Blog Filler

You know what the best thing about crocheted dishcloths is? They make excellent blog filler. Sure they clean dishes too, but when you come home from work, realize you have absolutely nothing to blog about, all you need to do is pick up a hook and a ball of cotton and 90 minutes later, BLOG MATERIAL. OK, so it may not be the most fascinating blog material in the world but hey, it's an F.O. and it's made of some type of fibre. And, in this particular case, I used TWO colors. Just to up the excitement level. The level of hysteria would likely have gone through the roof if I'd managed to take a picture that was actually in focus. Does anybody else think "Easter Egg Camouflage" when they look at this dishcloth?

Not only do crocheted dishcloths make great blog filler, there are a million different patterns for them!

Just imagine, 99 patterns in one book along with a million different edgings. OK, a million might be a bit of a stretch. More like ... six. But anyway, the possibilities are endless. I bet I could make a different dishcloth every day for over a year! I'd never have to think of anything remotely original to say again. Just post a dishcloth a day. Easy peasey blog writing. Isn't that a great ... Hey ... Hey? Where'd everyone go?

Behold ...

... The Yarn Of Ugliness.

This is what happens when you're shopping for yarn because you're convinced that you have no yarn. Despite what five Rubbermaid containers may be otherwise telling you. I think it looks reasonably attractive in the ball but knit up? I swear, Kibbles 'N Bits. Even in plain ol' stockinette ... dog chow. So, if you're in the market for 188 yards of a DK weight, 70% wool, 30% alpaca blend just leave a comment. You could easily make a hat out of this. And maybe you know of a stitch pattern that will magically transform this yarn into something beauteous. It's possible.

Just as it's possible to stuff four cats into the world's smallest apartment. From left to right, Andy, Thomas lying in the doorway, DeeDee trying to figure out how to get past Thomas and Oreo, finishing her breakfast. As with the yarn pictured above, I'm not quite sure how this happened either.

The Rat Pack

I went to the yarn store today.

I bought yarn.

It's hideous.

I'll be giving it away tomorrow on the blog. If you're in the market for 188 yards of a DK weight alpaca / wool blend tune in tomorrow and it may be yours. Or tune in simply for the sake of viewing some really ugly yarn.

So since I have no knitting content, we'll go with rat content.

It's Mouzz! We've had Mouzz now for almost 8 months and a more loved rat you'd be hard pressed to find. He's mellow, he's loving, he adores Yogies, basically he's the greatest rat in the world. But one thing was missing for poor Mouzz. No girlfriends!

That has now been recitified.

Allow me to introduce Sadie, who's eyes really are that buggy. She's a PUREBRED. Yes, indeed. Miss Sadie is a Russian Blue Burmese. Her previous owner was going off to college and rooming with people who had many kitties. So she returned Sadie to the "rattery" where she originally came from and I adopted her. We don't know what Sadie's original name was but I think it kind of suits her. And along with Sadie ...

... came her cage mate, Tater. They've been together since they were both a month old so they're very bonded. Again, we didn't know what Tater's original name was but Tater is another purebred, a Black Irish, hence the name. Of the two, Sadie is the outgoing and confident one. Tater seems to have some "issues" and is quite nervous. Hopefully she'll come around. But both are definitely a lot more active than Mouzz, The Couch Rat.

But I still have no yarn.

Honestly

It is 12:30 on a Friday night and as God is my witness, I have no yarn. Not a single solitary skein. No wool. No cotton. Not even any dreaded ickrylic. There is absolutely no yarn in this apartment or in any of my five Rubbermaid containers. I don't know where it's all gone.

Nothing

Zip

Nada

Not one ball of yarn that I actually want to knit with.

Crap.

Nay, I Say

As I was sitting on the couch last night, contemplating the fact that I had just incorrectly knit 6 rows containing 258 stitches each, I had an epiphany. It became very clear that my subconscious mind was foiling each knitting attempt because deep down, I DID NOT WANT TO KNIT THE COCKAROACHA SWEATER.

I know, I know, you are all amazed by this revelation but I fear it is true. I have absolutely no desire to spend say ... 30 hours knitting a sweater for someone who on my likability scale of 1 to 10 is maybe a 6 1/2. I don't. I do not. I am disinclined. Just because I have a tendency to make things then give them away does not mean that I want to knit for someone I've only known for 8 months. I mean really, we're talking about my sorta supervisor who's phone calls I ignore on a regular basis. He'll call me. I'll ignore the phone. He'll walk down to my office and say, "Hey, I just called you, where were you?" I'll say, "Sitting here." He'll say, "Why didn't you answer the phone." I'll say, "Because it was you." If I can't be bothered to talk to him, why would I knit a sweater for him? So screw it and let's move along!

Here we have the start of a sweater for ME. This is Mr. GreenJeans, which everyone in the world has knit, except for me. I'm not bothering to put in the Ravelry link because, like I just said, everyone else has already knit it. And as we can plainly see, I'm knitting it in Naturally Nazareth, which is a 100% DOMESTIC wool. None of those fancy French sheep for me, oh no. We're talking 100% made in America sheep from Philadelphia. Yeah ... Philadelphia sheep. Apparently this particular sweater looks good even on women who's idea of dieting means pie WITHOUT ice cream. Or those of us who are convinced that butter is a protein since it's in the same family as milk and cheese. We'll see how it goes, at least each stitch that I knit isn't preceded by major profanity.

And finally ... today's homage to the 80's ...

Ice, Ice, Andy!

Knitting Service Announcement

If the instructions read, "*P1, K19* repeat 4 times more, P1", this should not be interpreted as, *P1, K19, P1* repeat 4 times more." Doing a second round just to make sure it's wrong is inadvisable.

If a pattern reads, "*P1, K19* repeat 4 times more, P1", then you need to do a total of 5 repeats, not 4. Knitting six more rows this way while wondering why the front pattern is so narrow will not make it right.

Knitterly Intuition should ALWAYS be listened to.

An ice cream cone will not make 1,548 incorrectly knitted stitches seem any less daunting.

The Green Monster

Instructions: Cast on 258 stitches on U.S. 3.

Cast on 240 stitches.

Run out of tail.

Resume watching "Scarface."

"I am Antonio Montana. This sweater is a cockaroacha."

Avoidance

For the past four or five days I've been trying to start a lace project. I have failed miserably. I first attempted the Milkweed Shawl. This is supposedly a very easy lace pattern. Well heck I've done lace before so this should be no problem. I tried four different yarns. Every time I screwed up the pattern. I never made it past the 12th row. Of course, as you all know, this was not due to an error on my part but simply "the yarn telling me it didn't want to be a Milkweed Shawl."

Then I tried the Lacy Baktus. First of all, I have no idea what a Baktus is but apparently it doesn't want me to knit it either. Two yarns went down in flames. Figuratively speaking.

The truth of the matter is, is that I don't really want to knit lace. I'm simply trying not to think about what looms on the horizon.

Tomorrow or thereabouts, 15 balls of this yarn will be delivered to my place of employment.

This is Knit Picks "CotLin" in the color Cedar. For reasons still unbeknown to me, I have agreed to knit a sweater for a co-worker. A *male* co-worker. With a 48" chest. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? To make matters worse, this damn thing is knit in the round. *whimper* I have to cast on close to 2 million stitches. On a size 5 needle. And despite being mostly knit in the round I think there may be seaming of some nature. Maybe blocking. Oh Yarn Gods, kill me now.

Dragons & Dishcloths

Here I am again! With more dishcloths!

Over on Ravelry there's a group for obsessed dishcloth knitters/crocheters called "Dishcloths R Us". Of course I'm a member. Every month they have a K/CAL. Here's this months crocheted dishcloth, the Ladder Stitch Dishcloth with Douglas as our Dragon Model. Douglas really likes this dishcloth because it's squishy. And fast. Like 2 hours fast. Say what you like about crochet, it works up at the speed of lightening.

Here's the same pattern in a different colorway, with Russell as our Dragon Model. I hope everyone is noticing how I've color coordinated my dragons with my dishcloths. This is a good indication of the excitement level of my life right about now. Thomas is also having a hard time keeping up with the frenetic pace around here ...

Thomas has been hanging out here more and more since he and Andy seem to have reconciled themselves to each other. Also, Thomas' mom has a 3 year old son. I don't think this little tyke has always been that kind to Thomas. If you put your hand anywhere near Thomas he'll bite you. However, he's not adverse to eating me out of house and home. Which is why I bought 125 cans of Fancy Feast on the weekend. Being the Crazy Cat Lady ain't cheap.

Umm ... Hi!

So ... umm ... hey! It's me, the absent blogger. Gah, what a flake. What's it been, 5 months? Almost? My poor little blog. I'm sorry, Blog!

Five months - you'd think I'd have a lot of stuff to report. Alas, I do not. I do have a job that sucks the life out of me on a daily basis which is my excuse for not blogging for so long. But it's a job so I won't complain too loudly or too long. I have a new computer which I got at a fabulous price and which I love like whoa. Andy and DeeDee are still here, plus my two "part time cats", Thomas (who we already know) and Oreo (see below).

I'm still knitting but honestly, up to until a few weeks ago it was a very unproductive year. And then I discovered the joy of dishcloths.

It's all about dishcloths over here which should be no surprise since my obsessive tendencies are well documented. Coinciding with this obsession was a sale at Michaels on Lily's Sugar'n Cream ...

Yep, still the same ol' April. Why buy one ball, when you can buy sixty billion? But there is something so satisfying about dishcloths. There are literally tons of dishcloth patterns on Ravelry, most free, and look at all the cool colors you can do them in! Plus I get to use my large collection of straight needles (circa 1985) which will always be my favorite needles. And no seaming! That alone makes them my new favorite project.

In non-knitting news, I am working with an editor to polish up a small childrens story that I wrote a few years back. Actually "polish" might not be the right word. How about TOTALLY REDO THE FRIGGIN' THING. Yeah, that's better. So that's it for now from Chez Insanity. Hopefully it won't be another 5 months before I post again.