Chic on the Halfshell

There I was last Wednesday, happily raiding Mount Hyjal with my guild, ready for a try on Kaz'rogal... when my internet went kaput. Checked my TV... no TV either.

I went to call Comcast, and apparently they have a different definition of "24-hour customer service" than I do. I think it means that a customer can call 24 hours a day and receive service. They think it means "If someone's in our call center, your call may be answered eventually. If not, we'll automatically disconnect your call." This was one of those pesky "auto-disconnect" periods. After the tenth time my call got disconnected by Comcast, I decided to find something better to do with my time.

I started going through the patterns I've downloaded from Ravelry, and there was Drew Emborsky's Chic on the Halfshell bag just begging to be started.

A week later, and here it is all seamed up:


It still needs a lining. I have the fabric, I just need to figure out how to line something that's shaped vaguely like a TIE fighter. This was a fun FAST pattern, and I think the end product is cute as heck.

Pattern: Chic on the Halfshell by Drew Emborsky
Hook: 5.0 mm (H)
Yarn: TLC Cotton Plus Solid
1 skeins = 178.0 yards (162.8m)
Colorway: 3643 Kiwi

Yellowstone

More at my Flickr set

Yellowstone was amazing. I wish we'd had more time to see it, because even with spending a full day there, we had to skip a lot. You can't really plan how long it will take to get from one place to another, because you never know when you're going to get stuck in an hour-long traffic backup caused by people taking pictures of a bear (which will, of course, be gone by the time you get to where everyone ahead of you stopped). We saw tons of bison and elk, and even saw a couple of moose on our side trip to the Grizzly Bar in Roscoe, MT; I found a picture of the place here. I probably would have taken a picture myself, had I not left my camera sitting in my car in the Dulles long term parking lot. All of the pictures I have are off J's camera, but I did at least take some of them.

After Yellowstone, I camped out at J's house for the week. I found plenty to occupy myself with while J was at work. I met him for lunch every day, got my fleischkeuchle fix (German for "greasy but fabulous fried meat pie"), played WoW, knit... he's such a sweetie, he even found the one place in town that sells yarn and made sure to take me there. The one day that he had to work late, he called me to come out to the job site with him rather than have me sit around at the house for another hour and a half. He gets gold stars. Lots of them.

Anyway, once I got home I needed some retail yarn therapy...


Yes, I'm trying to accumulate enough of the Jimmy Beans monthly Lorna's Laces colors to be able to Do Something. I have big delusional dreams of a sock yarn blanket.

Where have I been?

Montana!

Just got back Sunday night, and there will be pictures just as soon as I'm done sorting through what I have (I had to use J's camera since I left mine sitting in my car in the airport parking lot... it was 5am, I was a bit out of it).

The socks that never end

Well, I guess if I talk about the unending kilt hose, I should show where we are:





I am about, oh, halfway done the leg. I have another few repeats of the calf decrease rounds, then another 8" of leg ribbing, then turn the heel, then approximately a size 12 foot.

I'm having pretty severe motivation problems. They're not for me, so I can't just put them in a time-out basket for a few weeks. And if I don't want to be working on them for the next 6 months, I have to find a way to work on them MORE, not less.

They will be gorgeous when they're finished. That's my mantra for this project: They will be gorgeous when they're finished.

The stuff of nightmares

Took a much-needed break from endless black ribbing in order to make this guy...



He was a birthday present for L, my co-WoW-geek at work. L has at least 2 stuffed Cthulhus (Cthulhi?) that I know of, so as soon as I saw The Elder God pattern in the Anticraft's Imbolc '08 issue, I made a mental post-it note about it.

I have never had an FO make me laugh as hysterically as this one did. I was cracking myself up during the assembly phase, particularly during tentacle application.



My mods were nothing huge. I made a set of wings as specified in the pattern, but couldn't get them to arrange themselves the way I wanted. I fought with them for about an hour before deciding that maybe it was time for different wings. I crocheted two triangles, folded them over, and sewed them on. Instant wings!

I left off the first tiny part of the face adornment and just gave him angry eyebrows. VERY horrifying.

And then there were the tentacles. The pattern tentacles are pretty small. I made a set, held them up to his face... He looked like he had a small, scraggly green beard. I wasn't exactly filled with abject terror and insanity. It definitely called for longer tentacles, which I made by just doubling the chain lengths and then doing sc back to 2 stitches before the other end of the chain. The individual chains started curling and ended up looking super-tentacly and awesome.



Now I just need one for me...