Friday, April 23, 2010

Best Yarn Evar

The Bean blanket, he is done.  No pictures.  I think it's fair if Refried Bean's mom gets to see it before you do.


And here's the finished Bafana Bafana WCS




Still no guesses about which country Bafana Bafana represent?  I wove in all those ends and no one will hazard a guess for me?  Hmph.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Bafana Bafana

See if you can guess which country the Bafana Bafana are from:





Yes, I am going to use all of those colors except the non-matching green on the left, which I noticed before I started knitting.  And yes, I am still going to have enough green to finish.

That awesome little zippered bag in front is a replacement for a pink version of the same bag that Kirby ate.

The Man:  He ATE it?  *thinking about a trip to the emergency vet*
DB:  OK, he chewed it past the point of usefulness and repair.  It's dead because it was in his mouth.  Is that close enough?
The Man:  *if it's not going to hurt the dog, what does The Man care about precious knitting doo-dads?*

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Brown Boot Sock Q & A

Q:  "Boot sock"?

A:  Yeah well I don't know.  The pattern says "boot" sock, but I don't know what is particularly bootish about them.



Q:  Since you crossed this off your list some time ago, how come we are only hearing about it now?

A:  Check out my handsome monkey in an Azzurri scarf!



He's not so sure he wants to be wearing anything, but he looks pretty great, huh?


Q:  I asked about the boot sock, not the Azzurri scarf.

A:  Here's one where you can see the scarf a little better:



A little better, anyway.  That Tiki sure does love the sunshine, doesn't he?  What a cutie!


Q:  Bunny, we are not amused.  What are you not telling us?

A:  it sucked  and I had to start over


Q:  Pardon?  Speak up please.

A:  I SAID IT SUCKED AND I HAD TO START OVER, OK?


Q:  It couldn't have been that bad.

A:  Oh yeah?






Q:  That doesn't look so bad.

A:  Puhleeze.  Look at all that fail!  The one on the left is one pattern repeat too short in the leg AND one pattern repeat too short in the foot, because I just counted pattern repeats (badly) instead of measuring.   Measure?  We don't need no stinkin measure.  It's not like I haven't already been taught that eyeballing it doesn't work.   *sob*

Q:  So you're only here for confession?  Has Clarabelle been bothering you again?

A:  No.  Well, yes, she is.  She never leaves me alone.  But no, I'm not just here for confession.


Q:  Then......?

A:  Well, I stewed about the messed up sock for a while; weighed the possibility that no one would ever notice; rejected that because I just can't foist crap knitting on other people; considered keeping them for myself; rejected that because the messed up sock is uncomfortably short on my gigantic feet; considered giving the whole thing the heave-ho like I did with the crap yarn blue socks; rejected that because this is nice yarn and also expensive yarn; took a deep breath; ripped it back; knit one more pattern repeat on the leg; did the heel flap, heel turn, and gusset; and re-knit the whole effing foot until it was exactly the same length as the other one.   I just finished yesterday.  Looking at them fills me with shame. I gave them to The Man without taking a photograph.  They aren't worth the pixels.


Q:  OK......   Wait.  What happened to the crap yarn blue socks? 

A:  Um, so I finished the first one and then I weighed it to see how much yarn it took and it took more than half the yarn so I didn't have enough to make a pair.  So I ripped it back some, weighed everything again, divided the yarn in half and rewound it into two balls, and reknit the first sock using up half the yarn.  Then I went to cast on the second sock, but I had lost the second ball, so in a fit of rage I threw the whole goddamn thing in the garbage along with two other skeins of crap sock yarn that were likely going to cause the same sorts of  problems.  (No, I ripped it off the needles first and kept the needles.  My impulsiveness only goes so far.)

Q:  Well, that's OK.  Who says you have to finish everything no matter how it turns out.

A:  We aren't finished yet.  LATER THAT SAME DAY, The Man comes in from runnng errands in the car and presents me with the second ball of yarn, which had escaped from my knitting bag and fallen on the floor of the car.


Q:  Oh.  Yeah.  We kinda saw that coming.  So did you fish it out of the garbage?

A:  Oh I thought about it.  You betcha.  Clarabelle was screaming at me to rescue it from the garbage and finish.  It was the only thrifty choice.

Q:  Um, OK.  So what happened next?

A:  I THREW THE SECOND BALL OF YARN AWAY TOO.  It is gone!  It was so liberating! 



Q:  Good for you!  Did you tell your therapist?

A:  Nah.  We got bigger fish to fry than yarn neurosis.



Q:  Um, OK.  Hey, how's Kirby?

A:  Thanks for asking!   He's been watching futbol with The Man:






And sleeping like he do: