29 December 2010 · 3 Comments
I think I (scandalously) neglected to show you an on-the-head pic for the blue poufy hat. Bowl shots more or less work for round hats, not so much for poufy hats. We took a little stroll through a local park on Christmas and got pictures of the red hat and the blue hat and The Boy’s hat. Apparently my hair is pretty much exactly the same color as leafless willow branches. Who knew? I’m still having some internal qualms about how to wear a poufy hat…my inclination is to send it off to the side, but the proper way seems to be to send it straight back. I will likely decide I don’t care and just wear it however it happens to fall (my general approach for hair, so why wouldn’t it work for hats).
We did not, alas, get pictures of Truckle. I’m trying to wimp out and find a way to take those inside. It’s cold here and taking the pictures takes a surprisingly long time. I foresee cannibalizing all the lamps in the house and seeing if I can pull it off in a warmer location.
And now for a brief scheduling note. The pattern for the red hat and mitts should be out right at the beginning of January. A week or so later (depending on the success of that lamp plan) Truckle should be out. Then, in February, The Boy’s hat and mitts and the blue hat and mitts seen here will be out too. And then? Then? I’m gonna make some more socks. Wouldn’t want to forget how!
28 December 2010 · 1 Comment
The Boy’s hat (scroll down to the post from the 26th to see a pic) and some matching mitts are up for testing on ravelry. All the details are all in the thread. I’ll be picking testers tomorrow, so if you’re itching to make these right away (ya know, while the pattern is still riddled with errors and doesn’t have proper pretty pictures), head on over and volunteer.
And yes, this is a fairly cruddy picture of the mitt. It was soaking wet, I was half asleep, and I wasn’t really enjoying standing out in the snow wrapped in wet wool. There’s some nifty thumb stuff going on that you can’t quite see there. I promise there will be prettier pics when both are done.
27 December 2010 · No Comments
From time to time some of you have been kind enough to ask to be notified when a particular pattern is released. This is terribly flattering, but I am just not organized enough to pull it off. So I’m putting technology to work for me. Well really I’m getting The Boy to put technology to work for me, but the end result is much the same. I’ve set up a mailing list. If you sign up for the list, you will get an email when a new pattern goes live or I have a sale. I promise it won’t be spammy, and you can always unsubscribe at any time. I would be very surprised if I ever sent you more than two or three emails a month.
To sign up, put your email address in the little box at the bottom of this post and hit subscribe. Then, and this is the important bit, go check your email. You’ll have an automated message from me. You must reply to that message to complete your subscription (this helps make sure that no one can sign you up without your permission or knowledge). You don’t have to say anything (it’s all automated, I won’t actually see your reply), just send a blank message. Once you’ve done that you’ll be all set.
I’ll be putting the magic box over on the sidebar too at some point, but I wanted to introduce it here properly to give everyone the best chance of noticing it.
26 December 2010 · No Comments
Went quiet for a few days there, sorry about that. We were holed up playing at hibernating.
We did a bit of ice cream making. We are, by the way, ice cream geniuses. Our first batch is some of the tastiest ice cream I’ve ever had. That swirl is salty caramel. Because I like you and want you to have a happy and productive life (and because I don’t want your pants to fit any better than mine) I will tell you how to make it some time in the next week or two. We atoned for our caramel-y sins with lots of soup and salad the rest of the weekend.
As promised, we also played rather a lot of board games. Agricola, Dominion, and Pandemic are old favorites, and we were also lucky enough to add Arkham Horror to our roster over the holiday. You’ve got to love a game with a 30 page rule book, right? If the first round doesn’t take three hours and at least a dozen consultations with the rules, the game isn’t complicated enough. It’s starting to seem like we might need a bigger dining room table though. Ours gets rather full when we have a nice long game underway.
There was also a little bit of knitting. The Boy’s hat got a roof. Then it turned out the whole thing was a weeeeeeeee bit too short, so I ripped back the top and made it about half an inch longer. It is now the proper length which is, according to The Boy, ‘almost but not quite to the bottom of the ear.’ I personally find this too long. I like my hats to just nip the tops of my ears. Any longer and they come perilously close to encroaching upon my eyebrows. It seems his his eyebrows are better up to fending off hats than mine are though, and the newly elongated hat passes muster. We took it for a walk to make sure it worked. It seems to, though I foresee more testing in the future (just to be sure you understand). A pair of matching mitts are on the needles now. These will likely be for me though, as he finds wool to be itchy if it’s pressed up against his wrists. I would complain, but it means I get to keep the mitts, so it’s not exactly a hardship.
23 December 2010 · 3 Comments
“Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule…but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year was somebody’s birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. But they never got tired of them.”
– From The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Well I’m too tall to be a hobbit (and I try not to let my feet get too furry) but I still think it’s a capital system. Since it’s my birthday, I’ll be the one giving away presents today. Everything in the store (either here or on ravelry) is 50% off just for today. No code, no hoops, just magic. Happy birthday. I’ll be hanging out in my pajamas playing board games and making ice cream. I hope your day is just as much fun.
22 December 2010 · 3 Comments
He wanted another hat. I can do that. Cast on Sunday, should be casting off tonight. Might be able to convince him to let me get some proper pics tomorrow.
I’m very much liking this ‘double up two otherwise unlikely to be used yarns to get one nifty yarn.’ Isn’t that a pretty color? You have to pay a bit of extra attention to make sure you get both strands when you’re doing purl decreases, but otherwise it’s not really a challenge.
In non-knitting news, the oven has finally committed suicide. Way back in July it started acting up. It lasted a week or two, then cleared up. We…well…we sort of forgot about its little temper tantrum and went back to using it as usual. On Sunday morning I was about to put a pan of biscuits in (it was The Boy’s birthday, he wanted biscuits) and realized that the oven had declined to turn on. Not even a warm. The stove works (the part on top where you use pans…I think that’s called the stove and the part with the door is called the oven), the oven is useless.
Luckily we’re not doing any holiday cooking (and we found a way to do the biscuits in a skillet), but the timing is still lousy. We’re debating the whole repair/replace issue. Isn’t being a grownup fun?
20 December 2010 · 3 Comments
Finished things have just been falling off my needles. I blame the hats. They themselves are quick and easy, and they lead to mitts which are also quick and easy. The basket that usually holds the half dozen or so projects in various stages of completion currently holds a mere two works in progress and a stack of things awaiting a photo day. (Having a knitting site and selling patterns means that you don’t just have to finish a knitted item before you can use it, you have to finish it and photograph it. This can be very taxing if you’re a fan of immediate gratification.)
Truckle, the red hat and wrist warmers (henceforth to be called Involute), and the as-of-yet-unnamed-jellyfish-turned-hat are all awaiting photos. Jellyfish hat now has matching…hmm, what do we call these? Mitts? Or do you need a thumb to be a mitt? Wristlets? Gauntlets? Whatever…decorative bits of yarn based fluff intended to adorn and warm your wrists. Some time real soon now I need to get hands, heads, knitting, daylight, a reasonably picturesque backdrop, and a camera together at the same place at the same time and take some photos done so I can start using all of these goodies.
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