Deady Done!

Phew!



And here he shall lie eternal...



Or at least until he's given to his intended forever home.



and lastly, a picture of the tail:



Not the best picture, granted, but I couldn't find one anywhere else, so there you go.

Pictures in daylight?!?

Better pictures of the most recent FO:



More from inside, brighter light:







It's really tough to get a good picture of the whole blanket without laying it on the floor, which is filthy right now, so I'm not going to do that. Thankfully, that's the most difficult part of this pattern, it always knits up quickly and painlessly. A perfect low-attention project that comes out beautifully. I love it.

Know to get off my lazy ass and deliver it to the baby it belongs to.

Is this what the blocking boards are for?

Finished Baby M's blanket...just in time. Welcome to the world, little one, happy birthday (8/17/08) and welcome to our Tribe.
But wait...what's that on your blanket?



Asshat!



It's been less than 24 hours since I completed the last board, finished the finished-just-in-time blanket, and blocked it out...and CatFaceMan already decided it's his newest most favoriteist sleeping spot.
Think he feels bad?



Probably not.

In other news...

I've finally begun finished the Deady Bear, from Son of Stitch n' Bitch. I found some typos along the way, detailed here:

On the directions for the muzzle, it reads ”Rows 3, 5 and 7 K2, m1…” The next line reads ”Row 5 K3, m1…” It seems to me that the “Rows 3, 5 and 7” line should be “Row 3”.
Further down, the instructions skip row 15, although the pattern still makes sense, the row “name number” is mislabeled.

That's just what I was able to notice...due either to my inexperience, or further typos/errata, the belly came out really badly. While stuffing, my bear had less of a belly and more of a rack. Does a bear need boobs? Probably not, eh?

So I unstuffed, and sewed the corners of the belly together, giving him a rounder appearance:



Here's some other pieces; the ears. blood, and arms:





It's coming along, although I really wish either a) it had been written in-the-round, I feel that it doesn't make any sense to knit it all flat then sew it, or b) that I had the confidence and knowledge to go ahead and knit it in the round anyways. I can wish for a, but I know that b will come with time and practice, so that's okay too.

Better pictures of the blanket tomorrow, in the sunshine. Finished pictures of The Bear soon, hopefully.

Booties & Blocking Boards

The Booties for Baby M:



We look forward to oooohhhhing and awwwing over Baby M's eminent arrival. She should arrive here in the next couple weeks. Best wishes, love and a safe journey at all involved.

Also, here are finished pics of Mama's Nautie:





I ended up using the green yarn from the body (shell?) of the Nautie, holding two strands together to make it big enough. I believe it's a much improved version of the original face. I hesitate to use the word head.

Also, I made my blocking boards. A.B. generously gave me these when she realized she didn't need 4 of them (thank you!!!). The idea is to have a clean, flat wicking surface on which to dry your finished knitted fabrics on. The boards are made of homosote, which draws a lot of moisture away while being soft enough to pin into. Here's the original Knitty article that A.B. referred me to. She explains the whole process much better than I can. I covered the boards that A.B. gave me with this awesome cotton fabric:



Unfortunately, I have this unerring strength at taking bad pictures indoors at night. I tried to adjust the color of this to more accurately represent the true colors of the fabric, but lacking Photoshop on this machine, my efforts were less than successful. But you should know that it's a pretty, bright pink and a nice chocolaty brown. Ignore what the picture may lead you to believe, except the pattern. Which I love as well. Here is a better, although definitely more crooked representation:



I began by taping this double sided 1" wide craft tape to the edges of the board, to which I secured the fabric, after I had ironed the creases out. I considered washing the fabric, but didn't. After making sure the fabric was all straight and pretty, I realized that the 2 yards I had bought would cover about 1 & 1/2 boards. I have 2 boards. I needed 3 yards.
But I only had what I had, so I merrily stapled the fabric on underneath with my mom's borrowed electric stapled gun, which she keeps cleverly hidden from my brother in an ottoman with some old DVDs.



That's the tape I used. Quite secure, but easy to retack the fabric to when I realized it was all crooked, thankfully before I stapled.



Overall, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Of course, I had to order another 2 yards of fabric to cover the other board, but that's alright. It'll give me something to do this week.
Tested the boards only once, so far, on my pair of Fuzzy Feet, which refused to dry at all, regardless of the surface they were sitting on, until I brought them upstairs, where it's much warmer. With any luck, I'll be able to block Baby M's blanket on it soon. It's being made from this:





Little Lovely is the name of the color.
YUM.

Finished Bag!

Actually finished it a few weeks ago, sewed the straps on Friday night & insisted on a trip to New Leaf on Saturday for it's virgin run.



The sewing's not brilliant, but it does the trick. Stacked the bag up pretty full last trip, with no problems. Even got an "EnviroToken," good for ten cents towards my favorite charity! Yay!
I used plies of the yarn I knit it with to sew. Tricky to separate, but I'm glad I did, you can't see the stiches from the outside of the bag at all. Lovely bag, overall, I'll make another (or more) for sure.

Naughty Nautie?

So, progress continues on the Nautie:



Which appears all well and good. It seemed a bit big towards the end, but I'm sure it will all work out. So I make the head:



Which goes really quickly; really, probably, too quickly.
But I'm all excited, and get ready to sew the head to the body. But, um...does this look weird to you?



Yeah. That's what I thought.

There's no way I can give this to my mother in good conscience. Not with it looking so...fleshy. And uncircumcised.

So, I turned it into a cat toy!



Filled with gorgeous catnip from LadyFace's garden. Back to the drawing board on the Nautie's face.I'm thinking of maybe using the lighter color from the body, but I already had to knit double stranded for the body with that, and with the face coming out too small, I think I'd need to knit quadruple stranded for the face. Can you even do that? Methinks it's time to check the stash for alternatives.

ETA:

CatFaceMan LOVES!!!

Enough said.

I <3 the Internet

Broke in my new credit card the other day with a whopping $12.60. Spent, righteously, at Atrfibers in the city. They have samples! I had no idea! It's like, 2.50 (ish) for a few yards (ish) depending on the yarn. It would cost me more in gas to drive up there & fondle the yarn, but this way, I can have enough to swatch with, and really decide if this is the right yarn for any given project. Super Awesomesauce.
At least, this is how I justified it. My wee samples arrived today:



From left to right: Rush, 15 yds, Color #2, 100% Cotton, 21sx28r=4in on #5; Kanji, 10 yds, Color #7, 97% Bamboo/13% Tussah Silk, 26sx32r=4in on #5; Ginko, 10 yds, Color #2, 97% Bamboo, 13% Tussah Silk, 26sx32r=4in on #5 (yeah, I just realized I bought 2 samples of the same EXACT yarn in to different colors, clearly I was ensorcelled); Ricotta, 6 yds, Color #5, 100% Cotton, 15sx20r=4in on #10.



So pretty (sorry for the less than great pics), go to the website if you don't believe me. I have never been so excited to knit a swatch in my life. Which one will become Baby M's blankie? What about Baby B?