Cat Hats

Lexi with some mottled violet cat ears

Practically the definition of simplicity, this hat is made with bulky yarn and is a rectangle folded in two. The corners act as ears. Since these little babies were so easy to whip up, I made several. More than several. The beauty of this project is that I'm able to just grab it and go, perfect for knitting while carrying on conversations without fear of screwing up on the pattern.

 

 

When it is seen folded flat on a table, it's about as exciting as watching cement set. However, when placed on someone's head... Viola! Instant kitty ears! Hilarity ensues as humans suddenly feel the need to display their best cat immitations.

This includes the best impressions of a "doe-eyed" feed me look.  I don't know about anyone else, but most of the time, when a cat makes eye contact with me, it's with this wide eyed appeal for me to do... something.

 

Easier than a drunk cheerleader at the prom

Hordie Hat

I'm torn. I love knitting. I love WoW. At times though, trying to find WoW related projects means embracing my mortal enemies, the Horde.

WoW is separated into two factions, the Horde and the Alliance. Whenever you make a character on WoW, the first thing you decide is what faction you will be a hero for.

While searching Ravelry for a knitting chart depicting my the Lion insignia of my beloved Alliance, it seemed I could only find patterns for the significantly inferior Horde symbol. Truly tragic I know. Some day I fear I may have to come up with one (assuming I get more talent). Anyway, I knit a generic hat pattern, which I found on the AMAZING Kody May's Blog (please visit this knitters, she's kind of awesome). Afterwards I did duplicate stitching of the *cringe* horde chart on the front. Here's the result:

Not knowing what to do with this, but feeling the need to show the folks I play WoW with (I desperately crave approval from anyone and everyone); I brought it with me to visit my friend Lexi's brother. He's a fellow guildie and Buttonshire was at one point a Hordie (thankfully he wised up). Anyway, I brought it with me when we visited him, and somehow it found a home with him permanently. I just had an unpleasant thought... I hope he doesn't revert to being part of the unclean Horde masses!

Oh, I feel a the need to post a quick disclaimer: While there is just a smidge of bias in here, I think that there are good and bad people no matter what faction you choose. I just like teasing and pretending I care. Much like my whole UCLA vs USC cross town rivalry thing. When it comes down to it, I'm not desperately invested in believing one is better than the other. Again, it's just kinda fun to pretend like it's a huge deal when really it has about all the significance of choosing which statement you like better, "six" or "a half dozen".

Butterball's Disgusting Oozling colored hat

Another Wow story for you all. Over the summer my idle hands got the itch to knit again. Frustrated with all of my wips (works in progress), I asked my WoW playing friends for suggestions on projects to do.

I’m partial to making hats, so when my guildmate (we're both in Anxiety on Perenolde), Butterballs , mentioned that he wouldn’t hate it if I sent him something, I jumped at the chance. After quizzing him thoroughly, I found out he liked what I consider to be one of the fugliest (not a typo) colors ever. Fortunately for him, I found a yarn that’s somewhat similar to what he was describing. I eventually swallowed down the bile that had come up after seeing it, and knit him a hat.

Ear flaps, tassels, and a pompom later; this atrocious creation came into existence. Not so sadly, this is my only picture of said abomination. A warm welcome to Kevin (aka Steelrain), for bravely wearing and being the model of this monstrosity.

Disgusting Oozling - similar color, no?

I ended up sending it and (despite the hat) Butterballs still talks to me on WoW. Is this where I mention that it takes all kinds to make up this world?

WoW and Dropped Stitches

World of Warcraft and knitting can go together in so many different and strange ways.

Last night I logged in and jumped on my Warlock so that I could do the special Halloween event that’s taking place right now. While there are a few million people that play WoW, you typically only interact with the few hundred that are on your particular “realm”. Though, for the special event (fighting the Headless Horseman), you will meet up to four other players who might be from other realms. Last night, I noticed our group’s healer was from a guild called “Dropped Stitches”.

The Headless Horseman

After the fight, I asked the healer, Nyanaeve, if they were a knitter. She quickly responded that she was. Immediately we both asked each other “Are you on Ravelry?” A fast giggle later, we exchanged user names. Apparently the Dreanor realm has an Alliance guild of Ravelry Knitters. I love the name! Not only a knitting reference, “Dropped Stitches” refers to beating an abomination in the game called “Stitches” (the ugly brute on the left).

"Stitches"

What a wonderful small world (of warcraft)!

Promising Musical Scholar Falls Victim to Fashion Related Head Injury

This morning I got an email from my cousin, Dmitri (aka Moosa to family from his younger years - don't ask me how he got the nickname... I just heard it and it stuck). One of my previous knitted-gift victims, he can be seen wearing the Navy Twist hat I made for my dad.

Anyway, my cousin has the same incredible knack for music that is present in his nuclear family. His considerable talent is currently being nurtured in Bennington college, set among the woodland scenery in a deliciously rural part of Vermont. What does this mean? Well, aside from him having (hopefully) the time of his life in college; he's also in a cold climate. To me this means he needs LOTS and LOTS of knitted goodies to keep him warm.

Fortunately, he doesn't seem to protest. In fact, he indulges me by asking that I make him some goodies. This past summer while he was at home in Santa Monica for a few weeks, he went and selected some yarn he liked. My job was to turn it into hats with cables (he liked the hat I made which ended up being a chemo-cap for his mother, Aunt Randi). This was just as I was finishing my purse project, and soon my needles turned out two hats for him.




Well, as I was saying earlier (much earlier), warm fuzzies ensued this morning when I got the following email:

Dania,

My hats are so beautiful!! Thank you so much! Whenever I wear them and say my cousin made them they stop and say "wow, really??" They're quite awesome.

How you doin? Fall colors are SO unfortunate, I have to look outside my window and see all these glowing gradations between red and orange and yellow, and then see brilliant sunsets at the end of the day. Sometimes, when it's really shitty, there's snow on the mountains on a clear day, and you can see the colors and the snow. Shit.

Hope you're doing well, and thank you SO much for the beautiful hats (I bother my girlfriend by wearing them both at once, then rolling up the bottoms and clowning around)

Muah!
-Moosa

If you're interested in the patterns, the red hat was made using Cherry colored Red Heart yarn and Lizzy Grant's Garmish pattern (Click here for the Pattern if you're a member of ravelry). The second hat was made using Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice in Olive done in a pattern by Nancy Hand called Cabled Hat (again, click here for the pattern if you're a ravelry memeber) I found on Ravelry. A bit of warning though... that particular pattern wasn't as well written as I would like and on quite a bit of it I had to fake it. Still, for being a free pattern it's got some amazing cables, and was very close to what I imagined my cousin had in mind.




While I'm busy patting myself on the back for churning out those two projects relatively quickly; it should be noted that I also promised him a scarf that has yet to come into existence. Personally, I do hope I manage to get it done before he graduates, but no guarantees. Heehee, oops.

To Die Four

Sorry about the pun, but this dice bag is to die for. Since my brother plays Dungeons and Dragons, it seemed natural to make this dice bag for him. He desperately wanted it to be stiff enough to acutally roll whenever he needed a four sided die. Alas, Ray, me thinks that this little baby has a few too many human errors and modifications to be a fair roll.

Anyway, it took a bit of math, some embroidery thread (I probably could have gotten away with yarn though), a zipper, and a little over an afternoon, but I succeeded in making him a little happier in his weekly adventures.

Again, I found this amazing pattern from on Ravelry from a person who posted it for free. If you're interested in making it or checking out the original, it's here via livejournal (thank you klayre53!).