tastes like... licorice

thanksgiving kinda ... sprung up on me pretty fast. but, it'll be here in two days. i splurged on yarn AGAIN. i've been keeping my eye out for good sales and now when i see a sale i feel like i HAVE TO make purchases. i need help. hahaha.
went to joann's last night and ended up buying this really cool looking "licorice" yarn.

it was on sale and very appealing to me. i wasn't too sure what exactly was gonna happen with the yarn but, now i think it'll turn into a scarf for joe. hahaha, it's kind of on the verge of excessively funky, so, ... eh, who knows. if he likes it then i'll give it to him. ^_^



^{my first time using seed/moss stitch... and, i really don't know what it looks like 'cause the yarn is so weird}


the bears are so hot now in their 9-1 glory. hahaha. yay bears. kevin and i went to kevin's condo to "watch" the game. we arrived with like.. 5 minutes left. lol. so, we chilled and caught up on the office. sherry made these awesome carrot cake cupcakes. mmmm, and then i got to watch her crochet a little. crocheting looks SO cool, i gotta learn. she's gonna teach me and i'm gonna teach her to knit. fun.

i started knitting the cashsoft yarn. it feels so delicious in my fingers. hahaha, a very.. odd but blissful experience. while i was @ border's with kevin the other day i ran across this pattern for a broken rib knit. it looked cool so i tried it on the cashsoft. it actually cause the sides to roll in. =( so, i unraveled the few inches i had and attempted to adjust the pattern a bit to hopefully reduce curl-age... but, no luck. now the scarf is about 8 or so inches long and it STILL curves, but, i don't have the heart to unravel it and try something else. so, i'll stick with this and try to block it later.



^{merino wool - microfiber - cashmere blend. mmmm.}


i ordered my first yarn from on-line the other week. it came in yesterday. very exciting. hahaha. i saw this pattern on-line for a scarf with kind of a sideways V design on it. the pattern called for this really expensive brand of yarn and... i wasn't about to spend $15+ on one ball. so, during my random surfing i came across yarn.com and they were having a sale of a very similar yarn. and then i bought it. ^_^



^{i love how it changes from thick to thin!}


at joann's yesterday i picked up a set of crochet hooks and these wool needles. the crochet hooks are for if i accidently drop a stitch and the needles are for 'sewing' in the ends of my scarves. so, i finally finished-finished the scarf i made for anne. basically spent like half an hour trying to comb out the tangled "eyelashes" and then a few minutes weaving in the ends. and i ALSO finished the blue scarf with the self-striping yarn.



^{modeled by my friend mochi}


hung out with kevin on saturday and he strangely agreed to go to one of the yarn shops in his town with me. it's called knit whiz. hehehe. the people there were really friendly and they use this system to track your purchases.. so, if you need more of a certain type of yarn they know what it is and also what dye lot it's from. also, they track your needles so that they can let you know if you already own a certain size. ... definitly something i could've used. (i have three sets of 7's!)
while we were there kevin helped me pick out this sexy navy blue yarn. ouuuu... i wonder who it's for.. ^_^



^{100% merino wool}


i am completely obsessed with knitting. i need some knitting/crocheting buddies!

i got the remedy

i've been wanting to update for a while now, but, i always feel like i need pictures to accompany each blog. sadly, the weather has been pretty crappy and thickly overcast so i didn't really have a chance to take any good pictures. today was a bit different, mostly cloudy, but once in a while the sun would find it's way through. i snapped some shots of my current works-in-progress and a few of my recent yarn purchases. ^_^

this is the blue yarn with the splotches of color in it. i've been knitting a really thin scarf in 1x1 ribbing.

^{i want to run my clippers over it to get rid of those little tiny strands}


i realized earlier that i had not been to borders in a loooong time. it use to be one of my regular nightly stops. but then... i'm not sure what happen. for now i'll blame the sims, heroes v of might and magic, the fall season's tv line-up, and knitting. i made an attempt to go last night but ended up walking in at 10 minutes before closing so i grabbed a coffee and left.
i went tonight and collected a few knitting books to read and bought a gingerbread latte. mmm. (it comes with a mini gingerbread cookie!). as the barista was ringing me up he saw my books and asked if i was paying for them now. i explained that i would just be looking through them. he nodded and then asked if i knew how to knit. and so, we ended up having this whole knitting conversation for like.. 5 minutes and we traded patterns. hahahaha. i'm such an obsessed loser. but, yay, i met a knitter outside of the gifted purl... AND it was a male knitter.

yesterday's purchase from the gifted purl: 2 balls of "cashsoft". it's a blend of merino wool, microfiber, and cashmere. mmmm, so soft. hahaha, and it will soon be turned into a scarf.



^{the tag didn't have a color name, but, it's a very light grey}


i finished watching the lord of the rings trilogy last night. i started on monday night. when i first watched it many years ago i thought i had the jist of what was going on. frodo got the ring and had to destroy it while a war was going on. but there were so many names thrown around that it was kinda hard to follow. not to mention a lot of the humans kinda looked the same with their rather long redish-blondish-light-brownish hair and full-on beard and moustaches. after this recent viewing, though, i feel like i have a much better grasp of middle earth and the conflicts. lord of the rings is a fricken awesome movie. hahahaha. and it makes for good knitting time too.

this tweed is driving me insane. i dont' know what to do with it. i started working this 2x2 rib. i had to make it on the thin side 'cause i only had one skein but now it's just... too thin. and it's chunky-looking and itchy and hard. =( maybe i'll turn it into a set of coasters. o_O



^{a sad attempt at a tweed scarf}


i think my car needs new brake pads. x_X it had been making these squealing noises for the past few months now... and umm, someone once told me that those noises mean that your brake pads need replacing. well, today i discovered that the squealing noises have seemingly died down while in reality they're just being covered up by this scary grinding noise which i'm assuming is the brakes scraping the wheel sans brake pads. yeah, let's fix that tomorrow.

last week i finished anne and kevin's scarves. they're cool. sorta. hahaha. kevin's ended up being really... plain. and i felt bad so i'm making him another one. stripe-y in these hot colors:





and here's a picture of anne's "finished" scarf. i have to like.. comb the mfer out with velcro or something cause most of the furry-fuzziness is caught in the stitches.





i decided that i'll be giving out the scarves and soon as they're done in order for the recipient to maximize usage. hahaha. so, anne, if you're reading this... i have a surprise for you! lol.

that's all for now!

bought more yarn today. i was feeling like my selection @ michael's was really limited. no really great quality stuff. so, i did a search last night for yarn stores in my area and found one (the gifted purl) just a few miles down the road. managed to free up some time to check it out. it's not a huge store but it's such a ... small, personal shop. right when i got in the owner came up to see if i needed help and asked me about knitting. told her that i was making scarves for friends and that i only recently learned to knit. so, she pointed me towards good scarf-yarn. ^_^ she was really open for questions so i asked her anything that crossed my mind and she had all the answers. awesome store.

i ended up buying two balls of this blue yarn with a few brown/orange sections. it supposedly creates really interesting stripes at random times during the knitting.
i also spotted this really interesting looking dark grey tweed. it has the tiniest flecks of white and red and orange and a little green and light blue in it ... i really should stop buying the grey colors.. but... for some reason they appeal to me the most. i think i'll use the tweed for idyl's scarf. ^_^

here's a picture of my current unused balls.

on the left is the blue with the orange-y sections. the middle is gold lattice. originally i was gonna pair it with the black chenille in the back.. but.. umm... after testing it out it kinda looked really gross... so, no idea what's gonna happen with that. right behind the lattice is the tweed and then the chenille on top of it.

i bought this fluffy white yarn and this light blue "eyelash" yarn and i've been knitting them together for anne's scarf. it's been going fast and i'm over a third done. so, next post i'll take pictures of my work in progress.



^{ouuu, the blue and the tweed.}


as you can tell, knitting has all but consumed me. hopefully i find another obsession soon.

dickie knits!

i've rediscovered my lost love for knitting and so i'm starting a knitting blog. when i learned last year i actually never created anything functional. my first piece was this blue scarf... it was more of a test piece i suppose, a lot of trying out knits and purls and knit/purl combos. it ended up really ... ugly.
after the blue scarf i found this really fuzzy multi-toned dark yarn and knitted with it in a very well maintained stockinette stitch. i ran out of yarn during the project and couldn't find another ball of the same color and had to end it early. o_O so, i have this... umm, half scarf deal.
the next yarn i got was this simple thin grey color. i decided to go for ribbing and created this knit two - purl two pattern. i was doing really well and then maybe after about knitting a foot of scarf i made a huge mistake. at the time i didn't have surgical repair skills so, i quit.

i think i picked up knitting again maybe 2 and a half weeks ago. my skills have improved after watching on-line demonstrations. good stuff. so, i've decided to knit my close friends scarves this christmas. i'm obviously still stuck at a beginner's basic rectangle level, and, scarves are the only cool thing i can think of to knit that has four right angles.

since today was such a great day i decided to binge on yarn and new needles and to take pictures of my current work.



<sup>this is the scarf i finished last week. it's a k1p1 ribbing on size 15 needles. scarves are never long enough for me. not that i'm super tall or anything, but, i really like my scarves to hang low after i've wrapped them around my neck. so, i knitted this one extra long.



a close up of the ribbing.</sup>

the next pictures are of the scarf i'm working on for kevin cristi. i dragged him out to michael's so he could pick the yarn he wanted. he asked for a thinner scarf.



<sup>just a simple garter stitch on size 7 needles.



i call these needles "blue steel". hehehe.</sup>


the next scarf i just started today. for picture purposes. hahaha. i bought this orange yarn the same time i bought the dark grey one for my scarf. i was hoping of using them together in some sort of stripe pattern. but, that ended up being too complicated for my basic skills.



<sup>this is also a garter stitch. pumpkin colored on size 15 needles.



i love these needles. they're made of bamboo. ouuuuu.</sup>


that's all for now. i bought yarn today for lora's and anne's scarves... but, i'm gonna hold off on casting on until i finish kevin's. =)

anyone wanna knit with me?