Enabling

We're going to Japan next month (!), and as soon as we booked the trip I decided I was going on a yarn diet, so that I could save my money to buy yarn, among other things, while we're there.

But then there was that Naruto yarn from GnomeAcres that I needed to have immediately, because who knew how much of it she would make and how often it would be available. And then there was a present I needed to start working on, and I had to buy some yarn for that. And now my local yarn store is having its pre-inventory sale, and what was I supposed to do, just not go?

I have been staring at their shelves of madelinetosh every time I've gone in the store since early this summer. Really, it was for my own well-being, to end the torment of wanting to have the yarn but knowing I shouldn't really spend the money. (Full disclosure, I used a gift card that still had some money on it, so really it was about time to buy this yarn.)

So, like the very few, very brief food diets I've attempted in my life, it seems that deciding I'm "on a diet" does nothing other than trigger this desperate urge to gobble up everything I'm not supposed to have before I remember that I'm not supposed to have it.

But now, really, I'm not getting anything until we're back from Japan.

Unless there's another sale somewhere. Or I decide I need some Christmas-y GnomeAcres mini-skeins.

Like finishing all over again

Having finally witnessed the glory of blocking when I finished my Old Town scarf this summer, I decided to go back and block my first FO, my Old Shale scarf. At the time, blocking sounded really scary and complicated, and I decided I was happy enough with how my scarf looked un-blocked. I was sure that if I did try to block it, I would somehow ruin its appearance or texture. Better not to risk it.

Now I know better, so I blocked it, and then I was so happy with it I had to wear it right away even though the weather just started to warm up again.

To make things even more exciting, I had always been mildly bothered by the very poor-quality picture of the scarf that I had on my Ravelry project page. So with it in its freshly-blocked, pretty state, I did another photo shoot. I went from this:

Ugh :(

To this:

Much better :)

I was never unhappy with this scarf, especially as my first completed knitting project, and now that I've given it a makeover I like it even more. But it is interesting to realize that while I still feel like just as much of a beginner most of the time, I have learned a few things since then. Like, it's really hard to see a) what you're doing and b) the pattern you created on dark yarn. And that blocking is not scary at all, but wonderful and magical. And that it is, in fact, possible to fix mistakes in lace (I restarted this scarf after working on it for weeks because I messed up and thought all was lost).

Two quick projects

My boyfriend has complained about cold hands at the office. Luckily for him, making warm things is my hobby! I showed him a few patterns on Ravelry and he picked out Sarah Chilson's Manly Mitts pattern. This was an easy and fast project, nearly instant gratification. And yes, both mitts are the same size, but the angle of the photo makes them look different.

As part of my ongoing stash-busting quest, I was driven to find some way to use up the remaining almost-full skein of this Bernat yarn that I had left over from making my mom a scarf for Christmas in 2008. I wanted to give her something else, since I picked the color for her, and she suggested a coordinating hat or ear warmer. Sarah Arnold's Divine Hat was really quick to crochet, and I think it will look okay with the Isar Scarf I made years ago. But, the pattern did seem to work up a little tight and short, so I'm waiting for my mom to try it on before finishing it.

And now it's time to cast on my first pair of socks! I'm using GnomeAcres' Naruto, as I mentioned before. I loved it in the skein and I love it even more after winding it into a ball. I'm really hoping my socks turn out okay!

If you give a cat a donut...

...Make sure you stuff some catnip inside because that's what they're really after.

I made this toy for my cat using Melissa Trenado's mini donuts cat toy pattern. It was inevitable, really. And she seems to like it:

And I, of course, like watching her gnaw a tiny donut while rolling around in glee.

I'll be making this pattern again, because after two weeks of fun, the donut is in a very sad state. Fortunately, it only took an hour or less to make. I used odds and ends of yarn, so the frosting and sprinkles are acrylic and the bottom part is cotton. I would definitely recommend using cotton for the whole thing, because the acrylic is very fuzzy and splitty. It has not held up nearly as well as the cotton to my cat's affections, plus I want to minimize the bits of fuzz she could potentially ingest. To keep the catnip in it from leaking out, I cut a couple squares of old pantyhose, put a pinch of Cosmic Catnip in each one, and tied them off, then put them into the donut with the stuffing.

Traveling cowl

I needed a project that I could take with me while I traveled to and around Texas, so after finishing up my iPad cozy (and taking a little break), I started the Chickadee Cowl. I thought it would be a nice way to use the Malabrigo Superfine Merino that I picked up earlier this year in San Francisco - the subtle color changes in the yarn would work well with the linen stitch, and the yarn is so soft that I definitely wanted to make something to wear around my neck. I cast on 167 stitches on US 6 needles to get the size the pattern called for with my DK weight yarn.

As it turns out, this is the perfect traveling project. It's one ball of yarn, one piece, and the finished object will be small. Circular needles are easy to fold up and pack. The stitch is super easy, so I could listen to my boarding section being called at the airport and pay attention to my relatives when I visited with them and put it down at any point. And, the pattern and the yarn are so pretty and interesting that it was a good conversation starter with both my family and the people sitting next to me on my flights.

I also liked the idea that I had gone all the way to California to get the yarn, and now it was accompanying me on a trip to Texas. I almost want to save it to work on during future trips.

Texas

Here's another excuse for my long lack of updates, but this one only covers one week: I was in Texas in early September, visiting relatives in Austin and New Braunfels. The last time I was in Austin was too long ago for me to remember, so it was nice to see someplace "new" to me. I only had a few full days there so I'm looking forward to going back and seeing more of the city.

I am also looking forward to another visit so that I can eat more BREAKFAST TACOS. All I really knew about them were that they existed, in Austin, in apparently copious amounts. Now I know that they are one of the best breakfast foods you can eat.

Also while we were in Austin, it was my donut day, so this happened:

I did not eat all of them. But, 50% of them were consumed by a single person, who shall remain unidentified.

In between the days in Austin, we went down to New Braunfels, where my grandmother used to live and where that side of the family still gets together to drink beer, play poker and go tubing.

It was a nice trip, long overdue. I ate more meat each day than I usually eat in a month, saw at least six lizards, and was yielded to in a crosswalk by a legit cowboy driving his pickup truck. And the 90+ degree temperatures made me appreciate the feeling of fall that greeted me when I got back home.

More Austin and New Braunfels photos are in my Flickr sets.

PS. While I was making this post, I realized that there was no good reason to be using such tiny pictures all through my blog, so I went through and resized them. All.

Another i-cozy

I would like to think that the urge to knit cozies for inanimate objects is a compulsion that most, maybe all, yarn-hobby-people feel and that some are better than others at stifling. I don't have any desire to make cozies for my tissue boxes or tea pots (not that I have tea pots) but for some reason, my i-devices all seem to need little socks to wear. And why not - they are always appreciative and can wear their garments no matter the season. My first knitting project, after graduating from scarves, was my iPod cozy, and it was definitely worth it no matter how questionable the idea of an iPod cozy may be to sane people. It taught me to use magic loop and Judy's magic cast on, and since I hope to tackle socks someday soon, I think it was probably good practice.

It also prepared me to successfully tackle my first winging-it, patternless knitting project: an iPad cozy, of course. Really, it's just a bigger version of the iPod cozy, but I'm pretty proud of it, mostly because it's awesome:

And it's awesome because it's Avengers! From the bottom up, it's Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Loki, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. The movie was the highlight of my early summer, so when I heard from a Knit 1 Geek 2 podcast that GnomeAcres was selling an Avengers mini-skein collection, I knew that I had no choice.

I bought it before I had any idea what to do with it, which is unusual for me - I like to at least pretend I know why I'm getting any yarn that I buy - but then I realized my iPad was looking pretty naked and as soon as the Ravellenics were over, I started on the cozy.

Not only am I pleased with my iPad's cute little sock, but I'm so happy to have discovered GnomeAcres. Amanda is great and her yarn is beautiful, to my eyes and to my nerdy brain. I already bought some more, a skein of Naruto that is destined for my first pair of socks. How convenient that Amanda has a Socktober KAL planned!