Another update to the blog no one reads.

Just like everything else of mine haha!

No new knitting projects, although the owl, armwarmers, and FWS finally came off the needles. Still a major WIP on the sweater, although I will probably go work on it after finishing this RANT (!) post.

It is stupid in this day and age to not have an internet store if you're a major franchise. It just is. Because there are always going to be people (like me) who are socially retarded and do not like the store. The store is big, the store is confusing, the store is full of people crowding up the rows, and more often then not, the store does not have what you want. So to get what you want, you have to drive around. I do not like to drive around (actually, I do not like to have other people drive me around would be the correct statement). I like to be able to go online, type in something into a search bar, find exactly what I want, and have it shipped to me. It's not hard, especially if your website already has a product search feature.

Why then does Michaels.com not have an online checkout? They have a search bar, and a VERY functional website. And their competator, Joannes, has one. WHY? WHY MUST THIS BE THIS WAY?

Especially since so much of yarn shopping has to be done online anyway. I mean, I don't have a LYS. I have Michaels. The land of acrylic fail. If I want to get ANYTHING besides acrylic yarn, or a foot of novelty fun fur, I have to shop online for it. Which infuriates me.

Anyway, my real point of rage is not yarn, but needles. Double pointed needles to be exact. I already own, like, 8 of them (you need at least 4 to be able to use them properly), but I own them in US size 3. Which is a fine size to be knitting up, say, thick yarn into a sock, or fiddling with a knitted stuffed Nautilis. They are not fine, however, for knitting socks with anything thin, (like, say, sock yarn?) or working the sleeves of a sweater that has been knit on US1 needles. They are major fail for that.

I would have bought size 1 when I first got DPNs if they had been available, but the only size they sell at my Michaels is 3. And some larger sizes. I don't want larger, I want smaller! So when I went online to get some, I was incredibly annoyed to find that their website not only does not have a check out, but they also have no way to check what stores have what product. To add insult to injury, they don't even have a way to check what KINDS of DPNs they sell.

This was basically like I searched for the needles, and this thing came up like "DPNs? Oh yeah, we have them." and NOTHING ELSE. No picture, no sizes, no brands. No nothing. I rage.

I wouldn't even be shopping at this store if people didn't give me gift cards for it. Gift cards that I can apparently only use in the store. Ugh. Someone needs to tell Michaels to tech up.

The owl

Currently in the works is a dashing owl for my boss. This owl is taking a lot longer then I anticipated, mostly because I am not working from a pattern, and I'm mostly just knitting until it feels right. The body is done (as you can see above... sort of), and I'm working on a scarf for his neck on another set of needles. Then I'll finish the head.

By the way, this is how Dogbot turned out, without his face. Without his face, he looks like a sheep, but OH WELL. I converted a crochet pattern to knitting! Yay me!

Trials and Tibulations of Amigurumi

Aaaaah, this is giving me such a hard time. My boss has the terrible habit (terrible for me anyway) of taking every craft book we get into the store off the shelf and putting it in my inbox with a sticky note that says "This looks like something you'd love! Shelve it if you don't want it." I don't end up buying a lot of them, but I look at all of them and I'm always thinking "Oh man would I love to try that."

Her most recent discovery for me was Crobots, or little crochet robots. And dammit, they are adorable. There were some crochet instructions in the front that seemed pretty straight forward, and I had a hook at home, so I decided to try it out. WRONG IDEA. Crochet is so hard! I can barely see what I'm doing, and the scale for these critters is so small, I'm constantly dropping my wad of yarn and having to start all over. So what the hell. I'm going to learn how to convert these patterns to knitting.

Amigurumi is the art of knitting dolls, but apparently crochet dolls are way more popular. Psh, whatever. Knitting is cooler. These crobots are Amigurumi, and so it shouldn't be too hard to convert them to the knit side, right? I mean, they are basically just shapes, and if I can replicate those shapes, it should be good right?


This is Dogbot. Dogbot is the simplest pattern in the book, and my current test sub- I mean project. He's also one of my favorites in the book, so I figured if I could at least make him, the book would be worth the purchase, even if he isn't crochet.

I didn't have beige yarn, though, so my colors are going to be a little different. Maybe I'll make him more like an ipod.



This would be Dogbot's head so far. I've got the ears on him, and really, it's just a matter of making circles. Or very very tiny hats. And I love hats!



This is dogbot's body on the needles It's the same size and shape as the head, so I know I can do that. The legs and tail are going to be the challenge, I think.

Wow, way to fail Neko

Geeze, I was like "Oh man, I'm going to do my knitting blog, and take all kinds of pictures of my projects" and then I haven't worked only like ANYTHING.

Well, I guess I'll catch up on everything I'm working on. First up is the scarf I started like, at Christmas time. It's literally like ten stitches away from being done, but I had to stop working on it because I was getting blisters. So sad! I think I'm going to finish it this weekend... now that it is way too warm for a scarf. The yarn is this bizzare novelty yarn my mom found in a dollar bin at Big Lots. Three balls of it made a decent size scarf, but it's literally as thin as dental floss, so I did a seed pattern and knit it together with some white carron simply soft. It's REALLY soft! I love it a lot, and I can't wait until it's winter so I can wear it for real.
The only downsides to this yarn has to be that the two-ply method makes the scarf really heavy. And it's freaking furry. Were I a lesser woman, I don't think I could handle this scarf. But oh I love it. Hopefully that scarf will be done soon!

Second project is a failed one that I plan to redo. A pair of Twilight socks from a sock pattern book I picked up at work. The yarn is this surprisingly soft Red Heart autumn color-changing stuff. The pattern is actually pretty simplistic, just knitting and purling, but knitting it while talking to dear Ziggy is the biggest mistake in the world. As soon as he can tell I'm counting in my head, he starts throwing out numbers to mess me up. Dick.

Though I love this pattern, and I love the yarn, this particular sock is headed for the frogging pile, so I can start over later.

This kitty has actually been hanging around my room since I was back in my doctor's office hopping days. It turned out fairly lopsided, mostly because it's hard to knit in a waiting room while your hands are shaking. She's basically a bumch of rectangles in gater stitch. As soon as she gets some eyes, I'll be sharing her on Deviantart.

This last one is my current pet-project: my first sweater. It's actually going well, or was until I had to take sick leave from it for my fingers to recoop. The needles are SMALL. Smallest size of needles I could find. I love the pattern (it's from the Stitch N Bitch book) but I hated the colors (ick, pink is so not my color, ever) so I'm replacing it with my own favorite colors. So it's better. Ha ha.
Ugh, terrible picture. I really enjoy working on this, because it's really easy, and the pattern is fairly simple. And I love stripes. LOVE LOVE stripes.

Looking towards future projects to keep me busy. Making little critters is like my new favorite thing (I have new favorite thing every five seconds it seems) and I'm looking into amigurumi right now (little knitted dolls), only it's really hard to find patterns I like. SO I plan on making my own. Because I hate patterns. So look for little critters in the future (I'm planning an owl for sure to give to my boss before she quits).

Let it begin!

Well, here we go!

I always have felt like I needed a rant space for my knitting (and other such crafty awesomeness) journals. Generally speaking, I don't really have a lot of friends who are crafty in this sense, and even fewer who are interested in reading these things. I figured the best thing to do was to find a new place to put all those kinds of entries... and I've always wanted to get a blogspot!

Types of things I'll be posting here... Finished Objects of course, but probably a lot of WIPs, and just general rambling about all things... crafty! Keep an eye on this space... hopefully I'll have a lot to share in the future!