Anime/Manga swap

Well, my swap partner has finally received, so I can safely post up pictures of the things I made her for the swap! I'm still waiting to see what she made me since my packaged arrived in Ottawa at my brother's house, where I was supposed to be right now, but it turns out I won't be going there for a week or so still. *dies of anticipation*

My swap partner doesn't watch any anime, she only reads manga. I themed my swap items on her favourite manga - Kimi wa Petto.

The first item was a scarf. I knit it out of Cascade 220 wool, on 10mm needles. Here's the scarf initially:
It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's insanely long and wide. I then felted it in the washing machine for about 20 minutes (I'd felted a test swatch previously to calculate how much it would shrink) and set it out to dry on the floor. Here's the scarf drying, and a close-up shot of the stitches so you can see how much it felted.


I folded the ends up to make pockets and embroidered them, then sewed them up on the sides using a blanket stitch. The one side has Momo's box on it, with the word 'Momo' on the side of it, and the other side says 'Kimi wa Petto'. I knit some matching wrist warmers to go along with it, using an amalgamation of a couple patterns I found online.



It's hard to tell what the wrist warmers look like on their own like that, so here's me modeling one.

The last item was inspired by this manga page:
I sortof made up my own pattern, and it came out not perfect, but good enough I suppose. I think the sheep in the manga has some sort of gelpak or something inside it, but lacking that, I went out and got some of those ice cubes that are plastic with water inside. My swap partner also adores peanut butter M&M's, so the sheep is bringing them along as an extra surprise.


The sheep was knit with Phentex Merit yarn (acrylic) on 2.5mm needles. The hardest part was sewing the zipper in. I haven't done much sewing in a LONG time and it took forever. Turned out pretty good though, and my swap partner said she liked everything! Yay! This was my first craft swap, and I think I might sign up for another one sometime soon.

Dying is easier the second time

For my Guild Wars guild members and allies reading this, no I am not talking about being rezzed with Vengeance or Death Pact Signet (although both are marvelously fun). This post, is about dying yarn!

On the holiday weekend, I had the opportunity to visit Philosopher's Wool and tour the farm. The old philosopher himself gave us the tour, with his rubber boots on over his thick knitted socks and his white hair and beard sticking out at all angles from his head. The tour was fantastic, and we got to see the little lambs, and the wool at each stage of the process to becoming yarn. If any of you ever visit there, I also encourage to ask you the story of how they built their house, because that is a fascinating story in itself.

Myself, Jenn, and Jordan each got a skien of undyed yarn and set to work that afternoon with some jars, some food colouring, and a trusty microwave! Due to my previous experience dying yarn with koolaid, I was much better prepared this time, and we each decided to dye our skeins with three colours.
They turned out better than we could have expected! Here are our three skeins drying outside. I sent mine to my sister who is at the moment confined in the middle of nowhere, BC, with no car and no internet. Knit lots, Anna! You'll be a prostar knitter by the end of the summer, sis!

In terms of other projects, the Kon Hat take #2 is almost complete. Details and pictures to follow when I finish it up. I've also cast on the second try at a pair of socks. To be able to knit along with a friend, I'm doing some very basic socks from the book The Urban Knitter. My swap partner from the Anime/Manga swap at Craftster also received her package, so I'll post up the details of those soon.

Exponential stash growth

"Are you sure?" my mom asked me. I tried to sound confident. "Yes," I replied. None of the certainty I meant to convey translated through to my voice. My mom asked again, "Can you really live without your computer for two weeks?"
Katie was laughing at me in the background. It wasn't helping. "Yes, I'll be fine," I reassured her.

Upon hanging up the phone, Katie just looked at me, and said, "There's no way you'll survive that long without your computer." I knew it was true. I didn't want to say it. In my head, I began concocting elaborate schemes. It was a simple enough problem. My computer was in Ottawa, as was I. I needed to go back to Hamilton. I wouldn't return to Ottawa for two weeks. My perfect plans to get a ride back was disrupted at the last minute, and my only option was the train. I had my desktop with me. Could I take my desktop on the train? No, that's crazy talk! But, once I started to back my belongings, I came up with a crazy plan.

Materials:
1 computer tower
1 fuzzy blanket
1 roll of duct tape
1 case of pop

And, here we have the result:
Although the whole experience was less terrible than I thought it was going to be, I have resolved to never take my desktop on the train again.

But enough of that. Let's get to the yarny goodness! After the aforementioned epic journey, I stopped off at my parents' house. My mom, who is likely the best mom in the world, had found some awesome yarn deals for me. So very exciting! Here they all are! The first are these four GIANT spools of cotton, fingering weight, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but I'm sure I'll think of something. I'm tempted to try the Peacock Plumes Cardigan from Elann. I'm not sure how my gauge would compare though. I've also never worked with cotton before, which contributes to my hesitation. These giant spools are motivation enough to get over that though. Secondly, there are two bags of "Fashion Yarn" made of "100% unknown fibre"!!!! Woooo!!!! I can't say I know what I'm going to do with these either, but the fluffy one looks like it might make a fun stuffed animal for when I decide to try knitting one of those. I can't really see myself wearing something so.....er....fluffy. Next, we have some more thrift store recycled yarn! Wheee! And finally, the pièce de résistance, a bag of yarn ends, many of them sock yarn! Check out those beautiful colours! That whole entire bag was a mere 25 cents!!!! I'm going to make the best socks ever!!!















Lastly, I have a pic of the Kon hat I made, but it turned out too big. Additionally, I had to put on a white outline because the brown was too indistinguishable from the black. I've decided I can't give such a substandard piece of knitting away. I might send this hat to my sister because she won't mind the hugeness of it, and knit the entire hat again, this time in the correct size with a lighter shade of brown.

Let the frogging begin!

Hurrah, my blog officially has one reader! I love comments! They make me motivated to write posts. So, without further ado, I present to you The Sock
I picked up this fun sock yarn when I was home for my dearest Mama's birthday a couple months back. The sock in question was begun whilst visiting Vancouver for my younger brother's senior recital (which was fantastical, by the way). Since my internet access was limited at the time, I used the convenient pattern out of the front of a novel my Mama was reading, entitled, "A Good Yarn" by Debbi Macomber. That's right, it's a fiction novel about a knitting shop, and it has a knitting pattern in the front! It was all well and good until last week when I decided that I did not like this pattern after all. So, I shall frog the entire sock and start again. Perhaps I shall try Grumperina's Jaywalker pattern. It looks like good fun.

In other knitting news, I have finished my doubleknit Mario Boo scarf, and also some manga-themed items for a swap at craftster forums, which I shall not reveal until my swap partner receives them in the mail! You shall just have to wait in anticipation until then. You may, however, see the scarf. Ta-da!I am also nearly finished a hat, which I shall snap a picture of as soon as its done.

In non-knitting news, I shall finish with a story about the bus.

I take the bus quite a bit, since I don't own a vehicle, and don't wish to own a vehicle. The bus is a very convenient and cheap form of transportation, but has its ups and downs. Yesterday I had the coolest bus driver ever on my way to work. He not only greeted every person that got on the bus and asked them how they were, but did so in each person's native language! If he didn't know a greeting in a particular language, he would ask, and commit the answer to memory. How cool is that! His accent was terrible, but he was remarkably good at being able to find the correct greeting, and he brought a smile to nearly everyone who walked on the bus. The world needs more people like this.

That's all for now. Check back later for more wacky randomness from me!