Whee!

It's Monday morning and I'm unusually giddy!

I ... I... I want lots of yarn! So much that I can pile it up and perch myself at the top. And if anyone tries to make me do something I don't want to, like mopping, I can hurl knitting needles at them from the pile.

Sometimes when Maomao sleeps on top of my stash, I get really jealous because it just looks so... hedonistic! So carefree, and she's completely oblivious to her conventional bed that was so lovingly cleaned and placed under the window for her. I tried it by sleeping on top of clean (and warm) laundry and it was bliss, but Joey, aka, The Man, always tells me to fold it up.

:(

I'm working on a blue shawl right now, and it's coming along fantastically! I'm almost afraid to say this, but I haven't messed up too seriously yet! Hopefully I won't get too cocky.



This pretty yellow shawl is for my Grandma in Shanghai! Of course, the pattern actually called for lace weight so it'd look delicate, but Mom suggested that Grandma would appreciate something warmer... so ta-da! The yarn used is the Lion Wool, color Goldenrod.



When Joey and I went to Woolie Ewe the other week, he asked about the swift and the baller... so... after some deductive reasoning, it has to be for me! (You won't ever outshine me, Maomao!) It has to be! Joey doesn't need no swifts for Warmachine, and as far as I can see, he has shown no interest in yarning. It's fun to be presumptuous.

The following yarn has been a dilemma for a while...



I bought it from Knit Picks for a couple reasons ... 1) it was cheap! and 2) I wanted to see what type of quality the site provides. Of course it's hard to tell from just two skeins, but I was satisfied.

However... now that I have it, I have no idea what to do with it. It's not a color that I would wear... and it's too thin to be really useful, and now I have over 800 yards of it! Ah!

Amelia came to the rescue though! She suggested accessories such as headbands and belts to accent an otherwise conservative outfit.

She's so smart!

Ack! I'm doing it again!

Once again I'm going through the phase of starting way too many projects! I got really side tracked and started things whenever something catches my fancy.

Before I go too far... here's some of the finished stuff!



I made this baby blanket for one of Joey's friends. It went through many changes before I finally settled on the crochet pattern. It started out with granny squares, then knitted diamonds, then round loom knit. All those were pretty but extremely boring. Not that this design was any more fun, but it was fast and I liked the colors!



I just finished this one today! It's a secret holiday present for the end of the year... yeah!



This is one of the two "Small Red Doilies" from freepatterns.com. It's quite pretty when it's blocked. The doilies called for 450 yards of yarn, so 225 for each. It doesn't really seem to be that much, but it's hard to tell when it's all in loops!

The bottom doily does have an unfinished sibling, which is here...



This is a baby blanket for a family friend. I'll knit the body, and then crochet a border. It'll be very pretty. The lady is actually only about two months into her pregnancy, but it's never too early to start!



Socks! I finally managed to pawn off fingerless gloves onto someone else to make, and then I get bammed with socks. It's not as bad as I thought. I'm not using any patterns in particular, but just trying to make a very simple sock. At first I just knitted the leg, but I'm putting a three by three rib in it. That turned out to be tedious, so it's slowly expanding to a 9x9 rib. Teehee! They're for Joey if they fit him, otherwise... we'll have an reenactment of Cinderella's seesters at home.




I do have two other works in progress! One of them is a Zelda themed towel and a shawl for my grandmother. However, neither are in any photoable stage, so I haven't taken pictures. Though the socks aren't that ready either, but I was so proud of my round knits!

Some pointless updates

First of all, I have to complement myself on my successful pork chops last night. All it included was just pork chops and a ready made packet of sauce from the Asian supermarket, but it turned out great! Yea for one more incredibly easy yet delicious dish!

Here are some of the Perler bead stuff I made in the past week. They're extremely easy and quick to make and make my fridge so colorful! I might do a set of coasters with them. I'll probably melt them down and then glue them to wooden squares. We'll see!





Ever since I finished the scarf for the Ravelry Scarf Exchange, I've been absolutely enthralled with scarf patterns. There are so many possibilities! I started three last week and was convinced I was going to work on them all. However, I worked on one so much that I forgot the patterns for the other two, and since reading knitting patterns is still a bit of a chore, I'll just work on one at a time. At least I tried!




Excuse our ridiculously happy comforter. It's summer and the starfish comforter is the most comfortable by far! We have another one that actually matches the shams and the bed skirt, but apparently Domestication's idea of a "Queen" was actually full, so it looks really goofy and insufficient on our Queen size bed.

I'm currently having a lot of trouble finishing things because I have just way too many projects all at once. Starting next week, I'll have to start some kind of rotation so somethings could finally get done.

Another A-con missed......

Ever since 2000, I vowed to go to the Anime convention in Dallas. Each year something comes up and prevents me from attending. The reasons are always lame, but I have not come to the point of admitting self-sabotage. This year, the reason was ... we did too many fun things already in May.

So in celebration of not having gone this year, here's a picture of what could have happened:



We had so much fun cosplaying! Yea!! .............. :(

On a happier note though, because I was moping, Joey took me to Woolie Ewe! The yarn embargo was lifted half a month ago, and I could get lots of nice things until the end of the year. Here's some of the loot:





Well, the green variegated was from Hobby Lobby. I realized that all the projects I've made so far, I've never really made anything for myself, so I got that one for a potential scarf ... for all the cold winters we have.... -__-;;

I started a scarf with the brown one, and Joey unraveled it when I wasn't looking because he wasn't satisfied with the stitches. "It's for your own good" he said... Well, I admit, it was good for me because now I have something more satisfying as a result. But returning to an unraveled scarf was quit shocking, especially when it's done by something you trust. Ahh!

There's not that many updates this time.. mainly because I haven't done that much! I worked on a lot of things, but none of them for too long. But maybe by the end of this week I will...

Lalala!

So it feels pretty nice to not have homework for the past week... nice... but also a little weird. I'm so used to feeling guilty crafting near a deadline that I can't really handle all this carefree feeling! But it's OK, I'm going to take my language proficiency for my Master's soon, so that'll weigh nice and heavy on my mind.

Joey and I have started watching Deadwood. We're kind of behind on all that TV stuff ... oh well! It's pretty typical of HBO; saucy, apathetic, and gratuitous boobies and violence. It was a little hard to get into at first, especially since we just watched OZ, another HBO show, but we're starting to get into it! Now that Al the Gem Saloon owner finally have some formidable competition, I can rest a little easier.

Now... onto the updates!

For finished stuff, I have this lovely green doily I made for my sister-in-law. It wasn't a pleasant journey though, I messed up a number of times during the process. But I did have a lot of fun blocking it. That's definitely a new experience! I thought I could just get away with putting around twenty pins at the most, but every time I think I'm done, I look and find another spot that needs "rounding." Maomao roosted on it for quite a while on Saturday, though unfortunately no baby doilies hatched.



This next one I am still working on diligently, my darling precious. I had to start working on the castle lest everything over there unravels. I did the fold and fold to find the center, but still managed to get everything shifted to the right. Oh well!

The nice thing about SNES screen shots is that pixel art is done in repeating motifs. It's not all fancy shmancy like the CG stuff, just repetitious motifs! This comes in handy because I don't have to consult the chart too often.



I am still laboring over the "Between Meals Centerpiece." I finally finished half of it, at least according to the number of rows. I've been warned though that the real challenge comes in the last quarter. I used a smaller hook than asked for, and it's still going to turn out huge! I'm not quite sure what to do with it when it's done. Unless someone can find a good home for it, I'll keep it for myself. Actually! I have a classmate getting married in early June, and she said her colors were dusty rose and all those Victorian colors. Maybe... just maybe if I can finish it, I'll give it to her.

The picture looks a bit bad, but I keep on forgetting to take it home from work to get a real picture. But I believe that it's significantly bigger than last time!



This final one is one of many solutions to my biggest problem: leftover size 10 thread.



None of my doilies use up a skein neatly, not even close! I hate to just throw it away when I can do something with it... I flipped through my patterns trying to find something useful as I don't want too many doilies. I found these potholder patterns I've been holding onto! Since the size 10 are really too thin for dishcloths, I'll go for the next best thing. Decorative pot holders!

Huzzah!!

The semester is over!

I just turned in my last paper and am free! I didn't sign up for any classes for the summer so that I could have plenty of time catching up on doing nothing.

It's time to go double speed on all my neglected project!

I lied!

So I said I would be good and do homework without playing or crafting, but in reality, I've been doing both! Extensively! Though of course I still spent quite a bit of time on research and papers.

anyways! Onto stuff that's more fun!

I've started three new major projects... things... Perler Bead art, a crochet doily, and a cross stitch!



These are those little plastic beads that you iron together to form awesomeness. I've been having lots of fun with them until Joey decided to "help." Big clumsy fingers and small beads do not mix! In fact, he just destroyed the one-up mushroom by helping. So now the kit is safely tucked away where he can't find them anymore until I get the time to do it again.

I'm planning to make them into magnets, though after a search on Etsy for other perler bead art, I've had more inspiration. People have made key chains, pen holders, and general awesomeness with them.



This is for Mom! After the completion of the other two huge doilies, I went through a long funk, thinking... I'll never make another doily again! Well, after finding out that I still have much to learn about knitting, I came back to crochet! Nothing better in life than avoiding a challenge (har har)

A lot of people on Ravelry have made this, and so has Ladydurer! So I'm totally up for the challenge.



And last and definitely the best! This is my darling precious for the year. The image is from the title screen of "The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past." The third installment of the Zelda series, though this time for the Snes! This resulted from aimless wandering around on the internet a while back, and I stumbled upon this site:

Sprite Stitch

There's so many indescribably neat things on there! It's been so long since I've been gaming Snes games. There's still a bit of shame attached that I traded my Snes for a Playstation, but I'm getting over it.

This is getting to be a lot of fun! Though I've calculated that.. if I were to manage at least 100 stitches per day, I will be able to finish it in a year and a third..... eh....