So, I know I said no creativity,

by Melissa // December 28, 2007 // 2 Comments

but I found some sanity this week. Greg has been home from work a lot, several looming deadlines have passed, and it’s almost like we’re on some sort of vacation. We’ve been thinking more and more about our impending move; this week Greg and I had our birthday and we went out to Benihana. We made a pact with each other that no matter what came across our plates, we would at least try it, and we tried a lot of new and unusual things. For me, it meant my first time eating shrimp (really) we had some California Rolls with wasabi and ginger (Greg had had these before, but all I have to say is seaweed = blech!), and we both tried ‘real’ sushi for the first time. Oh, and we ate our whole meal with chopsticks only (except for the soup, of course. And the birthday ice cream). So, that was fun. We really had a blast. We should be in Japan in less than two months, and that’s…pretty huge.

Anyway, this week I pulled out a ball of anonymous yarn that I got at Yarnivore on clearance; Melanie thought that it was something from Mondial, possibly Maxi. Fortunately, I had Ravelry! It’s great, because I was barely able to find anything about Mondial on the web, but on Ravelry there are pictures, a list of the yarns the brand carries, and information about them like yardage, composition, etc. As it turned out, my mystery yarn was Mondial Kross, a superbulky superwash wool that appears to be made out of 12 strands of 2-ply laceweight gently twisted together. Kind of insane, but very soft and lofty (also prone to splitting, as you might imagine).

I decided to use it to make a hat. I hate working from the brim up when I only have one small ball, so I decided to crochet it, top down. The color, sky blue, was too cheery for me to make a boring old winter hat out of it – I thought of spring. And this spring, I’m going to be in Japan, sitting between the mountains and the Pacific ocean. After a few, er, less than optimal iterations, I came up with a hat that channels the ocean, cool enough to wear when the days start warming up a little.

Can you see the waves? They were a little tricky to get right. Overall, I’m pleased with this hat –

especially the way that the open sections swirl down from the crown. I can really feel the ocean in this design, and that makes me happy.

Miss Me?

by Melissa // December 20, 2007 // 3 Comments

I’m gonna be honest, here. I predict that the blogging will be spotty at best over the next three months. Maybe four. We’re counting down to our transcontinental move – every week brings it closer and amps up the stress a little more. I do not have as much energy as usual for creative work. This could be a great opportunity for me, though – to make some of the other people’s designs I keep meaning to make but never find the time for. I still want to make things (it relieves stress, you know) but I need things that I don’t have to make decisions on. My own designs? Out. Math required? Out. Assembly needed? Not a chance.

It was with this set of requirements that I went for another hat, one that’s been in my queue for months.

This was the best modeled shot I was able to get unassisted. I like most how I look happy in the picture. Good times. It does no justice to the beauty that is this hat, though, so here you go –

how gorgeous is that? Pattern is the Greenery Hat, from Lilith Parker’s Lair of Lunacy. Nice! Not charted. I’ve come to really appreciate a good chart. I absolutely love the cables, though; they’re sinuous and organic feeling, and I like the way they grow out of the bottom ribbing. They’re a little like vines, I think, which could explain the name.

It’s a 2-post day

by Melissa // December 12, 2007 // 4 Comments

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No – it’s a Quant!

Unblocked, of course. ‘Cause that’s just how I roll. Plus, I’m pretty sure that if I blocked it out it would get even bigger, exceeding the size of my head. It does serve its purpose very well, though, keeping my head and ears nice and warm in blustery winds. (We had some cooler weather the other day, and I tested it out.)

Working with the Noro was really fun. The color changes work beautifully in entrelac, creating the impression that I did more work to get all the differently colored squares. (We always like ‘looks harder than it was’ projects. Yes.) There was only one break in the color repeats – if you look at the right side of the above picture you can see that the teal-through-light-green section repeats itself. Oh, well. I like green.

I did make some mods – first off, I changed the i-cord from three stitches to four. Then I worked the pattern as it was written until it was time to decrease for the other end. I was riding in the car and didn’t have the directions with me. I wasn’t perfectly happy with the way that the pattern directed that portion, anyway. If you look at the original, you can see that the triangular sections between the i-cord and the entrelac look different at each end. I understand that sometimes the differences between increasing and decreasing mean that it will look different if you only mirror, but I like symmetry where I can get it.

So, I worked the last row of triangles by doing a ssk at the beginning and end of every RS row, then only picking up 5 sts on the next edge (total of 6) and repeated across. This resulted in only one live stitch at the very edge of the piece; I picked up across for a total of 18 and decreased to match the other side. As you can see, this resulted in two ends that match very nicely, indeed. Hooray for symmetry!

All in all, there were a few things I didn’t absolutely love in the design. If I were to make another, I’d make it narrower, mirror the ends again, and use a button closure like Calorimetry instead of the i-cord ties. (They’re kind of bulky under my hair.) I can see why the designer might have chosen to go with ties instead of a button – I heard enough comparisons drawn between Quant and Calorimetry without yet another similarity. For the record, I don’t think it’s a knock-off design at all, but I think the button would work out better for me.

One more picture before I sign off for the day –

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the Tunisian Cable Experiment.

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