fishie’s aquarium

I hate doing traditional work, and I’m constantly looking for a way to use my creative brain to earn yarn money. When I got into sweater recycling, I realized that I honestly enjoyed unraveling sweaters more than I’d enjoy using the yarn, and being unwilling to directly support people using animals for money meant that I really couldn’t just dye bare yarn and sell it like a lot of people do. Sweaters come in a lot of colors, and a good number are available from thrift stores in white or cream. These colors are easy to dye over.

I’d toyed with the idea a little, thinking that I could have yarns that stuck to my sea theme (”fire coral” for a red and orange yarn, “kelp forest” for a yellow/green), but I never did anything with it. But thanks to this thread on Ravelry, I’m motivated to do it. Not with the sea theme though: I’ll actually use my psych degree to make money for being creative. Now, what color would “Self-Actualization” be?

No, really, I am. I had an awesome time on the Seattle-to-Portland Yarn Crawl on Saturday (update with pictures coming soon I swear), and among my plunders is some eggplant colored Habu bamboo lace weight. It’s my first laceweight yarn ever, and I’m so excited to use it. I’ve been wanting to knit the Oriel Lace Blouse for a while, and now it seems like a possibility. I’ve also been throwing a couple other ideas around, like the Peacock Feathers Shawl. The Habu has been tumbling in my brain so much that last night, I had a dream that I had knit a bunch of lace-doily-dishcloth things and I was blocking all five of them.

Huh.

I should mention that on the train, I cast on Intolerable Cruelty in hot hot pink SWTC Bamboo. I got through a couple inches of it on the train trip, and as of last night, I have 7 inches knit. Watching a couple of the other knitters on the train made me realize I’m kinda fast.

Huh.

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.

DRESSES MADE OUT OF TIES

if that’s not thinking outside of the box, I don’t know what is. My plans definitely didn’t include anything like that.

I normally only knit one thing at a time. I’m so bad at keeping interest in things that if I have options, I’ll completely neglect one thing. In other words, I have no concept of moderation. I started those socks for Chris on Tuesday and I’m not very far yet (HELLO 00 SIZE NEEDLES AND GIANT MONSTER FEET??!?!?!):

But there’s a craft challenge on Craftster I REALLY REALLY want to do and think I’ve got a really good chance at if I can get what I have in my head out and into yarn. Problem is, it’s due on the 24th (BAH I knit a blanket in 12 days!) BUT… my idea is probably way too complicated for my current skill level. Here’s the idea (psst: no stealing!)

Yay rough charts! I can DO this!!!

I want to knit it in the round because if I do anything with seaming, there’s the chance I don’t get the colors to match up. BUT intarsia in the round? Possible, but not easy OR fast. And taking into consideration that I’ve never 1) Done intarsia 2) Made a knitting chart or 3) Written a pattern before… I don’t know if I’m being overly optimistic for a project I’d need to have DONE in *counts* 16 days. Granted, my final is next Thursday and I have a week off before my next class starts, but I’m still working 40+ hours a week with lots of overtime forecasted. I know I can do it. I just don’t know if I can do it that quickly. I’m really good with math, geometry, etc., and I’m thinking I might have to sew a mock-up in order to figure out the chart for the color changes, but I KNOW I can do it.

I get the feeling I’m getting myself into trouble.

Completely unrelated, DID YOU KNOW that my first ever FO was made completely without a pattern? I didn’t even realize that was at all weird until two days ago. It’s my knitting bag, but when I first made it, I used it to carry around books. It fits a big fat hardcover book in it PERFECTLY! When I started knitting hardcore in the past few months, I’ve used it to carry around my yarn, tools, and WIPs. Considering I had no idea how to seam, weave in ends, or block, I think it turned out pretty good and sturdy.

I knit it with normal worsted weight Red Heart on size 2 needles. The sides and the strap are knit on bigger needles with two strands of yarn held together. I whip-stitched the pieces all together. I currently have a safety pin keeping one of the straps attached.

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.

More or less finished.

I’ve got some of the trim yarn left, so I’m thinking of finding a way to make a skirt using the leaf pattern from this scarf to go with the sweater.

I’ve still got loose ends to tie up (lolz) but other than that and maybe some sleeve blocking, it’s done.

So I hate babies. 

But I just want to say, if any people I’m close to get knocked up and push one out, I’m making your ugly baby one of these:

Shortly afterwards, I will eat their frosted brains. 
FYI.