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Simple socks, long scarves, stash enrichment & shark hats

Posted on April 13, 2011

I’m still knitting. All the time, in fact! Also HEY LOOK, new design for the blog! Wanted something a bit more fun and edgy. Hope you like!

I scrapped the RPM sock for the time being, as it yet again DID NOT FIT MY FOOT. This sock curse is as maddening as my feet are.

I have a solution. To the left is a new sock in progress. It is a simple 3×1 rib sock that I am making out of simple and sophisticated KnitPicks Essential Shoreline Twist.

With this sock I will carefully work with my ridiculously shaped feet, and figure out my measurements and how they pertain to stitch counts. I will retain these records for further socks.

Oh, and no more short row heels. They’re the devil for my feet. Flap heels forever.

In other news, I’ve been pressing forward on the Doctor Who scarf, and decided to take measure and some photos. I was rather… blown away by my progress. Looking at my chart, I am over halfway done. The scarf is 5 feet unstretched, 8.7 feet stretched to blocking length. It’s trippy to think I’m halfway done, even though it’s taken me over two years to get to that point. Can I finish it in time for Halloween this year, and fulfill my Fourth Doctor costume? We’ll see.

Pics of the over-halfway progress:

I love looking at it. It’s all coming together!

I had a job interview yesterday and kicked it’s butt, so I celebrated with new yarn. Here, you may ogle it. It’s Biscotte & Cie – Felix in the Belle Gueule colorway. Self-striping superwash merino deliciousness.

Also!

Regarding the shark hat:

So many of you have stepped up offering test knitting support, kind words and encouragement, and you’ve all been more than patient waiting for the pattern. It will be ready for release very soon! My small but dedicated team of test knitters have been fabulous in helping me perfect this pattern so that it can be as error-free as I possibly can make it before release. At this point, it’s my own paranoia making me triple and quadruple check it. You’ve all been fabulous and I appreciate all the resounding support. :) Knitters are Good People.

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Socks Ahoy!

Posted on May 14, 2010

by Ninja

There isn’t much that’s more happy-inducing than getting a KnitPicks box in the mail.

Delicious Felici goodness.

Two skeins each of two Felici self-striping yarns, Time Traveler and Abracadabra. Felici is DELICIOUSLY soft and smells like fresh wool. The most exciting one, of course, is the Time Traveler colourway:

Wibbly Wobbly.

The Pirate and I have decided on the Jaywalker pattern for the socks. We both adore Jaywalkers, and they are appropriately wibbly-wobbly while still maintaining the integrity of the stripes.

Also, I only had to chop a small amount of yarn to make the skeins start in the same spot.

The small clump is the sacrificed yarn. Woo!

So excited to start these!

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KnitCroBloWeek Post 2: An Inspirational Pattern

Posted on April 27, 2010

by Ninja

An Inspirational Pattern

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!

Mine might be obvious to regular readers of my blog: My current project I’m aspiring to complete is my Doctor Who Scarf. First, a bit of background on the scarf’s origins…

Doctor Who is the longest-running sci-fi series ever. It airs on the BBC, and began in 1963, continuing to the present day (with a hiatus from 1987-2005, and a TV movie in 1996). The show follows The Doctor, who is the last of a humanoid alien race called the Timelords. He travels in his spaceship, the TARDIS, which has forever been stuck in a cloak of a Police Public Call Box from the 1950s.

The TARDIS, the Doctor's ship.

The Doctor, like all Timelords, has the ability to regenerate himself into a new form when he dies, a total of thirteen times. This allowed the BBC to keep the show running for as long as it has; when an actor needs to resign, another can take his place through “regeneration”. The doctor has regenerated ten times to this date; the series is currently on the eleventh.

A chronological line-up of all eleven Doctors.

This entry pertains to the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker. His Doctor reigned from 1974 to 1981 and had the longest career of any doctor in the series. He is also generally the favorite Doctor amongst the majority of Doctor Who diehards. This snippet from doctorwhoscarf.com explains how the scarf came to be:

When Tom Baker was cast as the Doctor, costume designer James Acheson picked up a load of wool and asked a knitter called Begonia Pope to knit a scarf for Tom. She inadvertently used all the wool Acheson had given her, resulting in a scarf that was some twenty feet long. This unusual scarf was well received by the cast and crew and after being shortened slightly, it was worn by Baker beginning on “Robot.”

A great picture of the scarf, and the Doctor himself. Oh, and Daleks. (click to enlarge)

Chris Brimelow, the creator of doctorwhoscarf.com and the designer of the various scarf patterns, has placed them all on his site in great detail. I chose to make the duplicate scarf featured in Season 15 onwards, as it’s thicker than the original. It needs to be 16-17 feet long… I am currently 2.5 feet in. It is knit entirely in garter stitch, and the mind tend to fry after awhile. I combat this by multitasking, watching television or reading e-books while I knitknitknit away at the long, odd-width stripes.

The scarf so far... (click to enlarge)

We're at about 2.5 feet unstretched. (click to enlarge)

This scarf is the biggest undertaking I’ve handled since my first foray into knitting. To complete one is a goal I’ve had since I started knitting, and is one of the reasons I began to knit in the first place. To complete it is to remove an item from my Bucket List, and to complete something great in my knitting career. When it is completed, I hope to dress up as Tom Baker’s Doctor for Halloween. :D

There are other patterns I certainly want to tackle one day that I don’t yet feel comfortable tackling… (these all link to Ravelry, so you need to have an account to view!)

A Bohus sweater, a beautiful lace shawl of some sort (examples: Laminaria, Ishbel), things involving heavy colourwork or involved cabling… Lots of daunting projects ahead, and I will get there!

See what others are writing about for day 2!

[ 1 Reply ]

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week & Wil Wheaton

Posted on April 25, 2010

by Ninja

Yep, I’m doing it!

Basically a fun excuse to do a blog post a day, answering the daily questions put on by Eskimimi. Great idea! I’m looking forward to it. I start tomorrow, so keep an eye out!

Fun thing I never mentioned: Ravelry member Alatheia used my Jayne Hat pattern to knit a hat for Wil Wheaton. She gave it to him at PAX East, and took photos of him wearing it with a Doctor Who scarf. I died of geek a little. Good job, Alatheia!

(obviously, credit for the above photo belongs to Alatheia. I wish I was there for it! I’m a total Wil fangirl.)

I’m also happy that I was able to push my progress bar on the Doctor Who Scarf to 10%. I may actually be closer to 15%, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I think it’s going to be the subject of one of my psots this week, which will mean new photos. Stay tuned!

[ 1 Reply ]

Anglers, stripes and washing.

Posted on April 20, 2010

by Ninja

It’s been quiet on the homefront!

I’ve been very busy with managing my home businesses. It’s extremely rewarding, but certainly doesn’t leave me with much personal time. The personal time I do get HAS been spent knitting, and the stress relief is incredible.

First off, some standard washcloths.

Knitting these for some friends who have recently had children, and a few new ones for me. I have way too much wash cotton sitting around, it’s time to use some!

Next, we’re up to 2 feet, unstretched, on the Doctor Who Season 15 scarf.

I’ve been knitting this between other projects. When I get tired of garter stitch, I move on to something else for awhile. It will eventually get done this way, no idea when! I like how it’s coming along.

Finally, I knit an anglerfish for the boyfriend.

He bought me the book Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh, and in exchange he asked for an anglerfish from the book. Happily obliged, and knit in his favorite colour, green.

More pics below, showing the bioluminescence along the back and other angles. The lure is bendable.

Next on my pattern list is a new pair of socks, a new summer hat, and possibly a hermit crab. Stay tuned!

Ferret Sweater Pattern

Posted on November 7, 2008

by Ninja

I come bearing patterns. A pattern for a cute little ferret sweater. :D

Palom, my adorable, huge boy in the photos, was kind enough to model the sweater for me. In fact, he’s still wearing the Noro one. And napping. He loves his sweater.

I made two, a blue stripey one and one from leftover Noro sock. If you’ve got ferrets, it’s a great stash buster for leftover sock yarn!

Palom got a treat for being so photogenic, and to beg forgiveness for scruffing him for an underside shot in the second photo. Sorry, little man. Enjoy your peanut butter chew.

Pattern will be in my pattern list to the right momentarily! (Decided to do the post, first.)

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Computer woes

Posted on March 3, 2008

by Ninja

Um, there are pictures.

Just not on this computer.

Found out two days ago that no, Acer can not fix my computer because somehow, I fried the entire motherboard. And I’m not using the word “fried” because it sounds cool; there were literally burn marks on the panel. Oops. WTF?

The good news is, the hard drive’s data is easily recovered, as it didn’t suffer too much damage. I’ll be claiming my singed laptop, and using a friend’s casing to pull the data onto a portable HDD.

It certainly pisses me off, though. I still have a working computer, but it’s a monstrous mixture of pimp video card + processor, and shit power supply + RAM. With this news of my laptop, I think I’ll definitely invest the 100 bucks ro so to fix my PC up so it runs more smoothly.

But wait. People read this for knitting.

Tongiht I caved and bought my yarn for the Rogue hoodie. KnitPicks Wool of the Andes. Cheaper, with shipping and exchange, than buying the equal amount of Cascade 220 in stores locally. Win. I’m getting the Mist colorway. I’m considering this a birthday gift to myself, since it’s scheduled to arrive the week after my birthday sometime. yes. That excuses it entirely. Yes.

Also working on a scarf for Matt, and trying to resist temptation to make the Doctor Who scarf a summer project.

Hrrr.

[ 3 Replies ]

AwesomeCon Yarnmeats

Posted on February 8, 2008

by Ninja

This past weekend, I had a handful (about seven) of my friends visit my beautiful city, to hang out and take part in Winterlude festivities. I’ve done this over the first weekend of February for the past three years. We’ve dubbed the event “AwesomeCon”, and it becomes more like an actual convention every year. This year, we booked rooms at a hotel, stayed up too late and got up too early, did lots of fun things, and most of us even got “con crud” – which is a term for the illness many people get after geeky conventions, either from getting too little sleep and too much activity, or from getting infected by a congoer.

Now, it would come to pass as mostly a coincidence, that five out of the seven people who came for AwesomeCon are knitters. Even odder still, two of those five people are straight males. The oddest part of all?

One of the two non-knitters, another straight male, was a convert by the end of the weekend.

Now, this wasn’t out of the blue. We were chatting on IRC several weeks before his arrival, and he had mentioned many times before that that he would like to learn to knit sometime. I mentioned that myself and the Pirate (who was another of the AwesomeCon attendees) would be more than happy to take time to teach him over the weekend, and maybe even get him started on a scarf that he wanted to make.

Sure enough, we had him addicted by Saturday night. He went home with nice bamboo circular needles, two skeins of Cascade 220 in a brown heathered shade, and an inch and a bit of a garter rib scarf. <3 He’s been knitting ever since! Happiness.

I should mention that this same friend (his name is Brandon) brought me a lovely gift of this shirt:

Be still my beating heart. This will have to do until there’s a Ninja equivalent.

I also got delicious gifts of yarn. Delicious, delicious yarn.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts’ “Socks That Rock” lightweight in Jail House Rock. A wonderful gift delivered to me from one of my best friends, Janis, by my bestest friend and her roommate, Dusty, who visited for the weekend and is one of the guy knitters I mentioned. <3 Janis also sent me a lovely thinking-of-you card, which is extremely thoughtful considering she’s been having health issues herself lately. <3 I’ve never knit with STR, so it’s exciting!

Noro Kureyon Sock, from my darling sis, the Pirate. Pirate also brought me some yarn with a more interesting backstory…

A delicious alpaca-wool blend in some of my favorite colours. She bought it while piss-drunk at Pennsic War this past August.

I love my sister.

My darling bro got me some Lorna’s Laces at WEBS on the way up to visit here from CT. I adore the colorway. Not sure what to knit with any of this yet.

But it’s given me inspiration to motor through my second Jaywalker sock.

This photo is outdated. I’ve just finished the heel gusset decreases, and al knitting down the foot. :)

I also picked up a new amigurumi book, and pulled out my crappy acrylic yarn and crochet hooks. Just for a bit of getaway from knitting. I’m a crafter of all trades. :D

Planning and sleeping

Posted on January 21, 2008

by Ninja

Sleepy.

Been suffering from an extreme messed-up sleep… sick… thing. Oversleeping, not sleeping enough, otherwise not pertaining to a sleep schedule of any kind.

In my waking hours, I knit, and plan.

I’m planning the Chomp hats. Trying to figure out how to charge, and more importantly, how legal this might be. I need to cost out materials and time (the bigger one being the latter. The yarn is inexpensive). In the meantime… I knit.

Mostly the Jaywalker.

No photos. Too tired. XD

ARF ARF

Posted on January 17, 2008

by Ninja

Any gamer worth two cents has played at least ONE of the Mario games. Thusly, nearly every gamer knows of the mighty Chain Chomp.

An enemy in the Mario Bros. franchise, they first appeared in Mario Bros. 3, as a black ball with eyes and teeth, attached by a chain to a block. The chain would lunge itself at Mario, teeth a-chomping, if Mario was within its range.

In later games, the chomps could appear on a loose chain, trailing after Mario and friends. They also adapted their own sound effect, a doglike, rumbling ARF ARF. In the latest release in the franchise, Super Mario Galaxy, Chomps are seen chainless, rolling around happily in their natural habitats. They have long been one of the many instantly-recognizable entities in the Mario world.

I designed this hat on a whim, inspired by discussions with my geeky friends awhile ago, about how relatively simple it would be to design. In the last few days, I drew it up and knit it on the fly, taking notes as I went. The result is a Chomp that has happily broken free of its chain, only to latch itself onto an unsuspecting gamer’s head.

Pattern is available on the sidebar! More photos accompany the pattern.

Enjoy! I sure enjoyed designing this. :)

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