I just had the nerdiest knitting idea ever. Nerdier than the Binary Scarf. Somewhat inspired by the Binary Scarf, actually. (How great is that scarf? I so need to knit one. NEEEEEEEEERRRRD!)
We’ll see if I get around to actually knitting it… and writing up a program to generate charts for knitting its variations.
(Are you curious now?)
Apparently I have been tagged by V for the 7 Random Facts meme. So I will deviate from knitting content for once, and obediently give this a shot.
The rules: Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those who are tagged need to write on their own blog those 7 facts as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven other people and list their names on your blog. Then you leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog.
7 Random Facts:
1. I growl at anybody who tries to talk to me before I’ve had my morning coffee. I mean a literal growling noise. GRAAAAAAAH.
2. My Blogger account was created in March of 2000. Before Blogger was connected to Google, your profile URL had your account number. Most of the knitting blogs I came across had 8-digit account numbers; mine was a 4-digit number. I miss my 4-digit-account-number bragging rights. Because I am a nerd.
3. My closet looks something like this:
It’s a little emptier than usual in that pic, but when full, the colour scheme stays the same. I only wear colours on the warm side of the colour wheel, especially red and coral. I don’t do it on purpose, those are just the colours I’m drawn to. I knit in those same colours, too. Red, red, red, pink, red, orange, red, red, black, red, baked beans, and red.
4. I have one of these in my bedroom. It’s from Ikea, and it is creepy and awesome. (Here is another picture, where you can see the way it sticks its tongue out like it wants to eat you.)
5. I love puzzles. Not puzzles of the jigsaw variety, or crosswords and sudokus in the newspaper (though I like all those too), but the more unstructured kind where you’re given pictures or words or instructions or some mess of information, and have to extract a one-word answer. I participated in the MIT Mystery Hunt this year (as a remote/internet solver, since I don’t live in the area) and I was in HEAVEN.
6. I have quite the potty mouth. I tone it down a lot for blogging, but in person (only in appropriate settings of course), I am all fuck fuck shit fuckety fuck fuckballs. It’s as natural as breathing!
7. I know everything about The Simpsons, can hold entire conversations in Simpsons quotes, and can (and do) come up with a Simpsons reference for any occasion. (Yep, I’m one of those.) Including knitting:
Who needs a swift when you have a Maggie?
So there we go. I’m not tagging anyone because I think I’m the only one in blogland who hadn’t already done this meme. (So, um… if you’re reading this and haven’t done it, consider yourself tagged.) Plus, I’m new enough to knitting blogs that I don’t have any blog buddies to tag yet. So sad… *sniff*
Hey, but you know what isn’t sad? I FINALLY GOT MY RAVELRY INVITE!!!
Tentatively reclaiming my soul…
I decided to finish the soul-eating Lelah and see what happened.
Fresh off the needles…
It… really isn’t too big! It totally fits! If it doesn’t grow during blocking, and if I don’t lose too much boob-coverage after installing the elastic, I’m home free!
Notice the weird back-wrinkle?
Seriously, what IS that? How does it… I… don’t understand. Whatever. WhatEVER. Blocking will fix it. Blocking fixes everything. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
The other day I went looking for some elastic for it, and some buttons for the mohair monstrosity, and could not find either. Even the stores are against me! So they’ll both be sitting in the almost-but-not-quite-finished pile for awhile, and on my Current Projects sidebar, taunting me. Oh, Lelah. Oh, cursed mohair. Why won’t you let me LIVE?
Mystery Swatch 2: Electric Boogaloo
I like this one much better than the first one.
Now I just have to work up the nerve to start playing with this:
I’m afraid to touch it! If I touch it, I’ll ruin it! Mmm, silk…
JUST TRY AND SHED ON ME NOW, BITCH.
I know it’s going to shed on me as soon as I attempt to wear it. I know this. Just let me have this moment.
The mohair that ate New York (or just shed on it a lot)
A few months ago, I was innocently wandering through Romni, looking for yarn to make the soul-eating Lelah. Suddenly, a skein of Fleece Artist Country Mohair jumped at me, a menacing look in its imaginary eyes. “BUY ME,” it said, “OR ELSE.” Or else what? Silly yarn, you can’t hurt me. But I had to admit that it was beautiful. The colours! The sheen! The adorable fuzzy halo! The strange but intriguing heaviness! The fact that it was made out of goats! I like goats. They’re neat. So I bought it.
Eventually I came to the sad realization that there is very little one can do with 200 metres of heavy worsted 100% mohair. I glared at it, and it retaliated by shedding on me. And on the Calmer I bought for the soul-eating Lelah. And on me again. And then, it shed some more.
I tried to turn it into a Cloud Bolero. “HA HA HA,” said the mohair. “NICE TRY. I DON’T THINK SO. FROG ME NOW.” Then it shed on me just a little bit more.
I’ll get you, mohair.
Right now I’m trying to turn it into a very, very, very modified Buttony Sweater. Obviously 200 metres won’t make a sweater, so it’s going to be a short-sleeved minisweater. With ribbed sleeves. (Why? I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.) That sheds a lot.
Here it is yesterday, a charming pile of constantly-shedding mohair barf:
Today I split off the sleeves, and so it is a vaguely sweater-top-shaped pile of mohair barf. I am cautiously optimistic; so far it isn’t sending out “FROG ME NOW” signals. I am covered in mohair, though. Because it sheds. Did I mention the shedding?
I tried it on.
It’s too big.
But not “OH SHIT TOO BIG!” like it was before, more like “this could maybe use a bit more negative ease, hmm”. And it’s just the right size for the boobies. I’m about a 35″ bust and it measures about 32.5″ around, and my evil torture bra will probably smoosh down the boobs a little, so, nice and snug and not too stretchy. But it’s bunching up weird elsewhere, there’s this strange wrinkle in the back that is making me wonder whether I have a grossly misshapen body, because – it’s a tube! A stretchy tube! How the hell does it find somewhere to wrinkle strangely?
And then I thought, maybe when it’s actually finished, the elastic at the top will pull it in nicely, and the ribbon around the middle will pull it in nicely, and all will be well.
And then I thought…
… I didn’t wash my swatch.
Of course I didn’t. Of course I was too lazy to wash it, and then unraveled it to reclaim the yarn, and now it’s going to bite me in the ass. How does Rowan Calmer behave after washing? I turned to the internets, which told me that its gauge changes after washing. But not in what direction. Oh, internets.
It changes. Does it shrink? Does it grow? I don’t know. Do I have extra yarn to make another swatch and wash it? Of course I don’t. If it does shrink, will the bottom part be too small for my giant hips? Yes, probably. (And hey, whoever found my blog by googling “giant hips”? Stop that. Stop that right now.)
Am I going to stab myself in the eye with my knitting needles? Yes, yes I am.
I caaaaan’t rip it back again. I just can’t. I want this top to be finished and I want my soul back. I’m tempted to finish it, chuck it in warm water for slight shrinkage, block the snot out of the lace so it’ll be large enough, and call it a day. Surely nothing can go wrong with this well-thought-out plan…
I have Ravelry envy.
I put myself on the invite list quite a while ago – I want to say two weeks or so – and I think it was right around the time a million other people did too, so of course I haven’t gotten an invite yet. And everyone keeps talking about how great it is and I WANT TO PLAY! *stamps foot*
And now I’m paranoid that I screwed up somehow and didn’t put myself on the list after all, which means that I will never ever get in. (How do you screw up putting your email into a form and clicking a button? I don’t know, but I bet I could do it.)
Maybe my petulant whining will convince the Ravelry Invite Gods to somehow let me in, if only to make me shut the hell up. What? It could happen…
It looks so cute and innocent, doesn’t it? You would never guess that it EATS SOULS.
I don’t get it. It’s a lovely pattern, and it’s an easy pattern, just some simple lace and then some simple eyelets and then some simple stockinette. Only I could find a way to fuck it up.
Here’s what I did – I picked a different yarn. With a different gauge. And then did the math to figure out how to alter the pattern. And I did the math correctly, even. (Yeah, I know you were thinking it.) It seems that doing all that is the equivalent of putting my soul on a nice serving platter with a selection of condiments.
I started knitting. It was too big. I mean TOO BIG. I wish I had taken a picture. If I stretched it out a little it looked like I had a hula hoop around my waist. So I frogged, and took out a whoooole lot of stitches, pattern and gauge be damned, and started over, and created a tiny thing that looked like it would fit an eight-year-old, and then tried it on, and IT FIT.
I am not the size of an eight-year-old, so I can only assume that this Lelah does not obey the laws of nature. Given the gauge debacle, it definitely doesn’t obey the laws of mathematics.
Anyway, I happily knitted on, and got to the stockinette part, and thought, nuh-uh, no way is this fitting over my boobs without stretching and going see-through. We don’t want any wardrobe malfunctions, so I increased some stitches. Knit knit knit, and tried it on, and it was (say it with me now)…
TOO BIG. Again.
Of course I didn’t have a lifeline, so I had to do the thing where you try to put the stitches on your needle before ripping, and I messed it all up, and picked up some stitches from the wrong row, and then had to fix that big mess, and I will not elaborate further because I’ve already said fuck once in this post and I don’t need to say it twenty-seven more times.
Re-knit without the increases, and it is just about time to try it on again but I’m kind of afraid to. WHAT NOW? HUH? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO ME NOW, YOU ACCURSED TUBE TOP OF SATAN?
I still think the pattern is just darling. And the finished object probably will be too, if it ever actually gets finished.
I has a swatch (but not a bucket)
What’s this?
Well, it’s a teeny little swatch, that’s what. But what’s so special about it?
Is it the yarn?
No, that’s just some leftover cheapass cotton/nylon from the creepy headwrap with eyes. I picked it because I wanted something DK weight without much elasticity.
Is it the pattern?
No, it’s not from any pattern that I’ve ever heard of. It’s just a little ribbing, and a little lace, and a strange-but-on-purpose ridge, and some stockinette. Kinda pretty, but nothing that interesting, right?
Is it the amazing mad knitting skillz?
HAHAHAHAHA. Um, no.
So, what’s so special about it?
Well, there’s absolutely nothing special about it as far as anyone can tell. Nothing special at all. Right…?
(Dun dun DUN.)
