Halloween

Nasty, ugly, horrid rasta hat is done!  One size fits all -- kids and pets that is.

So I now have an official UGH! on Ravelry!  Golly, that thing looks like a mutant candy corn on his head!
In other news, I ran out of beads for the Night Peacock, grrr, so I have to order more.  So I've dusted off Putnam's, which I love.

Olympian is done - pattern now available

Oh look, more pictures of me with no head.
Pattern now available via Ravelry for $2.00, I'll put up a link here soon.

It's fun and fast, would make a good Christmas knit for a medium sized person you love with a lizard's constitution.
And now for something completely different. 
I love to work with nice fibers, subtle colors, things that are soft and have a great hand.

Which is why making a hunter orange, acrylic Rasta hat for the small one's costume is just so sad for me.  Putridity ugly, but fast.

oh yeah

There w wnere 2 other things to do today.  The first was to redo the Camp Half Blood tshirt for the little's costume, much better this time.  The first time it got smeary and the tree was too big.  This time I cut the stencils apart and arranged them and taped them down being sure to wash them and dry them between each stenciling session.  I like this one.
And on a related note, I want to finish the Olympian and post the pattern.  Very simple and I'm in love with the colors.  For once in my life I want to make a rollneck that's not so long it looks like a dress.  Being 5'1" doesn't help with that - the urge to wear big clothes makes you look childlike in that bad, no one loved you enough to dress you right way or just dumpy and fat.  Hurtling towards 40, I aspire to look neither.

A day at home

Today I have a teacher conference with the little one's teacher so took the day off because a.) it's in the middle of the day b.) I needed to meet the Comcast tech at home c.) spouse and I could get our H1N1 mist and hopefully make ourselves somewhat illness resistant.
So I finished cleaning out and reinstalling the pump and filter in the pond, washed the columns of the porch, cleaned up the garage a bit and put up the Halloween decorations.  Now I'm poaching chicken for some chicken salad which is for tomorrow.  Tonight I'm going to make these.  Mmmm.  Of course it's in the low 60's here today and so I have the kitchen window open and the kitty has been pinned to it ever since. Below are some pictures of a.) the finished soccer mittens on and b.) the sweater I'm making for the small one in Cotlin. 
I also need to take a shower before I go to the conference.  :)

I got more mail

So, here we have some Cotlin for a rugby style sweater for the little one (Cedar and Planetarium) and some Comfy worsted in October for another take at the white sweater in something soft.

Problem with October - I look kind of hideous in orange.  I have blue and orange eyes (I even took a picture so you could see, but that disembodied eye is kind of freaky, sorry about that), light brown hair and skin that is just a little too sallow to work with most earth tones.  But I like them, more and more as I get older.  So, I will knit my d*mn sweater and either a.) give it to my sister who does look good in such colors or b.) stubbornly wear it myself and look like I'm about to vomit the whole time.

And here are some pictures of 5 minutes of fun with beads and earring hooks.  The big round beads are Moss Agate.  There's a lot of variation in the 16 inch strand, so you need to match them carefully.  Kitties love to help with that, in case you were wondering.

New Pattern available - DIY Mittens

So, today a coworker asked for my help with something she's knitting. It's a blouse with a fitted top and a Rowan kidsilk haze (aka kidsilk crack if you've ever felt it, so lovely) sort of skirt - it's going to be lovely, but she wasn't happy with how the top part rolled, was worried it would mess up the drape of the lighter skirt part. I told her to rip up the cast on edge and knit it back down in 2 rows of seed stitch so it would be flat. Long story short, I spent some time showing her how to insert the life line, how to undo a cast on and tink back. While this was all going on, she asked about the soccer mom mittens I've been working on. So, for Amy, I've worked up a DIY mitten pattern - includes sizes kids medium, women's small and medium large and a men's medium. But the graph is blank - for 99 cents you can print it off over and over and design your own mittens in as many or as few colors as you like. Got a zillion little balls of space dyed sock yarn (the craze of 2005-2008?) but not enough desire for that many socks, well, now you can use it up in a fun way.
Available here and on Ravelry, just 99 cents and I'll make up some season graphs to use with it too. Still working on the Olympian, supposed to be in the 50's here this weekend - whoo hoo!

Making progress - minor tho' it may be

So, over the weekend I finished one sleeve on the Olympian pullover - while that shouldn't be a problem, my haphazard way of designing as I go (and believe me, I had good intentions this time, sat down, did the math, wrote it all out, knit it up a couple times, found my math had lied [it always does] had to rip it out, which is hard with all those paired yarn changes) has made getting this sleeve done right a big deal. Anyway, I should be coasting downhill now and I'll type up my notes for this pattern once I finish. The fabric is nice, but I've posted it a couple times so the next pictures will be of it on.

The black peacock is also coming a long, but it is slow and fiddly, down to the last skein. I finally completed the written directions to this one, previously I only had charts. Not everyone loves charts like I do, but I find writing out direction to defy my brain's wiring. For a right handed person, I'm a pretty visual thinker. I'll post that update on Ravelry tomorrow.

And finally, we ate dinner at our local diner this weekend. All hail diners! I love diner food. The veggie of the day was brussel sprouts. Now, I like vegetables but I grew up in the 70's so it was all frozen stuff in square boxes and usually involved Lima beans so I definitely have my "danger Will Robinson" items. Cabbage and brussel sprouts are two of these. And these puppies did not disappoint; they were AWFUL. Boiled to death, over salted, mushy, couldn't have had a single vitamin left in them. They were so gross and bad they exercised a sort of sick fascination. My husband and I kind of got into a contest eating the dang things.

Sneaking in vitamin A and fiber

So last night for dinner I made sweet potato pancakes. I took it as a good sign that the little one took a bite and said "mmm, they taste like pancakes" and then wolfed them all down before getting back to his bacon. Kids and bacon, it's kind of crazy, esp. my kid. So, if you like breakfast for dinner, that's a winner.
I made a couple things last night - a necklace for the little one and a pair of earrings. I really like the earrings - moss agate and sterling and beads. I'll take a picture tonight. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, maybe I'll finally get off my butt and start up that Esty shop.

I got mail

Beads!
Ugh, I'm starting to feel nasty in the throat. And I've had a flu shot.
Sigh.

Soccer mittens

These are really basic, so you don't have to look while you knit, which enhances watching kids playing soccer. These are coming out pretty well, I think. With the space dyed yarn, simple can really be nice. Because they're not double stranded, they're coming out pretty small - they fit me, but I have freakishly small hands (Austin Powers would be afraid of me).

The peacock is on hold, I'm waiting on beads. Indy loves anything that hangs off the table.

See that fat white belly he has??? It's so white and soft and fuzzy, I expect a baby penguin to poke it's head out any time now.

Some stuff

Well, it's been a crazy week. Here are the soccer mittens - some of the food colored silk and wool and palette. Watching U8 soccer seems to be my single unalloyed pleasure these days. I'm going to use a design out of The Mitten Book, one of my all time favorites.

And believe it or not, I'm more than half done with skein 3 of 4 of the black peacock. In progress pictures of these things don't look nearly as interesting as I find them. Percy's sweater kind of had a stall out when I started a sleeve and didn't like the decrease intervals, so I have to redo that.

I thought I had more to say, maybe I'll remember over night.