March 14, 2008

Hand knit Beret modification for smaller needle sizes!

The easy big old chunky handknit beret pattern is great for a fast knit with big ol' huge needles. I am usually able to get a beret finished in just a few hours using that pattern (my favorite yarn for that pattern is a tie between the JoAnn's Sensations yarn in Licorice and the Lion Brand wool ease chunky in heathered grey, which turned out so nice and I wore it all over Rome.)

But a lot of folks emailed or commented to see if there was a modification of this pattern to use smaller needles (and less chunky yarn) -- apparently not everyone loves using size 13 double-pointed needles! Go figure!

Awesome reader Alicia offered to try out the beret using a very easy-to-find (and super-soft!) yarn, Patons Rumor. I am forever indebted to Alicia, not just for the modification but also for taking such awesome pictures!

Here is Alicia's beret pattern:

Alicia says, "I'm in love with this hat. It turned out great! I cast on 66 stitches on #9 circulars and worked in 1x1 rib for one and a half inches, then increased by k1, kfb, then switched over to #11 circular needles for the rest of the hat."

That's...

• Cast on 66 stitches using a size 9 (16") circular needle
• Work in Knit-1-Purl-1 ribbing all the way across each row until the brim measues about 1.5 inches
• Increase stitches for the body of hat by knitting one stitch, then knit into the front and back of the next stitch. Repeat all the way across the row. (You will end up with 99 stitches.)
• Switch to size 11 (16" circular) needles

[Read the original pattern for more explanation.]

Alicia wrote, "I was worried that the giant change in needle size would make the hat turn out all wonky, but it actually made it just the perfect slouchiness! I started the decreases at about 6" into the hat, and began with k13, k2tog (you have one extra stitch on the last set, but I just chalked it up to imperfection and said "SCREW IT!" you just have to knit one more regular stitch on that set every time. but it works out just fine.)"

[Note from Laurie here: You could also knit 9, knit 2 together all the way across the row to decrease.
• Then knit one plain row, no decreasing.
• Then knit 8, knit 2 together all the way across.
• Knit one row with no decreasing.
• Knit 7, knit 2 together... and so on!

I got this by finding the shoe number of 99 stitches... it's 11. Then 11 minus 2 (one pair of shoes!) leaves 9 stitches. But Alicia's pattern proves there are no real mistakes in fun knitting, especially when you say, screw it! It's yarn ya'll!]

Back to Alicia now...

"In between the decrease rows I knitted one regular round, until about the sevens....when I started to think that this hat might very well be the cause of my early demise, so I started to decrease on every row after that."

"I ended up with either 14 or 7 stitches to choose from at the very end and I went with the 7, probably should have chosen 14, it would have been more flat on the top. But I love it anyway! I will wear it in sickness and in health.....the sickness comes in when I am wearing it in our 110 degree weather this summer!"

Here are pictures of Alicia in her Patons Rumor hand knit beret:

And with adorable kiddo Judah:

Thank you so much, Alicia, your beret looks amazing and so do you!

And thank you to every single person who has offered up knitting tips and advice and modifications. I never really think of myself as a particularly great knitter -- I just like knitting -- and it always surprises me and makes me happy that people find these wordy recipes appealing and usable. I post them up because I figure there have to be other folks out there who also want to try the occasional easy and lazy and quick (and free!) pattern. It's gravy on top when they work out, and this one was gravy. Thank you!!

And she even included a cute pic of her puppies:

Perfect way to end the week. Thank you!

Posted by laurie at 10:39 AM | Comments (41)

February 25, 2008

Looking beret good...

That title sounded much funnier in my head.

Anyway, as you may have noticed I completed another hand-knit beret, this time using the Lion Brand Wool Ease chunky yarn in heathered grey. It's perfect, the weight of this yarn worked great on my hat, and I love a grey hat (conceals cat hair a wee bit better than solid black!)

Several weeks ago I made a black beret out of Thick 'n Quick but the gauge of the yarn is way huger (yep, that is a technical term) and it ended up making a rather large hat. The chunky wool-ease is perfect for this pattern, and I only used about three-quarters of the skein, so this hat ended up costing me a whopping three bucks.

I love that.

A few weeks ago I saw a girl wearing a knitted hat in a style I hadn't seen before, kind of like a toboggan-style hat but it was long almost like a stocking cap. So if I ever manage to break free of the beret, I may try to mimic what I saw. It looked like her hat was made of a much skinner yarn (again with the technical terms!) and so it might take me longer to make, which would be a good thing, actually. I could use a commuter project that is all knit-in-the-round goodness that lasts and lasts...

Is it wrong that my knitting is largely based on what I can do while on the bus? Wait -- don't answer that.

Question: Have any of ya'll made the beret and is it going okay? I have been more worried about that one project! My way of knitting is so tight and I have been concerned that the pattern won't fit anyone who knits just normal. Let me know! I'd love to hear if anyone has had beret good beret success.

Posted by laurie at 08:48 AM | Comments (79)

February 01, 2008

Beret update

1) I measured and I am getting three stitches to the inch on the regular stockinette portion using the Lion Brand Landscapes yarn version of this beret.

2) It is actually cold enough in the fine city of angels to wear all my hats at one time! If it is cold enough for condensation to make ice, it is cold enough for a hand-knit item or four:

Poor traffic monkey is cold.

3) Also, a kind commenter pointed out that I used the wrong words to describe the type of stitch increase I used, which I am sure is 100% true as I am not a professional, cannot seem to follow a pattern and often knit under the influence. However, in my defense I included links to a video that showed how to do it, explained in text how I made this terribly misunderstood and misnamed stitch, and really now that I think about it I am not sure how else you say "make one extra stitch by knitting into the front and back of a stitch" when you want to you know... make one extra stitch by knitting through the front of it and the back of it. Maybe you call it "make magic with whoopee stitch love." I do not know! I think I am going to stop knitting altogether and take up badminton and really mess with people.

Actually, on a side note, I once knew a guy who told me he had been completely scarred by the game of badminton. He was a super-smart engineering geek guy, very cute, and he told me how he took badminton as his health requirement in college because of all the sports it seemed the easiest. You see why we were friends (also, I took roller skating for my requirement, this girl knows how to keep her GPA in Type A territory.) Anyway, come to find out the guy who was teaching my friend's badminton class actually wrote the book on badminton. No, really -- he wrote the official rule book and was apparently a complete badminton purist and enforcer. My poor friend almost ruined his GPA over... badminton. He was angry about it even ten years later.

Maybe I won't take up badminton after all. Maybe I'll take up making magic with stitch whoopee love.

- - -

Comments are closed, have a great weekend.

Posted by laurie at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2008

Super-simple fast and easy chunky hand-knit beret!

Hello, hand-knit beret!

My muy adorable sister-in-law Kelli models this chunky hand-knit beret.

This hand-knit beret used two skeins of Lion Brand Landscapes yarn in the "Rose Garden" color #540-271.

I have been beret-crazy for weeks now, I even knitted so much I had a knit-related injury and got what appears to be a blister. (!!!) But I am loving my hand-knit berets, they're fast and super-simple to make and this pattern seems to work with a wide variety of yarns, which is my favorite kind of pattern. I even took my bag o' berets with me on my trip to Florida so my cute family could model them.

Berets seem sultry and dark and full of espionage. Now, I am realistic. I am a round-faced blonde from Texas, so I am pretty sure a simple hand-knit beret won't make me sultry, glamorous or intense. I am kind of resigned to being "cute" and "perky." (Cute, perky people generally detest both words, just FYI. We are all about the dark, intense and sultry.) But I decided that I could make a beret, too, and wear it and pretend to be intense.

For the record, this might have been one of those projects I should have just searched for a pattern to use (because I'm sure there is one somewhere in my desired level of easiness) and it would have spared me this:

Ah, the love of the prototype.

One of the reasons I love knitting with 100% wool is because even though my prototype beret turned out as a big fat mushroom pope's hat, I can just felt it and make it into a lovely little bowl. Not that I need a felted wool bowl, but felting is fun and I'm sure I'll find a use for it. This is perhaps the main reason I prefer knitting to cooking -- when you spend hours working on a hand-knit hat and it turns into a mushroom, you can make a nice bowl or handbag out of it. If you spend hours cooking a meal and you end up with compost, you end up with a hungry, hateful mean cook.

Making a prototype taught me a few things -- for one thing, I needed to make the ribbing using a smaller needle than the body of the hat. The body needed to be much longer to get it to drape like I wanted. Also, the poufy and freakish quality of the decreases could probably be eliminated by adding a simple plain knit row in between each decrease row. And you know what, I was right!

Here is Kelli in Beret #2, A Perfect Hat:

I used my stash of Paton's Up Country, a discontinued yarn, in silver-grey for both the prototype and the first finished grey beret.

I am sharing this hat recipe because it's so fun, easy and addictive to make. I cannot stop making berets! I have, in fact, gone beret-crazy. It's taking me about two hours for each hat and ya'll, I am a tragically slow knitter. Although I am making great effort to be a less SupaTight Knitter, I am still apparently working out my issues on the yarn so my gauge is probably slightly more cramped than yours. You may want to adjust your needle size to accommodate your own style of knitting (specifically, you may want to use a size 10 or 10.5 needle on the ribbing). Here is my pattern though, exactly as I knit it:

Super Easy & Fast Hand-Knit Chunky Beret Recipe

Yarn: Any bulky yarn -- I have used this same pattern with good results on one skein of Patons Up Country, two skeins Lion Brand Landscapes, one and a half skeins of the JoAnn's store brand yarn "Sensations Licorice," and Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick 'n Quick (it would work better with one skein of Lion Brand Wool-Ease chunky, though. Thick 'n Quick is made a really thick hat that was a little too big. Doh.) Each hat takes about 110 yards of yarn depending on how long you make the body of the beret.

Needles -- Part of the reason this hat knits up so fast is that you make it on big needles! You will need:
16" size 11 circular needle
16" size 13 circular needle
Double-pointed needles in size 13

**** GAUGE *** I am getting three stitches to the inch in the knitted stockinette portion of the hat. I really strongly suggest you use a size 10 needle for the ribbing and a size 11 for the body if you're a more relaxed knitter. Clearly I am not a professional. This would explain the "free" portion of my patterns.

Other Stuff: Stitch markers, and a large-eye yarn needle (or crochet hook) for weaving in the ends when you're done.

Things you may want to read before making this hat:

• The easy roll-brim hat pattern, the basis of all my hat recipes
• Working with circular needles
• Learn about increasing stitches by knitting into the front and back of a stitch (with a video demonstration!)
• A little diatribe on decreasing stitches
• My regular ribbed-brim hat recipe

To begin: Cast on 52 stitches using the size 11 needle. Place a marker and join your stitches into a round.

Note: To get a nicer-looking join, I have been casting on 53 stitches and then when I am ready to join stitches, I slip the 53rd stitch over to the left-hand needle and join by knitting the first two stitches on the left needle together. I'm not explaining it well, but sometimes in knitting I think you have to try something yourself before it makes any sense. Try it and see if it improves the look of your join as well.

Make the ribbed brim: Knit 1, Purl 1 all the way around for about five rows. I am knitting about an inch or an inch and a half of ribbing on my hats.

Increase for beret-like poufiness: When you have a wide enough ribbed brim for your liking, begin making the increase row. Still using the size 11 needle, increase in the following way all the way around the hat:

Knit one, make one all the way across the row. This means you knit one stitch, then "make one" by knitting into the front and back of the next stitch. Knitting into the front (and don't drop the yarn off the left needle yet!) then knitting into the back of the stitch (then drop the yarn off the left needle) makes two stitches out of one single stitch. [Learn more about increasing stitches by knitting into the front and back of a stitch here.] I like this increase because it's easy and on this hat the increases line up just right with the purl stitches in your ribbed brim and it all looks good.

You will have 78 stitches at the end of the row.

*** Update*** I guess I didn't explain this very well. Here is an update:

Begin the increase row.

Stitch #1: You knit the stitch. Just knit it like normal.

Stitch #2: You knit into the front of it. Then instead of dropping it off the left needle, you leave it on the left needle and now knit it again through the back loop. Yes, the back loop of the exact same stitch you just knit into. Now you finally drop it off the left needle. In this way you have made two stitches where before there was only one.

Next stitch: You simply knit it.

The stitch after that: You do the increasing thing again, making an extra stitch where before there was only one.

Therefore, you increase on every OTHER stitch. That creates 26 brand-new stitches. 52 + 26 = 78 total stitches.

Make the body of the beret: Now, switch to your size 13 circular needle. It's easy to switch -- just start knitting with your size-13 (16" inch long) circular needle. The rest of the hat is done in plain ol' stockinette, so in the round that means you knit every stitch. Knit until the stockinette body of the hat measures about 4 1/2 inches tall. When the body of the hat is about 4 1/2 to 5 inches tall....

Begin decreases as follows:

• Knit 11, knit two stitches together. Do this all the way across the row.

Note: I always place a marker right after my "K2tog" because after that I never even have to count to know I am decreasing in the right place. With a marker you just always know to knit the two stitches together right before each stitch marker. I also use different markers from the one which designates the end of the row (where you initially joined up the stitches.) That way I know what is marking decreases is different from what is designating the end of the row.

• Knit one row with no decreasing.

• Knit ten, knit 2 together. Repeat all the way across the row.

• Knit one row with no decreasing.

• Knit nine, knit two together. Repeat all the way across the row.

• Knit one row with no decreasing.

• Knit eight, knit 2 together. Repeat all the way across the row.

• Knit one row with no decreasing.

• Knit seven, knit two together...

And so on. Switch to your double-pointed needles when the circular needle gets awkward. Knit until you only have a few stitches on your needles (I am a dork and I usually knit down to the bitter end, but with this hat it's best to end the hat when you're down to about 12 stitches so you don't get a weird pointy bit.) Cut the yarn and leave a long yarn tail.

Finishing touches: Using your large-eye yarn needle, thread the yarn tail through it and then bring the yarn all the way through the stitches to close the beret. I usually do this twice because I am paranoid. Then finish it with a knot (ha! Yes there are knots in knitting!) and weave in the ends.

- - - - -

That's Rebecca in the same beret knit with one and a half skeins of the JoAnn's "Sensations" brand yarn called "Licorice" in the color #2347. I LOVE this yarn!! It's 100% wool and it's a thick-thin nubby twisted yarn in funky color combinations. I liked the way the inside-out reverse stockinette side of this hat looked, so I just made sure to weave in my ends carefully so that you could wear it inside-out and it looks great:

Rebecca even liked this beret enough to keep it! That made me SO HAPPY! I love it when I can give away my hand-knits to happy homes.

I like using fancy schmancy expensive yarn like anyone, but sometimes I am not looking to make a $300 hat, you know? So this little beret I've been making looks just great in inexpensive yarn and I'm sure that it will look great in a big Noro, too. But before I get to a Noro version, I had to finish the all-black beret in plain ol' Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick 'n Quick yarn. I think it's actually too thick and bulky but it sure made a warm beret, which I need in ...uh, sunny Los Angeles. Because the yarn is so fat, the beret is a little too big. I should have cast on less stitches, for sure.

Rebecca models the big black beret.

Guy thinks he can make it work Rasta-style.

Then the whole family got into it... as you can see they enjoyed modeling girlyman hats:

Aw, aren't they rasta-cute?

Brett takes the beret to new heights.

- - -

Hope ya'll like the pattern.
And long live the sultry intense beret!

Posted by laurie at 08:34 AM | Comments (116)

January 17, 2008

Mistake Rib: What a difference a gauge makes!

Although I have seen lots of folks online making pretty little "Mistake Rib" scarves, for some reason I thought this stitch was a much harder combination and would require me to count, which is not something I can do once 1) wine and 2) TV come into the equation.

However, this stitch is easy-peasy! I was poking through one of my books that has stitch patterns featured in blocks (I like finding patterns that work well in blanket squares and using them as scarves) and when I read the stitch repeat it sounded too good to be true. You just cast on stitches and do the simplest ever knit/purl rib repeat, like so:

"Mistake" Rib Stitch Scarf

• Cast on stitches in multiples of four, plus three extra stitches

For example, I cast on 27 stitches -- that's 24 stitches (24 is a multiple of four) plus three extra stitches. You could cast on 15 stitches, or 23 stitches, or 31 stitches. It just has to be some number which is a multiple of 4, plus 3 extra stitches.

• Knit two, purl two all the way across the row. You'll have one leftover stitch at the end of each row -- just purl it!

Seriously, that is the whole stitch pattern. I am not even lying to you.

It's so easy I can even do this when I am on the bus, half-asleep, pre-caffeine and listening to an audiobook (I have found that if it isn't a freakishly simple stitch I'm knitting, I'll lose my place when an audiobook really sucks me in!) (Later for kicks, I may try to walk and chew gum at the same time. Film footage at eleven.)

But for knitting that is so easy, it sure makes a pretty and complex-looking pattern:

Notice the quality difference of this image as opposed to the other two where I am just starting the knitting. Those were taken with my old camera which died soon afterwards. Death of camera was totally not connected to scarf in any way. This shot was a close-up taken with new camera.

I started out knitting it on a size 10 1/2 needle, I have no idea why. I think it was the first set of needles I grabbed one morning as I was running out the door and by the time I got on the bus and realized they were too small, I was already... you know. On the bus. So I cast on anyway and started knitting. By the time I got a few rows in I knew I needed to go WAY up on my needle size or else this scarf would be so dense it could stand on its own. That night after work I knitted the same amount of stitches on a larger size 15 needle. It's the exact same yarn, exact same stitch count and pattern, just a different gauge:

Much nicer on a bigger needle. The pattern is airier and the scarf actually drapes (as opposed to being an impenetrable wall of yarn.)

This yarn I am using is Moda Dea "Tweedle Dee" in the color "Blue Heather." I love the color, which sort of shades in and out from light to dark. It's a soft, lofty blend of acrylic, mohair and wool and I used two full skeins for a nice, full scarf that loops once around and still has good length. The best thing about this yarn is that it's not scratchy at all (sometimes pure 100% wool scarves, which I LOVE, make me itch) and it's pretty affordable yarn, about $7 USD per skein. Two skeins of it gave me a scarf this long:

Loving the mistake rib!

Posted by laurie at 06:52 AM | Comments (119)

October 05, 2007

Reversible Knit Halloweenie Beanie

This pattern was created primarily because I thought it was funny. I know the world is full of knitters who inspire, or make lovely works of art, or create functional and useful items. I myself make stuff up because I think it is funny and has the potential to make me laugh while stuck in traffic, which is exactly how the Halloweenie Beanie got started.

Originally, I had planned to make a beanie from a pattern that my good friend Allison had written for Mission Falls Wool. But then I figured since I was using orange yarn, wouldn't it be just hee-larious to make a pumpkin hat? And try to figure out how to make a stem while we're at it? So she allowed me to modify it to be more pumpkin-like and share it with ya'll. Thanks, Allison!

Reversible Knit Halloweenie Beanie Recipe

Yarn: Mission Falls. I am using this amazing, soft superwash wool in orange and for the pumpkin's stem, I used a small amount of Lion Brand wool-ease in a pretty heathered green color. I had the green left over from a scarf I made a hundred years ago. This pattern took a little more than one skein of orange, and a very small amount of green.

I had only knit with Mission Falls wool once before and now I'm hooked -- it's soft and so pretty.

Needles: With my SupaTight Knitting Superpowers, I went up a recommended needle size and used a size 9 circular needle (16" circular) for most of the hat and switched to size 9 double-pointed needles when needed during decreasing. Normal knitters will want to use size 8 needles or else this hat will be way too big. For the pumpkin stem you'll need a set of size 10 or 10.5 straight needles.

My gauge: I'm getting 4 stitches to the inch on the beanie. The stem's gauge isn't crucial. It's ... a stem. You know. Organic and shiite.

Other tools: Stitch marker, crochet hook and large eye needle to finish and weave in ends. Cat helper, sense of humor and wine recommended but not necessary.

Things you may find useful when knitting this hat:
• The easy roll-brim hat pattern, the basis of all my hat recipes
• Working with circular needles
• A little diatribe on decreasing stitches
• My regular ribbed-brim hat recipe

For the beanie:

1. On circular needles, cast on 88 stitches in orange yarn and join to knit in the round. Place stitch marker at start of round.

2. Knit 4, Purl 4 all the way around to create a ribbed edge. I did this for a little over an inch, or about five rows.

3. For the body, the hat is basically stockinette with a single rib every eight stitches. So you will Knit 7, Purl 1 all the way around for the entire body for until hat measures 6" from base, including rib.

4. The reason this hat is reversible is because when you begin decreasing, rather than knitting two stitches together (as I have in all my other hats) here I decided to Purl two stitches together, which creates a decrease ridge that perfectly lines up with the purl ridges on the reverse stockinette side of the hat:

You can also add a pompom if the curly stem is a tad much for you.

5. Start decreasing by knitting six stitches, purling two stiches together and repeat all the way around the row.

6. For all the remaining rows, you'll knit until you see that purl stitch coming -- you'll see it -- and then purl together the plain stitch before it plus the lone purl stitch, it looks like this:

Or if that's too confusing, just follow this:
Knit 6, P2 together
Knit 5, P2 together
Knit 4, P2 together
Knit 3, P2 together
Knit 2, P2 together

But I found this to be the easiest hat to decrease of all the hats I've made -- you don't need to count to know when to decrease, just look for that purl ridge in your stockinette and you're ready to decrease. Decreasing purlwise (fancypants way of saying "purl two together") is just as easy as decreasing the regular way and prepares you for the pumpkin's stem, which has a lot of freaking purling.

7. Switch to double points when there are too few stitches to fit around the circular needle.

8. Thread large eye needle through stitches and remove from needles. Stitch down through top of hat to secure and keep from unraveling. Finish and weave in ends.

Create the pumpkin's curlicue stem

1) Cast on 18 stitches -- I used a size 10.5 straight needle, you may want to use a size 10. CAST ON LOOSELY. SERIOUSLY.

2) Knit into the front, back and front again of each stitch before dropping it off the left needle. Read this entry for more detail on knitting into the front and back of a stitch. Just keep in mind that for this project, you knit each stitch three times -- once in front, once through the back loop, and finally through the front again. That's why it's muy importante to cast on loosely.

3) Bind off all stiches purlwise. That just means you bring your yarn to the front, purl the first stitch, purl the next stitch, then pass the first stitch over the second like a regular bind off. I find that binding off purlwise is a lot more time-consuming, but it's necessary for this project.

And voila! You have a stem!

This is an easy way to create a knitted curlicue, and I had plenty of help as you can see here:

People, do not make fun of my pajama pants. I have been sick and my fashion sense has been eclipsed by my snot problem. Sexy, eh?

I promise I won't look so waxy and dead when I meet you next week.
Really. Honest. WOULD THE UNDEAD LIE???

Happy Halloweenie Beanie!

Posted by laurie at 06:29 AM | Comments (123)

October 02, 2007

Fair Isle For Fall (pom-poms for the lucky.)

Ah, October. The time of the year when the air is crisp and fall arrives and we all want to be bundled up in sweaters and cute winter clothes that hide all manner of sins including 42,000 calories in wine ... oh except, yeah, it's still over ninety degrees. Nevermind.

Allison called me from Old Navy last week to inform me that every scarf on display in the store was either covered in pom poms or knitted in Fair Isle or both. She knows I am weirdly fascinated by trends in retail, I just love knowing what people are marketing from season to season. It's one of my little oddities.

So while I was at the mall returning something this past weekend, I made a stop at Old Navy to take a look myself and yes ... it is a pompom, Fair Isle world in retail scarfage this year:

And some place, somewhere, it is cold enough to wear a real scarf...

Lately I've been thinking of trying my hand at some intarsia, but Fair Isle looks so pretty and cheerful and frankly perhaps more do-able, as I have no problem stranding yarn (I don't think I have the dexterity to hold the yarn in different hands. Because ... you know... which hand holds the wineglass?)

About a week ago I got a book in the mail called Inspired Fair Isle Knits: 20 Creative Designs Inspired by the Elements so I pulled it out to check out the patterns inside and found this one that I just love:

Isn't it the cutest kid sweater ever? There are also two great "I am an ADD-knitter and need small projects" patterns in the book, one is a pillow and one features a scarf in pretty reds and oranges, my favorite combo:

I liked that the charts in this book are big enough that you don't have to enlarge them a bazillion times on the photocopier at work (because that's always awkward when your boss walks by, "Hi! Don't mind me! Just photocopying for knitting!") The patterns seem pretty straightforward and cover a pretty big range of skillsets, and best of all the author promises that each pattern is made using no more than two colors of yarn in any row. Since the book isn't intended only to teach Fair Isle as a technique, there isn't any super-detailed instruction on holding the yarn, pictures of stranding and so on (although truth be told I might be the only person who needs that level of detail.) And of course while the authoress herself doesn't mention it, pompoms do go great with Fair Isle! And you know I love me some pompoms.

Since this was a review copy, I'm giving it away to the first person who actually really wants a FAIR ISLE book... and posts in the comments. Good luck!

Posted by laurie at 06:40 AM | Comments (89)

August 08, 2007

Knitting vicariously through books...

One of my favorite dorky activities is living vicariously through knitting books. They're kind of like porn. And in the summer when it's so hot and I'm so currently obsessed with home improvement, I have not been a very productive knitter (I did swatch that awesome Ozark Handspun yarn, it's so FURRY. I wonder if I will wear that scarf and be mistaken for wearing a furry animal around my neck?) but I still love looking through knitting books, flipping through their glossy gorgeous pages and making plans for winter nights and hot adult beverages.

My two current favorite books just came out in the past few weeks:

That's Annie Modesitt's Romantic Hand Knits there on the left and the Yarn Girls' Guide To Knits For All Seasons on the right.

First up: Annie Modesitt's Romantic Hand Knits

This is hands-down by far my most favorite of all Annie's books. IT IS GORGEOUS! I love the knitted silk stockings and the tips on embroidery (everyone I know is taking up embroidery ... I learned as a little girl, but I definitely need a refresher course) and Annie's trademark fitted styles are photographed throughout the whole book in lush, amazing images.

Annie always shapes her garments to fit women with curves. I know that there are three women in my Stitch 'n Bitch group who could pull this dress off and look super hot:

Sara, Cory and Denise... I am talking to YOU.

And this little sweater is the perfect shape for my shape:

Annie is also an expert hatmaker and this book has tips on making hats, along with crochet tips and those amazing silk hand-knit stockings. It's a beautiful, amazing book. I love it!

Next: The Yarn Girls' Guide To Knits For All Seasons
The Yarn Girls' books are some of my favorite knitting books. I know that if I ever attempt to make my very first sweater, it will be a Yarn Girls' sweater. Their explanations are clear and make sense to even a math-challenged individual such as myself, and they make knitting seem completely do-able and relaxing.

This in fact is the very sweater I would knit first time out of the barn:

And I am definitely making this shawl, I love it and it's my favorite stitch combo of knits and yarnovers:

I love the super-cute guy sweaters in this book, too. You'll have to excuse my awful picture-taking but I was a little sleep-deprived and hadn't yet been fully caffeinated when I took these images, but both books are full of cuteness. I love knitting books the way some folks like coffee table art books. They're the perfect combination of craft and ... yarn porn. hee.

And because I got these books as review copies, I thought I would share the love and give them both to the first person who posts that they really, really REALLY want these awesome books. Happy Wednesday! EDITED TO ADD: Jules was first! Yay for free books!

Posted by laurie at 11:06 AM | Comments (75)

July 09, 2007

Knitting-related insanity: The good, the bad and the downright devious!

I have not done any knitting at all since last Monday when the San Fernando Valley stopped being habitable and fit for humans and instead turned into the deathly cauldron of hotness. It's not right. Why do I live here? Why didn't I move to MooseJaw Canada back when I was half-crazy and drunk in my divorcing insomnia and thought that was a viable option? I mean aside from the fact that I love the Valley and seem to be trapped in an abusive relationship with it, why do I stay?

So once again I am just going to talk about knitting but not actually do any any!

First, the good:
Have ya'll seen these amazing "knitted" cupcakes?

This lady not only shows off her amazing sugary goodness and artistic prowess with the marzipan, she also gives a fine tutorial on how to make your own!

- - -

Next, the bad:
I am just doing something truly evil here because you shouldn't string folks along ... don't you hate it when someone says, "I have a secret..." and then they keep you in the dark? I do! But anyway, do as I say, not as I do!

Anyway! There is a goofy knitting-related contest a' brewing here in my head. I hope you have air conditioning and a cat, that is all I have to say about that. Or a picture of a cat. Or a dog you can pretend is a cat. This will all make sense in a few weeks, when I unveil what is sure to be The Most Ridiculous Contest I Have Ever Done. Also, the only contest I have done thus far but you know ... Contests! Fun! Dorky! And HCI is kicking in for prizes so it's not like all you're winning is a zucchini from my garden. BUT IF YOU DID WANT A ZUCCHINI I CAN ACCOMMODATE THAT REQUEST.

- - -

Finally, the downright devious...
Speaking of contests, author Karin Slaughter is having a well and truly twisted contest on her website right now... and I was going to put the serial-murdering knitted items right here but instead, ya'll just see for your ownselves. She is offering the patterns free as a PDF download (free patterns!) and if you complete a project and send in a picture by August 20, you could win some knitting awesomeness in the prizes. (For those who don't knit, check out her SIT contest... the woman is a bit of a marketing mastermind. Also, she kills people in her books which I informed her via email is a strategy I am planning to work into my next novel... Drunk, On Vacation and Burying The Bodies....)

So that's it for Monday stuff. Hope your day is full of contests and cupcakes and cats and zucchini. And if you feel like sharing cupcakes, feel free to stop by my office around noontime, thanks! But don't bother bringing any zucchini. REALLY.

Posted by laurie at 09:28 AM | Comments (71)

July 03, 2007

In which I interview someone I like and force her to talk about cat hair.

It is SO HOT here in Southern California, where our relative air temperature is approximately the same as the fiery surface of the blistering sun. I left for work yesterday and I had a garden. I returned home and I had crackled leaves and dry fuel for a wildfire of dessicated zucchini leaves. So, you know, this is the perfect time to talk about knitting! With YARN! Because no one should go outdoors. You all should just stay right inside with a cold drink (where I am from that is "colddrank" thanks) and crank up the air conditioning and knit your little hands off.

I am not myself actually doing any knitting, I am just talking about doing knitting. I am not crazy, ya'll. It's going to be 106 degrees at my house today!

So, knitting women with four cats (or you know, more cats than people) are a unique sorority, an ELITE squadron if you will of cool (oh, to be cool) yarn-hoarding awesomeness. This club includes one Sandi Wiseheart, former managing editor of Interweave Knits magazine. I love Interweave Knits so I was excited to talk to her because I hoped some of her expertise would sink into my brain like osmosis. Turns out my brain doesn't believe in osmosis!

Recently Sandi and the Interweave folks launched a new knitting website called KnittingDaily.com, and yesterday she and I chitchatted about cats, summer knitting, and FREE PATTERNS. Because I am all about the freeness, folks. The free and the cool.

Me: Sandi, ok, you have four cats... I have four cats. So, from one cat-herding knitter to another I have GOT TO KNOW ... how do you keep your cats from gnawing on your needles? Bob has half-chewed almost everything he could get his grimy paws on. He will even dig needles right out of my knitting bag! The cat cannot remember his own tail is attached to his butt yet he can find knitting needles buried under four inches of purse contents!

Sandi: HRH Zoe, my 4-yr-old princess, adores size 10 bamboo dpns. I have two entire sets of those with teeth marks on them to prove her undying love. Dusty, her zen master brother, prefers my Denises. I have two chewed-to-pieces blue cables that need replacing to prove HIS undying love. Sparrow, their singing drama king bro, prefers my toes. Amber, the fifteen-year-old autistic (really) queen of the household, prefers to be alone and hiss at her potty box.

The person I really need to hide my needles from is my husband. He's a knitter, too, and I finally had to buy him his own darn sock needles so he would leave mine alone. (Love only goes so far. I also made him buy his own stash and keep it in a separate drawer. "Keep yer mitts off of the cashmere, darlin'.")

- - - -

Me: Do you sometimes hold up a fabuloso piece of knitting from your bag and you're showing it off to someone, thinking you're all badass and knitter-cool and then you suddenly notice that half the project is covered in cat hair? And then you kind of try to pretend it's mohair or something but the project is worsted weight cotton...? Or does that only happen to me?

Sandi: Why try to hide the fact that you are sensible enough to let cats rule your life? Cat hair is the ultimate in fashion accessories. As a life-long fiber fanatic, I admire the way cat hair, when blended artfully into a hand-knitted piece, and perhaps treated with just a frisson of cat spit, adds texture, sheen, and attitude to my creations. Nothing says "Yes, I Am A Knitter....And You Are...?" quite like four different colors of cat hair intertwined with one's hand-dyed merino.

- - -

Me: Heh. You're funny! Ok, so I have a lot of friends who are avid crocheters... and I know you crochet, too. I'm learning to crochet this year, it's on my Birthday Resolutions list which I studiously kept from prying eyes. In case I don't accomplish one thing on it. Anyway, do you think you might sneak some crochet into your knitting daily website?

Sandi: [insert evil laugh here] There's "some crochet" already in there. We snuck several crochet patterns into the library when no one was looking, mostly because we only have the one database right now, and we wanted the crocheters to be able to find their patterns just as easily as the knitters. Wouldn't want anyone to feel left out! However, it's Knitting Daily, not Knitting-Crocheting-And-BasketWeaving Daily, so when we talk about crochet on KD, it'll be from a knitter's perspective--what to do (besides snarl and growl) when a knitting pattern calls for a crocheted edging, how to pick up stitches with a crochet hook, alternatives for crocheted bits in a pattern, that sort of thing. Interweave isn't neglecting the crocheters--far from it. They're going to have their own community based out of the Interweave Crochet website and Kim Werker's CrochetMe projects. The crocheters rock, so they deserve to have a home of their own online. They shouldn't have to just borrow space in the back of the knitters' house.

And I am still contributing to Interweave Crochet magazine on a regular basis, because I do love crochet....staff projects, designs, columns, all the usual wacky Sandi-With-A-Hook stuff.

- - -

Me: (finally letting my true colors show) Let's talk free patterns.

Sandi: Oooooh, yes, let's. Free stuff rocks!

Me: Do folks have to buy anything or subscribe to any Interweave magazines to be able to access the free pattern library?

Sandi: I am putting my left hand on one of EZ's books as I raise my right hand and swear to you: Free is free....or it wouldn't be free, would it? No purchase necessary, do not have to be present to download, all that jazz. We do ask that you sign up to be a member of Knitting Daily in order to download the free patterns, but you do not have to buy anything or even know where your credit card is.

- - -

Me: How often will your free pattern library be updated and will it have items that some people, I am not saying any names or anything, can knit... i.e. scarf patterns or hat patterns?

Sandi: The library is being updated at least once a week. Really! Depending on what our staff resources are that week, we may add just one or two patterns, or we may add a dozen or so if someone brings us grande lattes and brownies. Right now, I've got a stack of patterns on my desk just waiting to become Knitting Daily Free Patterns when they grow up. A big stack! But it takes quite a bit of time to prepare the files and upload them, so: Patience, my kittens....patience.

As for patterns that, um, Some People Not Naming Names, can knit...about a quarter of our current patterns are rated as Easy or Beginner. Hats, scarves, bags, pillows....my mother-in-law just learned to knit so I have her to answer to if all I put in there is lace knitting on size 0000 needles or entire dresses knit out of
short rows and sock yarn. Call me motivated.

- -

Me: Do you think that intarsia is a plot by the government to make me go insane?

Sandi: Not just you, girlfriend. Several years back, the government transmitted a radio message into my brain convincing me to design and knit an intarsia Dalmation Puppy hat, sweater, and booties set for my little nephew. In chenille yarn. I woke up weeping for months afterwards, screaming "Twist the colors! Twist to avoid holes! Twiiiiiiist!" I think the darn project is still in my UFO closet, as a warning to me should I ever start thinking that maybe intarsia wouldn't be so bad after all...

- - -

Me: Now, on to more important world political and social issues. DO YOU THINK I SHOULD GET BANGS? And also, how the heck do you keep up your knitting prowess in the dead heat of summertime? Do you have certain projects you are more drawn to when it is eleventy eight million degrees outside?

Sandi: Wow. Deeply intense questions. I'll do my best to sound intelligent, witty, and wise.

On Bangs: Honestly? I am anti-bangs, in your case. I mean, what if you wanted to learn to archly lift one eyebrow, a la Mr. Spock? Bangs might obscure the effect, and thus hide your superpowers. Bangs Bad. (Of course, I am coming from a life-long anti-bang perspective. I once tried bangs, in college. I ended up looking like I had parentheses on either side of my forehead. Thus: Bangs Bad.)

On Summer Knitting: On those rare occasions when I am allowed by my cat masters to have knitting in my lap, rather than a cat in my lap, I knit with yarns like hemp, cotton, and silk. However, since I make my living knitting, and since knitting for magazines means that you are knitting things for the Winter issue in June, I'm just resigned to having a sweaty lap. OK. That sounded odd, so let's all just politely pretend that I didn't really say something that odd, that I said something much more witty instead. (Go ahead. Imagine me saying something witty. I'll wait.)

Sidebar ... This summer, I gave myself my very first Knitting Blister. I was knitting with cotton yarn (for my Tomato sweater), and using Addi Turbos, and it was eighty billion degrees, and I was trying to make a deadline....so I did not realize until the next day that I had a blister on my right hand where I was rubbing against both the yarn and the needles. I decided to put down my knitting for a bit, since the last thing I needed right then was a knitter's version of Quest For Fire with metal needles and yarn and sparks flying and stuff. After all, the cashmere was less than five feet away...

- - -

Me: Sandi, I'm glad we met and got a chance to talk about cat hair and freebies and bangs. One last question for you... if we were doing this in person, what would your beverage of choice be?

Sandi: Given that it is currently ninety billion degrees here, and given that I have to write a week's worth of articles all today....the tallest, frostiest lemonade ever. (If I didn't have to write, then it would be a giant margarita. But I gotta talk coherently about bust darts, so no margaritas allowed until after the dart action.)

----------------

Well, there you have it. My rusty newspaper reporter skills put to muy excellente use! I think I should go into business for myself, interviewing dignitaries and world political leaders about cat hair, beverage selection and of course... SHOULD I GET BANGS. That my friends is the age-old question that is a true divider, not a uniter.

Have a happy, hot and dessicated Tuesday!

Posted by laurie at 09:40 AM | Comments (120)

June 26, 2007

Oh, Knitting. There you are!

Sometimes I wish I were a really good knitter. I also wish I were a great athlete, a gourmet cook and could play the whole song "Me and Bobby McGee" on the guitar when sadly I cannot strum a single chord. I do not believe anyone needs any clarification in the "great athlete" or "gourmet" categories. My accomplishments in almost failing volleyball and successfully serving tater tots at dinner parties speak for themselves, thank you. Oh, also I'd like to be a great singer so I practice a lot at home but my audience is TOTALLY UNAPPRECIATIVE.

But anyway, I like knitting so I keep doing it even though I'll probably never be really GREAT at it. I think that's okay. I'm like Glen Bateman, a character from Stephen King's big ol' diseasy epic "The Stand." He loves to sit and paint watercolor portraits even though he is admittedly terrible at painting. He just enjoys the activity, finds it relaxing.

Also on a completely rhetorical note, is it wrong to take life advice from a fictional character in a horror novel?

Summer is historically (by that I mean since about 2005) a slow time for me and knitting. We just do not spend a lot of time together, since it's five hundred degrees each day and there is no moisture in the air and I feel like if I rub the sticks and string too tightly together I might get a spark.

But I started knitting anyway, doing a little bit of catch-up on a project that I started I KID YOU NOT in the year 2005. Yes. That is correct.

It is a cable-knit scarf from this book:

And this is the pattern I'm using:

And this is what it looks like so far, after sitting inside a Ziploc on and off for many years and finally being pulled out again to keep me busy during "Confessions of a Matchmaker," a television show which I find endlessly awesome. Meet my first ever cabled scarf:

Those brown things at the top are little pieces of yarn I use to separate out the cable areas. I cannot memorize a pattern to save my soul, the end.

It actually surprises me that I was able to produce something this pretty from my own fingers. Now of course, I only have produced eight inches of it in a two year period but hey, pretty is pretty! Even if it is pretty slow going!

This picture makes it look bigger than it is.

Had I known then what I know now -- which is that I am a scary tight knitter and my stitches are very small -- I would have gone way up on the needle size or the weight of the yarn. But when I decided to make this scarf way back when I was in the midst of a Very Serious Budget Crisis, and I found a couple of skeins of this white Caron yarn in the discount bin once at JoAnn's Fabrics and it fit the bill (hah! fit the bill!) and it's really lovely, soft yarn even if it is on the smaller side of the scale. (It's been discontinued, i think, and I don't have the ball band to remember what it's called but it has angora in it.) I'm going to make little pom-poms for the edges when it's all done, which at the rate I am going will be some time in the year 2027. I hope I still have a neck then to keep warm!

Posted by laurie at 10:36 AM | Comments (124)

May 24, 2007

Thursday Knitting or "Yes I am making another hat." Plus other items of equally great interest.

Hat #349,843:

It's my current obsession Patons SWS in "Natural Earth" and I'm making a ribbed-brim hat. I cast on 72 stitches on a size 10 Addi and started with knit four, purl four all the way around for the ribbing. For the body I switched to size 10.5 bamboo needles (I don't think I have a 10.5 addi ... or if I do it is hiding...) and started the stockinette body. I only got one row of that done, but not bad progress for bus knitting.

Such pretty yarn! This is the roll-brim version in progress.

And this is a finished roll-brim hat made from the same yarn:

Hello bathroom mirror. In this picture it is 5:30 a.m. and yet still someone almost walked in on me photographing myself in the ladies room at work while wearing normal boring work clothes + one wool hat, in MAY. There are many things about all of that which are wrong to Very Conservative Workplace, Inc., and would make people wonder if I were drinking something a bit stronger than coffee.

Alas, I am not.

I pretended to be looking for something in my purse. Then I washed my hands. I felt suspiciously like a ladies room interloper ... maybe it was the hat.

Oh, also I am not going to Stitch 'n Bitch tonight, sadly. I got in to work and realized that I have Monday off for Memorial Day. Yay me! Then I realized the project that is due for Monday is now due... tomorrow. Boo hiss. So I will be working late and trying to catch up. The good news is that the late bus is always in the worst of the worst traffic so I will probably finish my ribby-brim hat on the way home. That is good news, right?

No, wait, don't answer that.

Why is that guy so happy about $3.59 a gallon?

So over the weekend I was riding in the passenger seat of Faith's car and saw this guy driving and I rolled down my window and I tried so hard to tell him he had something stuck to his window:

"Hey, guy! You have something stuck on your car!" I was even waving my arms and gesturing but he never saw me. I just thought this was the FUNNIEST THING EVER. I cracked myself right up. I am sometimes about ten years old. Oh! I also love to drive by any place that has a funny statue -- you know, like western wear stores that have a big horse statue on top of their sign -- and I like to roll down the window and yell, "Don't jump! Don't jump!"

My ex-husband never thought this was funny.

I believe that is a VERY telling sign. In the future, I think I need to take all my dates past the BBQ place on Ventura in the West Valley, the one that has a big cow on top of the sign, and holler at it not to jump. If the date thinks this is funny, he gets another chance.

What...? It sounded like a good idea....

Posted by laurie at 07:46 AM | Comments (114)

May 23, 2007

Stitch 'n Pitch

Knitters are the most unique people on earth ... who else could invent something as nutty-fun as "Stitch 'n Pitch" combining baseball, knitting and Dodger Dogs? Oh! And do not forget the ten-dollar beer! Do not spill even a drop... a single ounce of that small plastic cup cost you a buck and a half!

I almost backed out of going last night to the Los Angeles Stitch 'n Pitch event because I wanted to go home and go directly to bed. I'm a weenie, and not just of the Dodger Dog variety (by the way, two days in a row using the word weenie! hee!) but I'd already bought the ticket and I have to admit my curiosity got the best of me. I'm so glad I went! I started fading on about the fourth inning, but it was well worth it. Check out the crowd:

Oh yeah. There is this one other teetiny thing I may have forgot to mention, which is that I am rather deathly afraid of heights. Just a little bit. So when I saw where we were going in the stadium I tried to call in sick again, but Faith was having none of it. It is good to have friends who don't let you back out of stuff. Except when you are in peril of dying from altitude sickness.

You see, Dodger Stadium is climbed in three steps. First there is base camp at the foot of the mountain, Mt. Dodgerest. And that is where in the past I always lived, at Base Camp, also known as "I will pay extra for seats where gravity is still an active force on my body."

If you are a more adventurous climber, you make the trek halfway up the mountain, a route first made by Edmund Hillary during the Great Dodger Dog Exploration of 19somethingorother. There is mustard and relish awaiting you. This area allows for proper altitude acclimatization in order to prevent altitude sickness. You can also get ten dollar beer here.

Faith poses for crazy camera crew during exploration of Dodger Dog Camp at Mt. Dodgerest. I am merely acclimating her to vacationing with me wherein I will take 3,000 pictures per day.

Finally, if you are brave and have a sherpa, or are a KNITTER, apparently, you make the final ascent to the summit. Heavy climbing equipment is recommended, but alas they do not sell hard liquor at Mt. Dodgerest. You have to rely on the ten dollar beer to keep you from hurling as you attempt to scale the treacherous stairs and avoid spillage. Once at the top people will take your picture to remind you that you survived the arduous journey:

I really tried hard to say hey and be sociable and I drank many (4) cups of coffee beforehand so I would be alert and not schlumpysniffly, but I have to tell you I was not prepared for the perilous altitude. I do not know if you are afraid of heights. If you are not, then I salute you and your badassery. I myself am a complete land-loving mudfoot. I plan to lobby the Stitch 'n Pitch folks next year to get us closer to the earth's crust, where I hear they even have a thing called "oxygen."

Aside from my constant fear that I would at any moment tumble off into space, I had a remarkable fine time and met new friends:

Laura, left, and Debbie and Jerry say hey!

Face-hugged old friends:

Me and Gwen drank beer(s), plural.

Captured the parents-to-be, Sara and Richard:

This was the first time I'd been to a Dodgers game in YEARS, it was really fun. I love to go to baseball games (I can't stand to watch it on TV, or any sport for that matter... except soccer, which always makes me think of being in some pub somewhere and seeing folks go ape over a goal) but baseball games just have such a good feeling about them, maybe it's the beer or maybe it's the hotdogs, maybe it's the cute guys in tight pants. Who knows! But it was made all the more entertaining by hundreds of folks knitting in the stands.

I love knitters. Ya'll are buckwild crazy.

Posted by laurie at 09:53 AM | Comments (124)

May 10, 2007

Thursdays are for very tightly held knitting...

I finished up the knitting portion of both the easy felted bracelet bags I'm making: a red one (two strands of Patons Classic Wool in red plus one strand of some shiny Patons) and one bag out of Patons Soy Wool Stripes (yarn pics here).

I intended to photograph both bags before stitching up the sides and felting them, so I said to the cats:

"Ok, get off the bed now, I'm going to take pictures of some knitting and I don't need you cats up here helping. Oh, man, I better do some lint rolling before I sit the knitting on this bed!"

What the cats heard:

"Ok, blah blah bed now, I'm going to take pictures of blah blah knitting and blah blahcats. Oh, cats, blah blah roll blah blah sit blah on the knitting blah!"

So, anyway, I'll take pictures some other day when the feline assistants are off shedding on the sofa or thowing up on something expensive in the other room.

While I was finishing up the knitting portion of these two bags, I was reminded once again what a psychotically insanely pathologically TIGHT knitter I am. Faith was gracious enough to do most of the knitting on the bracelet bag made of Patons SWS, and as I began to do the finishing (knitting the final decreases and tab) I immediately noticed her gauge was far more airy and light than mine ever is. I struggled to hold the yarn super lightly in my hands, with lots of looseness, and still I ended up with one stitch to every two of hers.

And since I was knitting on the bus, each time we hit a bump my "loosely held" stitches jumped off the needles, so I had many swearing events, once even prompting the entire five rows of passengers ahead of me to turn and stare at me ("Hi! Just knitting here! Got to the infamous shit stitch, you know that one, right? Right? Don't mind me!") So not only is my tension wonky on this bag but there are also some precariously knitted areas. Hopefully it won't matter after it's felted.

When we were at brunch a few weeks back one of the girls made a joke that she'd work up a pattern for me -- all on Size Giant needles so folks would know it's a Laurie-approved-pattern. I know I get teased for using larger needles but the truth is my gauge is always two needle sizes away from the recommended gauge (at least). What other knitters get on a size 8 needle, I get on a size 10.5 or 11. I think this is one of the reasons sometimes folks find my roll-brim hat pattern still a bit too large, and I need to update it to talk about my clearly Freudian usage of yarn in dealing with my personal challenges. Hello, crazy, we would like our gauge back now please!

Even though I was having knitting issues, I still loved that stripey soft lopi-esque Patons SWS, so I dug around in my stash and found that one ball of SWS I had purchased back in December when I was pre-shopping for my upcoming three-month shopping moratorium. (The secret to success is to always, always pre-shop.) This ball of yarn is in a colorway called "Natural Geranium" and it is SO BEAUTIFUL. I clipped my 40% off coupon for Michael's so that on Saturday I can stock up on more, I love it. Right now I'm making the aforementioned simple roll-brim hat:

Yes, Doctor, we have seen her cramped little stitches! Give her wine, STAT!

That is 72 stitches cast on using a size 10.5 needle and featuring one knitter with a clearly snug grip on those baby bamboos. After the hat is done, I'd like to make a matching scarf in this same yarn but can't decide between a magic scarf, or maybe a simple 3x3 rib, or something new. I like modified seed stitch (using two knits and two purls instead of 1x1) but I haven't decided yet. I do think I want to trim the scarf, whatever it ends up being, with three or four small pompoms. This yarn is lofty enough to make even the most exacting pompom enthusiast very, very happy.

And that is why I knit really. For the happy and for the pompoms.

Posted by laurie at 09:56 AM | Comments (135)

February 13, 2007

Luckily my knitting fingers were unharmed.

No injury is really tragic enough to keep me from my addiction. I admit it: Hello, my name is Laurie and I am a Noro Addict. (Reader Sue F. calls it the "Norovirus" which, also, is coincidentally a real virus and I am sort of sad that it doesn't cause one to spew forth Noro Kureyon from all orifices.)

I have some Noro Blossom that I procured a while back from Allison at SuperCrafty. It's a gorgeous purple-fuchsia-red colorway which I can't actually share with you since Bob ate the labels off every single skein. I knit up a little swatch of the Blossom and it's so beautiful and nubby and unique-looking! I counted my stitches per inch like a good little knitter, then cast on for a simple easy Roll-Brim hat.

Now, at some point when I have this alleged "free time" people are always speaking of, I will go back and add notations to all my patterns to remind ya'll I am a FREAKISHLY tight knitter and so you need to do a swatch to check your gauge or go up a needle size on all my patterns. I also wanted this hat to be not-super-snug so as to avoid telltale hat hair.

Yarn: Noro Blossom (1 full skein + a tiny bit of a second skein) Needles: Size 10.5 circular needle, later size 10.5 double-pointed needles Cast on: 66 stitches Other: Stitch markers, cats, sense of humor, wine, spackle

You may be saying, "Uh, who uses spackle in their knitting?"

That answer would be "me."

I knitted the full body of this hat while watching the Grammy Awards (love you, garter stitch in the round!!) and then last night I got home and decided to finish it off with my dpns and decreases and wine and so on.

Except.

Where were my double-pointed dpns of death in size 10.5?
Where they perhaps... sadly languishing in a corner all alone because they had been gnawed to a bamboo pulp by one Bob T. Cat?

Usually I keep all my needles in a patented Bob-proof Needle Protection Device ("ziploc bag") but a few months ago I was making a hat and had stuffed the near-completed object into my knitting bag where under cover of darkness, Bob snuck up on them and dug them out in the middle of the night and proceeded to leave big, deep chew marks all over their bamboo surfaces. And because I am right smack in the middle of my no-shopping-for-three-months resolution, I decided to first try to repair my needles before running off to the store for more.

Luckily, I am a rather industrious gal who is often puttering around the house doing such things as replacing hinges, fixing stuck windows and spackling like nobody's business. Home improvement is just like crafting, you merely get your supplies in a different store. And sometimes you can get a trained specialist to come and repair what you "fixed."

So, with some wood filler and a little sandpaper I decided to give knitting needle repair a go.

In all honesty, I was surprised it worked! Now, I won't be running around spackling all my bamboo needles or anything, but in a pinch this did the job. I had to keep rubbing them with wax paper from time to time to keep them smooth, but whatever. I can go shopping again on April 1st and until then these will do just fine.

Probably the most helpful tip I have learned when it comes to hat knitting is to place markers after each decrease. Then you can stop counting and just remember to knit the two stitches together that come right before the markers. I use a different color marker to designate the beginning of a round, and then I can knit on the bus in the early morning with no coffee and still not mess up!

Traffic was so heavy this morning that I managed to knit up and finish the rest of my hat by the time I got into work. I just held it in my hands right there on the bus and thought how much I love, love, love making hats. There's nothing finer in the world than a simple, beautiful hand-knit hat.

Then I went into the Top Secret Picture Taking Spot and made faces in my hat:

And even though he is a fiesty needle-eating monster, I have to say Bob has an appreciation of knitting that makes all his yarn-eating and needle-gnawing transgressions fade under weight of his unbearable cuteness:

Posted by laurie at 09:42 AM | Comments (154)

February 06, 2007

Letting my knitter freak flag fly...

So, finally, FINALLY, I finished my mismatched crazy green scarf. You can read about the beginning of this yarny wonder right here.

Since my little Roy has gotten so skinny in his old age he gets cold easily and to keep warm, he prefers to be held all the time. Sometimes I zip him up in my hoodie and just carry him around. I'm pretty sure this will not be information I give immediately to the next potentially dateable man I meet, but at least I don't have a possum in my bra. So when it came time to take the picture I had a little furry addition:

Finishing up this scarf reminded me of the HUGE KNITTING EPIPHANY I had while making this (very heavy and thick ... and did I mention HEAVY?) piece of work.

It was about a month ago, and Drew and I were on the phone chitchatting as we tend to do on Saturday mornings. I was telling him I had to go soon, take a shower and get ready for Saturday Stitch 'n Bitch and he asked me what project I was going to take.

"The mismatched green scarf," I said.

"How's that one going?" he asked.

"Oh!" I said, excited. "It's so weird and nutty, I love it!"

And then I told him how I was at our knitting group the night I started this weird wacky scarf and one of our knitters said, "You're so adventurous to make something mixing yarns like that." And I was stunned, because me? I am just picking two balls of yarn, or three, and stranding them together and if it sucks oh well. Science experiment! Scarf! And the pretty gal telling me I was "adventurous" was sitting right there, knitting up a sweater! A whole sweater!(!!!) In light of that I didn't think I was so adventurous. But who am I to argue with someone's praise. I pretended I was adventurous. I maybe was full of myself.

So I was telling this to Drew, because I just love the way all our brains are so different and what seems risky to one is another's piece of cake, and how knitting is as much about the personality and desire of the knitter as it is a craft.

And Drew, my Drewguru, said, "I was at dinner one night with one of the industry folks at TNNA, and we were talking about different kinds of knitters. And how some people can be basic knitters -- like you, making mostly scarves and occassionally hats -- but they stick to these basic items, and they can become quite advanced basic knitters."

I let it sink in.

"I AM AN ADVANCED BASIC KNITTER!!!" I was sort of excited, Good Lord I love to classify things, including myself. "I KNIT THE BASICS!" Ya'll. It was 8 a.m. I was not even drinking.

And the thing is, I do sometimes look at knitting websites and see the beautiful and complex garments made by knitters and I have, on occassion, felt like I was a small daft child on the short bus to garter stitch. Like it is a competition or something, I should be doing better! Making more intricate things! Covering my house in sweaters!

The truth is, knitting is as personal as the knitter. No two people are alike, so no two people knit the same.

I myself love knitting because it is a stress reliever, keeps my hands busy so I don't miss smoking, and it gives me a safe (scarf) place to play with my favorite things: color, texture, and scale. When I used to paint, I did everything that same way. I was a pretty awful painter but I just liked doing it. I liked making huge canvases, weird textures with gesso, mixing two paints or techniques to see what would happen.

So I make scarves that are ten feet long, or have six-inch wide pom poms on the end, or use eleventy two green yarns mixed together.

It's a personal thing, an intimate connection between your personality, your day-to-day life, and your hands. Truth is, I like to just wing it. I love yarn and I love needles, so I relax by making it up as I go, enjoying the feel of the fabric and the strange shapes it sometimes takes. I look to knitting as my safe relaxing place. I used to feel apologetic about all this, like I wasn't properly challenging my skills. Now I know it's just the way my brain works. There is no right or wrong here, and that is such a comforting idea!

Conversely, some knitters relax by giving themselves fully over to the challenge of building a garment, or steeking, or constructing a fine and delicate glove so intricate you'd just stare at it in complete awe. The challenge of a new technique, a more complicated and technical pattern, the scale of a sweater or a carefully constructed lace shawl makes many knitters feel centered, relaxed, happy. It's like active meditation, isn't it? I feel that way about a lot of things -- the more involved I can get in the process, the challenge, the better I feel. (I am like that with Photoshop. The more complex the better! Bring it on! Zen, baby!)

But I am not that way with knitting. I knit because I can't afford therapy and my job is challenging, my commute is challenging, my city sometimes makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and eat my own hand. So I need my knitting to untangle my inside chaos and nuttiness. I get my artistic challenge on each day at work with Photoshop and billboards and ad campaigns. Ergo, it is perfectly fine to not need a challenging sweater. (It is also perfectly fine to need that challenging sweater! Knitting is not the object, it is the person behind the object.) (See? Epiphany!)

We all knit at our own speed, at our own level of therapeutic crazy, and my crazy is obviously in need of pom poms. I like the oddness of my creations, the imbalance, the perfectly weird end product of my needles.

Something about this whole train of thought made me exhale with relief. I can become a subject matter expert at my one thing, goofy basics. It frees me up to more thoroughly enjoy your sweater, or your complex lace, and rather than feel we're in a race to HAVE ALL THE FINISHED OBJECTS EVER, I can admire you for the way your brain works, so different from mine. Win-win.

And this epiphany was not even fueled by wine!

Ah, I am so very professional.

Perfect for a vacation to some place COLD!

Posted by laurie at 08:53 AM | Comments (191)

January 05, 2007

Flower Pom Pom

One of the questions I've gotten a lot about my first roll-brim hat was how to make the pompom on top:

Yarn: Lana Grossa Colore Print in color #004, 100% virgin wool, so soft!
Pattern: Try the easy roll-brim hat pattern

Making this flower pompom is really easy! It's made just like an old-school regular pompom, but you don't cut the ends.

I first learned how to make pompoms when I was in the 5th grade and was OBSESSED with roller skating. The roller skating rink in our town sold pink and green pompoms with bells for $12 a pair. I coveted a set of bell pompoms, you put them on the toe laces of your skates. We couldn't affors that astronomical price of course (TWELVE WHOLE DOLLARS) and neither could a lot of my friends, so we made our own.

We didn't have a pompom maker like you can buy in the stores now (in fact, until I started knitting I didn't know there was such a thing!) and while I definitely use my store-bought pompom maker now for traditional toppers, this flower pom-pom only needs yarn and a "guide" made from one of the following: a knitting stitch ruler thingy OR a sturdy postcard OR a piece of cardboard approximately 6 inches long and 3 1/2 inches tall.

This works best with bulkier yarns. I am using my stitch ruler/needle size guide I picked up at Michael's when I first learned to knit.

Supplies:

Yarn, pompom "guide" plus scissors and scrap yarn to tie the middle.

Step One: Wrap a whole bunch of yarn around the guide. Try to make it so that the yarn is mostly in an even layer (not wrapped in a bulge all in one place).

Step Two: Once you have a good amount of yarn wrapped, carefully slide the yarn off the guide. Pinch it in the middle.

Step three: Use a small piece of yarn to tie the whole bunch in the center.

Step four: Fluff into a rounded shape! Voila!

Happy Friday! It's windy here, so make sure your flower pompom is securely fastened to your hat. It's been so windy that every leaf and piece of yard debris in a one mile radius has somehow ended up on my back patio. We have wind that has actually closed roads here. California, I tell you what. Crazy!

Posted by laurie at 09:15 AM | Comments (60)

January 03, 2007

And now we talk about knitting: Mismatched Scarf progress

There's going to be more knitting for me in 2007, at least for a few months! I was absurdly busy on a big project last year for most of the fall and I didn't have a lot of time for knitting. My favorite time to knit is when I'm on the bus, and I ended up driving to work too often, my hours were a little ... long. Of course, with traffic I could probably knit in the Jeep if only it weren't a stick shift. Reminds me of a REALLY FUNNY (read: bad) joke I heard:

A blonde was driving her car when a police officer pulled up alongside her. He noticed the blonde was knitting while she was driving. He turned on his lights, and gestured at her to pull the car over, but she didn't understand him. So, she rolled down her window to hear him better.

"PULL OVER!" said the policeman.

"NO," replied the blonde. "CARDIGAN!"

Heh. I never said my sense of humor was refined or anything.

Scarf Stuff
So, anyway, what I am saying here in a rather wordy and comma splicey way is that I missed my knitting! After my big working project wrapped up, I still had the free-floating anxiety you get from stressing out over a thing for so long. (This used to happen to me every year after final exams, too.) So one night I just went though my yarn bins when I couldn't sleep, and rounded up all the like-colored orphan yarns in shandes of green or oatmeal or off-white. I started knitting it at the holiday Stitch 'n Bitch party:

This is a 2x2 rib stitch using 36 cast-on stitches with lots of mixing going on. I'm about 1/3 of the way finished so far, and this thing is wacky! I love it.
Click on the image below for a much BIGGER view:

Here is a close-up of some of my mismatched yarn stripes and color combinations:

All Those Bleeping Ends
When I mentioned I was making this potpourri-leftover-yarn scarf, Joyce (better known on these innernets as Mpratmom) asked me the following question:

I am knitting a scarf in my head of all the leftover pieces that will blend together nicely, but I cannot figure out the ideal way to keep all those end pieces from the joins from eventually working their way out and giving the finished scarf an overall ratty look. How do you keep the ends tucked into the scarf, especially if there are going to be a lot of joins from using many leftover pieces?

Okay, I don't have a picture here of what I'm about to explain because I don't have eight hands (unfortunately! think of all the simul-knitting-writing-eating-channel surfing I could do!) but you'll have to trust me, if I can do this little maneuver, anyone can do it. I am not so coordinated as it turns out. Guess my 8th grade gym teacher was right and I will never be a pro volleyball player. Yeah, I'll cry my eyes out later... after I finish this row...

So! After about row three of this scarf I had a really ugly bunch of ends hanging off the sides. Not good! I wove those in as soon as I changed colors, because I can be neurotic that way, and I realized it would take me FOREVER to weave in all the ends this scarf would have! So I started knitting them in as I went along. For example, when you cut one yarn and add another, use the cut yarn tail to cross over the stitches as you knit, locking them in.

Try it on a practice swatch to see what I mean... you take the cut yarn tail and basically let your stitches "weave" it in by just moving the cut end crosswise over your working yarn. On a scarf as crazy and nubby as this one, no one can tell where the ends were woven in. And since I do it as I go, there are no strays at the end of the day poking out! I was rather pleased with myself for seeing how well this worked. Who cares about volleyball! I am a scarf knitter! I'm sure it burns way more calories anyway.

Hope that helps, Joyce!

Yarn Stuff
One of the things I loved about making this scarf was that I discoved two new Patons yarns that I LOVE.

I got really mad at Patons a few years ago for discontinuing their fabulous 100% wool UpCountry yarn. It was affordable and gorgeous and soft and lopi and I loved it. The Patons folks seemed to be discontinuing a lot of their plainer, basic yarns and going wild with the frou-frou fun fur crazy wacky novelty yarns. It made me so mad! I mean I like a wacky yarn choice as much as anyone, but we still need some affordable basics out here!

Well, anyway, right before my big January 1, 2007 No More Spending thing kicked in, I made a quick trip to Michael's for a few things and spotted this Paton's alpaca-blend yarn called "Rumor" for $5:

GORGEOUS! You can see this skein is still attached to my needles up there in the progress picture of my scarf, I can't stop knitting with this silky, pretty yarn.

And it is soft as a dream to knit with, acrylic with 15% alpaca, and it's super snuggly and comes in great colors. I knitted one row in green on my mismatched scarf and immediately went back to the store for a big pile of this in a soft heathered pinkish red color. I think I'll make a matching hat and scarf combo out of the pink. (YES. I realize that stockpiling against the idea of not-spending for three months is rather counter-intuitive but hey. I do the best I can.)

Also on my pre-shopping foray to Michael's, I found a ball of Patons Shetland Chunky Tweed in a dark forest green which doesn't look very soft but it is! Knits up so touchable and nubby, I just love it. Way to go Patons, with the new alpaca blend, your new (beautiful) soy-wool stripes yarn, and all your Classic Wool, I feel like you're back on track and providing excellent yarn at decent low prices. Love, The Consumer. P.S. I wouldn't be mad at you for bringing back the Up Country, though! I'm just saying is all.

The cats are not as excited about the new Patons yarn selection.

Posted by laurie at 11:39 AM | Comments (87)

December 27, 2006

Knitters get the shout out!

Hey! Very exciting news! Go over and visit LAist today and check out the crazy cat lady Top Ten list of local yarn shops. I could only talk about places I myself have shopped, so be sure to add your twelve cents on our other fabulous LA yarn haunts. And even if you aren't local, show them some comment love for recognizing The Power Of The Knitters. I figure next year Time magazine's person of the year will be You: The Knitter. We're the only ones who make a damn bit of sense anyway.

Posted by laurie at 09:21 AM | Comments (35)

December 07, 2006

The REAL Knit 'n Crossbones T-shirt!

Thank you so much to the kind folks who pointed out that teevee "annexed" fellow knitter Leah's cool T-shirt design for that Knit Or Go Home T-shirt featured on Gilmore Girls last week. Stupid teevee!! And this very talented Leah has also created a sewing version of the T-shirt that is freakin' adorable! I hope it's OK I am using screencaptures of her website here but ya'll, really, this is the cuteness:

And you can buy this real bonafide knitting swag at Magpie or the Crafster shop. No, I don't know any of these people, and also I can't get the crafster website through the firewall at work (ya'll must be crafting porn, that's my guess) (joking!!) but I do love me a crafty girl, and hope ya'll rush out and buy some of her t-shirts. That sewing one might end up in the Christmas stocking of a few of my oh-sew-crafty (HAR HAR) friends! My knitting friends get a cat, of course. Whoops, did I say that out loud?

Is it Friday yet?

Posted by laurie at 09:11 AM | Comments (57)

December 05, 2006

What Would Brenda Leigh Johnson knit?

In another fine attempt to ensure I never find a boyfriend, here I am taking yet even more pictures of my television set because my favorite fictional best friends are taking up knitting, just like me!

In a blink-and-you-missed-it moment on the special 2-hour episode of The Closer last night, Brenda is off on a four-month paid administrative lead because of what happened on the season finale with the FBI-protected witness, Lt. Provenza and Detective Hot Sanchez. And Brenda is obviously not loving being off work, and has taken up some activities, one of which appears to be knitting!

Brenda reaching for a blanket, you see her knit stash.

Fritz holding Brenda's knitting on the sofa.

I am a big fat nerd, ya'll.

So, okay, I feel there is a line somewhere about ladies with cats and television shows they talk about as if these were real people and also that time I tried to convince someone I wanted to marry my Dyson, but whatever. Brenda Leigh Johnson, my favorite television person (sorry, Lorelai) knits! Or tried to, once.

Now if only Detective Hot Sanchez would give me a call so I could demonstrate my deep appreciation for television law enforcement. Ya'll know.

Posted by laurie at 01:08 PM | Comments (73)

November 30, 2006

Knit or Go Home

As promised, screencaps of the shirt Lorelai was wearing on Gilmore Girls this week, and also hey can I ask ya'll a question? At what point do you go from just regular old crazybones to real bonafide weirdo? Is it when you take pictures of your TV and tell people? or when you start living your life based upon what a fictional TV person might do? Or when you think, Lord, I cannot believe it is gale force winds outside and I have to drive in to work and it is COLD at 4:30 a.m., and why WHY don't I live in Stars Hollow?

Just curious.

Found some search results for this T-shirt on cafepress here. Also, for the eleventy two people who have asked me will I please shut up and knit something already ... or have I just kicked knitting aside like a redheaded stepchild? Well! Yes I am working on some knitting. I am knitting ... stuff. It's a single project, really, sort of an ordeal if you ask me. Much like the Mystery Knitted Cat Thing, which will be revealed just any day now. If you believe that, also, I have a cat I'd like to sell you ... real rare. Has all its original claws!

If I don't die of a heart attack from all the stress of the past few weeks (I woke up three days in the past two weeks thinking I was having a heart attack, turned out I had a cat on my chest BUT STILL) then, anyway, I will show you my knitting and stuff and I'm sure you will be... ah. Whelmed. Appropriately whelmed. I am maybe not the best knitter on the planet but I am certainly... unique. heh.

Knit or go home!!!

Posted by laurie at 09:48 AM | Comments (84)

November 29, 2006

Hey, it's perfectly normal to take pictures of your own television set

Ya'll suppose I just aged myself, what with calling it the "television set" and all?

Anyway, hi! Stars Hollow had a knitathon last night on Gilmore Girls! It is my secret deep-dark fantasy that someone there at the Gilmore Girls Snappy Dialogue Shop reads this here online diary and understands my bizarro WWLGD fixation, and simply added knitting into the show for the sheer enjoyment of the fans and, also, GLORIFICATION of the knitting.

I am maybe delusional, but whatever.

So, Stars Hollow had a knitathon, and here is Lorelai preparing by doing some intensive training at her house:

Here is the town square on the day of the knitathon:

Taylor looks like a mound of Lion Brand boucle threw up on him, in a good way:

All the town regulars plus Christopher gathered around for the event:

Last picture below, of Lorelai and Suki knitting. And because I really am THAT big of a dork, I used the Tivo 5-second rewind feature about eleventeen times to see that they were indeed doing the knit stitch, so they are either amazing method actors or actually knit in real life. That Tivo 5-second rewind thing has spoiled me rotton by the way. I find myself trying to do it with all sorts of things, like the car radio, my CD player, my ipod and occassionally my own mouth. Never works.

So now when I have a dilemma and I am asking myself, What Would Lorelai Gilmore Do? I know the answer. She's probably knit something, then have a slice of pizza. No wonder I love that show.

Posted by laurie at 10:22 AM | Comments (97)

October 12, 2006

Crazy Aunt Knitting Spot

Whoops! I almost forgot to post my own little corner of stockinette in the round. Which, by the way, is what I do because I am so incapable of watching teevee while knitting something hard like cables or any item requiring counting. Also, I know this will come as a surprise, but sometimes there is wine involved which further decreases my knitting IQ (while, conversely, increasing my delusions of knitting grandeur. Also known as "I don't need no stinking pattern! I'll just make one on my own!")

Hee.

Notice all the knitting helpers I have! They are my backup fiber, in case I run out of cat-hair-covered yarn, I can just go straight for the cat hair. Kind of like fun fur, only cheaper.

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A few Knitting Spot updates, too, that I left out of the gallery:

Ruth sent me links to her pictures on flickr which try as I might I could not figure out how to save (read: steal) for this here website but they're very cool and they have fancy roll-over notes:
Ruth's knitting Spot and Ruth's other knitting spot

And Samantha wrote to me a few weeks ago and said, "I didn't even know that my favorite cafe had a MySpace page until I Googled it to find images for you. Scroll down and you'll see the beautiful garden area (that's in the back) and the cool, artsy area inside with the leather couches and rotating art displays. The best drink on the menu? The venti soy (hot or iced!) Mexican Mocha -- mmm, cinnamon. Hugs to you & the Insane Cat Posse."

Well, Samantha, I wasn't able to post the pictures because one of the cats, I will not say WHICH ONE, was maybe hogging the MySpace and so I couldn't borrow (read: steal) the pics like I wanted. Cats these days. What can you do?

And I do thank you folks who have been sending in notes here and there with knitting spots... I will put together a new gallery in a few months, once my brain has recovered from the first one and I conveniently forget about the evil internet coding and so on and think, "Oh, that was so much fun! Let's do pictures again!"

Luckily, my brain is small that way, and forgets things once enough time has passed. For example, I have no idea what I had for dinner last night. I might have had something really healthy and good for me and full of...uh. Nutrients? Or maybe it was a bag of microwave popcorn, half a chocolate bar and seven-eighths of a bottle of pinot.

Your guess is as good as mine!

Posted by laurie at 10:56 AM | Comments (59)

October 05, 2006

Seeing Spots! Knitting Spots, that is.

Thanks ya'll for sharing your knitting spots with me, I had a good ol' time checking out everyone's sofas and decor, I love it!

This took me FOREVER AND THREE DAYS to create this gallery, and I think I finally finished some time in the wee small hours between cabernet and tumpover, so please be kind to me if there are a bunch of mistakes. I hope you enjoy -- I'll post my spot tomorrow(ish) and also try to correct some of the 657.5 omissions and mistakes I probably made. Also, you will notice that my comments became very cheesy and lame midway through. I'm sorry, I was losing IQ points with the horrible internet code stuff. Also, please be patient as there are eleventeen hundred thumbnails and no matter how small I made them, they just load slow. Whoops! That's why I'm just blathering away right here in the text part. Blather, blather. So ya'll will be occupied during the excruciating waiting period. Hi! What are ya'll making for dinner? I'm having microwave popcorn... again. Yup. Chitchat.

So, click on any thumbnail to start the gallery. There is some script in there that made my browser freak out but it's not a virus, I promise, it's just the code that makes the forward and next buttons work on the pictures. Magic! Gnomey!

Thanks for showing me your knitting spots ... this is a Nosy McButtinsky's dream come true!

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