Wool socks seem a bit much this evening

Well, we went from 50 degrees and rainy last week, to hot and humid (and now, raining) this week. Seemed like the perfect time to finish up the "Magic Stripes" socks. Check 'em out!This picture is fun because not only does it show my lovely socks, but the wall that I painted as well.

Wearing the socks was a bit steamy but I just had to try them on. Here's a picture (a CRAPPY picture, I have no idea why it came out so blurry) of my mom, wearing her turquoise raglan sweater:

So I don't know if she's dancing and I'm also swaying to the music, or if I had the camera on some crazy setting, or what was going on... but there she is. It FITS! Perfecto!

And here's the interesting Yoga Mat Bag, in a bilious shade of green. As you may notice, the strap is completed though not yet attached.


On to my newest fiasco... and it will be a fiasco. I don't know what I was thinking. That's not entirely true; I was thinking that I'd like to try some intarsia and I'd like to make something for a friend of mine for Christmas next year, and I thought I'd try to combine the two tasks into one.

So the deal is... I have a friend who has a solo music project. You can see his website and hear his music here

Obodoh

As you can see, he has a lovely little birdie as a "logo," and his musical name is Obodoh. So I thought to myself that it would be a great idea to knit this little birdie on a scarf to start off my intarsia fun. Upon thinking about this plan a bit further, it came to my attention that intarsia on a scarf was a great idea, as long as there was some sort of backing to it (particularly on a beginner's intarsia experience!). So, I gathered ideas from a great bunch of guys and gals on the MySpace.com group Stitch 'n Bitches. They were very helpful (have been and continue to be!). Some ideas included knitting the scarf on straight needles, then sewing on some sort of backing. Another idea was to knit it in the round, which would be helpful in avoiding having to sew. Knitting in the round sounded like a great idea at the time, so that's how I proceeded.

HOWEVER... what one (read: I) didn't consider in this was that as I knit intarsia in the round, when knitting more than about 5 stitches in any single color, it creates a situation in which the yarn has to be cut on EACH side of the piece every friggin row. As opposed to knitting on straight needles, in which you can usually just pick up the color of yarn where you left it to continue in the pattern back and forth. So yeah. Can you say HUGE SPAGHETTI MESS??? Weaving in all of those ends has not been fun in the least. You live and you learn.

I had gotten quite far into the project before I realized why this was such a pain in the neck, so I decided that I'd just tough this one out. My plan is this:

On each end there will be the bird on one side, and the letters "obodoh" on the opposite. As you can see in the picture, I got the "doh" part done. Yay! The middle of the scarf will just be straight black stockinette, easy schmeasy.

To get the pattern for the bird, I went to this great website at which I uploaded my .gif of the picture, and it shot out a lovely graphed out chart of the picture. The charts for the letters were taken from this website. In order to make it easier to see, I transferred the chart onto graph paper with larger squares, which I created at another fabulous website. Is there anything one CAN'T find on the internet? How did people ever get ideas for projects and fixes to problems without it???

Now I'm trying to decide what project to start next (while the Obodoh scarf is on hiatus). It'll probably be something small (gloves??) so that I don't have to have fabric sitting in my lap during this heat wave!