fishie’s aquarium

I’m bad, bad, bad, I know. I haven’t updated in a while and I’ve been knitting a lot. I finished the TTV (but I don’t have FO pictures; hey, I said I was bad):

It ended up being a little bit longer than in that picture. I tried it on when I was halfway through the bottom ribbing, and with all my alterations it FITS PERFECTLY.

Item: Third Fourth time’s the Charm
Pattern: Turtleneck Tube Vest, Fitted Knits
Needles: 6 and 4, 24″ circs
Yarn: KnitPicks Shine Worsted, Ebony
Time to Complete: About two weeks?
Unusual Knitting Location(s): Cast on at a camp ground by Crater Lake
New Skillz: farking RLI’s *spits* Also, first time I added this many modifications
Notes:

Alterations I made:
• After the increase rows were finished, I worked 4 more rows (2 RS and 2 WS) with no increases before casting on the stitches for armholes. I did this to avoid the bottoms of the armholes digging into my armpits and it worked PERFECTLY.
• When the stockinette on the front proceeded past the fullest part of my bust, I worked decreases on either side every other round until I reached 39 stitches on the front. I’m busty with a tiny waist, and without doing this I would have looked pregnant.
• I didn’t start knitting the bottom ribbing until the stockinette had reached a satisfactory distance from my bosoms, and I did ribbing until my last skein ran out.

I made quite a bit of progress on the Hot Pink Coat from Hell in the few days I was working on it (No pictures yet, I said I was bad). I’m completely dreading picking up stitches to do the lace panel on the outside (I CAN’T SEE THE STITCHES WITH THIS YARN!!!) and it’s not a very portable project being a giant cone. So when we went to Kate’s family’s cabin last weekend, I brought my watermelon yarn and cast on the Drop Stitch Lace tank:

I’m working it in the round as opposed to two pieces and then seaming. I like the circle :3 And it goes fast. Wheeeeee! One problem with the bottom-up construction is I’m paranoid I’m going to run out of yarn, but I’m sure I’d be able to get more without too much of a problem.

A luau-themed birthday party is getting thrown at our house. The birthday-ee is into cake decorating, and made a lego-cake for the most recent birthday in the household.

I couldn’t help myself.

I turned this:

Into this:

HOW TO:

1. Get a cake mold vaguely resembling what you want to make and make a cake. I bought some pretty good cake release from the craft store, and it made it REALLY easy to get the cake out. In fact, all I had to do was turn the mold upside down and it just slid out. Instead of greasing and flouring the pan, just squirt some cake release in and brush it around.

2. When the cake is done being baked (and this will probably take A LONG TIME if you have a deep mold), let it cool for about ten minutes, then cut off the curved top. This top is going to be your bottom, and it needs to be flat to sit right.
3. After the cake has cooled, carve your shape. My cake ended up being in the oven for about an hour and a half, so it was nice and hard and easy to carve. Try to be as neat as possible.
4. Ice it! All the “cake decorating” instructions I found said to use butter cream. I don’t even know wtf butter cream really is, I just made some icing: 1/4 cup margarine, 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar, and about 2 TB soymilk, along with a splash of vanilla extract (since I was making vanilla frosting). Use a thin layer, and spread it as evenly as possible. Use the icing to smooth out any cake blemishes.
5. While letting the icing set, get your FONDANT. You can get sugar fondant from a craft or baking supply store. I bought white, because I wanted to color it myself, but you can buy it pre-colored. A little bit of coloring goes a long way, and all you need to do is knead it in. When the fondant is the right color, get a rolling pin and roll it out so that it’s slightly bigger than the surface of your cake (include the sides when measuring), and so that it’s about 1/4 inch thick. Use powdered sugar to “flour” your surfaces so the fondant doesn’t stick.
6. VERY GENTLY place fondant on the cake. Smooth it out, make sure you don’t have any air bubbles, all that good stuff. When you have the fondant on your cake all nice, carefully cut along the bottom to get the excess off.
7. Use the excess to make embellishments, and use your icing to “glue” them to the cake.

I’m going to feel a little guilty when he gets cut and eaten.

If it’s not obvious, I’m on a Fitted Knits kick. Finished the shrug, halfway through the tube vest, and I’ve already got the yarn for the drop-stitch tank. So what’s next? I think I’ve fallen for the Long Coat with Chevron Lace:

Here are the specifics from the book:

Gauge: 10 sts and 13 rows = 4 inches
Size 13 needles
Suggested Yarn: Cascade Tuscany Grande, 1755 yards

I have a 50% off discount for Joann.com right now, and the only yarn I liked that MIGHT get the right gauge was some Red Heart. I’m checking some other online places too, but it’s hard to find super bulky yarn anywhere.

Red Heart Casual Cot’n Blend Yarn in Preppie or Black Grape
Spinnaker

More than anything, I’m figuring I’ll probably end up making a nice fuzzy coat out of one of the giant cones I have, but I’d want a scale first so I can figure out what my yardage is. I’d hate to get 75% done and run out of yarn. Ew.

UPDATE

EUREKA

I seem to have gauge from the bit I did. The one problem I can see this yarn bringing up is that there is NO STITCH DEFINITION WHATSOEVER. But it’s soft and pink and I got a GIANT cone of it. I *think* this one is Squish, but it could be Cush.

I’ve been in love with the Turtleneck Tube Vest ever since I bought Fitted Knits, especially since it seems like it would be instant gratification.

This thing has been giving me nothing but trouble. It starts out with my visual thinking having problems understanding the instructions for LLI and RLI (lifted increases). I need pictures for most new stitches like this, otherwise I don’t really understand how to do them. It also doesn’t help that there seems to be a typo with the LLI instructions (you should be knitting into the stitch TWO rows below, right? Right???) Anyway, started this at Crater lake last weekend, so I had no access to internet things to help me out. I ended up ripping out all my progress when I realized I’d been doing the LLI’s wrong. Then I ripped out a second time when I realized I’d done the RLI’s wrong. Turns out I wasn’t doing the RLI’s wrong at all, they just knit a little looser thatn LLI’s and look fine when you’re wearing the garment. I didn’t know this yet, since the stitches look fine the first couple rows before they loosen up. But I’d ripped out and restarted only to have NO difference whatsoever.

Observe:

LLI vs RLI

I reknit this bit THREE TIMES

I worked on washcloths out of shrug yarn leftovers until I ran out, and spent the rest of the drive home eating. Mmmmm food.

When I got home, I looked for visuals on how to do the RLI correctly, and found…. nothing. Maybe knittinghelp.com calls it something else, but I didn’t find it on there. I decided to just accept it the way it was and hope that the stitches look fine after blocked and while being worn.

I was beginning to get worried that the garment wouldn’t accommodate my ample bosoms, so I did the increases for the medium size, then worked a few non-increase rows so the armhole doesn’t dig into my armpit (I HATE that!). Then I did the 18 cast-on stitches, and spent all yesterday on the body. After I’d gone through an entire skein, I tried it on. And it was way too big.

wtf.

I was a dork, and forgot that those 18 cast-on stitches WOULD be the accommodation for my ample bosoms.

For posterity’s sake, this is how far I got before I ripped out to restart for the FOURTH time:

I love the yarn, I love the pattern, but I’m am NOT enjoying this cursed top.

I have constant bad dreams and nightmares. More often that not, I wake up with a pounding heart several times in the night.

The neutral/goodish dreams I’ve been having are turned bad upon waking up. These are YARN DREAMS. You know the kind of dream where you receive some object you’ve been lusting after, or win large quantities of money, only to wake up realizing that you never had it in the first place?

I’ve had two dreams in a week, where I woke up and suddenly had less yarn than I had thought.

Lovely wonderful yarn.

And it’s not mine.

I can’t wait for this class to be over (ONE MORE WEEK) and then I can knit all day, use up loads of yarn, and find excuses to buy more. Mmmmmmm yarn.

Item: Ugly Retro Shrug
Pattern: Two-Tone Ribbed Shrug from Fitted Knits
Needles: 6 and 4 24″ circs
Yarn: Cotton-Ease
Time to Complete: Less than a week
Unusual Knitting Location(s): CRATER LAKE
New Skillz: Uh…. Make 1 Purl was new?
Notes: I was a dork, didn’t count my rows right, so I ended up a couple rows short, and had to redo the ribbing to get the right number of stitches. This yarn does NOT knit tighter with smaller needles, and I ended up having JUST BARELY ENOUGH green to finish the ribbing.

Almost done!

The only reason I’m posting this now is because I’m supposed to be working on my Lab for tonight.