FOs for 2012

I would like to finish making 12 things (or more) in 2012. So that I don’t forget, here’s a running list of what I’ve finished:

1. iPhone Sock
2. Last of the Sky Pirates mitts

FO… Wednesday?

Okay, so I’m putting up a knitting post on Wednesday that ISN’T a WIP post. Sorry. I’ll do the WIP post (most likely) on Friday, where I normally would have put this post. Just to change things up a bit.

There’s actually quite a good reason why I’m doing an FO post instead of a WIP post today. (Side note, I know the correct grammar would be “an WIP”, but it sounds weird. Besides, most people probably would think I was wrong for doing it right.) This reason I mention is because I’ve put most of my recent knitting time into finishing these:

The Last of the Sky Pirates!

I have spoken before about my issues with the way the pattern was written, so I’ll not go into that again. Instead, let me just say that these are a FUN finished item. I am really looking forward to wearing them.

(For those who are curious and unaware, the little guy at the back is a Pocket Dragon. This particular one is called “Fantastic Flying Fluffballs,” and I thought it was particularly appropriate.)

I did make one mod to the pattern. Instead of using the M1 increases as written, I used yarn overs. If there was supposed to be a hole in the finished fabric, I knit the YO normally. If there was not supposed to be a hole, I knit through the back loop. Simple. And much easier to remember which one I needed to do at which time. It also left – IMO – a more consistently sized hole. The holes go on the gusset on the back side of the hand, like so:

Now, this isn’t technically a mod, but the pattern suggests sewing up the flap after you finish knitting it and sewing on the buttons. Personally, I do not want to knit a pair of mitts with a WORKING BUTTON FLAP just to SEW IT UP. So. My buttons are still practical (aka working) buttons. No sewing it up for me, if I can help it!

And then the buttons.

Love them! They really complete the steampunk feel the pattern is supposed to invoke.

And now for the specs: (My Ravelry page)

PATTERN: The Last of the Sky Pirates (Ravelry)
DESIGNER: Maggie Fangmann
YARN: Knit Picks Stroll in Sprinkle Heather
NEEDLES: US3
MODS: See above (increase type, working button band)
START/END DATES: 12/15/11 – 1/30/12

Ten on Tuesday ~ in which I join the MEME

There are a lot of blog MEMEs out there. We all know this. I have even done several of them.

For some time now I have watched as 2 (or more, I forget) of the people whose blogs I follow do the Ten on Tuesday. And often, I’ve thought, “I should join that one. It looks fun. Plus, goodness knows I can often use the inspiration.”

But I didn’t do anything about it. Until today.

I’ve now signed up to be on the Ten on Tuesday mailing list, and will start with today’s list:

10 Favorite Super Bowl Party Foods

1. Ruffles and dip, either onion dip or (my favorite!) clam dip made by my uncle (or from his recipe)

2. Hard cider… technically a drink, not a food, but it counts in my mind

3. Pretzels… if I’m actually watching the game, snack foods that aren’t too messy are a must

4. Nachos… if I’m not actually watching the game, and just using it as an excuse to party (which is much more common) then any good “party food” is what I prefer

5. Meatballs/little smokies in BBQ sauce… my mom has an awesome recipe for this, which I think beats out just about every other one I’ve tried

6. Cookies… You know how it’s traditional to bake a whole ton of cookies for Christmas? Well, I’m usually ready to eat my way through a plate of cookies again by Super Bowl Sunday

7. Fruit… I know it’s not the traditional type of sports snack for most people, but I love fruit. Plus, I have fond memories of rolling grapes down the steps in the Oakland Colosseum during baseball games when I was younger, and the habit of fruit at sporting events carried over

8. See’s Candy… my dad typically got multiple boxes for Christmas (work presents), so I’m used to having a lot of chocolate that we wanted to get rid of before Valentine’s Day chocolate started arriving

9. Cake! … a new tradition is to attend a Moat Bowl party with a bunch of friends who’ve been hosting for several years now, and there is cake (which I will almost never turn down)

10. Water… again, not technically a food, but something I never seem to get enough of

And that’s my Ten for Tuesday! We’ll see how long I’ll keep this one up, but since it comes with emailed reminders, I think I’ll be able to keep going. Besides, Ten on Tuesday shortens very nicely into ToT, which is also the acronym for a ride at Disneyland that I am quickly growing to love.

WiP Weds ~ 1.25.12

Here is a WiP post, since it’s Wednesday! I’m trying to stick to a semblance of a blogging schedule, but so far this year it hasn’t turned out so great. But there’s a post today, and there will almost certainly be a post on Friday, so that’s a start.

First off, the WIP closest to becoming an FO:

The Last of the Sky Pirates mitts!

These are a really fun knit, as long as I can ignore the way the pattern is worded. It’s a good pattern, in that I didn’t find any errors and the design is nice. However, I think it’s the designer’s first published pattern, and it reads that way. You know how beginner knitters will often want everything spelled out for them? Knit this many stitches, and then do that, and then purl these stitches, and end by knitting this many more stitches. And they want that for every single row? Well, they would love the way this pattern is written.

However, I would much prefer a simpler wording — something like, “On WS rows, K1, continue in pattern until last stitch, K1.” That right there would remove half of the directions. And there are more things that could be done to make this a more advanced-knitter-friendly pattern.

But I digress.

The next (and last) WiP I will show off today is the first Waterfall sock!

The yarn is a Crazy Zauberball, and I love it. I want more! It’s so much fun watching how the yarn changes colors.

I love my Chiaogoo needles, too. But I have a confession to make. It seems I can’t read needle packages.

You see, when I bought these needles, I went to the rack holding size US 1 (2.25mm) needles, and got two 16″ circulars. And bought them, and put the sock on them, and knit away. And knit, and knit, and knit, and only when I’d gotten about 2-3 inches past the heel turn did I notice that one needle is a 2.25mm, while the other is a 2.5mm. (AKA US1 and US1.5) Um. Not a matched pair of needles, after all. Oops.

I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just .25mm difference. On the other hand…

So, guess where I went yesterday? Yup. Back to the store to buy needles that actually MATCH in size.

Friday FO: iPhone Sock

Why does my iPhone need a sock, you ask?

Well, because I had a different cover on it, but it broke. (And not because I dropped it. The bottom edge, which was removable for docking and such, was apparently not designed to be removed often, because that’s where it broke.) So I was using no case for a while. And remembered how much I love the look and feel of the iPhone without a case.

But I am occasionally a klutz. And I don’t want to risk my phone COMPLETELY unprotected.

Enter a knitter’s solution to any problem: add yarn.

I used leftover Mini Mochi for this, and just cast on half of what seemed the right number of stitches.

Next, I knit into the front and back of every stitch to double the stitch count, then K2P1 over and over and over again until the thing was nearly long enough. When there was about 1/2 an inch left (or maybe 1/4″, I’m not sure) I decreased every other K2P1 repeat, so the pattern was now K1P1K2P1.

And when the thing was done, I cast off in pattern using a bigger needle, and sewed in ends.

And then I decided I liked it better inside-out, so that’s how I’m using it.

There you have my first FO of 2012! Have a great weekend!

WIP Weds

It seems like I’m just starting one new project after another this year. The newest project is one that I won’t be sharing fully with you until it’s finished. Not because it’s a gift or stealth knitting, but because it’s a part of a mystery KAL and we’ve been asked not to post pictures of the WIP until after the last clue has been released.

Now, while I suspect that the main request meant “don’t post on Ravelry”, I’m going to be linking my blog posts to Rav, and so don’t want to show too much here. However, I can show you this much:

It’s the yarn and beads I’m using for the shawl. And the pattern is the Susanna IC January mystery shawl KAL.

I also started a scarf for my niece. It’s knit on US10.5 needles, so goes pretty quickly – when I work on it. But since I’ve gotten seduced by the lace alpaca and beads of the mystery shawl, I’m not working on the scarf as much as I could.

It’s a green scarf, though, which is her favorite color, so I think she’ll like it whenever I get it finished. And the reason for starting it when I did? She wanted to buy a scarf, but her grandma told her that “if you buy that scarf, your auntie will be sad.” Implying that I will be making her one. Um, thanks Mom. Warning would have been nice.

And then, something I didn’t just start but which is knitting up really nice and quickly (again, when I’m not being seduced by lacy alpaca goodness): the Waterfall socks.

It’s a fun pattern, and I love the way the yarn keeps surprising me with what the colors are doing. Zauberballs are fun like that. Every time I knit with one, I remember how much I love it and want to knit with more.

Impressions of Walt Disney World 5: Disney’s Animal Kingdom

My favorite of the Walt Disney World parks was Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There were many reasons for this…

1. It’s the most different of the parks, and the most UNLIKE what we have here in California.
2. DAK is the most immersive of the parks. While there are different lands, they all have the same wild feel to them.
3. My absolute favorite of the stage shows is in DAK. (Finding Nemo, the musical. It has incredible puppetry, and really uses Disney-style effects well.)
4. I love animals.

But the reason I love DAK the most? I think Walt would have approved. I think this is, to some degree, what he wanted to do with the Jungle Cruise. (Our best Safari guide even made a Jungle Cruise joke.) He’d wanted live animals, but was convinced by his team that animatronic animals would provide a more consistent show. In Animal Kingdom, there is finally a Disney attraction that features live animals: the Kilimanjaro Safaris.

It also has the tour I most want to go on: the Wild Africa Trek. It sounds AMAZING, but since it’s a new tour, they weren’t advertising it much yet. We found out about it on our last day at WDW, and all the spots had filled up. That is the first item on my list of things to do for my eventual return trip to Disney World.

However, DAK does also have the thing I probably like the least about WDW also. Hester and Chester’s Dinorama. Can I just pretend that it doesn’t exist? It’s a big, rather tacky, dinosaur-themed area with rides and midway games. And it’s the one thing that really doesn’t fit. The dinosaur excavation playground just outside Hester and Chester’s is cool. They can keep that. But the Dinorama… No.

There is also a moment of sadness. If you close your eyes and pretend really hard, you can go on the Indiana Jones attraction while in DAK. But as soon as you open your eyes, you are brought back into dinosaur-land. This is proof, however, of how much a good soundtrack and theming adds to an attraction.

What am I talking about, you ask? Well, one of my favorite attractions in Disneyland is Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. (It’s not just a favorite of mine, either. It consistently has one of the longest wait times in the entire Disneyland Resort.) If you take the exact same attraction cars, and the exact same track layout, and plop it in Disney’s Animal Kingdom but rename it Dinosaur (with a soundtrack and back-story to fit), you will get… not the same ride, but instead a much, MUCH inferior one. If I ride this again, I will make sure to queue up the soundtrack to Indy before I get on the car, and see how much better it is when I can really pretend I’m on the good version of the ride.

At any rate, though I did have a handful of complaints about DAK, it really was my favorite of the parks. True, Expedition Everest was crazy and I won’t be riding it again. (Have you played Rollercoaster Tycoon? Well, that ride is too intense for me.) And we didn’t go on Kali River Rapids because we were avoiding water rides, though if I go back at a different time of year I certainly want to try it out.

We went on the Safaris more times than any other attraction at WDW. (I think 4 times. We had 2 mediocre guides and 2 great ones.) There’s a live bird show – Flights of Wonder – that we watched twice because the birds weren’t super cooperative the first time around.  We spent a lot of time wandering the Majaraja Jungle Trek and the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. The Finding Nemo musical was wonderful, and the Festival of the Lion King was enjoyable, too. (Though I’d otherwise avoid Camp Minnie Mickey at Christmastime. Its soundtrack has all the annoying kid-style Christmas songs you could ever hope to avoid.)

There are good places to eat, too. We enjoyed our lunch at Yak and Yeti a lot, though dinner at the Tusker House wasn’t as good as we’d hoped. And the seating at even the quick service eateries was the best in the whole resort.

Resolved — or not

I am not making resolutions this year.

I am also not looking at my resolutions from last year to see how I did. My goals for the year changed throughout the year, so the things I had wanted to accomplish in January 2011 are not the things I wanted to have accomplished by December 2011. Heck, I’d even changed my mind by March 2011.

What I am going to do this year is track the projects I finish. I’d like to have 12 or more by the end of the year. I’ll see about putting a project tracker up as a sticky post, but that will be done from home, not mobile. If I do multiples of the same small thing (like Christmas cards or small knitted/crocheted gifts such as snowflakes), they will count as one finished item.

In addition, I would like one of those finished items to be the Star Trek socks, as they are now meant to be a Christmas gift. I would like another of the FOs to be one of the big ticket WIPs currently in progress. The stole or sweater would be ideal, but there are others I’d be happy to finish, too.

And that’s my plan for the year.

Impressions of Walt Disney World 4: Hollywood Studios

I think the park that surprised me the most was Disney’s Hollywood Studios. And it didn’t necessarily surprise me in an “I like this!” kind of way, it just was surprising. Neither a good nor bad surprise.

The biggest surprise was how similar it felt to Disney California Adventure in Anaheim. (Yes, I know, DCA is the newer park. But I’ve known it much longer than DHS.) The entry gates in DHS are the same as the new DCA entry gates. The Tower of Terror is each park’s biggest E-ticket. DHS has a Carthay Theatre. DCA is getting a (bigger and more central) Carthay Theatre. And the feel of the parks are much the same. (It makes sense, in a way, as they are both focused on California. I just didn’t expect it.)

The best part about DHS is the huge variety of shows. From Fantasmic! to Beauty and the Beast to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, there are TONS of shows.

The rides are enjoyable too, but the shows are what sets Hollywood Studios apart. This is appropriate, as it’s about HOLLYWOOD. You know, where people make movies? Yeah, that aspect of the park was no disappointment and very well done.

Specific thoughts on the shows:

• Fantasmic! has its own amphitheater. With bleachers. YOU GET TO SIT DOWN IN TIERED SEATING TO WATCH THE SHOW. I cannot emphasize this enough, because it was the ONLY thing about the DHS version that beats the DLR version. The seating is awesome. The show itself – for the sections which aren’t exactly the same as the original in Disneyland – is a baby version. (Granted, it costs somewhere around half as much. It shows) There are more projections on the water screens instead of live actors. No pirate ship. A puny steamboat instead of the Mark Twain. Plus, where we have the new and improved Murphy (aka Maleficent-the-dragon), they have our old Bucky (aka Maleficent-the-dragon).

• Beauty and the Beast was fun to see. The chorus was lip-synching, though, while the leads were singing (over microphones). Still, the acting was fun, the dancing was great, and the tech effects were wonderful.
• The Indy Jones Stunt show was cut short when we saw it due to rainy conditions. The rain itself had stopped, but the set was still too wet for about half the stunts. What we saw was great fun, though.
• The Little Mermaid show was really short. (And the gal we saw playing Ariel was missing a few of the high notes.) The tech effects were great, but that’s about all I can say as a reason to stand in line for this show. If you can manage to walk right on (as we did), that’s perfect.
• The Lights, Motors, Action! stunt show was great. Tons of fun, and worth waiting for. (Plus it had Lightning McQueen! Ka-chow!)

Specific thoughts on the rides:

• Tower of Terror in DHS is one of two rides I will say is unconditionally better than the California version. (Snow White in MKP is the other.) This Tower of Terror was the original, and is more entertaining than the DCA one. However, they also had the room to make it whatever they wanted. In DCA they did a smaller version because they had less space. Also, the DCA version follows the same drop pattern every time. (My guy has it memorized.) The DHS version is RANDOM. So much fun. I loved this ride so much.

• Toy Story Midway Mania is the same ride as the DCA one. The queue is fun, and full of big-size classic games, as if you’re toy-sized. But it imagines you’re in Andy’s Room, while the DCA version puts you on the Midway (as the name of the ride suggests). I like them both, they just give you different backgrounds.
• The Great Movie Ride was okay. Based on reviews I’d heard prior to going to Florida, I expected to love it. But it was just okay. I suspect a lot of it has to do with your guide.

• The Studio Backlot Tour is essentially a cookie-cutter copy of the one at Universal Studios, but with different sets. (No Jaws. But the same basic idea.) Fun, but not something I need to go on regularly.

Specific thoughts on the food:

• The Sci-Fi Drive-In Diner was amusing. The food was okay, and the atmosphere was fun.
• The 50’s Primetime Cafe was one of my favorite places to eat. The food quality was good basic home cooking, but the show! The atmosphere in the place was awesome. Our waitress was “Mom Maryanne,” and she treated us like kids. If someone (always an adult, that I saw) didn’t finish their dinner, she threatened to “airplane” another bite (or three) in their mouth. When the food she brought out was hot, she cautioned us to “use our blowers”. The whole thing felt Disney. It was an amazing, and highly recommended experience.

A New WIP For the New Year

Two new WIPs, actually.

First up, the one I started first: the Last of the Sky Pirates Mitts by Maggie Fangman.

(I don’t have buttons for them yet, so a knitting needle is holding the button flap together so I can model it.)

These are a fun knit, and have gone pretty quickly so far. The way the pattern is written needs a bit of polishing up, though. It might be completely accurate, but it’s cumbersome. For example, on the main section of the arm, wrong side rows go: K1, follow pattern (K the Knits and P the Purls) to last stitch, K1. And yet, each row is written out with different stitch numbers based on the decreases which have happened for that row. Technically correct, but wordy. I might knit these twice, but if I do I will re-notate the pattern first to make it easier for me to follow it.

I like the detail on the thumb gusset. The outside has eyelets, the inside (palm-side) does not. Very cool.

The second of my new WIPs is WendyKnits‘ Waterfalls socks.

I started them just before Christmas, and they’re fun. I’ve had to restart them a couple of times while I found the right needles for the yarn/pattern combo, but I’ve found them now. ChiaoGoo lace needles, 2 16″ circs. Perfect fit for this pattern and yarn. Love, love, love. I got a lot of knitting done on the way to Disneyland for New Year’s, too. (That was also fun. Love, love, love.)

I hope the New Year brings you lots of fun knits and pretty yarns!