fishie’s aquarium

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. Started it the day after I finished those damn socks (Sunday) and wheeee look at me go! I’m going to call it a two-skein wonder because I’m amazed I had enough yarn for it. I got two skeins of cotton-ease from a swap, and decided they’d be perfect for this shrug. Cotton ease is significantly thicker than the Cascade 220 the pattern calls for, but when I went down a couple needle sizes, it seems like it’s working out JUST fine! I’m more than halfway done after working on it for barely four days.

Two-tone ribbed shrug from Fitted Knits in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease.

Item: giant plain boring white socks for Chris
Pattern: Simple Socks
Needles: set of 5 00 dpns
Yarn: Stork, Dale of Norway/Dalegarn
Time to Complete: Way too long. Almost two months.
Unusual Knitting Location(s): Nothing besides at movies and in chem lab. I watched 1408 while knitting them.
New Skillz: Kitchener stitch, and OOOOH I’m good.
Notes: OMFG NEVER AGAIN. Also, the pattern doesn’t seem to work for gigantic feet, since the ankle/heel bit is a little tight on him.

Apparently all I needed was company. Today was Chris’ first day where he was CONSCIOUS and not working. He sat in the craft room on the computer all day, while I made shit. It was great!

1) I finished another pants bag for the August Craftster Challenge. I know it’s not the best and that I won’t win (I had better ideas in my head, but it’s not something I’d really want to put energy into. ANYWAY, I figure I get extra points for recycling ;)

That’s an old button from like, the 70’s that I stole from my mom’s sewing kit when I was 8 and put it into mine

2) Chris, not having been conscious and at home since I knit with his drumsticks, looked at the heart thing on his bass drum, and was like, “I thought you were going to make that into a pillow.” So I was like, “ok.” And I did. First I sewed the knit thing onto a white napkin from a restaurant I REALLY didn’t want to go to when I was a teenager, then I sewed the knit/napkin hybrid onto one of the only white fabrics I had, and it matched the theme of the knitting so I figured why not.

Chris was less than pleased with the… uh… design of the back, but WTF THERE’S A BIG PINK HEART IN THE FRONT!!! So there. >:P I stuffed it with a small portion of one of the three giant bags filled with stuffing from some free couch Chris tore apart for the wood and saved the stuffing from way back before I met him. Very pillowy. Yay!

3) I FINALLY put the placket on that corset I made somewhere around 4 or 5 years ago. I broke the needle I’ve had in my sewing machine for however long I’ve had it (note: more than ten years) on one of the metal eyes, but it’s okay, it wasn’t going to last forever.

4) I said fuck it, ripped out the waistband from the drawstring thong, and did MATH to find out how many stitches to ACTUALLY cast on to make it work with my yarn. And YAY IT FITS NOW.

I’ve been wanting to experiment with new cream pie flavors. Until now, I’ve only done the double chocolate and mint chocolate pie… while I have altered the recipe to make the pudding into banana pudding, I never made pie from that. I want to try a chocolate-peanut butter cream pie and a coconut cream pie. Oh man coconut cream pie.

And I want to make an ice cream cake. Mmmm. And eat it with pie.

I got sick of those damn socks and wanted to knit something new for a change. I didn’t want something big to commit to, and just wanted a new FO, NOW. So thong it was.

Item: DRAWSTRING THONG
Pattern: Lacy Thong, Interweave Knits
Needles: 24″ size 6 circs
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic, Khaki Green
Time to Complete: 6 hours
Unusual Knitting Location(s): Knit while IMing with my stripper from New Zealand
New Skillz: Crochet picot edge thingy.
Notes: The lace pattern has an error! See that naughty hole on the left at the bottom of the lace pattern? Not supposed to be there. Tisk tisk. I was also bad and didn’t take swatching too seriously and ended up having to add a drawstring to keep it on.

Apparently making bags is FAST and EASY. Observe:

Remember the bag I speed sewed for Kate? I took another ten minutes or so and finished up the strap.

More recently I was faced with another challenge: making a bag for the Knit/Crochet Goodie Bag Swap I’m in. It’s an easy swap: buy $15 to $20 worth of stuff and mail it. I bought some things but you know, you should be crafting stuff too. A lot of people were making bags to send their stuff in so I figured why not.

Chris gave me a pair of his pants with a hole in it to use as fabric. It was one of my partner’s favorite colors so I figured that’s what I would use. As I had the pants laid out, figuring out how to go about putting it together, it dawned on me: it was already mostly done. I just had to sew up the holes, add a lining, and put on a strap. So I did.

I think I’ll be making more of these. I’ve never sewn something so easy besides a pillow. And even then, pillows require stuffing and that damn top-stitching over the hole. The strap was one of the leftover legs that I narrowed up. Easy. Easy. Easy.

I’ve been doing a lot of swapping. I’m finishing up my third swap on Craftster and SPLJ4 is coming to a close. I’ve been getting a lot more crafting done than usual, partially because I’m obligated to make things. The problem with this is, I don’t have as much time to make things for myself, and I can’t post the things I’m making because they have to be, like, secret.

Things like this:

Dragonfly Stitch marker

Lily Hot-Pad

Ginkgo Pasties (They were awesome, trust me, but I lost all my pictures of them when my computer died)

And another thing I made that I don’t have pictures on this computer right now of.

It’s a little frustrating to be so productive and not being able to say anything about it.

ARRGGG

So no more swaps for a while. I’m going to make things for myself. And/or to sell. $$$

If there was ever any question in regards to my sanity, here is your answer.

I just recycled this yarn:

This used to be one of those stretchy tube scarves that everybody and their mom had five years ago. Kate was going through her scarf drawer and asked me if I wanted the ones she was throwing out. They were all fabric except for this one.

I accepted the challenge.

It took me several days to even figure out which end was the one to unravel, because it kept getting tangled on itself before I could make any progress. Once I did have the right side, it took me a few days to figure out why I was having such a hard time: IT WAS KNIT WITH FOUR DIFFERENT STRANDS OF YARN. No idea why. But it was, and it took me a while, but I DID IT.

Now to see if it tangles up on itself if I even look at it wrong.

I’m not a leader. I can be if I have to, but I’m too submissive to WANT to. I’ve been in charge of groups in school simply because I know nobody else will do the work if I don’t, but I’ve never enjoyed it.

However, I’m more stubborn than I’m not a leader. Ravelry just created a groups feature. There was no Seattle group. Pfft.

So I made one.

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/sheepless-in-seattle (sorry, link only works if you’re a beta-tester)

And oh hell it’s a lot of work to start up. X( 46 people have joined in two days. I guess I just want this group to be the best it can be. I put together a list of puget sound area LYS’s, and I’m working on a knitting groups one. But damn.

Oi.

I posted this in punk knitters yesterday and I should probably put it in here too
Community post

I’m a knitter. My boyfriend is a drummer. He’s away for a wedding in a different state today, and this is what he’s going to come home to:

Supplies. Yes, those are drum sticks.

Success!

How he’s going to find it. I didn’t want to finish it because if I did, how would he know I’d used his drumsticks to knit it?

Velvet Spun says “Peek-a-boo!”

Not bad for my first intarsia project, eh?

His Reaction when he Came Home
Silly me for not realizing that pink is red enough to be included in his red-green colorblindness (doh!) and the drum/craft room is dark enough that when he went to look, he couldn’t see the heart at first. His immediate reaction was “WTF?” (harsh language spared ;) ) and as I was showing him WHERE the heart was, he was laughing.

He loved it, thought it was funny, all that good stuff. He could see the heart after I pointed it out. We’re not sure what’s going to happen with it, so for right now it’s draped over the top of his bass drum.

I posted it on craftster too, and it’s a hot topic on the MAIN PAGE yesssss

See??? Seee?????

The whole package. Two skeins of yarn, some nice bamboo needles (you can never have too many, right? ;) ) a little tin for notions, a retro card, and Whale Soap!

Cotton ease in two of my favorite colors. I’ve never seen this yarn before and it’s SO SOFT I can’t believe it. PurlyGrl said she was thinking of a scarf, but I’m thinking there’s JUST ENOUGH to make the Two-Tone Shrug from Fitted Knits.

SOAP! It smells really nice.

A close-up of the tin.

It’s the perfect size! Now I can carry all my notions with me and not have to worry about losing them all!

Bingo!

Jacey is an animal-hugging vegan. Insubordiknit animal-fiber yarns are spun from humane, farm sanctuary fibers. All are handpainted using acid color/light fast dyes.

30 minutes ago Kate walks into my crafting room wearing an evening gown

Kate: Do you have a small black purse?
Me: Uh… why would I have a purse?
Kate: You have a bunch of really random things, I thought you might have a small black purse
Me: What do you need a purse for?
Kate: (holds up cell phone and wallet)
Me: Ahhh the wedding? Hm. When do you need it?
Kate: SOON
Me: Okay, hold on a second

23 minutes later

Me: Here ya go
Kate: Thank you! *kisses my forehead* *runs out door*

I’ll post pictures when she gets back. It’s a simple, small black handbag made out of satin scraps. The handle was very rushed: I cut a rectangle, twisted it a couple times, and sewed it on. But then, the handle happened pretty much after she needed to leave. Luckily Chris “defies the laws of physics” when he drives, according to Kate.

I’m pleased. I didn’t use a pattern or anything, and the purse had interfacing and a lining. I just started cutting and sewing. WHOOSH!