Let's start off slow
Well, I haven't posted in nearly a year, so let's just pretend I'm brand new to LJ. So what have I been up to this year?
I spent some time in my post-VM obsession days just lurking and learning about fandom. I've observed, I've read more fic than I've given feedback for, and I've discovered that I am well and truly a slasher at heart.
I've learned that I can't stop being an OTPer, even though that's not what a lot of the cool kids are doing. I've finally come to accept that this is just who I am, and that I can't help but be monogamous in my escapist fantasies.
I've flirted with pairing after pairing, but my main loves are John/Rodney and Fraser/RayK. And my brain has recently been completely eaten by Heroes, and by Nathan/Peter Petrelli. And lately I've been feeling like I'd like to be a bit more sociable with the greater web world.
But on the whole, this is not a fannish post. This is a knitting post, because I just need to show off my creations. Hi! Look what I made! :-)
My sister has been asking me for about a year for a teddy bear hat. She can be fickle, so I didn't take her seriously at first. But when she kept asking, I finally gave in and knitted up a cloche hat in heavy alpaca, with a sparkly pink ribbon yarn for trim. And here is the somewhat awkwardly photographed end product:
Bear Hat:
I called her as soon as she sent me the photo and told her I wanted to hat back so I could put his face lower down on her head so it doesn't look like he's looking up in the sky, but she wouldn't let me touch him again. This is the downside of living alone. I improvised the teddy bear face once the hat was ready, and the only model I had was my own head. It worked okay, but was a little awkward, and I'm only partially happy with the result.
The hat is basically very cute and girly, though, and I kind of love it. My boss commissioned two child-sized hats for her nieces when I showed them around the office. I normally say no to requests, because knitting is largely about the fun of the surprise gift for me, and knitting on command is less of a rush. But I love my boss, so I agreed. So I'll get started on those one of these days -- They should go pretty quickly.
Next project will be my back-burner project for the rest of the calendar year. I'd knit faster on it, but I'm afraid I'd give it to my mom as soon as I finished it. It'll hopefully be the most successful gift I'll ever make. I'm working on a teddy bear in two strands of dove grey Lana Grossa Micro Lungo. It's knitting up so fuzzy and teddy bear-like that I just can't stop petting it.
Teddy head: (Ignore the extremely cat-fuzzed blanket/backdrop.)
Once the teddy bear is finished, I'm going to knit him a basketball uniform and a basketball -- He's going to be a player from my mom's very very favorite college team, which is located in my parents' town. And which is also my alma mater. She has a great collection of teddy bears, so I think a hand-knit basketball player bear is going to be a fabulous gift.
I have a bunch of other semi-started or soon-to-be-started projects waiting in my stash, but they were all bumped out of the way for this scarf when a woman I work with was let go. She's adorable and sweet, a real grandmotherly type, and none of us liked her boss before this happened, so, yeah. Morale has taken a little dip at work the past couple weeks. And I jumped in and started on a lace scarf for her. I'm making this knitty pattern in 100% silk, which is knitting up quite a bit narrower than the mohair and wool silk blends shown, but it'll work really well for P, who is very tiny, at only about 5'.
Pink Scarf:
This is the first lace I've ever done, and I'm loving the result. I'll be fairly careful about what I choose as my future projects, though, because I really like to multi-task while I knit, and that pattern is not repetitive enough to memorize. It's kind of a sit-and-knit project, takes too much attention. But I can't regret it because I love the pattern, P will love it, and it will suit her really well.
All done!! I'll get back to packing for my big apartment move at the beginning of June. Yay for packing?
I spent some time in my post-VM obsession days just lurking and learning about fandom. I've observed, I've read more fic than I've given feedback for, and I've discovered that I am well and truly a slasher at heart.
I've learned that I can't stop being an OTPer, even though that's not what a lot of the cool kids are doing. I've finally come to accept that this is just who I am, and that I can't help but be monogamous in my escapist fantasies.
I've flirted with pairing after pairing, but my main loves are John/Rodney and Fraser/RayK. And my brain has recently been completely eaten by Heroes, and by Nathan/Peter Petrelli. And lately I've been feeling like I'd like to be a bit more sociable with the greater web world.
But on the whole, this is not a fannish post. This is a knitting post, because I just need to show off my creations. Hi! Look what I made! :-)
My sister has been asking me for about a year for a teddy bear hat. She can be fickle, so I didn't take her seriously at first. But when she kept asking, I finally gave in and knitted up a cloche hat in heavy alpaca, with a sparkly pink ribbon yarn for trim. And here is the somewhat awkwardly photographed end product:
Bear Hat:
I called her as soon as she sent me the photo and told her I wanted to hat back so I could put his face lower down on her head so it doesn't look like he's looking up in the sky, but she wouldn't let me touch him again. This is the downside of living alone. I improvised the teddy bear face once the hat was ready, and the only model I had was my own head. It worked okay, but was a little awkward, and I'm only partially happy with the result.
The hat is basically very cute and girly, though, and I kind of love it. My boss commissioned two child-sized hats for her nieces when I showed them around the office. I normally say no to requests, because knitting is largely about the fun of the surprise gift for me, and knitting on command is less of a rush. But I love my boss, so I agreed. So I'll get started on those one of these days -- They should go pretty quickly.
Next project will be my back-burner project for the rest of the calendar year. I'd knit faster on it, but I'm afraid I'd give it to my mom as soon as I finished it. It'll hopefully be the most successful gift I'll ever make. I'm working on a teddy bear in two strands of dove grey Lana Grossa Micro Lungo. It's knitting up so fuzzy and teddy bear-like that I just can't stop petting it.
Teddy head: (Ignore the extremely cat-fuzzed blanket/backdrop.)
Once the teddy bear is finished, I'm going to knit him a basketball uniform and a basketball -- He's going to be a player from my mom's very very favorite college team, which is located in my parents' town. And which is also my alma mater. She has a great collection of teddy bears, so I think a hand-knit basketball player bear is going to be a fabulous gift.
I have a bunch of other semi-started or soon-to-be-started projects waiting in my stash, but they were all bumped out of the way for this scarf when a woman I work with was let go. She's adorable and sweet, a real grandmotherly type, and none of us liked her boss before this happened, so, yeah. Morale has taken a little dip at work the past couple weeks. And I jumped in and started on a lace scarf for her. I'm making this knitty pattern in 100% silk, which is knitting up quite a bit narrower than the mohair and wool silk blends shown, but it'll work really well for P, who is very tiny, at only about 5'.
Pink Scarf:
This is the first lace I've ever done, and I'm loving the result. I'll be fairly careful about what I choose as my future projects, though, because I really like to multi-task while I knit, and that pattern is not repetitive enough to memorize. It's kind of a sit-and-knit project, takes too much attention. But I can't regret it because I love the pattern, P will love it, and it will suit her really well.
All done!! I'll get back to packing for my big apartment move at the beginning of June. Yay for packing?