Why won't it stop?

So, I am a crazy person. Seriously. My brain is always full of ideas, and I need to get them out. (Otherwise, the plot bunnies multiply and I end up thinking about naked Lucius with a cookie in a meeting, and smiling like a madwoman and my coworkers call the men in white coats.)

Now, generally my brain is full of plot bunnies. Fic ideas, mostly, with the occasional pr0n. But the more I knit, the more I get "Design bunnies". Design bunnies are interesting, to say the least. Knitted garments pop into my head, and they want to be written down and made. This is extremely annoying since I haven't even made a sweater yet. I believe I lack the knitting skills to make these things from scratch right now, but that doesn't stop them from coming. So, like I do with plot bunnies, I will write these down in the hopes that they shut up. The notation may not make sense to anyone else.
Design Ideas
1. Strip Dragonskin skirt
2. Replica of my pink shirt. Maybe purl lines to represent the folds. Is it possible to create raised stitches like that? Also, would need to find a lace pattern for cuffs and collar. Would use same buttonhole idea?
3. Victorian Wrap and Shrug, knitted. (It's a crochet pattern I like, and I want to knit it instead)
4. Combo crochet and knit tank
5. Square-necked sweater. Cables down front possible. Want to recreate a laced bodice sort of thing.

In other news, my left wrist is slowly recovering from Rockband, and knit two together through the back loop is the best substitute for skp and ssk ever!

The Falling Waters scarf continues. I have 6 repeats, and other than my inexplicable inability to count while people are talking, it's going fairly well. I went and hung out with a crochet class last night and knit. That isn't the oddest place I've knit (a graveyard), but it's certainly up there. People kept asking me if I knew how to crochet. (I do)

I also learned how to use a ball winder and swift last night, and discovered that one of the local yarn shops has a finishing class. That's now on my list to take. Learning how to block properly might be a good idea, given that I'm knitting all this lace. Also, I like the teacher.

The bluejeans shawl is having a nice time-out to think about what it's done. I left out a yarnover, went on for a couple of rows, then noticed it and had to go back. That should teach me to use lifelines more often, but it probably won't. Part of the problem is that the Falling Waters scarf has a clear lace pattern, and I can see within 6 stitches if I've made a mistake. With the shawl, it's generally two rows of a ton of stitches before I notice. Grr.

I'm still debating the Tiger-eye scarf. Redoing the chart's a pain, to say the least. Either way, I think once I finish the Falling Waters scarf, I'll try my hand at the Viennese Shrug. It's lace with worsted-weight yarn, and a practical garment for me. Or, depending on what the Beginning Lace KAL chooses for the July pattern, I may do that.

Oh, and I figured out how to turn on comment notification. Go me. Now I can reply to comments within a decent amount of time. And there may be lace pictures tonight, if I find batteries for the camera, and am not frantically running around trying to get ready for Mom's surgery.

Well, I now have a new cure for stressed out and hormonal. Yarn. I finally went to Cast On Cottage in Roswell and they had many soft pretty things. I saw the non-laceweight malabrigo for the first time, and wow, that stuff is just as soft and pretty as the laceweight. Remind me when I become a millionaire to make myself some sweaters out of it. OMG, soft. And I bought sock yarn, using the argument that it could easily be made into lace, and it seems a shame to hide pretty yarn on feet.

That's my favourite color of it, made into a scarf. My first scarf ever, actually.

In other news, I frogged

that last night, and did a bunch of gauge swatches for the lace I want to knit. The blue yarn in that picture is an alpaca laceweight. I plan on using it for the blue jeans shawl. We'll see how that goes.

Victory is MINE!

After frogging, redoing, having the same problem, frogging again, and then actually bothering to count the number of stitches in my heel flap and finding out I was way off (I had 46 and thought I had 52), I managed to do a centered heel flap. And then I managed to pick up stitches for the gusset decreases with only a couple of holes. I DID IT! I DID IT! Of course now I have a ton of stitches to decrease, and I kinda made things up as I went along there (book was confusing), so this sock may end up with a gusset decrease that's half the foot. Oh well.

In other knitting-related news, I am signing up for Seasons of Lace. This may end up being a complete disaster, since I haven't really done any lace except the sock yarn scarf. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and plus, it's only yarn. Frogging is my friend. Off to find my first project (I'm leaning towards the Wine and Roses fingerless mitts). But then again I have some lovely alpaca that I need to do something with, and it's perfect for lace. So, we shall see.

So far, it's been a quiet weekend. I started making a tank top here's a picture. Obviously that's not mine, but it's a good picture of the pattern. I'm a) not at the right gauge (so I'm doing math to adjust the pattern) and b) doing short rows for only the second time ever, so I am prepared to fail if needed. Heck, that's what frogging's for, right? But I love love love Rowan Calmer, so I am a happy person. (Rowan Calmer is a cotton/polyester blend that is insanely soft and just a pleasure to work with, and also, really pretty purple. Expect pic-spam later once I have more than an inch.)

Finished sock scarf, gave sock scarf to kissmythistle, who likes it. Yay.

I'm going to go back to knitting now, my brain hurts again.

Edited: Um, so I failed a bit and the tank is frogged. Moebius strips are good for scarfs, not so much for tanks. Oh well. Maybe I should take this as a sign that I should make a lovely sample (perhaps doing so in the continental style) and wash it to see how the yarn acts. After all, I have more yardage than I need, so I can afford to do so.

Noro Scarf and other stuff

I finished the Noro scarf last night. It's 10 ft long. Wow.
and
are two pics of it. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, but man, why does everyone love Noro so much?
The colors are pretty, but it's not evenly spun, and the bits of ick! Not to mention the roughness. Give me a good soft yarn any day of the week.

In other news, I started making what I have decided to call "the Chinese Waves Shawl"

Easy pattern (2 rows!), and I finally have a good use for some of my laceweight.

The Canopy Textured Scarf is still ongoing, and I'm trying to resist the urge to cast on my first top. I have Rowan Calmer and omg, so soft!

Canopy Scarf and the Evilness of Socks

The sock, it frustrates me. My heel turn, which I figured out by myself (okay with the help of More Sensational Socks) is not centered. But but but I don't want to pull it out, so I have set it aside for a little while.
My Canopy scarf is still ongoing. See picture above? That's it. Okay, so I stink at pictures, but that at least gives you an idea.

I've also started a Noro sock yarn scarf, and again I made up my own pattern (well, sort of). I swiped the Vertical Eyelets pattern from More Sensational Socks, and changed rows 1 & 3 to read p4, k1 instead of k4, p1. In my brilliance, I kinda forgot that I needed to reverse as well. But it still looks good, and with only 4 pattern repeats, it's a lovely lacy thin scarf. That's going to a friend of mine, because the colors make her happy and the wool's too rough for me. I'll still need to figure out what to do with the rest of the skein. I've only used one color repeat, and it's about 3 feet long, and there's a ton more repeats in the 400+ yard plus skein.

I picked up the Kaigo? pattern book at Hancock for 5 dollars. I may never make anything out of it, but the pictures are lovely. And a whole book of laceweight stuff? Yay!