Yarnification

I’m posting this partly because having it sitting, marked “save as new”, in my Bloglines account is driving me a little nuts but I don’t want to lose the link, and partly in case it helps anyone else: In Search of the Looser Cast-on. I’ve only ever used the long-tail cast-on, and all this time I thought it was just me that couldn’t manage a nice, pretty, even, not-too-tight cast-on, even though I’ve tried various bits of advice like casting on over two needles (my result: floppy, yet still somehow too tight). I’m going to mess around with some other cast-on methods and see how it goes. I’ve been itching to do some knitting but one of the things that holds me back is that casting on makes me ka-razy.

Hey there. I’m still alive and everything. This summer has been kinda hectic.

I owe some long-overdue emails. I hope to get them written this weekend.

I had been thoroughly uninspired and hadn’t crocheted much of anything in a while, when recently I saw this pattern in the new issue of The AntiCraft: Asphyxiation. Isn’t that just the cutest thing ever?

I just started it all over again. After the first motif I realized this was going to be the one time ever where I used the size hook called for in the pattern and ended up with something much bigger than I was supposed to. This would be okay if I had a giant neck, but I do not so I’ve started over with a smaller hook.

What I learned today:
1) I should generally disrgard the pattern’s instructions about hook size when using #10 thread and just start out with a size 5 steel hook because it will probably come out right for me that way.
2) I should not ever attempt thread crochet so early in the morning that I can’t see straight yet. The results will be scary.

This is the scarf pattern that came with that kit (the kit whose yarn I’m using to make a felted bag, that is). Is it just me, or is this the most bizarre scarf you’ve ever laid eyes on? (clickable)

The hat is pretty cool, but that scarf just weirds me right out what with the way it loops through itself.

A very belated thank you to Lori! A little while back I won her blog contest, and the prize was a Knitpicks gift certificate. For a while now I’d been periodically visiting the Knitpicks site to drool over their yarn, so this makes me a very happy camper. Thank you, Lori!

Now to settle on some yarn…

I haven’t been posting in this blog much lately (ya think?) I have been writing a bit in my journal (leave a comment if you want the link, but be aware that there’s a better than even chance that you’ll be offended by something or other over there—my foul language, my job, my opinions, what have you—and it is likely not work-friendly if you’re accessing the internet from work, ya slacker. Just so you know. I deliberately don’t link to there from here) but I haven’t been posting all that much over there, either.

I just haven’t had a lot of time at the computer, and I’ve had a lot of things going on in my head.

Current project status (someday I will update those status bars in the sidebar, really):
The corset: Very nearly finished! I need to attach the final strip of boning. I’ve done the bits that go around the top and bottom, but I am very, very frightened of what I need to do next, which is singe the ends of the boning. That is freaking me right the hell out.
The finished bags: Still need lined. I am a slacker with the sewing machine.
The bag in progress: There can never be enough unlined purses! I’ve started a new one with the green and beige wool I got from that marked-down kit. I’m not using a pattern, which is an entirely new concept for me. I usually feel lost without a pattern. I’m just working in rounds and winging it based on what I’ve done with other bags I’ve made. I really need to make a swatch of this wool and try to felt it before I get to the point of no return (the first color change), though.

I probably have other unfinished projects lurking around. Like those socks. You have no idea how fed up I am with those socks.

That’s it for now, I guess. I am now going to look at patterns and salivate over the Knitpicks catalog.

If you have tried to email me recently, I may not have gotten your mail. It may or may not have actually been bounced back to you. My mail server’s been having some sort of problem. So try me again: yarnification @ daisywreath.net

In other news, I’m about a third of the way through that corset but cannot show you a photo of how it’s coming along due to the aforementioned broken flash on the camera. I had a little trouble early on and had to start over about three or four times, but it’s going along pretty smoothly now.

Except that Tunisian crochet? Really is a little boring. It’s worth it for this pattern, but I can’t even imagine the tedium of making an entire afghan that way.

Good morning…and yes, it is still morning for me even if the clock says it’s almost noon. I haven’t finished my coffee or read my email, therefore it’s morning.

I’ve had a couple of good finds lately, but unfortunately the flash on the camera seems hosed (I’m hoping it just needs a new set of rechargeable batteries because I’m having trouble finding the warranty information) so I’m just going to tell you about them. Apparently the wool gods have been smiling upon me, because I recently found a bag of assorted yarn in a thrift store marked at 90¢ that had (along with some random stuff in strange colors) two full skeins of fingering weight wool. I have no clue what I’ll do with that (one is blue, one is white) but for 90¢ I wasn’t going to let that go.

Then another wool find yesterday-ish (this past weekend? a bit of a blur to be honest). I was in Crafts 2000 in Parkersburg, and they had a huge bin of these knit kits, with a pattern and the yarn required to make it, that had been marked at $15-20 but were now $5.00. I can see why they got marked down—the patterns were really nothing to write home about.

But. They had this one kit to knit a truly heinous men’s scarf, and in the kit were seven balls of pretty nice wool, which looks like it can be felted since the washing instructions said to handwash in cold water, four balls of a pretty green and three in light brown-ish. I plan to make a little felted bag out of it.

Because, you know, I don’t have enough bags waiting to be lined already…

Hey, folks.

First I want to say thank you for all the nice things you said about the seraphina shawl. I’m really happy with it; it’s been very nice and warm during all this chilly rain we’ve been having here.

Lately I’ve been working hard, but that’s been at work, not at fun things. So I haven’t been crocheting, haven’t been making linings for those bags, haven’t been doing anything crafty at all really. I think I last picked up any of my projects about two weeks ago. It is very sad.

Work is better now. Things are caught up. There are no longer any piles of paper taunting me, telling me that I will never, ever, ever get through it all. Those are gone now. It’s done. All I have to do is keep up with it.

And now maybe I can do some fun crafty stuff.

Okay, finally here’s the Seraphina shawl (clickable):

I made it really big on purpose so it’d be warm and snuggly and all that. It’s about 36″ long and 72″ wide, and it took about 2½ or so skeins of RH Symphony (juniper).

Say you’re having a bad crafty sort of week already. And you have just worked a 12-hour shift (for the second day in a row) after too little sleep.

After you get home, what sounds like a good idea for a project, given that you’re too tired to even read a book? Why, trying to teach yourself to knit socks on dpns, of course!

That didn’t go well at all. Nobody was actually maimed or anything, but much cussing ensued.

I haven’t been able to get anywhere with any of my projects this week.

I still mean to get a photo of the shawl but haven’t been able to manage it yet.

I started the corset. I made some unfathomable mistake (despite all the obsessive counting) and had to frog a row, then made more mistakes and frogged the whole thing. Theory: I was too damn tired to be working on anything that complicated.

And socks. I have this pair of socks I’ve had going for the longest time. I’m on the ankle ribbing on the second sock. It’s done in sc rows, back loop, and every time I pick it up I screw it up in a new and different way.

This is possibly a little pathetic on account of how easy sc ribbing really is. I don’t know why I can’t just get through it.

Most recently, I can’t make the gauge match what I’ve already done. I have no clue what to do (use a smaller hook? frog the whole thing and start over since all I’ve got done is 50 rows of ribbing? but then what if it ends up not matching the first sock?)

I can’t imagine that my gauge has changed that much in the (gulp) year since I started this sock. But what else would explain that? My E hook was in the bag with the project all this time, so I’m sure it’s the hook I was using with it.

I dunno. It’s looking like having a go with a D hook would be the simplest thing.

Wish me luck—it’s not looking like skill is getting me far this week.