Best. Wedding gift. Ever.*

(*in my opinion.)

Summer means weddings. And to an amateur knitter this means the potential for panic. As it were, dear friends of the Fella got hitched about a month ago. C and S are fun and special people to the Fella, and the standard kitchenwares seemed to not be special enough to celebrate the occasion. With no fear, I undertook the challenge to finish an afghan in about five weeks.
I referred to one of my favorite (and ridiculously-titled) books, "The Big Book of Quick-Knit Afghans," and chose an equally-silly titled pattern, "Delightful." Fortunately, the result was not nearly as silly, and in fact, I'm quite pleased with it. The picture leaves a little to be desired and the fan-like or paisley-like pattern is faint. Also, it probably needs a napping cat and a pipe resting on it.

And if that wasn't good enough, the Fella brewed a special Nuptial Lager for the happy couple.
See? Best wedding gift ever.

My next most favorite WIP

As you may or may not know, I get really excited about new projects. Studying a pattern, picking the yarn, BUYING the yarn, (watching the yarn gather dust in my closet). Nonetheless, I have been stuck on the Gigi since it came out last summer.

But finally, I'm through with gifts for awhile and want to focus on moi again with my knitting. So now I just have to choose on a color! I briefly toyed with the idea of knitting it bare and dip dyeing it after it's finished, kind of like this one from Gap, only not in neon. However, I fear two things. 1. not getting a nice gradation in the dyeing, although the banding of the sweater would provide a nice border. 2. getting the whole think knit and seamed and beautiful, and then mucking it up in some unforeseen way at the last second.Below are the current front runners, all KnitPicks Stroll Kettle-Dyed Sock Yarn. Since it's sock yarn (and KnitPicks) it is relatively inexpensive. I think the kettle-dying makes it look more interesting and more expensive. It looks the way I wish my hand-dyed would look.
BordeauxWineGrasshopper
Gold

Assuming it will be done for fall... do one of these colors say "fall"? Unsure.

Summer hiatus is over, and a toothbrush

After my long and certainly woe-inducing absence, I once again return to share my tales of knitting, science and everything else. To catch you up:

1. The countdown to candidacy has officially begun (date is set!) and therefore the requisite freaking out will commence shortly.

2. Science has had some recent ups and downs, most recently an up. Therefore, all is well at work.3. I love my new toothbrush. It has a little bend backwards, which makes all of your teeth so easy to clean. I like how simple the design is, too. It is from Preserve, which recycles #5 plastics and turns them into pretty things.

Apparently most community recycling programs can't handle these dense #5 plastics, so they end up in landfills. Now, I'm not trying to get on a hippie-high-horse, but this seems pretty cool to me. Plus they also recycle Brita filters.
I want these next. 100% recycled materials, dishwasher safe, and if I totally muck them up, re-recyclable, natch.

Spring cleaning (part 2: the niddy noddy)

Oh boy, was I excited Sunday morning at the prospect of a project that combined knitting and a home improvement store! I recalled from a ravelry forum that a niddy noddy could be constructed cheaply from PVC pipe and fittings. I was referred to the following directions on the doctor dirt blog, which I only now see are accessible from Wikipedia as well.

Armed with no more than an idea of what I wanted, I headed off for the ridiculously hard to get to home improvement store that hides behind the Crew Stadium and Ohio State Fairgrounds. (Sidenote: Kenny Rogers and Blue Oyster Cult will both make appearances at this year's fair - not to be missed.)

I procured 5' of 1" PVC piping and two T-connector-thingies for a grand total of $2.93. Not bad, I thought.
...until I got home and realized I had no way to cut the pipe to the desired lengths. So back to the drawing board, and ultimately back to the home improvement store to get more help which came in the embarrasingly simple form of an employee with a hacksaw. Then- assembly.
Finally, winding a sweater's worth of yarn into skeins.Next weekend: part 3 - washing and dyeing.

Spring cleaning (part 1: Saturday)

The weather this weekend was sunny and lovely. A perfect weekend for a project. Saturday, I chose to peruse two local thrift stores looking for sweaters to frog, dye and recycle. I settled on two men's sweaters, both 100% wool and moderately ugly. Perfect. One sweater I chose was a medium oatmeal men's pullover (originally from J. Crew during a mid-90's lapse in style, I gather). This sweater met my goals for the weekend project best.
I started by ripping the seams and dismantling into the sleeves, front and back. I wound these pieces into odd-sized balls as I ripped, to avoid massive tangling. Below are represented the largest and smallest.The tiny off-colored one is from an unfortunate stripe detail from the chest. I saved it because I think it could be used for color testing when I dye, or stripes (fancy that) for some future project. In fact, dyeing the oatmeal and the off-white with the same dye mix might result in two tones of the same color, which could look really nice.

To dye these balls, I would need to skein them and to properly do this, I felt I needed (yes, needed) a niddy noddy. Hold your breath for part 2: Sunday - niddy noddy day.