destroyer

as so many plaid-wearing, whiny emo-core i-am-jack's-left-nipple-and-profound-sense-of-douchery channelers before me, i felt like destroying something beautiful.

as of today, socks-a-plenty is no more. it has been appropriately laid to rest with a solemn nod of the head and a shot of whiskey.

new things are brewing, spewing and splattering all over your face at fluffandhustle.com.

kindly update your bookmarks, as we used to call them back in 1996, and never show yourself here again.

thank you, qapla', fuck yeah.

winner & a rant

time to play god again and reveal the new owner of my birthday giveaway prize. to all of you gasping in horror how i can let go of such a beauty, i say, well... i'm guess i'm just cool like that. you might wanna start making friends with me right about now.

according to an all-knowing, all-singing and all-dancing random number generator, the lucky winner is...

papayamaya, with her comment number 6!

congrats sister! i've sent you a message with more info.

thanks to everyone for the good wishes. here's to another year of obsessive hoarding, failed (and occasionally successful) knitting projects and, most important of all, reporting about said activities in the form of long, incohesive, psychotic rants! chi-ching!

speaking of psychotic rants... i'm currently stuck in some kind of a knitting limbo. it's something that inevitably happens whenever i fail to program my knittings into a smooth schedule that glides effortlessly from one project to the next. such overlapping range of simultaneous knits is vital for my well-being because it ensures i always have something to do. if i get bored with one thing, i'll toss it aside and knit something else for a while. and when that one thing gets finished, there's another thing already waiting in line.

but such an ingenious plan is statistically doomed to fail every once in a while.

first i made cutesy. as soon as that was done i moved on to gyllis. at the same time i was making both bedford and twenty-ten. once gyllis was done i made wurm and two ruffle necklaces, and then went back to finish bedford. while bedford was blocking i picked up twenty-ten and got that done in a couple of days (photos to come at some point). but after that...

nothing.

there was no semi-finished project waiting, because, being a crazy person and thus unhealthily obsessed with my (supposedly) messy raglan increases, i had frogged my otherwise well-off still light a little earlier. so there was nothing to glide effortlessly to. i had no idea what to do with myself, so in terror i picked up a skein of heritage silk and began frantically knitting a sock, fully realizing it would be a mere comfort project until i managed to find a proper one, but not realizing what a mo**erf***ing pain in the poohole that yarn is. (feel free to disagree, but i'm never, ever, EVER making socks with that yarn again. slippery son of a bitch.) so the skein flew out the window and my fragile sanity went even fragilerer.

and now i can't seem to knit anything, because the knitting part of my brain is in complete lockdown state to keep all further unpleasantries away.

so i'm watching hour after hour of air crash investigation instead. normally i would knit something at the same time, which sort of softens down the horror, but now i just stare blankly at the broken-off tail fins, flaming fuselages and weeping mothers, whose kids weren't even supposed to be on that flight.

bob, please come back.

goodbye, my love

i used to love you.

the way you looked, the way you felt.

i used to come up and softly pet you, caress your every curl, worship every fibre of your being. you completed me in ways i had never thought possible.

i could see a future with you. i could see myself growing old with you. wrapped inside your loving arms until the day i died. together, forever.

but then... something happened.

i began to hesitate. a dark voice inside my head said you weren't right for me. i had spent all my time with you, for weeks, for months, and suddenly all i could see in you were your flaws. you irritated me with everything you were and aspired to be. in a short time you had grown into someone i couldn't bring myself to love anymore.

whenever i saw you i could only think how much better off i would be with someone else, and how you deserved someone better than me.

for weeks i tried to push these thoughts down. i wished with all my might that things were different, that there was some way to go back and fix them. but it felt cruel to keep going when clearly we weren't going anywhere.

so, in a moment of teary-eyed, unfathomable sadness and endless mercy, i ripped you apart, drowned you and hung your lifeless body up to dry.

"i'm sorry", i whispered. "you just weren't right for me."

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?

welcome to planet torture knitting

so i'm making another cardigan.

to counteract the terror caused by the previous cardigan.

with a gauge of 30x40 stitches.

after six days of maniacal handiwork, the body is done. the collar and front button band alone took a whole day.

then it comes to me to try the thing on.

and before i can say "HOLY FUCK IT'S TOO SHORT" i realize that it is, in fact, too short.

i knew i had to make at least 13 stripes instead of the 12 in the pattern, because i have a freakishly long back, and because i prefer my cardigans a little longer anyway. i also clearly noted how majorly anal frogging the hem would be, because the front band attaches directly to the side of the hem, rendering any alterations to the length both futile and unsightly. but did it occur to me, at any point, to count the freakin' stripes? the short answer is, no. the long answer is, due to a critical risk of me starting to break things, also no.

not that i didn't do that too. TV remotes, flower pots, nokias, whatever. in real life she was so calm and composed and boring. on planet torture knitting she went freakin' berserk.

just because you think there's 13 don't make it so

i've heard it said that knitting is a metaphor for life. you try your best to make good, but sometimes life (and yarn) just wants to throw turd-covered curveballs at you, and all you can do is enjoy the taste.

but why is it that when it comes to me and knitting, everything has to go through the fuck-it-all amplifier before any good can come out of it? it's like i'm subconsciously sabotaging my own work. maybe i don't feel like i deserve any yarn-related happiness. where's freud when you need him?

i'd like to say, next time i'll count the stitches, next time i'll be super smart, next time i'll be so careful and conscientious that i'll get it right from the word go.

but that would be a lie, and you and i both know it.

go ahead & panic

so i'm making this cardigan.

313 yoke stitches per row.

with three alternating skeins of the same yarn, because it's hand-dyed and i want to avoid pooling and other color-related disasters. 

my hands hurt and my already crippled back is twisted into some kind of contortionist nightmare.

i think, "gee, i hope i don't screw this thing up, because frogging into three live skeins at the same time is surely not a pleasant thing to do".

i also think, "nah, i'm not going to count the stitches at this point where the correct amount of stitches is a matter of life and a supernova-type death, i'm sure the number is right".

so i go ahead and knit one row. purl one row. knit. purl. knit. purl.

"i don't see how this thing could go wrong"

seven hours and 8136 stitches later.

the yoke is done and i'm marking the stitches to separate the sleeves. front piece, sleeve, back piece, sleeve, front piece. but... the numbers don't add up.

terror fills my head and panic starts to tighten its death grip on me as i realize i've had too many stitches all along.

i failed to read the lace chart properly at the beginning, so i now have 26 extra stitches, which means the yoke is going to be way too big for me. i would have noticed this had i counted the stitches at the point where i knew i should have. but i didn't. and now it's too late.

the vision of frogging seven hours' work into three live skeins at the same time suddenly becomes very real.

bob, you fucking asswipe fartface. kill me now.

this little shelly went to germany

shelly's famous, man! after the previous post a friend of mine in germany expressed some interest in getting a raunchy little turtle of her own. and being the generous and overallily* nice person that i am, i made her a very special edition of shelly in sumptuous pink colors. poor thing was stuffed in a tiny box for four days, travelling up and mostly down europe, but apparently recovered quickly and is already busting some steven seagal type of dance moves.

props to antje for the photo!

also he's taken up learning german. should i be worried?

in other news: i was making a pair of paraphernalia socks, because the cable pattern seemed nice and also i wanted to use my mokkasukka for something more than just a basic pair of socks. anyway, this is how far i got...

...before i realized there's no way in hell they're gonna fit my giant quadrilateral feet (which pair up nicely with my giant trapezoid head). apparently my gauge was off by roughly a gazillion stitches. how about making a swatch or something first? no, that would remove the whole element of surprise. which is what makes knitting interesting. you get what bob allows you to get. and frogging is good fun, too.

and no, i don't want to donate them to someone with lesser feet. because if i can't have these socks, nobody else can either. ha. ha.

*overallily [adv]. mainly; in most cases; altogether.