Saturday, July 29, 2006

He makes me dream of David Hasselhoff

Well, in regards to being a knit blogger, I lose. The closest thing was casting on for an attempt at fair isle/arglye and promptly got ticked off with sweaty palms + acrylic + metal needles + sleep madness, so I gave up. I have now added another potential sweater, 'Casual Cables' from the Patons 'Shetland Ragg' booklet. That now brings my choices to three: design my own, Basketcase, or Casual Cables. It makes me realize that yarn is expensive. I have never bought more than three balls of any given type of yarn for a project before, and now I'm faced with anywhere from $80 to $130 for a sweater. That is too big of a portion of my paycheque...

My header says I do crafty things beside knitting. This is as good a time as any to show one off.

























He is my second sewn plushie, the first was an extrememly basic webcomic character for a friends birthday (krakkagar from Scary Go Round). But this little dude was solely of my own contriving. He came to me in a vision... "Fat man in a bellbottomed suit with a big red 'fro". And I knew he must be made. He is far from perfect, and nameless, and may yet be given to my good friend Ms. W. as a birthday gift (she is out of town, so I may mail him away).
I kind of like him, and oy, that chest hair? Tres Smexy!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

And a yo ho ho to you too!

So I haven't knit in a spell now, still debating about that sweater thing ("Basketcase" from Tara Jon Manning's 'Men In Knits' is quite likely to get done though. Yarn Shoppe is closed until Tuesdya though. Nuts). But I found something that is really tempting me to do another pair of socks. Argyle Socks. Deliciously subversive Argyle Socks.
Coupled with an old Monarch Knits sock magazine (pre-1945, I forget the precise date right now) which has a load of applicable sock designs, including Argyle Socks (and they are all men's sizes!!!), I may have a back-burner sock pattern in the works. If only I could have figured this out yesterday, BEFORE the Shoppe closed for two days...