It’s like the octomom except with less babies and more awesome!  I promised you ridiculous and well, I think I delivered times 8 (get it?! get it?!).   I figured out I have another fan, even if she is required to love me because she is dating one of my rowing team boys and gaining my approval is right around as important as meeting their real moms.  Either way the key to my heart is complements on my knitting…and gin.  So one out of two is not bad!  For this little lady, nothing short of a ridiculous octopus hat will do.  You may be asking yourself, Julie why is this hat wearing a bow tie?  Because it’s a mother effing octopus and they rock bow ties idiot!  If it didn’t have the bow tie how would you know it’s not a squid or a spider or some other leggy creature?  Duh.  Get with the program folks.

Octo-pattern:

Size seven needles, red heart wool yarn in slimy octopus blue.  The tricky part of this guy is actually just the legs.  After spending years battling with and blocking my knitting to keep it from curling (a natural response to stockknit stitch), these tentacles actually WANTED curls.  To make them appropriately creepy.  So fear not, the curl comes naturally (just like with my hair!).  Cast on 2 stitches.  Knit three rows than increase 1 on the fourth row.  Now you have 3 stitches on the needle, you want to keep with this pattern til you have 6.  Stockknit 3 rows, increase 1 on the fourth, repeat.  I found that regular stockknit worked out just fine, but if you want to make it look like he has those suction cup things on the edges of the tentacle than instead of regular stockknit, your purl rows should look like k1, purl to 1 stitch before the end, k1.  When you reach 6 stitches just stockknit to desired longness.  You really just have to eyeball that. When you get it long enough cut the yarn without casting off.  Store the tentacles on a spare needle.  Make 8 of these, or 9 if you want your octohat to have a bonus arm!!

I asked Chris what ratio of ridiculous to wearable he wanted this hat to be.  He said I could err on the side of ridiculous, but I knew I wanted a space in the front for a face to go.  So I knew to push the tentacles to the back and leave an opening in the front. 

So for the cast on:

Cast on 1 stitch, knit on tenticle,2 stitches, tentacle, 2st, tent, 2 st, tent, 34 st, tent, 2st, tent, 2st, tent, 2st, tent, 1 st.  And there you have it!  Now I bet you can guess what I’ll say next:  hathat it up!  You have 96 sts on your needle right now so you just stock knit that for 6 or 7 inches (include a 4 row line of red for the bowtie near the bottom) and then do your decreases as normal:

Row 1:  Knit 6, Knit 2 together repeat across row

Row 2: purl

Row 3:  Knit 5, knit 2 together, repeat

Row 4: purl

Continue til you do a row of knit 2 together all the way across.  Cut the yarn and stitch up the hat.

Bow tie:  I just knit (not stockknit, regular knit) 20 stitches for about an inch.  I bound it off and then wrapped the middle with the same color yarn so it pinched in.  Then you just sew to the middle of your red band.

Eyes:  Like monster mitten eyes.

There you go.  Octohat complete.  I’m currently experimenting with a squid hat now.  It will be pink and I’ll make it a slouchy hat.  With a purple hair bow because duh.  How would you tell it from the octopus with the bow tie?  In honor of the sillyness of this hat.  Please enjoy this montage of my friends posing with octohat.  Don’t question it.  Just love it:

I know.  I know.  It’s hard to believe.  But I do.  I knit boring things.  Some people might use the word “normal” instead of boring.  Meh whatever, if it doesnt have a face, inappropriate words, or reference to being a champion or harry potter, I probably think its boring.  Sometimes you have to do it though.  As evidenced by my absence you can tell it takes me longer to knit boring things.  Also, I was dealing with a mild case of carpal tunnel for a while and had to spend some time not “hittin the needles”.  I can tell you from this experience I’ve lost all ability to sit on my couch and watch tv without something in my hand.  I have now read all of the internet.  I ordered a Def Leppard shirt from china and learned how to distress it myself, read plot synopsis of all 6 seasons of the Sopranos (he totally got killed at the end!  Im a believer!), planned an entire trip to Hawaii, and started tweeting incessantly at my favorite wrestlers (what up CM Punk! call me!). 

Eventually I managed to bang out some practice items.  See real knitters tend to know how to do elaborate things with knitting like make sweaters and gloves that can be sold at stores.  My dirty little secret is that while fucking amazing, its actually not that hard to bang out a pair of socks that look like they are eating your feet.  So I tried to learn to do the hard stuff (that sentence is going to result in hundreds of junkie internet google phrase searches landing on my webpage, what up scummers!  call me too!). 

I started with cable knitting.  Because its in my blood.  All those Irish sweaters the clancy brothers wore on their album covers are called cable knit:

Those are some good looking bros, with the voices of angels.  Anyway I’m not up to full on sweaters yet as you will note later so I started with a pair of gloves for my aunt.  Aunt’s love gloves and I have approx 657 aunts in my family.

I used this pattern here: 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cabled-wristwarmers

Then added a cuff with a button to awesome them up a little.  By this point my wrist was already hurting so you will notice I omitted the fingers on these bad boys…  I’m sure that won’t be an issue right?  I mean how cold does it get in chicago anyway?  Haha suckers.

And a picture of my foxy aunt modeling said gloves.  She’s putting the clancy brothers to shame with how Irish she is. 

So the other knitting technique that real knitters know how to do is Fair Isle.  This one I’m sure you’ve all heard of before.  You can buy it at stores and its really trendy for ski wear.  It’s the really busy patterns with lots of colors. My ma bought me a book for beach reading called “Sweater Quest” where this woman goes on a fair isle journey.  This left me mostly just wanting to go to Scotland where the actual Fair Isles are, but also desperate to give it a try.  Did you know patterns for fair isle knitting are made in such a way that you never use one color for more than 4 stitches sideways or above?  You also have to learn to knit with both hands so you can keep some of the colors in your left and some in your right.  It’s super hard.  So naturally, I kicked its ass.  Sort of.  As previously stated I’m not up to real sweaters yet or clearly my sister in law would have a sweater with her dogs face on it, and the dog would have one with her face on it (stay tuned for that in 2014!).  So I just made one for a stuffed animal.  Stuffed animals are a lot smaller than real people and they dont really care when I run out of the blue yarn I was using and switch midway to another shade:

PS that dog was my first ever build a bear.  I made him into an MMA fighter obviously.  You can’t see but he has on trunks with skulls on them and a gold medal because he is the best in the world.  He is thoroughly humiliated in this sweater.  Close up on fair isle detailing:

Pattern here: http://www.kidsknits.com/free/monkstergetsstranded.html

So basically I just learned 2 new skills that only produce boring things at the moment.  If I can find a way to fair isle knit a pattern with golden snitches on it or cable knit lightening bolts well then its a different story.  In the mean time I promise promise the next items I knit will in fact be ridiculous again.  But first I’m going to hawaii and watching 6 seasons of sopranos…

I’m back bitches!

I was a very prolific knitter in the days leading up to Christmas.  It has sadly left me with a mild case of carpal tunnel (diagnosed  by Dr. Mom.  She knows things trust me.  She has an md/phd in LIVING yo).  In the mean time please enjoy this gem from Christmas:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is my 85 year old Grampa.  He is amazing.  If you could take Kermit the Frog and Bing Crosby and combine them into a person.  It would be gramps.  He is the best:

Please ignore my Uncle Mike in the background of this photo.  He recently retired and decided to become a Swarthy Pirate.  He.  Is also the best.

Anyway, Gramps has a habit of returning presents you buy him.  He says he is old and doesnt need anything.  Last year we thought we had struck gold by getting him a towel warmer, who doesnt want warm towels right?  He opened it and laughed in our faces while saying “I dont want that!”  I love him.  No need to filter your thoughts after you turn 80! So this year.  I decided he would get something non returnable.  BECAUSE I MADE IT MYSELF.  Take THAT gramps!  Not only was it home made, but it was absurd.  You are welcome.

Cue jaws theme music now:  Duuuuuuuuuuuuh nuh.  Duuuuuuuuuuh nuh.  Duuuuuuuh nuh.  Duuh nuh.  Duh nuh.  Duhnuh duhnuh duhnuh:

SHARK SOCKS!!!!

Just look at his face!  He loooooooooooves them!  Trust me once I got them onto his feet he “warmed up to them” get it?  Pun!

Close up!

I used this pattern here:

http://www.freevintageknitting.com/socks/no308-socks-pattern.html

Which was outrageously amazing because it uses only straight needles and after banging out a bunch of mitten sets for aunts i was toasted on knitting in the round.  The shark teeth were tricky.  I drew a slanted line with triangles in MS paint and sent it to knit pro for guidance but mostly i free handed that part.  It could use some tweaking but I LOVE THESE SOCKS.  My one regret is not using googely eye buttons.  But then again, I don’t want to ruin their classiness…  Who does not want a shark eating thier foot??  I’ll tell you who.  Nobody.  Even bingkermit grampa loves them.  And he knows what’s cool.

Stacy got tired of my verbal abuse and finally sent me some pictures of her.  She even knew without me telling her to include a picture with her dog.  Because duh.

Please note stacy’s wardrobe.  During finals week one time instead of learning Engineering math or probability and statistics, I made this shirt for her with my other favorite crafting past time, paint pens. (I know, and I build all your rockets too, be afraid).  Zoom in on my sweet tracing ability:

She wanted me to point out how outrageously small I made this shirt.  I think it was a little boys undershirt taken from where else but, Target.  Seriously if this isn’t a PSA to keep kids off alcohol I don’t know what is.  Wait until you are 21 to drink kiddies and you can have all the monster mittens and sweet rainbow tshirts you’ve ever dreamed of! 

She also included this picture with this sentence explaining why:

“The rainbow belt is just necessary cause what is going to make the rainbows that Starlight runs on.”

…annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd this is why we are friends.

LOVE!!!

My Sophomore year of college I lived in a rainbow colored room on the top floor of a dorm without an elevator.  When you live on the top floor of a dorm without an elevator and just pulled 2 by 2k at practice that morning, you tend to not ever LEAVE your dorm.  Thankfully I had the greatest roomate of all time that year and we never cared.  Stacy put up with a year of my alarm going off at 5am, counseled me in all things relationship, knitted with me, and instigated all kinds of general non-sense.  When your boyfriend calls you to hang out and you reply “sorry stacy and I are spelling our names out of jello jigglers tonight.”, that’s when you know you’ve found a winner of a friend. 

Lest you think I have suddenly gone soft let me assure you I also got our entire freshman floor to somehow refer to her by the “nickname” big dumb rhino, almost KILLED her when she left a pumpkin in our room to rot over christmas break, and have her saved forever in my phone as Stacy Whorebag.  

I think two of our favorite activities (this is what happens when you dont drink til you are 21 kiddies!) were going to the loop for chinese food, bead store, and blockbuster tuesdays, and trips to the target toy section (when the washu shuttle wasnt being a jerk).  Of all the magic to come out of that target toy section the videos were the best.  We scored all of the seasons of fraggle rock, 1 season of carebears, and.  the most magical.  rainbow brite.

LOOK AT ALL THOSE COLORS BITCHES!!!  LOOK AT THE COLORS AND I DEFY YOU TO BE SAD!!!

If Stacy could have a life icon I think it might be Rainbow Brite.  If Stacy could have a dream job I think it would be flying around the sky on a magical horse spreading color stars and fighting the evil of Murky and Lurky.  And if Stacy harassed me one more time about monster mittens I was going to punch her in the nose.  So.  She got a pair of Starlight the magical flying horse mittens!!

Done the same as any monster mitten, but with the added intarsia knit star on the forehead.  The mane had me stumped for a while.  But ultimately engineering prevailed and i realised i could just sew a bunch of giant loops, cut them along the top and then tie a knot in the two resulting ends.  I also added a rainbow band along the bottom, because ef you more rainbows are always the correct answer, do you need to see that picture again???

How about this one??  I’m telling you, if you are ever having a bad day do a google image search on Rainbow Brite (safety filter ON because people are weirdos!). Also did you know the orange color kid was named La La Orange and she had a french accent?  You can tell because she is wearing a beret see.  Rainbow Brite is so worldly.

I asked Stacy for a picture of her wearing her mittens in the cold cold STL, but she is being a skank and not sending them.  Perhaps I will add them later.  In the mean time please enjoy this picture of Katie Brite and her extra large sprite Brent.  …I’m not sure how we convinced either of them this was a good halloween costume.  Booze was likley involved.

Happy Holidays Blog Readers!

My spectacular best girlfriend just left me for greener pastures in Texas.  And while I’m sure in no time she will be wrangling cowboys and riding cattle (or whatever you do down there…) I definitely miss her out here on the beach.   She decided on a road trip from Cali to her new home so I knit her a sassy puppy co-pilot for the journey from my knit your own dog book.  Cosette the french bulldog turned her nose up at Cali and guided Katie safely to her new home.

They even visited some national monuments…  Although cosette would like you to know she is more of an “indoor dog”… (she did not complain when they hit vegas.)

Because Texas is a real place and not fantasy land like California.  Real estate is not obscene and you can afford the type of apartments where owning a dog is allowed.  So hopefully in good time snooty french knitted Cosette will have a real live sister (Eponine perhaps?)

Since this post is dog related I decided I was allowed to post more indulgent pictures of my own past puppies (did I mention the higgins’s are dog people?).  Enjoy. 

Before you say it, I know, I promise.  I understand JUST how mexican I look in both of these pictures.  Although I really can’t even be blamed for that first one.  Its like my parents were TRYING to subtly let me know I am the milkmans daughter.  Rest assured the matter is under investigation.  In the mean time, focus on how cute puppy brandy and kerry are instead and…  Viva la Raza baby!

I think Bubba likes it.

Check out that shiny gold belt on everyone’s favorite champion yo!

I was raised by 2 older brothers.  They taught me the finer points in life at an early age.  I knew all the words to Sweet Child Of Mine before my sixth birthday, I had a collection of GIJoe action figures that could rival any boy on the block, and I could get out of the figure four leg lock in less than 10 seconds.  I’m pretty sure I can still do that too, so go ahead.  Try me.  WWF wrestling was a staple in our house.  We went to a live show for one of my brother’s birthdays and never missed a match or fued.  I remember the boys always got excited when it snowed outside because it meant they had a “soft mat” with which to practice drop kicks and body slams on.  What else are little sisters for anyway?  Really this was an excellent way to grow up, I highly recommend it.  But it did present some problems later in life.  For example while most girls my age were busy pining away after the squeaky clean boys of NKOTB or BSB I was falling in love with men like this guy:

Long feathered hair, spandex pants, and tattoos…everything I’ve ever wanted in a man…This is Shawn Michaels and in fact in this picture he is such a bad ass mofo that he has TWO belts. That’s right.  World Heavyweight AND Intercontinental at the same time baby.  How can you NOT want to love him?????  This has directly led to some of my scummier dating decisions later on in life.  Every time one of my brothers tries to say “Julie, you are dating a scumbag arent you? Don’t let him rob you.” or “Julie no wonder he broke your heart!  He is an inconsiderate asshole who works at a gas station!” I feel compelled to point out that THEY did this to me.  It’s their own fault.  Love and wrestling go hand in hand in our family.  For example, please enjoy this picture from Brian’s wedding.  That is his bride draped in gold (this is how you know she is a keeper!), with 2 tag team belts (groomsmen presents) in the background.  Higgins Family Wedding.  No Big Deal.

I hope you can see where this is leading.  For Brian’s birthday I decided.  Just because dammit, I CAN.  To KNIT A WWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION BELT.  Yep.  Yep I did.  It was an enormous undertaking that began back in July actually. I required the help of my friend mark to photoshop me a line drawing to send to the pattern generator.  I went searching for just the right shades of gold yarn and buttons. I used the tiniest needles I could before my eyes started to give way so that I could include as much detail as possible.  And I learned how to wet block a knitting project to get it to lay flat just right.  It nearly killed me.  But I finished (only 2 days late for his birthday!).  

I cannot begin to layout the details of this pattern for you.  But here is the line drawing:

  Set on XL landscape on the knitpro page it ends up being 96 stitches accross at its widest i think?  I used size 2 needles.  I just sewed the letters on because damn.  The sides of the belt are 40 stitches wide and just knit straight stockknit like a scarf.  I used an Iron on seam fuser to connect the belt to the center piece.  One end of the belt has buttons on it:

And one end has 2 rows of adjustable button holes (3 stitches long). 

The blocking was the most annoying part.  I soaked it in water and stretched it tight over my yoga mat to dry for 2 days and when it STILL wasnt all the way dry took a hair dryer to it.  And then when it STILL wasnt flat enough I ironed the shit out of it.  In the future I might knit a back for this to keep it from rolling permanently.  But we will see about that… In the mean time feast your eyes on the most amazing thing I have ever knit.  I AM A REAL AMERICAN! FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OF EVERY MAN!  FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS!  FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFFFFFFFFFFFFFE!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Big Brother.  Thank you for raising me right.  You are a champion to me always.

LOVE!!!!

I think it’s safe to say I am an easily excitable person.  You may have noticed that things like math, harry potter, knitting, scummers, and gin all cannot be typed about in this blog without a minimum three exclaimation points.  In fact, I usually find myself proofreading for !!!’s.  I just, can’t help it.  But there is one thing that you do not mess around with when it comes to the Higgins family.  And that my friends, is puppies. 

My uncle Yuri said there is only 2 times in my life he has seen me cry.  Once was the night I discovered an app for my ipad that enabled me to shake the screen and get a new picture of a puppy every time (the infamous shake for puppies night) and the other was when a random stray puppy wandered through his open door one night right into our living room.  It was too much happy.  I had no choice but to weep.  My folks raised me this way.  When normal families were taking summer vacations to somewhere cool, my ma was taking me to the AKC dog show downtown.  My ma recently just had brain surgery.  Brain.  Surgery.  And was out puppy shopping like a week later.  You do not stop the Higgins when it comes to dogs.  Puppies.  Are serious business. 

The Higgs family had 2 wonderful golden retreivers growing up.  The first was Brandy.  She was a Higgins sibling, so she had to be a tough cookie.  Before we had whiskey to prove how hardass we were, we had royal rumbles in the backyard pool:

The second was Princess Kerry.  She was my parents empty nest puppy.  I think they actually have more pictures of her than any of us kids.  She was featured on the daily puppy website once and it was the proudest day of my ma’s life.  Like no joke.  She has 3 employed children but the day her dog was complimented by random internet strangers was THE BEST.  (Feel free to add compliments)

http://www.dailypuppy.com/dog/kerry_1593

Anyway, this is all important because I found this book:

Are you kidding me?!  Yes.  Yes I will knit all of these thank you very much.

I started with the lab puppy.  I have a friend Mark from college.  Who is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  And as such, has some of the nicest parents I’ve ever met.  Seriously.  Since moving to California they have become a set of second parents to me.  Their generousity has blown me away and I’m so lucky to know and love that whole family.  So when they moved into their new beach house in Newport and invited me down to visit I knew I had to knit them a present!

They have two beautiful show quality black Labs, Moxy and Jazz.  They are identical. So I wanted to knit her 2 identical lab puppies.  But FAIR WARNING!  It is not as easy as it looks to knit these dogs!  I would not call this a beginner book at all!  There was an entire type of stitch I had never heard of before and I knit the dogs head on backwards twice before i figured it out.  The result was sadly I was only able to complete one puppy by our labor day bbq but I promised to finish the other in good time.  I used pipe cleaners to make him sturdier and decided on sparkly blue for the collar. 

Anyway over all I absolutley recommend this book.  The dogs are adorable and sometimes its nice to have a smaller project to occupy yourself with.  I will be knitting dogs all fall so let me know if you’d like your very own.  Also, keep your eye out because the day I find a “knit your own scummer” book.  Well.  There will be weeping.

LOVE!!!

I’m frequently asked why I selected knitting over crochet.  The short answer is because I think crochet is ugly.  Oh, are you offended crochet?  Well you are fat and stupid too.  BAM I spit truth like fire.

Oh also, it’s because I thought crochet was harder.  When I knit I like to zone out.  I put on a Harry Potter Marathon (which occupies 90% of our DVR until my Roomate threatens me with death) and just knit up a storm.  I don’t do well with counting.  I just want to knit til all the stitches are off one needle, then switch hands and do it again.  You can even do it drunk (I swear!)!  Crochet requires you to count, and yes, it’s also ugly.  I wasn’t just being a bitch.  I think crochet scarves, hats, and mittens are ugly.  You might think, “I can’t tell the difference.”  But you can.  Go look at your handmade scarf.  Is it ugly?  OK, then it’s crochet.  Most winterwear is made with knitting.  Crochet has a niche place in blankets because of its ability to be sized up.  And that is fine.  But let me tell you right now once my newly married brother pops out a kid, I will SHOW you what a knitted baby blanket can look like, and it will blow your mind.

Anyway all this is important because I stumbled on something I wanted to make.  But it was crochet:

http://www.crochettoday.com/crochet-patterns/julie-cuff

Now you might think I was just vainly googling my name when I found this bad boy.  FALSE.  I was doing something way cooler.  I was googling “knit jewelery”…  Shut up, I’m cool.   All these bob dylan concerts and scummer fests left me thinking i needed more hippie jewelery.  So I decided to make my own.  Turns out crochet occupies another important niche and that is the jewelery department.  Most people would see that this was crochet and give up.  I said ef you crochet I will LEARN you!  

So I set about learning to crochet.  An important note here.  If you do want to go to the dark side and learn, I recommend something like this.  A small project with cocentric circles.  Crocheting in circles is WAY easier than lines.  Still have to count, but less.  So I started with a big needle and yarn.  And practiced til I could move down to the tiny needle and thread.

It’s not easy.  It took me probably Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Goblet of Fire, and Half Blood Prince to get it right.  (And CLEARLY a rocking fun saturday).  But once I figured it out I moved on to the fabric stiffener.  It really looks better as a stiffened cuff.  So get yourself some stiffener, dilute it SLIGHTLY but not a lot with water and coat the bracelet.  Then wrap it around a bottle to dry.  We always happen to have bottles of wine laying around the house so I easily found  one for my purposes.  Wait overnight for it to dry and ta-da!   My foray into crochet is complete:

I LOVE how this turned out.  And I’m not alone.  Every time I wear it out someplace one of my girlfriends loves it and steals it.  I’m not kidding I’ve made 6 of these now and I only kept one for myself.  And I’m sure next time I wear it someplace that one is out the door too.  Crochet Jewelery is apparently a hot ticket right now.  2 of my girlfriends even got in a full out middle school style fight over it at a dodgers game one night.  And here is how you know I’m destined for sons: I didn’t even care one bit about their fight, I was just annoyed their yelling was drowning out the baseball.

So just to recap:  Crochet causes fighting and dissonance.  Knitting, love and peace.  

So knitting is for loverzzzz and crochet is for haterzzzz.

(and ugly people.)

LOVE!!!!