Yarnification

This is take three of the Dreaded Practice Swatch. I’m no longer actually trying to work in pattern and instead trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong with the ssks:

See there, how on the left side all the k2togs are pretty much neat and even(ish, once I stopped splitting the yarn)? And how on the right side the ssks seem like they’ve had a real rough night? And how neither really looks anything at all like the photo here?

What’s up with that?

Partway through the Dreaded Practice Swatch. Some observations:

1. I still suck at knitting in a whole variety of ways. I am so glad I decided to to a swatch in cheap yarn before diving in with the nice stuff.
2. p3tog. Who invented this particular brand of torture? Is this physically possible to do without unnatural contortions?

That is all.

Thanks to everyone who responded to that one post last week; getting to hear everyone’s goals was really cool!

And also a big thank you to Kristina for letting me know the feed merge worked. Now to get the rest of the site working. I haven’t fixed the broken images problem yet because honestly it is going to be tedious. I tried to solve it with clever technogeekery but only succeeded in breaking the site entirely.

Hey, have y’all heard about this? I saw an entry in the Make blog about this awesome-sounding exhibit at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York on radical lace and subversive knitting. That blog entry links to more photos as well as the actual museum web site and all. That crochet tablecloth with the skulls? That totally kicks ass. I desperately want to go.

Apart from my perennial unfinished projects, I’m sorta between projects right now. All I’ve made since last time I posted is a couple of dishcloths, which I did not bother to take photos of. I’m going to start the candle flame shawl next, I think, but first I need to do the Dreaded Practice Swatch in worsted weight yarn to make sure I get the hang of all that yo/k2tog/yo/ssk stuff.

Once I’ve got that under control, I’m starting the shawl on those little bitty needles. They’re straights, so I decided that would be a better starter than doing the Janet lace wrap first what with that pattern using a set of dpns and a circ, even though it is a bigger needle size.

This is the yarn I’m going to make those two shawls with. I turned up here and oohed and aahed when the box came, but then I never took a picture of it in all its glory.

Kittycat is supervising. Both yarns are from Knitpicks. On the right is Shimmer in Maple Leaf. I love those colors—I could eat that yarn up with a spoon, it’s that yummy. That’s what I’m using for the candle flame shawl. On the left with all that great red and purple everywhere is Gossamer in Red Hat, which is destined to be the Janet lace wrap.

Someone please tell me I am not crazy.

So. The nice folks at Bloglines tell me they merged the old feeds into the new one (because apparently their crawler ignores the redirects I set up). I can’t tell, though.

Can anyone tell me if this is getting through to anyone who’s subscribed to the old feed?

Um. I have moved the blog to its new home: http://yarnification.daisywreath.net. As best as I can tell, any existing links to the old address should still work, and I think I’ve redirected the old feeds so they’ll come to the new address and that way Bloglines and such will automatically pick up the new feed at the old address. I think. We’ll see if this post comes through.

But. There’s always a but, right? Something like half of the images are not working. I’ll have to edit posts manually for anything that wasn’t linked to the gallery. Blech. I’m not doing that tonight, that’s for sure.

Old posts will start bobbing up in the feed and acting like they’re new or something as I get around to fixing them. Please disregard.

I apologize in advance if I sound slightly drunken. It is the medication, I swear. I have not taken up drinking at work.

I’m still fuzzy, but maybe a little less fuzzy than earlier since I managed to eat some chicken noodle soup. That’s a step up from the Boost drinks and pudding and yogurt, which totally do not make you feel full at all, not that soup is all that much better but still. I’m posting anyway and you will just have to deal with my being a little out of it. Or not. I can’t remember what I came over here to say. Okay…

Oh, I remember, I was going to do WIP Wednesday, only on Tuesday because I never have enough time on Wednesdays. But…I just now tried to start a list, and it read like so: A snowflake, from a leaflet whose name I cannot remember and that is just not interesting for you. For that matter it’s not that interesting for me. I’m about a half an inch from asleep with all the medication, and making a list of stuff where I can’t even remember the names of patterns is not helping in that department.

So how about crafty goals?

• I want to learn to knit lace. I have some laceweight yarn that I got with that Knit Picks gift certificate that I won in Lori’s blog contest (which I keep meaning to take a photo of—the yarn, not Lori’s blog) and two patterns that I plan to make. First, though, I need to get some appropriate-sized needles (size 4 straights, size 11 dpns, size 11 circ). And also first I need to do some practice, using cheap yarn and normal-sized needles, to learn all those fancy-pants stitches in the patterns I plan to make, and also once and for all get the hang of using dpns without putting anyone’s eye out.
• I want to get better at tatting. I have the basic concept down, but I haven’t gotten through an entire pattern, ever, without making an egregious mistake that I couldn’t undo. So I want to get better at that. Tatting absolutely fascinates me.
• I want to crochet a snowflake every week (and also get around to stiffening them once a month or so) so that next December there will be tons of snowflakes to decorate with.
• I want to conquer one of the doily patterns in the Patricia Kristofferson book I have. I keep giving up in despair. Are her patterns really that hard? I like working with thread and have made lots of doilies, but I haven’t been able to finish any of hers.
• Irish crochet. I have a project in mind for a pillow, with nifty Irish crochet motifs over a mesh background, but first I need to learn how to do it.
• The very bad photography. I’d like to improve that.

So. What do you want to learn or get better at?

It took about a month, but I finished the Irish hiking scarf. It’s all soft and cozy-like. Caron SS in autumn red.

Now, I am having a pretty awful tooth problem and as such am all hopped up on painkillers (and on a liquid diet which means the painkillers are making me particularly fuzzity) so I am in no shape to be making linked thumbnails to the gallery. So here’s a close-up shot:

I did upload a photo of the whole scarf to the gallery. I think I put it in the crochet section, though.

I’m all proud of myself. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever knit, and I think it looks pretty decent. The cables have a few issues, you can probably see in the photo, but they got steadily better as I went along. I was able to fix mistakes I made without frogging everything, and I feel a lot more confident about my ability to knit now.

That is all for today. I feel very fuzzy.

Look, me with a recipe! Ha.

This is good when things are rushed because it mostly uses things that are already in the house. It isn’t “real” shepherd’s pie with lamb, but close enough for me.

Ingredients:

* 1lb ground sausage (or hamburger, but I promise you it tastes a lot better with sausage)
* chopped onion (or onion powder if you don’t have any actual onions)
* salt
* pepper
* 1 can cream of blap soup (cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, cream of octopus, whatever you have hanging around the house)
* assorted canned veggies (I usually use green beans and mushrooms, sometimes corn, too. You can use frozen or fresh veggies if you want. I am not that ambitious.)
* mashed taters (leftover or instant)
* shredded cheese
* paprika

Brown the sausage (or beef, but I’m telling you the sausage tastes better) with the onion, drain. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cream of blap soup and put the whole mess in a casserole dish (I think I use a 2qt one. Or 1.5qt. Something like that.)

Drain the cans of veggies, dump on sausage/blap mixture in casserole dish. Spread mashed taters on top. Sprinkle with paprika. Paprika is yummy. Then throw some shredded cheese on top. (If you are me, you only put cheese on half of the top, because I do not eat cheese. If you are not me, go crazy with the cheese if that’s what makes you happy.)

Bake about 30 mins in 350° oven.

Hey, folks, I know of someone who’s in dire need of some Caron Jewel Box in tiger eye. It seems it’s been discontinued, three quarters of the way through her afghan. If anyone knows anything, please leave a comment or email me and I’ll pass on the information or put you in touch with each other or what have you. Thanks!

And! I got my Knitpicks package yesterday! We hadn’t gotten around to going to the post office since Friday, all while I kept thinking “why isn’t it here yet where is it where is it where is it???” Er. Duh. So I have all that lovely yarn to pet, and a new pattern, and I need to go to Hobby Lobby with my 40% off coupon and get a set of needles to do this one pattern.

Oh. Um. Have any of you done that Janet lace shawl? I have read the pattern (sorta, inasmuch as I tend to skim without realizing and then later find out I missed crucial details) and it says you need a size 11 circular needle and size 11 dpns. Okay, now I see at the beginning where you cast on and divide amongst the dpns. I’ve got that part. But I don’t see where you ever switch to using the circular needle? Also I have The Fear of dpns. They still make me crazy. I wonder if I can do the whole thing on a circ, or if that’s a ludicrous idea since you start with just a few stitches—I’ve never used a circular needle before so I’m a little hazy on how it works, and probably I should read one of my many needlework reference books before going any further. Hmm. Maybe giant dpns will be easier to deal with than the teensy weensy ones I keep trying to learn to use.

My confusion re the dpns and the circular needle will doubtless turn out to be another case of inability to follow directions, but if anyone’s done this pattern I’d love any input.

Also you are still free to laugh at me for thinking that knitting lace is a reasonable expectation what with how I have only recently got the hang of knitting decently at all.

I’ve just joined Project Spectrum again. Last time around I sorta petered out partway through (read: I completely forgot that I was allegedly participating) but the months I did it, it was fun.

On an unrelated note, I’m going to be changing the URL of this blog because I am a pain in the ass. The current link will work permanently because I’m setting up a redirect to the new location, but I’m going to move it from here to yarnification.daisywreath.net just for the sake of simplicity. There may be wonkiness, broken blog, or generalized mayhem during the changeover. Once I get around to it, that is.

Hey, I know everything looks kinda funny right now. I’m trying out a new template and I am too lazy to set up a test blog.