Epic Tardis Afghan is done

It's a little early for finished objects, but I'm so happy this is done:

WIP Wednesday

An update of last week's list:

• Hopsalot Slippers: I know where the parts are. I might felt them soon.
• Epic Tardis Afghan: 20 rows to go. It is so tedious that I'm doing 10 rows then making something else.
• Temperature Scarf: three days behind.
• Flight Socks: second sock syndrome continues. The yarn's dark blue and it's boring. I worked on the Elephant instead.
• Luv Bots: Second bot needs wheels, but I ran out of the silver yarn I was using. I'll finish when the yarn arrives.
• Water for the Elephants Socks: This is how my odd brain works. I needed a break in the afghan knitting, so the plan was to work on the Flight Socks. I couldn't get interested in starting the second sock, so I started the Luv Bots. When I ran out of Bot yarn, I still couldn't get interested in the second Flight Sock. I was looking through my queue and decided to start these:
  
  They are cute and fun to knit and the designer is giving the pattern away. I like them so much that I went back to Ravelry to see if I could buy another pattern as a thank you for this one. Darned if ALL of her patterns are free. I've got two or three more in my queue now.
• Chinese Zodiac: once a year I crochet the new year's Chinese zodiac animal. I cannot find the pattern. It's an old issue of Knit.1 with some printed out pages stuck in the back of it. Looking for it is making me even crazier than usual.

Linky to Tami and other WIP People.

Yummy, yummy, yummy

The yarn I ordered from CandySkein arrived today. The tags state that they are from the Yummy Series. They look pretty tasty to me. Here's Banana:

and here's Pink Champagne:

They are 75% Merino/25% Nylon and generous 465 yard skeins. The tags include a little plastic candy charm in a color to match the yarn. It's a cute addition and I may be forced to turn them into stitch markers. I need more stitch markers as much as I need more yarn but I'll do it anyway.

Pastel shades like this make me happy. I know the hip kids think of them as baby colors, but I don't. I know I'll enjoy whatever I make with them. The hip kids can have their black and mad scientist acid green. These are yummy.

Strange but fun

I've got my sock clubs down to 3: Cookie A 2013 and two shorter-term Doctor Who-themed clubs.

I got a skein from the Doctor Who? club today. It's very pretty. Maybe it's because everything else is gray today, but the colors practically glow. I read the color name on the tag and was confused. I could've sworn I got some yarn with the exact same name and it was recently. I took a picture and put it in my Ravelry stash.

::spoiler alert! do not scroll to earlier posts in this blog if you are a Mad Geek who wants to be surprised::

I looked at my stash listings and sure enough, there it was. The Time Traveler club used the exact same inspiration for the exact same month. There is some color similarity but less than you'd think. I like both yarns and have no problem with getting them a few days apart. It is just strange that with all of time and space and years of tv episodes to use for inspiration, the same thing was picked at the same time.

FO Friday

This is the first of two LuvBots (Mochimochi Land). Since it is finished object Friday, I figured that this qualified. The second bot will be worked on once I get through 14 more rows on the epic Tardis afghan.

What else is going on fiber wise? Three skeins are on their way. A Noro booklet arrived yesterday. It may be used on a project involving a bunch of frogged yarn. I'm trying to figure out where an old issue of Knit.1 and another Noro booklet have ended up. I did a massive reorganization last summer and things are not where I thought I put them. I hate it when that happens.

Linky to Tami and other FO Friday folks.

WIP Wednesday

No pictures today. Here's a list of what I've got going:

• Hopsalot Slippers: all knitted. They just need felting. They have been in this state for nearly a year. I may actually find out where the parts are and do them today. ::pigs gassed up and ready for takeoff::
• Epic Tardis Afghan: 90 freaking percent done! 60 rows to go.
• Temperature Scarf: the lowest high so far in January (42) required adding another color.
• Flight Socks: second sock syndrome. Haven't started the second one yet.
• Luv Bots: it's a new Mochimochi Land pattern I bought when it was discounted last week. The head of the first 'bot is done. It is what I'm working on instead of the second flight sock.

Linky to Tami and more WIP people.

P.S. Tami from the above link dyes yarn which you can see at Candy Skein. Check out her blog to get a discount code that is good this month. I did buy some but don't feel too guilty since stash went out (sold something on Ravelry) and cash didn't (the result of selling that bit of stash).

Why?

Sometimes when I take a picture of something, it comes out in a different color. Why? First attempt:

Second attempt, with color correction afterwards:

The second picture isn't exact, but it is close. See how it doesn't have any of the same colors as the first one? It's Medusa Cascade, the latest Time Traveler Club yarn.

I like to do pattern searches on Ravelry. I can choose the yardage and the yarn weight. I never need baby or child patterns, so I always click on Adult. I always end up with teeny little hats and sweaters included. Why? The people who add these patterns use tags to show that they are baby or child patterns. Whatever is causing it to happen is also causing it to happen in a cool new Ravelry tool (or potential tool, I don't think it has been set in concrete yet). You go here on Ravelry and it shows you stuff you might like. I like the stuff I've seen so far, except for the baby outfits.

WIP Wednesday

Temperature Scarf: you can see where it was over 70 last week. So far this has been fun. Even on days where I need to choose a new color, it doesn't take much time to do.

Epic Tardis Afghan: 75% complete. I decided that if I break down the rest of this into smaller goals I'll be more likely to finish it. I get to take a break and do something else every 5% (30 rows).

Flight Sock: I have been wanting to do the December Cookie A Sock Club socks. The plan is to do one sock in between sections of the afghan. I wanted to do shorter socks so these have only one repeat of the pattern on the leg. The yarn's nice and soft. Must be the cashmere in it.

Linky

Crispy Fried Tardis

I could see the wall coming and I hit it. I'm a few rows from having the Tardis part of the epic Tardis afghan done. From here on out it is just the picky starfield border to do. Much of it involves switching colors every other stitch. This slows progress down a lot. I'm not going to put it away again, but I'm not going to work on it for at least a couple of days. I'm fried.

Since I have to have something to do, I picked up my drop spindle and went digging through my fiber stash. I found a ball of mystery fiber and a few Phat Fiber box leftovers in similar colors. Maybe my attitude will have adjusted itself when that yarn's been spun.

WIP Wednesday

It's not your eyeballs, it is a fuzzy picture. Camera and I do not always play well together and I didn't have the patience to take another. The background is the epic TARDIS afghan, around 2/3 complete.

The little piece on top of it is my Temperature Scarf. Colors are assigned to 5 degree temperature blocks and I knit the high temperature for the day. I think I'm getting obsessed with it. I looked at the thermometer and saw that it was over 63 degrees this afternoon. You would think that I would be happy that I could go outside without a coat. I was, but my first reaction was that I get to pick a new color for today's high. Woot!

The swift arrived yesterday and I had to make myself stop using it. It works great and it even makes my ball winder work better. I ordered it Sunday night and UPS had it on my doorstep on Tuesday afternoon. It must've come from somewhere near here because I chose the free/slow shipping. If I'd paid for shipping, it probably would've arrived right after I clicked enter on the order. Maybe The Doctor would've brought it in the TARDIS. Maybe they saw the word swift and thought that was how it had to be shipped? Okay, I'll stop.

Swift!

I don't have a swift. Swifts were always just a little bit more than I wanted to spend. I made one out of Tinkertoys. Adjusting it for each skein was too much bother. I've stuck with draping the skein over one knee and hoping that I didn't tangle it too much while using the ball winder. That has worked fairly well. I'm blocking out memories of hours of untangling that has occurred with a few nightmare skeins.

I was poking around on Amazon this afternoon. I have several gift cards and was looking for something that wasn't books to use them on. (I do like books but I got a bunch for Christmas and my wishlist is pretty depleted.) I hit the craft area, and there it was: a relatively inexpensive swift with a lot of 5-star ratings. Clickty-click and I've got a brand new free swift on the way. ::happydance::

Maybe that cake of Christmas at Downton will be the last non-swiftified yarn I do.

Fun With Scarves

I have enough yarn potential projects to last many years. This does not prevent me from adding to the queue. I frequently check out what my Ravelry friends are up to and what Ravelry patterns are popular. Both of these things resulted in a new project.

The My Year in Temperatures scarf grabbed my attention immediately. You assign a yarn color to a temperature range. I decided to go with a rainbow-ish theme, so a temperature above 90 F is red, 85-89 is red-orange, 80-84 is orange, and continues in 5 degree blocks down to 20 or less as dark gray. This should cover the temperatures in Atlanta over a year. Every day, you note what the high temperature is and knit two rows of that color on your scarf. I'm planning on doing a k2 tog-yo row on the last day of each month as a divider. I'm using fingering yarn and doing this as a stashbuster project.

The My Favorite Things scarf is another idea that sounds fun. You gather up all your favorite motifs and knit them into a single thing. The original is done as an infinity scarf. I'm thinking about using them in a different way, maybe a pillow. It's a way of revisiting favorite designs or even trying out new ones. If it's a favorite, there probably is leftover yarn that can be used to make it, too.

WIP Wednesday

I'm still slogging away at the epic Tardis afghan. It is close to 60% complete. I'm knitting the words toward the top. I'm focused on it right now, but predict a slowdown soon. Once the Tardis part is done there is a lot of border work to go.

This skein of The New Time Vortex from Quaere Fibre is sitting here tempting me. Won't it be fun to work with all of these colors (much cooler in person)?

ETA linky to the list of other WIP Wednesday people

Not knitting along

Here are the clues for the Downton Abbey KAL:

1) It is not a hat or socks. 2) It is knit in the round. 3) It is an accessory. 4) It is inspired by a garment that my favorite character on the show wears frequently. 5) This character has quite a feisty and opinionated personality. :)

It's got to be a cowl. I do not like cowls. I have no use for them.

I will use my Downton yarn to make a hat. I like hats.

ETA: I was right about the character (Lady Violet) and wrong about the pattern. It is lacy fingerless gloves. I'm glad I started a hat.