knitting... what is knitting, again?

so yeah... I really haven't been feeling the knitting groove lately, which is sad because I could totally use some kind of destressing habit, and I have so many things I want/need to be working on. for instance, Keni has a Starcraft II tournament this weekend, and I want to make him a hat with the Protoss patch I got for him on it, so he will have something awesome to wear while he is out there bashing heads. I ordered some Cascade Fixation to make it with, but obviously that wouldn't be here in time to make the hat, so I'm making a temporary stand-in hat for him with some random black WOTA I have left over from making him fingerless gloves earlier. but I can't make myself work on it. I love the yarn, I've been dying to knit something in wool lately, I just can't. do. it. and I'm working on about fiftyleven sweaters, and other random hats, like a hat to replace his State hat that was too small and got stretched out (I should have kept that one for myself and made him another one to start with!!) and this awesome blanket, but I just can't do it lately. bleh.

but as for what I have been doing lately, it mainly consists of working, playing World of Warcraft, working some more, and hanging out on the internet. oh, and doing Japanese homework. life has been pretty good lately. and hopefully things will settle down a bit and I'll decide it's time to knit again. I am looking forward to knitting Keni's new hat, at least; hopefully that will work out well. god he has a HUGE head though.

I finally got to put the face on the mameshiba and give it to my teacher. she totally loved it, she squealed and hugged me when I gave it to her, which surprised me because while they are in fact given to squealing, Japanese people are not much for physical contact! still, I was pretty pleased with it. here's a pic:



cute, right? yeah, I'm pretty proud of it.

Keni's priest hat was also quite well-received:



he wears it everywhere, mainly because it's really cold here right now but also because he seems to really like it. I think it might be a record, it's been over a month since I gave it to him and he hasn't lost it yet! I would still keep knitting for him even if he kept losing things, but it makes me happy that he's actually kept up with this one. he still knows where his sweater is, too, of course, though he hasn't worn it recently. I think he's going to this weekend when we go home though. hopefully I'll have my Aperture Science sweater done at that point, so I can wear it too, and we'll be covered in my handknits :P haha.

I'm thinking about designing a lined earflap hat with some stranded colorwork on it. I say lined because I have all this wool I want to use for it, and it's very soft wool but still gets itchy when it's worn because it has little fuzzy bits in it - I kind of think it has some mohair content in it, can't remember. also, lined hats are warmer! anyway, I've looked at a ton of bulky-weight hat patterns on Ravelry and can't find one I really like. besides, if I make my own pattern, I'll be able to sell them on Etsy if I want, and I'd like to start selling things on Etsy because I reeeeeally need some income at this point! so. sometime this weekend I will probably start working on that. planning on going home this weekend like I said, so maybe that will happen in the car on the way home, assuming Keni is going and will be willing to drive both of us so we don't have to take two cars. I also made up a basic recipe for a regular ribbed hat like I like to wear, only made in the round and with a less ridiculous decrease system on top, which I will hopefully also be able to sell on Etsy. I have a bunch of ideas for my store. I originally wanted to do felted bags, so I might add some of those too. we'll see!

back in el groove-o.

haha! I just realized somehow my Blogger profile had my birth year as 1765... making me 253 years old. mm, not quite. it's corrected now :)

let's see. it's been a while! I'm going to actually keep this blog updated now though. I've really gotten back into blogging lately. so.

knitting news! I finished that Thorpe a long time ago. it was WAY too big for either me or Keni. so fail in that department. recently I finished a Mameshiba-style pea pod for my Japanese teacher... unfortunately, I wasn't able to put the face on it before exams were over, so I haven't given it to her yet. it will probably be less awkward to give a teacher a gift at the start of the semester rather than right before the grading period, anyway :)

I'm also working on a jackalope, though I've kind of stalled out on it - I'm so close, but I'm not sure I'll have enough yarn for the ears, so I've been too lazy to start them. we'll see.

sadly enough for my love affair with Bernat Softee Chunky, Walmart doesn't seem to carry it anymore :( it's my preferred yarn for making Hot Head hats, and I was also hoping to make another Skully sweater with it, since I loved my first one so much. this one was going to be gray with blue Aperture Science logos on it, much like this hat I was working on that got put in time-out after I screwed up the chart massively. I found the perfect colors for it in that yarn, obviously, but I'm running out since I used it for a lot of other projects too, so I just ordered five balls of each color. :P hopefully that will be enough for a sweater and several hats - I ordered a priest patch for Keni since his main is a priest, and since the blue is similar there also, and he always likes my hats, I'm going to make him a hat with blue and gray stripes and sew the patch on it. hopefully he won't lose this one!!

that's about it from knitting land now though... I have a lot more finished objects, mostly sweaters, which you can see on Ravelry. but I will try to keep this blog updated with them as well, from now on! yay!

I'm pondering trying to knit socks again... I think I will still hate them, but I'd like to at least give them another shot before I'm just like no, never again. I think I've said this before, but hey, maybe if I knit just one pair of trial socks every once in a while, it'll be okay.

I'm not sure who I'm really kidding, since I hate wearing socks almost as much as I've previously hated knitting them. but maybe I can sell them or give them away or somesuch. I mean... sock yarn is so pretty...

as it turns out, Keni really loves his hat, so I don't have to kill him :) this weekend when I gave it to him, he literally turned to me every fifteen minutes and was like, 'I love my hat.' hehe. he's a goodun.

now, I am working on my own hat. pictures forthcoming, but it's coming along well. I'm using the Thorpe pattern (ravelry link) and I like it so far. very simple, and it's nice that it's top-down. I was used to making them that way from my crochet days, and I always thought it was weird to do them bottom up because you can't try them on, so how do you know if it's the right length? (I ran into problems with that on Keni's hat, too, because it's a bit too short. grr.) so yeah. I can see this becoming my standard hat pattern (except for Hot Head! tee hee).

that's all for now! huzzah.

oh dear... I've become one of those people who get on Ravelry and then their knitting blog just kind of dies. we'll have to fix that.

well, just recently I've finished another hat for my boyfriend.



It is a State hat, obviously, and it is...



reversible. double-knit! it's awesome and he had so better love it.

in other news, there is no other news. bedtime for me now.

ravelry!

I finally got my Ravelry invite today! I am very excited :D I've already got quite a bit put up there, including more progress on my Dickinson Pullover.

just for good measure, here are the pics for those of you not on Ravelry:
as you can see, I've finished the second repeat of the big cable, and I'm a little way into the armhole shaping. my gosh, when you get to this point, there are so many things to do at once! I can hardly imagine the number of tracking post-its I'll need for the front when I split the neck :P

(yes, that is my row-counting method. I mark the main cable directly on the chart, I'm tracking the rope cable by using tally marks on a post-it, and I'm tracking the shaping on another post-it. things get pretty crazy when I have to make like three marks for one row :P)

mmm, isn't it pretty? I can't wait to be done with this one!