fishie’s aquarium

… is posted here. I’d put it in here too, but I’d feel dirty.

I’m exhausted from so many projects and deadlines and sick rabbits and vet bills that this post won’t be nearly as long as I thought it would be at the beginning of this week.

Around Monday or so, I went to Tuesday Morning with Chris to buy stuff and found lots of close-out yarn. It’s all Queensland Collection, and since it was at a close-out store, I could justify buying wool and mohair since I wasn’t creating a demand by doing so. I spent way more than I should have, but got beauties such as

and

I don’t think I ever posted the second Chakra hat, so here’s a two-for-one:

I finished the armwarmer things for a swap, and they ended up being a REALLY fast knit once I got the hang of them. I re-wrote the pattern so that it’s more organized and fixed up some errata, and I’m sending it to the recipient of them. I’ll probably be posting the improved pattern sometime soon too, but probably just in Craftster. I’ll link to it.

I’ve been working on the reversible ribbed hat too, and I’d post pictures but it looks exactly like the scarf at this point so I won’t bother. It’s coming along, but I’m a little puzzled as to how to do the decreases when the time comes.

Oh well.

My special order Tahki Yarn from California came today:

So beautiful.

I don’t have pictures of the table cloth, but I will once it’s finished. I just have one more triangle to sew on and then I need to stitch around the edges so I can throw it in the wash and have it be functional for the party tomorrow. I want to put a backing on it, but that’s not going to happen overnight.

Up until recently I was pretty good at knitting project monogamy. Then, once I slipped and had two projects…. I’ve ended up with way too many. Not my fault though.

This Friday, my household is holding a Halloween party. Money is tight, and the hostess who has a tendency to spend a LOT on parties has been forced to budget, which means I’m designing and making a few little things, like a FULL QUILTED TABLECLOTH FOR THE GIANT DINING TABLE, among other things. At the same time, I have a swap due in a week for a pair of knitted armwarmers, which isn’t a problem besides the pattern being HORRIBLE HORRIBLE and me resisting urges to write a better one and using that because I have a deadline.

In addition to the tablecloth and the armwarmers, which have deadlines, I’m also making the Manitou Passage Scarf (almost done) and I’m designing a matching hat (not quite halfway done), also for the hostess of the Halloween party (there’s a reason I haven’t hemmed the skirt I made for her last month yet). I’ve finished the second of the Chakra hats, and have to start doing the charts in excell so I can post the pattern, and also do a couple more to perfection and post them in the Craftster challenge board.

Oh yeah, and the pink fuzzy coat from hell… Yeah. Plus NaKniSweMo is starting in a little more than a week. I’ve been so busy with all this STUFF that I haven’t even had time to gloat over pictures of all the awesome closeout yarn I found at Tuesday Morning, or post the pictures of the super awesome sweaters I picked up from the Goodwill to unravel.

Did I mention this is the week Chris decided to start organizing our rooms? :|

I’ll be posting pictures of everything in the weeks to come, trust me. For now, here are some pictures of the mushrooms growing in our front yard. These pictures were taken for somebody. You know who you are.

WHOOPS! I’d missed five mushroom pictures earlier! Here are some more pictures of my apparently delicious mushrooms that somebody STOLE FROM MY YARD BEFORE I COULD PICK THEM:

Once I figured out the charts, it was smooooooth sailing. I stayed up ALL NIGHT knitting it. Seriously. I’m really happy I ended up buying yarn for it (I went to the store last minute before they closed to get a size 5 circular needles, but there were none so instead I bought yarn to go with needles I already had), because I really wouldn’t have enjoyed this as much with my stash stuff. The yarn I got was cheap ($6 for three skeins) and it’s soft, and it’s PINK.

I’m going to make at least one more of these, because I want to figure out a better hem, and I want to make sure my charts are accurate. The crown was a pain in the ass chartwise, because for some reason I couldn’t figure out how it would look on paper, even if I knew what I was doing. I want to do a different color pattern, most likely with the yarn I bought for this but in a different order. It needs to have all three colors, because there’s a pentagon on the top in red (if it’s not obvious). Suggestions?

Oh, yes, and I’ll be posting the pattern and charts when they’re all done and pretty and not completely scribbled on and crossed out all over.

Chakra

I’m sick of being too busy and having to sit out knitting challenges I’m DETERMINED to enter this one. So determined that I’ve spend a good portion of today charting. CHARTING CHARTING CHARTING SWATCHING CHARTING. My biggest problem is I don’t have enough colors of yarn in the weight I’m using to be guaranteed a good result. I’m just going to have to deal with what I have because I’m too broke to buy new stuff, and too stubborn to start using yarn with a different gauge and having to reswatch and rechart.

I’m being crazy with my plans, as usual. Want to know what I’m doing?

Imagine a hat, inspired by this:

Not easy. I know after I do this one, I’ll want to do another one with finer yarn and infinitely more detail. As it is right now, the chart looks like a peacock feather instead of a chakra petal with an eye in it.

I think I have my charts decent enough to start working on A HAT!!!!! so I’m going to dive in now. Maybe I’ll finish it today if I don’t explode and die. Have I mentioned I’ve never done fair isle before?

ETA: bought new yarn anyway

Chris is gone again, and I found the perfect way to use up time like no tomorrow.

I just spent 8 hours taking pictures of yarn, and adding everything to my stash in Ravelry. I knew I had a lot of yarn, but I never thought I had THAT much. Too bad a good portion of it is carp!

Recently, I found out that my IAM account was made into a permanent free account for being featured in ModBlog warning, NSFW a while back, so I went on there and saw somebody in the Seattle group was asking if any knitters wanted to start a SnB. I responded to her, and once that gets started up I’ll have some other liberal minded tattooed chicks to knit with, since the group at Crossroads scares me a little. I haven’t gone, and I know shame on me for getting impressions before I go, but I don’t really expect there to be people there I can relate to or feel comfortable around at a knitting circle in BELLEVUE.

So. Now that I’ve spent all day fiddling with Ravelry, I should probably start… knitting?

I finished Cherie Amour

And I started Kate’s Scarf

Pattern

Blue.

I think he warmed it up enough that it’s dry by now.

I’m officially broke after spending several hundred dollars on vet bills, so my future knittings are limited to yarns I already have. I’ve got a few sweaters I need to do before winter’s over, and buying yarn for sweaters can add up. So I improvised:

The green yarn is 80% alpaca, 20% nylon, from a sweater bought specifically to unravel. Some of you may recognize the brownish yarn, although not in this form. It’s from a sweater (bought from a thrift store!) I wore for a couple years, but have stopped recently because it’s just not flattering. Apparently it was made from a LOT of yarn. 100% acrylic chenille. I’m not sure if I want to just remake that sweater, or reincarnate it as some hats and scarves. We’ll see.

In other news, HURRY UP AND DRY ALREADY!

I’m more than halfway done with the second sleeve, and will soon be DONE DONE DONE with Cherie Amour. I don’t want to commit myself to a big project before November because of NaKniSweMo, and it seems to me like small warm things are needed anyway. My head and neck get cold outside, and my hands are constantly freezing. Seems like a good excuse to finally knit some of the things I haven’t gotten around to yet.

For example, Floral Fair Isle Gloves. I’m not sure how I want to alter the color-scheme, but I do know I need to make these.

As far as hats go, I’m going to make at least a Coronet and an Odessa.

I haven’t had a nice instant gratification project in a while, so I’m eagerly awaiting these little things.