Oh noes, the pictures are clogging the tubes

Picocon. Picocon was awesome, and here are some pictures of the DoDM (destruction of dodgy merchandise).
Here is Alex about to golf a frozen snitch, and then me with the golden snitch wings in my Jayne hat (which everybody loved).

Some more general DoDM: the enjoying audience, Owain destroying a Darth Vader mecha-TIE fighter, the abomination that is Highlander 2 (sorry for the profane language), and Peter making sure that the abomination doesn't survive.

And Miranda!



Draconic mittens!


And, as said, I finished the tummy piece, and redid the neckline of the Blue Tomato. Now it's 4 rounds rather than 8, and I think it looks better, and doesn't buldge so much at the shoulder pieces.




Jonathan was here this weekend. Alex has just left to drive him home, and then he is off to a course on rockets (lucky him). I was a bit sad yesterday, and I realised it was jealousy-based, because Alex had spent a lot of the day with JJ, while I just was on the side. But he paid a bit more attention to me today, and I was a lot better. On the other hand, I think that he passed me his cold. While he won't be here this week to take care of me, it is nice to be alone sometimes, and I can just lounge around being ill. And knitting!

I has a jumper. Nobody be stealing my jumper.

I has a jumper. Nobody be stealing my jumper.
I have finished (in less than a month, go me!), my first real wearable jumper. The first one was several sizes bigger for me...

Pattern: Tomato, although I originally got it from the book "No sheep for you".
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cotton Jeans, 9 skeins in "Blue jeans" and a bit of Rowan All Seasons Cotton in cream.
Needles: Knitted with the recommended circulars in 4.5 and dpns in 4.0 for the neck.
Trivia: I initially liked the blue yarn, and bought two skeins just because, and then thought of something to do with them. And the blue tomato was conceived! (had to buy more yarn, of course).
It knitted incredibly fast, and it was very satisfying to finish, especially when I could finally try it on. I was a bit afraid it wouldn't fir, but it did! And now I am very proud of myself.
It is not as comfy as a bowl of tomato soup, but it is as comfy as jeans, which is what I was going for!





More pictures and info in ravelry.

Stitch'n'Bitch

Yesterday was a S'n'B Sunday.
Once more, I barely didn't make it, but I got myself out of the house, and went. I arrived a while earlier, as I always do. I just like being able to be the first person and have other people approach me, rather than me having to go up to a group. I was starting to lose hope, but two girls turned up at quarter past, about 2 minutes from each other. Johanna turned up a while later, and then one more girl. 120 (5!)
I don't think I can remember everybody's names, though, which is a pity. So we knitted (a balaklava, two fetchings, a jumper and my top), and talked, and had nice tea and coffee. It was really pleasant. One of the women told us about her son's accident, and we talked about flats and homes, and knitting techniques, and spinning. I felt this strange bond throught the knitting to these completely random women, and they were suddenly not stranger, but comrades in needles. I enjoyed that.
To top it all off, I managed to finish the body of Tomato.
I finally got to try it on, and discovered it fits. They said it looked really nice. I started the neck ribbing when I got home, and that's almost done as well. It shouldn't take too long, although that will clearly depend on how much time I have to knit this week.

Today, due to a weekend of not good sleep and horrible headaches, Cristina is really sleepy, so she'd like to share her sleepy kitten with everybody:

Wish me luck

Because I have apparenly nothing better to do, I have decided to start my first own pattern: socks. I have a mostly clear concept of what I want, so I can post a sketch when I have scanned it (I tried in Paint, and you could barely tell it was a sock).
Here are some things to watch out in the creation of my socks:

Limitations

• As said earlier, it can't be wool. I'm going for cotton, and hopefully I can find something with a bit of synthetic stretch on it.

Concepts

• They have to be warm sock to slip my feet in when I come back from work
• Chunky yarn, so they are warm socks and knit up fas
• To make them fit without the stretch, I'm going to make the leg open, kind of with a cut in the outside, and hold together with buttons.
• In the outside, possibly starting with the leg and continuing down the side of the foot, a cable
• Some thick stitch for the sole, might have to ask knitting for help on this one
  

Things to know

• Never done cables before! You take some stitches out to a cable needle, and then knit the next n stitches, and then the cable needle. The cable slans to one side or the other depending if you take the cable stitches back or front. Then you knit as many plain rows as stitches you cabled, and start again. At least the stitches right before and right after the cable are purls.
• You will finish Tomato, but you ought to finish some of your UFOs too.

This is all.

Planes and needles

I went to Madrid on a business trip, and knitted knitted knitted. One of the evenings, when I was really tired, I stayed in the hotel and read, ordered a pizza and knitted while watching some TV. It was so lazy, but so nice, and just what I needed. Now the second of my boyfriend's socks is well under way (possibly about 2/3 of the way there). I started the first couple of rounds of Tomato as well, as I decided that I had earned it.
I need to finish the socks by this weekend, when he leaves for the mountains. The socks will keep him warm, because they are knitted with love. Also you have to wind it*.

I made some elderly Spanish ladies in the plane jealous, because I was knitting and, had they know, they would have bought their crochet.

* If you don't get this reference, go now and watch Futurama. All of it.