Pictures, why are they suddenly hard?

I keep thinking about you sweet blog and you know why? Because I have all kinds of stuff to post on you. But I don’t have any pictures! A blog post without pictures? Why the hell did you even show up to class/the Internet today without doing the reading?

But I have been busy! Kind of. Well there were a few months there where I wasn’t busy. I was actually very incredibly lame. Nobody comes here for excuses though, right? (Or maybe that’s all you come here for? Sometimes I get pretty creative on the excuses.)

Maybe what I need to do is make more stuff for other people. Because when I know the project is going to be walking out the door I’m like, crap! I better take a picture of that before it’s gone forever.

I started this baby toy a while back and felt really good because I’d done the base in a night. Then it sat in a bag next to the steps for a few months and suddenly the baby it was intended for decided to show up. So, of course, I had to do a last minute all-nighter (it’s okay, I had a lot of Pretty Little Liars to watch) to finish it up and take it to the new parents.

Honestly, I need to figure out why, in my brain I keep thinking- baby? Crochet! Because I’m a knitter and these crochet things are actually kind of cool… although also out of my league. Like I had to ask my friend Miranda how to sew because every now and then I think, I can sew! Then I look at the sewing machine and I’m like, no brain, that was a lie.

Also- that green pole? That was the most uncomfortable experience of my crafting career. I kept stuffing it and trying to make it firm and having to smooth out the weird overstuffed parts. The whole time I was like:

This makes me feel kinda funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class.

Thanks, Garth

I think the recipient is still a little young for the toy but maybe someday she’ll want to slobber on it. Hopefully. One thing is for certain, she’s super cute:

 

The pattern is the pond friends stacking toy but I couldn’t make the rings look like pond friends. One, there were a lot of instructions and I can’t think straight lately (also: crochet). Two, I have a bunch of yarn laying around but not all the same colors, so I was like, let’s just go in this pink/purple direction and use up some stash. Those aren’t excuses, right?

Hey, here’s a hat!

 

A year ago we went to California and I bought some yarn… even though I ::technically:: wasn’t buying yarn last year. I gave it to John as a Christmas present and wrote ‘future hat’ on the side. I felt pretty clever because, any time in the future is the future. I mean, it could be a five years down the road hat. But I kept seeing it (he kept it by the bed, smart dude) and feeling bad so I made him this hat!

Okay, somebody come over here and make me take pictures of the two other projects I’ve finished and we’ll be good to go.

 

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.)

big time bad news

Do you know what has stopped me from completely melting into a puddle of lamesauce? You guys. The other day when I was talking out loud to John to try to motivate myself to do stuff by listing out what I need to do I said “I need to take pictures to put on my blog or else they’ll think I’m a slacker.” They? The internet! Don’t you realize what serious business this is? If someone on the internet thinks I’m a slacker well then that’s big time bad news.

A while back I traded yarn with my Granma. She sent me this really nice purple alpaca/wool blend. Well I sat and looked at that yarn and asked it what it wanted to be and it sat and stared back at me. So when I broke my yarn buying resolution two days into the new year it was actually to buy some yarn to go with the purple yarn.

Speaking of resolutions, all of mine are effectively broken. Well, I’m still hoping to lose some weight or at least get in something that can be considered “in shape” (meaning not the blob monster I feel like recently or that Wii Fit confirms I am). This winter blah crap is not helping. All of the other resolutions though are caput. Although I’m still trying to not buy yarn unless it’s necessary because I’m saving up for… something we’ll talk about in the future here. Plus when I walk in my closet it cries. The yarn actually cries at me. “Lindsey,” it says sniffling, “you loved us enough to buy us, why won’t you make us into something beautiful?” Closet guilt trip, yeesh.

So I made a hat!

It is a seriously goofy hat too. It comes to a sort of Pope hat point. It’s also pretty big considering I cut out some rows and knit it on some small needles. If I were to knit this hat again, which I might because I’m curious- I would switch out the colors. Make the purple the main color and the white the contrast. I think that might make me like it more.

While I’m glad to have finished something, I’m kind of ‘enh’ towards the outcome. Story of my life right now! I need to get out and get active, that’ll hopefully make me less of a Grumpy Gus. I hate sitting around focusing on how fat I am, how nothing I knit looks right or pleases me and how I haaate what I’m reading. Well I think things have at least turned around there because I’m finally done with stupid Wuthering Heights. Sorry if you love that book but it just killed my happiness. Okay, I’m done hatin’ and being lame, at least I hope so!

I still have a ball of the purple and of the white left, I don’t know- should I knit another hat only reverse or should I think about making some mittens? Hrm.

Also have you guys listened to Feed the Animals by Girl Talk? Do it!

I hope you hate your eyes…

Because this hat is ORANGE!

This is the third hat in my Christmas Hat Fest Extravaganza. It’s the beautiful Devra Hat by the lady behind pieKnits. So you might be wondering, where’s the brim?  Heh. Well, in the perfect plane of existence, there’s a brim on that hat.

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.