bag 'n' trash -- home of monster yarn

Eye Candy Friday

so, this year's project spectrum project thingy ended september 30th.  what was i doing three days ago that i somehow missed it?

anyway, yes, project spectrum is over and like the two previous years, i lost steam at the end. 

oh well.  anyway, this little mosaic gives you an idea of some of the projects i worked on or photographed.  and of course, there are googlies.

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day 168 -- it's friday!!!

Eye Candy Friday

when air and water mix

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day 105 -- from wendy's yard.  no such loveliness in my yard.  but hey, just the other day i saw a ground hog come out of one of the dozens of sink holes we have in our yard.  and man was he huge.  big butted huge.  as soon as he saw me, he flew back into his hole.

Air

yesterday was day 1 of the next project spectrum element -- AIR.  AIR is colorless and takes on the colors of whatever particles are suspended within.  since i'm kind of a lover of bold, intense colors, i was at a bit of a loss on how i would approach the next installment of project spectrum.

until i saw this.

this is 9 skeins of debbie bliss dksilk in a beautiful light stone color.  i know what you're thinking.  "holy shit woman!  did you win the lottery?  did you finally meet your sugar daddy?  have you cashed out your 401K?"

no.  before i got sucked into the evil that is packrat, i worked saturday morning at Graceful Stitches and they were having their end of season sale.  50% OFF BABY!!!  (sorry i didn't let you all know but i forgot).

so you know, i splurged.  (and yes even at 50% off, it's still a bit of a splurge especially since i'm not really much of a silk person.)

i have no idea what i'm going to do with it.

it's quite possible that i will just pet it.

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day 46 --this time i have no one to blame but myself.

Munchies

so i finally finished the scarf that i started earlier in the month.  i had some issues towards the end, wanting to use as much of the yarn i had left without running out  mid-row.  that's the problem with crochet.  it eats yarn.

anyway, i'm rather happy with it.

it came out to be about 68 inches long.  i like my scarves to be at least as long as i am tall and i made it with almost 2 skeins of malabrigo in rich chocolate.  it's been named Pringles by a flickr friend.  and when i get my act together, i'll post the pattern.

in the meantime, i've raveled a few details here.

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day 44 -- it was exciting enough when my first scarf pattern ended up on whip it.  imagine my surprise when my little old scarf got noticed by the folks at craft.! thanks beth for the head's up.

WIP Wednesday on Thursday

so lately i've been feeling uninspired and i don't feel like knitting or writing blog posts or taking pictures.  this is the 5th time i've started this stupid post.  how do you all find  the time or have the energy to do what it is you do every day?  TELL ME!!!  ( i'm doing that thing that i do.  i've been comparing myself to others again and falling short.  i've got to stop that. )

anyway, earlier in the week when i saw kristen's wonderful crocheted scarf, i thought it might be fun to change things up a bit and do a little crochet  too for a change. 

i looked for a suitable pattern and finding nothing that caught my eye, i just started crocheting.

and it sucked.  like a hoover.  so i frogged it

and i've got nothing.

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day 29  -- a post about sucking and wips that aren't anymore.

Mermaid

so for today's post i've got another FO.   

ta-daa!  another scarf!!! 

i know, i'm getting kind of boring with the scarves and the socks.  yeah whatever. and this is my second gathered scarf.  this time around i used berroco ultra alpaca (2 skeins) in pea soup and instead of casting on 48, i cast on 40.   i raveled the details here.

i also made the stockinette ends longer in this version, giving the scarf a bit of a mermaid tail look.  well it looks like a mermaid to me anyway.

that's it!

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day 22  -- a girl can never have enough scarves

WTF Wednesday

so a couple of weeks ago, i started another pair of socks.  green ones, for project spectrum. 

the yarn is Opal Rainforest in Chameleon. so i knit one sock.  put it aside, and started the next one, confident that the second one would match if i started the cuff at the same color repeat.  because opal is a machine dyed yarn and  all that.   and sure enough.  see how the stripes match up?  i'm not normally OCD about striping, being ok with wearing fraternally twinned socks, but this matching made me happy.

la la la.  i'm knitting along ... look how the heels match!  excellent.

and then something weird happened.

WTF!!!  see that aqua colored stripe?  (and yes, i counted and recounted stitches).

my matchy socks RUINED!

DON'T GO THINKING THAT I'M NOT OUTRAGED!  see?  i'm even using double negatives!

but clearly not outraged enough to frog and reknit.  stupid aqua stripe.

want details?  i've raveled them. 

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day 21  -- foiled by a ball of german sock yarn.

WIP Wednesday

starting today i'm going to have a regular wednesday feature called WIP Wednesday where i'll post about a project that i'm working on that week.  this may degenerate to WTF Wednesday or Whatever the Hell I Want Wednesday but today i plan on playing it straight. 

a few days ago i started another version of my gathered scarf.  this one is for me and knit from berroco ultra alpaca in pea soup.  this time, because the yarn is thicker than the yarn used for the original, i only cast on 40 stitches on size 8 needles (going down to size 5 for the garter stitch sections). 

by the way, it's been so cool for me to see all of the different variations of this scarf knit by so many people.  who knew that you all would like it so much.  not me anyway.

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day 7 -- here's to more WIPs than WTFs.   

Happy Earth Day!

like many of you, i try to do my best to save the environment.

1.  i've given up plastic when grocery shopping and now bring my own bags.  i still haven't gotten it in my head to avoid plastic when shopping for things other than groceries but i'm working on it. 

2.  i'm replacing all of our lightbulbs with CFwhatevers as they burn out.  (i can't figure out if it's more environmentally aware to just get rid of perfectly good bulbs before they've burnt out or not.  but it's certainly more maryse-miserly aware to do it that way).

3.  i do not water my lawn nor do i use artificial fertilizers.  mostly because our lawn is crap.  and to fertilize and water would only encourage the dandelions to grow even taller.  plus, norma says dandelions are good for eating so i'm killing three birds with one stone.  saving water, using only organic fertilizer (ie. wild bunny, bird and squirrel poop) and eating locally.

4. .  i try to recycle but i have yet to decipher the double-secret code of proper recyclable preparation and only manage to have my recyclables taken away 50% of the time.  i think the recycle truck driver guy is a control freak AND a megalomaniac, deciding at the beginning of his route whether or not he'll be emptying our blue recycling box or not that day.  too many cans?  NO!  not today! five inches from the curb?  NO!  not today!   our regular garbage guy on the other hand is a gem.  i love him (and i reward him handsomely during the holidays with a dunkin donuts giftcard delivered by me in my gnome pajamas.)  if he were in charge of the recyclable pick-up, i'm convinced that my town's carbon footprint would be reduced by half.

and finally,

5.  i reuse yarn.  yep.  i do.  a little over a year ago, i knit these toe-up green lace socks.  i was pretty happy with them, being that they were my first toe-up and my first lace socks.  unfortunately though, they never fit right and one day when i tried to slip one on, it ripped at the cuff.   

so, i frogged them.

and knit a pair of twinkleberries instead. 

still a little lacy but a better fit, these were a super fast knit with an easily memorized pattern.  i knit a heal flap instead of the short-row heel.  you know, because of the giant peds.   i've raveled the details.

so happy earth day to all of you.  go out and enjoy the day.

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day 6 -- a reminder that this is sometimes a knitting blog and good for the environment

 

Earth, Wind, Fire

a few days late, but that's ok, since i'm setting the rules here.  the project spectrum months of february and march were busy ones for me.  in those two months i managed to knit 3 scarves, 1 cowl, 2 pairs of socks, 1 hat and spin some fire-y colored fiber.

since my last update, i finished a pair of monkey socks.

i made a few modifications such as adding extra stitches to accommodate my giant peds, and changing the heel and toe.  details are raveled.

then because i had some fire-y colored colinette point 5 in the stash and i hadn't knit anything in pink, i whipped up  two  quickie projects:  a simple garter stitch scarf out of point 5 in berry. 

and a cowl out of point 5 in cezanne.   is it cheating knitting on size 17  needles?  because it certainly feels like it.

the next element is earth with greens, browns and metallics. 

god this post is lame.  sorry.