All Done

This completes my annual NaBloPoMo daily posting for a month. Sometimes the goal is to be creative. The last few months have not been good, so setting out to do something every day and actually doing it is a success.

It has been a day for finishing things. I saw the last episode of the original Doctor Who last night. I am (almost) finished with my sock monkey made from some of the leftover yarn from my mini Doctor Who scarf. I think I'm finally through with doing anything more with that yarn for a while.

Yarn from Amazon

Did you know that there are a lot of different kinds of yarn that you can buy via amazon.com? I was ordering a DVD from them yesterday. I always want to get free shipping, so I needed to put a little something more in my cart. I'd seen a few kinds of yarn there previously, so I did a search for yarn. Big mistake. I nearly got some really groovy Claudia Handpaints sock yarn when sanity returned. I don't need more sock yarn!

The Santa Cat will be bringing my felines a new scratching box. They sell pet supplies, too.

Organizing patterns

I have got to come up with a way of organizing my knit and crochet patterns. I've got patterns in magazines and books. Those are organized automatically by being entered in my Ravelry library. The problem's with the pdf/computer patterns and the miscellaneous paper patterns. I bought a duplicate pattern yesterday, which annoys me no end. Some of the pdfs are stored in my Ravelry library. Some are stored on my computer in the directory where they are meant to go. Some are printed out. Some are in all three places. Some are in none of these places.

Sounds like time to build a simple little database. Now if I could only remember to check it before I buy something, that would help.

Bears are ready to go

haitibears
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

Yay! The bears are ready to travel. they are going to Canada and from there they'll go to Haiti. I hope they bring some comfort and happiness to children who've been short on both of those things.

Monkeys and Santas and Bears, oh my!

I'm at it again. Nearly everything I want to knit has no practical purpose. Okay, the teddy bears are not totally in that category. They're nearly done and will be in the mail by my goal date of December 1.

Monkeys, specifically sock monkeys, are a relatively new obsession (I did not play with them as a child). Someone in a Doctor Who crafts group on LiveJournal was showing off her monkey the other day. She was making a gift for a friend who likes both Doctor Who and sock monkeys and combined the two. I am planning on taking her idea of using up leftover scarf yarn and knitting up a monkey from it.

Mochimochi Land is giving away a tiny Santa pattern with purchases over the holidays. It was the perfect time for me to buy that dust bunny pattern that I need want. It's for a little project. As long as I was there, I picked up one of the tiny thing collections (the one with the teeny garden gnome). I hope I've got sock yarn in all the colors I need for these.

Thankful

In honor of Thanksgiving Day, here are some fibery things I'm thankful for:

• I have all the tools I need for my projects
• I have more than enough yarn and fiber, and can afford to buy more if I have to
• I have more than enough patterns and ideas for projects
• there are four Local Yarn Shops within 20 minutes of my house
• there are a zillion (approximately) places for acquiring yarn and fiber online
• Ravelry and other places for interacting with fiber fiends

Mochimochi semifinalist

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of Mochimochi Land patterns. There's a group on Flickr where people post pictures of things they've made with the patterns. Last year, a picture I did of slugs and snails was honorably mentioned in the annual Mochimochi picture contest.

I got another honorable mention this year with my candy corn. I was surprised to also make it to the semifinals with my bowling snowmen. I'm sure it won't go any farther than this. There are some pretty, clever, and hilarious pictures taken by people with far more photographic skills than I have. There are glow-in-the-dark bedbugs hanging around a sleeping child. There's a Boo the Bat with a gorgeous background. There's a tiny frog leaping between two cell phones. Go see them, they're a lot of fun.

Happy Tardis Day

I'm going through an obsession with Doctor Who. It's a British television show that was first broadcast on this day 47 years ago. I wasn't watching it then because I've always lived in the USA. I do remember the day because it was the day after President Kennedy was assassinated. Those of us of a certain age tend to remember that whole weekend fairly clearly.

What does this have to do with yarn? Lots. Those who are fans of The Doctor and of yarn are frequently making things relating to the show, especially scarves. In celebration of the day, a group of us were involved in a swap. Here's what I received. It's a beautifully knit Tardis scarf.

On my feet

What are you wearing? That's today's NaBloPoMo prompt, not the start of a naughty chat. The only handmade thing I'm wearing today is on my feet. Actually, that should be things. I'm wearing a pair of purple Feet Eaters. The pattern's on the cover of Knitting Mochimochi. They are warm, comfortable, and silly. When you put them on, it is like putting your feet in a monster's mouth. I've been wearing them a lot since it started getting cold and they are holding up very well.

Do/Redo

I'm working on teddy bears. I think the first couple I made should've had bigger heads, but they look cute so I'm not going to redo them. I will do bigger heads going forward.

I did a square for International Women's Day, but I don't like it. I'm going to frog it and use the yarn for teddy bears. The redo square will have some kind of lacy pattern in it so it is more fun to knit.

Yes, things are this boring today.

Projects in the works

I'm actually going to have to buy yarn for my next two projects:

Gargoyles: My brother bought me a gargoyle for Christmas a long time ago. Ever since then, I've been drawn to the ugly-cute things. They can be found on bookshelves (musical snowglobe with a gargoyle in it) all the way into the kitchen (fridge magnets acquired in Paris). I found the cutest darn knit My Little Gargoyle pattern on Ravelry and now I must make it. I've got good buttons for the eyes, but no DK weight gray yarn.

Christmas socks: I have portions of a Christmas stocking pattern that my mother made about 50 years ago. She made them for all the kids in the extended family and for the offspring of many of her close friends. I want to reconstruct the pattern and post it online. No red, green, or white worsted weight wool.

Hmmm, which LYS do I visit?

FO Friday 11/19/10

docsox
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

These are the socks made with the Time Traveler yarn. I tried them about four times and still don't have quite what I intended. My colorwork isn't anything to write home about, but it is improving.

Yay Ravelry!

Ravelry won .net Magazine's award for 2010 community site. Rav won over finalists Twitter and Facebook. Pretty freakin' cool (and not at all strange. :) ).

Late

I'm behind in everything else, so it is no wonder that it's after 8pm and I'm attempting to come up with a post here. Here's the Italian Market Bag I made last week. The real color is off white with little bits of a mauve-pink in it. It is stuffed full of spinning fiber and there's still room for more.

Twist Collective

I spent an enjoyable time this afternoon, checking out the Winter 2010 issue of Twist Collective. I'm always surprised by just how many patterns they have! There were a lot of sweaters. There were a few that I'd consider making, but they all were great to look at. If I was young and slender, I'd be making a lot of them. The hat and mitten sets made me almost wish that it got colder here. Almost.

There was a really cool section on patterns that designers would most like to make for themselves.

The biggest temptations were two sock patterns. I didn't check out the details, but they both appeared to be twisted stitch designs. I also will be going back to check out the button-up cape pattern in more detail. I might have to make it.

One Hundred Million Stitches

A group in Scotland is getting people to knit a 100,000,000 stitch blanket in honor of International Women's Day. The details are here.

I think I'll thin out my leftover sock yarn buckets and do a square for the event.

Disagree (1000000)

Some squirrel over at the Huffington Post listed Ravelry among the 19 strangest social networking sites. Hey Huffington, I'll bet there are fewer strange people on Ravelry than there are who write for your site.

One Million Ravelers

Yay, Ravelry! The one millionth person signed up this morning.

::talking in geezer voice:: Yeah, I remember back in '07 when you had to wait for weeks and weeks for an invitation to join Ravelry. Those were the good old days. There was a place where you could get an estimation of how long it would be until your invitation arrived, and I'd check it every day. I think I'll go dig out my "I Swatched Ravelry" tshirt and wear it today. You can't get those any more.

Commercial

I've been watching tv and not doing much else. I hurt my arm somehow and it interferes with any fiber fun. I rubbed some stuff on my arm to make it feel better. Now one of my cats has decided that she likes the arm stuff and has spent a good deal of time trying to lick it through my sleeve. Why don't I move her? It hurts my arm to do that.

Anyway, as I said, I've been watching tv. I happened on a commercial with fibery goodness. Conan O'Brien is in the far east somewhere, maybe India. He picks out some (silk?) thread and weaves a whole bunch of fabric. He dyes it, too. In the last scene, he's about to go out on stage, and the fabric he's created is the stage curtain. Pretty cool.

Knit Wishes

Today's NaBloPoMo prompt is: "What do you *really* want to be doing right now and how soon can you make that happen?" I'll change "doing" to "knitting" and give it a go.

I'd like to be either working on the Doctor Socks again or pick out the pattern and yarn for November's Self-Inflicted Sock Club. I can do the picking out pattern part after I clean up and do a few chores. I can make the knitting part happen at my 5pm Gilmore Girls break.

After that, it's back to the things I don't necessarily want to do, but must do first. There are more bears in my future.

Resisting Temptation

The new Knit Picks catalog arrived today. There are many things to tempt me, but the object of the current exercise is to use what I have.

Snow Day Ornament kit is cute. It has many adorable little sweaters, popcorn and cranberry garland, and colored Christmas lights. I think I could make the sweaters based on the pictures. The garland would be fun for a while, but I think it might get boring before it got long enough to be useful.

Palette 100 Sampler has one 50 gram ball of each of the Palette colors. It would be fun to have, but I don't need more yarn!

Northern Critter Caps kits look like fun. I do not need more hats.

Sock patterns and kits are appealing. No more sock patterns or yarn until I use up a LOT of what I already have.

Now the catalog can go into the recycle bin. Good girl. Now stay away from that Wisdom shiny sparkly sock yarn that WEBS is advertising, and all should be well.

Bored

It's one of those days. I started working on some charity bears that I need to get done by the end of the month. I got bored. I started working on a market bag. The pattern was from a grab bag and the yarn was some I won in a raffle. I got bored. I can't think of something fun to knit. I'm a process knitter, which means it has to be fun at some point or I won't work on it.

Maybe if I clean the litterbox and vacuum the house, something will sound fun. Maybe not, but at least a couple of things that need to be done will be done.

Dream Dwelling

Today's prompt from the NaBloPoMo folks was to write about one's dream house. I thought about it a little bit, and realized to my surprise that I'm already living in it. A shabby little cottage might not be most people's dream, but it suits me.

Most of the dreams related to the house are now in reach. I've got a bit of cash to spare and will be using it to get some things fixed around here. I can also afford some storage pieces that will make things better. It's not exactly dreamy to have only two closets! I have a comfortable couch where I do a lot of knitting, but one of my cats has mistaken it for a scratching post. I can get it covered.

The one part of the house that's still in dream mode is the deck. I'd like to have it rebuilt as a screened-in porch or three season room. It's be great to have a sheltered place to knit and enjoy the fresh air and whatever crazy critters happen to visit.

Wordless Weekend: Sunday

spamhat
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

Wordless Weekend: Saturday

Spam

spam
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

This is my spam handspun, which is the only thing I got done this week.. It's the Spam-inspired fiber I got in a Monty Python spinalong plus a little bit left from a Spindies sampler. I started making a hat with it last night.

I got frustrated with the Doctor Socks because I am apparently unable to do the floats and tension correctly. I'm considering taking the sock apart again once I finish the hat. Maybe the third time's the charm. Fingers crossed.

Doctor Socks, take 2

It looks better than it did the first time, but it's light years away from where I want it to be knitting wise. Why do ideas nearly always come up better in my imagination than they do in reality?

Doctor Socks, take 1

One of those things I just had to have now because it's a limited edition is Knit Picks' Time Traveler sock yarn. Now that I have it, I don't want to knit a plain socks with it because that's boring. The yarn is self-striping with six different colors in it. I thought I'd try knitting some of the charts from my Who Hat, with the stripes as the background. It kind of works, but not well enough.

I'm going to frog what I've done so far and make some changes:

• Knit the cuff, heel, and toe in green (the 7th color in the original scarf that's missing in the yarn)
• Rearrange the spacing of the designs on the stripes so it looks less random
• Work on the knitting tension so it looks smoother

See you tomorrow when I'm back from the frog pond.

Excuses, excuses

fiberlicious
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

This is what arrived in the mail yesterday. I can explain away most of it. I think this may be the most fiber and yarn to arrive in months. Honestly.

Black fiber in the foreground is attached to a cat and is not a part of my fiber 'problem'.

One of the two bags of spinning fiber behind the cat was ordered several months ago. The bag next to it was a freebie. Freebies are never a problem.

The green fiber batt and the yellow/pink/green sock yarn in front of it are swap gifts. Gifts are never a problem. Swaps are a problem in that I sometimes buy one thing for my partner and one for myself. I'm cutting back on swaps to minimize this.

The rest of the yarn plus the needles and patterns were from a grab bag. It was an impulse buy of something that could only be had for a short time. This could be a problem if I don't stop. Which I will. Most of this yarn went into the trade or sell category on Ravelry.

Hoarding

I saw a couple of those tv shows about people who hoard things. It's disturbing that people have so much stuff that they can't do anything that you'd expect to do in a home. They can't walk around in their homes or cook a meal or sleep in their beds. Around the same time I saw those shows, I entered my 300th yarn on Ravelry. It was a shock. That's a lot of yarn. I calmed down a little bit when I realized that this included yarn that had been used up. The stash is does not interfere with moving around the house or doing anything in it.

It did get me thinking that I'm a bit dysfunctional when it comes to art and craft supplies. The obsession sets in and I buy a little bit at a time and the next thing I know, I'm up to my ears in rubber stamps, cross-stitch pattern books, or 300 skeins of yarn. Maybe the insight will help me rein in my yarn-acquiring habits. Fingers are crossed.