sorry, can't think of anything witty

It's too early in the morning for wit. Ooog.

However, it's not too early in the morning for a knitting update! I really have been knitting stuff:

Last night I put about four miles of i-cord on the Polychrome Barf Blanket. (It just took me five tries to spell 'polychrome.' It's apparently too early to spell.) Ok, so it wasn't miles, but it was long enough for me to get bored enough to do math (and that's long) and discover that I was doing 144 inches worth of i-cord. Argh. But it looks really nice, and I watched a combination of Psycho and So You Think You Can Dance while doing it, so I wasn't all that bored.

I have not, however, finished sewing in all of those cursed ends.

Other than that I have been having fun with the top-down raglan. I made one shrug-like item, which I think I mentioned before--but it's too early to deal with iPhoto, so no pictures today. I've also started a sweater, which, like most things I do with stripes and colors, will either be gorgeous or butt-ugly. I was firmly convinced of gorgeous for a while, but the purple is browner than it looked in the ball, and now that it's in the sweater I'm not entirely sure. Ah well. It'll be warm. And stripey. And I think it's going to fit! Whee!

I'm also trying to decide what to make people for Christmas. Should I make my parents a blanket? What to make the brothers? I set the bar far too high for my brothers: the first year I was knitting presents, I made one of them these awesome Batman wristwarmer thingies, and really, where can you go after Batman?

Sigh.

gaaaaah.

Guess what I'm still doing.

Gaaaaah.

Here, let me see if I can find a picture of something to break up the text monotony.

Ok, here I am snuggling up to George Washington:

"Hey, Georgie, do you like knitwear?"


And here's George with a Native American ally:

"Dude, really, the Steelers are the only team worth rooting for."

For the love of God

I'm still sewing in ends. I am stuck in some sort of hellish Star Trek: TNG loop of end-sewing-in, without even Jonathan Frakes to keep me amused. Or Worf. Yum. Worf.

Is my geek showing?

Anyway. I don't know what my next large project will be, but I do know it's going to have as little end-sewing as possible. If I show any signs of wanting to do fair isle anything, someone please kill me. Send me to one of those tar-pit sort of planets or something.

progress?

Sadness is sewing in four gazillion ends, and still having approximately five gazillion to go.

My God, do I need a What Not To Wear marathon. Even Without A Trace would do today.

Either that or I need to actually go buy the external cd drive for my computer (now that I've decided that that's the best plan) so I can get me some audiobooks from my friend the library. And then we can start a Five Really Good Audiobooks sidebar thingie.

Anyway. Back to sewing, dammit.

two things.

1. I absolutely adore my Garter Crack Squares Blanket.

2. Sewing in four gazillion ends (no exaggeration) makes me want to poke my eye out.

progress!

I have finished the main part of the Rainbow Chunks Blanket! Yay! Now I have to sew in four zillion ends (no exaggeration) and do some i-cording, and then all that's left is to sit comfortably and wait for my invitation to the baby shower.

One of my other projects for today, now that it has finally gotten coolish, is to package up the Rainbow Baby Socks (remember those? Do I have a Rainbow Theme? Possibly. I like to sing about them, too.) and send them to another baby I know. I hope they fit her. I feel vaguely weird about asking the kid's mom to measure her feet.

In other news, I gave myself a mega allergy attack yesterday while reclaiming yarn from a scarf someone bought me last year. I've never worn the thing, and I thought well, I can have fun with variegated pink chenille, right? Yeah, right after I can breathe again. I'm always far too optimistic that this time, the dust won't kick my ass quite as bad. And then my nose goes stuffy and my throat closes up, and I start wondering why people can't breathe out of their ears, because my two intake valves are clearly fucked up. It was a little bit scary, I'll admit it. And now I'm realizing that I should probably put that yarn in the freezer before I try to make anything out of it. It would be so humiliating to be slain by pink chenille.

oh CRAP.

I am once again having the mad urge to embroider.

Help!

I don't think I can support two craft addictions at once!

I'll never get anything done.

omigod.

Um. I had a birthday this week. And someone unexpectedly gave me a check. A nice check. A totally unexpected very nice--overly nice--check that I may have to blow on yarn.

Well, ok, maybe just half on yarn, because I could really use a new pair of jeans. And a pair of black boots for fall, since mine died this year. Oh, hell, I just need new clothes. But I want yarn. Does it count that I would be buying the yarn to make clothes?

Crap. If I think about this too much, I'm totally going to guilt myself away from the yarn store. And I can't decide if that's good or bad.

Polychrome's Blanket (still in progress)

Forgive the dangly ends, ok? They'll get sewn in sometime this week, and I'm sure there will be much whining and swearing about it. Anyway, here's the blankie-in-progress:

Crazy angle:

My favorite set of stripes:

I'm really almost done: I just have to finish up one stripe of purple, and then put cream stripes around all four sides, and then I think I'll finish up with a nifty I-cord border, and then I will have learned two new things on this blanket: how to log-cabin and how to I-cord border. Woo! Yay for learning. I've also learned that I really like pink and brown together, which means I may have to go shopping for some brown yarn to go with my many-times unraveled pink yarn. I'm thinking it may turn into a pink raglan sweater with brown sleeves. I think I would wear that a lot, if I could figure out how to make the damn thing fit.
Too bad I'm crap at measuring. Stupid math.

just so we know

In case any of the 1 1/2 people who read this were wondering, yes, I am still alive, and yes, I am still knitting stuff. The I-Threw-Up-A-Rainbow Blanket is nearly done, though progress has been stalled since I've run out of tv shows to watch, and 120-stitch garter rows are not to be thought of without outside entertainment. I still can't decide if the ITUARB is cool or ugly, and really, I should probably look into how big baby blankets usually are. Still, it's not made in China, so it should be ok for my friend's baby to lick.

And then I was looking through my meager stash (it really doesn't deserve to be called a 'stash') yesterday and discovered some decent old yarn that my mom found at an estate sale a while ago. There's not a lot of it and it's not my personal favorite colors--there's some camel and some eggplant--but it just might make a really cute shrug. We shall see. I suppose I can always give it to someone if I decide the camel is too close to the color of my skin.

Pictures eventually, my friends. I've been totally slacking on the photo front.

cramping my style.

Now, I didn't realize that knitting in public was any sort of odd (such that it would need its own acronym) before I started reading the blogs. I've been knitting in public places for most of my short knitting career. I see it as another way to pass the time, just like a book or playing random games on my iPod.

But oddly enough, I don't like knitting in front of my family. I don't know why I'm weird about it. Maybe because if they ask questions--and they will ask questions--I can't tell them to fuck off? Maybe because they're artistic and I think they're judging my color choices? Or maybe because I'm pathologically private and don't like having anything I'm doing commented on.

Whatever it is, I'm at home with the family, and am missing out on hours of tv-and-knitting bliss, all because I'm too squeamish to take my I-Threw-Up-A-Rainbow Log Cabin Blankie downstairs.

Le sigh. Such a waste.

le sigh

I spent last night dismantling Mr Pink Leafy. I'm too broke to let yarn sit around in a sweater that doesn't fit: it makes me feel guilty. So now, in a week or two--or maybe sooner--I'll knit that damn pink yarn up into something else. Before I do, I'm going to do lots and lots of research into the art of waist-shaping, because that's where the leafy pattern really fell on its face.

Argh.