Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Komet and the Wonder Dog

The Komet socks are done! Woot!After finishing the fingerless mitts from the last post, I finally buckled down and finished the toe on the second sock. The toe came out a tad boxier than I like. I really wanted to keep the lace pattern intact to the end, so I couldn't start decreasing until the outer lace columns were done.

I leave you with a gratuitous dog shot:He was groomed recently, so he's looking even more adorable than usual.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

ProcrastiNation

I'm stalled near the end of the second Komet sock. I was having trouble remembering how I incorporated the lace into the toe for the first sock, then I dropped some stitches in transit and I had to rip back a few rows, and well... now the sock's in time out while I get my act together. But there is hope:
See, even the the sock thinks so. The Obama portrait was more interesting than I thought it would be. Shepard Fairey encouraged people to distribute it (and did they ever!), and it was those reproductions that I had in mind. But when you see it in person, there's a whole lot more depth to it, with layers of different textures from the different materials in the collage.

While on leave from Komet sock knitting, I'm making some fingerless mitts:
The pattern is Self-Striping Gauntlets from the Vogue Knitting on the Go cable book, modified for a thicker yarn (aran, instead of worsted). I'm working on the second mitt now, then back to the sock!

Friday, March 13, 2009

A Bit of Culture and Crochet

My friend Nivene organized a little cultural outing to see the Arabesque exhibit at the Kennedy Center. The view from the terrace balcony was awesome, if you could bear the cold cold wind! This is Rosslyn across the Potomac at sunset, with a swirly wispy cloud thrown in for good measure:
The exhibit itself was smaller than I expected, through it's very possible that there was more to it than we had time to look for. There were traditional wedding dresses from different Arab countries, paintings, jewelry, a show on the Islamic world's contributions to science, and a giant walk-in kaleidoscope by Lebanese/Egyptian artist Lara Baladi. Here's what it looked like with someone going through it:
The person inside is both an observer and a part of the piece. Pretty cool!

In crafty news, I crocheted a pineapple:
It's for a Psych-themed yarn swap organized on Ravelry. I do love that show and all it's silly dialogue and endless pop culture references. I started out intending to make the Pineapple Bag from Rowan 42 but, alas, I suck at following crochet patterns. So I improvised a lot and wound up with this pineapply, bag-like thing. The yellow yarn is Artful Dance, a cotton/acrylic blend, and the green is leftover Saucon Sock from the green cotton socks. A fun swap with a side of stash-busting - bonus!

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Ice Socks

We had a little hockey knit night last Sunday. Well, it was more of a "hockey knit afternoon" since it was a 3pm game. I started a sock:
The game was a forgettable 6-2 loss to Florida. We were all bummed, so we left a little early and went to dinner. There are million places to eat around the Verizon Center. We ended up at Zaytina. I really like their Turkish Delight ice cream dessert, and their Cretan snail mezze (not at the same time of course). The rain had changed over to snow by the time we all headed home. When the storm was over, we had about 6-8 inches of snow, not to mention a three day weekend. Woohoo! Apparently, even bad hockey leads to awesomeness!

The sock I started is from the pattern Komet (this link may require a Ravelry login.) The yarn is Chameleon Colorworks Bambino, a bamboo/wool/nylon blend, in the color Cerulean Blue. "Cerulean blue is a gentle breeze..." - aww, I miss you, non-alien-related episodes of the X-Files! (The alien-related ones, not so much.)

So far I've finished the first sock and am working on the second. This fairly swift progress is mostly due to boredom while watching an ice show a few days ago. Here's the sock with Michael Weiss in the background:
Dancing has no appeal to me, and figure skating is basically dancing on ice. I know there are jumps, and ice dancing is considered a separate discipline, but regular dancers jump and ice dancing seems to me to be extremely synchronized figure skating. At any rate, it was dull and I knit a lot. One sock down, one to go.

Monday, March 02, 2009

Thank You SP!

I received my big SP13 reveal package last week (I've been a really naughty blogger in posting this so late - so sorry SP!). Anyhoo, my secret pal is the lovely Ashley from Kansas, who sent me this fabulous package:
Thank you Ashley! You've been an great pal!