Carrie Nation

I am stll pretty confused by the blogger comment system. sometimes I get notified, sometimes I don't. and the whole replying to comments thing. Is it possible? Well I know it's possible, but are people notified when replies are left? I just don't know.

In any case, I have included a link to a post of days gone by in answer to Yvette's inquiry about Carrie Nation (aka that vintage cosmotology head)



Needle Addict: Beyond the valley of the mannequin heads

I also used to have one of those make-up heads when I was little. I wish I still had it, but I have vague rememberances of cutting off all it's hair and going a bit medival on it. Now I just use my own head for such purposes.

cheating on my diet

So I cheated on my yarn diet. It started with this.



one sad little skein of Mission Falls colour 026 (aka Zinnea) in a completely different dye lot from what I needed. However, I was filled with the fear of running out of yarn and the sweater is just too damn busy to do the sleeves in a different colour. I'd already checked at Alterknits, Romni, Lettuce Knit and the Knit Cafe and although 2 of the stores had Mission Falls, they didn't have it in zinnea. So I when I found this at the Naked Sheep, I bought it out of desperation, thinking that at least I could use it to do sleeve cuffs or a facing for the front. Truthfully though, if the original yarn I bought had been in this particular dyelot, I wouldn't have bought it.



The next day, I went to Knitomatic and found 4 skeins in the dyelot I needed, so I bought it all and felt stupid for not heading there first. I am telling myself that it is not cheating if I need the yarn to finish a project that I've already started.

I am now fairly confident that I have more than enough. I am a third of the way into the sleeves and still have this left over (plus the sad little skein of a different dyelot.) which will be more than enough for the hood. So perhaps I overbought, but hopefully I'll find another use for what ever is left over. Truth be told though- I hate knitting with this yarn. It really hurts my hands for some reason. (the superwash-edness I suppose). Perhaps it will be better for crochet, or machine knitting.



Speaking of cheating on the yarn diet, I also bought some Van Dyck yarn to make some more of those cabled wristwarmers for someone, although really it's not cheating if the yarn is purchased to make a gift... right? Sadly, I very quickly realized that the yarn was way too bulky for wristwarmers and therefore, needed to be made into a floppy hat on the Knifty knitter.




*here it is seen on Carrie Nation. Altough truthfully it's for me, so I guess that is cheating but it was accidental cheating, cheating without intent. Plus the yarn was on sale. Plus I knit it up the next day, so it's not like it was sitting around for very long.




On wednesday I checked out Passionknit for the first time ever, before hitting wednesday night SnB. I bought some cheap-ish yarn Sirdar: Click to make those armwarmers out of. I started the first one and have been carrying it around with me for over a week without working on them because I've decided that I don't want to make wristwarmers for this person. In fact I even broke one of my casein 3.75mm dpns. I think it's a sign.



Inspired by Sophie, I started on a pair of Dragon scale gauntlets for my sister's birthday. There is no way I will get them finished and in the mail in time for her birthday (next monday) but perhaps one day... maybe christmas. I'm hoping she will ike them because she likes dragons and she has arms. I am using the Lang; Mille Colori that I won in the last TTC knitalong.

and finally because I am wicked, and more importantly, because I was feeling virtuous for using up things in my stash, I went to Romni (actually for 4mm dpns which they didn't have and for some yarn to use to design legwarmers)
and I bought this



2 skeins of Fleece Artist;country wool for 11$ a hank. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it but I felt I had to buy it, since it's probably the only time I'll actually be able to afford Fleece Artist. But I'm not going to try to make excuses. This was cheating of the worst kind. I bought yarn because it was pretty, even though I have no clue what to do with it.

Usual bout of laziness

I have been remiss in my posting duties, mostly due to the despair of looking for a non-horrible job (no luck yet). In the mean time, I did manage to finish a few projects. Some of you may remember me working on a 'corset belt' from the Happy hooker book.




Hey, it looks suspiciously like mittens!!

Finally I just wasn't feeling the belt. In addition to enhancing my posterior region in a distressing manner, it was too big and I didn't have quite enough yarn. So I frogged the thing (not an easy task with Lamb's pride) and made these mittens using the power of crochet.



Hey, it's a scarf...and it's ribbed!!!

I have been working on this scarf for months and months (well it felt like months and months) and feared that it would never be finished. To date, I have only completed 3 scarve (all of which were ribbed) I actually I find the thought of knitting a garter stitch scarf almost as depressing as the thought of wearing a garter stitch scarf. Actually I find the thought of knitting any scarf, a little depressing... but not too depressing cause knitting is fun!!! The interesting thing about this yarn (Lang: Tosca mohair) is that the silver stripes look lavender in daylight.



Hey, it's an armwarmer and I made it!!

I finally found a project for the sad and neglected ball of Manos del Uruguay that I've been neglecting...sadly, where the results A) do not look vomitrotious and B) are learning me some new knitting techniques (the wild and exciting world of cables, who knew?) It's not as difficult as I thought. Well, it did take me three tries before realizing that the chart should be read right to left instead of left to right. The varigation of the yarn obscures the cables a little, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for my first time out. I also feel quite virtuous as I am trying to use up the small mountain of yarn I've accumulated. Well, the mountain is not actually that big, but it was a little pricey considering my current financial state.


Speaking of mountains of yarn, the sweater is still not finished. In fact, it had to be partially frogged due to the fact that after finishing the fronts and back and pinning the pieces together, I realized that the thing was embarassingly cropped. I most definately won't have enough yarn for this and will therefore have to break my yarn fast. I plan to go on a Mission yarn finding mission this afternoon before heading off to work at the wretched call center, however I am not optimistic that I will be able to get any in the same colour (let alone same dye-lot) which will force me break my not ordering yarn on-line rule (in addition to breaking my yarn fast).