Diary of a Mad Fabri-Holic

Wordless Wednesday: My Brave Girl

Granny, Squared

If you're reading this, I guess you didn't get raptured on Saturday last.  Ah, well, we're in good company. 

Saturday was more then just NOT the rapture, it was also month #5 of my year-long crochet class at Fancy Tiger.

And month #5 was totally my favorite so far...

The Granny Square!

Not only have I been dying to learn how to make this block for years, I also learned that it is easy to do.  The progression of the square is super logical, and the color possibilities are basically endless. 

I am finally starting to get my groove on with this crochet stuff.  I can sort of read stitches and see my mistakes- I remember how amazing it felt when I got to this point with knitting.  I'm still totally struggling with charts and pattern reading, but, all in good time, right?  I've got 7 months to go...

Wordless Wednesday: We All Like the Doggy Quilt!

Cowltastic Cavity

Today I dealt with one of my biggest fears.

I had a cavity filled at the dentist. 

May not sound like such a big deal to you, but it was for me.  Until this year, I've had perfect teeth.  No fillings, braces, poking, prodding, or anything.  Just some sealant back in high school.  But earlier this year the dentist found 2 itty bitty cavities.  I've always been terrified of the dentist, but after Annie's disastrous birth and my post-natal struggles with PTSD, any medical procedure (no matter how minor) sends me into a tailspin.  Allowing someone to stick a giant needle into my gums, then a drill into my teeth, well, not so good.  I made it through with a combination of willpower, nitrous, and Tina Fey's Bossypants on my iPod...

Then I went home and took to my bed, where I finished this knit:

It's the Honey Cowl by madelinetosh, a free download. I shook things up a bit by swapping out the Tosh DK for some Tosh Merino Light that I bought in DC last summer.  The tosh was in the most amazing colorway- a shimmer magenta/fuschia/purple- called Lepidoptera.  Seriously one of the most amazing shades of yarn I have ever seen.  BUT- and it's a big but (heh)- the 2 skeins varied more dramatically than almost any I have ever bought.

See what I mean? Oops!  But- again with the buts!- I handled this challenge cleverly.  To get gauge for the pattern, I held 2 strands together for the entire knit. Shear genius.  Gave me the right thickness AND blended the colors of the 2 skeins!  Whee!  I am totally thrilled with the outcome of this knit.  However (not but this time?), it did feel like it lasted a lot longer than 2 weeks.  It was excellent TV knitting, in that it required NO thought after the first repeat. (Also a good whiplash knit, as I didn't have to look down at the knit while I was working on it.)  Tedious, but stunning in the end.

Dontcha think?

A New Knit for Mother's Day

First, let me say Happy Mother's Day to anyone out there who has played an important role in a kid's life, mother or other...  I know firsthand how difficult this motherhood gig is, and my hat is off to all of us!

And now on to the knitting.  Many moons ago (February), I cast on the fabulous and lovely Coquille shawl from Knitty First Fall 2010.  It's one of those fabulous knits that uses a simple trick to dramatic effect- in this case, knitting the shawl from side to side and using short rows to create nifty ruffles.  It was a time consuming knit- and a bit dull after a while- but the perfect knit to take along to say, an Avs game.

(Even if, after I for the first time ever publicly professed my love of a team and a sport, they went on to break my heart with a mind bogglingly terrible season...The game pictured above?  I think we were down by 5 in the first 10 minutes.)

Simple pattern aside, this knit was not so fun.  Why?  My fisrt ball of Schoppel-Woole Zauberball was just fine.  But the second ball?  Pure misery.  The color striations were completely different (bad Sam, check your dye lots).  Not their fault.  Their fault?  The thick/thin transitions of this ball were ludicrous.  In more than one place, the "thin" section of the yarn simply disintegrated, leaving me with multiple ugly fixes throughout the last few inches of the shawl.  And the thick sections were chunky and ugly.  I have used this yarn in one other project and not had an issue, and the first ball was fine, so I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming I ended up with the yarn equivalent of a lemon...

Each and every time my mother happened to see this shawl on my needles, she raved about the colors.  As I became angrier and angrier at the yarn, a perfect solution materialized.  Give mom the shawl!  I couldn't forgive it, and she totally loved it.  Everyone ends up happy, right?

It was going to be a mother's day surprise, but a few weeks back, while it was blocking on the dining room table, Annie made a big point of showing it to my mom and letting her know it was for her.  D'oh.  After it dried, I hid it away and brought it out today- where she had either forgotten, or put on a good show.  Or, maybe she never really liked it and she had hoped it WOULDN'T show up on mother's day?  Hope not!  Because that's all she got from me (though my lovely husband did take us all out to brunch, but that's another story.  We survived...)

What do you think?

Wordless Wednesday: Comfort on a Spoon