The pursuit of happyknits!

Er, Happy Presidents Day?

I’ve been doing some whim knitting lately. The first whim knit was kind of a bust:

Pattern: The Fidget

Knit in some Caron Simply Soft… I guess the whole point of this project was to display fancy pants yarn. Well I don’t have time for yarn snobbery or just general snobbery in my life, which is another story completely.

I’m just sad because I knew the second I finished it that it was an ‘enh’ project that I probably wouldn’t ever think about but whatever, it taught me how to knit one below. So, yaaaay for learning!

My second whim knit was a little more sweet, since I wear it pretty much all the time now:

Pattern: Hannah

Yarn: Sweet sweet Baby Alpaca Chunky by Cascade.

I knit this in a Sunday afternoon while watching one pretty good movie and another terrible terrible movie that suuuuucked. (Surprisingly, it wasn’t Shoot Em Up again.)

Since I seem to only be capable of wearing my hair in a ponytail, this hat was long overdue. Plus I love any pattern that has buttons! Yay buttons! John and I actually went out on Valentine’s day and shopped for buttons. I’m that devoted to them and he’s that devoted to me.

Oh yeah, not to be left out. Sax doesn’t usually like catnip at all but she loved Cath’s homegrown stuff.

Also, I’ve come to terms with being crazy, here’s a video of Sax and her nip:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

For my Irish Valentine <3

I know it’s a day early but I figured, hey, I’m thinking about it, so I should probably do a post before I get back in bed and overdose on antibiotics. (I have the strep, like I get every year. This year I preemptive striked it by seeing a new doctor near our new place who wears some really swanky shoes. However, it was not preemptive enough apparently.)

Pattern: Be My Dishcloth by Kristen Patay

Yarn: Lily Sugar ‘n Cream solid in green

I don’t know how smart it is to knit a dishcloth for a boy for Valentine’s day. He’s such a weird boy that I’m hoping he’ll see it and say it’s the most perfect gift he’s ever gotten. However, I’m sure he would rather have an XBOX 360. Although in my mind, they’re pretty much the same thing, only this is useful. Poor guy. (We got the tulips at the grocery store the other day, they’re my favorite flower! I don’t know if it’s because I think they’re pretty, I’m pretty sure it’s because I think they’re smart.)

Also, this one has been brewing for a while but just in case she ever checks this blog (which I’m pretty sure she doesn’t) I didn’t want to put up the pictures of them finished. So here are the socks I knit for my Granma, she got them in time for Valentine’s Day!

Pattern: Hedera by Cookie A.

Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Sock in Periwinkle.

This was an edge of the seat nail biter type knit because I was so paranoid that they wouldn’t fit. That she’d be allergic to the wool. That I’d accidentally knit in one of those seven year chain mail curses and then she’d have to send socks out to fifteen people or it would be seven years of raining toads or something. Because… that happens all the time, right?

However, she maintains that she loves them:

My poor aunt Gerri got suckered into taking this picture and sending it to me.

socks! in! action!

Oh man, just typing that has taken all of my energy. (Also, I’m going to randomly insert here that my aunt Gerri is married to my uncle Tom. How freaking cool is that? Tom and Gerri, I love it!)

As for the socks, they were a great knit once I finally decided to set the shawl aside and just focus on the socks to get them done before Valentine’s day as a nice sort of present. I of course can see all the mistakes (especially the row where I don’t know what I was doing but it certainly wasn’t the pattern!) but Granma maintains that I’m the best knitter in the world and she’s proud of me, so… I guess I really can’t disagree with the woman.

Sax was irritated I got in the way of her silhouette campaign photo.

Socks, a dishcloth- whoa. I guess February really is the month to get thangs done. Like sleeping, I think I’ll get that done right now.

They saw me coming…

I went to the yarn store to pick up a book…

Oh yeah, and some chunky alpaca yarn.

Did she see me coming or what? The thing about yarn stores is that you can’t get mad because it’s not high pressure sales really. (Well there is one store around here that I had a high pressure sales experience with but that was just a weird situation, so I don’t know if it counts.) It’s friendly pressure sales. She was my friend who knew I was interested in some yarn (like a month ago) and she happened to get it in (two weeks after I stopped caring) and it was kind of the color I wanted (except a little chalkier than I wanted) so I really couldn’t argue with that.

Dang, am I bitchy or what?

Oh yeah, it’s probably because my cat is in hiding thanks to this little fuzzball:

Fur EVERYWHERE.

This is my husbands new cat. I say she’s my husband’s new cat because if I said she was our cat, you would be getting posts from me from the beyond since that is where Sax will send me.

Tensions are running high here. I think we need to get a kitty calmer but dang those things are expensive. At least I coaxed her out from behind the TV and got her to stop hissing long enough to force her to take a yarn shot:

Such a sweetie.

So yeah, we have a new cat! However, we tried calling her Jade, as per Betty’s suggestion and she was having none of that, so we’re still looking for name suggestions. So far the only thing she has responded to was Dilophosaurus and considering I can’t even spell that and she eventually got irritated with the name, we’re back to square one. I honestly think she’s just playing it up. Like she plays up the gimp leg- but that’s another story for another time.

Oh crap, she’s giving Sax a run for her money.

In the next post: actual! finished! project!

FO February

…except maybe not, since I was going to write this post three two days ago and it didn’t happen. I might not be starting this year out on the right foot, now that I think about it. I might be starting it out on the week or so behind foot. Either way, while I was procrastinating on doing everything, I managed to knit myself a hat:

Dizzy Hat by Berroco Design Team.

I used some sweet Caron Simply Soft for this hat with size 8 and size 9 needles.

This hat was basically a “oh crap it’s going to get cold and I don’t know where my hat got to in the move” type knit. You know the kind, right? It was a semi-quick knit, definitely not the fastest hat since it’s not super chunky yarn or anything but it was enjoyable. The pattern was just easy enough that I could knit it while watching Eastern Promises (yikes!) and still read the random subtitles. While being just interesting enough that it still got made.

Can you tell that I’m a fan of a warm head?

What else has been going on? Ennnnnnh.