Belated

Well.

It's been quite some time since I last blogged: but things are beginning to slow back down to a manageable speed, so we should be good. Last week (or the week before, depending on how you're keeping track) was the first time I missed Stitch n' Bitch since I became blogger (gasp!) but this week's blog will make up for it. There are pictures!

Katharine managed to almost-finish a tie blanket, which was a gift for a friend of hers in Prim Roses:

Epic fringe and everything! We had a discussion of the different tie styles that it is possible to use to make one of these- the method she chose was faster than mine would have been, and probably produces a bouncier fringe. Next, she's sewing-something- into the bottom corner, and then boom! Back to knitting for Katharine!

Lauren is working on a sock for my roommate, Emma:

Which has subsequently been ripped back and started over (due to the accidental production of man-proportioned socks...) Fortunately, as they tell us in vis comm, it's always faster the second time! In this case, it really is faster because it's a smaller sock with less stitches! Check out those colors, though! It's like Flounder from The Little Mermaid:

Bright blue and brighter yellow! I told her that when they're done, she should have Emma's feet pose in the socks, surrounded by forks, hairbrushes, and other random stuff. This continues to sound like an excellent plan to me.

This is how excited Jordan always is when she crochets:

She is making a hat, having found the perfect pattern. Despite multiple bouts of confusion, she still refused to read the pattern all the way through. Get it girl! Who needs patterns. They're more of suggestions, anyways. Guidelines. I have a movie reference for this too: Pirates of the Caribbean. Because of the 'Guidelines' thing. I bet I can think of a movie reference for all the pictures!...Let's see.

Okay, now I've set myself up with this one...

Clara is making a nameless thing again! The Tubes are on hiatus, but whatever this is, it will probably rival the tubes in coolness factor. The movie I'm thinking of, which I haven't actually seen, is The Odd Life of Timothy Greene- because it is interesting, fantastic, wonderful, and based on just having seen previews, you don't understand it. Bam.


Madeline is making Borough Gloves!

Can I just use Doctor Who as this reference? or is that too obvious? I'm going for it. Furthermore, Check out that beautiful Malabrigo! I just want all the Malabrigo all the time. What I actually want is a herd of Malabrigo sheep.


Look, it's me!

I debuted the wonderful rainbow sweater at Stitch n' Bitch! Movie reference? I don't know, anything in technicolor? That counts, because I am making up the rules, here. This, by the way, is me modeling my sweater during that day when it snowed epically, and I am still wonderfully warm! Wool is wonderful. Everything is wool.

Now- should you get bored with your knitting, I would advise you to investigate the wonderful world of alien-abduction thwarting headwear. Yep- it's a thing.

the speed-blogger

All of the things are happening right now- internship applications are due, homework, tests (everyone starts having tests at exactly the same time, I'm pretty sure...), papers, and this very silly web design project due on Thursday for which the requirements have just changed (again.)...


so I'm blogging fast!

Here's Mary- hard at work on another little black horse (or dragon. or gargoyle) chess piece! An interesting conundrum has been occurring that involves Madeline and Mary/Clara showing up every other week, but these weeks are also not in cycles with eachother. Fear not! I have a solution! Everyone should just come all the time! (This is the 'do as I say' part. Continue reading for the 'not as I do' part)

 And Clara, working up a crochet storm on something whose final form is not yet known. Right now, it's just a rectangle- and a very good one at that!

Megan has, since last time, finished her jiggly puff and cast on for a hat!

Katheryn is making a set of coasters in highlighter- yellow.  My theory is that the color choice is so that people in need of coasters can spot them easily. I can never find a coaster when I need one, so this would work well.

Lauren is working on (and has since finished) the Hairiest Alpaca  Scarf Ever Known To Man Or Woman or Anyone Else. Seriously. I found alpaca hair in a ball of yarn from a project I wasn't even working on at Stitch n' Bitch. It's all over the place. She informed me today, however, that the yarn stopped shedding considerably after she washed it. All's well that ends well!

There's me, because interested parties think that there are too few pictures of me on this blog. Also, there's the nearly completed sleeve of my rainbow sweater. The sweater is now completed, and I even wore it! How cool! It's very heavy and very warm. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet, but I have another project halfway done already, so that's pretty exciting too!

(here's that 'not as I do' part I was telling you about before)
I hope that you will all see my sweater, and that I will see all of you, on Wednesday- however, due to the previously mentioned changed requirements, I have a website to finish- it may put my social knitting time in jeopardy this week, which would be an absolute travesty! In order to right this potential wrong, I am going to work super hard and super late tonight, and hopefully finish it so that I can come tomorrow! Wish me luck!

This Smells Like Alpaca (or: Everything is Knitters!)

This week at Stitch n' Bitch was pretty exciting, if I do say so myself.

and I do.

First: Everything was knitters!
I got to Stitch n' Bitch early, because my class got out early, which generally messed with my schedule, but it was okay, because when I got to the SUB, there was a group of numerous knitters in our usual spot. I was confused, but the back of someone's head looked sort of like Katherine, so I went with it. By the time I realized that I'd just pulled my chair up to a bunch of strangers, it was too late- so I went with it.

1) it turns out strangers are friendly when they knit!
2) it also turns out that these strangers were TLS (or at least part of TLS. I have heard that this is a sorority, but I do not claim to know these things...), and that they had decided to all learn to knit as a group, coincidentally, on the very same night that Stitch n' Bitch meets! It was pretty cool. By the time the rest of Stitch n' Bitch got to the SUB, I had already taught two of the new knitters how to cast on, advised one on yarn choice (fuzzy 'homespun' from walmart maybe not the best choice for a first project...), and taken a commemorative picture for the blog:

I actually missed one person, you can see her foot if you look really close. Sorry :(

We decided to leave them to their group, because they were having a committee meeting, and Jordan thought that might involve 'super secret sorority stuff', which sounded important so I went with it. Speaking of Jordan, she has revolutionized the art of making flowers for a scarf:

This is a chart of every available color combination, so there are no repeating colors on the scarf (which is finished, by the way). There is even a row of boxes around the outside so she can cross them off when she's done! This seems like something I would do...crazy in a good way! Here's what she has done so far:

Each color-coded with scientific precision!

so colorful! Next week, I bet this scarf will be done!

Madeline is making an alpaca hat, having just finished another alpaca hat. (one can never have enough alpaca hats. They're really quite important)

This week was full of alpaca hats!

Also, check out that sweater! All of the knitted things!

Woody has cast aside (albeit temporarily) his blanket square for a hat, and some very well chosen purple nail polish. My TARDIS blue nail polish is less exciting, but still pretty cool.

Here is a pretty fantastic basketweave scarf, made by yet another of Woody's yarn-loving friends:

I kind of feel like this scarf was a little less orange in person, but my camera is usually pretty okay with colors, so I went with it. But seriously- that basketweave is going to be awesome for this scarf!

Katharine is working on a blue scarf- in direct retaliation, I'm sure, for the worsening weather that we encountered this week. Sidewalks covered in ice? snow swirling from the sky amidst gusts of 40 mph wind? Don't worry- yarn's got your back! No cold's getting through these handknits (and crochets)!

Katherine is plugging along on the second sleeve of her sweater, as I am on the second sleeve of mine. The woe that each of us faces in this process has led me to believe that Second Sock Syndrome is not nearly as horrible as its lesser-known counterpart, Second Sleeve Syndrome. One would think that the prospect of a finished sweater would encourage the affected knitter, but this is often not the case. Often, the knitter is sick of the sweater, and just wants the whole thing to be over, and to be put out of her (or his) misery.

In more exciting news: A hat!

This hat is all the things I love in a hat. It is slouchy, there is a pompom, it is purple and grey, with colorwork and a twice-as-thick rim using a provisional cast on, and it generally looks great! Also, it is alpaca and everybody loves alpaca, and alpacas, too, for that matter. Remember the sitting alpacas? I do. How could you forget? It took about an hour of ravelry searching, but I have determined this hat to be the Garfunkel Hat, which is a free pattern and very exciting indeed! I even have a cake of alpaca all ready to be this hat! I do not, however, have a contrasting color, and I cannot break my yarn diet- I've come almost 3.5 months! We'll see. Maybe alpaca doesn't count. We all know it does... Maybe Yarn Diet is not equal to Yarn Starving, and what I'm doing is Yarn Starving. I guess a better term would be Yarn Fast, not yarn diet. At least on a diet, you still get a little bit of food. For the record, Katharine made this particular Garfunkel hat with alpaca yarn from knit picks, although she didn't know what kind. I would venture a guess that it's Andean Treasure, because that's basically the only remotely hat-like alpaca that knit picks sells. I got really excited about this hat (I think you'll agree-for obvious reasons), and this, combined with my horrible enunciation skills, led to half of this post's title : This feels like alpaca turned right around into 'This smells like alpaca'-which I guess is also a thing as well. Sheep has a smell, I don't know why alpaca wouldn't...

The other half of the blog post, was determined by this photo:

Everything is Knitters!

Half of the HUB, ladies and gentlemen, was knitters! Okay, maybe a third...but we were loud knitters, so it was basically like half. It was great. If you look real close, you'll notice something- clearly Jordan understands the excitement at the quantity of knitting going on:

Sorry it's a bit fuzzy, but I feel like the point gets across.. All the yarn!

Speaking of Jordan, she was having quite the dilemma over a book called 'The Joy of Socks'. She wants, or is going, to make a pair of socks from said book called "Takeout for Two", but didn't understand why this pair of over the knee socks didn't have heels or toes. We hypothesized on the root of this design element. Maybe they are yoga socks? Maybe they are for wearing with shoes that are too small for the added length? Maybe they are for wearing with peep-toe or open toe shoes? All of these are questionable reasons, at best. One thing's for sure, they are definitely for doing sexy poses involving laying down with one's legs sticking straight up in the air, crossed at the ankle. In case anyone needs a more visual explanation of this concept, Woody was willing and happy to oblige:

He even added the complimentary finger-to-lips trick. It's a good thing we knitters have a sense of humor. There are additional pictures of this pose on Ravelry, coincidentally. We all reassured Jordan that she would be able to knit these socks with the easy addition of heels and toes. We cannot, however, reassure her that she will not feel the urge to throw her legs up in the air whilst laying down, and cross her ankles. This may or may not happen as a side effect of the socks. There's only one way to find out!