My rants on fiber arts, my family, school, my cat, and everything inbetween.

My rants on fiber arts, my family, school, my cat, and everything inbetween.









Monday, April 11, 2011

I. Hate. Yellow.

I've got a lovely fun new game to play.  It's called "How many pieces of yellow clothing can we shove on the Knitting Apprentice?"  Let's start....

1. This fabulous leg-warmer that's really supposed to be a a gauntlet.  It's crocheted, and waaaaay too long to be worn comfortably in this heat.  It got too hot, so it was moved to my leg.  The pattern, crocheted, can be found here.

2. After spending 6 hours on that gauntlet that completely covered my arm, my other arm felt lonely, so I quickly crocheted this little arm-garter thing.  It's a 29 chain, slip stitched to the first stitch to create a circle.  Then I turned and single crocheted in the second stitch from the needle, and in every stitch, to the end.  Joined with a slip stitch, and turn.  Now it gets tricky.  Chain 1, and single crochet in the second stitch from needle.  Then, chain 6, skip 3 stitches, and single crochet in the 4th stitch.  Do this all the way around, and join with a slip stitch.  Chain 3 and turn.  Double crochet in 4th stich, chain one.  Then, double crochet 3 times in the ch-6 space, and chain one.  Join and repeat the second row.  Then repeat the row before it, only with single crochet.  Bind off and weave in all ends. Sorry that's so techincal and dry.  I'm getting to the point, eventually!

3.  This is the Sunshine Barf Hat.  My little sister didn't wear it in her play, so I decided it needed the chance to shine on stage.  It gets a bit hot, but it completes my Secret-Agent Ninja Goth Who look.  Just keep reading!
4. Do you see the awful highlighter color of this skirt?  Don't worry, there's another skirt underneath that one.  Black, of course.  I need to balance out all this happiness.

5. To complete it all, there's a preppy collared yellow shirt, and yellow yarn woven in my four braids.
So now that we've established that there's an unholy amount of yellow on me, would you like to learn why?  Fine, I'll tell you.

I am a Who in the local guy school's production of Seussical.  All I do is chill on the tiny little speck and sing, but it works for me.  Our instructions, as far as costuming, was to think yellow.  I, as the title of this blog may suggest, hate yellow with a fiery burning passion.  I like dark colors.  I will continue to despise my costume to my dying day.  Just so you know.  Black=good.  Yellow sunshine=baaaaaaad.  So until opening night this Thursday, I'll keep sneaking black into my outfit, until the director notices and stops the encroaching dark tidal wave.  He's old though, so let's see what I can sneak by him.  Until then, happy knitting!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Sunshine Barf Hat

I'm feeling Mondays.  Mondays work for you?  Good, because Mondays work for me better too.  Now, let's get onto my latest project!
Last Friday something wonderfully wonderful happened.  I went to a fabric store, expecting to be bored, since, you know, I can't machine sew yet.  While I still have two sewing project kit things waiting under my bed to be transformed from flat boring fabric into a gorgeous tank top and hobo bag, I still do not know how to operate the sewing machine stowed away in the basement.  Once my mother's pride and joy, it now sits alone, freezing in the frigid back bedroom, crying from neglect as my mother is just 'too busy' to finish the many project piling up, like, say, curtains for my room?
But I digress.  What potentially would have been a painfully boring trip actually turned out pretty good, considering the fabric store had a yarn section!  I love yarn!  But you know what I love more than yarn?  Other people buying yarn for you!  See, my little sister is in a production of Willie Wonka for her grade school, where she is the annoying twit who is shrunk in the television.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, shame on you!  Go have a childhood and read some Ronald Dahl!  So the director is trying to make the doll they're making of a front and back shot of my sister more life-like by adding brown hair and a hat matching the one she will be wearing.  The only problem with this is, of course, that they do not have a set of matching beanie-type caps.  So my mother volunteers me.  Yay.  I have to stop working on a fabulously gorgeous pair of wristwarmers (stay tuned!) to work on a hat the color of Sunshine Barf.  My little sister named it, and that is how it shall be referred to as evermore.
I'm kinda winging the pattern, casting on 80 stitches on a set of size 7 double-pointed needles.  Right now, I'm just working a 2x2 rib for 7 inches, then I'll turn to the plethora of online patterns for tips on how to shape the hat.  I found a couple of patterns for American Girl Doll beanies, so I guess I'll use those.  The bad thing about all of this?  Opening night is THIS WEEKEND.  Meaning I must give up silk-painting in my Fiber Arts class, which we just started, to work on the Sunshine Barf Hat.
The only upside of this is that my mother bribed me.  I'm weak, I know!  But she bought me all sorts of goodies, like a cool college knitting book, some nice size 2 bamboo double-pointed needles and a ball of superwash merino wool/ bamboo/ nylon sock weight yarn for a pair of Harry Potter-inspired socks, and a niftalicious knit-a-pair-of-boots kit.  Unfortunately, I don't have the right size needles for that yet, but oh well.  It's time to go back to knitting the Sunshine Barf Hat and watching The Suite Life on Deck instead of preparing for the ACT this weekend!
(edit: I'm trying out a new format for this blog.  If you don't like it, or, if you do like it, please comment on it so I can improve!  Thanks!)