Finished Mitts and Twilight

Roadhouse Mitts

I finished the Roadhouse Mitts. They turned out nice, though don’t they look stupid not worn? All squished up and hinky.

Anyway, despite that, they fit great and I’m really pleased with them.

STATS: Franklin Sock Yarn from Webs in a mystery colorway dyed by the Kangaroo dyer. The color is better in these pictures, but I think my camera is having fits with darker tones in the red range. Yikes. They are really nice in real life.

THE PATTERN: Bluebell rib from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch over 56 stitches. Rib at edges is K3 P1 K1 P1 and K1 P1 on the thumb. I probably won’t write a pattern for them because I don’t know how to explain what I did. (“Like, knit in pattern, then make a thumb! then like stop and augh!”) Meh.

The yarn is extremely generous in yardage, so I think I will probably have enough for a pair of socks even after knitting these, which didn’t really take up that much. They’re only about 7 inches in length.

Roadhouse Mitts

I don’t think I’m done making mitts – which is good, since I want to make gloves and mittens too.

***

I went and saw Twilight today with Malvina, and it was hilarious. Much like I found the books to be like delicious literary CRACK, the movie was more of the same, with slo-mo significant glances and fog machine action and yes, sparkly vampires (complete with “sparkle” sound effects!). Anyway, my review is as follows:

LOL+!!!

THE LOOM OF DESTINY

I am really not sure when it happened that this blog turned into a craft blog, but I guess that’s the way it’s rolling.

My goal for the next few months: MOVE. Like, physically move – unload my storage unit with all my Texas stuff and find a place to live. I may already have done that. Does anyone have $40K? Hello?

Once I move, presumably into a two bedroomed place, one bedroom will be the Studio. I have been far too remiss in the part of my life that I miss the most: drawing. I want to get a proper drafting table and lighting and soon will delve back into illustration , specifically comics (yeah I know) and some narrative work. Click the pic to the left to embiggen my last significant piece that was actually sort of finished. It’s old, from May or June, I think, and I totally drew it at work while on the phone. I have drawn a few zombie-related comics (naturally there are no zombies in them) but they are not done.

I really miss all the time I used to spend on the drawings – and I know that technically I could make time, but I have to say, this whole “working for a living” really cuts into my me-time. However, in the end, I have still been fairly artistic and crafty with all the knitting and teaching myself to weave and all that. I got my sock mojo back. I dumped my hojillion skeins of sock yarn on the bed the other night and sorted it into AWESOME and REALLY AWESOME piles – I have a really great collection at this point. And I really want to make something out of the Dream in Color Smooshy.

This weekend I am going to Ikea with my mom. I saw in Craft Magazine a project I would like to make. It involves these apothacery (oh god how do you spell that???) drawer things that glued together and screwed to a different table base makes a great jewelry stand. I don’t normally buy Craft because it is stupid expensive, but the latest issue was all about weaving, and I have been bitten pretty hard by the weaving bug. In fact, I finished my first project and warped the loom for the next one:

Woven Scarf

I used various socks yarns to complete my first project, primarily some Knitpicks Essential Kettle Dyed in Bordeaux (?). The Essential is quite soft and makes a nice end project. I didn’t like the Bordeaux color at all (wasn’t variegated enough, but I bought it when it first came out so their dyeing process is probably improved at this juncture) and was actually going to return it, but then thought it would be a good yarn to try my hand at weaving with – because I wouldn’t care about cutting it up.

Weaving

The new project is being woven out of Noro Silk Garden Sock, which while GORGEOUS was kind of a dumb choice – the yarn is very sticky on itself, and makes moving the heddle rather annoying. However, the end product will be worth it. My tension is much better on this piece, and the colors are super awesome! Too bad I am ALLERGIC TO MOHAIR. Also, you’d think I’d be a little more freaked about cutting up a $20 skein of yarn, but OH NO, I cut that sucker with an  evil gleam in my eye!

Anyway.

I also got a haircut. I like it a lot.

New Hair + Scarf

I think that might be the debut of my “new” glasses on this blog, too. I’ve had them for a couple months now. I was getting a lot of headaches and realized that it had been about three years since I’d been to the eye doctor.  Time to get new glasses.  I’m slowly going blind, of course, and I suspect bifocals will be in my future, but for now, my vision has settled in the 20/40 and 20/50 range. Also the doctor did a pressure test on my eyeballs where he numbed them and put a glowing blue contact on each one (glaucoma test?) which SUCKED because I totally have an eyeball issue, like, don’t touch them! Or get near them! Or talk about them getting squished or poked in any way!

Oh god, now I have to lie down; I’ve disgusted myself.

P.S. Be sure to check out WANTED, the movie about the LOOM OF DESTINY and fraternity of assassins who use it:

I thought it was pretty awesome (and better than Batman, BUT EVERYTHING IS BETTER THAN THE DARK KNIGHT). Okay, the movie is not really about weaving, it is about explosions.

Magic Loopin’

Just dropping by to announce that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth in terms of blogging. I have just been… not inclined. Or distracted, or busy, or whatever.

Last weekend we were in Redding for my cousin’s wedding. I forgot to bring any knitting, so when we were at Sew What! (a funny quilting/knitting hybrid shop) I bought some Panda Wool (bamboo/wool/nylon mix) and a 40″ US2 circular, looked up magic loop on my laptop (free wireless at the motel) and taught myself magic loop:

Sock started in Redding

I am not super enamored of it for socks (DPNs 4eva!), but the possibilities of its use for sweater sleeves, hat decreases, etc., are pretty great. I look forward to using it on top-down sweater sleeves, where DPNs are kind of a pain.

I really like the Panda Wool, it has a nice drapey quality to it.

***

I went and saw the Dark Knight last night, and was VERY BORED by it. It is NOT the second coming of superhero movies, it was basically boring in every way, rather masogynistic (only main female character gets burnt to a crisp and the only other female character who even talks turns out to be owned by the mob) and way too long. Props to Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Heath Ledger, though: they turned in top notch performances. And Aaron Eckhart was hot as usual, even with half his face melted off.

Still, I was way more excited about the crappy preview trailers for the new Terminator movie and the Watchmen movie coming out next year than I was about the Dark Knight.

So, go watch it if you’re inclined, but I thought it was boring.