Argyle Skullcap

My knitting friends accuse me of being a little crazy and too ambitious. Am I really?

For the last several months, I've had the idea that it'd be cool to knit an argyle hat or cap with skulls in it. Not that I'm into skulls or argyle, but it'd be interesting, no? Especially since those are 2 of my sister's favorite patterns/motifs. I never thought I'd try it, because I knew it'd be hellish to knit.

Then, one very late night (surprise, surprise), about 4-5 days before Xmas, I dug through my bucket of leftover yarn and came up with some yarns that are similar (but not quite exact) in gauge and stayed up to start charting for Argyle Skullcap (working title).

The next day, I went to the knitting group with my chart and 4 yarns in tow. Fast forward lots of tangling, untangling and tinks, I began to see some results. In the end, I did screw up some one of the colors, but I was too lazy to undo it by that point, and it looked almost intentional. I am happy with the results considering that I had very little time to do it, and I just found leftover yarn that didn't quite match in weight to do it in. I finished it about 3 hours after my sister drove in from San Francisco on Xmas eve, and I think she really likes her gifts -- a big tin of gourmet cookies, a pair of argyle tights and the Argyle Skullcap.

I would show y'all photos of the fair isle nightmare inside, but I forgot to document that. I don't know if other knitters are also masochists and would want to knit this, but it there is enough interest, I think I will rework the gauge and chart and release it as a pattern. If you're on Ravelry, it's here.

Oh, and ironically, my sis was wearing her skeleton t-shirt the night I gave her the hat. It was not planned.

Petrified Pussycat

Oh the humiliation! This Xmas weekend, we had a special visitor - Lola, a rambunctious 8 month old pit/lab puppy.

Our cats, who have never ventured more than 50 feet outside of our door were not happy with a strange animal they have never encountered in the house. After about 1 day and a half, Brownie and Fat Maggie were not as scared anymore. They still kept their distance but would perch by the window or couch and hiss at Lola whenever the dog got close. However, not our resident bully, Whitey Coyote, who hid behind our headboard in the bedroom whenever she heard the dog in the house. As it turns out, this big bully (who likes to play alpha-cat and beat up on her siblings), is the biggest scaredy-cat of all.

As she was hanging out in the living room one day, poor Whitey Coyote was caught off-guard when the dog was allowed back into the house for the evening. With nowhere to go, she wedged herself between the wall and couch. To further the humiliation, everyone in the house came to laugh at and document her predicament.

Poor Lola was so sad and disappointed that her feline cousins would not play with her. At her house, her best friend is a kitten, so she thought that these feline cousins would play with her. My sister, her boyfriend and Lola have now left to camp in Death Valley. Before their departure, I made Lola a little scarf out of some recycled felted sweaters. The toggle button is also a felted sweater piece. Doesn't she look mighty fine?

Craft Show: Yays and Nays

The handmade craft show I did this past weekend ended up being kind of slow. I have no idea why. There were street signs and ads in various papers. I suspect that one reason is that there was a similar one 2 weeks prior in the same area. Plus, being that it's the holidays, there are lots of shows during this season.

Regardless, I did okay. Enough to cover the fee, and make back my investment for inventory for this show and some chump change. Yay! I had no expectations of how much I would make, especially since I was contacted about this show 2 weeks before it was scheduled, but I actually had thought there would be more people. Anyway, it was fun. I met some great local Etsyians, and have some inventory to list in my shop (when I have the time!). I offered my friend Zona space at my table to peddle her lovely items, so she hung out with me all day and sold some of her hand-knits and handspun yarns.

I didn't dye any yarn for this show, but used some stuff other handpainted yarns I had in stock. I sold a few skeins of yarn, one of the customers was another vendor who kept coming to my table to look at the yarn. She bought 2 skeins at the end of the day -- she lucked out because another customer was debating between the ones she wanted and 2 other skeins. I must also thank JayJay, Marie and Pam from my knitting group who came and supported us.

As far as all the silk scarves I painted, I think the trees with the tiny blossoms are my favorites. I also like the green one on the far right quite a bit.

I did some shopping as well. I bought some YUMMY jam from this guy who makes his own jams, jellies and chutneys, which are mostly made from fruits that he grows! I got a plum chutney -- the best I have ever had (I have bought many at various farmer's markets before) and a jalapeno jelly.

Here's a Nay. Actually, it's a big BOO. There was a girl who sold some screenprinted t-shirts, bags and some hand-knits. She's the kind of hand-knitter I scoff at at these craft shows and fairs. Why? No, it's not because she was selling fuzzy fun fur scarves. Fun fur scarves only make me cringe a little, not scoff. The boo on this vendor is not something that's a matter of personal taste. She was selling the Kittyville hat! The only difference in the hat she sold is that she omitted the earflaps. Everything else looked exactly the same. This type of selling bothers me, because it is a form of copyright infringement. Really, the least anyone can do is to do it in another weight yarn and alter the gauge, or even change the type of stitch used. Even then, I would feel weird about selling it, but that's just me. Maybe I'm being too harsh. All I know is that I would be very irked if I caught someone trying to profit from my original patterns, especially if it's one as distinctly noticeable as the Kittyville hat.

Stained Fingers and Silk Painting

Two weeks ago, someone contacted me after seeing my etsy shop and asked if I was interested in doing a Handmade Craft Show that's a fundraiser for a local high school. It was short notice, but I decided to do it. Afterall, it is just around the corner from my house and it's for charity.

I had some handpainted yarns but didn't have a lot of finished products to sell to non-knitters. Since I didn't have time to knit a bunch of items in less than 2 weeks, I decided to dye and paint silk scarves. In addition to the scarves, I will be selling some of my headbands and baby onesies, which still have to be completed.

I've spent the last few days creating a disaster in my kitchen and dining room. My hands, arms and fingers are stained with dye.

I started out painting on my dining room table. Don't worry, there are layers of protective covering on the table. I'm totally Asian in the way that I have a vinyl covering on my table most of the time. My rationale and reason is that I have cats that will jump on it and scratch the finish. I would not be covering it if I didn't have cats -- really.

Anyway, when painting directly onto the surface didn't work out that well (the resist took forever to dry and got really gummy), I built my own makeshift frame. It's just 2 pieces of wood that used to be ugly valances the previous owners of my house put up, some nails and some coated plastic laundry clips. I drilled holes into the clips and then hooked it into nails I drove into the wood. To prevent the clips from moving around too much, I also held them down with some wire.

It has been tiring and time consuming, but nevertheless, I had fun and I am happy with what I've created so far. However, I can't say that I look forward to cleaning my mess. Right after my craft show on Saturday, I am hosting my knitting group's annual holiday party, so I have LOTS to do before Saturday.

Ravelry

I've finally caught up with other knitters and joined Ravelry, and I am so glad that I did! The site is very well designed and very user-friendly. The only downsides are (1) I will have to upload a bunch of stuff onto my account, and (2) I can totally see myself spending lots of time on there.

One of the fantastic Ravelry features include the ability to find a endless myriad of patterns in one place AND see what other knitters have done with those patterns. This saves a ton of time doing multiple internet searches. I used to have to search using various search engines, blogs and various crafting/knitting forums for variations, yarn substitutions and photos of patterns. With Ravelry, this is a cinch!

When I first logged on, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that other Ravelry users had already uploaded my knitting designs into the site's pattern compendium. I've since updated all the information and added photos to the patterns.

Other superb features include yarn index (although most, but not all yarns are on there), LYS serach index (it's also a work in progress, so it's not complete) and the ability to manage your projects (present and future), yarn stash, library and designs.

Although I am tempted to list and post some of my past projects, I think I will hold off for the time being, since it is such a time-consuming task to do so.