Dyed in the Wool

I just finished and posted the first strip in a new collaborative webcomic project. Check it out here.

Blooming got 2nd place in the knitting category in Threadknits! Totally awesome! :D :D

I'm off to Minneapolis this week for a conference, the Frankensocks in tow.

“Blooming” Bloomed and Rock Opera

So the winners for the 2009-2010 Threadknits competition will be finalized and announced tomorrow.  You can see my entry here.  All in all, I think that the deer came out alright.

 

And a video too!

So in the aftermath of the deer, I’ve been working on a couple of things.  A friend of mine and I are working on a craft-centric webcomic, and I have socks and a sweater/jacket for my mother on the needles.  Last night, I didn’t work much on any of them.

I watched a rock opera instead.

Specifically, Repo!: The Genetic Opera.

It was something the Colonel brought home after watching some of the songs online, so after dinner we settled in for it.  I have to say, I found the concept very interesting, some scenes rather amusing, but some of the lyrics a bit forced.  Also, I’m not head-over-heels in love with modern gothic culture, so visually, I was sort of eh. Like when Sarah Brightman’s eyelashes looked like they could have fluttered away with her cyborg-eyes and not have been over-laden.  They could have carried coconuts, I swear.

At the same time, I’m so very interested in Repo Men.  If the date comparisons are correct, then both Repo Men and Repo! were created concurrently.  Still, from a folklorist standpoint, it’s pretty cool to see stories about companies financing and then violently repossessing biological tissue cropping up independently of one another.  And there’s a novel too! Triple trouble!

Guess what my next library checkout is going to be?

I’ll leave you with my favorite scene from Repo! and the trailer for Repo Men.

Blossoms for "Blooming"

All of the blossoms and individual petals for "Blooming" have been knitted, and I've got all the buttons where they need to be on the antler/branches.

What's left?

Details, man. Details.

I'm needle-felting the centers onto all the blossoms. I have enough to fill (and I mean fill) a quart-sized baggie. I'll count them later.

The deadline fast approaches, but I'm feeling great!

In other news, I have a new phone (with which I took the above picture)! I'm now lovingly toting about a Palm Pre Plus. I haven't found anything wrong with it yet, but I'm also still getting the basic navigation down. It's fun, though! My next challenge with it is getting ePub format books onto it.

But first - THE DEER.

The Face of "Blooming"

Because, you know, it has one now.

It also has new bones. The PVC structure wasn't working, so the Husband (aka the Colonel) ordered surgery. The original armature was replaced with an engineered substitute made of a compilation of wood and galvanized screws. That's right, folks. We made him better. We have the technology.

All that's left to do are the blossoms for the antler/branches (plus the buttons that will hold them on) and the rest of the white-spot blossoms to be needle-felted onto the body.

CHUGGA CHUGGA. I feel productive. :D

Shifting and Struggling

Since August of 2009, I have had two e-mail addresses with Google.

One used my maiden, and the other my married name.

It was easy to tell Google to forward all of the messages sent to the former address to the latter, so I would only have to check one account. The Blogger utility became another barrier to this merger of Intenet Identities, however. Finally, I just invited my Married Self to be an author of this blog, had my Maiden Self give Married Self administrative priveledges, then promptly booted Maiden Self from the author list. (My Married Self is ruthless, I tell you!)

Anyway, so that's why there is an s on the end of my username now. All Married Self is is a doppleganger of Maiden Self. Or a pluralized version, which is actually sort of appropriate given the difference (and the fact that the username is a collective noun).

This post has more than a few things to do with marriage, actually. As you have likely concluded, I am that. Married. I have a husband who I fondly refer to on Twitter as "Husband" or "Colonel Sweatpants."

Said partner in marital bliss has been helping me with the "Blooming" project for Threadknits by offering moral support, spatial reasoning skills, and an extra pair of hands to hold the sucker steady. Last night over dinner, the Colonel regailed me with a tale he heard as a child about a deer hunter in Appalachaia.

When he had an animal in his sights, he realized he had forgotten to bring any ammunition, so he used a cherry pit - a waste product of his lunch - to shoot a buck between the eyes. The buck lived, and the next time the man went hunting, he saw the same buck. It now had a cherry tree growing out of it's head. Remind you of anything?

The deer is progressing well. He's felted, and the Colonel and I are trying to figure out the best approach to get the antler/branches on. The pink Lamb's Pride for the blossoms hasn't arrived yet, but I do have the roving to needle felt the black and white details on the deer's body. It's coming along rather well, I think, given the deadline.

Blooming Deer!

I can't work on him. I ran out of yarn. It's sad. Hopefully, more Lamb's Pride will arrive from Nebraska ASAP.  I'm ITCHING to work on him! I can't waste this enthusiasm!

I have the three other hooves ready and waiting to have live stitches picked back up and for legs to be knitted.  I wish I could start on the antlers, but I'm afraid to before I felt him, since the antlers won't be felted.  I have a rough idea of how I am going to make the cherry blossoms, but again, waiting for yarn.

Waiting waiting waiting.

But it's not like I don't have plenty of other things to work on in the meantime.

"Blooming" - Phase 1.5

So the main focus of my creative energies at the moment is my entry for Threadknits.  My entry is based on T.J. Zhang's lovely "Blooming."  The plan is to knit this life-sized stag sans antlers, felt him, then add the rack when I stick the armature in him.  The cherry blossoms (also felted) will then be buttoned on.

I'm hoping for him to be a versitile display sculpture for C R Yarn.   You know, that wonderful LYS that I practically live at? That's the one.  (Plus Rita and Candice, the owners, are amazing women who have my utmost respect and adoration.)

Anyway, have some pictures.  In the ones where he's stuffed, he's full of plastic bags.

Projects Coming out my Ears

Occasionally, and usually when I'm neck deep in projects already, I get an idea. The idea is so awesome, that my brain latches onto it like a swarm of starving lampreys on a recently water-deposited soon-to-be-corpse. That imagery is a little dark for the holiday season. My apologies, but there is really no better analogy.

Recently, I was sitting in my LYS (the glorious C. R. Yarn which, after fifty more skeins/hanks, will own my mortal soul), I shared an idea with the owner. See, Threadless is having a contest. I like contests. So I shared my submission plans, and in the resulting creativity binge that LYS's are bound to be infamous for hosting, I had another project on my hands. But not only that - I also had the unquenchable urge to work on it rather than the two holiday gifts that I still have yet to finish.

Whoops.

That is all on top of the fact that I'm lucky enough to test-knit another one of Rita's glorious designs. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to divulge any information about it, but I will give you a sneak peek.





I will say that I'm reading the Dragonriders series of Pern books, and this shawl fits along nicely. Oh, to be able to read and knit at the same time! (I don't have this one on audio. Woe is me!)

I'm making it with Scab yarn in lace weight. I think I might be the last purchaser of what may be a discontinued Castlefibers colorway. I have it in sock weight, too, and I'll be making the Northanger Abbey gloves with it.



I don't know why the Liv-Dog was that interested in the Scab yarn. She has never expressed that much interest in any of my other yarn, even when I'm knitting right next to her. Oh well. Dogs are MYSTERIOUS.


HAPPY SATURNALIA! (At least, for a few more days. ;) )

Chuggin' Along

I've made qutie a bit of progress on projects for the holidays. I only have three handcrafts left to finish, and one of them is nearly done. The sad part is that I am coming to the realization that the other two may not be done in time. It is becoming more and more likely that I will have to resort to taking a picture of the project in progress and wrap it up for the respective family member instead of the finished product. That's not mean, is it?

Okay - so stuff that is finished:

Mother-in-law Socks

I promised before I would relay the story behind these, so I guess now is the time. During my first year living in South Dakota, I decided to make a pair of socks for my mother-in-law-to-be. I got one done, and I used red Sugar 'n Cream yarn (or something similar - I honestly don't remember). I gave her this lone sock with the promise that the second one would follow. It never did. I suffered from Second Sock Syndrome before I even knew such a thing existed. Fast-forward to a few months ago. I continue to fall in love with yarn based on the name of the color. (I used to want to name crayons for a living.) So when I saw "Splat," a colorway dyed by my good friend Rita of C. R. Yarn, I had to get it. And I had to make socks. And they had to be for my (now) mother-in-law. Rita is a seasoned sock knitter, which is just what I needed when making these. My mother helped me with my first attempt, but she was all the way back in Indiana. Knitting instructions via phone don't work well at all. But that sock is something vague in my memory now (I seriously don't remember what it looked like, other than the fact that it was red), and now I have a pair of nice, hand-dyed Splat Socks that I shall wrap up in zombie wrapping paper for my dear mom-in-law. Seriously, I do love her. She's awesome.

Pure Fern Fingerless Gloves

When Rita designed these gloves for a class, I jumped at the chance to test-knit them. I loved them so much, I decided to not only knit a pair for myself, but also to turn them into a present for my sister-in-laws (both also awesome), but one pair turned into...

Owl Fingerless Gloves

A bastardization of Rita's Pure Fern Fingerless Gloves, the owl fingerless gloves utilize the classic owl cable. This was my first experience with cabling (Why does "cabling" look so weird?), and I actually knit three of these gloves. The first time I thought I was finished, one thumb was higher than the other (due to my need to superimpose the cable chart onto Rita's glove pattern), , the owl's feet were effectively backward (due to my wonderful ability to read cable charts), and some of my stitches were CRAZY wide. It was finally determined that it was because I was switching from knitting to purling at the same time that I was moving from one needle to the other. Was I going to rip out the second attempt at the second glove to fix this, when the first was somewhat "fixed" by blocking? Hells no. Sucka be done and ready to wrap in zombie paper.

Did I mention my zombie wrapping paper? It's awesome. It's from ThinkGeek, and I love it. I'm hoping that it is a product they continue to produce/make available from now until the end of time, because I love it so. I can easily see myself wrapping in it for years to come. I won't even need labels.

"Oh, wow. Look at that zombie wrapping paper!"
"That's from Marti."
"How do you know?"
"Because she hasn't used anything but that for years."

It will seriously become the equivelant of my mother's "French horn paper," which was in such low supply that everyone who got a present wrapped in it felt significantly honored.

That being said, if anyone else knows of a place aside from ThinkGeek to get variations on zombie wrapping paper, do share!

I was writing about something else. It was... it was... Oh yes! Holiday gifts.

Felted Cranes

I made these for my dad. They're from Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together by Larissa Golden Brown and Martin John Brown. First of all, I love that Larissa's middle name is Golden. Golden Brown. Sounds like she's a perfect marshmallow, ready to be slid off the stick and smushed between two crackers with a wedge of chocolate. Mm. Okay. Enough of that. I made the cranes in her book for my dad. My fondest and most frequent memories of my dad are of him folding paper cranes. It didn't matter where we were, or what he had to fold - he did it all the time. And the cranes he made, he would give to me or put on precarious and whimsical display. He tried to teach me how to make them, but I never got the knack of it. Making cranes out of yarn, however, proved to be much easier. One of my father's many talents is design. He designs buildings, theatrical sets, and (to some extent) his home decor. Not wanting to "cramp his style," I puzzled over how to give him these cranes in a way that would not tempt the resident felines to indugle in their destructive habits. It took some thinking and some conferring, but a method was decided on. I needed a birdcage. I spent a day in antique stores before I found what I wanted at, of all places, Hobby Lobby. How to place the cranes became the next dilemma, but I decided it would be best to make them moveable. The Husband helped me to craft a swing, and small rings to the crane's as well as attaching clasps to the cage at various points will allow my father to arrange the colorful birds as he sees fit.

Those are the only projects I have finished so far, and since this turned into an enormous post with no pictures (sorry!), I will close it here and post again soon. I swear it to you. And I also swear that there shall be visual stimuli that does not consist of arranged alphaneumeric symbols.

Pub Crawl Musings

One night a few months back, only a couple of people showed up at C. R. Yarn's weekly Knit Night. And by a couple of people, I mean me and one other person. So, we decided to relocate to a local martini bar. We knitted for awhile, but soon we put down our sticks in favor of picking up our drinks more often, and a plan was soon formed.

That plan was for the Pub Crawl scarf.

The idea is simple. With hand-dyed yarn inspired by our favorite cocktails, we would cast-on a scarf at the same time we prepared to make our first toast. The rules are that so long as you're drinking, you must also be knitting, and that you cannot frog. There are no frogs in Pub Crawling.

I've been thinking about this scarf for awhile now. (Psst. We haven't started making it yet.) It'd be awesome if we could get as many people/knitting groups involved as possible, so once we have the yarn ready, I anticipate posting something on Ravelry.

I've just been musing about it a lot lately. Since taking a dying class, I've considered dying yarn based on my favorite martinis (Creamsicle and Apple, in that order).

Muse, muse, muse, and I get a rambly post.

Resistance Against Baby Things is Futile

My husband and I devour television shows on DVD. Right now we're working on the third and final season of Veronica Mars, but not too long ago we finished Season 3 of Star Trek: the Next Generation. I grew up on TNG. My parents had Starfleet uniforms, and my twin brothers dressed as borg one year for Halloween. (I don't know how I dodged the cosplay bullet, but I did. I didn't really mean to. That's dumb luck for you.)

So when I saw this picture in the final episode of the season ("The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1"), I immediately wanted to figure out how to knit it. But I think it might just be one of those things I do just to sock it away for any future (and I mean fuuuuuture) children-of-my-own.

It's definitely got to have earflaps and some sort of snap beneath the chin, and the tubing can be done with i-cord. The "brim", I'm not so sure about, but I'm leaning toward something like ribbing that's picked up/continued in such a way to give it a layered look.

As for the chest implant? Totally something you can button on a shirt and then hook pacifiers to. Clearly. Isn't that what all borg babies do?

I should update more. Yeah, I think so.

With the Brain Hat done and the Sack Fingerless gloves in The Netherlands, I've started several other projects to occupy my time with. Some of them, I've already finished. Sorry I don't have pictures yet. The yarn includes Jagger Spun Super Lamb for another pair of present-fingerless-gloves and Jagger Spun The Maine Line for the Whiskey Felted Cap from Boutique Knits.

I love Boutique Knits. There are so many pretty things in there. I wish my style (and build) were more like a 20s debutante so I could pull more of it off.

The yarn I ordered for the Fizzlybear Sweater came in today. It's goregeous! I started with the sleeve, and it's knitting up CRAZY FAST. I'm a knitting demon with these enormous needles, I am.

Also, now that CastleFibers is back from her SCA event, she taught me how to do the toe on the Socks for the Mother-in-Law. There's a story behind those socks, which I'll tell later.

So many projects. I'd rather be knitting right now.

OH! Secret Project is done, but due to secrecy, I can't show you. BWAHAHA!

THE BRAIN

Alright. It's finished save for the stuff I'm going to do to it for the fair, but you all deserve pictures.

Pictures of what?

Pictures of THE BRAIN.








See more in my Flickr set.

Pins and Knitting Needles

I know I haven't written in awhile, but I have a very good excuse!

I have been knitting!

The "brain hat" (that has no better name at the moment) is coming along rather smoothly. It's basically just a stockinette-based hat with three rows of ribbing on the edge with a crazy amount of i-cord tacked to the top. I only have one 30-inch length of i-cord left, but when that is done, I'll have done 45 feet and 4 inches of the stuff. I'll be so glad when the all the i-cord is done. My left ring finger has been numb for about three days now. I'm lucky that today isn't so bad.

In other news, Husband is off at a conference to talk about bones and lazers, leaving me in the house with the dog. What does this mean? This means that I shall knit i-cord tonight and watch Blackadder. And miss him. Our first anniversary is next weekend (or rather, the first installment of our first anniversary). His present is currently in the hands of the talented framing folks at Michael's. I hope Bruce McCall isn't upset that I scanned covers of The New Yorker in order to peice together a "print" of his "Ascent of Man." Never seen it? Check this out, then:



The only photo I have of the "brain hat" is of it at about.... 25% or so. It's much further along now, so I'll just delay photographic evidence until it is finished. (30" left OMG!)

Showing off kids that aren't mine...

...but they're related to me! That has to count for something.

My little sister is amazingly awesome. Words cannot describe how stupendous she is.

Booties are Done!

I just finished the last bootie while sitting at C. R. Yarns this morning. I wish I'd have my camera on me then, but because I had to wait until I got home to my camera, you get "knitting on bed" pictures.And, because I put knitting the bed and expressed interest in it, Livvy decided that she needed to be on the bed for me to express interest in her.

These booties (and my puppy dog) are far too adorable. I have the gloves almost finished, so I shall post pictures when I have the second one all seamed up.

Dirty Knitting

My husband has a penchant for dirty limericks. He shared this one with me this evening.

There was a young man from St. Paul's
who read Harper's Bazaar and McCall's
'til he grew such a passion
for feminine fashion
that he knitted a snood for his balls.

You have no idea how tempted I am to knit him a joke-gift now. Ball-snoods.

Time for bed, obviously.

Pictures, as Promised!

I haven't taken any of my in-progress works, but here is the photo of the Starsky Sweater from the book I picked up at the library sale. It is so deliciously seventies.



I also got my yarn from Knit Picks in the mail today: Looking Glass and Damsel. I put it on the bed, and the dog IMMEDIATELY jumped up and lied down next to it.

So I moved the yarn so I could get a decent picture of it, but she didn't like that idea.


Silly puppy, yarn is for PEOPLES.

Bright, Bright, Sunshiney Day

The combination of sunshine and snow on the ground is nice, but it makes it difficult to see when walking from a relatively dim interior to the car and then driving to another relatively dim interior. Either I'm not used to life out here yet, or I'm a vampire. I don't have a hankering for hemoglobin, so it must be the former.

I've started the Starksy Sweater, and I promise I will scan the picture in my newly beloved vintage pattern book as soon as I am able. The yarn I'm using is Vanna's Choice in Linen. When a pattern calls for 2,000 grams of yarn (20 skeins!) you can't be picky. Also, "published" kudos to my husband for helping me raid Michael's bins and match dye lots...and then later helping to untangle the knit-with-four-strands mess. It's supposed to be 8 with fingering yarn (100 grams = 330 meters), but I've found that the only place to get decent fingering weight yarn is one of the LYSs.

I knitted the thumb and began the pinky finger for the second Sack glove as well today. I love how fast the fingers knit up. I used to be afraid of smaller needles, since big needles and chunky yarn give you such quick results. But now the 15s for the Starsky Sweater feel odd in my hands compared to the 4s for the Sack gloves and the 1s for the Saartje Booties.

Speaking of Saartje, I have one done! I'm pleased with it, but I'm hoping that bootie number too comes out a little bit better, and that both look amazing once I've got buttons on them and they've been washed and dried. Yay for machine washable/dryable yarn!

Starsky's Sweater

Maybe a week ago or so I ran across a blog post that unearthed a semi-mass movement to find an appropriate pattern for Starksy's cowichan.

In the library book sale, I jumped at two volumes of Make it Yourself: The Complete Step-by-Step Library of Needlework and Crafts. In volume 3 is a beautiful sweater that looks like Starsky's, save for the colorwork. If you're interested, it's here at Amazon.

When I get home, I'm totally scanning a picture of the sweater to post here.