A tale of a stolen hat

I don't know how keen your memory is, or if you've been following me for a while or not, but in September I realized that I needed a hat to cover my head when I didn't feel like washing my hair in the morning (I'm blonde, so my hair constantly looks greasy if I don't wash it!).  I put it up on my 2009 knits, though it was only linked to ravelry.

I wore this hat home for Thanksgiving break, where I staying with my mom.  Now, my family is odd, and has gettogethers where the women combine food, drink, and strange clothing.  After my grandmother died it was muumuus. Now, it's funny hats.  Everyone in the house MUST wear a hat and MUST pose for an endless stream of pictures together. These parties last for HOURS, and I'm sure that they would amuse me much more if I was old enough to drink.  Sadly, I'm not, so I dart away to spend time with the other, non-drinking members of my family, and we band together in someone's room as if we're rebels hiding in a bunker.



Anyway, one night, my mom found my hat and wore it to the shenanigans. Everyone was delighted and complemented her on the new hat, since, if you were at the Funny Hat Club every week, you notice that there are only so many hats that someone can own. After about two months things become normal.

One of her friends, Jo, fell in love with it. "Your daughter knit that? WOW! Can she make me one?!" I'm sure that many of you have been in a similar situation, but of course, I was hiding in a closet with my cousin at the time, playing Drawn to Life on her Nintendo DS, so how could I respond? How could my mother respond?

With "Of course she can!" ... of course.

So, the next day, mother dearest nonchalantly mentioned. "Oh, Jo wants a hat just like mine, except in an earth tone.

I of course, had several qualms.  One, I am not a hat factory. I have things that I plan on knitting and I actually, in fact, probably have quite a long waiting list of things to make for people.  Second, that's not your hat! Of course, I couldn't argue to the latter, because when I did I was met with "But I love it! It's so beautiful! Can I keep it? You can have one of mine, we'll trade!"

As for the second, well, enough pestering can bump anyone to the top of my waiting list. So, I decided that in leiu of some sort of repeat of last year, where I was speeding to finish Selbu Modern and ended up blocking it to such an ugly shape that I nearly cried, I decided to take it easy and make something in a day.

Of course, when I told her my plans, she only said "We have to match!"

 So, here I am with the first hat, with three days to make the second.  I think it will work out, though, it's not exactly backbreaking to do. I actually like this yarn, it's "Lion Brand Wool Ease," and it was on sale so I bought a bunch :)

Also, I thought I'd throw in a picture of my studio, in progress. The papers are all of my ideas, doodles, etc. As if this post wasn't long enough! Have a good week!

When I came home from work today, I thought "That's just a nice photo" :)

Lovely but PITA Socks

Here they are! I finished these socks a while ago, before I moved, but I wanted to wait until I actually had pictures before I posted them. My sweetie took them and e-mailed them to me! Aren't they good? Isn't his camera nice? I like them.

Anyway, this pattern is Rapunzel Socks from Knit.1, and I fell in love with them... but there's something wrong with the heel. I knit the heel of the first sock up, got to the end, and was like "ERM... what is this?"

So I looked for errata. There were, on the internet, go figure. Fool me once, I should have looked that info up since I was working from a magazine.

So I make the heel again, 100%, my gusset stitches are decreased and... WHAT!? The pattern didn't line up! It was, like, 10 rows off!!

I'm honestly knitting retarded.

So, then I frog back at club, do the heel again, but with a rib instead of a cable so that I don't have to worry about rows lining up. So I'm at club, and Ash says "I want to try it on!" Of course, that seems like a good idea...

It wasn't. The sock was like, an inch and a half too short. So guess what I did, again?


Eventually, I just turned a heel that I found on the internet, which Ash loves because it's comfy and I love because it was so easy to do, and it looks easy to darn. I did a rib up the back heel, and I think it looks fine. Overall, I am pleased.

May I knit these again? Yeah, maybe, if ten years from now I really wanted these socks. Once I figured out the heel, the going was easy. I might make these in a knee-high with a picot heel for a little girl. Would I recommend the pattern? Noooooo.

On an unrelated note, I love how it's so fun to blog when I have to drive to McDonald's to do it, and I'm surprised that I can amuse myself without the internet.

First Apartment, First FO

I finished these Bella Mittens for my friend Kylie a while ago, but I was lazy putting up pictures for several reasons:

1. My camera cord was still packed away
2. I didn't have internet.

I fixed 1 by getting off my butt and digging around for it, and of course, finishing the unpacking. All that's left to unpack are some knick knack boxes that I just filled with random stuff that didn't have a better home.

As for 2... well, let's say now that I have my first car, I'm going to be frequenting WiFi hotspots. I'm writing this from McDonald's, with a steamy Mocha. Coffee is a good way to relax at the end of a long day... haha! I only bought it because I feel guilty coming in to use WiFi and not buying anything, but logistically...

$2.50 * 30 = $75, plus you have to factor in gas (not much, but little bits add up over time.)
And cable AND internet from Time Warner is $85... minus the calories. Really, the utility of having cable and internet in my apartment whenever I please is far greater than that of McDonald's internet.

Guess what I'm getting after my first paycheck? Hehe.

Also after my first paycheck, I'm makin' myself a studio! My apartment has one more room than I budgeted for, which was already packed with all my crafty stuff... so now, I've just unpacked the crafty stuff in place and called it a studio. I'm excited.

Also, I need to start my mom's birthday present. GAK!!

Dino the Dinosaur!

Dino the Dinosaur

Dino is a friendly little dinosaur, whose construction is a bit tricky for beginners but a fun challenge for the more advanced toy makers among us. I’ll post tutorial pictures soon, when I work on his girlfriend!