Stix on the Beach: Tales From The Happiest Hooker!

In-A-Gadda-In-Tar-Sia-Da-Vinci, Baby!

Let me just state what we've all thought about Intarsia:  Intarsia sounds like an indie-craftster Hipster stripper name. Hi, my name's Intarsia. Let's get twisted. Seriously, every time someone asks me what I'm doing, I'm like, "I'm doing Intarsia" and have to stop myself from licking my knitting needle in some provocative manner.

In case you don't know, Intarsia is a pretty friggin' easy knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colors. But if you were to ask a snooty knitter who has advanced to making more than just single-color scarves, the conversation would go like this, if you were me:

Me: Intarsia doesn't seem too different than Fair Isle, and Fair Isle was fairly easy to figure out, so Intarsia shouldn't be that hard to learn, huh?
Snotty Knitter: Have you gone to college?
Me: Um, I've been going off and on over the years.
Snooty Knitter: Well, you need at least a J.D. to practice Intarsia.
Me: Isn't that a law degree?
Snooty Knitter: Yes, you must master trickery to understand Intarsia.
Me: I took a Women In History course.
Snooty Knitter: You're really a crocheter, aren't you?

I'm not sure why Intarsia is often made to seem harder to figure out than Inception. Whoever started that rumor about Intarsia is the same person who lied about purling being the most complicated thing ever in the whole wide world. And I admit, for several days I stared at the instructions for Intarsia, with all its mystical incantations like, "bring the CC strand over the MC strand,bring MC from under CC" and I thought, "What is with all this fuckedupness?!"

Then I took a nap.
And when I woke up, I found this video:

...and I totally did Intarsia. And loved it.
Stick around for more twisted tips in the next post!

On a Flat Note

I spent my weekend going around in circles learning how to knit flat with circular needles. After viewing several tutorials and listening to videos of knitters talking in circles, I finally found straight-forward instructions on Knit Picks.

You may be wondering why was I attempting to knit flat with needles that are typically used to knit-in-the-round. It's because I started out wanting to make a variation of the Little Johnny's Patchwork blanket. And knitting a big-ass blanket in one piece, like the one I had in mind, is typically done on circular needles, where the stitches are worked without joining.

Yes! You can do that! I was totally stoked about it too!  So that's how you knit blankets that cover more than just your neck! I was still totally confused ― but Google Search assured me I wasn't alone in my bewilderment. By the time I figured it out,  and done the math to cast on correctly, and was a few rows into the seed stitch border ― I decided the patchwork pattern didn't give me the design freedom I wanted for my project.  And also 'cause the pattern required a tad more brain cells than I could muster in my PMS state-of-mind. So I ripped out what I started.

But, ohmygod, how fun are circular needles? As you can see, the needles weren't empty for long! I'll get you in the loop about that in the next blog post!

Croakin' & Crochetin'

A knitting frog vs. frogging your knitting.

I walked into my bedroom the other day and found a crocheted frog knitting. I wasn't totally shocked, 'cause I'm the one who made her. The knitting part, though, was a bit of a surprise. She looked quite stunned when I quickly snapped a photo.

I crocheted Froggy Without A First Name as a Christmas present for Mom. It's a super easy pattern from a vintage MacCall's Christmas Knit & Crochet magazine. I'll be adding details over on my Ravelry project page — you know, the important stuff,  like the hook sizes, an enlarged photo of the written pattern — stuff that'll make it easier if you want to make one too!

My mom's fondness for frogs might have had something to do with my obsessive habit of catching and cleaning 'em in a cereal bowl when I was little. I'm still really confused why there were so many frogs in our backyard. We lived in the outskirts of  L.A. —  not Louisiana!

The secrets out! I'm a natural blond.

By the way, if this long-limbed amphibian seems familiar to some of you: I made a black & white boy one a few Christmases back. I'm thinking next Christmas I'll crochet up some tadpoles.