Feelin' Blue Socks

 I finished another pair of socks! They're not for me though, they're for the Boy, when he travels to the cold (and lonely) capital.
They even come with extra cat love!

The colourway was an experimental one I did on one of my yarns. now I just need to figure out how to recreate it, of course...

Rusty Socks

While my parents are here, I need something quick and easy to knit. Like vanilla socks made out of self-striping yarn.
We travel around a lot on public transport.
So before I could even post an update post, these socks were done!
I made the cuff pretty short, since the yarn (Regia Cotton) is more of a summer blend.
I kind of knit them without a recipe, which didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The heel flaps aren't exactly *centered*. But they're still fine. Really.

Nerd Wars Month 3 Summary - Geek Finale

 This is it. Round 3, aka the final round, of Tournament 3 of Nerd Wars is finished.
And guess what?
Three for three for six! I scored a full 18 by submitting all six projects all three rounds.
What does that mean?
Well, nothing, really, except for bragging rights.

What I submitted this month:

Technical: Danger Zone: an ugly little crochet penguin
Intellectual: Tradition: the Green Lantern lantern
Nerd Culture: British Invasion: Knotty gloves
Scientific: Fermat's Last Theorem: my Bugga Pogona shawl and a fixed cuff for the Hayfever mystery socks
Team Spirit: Nerds in their natural habitat: the Bulbasaur Vine Whip Beret (the pattern I won as a prize in the first month!)
Giving Geeks: RAK n' Roll: I donated yarn to my local cat shelter for blankets

Nerd Wars Month 2 Summary - Geek Out!

Round Two: Fight!
I'm getting the hang of this Nerd Wars thing, and I'm getting more comfortable chatting in my team's thread, which is awesome.

Anyway, in November, I submitted:

Nerd Culture: Revenge of the Nerds: Bee Mine Mitts
Team Spirit: Winter is Coming: Fall Foliage Squared Hat
Intellectual: Periodically Scientific: mom's Frost Flower Cowl
Technical: From a different angle: Hexipuffs of Catan
Scientific: Anatomy of Nerddom: Movember socks
Giving Geeks: It's Hip to be Square: a cat blanket

Super Fun Stripey Socks, or: I made those up!

Thank goodness the move is finally over.
It's been a stressful couple of months of househunting and general home uncertainty, but once we found our new place, things moved relatively quickly.

We did most of the move ourselves, opting to hire a moving van only one day for all our big furniture items.

We're a short bus ride away from our old place, so I took the week off and started moving suitcases of stuff over.
And we all know that public transport time means knitting time, right?
My mom has sent me this awesome yarn of random stripes (Regia Design Line Kaffe Fasset) that couldn't be more my colors if I had chosen them myself!

I didn't want to waste a yard of this yarn, so I decided to make them into knee-high, ribbed socks for snowboarding.

I started with 24 stitches and increased to 60, then went for a 3x3 rib all the way. nice and easy, nice and flowey.
I loved watching the stripes appear.

There's a funny thing about bus rides. While on trams and trains, no one ever talks to me, on buses, there are more old ladies with a lot of time.

I've had two approach me during my moving day to chat about my socks.
One of them asked in broken English whether I was making them "for bebe". I held up the two completed my-size feet.
"No, for me," I told her.
She picked up the socks doubtfully.
"For bebe," she declared. "Too small for you."
Well, whaddaya know? She must know some big-footed babies.

Mr. Mechanicalpenguin took two days off for the move, too. We borrowed his parents' car and shuttled our various boxes and bags to and fro all day Thursday and Friday.
And the sock legs grew and grew.

Finally, everything was moved on Sunday, and the socks went all the way up to my knees.
I finished them off in 1x1 rib at the top for an inch, then bound off.
now it's time to put up my feet and enjoy our new home.
Life is good in stripey socks.

Snowboard Babe Purple B'day Hat

 A spin-off of the Baristafarian hat, this purple fuzz concoction is squishy, warm, floppy, and the perfect birthday present for my snowboarding girlfriend. She loved it, and oohed and aaahed appreciatively.
Good knitting gift receiver. Will get more.

This was a fun, fast knit on the bus, and the results couldn't have been better.
I should have taken more photos though. It has a massive pompom that I somehow forgot to photograph!

Baristafarian Hat

Sometimes, I get an idea in my head. Often, these don't work out.

This time, the idea was a hat of alternating knit and purl ridges, giving a three-dimensional, bee-hiveish effect.

I checked several patterns on Ravelry, but decided I'd just wing it.

Yeah, not so great actually.

You know that whole gauge thing?

Even when the hat came out ludicrously large, I thought it'd be fine. It was 'afarian, supposed to look that way. undaunted, I finished the hat. I even put it on.

It sank down over my ears, and no level of adjusting could fix it.

I strung some hat elastic through the brim, but the fact remained, the hat was too big.

All right then. Let's try that again.

I didn't bother with calculations, just ripped out and cast on a random, smaller number of stitches.

Better.

I tried on the brim, and it seemed to fit okay this time around.

The finished hat is... meh. It's a fine hat, but it lost a lot of the cute floppiness I had originally envisioned.

I put an applique on it, and the kitten totally makes the hat.

It's still cute in its own right.
It's just not the hat in my head.