7.11.2009

Oh look, an almost abandoned blog.

I've been trying to get used to working two jobs, which, yuck. I'd rather get used to hanging around in the pool with a shiny bathing suit on, fanning myself with stacks of 100 dollar bills. But, whatever.

I did see an excellent Lady Gaga makeup tutorial. The backing track is pokerface without the vocal tracks, and I like it SO MUCH better.

5.18.2009

The Post Where I Anger the Knitting Gods.

I've played around with the addi clicks and found them unimpressive, especially for 150 bucks.

Did lightning strike me down yet? No, ok, I'll continue. I even have a few shitty pictures as evidence!
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One of my new favorite yarn stores In the Loop had a set of the addi clicks in when I was there a few weeks (possibly a month? I've been sitting on my hands about this for a while) ago. I, of course, took advantage of the chance to pull them out and play with them for about half an hour. It took the five or six people there maybe three minutes to get the twisty connection thing down, and it was awesome and strong. So I pulled a ball of yarn from this project out, cast on and started swatching a bit. The cables were wonderful. The needles feel solid and sturdy in your hand, and the tip is just the right amount of pointy. So that was pretty wonderful, but pretty much all true of the standard addis.

But that join sucks. I've read other reviews that talk about how the join is no big deal, and the yarn slides right over it, which I found to be true, most of the time. Which means sometimes the stitches got stuck. 50% of those stuck stitches I was able to tug the work until the yarn slid over, but the rest I had to stop knitting to push the stitch over the join. I mentioned it to one of the (awesome) owners, and when she knit a few rows, she found it happened to her even more often. I'm generally a loose knitter, and she's generally a tight one. I knit several more rows and as long as I keep my tension fairly loose, the sticky join is noticible, but not a huge problem.

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So, the needles are accaptable when I was knitting at 5.5 stitches to an inch. Any tighter than that and the stitched start to get stuck at that join again. Considering the Kells Sport merino says it knits up with a gauge of 5.75-6.5 st/in, that's a bit troublesome for me.

I love my addi turbos. But if I had 150 dollars to spend on needles, I'd rather order the 40 inch addis in size 0 to 8. Even when I already own most of them, and have two pair of some (zeros, I'm looking at you) they're incredibly useful, I can use them to magic loop anything, and they work great at any gauge.

5.12.2009

just to throw some knitting in here...

I've been working on the Austrian Socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks, one of my favorite pattern books ever. I'm slowly working my way through all the patterns. I think this makes 5 out of 25, so I've still got plenty to look forward to.
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Since I got the book, I've grown much more comfortable modifying sock patterns if I decide something sounds fussy, but I've kept pretty close to pattern with these guys. The i-cord cuff originally called for you to do a provisional cast on and kitchnet them together, but even me, kitchner's biggest fan, couldn't do that without it coming out looking like the shittiest thing ever, so I cast on again normally, and seamed it together. The only problem:
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see that wonky seam? That's on the front of my sock, because I started picking up the stitches wherever I damn well pleased. Ah well, the next sock has that sucker on the center back where he belongs.

I am so in love with this yarn. It's Three Irish Girls Kells Sport Merino in Roisin, and it's difficult to photograph. It looks purple, right? Wrong. It's cranberry. A warm delicious looking cranberry that has just the right amount of subtle variation.

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Love!

5.08.2009

This is the very crappy version of something my brother and I came up with that made us giggle. So now it's in my pile of good idea projects to finish up. Oh Great, because that wasn't long enough.

4.25.2009

Oh, how I love shiny things.

I'm not going to tell the whole story here, but this is a little preview of my current obsession. I've got many more photos to follow.










I had no idea how awesome Three Degrees were until I found them doing a version of Maybe This Time a year or so ago on youtube. Since then I've been continually stunned by them, the smooth vocals, the silly dance moves, the incredible outfits. This one is probably the sparkliest video, and fits the shiny theme of this post.

Just when it seemed safe to visit London

this happened. I think this might be my favorite of the Single Ladies dances on youtube. I'd also like to recreate this with my friends, but half of us would be fat, and probably 40% of my friends are dudes. And of course, we aren't professional dancers. But it would still look as good as this video.

4.24.2009

Hey, Look! It's an abandoned blog!

I started this blog and was really just using it as a cheap pre-ravelry ravelry. But who knows? Maybe I'll like having someplace to type out all my boring crap. So, thousands of people who I'm sure are fascinated by me, here we go.