Hatty Doom

Very clever of you to find me, Mr. Bond. I've been waiting for you.

Above you see the deadly weapon that I whipped out and into the mail less than five hours after the inaugural Hat Attack began last weekend. The pattern is the one provided by the organizers. It's called Binary. 10 points to whosoever may point out why (who doesn't also have access to the Ravelry discussion of the pattern!). The yarn is Lamb's Pride Worsted, of which I've formed no opinion yet, though I love that it's unplied.

And below you'll see what I did with my time when, five hours later, I was still amped on killin' hormones and had nothing to do but wait for the USPS to do its job. Which it still hasn't.

Yarn again is LPW (got two whole caps out of it!) and Malabrigo color X, again salvaged from the doomed Matrix mittens. The pom is ridiculous but entirely necessary.

I'm having mixed feelings about Hat Attack and am debating whether to sign up for the similar but better-established Sock Wars that's coming up. It's a really fun way to connect with people internationally.. But it's been a lot of waiting, a lot of reading and posting to the forums, and not a lot of actual knitting or getting knitted presents. I'm worried my target may have just decided to stop playing.

Some yarn thoughts:


This is the Araucania Nature Wool Chunky (minus one hank that I was swatching from). It's interesting stuff. The color is actually kind of pretty, and the yarn is soft enough, but the dye job is pretty inconsistent. And on top of that, the hanks come actually a little felted together, which to me might indicate sort of poor handling. I'm still toying with the idea of making Durrow with it, but I'm concerned that the cabling might not look good with the variegated effect. But then, I don't think anything looks good with variegated yarn. Oh well.

Weekend WAR

Just a heads-up: Don't expect a big post this weekend. Hat Attack is ON!

This Week's Progress and Dreams

Work continues both in real-life and in knitting land. Had a mini-review at my wonderful job and got some very nice feedback and now am back to plugging away. Also still plugging away at various projects. I'm not pushing the tempo at all, so I'm only through a repeat and a half of the diamond pattern on the Greenwood Vest, which post-blocking should translate to about three inches of entire vest. Also discovered that a co-worker is about to have his first baby, like, immanently, so I've joined the crowd making Saartje's Bootees - so cute!

I had this weird dream last night.. part of it was about cleaning toilets (maybe it's time to clean house? I did notice a little ring this morning). Part of it was about fleeing the city from some kind of society-wrecking disaster. And the rest of it was about stopping in on the yarn store, and trying to convince them that since the world was ending, they should let me take some yarn so that I'd be able to keep my family warm in the future. They grudgingly allowed.

So I was standing there, in the dream, and really doing some intense calculations. I knew I could only take what I could reasonably carry on my back with all of my survival gear - this was a serious dream! So I had just about decided that, although it would be less efficient weight-wise, it would be a better idea to take bulky yarn, since it knits up more quickly and I'd have a better chance of producing multiple sweaters. But by the time I started making a move to grab any, the entire store was swarmed with other people having the same idea: rabid knitters whose desert-island scheme was yarn, and lots of it. In that confusing way that dreams have, I kept putting things aside and then coming back to find them gone, and in the end was left only with cotton DK novelty. Bogus.