The Soul Destroying Monster

I am a good Sister. Scratch that, I am an amazing sister! I will pretty much knit my brother anything that he asks for. Now this may not sound like it makes me an amazing sister since I like knitting, so why is it so amazing of me to acquiesce to a request to knit? Well my brother doesn't ever ask for normal things like socks, beanies, scarves, no he wants funny hats. Lots and lots of funny hats. In the past I have made him a Jayne Cobb Hat, a Lumberjack Hat with THREE interchangeable mustaches, and a hat shaped like something straight from hell (These are all Rav links). This is in addition to set of convertible mittens, and a set of washcloths for his new apartment (again, Rav links). So when my brother asked me to make him the Cthulhuclava for his birthday, I agreed even though you have to pay for the pattern and as a rule, I don't like to pay for single patterns. So I bought the pattern, read through it, and promptly shoved it into the very bowels of my knitting bag because it just looked miserable. Look at this:



That's not even half of all the ends that you have to weave in for this project. Not to mention the fact that there is more seaming than you could possibly expect from a hat (no matter how silly) and an EIGHT STITCH APPLIED I-CORD! Yes my friends, this truly is the project from hell.
So I told my brother a few little white lies about how I was diligently working on the hat, and that he would have it soon, soon, soon, soon... When, in actuality, I was cowering in fear from the very idea of even beginning. (I know this doesn't make me sound like I'm an amazing sister, but trust me, the act of knitting this how, no matter how late it ended up being, make me some sort of goddess I'm pretty sure.

Here's what the hat looks like when it feels like you're almost done but really you have way more to go than you possible care to imagine:



(The flipping off of the camera was not intentional, though it may have been a subconscious reaction to the hat...)

Finally, here's what the hat looks like when all is said (read sworn) and done:





If you know anything about Cthulhu, you know that he is a crazy sea-monster-type creature from the twisted brain of H. P. Lovecraft. If humans hear his call they instantly go insane. The creator of the pattern I'm sure had this in mind when she was writing it because I was feeling a bit wacko there at the end.

In other good/disturbing news, Stash Inventory 2009 is complete. Every ball of yarn I own is now accounted for in my Ravelry stash. It is both a beautiful and terrible sight. After taking a long hard look at how much yarn I actually have I decided that I would not buy yarn until at least 2010 because, really, it's a bit obscene how much yarn I have. Not two days later, my dad asked me to make him a hat in colors that I don't have in my stash... Seriously, the world is out to destroy my soul.

STASH!

So I kinda fell off the wagon with the whole, post-at-least-once-a-week thing, but I have good reason. First, I, um, graduated from College!



So now I guess I'm like an adult or something... It's weird. I'm going straight to law school in the fall though so I'll have to give that whole real-world deal a rain check.

Before and after graduation I had to pack! Remember those photos of my room I showed you last post? Well, here's the end result of all my effort:





Given all that, there was not much time for knitting. I finished one of my hope socks on the drive from Wisconsin to New Mexico, but I never get as much knitting done in the car as I think I will. I end up staring out the window or sleeping... Here's the sock just after it came off the needles.





Now that I'm down in New Mexico I haven't had time to knit much because my brother and Andrew are both visiting so I've been doing things with them before they go. I managed to frog my market bag back to the beginning of the lace section and knit it back to where it was sans errors. They were starting to multiply at an alarming rate to the point that I couldn't just ignore them.

Just before I left school I knit a pair of fingerless mits for one of the women I've been working with for the past four years. Like the coffee cozy, it came from a yarn sampler sold by Knit Picks last year. It was called the "Victorian" sampler and it came with one skein of all of their yarn lines that contain cotton and few simple one-skein patterns. The mits are the Victorian Sampler Fingerless Gloves and the yarn is Shine Sport in color Willow. It's just as soft and nice to work with as the Shine Worsted, I'll for sure use it again. The pattern was easy to follow but I omitted the picot bind-off because it didn't look very good in most photos so I did three rows of 1x1 ribbing instead.







The reason that this post is called stash is because since I've been home this is the first time in a year that my entire stash has all been together in the same place and it's a bit overwhelming! I decided to go through everything and add it to my Ravelry stash page and it's working pretty well as a wake-up call. Check it out (rav link) and I'm still quite a ways from done... A good 1/3 of my stash is sock yarn... I knit about 3 pairs of socks a year... I can knit socks for the next TEN years and yet every time I walk into an LYS the first place I go is the sock yarn corner... I am now committing myself to no more yarn buying until after Christmas. I'm counting on you all to make sure that happens.

All in all I accomplished a lot life wise in the past week and a half, but not really much knitting wise...

Yikes, look at the time!

Holy crap, it's June 5th! Graduation is a week from Sunday and I have to be totally packed and ready to move by then. Just to let you see what that will entail...






So I've been a bit busy with school and working on my honors project and different dinners and activities and send-offs and I've kind of neglected to, um, clean... Not all the crap in those photos belongs to me, but a fair bit of it sure does.

I've recently finished two super quick, less than one skein projects. The first is from the book Creepy Cute Crochet and Andrew really did practically beg for it.







It's a tiny wool Cthulhu (rav link). It will eat your soul, but in such an adorable way that you won't even mind. The yarn is Nature Spun by Brown Sheep in the color Limestone. It took one evening but I don't really crochet so I had to stop at every new direction and find a youtube video showing me how to do each step. If I knew how to crochet it would probably have gone sure fast. I'm not generally a fan of crochet (that's why I don't know how to do it) but I love amigurumi so I think I'll adapt my skills just enough to make more.

The other quick project I finished at 2:00 am today because I couldn't put it down once I cast on. It's from the Victorian yarn sampler that KnitPicks released about a year ago. The kit contained one skein each of all of their yarns that contained cotton along with a few one-skein type patterns so you could try out all the yarns without too much time or money invested and see if you liked them. This is a cozy for paper coffee cups like you would get a Starbucks so you don't have to use the cardboard ones. Yeah for cheap easy ways to be green.





These are the two different rose motifs that are stranded on the cozy, and here's what it looks like on an actual cup:





The pattern is called Modern Tea Cozy and it's now a free download from KnitPicks. The yarn used is KnitPicks Main Line in Harbor which I haven't used even though I've had the kit for over a year. Of course, since KnitPicks has decided to discontinue the yarn line, I loved working with it and want to make a bunch more things with it. The wool totally balances out the cotton in a perfect way and it's soft and has stretch and the Harbor color is gorgeous. The color in the first picture is much truer to real life. The red/pink/orange yarn is KnitPicks Shine Worsted in Terra Cotta. I've used this yarn before and it is super soft and (go figure) shiny. I know from when I made my spring sweater (rav link) that the yarn does lose some of its shine and softness after some wear and several washings, but it's still nice.

The last think that I've really been working on this week is the Montavilla Market Tote from (guess what) KnitPicks... can you see where a great deal of my money goes? This also came as a kit and is a way to try out the four shades of Simply Cotton - KnitPicks new organic cotton line. The bottom of the bag is the perfect pattern for a market bag because it's super sturdy. It's a slip stitch pattern so it's basically double the thickness.



I love the way the colors flow from white to taupe and then drastically go back to white. The body of the bag is a simple 8-stitch lace pattern but I think the color change still obscures the pattern.





I think when I make the second one I'll do the bottom the same, then do blocks of color instead of alternating every row. Carrying four strands along the side has been very tedious.

I know it seems like I've gotten a lot done this week from all the photos but really two of the projects took me less than five hours total. Here's hoping I can magically knit down a bunch more of my stash before it's time to move.