Fall Comes Early - I wish

These are actually plastic trees to which my Hubby is going to glue green flocking; ultimately they'll be used for our Pathfinder games. I'm not sure how those few ended up in the chair, but I suspect feline interference.

D is for Revenge

Okay D is for Dog, but the dog was my revenge. My Hubby kept throwing this little dog-shaped cat toy at me and I couldn't seem to hit him with it, so while he wasn't looking I put it where he would be sure to see it:

Yes, that's part of my hubby's current project. Now it's a dog house ;-)

A Tiger? In Plano?

Nope, it's just my big ole cat:

And here he is in a rare hearth-side pose with his very fuzzy brother:

Yarnblobs in Waiting and Updates

I realize it's been awhile since I posted; I've been working a lot of overtime lately and haven't had time to do much of anything fun, let alone post about it :-(

However, I did buy more yarn, just waiting to be turned into yarnblobs as soon as I have enough time off to get out the winder and swift:

I also found these cuties at my LYS, made by Serendipity Needles:

Yes, they're black sheep, and yes, they have little tails (tho, no legs: can't have 'em running off to school with Mary and that other lamb, you know). I probably won't actually use them since I knit almost exclusively with circulars, but they're just so cute staring at me from the pencil cup :-)

Meanwhile, my darling Hubby bought me the full set of Master Series paints from Reaper Minis, and more Warhammer 40K minis. Before the overtime started, I'd detached one of the sets so I could put it in a baggie for later assembly. In my efforts to show my brother-in-law what they looked like, I tried to hand him one of the spare heads, but I dropped it and it rolled out of sight and into oblivion. As they say, heads will roll. Counting on Murphy's Law to help me, I thought my cats would manage to find it. So far they've found screws, stitch markers and dust bunnies, but not the missing head. Good thing it was a spare.

Meanwhile, my Hubby also got me a new camera (Canon Powershot Sx130) and bag, and a portable studio thingy that folds up into itself so I can photograph minis and stuff. So, no more pictures on the game mat. I had to RTFM (read the friggin manual) to figure out how to shoot close up, and I also have a couple of tripods now so my shaky hands won't mess up the pictures. So far, this is as good as I've gotten, but I'm workin on it:

FO: Stripey Socks

Well my plan to ship off the surprise socks to the original intended recipient rather changed when I gave them to a co-worker who's going through some difficult times:

So while trying to decide what to make for the original intended recipient, I made these for myself:

They're made from Berroco Sox color 1474 using my basic toe-up pattern that doesn't require require me to carry the pattern around. Meanwhile, I've chosen the yarn for the original intended recipient, so that's next.

On a side note, I've had to start binding off socks with needles double the circumference of the needles I use to knit the socks because I tend to pull the stitches tight when I'm binding off. For this project, I used these to bind off the cuffs:

Cheerful little guys, aren't they?

Yarn-Related LOLCat

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Slightly Late Christmas Gifts

We were seriously strapped for cash this Christmas, so we ended up making most of the gifts we gave this year. These were slightly late in being gifted to my younger two, who received them December 26 and 27. The first is a cat I knitted for my youngest from a pattern I got from Bernat:

The second is a bat I knitted for my younger girl from a pattern from Mochimochi Land:

I am pleased to say that despite being a day or two late, they were both well-received :-)

Upon seeing these, my older daughter, third upward in age, asked me if I could make her a Nessie (yes, the Loch Ness Monster). I'm not sure whether she was more pleased or more astounded that I actually have a pattern for that, but it will be rather later than the bat or the cat:

Yes, the scale is correct: I've completed approximately 2 inches of the tail. Here's the pic from the pattern, both from "Amigurumi Knits," by Hansi Singh (a great book with lots of cool stuff):

I obviously have a long way to go, but I do enjoy making things people actually want. Admittedly, I probably enjoy pulling patterns out of my Book Stash for odd stuff that nobody would guess I had a pattern for just as much as actually knitting the thing, but who's counting...

Kitty Hijinx and WIP Progress: Green Blanket

I was walking through the house when I spotted a two-color strand of yarn (I notice these things) strung from the floor up the stairs onto the first landing. It ended near one of the cats, but not until I got closer did I realize someone had tied it to one of the cat toys, which had then gotten dragged up the stairs. Rool, pictured here, tried to convince me he was not at fault if the yarn got damaged:

Meanwhile, our other cat, Franjean (yes, we named them after the brownies in the movie "Willow"), was enjoying my progress on the green blanket:

I only have one more strip to sew to the last piece, then I can sew the three big pieces together and I'll be done. And it's only taken a decade. Such speed.

My hubby was taking the tree down today, so the cats decided they needed one last romp through it before it was boxed up:

Don't worry, guys: it'll be back next year.

Feline-Induced Yarnblob

Guess which one the cats got hold of:

You guessed it: all of them.
Note: my cats would like to state for the record that they were innocent bystanders in this matter....

Edible Yarnblob

And you thought I forgot this week's yarnblob post, didn't you? Well I didn't, though this one may take a bit of explaining. The blackish thing in the middle of the cookie is supposed to be a cat, and the brownish thing next to the cat is supposed to be a ball of yarn unwinding (e.g. because the cat has played with it). But, since I have a great deal of trouble drawing, and even more trouble drawing with icing, my ball of yarn came out like an edible yarnblob. Can't really blame the cat for that, but who's counting? ;-)

Do I Hear Rushing Water?

And what exactly is "laundry"?

Yarnblob: Lion Stealth Suede

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

Yarn Blob

Art critic kitteh does not approve of your Yarn Blob interpretation of the Greyed Rainbow.

Plank-Walking: Patterns

It occurs to me I might have followers I don't know about, and that hey, they might want to see some patterns for stuff. Obviously, due to copyright laws, I can't post patterns I purchased from other folks, but I will start uploading original patterns as I post. Unfortunately, when it comes to original patterns I might never use again, I tend to wing it based on hastily-scribbled pictures and a few mathematical notations. Thus, in some cases, I have to go back and re-create the pattern by looking at the finished object. That said, if there is old non-copyrighted stuff on here you'd like to see the pattern for, let me know and I'll do my best.

Just to make this post a bit more colorful, here's a pic of a kitty in a basket lined with yarn. The basket was a dollar store purchase; I made the liner using a Nifty Knitter with standard instructions for a tube and two strands of yarn. There's no telling what project it is she's laying on, but I think it's a blanket.

Lost at Sea

Well CrapCat has reminded me that it's been while since I was able to post or even read my email or the blogs I follow, due to working a lot of overtime and catching up at home as a result. However, I've nearly completed another project, so stay tuned and bear with me and I'll try to make it worth the wait :-)

Meanwhile, here's a random pic of the castle blanket I crocheted with a cute kitten named Jet and his friend, whom I think is a stuffed pokemon:

The Problem of Yarn Storage

Ugh. I have a lot of yarn. I love my yarn (well, 95% of it), and with the obvious exception of making something and giving it to someone, I don't want to part with it. Half of it is stored in neatly-stacked clear plastic bins in the upper part of my closet, though "organized" would be too strong a word:

The other half, however, is not so neat:

 

There's more, but it only gets worse and becomes interspersed with other arts-and-crafts supplies such as cloth and the sewing box (the black toolbox partially visible in the last two photos). Also, having settled into our house rather late in life, I still occasionally find a random ball of yarn I evidently stuck somewhere while packing during one move or another, in some cases, many years ago. Some of my yarn is older than my children. The taupe colored ball perched atop the plastic box and looking like a small bail of hay in the last pic is one such randomly-located ball, and I just found it yesterday while unpacking some boxes that have been waiting their turn for over a year. Usually, I have a good laugh at myself while walking the stray yarn to the closet, only to look around in dismay, sigh, and stick it randomly in one the yarn boxes, hopefully one that has yarn of similar color. In this case, I just gave up and stuck it on the box, hoping the cats don't get into the closet before I figure out where to put it.

With that in mind, I did some online research this morning for yarn storage solutions, and found nothing to suit my needs except a lot of good suggestions, all of which involve my making something. What? Me? Make something? Perish the very thought!

So for now, my search for an acceptable yarn storage solution continues. I'll post again if/when I figure something out. Naturally, I'm open to suggestions.

Adventures in Double Knitting

I have been thinking for some time about getting one of the knitting boards from LionBrand. Unfortunately, there isn't a reliable link to a picture of it on the site, so I can't post it here. It's basically an oval board with a hole in the middle and a lot of pegs. One of the reasons I haven't purchased one is that I have a number of round Nifty Knitters, and while they're useful for some things, especially for getting the kids to knit, you can't vary the gauge much except by adding thicknesses of yarn. However, I have been thinking that there must be a way to do this double-sided knitting thing without spending money on a knitting board that I'm not likely to use all that often. Finally, it occurred to me that there have to be instructions on the Web somewhere. It is an unfortunate truth that these little epiphanies usually happen when I'm nowhere near a computer, so it has taken until today for me to get around to surfing for instructions. Thankfully, my search led me to this little gem. RedThread's excellent instructions on this topic are clear and concise and include pictures that are, of course, far neater than mine:

This is my youngest, after putting the extra DPN's between his fingers like a wood-knuckled Wolverine and spearing the yarn. This pic is a bit neater:

Note my feline assistants in the background, napping. They're all tuckered out from jumping on my little work table and grabbing at the yarn. This pic was taken after retrieving all the DPN's they sent rolling across the floor.

Naturally, even after my feline assistants fell asleep, I messed up early on:

Despite my momentary compulsion to undo the entire row and fix it, with a nod to Athene, I just left it alone. After all, I figured I'd make plenty more errors to keep that one company.

Ultimately, the chart I made was not a good fit for this project:

It's supposed to be a leaf, and on paper it looks vaguely leaf-like. While knitting, however, it became rather less leaf-like and more cat-like, especially since I miscounted the rows (in my defense, this was knitted partly at home and partly at the doctor's office we took my youngest to). After adding some ears, it became less cat-like and more like some sort of fancy slug, although my youngest assures me it's still cat-like. Okay, perhaps I've knitted a Rorschach test, but it'll still make a good potholder:

This is my youngest again, modeling the new potholder in a frame he built from the yarn and needles I was using: there are two more needles behind the potholder and the fifth is stuck between the spools of yarn, apparently to keep them from escaping the box. Well, at least the cats can't reach them now.

CrapCat

Earlier today, my Hubby was teasing me about a pattern I found because the colors are a bit drab (I won’t go into detail, but he said it looked moldy, and I can't necessarily disagree). Generally, when I show him things, I turn my monitor so he can see the image. Having given up trying to convince him that the colors could be changed, I was returning my monitor to its normal position when CrapCat tumbled off like a Humpty Dumpty wannabe. When I picked him up, he had two size 00 DPN’s sticking out of his head. Ignoring the obvious statement that makes about the condition of my desk, I re-positioned the DPN’s and here is the result:

You can't see them in this photo, but to CrapCat’s left are his new buddies: a Lego Jedi-Wizard and his Owl familiar that my Hubby pieced together from several sets the children decimated long ago:

My Hubby is a Lego fan, so now that the children don’t play with them anymore, he’s put all the sets together so he can build something. Not sure what yet, but I’m not complaining since the same can be said of my yarn stash.

Halloween Cookies - Late

So we're a week into November and I finally got the Halloween cookies made:

 

 

All the kids were at their grandmothers' so I managed to get the cookies iced before they were all eaten. Well, except the other two cauldron cookies - someone has to do quality testing, after all.

Meanwhile, it was beautiful outside this morning, despite the cloud cover, so I got these two pictures of my front yard:

 

Normally I'm not big into the color orange, but it was really pretty, and I was quite pleased to have captured this year's fall colors before they disappeared. The time when the trees are colorful is very short: they go almost directly from full and green to brown and bare. It makes one wonder how I managed the autumn leaf cookies earlier this year:

 

A friend told me I done pretty good for a southern gal. Oh well, now that the cookies are made (and, no doubt, soon to be eaten), back to the dragon dice bag. If it comes out right, I may have to knit CrapCat a new hat.

Continued Adventures of CrapCat

CrapCat is still perched atop my computer monitor, overlooking the stuff on my desk (CrapDesk, if you will).  Currently, he sports what was supposed to be a dragon-skin dicebag, complete with tail.  Said dicebag is not turning out quite as planned so I put it on the cat:

Here is that which he oversees:

Messy, huh? Objects you see include a d20 approximately 3" in diameter; foam shuriken (next to the d20); the remains of the brown yarn from which CrapCat was made; a flashlight, generally used to locate dpn's that have rolled under my desk; a pen/pencil cup; a pretty box hiding many miscellaneous (mostly useless) objects; a toy rolling pin; my sharpies and some software. Oh, and a sheep, who from this angle appears to end in a small cloud. I'll leave that a mystery.

I post the picture of my desk because I have recently seen (in other people's blogs) pictures of desks well-organized and neat, desks organized with interesting and useful things, desks that invite one to sit and create. Unfortunately, my desk does not fit into that category. And yet, it is the very process of creating things, repairing things, etc., that repeatedly brings my desk into its current state. Funny, my desk at work does not look like this: at work, I am very organized. Apparently I leave my organizational skills in my desk drawer at work when I come home. Fortunately, I can still locate poo-brown yarn and needles so I can make a CrapCat on demand.