Not a good day, again (sigh)

So it's a work at home day and I'm all jazzed because I think I've finished something and then it occurs to me, Gee, Bunny, the judge mentions all this stuff that wasn't on the tape and so I dig through the file and discover that THERE ARE SIX MORE TAPES and I am nowhere near finished. Also, it is cold and there are no cookies to go with my latte and Juve is late in posting the call sheet for tomorrow and no one seems to think that ADP will be called up to the Azzurri for next week's world cup qualifier against Montenegro.

Yesterday also had its problems. I had to do some travel stuff I DID NOT WANT TO DO and I got all worked up about it for no good reason. But I finished it, and then I cheered myself up by buying new glasses (more later when they are ready) and a new rug. However, in the process of melting my credit card on these enjoyable pursuits, I tromped all around the Golden Triangle in the WRONG SHOES and my poor Bunny toes are still suffering.

But Ima knittin'. So it's all good. (See how hip I am?)

Two weeks ago, I finished the crimson sweater. I have had a devil of a time getting a decent photo of it, so I haven't bothered to share, although I've worn the sweater a bunch already. At work, they are all probably already thinking "There goes that crazy bitch Dirtbunny in her red sweater again." I don't care. I love it.

So here's the best photo of me in the sweater:

The Man took this. I asked him to take my picture and he did. He didn't understand that the point was to show off the sweater and not the Dirtbunny. No need to notice the liquor bottles on the counter with the onions. (The creme de cassis has been deemed potable and so I'm poting it.) And, hey, I guess the white stripe on Kirby's e-collar is reflective.

Here's the best picture I have of the actual sweater:

My hair looks pretty good! And I'm sure if you disregard the glare from the flash, you can see the lovely cables. Bonus points if you can see the surprise guest over to my right.

That's right. Kirby. His motto: Whither thou goest, I will go. What a good boy. His birthday is coming up, so I hope you got him something nice that won't make him itchy.

My biggest accomplishment of the week is that I finished the September sock club socks, without running out of yarn. It was touch and go. I finished with about three inches to spare. Three inches, and that is all. Whew! Here they are sharing the sunshine with our little urinary monster and a pair of minis made from the leftover July yarn.

I'm pretty sure that my next big project is the Decimal cardigan from the current issue of Knitty. I already have a sweater's worth of pink cotton blend in DK weight that I bought for my birthday when there was no blue to be had and I've already knit and washed my gauge swatch.

I have ten repeats to go on the Flower Basket shawl--I mean potholder. I told The Man I was making a Flower Basket shawl and his brain managed to process that as "Dirtbunny is knitting a potholder" so now I call it the "potholder." You would not believe how smart and competent he is in the non-knitting aspects of life but "potholder" geez. I despair. Oh: the last repeat on the potholder took me about 2 hours to do, and it gets 20 stitches wider with every repeat, and it requires concentration so no TV knitting and no social time knitting unless I want to rip it back and weep a lot, so this is going to take a while. It's bigger than the last time you saw it, which means

~all together now~

IT LOOKS LIKE [MORE] ASS!

The March sock club sock is due any time. Wait! There goes the postman. Please hold while I go check.

[cue the girl from ipanema]

[Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold.]

[more the girl from ipanema]

Nope. Not today. Still, there is no chance I will finish November and January before March gets here. November is wound and ready to go, however.

Aaaaaannnnnnnnddd, it's been more than two weeks since I've been to the vet which must mean it's time to go to the vet, because they were so busy looking at Kirby's itchy feet that they forgot his biennial bordatella vaccination so I get to make another trip! Hooray! Kirby looooooves the vet. Off we go.

Foiled

So here's a boring pair of mini socks in leftover Fleece Artist merino, colorway "mermaid."




I show you that first because I want you to know that I can knit, despite what you are about to see.




Q: Where do beginning beginners begin when they learn to knit?



A: Garter stitch scarf.




I don't believe Dirtbunny has ever made a garter stitch scarf before. She does everything the hard way. But I knit myself a Bianconeri scarf in lovely garter stitch.






Except, of course, where it is not garter stitch:

I call it the Bianconeri Scarf of Drunken Champions League Woe.

Sigh. They are playing Napoli today, and Napoli is in free fall, so it seems like a perfect time to (1) bench ADP on the ostensible basis of resting him and (2) pull off a surprising loss to a far inferior team. Oh well. And Camoranesi is broken.

At least there's Gigi. Maybe he'll wear his purple kit again.

I am doing the collar of the crimson cardigan. 24 rows to go. If I finish before, say 3:00, we are going to the yarn store to buy buttons. If I don't, then I'm going to the yarn store on Monday after work. It's pretty (hee hee). I can hardly wait.

I hope it fits

Does Dirtbunny still Knit?

She does. She most definitely does. She's just been a little obsessed lately.


A few weeks ago, Dirtbunny had a birthday. Her birthday present was to go on a yarn crawl and buy yarn to make a spring sweater. She had picked out her yarn in advance (Rowan Calmer), she had a color in mind (blue) and she even had a gauge swatch done, yardage calculated, the whole shebang. And so on the appointed day, she went to the LYS--the one that offers the big birthday discount. Now it turns out that the big birthday discount applies only to in-store purchases, not to orders. And it turns out that the LYS did not have enough of the yarn in stock. We're not talking about not enough yarn for a Bunny-sized sweater, but not enough yarn for a normal-sized sweater either. In any of the colors. There would be no big birthday discount.


OK. So we'll order. Ask yourself: How well do you know your Dirtbunny? Think that over for a moment and then read on.


Can Bunny order the yarn she wants?

No

Even at full price?

No

Why not?

BECAUSE THE COLOR SHE WANTS IS DISCONTINUED.

Of course.


See? See? It isn't just me, is it? I'm cursed, right?


Sigh. Well and just Fuck it, thinks Dirtbunny. If I can't have what I want, then I'll just get a comparable yarn from what's in stock. And so she does. But not in blue, because blue yarn is apparently not being made this year. In pink. Yup. Pink is good, pink is fine, I wear pink all the damn time. And I bought a few other small things too. And I stacked it all up in the yarn chest because we will not be starting the spring sweater until the crimson sweater is done.


Fast forward two weeks. That goddamn pink yarn is burning a hole in Dirtbunny's head. It's nice. It's great. BUT it isn't what I really wanted. Bunny wants what Bunny wants. So we return to the LYS to order the yarn she wants, but not in blue, in yellow, so Bunny can replace the ragged yellow sweater she wears around the house.


And so she goes to the LYS. She needs 19 1/4 balls, which means she needs 20. They have 19 in stock.


See? I'm cursed, right?

Dirtbunny buys the 19 balls of yellow yarn. It has been a long long long time since Bunny ended up short and she gambles that it will all work out in the end. She is most certainly not obsessing over the extra one ball. It's not going to be a problem. She hardly ever even thinks about it. No big deal. So what? Lalalalalalalalala


And that is why Dirtbunny's yarn inventory has gone way way up.


But there is some good news. First, Bunny finished the brown beagle wubbie, which means that the last of the crappy brown acrylic from 15 years ago is finally gone.




Isn't it gorgeous? (not) But it's perfect for The Boys, and it closes the circle on a very important nagging pebble in Bunny's size 11AA shoes.


Also, we have socks:




The navy blue ones in the center are the Earl Grey socks. I am doing them on size zero DPNs because the pattern wants 72 stitches, and I normally do 60 or 64 so I need them to be smaller. The combination of dark dark yarn and teeny tiny stitches means it is impossible for me to see what I'm doing unless I knit with glasses off, right up in my face, and under a bright desk lamp. (Bifocals? Who said anything about bifocals? Shut the fuck up. How old do you think I am?) I offer no predictions on when, if ever, these are going to be done.

The peachypinky ones on the left are the July prime sock club socks. They're easy and kind of uninspiring, so I'm not spending a lot of time on them.


The greenyyellowbluepinky ones in the middle and on the far right are The Man's Self-Selected Don't Blame Bunny socks. Based on feedback from a recent poll, Dirtbunny let The Man into her sock yarn stash and permitted him to choose his own yarn for his next pair of socks. This is what he chose. I think they are very, very pretty. I'm a little surprised that The Man chose something so pretty, but hey, what do I care really?


And there is the Bianconeri scarf. The less said about the Bianconeri, the better. I knit on this while I'm watching them, but it's not helping them win.







I should probably give you a link to explain what the Bianconeri are, but they are playing a game live right now in Catania, and if I link them, I'll probably get a spoiler on the current score, and I'm saving the game for later. So

BIANCONERI = THE OLD LADY = JUVENTUS

Bunny's favorite futbol team. Although you could have googled it if you cared. Moving right along.




Now HERE is where I spend most of my knitting time:

[Please to notice one Yarn Bandit keeping an eye on me because I'm in the kitchen after all and you never know when I might give him a treat. Also, Kirby's dogbutt.]

Anyway. hmmmm.

Crimson sweater. Lovelovelovelove. &hearts&hearts&hearts Two sleeves and the back are done, half of one of the fronts is done, and I'm not bored yet. I have, however, poked a hole in the side of my thumb pushing on the tips of my addi Turbos , but I just tape it up and keep going. Cabley goodness. Yum.

A Strange Day

So last night I got under the covers at about 5 pm because I was cold, and I ended up sleeping until 8:30 this morning. Needless to say, everything since then has been a bit off. I am heartily glad that the holidays are over. All of the stuff is back in boxes and bins where it belongs, and the winter break for el futbol is finally over. This week, they re-ran some Serie A games, so I got to see all my boyfriends again, and later today they'll start giving us some new games. My mission in life, and my only goal for today, is to stay awake until bedtime so I can reset my sleep clock. So far, it isn't easy.

Now that the winter cardigan is done, I can in good conscience start the crimson cardigan. I hate doing sleeves, so this time I started with a sleeve and here is what there is so far:



Love love love. As I work with this yarn I can help but mutter little endearments to it. Good little yarn. Pretty yarn. So soft. So smooth. Not shedding at all. Love this yarn. Love love love. In July, when I'm still working on it, we'll see if I love it as much.


In my addled-oversleeped state, I was able to go round and round on a plain sock, and I finished Not The Man's socks, so they will be going to the Old Man soon.

And last weekend, I finished the Manos scarf. I worked this in two-row stripes: one solid row, one variegated row in a complementary color, 1x1 ribbing throughout. Interesting colors, but not quite right for me, so this will go off to someone else.

In other knitting news, the first sock of the July sock club socks is finished. It took more than half the skein, so I'll need another skein to finish the pair. This is not ideal. I like the pattern, however, and I'll probably use it again. In a few weeks, I'll get another sock club sock to work on, so that'll put me at July, July prime, September, November, and January. Way way behind, and not a single one depletes the stash. Plus my cookie box full of sock yarn remnants is full, so I need to do some mini socks in order to create storage space. For now, it's el futbol and the mindless stockinette in the round of the last brown beagle wubbie.

Voila: Winter Cardigan

Many, many, many rows of plain stockinette with little shaping, then about 12,000 stitches of ruffled lace edging, and this is the best photo I can get:







I am happy with this. It fits. It is reasonably flattering, considering that I am the one who is going to be wearing it. It's fancy enough for work. It's made from a warm and cuddly blend of alpaca, merino, and silk. It doesn't have as much dog hair knitted into it as you might think, although I don't know how I pulled that off and I doubt I'll be able to replicate it in the future. It goes with everything I ordinarily wear to work. It's a little girly, but not too much. It's mostly plain, but shows off some of the knitter's skill as well. The edging was a bitch--500 two-stranded stitches crowded onto a circular needle, and I poked a pretty big hole in my thumb before I decided to tape it. (Sports injury? Tape it up and get back out there! Knitting injury? Tape it up and get back out there!) The hole in my thumb has healed and so I declare the sweater a success, and I give myself an A.



Do you know what this means?

That's right! Gauge swatches! You are getting good at this. My next cardigan is this one, and I will be making it from a wonderful, beautiful 8-ply merino in a lovely shade of red that is flattering to Bunny's pale and rosy complexion. I have been lusting obsessively for this sweater since it came out in Knitty this fall. I might have dropped a few hints in my Christmas post.

The Man takes a lot of slagging here at the Dirtbunny network, and he does a lot of silly little things to deserve it. However, on the big stuff, he is a good guy. Dude took a hint. He went on the interweb. He printed the sweater pattern. He printed out my blog post with the yarn suggestions. He took it all to the LYS. He showed it to the clerk and said "I want to get Dirtbunny yarn to make this sweater in this size. Red, Pink, or Icy Blue. Natural Fibers. Shows off cables well. I don't know what this means but she said softer than Cascade 220." The clerk made some suggestions and The Man narrowed it down to several shades of red in Karabella Aurora 8. And he chose "crimson," which has precisely the cool undertones that flatter Bunny so well. I could not have chosen better myself. I am so pleased with it.

I have had my usual gauge swatch drama. Papa Bear is waaaay too big. Baby Bear is waaaay too small. Mama Bear is a little too big but probably close enough and, since there is no needle size in between Mama and Baby, Ima goin with Mama Bear.

I'm a little worried that I am not going to look exactly like the English Raphaelite-ish model in the picture when I put it on, but that's my cross to bear.