Accessory to - um, well, me…

Check it out - I designed a newsboy hat for myself, along with a coordinating super-skinny scarf.

And then a shot of me wearing them, taken with the aid of our always-cooperative bathroom mirror:

It was really fun! I’m so very proud of myself. I’ve never designed anything like that before, and I think it turned out so very well. :D Now I’ve got the urge to try and see if I can design other ‘wearables,’ although I keep telling myself that I really ought to go back to that last kitten, whose disembodied head is sitting in my crochet basket even now.
On another topic of interest, I’ve been losing weight. I’m pretty proud of myself, and as of this morning, I’ve lost 14 pounds since this April. (My attention span is relatively short for dieting, so it’s been in gradual spurts.) I haven’t been this light since - age fourteen? And I was shorter then, too, so - well, I’m just doing really well. What’s my secret, you may ask? Well, aside from the sugar-free fudgesicles (only 35 calories, and they taste great!) I attribute my lack of over-eating to my crocheting. Hands counting stitches aren’t wandering through the refrigerator…and when I get bored, I get creative in the kitchen. Unfortunately for my calorie-counting ways, ‘creative’ = chocolate-peanut butter sauce swirled in with brownie batter. Mmmmm… I’m so bad.
I guess it’s a good thing I get so engrossed in crocheting. I started the hat one day while Max was eating his breakfast, and I finished it just after I gave him his dinner. I spent the whole day crocheting as fast as I possibly could, because I just couldn’t wait to get to the next round, the next step. I was pretty tired by the time I finished, so I relaxed the rest of the evening. Even while watching the Simpsons, though, my fingers were twitching to start another project! (Anything but the kitten - poor kitty, I’ll give you a body someday…)

Oh, and hey - CrochetMe comes out tomorrow! Ohhhh….I hope they get it up faster than last time, the wait was killing me! I kept checking every five minutes, just sure it would be there ‘this time…’

Easy Tunisian, my sweet patootie!

So, I thought I’d pick up tunisian crocheting over the weekend.

Let us never speak of it again.

No, seriously - have you guys tried to learn tunisian? Did it suck? I’m not even sure I was doing it right. The stitches slid around on the hook, got in my way, and when I managed a little swatch, it didn’t really look like the diagram in my book. Tunisian is advertised as crocheting that is ‘more like knitting,’ but now that I know how to knit for real, I’m wondering why I feel the need to pick up a technique that is being so friggin difficult.

I already had the hooks, I picked them up when I was about 13, 14 or so and started a project with the afghan stitch, which I later frogged down to its component parts. So, either I used to be able to do it, I never could figure out how to do it (can’t remember), or I was doing it incorrectly. (That would be my guess :lol:) I definitely have vague memories of the process, because while I was working on it this weekend, I kept thinking “this doesn’t feel right…” and I don’t think that was entirely because it felt nothing like my comfortable rows of single crochet, nor anything like my knitting.

In other news, I’ve joined the happy, active community at Crochetville (about time, too… :P) where I found some willing pattern testers for my llama. You remember the llama, right?
Is anyone else excited that Crochetme is coming out on Saturday? Heeheehee…

Cats and hurricanes

Awwww, sweepy kitty. I’m glad that’s over, it was tricky. I’m really enjoying creating these crocheted toys. I’m an artist, you know - or you might not know, I suppose. I am, I’m an artist. Not professional, or anything, but I’ve always loved to draw, and paint, and such. I never really managed to do much in 3-D art, although I wanted to. Paper and pencils are cheaper than sculpting materials, you know. I always thought that I’d be able to do it, but I never got the chance. It’s kind of nice to have this sort of vindication, to know that I can create in three dimensions as well as in two.

I have one more kitten I want to make, a playful white kitten to round out the set. I might take a little bit of a break, though, and do something else. Like dishes. Not that I’ve been neglecting my chores… But hey. Maybe a hurricane will come tonight and blow away all of my dishes. Okay, not really. Hurricane Rita is moving in our general direction, but they say that we shouldn’t see the hurricane itself, just storms and winds that she’s dragging with her. That was by no means the projection earlier this week, but I’m glad we’re not supposed to be hit by her. We were expecting nasty weather tonight, but perhaps we’ll get to order a pizza after all!

Heeeeere kitty, kitty, kitty…

It’s kittens galore, around here.

I finished this cute little kitty yesterday, and I’m making another. The next one is in orange, and I want her to be sleeping, so finding the right pose is a little harder than it was with my little black kitty.

Crochetme comes out next week! I’m super excited, I can’t wait to see my pattern, it looked soooo good last time… *bounce* *bounce* *bounce*

I’ve been friggin’ hacked!

That’s right, hacked! :evil:
I got on here this morning, only to find that I’d been hacked, and several poorly disguised links had been inserted into my page. I’ve changed my password and removed all of the links that I found, but if whilst browsing you come across a suspicious-looking link, please do not click on it, but tell me what it is and where you found it so that I can root it out.

On a happier note, I’ve posted the instructions for the Rope and Braid Cable that I made on my free patterns page. Not that I came up with them, or anything, but it was a lot of tedious work blending the two motifs into a repeatable pattern, and I thought that I’d share.

Cables, cables, cables!

I’m cuckoo for cables!

So pretty. So poofy. So plump. Not at all as hard as I thought they’d be, and soooooo pretty. Just had to show off.
I took a quiz, as well, and my results are below.

You’re a young knitter, just starting out. Welcome
to the fold! Find yourself some nice soft yarn
and grab a latte- it takes a while to finish a
project but it’s well worth it.

Are you a knitter?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yeah, that’s about right.

Well, now what?

So, instead of spurring me on to bigger and better crocheting projects, the scarf has sucked me into knitting.

It actually seems as though my knitting skills have improved during the time the scarf was set aside. Is that even possible? I picked it up and BLAMMO (To quote Julie. Thanks. I’ve had Cosby stuck in my head all week. :lol:)! I was moving right along. Very weird. And before I had time to get bored or frustrated with it - I realized that the end was in sight. So all of a sudden, instead of working on a perennial WIP until I got inspired to start something cool, I was finishing a project. A Christmas project I’d been working on for months. It was a big moment.

There was that point at the end, where you have to hang onto it like a garden hose on full blast, to force yourself to weave in all the ends, and stitch the finishing details, and all that - but all of my materials were right there, and even flailing about like that, I couldn’t think of anything else to work on.

So I finished it.

Here’s a close-up of the detail:

Click on the detail pic for an even closer view.

And now - I can’t stop. I’m knitting a cabled swatch, my first experience with cables at all, just to see how I do. I’ve rarely been so narcissistic about anything I’ve made while still in the process, I’m pretty amazed at the result. Pics will follow…

Gentle readers, you should thank me.

I have written before of the unparalleled burst of creativity and motivation that comes with a deadline. Or, more specifically, inspiration arrives for other things. Anything but what you ought to be working on. Heck, the whole llama was a product of this ‘burst.’ One of the smoothest patterns I’ve ever designed, only took a few days.

By the way, here’s a link to something I was doing this morning, for no reason other than that it was there and NOT what I was supposed to be doing. Fun game. Try not to crash the helicopter, and all that.

So when I say you ought to thank me, it is because I took this inspiration, tied it down, and beat it over the head until it passed out long enough for me to finish typing up my pattern for CrochetMe. I sent it! Yay! The final deadline is this Thursday, the 15th, so as you see I really had put it off quite long enough.

The only thing is, now that it’s finished, I totally lack motivation to begin anything else. It’s really pretty depressing. Fear not, however, I’ve thought of the cure. I’m going to get out the scarf that I’m knitting for Greg’s grandmother (for Christmas). If that doesn’t inspire me to do something else, I don’t know what will.
Thank you, all who voted in the llama beauty contest. I agree, #2 really is the better shot.

Oh - yeah, I’m going to get the Honor Guard coaster pattern up here sometime soon. I swear.

The llama’s done, but I’m torn…

Which photo is better? Click on the pictures for a better view.

Vote via comments! The winner will (probably, unless I decide otherwise :twisted:) become the offical cover photo for Lloopy Llama! Hurrah for llamas everywhere….

Only 9 days?

Wow. So much has happened this last week. I’ve been glued to the Yahoo! News page as the extent of the damage and chaos left in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been revealed. It’s unbelieveable. Millions of people have been affected, hundreds of thousands have been at least temporarily displaced from their homes, tens of thousands likely have no ‘home’ to return to. It’s possible that thousands of people have died, although it’s hard to be sure, because their bodies have been left to rot in the streets and float on diseased floodwater, because there is simply no time or resources to gather them. Some people are still waiting to be evacuated from New Orleans, willingly or otherwise. There has even been talk of whether New Orleans should be rebuilt at all! I’m sure they’ll rebuild it, but the fact that the option was even mentioned gives an idea of how devastating and widespread the damage was.

I never would have thought that a city in the United States would be reduced to Third-World status. People were looting buildings, some just to survive! The contractors repairing the levees in New Orleans have said that they’ve gotten used to the sound of gunfire out in the city. People were left with even basic human needs unfulfilled, as there was a shortage of drinkable water, edible food, and safe shelter. I read this story yesterday about a six-year-old boy who was found wandering around, shepherding five younger children, including a 5-month-old baby and three toddlers.

If you haven’t done so already, find some way to help these people. Donate to the Red Cross, volunteer at a shelter - pray. Every little bit helps, and it’s going to take a lot of ‘little bits’ to get these people everything that they need.

On a lighter note, Greg has asked me to make him a llama.

A llama? That’s what I said. Apparently he’s on a ‘Llama Team’ at work. It’s their mascot, or something. So he wants a llama. Go here to listen to the Llama Song. If that doesn’t make you laugh, there’s something wrong with you. Or, perhaps, you just need to turn on the sound. Heehee.

So, I’m designing him a llama. Here’s where all the magic happens! Some people have a sewing room. I have a cushion on the loveseat.

And here is how the llama is coming along! I’m making good progress, although you’ll notice he has no legs or facial features. Yet.

It gave me an opportunity to use the loop stitch, a novelty stitch that I’ve never used before. Cool, neh?