FO: Owl Puff & meanderings and updates...

hoot

I whipped this little owl up in one night. I did the face in the dark, so that's my excuse for it's ugly. I was originally going to do button eyes, but 1) there are babies in the house and 2) i used hot glue to stick the felt whites down into place before sewing them and the glue dried too hard for my needle to penetrate!
I'll definitely have to work out a better way to do the eyes for next time. Because the pattern is so cute, there will be a next time.

Also since I last blogged I have finally received my swap package!!

 I was so excited! It came all the way from England. I made a video that shows all the contents up close, but if you watch it be warned that there is loud teletubby music in the background.
In my package I was delighted to receive:
1) A bracelet/necklace set
2) A skein of Angels and Elephants hand dyed wool in "Raspberry Ripple" colorway (the one you can see in the above picture)
3) A (pre-balled) skein of Angels and Elephants hand dyed alpaca/merino blend
4) A handspun hank of "Zombie Goat" yarn. (What is a zombie goat? Click here to see my collection of Zombie Goat pictures on Facebook)
5) A beautiful needle-felted silk scarf. You really have to look at the video to appreciate this one.
6) A skein of Jawoll Magic, that will become a shawl as soon as I get some needles free.

Tell me that yarn doesn't perfectly personify a zombie goat! (Zombie Goat wants graaaaiiins)

Finally, I have started something new. Again.
What was that? You're asking about the baby sweater I started for my SIL's new baby? Yeah.... that baby ain't comin' out 'til March. The sweater's in a purse waiting for sleeves. Shhh.

The new thing is.... PIZZA!

Seriously, doesn't it look like pizza? It's actually this giraffe from Susan B. Anderson's toy book. I'm not sure it's working out quite like I'd like... for one thing there's the fact that it looks like pizza. Also, it's made out of Red Heart since that was the only yarn I had in any color even close to giraffe colors. Which isn't necessarily true. I do have some wonderful koigu in yellow and orange which would look lovely, but it's sock yarn and I don't have small enough circular needles. Besides, them's for hexipuffing. Not to mention the fact that I'd have to wind the hanks into balls in order to start.

So that means I have 2 toys on the go, both out of Red Heart. And, oh, like a million other projects. Needless to say, I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Yesterday, I decided I needed a good simple garter stitch project, so I started digging through my stash bins and boxes and closets (my, has the stash grown this past year...) and could find nothing suitable. I thought to myself, "this is crazy! I'm staring into a box full of yarn and wondering why I have nothing to knit!"
It's like all the yarn is designated for some project that is someday supposed to happen, or else it's itchy or else I want to use it for something complicated, or else it wouldn't look good in garter stitch or would look best as a hat and I don't want to knit in the round right now. And I started getting frustrated, because.... well, it was just ridiculous!
Finally I grabbed some yarn (I don't even remember what) and I started digging though my needle stash. I knew right away that I wanted a nice decent size...maybe size 8's. And I definitely wanted to use straight needles, so I reached for my pair of size 8 metal straights. And suddenly remembered something.
I went into the closet, rummaged in on of my project bags and found....
A good 6 inches of garter stitch on size 8 metal straights.

(yes i'm recycling a picture from several months ago)

So that was kind of embarrassing. But at least I remembered before I started yet another plain garter stitch project! Now that I think about it, there's also a garter stitch shawl tucked away behind my closet....