Category Archives: Knitting

Knitting, Randonymity

In which I reveal one of the scarier knitting pattern pictures I’ve seen in a long time

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Jeanne recently went to Stitches and brought back goodies for Deb and I – check out the gorgeous Miss Babs sock yarn on the left in the picture below! It came in that adorable takeout container. Thank you so much, Jeanne!

The STR is a skein of Grawk that I won by donating to Teyani’s Carnegie Hall trip fund. Thank you, Teyani!

“I’m pretty sure I don’t like being used as a prop.” -Mayhem

Recently, Tink mentioned she’d come across something perfect for me at a flea market. I was a bit afeared, I must admit… until I almost hurt myself laughing when I received the package! That kitty card in the lower right corner with all the kitty’s salacious bits blacked out?! Hee hee.

The Crafts-Man-Ship pattern booklet is… really special. Really special. Want proof?

Sorry about the nightmares you’ll have now. Um, thanks, Tink! 😉

“Hmm, maybe there are benefits to being a prop.” *nom nom nom* -Mayhem

“In fact, I’m sure Mom won’t even notice me nomming on this yarn, since I’m a prop and all.” -Mayhem

Mayhem was so, so wrong about that… No yarn was harmed! But, as always, it was a close call.

Knitting

*gasp* Knitting update

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I do still knit, albeit slowly. For some reason, knitting’s been tweaking my neck a bit, so I’ve only been knitting a few times a week and not for very long when I do.

Anyway! It’s time for an update on my sweater. See how much progress I’m making?

*swish  swish swish* -Mayhem’s tail*

And here I bet you thought my sweater pictures couldn’t get any worse, eh? Oh, how wrong you were. 😉

“Move it, Mayhem. It’s my turn to obstruct the picture.” -Chaos

“No! I was born for this!” -Mayhem

*Mayhem swishes her tail all the time. With most cats, all that tail movement would mean you’re about to get bitten or scratched. Not with May. She’s just swishing her tail. It indicates happiness, annoyance, curiosity – you name it and she’s got it covered with the tail swishing. Very confusing for the humans around her, isn’t it, Jeanne?

Have a good weekend filled with the happiest sort of tail swishing of your very own.

Knitting, Linkity linkity link, Randonymity

Well, crap

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It isn’t a WordPress thing – it’s a Firefox thing (perhaps coinciding with a new version of Firefox taking effect) that is apparently mucking about with the WYSIWYG post editor. Of course, it’d be more helpful if I knew what exactly said thing was, wouldn’t it?

Remember that I took last Friday off to enjoy the weather? It was gloriously sunny and 74F and I wandered around Lake of the Isles in a tank top and shorts! Saturday wasn’t quite as lovely (upper 60s), but still quite pleasant for a tank top and shorts. Over the next few days, it cooled down (32F when I went to work Tuesday morning) and we got a bit of rain. It’s still really, really dry – dry enough that yesterday’s 85F didn’t cause quite the green explosion one would hope. Today: 75F, becoming rainy for the next several days, with highs of 45F or 50F over the weekend! Crazy, crazy weather.

Hmm. Not much else going on. My sweater is about 6″ long now and I’ve gotten really, really good at correcting cable mishaps. Usually. Other than that one time. And really, it would only have added an inch or two to the sweater…

Maybe a few links to help liven up a dull post… Did you know Sunday is Pet Parents Day? Totally a made-up holiday, but you can send ecards…

Check out the free WordPress Black Cat Theme that Limedragon found! I’m pretty fond of my theme, but I know there are other black cat lovers out there. Speaking of which, did you happen to see the lovely black cat quilt that KitKatKnit found? And from yet another enterprising reader – check out the cute retro modern kitty beds that Shannah found over at etsy. (She also found a cool and completely non-cat-related link to making cupcakes decorated with marzipan “knitting.”)

Hmm. What do you think crime scene investigators would say about this shower curtain and bath mat?!

 

*snort snuffle drool* -Mayhem

My favorite part of that picture? Not the soft and tempting bikini-marked tummy. Not the adorable paws-up pose. Nope. My favorite part is that her mouth is hanging slightly open so you can see some tiny kitty teeth (click the picture to embiggen). Class act all the way, MayMay.

May your weekends all be as relaxing as Mayhem’s will be!

Contests, Knitting

In which I start a sweater and everyone is underwhelmed by the pictures

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Sorry about having the comments turned off for those of you who stopped by bright and early Wednesday morning. I’m still not sure how I managed that one. Just gifted, I guess. 😉

Go help JessaLu break her personal best for number of comments on a post and you could win a skein of sock yarn or hank of roving. Leave your comments before midnight EDT today (April 16).

I’ve actually started a sweater for myself! It’s the zip-front hoodie from Knit So Fine: Designs with Skinny Yarn.

I may or may not actually knit the hood. I have a lot of time to decide on that, since I’m knitting the sweater on US3s from the bottom, using black Jaeger Trinity, which is a discontinued cotton/silk/nylon blend. At the rate I’m knitting, I should finish this sweater in 2011 or so.

Want to see the cables in detail?

Clicking on it won’t help. But I’ll wait while you verify that. Yup, I bet you’re already looking forward to the next two years worth of progress pictures on this project, eh?

*sniff sniff sniff* “This is not a sock.” -Mayhem

“But this yarn does smell awfully tasty…” -Mayhem

*sound of me rushing to rescue project before Mayhem creates more ends*

Knitting, Those Cats

In which we discover the new stripey

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I’ve been knitting even less than usual lately, between feeling muy meh and having poked a painful hole in the tip of my right index finger while knitting. A painful hole that simply will not go away, alas.

So this pair of socks (Opal Tutto, colorway 4) took nearly a month to complete.

Apparently May thinks it was worth it.

“Crazy ziggy zaggy socks!” -Mayhem

*rapturous rolling* -Mayhem

*bath break* -Mayhem

“What’s that about stripey socks, Mom? Oh, those are so yesterday.” -Mayhem

Knitting, Reading, Reviewettes, Tales of the Neighborhood

Proof that parents actually like to receive bibs

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Now and again I’ve taken some grief about knitting bibs for baby gifts (let’s ignore the fact that using the cats as models for the bibs might contribute to that, shall we?), but I finally have proof that a knitting parent who received a few bibs as a gift was inspired to knit more bibs! Really, what better evidence could there be? (Yes, you have seen the bibs in the linked post before…)

Saturday was gorgeous here – sunny and +60F. Most of the snow has melted. Unfortunately, it melted so fast that the ground is still frozen, so you end up with scenes like this:

Yes, that is a mallard swimming around the playground. I totally wouldn’t recommend going down the slides, which each had eight inches of water at the bottom (and a fine layer of mud immediately below that). We shall not even speak of the snow that’s predicted for tonight and tomorrow.

Reading Update
Tall Tales and Wedding Veils by Jane Graves. Definitely recommended for CursingMama and anyone else who enjoys a well-done contemporary romance. It even had me sniffling near the end.
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula and Midnight Brunch (Casa Dracula, Books 1-2) by Marta Acosta. Funny, snarky, and delightful. I wouldn’t actually classify this as paranormal romance – they have more of a chicklit sort of feel. Definitely recommended. (I will neither confirm nor deny that I got a little sniffly near  the end of Midnight Brunch.)
Riding on Instinct by Jaci Burton. I won an advance reading copy of this book at Nalini Singh’s blog last month. This is the third book in Burton’s “er0tic romance” series about the Wild Riders, a group of bikers based in Dallas who work undercover for the government. In this book, the Riders are supporting a federal agent who’s working as a stripper in New Orleans, trying to find a rogue agent involved with Colombian drug runners. Burton can definitely write, but I need a little more story to support all the steam!
Kiss of a Dark Moon (Moon Chasers, Book 2) by Sharie Kohler. Um, the best part of this book was the Nathan Kamp cover. It’s a paranormal romance about evil werewolves and the people who hunt them. So-so writing, but there’s a big oversight a few pages from the end of the book that pretty much ruined it for me.
Mortal Sins (World of the Lupi, Book 5) by Eileen Wilks. This continues to be a well-written series, more urban or paranormal fantasy than romance. The main characters are FBI Agent Lily Yu and werewolf prince, Rule Turner. The series is complex and compelling. Recommended – and read it order, dammit. 😉
“A Dream of Stone & Shadow” by Marjorie M. Liu, from Dark Dreamers. A nice Dirk & Steele short story.
Date with a Devil by Anne Stuart, Cherry Adair, and Muriel Jensen. A merely ok collection of romance short stories.
Night Secrets by Cherry Adair. More T-FLAC wizards. Yum.
Dead Sexy and A Body To Die For (Harlequin Blaze) by Kimberly Raye. Hee hee – hunky vampire cowboy bikers who survive more on s3x than on blood! (Come on, you know I’m a sucker for the silliness of some of this stuff, right?) Usually I complain about people on the cover having tattoos that they don’t have in the book, but in both of these, it’s the opposite. Very rare.
Thai Die: A Needlework Mystery by Monica Ferris. Betsy Devonshire and friends are back, solving mysteries out of Betsy’s Excelsior, Minnesota, knitting and needlework shop. This was an ok addition to the series.

Things are going to continue to be cloudy and cool and rainy (maybe some snow on Wednesday) for the next several days, so I think Chaos has decided to hibernate. Wish I could join him.

*…zzzzzzz…” -Chaos

Knitting

The magic of 100

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Trekking 100, that is – the most magical of Trekking colorways. A few weeks ago, Carole posted pictures of her newly finished Trekking 100 socks, which reminded me that I had a couple skeins of said colorway.

These are definitely not matchy-matchy. I didn’t even try – in fact, I knit each sock from the opposite end of the ball. Considering that, I was surprised at how similarly parts of the socks turned out.

*sniff sniff sniff* -Chaos

*sniff sniff sniff* -Mayhem

“Nothing to see here but more socks, Mayhem. Move along.” -Chaos

“But they are kind of stripey, big kitty…” -Mayhem

Knitting, Those Cats

Son of Bibber

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It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

“Oh no!” -Chaos (sound of fleeing)

“Crap.” -Chaos

“I just wasn’t quite fast enough, darn it.” -Chaos

“Ah well, no use whining about it…” -Chaos

“…when it’s so easy to get free and flee!” -Chaos

Knitting

Sunset, sunset

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Hmm. Since I didn’t prepare you for two consecutive days of knitting, I’m a little worried about the manifold ramifications thereof.

Everyone still with me? Good. I started the Meilenweit Sunset socks in mid-February and finished them last night. I like them. A lot. That may or may not be related to the near-perfect level of matchy-matchy I achieved. Or it could be the purple.

There was a shocking level of feline interest in the completed socks.

“Man, dinner sure was tasty. But then… it always is. Too bad there’s never enough of it.” -Chaos

“Nothing like a little after dinner bath. A clean panther girl is a perfectly wonderful panther girl!” -Mayhem

“Hmm… stripeyish socks have appeared on the floor. This has the look of a panther girl trap! I must be wary.” -Mayhem