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. :)

In the meantime, knitting has been a bit slow, but on the uprise. Between beating illnesses and getting some profitable freelance work done, the time for knitting has been narrowed to movie-watching. Luckily, that was the Christmas gift of the year, so I had a lot of fodder.

I unearthed this gem for some nice mindless, but enjoyable knitting:

A simple basketweave scarf, knit in Rowan Felted Tweed in Whisper.

It’s a scarf I started a long while ago that sort of got buried. It would be nice to finish it in time to wear before winter is gone for good.

A few other things have found their way to the needles, too. The second Jaywalker is on its way…

I even achieved, without much effort at all, an identical cast-on.

The Jaywalker is the current “travelling” project.

The current “this takes up every fibre of my being” is sock designing.

It currently consists of using the leftover yarn from my Monkey socks to swatch up some lace designs, while I fill up graph paper with concepts and designs.

There was an offer from a lovely yarner for free yarn to make your pattern with, if the pattern gets posted on her website for sale (split profits). I figure it’s yet another awesome way to get my designer foot in the door, and an excuse to design really nice socks. Which I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. The process will probably take a while, since I want these to look really cool. I have a few sketched-out ideas, we’ll see what works out!

Firstly, how about a new sock.

This is a Jaywalker (natch) knit in Regia Canyon Color, in the Beach colorway. The RPM aren’t done yet. I enjoy switching up my socks a little so the monotony isn’t there when I return to the second sock.

Nothing beats a good Jaywalker.

I’ve also been at work on some babythings for my fast-incoming baby niece/nephew. I bought some nice corn fibre-based yarn for a baby bonnet or two…

Which is super soft and gender-neutral(although leaning towards girly). I’m most likely going to go with the Top-Down Baby Bonnet for them, as it’s easy and cute.

I’ve also started swatching for a new baby pattern all my own.

The photo sucks, but there really isn’t much to show yet, save for the color choice. The yarn is Patons Decor, a nice wool/acrylic blend that is both washable and soft. The green is foresty and cool.

I plan on doing a Vandyke Lace panel in three columns, but after all this swatching (there’s three so far) we’ll see how everything adds up. It’d be nice to add to the solid-colour baby blanket patterns out there. :)

Oh, and quite possibly the biggest news as of late. My good buddy Ethan happened to have a friend with an alpaca farm. And when said friend mentioned alpaca seconds, my good buddy Ethan figured he would suggest myself, the Pirate, and friend Janis as possible receivers of said fleece.

It came in on Monday. 8 pounds of it.

It is, of course, fresh off the animal, so there’s work to do. But I’m quite surprised; despite an obvious smell of farm animal (which doesn’t bother me in the least; I worked on a ranch for years) the fleece is in really good shape, and the natural colours are really gorgeous. I have one bag of Fandango(black) and three bags of mixed browns.

I’ll be spending the next little while learning how to clean and prepare it. If anyone has suggestions or helpful websites, please let me know!

Now, IMPORTANT NEWS

Knitting Pirate, my darling sister, has a new pattern published, and man, is it ever cool: Highwayman Armwarmers. (Here’s the Ravelry link for Ravelrers.)

I knit a pair and plan to live in them this fall.

They are super easy, but the cables make them fun and interesting. I would recommend a nice soft yarn on bamboo needles.

Yay Pirate! ARRRRRRR

(I’m a day late for Talk Like A Pirate Day. Oops!)