Saturday, October 9, 2010

Busy Saturday

I've been busy making Christmas presents!

I'm getting to the end of the yarn I have on hand, and projects keep shifting under my feet. I started one project for me, and as I was knitting it, I looked carefully, and the project was saying "I belong to Malaia." Just whispering it quietly, but I couldn't ignore it.

I ordered several things, and there was one I was hoping would arrive yesterday, but it didn't. That was the one with the Bernat Mosaic yarn (color swatch below), the Addi lace needle, and some sparkly, furry yarn for Christmas stockings.

I was originally thinking of the Mosaic yarn for a Christmas present, but then it occurred to me that it would make perfect accessories for the Celtic sweater I still haven't finished knitting, and would go well with my jean jacket, too, so I'm going to do a hat, mitts, and something to go around my neck with it. That's another project that's changed ownership! I haven't really made up my mind exactly what, but I'm suddenly in love with self-striping or self-patterning yarn, and think that they would look great in patchwork!
The Addi lace needle is one I want to use to finish my Celtic sweater. So I really wanted it ASAP! The weather is getting just right for a sweater like that. I'd like to get the stuff for me done now so that I can use them right away and get on with the Christmas projects. But they're coming UPS, and I'm not sure if UPS delivers on Saturday or on Columbus Day, so there may not be a chance of actually getting all this until Tuesday. I keep checking outside my door in case the UPS person knocks and I don't hear it!

In the meantime, an order I placed the day after the one I described above was delivered by UPS yesterday! There's only one thing in this order: a bag of 10 balls of overstock self-patterning yarn.


They sent me an email full of self-patterning yarns, and I took one look at the swatch of this light worsted weight yarn knitted up, and it said "I belong to Jeff." My brother, Jeff, that is. I can safely write about it here because Jeff has severe dyslexia, and avoids reading whenever possible.

I wanted to make a hood, watch cap and mitts for him, and I'm picturing it knit in different directions in random patchwork style. And while I was writing that sentence, it suddenly occurred to me that it would look good with a few solid patches in there, too. Maybe the solid patches could be in seed stitch or something. This may generate a new pattern to sell!

I'm planning on knitting it in one piece by picking up stitches from previous patches (so it'll be in one piece), and I want to get a solid chocolate color yarn to do a whip stitch over the joins when it's done so it will look like it was hand sewn together. It should turn out looking very handmade.

I bought some tan yarn to use as trim on another project, and happened to set the bag of yarn down next to it, and it is a perfect mid-tone match for this yarn, so I'll probably use that. There's enough yarn in the bag that I can probably make a set of two hoods, hats and mitts with some left over, and if I mix in a solid color, it might stretch to three. One set for Jeff, one set for another Christmas present, and one set to sell.

Anyway, I got the whole bag of ten balls for $25 plus shipping! A good deal, even if it will leave me broke for the rest of the month!

If you want a custom project knitted to give for Christmas, now would be the time to request it (while I'm broke, and more willing to do almost anything for money).

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There's not much on TV for science fiction fen this weekend. I'm glad I have my DVD player hooked up, and I wish I had all my DVDs back from Holly.

I have had my TiVo record two episodes of House because it was listed as Human Target. The second time was last night, so I checked it out on the internet. Fox dragged it's feet about deciding to pick up Human Target, decided they did want to pick it up (I understand it got great ratings--I certainly enjoyed it), scheduled it for their Fall season, and then said to the people who create it something like "What, we ordered 13 episodes of it last week! You haven't filmed it yet?" So, thanks to the gross incompetence of Fox, it won't be on until later in November (the 17th), not the early October date that they scheduled. At least this was only gross negligence, not deliberate murder, like they did with Firefly and Dollhouse!

Speaking of Dollhouse, Syfy will be rerunning the second season soon. I'll keep you updated, or you can check your local listings.

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Holly is going to her knitting retreat next weekend. There is a contest on for all returning knitters to create a knit-in-the-round cowl starting with some yarn that they supplied.

She hasn't started yet.

She described to me how she wants to knit it, and I described to her how to chart the pattern for it. She's known about this since last year, and got more yarn for it at the Sheep and Wool Festival, but hadn't done anything as of last week. So, last Saturday, I sat down and charted the pattern for her the way she described it. She has to come up with the actual pattern herself, but I think it's OK if she uses a chart that she didn't write. People use stitch pattern dictionaries to design things all the time, and the design still belongs to them.

So, today, she finally decided to start swatching to test the chart I drew, and maybe later in the day, actually start the cowl.

The yarn they gave her was a skein of navy blue wool in a worsted weight (she had her choice of colors), and she's bought some other med/light blue and off white beaded yarns to go with it. I'm excited! I can't wait to see it actually done!

All I can say is she'd better take pictures!

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Most of the things I have to knit are not things that you can knit and watch TV. They're things that require almost complete attention (that's why I've been putting them off), so this weekend is a good time to do them. I'll be spending the rest of the weekend in front of TV watching things that I've seen at least a dozen times (so I can follow them while I pay attention to my knitting) and doing all the stuff that I haven't done because it requires too much attention. You may not hear as much from me as usual for a while.

But I wish you an even better weekend than I'll be having!

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