Monday, September 16, 2013

Making Monsters, Wool Experiment and a Football Weekend

I thoroughly enjoyed our football weekend.  The Aggies played very well, and from all the news reports I'm seeing, the Aggie fans were their typical nice, hospitable and welcoming selves.    "Hard to hate you" said some Alabama fans.

Good.  I'm glad we can show class on and off the field.  For me, that's what being an Aggie has always been about.  Leadership through example and hard work.  Very good indeed.

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I knitted during the game, of course.  I knit almost all day on Saturday.  This game I decided I needed something I didn't need to think about so I worked on the Noro stained glass afghan.  I'm on block 18 and almost finished it during the game.  It's really quite lovely...and I'm getting so close to finishing all the blocks that I'm about to get "obsessed" about working on it again.  I think I've made terrific progress for only starting it on July 4th.  We'll see how I feel once I'm knitting black sashing strips...

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I'm almost finished with Harold, my red monster.  He's absolutely adorable and coming to life quite nicely.  See his picture below--he doesn't have arms or legs yet, but still you can see his personality.


The pattern called for a 3 needle bind-off at the top of his head, but I decided that I didn't want that.  I wanted him to have hair, so as I was drifting in that space between sleep and awake, I had a great idea.  Why not knit the front and back together like I would in the 3-needle bind off, but instead of binding off, continue up with a ribbed tuft of hair.  It would be more appropriate for Harold than the i-cord tendrils I've done in the past.

So, I combed through my monster yarn stash and found this lovely variegated blue, teal and purple yarn and make Harold some hair.  He's quite special.  I then dug through my buttons to find some blue eyes and belly buttons.  His mouth is a purple jagged line (made by doing a zig-zag embroidery stitch).

I've made both of Harold's legs and feet and one of his arms.  He has one green toe, which when I saw him sitting on my couch this morning, I decided made him just about perfect.

My thoughts on knitting monsters.  I find it quite addictive.  I want to knit and knit and knit and end up making my hands hurt.  Both of my hands are very sore this morning, so I'm clearly going to have to pull back on my enthusiasm for making monsters...I'm hoping I can keep up to the 30 minutes per day like I like to do...but I don't know.  Anyway, Harold is sweet and a total charmer.  I can't wait for you to meet all of him.

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TGWE #8 is underway.  After seeing the very first photo of the project, my mom said, "I want those" so I won't be showing any more photos of this project.  I'll talk about it a little, though, as learning about the different types of yarn has been a big part of why I'm doing this experiment in the first place.

I really love the Louet Gems that I chose for this project.  It's truly a springy yarn (4 ply but almost looks like 2).  It's a nice round yarn with just a hint of fuzz (not sure what that's from).  The color is very muted, but rich (an unusual combination).

I find that in looking at all my hand-knit socks, I haven't made many that are solid, but I love the ones that I've made.  I think this pair will be special too...and too bad you won't be able to see a picture of them until Christmas!

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