Seafoam Yarnblob

And you thought "Seafoam" was just a color....

Sorting Hat says "Sheepfyndor"!

Here's a recently completed FO; a scarf knitted for a friend of my older daughter's:

Cocoa Bear was asleep since my youngest had gone to bed already when I took the photos. The sheep seemed a bit leery of the bright colors, but then he seemed to calm down a bit:

At the end, he seemed genuinely cozy:

Now both daughters and another friend of my older daughter's want scarves for "Sheepyrin." (Okay, they said Slytherin, but I control the yarn around here.) Now the question is, do I have grey and green in my yarn stash. Probably. After all, the Sheepfyndor was made with leftovers from the stash. Not sure I have enough grey for three scarves, but I am certain to have enough green (it's my favorite color).

Do I Hear Rushing Water?

And what exactly is "laundry"?

The Sharks got my Kimono

Okay, it wasn't sharks, it was the shark eggs. Okay, the shark egg-looking bobbins. And okay, they didn't actually eat my kimono, but they did weigh it down enough to make it slip right off the needles. This is it, freshly reeled back in:

And here are the wee beasties, still shamelessly feasting on the carcass:

Argh.

Fun with Test Swatches

So my best friend and I went to our LYS recently so she could get some yarn and a pattern for her sister's baby, who is due in September. She's never done a cable in her life, so between gaming I transferred the pattern to a note card and did a test swatch so I could show her how, and so we could work out any eccentricities in the pattern (naturally, there were some). Sorry to disappoint, but I forgot to scan the mad knittist notes I made on the cards. I'll walk the plank later.

In any case, the pattern (which is adorable) calls for some embroidered detail at the cable intersections, so we added that to the test swatch so we could work out any kinks in that as well.

The result of all this careful swatching:

Well, at least it looks happy. Perhaps that's because it has its own built-in yarnblob:

Pink Kimono Progress

Having started over with the green yarn, I'm now almost as far as I had gotten with the pink:

Now I'm at the point that I'll need to do the in-pattern color change. Me and the yarnblobs Mims and Rannon lil' bobbins (Willow reference) are ready:

It reminds me of a pile of foam hair curlers.

Pink Kimono Progress and Randomness

Here's my progress on the pink pink and green kimono:

The two parts aren't actually connected, I just haven't frogged out the pink section yet so I could see them side by side (because I'm a nerd).

Also, I found this pic in my collection and don't know why I took it except maybe to show one of my favorite coffee cups and the green devil duck pencil I've been using the sketch things out lately:

Admit it: you'd be disappointed if there wasn't some sort of randomness in my posts.

New Gnomies Chillin'

We got these guys 2 weeks ago, and forgot to deploy them:

From photo left to right are Sticks, Slacker and Digger.
I didn't get home from work until 10 Monday night, and was too tired to knit. All I could manage was PaintShopping the background (and the frisbee) of this photo.

Lego my Witchy

After dragging my feet for some time, I finally got to the point where I wanted my Hubby to go ahead and upgrade my computer to Windows 7. Naturally, he was more than willing to do so. While he was there, however, he noticed something amiss on my desk:

Alas. First that house fell on my sister and now this…. She wasn't even wearing those ruby slippers. Oh, what a world... What a world.... If only I'd bought a Swingline.

Yarnblob: Lion Stealth Suede

The stealthy Lion Suede Canyon print Yarnblob successfully sneaks past the cat sleeping on the giraffe-print kitty bed...

RPG Painted Mini - Dwarf

First, the unpainted original, mini and image from Reaper Minis:

And here's my painted mini, which we have actually used in play:

Pink Kimono Re-Test Swatching and Virtual Knitting

After selecting the additional yarn for the pink kimono, I started trying to figure out how and where to put the color changes. I lost track very quickly, so I started scribbling again:

As you can see, I was quite undecided. Then it occurred to me that it didn't have to be simple straight-line color changes, and that it might look more interesting if I changed colors at the edges of the fan pattern, which resulted in the scribbles to the far right. My Hubby suggested it might be cool to put some green across the shoulders, which resulted in the scribbles on the bottom.

Then came the fun part: trying to figure out whether it would be feasible or even possible to change colors at the edges of the fan pattern. First, I had to figure out where the thing began and ended, since one 18-row by 10-stitch repeat on paper looks nothing like a fan. Maybe a box fan, but not the kind one would knit into a kimono. Honestly, even my color coded re-drawing of the repeat looks more like something from the Matrix than anything that would ever turn into a fan. Staring at the test swatch didn't seem to be helping, either.

I decided my only option was to break out the big RPG mapping graph paper (11"x17") and map out a Barbie-sized kimono, complete with symbols, etc. I quickly figured out that was a huge pain in the hiney and still wasn't helping me figure out where the fan shapes actually came from in the color-coded Matrix. Finally, after again studying the test swatches with the Matrix right next to it, I figured out where the points were, made a stair-stepped dividing line in the Matrix, transferred the starting points to the graph paper, approximated the curves and colored it in:

It's still hard to see the fans, and I still wasn't sure about the quantity and placement of the green, since obviously the pink is the main color. Even the prospect of knitting a Barbie-sized mockup seemed a bit daunting, so I did a 2-color test swatch, 1 repeat down by 2 across:

It came out pretty neat-looking, IMHO, but I still wasn't sure I wanted to go through with a Barbie-sized mockup. My darling Hubby then suggested I use the new Corel Paintshop Pro software we just got. Dude. Talk about virtual knitting:

All of that was done by scanning the 1x2 repeat swatch and copying, recoloring, etc. in Paintshop. Despite the fact that I've never used the software before, it was still way easier than a mini-mockup.

I think we've decided to go with the latter design, bearing in mind there will be a much larger amount of pink between the border at the bottom and the stripe across the shoulders. I wanted a better idea of how the green across the shoulders would actually look since it would be folded over, so my Hubby suggested I print it out and fold it. He's a genius:

In case you're wondering, the somewhat coordinating color of the magnetic board is entirely coincidental. I would have gone with a darker green if they'd had it.

Ship Ahoy

My Hubby and I were talking a while back about my blog pic (currently a picture of a tea cozy I knitted). We were talking about maybe making some kind of 3D setup with yarn and taking a photo, and I envisioned a Viking-style ship with scarf blowing from the mainmast and a ram's head at the bow. It was hard to explain and I didn't want to lose the idea, so I scribbled it out as best I could:

Clearly, I am just not an artist, so to explain, the mountain on the island is a cone of yarn and the shrubbery and trees are yarn cakes with DPN's sticking out. The cargo and shields on the ship are spools, and the main mast is a crochet hook. Those things on the sails that look like nails are supposed to be knitting needles. The single cloud is supposed to be a skein of white yarn and the oppositely-colored dots in the Yin-Yang symbol are supposed to look like the end of a skein or cake. It looked a lot better in my head than it does on paper. Perhaps for now I'll just stick with the tea cozy.

Badass Geek Button

I totally forgot to post a pic of my Badass Geek button, so here it is, sported by a tiny volunteer:

I had him hanging in my office thus adorned, but my hands aren't steady enough to take a non-blurry picture of him with my phone, so I had to bring him home to take the pic, which is why it took so long.

Pink Kimono Progress

After coming to the end of the first skein of the Pink Yarn of Doom, I realized I didn't have enough to finish even the smaller sized kimono. I wouldn't have needed more yarn if this particular lot didn't look so blobby when used with larger needles. At current gauge, however, I lacked about 3 skeins. Yes, it's true: I needed more yarn.

At first, I considered simply ordering 3-4 skeins from the manufacturer (I think it's only available online), but I just didn't wanna. I wanted to add another color, maybe some green or something to counteract the pinkness. Don't get me wrong: I actually like the color and have a couple of blouses I wear to work that are a very similar color. I only call it the Pink Yarn of Doom because it's funny and sounds RPG-ish. But let's face it: a pink kimono large enough to fit me is gonna be a lot of pink. I'm hoping if I add some green or something it will unpinkify it a bit. Also, I like green, and I particularly like pink/green/cream color combinations (even though I don't seem to have any in my wardrobe).

So, with my test swatch and a label from the pink yarn in hand, my ever-so-patient Hubby and I went off to our LYS the Woolie Ewe to see what could be found in the way of coordinating yarns in a similar weight. Ordinarily, I rarely get out of my LYS for less than $50, primarily because there's too much ooh-ing and aah-ing by both of us. However, the store has a points-based coupon frequent buyer yarnaholic enabling program which, of course, I'm a member of. Today, we ended up with a little yarn guide (a plastic thingy intended to help with using multiple strands, but I use them to keep from wearing a thin sock-yarn-wide groove into my index finger), a ball of shiny orange yarn my hubby picked out (no idea what he I am going do with it), and the green yarn we found for the kimono. Between the coupon and the Ravelry discount, we got out of there for less than $20. That was a red letter day.

Anyway, here's the test swatch for the green, side-by-side with the current pink:

The odd thing about the pink yarn is that it never photographs or scans exactly the color it really is. It's kind of a dusty, darkish pink, which is what I like about it. The lighter shade of the green yarn doesn't seem to want to photograph exactly either, but this is close for both of them:

Strangely, though the green yarn appears thicker, it actually knits to the same gauge. I figured it would be close, since the meters-per-50 gms length was the same, but once I started the swatch I thought surely I'd have to use smaller needles. I guess it's just that the green yarn splays out a bit, and the pink stays twisted together. Weird, but convenient.

Of course, this means I gotta frog out the whole pink thing and start over. Fortunately, I think the new color combo will work out well, and I'm even more excited about this project than I was when I first decided to make the Pink Yarn of Doom into a kimono. Naturally, that probably means my older daughter will swipe the thing as soon as it's done and I'll never see it again except on her person. Either way, it's always good if something I've knitted is enjoyed. We shall see.

The Geckmono

Well, for those of you who've been following along, you know I've been working on a pink kimono. The pattern is from Knit Kimono by Vicki Square. I keep calling it a "shells" pattern but it's actually a fan pattern. In any case, there are lots of really cool patterns in this book, and I was feeling rather inspired, so I got to thinking. There's this Geico gecko on my desk

that my older daughter put there months ago, wanting me to make some sort of clothing for it, though I have forgotten what the original requested item was. I suspect I have forgotten because it's changed a time or two. Might have been a ninja suit, might have been a "Jayne [Cobb] hat."
No. Idea.

As I said, however, I was feeling rather inspired, so after a day and night of hard work, I am pleased to present the Geckmono:

Here it is, re-accessorized with a full-sized shawl pin, also useful as a Gecko Wizard's staff:

Clearly, this is the crowning glory of the collective knitting and designing careers of Ms. Square and myself, and we can now both retire forever, since after this gem, there is nowhere to go but down.

Right.

So about that pink kimono...

Traditional Family Easter Activities

Carrot Bowling and the Velcro Bunny toss:

What? Doesn't everyone do this?

Vera Makes a Yarnblob

and it's a doozy:

Vera insisted that I was partly to blame, but I can neither confirm nor deny the yarnblob allegations...