That time again...

Whew. Well, I survived binge knitting those hats for my two friends, but only just! I swear - one more hour of beavering away at fair isle on tiny yarn and my eyeballs would have started to bleed... It nearly killed me. Never again will I attempt something like that in such a small amount of time. Actually, who am I kidding; I'll always be a terminal procrastinator, until the day I die. Or the day that I intend to die, but don't quite get around to it.

There's the culprit behind my eyestrain, at any rate (being modelled by yours truly and her scraggly hair). Also, you can see the reason why I don't wear berets - I think that they look stupid, or they do on my head anyway (how are you supposed to keep the things on?). Thankfully they look very cute on my dear friend Zia. I was tearing my hair out on this one, trying to find a style and colour that she would like, because her tastes and mine are pretty much mutually exclusive. It's not that I think she has bad taste, it's just that we don't like any of the same things. So blue and purple-ish pink (shudder) is not normally in my repertoire. Still, despite all of the angst, she seemed happy enough with it. Which is good. Oh, and since this is my knitting blog and all, here are details: this is the Selbu Modern hat (free pdf on Ravelry), made with Grignasco Bambi (a 4ply merino wool), on a 2.75mm circular needle (did I tell you all that I discovered the wonders of magic loop while I was in Europe?).

I actually finished Nick's hat (a Jacques Cousteau hat - great easy pattern, by the way - made with Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed) while I was sitting and drinking wine with them on the verandah (and apparently getting mauled by mosquitos too, the bathroom mirror informed me this morning). Had planned to get it done earlier of course, but I hadn't counted on the other one taking quite so long. It turned out well too, at any rate. I was warned by everyone that Nick had an enormous head (or more to the point, somewhat indominatable hair), so I made the large size, and was freaking out at how big it was. Though all was well in the end: it came off the needles fitting fine (and I should know, because I rammed it on his head to check before I'd even woven the ends in). Poor long suffering friends. At least they're long suffering friends with handknitted hats...

Anyway, it's New Years Day, so I should probably say something pretentiously reflective about that. 2008 was, well, frankly the worst and most difficult year I've had the pleasure of living through. For the obvious reasons (you know, the sleep deprivation and the anxiety attacks and the living below the poverty line and the my-counsellor-tells-me-not-as-borderline-as-I-think abusive relationship and its subsequent breakdown, and all of those other fun things...). Frankly, the less said about these things the better. 2008: well, I'll remember what I learned from it, because that's all I can do. It's all anyone can ever really do.

That said, the last third of 2008, when I finally began to leave these things behind, was awesome in about a million different kinds of ways. Incredibly hard at times, yes, but awesome nonetheless. And even the really rotten parts showed me that I can be as tough as I need to be, when push comes to shove, and that is reassuring indeed. Anyway, I have a good feeling about 2009. So bring it on! (and yes, I remain, despite everything, the most relentlessly optimistic cynical person in the universe)

Fair Denizens of the Internet: Happy New Year from Anna and her immense pile of yarn!!!

Behold the glory of the tam!

See! There's my head (and hair that very much needs cutting), and there's a hat on it! A shiny, nice, brand spanking new faux fair isle tam to be precise. There's also a lot of the bathroom wall, because it's kind of difficult to take a photo of the back of one's head unassisted. Or it's difficult for me anyway. Perhaps I'm just inferior...


Pattern was the Tam C from the Three Tams Knitty pattern, though I love this one so much that I think I might need to make the other two as well. The pattern was great; really quite easy and very quick (I knocked this out in a few days, just doing an hour here and there sitting in front of the computer, putting off studying for my Evidence exam... whoops). I arsed up the start of one batch of decreases (I thought it was just me being a wally, but Ravelry tells me that I wasn't the only one to get caught up on this, so I feel marginally less wally-like now), but you can only tell if you're looking for it.


Yarns involved were a ball of Holiday 8ply wool (I have had this stuff for so long that I think it actually might be the first yarn I ever stashed... no exaggeration... I bought it years ago to make a cardigan from Stitch and Bitch, but the urge passed and the yarn languished for quite a time) and the leftovers of my dyeing escapade (the stuff that didn't get used up by the Garter Mitts). There wasn't a whole lot of thought put into the decision; these were just the two yarns within arms reach when I decided, on a procrastinatory whim, to make this hat. But it turned out serendipitously well; the green and blue works wonderfully against the black (I've always had a total fetish for black and green together). Behold, my blurry evidence:



Sigh. I love my hat. Very much. I don't have enough hats, so I'm attempting to rectify the situation this winter. This is the first step. Don't ask what the next one is... I have an essay to write... Sigh...

At last...

What's that? It's a blurry, badly taken photo! This can only mean one thing: Anna has a digital camera, and she's not afraid to use it!

This is the first attempt at fair isle that I've been blathering on about so much. I'm taking it easy by only using two colours, and it's turning out okay so far (haven't run into any major difficulties, and that's a very good thing). As of the moment, I am yet to start pounding my head against a brick wall screaming "Why, oh why, did I ever decide to attempt fair isle for the first time using my own crappy improvised pattern instead of looking to someone who actually knows what they're doing". This can only be a positive thing. Still, there's plenty of time for despair later. Plenty of time; heaven knows this thing is moving slowly.

The slowness, I suspect, is because I'm just doing the thing that all the knitting books imply is amateurish; i.e. picking up one colour at a time, then dropping it when I need the other one. Don't care, I am not dextrous, and as of right now I can't be bothered to learn to knit with the yarn in my left hand so I can hold both at once. Maybe one day, but for this first attempt, I'm happy to take it slowly.

Hurray! A slightly less blurry photo! This fellow is my Argosy scarf, in the beautiful Silk Garden yarn that I lashed out and bought to celebrate quitting my hateful bread vending job ($15 per ball of yarn normally being more than a little out of my price range). It is shiny, and pretty, and lovely, and I am in danger of developing a very expensive Noro habit if it doesn't stop being so beautiful quick smart!

And last, but not least, this is the blue bag I've been making with the mysterious unidentified yarn (photo taken with a much better quality camera than my new one, as is painfully obvious). It's nearly finished now; I just have to sew the strap ends together, and then put in the lining and zip. I really like this one so far; it's so unusual. The texture and colour of this yarn really us something else; the photos here don't really do it justice.

Anyway, I'm off to take more photos and generally be a nuisance. Oh, and to try my hand at felting.

Still finishing away...

Well, still on my mad finishing spree, and I think that it's long overdue really...
The frustrating thing is that even though I'm finishing all of these things that have been kicking around for ages, I don't have a digital camera with which to take pretty photos of them so that I can stick them here/on Ravelry. On the up side, my old work finally transferred the accrued holiday leave pay that they owed me into my account, so I'm not quite as desperately broke as I was last entry. I'm seriously thinking about picking up a cheapie digital camera from somewhere... something under $100 (good technology being pretty much wasted on me because I'm such a wally that I can hardly tell what I'm using anyway...).

Anyway, on the knitting front, finished my Cleo halter top, and the crazy furry scarf I'd been knitting while Chris was playing endless hours of Wii. I'm getting close to finishing my crazy blue bag too.

The blue bag is a bit of a mystery; I have no idea what the yarn is, other than that it was Lang brand (I lost the labels long ago). I bought it for $1 per ball at a Lincraft sale just after I started knitting, because I liked the colour, though I had no earthly idea what to do with it. I still don't know what it's made off... you could never make a garment out of it, it's too ropey and scratchy. A friend of mine commented that it feels/looks like it's made out of the same material as they used to make those green enviro shopping bags. Anyway, so, a bag it is becoming. Now all I really have to do is bite the bullet and sew all the seams up... I hate sewing...

My Argosy scarf is nearly finished too... but I'm thinking I may need another ball of Silk Garden; I'm not so big on short scarves, and unless this one grows half a mile during blocking, then it's going to fall into this category. Must go and scrutinise it before I make the call. The annoying part is getting said ball of Silk Garden. To my knowledge, there are two shops in Melbourne that sell this yarn (though I suspect there's more, there's only two that I know definitely sell it). One is closed until 14/1 (but isn't too far away), and the other one is about an hour's commute away. There are no quick/easy options for lazy me. Boo. Oh well.

Anyway, since I've had a fair bit of time, I've been sorting through the old stash, trying to organise it a bit, since it's beginning to take over our not particularly big unit. I'm trying to organise things by potential project, and it's fun; I have so many potential things I can do, as well as some yarn that I have no bloody idea what to do with, because I can't see it working as anything, as pretty as it is in ball form. Oh well.

Finally, I'm also making a brave first attempt at Fair Isle knitting. Colour work is kind of the final frontier for me; I've done the lace, the cables, the short rows, etc, etc, and now I figure it's about time to try my hand at this. The only problem is that I'm pretty sure it's going to be doomed to failure, because I have this very stubborn tendency to try and work things out myself the first time around. It's only after I've failed dismally that I go and actually do things the intelligent way. So, my first Fair Isle attempt is designed entirely by me, with only the general advice in my various knitting books to guide me. This should be amusing...