Just been very ill with some sort of flu bug, and between that and some house turmoil, it’s been a stressy week.

Luckily, I have a little bedheaded pal who always greets me when I need a cheer-up.

This is my chinchilla, Yuffie. She’s small and spazzy, and enjoys chilling out on my lap. She’s totally zen.

(She also got a good long dustbath after this photo was taken. No chinchilla of mine’s gonna look that frizzy!)

Spent the evening curled up with some tea, a few cookies, a movie (Boondock Saints, one of my favorites) and this.

The Noro that I got as a gift, becoming a Fake Isle hat. So far, the colours are knitting up -really- pretty. But I’ve come into a bit of a spot.

Check out that top row of loops. The two balls of Noro are coming up to dark points, at the same time. Oops.

The good news is, it seems to be evening out again, it just might take another row or two. I hope it will look good once I get to a more contrasting area again. Who knows, maybe it will flatter the hat! S’what I get for knitting with two (different) balls of Noro. Surprises abound.

I’ll go back to knitting on it. I might even throw in another movie. Lazy Friday nights? Oh yes.

I re-charted the Monkey pattern chart to include one extra stitch on both sides. I also accomodated or an extra “widening” row so the pattern would be a bit larger, and would have 5 repeats instead of 6, and be just slightly shorter a sock. I’ll try it out after I unravel the first try, and if it works well, I’ll email it to Cookie A. for an optional size-up.

Last week, while recivering from the swollen mouth, I finally stitched on the straps for this:

Based on the Punk Rock Backpack in SnB, this was my very first knitting project. I knit all the blue pieces, every single one of them, and the two black straps. I had decided that an 8-bit black mage will adorn the front, no questions asked. That was to be it. Then I tried, as my second “project” ever, intarsia.

Oops.

I didn’t go back to working on this backpack until a few months ago, about four years after I had first taught myself to knit,  and… the intarsia worked. Still hard,of course, being intarsia, but… it worked. I had this lovely black mage panel ready to sew in to the backpack.

I’ve been puttering at sewing it ever since, and it’s finally done. I used it to haul some stuff to the warehouse I work at, and got some nice comments. So, first UFO has finally become an FO.

Yesterday I cast on for an altered Bunny Hat from SnB Nation, using Rowan Calmer in this lovely light green shade.

It shall not become a bunny, but it shall be awesome.

I don’t know if I like the short-row earflaps though. I think if I knit this again I’ll make my own earflap hat pattern. I’ve gotten rather good at it.

I need to purchase several skeins of Alafoss Lopi to make Jayne hats for some fellow Browncoats, that are long overdue. However, when I went to the yarn store the other day to pick up needles to knit Boogie out of the recycled yarn(yes, I’ve decided), I found this instead.

The colours were what caught my attention. I went all “ooo ahhh” and realized that I had to have this yarn, despite not having a project for it.

The yarn is by Naturally New Zealand Yarns, but is apparantly discontinued, “Fleece & Fur”, 70% merino wool, 30% possum.

The possum content sold me. I am weak.

Tomorrow: Potential vest cast-on.