Life, Hanging in the Balance....

Either that is the start of an emo-poem, or the latest round of hatly violence has taken a turn for the worst.

And since I am rarely (if ever!) emo, lets move on to hatly violence.

Monday, March 31st was a blur of orange yarn and crochet hooks.  The newest Yarn Smackdown pattern was released at 8pm EST, and I was determined to finish it before I slept.

Called the "Divine Hat" by Sarah Arnold, it's a lacy little crocheted beanie.  I whipped it up in just over two hours, and was on the bottom ribbing when I noticed that I had made a mistake.  Not a weensey little mistake, mind you... a big honking, "I read the pattern completely WRONG!" mistake.  

In my defense the pattern is white type on a black background in 8 point font.  Despite the fact that my monitor is big, the resolution made it darn near impossible to see.  So I dug out my glasses, re read everything, consulted pictures of finished and more divine hats than mine on Ravelry and figured out that yes, in fact I was a blithering idiot.

So at around 10:15 or 10:30 pm, I ripped.  And ripped, and ripped.  I ended up with this:

So sad.  I could only save the first 3 rounds.  I took a break, got some chocolate and some Diet coke, sat back down and began to crochet again.  It went faster this time, and I got the hat done a smidge under 1am, finishing and everything.  That's OK.  I cannot physically mail anything earlier than 8am because no freakin post office around here (that's within 50 miles) is open anything other than 8-5 (ok, a few are open 7-4, and if I wanted to drive all the way to Concord NH there is one that is open until 6)  Point being these mystical things called 24 hour post offices are mythical and legendary in the snowy fields of Vermont.  So I was pretty happy with myself and I mailed it very early the next morning.

Well, my opponent also mailed hers early, if not the night before (She does live in a place where there are mythical magical late night post offices.   Lucky punk!)

She mailed hers Priority.  I mailed mine Priority.

On Friday both hats arrived.  

As of right now we don't know who is alive or who is dead.  

On the bright side I got lovely natural soap with a nice hat!  So if I die, at least I'll be clean and smelling good.

Crocheting for Blood and Glory

Ahh, the YarnWarrior.  Entering the windswept plains of battle with naught but her hooks and needles, dangling a thin thread of yarn from her pack.  She is the forgotten heroine of the wartorn tundra.  She is: crazy.

In other words we have entered our second deadly fiberarts contest of the year.  Yarn Smackdown, which is set up alot like March Madness where knitters and crocheters face off in a bracket style competition, the winners advancing to the next round.

I have been put in the crochet brackets since, well, you name it and I do it.  The hat pattern is both charming and aggravating.  Charming because it makes a nice hat.  Stretchy, attractive, warm.  Aggravating because it is *alot* of work for a hat.  Maybe it just seemed that way because I was furiously hooking for my life before I went to bed (Now how many other contexts could you get away with saying *that*?!)

It's a vintage pattern; using front and back post double crochet to form cables.  They are very attractive cables, but it kinda made me want to knit cables instead.

I can't believe I just said that.  Me... the old hand at crochet wants to knit instead?  Partially it's because I enjoy doing certain things in certain mediums better.  I love crocheting afghans, but in knitting they seem like a chore.  I love crocheting pineapple doilies, but I wouldn't want a knit lace pattern to try to imitate pineapples.  In the same way crocheting cables felt like kind of a chore.

Anyways, the hat is done, sent and delivered already.  I'm hanging on the mail delivery tomorrow to see if I got a hat on the same day or not.  But my hat?  Well, this baby is a story in and of itself.

I got the pattern and read the yarn requirements.  It took 2 skeins (1 1/2 to be exact) and I went "what?!" I have lots and lots of one full skeins - enough for most hats, knit or crochet.  But this sucker takes alot of yarn.  So I started ripping apart my stash at 7:00 at night (after all the yarn stores were closed) looking for what I had with two matching balls.

I found Encore left over from an ill conceived scarf idea...

Encore is nice yarn.  It's part acrylic, but it's soft and washable.  

But there was this problem with the color.



Yeah.  You see what I mean, right?



Looks like a "Watch out and slow down, dummy, there's a school zone ahead" sign, doesn't it?

So then I made up a song for it.

Sing with me: (to the tune of a possibly recognizable Men Without Hats song…)

Ssss-aaaa-ffff-eeee-tttt-yyyy
Safety-hat!

You can knit if you want to,
you can leave your friends behind,
Because if your friends don’t knit - or they don’t crochet, then
They’re no friends of mine!

I say, we can knit where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind
And we can knit.

Francois!

Ah we can wear what we want to the night is young and so am i
And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet
And surprise ’em with the yellow dye

I say we can knit if want to if we don’t nobody will
And you can act real rude and totally removed
And I can look like an imbecile
I say we'll wear yellow; there colors are out of control
We can knit, we'll crochet we’re doing it wall to wall
Put it on, go outside, everybody look at your hats!
Fold the brim, don a scarf, everybody takin’ the chance
Safety hats!
Oh well the safety hat
Ah yes the safety hat



Safety hat!

Now that that song is in your head, hope that I don't live to next round to make an even dumber song for an even more obnoxious hat.

Mwa hahaha.

Revenge of the Knitter

So I told y'all how much I hated that Wildfoote sock yarn, right?

Oh, did I find the perfect solution for getting back at it.

So, the recipe for revenge involves going to a thrift store and buying some poor, lonely, abandoned little Beanie Babies...



See them there?  Aww, aren't they cute?  Actually, no.  I think that Gorilla thing is hideous, and he had it coming.  And that angel bear?  Reminds me of a pretentious pop-princess wannabe.  I never liked stuffed bears.  I felt bad for the Walrus guy, though.  He actually was cute.

Anyways, knowing my destructive disposition these guys were doomed from the start and they were summarily sliced open and pirated for thier beans.



Poor little guys!

Anyways, whatever would I do with all those beans and all that Wildfoote? I was left with 3/4 of a skein left. I couldn’t let it go to waste. I had to find an appropriate pattern for a yarn this vile.

I had a short conversation with myself that went something like this:

Angel side: “Give the yarn a break. Maybe it’s not so bad. Try some wristlets with different pattern. It’ll be okay.”

Devil side: “Screw that” (demonic snickering) “Make a beanis”



I’m sure that this is the perfect project to show off my many years of crochet. >:D

The really funny thing? Wildfoote makes a beautiful Beanis.

The creation of a knitter, Part 1

Ok. Since it's been a long time since I posted and I'm trying to get this Blog up and running, let's start with a story, shall we? Get to know one another? good.

Besides, I have a knitting guild meeting tonight and pictures to download... if you don't chill out now there won't be any time left!


The creation of a knitter, Part 1

It all started with a book and a movie. It would start again later with another book and another movie, but at the time it was just one:

Harry Potter.

I have loved these books ever since the third one came out. I started reading the first on my plane trip to London to study during my undergrad, and read the majority of them all on the Underground waiting to get to my stops. Somehow reading about platform 9 ½ while you’re waiting for a train in King’s Cross Station makes it that much cooler. The Goblet of Fire came out while I was in London, so I felt even more spiffy to be able to buy it there. When I came back home I found that many of my geeky theatre friends also loved the books, and so we held a sort-of private fanliness between us.
And then the first movie came out. It wasn’t the best book to movie adaptation we have ever seen, but the visuals were magnificent. And coming out of the theatre I decided to myself that one day Harry Potter costumes would be had.

In those days I was on a quest to teach myself how to sew. I knew I was a theatrical designer and if I wasn’t going to do into costuming, I would certainly need the knowledge for things like soft props and upholstery. And so I got a fairly dashing cape pattern and knocked off my Harry Potter robe. I had the pants. I had the white shirt. I even found a website that sold Harry Potter ties (www.wildties.com - They have some of the best customer service on the web that I have ever had the pleasure to encounter, if I was a guy I would be this website’s biggest fan.) But alas… I needed a scarf.

At the local craft store there were free leaflets for “Wizard Scarves” which were, of course. Harry Potter scarves. They came in knit and crochet versions and I picked them both up. I had been crocheting for years, I could knock off afghans in a week, I figured I could knock off Harry Potter scarves in a day or so. But the problem was the crochet version looked distinctly…. wrong. It had that notable crochet texture, and the lines between the stripes were interrupted by the ‘v’ of the single crochet. It simply wouldn’t do for a replica of the movie costume and that irritated me. The movie ones were obviously knit and if I wanted a true Harry Potter scarf, mine would have to be knit as well.

The problem? I had less knowledge of knitting than a sentient asparagus did of Shakespeare. So I did what any sane person would do. I asked my Mom. Mom had to know… she was Mom. Mom could answer my sewing questions, she had taught me how to crochet, she could macramé and rumor had it she could tat…so she had to know how to knit too, right?
Well, only kind-of. Mom had only knitted once in her life and decided she didn’t like it. Her sister, my aunt had knitted when she was young but couldn’t remember how. My grandmother had knit some things, but she too gave it up in favor of crochet, and grandma couldn’t see very well anymore. But she did give me her old knitting needles. So I went back to my house with a conundrum.

Fortunately Mom does not have conundrums. She was shopping one day and saw a booklet entitled “I can’t Believe I’m Knitting” and bought it. So the next time I went home, there was properly Harry Potter colored yarn, grandma’s old aluminum knitting needles and the booklet waiting for me. So I would lean how to knit, and that was that. It was a tedious project of trial and error. Back then I couldn’t visually recognize a knit from a purl so I would forget what hand motion I was doing every time I set the work down. I ripped out a lot of it. To make things worse, while grandma had a beautiful collection of vintage crochet hooks, were knitting needles were cheap aluminum ones from the early 80’s. Every kind of yarn seemed magnetically attracted to them in such a way that you could cast one and it would simply adhere. 40 stitches by 6 ½ feet…it was the longest project I ever knit.

I finished the Harry Potter Scarf in September 2003, put the knitting needles away and promptly forgot about the whole thing. I traveled to grad school with the scarf and the costume and my crochet hooks, thinking “I’ll never knit again…”