What's Up Right Now

As of Sunday, I have a new apartment mate! Lotus came to live with me, and we are experiencing a typical roomate-falling-out.  She's nocturnal, I wake up during the day.  She likes bland food, I like onions, garlic, and pepper.  She can tolerate sitting on my lap, but god help me if I pester her when she's napping on top of her hot pad (another thing that bugs me-- she likes to be super warm, even for a hedgie, even at 82 degrees F she sits on her hot pad and snoozies!). This is evidenced by her angry face, as shown above.

We both love sitting on the couch, though.  I don't know what's up with her and my leather couch, but she likes to crawl under the fleece pillow and nap.  Which is cute :)  She's a bit camera shy, so maybe I can get some cute head shots at a later time.

Oh, yeah, I've been knitting too.  Behold, one sock of two that I'm making for my Uncle Mike, a guy who could use some more socks.

The pattern is improvised from these socks (ravelry link) I wanted to do a toe-up version that was easier to fit, so basically it's just a toe-up sock with the pattern repeat.  I think it's a really nice, mellow pattern that's easy to memorize and looks impressive without a lot of work... just my type :)

I'm also making a bit of a surprise.  This is going to be a free pattern up when I finish it, because it is... blatant copyright infringement... hehe. I think people will be excited when I post this.

Anyway... have a good week :O

ROCHESTER! AWESOME!

So, I'm in the Flour City for my three year anniversary with my sweetheart, and I just thought I'd share two of Rochester's finest places to go.  If you're ever in Rochester, check these places out!!

Artisan Works --   http://www.artisanworks.net/

Basically, this place is Warehouse 13 for art.  They've taken a bunch of old warehouse spaces and crammed them full of every cool work of art they could find.  There are artists working on pieces, and a bunch of stuff for sale.  They also have a rooftop garden, and you can reserve spaces for parties and such -- though I'm not too happy about that because we missed the ENTIRE second floor because of a godforsaken party.  When they're only open to the public three days a week, you'd think they'd have the courtesy to post that a large portion of the place is inaccesible due to an event.   But anyway! Overall, I'd give Artisan Works 9/10, and say that anyone who visits Rochester should see this place! It may not be the best place to bring small children, but, hey, what art gallery is?

Dogtown --    http://www.dogtownhots.com/

They sell hot dogs.  Delicious, gourmet hot dogs on baguettes.  I have eaten here at least 7 times now, and I've never gotten food I didn't like.  Even their veggie dogs are good, really, fake hotdogs... good! If you don't go anywhere else in Rochester but Dogtown, I doubt anyone that's eaten there would give you funny looks.

So, I had a good anniversary. :)

Charity Knitting

Aside from my knitting curse (being unable to make anything for myself...) I'm not usually an active charity knitter.  The knitting club I'm in, RIT Hooks and Needles (which I'm the president of- urk! People laugh when I tell them this!) does a different charity project every academic quarter, and I usually take part in that along with whatever else I happen to be working on.  But, this year, I'm working with a fraternity at school to raise money for the Karen Decker Cardiomyopathy Fund.

We're knitting the Hearts pattern from Mochimochi Land, with permission of course.  I'm doing my best to make a heart every day, and before the day of the walk, we're all going to get together and attach key rings to our little hearts, then sell them at a table.  We managed to get the yarn and key rings donated by club members and family, and the table space is donated as well! All of the proceeds will go directly to the fund, Hooks and Needles doesn't keep a cent (I know, I'm president.)

But this post isn't about tooting my horn or asking for help. (Though, if you'd like to knit a heart, feel free to e-mail me and I'll give you a contact address to mail it to!) This post is a general WTF.

I've probably knit a dozen of these little hearts with some Red Heart I had leftover from... I don't know what.  Maybe the yarn is from my early years, or maybe it was a gift from a family member, that is also not the point of this post and I don't want to go on a tangent!

The strange thing about the yarn is that whenever I sew up the hearts, it's a little different each time.  Sometimes the sizes are slightly off, sometimes the shapes are kind of wonky... and sometimes I just screw up. I don't know how I do it!

 Here's one: my second heart, it kind of looks like Mickey Mouse.  I think this mistake is cute, and maybe it'll make it to the table, maybe it'll get little whiskers embroidered on it and and up being a different keychain, haha!

Here's another: WHAT IS THIS!? How did this happen!? I don't even know. I'm ashamed, really, I am.  The only explaination I can give is this was the last of a long line of hearts that I sat and made while sitting in front of the TV. Obviously, I wasn't paying attention when I sewed it up... or stuffed it.... or both.  I'm usually pretty meticulous, and don't tolerate mistakes, but when I finished sewing this up and looked at it, it just put a smile on my face!

I think it kind of looks like a bird, what do you think?

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!