WIP: the needs of babes

Another new project to show you today.  My sister is having a baby, and new baby niecicle needs a layette. Just needs one.  I'm making the same set as last time, because bub is due 15 Sept and I don't have time to look for or learn a new pattern.  Mixing it up a bit with colours this time, and adding yellow.  OOoooOOOoo. 

I've started with the blanket, using my own patten.  I've actually done TONNES more than in the following photo, but have no pretty pictures.  So you get a very preliminary, but prettily composed picture.  Suffer in your jocks.  I believe I am at row 37/108.  At this rate I am very confident of being done in time.  

I'm reading book two in the John Carter series, The Gods of Mars.  I feel myself tuning out a lot.  It goes a lot like this:  *Oh, John Carter's in a pickle?  Oh no.  Oh, John Carter's ok?   phew!** Repeat from * to **.  

I'm also reading a couple of chapters of Kingdom of the Wicked (Skulduggery) before bed every night.  It's ok.  But lookie what I found in there!! 

Fezzes will now and forever be cool.

Linking to- WIP Wednesday (Tami's Amis) | WIP Wednesday (Ambassador Crochet) | Yarn Along (Small Things) | Keep Calm and Craft On {Crafting on} (Frontier Dreams) | What you doing Wednesday (SusanD1408 Crochet Addict) | Hookin on Hump Day (My Merry Messy Life)

Caturday XXI

Welcome again to Caturday, the day I dedicate to The Kitten and her cuteness, and invite you to do the same with your kitties!

Today, The Kitten sits in the sun on her mat, contemplating life, the universe and everything.

42

Got a kitty post to share?  Fill in the Mr Linky below and link back to join the party!

FO: in which I become a model

This is a very exciting FO today.  Not so much for the FO piece itself, but for the amazing photographs.  I have a wonderfully talented friend who has agreed to become my personal photographer of my knit and crochet creations!  The plan is to pick a cool Melbourne location to nick off to during our lunch break and take some nifty piccies of my latest FO.  The location we picked for today's FO is Hosier Lane, known for the epic street art to be found there.  And without further ado, the photographic stylings of my dear friend Clara ...

And now for the boring bit, stats:
Pattern:  No pattern, I made this up.  CO a multiple of 4 and k2p2 in the round until my yarn was gone!  I wanted a big thick chunky cowl, and the yarn was far too busy for anything much more eloborate.  I would have liked it a bit shorter, but when I was casting on it just didn't seem like enough.  Still, it does the job nicely methinks, and it's stretchy and squishy.
Needles:  6.5mm (I think) ciruclars.
Yarn:  Some acylic stuff called Toscana by a mob called Fiddlesticks purchased from Big W.  The ball band tells me there was 100m per ball, I used 2 balls.  I was very surprised to discover the yarn was self striping - bonus!
Ravelled here

In the interests of full disclosure, my modelling career did not get off to a good start.  As soon as I got in front of the camera, I felt like a total nong.  How does a person pose?  What do I do with my hands?  Regular readers will know that I don't like my face.  I think it's more that I don't like my face in photographs.  I am therefore using the medium of this blog to get over my aversion to my own face.  It's like therapy.

I also need to give a shout out to my 'sylist' Lou for her invaluable contributions towards setting up the wonderful pictures seen above (and holding my stuff!).  (There she is helping me!!) xox

-Linking with-

Tami's Amis FO Fridays | Fiber Arts Fridays at Wisdom Begins in Wonder | Natural Suburbia for Creative Fridays | I've Made Friday at SusanD1408 Crochet Addict | I ♥ Fridays at Petals to Picots

WIP: tendrillar

I can knit while on a bus, I can knit while eating lunch.
I can knit while on a train, I can knit in the rain!

Well, maybe not in the rain.  That would be silly.

But, I really think it goes to show how my knitting confidence and skills are improving, by my ability to take this project on the train.  I've memorised the pattern.  What the fudge?  k6, k2tog, yo.  The pattern has some mumbo jumbo about using stitchmarkers and what not, why anyone would do this rather than going round and round and round without stopping is beyond me.  One more inch of pattern to go and I can start the picot finishing edge!

In the interests of full disclosure, my cowl is not without mistake.  Can you see it?

As a postscript to my Wonderful Realisation Of How Great A Knitter I Am Becoming, this morning there was another woman knitting on the train.  Her needles were flying and the yarn was a blur.  Somehow it made me feel a bit less special.  But I will endure!
I've stopped reading Jane Eyre for the moment (I'm up to the bit where she's just left Thornfield and it was depressing me.  That lady really needs to build a bridge, seriously, would it have killed you to just be his mistress?  Since reading this book last I think my feelings towards marriage have developed much - I really don't get it.  Fair enough in 1842 it was necessary, but now it's just like whatevers Jane, it ain't no thang!) and started reading (listening to) A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  I'm a big fan of reading the original source before/after I see a film I like.  In this case, I saw the film first.  I'm not one of those people who have to read the book first.  Whatever floats your boat dudes.  The book is good so far, in a sort of diary fashion.  The dude reading it is a bit weird though, he tries to do this Virginian accent, but then doesn't prounounce his 'r's.  (Like this: Warrior is prounounced Wawwior).  Obviously you may not want to watch the whole hour long video below, but John Carter animated! 

Oh and I also started reading the new Skulduggery book!  I've come to think of the author as a bit of a douche, (read his blog, blerg), but I still really like the books.  I mean, I don't like Valkyrie as a protagonist, (she lost me as soon as she cheated on Fletcher) but I love SP.  You can really picture what he would be like.  Even though he's a skeleton.

(thanks for the title, thesaurus.com!)

Linking to- WIP Wednesday (Tami's Amis) | WIP Wednesday (Ambassador Crochet) | Yarn Along (Small Things) | Keep Calm and Craft On {Crafting on} (Frontier Dreams) | What you doing Wednesday (SusanD1408 Crochet Addict) | Hookin on Hump Day (My Merry Messy Life)

Caturday XX

Welcome again to Caturday, the day I dedicate to The Kitten and her cuteness, and invite you to do the same with your kitties!

This week, the kitty chillin' at the end of her tunnel.  That piece of string you see hanging down is where there was a ball hanging down, which she promptly detached as soon as she got it.  Also pictured is her blue mousie, which was also detached from the string it was originally attached to, like a fishing pole toy.  

check out my made photography skills, yo.

And, in kind of unrealted news, I got my driving licence this week!  OK, not that impressive, seeing as any 18 year old can achieve this feat.  However, at the very least, it calls for an appropriately themed lolcat???

via

Any kitty stuffs you'd like to share?  Fill in the Mr Linky below and link back!

July movies

I'm going to continue with the crafti-sh related piccies for the movies I saw in July, though I am cheating a bit because there's some comics I love too.  But comics are crafty... they're artfully drawn.

Flash Gordon (H)
A read a review for Ted (see below), that said be sure to watch this movie before you see Ted to get the full extent of the in jokes.  In it's own right, this movie was rad.  So retro, so bad that it was good.  Definitely a super fun popcorn movie.  And a soundtrack by Queen! 

As an aside, "Pew Pew" is one of my favourite things to say (via)

Ted (M)
Thank goodness I watched Flash Gordon (see above).  When A and I went to see this, the theatre was packed, and there were so many moments, involving FG, that were histerical because FG was so fresh in our minds.  A few times I stopped laughing and notcied I was the only one.  Come on people, lighten up!  Definitely see this, lives up to the hype!! I love it when Marky Mark gets his Boston accent on too!

via

The Amazing Spiderman (M)(N)
I had super low expectations for this movie, I mean - seriously, remake a movie that was made 10 years ago?  Come onnn you must have some new ideas???  Plus, don't mess with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell.  Just don't.  And then, I quite enjoyed it.  It had a lot of problems, but it was ok.  


I saw this comic before I saw the movie, and during the movie I was insanely distracted by those floaty specks (via) (see also Kate Beaton's spidey)

Pride and Prejudice (1995) (N)
We have all seen this and we all love it.  Upon watching it last month, I laughed a lot more than I ought to I'm certain.  For example, when Mr Darcy's face appears in Elizabeth's mirror; when Mr Darcy is agonisingly writing the letter; the bath bit.   I do have one lingering question ... when are bonnets going to come back into fashion?  I think I would look rather fetching in a bonnet! 


Love Kate Beaton.  Oh so much, (via)

Pride and Prejudice (2005) (H)
Do you do this too?  After reading a book you must watch the film adaptation?  Do you do what I do, and watch as many adaptations as you can get your hands on?  Well, that's what I do.  I hadn't seen this yet, and I should not have really bothered.  It was as expected.  I don't like Keira Knightley's mouth.  But I did like Matthew Macfadyen.  And it ended in a weird place.  Please refer to the above when looking for your P&P fix. 

via


Jane Eyre (1997) (N)
I quite like this verion, I quite like the dude that plays Rochester. 



More Beaton, (via)

Little Women (N)
Just re-watching an old favourite.  Such a good movie, with lovely people in it.  If you haven't seen it, see it.  That is all. 

via

The Dark Knight Rises (M) x 2
This movie.  I will have this movie's babies.  I surely will.  I saw this movie twice in July, and plan on seeing it at least as many times again.  I was unsure going into it - could it live up to the hype?  But it did!! Everyone was brill in this movie, Bale, Hathaway, Levitt, Oldman.  Love.

Sexy batman (via)

The Big Hit (H)
Marky Mark, you are wonderful, even back in the day before you were big.  This was a great movie!  Very fun, good action and guns shooting etc.  Kidnap movie where the abductee falls in love wither her nice guy abductor - we've all been there. 

via


H = movies from the DVD vault at home
M = movies at the theatre
N = movies I watched while in Noosa

Pick of the month:  Batman!  Duh!

So, have you seen any good movies lately?

WIP: bicraftual

Two of todays WIPs are new this week.  Shameful.  But I'm really starting to love knitting... and I didn't have anything on the needles - surely I can be excused!  Hence the title - I am starting to feel truly bicraftual!

I've cast on two new knits.  The first, a spiral cowl.  I blame Ravelry.  You see, after finishing my Lovey Dovey Scarf, I had about half a skein of bwm allegro left.  So, naturally, I searched Ravelry to see what I could do with about 200 yards of 8ply that would go around my neck.

Look at that picot edge!!! LOOK AT IT!! I DID THAT!!!

I've also started a Snappy Hat, again the fault of Ravelry.  I was having a look to see what I could do with some Lincraft Veronica I've had for a while, and came across this lovely version.  So that was the end of that and I cast on immediately.  

I am firmly of the view that a crappy picture is better than no picture at all.

Knitting the snappy hat last night, I was stunned that I actually thought to myself 'what an easy pattern'.  Seriously, knitting, with all the fiddly little loops - easy???!  I honestly thought I would never get to this point.  Compared to crochet, I always found knitting fiddly, difficult to see where you're at, what you did wrong.  I'm not super duper at figuring out how to fix mistakes, but I can remember the pattern repeats in the above two patterns no sweat, and I can even see where I'm up to.  Knitting is still much more frustrating for me than crochet, but I'm starting to find my peace with it.  Sorry for rambling, but I'm so proud of myself - and you should be too!!!

Speaking of crochet, Sailor's Delight has not seen much progress.  Being my commuter project, I'm lucky if I get 3 rows done per return trip at the moment, the rows are sooo long.  The below photo was the first time I had actually laid this project out fully for a while to have a look at the big picture.  I'm slightly concerned at the humpy-ness of it, but I think a good blocking will fix that.  On the up side, I'm loving the stripes.  They're so neat and tidy.  And I love the drape and feel of the fabric, it's really lovely.  And it's reversable (yes, I'm looking at you gross knitted one-side-only stripes).   I have now used about 150g of yarn, and have 80g or so left.  It currently measures 65cm.  If I knew about maths I might be able to calculate how far my yarn will actually go, but instead I will wait and see. 

The Kitten subjects my shawl to the sniff test. 

And I have pulled my Mum's wrap out of hibernation in an effort to get it done for her birthday in September.  It was originally intended to be for her last birthday.  D'oh.  BUT she has been uber annoying and asking me all the time when I'll be done, and she has also demanded matching mitts and hat!  This type of behaviour does not make a person want to work on a gift, so hence the hibernation.  Also, as soon as I got it out, the following happened, further hindering my progress.  

In the absence of proper photos, include as many pictures of cats as you can.

I'm still listening to Jane Eyre, and enjoying it.  I'm looking forward to finishing it, as I have this adaptation lined up to watch.  I just need to find a spare 6 hours or so to watch it.  So, here's a comic - careful *SPOILERS*!!

via

-Linking to-

WIP Wednesday (Tami's Amis)

WIP Wednesday (Ambassador Crochet)

Yarn Along (Small Things)

Keep Calm and Craft On {Crafting on} (Frontier Dreams)

What you doing Wednesday (SusanD1408 Crochet Addict)
Hookin on Hump Day (My Merry Messy Life)