So the other day, one of my friends was having a really bad week. I’m not sure what all was going on with her, but I know there was lots. Some of her problems come from someone who has caused me a great deal of angst over the years, so I felt for her more than I normally would.

I started thinking about what I could do to give her a little moral support, to let her know that someone cares. That’s when it hit me that this yarn uncooperative yarn. With the odd fly-away fibers, it would make a great monster! I couldn’t wait to get home and try it.

The monster pattern I chose was Malcolm the Monday Monster. It’s another Rebecca Danger pattern, so I knew it would be easy and fast. My plan was to get it done this week so that I could have it waiting for her tomorrow when she comes in to work.

I’m happy to say that I finished it today!

I held the yarn double throughout and used size 15 eyes from 6060 on Etsy.

I plan to leave the monster for her with a note that says, “My name is Malcolm. Hopefully I am the most hairy thing you will have to deal with this week!”

I’m still amazed that anything so beautiful can grow in this ungodly heat.

I’ve also been knitting monsters. They’re so fun!

The latest is “Corbin, the Creative Monster”, from this month’s Knit Simple magazine. I used Dancing Dog Dyeworks Waltz Worsted in a colorway called “Monster in My Garden”. I need to take the guy out to introduce him to a real garden, but I have a shot of the completed monster to share.

The yarn was wonderful to work with. I love how the monster seems to have one green foot!

I took the idea from the Pinkalicious book. The story is about a little girl who goes rather overboard in her love of her favorite color, pink. It’s the basis of a whole series of books, but from the second I knew that my swap partner wanted pink, I couldn’t stop thinking about this book.

I started by knitting Claude the Closet monster in a really, really bright fuchsia yarn that I’ve had in my stash for a bit. It’s from 100PureWool.com. The yarn is soft and knits like a dream.

Then I made a sparkling skirt from some jeweled organza that I found at Joann’s. I simply took half of 1/8″ yard of the fabric, folded it in half (so that the fabric was doubled along the longest edge), gathered it along the unfinished edge, and then sewed ribbons over the gathers on both side.

Little Grump made the wings and crown. It’s cool seeing how her creative process is different than my own. She laid the finished monster down on the back side of some sparkling paper and then drew the wings around the monster’s body. Then she removed the monster and finished out the shape. (I likely would have just free-handed it and then had to re-do it because the wings were the wrong size!)

She did the same thing with the crown. Then we added some “jewels” from my scrapbook supply stash. (I think my house is a small version of the big box craft stores!)

We also made a wand, because every princess needs a wand!

Out of all of the toys that I’ve made and given away, this was the hardest one to let go. The girl that it was heading to deserves something nice though. She’s a great person, and she’s so creative. Anything less than awesome would have been cheating her.

Besides, there are lots more books in the series. The second book is Purplicious. I wonder what I can do with that one!

My house is full of projects like that.

Recently, I’ve been cleaning, so I unearthed the supplies. Since I needed some extra things to throw into my swap package, I figured I may as well make the magnets sooner rather than later.

I really enjoyed making them, and I plan on making more.

The person who will be receiving her gift before the year ends is Tippi. She is a Southern lady in every way. She is amazingly gentle at all times, and she has a way of reaching kids who others wouldn’t even try to reach. If I had to choose one word to describe her, it would be “class”.

To figure out what I would do for Tippi, I had one of her best friends sit down with me and look through my Ravelry queue and stash listings. Many of the yarns in my stash didn’t scream “class” enough or were too bright for her fair skin. However, our friend found a beautiful match that would be possible and appropriate.

The Annis shawl from Knitty.com has been in my queue for a long time. To date, over 3000 of these shawls have been listed on Ravelry, and from the comments, I hoped that the pattern would be something that I could handle.

The Malabrigo Sock yarn had also been in my stash for a long time. When I purchased it, I was looking for something bright purple. Instead, the yarn was a really, really dark purple. In some settings, the yarn actually looks more black than purple. Although it wasn’t what I wanted at the time, I liked it enough to keep it.

The yarn was a mess in the skein. Much to my surprise, it took about 3 1/2 hours to get it out of the skein and into a ball. The yarn was so tangled that I couldn’t even use my yarn-winder! (A scurry of blind squirrels could have done a better job preparing that skein for sale than what the folks at Malabrigo did!)

It was worth the battle though. The yarn was dyed beautifully, with a subtle variation in color that isn’t obvious from a distance but glorious up close.

I had some falls along the way. This was my first beaded project. On my first try, the gauge was too loose. The whole thing just looked sloppy. So I frogged and tried again on needles the next size below those recommended. Then when I was about 20 rows into the short row section, I realized that I had mistakenly read “p11″ as “pl 1″. That made the shawl really off-center.

The third try was the charm though. I put to stitch markers around the center stitch, and that kept me from getting lost.

Blocking was a pain, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that I don’t have super-fine blocking wires. I also thought about it this morning and realized that I could have achieved a more circular shape to the shawl if I’d used three wires along the bottom edge instead of two.

C’est la vie! The shawl still turned out better than what I’d hoped.

The recipient loved it so much that she ran around the school to show it off to anyone who would stand still long enough to look at it. (Much to my delight, quite a few people stopped for a very long time!)

I still feel like I failed a bit though. Tippi is a very special lady! While the shawl is beautiful, it still doesn’t match her!

When the Rebecca Danger’s “Big Book of Knitted Monsters” came in, it took Little Grump approximately 5 minutes to request one. She loved “Hugo the Couch Monster.” Given all the time she spends on the couch, she thought that it was the most appropriate of the bunch.

So here’s her version:

This one is made by a color of Malabrigo Worsted called “Pink Frost”. It’s an odd little color somewhere between pink, lavender, and gray. I bought the yarn at the Shabby Sheep ages ago, but the color was problematic for clothing items. When Little Grump picked the Couch Monster, I immediately thought of the color a sun-deprived potato might be and realized that the yarn had found its purpose.

Unfortunately, I realized about 2/3 of the way through that I wouldn’t have enough. I called The Shabby Sheep, but they were sold out. So I went looking online, and hurray! Eat, Sleep, Knit had some. Fortunately, the colors were very close to what I’d already been using!

This is one monster with character (aka big knitting errors). One leg is thicker than the other, one arm is lower than the other, and one eye is higher than the other. Even the belly button is a little lower than what I’d planned.

Fortunately, errors DO lead to character in knitted toys. Add a lopsided smile, and most casual observers wouldn’t notice the errors unless some dunderhead like me pointed them out.

Little Grump is over the moon about her. She named the monster Whitney after a Pokemon character. (Very appropriate for a couch potato, I think!) She loves all of the wonkiness and points out that it’s one of those cases where many wrongs makes it right.

I’m just happy she loves her!

Enough of that! What I really want to share is this guy:

I’ve called him “Scotty” after Scotty McCreery on American Idol. I was so caught up in Scotty’s performance that I made the tail much longer than necessary. And hey… The ears stick out like Scotty McCreery’s too!

I used Rebecca Danger’s Jerry the Musical Monkey pattern. As with all Rebecca Danger’s pattern, this one was brilliantly written with lots of pictures. However, I veered off the path a bit. I stuffed the feet before knitting all of the legs, which to me made sense. (Imagine my surprise when I found that the pattern didn’t give that insruction!) I also used larger eyes than specified. I love the wide-eyed crazy look!

I can’t wait to take this guy out and take pictures in the sunlight. He’s such a cutie!

He’s also going to Fiber Fest with me. I don’t know if Ann Hanson will mind him crashing her class, but we’re going to try!

My first finished project of the year…

I made this hat for Mr. Grump, but then Mr. Grump assured me that he only wears baseball caps.

Excuse me while I glare at him with my Grump face!

…

I’m better now. Fortunately, I know some people who are knit-worthy. Maybe my pal the art teacher (who I suppose I shall call Ms. Art) or one of her men will wish to wear it. (They are most certainly knit-worthy!)

The yarn Berroco Comfort. I normally hate acrylic or acrylic blends, but this is killer soft and didn’t kill my hands. It’s also washable, which is a bit plus.

And look at the color! Is that Texas Longhorns color or what?

On the up-side, I did a whole bunch of knitting.

On the down-side, I didn’t communicate at all.

It’s not that I didn’t *want* to communicate.  I did!  I just didn’t take the time.

Whoops.

I do have some knitting news, but I’ll get to that later.

Now I’m back in school and very busy again.  We’ve had a bit of a rocky start of the year for reasons that I’d rather not go into.  The teamwork is there, but sometimes life just doesn’t give you the smooth path that you really should have.

Here’s an example:

Those who know me well would say that I’m a zealot when it comes to the topic of backing up data. My co-workers would tell you that I am the thorn in their sides when it comes to the topic.  I preach at length on the subject of never leaving your data on a computer that can crash and burn tomorrow. I have encouraged them to invest in a good back-up drive, and I’ve even gone to Best Buy with a friend to help her buy one.  I know that I drive folks bonkers on the subject, but I’ve never been wrong.  It’s smart to not leave all of your eggs in one basket.

I try to practice what I preach.  I have one 120 GB hard drive.  I learned my back-up lesson when that drive had issues.  So I bought a sweet 32o GB drive (that looks like a booze flask) to which I back up all kinds of data.

Starting the beginning of the year, I’d say I had the disk about 75% full.  There were thousands of files on it.  (That’s not an exaggeration!)  This was even after I backed up three years of photos to DVDs at the end of the last school year.  I had three years of photos, movies, custom artwork, award layouts, PHP scripts and more backed up to the drive.  It was my life-insurance policy against the worst.

Notice that I said “was” and “had”?

Yeah…

Last Friday, I reimaged my work computer using the “Deploy Studio”.   For those not familiar with the concept, Deploy Studio takes a master image and copies it to the hard drive, giving everything a fresh install of the OS and all of the programs installed on the computer.  Generally, it’s good to do it on a heavily used computer because it speeds up the computer and gets rid of stuff that isn’t really used.   It wasn’t until the computer was completely reimaged that I realized two very bad things:

1. I had not unplugged my 320 GB drive.
2. Deploy Studio targets the first available hard drive as a default.
3. The computer listed the removable hard drive as the first available drive.

When I rebooted, I noticed that nothing had changed on my system.  It was like one of those comedy movies when you see the camera slowly zooming in as the Clue finally dawns on the unsuspecting buffoon.  I had a ringing in my ears as I checked the listing of files on the drive.

In less than 20 minutes, I’d completely wiped out over three years of work.  Thousands of files (very likely tens of thousands of files)… poof… gone.

I wanted to throw up.  I don’t know how I didn’t.  (Very likely, the only thing that stopped me was the fear of having a six year old student see the computer expert throw up in the middle of the lab!)

People think I’m pretty clever with computers, but most of what I know about computers I learned by totally screwing up somewhere.  In the grand scheme of “learning opportunities”, I think this is going to be a big one!

I’ve already tried one path, and I’ll share the quick, cheap, and dirty process in the next few days.  But it was far from perfect.  I want 75% of the data back, if not more.  (I’m not foolish enough to expect perfection!)

So this weekend, during the long Labor Day weekend (trust me… the irony is not lost on me!), I’m going to go about attempting to retrieve the data that I lost.  I’ll be posting updates as I go along so that if you, dear reader, are stuck in the same position, you’ll have some idea of how to get back your data (if you can).  You can say to yourself, “Self, I remember that Grace was once an absolute moron and almost lost everything.  What did she do to recover?”

Seriously, though, I hope you NEVER need the information!

Now for the knitting news…

You may remember my Earth Maiden shawl that I finished earlier in the year.  Out of everything that I’ve ever knit, it’s the one thing that I think was practically perfect. The yarn that was handspun by my friend Micki was exquisite, and my knitting didn’t do anything to take away from it.   Several people who saw it agreed that it was amazing.

Their approval made me feel braver than I’ve ever been before.  So I submitted the shawl to the State Fair of Texas for judging for the Knitted Shawls, Wraps, and Ponchos category.  After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting I finally got the results.  I am utterly surprised to find out that my Earth Maiden was awarded an Honorable Mention for the category.  That means that it will be on display at the State Fair this year!

I’m shocked!  I hoped that it would qualify, but I really didn’t think it would.  I mean, it’s the first time I ever submitted anything for judging!  I would have loved a higher rating, but I’m more than satisfied at the rating.  (I poked around Ravelry and found the 2nd place winner for the category.  Trust me when I say that, with all objectivity, that item made mine look like child’s play!  I can’t wait to see the first place entry!)

I’m very excited!  We’ve been meaning to go to the State Fair since we moved down here.  (Rumor has it, it’s the biggest and best state fair.  Of course, every Texan thinks everything about Texas is the best!)  We’ve never gone though because it has always been too hot or too wet or too inconvenient or something.  Hubby swears that we will certainly go this year.

Just in case though… If you go to the fair, take a picture for me!

I’ve still found some time to squeeze in some knitting projects.

I finished the hip bag that was supposed to be a birthday present for my art teacher pal.  I used the hand-dyed yellow that I talked about weeks ago and a couple other colors from my stash.  I tried two new techniques with this bag.

First, I did needle felting for the first time.  I’d had the supplies for ages, but didn’t get around to using them until now.  I don’t know why I haven’t tried it before, because it’s dead easy!  Just put the fiber down and poke, poke, poke, poke to your heart’s content!  I found it to be quite therapeutic.  On the day that I made the big needle-felted flower on the flap of the bag, I had a very frustrating day, and it felt very good to stab the bejeesus out of something!

I also did kumihimo weaving for the first time.  I’d seen a class of people doing it at the Shabby Sheep retreat, and I thought that it would be an awesome thing to do for a handle of a bag.  I ordered the supplies online and then set up the loom.  Much to my surprise, Little Grump grabbed the loom almost the second I put it down and started working on it.  So we ended up sharing the work on the 51″ handle!  The result was not quite as bright and “happy” as I really wanted, but I really wanted my friend to have the bag.  I figure that I can go back and make another handle for the bag later on, when I have a bit more time to offer.

I also worked on a baby blanket for one of my co-workers.  I tried Cascade 220 Superwash for the first time, and I like it!  After washing, the blanket is soft and has just the slightest bit of a halo.

The pattern came from Jared Flood.  His patterns are always well written, and this one was no exception.  I would make one change if I do this pattern again, though.   The last stitch of the row is a kfb, which means that it’s not all that easy to smoothly pick up the stitches along the edge.  I didn’t do too great of a job because the end stitches were just oo tight.  While I don’t know if a non-knitter would notice, I do.

Still, the blanket is pretty, and I’m sure that the recipient will love it.  I’m relieved to have finished it before the baby is born and before the teacher has a chance to depart for the summer.  (I still haven’t been able to give the Equal Parts blanket to its intended recipient!)

There’s only a few more days of school, but I have a couple more weeks before I start summer break.  I’ll likely work beyond then though.  Little Grump needs to take some summer school, and I’ll go stir crazy after a few days of everyone being gone during the day.  Or not.  Maybe I’ll sit and knit and watch chick flicks all day!