Dance your cares away...

I'm a Scorpio. I like to think that I'm pretty laid-back for a Scorpio, but one trait that I definitely have is stubbornness. Back in high school, I pretty much refused to accept that it was cold out until October, so I'd wear shorts to school when it was 55 degrees out, just as long as it was still September.

This compulsion has changed a bit over the years. I actually wear pants during the summer now... however, nowadays I won't turn on the heat for the season until I've reached a point where I'm sitting here shivering. This means lots of hot chocolate (just awful, I know), and a tendency to wear hats like the following:

That fabulous creation was intended to be part of my Red Fraggle costume for Halloween this year. The pattern can be found here; the brim and pigtails are a strand of red and orange Fun Fur held together, and the body of the hat is TLC Cotton-Ease.

The Red Fraggle costume idea has fallen by the wayside in favor of River from Serenity/Firefly, but the hat still needed to be seen.

Neat bug pictures

Check out what I found on my balcony this morning:

I don't know what it is--probably just a grasshopper--but it's cool. And it's still out there, lounging on my fine Ikea outdoor table. The table's green, so maybe he feels camouflaged.

New Yarn!

Here are this weekend's Stitch DC purchases:

That's the start of a Branching Out scarf in the Cotton Cashmere. And no, the Silky Wool isn't anywhere near as orange as it looks, but de-oranging the picture makes the other stuff look way too blue. It's much more of a standard hot pink, and will probably become a lightweight sweater for me.

I'm still a little bit boggled at all of the pink stuff, as pink is usually the one of the LAST colors I'm drawn to. And yes, the Branching Out is a gift, and I knew that when I was buying the yarn, but still... am I becoming girly? Horrors.

I don't know what to do with myself

I have no WIPs right now. None. ZERO. I frogged a couple of things over the weekend, and finished the 2 WIPs that I still had going.

What did I finish?

My Clapotis! 3 skeins of Wool in the Woods Seed-n-Such, "Oslo" colorway.

Here's my couch modeling it:

A slightly closer view:

And an extreme close-up:


I love the yarn. The colors are every bit as obnoxious in person as they look on screen, and the texture is really neat. It wasn't the easiest yarn to work with, because the slubs tended to make one stitch look like two stitches. Once I got used to that, it wasn't a problem.

Finished project #2 is something I've come to call the Bag of Fate. When I was in junior high and high school, I was obsessed with Mystery Science Theater 3000. One of the "experiments", as they called the movies that they would snark on, was Manos: The Hands of Fate, a truly horrible movie about a family that finds a temple to "Manos" run by the Master and Torgo. There might also be an entrance to hell, but it's not all that clear. It's ranked #1 on the IMDB "Bottom 100", and no movie could be more deserving.

Anyway, the fact that there's a yarn line from "Manos del Uruguay" has amused the heck out of me for a few months now. It spawned the Bag of Fate, based on the hand design on the Master's robe. It's my first design, my first intarsia, and my first foray into felting. I just hope the Master likes it, because I wouldn't want to end up like Torgo.

Pre-felting:

Close-up of the hands:
It took 2 skeins of Black, 1 skein of Cherry Red (color 48). I officially love this yarn. It comes out with a cool bumpy texture when felted.

Yarn porn!

This is the package of more Manos (this, at least, was on sale) that I ordered from Flying Fingers.

Yes, that's a postcard in back, with a nice handwritten note from one of the owners. Fast shipping, REASONABLY PRICED shipping, and nice touches like pretty tissue paper and a note during what I'd imagine was a crazy sale for them... I'd order from them again without any hesitation.

Here's the yarn out of the box.

And this is some more Wool in the Woods yarn that I got at All About Yarn during our unofficial Knittyboard gathering there last weekend. This is "Frizee", and I have no idea what the colorway is, because the labels don't say.

I just have to find something other than a Clapotis to make with it... I need some time away from Clapotises.

Can't put this off any longer

Ok, I figured it was about time to post a silly picture of me with my Jayne hat. The orange and red (the earflaps are red, honest) are Elsebeth Lavold Angora, and the yellow is Jaeger Baby Merino DK... so it's a ridiculously soft, yet kinda silly, hat.


I used about 3 different needle sizes on it (yes, on purpose).

This evening, I taught myself how to do intarsia for a bag I'm working on. Too much fun! The only colorwork I've done up to now has been stripes, and suddenly I can do stuff OTHER than stripes... the mind, she boggles. And all the little yarn bobbins are kind of fun.