This is maze, all finished, Done in roughly two days and in the pre-blocking stage on my dad, it looked very much like a skull cap or an over-sized yarmulka (yes that's spelt correctly, I checked)

This is it blocking on my cos mannequin. She's rather useful, I think, for hats at least. I need to name her. I stretched the hat out so that it would cover more of my head and actually touch my forehead. I have a rather large head, plus alot of very big hair, so not many hats fit me very well, hopefully this one will. I think the color patterning is much more visible now.

I'm very happy with this hat and with the yarn, it's like knitting with very soft package string! It's very lovely to knit with. I'm going to make the reverse version as the longer version though. Without the extra pattern repeat but just plain more background color. I can't wait to wear it, she's drying in front of the fan right now.

YAY!

Look! Look what I got!
(I put up the flash pics because they really represent the colors better)
Oh my gosh, better than christmas people!!! Sooo excited! First of all, I have to say, bravo elann.com! Everything was packaged absolutely perfect and lovely. Everything got a seperate bag and was clean and beautiful! You guys make an excellent first impression. And your Canadian, that makes me love you even more! Thank you!

I'm going to do Maze first, to get it done and free up the needles. The hemp feels so cool! It's really interesting in texture and quite stiff right now. It was all coming unwound because of the stiffness, but thats okay, I'm going to use it right away anyways. The Bryspun needles, for being so nice and cheap, are packaged very nicely. For some reason, the cheap needles are only ever packaged in fours, if you want five you have to buy two sets or buy the more exspensive ones. Not these though, they come in fives, very good. I can't wait to get working with them.

The Baby Silk is so amazingly soft! Oh my gosh! It's like petting whipped cream! (thats a new one, eh? Whipped cream...) They are much smaller than I expected but that doesn't matter really. I'm going to enjoy working with this stuff.

Look what else I did. I dyed the wool that my aunt gave me with kool-aid! I'm really happy with the blue color, not so much with the purpley one, I was going for lavender but I didn't have any blue left to cool the color down. I used it all for the blue.
But I am really really happy with that blue, it's gorgeous. I think it's a little lighter than in the picture though.

Look at her, ain't she cute? She stretched out just as I grabbed the camera. Thats Carmen everyone.

See? Kitties love almost everything about knitting, the needles feel nice on the teeth and at petting tools, they make good toys too. The yarn is the best though, just look at him, flossing his little kitty teeth.


The other night, the water softener/heater was on again and Mitts heard it and it freaked him out a little, he jumped off my bed to goo sit in front of the closet doors and he acted like he was protecting me from the water monster. I think he spooked himself though because every once in a while he'd go hide underneath the book case.To get that picture I put the camera on sepia and covered the flash, it makes it so the kitty is still visible (barely) but doesn't blind the poor guy. I wanted to show how round his eyes were, he was a scared kitty.

Look what happens on regular color mode when I cover the flash!

One more picture, the cats were the closest I've ever seen them last night without Carmen trying to bite Mitts. She did at first, but I held her down to calm her and so she wouldn't run away, they did pretty well, I had to keep petting Carmen to keep her calm. Maybe one day they can be friends? I think part of the reason that she bit him was because he also kind of accidentally rolled on to her when he layed down. The poor guy, you should have heard his squawk when she bit him!
Lastly, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my first (known) outside reader! Yay! Bradyphrenia left me a comment the other day. Thanks for the comment! I'm glad I have a reader. Regular or not, it's nice to know that people other than family read this thing. (not that I'm not glad my family reads it! Hi dad!) If any one else reads this thing, leave me a comment, kay?

Thats all for today guys, buh-bye, gotta go knit!

Kate

A sort-of productive day

Well, I did it, I finally went out and handed out some resumes and filled out an application. I ended up only giving out two resumes, one at the Shoppers Drug Mart (along with my application) and one at the new 24hr Vet Clinic, the lady at the clinic said she wasn't sure if they needed anyone but she'd take my resume just in case.

So my elann.com order should be here this week and I've been shopping for future projects that I want to do, planning a lot. I have five projects from Interweave Knits Spring 06 that I have found yarn subs for on elann.com. I've also been planning at least three felted bags almost since I first started knitting. Two are charts from Dominknitrix, Rosie the Riveter and Bruce Lee, although Bruce Lee might just end up being a rather large, non-felted patch for a friend or a wall hanging or something. I'm also planning a Nine Inch Nails felted bag, double-knit to be reversible and it will have the NIN logo with a facial silhouette of Trent Reznor that I am very proud of, I made the chart for it myself.

One thing that I am really craving right now is bright and beautiful self-striping sock yarn. I shall have to try that dyeing method soon. The Regia, etc. ones are nice, but they tend to be very boring colors. I would really like to get some vesper sock yarn, from kpixie.com, but they seem to sell out of it in a snap. They even have a special mailing list to join so they notify you as soon as they get the new vesper up.

Yesterday, I got a little bored and I had just finished cleaning my room like a mad woman (which never, I mean never, happens) and I was very sweaty and bored. So I pointed the fan to the middle of the room, cranked up my music and did this:
Remember that Chinook knitting wool that I got from my aunt? Well, it closely resembled pencil roving and i wanted to spin something simple. Sooo, I spun it and washed it and dryed it that night and it's rather nice. This is about three-quarters of a wool-bail. The funny thing is, I have another two whole bails of this stuff! I intend to spin it all. I thing that getting spun has improved this yarn because it strengthened it. Before, it broke very easily and there were too many un-spun plies. I'm very pround of it, not sure why, it just looks really nice. I'm not sure what to make out of it either, I think it's too scratchy for clothing, maybe a pillow? Or a rug? Blah, I've got plenty on spinning time to mull that over.



Another thing I did last night:
This is me carrying the Phentex upstairs with a knitting needle to be bagged and value villaged. I didn't want to touch it any more that I had to.

I'm done, off to go fantasize about roller-skating to Jamiroquai and eat my salad.

One, two, buckle my shoe

So I seem to be a little blog obsessed lately? Well, at least this post isn't coming from the middle of the night, it is at (a much more respectable) 6:30 PM.

Yesterday I found this, (seventh comment down by Erin) and promptly laughed till I hurt. The statement wasn't all that outrageously funny either, but I just found it hilarious for some reason. Indeed, "How does one put out a fire on a spinning turntable inside a closed box?" Hmm?

The blog on which I discovered this statement was none other than See Eunny Knit, which I have found to be very enjoyable and extremely informative. Although, what a steek is/does still eludes me. Eunny is a young woman who is seemingly old-fashioned but I find her designs very refreshing and startlingly beautiful. They are simple in shape, but often including some intricate lacework or brocade/damask-like colorwork. Said colorwork is mostly fair-isle which I haven't had the opportunity to try yet, but something tells me it would be a trifle more fun than intarsia. (which I also have never tried) Another suprising little tidbit of info on Eunny is that she allegedly has no yarn stash to speak of! I didn't think it was possible! Kudos for Eunny on having good self-control. So, go check out her blog, she's a fabulous writer, I love to read her entries, they're an art in themselves. She also has a wonderful tutorial on how to dye your very own self-striping sock yarn with kool-aid! Being the only dye I ever use, I intend to try this as soon as I can find some reasonably priced plain sock yarn.

My elann.com order has now officially been shipped and is on it's merry way! I am absolutely quivering with anticipation. I've never ordered yarn before. It's not only yarn, it's nice yarn, really nice yarn. I have never bought yarn from anywhere other than Micheal's, Wal-Mart, and Value Village. The only actual yarn stores I've bought from are Pudding Yarn, Make One and Knit One, Chat Too. Even then, I had hardly any money to spend and I didn't really have any plans for the yarn I bought. These yarns, purchased from elann.com, have a specific, intended project and, for some reason, that makes me even more giddy.

I've got some pictures of even more things that I'm currently knitting. The thing is, I keep finding things that I am still working on, just not steadily. I have countless amounts of projects constantly on the run.

So, number one:
Dad's blue sock, (yes, very singular) is a little slow going, it was my computer sock until my computer stopped working for a bit, I would sit at the loading screens for The Sims and work on it. But The Sims no longer works and I have high-speed internet, so there's not much time to work on it, I guess. I would do it while watching television, not only is nothing good on, but I cannot stand to stay on my main level for more than a few minutes in this weather, it's just too hot. I'd say I've done maybe one round or less on this in the last little while.

Knucks:From the summer issue of Knitty. I would have to agree with GrrLeigh and say, "What the hell? It's summer!!! What are you guys smoking over there?!?!" I, myself am Canadian and this issue of Knitty severely lends itself to the ridiculous notion that everything above the US/Canada border is permafrost. Just slightly infuriating. It's a shame they couldn't decide to bring this stuff out for say, a fall issue? That would seem to be much more reasonable. Most of the things in this issue are quite nice, but completely out of season. I don't care how far north you live, you don't give patterns for toques and gloves in the middle of summer! It's depressing!

I shant proceed to give a Knitty review, it's much too late. But expect to see one for each future issue (if I can manage it), and maybe reviews of future issues Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting.

Razor Cami:
Shown here with two and a half rounds completed, not much yet. Also shown is my new favourite household appliance, my beloved fan! Stationed right beside my computer and it can be angled to hit me while I'm in bed. Perfect.
I have decided to be insanely impatient and start on this before my yarn arrives with some stash busted yarn of that same weight. It is of mohair and it is a faily bright blue, almost guaranteed to be ugly, but I see it as a bit of a practice run, so see how many stitches I need to cast on and how I like the pattern and so forth. By the way, in regards to casting on stitches, I had to cast on 36 more stitches (six inches) for it to fit me! I thought Katie and I were relatively the same size but apparantly she's much tinier than I thought. And no dear, I'm not saying I thought you were "fat" because then, I would have to be calling myslef fat, wouldn't I? I know I'm not fat so there... Just having a little moment of self-validation, I'm fine now, carry-on everybody.

I believe I'm done. Thanks for the ears and eyes.

Kate

Okay, so I realize that this makes almost two posts in a day but it was late for the last one and also for this one so it doesn't count!

So, last week, while waiting for the Devil Wears Prada, my mom bought me this:Woot! I have Stitch 'N Bitch Nation already and I've been wanting this for a long time, I'm already looking for elann.com substitutions for some Brown Sheep sweaters, why? There is only one known Brown Sheep retailer in Alberta and he's nice and all, but he's out in DeWinton. Also, not very far away, but for less money and a little more time, I can have pretty much the same thing or better from my lovely elann.com! You know, there are no yarn stores in the south end of the city! Unless you count Micheals, but I wouldn't. They are all in Bridgeland or on 17th or way the hell out on Sarcee... Exactly on the opposite side of the city from me... boo. And they're outrageously priced too! So the exspensive yarn and the gas money added up together makes it not worth it! Well, unless I really really need to. Piffle.

Anyways, so I have been knitting! Look!Kay, so this isn't technically knitting but I did some fringe removal on a blanket that my auntie gave me a long time ago for christmas because I have a really obsessive right-side-up thing, the fringe had to always be at the bottom, and it was driving me nuts. Also because I'm too tall for the blanket and I need to lay on my stomach and stretch out sometimes to sleep and my feet always got tangled up in them! hahaha.

Now for some actual knitting.

(notice the chunk of Mittens tail in the bottom-left corner?) So this picture pretty much sums this almost-project up. It's a big tangled mess of slighty-gettingonmynerves yarn. I decided it wants to be a blanket, assembled in strips... Going to be a boring stockinette project, but oh well. I plan to re-use the knitting one strip at a time to eventually have a whole blanket idea to later make a nice, NON-NOVELTY, smooth, bulky yarn. In turquoise and brown strips... hmm? Sound good?

So I'm having a major case of ADD-related impatience for my elann.com order, it hasn't been shipped yet and I got an email today saying that the circulars I ordered are out of stock and whether I want them to ship the rest of my order and I can re-order the circs later or if i want to wait until they're available. I had a very lucky moment with this, I checked my circ inventory and it just so happens that I already have a circular in the size I was going to order. Convenient!

By the way, I have rediscovered Jamiroquai! You should too! Look it up. Now!

Anyways, I think I'm actually tired tonight, so i might have a chance of sleeping, yaaay...
Goodnight
Kate

Picturemathingy

I'm bored so I'm posting some pictures and stuff...Awwww, lookit us, ain't we cuuute? That's me and mitsy.
Aaaand, thats Carmen and VuDu and my Phantom program... she was in a weird position....

So anyways... I'm going to try and go look for a job tomorrow... If I can get to sleep sometime in the next century and figure out how the hell to make my hair do something more or less conservative, not sure if it's possible. Anyone got any ideas on how to tame this mane?
I hate having short hair!!!! Really lots! I need it to grow out long enough so that I can put ALL of it up in a ponytail, cus right now I got all these dumb little wispy things and I hate 'em! That and, once it's long enough, I need to get it cut because it's soooo uneven. By the way, isn't that a sexy picture face? Hmm? Hmm?

Gawd, I have nothing else to say! grrrr... Well goodnight then.
Kate

Knitting! Yes Knitting! I Still Knit!

But first! Last night, I was sitting, minding my own business, playing solitaire and a big-ass crawly bug falls from the ceiling onto my keyboard!!!! I think it got out and went somewhere else but I can't help but feel like it's gonna crawl out any minute and eat me! So I'm typing a little harder today, just in case it's still in there. But I freaked out and ran up stairs to drag my mother out of bed to come help me find it and kill it. I know I'm a wimp. My poor kitty is all scared because, of course, I jumped up and started saying "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!" and he's all wide-eyed and freaked out too because he doesn't know whats going on. I ended up not being too freaked out to stay in my room last night but it took me a while to fall asleep. And I'm hoping my kitty got a nice juicy bug-snack in the middle of the night. I have the vacuum down here just incase I find the bugger. When I first turned the computer on today I stabbed every button on the keyboard with a fat knitting needle (handy!) and for the first few minutes I was typing with a needle, then it got a little tedious soooo, I'm back to regular finger typing. But, ewwwww, it was really big and it had wayyyy too many legs!!! Mom said it might have been a moth that fell, which is considerably less gross, as long as it doesn't touch my stinkin' yarn. But I don't think moths are shiny and brown and wingless!!!

Anyways, I'm making my skin crawl and I'm sweating while I'm typing cus I'm a little freaked out still (can you tell?) You know, I have no problem with bugs outside, that's their territory. But as soon I find them in my house, they are dead. Except beetles, they're dead no matter what... (they're just creepy, kinda mean, eh?)

Sooo, I'm posting an order on Elann.com today for some elann.com collection Canapone in Café au Lait and Burnt Olive for Maze. It's a much cheaper alternative to allhemp6 but it's still hemp which I've been wanting to try for a very long time. And you get even more for even less!!! I love that. I'm also getting three balls of Peruvian Collection Baby Silk in Aubergine, it's the best color I could find that might look good on me, they don't have a great selection for my skin tone on this one, oh well. That yarn is for the razor cami which I have also been wanting to make for quite some time. This is also a much cheaper alternative to Alpaca & Silk by Blue Sky Alpacas. It might not be as wonderful as I'm sure Alpaca & Silk is but, let's remember people, I'm a poor, jobless (for now) high-school student. I've been saving up allowance (old school) for quite a while for a big order on kpixie (which I love to death) but elann.com is just sooo much more in my price range at the moment. I also ordered some Bryspun needles for these project that are probably pieces of crap but they're the cheapest on the site.


Did I tell you all about how I got bored and I this giant ball of black Phentex sitting on my yarn shelf that needed a project. Thus, VuDu was born! His pattern can be found here. Here he is!
Isn't he cute! (p.s. I went to The Phantom of the Opera, see my program?) He's a little voodoo dolly! I don't intend to use him for voodoo, he's just a cute decoration. Unfortunately, I have a moderate contact allergy to Phentex and other acrylic yarns that I forgot about. The palm of my left hand was all bumpy and the fingerpads are still all peely. Yummy, eh? I have these really itchy bumps on my fingertips so I have to chew on my fingers to scratch the itchies. Heres a little visual helper!
Lovely!

Another thing, not knitting related. Has anyone heard of The Waking Eyes? Go look them up, they're Canadian! Some of their popular songs are On a Train and But I Already Have It. The second one has a video on youtube.com Also, look up Mellisa Auf Der Maur or just Auf Der Maur, she's the former bassist for Courtney Love's band, Hole. I like her. Some of her songs are Real a Lie and Taste You. One more band! Sam Roberts! My favourite of all! Canadian too! His songs are Bridge to Nowhere, Where Have All the Good People Gone, The Gate, Don't Walk Away Eileen, Hard Road and Brother Down. (the ones with no links have no youtube videos)

Baaah like a sheep.

Have I ever mentioned that I play the drums and guitar? Well I do... I've had a drum kit for almost a year that I bought off of a friend who bought it off of someone else who bought it off another someone. So I got it for twenty bucks! Good deal! The only problem, I didn't have a bass pedal, until now! I just bought one a couple of weeks ago off of the same friend who sold me the drums, fifteen bucks! Almost as much as the whole kit, haha! Now I just have to get my mom to clear her crap out of the laundry room so I can unbury the drums from my old-old bedroom turned storage room for more of my moms crap and set it up so I can play!!! YAY! I've even been practicing, just not with actual drums, you know. I even have a hi-hat mascot! His name is jingle-bells, he's a marshmallow that I shoved onto the hi-hat post thingy and he dances when I use the hi-hat! I drew him an evil face with a purple pen, he's pretty rad.

Anyways, I think I'm about done here... I think I'm cured of my keyboard fear. Can't wait to order my elann.com stuff! Yay, so excited... So yeah, I done

Love from Kate


I FORGOT!!!! The reason I wanted to post today! HA! Smart me.

I found my new favourite LiveJournal Community! t shirt surgery is a group blog all about deconstructing and reconstructing t-shirts! I especially love this because yesterday, while my mom and I were hanging out in Chapters while waiting for 7:20 when The Devil Wears Prada started, I found this book called Tease!!! It's all about remodelling t-shirts! Something I really love to do, I've done it alot and I have many XL concert tees to redo. I also discovered OhMyStars.net the rest of Katie from katieknits site. She has some really excellent tutorials on remaking t-shirts into awesome things and on just sewing relly fresh things too! And some very innovative craft ideas that I will be sure to steal as soon as I get the chance! This Katie is not to be confused with me though, she's a tad more talented in the craftal area! Although our blog urls are different by only a letter. Hey, maybe I'll get some accidental blog hits on account of katieknits typos! I swear I didn't even know there was a katieknits when I signed up for kateknits! I thought of putting katieknits but I decided I liked kateknits better, I didn't even see that it was taken. Haha. Funny stuff. Anyways, she's awesome, if you haven't already, go see her. BTW, I love that cloud color chart and I printed it off, sorry, I might just have to steal it for something bag-like! It's adorable.

Anyways, I think I'm definately done now. Kachow. If I remember something else, I'll be back.