Just Keep Knitting, Just Keep Knitting....

Icon Mania

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:25:00 +0000

one of my newest hobbies/fads of the moment is icon making. Its delectably addictive :)

Trawling through textures and effects to play around with in Photoshop is like crack!!
here's a few that I've made featuring mainly Twilight actors Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Jackson Rathbone, Taylor Lautner and a touch of supernatural - Jensen Ackles:

Most textures I used are from http://community.livejournal.com/icon_textures

I learnt to do a lot of this stuff from this awesome livejournal community http://community.livejournal.com/icon_tutorial/

oh yeah - for the birds animated by ME!

I'm a Horrible blogger, Sydney YAY :)

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:36:00 +0000

Its probably a good thing that I don't really have many readers, with how slack i am at updating n stuff.

A lot has happened since the last post. We went on our really quick trip to Sydney to do some sightseeing and catch the only Australian screening of How To Be.

It was really cool, the movie was great RPattz fans would love it. Its a quirky and at times really, really funny movie. Here's hoping that it becomes more widely available soon.

We met some cool people while waiting too, i would have taken pictures at the actual screening but we didn't want to seem to tryhard, but the lecture theater was packed and it was a really great atmosphere.

I gotta tell you tho, so annoyed at JetStar right now. Originally I'd booked a flight back to home from Sydney at around lunchtime Sunday which gave us some time to have breakfast, check out and leisurely make our way to the Airport via some of suburban Sydney. But noooooooo JetStar changed their flight to 6.30 in the freaking morning, which meant that we had to be at the airport at 5.30, which meant getting up and checking out of the hotel at 4.45AM!!

It was not fun :(

but what was fun was going and seeing some sights, we visited the StarCity Casino - won 40bucks on the pokies and had their buffet dinner - expensive but a wide selection and really tasty too. I don't know why but i didn't take any photos that first afternoon/night but i went a little crazy on the Satdy.

Friday night they were having the Australian MTV awards on down by darling harbour. As we were walking back from the casino they had a bit of red carpet stuff happening. We saw Vanilla Ice and Ruby Rose from like a huge distance away but other than that just a whole bunch of Toyota Yaris cars.... wooo exciting right :)

Satdy we walked all the way from Central Station down to The Rocks to check out the markets they have their. They're pretty cool, we wandered around there for ages determined to by something but coming up really empty handed. I saw some awesome pictures that were just humongous, if we'd been driving i would have gotten one but there was no way i was getting them on a plane back home. So in the end I got a pretty cool hair clip and some dangly red earrings (i have an obsession with dangly earrings!).

We then walked down to Circular Quay and kept getting harassed by people asking about our hair - they were trying to sell a particular salon and were obviously told to target any females withing the 20-30 age group! Very frustrating.

Circular Quay is really very pretty, you get a great view of the Harbour Bridge no matter where you are. For example this was our view at lunch that day:

We stopped at an Italian restaurant and both had their lasagna and a beer, it too was really really tasty and of course being the Quay really really expensive :)

By this time my feet were killing me, and there was no way we could walk back to the Hotel so we caught a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour which wasn't very far from where we were staying. On the Ferry I snapped quite a few pics, here's some of them.

So anyway, we went a really long way and spent quite a bit of money to go see a movie but it was totally worth it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat if Little Ashes was screening in Sydney and nowhere else!

Coming soon on boring blog, some actual knitting escapades *gasp*

How To Be

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:40:00 +0000

Holy Cow, I cant believe it....

My SIL and I are going to Sydney in March, primarily to see the only Australian screening of How To Be:

How To Be Trailer from How To Be on Vimeo.

but also to rock out a bit of shopping.

I cannt tell you how excited I am right now. We're leaving on friday lunch time and coming back lunch time Sunday.

This all came about because we were thinking of going down to Melbourne for SIL's hen's night... but ultimatley we couldnt get the money together so we decided to postpone it. Then just yesterday she mentioned it again and how we should get our shit together... I wasnt too jazzed about going to Melbourne, it didnt feel like it would be worth the money.

Meanwhile, i'd already resigned myself to the fact that I wasnt going to be able to get to Sydney for the screening... but i really, really, really wanted to.

Thats when my brain put two and two together... holy cow, she'd totally go with me, if we could get cheap flights and cheap accomodation! Thankyou wotif.com and 99 dollar cheap flights!

So now everything is booked and paid for.... and also non-refundable.

Sydney Here We COME!! wooohoooo!!
This time i'll be in Sydney purely for the lulz, nothing work related - Thank God

What the hell is up with the weather

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:46:00 +0000

Its like one extreme to the next.

In my home town in Australia it hit the hottest day since the 1930's yesterday. A sultry 45degrees C. Why thats only 113F, pfffft. Today it hit 42 and probably will be the same again tomorrow!

UGH!

And in the US some parts are experiencing extreme cold snaps that are causing numerous blackouts and traffic incidents

I wanna be here right now, SFM!!

I cant use what i cant abuse

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:40:00 +0000

weird title I know, I'm listening to Garbage on my laptop right now.... so its a line from one of their songs.

My ISE scarf is coming along nicely, after a false start the stitch pattern that I've chosen is working really well with the yarn.

Its Lorna's Laces Green Line, and my lounge room lamp just doesn't do the colours in this yarn any justice at all! I took it to work yesterday because my usual lunch buddie wasn't going to be in, and rather than sit around doing nothing for an hr (like usual) I brought it in for something to do.

The colours just popped out in the natural sunlight, there are so many different shades of green in this yarn its amazing! My buddie is a gardening guru it sounds like, plus she listed one of her fav colours as green so the yarn is pretty fitting in more ways than one.

This pattern is Scarves to throws month 3 (available here) and this is what I attempted prior

Which in real life, much like in the picture, looked a lot like green mush. Not much stitch definition, this pattern would look better in a solid colour I think.

And totally off this topic, I have a sudden urge to knit socks ?! WUT? huh?

I've only ever knit one pair, with worsted weight cotton yarn and i gotta say i just didn't get the omgimustknitsockslotsofsocksandnevereverstop obsession that seems to grip a lot of people.

I'm blaming this sudden need on these really cool new shoes of mine

They're Converses in blue that goes really well with denim... as you can tell... and seeing that I wear nothing but jeans they're exceptionally cool!!! They're just regular chucks they don't go up the ankle.

But really hand knit socks would not be showcased by these shoes so I'm not sure why I feel like I need them. Maybe its because these are so awesome that they deserve something better than store bought socks *dunno*

but i think they're going to be my next project. Take that 40degree heat - yeah i hate it so much!!

2009 Bring it

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:28:00 +0000

So wow, here we are... first post of 2009!

and I'm back at work, again and bored.... again

If i were into new years resolutions maybe one would be to work up the courage to get a new more interesting job. I guess its a good thing I hate resolutions. putting a time frame on things just fucks up your chi, then you never get anything done like you'd planned, then you get all depressed about the fact.

bleh

so anyway instead of cleaning n shit during my time off I actually managed to take some knitting related pictures - I know RIGHT! swoon!

this is my progress on the February Lady Sweater in Blue Sky Alpaca's Dyed Cotton, Tomato colourway.

This yarn is great soft-wise, its luscious not like normal cotton at all! Problem is that I think its going to pill like motherbitch. While I was doing a EZ stretchy bind off (which uses a darning needle instead of an actual bind off - a little like Kitchener stitch) I was collecting the little pill balls that were shedding off it like a second skin - it was crazy!

This pic shows off the Gull Lace Stich a lot better than the first. As you can see i'm just beginning on the first sleeve, which I think will be around elbow length. Knowing my luck i'll finish it just before winter and wont get to wear it until next summer!

Unforuantly at the moment all my knitting time is devoted to getting the swap scarf for ISE7 done and blocked, but thats something I should save for another post, cant use all this great material in one hit now can I!?!

p.s - sorry about the language, it is monday after all... I should find a good I hate monday's icon - HEY SOMETHING TO DO!!!!

Happy Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:58:00 +0000

Holy Cow, its Christmas Eve already.

Where did this year go?!

Its starting to get hot around here, which is not ideal knitting conditions. Not to mention that our new laptop is occupying the time that i used to spend knitting in front of the tv. It also doesnt help that there's nothing good on tv anymore around this time.

Bring on Jan when BSG and Supernatural start showing again.... sigh

Ive also signed up for ISE7 scarf exchange which is only now just getting underway after some delays - i'm sure that will get me back into the knitting groove :)

So anyway Be Safe over the festive seasons y'all

I'm so slack

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:29:00 +0000

Twilight made me do it, I swear.

I've just been so caught up in the hype surrounding the movie and Robert Pattinson *swoon*! that i havent been concentrating on much else. Yes its extremely sad I know, but somehow i just cant help myself!

I havent visted another group on the Rav fourums for MONTHS!!!

I have still been knitting, but nothing new. Just working on the very booring parts of the Juno scarf and the lace pattern of a Feb Lady Sweater (of which i havent taken any pictures!)

While Ravelry is down

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:31:00 +0000

Oh Noes! Ravelry is down for the next 20mins whatever will I dooooooo!

Update my blog apparently :)

So having finished my wedding shrug I'm able to cast on a new project (keeping to my 3 proj max) and seeing as summer is creeping up on us in the southern hemisphere I've finally begun a Rusted Root in Lion Brand Cotton Ease, colourway Stone:

I'm treating it more like a normal top down raglan and omitting the puffy sleeves look. Its coming along nicely and the leaf motif is making the sea of stockinette a little more bearable. The lacy bit is okay as long as I don't fuck it up. Usually I don't realise that I've fucked up until two rows later (there's the usual knit all stitches on every odd row of the pattern) which is a little tedious but its going to be a good summer top, even if I'll have to wear a Cami underneath it cos of the yo's in the lace.

Although I haven't blogged about it I'm almost done on a Something Red - Finally! after having it in my queue for EVA. All I have left is the button band.... which I've frogged twice now. The first time I fucked up and used the wrong needle size, I was going to keep going but it looked a little loose and ultimately I buggered the short rows and they looked ugly so i frogged it. The second time I didn't pick up stitches right to the bottom edge aaaaand didn't notice until a couple of rows in that it looked kinda odd :(

After that I put it down and kept working on the Rusted Root for a while.

Hey Wadda ya know Rav's back... CurlyToot out :)

Bit of this Bit of That

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:46:00 +0000

I've noticed that my recent blogging has been very non knitterly related.... well time to fix that!

I've been working on a couple of boring projects. The first is that shrug that i wanted to make in time to wear at my SIL wedding, where i am Maid of Honour no less.

Well this is it:

I used the stitch pattern from knitty.com's Spirogyra and pretty much knitted a rectangle. Unfortunately this pattern doesn't make a nice straight rectangle, it looked more like a parallelogram in that it leaned heavily to one side. If I'd had proper blocking wires it probably would have blocked out better, but I don't so I had to do the ol million pins block.
That's okay it's wearable.

And kinda hard to take a photo of while it was on:

The cool edging is a Scalloped Edging and the pattern for it can be found here

How is all this crap about the global credit crisis tho huh? Its insane, the Aussie Dollar is down to around 60 US cents per dollar. It's hit 5 year lows (at least i think that's what they were getting at... finance is so hard to understand sometimes!) its CRAP! Especially because I buy all my yarn directly from the US and a lot of other things like books and DVD's. Well not right now I gotta tell you!!!

Ahh TV how much to I love thee, let me count the ways

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:28:00 +0000

1 - Supernatural is back for its 4th season, Dean is fresh outta Hell (no really HELL) and Angels are preparing for a possible Apocalypse.... one word: Awesome!

2 - Trisha Helfer on Burn Notice. I seem to have developed a crush on Michael Weston ex spy from Burn Notice, the fact that No. 6 (from BSG) has joined them (I'd totally turn gay for her) is just awesomeness personified. :D

3 - Terminator: Sarah Conners Chronicles is back! There was some speculation as to whether or not this would get picked up for second season after the writers strike. I for one am glad that it has. I haven't watched any of the new epps but they're bound to be just as good... fingers crossed.

4 - Heroes Villains. Like Terminator there was some doubt that Heroes would be back after the strike. Heroes is a cliffhanger-fest that always leaves me wanting more, its great. Even if the overall plot is always the same.... change the future to save the world.

5 - NCIS, they're breaking up the Gibbs team WHAT? Nooooooooooooo!
This show can do no wrong in my book.

6 - Dexter, the worlds most lovable serial killer.... no seriously. Nothing quite like this show on TV that I'm aware of. Making something so dark that you can still identify and sympathise with would be no easy task, but this show pulls it off. Well I think so at least. Defiantly not for the feint hearted.
Season 3 just started and its another that I've been eagerly awaiting. I only just picked this one up so i was able to watch all two previous seasons back to back. having to wait between epps is going to be hard!

Royal show my ass! - ranting ahead

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:46:00 +0000

Last week was the Royal Adelaide Show. For the non Aussies its basically the annual fair that travels around every Australian Capital City.... and it sucks. Compared to some American fairs I've seen its just boring.

its a mix of carnival side shows and rides, showbags, lots of animals and a food and crafts area. Basically all of the individual fairs that others might have all mixed into one.

sounds cool right.

WRONG

Basically if you're not the ride going type and you're not going to buy any showbags, you're out of things to do but walk around.

Okay some of it is because we went at night one weekday after work. All the cool stuff like the majority of the animals were shut for the night... so no doggies or kitty's or alpaca's or sheep or camels.

I hunted out the crafts section hoping to find some yarn stalls to peruse....... stalls, no thats wrong - Stall.... one freakin stall. The royal show is one of the only listings in Aussie yarn magazines under fibre Fair's for Adelaide. So one stall counts does it?!

I was disappointed to say the least, hubby was with me and there were a couple of people inside, one was knitting one was spinning. Hubby freaked out and said "look at the people who are in here"... old ladies of course.

Now I know there is nothing wrong with that but you know how people outside of the craft (particularly men) don't get it when younger people take up what is traditionally a "grandmotherly" hobby. He wasn't comfortable which made me uncomfortable, and it wasn't that big of a stall with only two small racks of undyed natural yarn... it may have been Alpaca from the look of it, but i didn't stick around long enough to find out. The majority of the stall was already knitted items for sale.

The poor gals probably got all excited when someone young came up to have a gander but i was expecting more to be around the corner so we moved on quickly. Sadly that was it.

The food was shit too, we paid $17 for two shitty hot dogs and some dim sims. After which we were still hungry so we also paid another $17 for two baked potatoes that we'd seen other people eating. They were much better!

The highlight was that the children's farm was still open. They had lots of barn yard animals, ducks, chickens with chicks, billygoats, swans, birds and these guys:

They were sooooo cute! digging around in the hay while mumma slept.

I'd love so much to go to a fibre festival overseas they must be soooo amazing.... sigh.

okay thats enough /end rant

On a high note, I lashed out and bought 10 hanks of Blue Sky Alpaca's Dyed Cotton yarn. At YarnPixie.com because they were on sale... yay for sale, plus i got a 10% discount for being a new customer. Everywhere else was selling it for 9 or 10 bucks but YarnPixie had it down to 7.50!!! Too good to pass up. All 10 are in their red colour called Tomato.

I shoud be knitting Something Red with it but instead I think i'll do the Feburary Sweater so that it will be good for summer time :)

aah summer time, please God please no heat waves this year..... I think i've got more chances of Hell freazing over than Adelaide not having a heat wave during summer!

sigh

Juno

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:05:00 +0000

nope not the movie... the scarf:

I was so intrigued by the Juno Regina pattern that i wanted to get stuck into it as soon as i got home from work late last week.

I only had the one hank of malabrigo Lace which is only 470 yards, the full pattern for this scarf calls for approx 950 yards. So I have reduced the number of lace triangles quite dramatically.
I've kept notes on how many repeats I did to achieve this so I will edit this post when I'm back at home with my notes.

Knitting this certainly was Interesting the lace weight yarn is so fine, going from worsted to this was a major shock to the system! I was always afraid of pulling too hard and making it snap.

Now I have miles of the not so interesting straight yarn over section before I can start on the corresponding end triangle.

I now officially have three WIP on the go, so now I have to finish one before I can start something new... that's my one rule and hopefully i can stick to it.

Entrelacy Love

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:50:00 +0000

I seem to be developing a habit of jumping on bandwagons very late :)

My first clappy was only completed the other week, here she is all blocked and neat:

I've got my eye on a swallowtail shawl for some Malabrigo Lace that i just picked up - which was intended to become a shrug for the SIL wedding but i think is too fine.

And last week I cast on for an Entrelac scarf using the leftover pink & brown merino and a great tutorial by KnittyOtter

It's so much easier than you'd think, it is taking a little longer to memorise the pattern than i would like... i keep attaching each square at both ends... when you're only supposed to attach it to one side and slip the stitches on the other side... oops. But its really easy to fix.

I think the pink and brown merino actually looks pretty good in this pattern, its making stripes which I could never get it to do with other patterns. I'd even consider getting some Noro just to do this again to see how each square takes up the colour.

hmmm let me see what else has been happening........ Oh I also cast on Something Red, which will actually be blue. This has been in my ravelry qeue for the longest so I thought I better do something about it. Trouble is its pretty boring, miles and miles of stockinette until you get to the ribbing towards the bottom... but even that will be pretty boring. Knowing my luck I'll finish it just before summer!

Back onto being a bridesmaid for my SIL I've just ordered some Silky merino in the Purple Mystery colourway for the shrug instead of the lace weight. The colour is perfect a nice deep purple. Which I discovered a couple of weekends ago is the actual colour of our dresses, deep purple. I don't know where I got the idea that they were purpley blue colour! So now i guess i have two skeins of Louet Gems for my stash - oh poor me! :D

The lace weight Malabrigo is gorgeous but so thin!! knitting anything with it is going to take ages! I now have either the Swallowtail Shawl (rav link) in mind for it (which seems a bit complicated!) or the Luscious Lace Scarf (rav link) which seems a bit easier.

Clapoitis

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:53:00 +0000

my only major WIP right now is my pink and brown Clappy

I've come along a bit further since these pics:

I'm almost ready to start the decrease section now. This thing is freaking huge! I wanted to use up all 6 hanks of this pink & brown stuff so I dont have anything left over. thats just over 1300 yards of worsted merino.

I think i'd like to do this again some time but just as a scarf.

I've also been trying to find just the right yarn to make into a small shrug to wear at my sister in laws wedding. I am her maid of honour so i'm trying to find a yarn that matches her very unusual choice of dress colour. Its smack bang in the middle of a blue/purple hue. I'm having trouble determining online wether yarns are more blueish or more purplish.

There just doesnt seem to be that perfect shade out there. I ended up getting some Louet Gems sport weight yarn, one in hummingbird and one in bluebird cos I THOUGHT they were the closest i'd come across so far:

Bluebird

Hummingbird

Turns out that neither are very purple and both are more blue. Dang. I dont know how its going to go. The wedding isnt until November so i've got a bit of time... too bad i dont really have the money!

Speaking of money the SIL is talking about going to melbourne in September for a girly weekend with two other friends. I'd really like to go but i'm just not sure either of us can afford it. If we do this i'm going to have to tell her that her hens night is going to suffer. I'm not going to be able to afford a trip to Melbourne and shacking up in a hotel room for her hens night. Anyway have to see how things go, its not a definate yet. I seriously dont see her being able to spare the money she's the one who's got a wedding to pay for in september!!

Goodbye's are always so sad

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:03:00 +0000

Why is it so hard to find good people to work with these days? One of the really good Admin people we have here at my work is leaving us to study masters in London.

I'm really bummed about it, she was/is so easy to get along with and i could actually trust her to go away and do the work properly and without trouble. We're coworkers, I'm not her boss or anything but given my experience I'm usually the first person people come to for help or when there are issues.

E could be trusted with instructions and tasks, unlike a LOT of other people i work with who think that if they do a crappy job at a task they'll never be asked to do it again and always scream blue murder that they're SOOOOOO busy and they couldn't possibly take on any more cos they're so stressed.

Bullshit

E is leaving next week, we're having morning tea one day with the academics and another day the admin people are having lunch. She wears scarves a lot so I made her this from my stash:

It is One Row Lace Scarf by Turvid

I originally bought it to make a wedding shawl back in 06. The shawl never eventuated because I wasn't a very proficient knitter back then, all I could do was garter stitch. I didn't even know how to purl yet!!
As it turned out I didn't need a shawl anyway it was a nice day so it got ripped back and has been sitting in my stash ever since. I've no recollection of what the yarn is, I'm pretty sure its all acrylic i think it was called twinkle because its got little bits of shiny cellophane type stuff in it that really catches the light and makes it sparkle :)

Its my own personal thankyou to her for being so reliable, she's really made my job a lot easier and i'm dreading not having her around.

While i'm bitching about work I might as well bitch about the fact that they havent got a replacement for her yet. They've had 8 months notice but of course left it relativley late and the person we had lined up to replace her fell through. Its so typical now we're probably going to get some half assed replacement who's as useful as tits on a bull.... or even worse no one at all.

I hate where I work.

I should be more happy for E, she's getting out of here and travelling a bit before heading down to London to study. Both things that she loves to do... travel and study. I guess i'm a bit jealous that she can just uproot her whole life and do something different. I'm much to cautious for that sort of stuff. I've found my comfort zone and i'm reluctant to leave it.

My cushy government job doesnt pay extremley well but its not minimum wage either... where else could I get away with doing sweet FA for the majority of the year??

Birthday Cake as promised

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:32:00 +0000

Chocolate sponge with cream and jam in the middle.... mmmm yummy!

Still working on the sleeves for wicked, what i refuse to admit to is frogging the whole fucking thing and starting over. Yes that's what I did, I just couldn't live with it. But so far so good the sleeve is proving a little boring through so...

Yes, I think that saying that I wouldn't start anything new until i'd finished Wicked was like my subconscious playing reverse psychology on me, I've jumped on the incredibly late bandwagon and cast on for Clapotis.

I want to use all 6 hanks of the pink and brown monstrosity so i don't have any of it left over to taunt me. I don't care what it looks like because I plan to use it as a blanket not a wrap. Yeeha take that yarn!

b b b b Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:46:00 +0000

wow, its been a while. I guess that's the downside of not joining the latest Secret Pal swap... no motivation for blogging.

I blame Ravelry :P
that and I'm only knitting one project now and I'm vowing to keep it that way until its finished!!

But in more exciting news... or not... it was my birthday on the 3rd. Actually it was very uneventful it didn't even feel like my birthday. I'm only 26. Not a big milestone... my next one is 30, eep!

But even at 26 I feel like I'm 50.

we're not big on presents in my family so I didn't get much, i never do. The hubby was nice enough to get me a good pressie. He's been seeing me eyeing off digital cameras. The camera that we have, his camera, is a Nikon SLR camera. It's huge and it weighs a tonne, its not very appropriate for taking pictures of knitting and FO's because its so complicated, and he's got a couple of different lenses for it.
What I've always wanted was a good point and shoot camera that had overall focus and would take true colour pics. I didn't even know he was going to get me anything, we don't normally exchange gifts like this, we tend to just get what we want when we see it.

My sister in law got me the 5th season of Scrubs... I love this show, its hilarious! Oh and my Mother in law got me the latest Janet Evanovich novel Fearless Fourteen, also hilarious... but not as good as most of the others in this series.

I took some pictures of the Cheesecake shop cake that Hubby bought too (I had two massive slices of it) with the new camera of course. But i havent transferred them over to the PC yet.

yummy cake pictures comming soon!!

More Yarn glorious yarn

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:33:00 +0000

By God I hate Internet Explorer sometimes!
I had to download Firefox and then try and work around not being able to save to some folders because of work permissions, just to get the blogger create new post window to work properly!!

Grrrrrr

Anyway! :)

I have one last batch of yarn to show for today's Yarn P0rn Friday (TGIF people!!)

mmmm, Thats 100purewool.com 3ply merino. Yup the same people who did my pink & brown monstrosity also produced this. I'm on thier mailing list and every time I get one announcing thier sales i'm very very tempted. I specifically asked for a very solid blue and the lady assured me that its not varigated and that its thier most popualr blue colour. I can see why, its puuuurfect! So now I know, i'm only going for solid colours from them, i'm not taking a chance on varigated colourways.

Now Kitty's never done this before but as I was taking photo's of this yarn she just went bonkers and started to play attack the yarn:

I thought it was funny at first and kept taking pictures:

Then this happened, and i didnt think it was as funny anymore - ACH!!

The yarn is fine, I repeat, the yarn is OooooooKay!

Geeze, I gotta say.... firefox is SO much faster to load that Internet Explorer, I didnt think it would be that different but its very very noticeable, and firefox is free.... sigh

Anyway... again.

I figured that seeing as I used my red yarn on Wicked I'd need to get a subsitute for something Red... which has been on my to do list for Waaaaaay too long. So thats what I have in mind for this, unless something better comes along. Which it usually does!

Yarn Glorious Yarn

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Thu, 22 May 2008 04:30:00 +0000

I probably should have saved this post for Yarn p0rn friday but hey, i'm bored and I havent posted much for a while :)

AAAges ago I made some bargain purchases of Jaeger Extra Fine Merino and Roma. They've been discontinued for a while and one of my fav Ebay and online stores (cucumberpatch.co.uk) was throwing them out with free shipping. And with the normal costs of shipping to Australia usually costing more than the yarn itself thats a big deal! I've only just gotten round to photographing them.

So I snapped up 10 balls of each, above is the Extra Fine Merino in Cocoa. Its a lovley chocolate brown that I was thinking of turning into a Ms Marigold (rav link) from Zephyr.

And also 10 balls of Extra Fine in Smoke colourway, which is a nice grey colour. I think I orginally planned this to be Coraline (rav) from Ysolda but we'll see how we go. I was also thinking of doing the tangled yoke cardigan... but I havent bought that pattern yet (i've already bought Coraline).

And the Roma:

Was going to be the Katrina Rib (rav) by Cookie A. But i really dont know how well a ribbed clingy top is going to look on me.

Just between you and me, I think these are going to be sitting in my stash for a while ;)

With the break down of my Corsica a little while ago, I realised that the cascade 220 is a little bit too ichy for my liking. Whenever I tried it on with short sleeves my arms just really did not like it. Soooooo I accidently found this Awesome colourway in the Berocco Comfort yarn:

its called Dried Plum and its colour number 9780. I think the name is very apt, its a deep purply colour. I was putting off bying it because of the price of shipping via ebay sellers. Then, webs has it's anniversary sale, with comfort selling for 3.89 a ball down from 5.75 - SWEET! Plus thier shipping chargers were about the norm, Yoink!

The only downside to it might be that its 50% Super Fine Acrylic & 50% Super Fine Nylon... so pretty much 100% synthetic.

However that doesnt mean that its not good quality, its Soooooo soft - much softer than the 220. Comments on Ravelry say that it tends to be a bit splity, ive had a close look at it and I reckon i've dealt with much splittier cotton yarns before and that sort of thing doesnt really bother me.

I also think that I didnt get enough 220 yarn for the corsica size I wanted anyway so the Comfort is going to become my new Corsica.... if the new sized pattern ever comes out. Poor Fiber Fiend has had a bit of bad luck heath wise, according to her blog, which has put her behind schedule but thats okay with me cos i've still got some re-doing on Wicked before its wearable.

which is a great seagway into updated WIP pics of Wicked:

As you can see above I continued the cable ribbing on the bottom (the pattern calls for seed stich to tie into the pocket) but i reckon that looks better. For my re-do i plan to rip right back to where the bottom of the pocket is joined onto the body of the knitting and keep doing a bunch more waist increases and lenghten it by at least 6". I also want to rip the pocket back to where the armhole seed stich is bound off and keep that going right to the end so the whole side of the pocket is an opening for Le Hands. I might also add 2 or 3" to the length of the pocket cos as it is my hands only just fit!

But wait... whats going to happen to the cascade 220 yarn, that was an awsome colour you had.

Well i'm glad you asked becuase I also found this magnificent pattern on Rav one day (I got bored at work again... what... you wish you could too!)

its the Hemlock Ring Blanket (rav) pattern that Jared Flood adapted from an old knit doily pattern (Jared designed the koolhass beanie pattern - he's an awesome designer!)

Lots of ppl have used Cascade 220 held double for this pattern and Minou has written out the pattern on her blog which is what i'll be using... if I ever get around to this! I think this would be a much more useful thing to make with the cascade cos its been getting quite cold at nights lateley, if it werent for hot water bottle lap cats i'd be using the heater a lot more i think :D

anything else...... oh right, I got itchy for an FO seeing as I frogged Corsica and Wicked still needs altering. So I cast on for the Hannah hat a couple of days ago and finished last night:

Its two strands of Malabrigo, one Azul Perfundo and one violetas, held double. The blue kind of overpowers the purple but I still like the result. This is the hat which has a slit and buttons so that the wearer can have thier hair up in a ponytail while wearing this with minimal hat hair problems because you unbutton rather than just pull of your head:

I've still got quite a bit of both colours of malabrigo left, so i'm making a purple
Calorimetry and I might do a blue panta. I had a bad hair day earlier this week, which is what's prompted all these head coverings!

So anyway this post is WAAAY too long, I have one more batch of yarn to show off, so i'll save that for tomorrow :) later ppls!

You See...

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Mon, 12 May 2008 05:25:00 +0000

...the thing about knitting sweaters is that its not very exciting! Especially when they're majority stockinette stitch.

Hense the lack of blogging, mainly because of the lack of blogging content :)

My orangina is on the back burner again - it is winter here now after all :) And i'm almost finished with Wicked, done in Malabrigo Sealing Wax. I'm about 1/4 through one sleeve with the second still to go. Unfortunatly the only pics i have are a bit old, they're taken before the pocket was put on:

Its a little bit shorter than I would like and the pocket is WAY too small, I've only seamed up the top and bottom, there is a little on the sides that can be seamed as well but if i did I would never get my hands in! As it is there isnt much room for them!

I want to see what blocking does to the length of the garment, scarves that i've made in Malabrigo have lengthened quite a bit. If that doesnt help i'm going to rip it back redo the pocket so its bigger and lengthen the top overall.

I've also noticed that the neckline has started to droop just with trying it on a few times to gauge lengths. If it gets really bad after blocking i'll try crochet chaining around the edge and as a last resort I read that someone thread some yarn around the top and tied it off to keep it tight.
*EDIT* its not drooping, its the sleeves! The extra weight of the sleeves is pulling the yoke so much that its almost falling off my shoulders!!

I'm itching to get onto something new, i've been pawing though my Harmony Stitch guides for a stitch to incorporate into a shrug with the georgeous Lion & Lamb in Edgewater. I was thinking of knitting from sleeve to sleeve, very much like the Dream in Colour Shrug (ravelry link) Pictured left :)

But i'll have to see how the Edgewater colouring fares with that stitch pattern, I have a feeling it will be too busy for a delicate stitch pattern.

If that fails I think i'll have to fall back on the Anthropologie Inspired Caplet (ravelry link) which is just a basic raglan shrug, which i've knitted before... many moons ago, it was my first wearable finished knit. It turned out much too big and far too hot (it was acrylic yarn) but I learnt a lot from that knit :)

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:31:00 +0000

I've FINALLY started to get somewhere on my Orangina:

The photo is a little blurry so its best viewed small. I also now know why i've avoided taking shots of myself, trying to get good shots in shitty lighting is really really hard!

Since taking these photos I've frogged that bit of ribbing and replaced it with more lace stitch so its a little longer. Now i'm back on the ribbing...... its soooo boring and there's a shitload of that to do as well. I've given myself a pat on the back for getting this far!

On Sunday I also recieved my ISE6 package:

It was AWESOME! One of those boxes has Peanut Butter Chocolates and the other Solid milk chocolate bunnies:

mmmmmm yummy... the Peanut Butter ones are all gone now, and i've made a nice dent in the solid ones too!

Also not forgetting the whole point of the swap, the scarf. This is an Elizabeth I, Glorianna variation scarf done in Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud - Autumn colourway, which is a reddy brown colourway that is just not done justice via photographs!

Anyone who's worked with Alpaca Cloud will know that its incredibly soft, and so thin! I dont know how Angela did it! I certainly wouldnt have the patience... look how long its taken me to get this far through my Orangina!

THANKYOU ANGELA!!

Kitty Photo Shoot

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:33:00 +0000

On the weekend, I accomplished a few things:

1 - I ripped out my Corsica.... sigh

2 - I wrapped up the yarn into hank type things, soaked them in Eucalyptus wool wash overnight and hung them up to dry.

3 - I created this awesome home made dryer/hanger thing to accompish no 2:

Hubby has a habit of accidently breaking coat hangers along the bottom edge, its cos he violently grabs at the shirt hanging on it and just pulls. If the hanger gets stuck he keeps pulling until it breaks... which means those hangers are no longer good for hanging pants.... Men....

The hangers with the yarn are broken along that edge which means i can thread them onto a non broken one and use the hook part to hang the yarn on... it worked really well. Unfortunatly the half dead tree in our front yard (which is the only yard we have) was the only place in the sun that i could put them. Our clothesline is under the carport which houses our white van 99.9% of the time.... so we cant use our clothesline.... sigh.

What is hanging there was the 2nd batch, the first was much bigger.

4 - while outside all three kittehs came to say hello and all three put on a little photoshoot for me.

I took 87 photo's that afternoon (not all of cats tho, I swear!) It took so long to upload them to flickr that it froze!

This is my Fav Crazy pic:

He knew I was taking photo's of him, I just kept snapping in the hopes that i'd get something good :)

This is my Fav Kitty Pic:

well, actually its a tie because I couldnt decide between these two:

I call the 2nd one the Princess Pose because of she's holding her leg up like she doesnt want it to touch the icky ground.

I like this one too, but its best viewed small because of the blurryness, its a bit arty more than ground breaking photography :)

Fav Leroy Pic:
Not to be outdone by the new intruder (thats crazy) Leroy decided to do some cutsey rollin around too.... dude this is why you always have burrs and sticks in your fur!

I like this one too because he reminds me of those cat pyramid statues

Fav Group Shot:
Awwwww

Unfortunatly for most of the shoot Crazy sat on the outer, kitty doesnt mind going close to him (they play fight often which usually leads to crazy hissing at mid air - kitty's usually too fast for him) but he's become amazingly affectionate towards me... they all are because i'm the hand that feeds them! Crazy's been sitting on my lap.... sometimes both Kitty and Crazy will plonk themselves on me while i'm trying to knit. It has definatly produced some jealously amongst the three. Leroy never has been much of a lap cat, but even he has started to jump up and plonk himself down... although he never stays long and usually it means that there's no cat bikkies in the bowl!

I also got some Proof of crazy's affection... in case he trys to deny it later:

Aw yeah, thats him rubbin against my leg showin the love!

5 - I also made a mint slice. Okay so it was easy as pie and straight out of a packet.... I'm not a homemaker people, knitting is the only homey type activity i do and I prefer to think of it as crafty rather than homey or womanly.... anywho i made the crappy slice that tasted like it came from a packet.... because it did.

so this is what the packet said my slice should look like:

ah huh yeah whatever:

Okay it didnt taste as bad as i make out... we ate it all so it wasnt THAT bad.

i'm not a cook.

and by the end of the weekend this is what my corsica looked like:

While i'm waiting for Fibre Fiend to release the updated version of her pattern with larger sizes i'm back to working on the Organiana now in the round, which has been sitting on my side table for months and months now. I wonder how long it will be before i get sick of it and start doing Wicked?

Today I am sad

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Because last night I found a hole in my Corsica...

One of my felted joins wasn’t done so well and it came apart. I know ya'll will say but you can fix it!...

Problem is I just don’t wanna. There are little bits here and there that i'm really not happy with cos I know I could do it better.

Fibre Fiend is updating the pattern to include larger sizes as we speak, plus the cascade 220 has started to hurt my hands. I'm not sure if it’s this particular hank that I’m working with or what but it’s become very, very scratchy. When I try it on my arms scream -"NOOOOOoooooooo" it’s not very nice.

I've washed and blocked my swatch in some eucalyptus wool wash, to see if it affects the softness. Even a single wash seemed to help it a bit.

So what I thought I’d do is frog the whole thing. Rewind them into hanks and give them a good long bath in the wool wash to try and soften them up before giving the project another go.

Having the larger size patterns will help me... and i've realised that i'll probably need a smidge more yarn, sigh.

Meanwhile i've got 6 hanks of luverly malabrigo sitting all alone in the corner... such a waste. I think I might put this on the back burner for a while and start doing Wicked.... at least there's a KAL for that in the malabrigo Rav forum....

sigh

Thank The God's

noreply@blogger.com (CurlyToot) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 05:21:00 +0000

BSG's final season is finally here!

The first Epp aired in the US on Friday night, and it lived up to my expectations. Great new CG, no real answers to the burning questions left from the final of last season, but a whole heap more to ask.

I'm just so glad to have them back... even if it is only for the next 10 weeks, and then who knows when SciFi will air the 2nd half of the season. Right now I don't care, it has been over a year to wait for new episodes... that's a fracking long time when you're obsessed with something!!

sigh, its going to be the best 10 weeks evah