Step 1: Obtain a skein of Fleece Artist Peter Rabbit, 90% angora and 10% nylon.

Step 2: Knit a hat. Oh, crap, I guess this isn’t as amazing a magic trick as I thought it was, apart from the fact that using sticks to turn string into clothing is always kind of magical.

The pattern is called Angora Beret, although it’s not really a beret, more of a Roundish Thing That Goes on Your Head. There’s a pattern on Ravelry called Angora Beret that uses Peter Rabbit, but this is not that. It’s quite similar, though.

I’m fairly certain I have enough yarn left over that I could knit a whole other hat with the rest of the skein. If getting one hat out of a rabbit isn’t a good enough magic trick, then what about getting two hats?

I finished my wedding shrug in time, because “at the hairdresser’s a few hours before the ceremony” is totally “in time.” I finished the garter, too, by which I mean that my mother tied the ends of the elastics together a few minutes before the ceremony because I never got around to sewing them.

When we get the pictures from our actual photographer (the ones in this post were taken by my mother) I’ll probably post some more photos, but my husband doesn’t like his picture posted online, so there won’t be any photos of him in which I don’t crop out his head.

Oh, and I finished the rushnyk in time, too.

I’m still exhausted from all the wedding stuff, although we got married a week and a half ago — I’m also getting over a cold — but I figure I can sleep after KnitEast.

The recently-finished shrug is the Two-Tone Ribbed Shrug by Stefanie Japel, in Cascade 220, colours Silver Grey and Cotton Candy.

The actual knitting went fairly quickly, but I agonized over seaming the sleeves for a while. See, I am a slow knitter, and also a lazy one, which means I knit a lot of accessories as they are (supposedly) quicker than knitting garments. Which means I don’t do a whole lot of seaming. But I am also an obsessive perfectionist, which means that I want the seams to be done right. Hence the agonizing.

I’m pleased with how it turned out, though, and now I can focus my attention on the next shrug. In fact, I don’t think I’m even going to be wearing this shrug anytime soon, because I intended to use it as warm-up clothing at ballet class (hence the black leotard in the photos), but now that it’s summer I’ll probably be too hot if I wear something made of wool in the dance studio. So I guess I’ll keep wearing a T-shirt over my leotard until fall or winter. Or I might just decide the shrug is too pretty to sweat on and it’ll become regular everyday wear instead.

The shrug I am currently working on is my wedding shrug. I hope, I hope. It depends how it turns out. Which is why I am knitting an extremely easy lace pattern. It may be the easiest lace pattern I have ever seen. Yet I still manage to make mistakes, of course. In addition to being easy, it is also very small, so in theory, it shouldn’t take long. This does not keep me from being anxious about it, though. Excuse me, I think I have to go knit a bit on the shrug now in order to keep from panicking.

There will be more Georges to come in the future. Stay tuned.

The Big Bang Theory-inspired his-and-hers sweater vests! Lieutenant Uhura’s red minidress! Firefly-inspired scarf, socks, hat, and jacket to go with the Jayne Cobb hat that of course you already have somewhere! In the interest of full disclosure, I have not made a Jayne hat yet, but I’ve had a Jayne hat kit in my closet for ages and ages (I think it’s this one), so you know I’ll get around to it. Eventually.

If you don’t understand how much I need a geeky knitting book…well, this is my shower curtain.

Clearly, I need geeky everything.

How can I possibly wait until next year for this book? That’s so far away! So of course I bought a copy of World of Geekcraft: Step-by-Step Instructions for 25 Super-Cool Craft Projects, edited by Susan Beal of Geek Crafts, to tide me over until then.

It truly contains projects to appeal to every geek. My friend Jeannie, a beader and D&D player, would be all over the d20 Deluxe necklace and earrings set made from sparkly many-sided dice. I can totally picture my Buffy-loving, cross stitching friend Yolande translating the Buffy Fuse Bead Portrait pattern from a Perler bead project to a stitching one. I love retro games, Magritte, and John Lohman’s site Sprite Stitch, so I think my favourite project is his Mario Magritte cross stitch pattern (I also own this shirt). Truly, though, I love everything. Star Wars terrariums! Crocheted tribbles! A knitted coffee sleeve with Trivial Pursuit-inspired embroidery!

Okay, that’s enough geeking out for now. Recently I knit baby legwarmers for a friend’s baby, with Bernat Baby Jacquards in Petunia. Although the pink and green parts in the repeats may look like flowers when you knit something wider, like a sweater or a blanket, in tiny skinny little legwarmers, they’re more like modern art-y pink and green diagonal lines. And not in a good way. But the striping is pretty, and although they’re a bit too big for Miranda right now, the size is for 3 to 6 months, and as she’s not three months old yet, she’ll grow into them.

I am now working on a pair in the 12-month size for Izzy. In the larger size, the “flowers” are upgraded from “pink and green diagonal lines” to “large pink and green blobs that might look sort of like flowers if your eyesight is not very good.” I’ve finished the first one, and although it’s only about an inch longer than the 3-6-month size (which is obvious from reading the pattern), it’s a lot bigger around (which should have been obvious to me from reading the pattern, since the biggest part is twelve stitches wider in DK weight yarn). The legwarmers may only fit Izzy if she wears them over her pants, which I think is perfectly fine, because I’m a child of the ’80s and I used to do that myself, as if it were normal and not insane. I am slightly worried, however, that they might only fit her if worn over ski pants, and that is just not okay, no matter what decade it is.

If you had asked me what I wanted to see in the men’s Olympic gold medal hockey game, I swear I would have said, “I want Canada to play the U.S., I want both teams to play very well so that it’s a close, tense, exciting game, I want it to go into overtime (but not a shootout because shootouts are crappy ways to win and even crappier ways to lose), and it would be nice if Nova Scotia boy Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal.”

It might as well have been made to order.

I wasn’t worried at all about the women’s gold medal game the other day, by the way. I never doubted for a moment that we’d win that one.

Oh, yeah, and I got my gold medal, too, in the 2010 Knitting Olympics. I have officially named these the Go Canada socks. Pattern: my own, more or less. Modified Silver’s tutorial, worsted weight and 3.75 mm (or size 5) needles, casting on 44 stitches, increasing to 48 for the stranded knitting part (chart modified from chart in Audrey Ritchie’s Maple Leaf Beanie pattern), decreasing to 40 stitches around after the maple leaves. Briggs & Little Regal in Red and Bleached White.

Yes, there really are two socks, no foolin’.

See? I told ya! The actual sock-knitting and even sock-designing process was less time-consuming than I thought it would be. I was correct in assuming that the hardest part would be adapting the chart and adapting a basic sock recipe so that the socks 1) looked the way I wanted them to and 2) fit on my feet. My first attempt accomplished neither of these things. I spent four days knitting half a sock, and then I ripped it out and started over. The first half-a-sock had the leaves exactly where I did not want them — on the front and back instead of the sides. There was probably a simple way to fix that but damned if I knew what it was, and I didn’t bother because I knew I had to start over anyway. On account of the half-a-sock was too tight to fit over my foot.

I fixed the problems on the second go-round and I might have been able to finish my socks a few days early, except that I had a really bad cold for the past week and it made me too tired and stupid to knit. I was so exhausted that I was completely incapable of knitting from a chart, increasing, or decreasing. I was only able to handle plain stockinette without screwing things up, so I took a few days off from the socks so that I wouldn’t make mistakes I would have to frog. Then, as is my custom, procrastinator that I am, I finished the last details of the Go Canada socks — weaving in ends, duplicate stitching — while watching the hockey game, and shortly afterward.

I might do some more duplicate stitching on them sometime in the future, to hide a couple of places where the floats show through and to neaten up the leaves, but then again, I might not, because I am lazy, and for all intents and purposes, they are FINISHED. As imperfect as they are, a finished pair of socks during Vancouver 2010 is a much more impressive showing than my 2006 Knitting Olympics, when I planned to knit a scarf but instead knit nothing because I wound up in the hospital due to being crazier than a sack of weasels.

The Fleece Artist Goldielocks Triangle Shawl, to be exact. You know, the one that I’ve been calling the Shawl of Doom. It’s 56% Kid Mohair, 24% Silk, 20% Nylon, and 100% infuriating. The colours go very well with my giant purple stuffed hedgehog, but I actually made it for my mother.

I finished knitting it on December 23 and blocked it on December 24 by pinning it to a hotel bed and spritzing it with water.

I would explain why I spent Christmas in a hotel, but that would take far too long. My bus to New York leaves in less than three hours, and of course I am still packing. Mare and I certainly have some yarn shopping to do once we get there! Maybe I will make “Blog more often” one of my New Year’s resolutions and actually explain about the hotel next week. Or maybe not.

First of all, bat cloth, bat cloth, BAAAAAAAAAAT CLOTHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Furthermore, spiderweb!

I saw this dew-bedazzled spiderweb one morning as I stopped to tie my shoe on my way to work. So then I stopped to take a picture of it (the spiderweb, obviously, not my shoe, though admittedly the last batch of photos that I took included an accidental closeup of my knee) and I was late, but it was totally worth it. Although it would have been even more worth it if it were a better photo, but I takes what I can gets.

The Shawl of Doom marches on. It is one of those slow sort of funeral-dirge death marches, but at least it is marching.

and a white one,

and the word on the street is that they are both very rambunctious (I believe the word “evil” may have been used). Which is to be expected. We kittens are are a rambunctious lot. I have not yet met them, but plan to this summer. Oh, and the kittens are both dudes, so they are my little brothers.

Speaking of which, my mom finally got my (allegedly) human brother to send photos of the Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimonos, too. You know, the ones that we finished knitting in December? Although I posted a picture of mine months ago, I hadn’t seen what it looked like once my mom sewed the ribbon onto it. So as well as having guest photos in this post (all of them were taken either by my mom or my brother), I have some guest knitting, too. Hers is the greenish one in front, although it doesn’t look too greenish in this picture.

It’s made from acrylic. I forget what kind of acrylic, but it was nice stuff. I think she got it at Baadeck Yarns. Mine is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. Yeah, I gave a baby item that must be handwashed to the parents of twin babies and a preschooler, because I’m a jerk like that.

I finished knitting Branching Out, but I haven’t blocked it yet, and I won’t get around to doing that until sometime next week. This week I have a virus which has provided me with an extremely sore throat, a headache, and exhaustion, so now I am going to fall into bed with a good murder mystery.

I finished my third pair of socks, which I named the Rockin’ in the Free World Socks because 1) I went to a Neil Young concert this month (to which I did not even take the socks, because we were down on the floor rather than up in the stands and I figured that DPNs would be hazardous), and 2) I got Kevin from Moist to hold one of the socks. So they, um, rock.

I have no idea how long the first sock of the pair took because I put it aside and forgot about it for something like five months, but I do know that the second sock took me nineteen days. That isn’t bad — for me. I’m trying to find a good stitch pattern for the next pair of socks, but I don’t have immediate plans to start actually knitting them.

Oh, and here is one of last year’s Tangled Up in Blue socks. I finished knitting these last August, and then I tossed them aside and ignored them until last week, when I wove the ends in. All four of the ends. If I were any lazier, I would probably be dead.

Last week I started Branching Out. (Psst, if you’d been following me on Twitter, you’d already know that. @ KnitKitten, of course.) I am using Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in hot pink. This would be the same Silky Wool I blogged about on September 3, 2006. When I said, “I am in no hurry,” apparently I really was not kidding.

Branching Out is going well. I wonder what kind of hell I have doomed myself to by daring to say something like that. I have done eight pattern repeats out of a projected twenty-seven, and it looks more or less like it is supposed to. There might be some uneven tension or twisted stitches, but so far nothing really horrible is wrong with it.

Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a scarf to knit and a whole lot of photographs to beat into submission.