poor little blog.

Not having my own computer is still no fun.

As for the knitting: I tried to make a groovy sweater vest, but as with the poncho, I have the skinniest shoulders ever, and so what fits the rest of me positively hangs off my shoulders. I am going to have to play a fun shaping game someday when I am feeling more innovative.

I've scooted on to some lace knitting now. Unraveled an old favorite sweater and am having at the extremely thin yarn with a pair of size 2 needles. Today has gone quite nicely, though if you'd asked me last night I would have told you I was thinking of enrolling in kindergarten, because my counting skills were sucking the big one. I did some color coding of the chart, and am much better now.

and there was felting.

Got all mad scientist with the rubber gloves in my freezing basement yesterday, and I now have a felty bag drying in my room. The bag is now referred to as the Experimental Bag, as I have learned a lot about felting from it.

The first thing I learned was that the dark green yarn was not acrylic, as I had feared. In fact, it felted much better than the light green yarn, which is too bad, because I have a shitload of the light green left.

Second thing is that felted stuff likes to shrink from up to down, not so much side to side. This would have been useful basic felting advice. Then again, it's not like I researched How To Felt in any kind of depth, so maybe the info is out there.

Third, my straps could have used some sort of double layer. However, they're too long (I think, like I said, it's still drying) so I might cut them and sew the halves on top of each other.

I think I would definitely felt something again. I can see the potential for making really nifty things, once I get more used to how the process works.

Guess What?

My sweater is A) finished, and B) awesome. It fits well, and will fit even better when I get back down to my fighting weight. (Not that I fight, but you get the picture.) Ha. Someday you might even get pictures, but don't hold your breath. Someday I will stun you with photos of all the stuff I've made since my computer went to the big Mac store in the sky.

A finished sweater, naturally, scoots us on to fun planning of What Large Item To Make Next. I have a definite sweater in mind that I want to make, but I can't find a pattern, darn it. I should really just figure it out on my own, right? If I do (attempt to) I'm sure you'll hear the cursing.

In the meantime, I'm working on my very first felted item. It's a bag that I actually started over two years ago, got bored with, and moved on. The sad part is that there was actually very little left to finish. I just have to make some straps, and then it's going in the washer and we'll see what happens. Kind of exciting, no?

so far, so good!

My haphazard measurements seem to be working. The body increases on my sweater look pretty good so far. I've got about seven or eight inches of body left to go. Then all I have to do are cuffs, neck edging, and some sewing in, and poof! Sweater!

On the not so fun side of things (as if the sewing-in wasn't not so fun enough) there's a knit-and-crochet fest in town this weekend, and as none of my friends here knit, and I have no car, I shall not be going, barring a miracle. Or this could be good, as it means I won't spend money I don't have on yarn I technically don't need. Right. I shall hold on to that thought.

imagination time!

Since I still have no photos, you'll just have to imagine. Remember the shrug I was making well before Christmas? Well, it sucked, as I think I mentioned, and I was turning it into a raglan sweater, as I think I also mentioned. There may even have been pictures.

Anyhow, I picked it back up again to knit during the Super Bowl. (In your face, Patriots!) It now has two navy blue sleeves, which are quite nice, and I unraveled the body, which didn't fit quite right, and will probably get cracking on that again tonight. Not to be overly optimistic, as it seems I was with the Poncho of Doom, but there's a chance I could have a nice sweater in about two days. How fun would that be?

one of the classic blunders

No, I did not get involved in a land war in Asia. I forgot that I have the narrowest shoulders on God's earth, and so, while my poncho is all super and 60's around my bosom and hips, it's a tad . . . I dunno, 80's, maybe, around the shoulders.

Fuck. I mean, the whole point of this poncho is that somehow two rectangles with a hood (and some buttons) manage to look adorable, so it's not like I want to re-do it and make some weird oblongs look cute with a hood.

Gah. Curse you, narrow shoulders! (I might also add that it's come to my attention recently that my head is narrow. Great.) Now I don't get to be super or 60's. No, I just get to do some unraveling and decide what to try this yarn as next.

Son of a bitch.

Oh, my poor blog.

I really, really miss having my very own computer.

But enough of woe! Remember the big ol' swathe of seed stitch I posted a while ago? That was gonna be the Super 60's Poncho? Well, I've finally gotten back to it, and now have a back and a front. Today's mission is to sew some shoulders together and then, if we're very, very lucky and it fits, start on the hood. We could be super, 60's style, by Sunday if everything goes well.

Then it could be Super 60's Poncho Sunday, instead of merely Super Bowl Sunday.

Dude, I wish I were still in Phoenix, though I'll probably get more wear out of my poncho here in the frozen north.

(Oh, I will also have to get buttons. Choosing buttons will probably slow down the process considerably.)