Polgara Knits

First, I hate the new Wordpress interface. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time, design-wise. I wish I could revert it back. Blech.

Second, I feel the need to note that many of my posts are made when I’m avoiding something else–this time, my long list of weekend chores. At least I can feel like I’ve accomplished something once I’ve made a post, though.

Ok, so, more important than all that–I seem to have recovered from my knitter’s block–woot! While I was waiting for the Wildwood to arrive, I started and finished a Puffy Slouchy Hat (left) using my Berrocco Foliage that I bought at Handmade last fall. At first, I was verra disappointed in it–too small! WTH?! I still liked the idea of it, though, so I started another with a worsted weight variegated in pinks and browns, adding stitches, adding rows, essentially making it enormous. During this second hat, I realized my mistake with the first–it need to be wrapped around a plate to block the crap out of it. Oops? So I did that, and of course the hat came out awesomecakes! Except, then I had this enormous pink and brown hat to deal with. I finished it anyway, in the hopes that maybe it would work out fine by skipping the blocking step. Um, not so much. So, I frogged it back 3/4 of the way last night and now I’m making it more to the pattern (still with a couple of extra rows, though, given the smaller gauge)–the yarn was too damned cute not to try again. It’s like pink cammo!

And of course, the Wildwood arrived on Thursday, so once this hat is finished, I’ll be getting back to the sparkly shawl. I hope it turns out half as well as the hat.

Oh, and in other news, I realize that I never followed up on the Little Coco. Back in November, I posted about the hit count on my flickr picture of the Little Coco bag, and how absurdly high it was at 98. Well, the hit count is now at 2,673. And the reason my pink purse is so popular? Apparently Little Coco is also the name of a porn star. ?! BWAH! I had no idea, and I wonder if the designer of the bag was aware of this and did it on purpose. It cracks me up that people looking for something to whack off to are instead finding my cute purse.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got for today. I really should get started on that chore list now. *sigh*

I haven’t been posting in awhile, but mostly it’s because I haven’t been knitting/crocheting much. My friend K’s hat is finished, but wrong–it’s more slouchy than beanie, which means I really will have to frog the whole thing and start over, and I’m so not looking forward to that. I finished the single-crochet scarf (Patons Soy Wool) while I was at the hospital two weeks ago with K, who was admitted after experiencing heart attack symptoms (wasn’t a heart attack, whew!), and I started a hat with the leftover yarn, but only had enough for the crown. I tried starting the hat my sister asked for, with the purple Lion faux-suede, but ugh, that yarn is tough! I got discouraged fast. I did start and finish another hat for a friend that asked for one since she has a hard time shopping for hats (larger than normal head size), but I haven’t got around to mailing it to Iowa yet.

That has been the extent of my yarncraft in the past three weeks. Pathetic, yes? I haven’t even been to the SnB group on Thursdays since Valentine’s day, and won’t be able to go next week as I have plans for that night.

This is why I don’t often take requests–if I get bored or stumped with them, I feel guilty about starting something more interesting until I get cracking on the obligations, so instead I do….nothing. I’m so predictable.

That’s all I’ve got. Depressing, no? Here’s something a little more cheery:

It’s a picture I took of the Maroon Bells in Aspen back in 1999 or 2000 (can’t remember the year). I’m going to Colorado next month and hope to go hiking at least once while there, if only to get more cool photos like this one.

Todd wearing his new hat
Originally uploaded by BronzePolgara

I configured my Flickr today to post directly to my knitting blog, so this is me, testing it out. Sadly, you can’t choose tags/categories in this window, so I’ll still have to sign in to edit a little, but I think I might post more often if I’m posting directly from a photo page.

This is the hat I made for my brother-in-law for (after) Christmas. It’s double-stranded Patons wool, ribbed brim with a stockinette base. I was afraid the 80-stitch cast-on might’ve made it too big, but I think it was just right. Not happy with the little peak at the top, though.

Also, I should probably mention that I did NOT chicken out Thursday night and did, in fact, go to the WeHo SnB group at the Farmer’s Market. It was scary, I’ll admit–I expected maybe six people, and there were closer to 20 people there–but I grabbed an empty chair, pulled out my crochet, and even managed to spit out a sentence or two before the night was over. And, I met Ellen Bloom, whose blog I’ve been reading for almost a year, so that was cool too. Which reminds me, I have to go look up the shawl she was working on, it was beautiful–Serephim? Serephina? Something like that.

I can’t say that I fit in right away, since it takes me awhile to warm up to new people and start acting like myself, but I do plan on going again next week, so I call it a win!

I am home now, yay! Well, home as in Los Angeles–at this very second, I’m actually at work.

I have a list of things I need to accomplish before I can do my own projects again:

• a scarf for my sister using yarn she purchased at Webs a couple of weeks ago and a pattern from a crochet magazine (Crochet Today? Interweave Crochet? I forget, they all blend together for me);
• a hat, also for my sister, to match the scarf I gave her for Xmas, using the leftover Lion Suede;
• and a hat for my friend K to match the scarf I gave her for her birthday (fingers crossed that there’s enough yarn left over).

I think I’m free as a bird after that to tackle my own projects, such as:

• finishing my UMass scarf;
• doing something, I don’t know what, with the yarn I bought from Webs;
• tackling my first-ever sweater (I already have the yarn, I just need a pattern);
• finishing my gazillion WIPs;
• and a little (translation: verra ambitious) project I’ve been contemplating for awhile, an intarsia wall-hanging (haven’t decided on a pattern yet–I waver between two or three color movie-poster-theme and multi-color recreation of a work of art).

That last one is the one I’m most excited about, but it really will be a big and scary undertaking (that will require much yarn to boot), so I don’t know when that one will happen.  Hopefully in 2008, though.

I also have to figure out what to do with my now largish collection of felted handbags, since I didn’t give away nearly as many as I’d expected to for the holidays.  I don’t need that many bags myself, that’s for sure, but I don’t feel comfortable selling them since all but one were made from other people’s patterns. I may yet find people to give them to, or I may use them for some charitable purpose. Or, I may continue my lazy ways, stick them in a bag in a closet, and forget about them until next Christmas. Who knows?

And finally, since this blog is horribly boring enough without including any photos, here’s a picture of my sister’s cat Gabby.  Gabby likes to talk (a lot!), is always begging for food, and has the largest eyes any of us have ever seen on a cat.  In fact, her vet even examined them for oddities since even he had never seen such large eyes and was afraid she might be in pain (no evidence of this, though).

Don’t look now, but I’m closing in on post #100! 11 more posts after this one, woot! I should probably do something to celebrate, but I don’t know what–I’ll have to think on it.

I’ve been contemplating the new year, as I’m sure everyone has, and trying to decide what I want to try to accomplish this year, or if I even want to try to set goals. Let’s face it, few people actually stick to the goals they set on January 1st, and I’m no exception. Of course, 2007 was the year when I finally learned to crochet, so goals aren’t always useless.  I haven’t been over-the-moon happy with my life for a long time, so obviously something needs tweaking, so I’ve been trying to compartmentalize stuff to set specific tasks for each aspect of my life.

One of my new goals that’s near, if not at, the top of my list is to meet new people, and to that end, I’m going to try to go to the WeHo stitch and bitch group once I return to L.A. (I’m still in Massachusetts with my family.) I’m terrible at meeting new people, as it requires effort and I’m notoriously lazy (and poor), but the SnB group is near where I live, doesn’t cost anything, and, as an added bonus, I’ll already have something in common with the group. And hopefully, now that I’ve “said” it out loud, I’ll actually do it.

ION, yesterday I taught my friend Jane to crochet, one year and two days after I taught her to knit. We did chains and single crochet for awhile, then she pulled out my Happy Hooker book and taught herself to double crochet a circle. She’s getting on a plane in a couple of hours, where she will hopefully continue practicing her loops and chains.  I love sharing my crafts, and am very grateful to her for her desire to learn new stuff.

Earlier this week, I finished a wool hat for my brother-in-law–forest green knit cap with a ribbed brim and a stockinette body.  I’ve finished seven granny squares for a new scarf in UMass Amherst colors (maroon and white). I started a new sc scarf with a wool/soy blend from…Patons? Bernat? The yarn is on the table and I’m too lazy to get up and look. (Jane and I were at Michael’s a couple of days ago, and I couldn’t resist the 30% off all yarn sale.) It’s a self-striping yarn, ’cause I’ve been getting tired of working in solids.

And in completely non-yarn-related news, my face feels like it’s been sandblasted.  I hate having a cold.

It’s still true–I hate sewing.

I braved Valley traffic to go to Jo-Ann’s last night after work, where I was rewarded with a renewed stock of magnetic snaps.  Woot! I, um, bought them all.  I had to! Three packages of three snaps each, for only $1.29 per pack?  Hells yes! I also bought three different fabric squares/remnants for possible liners, needle and thread, a thimble (so glad for that one!), a roll of stuff to iron seams instead of sewing (another woot!), a bottle of liquid seaming stuff to avoid sewing (didn’t actually use this one), a button I didn’t use (too small), and a crochet magazine.

I got home, had my yummy pot roast dinner, watched Jeopardy, and then pulled out the ironing board. And then dusted it, because it had been that long since I’d last used it as more than a hanger for plastic bags. The iron, also rarely used, still worked the way I vaguely remembered, so that was cool.

Then it came to the lining part. I’d printed directions from HelloKnitty.com–they didn’t help much.  My first attempt failed, because my bag is oval, not square, so the liner was too small.  Good thing I bought spare squares! My second attempt went better–I layed out the fabric, put the bag on top, folded the fabric, then cut around the bag. Unscientific, but I hate measuring tapes. I folded seams, ironed that nifty stitch witchery stuff to glue them together (not a very strong glue, unfortunately), popping it into the bag over and over for a trial and error approach to getting the right size.  Got it close enough, then attempted to sew actual stitches over the glue, to make it extra strong.  Ha! Did one side seam, remembered why I hate sewing, and decided the second side wasn’t worth it.

I added the magnetic snaps to the lining (woot! easy peasy!), then put the seamed up lining in the bag, and pinned the top to the inside edge of the bag–nearly perfect size! Woot! (Good thing in the end that the glue wasn’t that strong.) Then came more sewing, since I couldn’t just leave the pins in the bag–phooey. This is where I was very glad I’d purchased the thimble. In the end, the stitch was uneven and very ugly, but did I care? No! It was finished, the lining was attached, and I’d only lost one needle in the process! (I found it later.)

Then came the shiny button embellishment for the outside.  The button I’d purchased was way too small, so I pulled out the pretty plastic “jewels” from last weekend and found a pretty blue one that worked nicely.  Then I had to glue it to the pin-back, except, I had to find the glue gun.  (It was in the storage box on the top corner shelf of my closet–joy.) I don’t know why I keep using glue guns, ’cause the glue rarely holds.  The jewel popped off the first time I tried to attach the pin to the bag, so I had to add layers and layers of hot glue around all the seams and along the top of the pin back.  It should at least last through the auction–I hope.

In all, not including the trip to Jo-Ann’s (where I didn’t buy yarn, btw–go me!), it took me 2.5 hours to line that stupid bag. OMIGOD do I hate sewing!

I felted three bags last night–woot!  I chose the purple/turquoise Little Coco, the first Pink Lady bag (I still have to kitchener the handle of the second), and a Burly Spun bag I knit, oh, forever ago, that’s been waiting for felting for a long time.  All the other bags still need some finishing before felting.

I learned a couple of things. First, apparently Cascade 220 takes forever to felt, because the bags I felted last night were done after two wash cycles, and really, they probably didn’t even need the whole second cycle. The second thing is more of a refresher–the knit stitch really does shrink more from top to bottom than side to side.  The Little Coco came out a little shorter than I’d planned.  Oops? It’s still a perfectly serviceable bag, of course, just….short.

Now they are drying, and then I’ll have to figure out if they need further embellisments.

Finally, a month later, I can post pictures of the deliciously soft scarf I made for my friend Kristen’s birthday last month. Isn’t it yummy? Don’t you just want to pet it? The colors are perfectly Kristen, and she seemed to adore it when I finally was able to give it to her this morning. (She may be an excellent actress, of course, but either way, her reaction was mucho gratifying.) It made me so happy to pick colors and a fiber that I thought she’d like, and I hope it makes her equally happy to wear it. In fact, here she is wearing it this morning, when my friend Allyson and I brought it to her:

She’d spent her morning picketing outside FOX Studios (she’s a WGA member, and a writer for K-Ville), and had been freezing her butt off the whole time. (This week was weird–chilly Monday, roasting hot Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, chilly Friday.) I think it looks verra cute on her, IMHO.

Okee, back to work on bag #5–it’s nearly finished, so soon I’ll be moving on to bag #6!

It feels like forever since I posted (recent) pictures, but it’s true! I downloaded them off my camera a mere three minutes ago, just to bring them here to you!

First, we have the turquoise and white clutch from One Skein, before felting.  Even the bottom is seamed, can you believe it?! I hardly can, and I did it. The colors remind me of something, but I can’t think what.  Something commercial.  Not Microsoft, not Apple…. They’re the same colors as my own employer’s logo, but I don’t think that’s it either.  Maybe it’ll come to me, someday.

Next up in our show and tell is the “What a Difference Blocking Can Make!” scarf, done in orange and red cotton in feather and fan.  The cotton was purchased from Suss Design (at least, I think that’s the name of her shop on Beverly, but you know who I mean–there’s only one Suss!) with the orange and red already wrapped together.  Next time, I’ll separate them and ball them separately, ’cause it was a nightmare trying to knit them off the same ball with their slightly different weights and tensions.  However, the colors make my heart sing, and that’s really all that’s important, right?

In other news, I cast on the purple and turquoise Little Coco last night while watching Chuck and Heroes.  It took me the full two hours just to do the bottom of the bag.  The stitch isn’t standard garter or even stockinette; it’s something for which I don’t know the name, but looks awesome and creates a stronger felted bottom than you get from garter or stockinette. I’ve always intended to make a scarf with that pattern, but so far it hasn’t happened.  The other reason it went slowly is the yarn–I’m using Lamb’s Pride, double stranded, which is thicker than I expected, and more tiring for my fingers. It should be easier once I’m working in the round, though.

And just for the hell of it, I give you Jack, trying to nibble off a piece of a dead hydrangea:

I think I’m becoming addicted to my stats.  Ever since NaBloPoMo started–heck, even before that!–I’ve had no zero-hit days.  That’s kinda nice, knowing that someone out there is reading my ramblings.  (And also sobering–more pressure not to say something stupid!)

I finished purse #4 yesterday–the knitting, that is, not the seaming or felting. It’s super-cute, with a white base yarn and a pink confetti-ish novelty carryalong that makes the whole thing look like a soft fuzzy pink. Makes me wish I’d saved it for a kid-sized purse, but fortunately I have another ball and a half to play with! I grabbed a ziploc of turquoise and purple to start a Little Coco at lunch, but didn’t have time today, so that’ll be tonight.  I still need to divy up yesterday’s yarn haul into project bags.

Tomorrow I’ll try to post a pic of a scarf I knit over a year ago–maybe even as long as two years?–that I finally got around to blocking this weekend.  It’s orange and red cotton in a feather and fan lace pattern, and holy moses, I can’t believe the difference the blocking made!  It’s a whole new scarf! I totally shouldn’t have waited so long.  Sadly, I don’t think it’s soft enough to be worthy of gifting, but at least it’s much more attractive now in its proper shape.