Sheep On My Stuff

Sent out today: six squares for a rainbow afghan (which raised money for the same charity as the Rainbow Sheep!)!

My pictures are horrible and awful, because the good camera is currently in Las Vegas along with SheepLad. However, here they are anyhow:

From left to right, the stitch patterns are: the 'prismatic' diagonal herringbone from this scarf on Feather and Fan, stockinette, seed, an unvented garter rib, stockinette, triple rib.

You remember how I had a Sneaky Sheep in my flock? Here, I'll refresh your memory:

Well, it turns out Sneaky Sheep has been going on missions. So far he's managed to infiltrate the study, while I was raiding Tempest Keep:

...the bathroom, as I was brushing my teeth...

...my bedroom window, as I was going to sleep...

...and now the kitchen cabinets!

(For fun and prizes, find the bonus sheep in each of those pictures. There are eight, plus an "extra".)

I do have other things going! I've been working on shopping bags, and two friends have graciously agreed to help me test a pattern. (It's crochet, requires about 300 yards of not-too-stretchy yarn, and roughly an H hook -- mileage varies.) I'm also working on a shawl project, but it's a gift for someone; as such, I won't be posting pictures of it until it's complete and in the hands of the recipient. :)

Surprise, surprise! I finished something that wasn't a sheep.

Not to say that it isn't wrapped around one.

Yarn used: Dark Horse Fantasy. Needle size: 4mm.

I was surprisingly pleased with this scarf. Dark Horse Fantasy is definitely the nicest acrylic I've ever laid hands on, and I'd work with it again, no problem. And the pattern came out lovely! So lovely that I decided to do something I've never done before -- I wrote up the pattern.

Yes, it's basketweave k3p3 with a 4-row repeat and 3 stitches of knitted-on I-cord border, and yes, a knowledgeable knitter can simply figure it out by looking, and yes, it felt strange to write such a "simple" pattern up... but I found myself thinking that maybe I should do it anyway. Not everyone in the world can hear the above phrases and turn those into a pattern!

Like everything else on the site, and every pattern I'll ever write, now and in the future, it's Creative Commons licensed. If you're curious what that means, I encourage you to check out this page, where I provide a few links and clarify my personal feelings on Creative Commons licenses as they apply to my patterns. :)

It is entirely possible I'll have another pattern up next week -- this one for a crocheted grocery bag -- but it might take me a little longer. My charity auction is finished, and it's time for me to cast on for a shawl. Wooooooooo shawl! :D

Thursday, be on the lookout for sheep. Some sneaky... some brightly colored... all very proud, and most of them (though not all of them) members of my personal flock. :)

(This is a quickie makeup post standing in for the post that should have gone up July 3rd. Oops! When I do get caught up, you'll see why I'm behind...)

I think I've mentioned my Pink Prismatic Scarf before! It was an experiment both with the pattern (which gets five stars) and this yarn (which does not). Here's how it's looking right now:

I've tried it on both plastic and bamboo needles, and it's not making me happy at all. I'm going to finish it, because I like the color and the pattern is made of awesome, but I won't be working with this yarn again!

Here's the other scarf on needles at present:

It's an improvised basketweave pattern with built-in I-cord edging, using Dark Horse Fantasy. This yarn, unlike Comfort, is MADE OF WIN. I first heard about it through synecdochic on LiveJournal, who hails it as the best acrylic-based yarn ever, and she's totally correct about that. It's pricey for acrylic, but would be worth it if I absolutely had to have an easy-care fiber right now (it's sold at my LYS, unlike Shine from KnitPicks and such).

Both the sheep in these pictures are from Indiana -- I think they may have come from the Wool 'n' Ewe shop one year at the State Fair. They're a cute iridescent color, and are from the Russ Berrie company. :)

The cross-stitching is still going well, but I couldn't take too much time off from knitting. I started up a Prismatic Scarf, from Feather and Fan. And it's looking nice!

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Yarn used: Comfort by Berroco, color 9810. Needle size: 5mm.

The sheep in question is a small sheep who lives in the library. She is a sturdy and stable sheep, standing easily on her four hooves! (A noteworthy talent in plush sheep.)

I've been curious about acrylic/nylon yarns for a while. It's much, much, much nicer to work with than straight acrylic, but I don't know if I'd want to do anything bigger than a scarf or a hat with this particular yarn!

Say hello to a blast from the past! The Powers of Two blanket has come out of hibernation (boy, has it).

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Yarn used: Wool-Ease, worsted weight. Needle size: 4.25mm.

Pink Pads Sheep is confused about why I'd ever want to feature a project without her. She's that kind of sheep, you know; the sort that's about half wool (and polyester fiberfill), and half ego.

Oh, excuse me. She's now bleating that it's more like one-quarter wool and fiberfill, and three-quarters ego.

Now she wants me to go get her a nice patch of organic wheatgrass.

The things we do for sheep.

...the Many Happy Returns shawl is done, and tomorrow I will block it! (I'll take pictures then.)

...work continues on the Obama socks; one sock down, one leg in progress!

...I started working on the Powers of Two blanket again!

...and the Meditation Knitting project continues, too!

Also, I frogged the Anya scarf; I could not deal with lace on every row and not just the odd-numbered rows. C'est la vie; I'll find another project for that orange laceweight, I'm sure!

So it's been a productive weekend/beginning of week, just not so much with the camera. Pictures to come on Thursday!

I have nothing of interest! I've done a few more rounds on the Cable-Down Raglan since yesterday, but nothing else. In an attempt to make up for the boringness ("Look, more cables!"), I thought I'd offer a more candid view of my nightstand. This is my nightstand in its normal state of being:

Clockwise from bottom left, you can see a stack of books I'm currently reading ("Communicating In Sign" is on top -- I've been taking an ASL class at my local community college, and have been reading as much ASL/Deaf culture stuff as I can get my hands on). This is not all the books I'm reading. This is just the two books I am reading that are stashed in the bedroom. There are three books I'm reading in the study, two in the middle bathroom, three in the back bathroom, and a pile downstairs waiting to be tackled. It's kind of like a sickness, a ravenous appetite. Unfortunately, reading this many books at once results in not finishing anything at all. I need to buckle down and start finishing things!

Piled between the books and the alarm clock are my abacus bracelets and a couple of stitch markers.

Next is my alarm clock, with lamp on top. Yep, the lamp lives on top of the alarm clock. Why not -- it fits! The clock is one of those things that will play CDs (that's why it's big and flat like a sandwich) and has two wake-up times, though right now we're only using one. It also has different settings for weekday and weekend, so we don't have to remember to turn it off over the weekend and turn it back on during the week. I usually wake up about five minutes before the alarm goes off.

Hand lotion in the back; useful when you're knitting and have dry skin.

Black object is a rear speaker. Yes. It lives on my nightstand. I suppose we could put them on the floor... or something... but the nightstand is where they have always lived.

Far back corner is a Kleenex box. All hail Puffs Plus With Lotion. It saves my nose every time I get a cold.

Foreground, in front of speakers: three sheep. There may be a fourth sheep hidden under the knitting project. They're sneaky, sheep.

Foreground, right: knitting project and its chart. I recently switched it to a 32" needle instead of a 24" needle. I may need to switch it right back when the sleeve stitches get put on holders. I also just tried it on (it's top-down and the stitches get put on thread) to see if I could make myself a sweater one size smaller than I was thinking, and the answer was a resounding "Hell, no". Sigh. I really wanted to be on to the next part of this sucker. But no. I've got another eight-ish rounds to go, and then I should be ready to divide sleeves. Yay!

The trouble with being monogamous (in terms of knitting) is that you don't always have very interesting pictures the next time around.

On the bright side, I have another diamond finished (well, nearly!), and will be dividing off for sleeves soon. It'll be so much faster when I'm no longer doing so much increasing -- not to mention how much less bulk there'll be on the needles, at least for the time being.

I'm still really enjoying both the project and my abacus bracelets (I've got one for the larger cable and one for the smaller cables), and lately SheepLad has been watching Lord of the Rings, which has given me an unexpected bonus knitting time with the husband. And talking of which, I hear hobbits from the next room. Off I go!

Aargh. While I don't consider myself a total Type-A perfectionist knitter, I can't let a glaring error stand. And I made a -- okay, so a normal person wouldn't call it glaring, but I did (am I losing ground on the not-being-a-perfectionist-knitter thing?), so I ripped back all the way and started over.

Still -- since Tuesday I have completed one entire repeat of the diamond panel on my Cable-Down Raglan! :D

Yarn used: Zitron Polo in colorway 41 (grey, slightly heathered). Needles: 3.75mm.
Sheep: Ovistine, from the Auckland airport in New Zealand.

So here's one of my unpopular knitting opinions: I like cable needles. I really prefer working with cable needles to working without 'em, even though many people (especially lately) dig the on-the-fly, without-'em method. So cable needles are an integral part of a cable project for me; I tuck the cable needle behind my ear when I don't need it and pop the stitches onto the thing when I do.

Here's a shot of the project with my essential tools for cabling:

The cable needle is part of the set from KnitPicks (here). I'm using the smallest needle, and so far so good -- though I'm honestly not sure if I wouldn't be happier with my Brittany Cable Needles instead. I may switch to the Brittany when I do my next pattern repeat.

The other item is a Knitter's Abacus Bracelet. Like the poster there, I heartily endorse the ones made by Hide And Sheep; they're beautiful, put together very well, and shipped fast fast fast. :D (Though I found these on Etsy, I actually bought them through the actual storefront on hideandsheep.net; the Hide And Sheep website had the two colors I desperately wanted (Starry, Starry Night, grey and black, and Stardust and Denim, sodalite and dark blue), and why make them pay Etsy listing fees if I don't need to? :) I think I may have to order some stitch markers, too, and if I'm lucky, I'll be able to get ones that match the bracelets.

Anyway, if it isn't obvious from the picture what you do with an abacus bracelet, there are nine small beads (to represent the ones) and ten large ones (to represent the tens), and at the end of every row (or the beginning, as you prefer), you slip one of the small beads through the loop of four beads. After you reach nine small ones, you slip those back to the starting side and slip a large bead through.

So clever! So awesome! So much better than my katcha-katcha row counters -- I just put one of these on my left wrist and I'm good to go. (I may end up wearing two when I start the part of the pattern where I'm juggling two kinds of cables. We'll see.)