Days of Sweaters Past.

Working on a currently nameless sweater. VERY exciting, since the body is completed, and now it'll just be sleeves, yoke, and tucking in ends.

The yarns are Cascade Ecowool and a miscellaneous ball of handspun from a small producer... tag's around here somewhere. Anyway, once I slog through a few more miles of stockinette and transcribe my notes, the pattern will be posted! Although sizing may be funky, since I made it to fit my measurements (and it DOES, is the surprising and awesome thing) so it may be a little hard for me to adapt to "standard" sizes. We'll see!

No time for love, Docta Jones!

That Sesame cardigan I thought for sure was going to be done over a month ago certainly isn't. First, it was because I was tired of stockinette. "I'll just knit a couple of hats," I thought. And I did. But I still wasn't ready to go back. "Well... maybe I'll knit the Jellyfish shrug. That'll be quick." Oh, lordy, how wrong I was. Still working on it, actually.

Why too busy for knitting? It isn't for lack of desire, that's for sure. (I'm also behind on embroidered Giftmas presents. That's right. It's almost February.) But first I got a job for the month of December, and now, just when I'm unemployed enough to get my knit on again, the BF and I are moving in together.

Have you ever seen the movie The Money Pit? Well, me neither, but I've picked up enough of it on Comedy Central to say that it's a pretty good approximation of what we're going through with this new apartment. At first, we thought we got a deal. The landlord waived the security deposit because we agreed to paint the place. Why did the place need painting? Well... we've deducted all kinds of fun facts about the previous tenant from the clues and detritus she left behind. Like that jet black wall in the living room, facing a blood red wall. Or the delightful sponge painting in the bedroom and bathroom. Or the crust of dried catfood under the refrigerator and yellow nicotine stains on the kitchen ceiling. And the neon pink drape in the bedroom. Are you drawing the same conclusions? That this girl was thirty, obsessed with Vampire the masquerade, smoked (probably) Virginia Slims like a chimney whilst heating her sad meals in the crusty oven and stroking her seven adopted cats? We hate her.

So that's the current craft project. And it's going.... fairly well. Two coats of primer and a topcoat later, the living room is no longer black in the least, and is instead a cheery yellow. The bedroom no longer looks like the beige fairy got sick all over it, and is a pale blue. The fist sized holes in the drywall are filled with Spackle, the ceiling in the kitchen is relatively white again, and the boyfriend and I haven't even had a screaming match. (Although tempers were running high for a couple of days there.) Still. If you're ever in this situation, pay the effing security deposit.

Soon there will be a new hat pattern here for your perusal, probably just in time for spring. And someday, I will knit again.

For the head.

Everyone is getting hats for Christmas! Besides the Raisin Beret, I just wrote a pattern for what I'm calling my Bubbly Blue Beanie (which is a little slouchy, but not so much as to be defined as a beret...). I'm hoping to get that typed up and posted here by Thanxgiving. Also in the works is a star stitch beret pattern, but that depends on what cheap yarn finds I can grab at Michaels today (I'm poor, don't judge me.) Since they're having a sale, I just may pick up enough cotton ease to make that vogue cardigan I've been eying for a year now.

Also plugging away at Magknits Sesame... it's slow going just because the stockinette stitch is so boring I could die. But now that the back is done, it's all long, narrow pieces and finishing. I hope to by done in the next couple of weeks. Which is good, because I need all the sweaters I can get up here.

That's the crafting news for now. I'm off to the post office and the Michaels.

Raisin Beret

Looking for a slouchy, comfy, warm, simple-but- not-boring beret? I was. Looking for a way to get rid of those skeins of Simply Soft you thought you were going to make into an afghan, back when you thought you were going to learn how to crochet? Yeah, me, too. Raisins to the rescue!

Raisin Beret.

Size: One (To fit average adult head between 20"-22")

Materials: One-half skein (apx. 150 yds) Caron Simply Soft, color Chocolate 9750, or other worsted weight yarn.
One set US 3 dpns.
One set US 10 dpns.

Gauge: 16 sts/20 rnds= 4" (St st on larger needles.)

Pattern Notes:

Lace pattern:
Rnds 1-5: Knit.
Rnds 6 and 8: *yo, k2tog. Rep from *.
Rnds 7 and 9: *yo, ssk. Rep from *.

Pattern:

CO 104 sts on smaller needles.

Work 11 rnds in 1x1 rib.

Switch to larger needles and complete lace pattern three times.

Next 4 rnds: Knit.

Begin shaping:

Next rnd: *K6, k2tog. Rep from *.
Next rnd: *yo, k2tog. Rep from * until 3 sts remain, sl1, k2tog, psso. (90 sts remain.)
Next rnd: *yo, ssk, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso. Rep from *. (72 sts remain.)
Next rnd: *yo, k2tog. Rep from *.
Next rnd: *yo, ssk, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso. Rep from * until two stitches remain. Yo, ssk. (58 sts)
Next rnd: Knit.
Next rnd: *k3, k2tog. Rep from * until three sts remain. K3.
Next rnd: Knit.
Next rnd: *k2, k2tog. Rep from * until 3 sts remain. K3.
Next rnd: Knit.
Next rnd: *k1, k2tog. Rep from *.
Next rnd: *k2tog. Rep from*.
Next rnd: *k2tog. Rep from*.

Cut yarn and draw through remaining stitches with tapestry needle, pulling snug. Tuck in ends.

Crafty things on the agenda:

- Block someone's mother's X-Mas gift.
- Start on someone else's X-mas gifts (well, it has to be a surprise, doesn't it?)
- Start on the worlds ugliest armwarmers (They're going to look like cat yack, and it totally isn't my fault) as per request.
- Purchase some floss and fabric to start on embroidered sampler.
- Complete second delicious alpaca sock for myself.
- Begin Fair Isle alpaca hat... just as soon as I teach myself Fair Isle and write the pattern.
- Swatch and write pattern for Birch jacket.
- Make t-shirt that says "I got boned at the Petrified Creatures Museum, Richfield Springs New York"
- Make a t-shirt that says "I got beaver fever! Richfield Springs, 2006"

This list is only going to get longer. Trust me.

Expect some pictures later this week of a certain awesome pair of legwarmers, and a blocked scarf that someone's mother is getting for X-mas.