Knit-Nerd-Rant

So, this year, one of the things I did was to learn how to cross-stitch, and did I ever! I've discovered it's a lot of fun, and a great way to incorporate my love of all things nerdy.  I've already made two things - both of which I am so ridiculously proud of.  One is a Firefly quote sampler and the other is a portrait and quote from Chewbacca.  I made the patterns myself, based on the same process I have described to create intarsia patterns .  These are more difficult to document, I've discovered, but just as rewarding! As a result, I've decided to create share-able pattens and try my hand at selling them via my new Etsy store .  Right now, I've got a couple patterns for the stitch works I've already done, and interested to add more as I can.  I'll admit that I've never done anything with Etsy before, so I'm interested to see how it goes.

I've been working on trying to finish up some projects (so as not to leave so many things unfinished when the calendar turned) and found my favorite, trusty size 6 circular needle! It's one of my favorite needles and one of the earliest that I ever bought, and has been my most reliable and versatile thing in my knitting arsenal. It's part of the reason why I had been so excited to find the interchangeable set that I did, and now it's back!  It was hiding in with my scrap yarn for my beekeeper's quilt that I haven't had time for in a while. Now my circulars tree is back to full strength (particularly now that I finished my first set of 2-at-a-time socks and can put both 4s back). I hope your new year is off to such a great start.

This pattern is for a fun, festive hat made with a couple different types of yarn that create very different effects.  It's simple enough, though the changes between needle sizes and weights of yarn can be a bit of exercise for your fingers.  Depending on how Kaiser Wilhelm-y you want it to be, you can do the tassel or leave it off. So, my mother asked for a hat for Christmas and sent me the following picture as a guide for what I should make for her, but she wanted it in red: Essentially, this would mean felting using variegated yarn with an eyelash yarn around the brim that wouldn't felt and would provide a different kind of fluffy-ness. 2 difficulties with this: 1 - local yarn shop didn't have any eyelash yarn and no access to big box craft shops that would carry it, 2 - I've never intentionally felted anything and the whole process scares me more than it should scare any rational, experienced knitter. When I went to my LYS ( Looped ), I was able to find ...

Inspired by one of my new favorite writers , I want to write a brief letter to 2013. Dear 2013, Bite me. You had some good moments, like a promotion and lots of positive feedback and travel for work. However, those times when you inflicted incredible harm to the people I love were not cool. I have spent too much time in hospitals for one year during your twelve months. Too many tears. Way too many tears.  It's not for nothing that my mother said this year "if what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, we must be like Godzilla by now." I want to burn you in effigy every day leading to your end. You have become dangerously unbalanced and unhealthy. I don't want to see any other years like this again. No pathetic late night drunk calls seeking reconciliation. No sad texts or emails. Just go. And take your pain and suffering with you. Sincerely and without affection of any kind, -E KnitNerdRant Dear 2014, You look cute. I'll see you on the 1st. I'll be t...

So I had to quickly think up some gifts for some of the in-laws-to-be. We went down to visit them for Thanksgiving, and will be up with my family for Christmas this year. So we decided we would bring down everyone's Christmas gifts while we were in town. Sister-in-law-to-be and her fiance are tough to buy for, so we got them a couple gift cards.  I felt really guilty about it, since it's not the first time and it always just feels like a cop-out.  So I decided to use some scrap yarn lying around to make something to put the card in - a gift card cozy. Shout out to my friends at Hudson Trail Outfitters , regional chain in the DC area, and their promotional gift card rebate deal that gave me one to use for demonstration purposes!  It's cute, takes very little time to knit up, and makes it feel less like a cop-out to give someone a gift card.  I made 2 of them on the 2 hour flight there, so definitely very quick! I used these supplies: Scrap yar...

For my friends, it's no surprise that I have a very dark sense of humor. This video HAD to be shared because it is quite possibly the most amazing thing to ever happen in a Thanksgiving Day parade. Barney gets shanked by a street light and is then destroyed by Lilliputians that look kinda like maggots. It really reminded me of those time-lapse videos of animal corpses decomposing in the woods. In other news, our Thanksgiving with the boyfriend's family was fun, lots of rest, lots of food, lots of opinionated conversation, some knitting, and some bonding.

Last night, I tried to see the rocket launch in Virginia, but managed to miss it. However, I had taken my camera with me and was going by the National Cathedral on the way back and decided to take advantage of the moment.  It's a really gorgeous building, and majestic at night. However, with the wrong settings on a DSLR camera, it can turn into a truly disconcerting, spooky experience. This one is my favorite: And then suddenly, I found the right settings. But it still quite spooky, or I was already in a fairly spooky mood. Plus, as an added bonus, a shot from near 30th Street Station in Philadelphia: