christmas came early

i deserve all this stuff. i really do. because i'm such a good person. who happened to be in a desperate need of a yarn swift.

and who also happens to be very much in non-platonical love with the color yellow.

better start punishing myself for such objectionable folly. satanic waste of hard-earned cash, guaranteed to cause premature death in some gruesome, goresome yarn-related incident.

no, wait. fuck this. as of right now i refuse to feel guilty over the yarn-related stuff i buy. i don't care what anyone says. it's my money and my obsession. there's nothing wrong with prioritizing yarn over food if it's hand-dyed and pretty. and whether i have any immediate use for it is irrelevant, because the hanks are indeed pretty to look at and in their wonderful woolly texture offer soft consolation for my tear-stained, petless, husbandless soul. besides, a wise woman once said...

"i always feel a bit of a need to apologize for the yarn i buy. i feel like i should justify it or explain it or excuse it. but really, that's silly. this is my business, and it requires yarn. so i bought some."

some meaning 16.

so in this industry i'm still considered moderate. which means i need to go buy some more. now.

multitasking

clockwork awesome

yes. i do appreciate the irony in the fact that i've basically replaced one genre of skinny white guys singing about their feelings (nu-metal) with another genre of skinny white guys singing about their feelings (indie).

now let's never talk about it again.

as for today's topic, let me just take a moment here and revel in the magnificent sunshine of this following piece of yarny artwork.

clockwork by stephen west

ravelry link

mokkasukka sasu & austermann step (80g & 50g / 3.5mm)

dear stephen. i think you're a genious, and also kind of hot. please write more patterns so that i can send you money and used panties flowers.

which is not to overlook the supreme keanu reeves type excellence of the yarn. mokkasukka will change your life. get some. like, now.

also feel free to worship my shirt, which is awesome.

awesome, i said.

my man paulie

you know paulie.

he's the type of dude that's all over you. like, really gets under your skin. he's kind of hairy. a little prickly. and smells funny too. it was love at first sight, sure, but later you've come to realize he can be a real asshole sometimes. on a good day he's all warm and fluffy, on a bad day you want to stab him in the face.

but still he keeps hangin' around, and you like it. kind of. sort of.

paulie by isabell kraemer

ravelry link

size modified small

fortissima alpaka & drops baby merino (270g & 50g / 2.5mm)

yes it's me in a skirt, get over it

i made some modifications to both the size and style, because let's face it, no man nor cardigan could ever satisfy me the way god intended them to. i started out with size small but realized it would be too small, so i added a couple of increase rounds and regular garter rounds before separating the sleeves. then i knitted all the way down, finished the hem and added the collar and front bands, went "oh god not again", and started over.

i didn't like the garter hems so i made a wide ribbing instead. at first the edge seemed to flip over because of the wide stockinette parts, but binding off from the wrong side makes it sit nicer. left out the waist shaping too, because as you can see i have absolutely no waist anyway. pretending i do would be cheating, and cheating is lying and lying makes you sterile.

"eww, there's nature in here"

for some reason the front garter parts seem to bulge out a little. it's not that it's too wide. i guess garter just doesn't work with my saggy boobs. also the collar won't fold stay folded like it's supposed to. and the left sleeve is wider than the right. what else? oh yeah, i sewed the buttons at the wrong places. point it out and die.

i dare you

but paulie grows on you. like most guys do. and by most i mean anyone who tells me i'm pretty.

hit the jump for more info and photos.

from me to you

welcome to the family, sweetheart.

holy cow(l)

i like cowls. my friends like cowls too. so i made a bunch.

(also i'm taking a short break from cardigans because seriously, one more of these knit-like-a-fruitcake-for-seven-days-then-realize-it's-all-been-for-nothing experiences and i will start hurting myself. and others.)

this first one is yet another willow thingy for a friend with some unexpected preferences in color. i had to order the yarn for this number all the way from the U.S. because, for some incomprehensible reason, the requested combination of pinks, limes and yellows is not readily available in regular merino color charts.

it's 100% "twisty" type of merino with different shades in each ply. according to the nice lady who dyed it, the color is called "spring in bloom". i'd be more inclined to use the term "skitsovärjätty" (look it up) instead, but i'm terrified my friend will punch me in the mouth if i say such things out loud. so i won't. phew.

then there's the cowl i made for myself with the yarn that i'm totally prepared to have immediate sweet sex with in case such an endeavour ever becomes physically possible, koigu kpm. the color is so perfect that i'm stumped for words. no human language is worthy of its splendour. and the best thing is it only took one 50g hank, so i still have one hank left! ye-heargh!

tidepool by cayli harris

ravelry link

koigu kpm (50g / 3mm)

i wasn't sure about the sizing because i like my cowls very close-fitting, so just to be safe i deleted one of the chart columns and cast on with 99 stitches instead of 110. which turned out super. the upper body part is long enough so it can be folded (like in the first photo) for extra warmth, or pulled up to the ears for extra coverage. managed to avoid the death traps of ambiguity too when reading the pattern, so high five!

if the cowl above is one i'm willing to have sex with, then this next one is more of the i'm-ignoring-you-because-you're-so-fugly type. i hate it. i hate making it. i hate the yarn, i hate the pattern, i hate the very thought of having to go back and work on it. like giving sharp needles to fire ants and sticking them both into my ears.

eclipse by jacqueline ridzy

ravelry link

malabrigo lace (25g so far / 4mm)

you just don't do it for me

but as you're by now well aware, letting go is not an option. so i keep hoping it'll finish itself. some underpants gnomes type of solution could work. or maybe i should just dye it black or something. anyone have any experiences dyeing malabrigo lace?

more niceties

today's another good day. seems odd. surely the universe cannot handle such good fortune in such a short time. maybe i'll die in a weird gardening accident next week.

first i heard that my great musical hero and father of half of my future children*, jonah matranga, is playing a show here next week. i've waited for this for ten years. he's basically the reason i went from goth (yes) to normal (ish) more than a decade ago (jesus christ, am i really that old?), and now he's coming here. i'll probably cry. and throw panties at him. he'll dodge, but i'll throw more.

then i had a doctor's appointment for a sore ankle, and she was super nice and bent all possible rules to get things fixed before the weekend and totally made me feel like a real person and not just a sad sack of shi--sickness. usually doctors make me cry, because they're inherently evil.

but after that i felt comforted enough to take a bus far beyond the city limits. saw swans on the way. and some big-ass 380 contrails. which alone would've sufficed to save my day. but after i landed at a yarn outlet store into which no earthly mundane worries can ever penetrate, i found more of malabrigo freakin' sock. in candombe. with gorgeous shades of yellow. and some lovely manos lace too. it's so soft i want to die. my body can't handle this much orgastic pleasure.

also i found some neat little birch needles that incidentally come in packs of 6 instead of 5, so no more roaring rampages if one needle gets eaten by a dog (check) or stepped on (check) or otherwise mishandled (check). they come with a 5-year guarantee too, against breakage from normal use. a rather courageous thing to promise, if you ask me and my it's-not-knitting-if-your-knuckles-aren't-white technique.

finally i got home, and to finish off the day on a splendid high-pitched woohoo note, had two yarn shipments waiting. the first one had some silk/ramie blend yarn whose navy color is almost as close to perfection as the yellow koigu. my age-old antipathy towards the color blue has been lifted! i feel like singing! and dancing! and throwing panties!

the second one had three skeins of sivilla, which will eventually become a surprise dress for my 2.5 year old niece who's crazy obsessed with the color pink (and who hopefully can't read yet).

so in my universe things are going rather well. like jonah says...

what a relief
we're all okay

*the other half being fathered by spencer krug.. although ideally both at the same time

life is nice

you know what's nice? buying stuff that's not only cool but also totally useful and ecological and hand-made.

you know what's even nicer? receiving the said stuff wrapped in a gorgeous shiny package that you spend forever opening because you're terrified of destroying it but eventually succeeding and going "hey there's something else in here too" and finding more of the cool and totally useful and ecological and hand-made stuff that's completely free because you happened to be their nth customer and thus entitled to royal-like treatment.

eat my shorts liz, i'm the queen here now

i cried. i totally did.

thank you, succaplokki. you made this grumpy old bitch's day.