blocking 101

here's how to do it.

you take the scarf, shirt, whatever, and dump it into your bathroom sink. no, wait, draw some warm water first and then dump it in. you don't want that baby felting. don't worry if there are toothpaste stains or other smears in the sink, as it's probably not enough to ruin the fabric anyway. let it soak for a good 15-20 minutes, kneading it firmly every now and then to remove any air bubbles. muscle relaxants will help time go faster.

at this point you'll notice that you forgot to thread the edges. you may also know that it's difficult to thread wet fabric, or if you don't know, you will soon enough. so take the piece out, dry it using your preferred method and thread the edges you want to keep straight. then soak the piece again.

once the piece is completely soaked, take it out and roll it inside a towel to squeeze out excess water. stomp on it to a couple of times - keep your socks on while doing so as they will help absorb more water. lay another towel on the floor and spread the piece on it. pull the threads tight and start pinning down the edges. make sure to jam the pins deep into the flooring underneath, as this will make the hold more secure. some people use a ruler or a tape measurer to keep the proportions even. i trust my eyes more than some piece of plastic, but this of course is up to your discretion.

if you took the relaxants, you will start feeling a bit drowsy right now. don't worry. that's part of the fun.

b-day & hat resurrected

greetings from planet birthday. it's a pretty sweet place, where everyone likes you and wants to give you cool things for no reason at all except for being born on some random day. and you gladly accept this lavish attention with pink buttercream smears in one hand and a spongebob balloon in the other. but the price, of course, is that the next morning you realize you're now twenty-schmumble which is exactly four wrinkles and a lady moustache away from oh-god-let's-not-go-there. how fleeting life is, you ponder, and drown your worries in leftover cake.

cupcakes work too

well, getting old can't be all bad if you have the right kind of friends to get old with. the kind that knows you well enough. the kind that gives you stuff like this.

it's a tea strainer, believe it or not.

speaking of dying, i recently found the smoldering remains of a certain hat accident from last winter and decided to try and resurrect them. fairly brave of me, since all attempts last time ended in nothing short of bloodshed. meaning the hat looked less like a hat and more like a condom with vertical ribs. this time it only took four cycles of knitting and frogging to get it right, but who's counting. it looks like a simple pattern, which it is, but fitting it was a nightmare. hats for me always are. because of my giant trapezoid head.

ravelry link

size kinda loose

novita jussi (under 100g/4mm)

it's kind of amazing actually how persistent i was with this piece. i'm not saying there weren't any ohmybloodygodandfuck moments, because that would be a dirty dirty lie. but sometimes the amount of tenacity hidden under my onion layers scares me.

i'm also working on a very special surprise project that again concerns lace, since i'm now the bona fide master of intricate knitwork. more information on that next week. for now let's just say my mental capacity is growing by the minute.

another problem solved

living alone and having a less-than-impressive social life means having to negotiate several tricky obstacles that arise when attempting to perform functions that, for optimum results, require two people. and i'm not just talking about sex.

although TV's a good replacement for that too

epic non-fail

so i didn't die. apparently i'm more resilient than i thought. but all the squinting at the pattern did make my brain go ouch. even though this was a rehearse project the end result is pretty sweet. the yarn works well in terms of color and material, so not too shabby a choice for something that was supposed to be a textbook case of "epic fail".

tiger eyes by toni m. maddox

ravelry link

size 175 x 15 cm

colinette jitterbug (just under 100g/4mm)

 

i spent the entire sunday finishing and blocking the scarf while drinking tea and listening to dan bejar and metallica (metallica? yes, metallica) which caused my idyll-o-meter to go red so today i've mostly scratched my proverbial balls and spit on people walking under my balcony. the universe is again balanced.

seriously, it really is nice to do things you consider nice. another pearl of my wisdom right there.

i probably need to re-block the scarf at some point soon, because it seems to have shrunk back a little. but i guess it's going to shrink horizontally anyway since i wear it kind of scrunched around my neck.

by the way, i dare you all to try and find rust-proof T-pins in a town that somehow still thinks regular pins are perfectly functional for all household chores from hanging posters to popping zits. i finally spotted them at a local model store but caused the guy at the counter to have an aneurysm when i kept asking him if they were stainless steel. "why's that important, how long were you planning to immerse them in water?" well thanks for not being a dick about it.

anyway, lace virginity lost. high five. where are mah smokes?

more pics after the jump.

look mom, no hands!

is this me making this perfectly awesome 31x16 stitch pattern? or some holographic projection of me? am i dead yet? why's that monkey wearing a tube top?

looks like lace is not entirely as cryptic and cringe-worthy as i led you to believe. i did take some precautions (sedatives, mainly) before color-coding the pattern and dividing it into blocks of 4 stitches. four stitches i can manage. try five and my face will explode.