The Unicorn and the Wasp

I do try to avoid double posting. I really do. Today, however, it’s completely intentional, because hell if I smash my beautiful Muir in with a post about a… hat made out of socks. Seriously. I’m much too vain for that. And too proud of Muir for that.

Cause baby’s got an edge now.

It’s very simple, which fits the overall design of the shawl. Garter stitch, thank god, it was such a relief to skip the purling for a couple of rows. There was some rearranging to line the holes up with the pattern, but it wasn’t that tricky as long as you paid attention to what you were doing for the first and last 5 or 6 stitches.

Last night, I pinned a small portion out on the sofa, just to see what it looked like without the ugly yellow stringy provisional cast-on, and, oooooh.

Also, on another lacy note, my grandma was cold today, so I finally convinced her to actually use the Python shawl I gave her instead of carefully stowing it away so it doesn’t get dirty and stuff.

She’s a bit blurry there, but I assure you, she’s still every bit as beautiful as the shawl. Just not as see-through.

Jolly good

“It’s a hat!” Neville exclaimed.
“Made out of socks,” Dora added, staring at it.
[…]
“Look, with little…” Harry leaned over and examined the small embroidered figures dancing around the edge of the hat, which did appear to be made out of sock-shapes.
“Dancing…house-elves…” Draco said.
“It’s hideous,” Snape observed.
“But in a stunning sort of way,” Dora added.

(Sam_Storyteller, Laocoon’s Children, Year One)

When inspiration hit me last night… it hit at the most inopportune moment it could have. And instead of telling me I’m insane, the more rational part of my brain went all ‘A hat made out of socks? Why, what a jolly splendid idea that is!’

So here’s what I’ve been thinking.

In a loose definition of thinking, which includes scribbling in your paper journal at 2 am as fast as you can because your alarm goes off at 6.30am.

As the let’s-just-call-it-a-sketch below shows, first I was considering a rather boxy shape, because I couldn’t figure out how to do the decreases, so I was going to do the socks, and then decrease at four points, Center Square style.

Then in a bit of a duh moment, I realized the ‘toes’ of the socks were going to be decreases (duh), so it would be more of a regular-shaped hat. Plus a pompom. Because a hat as ridiculous as this one definitely needs a huge, goofy, luridly-colored pompom. (Or a white one, as contrast)

The house-elf embroidery band also got abandoned in favor of ear flaps with the following duplicate-stitched on them. Or, if one was feeling particularly adventurous and interested in learning something new, double-knit earflaps with the following pattern.

The socks themselves, of course, would have to be absolutely hilarious. I’m thinking one with snitches, one with broomsticks, striped ones in colors that clash in a way that brings to mind the big bang… maybe one in mustard, or a Gryffindor one, to keep with the Harry Potter theme.

So, in a fit of exuberance, I made up a prototype of five already finished socks that just happened to be hanging around. No idea why I’m always surrounded by socks. Really. They just pop up like daisies wherever I go.

Rather obviously, there are some adjustments I’d have to make. Like the size of the socks. At least, I’ve figured out I’d need about 150 stitches to go around my head, so I could easily divide that by seven or so (each sock a smooth 21.4285714 sts wide), make the foot shorter, the shaft longer… and obviously not make real socks. Just flat sock-like shapes, with a short-row heel (the exact construction of which I’d have to research more in-depth than ‘hey, this sounds like a good idea!’), sewn together. With earflaps added. Although I’ve thought about at least doing the leg part in the round, simply so the flappy triangles don’t curl at the edges.

But at least this way I figured out that I shouldn’t have too much trouble with the decreases. With seven socks, it might be a rather steep decrease though. After all, that’s 14 sts every 2 rnds that are going away, which makes for only 20 rows of crown shaping. Maybe I’ll crochet a star between them? In red? And then add the pompom on top? And the earflaps?

Oh man, weirdest hat ever. But awesome. I wish I had more sock yarn scraps here. But then, a purple one with a TARDIS would raise the geek level even more. I might just do it.

The sock-hat combination would make a nice 100th project, too. After all, most of the last 99 projects are either socks or hats.

Song of Freedom

I got myself the Doctor Who Season 4 soundtrack. It’s simply… gorgeous. Goosebumps-inducingly, spine-shiveringly, staring-off-into-space-dreamily gorgeous. Murray Gold is my new hero. Seriously, the man has got to be a genius. I hope he’ll be involved in the new series, too. And if not… well, at least he’s doing the music for the regeneration scene.

This post should probably be called ‘Song of Captivity and Freedom’ (which is the song of the Ood, basically), because lo and behold! It only took me half the time I anticipated to unpick the provisional cast-on of the Muir. Because just as I’d gotten a decent routine… the pick-up changed, and for no discernible reason at all, the last third of the line was cast on properly. Properly as in just-pull-the-string-and-all-is-well properly. Which was the greatest personal triumph of all. So Song of Freedom it is. Tardis pulling Earth home, me pulling a string, and everything working out just fine – fits the theme, doesn’t it.

All in all, I’m about halfway done with the lower edging – after all, it’s only about ten rows? And I haven’t really had time to sit down and knit for some extended period of time. And then it’s only eight, maybe nine pattern repeats. (Let’s ignore for the time being that one repeat consists of 32 rows of 157 stitches each, yes?)

My mother requested a shawl for Christmas. Brilliant.

Also, as I’ve repeatedly gushed about on Twitter – they have BUTTON SHOPS in London. Not only am I excited by the prospect of having a shop whose main focus are buttons – there are SEVERAL of them. Not to mention the ‘yarn boutiques’. I’ll just abandon the guys for a day or so and do a yarn shopping marathon. I’m hoping to finally find buttons for the Tempest cardi, too. I mean seriously, that thing has been finished since April 13th! And I just cannot find the right buttons. So, London it is!

I was sitting, waiting, wishing

I AM HALFWAY DONE WITH MUIR!!!!

I finished the first ball yesterday, got all excited, and spread the thing out over my legs. Yet again, I realized that this monster, when it’s done, can not only be used as a shawl, but also a blanket, tent cover and carpeting for a villa. ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Seriously, it’s huge. And it’s gonna be about twice this size, which means about 18 pattern repeats. Huge.

Thing is, though… I decided that before going on with the body, I’d do the lower border with the second ball, to avoid the slightest chance of me winding up short in the end. What I discovered was, however, that I’d knit in the wrong part of the stitch. Which means the crochet chain yarn loops through every stitch twice. Which means I can’t just pull and the stitches spring free, no, I have to go and pick at every single of the 157 stitches for about half a minute or longer.

And the thing is, I know how to do the whole provisional cast-on thing. I’ve done it before and very successfully. And now, when there’s almost 160 stitches…. I fail.

I’ve already picked up about… 10, maybe 15. It’s gonna be a couple of days till I’ve picked them all up, because hell if I do those all at once. >.<

There’s a place I go when I’m alone

These past couple of days, ever since I came back, but especially since my parents went to Paris on Saturday, I’ve been pretty stressed out. This isn’t anybody’s fault, not really, but taking care of two grandmothers would be kind of hard on anybody. As bad as it sounds, I’m actually kind of glad one of them’s in the hospital right now – mostly because that takes another load off my shoulders, since she’s all taken care off and Tina and I just pop over for an hour or so every day.

So I spend pretty much all my day with my grandma, taking care of her, washing her, making her food, shifting her from the kitchen to the living room to the bathroom to bed and back, entertaining her… which on the one hand is kinda nice, I’ve never spent so much time with her, but on the other hand, it’s horrific to see her so dependent.

So what this all boils down to is: stress knitting.

I cast on something I’ve been vaguely calling DWSLCBP, which is short for Doctor Who Scarf Log Cabin Blanket Project, obviously. Basically, a log cabin blanket with the colors of the Doctor Who scarf as well as the row number of the color blocks in the Season 12 pattern. It’s garter stitch. It’s color blocks. It doesn’t matter if I miscount. It is, however, a friggin’ blanket, although I guess I could just stop at lap blanket size if I wanted to.

On the other hand, if I decide to follow through with this (I’ll wait another two, three days to check if I’m not totally off my rocker) it’s gonna be the 100th project in my Ravelry portfolio. And a blanket as the big double oh would be pretty appropriate for such a… landmark.

Of course, my Rav projects don’t take into account the second cotton garter stitch I made, or the three fuzzy scarves I made as Christmas gifts that year, or my hideous first sweater disaster with arms as big as tents, or the fact that what I bundled under Christmas Presents 2007 was actually five hats. And the second pair of garter stitch mitts I started but never finished because I was too lazy to crochet the first one shut.

So all things considered, whatever I knit next is going to be my 111th project.

Though some were abandoned, and some punishéd.
For never was a story of more wit, than this of Patti and the things she knit.

… or something. Somebody take me to a padded place where I can mangle Shakespeare without hurting my head as I bang it on the wall as self-punishment.

One eye in the mirror

Photo dump time!

Expect one in the next couple of days, too, because I went all photo-happy this morning, but here’s stuff I’ve been meaning to post and never got around to.

First off, Muir is approaching a ridiculous size. And I’m only halfway.

Still, looks nice in the SHRUBBEREH!

Then, TARDIS socks! (photos not as big because let’s face it, they’re much less spectacular than that monster of a shawl)

I have to admit the TARDIS design isn’t quite as obvious as I’d like it to be. Still, knowing these socks have a phone box pattern knitted into them fills me with childish glee, and that’s enough. Ronnie the 7 kilo kitty loves them, too.

Speaking of the TARDIS! The other day, while I was still in Leipzig, I got a huuuuuge package. The contents?

I’ve already gushed about the bio. But the other thing, the reason for the ginormous size of the package?

(please excuse the mess on the edges)

OMG I HAVE A TARDIS ON MY DOOR!
Which, of course, means that my door is doubly geeky, since the outside has a sign saying ‘The Internet!’… so I can sit in the kitchen and say ‘I’m just gonna check the Internet!’. Sigh.

Last but not least, have some salad.

Oh, and look! It’s a face!

Hair slowly but steadily approaching the length it was before I buzzed it off. Man, it’s warm under all that stuff! Also, I desperately need a redye.

And with that, the randomness ends… for tonight.

Here… come… the drums! (HERE COME THE DRUMS HERE COME THE DRUMS)

Watch out, Europe

Watched ‘The Producers’ last night, and by god, is that movie offensive. To everyone. Men, women, gay people, straight people, Americans, Germans, Swedes, dove breeders… it’s crazy! Mel Brooks must have sat down with a list of the most offensive things he could come up with and just ticked them off one by one.

I loved it. Friggin’ brilliant. Two hours of complete and utter tastelessness. It was great. My enthusiasm might have something to do with the fact that it was 3.30 when I finished, but… oh man. Plus the songs are really catchy, which can also be a drawback. Since I’m a person who is likely to randomly burst into song, and it’s kinda bad if that song is ‘Springtime for Hitler’.

Anyway, I’m basically posting to complain about the internet – doesn’t work in my room at all since last night, I’m in my sister’s room right now, and it’s SLOOOOOW.

But also, my geekery has made it onto my shopping list:

I’m amazed at how well the Dalek came out. It was just a quick sketch to show my Grandma what my washclothes looked like, but… it looks pretty good for something that took me all of thirty seconds to get to paper.

Off now, watching the music bits of the Master episodes (‘Here – come – the drums!’ HERE COME THE DRUMS HERE COME THE DRUMS and the bit with ‘I can’t decide’ by the Scissor Sisters) to get that Springtime song out of my ear.

By the way, knitting TARDIS socks. Socks that have the pattern from the Tardis dishcloth on the front. Quite pretty, that. Almost done with the first one.

I am what I am

Get your geek on!

Was definitely the motto of the last 24 hours. In which I produced two EXFOLIATE Dalek washclothes, and a little K-9 plushie for Saskia. I also played around with the Tardis dishcloth pattern, effectively knitting about two washclothes, but ripping them up periodically. I had one pretty much finished, apart from the top ribbing… and then I realized I’d done 1×1 instead of moss stitch down the sides, and it looked ridiculous, and I frogged it. And started three times more, and eventually abandoned the whole plan.

However, I feel pretty accomplished. The Dalek clothes were a blast to make, since they only took about an hour each? Which is quite simply brilliant for any kind of knitted item. K-9 took way longer – not necessarily knitting it, but the whole making up business. Seriously. I crocheted the parts together, since I know it’s sturdy, plus my darning needle is halfway across the country at my parents’.

EXFOLIATE Dalek washclothes, made from Schachenmayr Catania in ‘limette’ (for me) and ‘mandarine’ (for Saskia), 3.5mm needles. The name alone amuses me to no end. Seriously.

K-9, made from scraps of Lana grossa Meilenweit in grey (leftovers from Time Warp Socks, which makes that nondescript grey ball the geekiest yarn I own!), and a tiny bit of some red merino of presumably Lana Grossa origin. 3.5mm needles, 3.5mm crochet hook.

Saskia being fascinated by her new plushie:

Ah, geekery. I kinda don’t wanna leave again, but tomorrow is volcano day, so to speak.

Speaking of Cpt Jack. I downloaded two of John Barrowman’s albums, Music, Music, Music and Another Side. They’re mostly covers of pop and musical songs, and I do like pop and musical, especially musicals, and I did know John Barrowman has been in what feels like every West End musical of the past two decades… and yet, I was still a bit skeptical, to say the least. The image of Captain Jack lingers, even after both reading and listening to his autobiography, and that image is not really compatible with… music. Of any sort.

But, like with the bio, I was positively surprised. Very much so, indeed. My favorites include ‘You’re so vain’, ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘Angel’ and ‘I am what I am’.  Especially ‘I am what I am’, which is not only from ‘La Cage aux Folles’, one of the gayest musicals ever, but is also this time sung by a gay man who’s had a pretty good career despite, or even because of never denying who he is. And that gives a girl like me hope, that in this world, not all is lost.

Same message in the autobiography, Anything goes. I ordered it the other day, and went through it close to the speed of light… great book.

It doesn’t exactly follow a timeline, which makes it hard to find specific events… but then, it has the effect that the Barrowman hopes for in the preface:

To be honest, here’s what I hope – that by arranging the book in this way, you’ll feel as if you and I are lounging in our pyjamas on the couch in my Cardiff living room, sharing a bottle of champagne or a pot of tea, with music on in the background, having a blether and a laugh about my life so far.

And he certainly succeeds with that. It’s got an intimate feel to it, possibly for the slightly rambling style that goes from here to there and gets sidetracked and digresses within the digression… and it has tons of footnotes. I love footnotes. Of any kind, but especially when they come in flocks like in this book, and give so much character to the writing. I mean, I sort of talk in footnotes sometimes. Anyone who includes a lot of them is automatically my friend. (I also like Terry Pratchett a lot for that exact reason, and a couple more.)

And it’s funny. Genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. I giggled through whole pages, and sometimes couldn’t read them to my roomie because my fit of laughter would bubble back up and interrupt my reading. Stories of crazy actors, his family, his superstitions (on a scale from one to five, with five being obsessive compulsive, he claims to be an eight), Scott, his travels as a kid and now, practical jokes, Torchwood and Doctor Who sets… pretty much everything.

There’s three photo signatures, with photos from pretty much the last 35 years. Lots of private photos, photos from musical productions, and behind-the-scenes… the Torchwood people plus David Tennant, piled together on the couch for watching the first Torchwood broadcast, is probably my favorite picture of them all, even before the wedding picture of John, Scott and the dogs.

Under the title ‘Some things never change’, there’s also a page of John Barrowman mooning, spanning between the ages of approximately 9 and 40. *shakes head*

I knew a lot of stuff before I read this book, but this is, I think, mostly due to my having the audiobook, which is an abridged version, but awesome in its own right. Mostly because John Barrowman has a voice I could listen to for hours, and he’s a really lively narrator who really gets into the story and pulls you right in with him. Though it doesn’t necessarily take his reading to entrance you – he and his sister have done a wonderful job with this book. And the love for his work, his family, everything he does, really shines through, and when I was done reading, my smile lingered on for hours.

It’s a good book. Don’t let the terribly cheesy cover photograph scare you away.

The only thing that I might want to mention on the negative side is what tons of other people have already said before me: there are some parts where there’s a lot, and I mean a LOT of name-dropping. Like the time he got invited to Valentino’s yacht. But then, those stories are still wicked funny, so that’s excusable.

Holy crap, I’ve just cracked a wordcount of 1000 for this post. Well. Considering the fact that the other day, I had a bit of inspiration for a fanfic, and that barely made it to 500… that is pretty impressive. Ah, rambling.

I’d better go and assemble my cut-out TARDIS, to make the geeky day complete.

She’s like the wind

Just watched another video of the Yarn Harlot knitting – the vid with the slow-mo that actually makes it possible to see what the hell she’s doing. Craaazy.

Instead of knitting, I’ve been winding a bit of yarn today. Not much, the bulky handspun from my vacation, took me maybe 15 minutes for 100g. A dream. Still have to wind the second skein of green laceweight for Muir, already dreading that, but Saskia has agreed to help and be the swift.

Oh, Muir. Last night, I knit on it for about 5 hours, I’m guessing, and I finished one repeat. That makes my knitting speed about 10 minutes for one row. Ugh. I mean, a single row does 157 stitches, but still, that’s kind of disheartening. Five hours for one repeat, and I need at least fifteen… I have the feeling I’m gonna run out of yarn. I have six repeats by now… oh god. Though actually, maybe 12 or 13 reps are gonna be enough. Oh, what a dream that would be.

Reunited with my camera, I spent half my day today photographing… stuff. My new favorite mug, the new yarn, myself. Half my day isn’t even that exaggerated, because I got up at three today. In my defense, I was up till 8am this morning, talking with Saskia, listening to music, knitting, watching a shitload of Dr Who and getting my arm clawed in fright during ‘Blink’, the fucking scary Weeping Angel Statue episode. Eep. Good thing we waited with that one until dawn.

Enough blabbering. Picspam!

Mug-mug-muggidy-mug!

It really is a lovely mug. Looks and might even be handmade, and even if it isn’t, it’s very down to earth. Holds about 450ml. Also doubles charmingly as a yarn stand.

Shiny. They also didn’t leave a trace of fuzz in the mug, which I’m endlessly thankful for.

Hair is lovely, tea is awesome, I’m nice an tan, but my skin is terrible at the moment and I don’t even know why. Too much stress, I’d normally say, but I’m kind of on break right now?

Got out my softball glove, I love to sit in my window and toss the ball in the air a bit. And the balls I wound were almost the exact size of a softball. Still unsure why it’s called softball when the ball is exactly as soft as a stone, but I guess it’s one of these mysteries of life.

[We interrupt our scheduled program for a short public service announcement: It’s not even 10 and it’s already dark! Holy crap! Then again, not long ago I was aghast at how long it was light outside. But that’s me, always surprised by such unexpected things as the seasons changing!]

Look at the colors! Just look at them!

LOOK!

Also, I’m a person who loves post-its. Or small pieces of paper of any kind. Yet, for some reason, I never have any at hand, so notes get written pretty liberally across the right side of my body all the time. This is what my notes on which photos to upload looked like today:

Still traces from the other day… ah, well. I don’t especially mind looking like an exploded calculator.

I’ve only been up seven hours and I’m already kinda tired. Must be my body’s way of saying that the last thing it wants to do today is wind a mile of yarn into a ball.

Here it goes again!

Back here, I feel a lot more like blogging. And a lot more like writing in my paper diary, which I’ve sadly forgotten at my parents’.

I just spent a good half hour linking up all blog posts between May 11 and today to the appropriate Ravelry project pages. That’s almost thirty blogs, though not all of them contain stuff about projects. To make up for that, a lot of them feature multiple links, such as Is it a monster from last Friday, which I linked to a whopping eleven projects. And that’s not even all of them, but I figured all Christmas knitting and all socks that ever taught me stuff were a bit of an overkill.

While linking, I found a mysterious reference to a plain stockinette sock from the first of July. I… haven’t knit plain stockinette socks in a while, so I have not the faintest clue what socks that could be. Maybe the Kirk socks? But those must have been finished by that time, except for the starfleet symbol, which I still haven’t done. And I didn’t start winding the yarn for the Mojo socks until more than a week after that. So… mystery socks. Highly mysterious. Drives me a bit bonkers.

…

After rifling through my sock yarn drawer, there’s a center-pull ball of Zitron Handart I bought last winter that has an awful lot of yarn wound around it, so I’m assuming I started a sock but frogged it. That would make sense since it’s yarn in a beautiful fall-colored, stained glass sort of colorway that I’ve been saving for a really gorgeous sock pattern to do it justice, and a plain stockinette sock would definitely not have sufficed.

I guess I’ll just have to leave it at that.

But, on the upside, I’ve finally managed to make project pages for the last three pairs of socks I knit.

Which means that now, in the first eight entries on my projects page, I have a project in every color of the rainbow. And then some.

I might be overcomitting just a little bit.

And that doesn’t even feature the Miralda, which is buried in the Hibernating Projects, and physically hidden away in a leather satchel. Oops.