Sunday, November 9, 2008

Procrastination At It's Finest

While I was supposed to clean my room yesterday (since I've had a bit of a laundry explosion), I didn't actually do it. Big surprise. Instead I sat down and got working on a project for Giant Boy. My plan is to make him a couple of brimmed hats for Xmas. Much like me, he loves those style of hats but can usually complain about the hats that one finds in stores, as can I. You see, we are both giant headed freaks. And while his head may not deviate TOO much from the norm in guys sizes, my head only fits into most guy sizes for hats. I also secretly think that the world would rather we all be tiny headed freaks, but that's merely the notion that runs through my head when I'm frustrated after having tried on a million hats in a store to ensure they fit.

So, anyways, back to the complaints GB has about the brimmed hats from stores. First and foremost, one of his favorite hats shrunk in the wash. It said that it was made out of acrylic yarn and that it was washable. Clearly it was not, because acrylic won't shrink in the wash (and this, friends, is why I make sweaters out of really nice acrylic). And the hat he owns that has a nice large brim pushes into his forehead because of the stabilizing material in the brim. He finds it uncomfortable, but he likes that it keeps the sun out of his eyes more than the tinier brimmed hats.

So I got to thinking about making him hats for Xmas out of acrylic yarns. I knew that I would make him the Sam Hat, probably in black simply soft. And I found a new crochet brimmed hat pattern recently on Ravelry *please note you can only view that page if you have a membership*. I liked it immediately. It's a flat top conductor style hat with a nice big brim. I liked it for many reasons. First, it's crochet so it will work up quickly. Second, it's made out of a worsted weight acrylic so it's safe for washing machine trips. Third, you hold two strands of yarn together to make it so it's nice and sturdy which means you don't need anything extra for the brim after you have made it. The shaping on the brim coupled with the stiffness of the double stranded worsted weight yarn (woo that's a mouthful!) make it hold its shape easily.

So yesterday, when I was supposed to be cleaning my room, I was making a hat for Giant Boy. It took me all afternoon and evening to finish it. But it is done. Honestly, I wanted to try the pattern out before I make him a really nice one for Xmas in a solid color. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I used a Caron Jumbo Print skein of yarn in mixed greens. I'd say I maybe used half of the yarn because I adjusted the pattern a little for giant headed freaks. I made the sides a little longer before starting the brim and I made the brim a little longer too. After I had "finished" the pattern directions, I also made the sides and back a little bit longer at GB's request. Which is great because now I have a great pattern with extra guidelines to follow for one of his Xmas presents.

What I've come to realize, however, over the last hour that I've been awake this morning is that I have failed to create myself one thing in the years that I've been a crafter of many types. I don't have an Xmas stocking.

Now, I do have one at my mom's house which she hangs on the mantel for me every year. It's kind of lame and it's from when I was a kid. It's Ernie from Sesame Street. Wait no, it's not lame, I <3 Ernie. Lame isn't the right word.....beat up beyond recognition is. I used to have a Scooby Doo one too, but lord knows where that one disappeared to. But that's all besides the point. My mom has an Xmas stocking for me, but I don't have one!

Now I'm on a mission. I need to make myself an Xmas stocking. I'm going to crochet one, I think, because I could make a really neat stocking that way. I'm definitely NOT going to be knitting myself the stockings I knit for my friend last year. They're cute but such a pain in the ass. I've already got a good notion of what I want in my head.


*EDIT* In case anyone is wondering, Giant Boy (GB) is my friend's 14 year old son.
I'll also have pictures of the hat later

Sunday, November 2, 2008

And One More For Good Measure.....

I was walking around Target earlier today, in search of a birthday present for my 2 year old niece (my sister had her birthday party today). I stopped short when I reached the "accessories" section where they have jewelry, belts, hand bags and the like and gawked at the scarves for a bit.

I'm not one who could ever bring myself to purchase knit items in a store. Now that I know how to knit and crochet, I find it much more satisfying to run out to the craft store or LYS and pick up some yarn (provided I don't have anything that I'm looking for in my stash) to whip up a project as I deem necessary.

A lot of the stuff that I've been seeing has had a very homemade look to it, too. Which kind of frustrates me. 90% of the scarves and hats I had growing up I remember as being made by my grandmother. I also remember some hideous sweater vest with a goose on it....but I digress. Why are they trying to sell stuff that merely looks hand or home made?

Is it just me or is it far less enjoyable to wrap a scarf around your neck that you just purchased at a store? Isn't it far greater to wrap a scarf around your neck that you just spent weeks knitting until it was just right, blocking to the perfect shape so the edges don't curl and then getting to wrap it around your neck to stave off the cold winds? Sure, it's not as instant as plunking down ten or so dollars on a fancy store bought scarf, but sometimes the better things are totally worth the wait and effort.

So I Clearly Lack Time Management Skills

At least in the department of THIS blog, anyways.

I haven't been doing terribly much knitting or crocheting lately. I've been so wrapped up in school and work. Any free time that I have is devoted to homework or sleeping. Or driving to and from work and school.

I decided to sit down and start work on some new projects and an old project tonight because, well, the weather is getting colder and we had a fire going and it seemed like a perfect time to drape the fugly Granny square blanket across my lap and get to work on finishing it. It won't be finished until for a while yet though. I have one more skein of black soft boucle and then a red soft boucle and a skein of red Jiffy to throw into it before it is finally complete.

I also decided to start myself on a new scarf. I really don't have many scarves and I felt like putting some of the fun hand spun yarn that was gifted to me into that project (sadly, a lot of the gifted yarn was re-gifted and donated to charity when I moved back in june). So I decided to make myself what I am dubbing the OCD scarf. I'm not sure why, but I had my age in mind when I picked the yarn from my bin. I picked two hand spun purple yarns and a hand spun blue. In my mind, these screamed out the number 26. So I cast on 26 stitches and am going to (hopefully) wind up with a scarf that has stripes that are 26 rows thick and repeat 26 times. I say hopefully because I'm not 100% on how much yardage is in each ball I have. I'm not going completely batshit OCD with this, though, I have no prayer of trying to make it 26 inches long so I'm not even going to try that. I could, if I wanted to sit down and gauge it and work out the calculations but Busty + math ≠ friends.

I've also started plotting out a few xmas gifts that I can whip up for people. This year I am NOT NOT NOT making gifts for everyone. I am merely going to make gifts for a few people. Easy gifts that won't result in me sitting in a pile of yarn pulling my hair out in frustration.

I'm going to make a brimmed hat for the Giant Boy (Bone's son) and either a hat and scarf set for Bone or a little messenger bag, I'm not sure yet. But either way, it's gunna end up with a bone motif on it.