it made for some cozy slippers!

A Pictoral

Purple Unicorn, Puyallup Fair.


Toothpick Ferris Wheel, Puyallup Fair Museum.


Working at the cow wash!


Lego Freighthouse Square, Puyallup Fair Hobby Hall.


Bubble Monkeys, Puyallup Fair.


Look! A Selbu Modern at the Fair.


Something on fire in downtown Tacoma.

One square done, 15 to go.

Little Squares

I've started a project that I'm only working on at my honey's house.

It's going to be a throw blanket for us to use on his sofa while we watch TV. I'm following the guidelines of the Buncha Squares knitted adaptation of Denyse Schmidt's quilt design, as described on Mason-Dixon Knitting.

I'm using all Cascade 220--a little tweed, but mostly regular 220. The overall color scheme of the blanket is going to be shades of brown (boring, I know, but it needs to blend in with honey's living room), with little bits of plum (left over from the plum tweed sweater) and dark green tweed (left over from some mittens I made for Melisa a couple years ago).

It's a whole buncha garter stitch, but that's good TV knitting. I'm going to work 16 squares, and my goal size for the blanket is about 5'x5'.

Stranded!

I decided it was ABOUT TIME I did some stranded, or fair isle, knitting. I indulged a bit at the yarn shop yesterday--first yarn shop purchase in 2 months!! I got 2 skeins of the new Spud & Chloe sock yarn, Datchsun and Calypso, aka brown and light blue, and I'm going to make myself a Selbu Modern. I did a bit of trolling around Ravelry in the forums and the Stranded group and got a few tips, including this helpful video.

I determined to be successful in this attempt, so I've done a right and proper gauge swatch:

I worked my gauge swatch in the round--it's more of a gauge tube. I worked one side of the tube with a US 1 1/2 Addi (pictured below), and the other side with a US 2 1/2 Addi (pictured above). The 2 1/2 side ended up at gauge, so that's the size I'm going to use for the main portion of the hat.

I worked part of the gauge swatch with floats on the inside of the work, and part of it with the woven technique. In the floats section, I was worried about keeping my floats loose enough so that the fabric doesn't pucker. I was less concerned about my tension in the woven section, but in the end I liked the feel of the non-woven section better. In this pic, the woven section is in the middle, with unwoven sections on the top and bottom:

By the end of the gauge tube, I was much more comfortable working the 2 colors. I'm holding the mail color (brown) in my left hand, my usual way of holding yarn, and holding the blue in my right hand. It took a few inches of knitting before I felt like I wasn't a total right-handy klutz, but now I feel like I've gotten the hang of it.

Now to cast on for the actual hat!