Gratuitous cuteness

It was a long day. And a rough day. And I've spent way too much time looking at online knitting patterns (because I refuse to knit ANOTHER color-block baby blanket. Four in three months is my limit). And I found this, which is not a blanket, nor is it knit, but I think is really quite cute...

But, tomorrow, for real

I had these great plans for today about sitting down and writing a real blog post and saying something at least moderately interesting. But, instead, I spent the great majority of my day doing two things. One of them was this:

This directly plays into thing #2, which is the afternoon/evening that I spent party hopping. I started with my friend's baby shower, for which I was crocheting the above blanket. I finished it about 10 minutes before the shower was supposed to start (nothing like last minute!!). I'm pleased with the way the blanket turned out, though. Two of the squares were Tunisian crochet, which I just learned and liked a lot.

So after that, I had my friend's Solstice party, and then hopped over to yet another party, courtesy of my friend Wayne and his amazing proclivities to find random people and befriend them (there were random Australians).

And now, it's 1am, and I'm sleepy....

On the runway

I have the cutest dog ever. No, really. I have photographic evidence this time.

My dear, dear friend and fellow fiberworker, Penguinshrink, was kind enough to make me a Christmas present (hers? Unfortunately....ugh, still a ball of yarn....maybe for her birthday...). You'll remember her as my partner in crime from the mass crocheting of the Intern Retreat gifts. She's a fabulous crocheter and in fact, on said intern retreat, helped me figure out a problem with my technique which has made my crocheting a whole lot easier. And she's also a darn good doc and a kickass co-intern. Girl, you rock!!!!

She made me a very lovely shawl and hat combo. Just perfect for the climate down here. The color is fabulous, the yarn is soft, it's quite wonderful.

And you know I have this policy about not putting pictures of myself on the blog. But it didn't seem quite right to just do the standard laid-out-flat-on-the-couch picture.

Fortunately, I was able to find a model.

Now, Maggie has those big coyote ears, right? And she really doesn't tolerate having anything on her head for very long. But she did okay with the hat.



Actually, she was kind of a ham.



Come on, come on, give me attitude....



Work it, girl. Yeah, yeah, good girl, goooooood, good girl.



Seriously. This dog cracks me up.

Oh, and PS, she clearly approves, because as soon as our photo shoot was over, she promptly stole the shawl and buried it in the couch cushions. You know, for safekeeping. She does this...

Proof of actual knitting (and crochet)

Did you all really think I'd given up the yarn? Now, come on.

In truth, I haven't had all that much time to knit. And I diverged a little into crochet...because, you know, it's fast...

Some time ago my classmate and partner in crime PenguinShrink (or as I am sometimes wont to call her, Wet Armadillo Girl, given her propensity to say things like "50 lashes with a wet armadillo." She's from Texas, what can you say) and I made the very silly commitment to hand craft thank you gifts for all of the donors who gave money for the intern retreat. We were told there are usually about 7 or 8 donors, and that this year they'd had more trouble recruiting people to donate because the retreat, um, wasn't well attended last year (again, I tell you, it's a weekend off, at a beach house, all expenses paid. What's the conflict??).

There were 15 donors.

We had a lot of fiber work to do...

Penguin's a much more accomplished crocheter than I (you should see the blanket on their bed!), so she tackled the more complicated items, for the higher-amount donors - i.e., a moebius scarf and shawl, a very cool ribbed newsboy hat, etc. This is my contribution:

What you see here, from left to right, are three scarves at the top - in Encore (from my stash), Red Heart (I know, but, dude, it was cheap) and Malabrigo Chunky (also from the stash, and, for the program director). The left two are just some combination or another of sc-dc rows; the one on the right is the infamous Potato Chip Scarf, or at least my crocheted version.

Down in front (here's a close-up):

are two washcloths in Bernat Organic Cotton (the pink - and can I say, $3 for 84 y and AMAZING. Seriously, I'm in love) and the old standby Sugar 'n' Cream, which is also what that square thing is made of (it's a washcloth-bag thing that you put your soap right into, whatever the hell that's called, and it has a bar of soap in it, in a box, which is why it's square). Then that little thing next to the washcloths is a coffee cup cozy in the custom-dyed Lorna's Laces that Sarah sent, for one of the State Hospital attendings who, well, drinks a lot of coffee. In truth, it started out as a sock, but, I didn't like the way it was turning out, decided I needed to do a slip-stitch pattern of some sort, blah, blah, but I didn't frog it, so I just ribbed a few rows, bound off, and *poof*, instant java cozy (incidentally, I made one of those for my uncle, for Christmas, and he raved about the silly thing). Anyway, next to that are two gift bags, one knit, one crocheted, out of the Encore again (which were going to be filled with chocolates), and then finally, also for chocolate-filling, is a little bowl on the end there made out of some icky Paton's Canadiana that was in the stash, don't ask me why (the color actually turns out sort of cool, but blech, it feels so..acrylic). And there you have it.

Then, the past few days, I've been working on a little baby beanie (not to be confused with a Beanie Baby) for one of the nurses at work, who's having a shower tomorrow.

Here's Maggie, modeling the hat with all the enthusiasm Sarah's Worfy (PS - happy birthday, Sarah!) usually shows as well....

And, perhaps a better view, on the couch:

It's made out of RYC Cashsoft, a machine-washable merino-cashmere-microfiber blend, and possibly my all-time-favorite baby yarn.

So that's what's off the needles/hook these days. I need to start something else...I've got a couple of socks going that just aren't calling to me these days....any suggestions?

Parental projects

Happy Father's Day, y'all.

In honor of same, I thought I'd finally post the pictures of my dad's sock. Which, as I said, was supposed to be for his birthday, the second one for Christmas.


But then, I finished the first one early this month, so now I'm hoping to bump those up a holiday (we'll see how close to his birthday I finish that second sock). Guess I'll have to think of something else to make him for Christmas.

This is my foot, fyi. We're not even going to discuss the wacko yoga positions I had to contort myself into to take these pictures, and they didn't even turn out that well. I have got to buy a sock blocker already.

A not-wonderful picture of the Eye of Partridge Heel that Sarah talked me into. It looks better than this.

In case you're wondering, that's Austerman Step, color 13, on Size 1 Addis (Magic Loop) in a very generic pattern except for that EoP heel.

And while we're on the topic of things I made for my folks, here (again, finally) are the pics of the crocheted-like-a-banshee birthday shawl I made for my mom:

It's Encore Chunky (I know, but it's washable, and actually, it works up really soft, and plus, if I had used the Cashmerino I wanted to, my mother would've killed me for spending that much on yarn. And she would've known, she's my mom!), four balls of it. It's alternating rows of sc-dc-dc. Until it was, um, long enough. Here's a close-up.

The pretty gold pin is hers, though.

In again unrelated discussion, I'm watching Reba, on the CW, which is not currently in the running for my favorite network. Prime examples of why: 7th Heaven is on next (is that show not over yet?!), and they just advertised Veronica Mars, which, they also just cancelled. Dude. But, whatever, there's not a whole lot on. Still, I found this little bit of dialogue fittingly humorous....

Van: If you take loyalty and ethics out of business, you know what you have?

Reba: A television network?

I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral

(Missed the reference? Click here, and then go brush up on your Gilbert and Sullivan!)

Note the new avatar fanciness at right. Don't know what an avatar is? What, did you go to public school or something? (I'm so kidding. I, of course, went to public school, and they taught me plenty of fancy words like "avatar" and "autocracy" and "deus ex machina".) In the literary sense, an avatar is the very embodiment of something, an idea or philosophy manifest, an archetype. Alternatively, it can also indicate a deity taking on human form, but it's really this manifesting embodiment usage that's most frequent, particularly in the virtual world, where the word has gained outright common usage. Because now, we're all assailed with programs to create graphic, stylized representations of ourselves that can stand in for actual images in various realms. Avatars. Useful things. Given today's world, and doing what I do for a living, eh, I'm not going to post an actual picture of me in my profile.

While wandering around the internet today trying to find a usable picture of the main street of South Park for...well...what will ultimately be a commissioned piece of artwork for my office, but that's perhaps another story for another day....I stumbled across the South Park Studio site, courtesy of the folks at the Planearium (no, that's not a typo), where you can create your very own South Park Avatar and learn lots of things about South Park in German. If, of course, you read German. I made two. One, I found the little straitjacket, and I thought that was hysterical, you know, what with the psychiatrist thing. But then I looked at that for a little while, and I thought, eh, maybe that's just giving the wrong impression. So I made another one that was a lot more vanilla. It was very cute. You can tell which one won out.


Vanilla I ain't.


In other news, there's a super-secret birthday project in the works. I'm pleased with the progress I managed to make while my mother was at work today. Alls I'll say is that it's crochet, which, during the hours of crocheting today, I'd composed a whole treatise in my head, that started with, "here's the thing about crochet..." Now? Hell, I don't remember. Maybe tomorrow. I also finished the heel flap on my dad's sock, turned the heel, and am smokin' into the instep, because I needed something to work on after my mom came home, while amidst the third concurrent project of the day - my best friend loaned me (thrust upon me) Season One of Veronica Mars, which I have to watch and return before I leave. I made it all the way to disc 4 today, and damn if I'm not sucked right in like Powdered Donut Pancake Surprise at Cartman's house on a Saturday morning. (See? I wanted to bring the whole South Park thing back full circle for you. Be grateful I didn't go to Liane Cartman with that "sucked in" reference...")

A flurry of FOs

(Incidentally, an FO is a finished object. A girl wrote in to the Ample Knitters group the other day and asked us what the heck that meant, because the explanation Google had given her wasn't very nice at all. I laughed really hard, not because the dear heart didn't know, but because with that explanation we all must've seemed like total assholes!)

Anyhow, I'm finally reunited with my camera, so I thought I'd take a few pictures and pop 'em on here so it's kind of like a knitblog and whatnot. Well, and as evidence that I do, on occasion, finish things...

This, is a bear. I did not knit the bear, but I did make its sweater. However, the sweater was supposed to fit my five-year-old God daughter, who is already like seven feet tall or something like that. Um, perhaps not. It does, however, look quite fetching on the bear.
Materials: Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Worsted in Bittersweet, less than one skein, plus a little bear button that you can't see here. Oh, and a bear, au Target
Pattern:Anthropologie Inspired Capelet from Craftster, which is a super-simple raglan shrug, except worked in worsted on size 9 needles. Note: this pattern alteration will not downsize it from smallish adult to tallish child, it will downsize it to "bear"
Cost: I dunno. What's a skein of LL run these days?


This is a crocheted baby blanket for my any-day-now niece, Annaliese, which I should mail to her mother (my cousin) before the kid is in college (and probably before I email her the link to this blog, too...). This is notable because it was my very first big crochet project! Having eschewed crochet for years because it made no sense/I couldn't get it to work/it was ugly/stupid/I was sixty years too young for it/excuse of the week because I couldn't do it, I finally got the hang of it (thanks, Joyce!), and now, I apparently can't stop. Note the fancy shell border, which is very difficult and complicated and arose out of me randomly piping up during Sunday knitting at the coffee shop, "how the hell do I border this thing, anyway?" Seriously, very easy. Yarn: Four balls of Encore Colorspun in Color 7512, one ball of Encore worsted in cream, on a J hook
Pattern: a giant square of sc, surrounded by a shell stitch border that lines up well enough.
Cost: Um...I think it would've been about $25? But I still got paid in yarn at this point, so, really, who knows.



This IS NOT A THONG. Which, until it actually resembled something like shawl size, everyone who picked it up asked me, "Is this a crocheted thong??" Which, no, it isn't. It's a shawl. What's funny about that is that it's a thank you gift for the adorable little old lady who heads up, and was my supervisor when I was a therapist in, Loyola's Sexual Dysfunction Clinic this year. But, alas, it's a shawl.
Yarn: One skein (ish - a little bit less) of Handmaiden Sea Silk in, um, that color.
Pattern: Yeah, not so much. I kind of just alternated single crochet, double crochet, treble crochet, and half-double crochet stitches, in rows, as I felt like it. I increased two stitches per row initially, then decided that was growing too fast, so I dropped it to one increase per row. And then of course I topped it off with the "isn't this new thing I learned just the coolest?!" shell stitch, and sc'd the rest of the border.
Cost: Oh, hell, I don't remember. Why do I keep putting this in here?


This thing is the Multiple Cottons Bathmat mentioned of yore. C'est finit, except for all those pesky yarn ends and the fact that it needs badly to be blocked so that it is an actual rectangle instead of, um, that. But it's ready for travel, at least, and will go nicely with my flamingo shower curtain.
Yarn: You know, I'm not entirely certain? The pink is Frog Tree, 2 skeins, and the green is one skein of Cotton Fleece by Brown Sheep in Peridot. The white...eh...I was originally thinking it was Touche, but you know, I think it's actually Frog Tree, again, 2 skeins.
Pattern: Cast on, I don't remember, so, enough stitches onto size 11 needles using two strands. Knit five rows. Leave in basket for three or four months. Frog three rows, work crochet bind off. Sc with J hook into theoretical rectangle, changing one strand when you get bored, until you run out of yarn.

And since that's probably all the FOs you're going to get for a loooooooong time, how about one UFO?

These would be socks. Well, the first sock, actually. A sock, one of two, in theory, for my dad. They match one of his flannel shirts, so he thinks they'd be a good Christmas present. Which explains why I'm obsessively knitting them in May...?


Anyway, that's the cuff and leg. Note the lovely stripeage. Ooooh. Aaaaah. The yarn is Austerman Step, which I'm loving. I'm using size 2 needles, which Sarah seems to think is some sort of sock sacrilege, but, I'm pleased enough with the density. They're quite stretchy, too. Yes, that's Magic Loop I'm doing. Which, you know, just isn't all that magical, but it's simplicity is part of why I like it. I think it's a whole lot less complex and fumbly that the two circs thing. Personally. Myself. Is alls I'm saying. Don't lynch me.

Can't say there's a pattern here, but I cast on 80 stitches, ribbed until I could stand to rib no more (which lasted about an inch), and then worked mindlessly until I had 8 inches of sock, and then began the heel. Sarah also talked me into the lovely Eye of Partridge Heel, or as I am prone to calling it, the Partridge Family Heel. Here are the beginnings of same.

That's the knitting update, kids. Possibly a flurry, definitely not a blizzard. But considering that the stash is all packed and most of it isn't arriving down South until August anyway (not to mention my impending 80-hour work weeks), that might be the biggest FO-fest you get for a long time....

Well Rounded Knitters

Okay, first of all, everybody go read Franklin's Blog today. Well, because, a, that is an adorable niece he has, but moreso I redirect you for the second part of the post, regarding his 1,000 Knitters Project. The short version is that he is, at heart, an artist who works in the photographic medium, and he initially had this idea to photograph 1,000 of Chicago's gay men. Who, it turned out, were way too high maintenance, and so he said, wait, why not knitters? Apparently, many of us wrote in to his appeal for subjects and said, sure, as long as you don't mind that I'm fat, and he has some very wonderful and well-said commentary on that. Go. Read. Adore.

I will admit to being one of those, btw. Well, sort of. He made reference to several of his gay men who had cancelled at the last minute because they felt fat. Others, he noted, either felt that they were far too hot and should be paid, or just wanted to have sex with a photographer. I commented that I was entirely likely to be feeling fat given that, well, I am fat. However, I gave him my word that I would not get all entitled bitchy queen or try to have sex with him.

Beyond that...the bathmat is about two rows from finished! Maybe crocheting does actually go more quickly. Either way, I like the way it's turning out, and am actually quite glad I went the crochet route, even if I did initially choose it for its expediency - I think it looks better than it would've in garter stitch, which was my initial plan. Plus! While the girls and I were at Knitche the other night for Thursday night knitting, I bought the coolest toy I've gotten in a while: a lighted crochet hook. Much more manageable than those silly twelve foot long straight knitting needles by the same manufacturer. And it's of surprisingly good quality and utility for something that I suspect is mostly about novelty. So before I go to bed tonight, I will hook my last two rows in the dark (because I'm a dumbass and gave away my bedroom lamps already) and be able to see them. Pretty cool, huh? I'll try to post a pic or two shortly, after I get back to my camera, which is currently living with my folks, as Maggie and I will be doing for the next two weeks. After tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the big moving day! No, that's not true. It's the little moving day. It's sort of the first of three. I'll get into that tomorrow...meanwhile, I think that I will follow Sarah's lead, and in the absence of actual project pictures, post gratuitous photos of my pet.

This would be my dog, working very, very hard, when she used to come to work with me every day at the yarn store. I think it's entirely possible that this is my favorite picture of her. Especially because I woke her up about three seconds later and shooed her off the couch. I know, I'm a big bad meanie...

It's as good a reason as any.

So, Sarah says I need a blog. And I opened this Blogger account, like, what, a year ago? So, since I'm moving and whatnot, and what with the whole "new life" thing, maybe now is a good time to start writing.

What it is not, sadly, is an interesting time to start writing. Today, I packed. And had fits about packing. Which are probably more likely fits about all the things that are going to happen in, oh, the next six weeks, but from where I sit today? Panic attacks about packing. Packing up my small, nearly empty apartment, so I can move what stuff I have thirty miles south this weekend, not even yet packing up for NC. I rented a cargo van, for Pete's sake, not even a truck. Because I have that little here. Yet, freaking out.

Oy. See? I'll be a wonderful psychiatrist. I'm already neurotic and a little off-kilter, and believe me, that's a prerequisite for the job.

In fiber news, the Austerman sock I have on the needles is giving me other fits (see? Again with the fits) because it seems way too big and I swear it's going to fall right down off my dad's scrawny chicken legs, but after the last sock-knitted-for-a-man debacle in our circle and The Incident of the Freakishly Large Heels (sorry, sir, I meant, Manly Spartan Heels), I worry more about them being too small.

When did I become such a worrier? Jeez. If worse comes to worst, I'll just keep them and knit my dad a new pair. Scrawny little chicken legs are not one of the things I inherited from him.

I also am attempting to crochet together my Mismatched Cottons Bathmat that I bought three different kinds of cotton yarn for, like, I don't know, whenever Joyce finished hers, so, four, five months ago? I figure it'll be easier to transport as a bathmat, and besides, I've been looking at the yarn for however many months thinking "I should finish that" and then I actually knit four rows of it and then it sat there for like three months all in its little balls and meanwhile I kept sliding all over the bathroom floor. So, time for it to get finished. Plus, now I have something to work on when I take to my bed in moving-related terror (I'm only partially kidding). Oh! AND I discovered that I'm never starting another crochet project with a foundation chain. I ripped back to the cast on row of this thing, right? And then I did a crochet bind off, and poof! I was in business with a lot less swearing (am I the only one who doesn't find the foundation chain all that...foundational?). So, from now on, I cast on for all of my crochet projects.

Um, yeah, Sarah. I definitely need a blog.