So yeah. Knitter's Underground. Very awesome. =)

Today was one of Penn State's football games, and Rhiannon had gone swimming so we left later than we thought we would and therefore got stuck in traffic for about half an hour. Once that broke up, it was smooth sailing up to the barn at the end of a long gravel driveway, which turned out to be the place we were searching for. I LOVED it! I've never seen so much yarn in my life! And it was all fantastic quality; none of the typical name brands to be seen! After much browsing, I ended up getting a skein of super soft lavender, green, and blue yarn that I was thinking I'd make another octopus out of (since I often just make octopi out of yarn that I like and need an excuse to use), and several skeins of sock yarn, which was on sale. Denise told me she'd teach me to knit socks, something I've failed at multiple times. I blame the fact that I'm a hands-on learner and no one has just sat me down, needles in hand, and shown me. Denise said she would sometime, so I grabbed some of the proper sized needles and look forward to that day, because I really want to learn to knit socks. ^-^ Also hats, but let's take this one step at a time.

Anyway, for my sock yarn, I got this cool brown with white speckles kind. I got three of the 50 g skeins, since it's one per sock. I'm going to use the last one to make a sort of ascot mini scarf thinger, because I think having it match would be really cute. I also got this dark greenish tealish with goldish brown, but they only had one skein, so I'm going to make another ascot mini scarf thing out of that, too. Overall it was a very successful day! I'm glad I got to go, and I look forward to going again (with more money) sometime and bringing more of the crew.

I have so many plans going on this weekend. It's going to be absolutely insane. But in a good way I guess, at least for the most part. I look forward to it.

One of the big exciting things that's going to happen will occur in approximately 12 hours (it's about 2:30 am), and that is my first ever trip to Knitter's Underground. I've heard many a tale of this land of milk and honey and yarn, and at dinner tonight celebrating a friend's birthday, another friend dropped that she was going Saturday (today-ish but I haven't gone to sleep yet and since the world CLEARLY revolves around me, Saturday is not today, it's still CLEARLY tomorrow) at around 2:30. My schedule instantly cleared. I'm sure there was some important stuff like cleaning my dorm room or doing some homework or reading or crocheting/cross stitching/crafting or socializing that I was going to do Saturday during the day, but now there magically isn't. Funny how these things happen. Anyway, I'm totally going to Knitter's Underground in 12 hours, and I'm super excited!

Progress report on my actual crafting:

- For Christmas last year, I crocheted all my friends something, usually a plushie of some kind. I still haven't finished EVERYONE, though I am really close. For one of my friends from camp, Vicky, I wanted to recreate the squid plush thing from the movie Coraline, because she loves the movie and the "I wanna hugga yo face" line became an inside joke with us. Originally I was going to just make an octopus to commemorate it, but then I found this pattern for how to actually crochet one, so a while ago I got the yarn and last night I just got the urge to start it, even though it's not next in line on my list of things to crochet (but I suck at doing things in order anyway). I can't find the giant button I got for the eye, but I'm sure once I finally clean my room, it'll turn up.

- I've decided to have another craft swap/viewing party of the 2009 Dorian Gray movie, the one with Ben Barnes as Dorian. I've been saying that from the trailer it looks like how the newest Sherlock Holmes movie was, which was nothing like the book at all, but so awesome and fun that you don't even care. Some of my friends who have seen it agree with the description, so I'm excited. Katie (my roommate, if I haven't mentioned that) rented it for me from her Netflix, and I'm eager to see it, but think it would be fun to do with a group, and I'm itching for another craft swap, so I figured I could combine the events, and decided next Friday is a good time, which means I need to make some stuff!

- On that note, one of Katie's friends, Rhiannon, has moved into my dorm building from her apartment, and so I've been getting to know her, and she's a big crafter (she's coming with me to Knitter's Underground tomorrow, er, later). She stole some camo print yarn and my knitting needles one night while hanging out and started making a scarf. She didn't like what she started with (she was inventing a cable stitch) so she made it into a square (more on that later) and started over. She's letting me have the scarf, so I decided to make her something in exchange for it so we could swap. I offered to make another blaster gun (see older posts) and she joyously accepted, so I'll be making another one of those in hot pink, green, and purple. I'm a little excited and almost started it tonight, but I really need to work on the whole "finish what you start" thing that I suck at so much, so I want to do Vicky's present first.

- I really love crocheting squares. I have a bunch that I've made and don't know what to do with, and I have books that add up to several hundred different square patterns, and many of them I want to try but don't want to make a whole blanket out of, so I've decided to make an afghan or a quilt or whatever you want to call it, that's made up of miscellaneous squares I just felt like making. Fun and functional! Rhiannon's camo cable knit square will be added to the collection of random squares for this project.

- I taught Ashley how to make granny squares, and she loves it! Yay!

- On to cross stitching! I mentioned the Pokemon sprite idea, and so far it's been going swimmingly. I started with Bulbasaur because A) it's the first Pokemon on the chart, and B) my coworker Ricky asked me to make him one. I finished the pattern and now I have to choose the colors to make it, but the first one I'm actually going to do is Blastoise, because a friend from camp told me he'd pay me for one, so guess which one I'm making first? I'm almost done drawing up the pattern, and I already chose the colors, so hopefully I'll be able to get started on it soon so I can get some cash!

- Speaking of commissions, I may or may not have another one. My brother's friend from work may or may not want me to make her a Cthulhu, and she may or may not pay for it. My brother had just been asking me about it and said he'd let me know the details, but hasn't yet. Granted it hasn't been very long since the initial proposal, but it's always good to know when money is coming in.

- I will soon have more garb! I started and damn near finished my fencing doublet for SCA, using some extra fabric that Dani had. It's this nice blue fabric with reddish orange-ish brocade on it. It's really thick and durable and looks really nice, and in one night I mostly finished it. I can't wait until it's done! Ashley has been making her garb, a really nice bliaut (I can't find any particularly excellent pictures, but Google will give you an idea) in dark purple, and the Harry Potter club will be making a trip to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire next Sunday, where we will prance about in our garb. We're both very excited. I want to at least finish the sleeve caps for my Venetian gown, because Dani is going on a trip and I don't think we'll be able to make the sleeves for it yet. I hope it's not too cold!

- I kind of want to get into making softies (abstract plushies). I think they're really cute and interesting. It'll be easier when I have a machine to sew on, but in the meantime I'm bolstering up my scrap fabric collection, since they're often made with random fabric, mostly with odd colors or patterns. I got some great cheap remnant fabric at Joann's the other day to add to the collection. I don't know what I want to make just yet, but I had some good finds and it was really cheap, so I'm glad I got it.

Sorry this post was super long. Heehee.

And now it's about 11 1/2 hours (about 3:00 am) until Knitter's Underground. SUPER EXCITING! =D

I've been looking up cross stitch patterns for a while now, pretty much since I picked up the craft, because I love patterns and sometimes have a hard time functioning without them. I especially like to look up nerdy cross stitch, i.e. video game characters and sci-fi and pop culture characters, because as I'm sure you figured out by now, I'm a super nerd. I found a lot of really awesome Pokemon cross stitches and was seeking patterns for a while last night. I realized that a lot of the cross stitches I saw looked like they were based on the game sprites. Then I realized, duh, the game sprites are made of fairly obvious pixels, and what is pixel art but cross stitching on a screen (heehee)! So I found a site with all the game sprites for red, blue, yellow, green, gold, and silver, and sure enough, they look mad easy to stitch, and now I have an array of patterns to choose from! This'll probably help with my Christmas present idea, because I can just ask for a person's favorite Pokemon and whip that up. Also, I want to have a vendor booth at Setsucon (the anime convention Penn State has every year) this year where I (and Abby and Dani and potentially Emma and Ginny said they'd help, too) sell crocheted stuff, and now I could make Pokemon sampler thingers too! So yeah, yay crafting!

I kept telling myself, "As long as I post before September 7th, I'll be okay because that means I would have at least posted within the month." And now it's September 7th. And now I'm posting. Because I suck. -_-;;;

School has started up again and between class and clubs and socializing, I've barely had time for anything. Even before the school year started, as summer came to an overwhelming and kind of sad close, I was really busy. So there isn't much to say as far as crafting goes, which is why I don't feel compelled to post.

However, I have done some stuff. For instance, like I said in the last post, I finished up my awesome snood. I taught Dani how to crochet and she figured out her own snood pattern so she's been going crazy with them, heehee. Also, Dani helped me with my SCA garb: a dark blue striped Venetian style Renaissance gown. IT'S SO PRETTY! It took a lot of work and it's still not quite finished (I still have to sew the trim onto the bodice and make the sleeve caps), but I got to wear it to my local Renaissance faire (which Dani and Ryan drove out to go to with me) and I was a sight to behold. Dani and Ryan wore their garb too, and our total tally was 5 people asking us if we worked there. I was very pleased. I even wore my snood! Heehee. I'm also making a dress doublet in this nice gold-with-purple-stripe fabric. I started with that but put it aside for the gown so I would have had something to wear to the faire, but soon I'll be working on my doublet again.

As for cross stitch, I am one color away from finishing my dad's project! And I would have finished it by now but it turns out I hadn't gotten that color when I got all the colors for the project and I only just got it last night. So that'll be done, yay! I've decided to make cross stitch things for my friends for Christmas this year, and I've started planning out what I want to make for some of them, because I really should get started soon on Christmas presents, since there are bound to be a lot.

I haven't been doing much crocheting. I have a bunch of the TARDIS and one of the Cthulhu done, but I didn't do too much else. I'm designing another afghan based on this one square I really like that does a combination of checkered and striped patterns in each fourth of the square, but the squares take a while so I haven't gotten far.