Blog Archives

Anglers, stripes and washing.

Posted on April 20, 2010

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!

Zoe

Posted on March 2, 2010

by Ninja

Knitting Olympics project.

Zoe by Emily Kausalik. Knit with Noro Kureyon Sock S164. Cast on three days into the Olympics, cast off as closing ceremonies ended. A bit past the torch extinguish.

A fun knit! Now back to socks. :)

[ 1 Reply ]

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.)

[ 2 Replies ]

I have the blues

Posted on February 20, 2008

by Ninja

I’ve been hit with a bug. A bad cold bug.

I’m pretty positive it happened when everyone visited for Winterlude. My body has a tendency to incubate viruses for a long period of time, generally three weeks or so. Given that, this one’s right on the money. It also is no coincidence that the Pirate has it too. At least I have someone to commiserate with.

The housemates (Matt, the darling boyfriend, and Joel, our new roomie and pal from Scouts) are busy downstairs, playing Halo 3 with friends and otherwise being nerds. I came upstairs to get some of my freelance work done, and to have time alone with my DVD player and my blues.

…all that blue.

And the tissues, cannot forget the tissues. But seriously. It’s common knowledge that I have a general fascination for all things blue. I try to vary that as much as I can in my knitting, especially because when it comes to knitting, I -adore- a rainbow of colours. Still, though… I often fall back to at least some bit of blue.

Those are the projects-of-the-current-moment. But before that, I finished my Jaywalkers.

They were a fast, fun knit, and I would totally use Regia Canyon Color for another pair. Gorgeous yarn, gorgeous, simple colours. And, being such vividly-striped yarn, makes for GREAT Jaywalkers.

As soon as the second sock was cast off and the socks were put on my feet, I cast on for the new pair of socks.

The first of a pair of Lighthouse Gansey socks, in the newest Knitty issue. I’ve waited for a basic, nicely-designed sock to use the Reynolds Soft Sea Wool I bought in Pittsburgh, and this sock fits the bill. Plus, Soft Sea Wool, Lighthouse Gansey… it all seems to fit well. In this case, the blue seems to be a good choice.

I should also mention that this yarn is so absolutely delicious to knit with. It’s extremely soft, has a beautiful amount of stretch, and, well, I adore it. These will definitely be an enjoyable knit.

And yes, I -am- truly that pale. My skin white-contrasts right out of every closeup photo. I want to harness it as a talent, but have no idea how.

I made a small KnitPicks order last week, to get some Crayon for some toys I’m making. I decided to also pick up a skein of Wool of the Andes in the Mist colorway to swatch it for Rogue.

Rogue is going to be my first sweater attempt. I’m nervous, because I’m fully aware that it’s not the easiest sweater to take on. However, I have done intricate cabling, and I have loved this hoodie ever since I first saw it. This yarn swatched up well for the in-the-round swatch, and I’m now knitting a flat swatch.

I also have to give mad love to Leanne for selling me an inexpensive set of Denise Interchangeables. I’ve been using them nonstop. They’re so comfortable and warm up really easily. <3 I’ve been using them to swatch for Rogue, as you can see.

I have the blues. But not entirely in a bad way.

Have an obligatory chinchilla.

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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

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. :)

[ 14 Replies ]

Yuffie and Fake Isle

Posted on January 11, 2008

by Ninja

This week has knocked me on my noggin.

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.

[ 1 Reply ]

Vandyke lace blanket – progress

Posted on November 3, 2007

by Ninja

Goodness, I’ve had a one-track mind. For me, and knitting, this is strange indeed!

Even the Jaywalker has taken a back burner, and hasn’t seen much progress since I last posted it. I’ve been putting all of my time and focus into one project, one that I spent hours designing, measuring, swatching, and now finally knitting.

A baby blanket, for the incoming niece or nephew. Knit on Addi Turbos, with Patons Classic Wool Merino in a nice forest green. The design, on its own, is basic -seed stitch border, three Vandyke lace columns on a background of stockinette stitch- but the execution was much harder than I had thought. Three swatch squares, lots of measuring and re-measuring… but the process was delightful.

Now that I’m already just under a third of the way to completed, I’m pretty confident that I can finish this by the end of November (the baby is due December 5th). Once the blanket is done, I’ll post an official pattern for it – it’s only the third thing I’ve ever designed, so I’m excited.

I plan to start a few smaller projects while finishing this one. Just baby bonnets, and maybe some booties. I’ve also been working on a KnittingNinja Designs branding kit to put in my design portfolio – perhaps some little card-tags I can tie to projects I give out to people, and something with which I can make little kits to sell on Etsy. I’m in the business frame of mind again!

Also: some new links added to the blogroll, of some cool people who have linked to me. Hi, gals!

Rotations and fat birds

Posted on August 29, 2007

by Ninja

Completed things just brighten my whole day!

First, I finished the first RPM sock…

…and have cast on for the second. No slouch, no sir.

I also knit a friend, for a friend.

He is knit from BitterSweet’s Crazy Kiwis free pattern, and is for my friend Corrie for her birthday, as she adores kiwis.

I also snagged myself a set of Addi Turbos for the Boogie vest, so that it won’t get so stuck on my bamboo straights, and be a bit more comfortable to knit on, instead of “OW the needles poking into everything”, etc.

On the venture for Turbos, I also got some Regia Canyon Color in the 2801 “beach” colourway. Methinks they will become a proper pair of Jaywalkers.

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