Naaaaa na na na na na na na...

Pattern found here: http://amysbabies.wordpress.com/magnetic-katamari-pattern

Katamari Damacy is, in my humble opinion, one of the very best video games ever made. It's delightfully colorful, fast-paced, clever, and has cornered the market on WEIRD FUN.

You guys know who else is delightfully colorful, fact-paced, clever, and full of weird fun? My sister!

This awesome anigurumi is my sister's birthday present! I had a ton of fun making it, and will definitely be making more!

I used up the last of the purple mercerized cotton (as well as a bunch of the green, and all of the light blue when I made my first attempt at the magnetic nubs around the side) in my stash to make little piece of adhesive-star-magic. Woo!

Until next time, Readers! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Year of Using Up the Stash: In which I fall off the wagon.

Throughout the past couple of weeks, Readers, I've learned a few things.

Lesson number 1: That I have a horrid attention span, and that unless I have some sort of plan or conscious schema in place, I rarely accomplish the things I set out to do that fall outside of my day to day duties as an admin assistant/receptionist and as a wife.

Lesson number 2: That when I inevitably let goals/projects slide as a result of Lesson number 1, I get frazzled easily and am much more likely to just throw my hands in the air and inwardly yell, "F--- it"; letting my knitting projects and my book review fall by the wayside.

Lesson number 3: That when I drink, I like to put googly eyes on things.

With that being said, I am going to be setting some solid goals for myself as far as my book review goes. As I've written earlier, unless I light some kind of fire under my bum, this book review WON'T get finished.

I'm finding myself really struggling with CAMD chapter seven. I've done a couple of drafts of the review that just don't seem to work very well; mostly because both of my attempts at the review ended up being overly formulaic and subsequently boring. I find that many of my reviews as of late are looking like this:

1. Orenstein presents an idea,
2. I riff and ramble a bit on whether or not I like said idea for whatever reason.

My clumsy and poorly thought out review attempts, to put it bluntly, sucked. They unfairly represented a piece of very insightful and challenging writing as being overly-basic (SEXY ADULT GOOD, SEXY 12-YEAR OLD BAD!), accusatory (WHY DO YOU GUYS PREY ON CHILD STARS??? WHY??), and banal (LOLOL LINSAY LOHAN!). Chapter seven (and this can be said for the entire book) of Cinderella Ate My Daughter is none of these things, and until I get the review just right, I'm going to hold off on publishing it.

For now, I've got a goal in mind for my CAMD reviews: I want to finish reviewing the book by July.

Now that THAT'S out of the way, I have a confession to make.

I relapsed, Readers.

I bought some yarn.

But I assure you that I have a very good reason! Please hear me out!

I work in the admin department of a very large company as the "PM Receptionist". Besides myself, there are three other receptionists (two who work during the early morning, and one other that works in the evening with me), who for the purpose of anonymity will be referred to as Snap, Crackle and Pop.

Snap, Crackle and especially Pop are well aware of (and are VERY supportive of) Project Using Up the Stash. While chatting on our coffee break last week, Pop pulled me aside and gave me a request:

Pop: "Hey, Jackie, are you still looking for ways to use up your yarn?"
Me: "Yup!"
Pop: "You know those black finger-less gloves you wear all the time? The ones with the twisties?"
Me: "Yeah?"
Pop: "I love those gloves! Could you knit me a pair, but make them a little bit longer?"
Me: "Absolutely!"

I sent her a link to the pattern of the gloves in question, along with a couple of similar patterns from Ravelry. We picked a pattern (slightly different from my gloves, but longer in the cuff and more ornate) and I dug through my stash, looking for the yarn I used.

The next day, I came into work a little bit early so I could bring the yarn to Pop for approval.

Her eyes lit up when I showed her the skein (it was Cascade Yarns Heritage Sock), but as she looked over the yarn label, her face fell a bit.

Pop: "Oh...I don't think this will work."
Me: "Hm? Is it the wrong color?"
Pop: "No, the color is beautiful. It's just that I'm allergic to wool!"

Readers, the glove pattern we picked calls for a fingering weight yarn, and all of the fingering weight yarn in my stash has some kind of animal fiber in it.  I don't want Pop's gloves to make her to break out into a rash!

I made a promise to Pop that I intend to keep, Readers. So, I had to choose between breaking my resolution and breaking my promise.

I relapsed and bought some imported Italian cotton in a gorgeous shade of blue-gray.

I figured that if I were going to buy some yarn, I may as well  get GOOD yarn. 

I have to admit that I seriously underestimated how much yarn was in each ball (I ended up getting 3). Pop is going go get TWO pairs of gloves, and I'll use whatever is leftover to work on my duplicate stitch skills.

In addition to the two pairs of finger-less gloves, I've been working on using up my sock yarn stash. One sock has been finished:

The sole is a bit short, but HOLY SH-- this may be the only hand-knitted garment I own that I will proudly wear to work:

I love this lace pattern!

So, Readers, I'm going to hunker down and try to document all of the "Use up the yarn in my stash" projects I've got going on, in the hopes of organizing my goals a bit better:

1. Socks: 1/2 finished
2. Gloves for Pop: 1/2 finished
3. New snowflake pattern (!!): Almost finished, need to add some beading to the flake (as well as make a whole new one, since I accidentally spilled coffee on the working prototype I've got going).
4: Space Invaders Warm Up America square: Finished the chart, but have yet to begin.

All right! All that I have to do now is to hunker down and FOCUS!

Until next time, Readers!

Year of Using Up the Stash: Husband's Gloves

Hello, Readers! 

This past week, I've met not one, but TWO project Using Up the Stash goals! 

First goal met: Since starting project Using Up the Stash, I've used up FIVE skeins of yarn! *arm-flailing YAAAYYYYYYYY!*

Second, I knit my husband a pair of elbow-length gloves! 

Pattern found here: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEff12/KSPATTprocess.php

He's been patiently waiting for these gloves since November, and I FINALLY FINISHED THEM! :-D 

The gloves were a refreshing change of pace from my earlier projects, which (aside from the Warm Up America segments) were either: 

a. Full of complicated and poorly-explained techniques that I had to tear out and redo TWICE before I got the hang of said techniques, (both of the knit Christmas stockings had this problem when I was turning the heel), 

b. Knit on size 1 needles, taking FOREVER to finish (I spent at least three weeks on the Chrysanthemum mittens), or

c. Really repetitive and boring. Now, don't get me wrong, Readers. A bit of calming repetition in my knitting has been shown to be good for my nerves, BUT, I get REALLY BORED after making five dishcloths from the exact same pattern. 

I'd recommend this glove pattern to any intermediate level knitter! They were a fairly quick knit (I finished both gloves in about a week), and my husband absolutely loves them! 

Until next time, Readers! You can look forward to some crochet lace in my next installment! 

Note: I am well aware that there is a line running down the left side of both of these images. I'm no expert on camera repair, but I have a hunch that the lens on my trusty digital camera is damaged. Aside from the ever-present line, the camera works fine...and guess who has two thumbs and is a bit too broke at the moment to replace her camera? THIS GIRL!

Haiku Friday: Ode to a huge yarn stash

Pile of woolen knots,
Frustration yields to pure joy
My lovely yarn stash!

Thus begins, Readers, the year of Using Up the Stash. Or, project UUtS for short. We will begin this great journey by taking inventory of the infamous Almighty Yarn Stash:

Here it is, in all its yarn-y glory.

I've divided the Almighty Stash into subgroups, based on yarn weight and material:

All Red Heart brand acrylic. 

1. The Acrylics.  The lime green and black are leftover from my Space Invaders blanket, and the pine green and white are leftover from the Christmas stocking I posted last week. I'll be using up more of the pine green and white for the second stocking (the pine green will be the main color), so that's ONE project. As for the lime green and black, I'm thinking that that is defiantly a WUA project. The space invaders are making a comeback, in the way of an afghan fragment!

2. Bulky Weight. These yarns are mostly alpaca and wool blends. I received most of these as a gift from one of my friends at my bridal shower; I still don't really have a plan for them just yet, but I'm kicking around the idea of an ear-flap hat. I love how soft these ones are!

3. Dishcloth cotton and my right knee. Brace yourselves...I'll be making...*gasp* DISHCLOTHS!

4: Silks. Here we have my small collection of bamboo blends and silk blends. The red-ish ball of yarn on the left is actually made up of whats leftover from manufacturing silk scarves. I have no idea what exactly I'm going to use these for; the chances are good that these will make their way into a WUA blanket piece.

5: Lace-Weight materials. The largest (and, if you can believe it, most expensive) chunk of my stash: my collection of lace-weight thread. I've got a good mix of (organic) cotton, acrylic, silk, alpaca, wool, and bamboo. In addition to making snowflakes, I'm going to be making some doilies; the largest most complicated ones I can find! I really want to focus on my lace-making skills this year!

6: Mercerized Cotton. This is my collection of mercerized cotton (cotton that's been dipped in sodium hydroxide to make it stronger and shinier), leftover from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cushion. I've been making some granny squares with some of it...but I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with the granny squares once their finished. Perhaps I can make a bag, or a grocery tote? I tried doing a dishcloth with this once, but it turned out TERRIBLE...this kind of cotton doesn't absorb water very well! Not very useful as a dishcloth at all!

Yikes, I need to re-wind the red superwash wool! 

7: Wools. Here we have my wool/alpaca stash. Once I get that tangled mess of red yarn taken care of, I'll probably use most (if not all) of these for WUA projects. Perhaps I can whip out a pair of mittens with the grey wool, too.

Last but not least:

8: Sock yarn. Here we have my sock yarn, all of it Cascade Heritage Sock yarn in various colors. Believe it or not, I've had better luck knitting mittens from this than socks! I have a pair of mittens in the works with the black, and once those are finished, I'll be making various stripey things with the rest.




Whew!

A plan for the use of these yarns can be expected within the next week Readers! Stay tuned!