Why'd you order a dead guy?

The hat lies there so innocently, its fine yarn gleaming in the sun. Its bright colors beg me to touch it. But this is Lamb's Pride Bulky, a gorgeous, lovely, fun to knit yarn that makes my eyes itch like crazy and my head hurt after a while. Doesn't it look innocent lying there on the dryer? The title is Jayne's line from Firefly, if you're curious. :)




In other news, I haven't started Odessa because, well, I lost my winter hat and a week from now I'm going skiing. So, I need to finish that hat before Odessa. Really. *sigh* I'm making myself a second Kitty Hat from Knit Picks Merino Style. I started it twice last night... I'll give you the Typical Hntrpyanfar Hat Story now, if you're curious.

After making Kelly some cute crocheted flowers for the Baby Shower Emergency Sweater, I felt pretty good and thought that I'd try my hand at starting the Kitty Hat. (I don't mind the occaisional crocheted decoration. You get the 'all done' vibe so quickly, and I didn't even have to sew it onto something myself! ;)

Onto the Kitty Hat. I have black Merino Style, but it is NOT the pattern-required aran weight, so I need to swatch. Okay, no problem. I swatch in the round with dpns until I get a fabric I think would make a nice hat. (Really. That was all I wanted.) I measure my gauge. 4.5 stitches to the inch on my 10" size 2's. (I told you I'm a loose knitter.) The original hat pattern has a decrease pattern of 7 stitches, and my head is 22 inches. So subtract two inches for ease, and I need 20" of hat. Okay. Then I multiply 4.5 by 20 and get 90. Some mental fudging later, I think that 7*13 is 91. I tell my mild trisadekaphobia to take a hike, and cast on 92 sts. (I use a decrease to join.)

I knit four rounds of seed stitch, and then measure my hat flat on my long dpns. The flat circle is 11". Arrgh! Why is it that whenever I try a hat, it always starts out too big?

So, I ripped out the seed stitch and re-cast on 85 stitches. Maybe my trisadekaphobia was trying to tell me something. I'll take a picture later on after it looks like something round rather than four needles held together by a string. We'll have to see how this DK knitting thing goes... I've never knit anything but socks on needles this small. Maybe I should go get the half-a-ball(s) of Rowan Cashmerino Superchunky to make a ski hat, but that seems to be such overkill. ;)

Hoochie socks!

Egads, I'm at work on a Sunday and my gel is running. I've got a little wait, but after that I need to carve bands like the wind so that I can get home in time to have some lunch before the DH and I go off to our first tango lesson! I'm so excited.




The long-awaited complete sock photo. I was attempting to take a picture of myself in the bedroom mirror. Note that apparently I need to clean said bedroom mirror. I am, however, pleased with the socks. I took this picture on Tuesday evening after I finished the socks and laced them up with some leftover cotton twine. I really need to locate a ribbon or something that's a bit more attractive. You can see that I made a couple of Olympic mistakes, but that overall I had a lot of fun with this pattern. (Red vinyl hoochie skirt courtesy of the Hot Topic clearance rack. I've just not had an occaision to wear it out before! :)




Yes, I like the word 'hoochie'. I think that it implies flirty-ness without a whorish connotation. I've come a long way from the paranoid modesty of my high school years... fueled largely by my amateur theater background and the realization that since I'm almost thirty, my lifespan of naughty-clothes-wearability is well, now. ;)

Other than the Knitting Olympics socks, there hasn't been a TON of action on the knitting front. I was a good kid and knit Bob a Jayne hat out of some leftover Lamb's Pride Bulky I bought from my roomie's stash. While I enjoyed the fabric that Lamb's Pride Bulky makes, unfortunately I had allergic reactions to it... so this Jayne hat was the itchy-eye headache hat. Fortunately it was a really quick knit; I got most of it done while watching Bubba Ho-Tep on Weds nite before Lost. I'm going to try to take a photo of it this evening before tossing it in the mail to Bob.

Next project? Well, I'm really sorry to say that my Kitty Hat has dissapeared. It looks like the next project before Odessa is to make myself another Kitty Hat that I can wear while on my skiing trip. (I don't want to wear a fabulous beaded hat on the slopes.) I really hope that my Kitty Hat will resurface after I make it a sibling. I really liked my hat. :(

Otherwise... Lab this week has been really busy and rather depressing. If you would, offer a few good wishes up to the gods of cloning for me? Thanks. =) Hopefully we'll both be rewarded with good results and some time to post pictures.