FO: Ali's Emerald Isle gloves

Complete with crappy artificial lighting!

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with how these came out. The yarn (Caron Simply Soft Shadows), besides from being rough acrylic, is actually kind of nice once knitted up. I wanted to to make one with two of the striping colors and the other differently striped, but wasn't sure if Ali is the kind of not-matching stripe girl. So I just rolled the yarn to where I needed the color to start for the next one, and cut.

Actually, I'm not even sure if she's Irish, like the name implies (and because of today's holiday).
At least I know green is her favorite color :P


Note: My pinky is only finger that would fit that ring ;)

You'll be seeing a lot more fingerless gloves over the few weeks/months, but I'll give you the scoop on the whole project later.

Great, now I have a craving

You are Milk Chocolate

A total dreamer, you spend most of your time with your head in the clouds. You often think of the future, and you are always working toward your ideal life. Also nostalgic, you rarely forget a meaningful moment... even those from long ago.

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

A better way

Okay, so for the Loooove Monkeys, I wanted a sturdy heel flap, cause I plan to give them a lot of use, you know? I decided to use Eye of Partridge stitch, which looks like honeycomb when you look through it, or hold it up to a light. But the problem was that this heel flap turned out to be more holey and seemingly flimsier than plain stockinette.
Well, a kind sock knitter on Ravelry showed me a better way to do an Eye of Partridge heel flap, so I am going to pass it onto you :) It gives you both a pretty and durable heel flap.

Regular Eye of Partridge stitch goes like this:
Row 1: [Sl1, K1] across
Row 2: Sl1, P across
Row 3: Sl2, [K1, Sl1] to last 2 stitches, K2
Row 4: Repeat Row 2
Repeat rows 1-4 for heel flap

^Muy confusing!

The better Eye of Partridge stitch:
Row 1: [Sl1, K1] across
Row 2: [Sl1, P1] across
Repeat rows 1 and 2 for heel flap

*Note: While it is sturdier, Eye of Partridge tend to be a little tighter, so you may have to knit more than the recommended number of rows for your heel flap (but I assure you, it's worth it to have a sock that fits!)

I'mlateI'mlateI'mlate!

Okay, this is waaaaaaaaaaaaay overdue. Back in February, I was tagged by KnitaSaur. Don't know what tagging is? Well, neither did I, so that's why this is so late.

Okay, so basically, if you (aka your blog) get tagged,
~in a post, you name the person who tagged you,
~then give seven facts about yourself,
~and then include in the post seven people's blogs whom you tag (link to).
(The person who tagged you has already done this.)

I had know idea what tagging was in February. I just thought KnitaSaur was being all nice (and she is :) ) telling people about my blog. (I sort of skimmed her post explaining tags. Oops.)
Then, like all this month, I keep seeing tagged blogs popping up everywhere, and I'm reading what tagging is, and then last week it hit me: Oooooooooooooooh. So that's what it means. Crap.

So here we go!
1. I love chocolate so much, I eat it for breakfast (no really. Hostess makes great mini-brownies in 100-calorie packs, and Quaker has good chocolate-chip granola bars. Are you even that addicted? Yeah, I didn't think so :P )
2. Me and my friend Laura sing Beatles songs if we get bored.
3. I don't eat the cheese on pizza. No, I am not lactose intolerant.
4. I can use chopsticks like a pro.
5. I don't practice the flute as much as I should. Sssssssssssshhhhhh.
6. I am allergic to cats. I still want one.
7. I need green yarn.

Alrighty, tag!
Cosy
Share
Mary
Rachel
Genuine
Nabby & Kaya
Cyn

I am pathetic

You Are 48% Addicted to Blogthings

You're a Blogthings fiend - addicted but not totally dependent. So what if you know your personality type by heart? And while you may feel like Blogthings is crack... There are people much worse off than you!

How Addicted To Blogthings Are You?

Who knew popularity had a reason?

On Tuesday, I had this craving. I needed to knit socks, and nothing was going to stop me. However, there was a downside to this. You see, the Koigu yarn (KPPPM) I used for my first April Showers sock made my right hand (the yarn-holding hand) break out in what looked like small blisters all over my fingers. It's probably a bad reaction to the dye, and people on Ravelry said I could cure it by soaking the Koigu in soapy water, but I am still hesitant to pick up with the April Showers Socks.

Then I found this Filatura Lanarota Cuzco I've been saving since me and my mom went to Penn's Colony last fall (the name of the booth I bought it at escapes me). I had used a skein on my Fetching (what was I thinking??? Fingering-weight yarn held double on US 9 needles?!), but still have 340 yards left.

The yarn is very squishy and soft and delicious. It is 100% sport-weight alpaca, and I <3<3<3 the pumpkin color. I am making Cookie's Monkey pattern, and this is where the post title comes in.

If you are on Ravelry (which I suspect you are, since this is where most of my traffic comes from), you will surely have noticed the alarming number of people who have made this pattern. If you haven't, that's good, cause I'm gonna tell you anyway:
4192
Four thousand, one hundred, and ninety-two people have made these socks. That is so freaking insane.

At first I was all, "It's cute, but eh, I don't know. Surely it will not seduce me into knitting them."

But it has.

And it is addicting. And I love it. Just like those other 4192 people.
Henceforth, these are the Loooove Monkey socks.

Oh and by the way, I finished the back of Trendsweater. Onto the left front, my comrades!
If I can figure out how on Earth to do all these increases. Yeeeesh.

How on Earth do I keep up my good grades?

Okay, for this post, I'm going to do something a little different. Pictured below are lots of doodles. But not just any doodles. All of these (and I mean all of these) were done during school, during class, while I was supposed to be writing, listening, taking notes, etc.

But I'm not a bad student! I swear! It's just that sometimes I get really bored.

Don't we all? ;)

(Note: You can see in some of these what my mind was really focusing on at the time :P)

Music


Language Arts


Science

That's all for today!

Hey, is your homework done yet?

I didn't think so.

Elizabeth's bridal shower (the afternoon where the most spoken word was "Awwwwwww!")

Starting with the tables with my mom's cakes as centerpieces

And those cone favors I was talking about (the big white one was Elizabeth's, the flowered ones for everyone else)


The (delicious) cupcakes

The lovely couple (Note: the groom only came at the end, and he did not expect people to be dressed so fancy, so he was forgiven ;) )

And finally, my dress!


You can't see it in the pictures, but there was a bow in the back. Everybody loved it, and even though it was very last-minute, I feel it turned out great.

For a quick knitting update, I'm not going to post that many updates! Thanks to Ravelry, I now have a WIP widget on my sidebar for you people to check up on my knitting. But beware of the links: clicking on the pictures will take you to their full-sized versions on Flickr, but clicking the names will take you to my Ravelry projects page, which you can't access unless you have a Ravelry account.

In which my skills are tested

My cousin Elizabeth is getting married this spring, and her bridal shower is tomorrow. Of course, being the crafty side of the family, my mom was commissioned to make all sorts of glittery plastic cakes and Victorian cone favors, etc. A couple months ago, she saw this booth in the mall that sold mini dress forms in wedding gowns and lots of other amazing clothing. However, they were quite out of the reasonable price range.

Low and behold, like two weeks later, me and my mom are at Marshalls, and we find this:

$10. Don't you just love clearances? ;)

It used to have this garish necklace and some sort of useless ribbon trim across the neckline and waist, but I removed (ripped) it off last night. I think it looks a lot like a ballerina form, but Elizabeth's not having a ballerina shower, she's having a bridal shower, so a wedding dress it must become.

So me and my mom are gonna vamp up this dress form to make it as cute as the glittery plastic cakes and Victorian cone favors. And since we only have one night (she's where I get the procrastination gene), it'll be . . .interesting.

More photos tomorrow of the shower, and most likely a lot of me and my cousins being total idiots :P

This proves it

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Artistic Nerd
Musician
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace