What I did last week

So a little update on what I have been crafting. For the most part, I have been working on Halloween costumes. I made Smurfette's dress and hat. Sewing and crochet respectively
















Then of course I have been working on my costume. Though if it doesn't warm up by this weekend, I might have to fall back on the old Gryffindor costume. But I am pretty sure this one turned out great. I got a lot of compliments on it. Most of the outfit was aquired from Goodwill, but I sewed the apron and crocheted myself a cat. Mostly cause I couldn't find a stuffed cat that fit in my budget. I have included a picture of the Crazy Cat Lady for reference.















I decided to learn how to needle tat. I have been interested for a while (ever since I saw Haley do it), but I couldn't find the needles. I finally did and I spent quite a bit of time on the internet looking stuff up. I think I've been doing stuff wrong. I am going to practice a bit more and see if I can figure out how to fix it. But if not, Haley said she would teach me on Thursday. I should probably wait until then, cause I have other things I should be working on. But here is an example of my first attempt.











I had Fiber guild last night. Look at all those spinners. I actually got a lot done. I finished up half of my Loop batts, so I took that off the spindle and started the other half. Hopefully I'll have that done soon so I can ply it up. That stuff is gorgeous. And I borrowed Judy's hand cards so I got some more of my Llama combed out. I didn't think about it until I got there, but I should have sent a message to the group asking someone to bring their drum carder and I could have gotten it all done while I was there. Oh well. I will probably be working more on my Loop spinning anyway.











And on a side note, the salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks is fan-freakin-tastic.

I'm a little behind

We had a Ravelry Meetup on Saturday (10-18). I didn't think to take any pictures. I need to get better about that.

Blair gave me silk hankies for spinning. Yay for new stuff. Boy you know when you need to moisturize with those suckers. They stick to every bit of dry skin. Ashes tried to lick them. Cats' tongues are very rough. I had to pry the hankies off of her tongue. I think she learned her lesson. Of course I had to start spinning it up right away. I am liking it a lot. The colors are very bright in the hankies, but tone down a bit with spinning and even more with plying. Not too much, but just enough that this will definitely make something wearable.












So I don't know why this has never occured to me before. October is my month to live vicariously through my friends as far as fibery purchases go. Everybody is having a birthday it seems. Well, Rachel bought some Alpaca Sox and ended up with one skein too much. I told her I would love to take it off her hands, but the no yarn purchase thing was a hinderance. She suggested a trade and told me to go through my stash and see if I had anything to get rid of. I don't know why it never occured to me. So I traded some sock yarn of my own for her Alpaca Sox. Hooray!

I'm sorry

I would just like to take the time to apologize to all of you who will be getting your Christmas presents sometime in July.

I found this and...well...I have a hard time sorting out my priorities.

So who is up for celebrating Christmas in July?

Halloween is on its way

For Zach's costume I made a brain slug from Futurama. It is my friend Haley's pattern. It was super quick and easy. He is very usually anti-effort when it comes to Halloween costumes. But he let me make this for him. It is small and it has clips on the bottom so it will stay in his hair.











I have decided to go as the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons. I was going to go as Ms. Swan from MadTV, but I couldn't find fabric for the apron and I couldn't do the accent right. So I went to Goodwill and started grabbing all the clothing in pink that I could. I just have to sew the apron and put an edging on my shirt. I am looking for a bunch of stuffed animal cats. I can't wait. It will be fun.







I submitted the pattern for my crochet socks to http://www.knittingpatternaday.com/whysubmit.htm I am very excited and very nervous. I hope it gets in. Unfortunately, I probably won't know for quite a while if I got in. The nice thing with submitting it to the calendar is that I keep all my rights to it so I can submit it to something else or post it with the rest of my patterns. I might make it free once it is done, then make a snazzier pair and go for a magazine next time. I'm not sure what I would do to snazz it up. Maybe some colorwork or a lacy stitch pattern.

Holy Crap!!! It's finished

I finished my Hey, Teach! sweater. I started the seaming at SnB on Thursday and stayed up late to get it done and get the buttons on it. I am so flippin' excited. I didn't take a close up picture of my seams, but I should have. I learned how to do a mattress seam for the sides and you totally can't tell where the seam is. It is magical. I wore it to work on Friday without blocking it and made Zach take pictures. I know it won't block really since it is made of acrylic yarn (Caron Simply Soft to be exact), but I think it will help even the whole thing out with a little stretching and pulling. Looking at the pictures, I do wish I had made the stockinette section longer. Maybe add a couple inches. It isn't a huge deal to me. After seeing the Yarn Harlot finish her version, I was inspired to just do the three buttons at the top like she did. Of course mine just came from AC Moore, unlike hers which were from London. I am going to hand wash it and then probably wear it on Thursday to show off. And all the drama with the sleeves was worth it, they turned out exactly the right length.

Thank Zach for the lovely pictures. I have a very obliging husband who was woken up to see the finished object (he went to bed before I did) and agreed to take pictures of me in it. These pictures are much better than just a picture of the sweater laid flat.

P.S. for those who haven't seen me in a while, I got new glasses (I don't wear them all the time, just when I want to feel extra nerdy) and I got highlights and cut my hair short.


















I have already started looking for my next sweater. I think I am going to make it out of Malabrigo. And yes Mom, I have finished a sweater for myself, there is now the possiblity that you will one day get your aran cabled cardigan.

Since I am failing miserably at actually keeping you entertained

see more puppies

still not coming up for air

Harvest Moon still has me in its grip. Hence I have no finished objects to show off.

Besides the fact that I had a yarn crisis regarding the sweater. I finished a sleeve. Finally one that was the right size and I had cast on the right number of stitches for it. As I held it up to my sweater, I realized it was the wrong color. I freaked out. I bought a bag from AC Moore that was of factory mill ends of Caron Simply Soft in Dark Country Blue. I made sure before I left the store to match it to the regular skeins of that color so that I wouldn't be surprised when I got it home. It matched. Since I already had 3 skeins at home and Caron Simply Soft is a no dyelot yarn, I felt safe and brought the bag home. Well I discovered the color discretion and ran to AC Moore to get one more skein. I thought maybe I just hadn't checked closely enough. Well I got there and the sweater (made from the older skeins of the same color) didn't match the skeins at the store. So I had no way of even buying more skeins. And since there is no dyelot, I would have a heck of a time getting more that matched what I had. I couldn't even remember the time period I bought them in. So I go home and start digging through the stash hoping maybe I could get away with doing the sleeves and edgings in a complimentary color. Well lo and behold, since this yarn was meant to be 2 other sweaters before it became this one, I had pieces of those crocheted up in my WIP basket. Those suckers were frogged immediately. So thankfully I have enough to finish. And it should be done soon. With all 4 sleeves.

I received my Transfiguration swap package. I knew it was going to be awesome. She had cross stitched the Hogwarts house crest. And even made me a couple pins. It is fantastic. I need to bring it to work to hold my jewelry because I am notorious for wearing earrings or a bracelet to work and then taking it off halfway through the day. I need a nice centralized location to keep them.









I do surveys online, and I earn money. But not real money. Like I can't trade what I've earned in for real cash, but I can trade it in for the stuff they have on their website. One of the prizes is $15 in Borders Bucks. It used to be that it would be split up so you would get $5 per month for the next 3 months. They changed it so you get all of it at once. Zach didn't really need anything so I went and bought a few things for me. I got the new Interweave crochet cause there was a bunch of cute stuff. I was going to get the Spin Off, but I wasn't thrilled with the issue. Instead I got what I thought was the new Yarn Harlot book (It is actually the one before her newest one). It is a really cute book. It has different quotes on each page with a little funny message or story about how the quote relates to knitting. Also some funny "You know you knit too much when..." of which I have qualified for just about every one of them so far.