Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

The only good thing about this "hat" pattern is that it reminded me of this video.

I'm Rick James, bitch!

Katarina

Pattern: Katarina by Julie Weisenberger
Yarn: Blackstone Tweed
Needles: US7 Addi Turbo Lace
Notes: Sadly I knit the whole sweater on 7s instead of 8s. Since it is a shop sample I didn't reknit it. It doesn't need to fit anyone in particular. The Blackstone Tweed washes up so nicely. It's soft and plump and really lovely. I highly recommend this sweater as a fast, simple and flattering knit!

OFFF 2010

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival was great this year as always.

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Uhhh...



I...



Er...



Hmmm...



So. Very. Confused.

Clamber

Pattern: Clamber by Laura Wilson-Martos
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Mediumweight
Needle: US4 Addi Turbo Lace
Notes: I knit this exactly as written. It's a very simple pattern. It's a nicely unisex hat so Wes might get this one.

Meet Franklin Habit

Tomorrow, September 20, from 5 to 6 Franklin Habit will be signing books and his new calendar at the Fiber Gallery. We are thrilled that he'll be visiting us and I hope you can join us!

Ennui? Startitis? Other Diagnosis?

With Audrey out of the way I started to tackle my green-garter-stitch-making-up-a-pattern-as-I-go-along sweater. I'm starting to be vividly reminded why I buy and use patterns. While I'm sure when I get to the end of it there will be a wearable sweater I'm already not liking a lot about it. I should probably rip it out and start again but there's some stupid, stubborn part of me that thinks, "I've put a lot of time and work into this and I'm going to stick it out even if it kills me." So I've set it aside. Yet again.

My cabled beret is slow going but quite pretty.



I noticed after knitting on it for an hour or so yesterday that my right thumb was very sore. I suspect cabling without a cable needle is putting a lot of stress on my finger as I push and pull the stitches. I finally have an excuse to use the beautiful, handmade glass cable needle I bought at Knitting Camp! Caitlin Hyde makes stunning glass pieces. I'm a bit afraid that I'll break this poor little guy but there's no point in "saving" it by not using it.



I'm also making Clamber. I've had this one in my queue since it's release in '08. It moves quickly and it's using a partial skein of BMFA Socks That Rock Medium-weight that I used for a Syncopated Cap two years ago. I love using leftovers. LOVE IT! It satisfies something deep inside me.



And yet with all this going on I still have been thinking about casting on new projects. In fact I bought yarn and beads to start Caleano from Rosemary Hill's 7 Small Shawls to Knit.



Schaefer Anne in Spruce. Don't you just love it? But then why did I also pull out some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock and wind it to start the 22 Leaves Shawlette Mystery KAL?



I don't even like mystery knitalongs. But maybe my love of leaves and lace is winning out? Or I'm happy to find a shawlette that takes less than 400 yards of sock-weight yarn? Not that I like shawls that small. But this yarn was kind of born to be a leaf lace pattern.

Katarina only needs another inch of garter stitch on the collar. I should probably be doing that right now instead of typing this post.

So what the hell is wrong with me?

Audrey in Unst

Pattern: Audrey in Unst by Gundrun Johnston
Yarn: Miss Babs Yummy 3-Ply Sport
Needle: US5, 4 and 3 Addi Turbo
Notes: I still haven't blocked this but I can see in these photos that I made the sleeves too long. I think I will rip them out and make them shorter and maybe a bit slimmer too. These photos do no justice to the beautiful buttons I got from Jennie the Potter. They have a faint blue leaf printed on each one. And clearly this isn't the right shirt to wear with this neckline. I'm just proud I finally took some pictures. I didn't have time for styling!

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

He had had enough of modeling his mother's "creations." He just wanted to finish his shower.

WIP Round-Up

Somehow I've ended up working six days in a row this week and have had meeting and appointments in the morning before work so I haven't had a chance to take any pictures. But Audrey in Unst is done with buttons sewn on and everything. We do Show and Tell at Purlygirls on Monday night. Several people had finished objects and/or exciting news (new home! baby!) so everyone was anxious to get started. I kept trying to stall to get them to wait so I could sew on all TEN buttons on Audrey.

Other knitting that has been keeping me busy:

Katarina. Despite the whole "I used the wrong needle" debacle, Katarina is at the shop and I'm working on the collar. I have about 3 inches of garter stitch to go and a few more inches of seams then she gets the big soak. Then I can try to block the daylights out of her.

Cabled Beret. I started the cabled beret from Veronik Avery's Knitting 24/7 a while ago but my needle self-destructed and I had to borrow one and by then I was into knitting something else. It's a small project and now I feel like I know the pattern I've got a few inches done on it.

Green Garter Mess. One night, not long after I got home from camp, I decided that I would knit a top-down garter cardigan inspired by this book. I wanted to use my handspun and dyed shetland for the yoke. So I started knitting. Without a pattern. With only the vaguest plan of what I was going to do. I'm using Imperial Stock Ranch Columbia 2-ply which pairs beautifully with the handspun. I feel like I have knit miles of garter but the yoke is still not long enough.

So that's what I've been doing. Finished pictures of a blocked Audrey soon I hope.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Okay. So the sweater I am knitting is Katarina by Cocoknits. We are having a shop knitalong that starts next month and I am making the shop sample. I am making the smallest size. Which is now a bit smaller because I grabbed a US7 instead of an 8 on my way out the door to Vancouver. It's not a total disaster. I won't rip it out and reknit the whole thing but I do have to explain to customers (over and over) that my version is not as large or as drapey as it should be. Sigh.

Audrey has been done and off the needles for days. I just can't work up the energy to sew on the buttons. Sign again.

Next up is finally figuring out if this mess can become a sweater.



I'm not sure. Sigh once more.

It is a Terrible Moment

When you realize that you've knit an entire sweater on the wrong needle. Damn.

Magic Time

Time to turn this withered mess into a sweater.

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Today's post is a little NSFW.






We have, on this blog, previously explored how boobs makes everything better. We've also seen a boob drink cozy. But somewhere out there a designer thought, "How can I make this tackier? I mean, like, really, really, hall of fame style tacky."

Et voilà.



Bu then the designer must have thought, "I can do better than that. There must be something more distasteful and offensive I can add to this to make it a) truly unpleasant and b) very difficult to pick up."

And once again, voilà.



I would also like to note that these girls need to get themselves a new surgeon. They aren't supposed to point up and out.

People Are Still Confused?

I was trying to replicate an alleged Google search and started typing. People seem to be really confused about Lost. Like, really confused.

First Bumbershoot

I have lived in Seattle for almost 15 years and I've never gone to Bumbershoot. Wes has been a few times when he had films in One Reel but not me. This year it all changed because Weezer was playing the mainstage. And we are a Weezer family. We wanted to take it easy and not overwhelm the kids.

We went early on Sunday and went to see the School of Rock All-Stars. These kids were pretty amazing. They had some teeny little boy who couldn't have been more than nine on the drums during a rendition of Cheap Trick's Surrender and he killed it. I was so amazed I kept saying, "Do you see how little that kid is?"

We wandered around a bit, looked at the visual arts displays then went off to have lunch. We went home for a while to rest up. When we got back we caught most of Hole's set. That Courtney Love--I'm sure this will surprise no one--is a complete mess. But what an entertaining mess. She performed the most raggedy, awful, stripped down version of Pearl Jam's Jeremy. As she was wrapping up some guy behind us screamed, "You suck! No encore, just get off the stage!" Seattle remains faithful to Kurt Cobain I guess. She also used some pretty salty language. The boys looked so scandalized the first time she cursed. "Don't worry. It won't be the last," I told them. And it wasn't.

My older son really wanted to be on the floor as close to the stage as possible for Weezer. He's only about 5'2". I warned him that he wouldn't be able to see anything. He didn't care. We moved up as close as we could and waited for about 30-40 minutes while the kids next to us smoked pot. My son was, again, scandalized but proclaimed, as soon as he saw the kids smoking, that he must also be stoned with all that pot around him. I assured him that he wasn't. Several groups of people tried to bomb their way through the crowd, just running and shoving. What they didn't take into account is that I'm bigger, heavier and tougher than they are. When they hit me I shoved back and knocked a few people on their asses. Don't mess with a New Yorker. And don't mess with my kid!

Weezer put on an amazing show. We, as I suspected, couldn't see much of anything while Wes and my younger son had moved up and gotten just about the best seats in the house in the stands. Rivers Cuomo at one point passed by them just three rows away. Older son and I could see him sometimes if we stood on our tiptoes and tilted our heads just right.

When I held my phone as high over my head as I could this was the view.



Not so awesome.

The set was only supposed to be an hour and fifteen minutes so they stuck to the hits. But they did play Perfect Situation which is possibly my favorite Weezer song and Surf Wax America which was a little unexpected. Erin used it on the podcast a few episodes ago. But the most unexpected thing they did was play a fairly faithful version of MGMT's Kids which they then mashed up with Lady Gaga's Pokerface. For this Rivers donned a long blonde wig. I caught a snippet of terrible quality video of it.



I jumped up and down. I screamed. I had a really good time.

Knitted Head

I'm not sure how I feel about allergies being represented as knitting. Also the head is just creepy.

IK Weekend Preview

It's up. I'm not sure if I'm really feeling this one. What do you all think?

Back Home

We took a small family trip up to Vancouver BC. We splurged and stayed at a nice hotel, close to Stanley Park, with not one but two swimming pools. We visited the aquarium. My horribly jaded children stood in front of the beluga tank, with their backs to the whales, and declared that they were bored. You're standing next to a fricking whale! I spent my childhood on Nantucket constantly scanning the horizon for some sign of whales. My one great triumph was when I thought I might have seen a whale's blow waaaaay out on the horizon. My children on the other hand can see whales all over the place and find them passe. I am still charmed and amazed to make eye contact with a whale.



There are lots of other great sights at the squarium.




Outside the aquarium we had our second run-in with raccoons. The first was on Denman St. on Saturday night after dinner. One just popped out of a bush in front of us and lopped his way down the sidewalk pausing to try to cross the busy street then thinking the better of it.

Outside the aquarium a mother with three babies hopped out of the bushes and approached people to beg for food.




I don't know about you but when a raccoon marches up to me I back away quickly. I don't pull out my camera and see how close I can get to it.

We went to the PNE. The last time Wes and I went was for our honeymoon.



They were holding an international sand sculpture competition.

I took many more photos of cute animals.






They had this amazingly huge breed of Italian ox. Here is Wes for scale.



Younger son and I were waiting for Wes and older son to ride the wooden roller coaster (too rickety for me) and stumbled into the Agrodome just in time to see the RCMP Musical Ride. We literally had the best seats in the house. We were in the front row next to the roped off area for the dignitaries. I took a few really blurry phone-camera photos.



The food is amazing in Vancouver. We ate a lot of Japanese and Chinese food. One morning for breakfast we were struck by the incredibly color of Wes's eggs.



I'm nearly done with Audrey in Unst but forgot a needle for the second sleeve cuff while I was in Vancouver. I also still need to knit the bands. In the meantime I am flying through a sample sweater for the shop. I'm knitting the smallest size on US8s. I finished the back and both fronts already!

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Don't quote me on this but I think there might be a sweater under that hair.



ETA: You can see the sweater and buy the pattern here.