There's always room for Zombies

Hey everyone! How's it going? Pretty good here. The hat was about half done, then ripped because it was too small. It's about half done again... and still looking kinda small, but I'm just going to keep going. Angie thinks I crochet too tightly... I wouldn't be surprised. After all, I know I knit too tightly... I'd post a picture, but I decided to just wait until it's done. Until then, I've decided to jump on the bandwagon along with.... a lot of other people and joing the 2008 ABC Along.

Basically, every two weeks you post a picture of something that starts with a letter of the alphabet. It's going to be fun! Plus, it's a good way for you all to get to know me. If you want to do it, hurry on over there, as sign-ups close tomorrow.

So, here's the part where I post my letter. I'm also going to keep a running list in the sidebar (for two reasons. 1. I like lists. 2. I can.) so if the desire strikes you to see all of my letters at once, you can feel free.

A is for... Armwarmers.

(I know, I'm not the most creative cookie...). You all know how much I love them. They're fun to knit, and so practical... I've almost worn my pair out that I made a few weeks ago. I love them, and I don't know how I survived without them. I even sleep in them half the time.

Now, on to more interesting things. (I know, not really possible...) But my sister sent me this in an email and I thought, heck, I've already bugged them all to death with little surveys, might as well add one more. So, in case you want to know me better, here you go. (It's real short, it'll only take a few minutes to read.) :)

Four things

Four jobs I've had in my life:

1. Bagger - Kroger

2. Cashier - Target

3. Jewelry Clerk - Kohl's

4. Wife - Trust me, this counts

Four places I have lived:

1. Reynoldsburg, OH

2. Orient, OH

3. Presque Isle, Maine

4. Salem, OH

Four places I have been on vacation:

1. Virginia Beach, VA

2. Millersburg, OH

3. Washington, DC

4. Caribou, Maine (We kinda lived there for a couple months, but it was really just an extended vacation...)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pasta

2. Ice Cream

3. Mexican (but there's not much I can have now, because I'm trying the vegetarian thing.)

4. Pop Tarts

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Canada

2. Knitting

3. Seeing my boys (my newphews)

4. Um... a Hanson concert?

Four friends or relatives I think may respond:

1. Angie

2. Heather

3. Diane

4. Maybe Andy? I don't know

Now, here's what you're supposed to do. Copy and paste, delete my answers and type in your answers. Then, post it on your blog or email it if you want, it's up to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little known facts about those who know you.

Ahhhh! I'm turning into a monkey!!!!

Oh my gosh you guys... I'm not putting any picture on the blog. I think this is a first... I've been knitting and stuff, but mostly on the baby blanket, which looks exactly like it did Monday, only bigger. I started Evangeline from magknits yesterday, but I had to frog them because they were too big. (No, I didn't check gauge, why do you ask?) I've also worked on loksins a lot (not today yet) trying to get it done.... but that's not what I'm writing about today. Today I'm writing about the very scary, life changing thing that just happened to me. I was talking to Angie and I said "I don't know what I want to do. I don't want to play video games, and believe it or not, I don't want to knit..." and then it hit me.

I want to crochet. In fact, I have a specific design in mind. It's the peek-a-boo flower hat from gethooked.net. I do not like the flower. But that's ok. I'm going to use bernat satins, in this pink color (I don't know the colorway off hand, I'll tell you later.) I'm getting ready to leave now to get a crochet hook. Ugh, I can not believe I'm doing this. Please, help me! I've gone over to the dark side...

Oh yeah, and my friend Emmy has pink eye. Think good, healthy eye thoughts for her, would you? Thanks guys! Have a good day!

Do you know the number for the crazy police?

Hey guys, how's it going? Pretty good here, just been knitting (No way! Knitting, you say! Weird!) This is just going to be a short post (I think I got ya covered with the long posts...) but I wanted to let you know what I was up to. First off, last night I started the gussets on my loksins sock (Thank goodness!!!)

Whoa, a picture that actually looks like the right color red... what's up with that? Ok, remember these conditions, cloudy, snowy day, no lights in the computer room around 2 in the afternoon, just the computer monitor on, auto flash, close up. Ok, now I'm rereading that and I realize that you all must think I'm completely nuts. Oh well. :)

Then, I've also been working on this.

It's my pinwheel baby blanket! I've decided to have the colors fade out as it goes, instead of stripes. (Did I mention I was going to do stripes? No? Huh.) Anyway, I started with the darker blue, now I'm working with the lighter blue, then I'm going to do the outside with white. And... brace yourselves... I'm thinking about doing a crocheted edging. I know, I've gone over to the dark side... but I think I'm going to do it in the same blue color that's in the middle, to draw it all in. What do you all think? Or maybe I should do the light blue... hmm... I'm not sure! It's diameter is 15 inches, so I'm halfway done or so! :)

How was everyone's weekend? Thanks for stopping by!

Wait, are we talking about monkey prostitutes?

Hey guys! How is everyone? I've been trying to blog everyday, or close to it, but the last couple days I didn't get to because we were without internet (can you imagine? No Ravelry? No blogs? I was practically dieing...) So instead of being on the internet all day, every day, I did some crafting. Mostly knitting, granted, but I also had an cool project to do. In other words, this will be a picture heavy post, just to warn you all. Remember the other day, I asked what you could do with two frames, some fabric, and an i-cord? Well, here is part of the answer. (Actually, I did this before I lost the internet, but didn't get to blog about it. He he...) See, I needed a solution to my jewelry problem. Because my Jewelry box, while precious...

Is old and tiny, and full to the brim.

So I checked craftster.com, and foudn some neat ideas, like one person who make an earring tree from a postcard, and someone else who used cds and used a hot needle to poke holes in it. And those ideas, while very cool, weren't right for me. I couldn't see myself hanging a postcard or CDs anywhere. So I came up with my own idea. .

Jewelry Frames

I took these two picture frames I got at wally world, (3 dollars each) and some fabric I got there as well, and some tacky glue, and did this.

Actually, that's just a mess. I did THIS.

That is the earring frame. For this one, I took the glass and the cardboard piece on the back of the frame out, and cut the fabric to fit. I decided that would be too flimsy, so I added a section from the back of a phone book to the back.

I glued them together and then to the inside (not the very back) of the frame, so that there would be room for the backs of the earrings to poke through. Then I just poked my earrings through when the glue was dry, and ta da! The other frame was a little more difficult. I bought a couple packs of these little gold hooks from wally world, and I wanted to screw them into the cardboard backing. Well, this proved WAY too difficult, so I got a nail and a pair of pliers and shoves the nail through, then I screwed the hooks in. Worked much better. Then I screwed them in with the fabric on it, and when they were all in I pulled the fabric as tight as I could and glued it to the back of the cardboard.

Then I put it in the frame. Easy peasy!

I love the way it looks with the necklaces on it.

Tomorrow, we're going to hang them on the wall, and I'll add a finished picture. I didn't do the i-cord thing yet, and I'm not sure I will. I will tell you what i was thinking. I thought about hanging the frames close together, and then somehow attaching an i-cord to each of them, to hang my rings on... but I don't know if I like that idea. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do about my rings?

The Fake Isle Project

Do you guys remember my fake isle hat? Well, I finally decided what to do about the giantness of the hat. I decided to felt it a little bit. So in order to know how it would felt, I knitted a swatch with some leftover sws from my fingerless mitts, and felted it. Scariest thing ever.

But I learned some things from it. For example, I really really really like the way sws looks felted. I don't like the way it feels. It's not soft anymore. I'm thinking about making a felted purse though out of it. Possibly the geranium color. Anyway, when I started to felt it, it was 6.5 inches across (someone please explain how my gauge is, every time, 5 sts per inch, and I cast on 20 stitches, and got a swatch that was 6.5 inches across.) and 6 inches long.

After felting (isn't it pretty???) It was 4.5 inches by 4 inches. It was actually less than four but I stretched it so that it would be more square. This told me that my hat would shrink more lengthwise than width wise, which is perfect because that's what I needed. So, I entered into phase two of the scariest thing ever. I felted the hat. Here it is directly after felting.

You can't really even tell it was felted. It only looks a little tiny bit different. I wanted to go a little farther, but I didn't want it to get stiff, so I stopped. It's almost dry today, but I tried it on anyway, and good news!

(Please ignore the giant bags under my eyes... I'm an insomniac.) It fits perfectly. That picture makes it look a little baggy on the top still, but it's not... It's just the way my hair was fixed lol.

Loksins!

That's right, loksins. I'm actually working on it everyday for a little while. It is the slowest moving sock EVER. I'm on the heel flap now though. (Please try to ignore the fact that this picture is horrible and the sock looks orange. It's not.)

My camera HATES red. Or this sock. Or both. Here's a picture of the detail, which is a little better.

I love the way it looks, but I hate the way this yarn feels. It's all... icky.

In other news (yes, there's still more. Have I lost any of you yet?) I got my yarn from knitpicks, and will be starting my endpaper mitts very very soon.

Buckeye colors! Sorta. They're a little too dark, but I think they'll be ok.

Last but not least, at all, is the baby blanket. Last November, Dave bought me some baby yarn. Well, I finally decided to put it to some use. I'm making the pinwheel baby blanket. I'm using the "blue bon bon" colorway, and it's so pretty! It's blue with a little silver thread woven through. (btw, it's Benat baby coordinates.) I'm using my trusty size 8's, but I'm going to have to get a bigger circular needle... the only one I have is only 16 inches lol. I normally hate acrylic but this... this isn't so bad. I'll probably use it to lay on the floor, or over the carseat, once I have a baby. But anyway, here it is so far.

I LOVE it! Have a good weekend everyone!

Whipped cream is NOT an ice cube!

I have a new free pattern for everyone. I whipped this up to deal with some stray balls of Patons SWS I had laying around that were driving me crazy with their not wanting to be anything. I hate it when I have yarn that doesn't want to be anything!




Here it is, lounging amongst Dylan's massive cd collection. That binder is about 10 cds shy of being full. Crazy. Anyway, want to make one of your own? Well then here's the pattern:

Scarf of Many Colors

Around 450 yards of worsted weight yarn (I used Patons SWS. Two balls Natural Green, one Natural Earth and bits and pieces of Natural Crimson as well as about half of a ball of black solid Patons SWS, but I didn't even use half of this)

5 mm (H) crochet hook

tapestry needle and pins for blocking

Ch 5 and join into a circle

Rnd 1: Ch 3(counts as first dc now and throughout), 2 dc in ring, ch2, *3 dc in ring, ch 2* repeat from * to * until there are 4 clusters of dcs. Join last ch2 with a slip stitch to 3rd stitch of beg chain

Rnd 2: Slip stitch over to corner ch2 space, ch3, 2 dc into corner space, ch 2, 3 dc into corner space, ch 2 (3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc) in each corner space, chaining 2 between corner spaces. End ch 2 and slip stitch to beg chain.

Rnd 3: Repeat as Rnd 2, putting clusters of (3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc) in the corner spaces, ch 2's to separate each set of clusters, and putting clusters of 3 dcs into the middle ch 2 spaces that aren't the corners. This is a really bad way of describing this but I suck at writing out crochet patterns. Here's a picture of what they're supposed to look like when you finish this rnd.




There are better tutorials out there for granny squares, if you need any help. They're really easy and you should understand their construction by the second row.

For a wide scarf like mine (11" by 5 1/2 feet) make 26 of these squares. For a narrower scarf I would add on one or two rows to the square above and use only one column of squares.

Block the squares before seaming because it makes it easier to line everything up. My squares blocked out to 5" by 5".

Lay your squares out so you can put them in the order you want them to be or be completely random and just grab squares and seam them as you see fit. I went for laying mine out before hand. Here they are before seaming.




I seamed my squares together with whip stitch because that's the way my grandma ( the lovely lady who taught me everything I know about crochet) taught me to do it. Some people use single crochet, some people only do the back loops of the stitches, some use both... do what you like, it's your scarf!

Here's what mine looked like at this point



Then for the edging just join your edging yarn into one of the corner spaces, do 3 sc in each corner space, one sc in each dc, and two sc in each ch 2 space around until you reach the corner you started with and join with a slip stitch to the first sc. Then I went for another row of sc, doing 2 sc in each corner sc and 1 sc in each sc around. Block again to smooth everything out then wear lovingly! I'll post a modeled picture once DH is home for the weekend.

Poor monkeys, how will they pick their noses??

I don't really have much to blog about, but Krystal is really showing me up here, so I figured I'd better make an appearance. Otherwise people might start thinking I've been abducted by aliens or the knitting gods have deemed me unfit to knit and have sentenced me to crafty purgatory where I'll be forced to crochet till the end of eternity...

Actually, I have been crocheting. But that has to wait till I'm done seaming things up because it's going to be a free pattern.

So in Krystal's last post she tagged everyone to post 10 "Weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself" So here goes mine.

1. I'm secretly a huge fan of Celtic music
2. I have one tattoo and I enjoyed getting it so much that my tattoo artist asked me twice if I was ok. I had slipped into a meditative state. It was incredible. I can't wait until I can do that again.
3. I'm a really bad daydreamer. It's rare that I'm paying attention to what's going on more than I have to unless something really interests me.
4. Like Krystal I want a baby more than anything else in the world. If given the choice between all the yarn I ever wanted or a baby I'd take the baby.
5. I have an addiction to yarn. If I get stressed out or I feel bad I don't want any of the traditional addictive things. Not even chocolate. I want yarn.
6. There is a side of me that can be very vindictive and cold. I think I keep that side under control fairly well, though.
7. I liked George W Bush when he was first elected. *ducks rotten tomatoes*
   
8. I'm utterly fascinated by the psychology of criminals and if I could go back to school that would be the one thing I'd love to study most.
9. I absolutely hate cantaloupe. Just the smell of it has been known to make me throw up. In fact, I can taste it right now just from thinking about it and it's making me queasy.
10. I think I have some form of synaesthesia. When I hear certain musical notes I see colors. When I'm listening to fast music it's just one big rainbow colored blur inside my head.

Now consider yourself tagged and go do this! Then come back and leave a comment so we can see! :)

Ooooh, I know, fingerless monkeys!

Wow things are busy here! I know I said I was going to answer the question "What can you do with two picture frames, some fabric, and an i-cord" but... well, I haven't done it yet, so that will have to wait. Today, I have good news!

Yup, they're finished. I cast off last night... or early early early this morning. It took FOREVER and I may never do a pair of socks on size 1s again. Ever. I love the result though. So very comfy.

Pattern specs: Generic Toe up socks using Wendy Johnson's generic toe up pattern. I used Socks that Rock medium weight, color Rocktober. I discovered some things about myself while making these socks. First, I can never ever make a pair of stockinette stitch socks with a deadline. They will NEVER get done. And in order to get them done I have to work on them and only them. Also, I will probably never do a short row toe again, because I don't like the way it feels. Next I'm going to do the easy "figure 8" cast on. (Scroll down to where it says "Easy toe").

I LOVE them. Unfortunately, they're my mom's Christmas present, so I have to give them to her today... :( Oh well. :) I'm going to use the leftovers to make something special.

You'll have to wait to see what it is. Now I NEED to work on Loksins. I need to work on loksins for like, a hour a day, and then work on something else. At least an hour. Because otherwise I'll never have my size 2's for my second monkey! Now I'm going to fill out this survey thing, because I think it'll be a great way to get to know some of my friends in blogland. Feel free to feel tagged and fill it out!

Tag You're it

Here's how you play: Once you've been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 Weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself, at the end choose someone to be tagged so you can read their answers! (I just tagged you all!)

Let's see.....

1.) I listen to really hard rock music when no one is around.

2.) I check my blogs and forums obsessively.

3.) I love taking pictures.

4.) I want a baby more than anything else in the world.

5.) I'm not nearly as social around new people as I seem on Ravelry.

6.) I'm add, and get bored very very easily.

7.) I have a bad ankle and am really really really glad I don't have to have surgery on it.

8.) I love to be organized... but hate organizing things.

9.) I'm a phone-a-holic. I'm on the phone ALL THE TIME.

10.) I like weird shows, like Buffy and Angel, and Moonlight, that have a vampire theme, and I'm not really sure why. I always have.

So, consider yourself tagged, and have a great day!