New Year? Bringing the pain.

Okay, the new year means good things for you, blog town.

I am determined this year to get shit done. (Hopefully right but I’m not making any promises.) As I was reflecting over my past year of glory, I realized, sure, things have been swell but what about the knitting? You can only stray so far from your roots before remembering you have roots… and they don’t go anywhere. (That’s like essential roots theory there.)

So this year, I am making a solemn vow. If there were blood here, I’d make a blood oath. My stash is going to get knit the fuck up people. If it doesn’t, I’m going to burn it. (…or give it away like a sane person, or someone going into a monastery.) I’ve even started an internet campaign full of like-minded people to keep me honest. Heh. You can follow along if you’re interested: Stash Killers.

I also knit some crap for people for Christmas. All using stash yarn. I’m just a G like that.

First up, I knit my mom a shawl. She said she wanted a shawl and I figured, okay, if it’s something she specifically says she wants, she has to love it.

I think she kind of loved it.

It was the Simple Yet Effective Shawl and I’ve got to say, that sucker lives up to its name. I added some random yo’s to keep it interesting for myself but it ended up being relatively enjoyable. I used yarn that a lady gave me from my knitting group. It was an intense wool. Read as: real wool. It raked my hands over good. I really need to stop taking in any more wool, especially BFL. So yeah, noted.

I also made a coworker a hat. But because I’m a genius I didn’t get any pictures of him wearing said hat. So, you get my crazy face.

There are plenty of pictures where I’m not making such a disgusting face… but those pictures aren’t real enough and you know how I like to keep it real. [cough]

Anyways, the pattern is by my super awesome internet buddy: Teekay [rav link] and it’s her Fenced In hat. I freaking love it. I also had to do it freaking 3 times because

1) I am a moron.

2) You really need to print out any pattern that has charts. (See #1.)

Gorgeous, right?

I had goals for last year and I actually accomplished a lot of them. But I missed you, blog buddies and I think 2011 is going to be a good time for our reunion. So stay with me. We’re going to do this thing up. (Hopefully right. Like I said, I’m really not promising anything.)

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:

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!