Massimo and Harold

The following post is what happens when I don't get enough sleep, consume entirely too much coffee, the phones at work are super slow, and all my work peeps that keep me entertained are at an off site meeting all freaking day. Now you can't say I didn't warn you...

As you may or may not know, I have a pygmy puff that resides atop my Tweety mug on my desk at work. His name is Massimo and you can see him chilling with Spock back in this post. Massimo keeps me company on days like to today when everyone is at an off-site meeting. Don't let the cute and fluffy look fool you though... he has sharp little teeth, is fiercely loyal, and has been known to attack mean-spirited people as they walk by my desk (of course he only attacks when he feels I'm being threatened).

Apparently Massimo needed a friend. After all, I'm only at work 40 hours per week and Massimo is by himself the rest of the time. He must get lonely, right? Tuesday evening I received a yarny-goodness package from my dear ravelry friend Vberry and inside was the world's cutest stuffed gorilla. Once I was done drooling over the amazing yarn I popped the gorilla into my purse so he could come to work with me on Wednesday. As soon as I got to work yesterday morning I introduced Massimo to the gorilla, but apparently Vberry had warned the gorilla about Massimo's ...not-so-friendly... side. I tried to reassure the gorilla that Massimo wouldn't hurt him, but the gorilla still seemed really nervous. In fact, he was so nervous that he wouldn't tell me his name.

While with me, the gorilla had only encountered me (a ginormous human-type-being), and a friendly pygmy puff that he believed to be evil. That must have been terrifying. Thinking that he might warm up to someone more his size and completely likable, I decided to introduce him to Ryan. Unfortunately I didn't consider the fact that Ryan might not be so keen on talking to a gorilla larger than him, so more awkwardness ensued.

Eventually it was time for me to go to lunch, and as much as I hated to leave the nameless gorilla at my desk, I thought he could use the space to settle in without me worrying about him. Turns out I was worrying for nothing. By time I got back he had climbed up on my travel mug - he just wanted a better view! He told me that his name was Harold and that he just wanted to see what I was working on. I showed him my plans for my Slytherin pumpkin and he told me that he thought it would look better with a badger... he's a Hufflepuff! We agreed to disagree and move on with life. I explained to him that Massimo is a Slytherpuff (loyal friend with an evil streak that I adore) and that over time I'm sure they would become good friends.

Harold seems to have survived the night, gave Massimo a second chance, and was still on my desk when I got to work this morning. He even helped me put together signs for the Halloween contest at work tomorrow. Such a good gorilla :-)

In other non-gorilla news, last night I hung out at Starbucks with Shirley and worked on my Rose's Mitts while drinking a yummy venti toffee mocha. Silly me, I forgot to say "decaf." Decaf is super important when ordering a huge coffee-type beverage at 7pm.

Once I was home (and practically bouncing off the walls) I realized that sleep certainly wasn't in my near future, so watching the Rocky Horror Glee Show and carving a pumpkin sounded like a good idea. RHGS was awesome and was amazingly ab-tastic. This means I was easily distracted. Easily distracted Schmutzy + pumpkin carving = bad idea. No, I didn't cut off my thumb or anything that tragic, but I did manage to screw up my pattern. It's not beyond repair and I think I've figured out how to fix it, but it was still frustrating. Oh well, I'll just have to take another crack at it tonight. I was planning on watching Amityville Horror or Boltneck this evening, but after the events of last night I'm thinking that a Ryan Reynolds movie while pumpkin carving could be even more distracting thus a bad idea. Maybe I really do learn from my mistakes!

Seahawks Mitts and Other Awesomeness

Can you believe it? I actually finished Mary's birthday present ON TIME. I even had enough time to block her Seahawks Mitts and let them dry before giving them to her. I am absolutely in love with the way they turned out!!! I've drooled over this pattern for so long but dreaded jumping into stranded colorwork, especially when a deadline was involved. Really bad idea to do them 2 at a time on 1 needle, but I survived and it was worth it. I definitely want to make another pair for myself one day!

I should probably mention that I changed the pattern up a bit. I really didn't like the look of the ribbing on the hands in the original pattern, so I decided to switch them to stockinette. It worked out really well since I was using the same weight yarn, same size needles, and same number of stitches that I did in my Tenth Doctor Mitts and I knew they fit Mary so I just made the hands the same way. It worked out great! Next time around I think I'd probably switch to size 2 needles for the last few rows of colorwork to make the wrist a little bit tighter. Other than that they fit both of us really well :-)



Mary (aka BFF) showing off her new Seahawks Mitts and Birthday Babe beads

Not that this should surprise anyone, but Mary was really lucky that she even got her birthday present. As soon as I tried them on I wanted them for myself! My mitts that I wear on a daily basis are only wrist length, but the Seahawks Mitts go practically to my elbows and are super squishy and warm. This leads me to believe I need a longer pair for me and soon (especially since my desk is freezing today) so I've started on a pair of Rose's Wrist Warmers that should go about halfway between my wrist and elbow. It doesn't have anything to do with this month's Gallifreyan Time Travel Challenge of crafting something inspired by your favorite Doctor Who companion. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

And now for something that *wasn't* crafted by me... A couple months ago the super awesome LisaD sent me an amazing ice cream swap box. It was full to the brim of all kinds of fantastic goodies including an ice cream cone cat toy for Bella. She sent me a message asking me to take a picture of it since she forgot to before she sent it, but I couldn't right away because I did something monumentally stupid. You'd think that I'd have learned by now that I need to take pictures of swap goodies before giving them to Bella, but obviously I haven't. I opened the box, gave it to her, and didn't see it again until yesterday. She just loooooves to hide her toys, especially those containing catnip. Apparently she was craving ice cream yesterday so she pulled it out from wherever it was hiding and played with it a bit. Luckily I was around when this went down and was able to snap a couple of pics. The little bugger hid it again before I could get a picture of it all by itself, so these are better than nothing. Apparently she just doesn't want to share her stash.

Mitts, Mitts, and More Mitts

The past couple of weeks have been fairly stressful for me, so blogging hasn't been done as regularly as I'd like, but I still have been knitting away! Seems like the only thing I've been working on lately are pairs of fingerless mitts!!!

Tenth Doctor Mitts
Once I started over on these I was in love. They went sooooooooo much faster since I actually enjoyed working on them and I finished them in just under a week. Perfect timing too because my desk just seems to get colder and colder in the mornings and my hands have been freeeeeezing! Suppose that's to be expected in October. I actually finished them the same day that my "It came out of nowhere..." shirt from woot arrived - a Thursday right before casual Friday when I get to wear t-shirts to work. I was totally stylin' with my Doctor Who shirt and mitts :-D I've worn the mitts every morning since then and I still love them. What a treat to actually make something for me!!!

Shantelle's Birthday Mitts
When I brought the Beauxbatons mitts into work to show off over the summer, my boss really liked the pattern and asked me to make her a pair in black. Time passed and I didn't get to them. Eventually she changed her mind and decided that she'd actually rather learn how to knit and make her own. I taught her how and right now she's working on a scarf for her daughter to practice before she starts working with fingering yarn and tiny needles. Unfortunately this leaves her hands cold until she's ready to work on her mitts, so I decided to go back to the plan of black Susie's Reading Mitts and made them for her birthday. Now her hands don't have to freeze while she's still learning how to knit :-)

Seahawks Mitts
BFF Mary's birthday is this coming Tuesday and it looks like I'll be able to finish her Seahawks mitts in time!!! I finished the colorwork portion at knitting group last night and I love how they're turning out. This pattern is so awesome that I'm going to have to make a pair for me one day...

In other non-mitt-related news, I got to hang out with Nicole this past Sunday which means I was reunited with the Traffic Cone of Doom I crocheted and gave to her this past spring. He has a place of honor sitting on her dashboard and reminds her not to go hitting innocent traffic cones. Awesome :-D

26 Hours 45 Minutes

That's how long it took me to crochet the Dragonflies Shawl. I'm never timing anything ever again. That was such a hassle and I don't think I really wanted to know how long it actually takes. Knowing means that someone should slap me the next time I say I want to make a shawl for a swap. Seriously, how stupid was this decision?!?! The minimum time that's supposed to be spent on the large item is 2 hours. Yeesh. Well, I never claimed to be sane, right?



This is Mom modeling the shawl. After this picture she decided to run around the front yard pretending she had wings. This apple so doesn't fall too far from that tree!

 I'm really thrilled with how it turned out though. Going into this project I knew it was going to be larger than the Scarlett (Multnomah) shawl, and even though I had the finished dimensions staring me in the face on the pattern page, I still wasn't expecting it to be this big. Really came as a surprise when I went to block it. I thought it was pretty while I was working on it, but the way the lace opened up just took my breath away. Unfortunately I didn't think much about the size when I was ordering my blocking mats and now I wish I'd ordered 2 sets. Oh well, I made it work with what I had. This sucker has a wingspan of 60 inches and it's 30 inches long.

During blocking - yes, there are places where the shawl is pinned directly to the bed because I freaking need more puzzle pieces

Hanging out with the Mad Hatter and Captain Jack before blocking

I absolutely love it. Breaks my heart a bit to pack it up and ship it out. It will be winging its way to my swap partner tomorrow in the super awesome treasure chest flat rate box that I spent entirely too much time decorating yesterday when I should have been working on my socks. Since my spoilee has no idea who I am and I'm fairly certain she doesn't read my blog, I'm going to go ahead and give you all a sneak peek of what I just finished packing up. This was for the Pirates swap in the Odd Ducks group on ravelry. Yes, dragonflies are extremely piratey. Just go with me on this one ;-)

Frogging Without a Tantrum

Remember when I said that I was going to make mitts for me because I wanted to reclaim my crafting mojo? That totally didn't happen. Even after the knitting retreat last weekend I'm still in a major funk. My projects don't currently thrill me. There's nothing that I'm just dying to finish. It's a problem :-(

My plan for the knitting retreat was to finish Dragonflies (which I totally did and it's awesome and pictures will be posted eventually) and finish these mitts. I knew that cooler weather was coming, they'd be good to keep me warm at work, and mitts don't take that long so why not? It so didn't work like that. I worked on them all weekend when I wasn't spending time on the computer, swearing at the crappy wifi connection in our condo, or getting tips and practicing spinning.

I finished the ribbing and moved on to the cables. That's when I discovered that I left home without my cable needle. Apparently dark yarn in bad lighting on size 2 needles is not the right time to learn how to cable-without-a-cable-needle. Stitches were dropped, swearing occurred, then I realized I could use one of my interchangeable tips for a cable needle and I was good to go. After a few rows of the pattern, I discovered that I was having major problems with laddering going from needle 1 to needle 2 using magic loop because I broke up the stitches in the wrong place. Deciding that I really don't need to be a perfectionist and I can live with a bit of laddering if the rest of the mitts are awesome, I continued on.

I obviously didn't finish them on the retreat, and I didn't even finish one pattern repeat (needs two before I can even think about increasing for the thumb), but I brought them with me to work and knitting group to keep plugging along. I wasn't paying enough attention at knitting group and ended up crossing two of the cables in the wrong direction. I didn't discover it until three rows later and I wasn't willing to knit back three rows to fix it. Again I tried to tell myself that I don't need to be a perfectionist, and The Doctor would probably appreciate the unique quirkiness of the incorrect cables (I was telling myself anything at that point to be able to keep knitting without too much stress), so it's ok to ignore them and just finish the damn mitts.

The next day at work I planned on working on them at lunch, but I only got one row done because I kept looking at where I screwed up. This was not the quality I was used to, but my hands were freezing at my desk that morning and so I should just finish them, right? That night I just couldn't take it anymore. I reached the point at which I could choose to have a short wrist and start increasing for the thumb, or do another repeat and make them longer. I tried them on and contemplated my options, and then realized that I hated them. The pattern is beautiful, and I love the yarn, but they just don't work together. It wasn't what I wanted. I spent more time drooling over the awesomeness of how the colors played out on the back plain side than the intricate cabling. That's when I knew I needed to frog them (for those that don't know, "frogging" knitting term used when you rip out your work because you "rip-it, rip-it, rip-it"). You all know how much I hate knitting back to fix a mistake, and how ripping out a few rows (like on that lacy shawl I'm supposed to be working on but I'm still grumpy about it and refuse to touch it) makes me cranky, so the idea of frogging a week's worth of work on tiny needles made me want to cry.

But I didn't cry. I pouted a bit, but no tantrums were involved. The only time I swore was when I texted BFF that I was ripping them out and "f*** knitting - pointy ended sticks SUCK." Not the most mature of moments, but believe me that that's pretty good for me when it comes to frogging. By this point it was about 10pm on a Thursday, I knew I needed to go to work in the morning, but I also knew if I didn't fix them and start a new pair right away that I wouldn't ever finish them. I found a new pattern, started watching Boondock Saints on Netflix (because Irish accents and violence always helps), and began ripping them out.

I dug out a pair of size 1 needles (yeah, they're super tiny. 2.25mm) and started over with Koigu Wristers. I was only able to knit about 8 rows by time the movie was done, but I was feeling good about the new ones. The mitts fit so much better than the first pair. I was excited to work on them again at lunch yesterday, and even got them right out when I got home to continue working on them. Now I'm to row 20 of the ribbing and I'm excited to finish this post and get back to working on them. Maybe my crafty mojo is starting to return!!!

Thank you so much for reading this far. I know the entire story could have been taken care of with a simple blurb like "My Tenth Doctor Mitts suck so I ripped them out and started over. I didn't even cry or swear and now I'm working on new ones that are significantly more awesome." But that didn't convey the growth I went through for these. I am and always have been a crafty perfectionist. Just the fact that I didn't give up on them with the laddering problem was an amazing improvement for me. I've never ripped something out and started all over again. Normally I'd fight it to the death to finish it, or cut off the yarn and work on something else. The idea of frogging always seemed painful to me. I'm happy to say that I survived though. Maybe this means I'm growing. Or not.