Pengiun Sweaters

In recent global knitting news (the only global knitting news in the past 3 years), a request by a New Zealand yarn shop has exploded into a viral sensation.

After posting a request for a few penguin jumpers on their website, the store has received adorable frocks from around the world. The sweaters' purpose, they say, is to keep penguins affected by a recent oil spill from preening and ingesting the oil on their feathers. Also, its to make them look even cuter than they already are. Or something. I'm not really sure which is more important.

Their goal has been met, but you probably need to see the picture anyway.

It is exactly as it seems.

If you want to read more, check the blog for Skeinz, the yarn store responsible for all of this nonsense.

I Want Socks!

I want to knit socks so bad. After two weeks in the field and two weeks of my feet in their work boots, I am reminded of the value of a good pair of thick work socks. Winter approaches, and steel-toed boots means steel-cold toes.

My favorite knit hat courtesy of darling Sheila

One time I helped a lady sitting next to me on an airplane knit a sock. It was then that I learned about knitting in the round.

She also happened to be a psychic who could communicate with the dead, and she told me my Grandpa said hi (among other things that are none of your business). I was coming home from his funeral, after all. No joke.

Anyway, I haven't knit a stitch of a sock since then. They intimidate the hell out of me with all their turning and heels and toes and seances. I wonder whatever happened to the psychic sock knitter? Her name was Sam.

What better socks to knit to soothe my toes' woes than anthropology themed socks? See the following, among others:

Stratigraphy Socks

Indiana Jones Socks

Culture Socks

Pretty in pink

A bit impractical...

Sock monkey

So, somebody get to it. These socks aren't going to knit themselves. As you can see, I'm far too busy to do it myself.

Can you guess which one is me?

Out of Office

Hello from Mobile!

I'm in the field for the next two weeks, which means more time to knit. Sort of. It also means more time to drink beer and sleep. Mobile is an awesome old Southern port city. As one of my coworkers put it - its as if Savannah and New Orleans had a baby. I haven't had much time to explore, but we've driven by several antique shops that I'd like to duck into sometime in the near future. Mmm. Vintage. So good in my belly.

Lucky for y'all, I brought that coffee cozy to work on. I'm almost finished (if halfway is almost) but I'm afraid it's going to be too big. Instead it may make a perfect gift for a friend of mine who has a 12 cup french press. Yes, that's right. I will pawn off a homemade good I fully intended to keep for myself because I screwed it up. I didn't bring my camera, so no pictures. I know, the suspense is killing you. You'll just have to wait!

In other fun blogging news, I was accepted to the elite, exclusive internet club that is Pintrest. I don't think it is really as elite as they want me to think. They made me request an invitation - but I'm pretty sure any schmuck who requests one gets one. But that's beside the point! I am elite now!

Check out my Pintrest - I can slap whatever images I see and love on the interwebs onto a virtual cork-board.

So, in short - I only have one project to work on and finish this week, because I only brought one project. Think I can manage? Hopefully I don't stumble across any crafting stores down here.

Cold Coffee

I love coffee. Really. Even more, I love my french press. However, there have been too many leisurely Sat/Sunday mornings of coffee drinking where, by the second cup, the coffee has gone cold. What better an excuse to make this?

I've had my eye on this french press cozy for awhile. It will probably add 5 minutes of coffee warmth at best, but its pretty cute. The pattern looks easy, nothing too fancy. Surely I can knock this out - maybe even in a day. Yes, ambitious I know. First things first, though.

My first true love.

While I waited on my coffee to brew, I rummaged through my yarn. Due to three cats in the house, my yarn is stash is covered in fuzz. Several skeins have become the subject of play and prey. Drug about the house, tangled, annihilated. More than once I have come home to find a skein of yarn (with whatever I was attempting to make still attached [or unraveled]) deposited at the other end of the house.

Why would I pick the easy one?

So, anyone with good sense and an eye for color can see that pink simply doesn't work with my coffee cup. I decided I'd go with the burnt orange - naturally the one that had been turned into a giant flying spaghetti monster. Cool knitters work with balls of yarn, right? I needed to turn this into a ball. So I got to work untangling.

Two hours and a nervous meltdown later, I had this. It was supposed to be a 'center pull' ball, but that didn't quite work out. I don't know where the tail went - I suppose its in there somewhere. So much for that coffee staying warm.

My very first yarn ball

Yarn balls are cool. So I made it a friend. I can't wait to make all my yarn skeins into yarn balls! They look so much knittier. You surely aren't a real knitter without them. Right? Right.

And then there were two.

Well, we can't make yarn balls all day, can we? Time to get down to the knitty gritty. See what I did there? My coffee has long been cold, by the way.

Another two hours and I have the first two rows of the ribbing done. Okay, it didn't really take me that long, but it felt like it. I only had to cast on 3 times. And yes, I had to look it up.

I used size 6 needles because I tend to knit/crochet really tight stitches - hopefully it doesn't turn out too big. Once I get to the knitting rows I'll be golden, I think. Switching so much for the ribbing takes me forever. Oh, and I always hear people complaining about purling. To me, it is easier and twice as fast to purl. Purl lovers, let me hear you!

My guess is I'll have this done in three months. Back to work, now.

Test Drive - An Introduction

Well, let’s give this a try.

I’ve tried to start a lot of things in my time. Most were never finished! That’s why this blog was birthed. It is here that I intend to tell you about all of my projects. Those that are half-finished, barely started; those that are still just a glimmer in their momma’s eye! Oh, I have lots of that last category.  There is a long list of things that I have seen and want to make. Which is worse? The ones I started but never finished or the ones that I never even started? 

Here’s the deal. I’m going to tell all of you (which for now, is just me) about these half-baked works. Hopefully writing about their progress (or lack thereof) will be enough to motivate me to actually FINISH them! Here’s hoping.

So, first a little about me. My name is Pam. I am 24, married a year and working in Atlanta for an archaeological firm. My husband and I call Athens, Georgia our hometown. I love the idea of making things with my hands. I want to master sewing, knitting, crochet, quilting, beekeeping, painting, gardening, spinning; I want to be a baker, a florist, a potter, a writer. Sometimes I even want to be a cook – though this happens rarely and usually with unfortunate consequences. I have yet to master any of these skills – well, actually I am a pretty good baker. I have mucked about in almost all of them.

My mother sewed for me for years, and she taught me some. Now, I am afraid most of that knowledge has been lost. I taught myself basic crochet in my college dorm on a whim. I knit a dishtowel once with my cousin, promptly forgot how and picked it back up years later after studying Stitch 'n Bitch. I love baking; I hate cooking.

So! Let’s make a list. What is to be done?

• There’s the quilt squares that guests signed in lieu of a guest book at our wedding, waiting to be pieced together.

• There’s the pile of cute fabric that I’ve snapped up at the fabric store, and patterns too, but no product. Those cute apron Christmas gifts aren’t going to make themselves!

• My mother’s vintage dresses are dying to be altered. Pants are waiting to be hemmed.

• There’s a hundred bookmarked crochet and knit patterns that I want to make, but by golly, I just get bored with counting. And I don’t know how to do half those fancy stitches, anyway.

• There may be a couple half-finished scarves in my yarn stash. I haven’t looked in so long, who is to say how much of that stash is yarn and how much of it dust bunnies?!

• What to do with the patches that my husband and I have collected from our travels and vacations? Who knows!

• There’s the exquisite quilt top that I got from my mother-in-law that I am really just terrified to touch. It is so beautiful that I know I will destroy it. Somehow it will crumble beneath my sewing machine. Really. This one legitimately scares me.

So, what to start and/or finish first? You tell me. Won’t you help a poor girl out?