Welcome to The City of Desire.

I started working on the Carpenter Sweater from a Rowan pattern book a week and a half ago. I had been knitting something else but for some reason the metal needles I were using made the skin on my fingertips peel off. I don't know if it's just dry skin or I'm allergic to nickel. Either way I decided to take a break and work with something on wooden needles. :O

The yarn I'm using is Knit Picks Swish in Bordeaux. It's not very stretchy for wool but it's nice and soft. I must finish this sweater! I had been pining for a red sweater for a long time. The bottom is going to have a twisted cord drawstring. Weird, huh?

But jeez, that looks tiny on the needle! I always have trouble with hand-knitted sweaters bagging on me and I have great hopes for this one.

I finished Vol. One of Barbara Ikai last night. Ball-joint dolls have appeared in the manga!

Amazingly enough I've managed to finish the back of my mother's sweater in ONE DAY! ^o^

I'm making it out of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky in Emerald. Compared to the DK weight yarn that I'm used to working with, this stuff works up amazingly fast. In terms of quick and fulfilling projects, sweaters made with bulky-weight yarn are right up my alley!

Too bad they make you look fat.

Well, here's to hoping this sweater doesn't make my mom look fat! ^_^;....She's not much bigger than me but maybe it'd make me look fat too? If I were making it for myself I probably would want it in mauve or some shade of blue. My mother has olive skin and dark brown hair so I thought emerald green would be a good idea.

I made french press coffee for the first time in months tonight. Damn, that stuff is good.

I'm taking a short break from the Andean Silk sweater because working with alpaca has been wearing the tips off my fingers. Because I can't help myself, in the meantime I'm trying to make headway on the ChicKnits Gigi Sweater. Originally it was supposed to be made with Cotton Fleece but I wanted to try it out with Knit Picks Merino-Style. Here it is in Rhubarb. A mighty strange color.

I was leery of doing the entire sleeve on double-pointed needles but Merino-Style is such a breeze to work with! I'm not too happy about having to make two of these, though....^_^;

On the gaming front, I just saw a preview video for the newest Seiken Densetsu game, Dawn of Mana, on youtube. And what the frig, Squeenix!? This game is a prequel to Children of Mana?! The English language narration says it takes place ten years before CoM. And considering that CoM takes place after a catastrophe that happened years ago, and there's a character in the DoM trailer that bears a striking resemblance to CoM's Nazo no Otoko....Don't tell me. The reason why CoM was completely devoid of substance was because it was nothing more than a bait project for DoM?! Is that why they set up a huge backstory and never explained anything in a manner that made any sense?! O_O

I don't know whether I should order a copy at launch or wait for it to be discounted, because even though CoM was a pretty much a hollow shell of a game I liked the little substance it had. I guess I'll just keep my eye on it for a while. Who knows when it's coming out in Japan, anyway?

So now I'm back to knitting the Cotton Fleece sweater. The finished fabric feels wonderfully cool and springy but I hate, hate, HATE working with this yarn! I'm sure I hate working with all cotton yarn which is a shame because I love cotton sweaters. =_= I'm going to have to stop being a sissy and make progress on this thing. I have,as the picture shows, but I would be working twice as fast if I were knitting with wool.

:P

I'm actually daring to make an extra-small with this sweater because even though I never buy extra-small clothes in stores all my hand-knit sweaters have been hanging off me. I've been careful about gauge, too! I'm guessing that a Small for a knitting pattern is for tall skinny people and not medium-framed little people.

I've finished with my Airy Scarf (I'll post photos later) and I thought I needed another little project to keep me happy when I should be suffering with Cotton Fleece. I had already bought a ball of Knit Picks Andean Silk for swatching and I decided to try making the Merino Tee from Interweave Knits Winter 2003. It's a raglan short-sleeved sweater and so far it seems easy:

I'm using Andean Silk in Bluebell. The color looks nothing like it does on the site! I've heard that people have had misgivings about this yarn (it's an alpaca/silk/merino blend) but I haven't had any problems. It's soft!

If this works out I'd like to make one for Kristen and my mother. Me and my plans!

Here's a picture of my Airy Scarf in progress. I'm posting it to motivate myself. ^o^

I'm using Paton's Lacette and Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud doubled up on #10 needles. The scarf is definitely going to need to blocked!

I've already made one of these with the Lacette alone for Kristen. I think it's very pretty and feminine but I hope it doesn't give my neck a rash!

That light blue alpaca lace yarn knit up looking like ramen noodles and I ended up unraveling the whole thing and starting over doubling it up with what's left of the Paton's Lacette. It's light pink mohair with light blue non-fuzzy lace yarn. I think it's pretty...

I'm still plugging long with the Cotton Fleece. I hate being mean to that yarn because it still feels nice. I hope we can work it out and be friends! I'm working it with #4 needles which might be odd for DK weight but it's what I have to do.

Since I'm all done with Sword of Mana I've picked up Kristen's Japanese copy of Final Fantasy IV Advance. I have fond memories of playing that game to death when I was 12 and I've always wanted to try the Japanese version. Handheld gaming is right up my alley! I love being able to pick a game up if I have fifteen minutes to spare. I don't have the time to play big games right now which is why I haven't continued with Suikoden V. I certainly will in a few weeks, mark my words! O_O

The first English translation of this game was so awful that it wasn't even grammatically correct and at times made no sense at all. I think they've re-translated it twice since then but I'm not really interested in whatever weird slang they've worked into the dialogue. =_=

Cecil seems a lot more emo in the Japanese version! I'm glad they give you the option of switching from all hiragana to kanji when you start your file. All kana games make my brain hurt! The walking speed is a lot faster and I bet it'll cut down the length of the game significantly.

They're starting to release info about Final Fantasy V Advance but I'm not buying it. I didn't like it that much and I already played the Japanese version for the Super Famicom. I guess I'll hold out for FFVI Advance; I heard they made major changes to the plot in the U.S version and I'm intrigued.

After bragging for days about how I'm the only one in my household who hadn't caught the cold that was going around, now I have it. =_=

So this weekend I was completely useless. I sat on my ass and worked on Tempting I. After doing numerous gauge swatches I ended up having to go down to #6 needles (the pattern calls for #8) but they are bamboo and lovely! Trying to keep those 144 cast-on stitches from getting twisted when I joined the round was the worst part! Kristen and I had to wrestle the needle to the ground and pin it down until we got them straightened out. The needle was naturally twisted into a coil. I wonder if I should've soaked the plastic part in hot water to remove the kinks?

Here's what I've done so far. I'm using Knit Picks Merino Style yarn in Iris and there's the ribbon I picked out:

::blows nose, making a loud honking sound::

Now that I'm done with CoM I decided to give Sword of Mana for the GBA a try. Kristen finished it a long time ago. The music is not great (well, it's a remake of a Gameboy game, after all) but the graphics are nice and I'm liking the story so far. BUT! The English translation is god-awful, full of annoying slang and lame jokes from the 1990s, even though it came out in 2003! I would really, really like to play the Japanese version but only PlayAsia has it and for $58, which is a ridiculous price for a Gameboy Advance game. =_=

Count Lee is the spitting image of Dist from TOA. O_O

I've also begun to sample Suikoden V (Japanese version) which I got a while ago. Of all the import games I've played it's probably one of the most difficult to understand (the text is blurry and tiny!) but it's worth it! It's rekindling my love of the series, and contrary to my expectations the voice-acting isn't half-bad.

For some reason our phone line went dead for hours today. Eventually we did get the dial tone back but then my parents came flying in the door practically in tears. Apparently someone paged my father at work (they usually only do that in emergencies) and hung up, and after they confirmed that it wasn't my aunt or grandmother they called our house to see if everything was okay and left five messages on the voice mail, none of which came through because OUR PHONE LINE WAS DEAD. So my mother assumed that either I got hit by a car and killed while I was getting the mail, the house burned down because my brother left the space heater on or he and Kristen got in a knife fight and killed each other. O_O

So I jokingly ask if either of them suffered a heart attack from the stress of wondering if their children were dead would we be allowed to sue the phone company? 6_6

Now that my sweater is done I need something else to work on! Is it time at last for Tempting I? I ordered some Knit Picks Merino-Style yarn in Iris (not Cornflower like I had planned) but after doing a gauge swatch I realized that 1). I need to go down to #7 circulars. 2.) I don't have them. -____- Now that I have the yarn in my possession I'm noting that Iris doesn't look much like it does on the website. It's a shade darker and less blue, more or less the same color as Noix de Rome's Violet B rooting hair. I know that purple is a freak color for a lot of people but with spring just around the corner it makes me think of dutch crocuses (crocii!) and grape hyacinths. Let's forget Barney for a while, please?

I'm still playing Children of Mana, that maddeningly repetitive/addictive game. In spite of its repetitive nature I still think it's better than SD3 because of its nice graphics, soundtrack and generally lovable characters. But I don't like it when I enter a new dungeon and the enemies swarm me and beat my ass down. When do I get to do the ass-kicking? O_O

I do like the idea of one central town as home base, rather than the main character being like dandelion fluff thrown around by the breeze with no place to call their own. Maybe it doesn't always work out that well but it's a nice change of pace. But as the village chief Moti seems to be the only character that has his own house with beds and everything! Is that where Tumble spends the night? Go on, Tumble, get some! ^o ^