Painful Monster Dental Surgery
Two things.
One: how in the hell do I reply to comments when Blogger apparently turned off everyone’s damn email display when it switched to “new” Blogger, and hardly anybody has turned it back on? Oh Blogger, how I loathe you.
I really need to switch webhosts so that I can install WordPress or something, but… effort.
Two:
Just have to sew in the little pocket (for keys and stuff), and finish and sew on the straps. Those straps are the most mind-numbingly boring things I have ever knitted. The pocket is the second most mind-numbingly boring thing. This is a Monster-Bag-Of-Masochism that I’m making here.
But never mind that. Let me tell you about the fun I had sewing on the face. I mean, the “fun”.
I started by grabbing a tooth, centering it perfectly, and merrily starting to sew. I was almost finished when I noticed… that I was sewing on a top tooth, and it’s the bottom teeth that should be centered. Um. Shit. Okay, rip that out, let’s start again. Off-center teeth for the top. Sew on one, sew on another.
Admired my work… and the teeth were crooked. Oh, goody. So I thought that I could rip out the left-side tooth and shift it slightly, and all would be well. I started ripping… and then noticed I was ripping out the right-side tooth.
… I am too stupid to live.
At this point I decided they were both crooked and ripped the damn things out. You know how sometimes you’re frustrated trying to get something to work, and you try and try and FAIL and eventually you just give up and throw it at a potted plant or something? Well, this was the knitted-monster-tooth equivalent of that.
Started over. This time I pinned all the teeth into place to make sure I actually put them where they were supposed to go.
The pins distorted the teeth and generally annoyed me so I ripped them out too.
Obviously I eventually got them sewed on, and they’re still crooked, but I don’t care. I moved on to the eyes, and it was more of the same.
Attached one eye, attached the other, held up the bag, noticed they were crooked. Okay, fine, at least this would be easier to fix than the teeth. Moved an eye down. Still too high. Moved it down again. Still a bit too high. Starting to wish I was high. Moved it down some more. Now too low. Are you kidding me, eye?
You can probably tell from the picture that they’re still wonky. I have decided not to care about this either. Apathy is the solution to all project mishaps.
I am really liking how the bag is turning out, wonky face aside, but let me tell you… if I ever make another one of these, I am making sure I’m drunk during the entire process. I think it will help.
And by the way, I will probably write up a pattern for this and post it. Because I know everyone will be lining up to make one after reading about how much “fun” I’m having with it.
Help, there’s a monster on my back!
I HAVE DISCOVERED THE COOLEST THING EVER AND IT IS THIS:
That’s twisted cord, and it’s like… you take a bunch of yarn, and twist the crap out of it, and then fold it over and it twists around itself and STAYS THAT WAY. I don’t know how it stays that way. I assume leprechauns are involved somehow. And it takes no time at all to do. I know you all probably know about this already, but I didn’t, and it’s so very exciting.
See, I needed a drawstring for the monster backpack. Did I mention that the monster is going to be a backpack? I like functional monsters better than decorative ones. Anyway, drawstring, and I loathe I-cord so I googled for I-cord alternatives, thinking that I could do a crochet chain or something. And I found twisted cord. THIS IS LIKE ANGELS SINGING FROM THE HEAVENS, PEOPLE. I don’t know if you understand how much I hate I-cord. I should get one of those little machines where you turn a handle and it knits I-cord for you, and perhaps I will someday, but for now I don’t have to.
Here’s the body of the monster backpack. It doesn’t have a monster face yet, so I substituted a travel Hungry Hungry Hippos game in the photo, because they’re pretty much the same thing.
It’s for the Craftster June knitting challenge, which I’m really just using as an excuse to knit a monster. It’s not going to win anything, so that’s why I’m blabbing about it here instead of keeping it a SEEEECRET. It still needs a face, and straps, and a little pocket inside to hold keys and stuff. Maybe some legs too, so that it can do spirited monster dances when it thinks nobody is looking.
I told you I had a legitimate reason to purchase Fun Fur, dammit.
I has a bucket yoke!
Now the Silk Something (which really needs a name) is stuffed in a ziploc* in my yarn bin, while I decide whether to add short rows for the bust. I would think that my Itty Bitty Titties don’t need bust darts, but since everything I make seems to wrinkle up in the back, I’m wondering if boobie stretch is causing that.
* By “stuffed in a ziploc”, I mean “placed gently in a ziploc with the greatest of care, because otherwise the yarn gods will smite me for mistreating Fucking Expensive Silk”.
So I’ve tried to write up bits and pieces of a pattern for it, and for the Fake-astanje Cardigan, and for the Monster Hat, and I have run into a problem. And that problem is…
… I never remember what the hell I did, and I rarely write down what the hell I did, and a big chunk of what I do consists of “knit until it looks about right, then stop”. This approach to designing does not translate well to written patterns. I actually wrote up the following in my draft of the Fake-astanje Cardigan pattern:
Repeat rows 19 and 20 until body is slightly too small and sleeves just barely meet under arms if you stretch them a bit. (Now these are some sketchy directions. But if you go any further it’ll be too big.)
Would you want to follow a pattern that essentially says “knit until the garment totally doesn’t fit you, but almost does”?
I have to start writing things up as I knit them. I’ve already forgotten most of what I did on the Silk Something. Luckily I took a few notes. Unluckily, they are mostly nonsensical numbers scribbled on the back of a printout of instructions for English Mesh Lace. Even more unluckily, I also scribbled notes for the Fake-astanje Cardigan on that printout, and I’m not sure which notes belong to what project.
Now I have to go knit a monster out of Fun Fur. This time I will write down what I do, in case anybody wants to knit a monster out of Fun Fur. By the way, if you want to knit a monster out of Fun Fur, it may help to be certifiably insane. I am apprehensive about this endeavour…
Remember this?
Well, now there’s this.
I finally forced myself to stop overthinking every little detail and just cast on already. It’s my first design – not counting silly drop-stitch scarves and improvised hats and other little things that don’t require any sort of planning, or frankenpatterns made by sticking elements of three different patterns together – and I’m using delicious 100% silk, and if it doesn’t turn out right I’m going to throw a fit. Luckily, I will almost certainly blog said fit, and you can point and laugh. Hooray!
In which I fail to grasp the concept of summer knitting
The Fake-astanje Cardigan continues to practically knit itself. I’m wondering whether it might be worth actually writing up a pattern for.
Progress…
And the waist detail…
… which was completely pulled out of my ass, proving that there is no point in my pre-planning a pattern because I’m just going to change it at whim halfway through anyway.
Now I’m at the spot where I switch to black lace, and running into problems, of course, because the project was going suspiciously smoothly so far. (Well, if you don’t count frogging the entire body of the first attempt.) I swatched the modified Half-Opened Seeds lace and it is so not going to work, because a) it looks like poo and b) it is a bitch and a half to knit, and making myself annoyed and angry while holding sharp, pointy, metal objects seems like a bad idea.
So it’s on hold until I find a suitable lace pattern. Sigh. Maybe I’ll start the silk thing. Or maybe I’ll finally write up a pattern for this:
Because wool monster hats are exactly what everybody wants for the summer, right?
FO: Mohair Minisweater Monstrosity
I might still mess around with the button placement, but the mohair monster is pretty much done.
Pattern: Buttony Sweater (very, very modified)
Size: Hell if I know. Small?
Yarn: Fleece Artist Country Mohair, 1 skein (EVIL YARN OF EVIL!!!), colour unknown, since they’re not marked. I would guess Indian Summer or Mahogany or maybe Origin.
Needles: Size 10
(A rare picture in which I have a head…)
(… and in which I look like I want to violently murder the camera. Now you know why I cut my head out of FO pics.)
I clearly modified the living crap out of this pattern, so let’s talk about that, shall we?
I did some gauge math, since the Cursed Mohair of Evil was bulkier than the suggested yarn. Since it’s a top-down raglan, I only had to do math to figure out how many stitches to cast on.
I also moved the button band a bit closer to the center. So the original pattern has section divides of 5, 13, 32, 13, 33. Mine were 10, 10, 25, 10, 20. I only know this because I happened to write it down. Do you really think I can remember these things?
I decided to make the sleeves ribbed so that they’d be very fitted. Who wants baggy cap sleeves? Not me. They’re done in 2×2 ribbing, to “match” the collar and bottom.
And then, there is the obvious “short sleeved minisweater” vs “long sleeved normal sweater”, and… yeah. 200 metres of yarn, people, what was I supposed to do? You think I’m going to buy another skein of $30 Cursed Mohair? That is beyond slight yarn-masochism, all the way to yarn-related self-hatred. Teeny tiny minisweater it was, and I used every last bit of that yarn. This is how much was left over:
(And the other thing in that picture? That would be one knitting session’s worth of shedding. Every single time I worked on this… thing… I got a pile of hair like that. Because this yarn sheds. Did I mention the shedding? I think maybe I might have.)
Anyway, all I did was bind off the sleeve stitches at the point where you’d usually slip them onto scrap yarn, and then join the fronts and back on the following row, casting on a few extra stitches at each underarm.
It came out pretty cute. Didn’t it? Despite the yarn. Oh, the yarn. It sure is beautiful, isn’t it? Fleece Artist yarns always are. Not going to dispute that, and I will still gladly give other Fleece Artist yarns a try, because I’ve heard wonderful things about them.
But, lovely appearance aside, this particular yarn? Country Mohair? STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM IT. IF YOU SEE IT, RUN FAR, FAR AWAY, AND THEN RUN A LITTLE BIT FARTHER, JUST TO BE SAFE. THEN LOOK BACK, BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE FOLLOWING YOU, AND IF IT IS, RUN A LITTLE BIT MORE.
I think that should make my feelings on the yarn quite clear. Luckily, it’s discontinued (gee, I wonder why), so you probably won’t run into it often.
I told you I’d conquer you, you Evil Cursed Mohair From Hell. MUHAHAHAHAHA!
Current state of Fake-astanje Cardigan 1.0:
RIP, sweet little ugly sweater.
Current state of Fake-astanje Cardigan 2.0:
I have always been suspicious of those people who can knit a sweater in, like, two weeks, but now I fear that I may be becoming one of them. Hold me.
Well, Lelah’s done, I’m procrastinating on sewing buttons on the mohair thing, and I’m still apprehensive about casting on for the Silk Something, so I think that means it’s time to deal with this… thing.
That would be Attempt #1 of the Fake-astanje Cardigan, sans sleeves, which will soon be frogged. It’s too big and it’s too busy and I don’t like it. Plus, I increased too much for the hips, such that it looks like I’m wearing an umbrella. I don’t care for umbrella-shaped clothing.
For my first sweater attempt ever, it’s not bad, especially since I didn’t follow a pattern, but… eh. To the frog pond it goes.
The stitch pattern is kind of pretty.
It’s just… too much. I like simple, clean lines, to the point of boring. If I’m going to add texture to a garment, I don’t want it everywhere.
The good thing about this froggy fiasco is that I now have a much better idea of what I want this sweater to look like. Since I started it and then put it aside, I’ve knit Rusted Root and the mohair thing, and so I have a much better sense of how to make a top-down raglan look right. Plus, the details. Instead of just “red textured top half, black lace bottom half”, I know what kind of raglan increases I want, where I want purl ridges, what bits I want to knit on smaller needles, exactly what I want the collar and button-less button bands to look like… you get the idea. I’m going with a plain stockinette red part, and I think a modified Half-opened Seeds pattern for the black part.
Wow, I think I bored myself writing that. Knitting nerdity!
I knit the collar a few days ago. I based it on the collar from Forecast.
For some reason I am in love with that collar. I keep petting it. I think I need help. You know what else I keep petting? The freaking Fun Fur. Yeah, I know.
Now I’m pretty far into the yoke, but I haven’t taken more pictures yet. Hey, who starts knitting a wool sweater when it’s practically June? What is wrong with me?
THE LONG, SOUL-EATING NIGHTMARE IS OVER!
It’s done, it’s done, it’s fucking DONE. And it fits, and it’s adorable, and now I’m going to take a very long nap.
Pattern: Lelah
Size: I sort of followed the Large instructions, but my gauge was way tighter so it’s more like a Small
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in 469 (I dunno, that’s what the ball band says), every last bit of 3 skeins
Needles: size 7
As you may know, Lelah ate my soul.
See this entry.
And this one.
Aaaand this one.
Why? I don’t know. I will offer this word of advice: if you look at the pattern, it gives instructions for a medium and a large, and also instructions on how to measure yourself and create your own size. Use the latter instructions. Decide how big you want the bottom to be, and how big you want the top to be, and check your gauge, and then the pattern tells you where to decrease and blah blah blah. I think doing that will save your soul from being devoured.
Anyway, my main mods were messing around with gauge (GRAAAAH!), and not decreasing for the top part because I didn’t want it to stretch too much and go see-through. My only other mod was adding an extra few repeats of the lace pattern to make it a bit longer. So this is the closest I’ve come to actually following a pattern in quite some time.
Hey, and I think I figured out what causes the weird back-wrinkle. It’s something to do with my strapless bra, because it wasn’t wrinkling nearly as much with a regular bra. It figures.
Strapless bras are the devil, folks.
I’m very, very glad it’s done, and it really is a damn cute top, and surprisingly wearable, given that I don’t really have a tube top body. So now that the ordeal is over, I will stop whining, and be happy that I have a lovely FO.
Okay, okay, I will stop whining about this particular project. I mean, let’s be realistic.
The good…
Ribbon for the soul-eating Lelah and buttons for the mohair monstrosity. Soon I’ll have some new FOs, hurrah!
The bad…
What am I going to do with a spool of pink ribbon that I totally don’t need? Hell if I know. I just thought it was pretty, so I bought it, because I suck. Whatever, it cost 59 cents.
Aaaaand the ugly…
…
…
…
Hang on, you might want to brace yourself for this. It’s a little frightening. I mean it. Scroll further at your own risk.
…
…
…
Oh yes. That is Fun Fur. It’s not even real Fun Fur, it’s cheap imitation Fun Fur. And I purchased it. Willingly. It was in the clearance bin for only 99 cents a ball, but it’s still Fun Fur.
I swear there is a reason for this purchase, and I have not gone mad. You’ll see.
