Friday, December 07, 2007

Yay!

Phew! Well, I finally got CS3! THANKS RAVI!!! I'd link to your blog but it hasn't been updated since like March.

So now I actually have photos of what I've been doing! Unfortunately, no sooner did I get CS3 (THANK YOU RAVI!!), did I find this wicked awesome site called Picnik. You can do all sorts of stuff to your photos there. Crop them, adjust them, etc. It integrates into Flickr too, which is HOT. And you can save photos straight to Flickr using that. Which is also hot. So go check it out.

Anyway. So I completed some projects. I still haven't managed to find time to get a photo of the skating sweater on me. And currently it's drying from being blocked. I got a lot of comments on it when I wore it a couple weeks ago. Someone at work, before I could even say I knit it, commented that she really liked it. It's really my first successful sweater.

I also completed one of my Monkey Socks. But I don't have a photo of that. And I just took a photo of it! I knit it out of Great Adirondak's Silky Sock in the Antique color way. I love how the yarn isn't really pooling at all. Check it out:

Monkey Socks Detail

Surprisingly, I was patient with this sock, so it actually fits. I usually get so excited to kitchener stitch that a lot of times I knit my socks too short. This one I didn't. I just have to make sure I don't knit the second one short either and I"ll be good to go. I've started on the second sock, but I'm kinda putting it on hold until I finish Ann's Midnight Dot Mittens.

I've started these mittens three times. It's kinda gotten to the point where if this next shot doesn't work, I kinda want to give up and hire someone to knit them for me.

Look what else I finished:

Bess and Jeff's Placemats with tags

Bess and Jeff's place mats!!! I haven't had a chance to pass them on to the recipients, but I did have a chance to take some glamor shots as you can see. There's more on Ravelry and Flickr.

Additionally, I knit a hat. You see, my old Sparkle hat from SNB was the first hat I really knit for myself. So it has some sort of sentimental value. This was before I realized the wonder of pattern erratas. I used the wrong size needles for the top of the hat (even though they were the needles used according to the pattern), and so the hat didn't really fit right. It's been a long time. That hat has started to look kinda shoddy. Looking felted even. So last year I bought some paiettes (don't even ask where, I've no idea, somewhere on 6th ave in the upper 30s) with the notion of knitting a new Sparkle hat. I had to dig for them, but I finally found them, punched holes in them, and the next night set to knitting the hat. It took me one night to do (I finished it shortly after Bleach ended on Adult Swim on a Wednesday night). And so I present to you, Sparkle Hat 2.0:

Sparkle Hat 2.0

Nope, a photo can't get more myspace than that! I've gotten several comments about it. The manager at the Point laughed at me. But the best was some guy on the subway platform at Pacific Street. He came up to me and said "I noticed your hat from several pillars away. I just wanted to say that I like it and it's very festive." I smiled at him and thanked him. And then he disappeared.

This is important. I didn't say "oh thank you I knit it myself in a night" like I usually do. I just thanked him. It was significantly easier than telling someone, "no really, it's easy." or "yeah, I probably could sell them, but I don't feel like it." Why is it that people want me to be a sweatshop? Really?!

On a completely separate note, I thought I'd share some resources I've recently stumbled upon outside of Ravelry.

Knit Map is awesome. You plug in your zip code and they find knitting stores around you. I'm still not sure it's really complete. I did a search for Staten Island and it said that there weren't any there. I'm sure there has to be at least one knitting store on SI.
knitblog.com has a whole index of where to find pattern errata for several different books.

There was another cool thing, but I've completely forgotten it. Anyway...isn't that enough!?