Redecorating

Spiffed up the store window for February. 

I knit the sweater and wrap, and crocheted the bag.

The box of "chocolates" is actually little balls of yarn!

Time, where?

I should have a photo of some sort of craft thing here, except the extent of my time to do anything since Wednesday was 12 minutes playing with the Dreamscope app last night.

OTOH, store's been selling lots of lovely yarn...

Dreamscope

My friend Jhada got the Dreamscope app, and has been having all manner of fun with her already-amazing portraits.

So you know, it's an app that takes photos from your phone (camera or memory) and applies one of many (so very many!) filters over it. The upload and convert process takes about three minutes, then your results are thrown all over the world.

As I don't necessarily want pics of me all over (this blog and G+ don't count - really, who sees it?), I opted to use a few of the more normal filters to see the results.

Here's the original photo:

Watercolors filter:

Um, no. I know it's just grabbing a splash color, but the brick red makes it a little too Stephen King.

Charcoal filter:

I like this one much better full size. The tire tracks in the foreground are cool.

Oils filter:

Meh.

Sketch filter:

Ding ding, we have a winner! You'll be seeing more of this in the future.

Kitty Collector!

So, didn't knit today. Or stitch.

I did, however, get lots of cute pics of my Neko Atsume cats!

I am having far too much fun with this app!

Hat Progresd

Not much progress, but some. I'm to the point where the white has just become the main color.

Shop Model - The Easy Ombré Slouch Hat

Today's blizzard-recovery knitting: The Easy Ombré Slouch Hat by KFI. Free pattern via Ravelry.

The yarn is Rowan Alpaca Merino DK and it is SO SOFT. I'll be making one of these for myself!!

And yes, those are the Neko DPNs, and they make hats SO easy!

I would have knit, but...

I had plans to knit today. Lots of knitting, lots of football. Instead, I hiked over to my parents' house and helped get them dug out (thanks be to neighbors with snowblowers!), then hiked home and collapsed on the couch.

The blizzard buried my reindeer.

As a easy visual reference, I put my car's antlers on before it started snowing. (By about a month, but hey, Antler Car Has Antlers.)

After a few hours...

And today:

Forget the 16" antlers, they were invisible as of 2am last night. Since the photo above, the car is completely covered: it's just a white lump in a sea of white.

Digging out is gonna be fun.

Blizzard Knitting

First up: a dishcloth with hearts on it. (Little Hearts by Rachel can Schie, free via Ravelry.)

What you don't see...

So the store got all 14 colors of the new Cascade 220 Superwash Effects. They are gorgeous.

Thirteen are pictured here: 

The 14th, Lava, is already sold out. Not solely because I wanted it for a Six of Swords shawl. But I accounted for at least two....

The Opposite of Fun...

... is a snow squall coming out of nowhere and black ice the whole ride home. In 15 minutes, "outside" went from no snow to this: 

... and the snow kept falling for the next hour and a half of the ride home. (SO glad I wasn't the driver, I wouldn't have been able to do it.)

That "clear pavement" isn't. 200 wrecks in the DMV and counting - six of which we drove by (and two of those we saw happen). 

Y'all stay safe now, y'hear?

DIY Indeed!

Last trip to Tuesday Morning (a name-brands-for-less chain), we stumbled upon  DIY rubber bands - allegedly for those looms all the cool kids have these days.

Mom and I thought "STITCH MARKERS!" at the same time. Small elastics work for knit or crochet as row markers, too - knit/crochet them in place, snip them out when you're done.

We spent about 15 minutes this morning sorting 1200 rubber bands (metallic! neon! glitter!) by color.

And now we have six sets of markers for whatevs. The green and orange are mine, the purple for our friend Lynell, and the pink, blue & yellow are Mom's.

They'll probably only last a year, two at the outside, but not bad for two bucks!

Universal at VKLive

Universal Yarns had some pretty amazing stuff on the runway at VKLive. As in "I must hunt these down and knit them". More available on their tweetstream! 

I'm hoping designer names and patterns will be available soon!

A Very Green Sweater

I found some Lion Brand Homespun in an amazing green at JoAnn's on Tuesday. I am one skein (of 4) into what is going to be a very green sweater.

As usual, I'm totally winging it. The nice thing about top-down raglan sweaters is that it's easy to make fit corrections as you go.

I figure it'll be done sometime next week!

Future coat-thing

TopShop had this really cute coat-cape thing that will be perfect for my Avalanche sweater. The cloak part will let me do the sw-inspired pattern without seams (hooray!), and the front will actually be jacket-like. 

So this will happen! 

Faux Paws 1

AAAAAAAAARGH. I missed a K5tog... it wasn't caught properly. I noticed two rows later. Naturally, that meant frogging the longest possible row and picking up all those stitches....

Fox Paws is in time out for the rest of the day.

Olympia 048

One of the balls of yarn I got at Yarn Basket no longer exists. During the course of yesterday, I had some waiting time, so I pulled out my Neko needles... 

... and made a hat.

Then, as I had more time, I started some mitts... 

... and finished those, too.

This turned out to be a good thing, as it is COLD this morning!

Yarn Storage!

Today's find at Target: basket/hamper/covered tub things. Aka Yarn Storage. 

I love that they look knitted!!! 

A Visit to the Yarn Basket

Hopped into the Yarn Basket in Annapolis, MD yesterday. (www.yarnbasketmaryland.com) 

It's a pretty little shop, on the small side. The yarns are organized by color - very pretty, but can make getting four of the same yarn in different colorways more challenging than I'm used to. The owner is friendly and knows her stuff, and, like me, is an escapee from the business world.

The shop models are GORGEOUS, and for sale if you want to buy. (I almost got the Phoenix Wing.) Regular Hiya Hiya circs and Brittany hooks (and a small notions assortment) are in a side nook. 

She offers finishing services to customers (blocking, sweater assembly), and small repairs. Reasonable requests only - bringing in three bags of half-finished sweaters - NO. 

On to what I bought!

My mom gave me some cash in case I spotted something she'd like. I got two colorways of EuroBaby Maypole for ponchalettes: 

Then, there was a colorways of Olympia we don't have, so yay, another hat for me:

I don't know why we didn't get this, I may special-order a bag.

Then... Fox Paws. As it turns out, I was using two different weights of yarn in my first attempt. The first repeat went ok... the second, not so much.  So I totally has to buy yarn. The Viking Nordlys came in 5 colors, 4 of which will be Fox Paws.

It's a nice little single-spun, pleasant to work with, and the color changes should make a pretty thing. I'm doing the full 121-st cast on this time, fingers crossed!

So, if you're in Annapolis, it's worth dropping by the Yarn Basket! 

Owl Obsessed

So, there's this adorable crocheted owl: 

 

... and I totally want one. Mine, however, will have more, um, intense coloration.

Plus fluorescent green and yellow. I took the pic above so that you wouldn't go pixel-blind. This stuff is lethal in sunlight!

Must-Reads and the Samurai Knitter

OMG, Samurai Knitter has reviewed the latest issue of VK!!

You Must Go Read It Now.

Seriously.

Go. NOW.




Best line IMO: " It looks like a cone of shame upside down."

Fox Paws

So, there's Xandy Peter's "Fox Paws". (Ravelry link)

It's not easy. Counting pretty much every  stitch every other row is critical. Frogging is a bear. After the first two days, I finished one pattern repeat:

Two days later, I'm here:

That's halfway through a pattern repeat. The SECOND pattern repeat. The odds of getting through a pattern row at work are bad. The odds of getting through rows 4, 6 or 8 on the first try are improving, but still not good.

Stephanie Pearl McPhee explains it best: "I think I know now what Fox Paws wants. It wants to be alone with me. With just a cup of tea, and no distractions, and nothing that could interrupt our time together. It wants me to say “SSSSHHHHHH!!!!!!!” to any member of my family that tries to screw me up by saying really inconsiderate things, like “Hi”.  It doesn’t like the TV. It’s not sure about Audiobooks. It doesn’t care for the cat." (read her whole post here)

Fox Paws: one of the "most intense" patterns on Ravelry for a REASON.

Fox Fur

Got a couple of holiday Bucilla ornament kits. Finished one in the wee hours: 

Mind you, that's not quite how Bucilla intended it look. I like the English style out outlining color blocks to smooth edges, colonial knots are fun, and the fox fur/faux fur was hilarious at 1am.

(Waits a few minutes.)

Yeah... still funny to me. I like my version better.