fishie’s aquarium

My computer died so it might be a little bit before I get the pictures up, but imagine this: I cast on the second blanket a week ago, and I’m officially halfway done. I knew I’d zoom through it once I had the pattern memorized. It did help that we went to see the new Pirates movie, and I knit through the whole thing. That’s three hours right there.

UPDATE! PICTURES YAY!!!

I’m antsy to get this thing done for reasons unrelated to the expecting mother having premature contractions. I’ve been really REALLY really wanting to do my first cabling project so I can try out this no-cable-needle cable knitting method I’ve seen around teh intarwebs. I’ve been attracted to a lot of lace projects as of late as well, and then there’s that pair of boring plain white socks I’ve been promising Chris. I’m going to use a test pattern for those, but I might end up trying out the knitting two socks at once thing for that. Might be a little hard since I’ve never doubleknit before, but I’m sure I can do it without too much difficulty.

I’ve been really antsy to do some sweater recycling as well. My contract at work is up soon and I want to pay off my credit card debt before I’m unemployed, so I need to cut back on any spending that’s not completely necessary. And hey, second hand sweaters = cheap wool = dying and felting. Mmmmmmm. That sounds good to me. Once I get that started, I can create horrendously gross and obnoxious colorways nobody else has enough balls to do themselves. Of course this possibility makes me wanting a sweet niddy noddy, and this coincides wonderfully with Chris’ plans to start up a drum making business after his contract ends a week after mine. He’s been checking out some sweet wood, and some of it is PINK. Yes I want pink wood.

I’m binding off the first of the baby blankets AS WE SPEAK. It took just a little more than 3.5 weeks to do it. The second one should be MUCH faster, as I have the pattern memorized now. Once I’m done with these things I can stop doing this darn pattern that is more or less a glorified 2×2 rib + seed stitch combo and do something more interesting. The smocked rows are fun and all, but DAMN if they don’t happen often enough to keep me entertained with the pattern

Went shopping for my secret pal, and I admired a set of DPNs that comes with FOUR sizes, 000, 00, 0 and 1. It was $10 and more that I felt I could reasonably spend on something I had no immediate use for, but I was out with Chris and he bought them for me. :X :3 Unfortunately, the store I went to didn’t have what I needed, so I went somewhere else and ended up spending WAY more than I should have, but ended up with the back issue of Interweave Knits I’ve wanted but my other yarn store was out of, and I picked up the new Knit1 which I might end up subscribing to.

Anyway.

I’m accumulating a lot of crap. The craft room is almost done so at least I have a place to put everything now.

Almost a year ago exactly, I made a knithulhu for sci-fi nerd I know. I didn’t take pictures before I gave it to him, partially because I didn’t have a camera yet.

He did have a camera and posted the pictures in his LJ. So I took some of them.

I wanted the tentacles to be tentacly, so I knit a swatch, ironed and steamed the hell out of it, and then unraveled. As far as I’m aware, the tentacles are still tentacly. This was a really easy project, and I made it back when I still didn’t really know what the hell I was doing.

After work, class, and my chiropractor appointment this morning, I stopped by my favorite yarn store, which I haven’t been to in years. I finally got paid last night, so I had money to start my shopping for my splj4 partner.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, and now that I’m familiar with a lot more yarns and fibers than before, I could really appreciate what they had. They have the soysilk laceweight yarn (dude, it looks like THREAD), along with other crazy fibers, like the corn yarn (SO SOFT), as well as the bamboo, which I already knew was soft. They had $5 skeins of cascade fixation, but only one in variegated hot pink, which was why I didn’t call Chris and ask him how many I’d need for the Zaftig bra (note to self, 2), so I didn’t get any. There was some yarn that I forgot what exactly it was, only $3 a skein on sale, but I didn’t know what I’d use it for and $3 a skein adds up.

I grabbed three magazines out of the $1 bin and everything else was for my partner. It was funny how even though I wasn’t buying for myself, this yarn trip was the only thing that kept me awake through class this morning.

The craft room is in the midst of being organized, and while going through boxes and things Chris came across some nice, empty 2.5 inch or so three ring binders. I’ve been wanting to organize my knitting stuff a little better, and now that I have the binder I have no excuse to not put all of my loose patterns in there. For the past day I’ve been printing out the free patterns I’ve saved onto my computer from knitty and various other websites, and putting them into this binder by category.

After only a DAY of doing this, I’ve got a stack about an inch high. And I haven’t even put any of the patterns I already had printed out in there because there’s a stack of mattresses in front of the closet with my knitting stuff in it.

Good thing there were two binders.

Now that the bookcases are more or less set up, I want to get my knitting books out of my yarn bins. Same with my needles. Basically, I want to get everything EXCEPT yarn out of the bins and out where they are more accessible. This means finding a better way to organize my circs besides having them shoved into a zippy pouch. But I’ve seen some nice organizers that are easy enough to make. And since we’re in this house for at LEAST a year (and they’re not tearing this one down so we can stay longer if we want!) I can justify mounting things on walls.

I just finished with the first skein, and it looks like I’ll only need two. I’m slightly more than halfway done as it is. Now I’ll have two new skeins of soft, soft yarn for my stash. *evil laugh*

18.5 inches in two weeks, and I have the pattern completely memorized by now. It will be done in NO time.

Alysa (Aditi) [11:22 PM]:
assign me to knitting plz I don’t want to work tonight
Jessica (CompuCom) [11:23 PM]:
heheh
Jennifer (Aditi) [11:23 PM]:
Heh.
Zach (Excell Data Corporation) [11:23 PM]:
i assign you……. to teach paul knitting
Jennifer (Aditi) [11:23 PM]:
*snarf*
Paul (Siemens Business Services) [11:23 PM]:
haha
Alysa (Aditi) [11:23 PM]:
I only brought one set of needles and I’m using them…
Alysa (Aditi) [11:23 PM]:
he’ll have to use pens
Jennifer (Aditi) [11:24 PM]:
I read that as ‘he’ll have to use his penis’.
Jennifer (Aditi) [11:24 PM]:
but I only glanced at it.
Jennifer (Aditi) [11:24 PM]:
I blame your pink text.
Paul (Siemens Business Services) [11:24 PM]:
maybe i can knit a blanket i think that i am getting alergic to my chinchilla fur blanket
Alysa (Aditi) [11:24 PM]:
…
Paul (Siemens Business Services) [11:24 PM]:
red light comment
Alysa (Aditi) [11:24 PM]:
you’d need two of them for that to work jen
Alysa (Aditi) [11:25 PM]:
crochet, maybe

Apparently SOY SILK CAN TAKE KOOL AID DYE.

YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Now I don’t have to be all bitter and jealous when I hear about the awesome things people do to their yarn with Kool Aid.

That is all.

Long winded, as I tend to be.
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Not bad if you ask me.

I almost forgot how much I like this photographer. Especially the picture he took of this kelp:

I really want to know how photographers manage to take good pictures. I used to just think there was no hope for me, until I got a somewhat decent camera. I’ve since taken a couple decent pictures, but not very many. What am I doing wrong? My biggest problem is not being able to see the good parts of any given photographic moment, and I’ve got this OCD-esque collection habit where I don’t want to get rid of anything, so cropping photos is almost beyond me. Then there’s that touching-up thing people do with photoshop. Not for me, no sir.

I’ve still managed to luck out though. One of my favorites so far:

Seems like most of the time when I’m trying to take a picture, I’ll miss the moment. Or my subjects are camera shy

I’ve got two expensivey waterproof cameras! I should be taking pictures like the algae guy! >:(