| ashley who knits |
| Age: 24 |
| Sex: girl |
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| kon |
20 March 2008 |
One of my favorite manga/anime is Bleach. In the story, Kon is a silly and perverted but fiercely loyal and kind mod soul [kaizô konpaku]. At first, he resides in Ichigo's body and makes lots of trouble while Ichigo is doing his shinigami duties. However, while Ichigo's soul is in his body, he puts pill-form Kon into a stuffed animal he found on the ground one day. Kon's sassy personality certainly fits the image of a lion, but perhaps not a stuffed one. He proceeds to get 'abused' [dressed up by one of Ichigo's sisters, sewn into a vision of Marie Antoinette by an ally] and taken for granted, which leads to the comedy relief for the series.
Of course, since I'm a knitter, it dawned on me one day while reading the manga, 'Word, I should knit Kon. That would be awesome!' That was over a year ago. Now, however, I have confidence enough in my skill that I could make up my own version of Kon that I would be satisfied with.
Here's the photo that I relied on for inspiration:
And here is my sort of ragged interpretation:
Kon originally didn't have that blue cross on the back of his head, but when he was resewen one time after getting torn up and dirty, Ishida [who is a Quincy, whose symbol is a blue cross] put it there because Kon was getting on his nerves. No one ever told Kon, so he's completely unwitting.
As far as the pleasure factor goes, I had a great time making his appendages and body, but his head pissed me off, all aspects of it. I didn't make it big enough, I couldn't figure out the best way to make his mane how I wanted it, I misplaced his eyes, his nose and mouth are weird. The only things I like about his head are the cross on the back and his ears. Overall, though, I'm quite pleased with my Kon. He's going to stay in the car with me, I think.
Stats:
Yarn - KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, colors daffodil, cloud, chocolate, and winter night, and Sugar n' Cream in black and white for his eyes, nose, mouth, and claws.
Needles - CPY 7 dpn's
One large white button
Polyfil stuffing |
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| basic black in green |
16 March 2008 |
I've always wanted just a plain, V-neck cardigan, but I could never find one that was right, that I liked. Then I found Basic Black and knew that it was just was I had been looking for. Except, not in black. Instead, in green.
I had a little crisis at the very end of the process. I ran out of yarn with two rows on the front button band left to go. I gnashed my teeth for a week about that. I had to order a whole other ball of yarn for about two yards at the very most that I was going to use. I'm fine now, but I was mad at myself for not conserving in the first place. Like I could have known.
Any road, I'm very pleased with the end result. I'm going to wear it to work tomorrow, which is also, coincidentally, St. Patrick's Day, and I'm very excited to see how it wears.
Front view. I need to learn how to attach buttons with back loops instead of the holes in the middle. That way, maybe the buttons won't threaten to slide out of their holes like the second one from the top.
This pattern had waist shaping, and it was only after I was done with the body pieces and working on the sleeves did I learn that I should have measured myself to place the shaping correctly. It was much too late by then to rip the pieces and start over, so I did what I normally do in situations like this--hoped it fit.
And it does fit. I'm so so happy with it, except for--
--the sleeves. They're really baggy at the top, but I don't know if I measured wrong or if I just don't know how to set in sleeves. In any event, I still lo----ve my cardigan.
Stats:
Yarn - KnitPicks Shine Sport, nine balls and a bit from the tenth, grrr...The yarn is a cotton and nylon blend so even though the cardigan is a knit, it'll still be all right to wear outside of winter.
Needles - size 6 Boye straights and size 4's for the ribbing.
Buttons - 5 Celtic knot buttons. The Irish theme of the cardigan is very unintentional. I just didn't think regular buttons would fit with the color, and I found a rack of silver buttons at Wal-Mart. Those were the cutest. |
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| olivia's animal collection |
19 February 2008 |
Since Sarah got her package, I can now excitedly post this dear animal collecion that I'm so very proud of.
Hello!
Stripey kitty.
Puppy [my favorite].
Lady Piggy.
Spotty kitty.
Monkey in a romper.
Lady Froggy.
JD says the frog looks more like an alien than a frog, but it was the last one I did and I really didn't feel like changing it. Then again, I think it's cute. I had problems with the monkey's face because of my noobness at duplicate stitching. Other than that and the romper on the monkey, I didn't have any other major problems with this. I had so much fun making all of these, I really did, and I pleased my first customer.
:D
Stats:
Yarn--all Sugar & Cream 100% cotton
Needles--4 mm dpk |
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| noro scarf |
18 February 2008 |
While I'm waiting for Sarah to get the animals and me to get my new yarn, I finally got to work on the yarn JD gave me for Christmas and made brooklyntweed's Noro scarf.
But before the pictures, I want to send some complaints out into the void directed towards Noro Eisaku: What the hell, Noro-shishou? It's not enough that your yarn be absolutely beatuiful. In the four balls of yarn my husband bought me for Christmas, I had to pick out a veritable pile of stems and flecks of leaves. Not only this, some of the skein wasn't even plied, and some of the skein was plied way to much. How am I supposed to keep gauge, Noro-shishou, if the yarn's not the same size? And, finally--
In all four balls, I encountered the above. Really? Not even fulled or felted together, but actually knotted? How is all of these problems worth eight dollars for a 50g ball? Maybe this is just a problem with Kureyon, I hope.
Okay, now that that's done, let me say that Noro Kureyon is a flipping pain to knit with. It's really uneven and scratchy, and if you read my complaint to Noro-shishou, two different strands are knotted together at the end of every ball to make it to 50g, which makes for really sharp color changes sometimes. With all of that said, the colors made me drool. See?
Noro yarns are self-striping, and I alternated two different colorways and striped those.
Some close-ups of the stripes:
Stats:
Yarn--Noro Kureyon, two balls each of #185 and #150
Needles--size 8 straights |
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| commission done |
12 February 2008 |
Just an update:
I finished up my commission this very morning. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how it all turned out. However, I won't post pictures until the package is received, and since I'm mailing it out tomorrow, it won't be until next week probably.
Yay! |
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