Vacation Update

I've had a nice time on vacation so far, time to craft and time to spend with family.  I'm pretty frustrated with a current WIP, which I'm thinking of abandoning (at least for a while.) Another is finished, and the pattern is being written up!

Good luck Rocky! Erm... Pinwheel!

Rocky has been passed on to Tanglewood, and I'm sure he's happy to be there! They kept his original name, Pinwheel, which W and I gave him.  He seems happy, though it's hard to see it through his huffly exterior.

And on the bunny front, we have had success getting Samson to use a potty pad! I woke up this morning to this sight.

His pee isn't really that color, it's the pen liner showing through ^_^;

Okay, his pen looks totally gross but I HAD to run and take a picture, I didn't even think to clean his cage... whoops.

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their week, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not! :) We sure are.

Free Pattern: Tiling Tiger Print

This isn't exactly a pattern, per se... but it's a useful download nonetheless! This chart is a tiger print pattern, which you can apply to any knitting pattern - just work the colors off the chart whenever your pattern calls for stockinette stitch.

I can see tons of awesome uses for this! Tiger print hats, tiger print dishcloths, tiger print bath mats, felted tiger print bags, tiger print laptop cases, tiger print scarves, cowls, mittens...

While I was uploading the pdf to ravelry, W told me that it could be zebra print... just change the colors!

Another plus to this pattern is that it tiles! Which means that you can repeat the pattern over and over, with not a lot of troubles.

Anyway, click the link here to download a copy of the chart: download now

If you're on Ravelry, check out the pattern page here!

Walkabout

Exams are finally over, final projects are turned in, hearts were broken and drama was had.  I'm happy to say that I spent the past (almost) 24 hours being a lazy young person. There was a short time where I worked, but for the most part, laziness!

And it was glorious.

Today me, W, and two of our friends decided to go to Eastview Mall, just for the heck of it.  Two things I love about Eastview. [1]: Yogenfruz.  It is a yuppie frozen yogurt stand with (usually) sour-tempered employees who go to private school and hate their families.  At least, today it was.

The second, and perhaps most important one, is ANTHROPOLOGIE.

I love the anthropologie store.  I love walking around and looking at the expensive clothes, not touching them because it's like a museum of glorious clothing, if I were to touch them then the oils from my skin would stay on them forever, and then sediment will be unable to deposit there, and people that want to come and see them in the future will never be able to! Or is that a limestone formation?

But really, I do love that store.  It really inspires me, mostly because I could make things like the stuff in anthropologie! It wouldn't be that hard! Ever been to a paint-your-own pottery studio? Corning NY has one and I'm totally going on a date with W over break to make some dishware :)

Here are some other goods that I thought "Oh, man, I could make that myself!!"

I could probably make this BETTER than Anthropologie... This looks kind of shoddy, for $15...

The cardboard stumps just made me think of W, wouldn't that be a cool stop motion set?

And some gloves from Charlotte Russe.  They're really chic, but if I knit myself a pair I would make glittens.

So what do you think? Do you get inspired by stuff you see in stores or magazines? Do you buy it, or go and craft it? What will happen when the crafty look goes out of style!?

Burning Low

The Hooks and Needles Felting Party was Friday! I made roast chicken, corn, and roasted carrots and onions (assisted by Ash, of course.) Gillian brought brownies, and Rebecca, who's moved to town, came!

I would show you pictures of our felted slippers, but I'm the only person who's finished them, so you'll just have to see pics of mine.  Other people's projects were just these :P

And, our special guest was Samson, fresh from the vet.

He's coming home with me for Thanksgiving break, so there will be plenty more gorgeous angora photos then!

Right now, I feel burnt out... like, I'm a candle that's about to die. I can't wait for break! It'll be nice to relax, visit family, and sleep without an alarm.  Then, next quarter, I'm cutting back on credit hours a bit, so that will be nice too.

Time to get back to studying and paper-writing.  I wrote this post while the rice for my soup was cooking :)

Happy Thursday

This week is destroying me.  I have some much done - but so much left to do.  It's the story of my life.

But in good news, the Hooks and Needles Felting Party is tomorrow! We're keeping it small, only 4 or 5 of us will be here, so I'm roasting a chicken and making roast vegetables.  It's going to be lovely and stress-free.

Then Saturday is my HAZWOPER refresher course, where I hope to do some novel writing (bad me, I know, but I'm falling behind! Mostly because of time, partly because I have no idea what to write.)

Also, I have another slipper set done, and I'm starting on a hat that may turn into a published design! (Note the 'may,' haha) 

As for the picture? A little bit of happiness from a midnight snack, of course! :)

Knitted Totoro Cat Bus

This is the amigurumi mystery project that I've been holding back on for almost a month! I wanted to make sure my swap partner got the package, so I wouldn't be ruining some great surprise for her.

I may eventually release a felted pattern, which would probably look better and have more stability than this one. Plus, my mom REALLY wants one, so eventually it'll happen...

Anyway, I made it really quickly and the pattern notes are ALL OVER, so it will take some time to type of the notes, let alone edit it to be a full pattern... so I don't think I'll be releasing this any time soon :P

A Knitting Miracle

Well, last night at club I merrily finished the last two pieces of my first pair of French Press Slippers! I wanted to start sewing them together, when I realized that I had made three of the same piece instead of two each for the top pieces.

My jaw was slack.  I held up the pieces, compared them.  Tried to stretch one so that maybe it would fit into shape.  Three other knitters were there, and they confirmed the diagnosis: I had made three of the right top piece, and one of the left.  I felt defeated.  This was the second mistake on these slippers this week!

Ash suggested that I just sew it together anyway and felt it up, since it probably wouldn't matter.  I just didn't like this idea - maybe it wouldn't matter, but I would know.  I would see W's mom in the slippers, and wonder if they're not the best they could be because I messed up.  I wouldn't give her the slippers saying "Yeah, hey, I messed these up, but you know, you won't notice," but I'll be thinking that.  I guess you could say I'm a perfectionist...

This morning, I went to throw in the towel and give up, ready to move onto my next set of slippers, when I discovered something amazing.

The two halves match.  They are mirror images.  They line up evenly.  They were made correctly.

How do I explain this? I choose not to.  I'm going to accept this as a crafty miracle and not draw too much attention to it.  Whoa, you might be thinking. This just means that you weren't paying attention last night when you went to put it together. But it wasn't just me.  Three other people looked at those pieces and shook their heads and said "Jeez, if this is your knitting your homework must look really bad." Maybe the four of us were off our rockers from end-of-the-quarter papers, but I doubt no one noticed.

But maybe it's not a miracle.  Maybe there's a troupe of elves hiding under my bed, who have decided to help me by fixing my stupid knitting mistakes at night. I'm not going to test this theory, though!