It feels like I worked on this beanie for an eternity, hence the ingenious name The Eternity Beanie (TEB for short). In actual fact, however, I started it before Christmas, went on until about 90% and then stopped. I got hit hard by the Terror of Finishing a Work and Realizing the Yarn Will Run Out (or TFWRYWRO for short; a devastating, mind-affecting condition documented in various medical publications).

So in the end, I probably worked on it only for a month at best, since I finished it in like two hours. I was ecstatic when I realized I won’t even run out of yarn – there is still at least one meter left. I’m truly pleased with this beanie, as I’ve always wanted this kind of slouchy beanie. I couldn’t find a good one in stores, so I had to make one.

The pattern is called the Sockhead Hat by Bohoknits. It only requires 100g of sock yarn, so I thought my two skeins of 50g Teetee Pallas yarn would be perfect. I fell in love with this beautiful variegated yarn and I think it suits the beanie perfectly. The pattern was very easy for a beginner knitter such as myself, so I strongly encourage any other beginners out there to start with this pattern. I only dropped one stitch and my decreases didn’t go all wonky. Yay me.

They’re huge! They’re shapeless! They’re absolutely ridiculous!

I laughed out loud when I finished the first one. I can’t wait to see the expression on my dad’s face when he uncovers these. I bet he’ll need a minute or maybe ten to figure out what they are.

Good thing though, I used nearly three 150g skeins of Novita 7 veljestä on these slippers, yarn which I didn’t have any other use for. I think the mismatched colours go well with the general ridiculousness of these slippers.

If for some completely strange reason you now feel the urge to make a pair of your own, I used the pattern by Gabriela Ordenes, Peter Pan’s slippers. They were easy and fairly quick to make, one of those brainless-projects-for-watching-tv.

In other news, my yarns are even better organized now, thanks to Deniselle‘s generous gift of these pretty canvas bags:

She got these by attending some religious happenings or events. The black one has a slogan which has the idea that people have even chances of finding happiness. (I’ll get a better translation as soon as Deniselle wakes up, she’s a better translator than I am.) And the white one on the right has a cool drawing of a church from Leppävirta, with the slogan “strength from the stream of mercy” (again, horrible translation).

Aren’t they really cool? Deniselle asked me if I wanted them on the spur of a moment and was surprised and amused that I jumped at the chance. I had been wanting some canvas bags for my yarn, and I got these for free, with pictures and text too!

I’m a very unreligious person, but I think for that reason it’s wonderfully random and funny to have religious yarn bags. Amen.

The pattern is very simple and allows for brainless tv-knitting, yet it creates this nice ribbing effect.

Puro is 100% wool, loosely spun plies, so it feels soft and warm. Some of the colour choices are quite weird and not really my cup of tea, so I had no other choice but Revontulet. Even so, I wish there were more yellow and orange and less red and blue. My ultimate dream would be to find yarn that only had yellow and orange, changing softly as in Puro! One can always wish… Another problem was that I had to use two different colour batches for the 4 skeins, but I don’t really mind it so much.

I also like the blue/green/pink Tundra, but I don’t have any ideas what I’d do with it. Puro is quite expensive and I already have more yarn than I can knit or crochet in the near future. If only I was richer, I’d fill my small apartment with much more yarn. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not rich.

I had a slight problem with the skeins escaping my yarn bag, so I got a brilliant idea. I stuffed my souvenir conference bags with yarn and hung them up on show!

That’s my old yarn bag, still full after delegating some of it into the conference bags. I like the Liverpool conference bag  (from Corpus Linguistics 2009) with the grey, white and purple. And here’s my ICEHL conference bag from summer 2008:

I realized I should have more hooks on my walls. Anyway, now I can have my souvenirs out from the dark closet so I can look at them more often and they’re useful too!

Right now I’m crocheting another scarf in the Skunk-Punk style with three different light blue yarns for my cousin, because my mittens turned so ugly and she likes blue more than I do. I also started on another knitting project, the Heelhead Scarf, with the result that I can now knit cables without an auxiliary needle!

I’m so happy to learn new things with every project. On the one hand, I like having a brainless project which I can work on while watching tv, but on the other hand, I don’t want to repeat something I’ve already done before. The skunk-punk blue scarf has been boring because of that, and I wouldn’t have gotten it this far without tv! There’s my justification for having more than one project under way at a time – you can always do something, depending on how you feel at a given moment.

I’m very happy with how it turned out! It’s very soft and warm and thick. For a while now I’ve been yearning for a black-and-white style in my clothes, so I figured this would be a good way to start. I call it the Skunk-Punk scarf because skunks are black and white, and black and white stripes are part of the punk style. (Something I learned from Avril Lavigne.)

The yarns I used were Novita Kaarna and Novita Marjukka, both off production by now (couldn’t even find a decent link to Marjukka), so they were on sale. Kaarna is 50% wool and 50% acrylic, Marjukka 100% acrylic, hence the softness. Plus Kaarna is superbulky and I’ve grown quite fond of bulky yarn. It makes for a very fast project if you need something quick. And I did, since none of my scarves seemed to work with my new winter jacket and its generously opening neck.

I was so proud of myself when I came up with the “technique” for this scarf. It shows I’ve understood the basics of crochet and I can perhaps experiment and improvise more in the future. It’s very simple and obvious: start with a loooong chain of chain crochet stitches, then continue with single crochet stitches and leave fringes at both ends. I know that’s super simple but it was a revelation for me, the n00b crochetress.

I also got this Estonian yarn from Obiskus as a belated birthday present:

It’s Artistic (or similar) by Aade Lõng, an Estonian manufacturer. It’s 100% wool in three colours: fuchsia, burgundy and light purple. The colours don’t change very quickly along the length, so it will be interesting to see what it looks like on a finished project. There’s 250 grams of it!

I have been brainstorming about what I’m going to make from it. It’s a little coarse, so it wouldn’t be nice to spend a lot of time on something I’m going to wear close to my skin and not be able to wear it because of itching. Well, maybe I’ll just knit a gauge patch to get a sense of how it feels against skin.

It’s so, so hard. I used to think drawing with a mouse was hard, but using the Wacom tablet pen is like a whole another level of hardness.

Ok, I’m prone to not a little hyperbole. But still, it’s like when you’re learning to ride a bike, or learning to walk. Wobbly and out of control. Or maybe it’s my hands, or my eye-hand coordination.

This is my first attempt at doodling. It’s a fine example of my painting technique with oils. I go brushing around quite quickly at first, without correcting anything until later. I don’t even feel like I need the Undo function, or the Eraser. I’m painting! You don’t get a second chance! That’s part of the fun!

(You may click to enlarge if you so wish, but it doesn’t get any better than this)

But I’m sure I’ll learn soon enough the decadent ways of Ps. It will certainly be easier and faster to show off my lame pictures when I’m drawing them on my laptop.

I never used Ps before. There are so many possibilities, and I don’t know what half of them will do – even when I try them out! I need Photoshop for Dummies.

Usually it’s just your run-of-the-mill url floods or simply some completely incomprehensible drivel. But some of them are deceptively believable.

Check this one out:

How soon will you update your blog? I’m interested in reading some more information on this issue.

Aww, interested are you? Too bad that the post in question introduced my blogroll, so I don’t see how you could call that one single issue. Spam!

Great post! I’ll subscribe right now wth my feedreader software!

Oh kewl! You’re like, using feedreader software! I’m also using feedreader software! I love saying feedreader software because it’s so clumsy!

The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you

This was for my Joker clown post. Clearly, information on the Joker and clowns is in high demand these days. Thank you back, I will keep going.

I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.

I’m flattered that you want to copy my first post ever, where I simply introduce my plans regarding the blog. But I can totally see how that can be instantly likeable.

Can anyone tell me who the hot brunette is that may be a new cast member on Stargate Atlantis?

http://www.koldcast.tv/video/2384

Sorry, first of all I’m not anyone, and secondly I don’t follow up on Stargate Atlantis.

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This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I’m huge on fast growing free adult porn forums. The name of the website is very inviting, “f*cking for you too.” Thousands of videos are not going to be enough! And thanks for thinking that my blog is a board.

My favourite, however, has to be this one:

unseal known demeanour (badge strange send for enjoyable in misery of that self-dissected approaching roomie viagra on line
rapidly at an end the hinterlands ling confabulation folio destroy unsuitable purely seemliness on correctly-modulated mete out.

So wonderfully postmodern! Sweet and innocent spam poetry! My heart melted at this.

Unseal known demeanour.

It’s a badge strange to send for the enjoyable misery of that

self-dissected, approaching roomie

Viagra on line!

Rapidly at an end of the hinterlands,

ling confabulation folio destroys the unsuitable purely seemliness

on the correctly-modulated —

mete out.

Beautiful, isn’t it? A couple of grammar errors here and there, so I added definite articles and 3rd person suffixes. I’m so touched by this lovely poem. Keep them coming!

Hence we have y^e which these days is often erroneously spelled as ye. And that, my friends, means you, as in the archaic personal pronoun. So if you see a store called something like Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe (as in Edinburgh in Scotland, witnessed by yours truly), the store owner apparently wanted to call their store affectionately by names. “You old Christmas shop you, you naughty girl!” (Are shops and stores masculine or feminine though?)

Ye originally came to be used as the second person plural, the singular form being thou, but it spread to other uses as well. It could be used as a singular pronoun in nominative position, and as both singular and plural in an objective position. Fascinating how English exploits syncretism to the extreme.

Anyway. Here’s a newe paintinge for ya.

(Click to enlarge)

This is supposed to be Heath Ledger. I think it has a fair amount of likeness to him. The colours aren’t quite accurate, because I couldn’t take a non-overexposed photo of it and had to increase the contrast and highlight the midtones. It’s slightly sharper than in real life. This is the photo I used:

I didn’t paint the face narrow enough, and the expression is more benign methinks. Not as much chest hair, either.

My mum likes the painting though and she’s a hard person to please. She keeps saying that it looks so much like her old colleague who passed away some time ago. She liked that guy I guess.

Here it is in frames – mum is really good at picking frames that enhance the appearance of a painting:

My parents’ living room looks quite colourful with so many of my paintings in frames, against the backdrop of a warm yellow wallpaper. (The Yellow Wallpaper was a weird short story us English students had to read in basic studies, for your information. By Charlotte Perkins Gilman.)

I ran a google search with “futuristic clothes”, once again. I ran into some of Pugh’s couture and was immediately blown away.

I love monochrome clothes, even though I rarely wear them myself. I’d like to, but I like bright colours too much. Ok who am I kidding, I don’t plan my clothing that carefully. Usually I just pull out whatever fits and is clean.

I wouldn’t wear these, like I might the white ones above. But I love the experimental forms and fabrics. Playing with the human form until it’s barely recognizable.

Many of his clothes aren’t very wearable, but how often haute couture is? It’s supposed to be a ready-to-wear collection, so maybe Pugh is  trying to bring more “individuality” and craziness into street fashion. Pugh has said that he’s barely sold any of his pieces, so he’s a very poor man indeed. Fashion critics praise him and love him, but he scrapes by. I admire his passion to create anything he can conjure up in his wildest dreams, even though he must know that many people won’t wear them. If they’re pricey, you’ll want to be able to move around in them and stuff, not just look good.

Many of them look like you’d probably melt underneath. It’s really sad because I’d love to wear something by Pugh. If I was richer, that is. Well, I’m happy to see that at least Beyoncé has realized how wonderful Pugh’s clothes are:

Even Beyoncé wears them when she’s performing or doing promo. I’d like something you could wear to work and look stunning and oh so cool. Imagine we lived in some weird avant-gardistic space age. My view of the future has changed from dystopia to utopia. Completely unrealistic, I know, but I like living inside my head in clean and cultivated future surroundings.

In my dreams, everyone would be walking around in Pugh’s clothes. It would be such a pleasure to go outside and watch people.