I've been feeling recently like my knitting time has not been my own. I think that I'm just too selfish and don't like spending time making things for other people. Since the last time I posted (years ago!) there was a huge ole debacle with my WEBS order. I wait for at least eight days, and then my yarn finally came. I'm all excited about it, and then it turned out to only be half of my order. The crappy half. The rest of it had been backordered but they never informed me. And I was careful to pick yarn that had multiple balls in stock still (according to their site). The
Cascade Ecological was on backorder as well as the Malabrigo lace. What did come was the ball of Rowan Calmer and a bunch of balls of garish acrylic. The acrylic felt kind of gross, not as soft as something I would buy at Michael's. I could have expected the colors would be off of the pictures, but they were way off. What I thought was white, ended up being fluorescent yellow. I bought eight colors, but only three or four were going to work for the Pinwheel sweater. I emailed WEBS with kind of a disgruntled message. They called me back and gave me a fake apology. "Well, I'm sorry you're upset.." Like it was my fault that they messed up. They claimed the emails were being bounced back even though I had gotten multiple other emails from them. Two exchanges later and I had to cancel the rest of my order. And I still haven't bought any Cascade Ecological.
I had been on a bit of a deadline, because I wanted to bring the hat up to my Uncle's when I went to visit him. But the yarn took too long to get there and I had to finish it later. It was the Shedir hat from the special Breast Cancer issue of Knitty. My gauge was way off, so it ended up a little too big, and needing a second ball of yarn. But I may be able to make another one that's a little small with the left over yarn.
So back to the acrylic. I started the Pinwheel Sweater a few weeks ago. I've been sitting around hating it ever since. When people ask me what I'm knitting, I give a bunch of disclaimers, ranting about how much I don't like the yarn. How it would be different colors, different yarn if only I hadn't already bought this crap. I finished it today. The sleeves are knit in a grey color, that even though it's the same yarn as the rest of the body feels like it's made of petroleum. Maybe if I wash it first it will soften up. I'm trying to delude myself that there's spinning oil in it or something. The pattern was kind of fun though. I don't think I can ever make it again, but I don't hold it against the pinwheel. It was kind of hard to figure out how to weave in ends, and where to do arm decreases because the sweater can be turned upside down and stuff.
I also wanted to enter Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunken Cat Sweater contest. My co-worker had the great idea to make a Freddy Krueger sweater, because of the claws. I used some of the acrylic The Leader (it's good for something!) yarn to make a red and green striped sweater. I wanted it to look kind of ragged so I put some deliberate holes and drop stitches in it. But these somehow evened out and it just looked kind of sloppy. I even put short rows in the back of the neck to accomodate his hunch. As it turns out, cat bodies are really weird. They are totally different when they're sitting versus when they're standing. Something was missing though, so I made Paquito a felted fedora to go with it. I used a free pattern online for a felted cowboy hat accessory. I had to make it a little bigger, but it ended up working out great. I used KnitPicks Wool of the Andes that I had left over. Probably like half a skein. It felted really quick by hand. Then I just used little safety pins and pinned a rubber band under the hat to put it on his head. I bought ribbon to trim the hat with, but the hat part sloped too much to be able to attach it well. He was such a good sport. He didn't really freak out, but he sat there really still and kind of dejected. I guess that's his own way of freaking out. Here's a couple pictures:
This is the one that I entered into the contest.
But this one is my favorite.
There are more in Flickr and there should be some more soon, once I get some pictures developed.
I also finally finished the Victorian Lace Today shawl. I need to block it before so I can take some good pictures. It turned out pretty good. I think it's going to be huge. It's already huge before blocking. I just got those fancy Myrna Stahlman blocking wires, now I just need a good place to block something that huge. And I'll have to be sure to lock the kitties out of my room so they don't tear it apart. They're kind of savages.
More soon. My next projects are Cat Bordhi socks, a beret from my handspun and maybe a big project. Look pictures finally!
