Snowmen!

Coinciding with the return of winter in time for Easter, I found some old photos of the snowmen I made last year.
As I was knitting the periodic squares, I had the sudden urge to knit some snowmen using the leftover yarn. So I did. I found some pictures of one of them in the camera, and I was struck by how cute it looked, especially in this cut. It looks very much like a postcard.

The last couple of scarves of a rainbow set need to be attached still. Thankfully winter is always coming again.

Not everthing is high-brow control theory

Some beautiful handspun silk from the wonderful SpindleImp.
Some socks from Alex.
Two, in fact.
Some ridges and ribs for me.

Non-stretch fetings (FO)

Hurrah, I finally managed to get around taking pictures of my new pair of fetching! This should also come with a brief apology for the lack of content, but you have no idea (actually, you might) how tiring several hours of heavy weight-lifting (at least 65 kg) are.

Technical details
Ravelry project page
Pattern: Fetching, by Cheryl Niamath
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton in red
Needles: 3.75mm dpns, plus a cable needle
Notes: This fetchings are, so far, resisting much better the stretching (which was the hope) and the crutches. I also like how they match my nail polish. I very rarely wear it, but I was house-bound yesterday, and wanted something to do. It was either bright red or pale, so I went for striking. And then I paired it with my fetchings, and was happy.
Incidentally, I love the first shot. The colour is more true in the second one, but I love the crispiness of the first one.


Look, an action shot!

PSA: Winter Knitty is up! At time of posting, the site is slow and ocasionally down due to the entire knitting world trying to access it, but hopefully the craze will subdue in a couple of hours.

Wedding accessories (FOs)

You might remember that I had to attend my cousin's wedding, and I decided to knit my accessories (as well as use an old dress, which annoyed my mother no end).
The wedding was this past Saturday and, barring some disagreements about what time to come back, it wasn't so bad, given that it was an affair that involved my family. I came out with a clear thought: I'm not getting married. If I do, I will elope.

Click here for the full picture!

Hair Flower

Ravelry hair flower
Pattern: Main flower (rav) and Small flower (rav)
Yarn: Rowan Cotton Glace in black and maritime (discontinued)
Needles: 2.75 mm for main flower and 3.0 mm hook for small flower
Notes: I like how my hair turned up! I didn't know what do to with it, so I asked Ravelry for help. I loved the Chinese bun tutorial, so that's what I did. 10 minutes, 20 hairpins, 1 dpn and plenty of holding-spray later, I was the proud wearer of that bun, and mocked the people that had spent at least 2 hours that morning at the hairdressers. As the evening wore on, some of the hairs started to uncoil, but still remain in nice curls, so they looked on purpose. If you have long hair, I would certainly recommend this hair style!


Lace evening gloves



Ravelry project page
Pattern: Afternoon tea fingerless gloves (rav)
Yarn: Patons 100% cotton 4 ply, in black
Hook: 2.5 mm
Notes: My brother commented on the gloves, and said he thought they were very elegant.
I had a bit of trouble when I started making them, first having to check many sticthes (tr3tog explanation here), and then getting overconfident and doing it wrong. Worth it, though. They do stretch a lot when you block them, so don't be afraid if they look too small: I certainly thought I was going to have to redo them in a 2.75/3.0 hook (although continued with the first one to practice), and in the end it stretched plenty.

Gloves in action!

Sorry for the poor quality of this picture. There were actually very few pictures of me in my family's digital camera, so that was the best I could get.

Don't anthropomorphise the tomatoes

My camera card died on Tuesday after I was taking pictures of all my stash. I have a little stash, mainly leftovers, but it still bust my camera. Hence the lack of pictures, especially of the finished Green Tea (although that is not helped by the fact that I haven't finished weaving in all the ends, when I finished knitting it on Sunday). I am going to buy a new one on Saturday, before I head over to my local Knit in Public meeting. However, I can show you my stash. I am in the process of putting it all in Ravelry so that I know what I have, but you can check it in Flickr in the meantime.

However, I can tell you that, on this same Tuesday, after the stash photo session, and after I decided not to go to Tai Chi because my allergies were making me feel really unwell, teh boyfriend and I kept cracking at Lego Indiana Jones. And we finished it!
A whooping 100%, it was great. I tried to take a picture of the screen with the 100, but that's when I discovered my camera was dead (funeral arrangements to be confirmed at a later time).

<small review>
Lego Indy is really fun. Because the engine is developed from the Lego Star Wars games, they really could work on the details. The backgrounds look a lot better, and there is actual character definition! For example, Indy is afraid of snakes, so he starts shaking and gets scared if he gets near snakes. You need to use the other characters to get some fire and draw the snakes out of the path for Indy to cross. Most of the characters start without weapons, although you can pick them up when your enemies drop them. The awesome thing is that, unless your character is meant to have a gun, all the guns you pick up have limited ammo!
I have been playing with Sallah. Sallah has a shovel as his default "weapon", so he can dig on the grond, but it is also the Shovel Of DOOM, and can kill enemies. I love the shovel.
I think I still prefer Lego Star Wars 2, but this is not bad at all!
</small review>

I have finally decided to name my computer Argos.
I arrived to this name via "argent", the latin/greek name for silver. There have been many people (mostly mythological) called Argos, but my favourite is Argos Panoptes, the all seeing. I think Argos likes his name so far, although I haven't got as far as changing it in the computer itself, I've just been calling him Argos, and he hasn't complained yet.

Related to calling my computer "him", I was commenting on the baby tomatoes yesterday dinner, saying
"Aww, look at the baby tomatoes, they are so cute".
To which teh boyfriend answered,
"Don't anthropomorphise the tomatoes. They hate that".
It cracked me up.

The "big project" changes

I am very tired, and I probably look it. I don't sleep well, and today I had a really tiring day at work (there is a release today, so don't tell my boss I've been blogging!). Because I am just a code-monkey, I didn't need to work over the weekend, and instead got some knitting done.

I have started a t-shirt, Green Tea (pattern: Green Gable, by Zephir Style). It is, as the name indicates, rather green, and I think it is coming on quite well. I've already knitted to it the first of the 6 balls of yarn it needs (Rowan Luxury Cotton in cabbage green). I'm really looking forward to wearing this t-shirt. The original name of the project was going to be "Green Tee", but I kept misspelling Tee as Tea so many times, that I decided to change the name. I really like how it's turning, so you can have a picture of the front lace.

Don't click on it! The image only looks ok small, it's not terribly in focus!

The keen-eyed (or the stalkers) around you might have noticed that I only have one "big" project at a time, and I have started the Green Tea before I posted some pictures of the finished Healing Cardigan. It is, as you can see, still on its way (I've made a little bit more progress since this picture, but not a lot more).



The healing cardigan is currently in a concious break, and with actual reasons, I'm not just distracted by a new shiny (well, I am, but that's not the centre of the question).
I'm not very happy with how the fit it's turning up. I am having trouble getting the neckline to close and not be too wide and, most importantly, I think the sleeves are way too small. Despite the fact that my yarn is at the moment from different dye lots (long story), there is something at the back of my head which wants me to undo the top part, undo the sleeves, and knit them again, wider. I don't really want to do that, so I'm leaving it to rest for a couple of days to clear my head from it. As well as doing the little crochet eggs, I figured I could allow myself to start the next big project, especially as producing something successful will make me feel better.
And it is. I can feel the spring green coming from the knitting onto me. It looks like the fields, the only thing it's missing is daisies. Which I might have to knit soon.

Katamari! (FO)

(I will recommend that you open this video in a separate tab. It's the introduction video to We love Katamari, and it features my favourite Katamari song, "Katamari on the swing". I figured it was an appropiate soundtrack)

Here is my fully-funtional Katamari!

What is that?	It's getting near!
It's taken one of us!	Nooooooooo

Nothing can beat a Katamari!


Technical details
Ravelry project page
Pattern: Magnetic Katamari, by Amy Shimel (Amy's Babies) (Ravelry pattern page)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, in blue, yellow and orange (yellow and orange are leftovers from the Jayne Hats)
Hooks: 3.0 mm (for the main body) and 3.5 mm (for the nubs) - although I did try 4.0, 4.5 and 5.0 when I was being special at crochet; don't use those.
Notes: if you know how to crochet, and do single crochets instead of slip stitches, it is a very easy crochet. Once I got my stitches right, it flew off the hook. I couldn't get the recommended magnets (I couldn't get them online from a UK store), so I ordered some random ones from Craft Bits. The service was good and quick. I placed the order on Saturday morning, and I got a confirmation that the items had shipped on Tuesday. Wednesday evening, when I got home from work, the magnets were in my mailbox (stuck to it, as well!).

The Katamari now lives on the living room carpet, where I kick it every time I walk past, and it rolls wonderfully! It is awesome!! I'm so happy!

Lace bookmark (FO)

Yesterday was Mother's day in Spain (and in many other countries, but my mother only lives in one). I wanted to make her something as a present, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time and yarn on it, as my mum and I don't get along terribly well. I think I just wanted to show her, for the umpteenth time, that I can knit, because no matter how many times she sees my pictures and my FOs, she has not finished accepting that I can. She just doesn't believe I can do it.
So I searched for a bit online, and decided to make her a bookmark. My first thought was to design one myself, but I wanted some lace in it. I tried some stuff from my stitch dictionary (from The Knitter's Bible), but it was not coming out very well, so I found one online.
It's a very simple and quick lace pattern, it took no time. I haven't ever got my mother a present she liked, so she probably won't like this one either, but I don't care. At least I tried, while she has given up on getting presents for anybody (actually, my family as a whole has given up on presents, at least for Christmas and my birthday).
Anyway, enough complaining about my family (I can do that at great length), have some pictures!

Detailed view of the lace:


And an action shot!



Technical details
Raverly project page
Pattern: Diamond lace bookmark, by Sivia Harding, also available in the Knitting Pattern a day calendar 2005, pattern for March 21^s (Ravelry project page)
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, leftover from Charlotte's 21^st birthday scarf.
Needles: 3.5 mm
Notes: Very quick and easy, it works really well for a simple present, and it has taught me that if I ever want to do something big and lacy, I really need to get pointy needles, rather than use my bamboos. The proportions are not quite right. The width calls for one more lace repeat, but that would make it huge! It is already rather wide as it is, so maybe is should have been done in smaller needles (no way!). Oh well, it'll have to do. Also, I'm 100% sure she'll never see this, as my family doesn't know about this blog and I've done plenty of searches of my name, and it doesn't appear within a reasonable number of pages in google, so I'm safe posting this.

Boyfriend socks pictures up

Finally got around to put some pictures of the socks up, which can be found in the socks' post, here.