I went Boxing Day shopping today. The boyfriend was getting up early (ish) to be at Best Buy at 8am. I got up too, and got the two things I went for: a Bluetooth USB dealie for the MIGHTY MOUSE I got for Christmas (I love my boyfriend), and the M*A*S*H Martinis and Medecine Collection for (get this) $219! That is 37% off! And I may already have Seasons 1-4, but this big hulk of box is still less than buying the other 7 individually. I’m going to sell them somehow. Ebay? Pawn shop? Something.

I made myself a deal, so I wouldn’t go spending every cent I own, that if Best Buy had M*A*S*H I wouldn’t go to the yarn store. Now I have lots to watch while I knit up my stash! Hopefully starting a new job in February, which should give me some more spending money. mwahahaha.

Knit more on Endpaper #2 today, I’m up to where the thumb increases start. Tomorrow is going to be a marathon of D&D, so I’m hoping to possibly finish, or at least get to the end of the thumb shaping.

Thursday I have to go back to work. bah. But, only three days before the weekend! Then the craziness of work + rehearsals start, so I’m not expecting much knitting or blogging time for that whole month. Also not much seeing the boyfriend time, which is very sad. But come tech week, he’ll be getting paid to spend time with me. (the show I’m working on is going into his theatre, just like in October).

After some intensive Googling, I got my progress bars to work again. The fix for Blogger Beta is here.
Other question… oh wait. Duh. Just answered own question, never mind.

Having those progress bars up is interesting, because I only have 3 projects going! I suppose some would say that that is enough, but I have seen sidebars full of these things. I don’t think more than one project is wrong. Sometimes you are just in a mood to knit something different. Can you tell I really want to start a new project?
I want to make a sweater, but I don’t feel like working on my Bubbly Jacket. I’m still kinda worried it will make me look like a gorilla.

I’ve been looking at a lot of Rowan patterns. We just got Rowan’s Vintage Knits in at work, and I had a lot of fun leafing through it. There’s lots I want to knit in there. Also, I’ve been browsing the Rowan mags on the internet (at work… shh) and I’ve seen lots in there too. Rowan 40 has lots, and there are even a few in the much-reviled Rowan 39. And I own 38, which has stuff too. And Denim People. Oh, and I want to make something else out of Kidsilk Haze. For me this time.

I have a sweater’s worth of Katia Dianat that I bought way back when. I’m not so in love with it anymore. I’ve been thinking about eBaying it. It is perfectly good yarn, a lovely red, I’m just not feeling the love anymore. Right now, I want tweed, I want semi-solids, I don’t want something that is just RED. A very lovely red though it may be.

Oh well, I should wrap prezzies before Christmas jumps out at me from behind the tree.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

505447 people with my first name, 0 with my last name (but 570 with a common mis-spelling of that name). heh heh heh, mum always said I was special!
Mum is special-er though, 0 people have her first name, and only 720 have her last (maiden) name. I’m honestly surprised even that many do. So if you put her married name in there… she’s the only one!

I wonder if there is a similar Canadian site? Or British, it would be interesting to see what my last name brings up in a British version.

Quick apology post, for blogger beta.
I love it, I love that there is a tagging feature. I’ve been going back and editing old posts so they have tags. In some cases, I’ve had to take out the old makeshift way I was tagging my entires, and editing a post, of course, makes it appear on Bloglines. So sorry for the spam.

Or maybe you want to look through my old projects. Crazy person.

I think I may make myself a Christmas stocking this year. I’ve got the material for it already (I went to Value Village today to drop off a bag o’stuff, and left with a red sweater to felt).

Blogger has been improving itself! There is a beta version, and guess what? One of the new features is TAGS! I loved them on LJ (wow, haven’t updated that in…. forever) and was very sad Blogger didn’t have them. I searched the intarweb, and found a few ways around it, and have even been trying to use one, but it just didn’t look pretty. But waiting around worked for once!
Now if only modblog.com hadn’t died before I finished moving all my posts over. I was almost done too.
Of course, this does mean I’m going to have to go back and label every post now.

Still loving CraftMemo. I haven’t found a way to share my stash with you yet, but I emailed CraftMemo to see if it is possible. I put in all my knitting needles tonight. It’s great, although to get the best out of it, you do need a naming convention, so if you set it to show only ‘Needles’ things come up in a good order. I titled things like this: “DPNs 2.5mm” or “Circ 7.0mm/60cm”. Then in the product listing I would note what brand. It seems to work so far, although I may edit them all to put the brand in the title. Not sure yet.

The system has you enter the vendors, so at one point I had to go over the Denise Site, and did you know they’re doing pink sets that support breast cancer research? Cool!

I got my stuff together for Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest today.

The piece is a blanket I started because I wanted some mindless knitting. The yarn was a Bernat Denim yarn, and very soft and lovely. It was a cotton/acrylic mix, I believe. I was going to knit a blanket. As you may or may not be able to tell from the pic, I started in one corner, and somehow thought I could knit something that giant without going mad. I was obviously wrong. So there it is, all packaged up and ready to go. It’s nice to have it off my back, and know it is going to someone who can use it. I included the needles, I don’t need more straight needles.


Oh, and while finding publisher links for my last post, I found my new wallpaper. On Potter Craft‘s website, they have two free wallpapers. And surprisingly, I went with the non-knitting-related one! It works perfectly because I flipped it horizontally, so although you can’t read the book credit any more, it doesn’t matter because the left side is the side my dock is on, so there’s just teddy bears peeking out from under my dock. Very sweet, and the book (Toys to Sew) is adorable and I’d buy it if I could only sew.

I finished Coronet tonight!

No model shot, as the boyfriend is playing computer games. I don’t like doing the whole in-the-bathroom mirror thing either. So sometime you may get to see me in my hatty goodness.

What makes me very excited is the my boyfriend thought it was cool, and said so! Said he may even want one for himself, in say, navy.

The only mod I made to the pattern was to knit the body of the hat in reverse stockingette. Or rather, I knit stockingette, then turned it the other way out. I like the way it looks, it’s a bit more textured seeing the ‘wrong’ side rather than the ‘right’.
Also, I thought it was supposed to be 8″, so I did the first decrease row, then realised that it was supposed to be 9″. I knit a few more rows, then continued decreasing, and it didn’t seem to make a difference.
Oh, and yeah, after picking up the stitches around the band, I forgot I was supposed to do a purl row. So that was knit one row (my oops), then purl one row (rather than tinking back a whole row).
It looks like I wasn’t paying too much attention to the pattern. Oh well, this is less for style, and more to keep me warm and toasty the next time it gets to -38C.

Now, do I finish that sweater sleeve, so that is at least done, or start on the fingerless mitts?

Coronet so far. It says to knit until it is 8″ from the bottom of the band, It’s about 5″ right now.

I was listening to the CraftSanity podcast the other day, the one where she is talking to two ladies from KnittaPlease. I really like what they do, I think it’s great fun. Then, I got to actually thinking about it, and it’s not a concept that can work here. When it can get down to -40C or colder overnight, putting a blanket around a pole would not be as appreciated as giving a blanket to a homeless person. The shelters are all full, people do indeed sleep outside in this weather, wondering if they’ll wake up in the morning. If I could knit fast enough, I’d knit a blanket, but it wouldn’t be done until the heat of summer.

I think tomorrow, I bake cookies.

But for now, I answer questions for the Stranded! Knitalong.

What are your projects for this knitalong?
I have just one project, Eunny’s Endpaper Mitts. I posted the yarn for them a few posts below. I’m trying to be good about finishing stuff, so I’m not going to start until I finish my Coronet (pay no attention to that sweater behind the curtain!).

Is this your first colorwork project? If it isn’t, what was your first, and has it survived the test of time?
This was my first colourwork project:

Huntingdon Castle, it’s on the cover of IK fall (or was it winter…) 2004. It got that far, then I ripped it. That was almost two (!!) years ago now, in March of 2005. I think I got the hang of the colourwork, but the yarn was wrong for the pattern, if I remember my knitting was a little loose (it was a bit too drapey), and it has no shaping. That last reason is now the one I cling to when I look at that lovely picture of 1/3 of a sweater, and think about the sleeve that is staring at me from the top of the bookcase…
But yeah, that was my first colourwork, and it didn’t even stand the test of being finished. I haven’t done any since then, so I feel like I’ve never done it before. Also, the yarn for the mitts is much thinner. Although, I always felt with that yarn that it was too defined for colourwork. Colourwork needs a bit of a fuzz, I think. That stuff was like perfectly round rope, but soft. I’ll definitely make something with it, I just don’t know what.