Socks made from my basic sock recipe, but this time in vegan sock yarn, hand dyed from Sockpixie colorway: Manner of Yves St Laurent
2.5mm bamboo needles

Tags: socks, Vegan, yarn

A couple of months ago I got my earlobes scalpelled. They were already stretched to 10mm (known as 000g or maybe 00g in non-metric places). Not just because I wanted them bigger, but because how the original holes were shot forever ago. Apparently it’s pretty common not to have the original holes placed properly, this doesn’t show up too much at a small gauge, like regular little studs in the ears, but at a larger size it shows up.

You can probably see what I mean in the photo above. On the one side (the one without a tragus piercing) it’s just too much flesh… and as it says on the BMEzine wiki “…it may also allow for a slight relocation of a piercing.”

That was one reason, the other was that I wanted to try something new. I had a tattoo, some piercings… why not try something new?

The scalpelling itself wasn’t to bad, not as painful as my nose piercings but worse than getting tattooed, it bled a little and hurt a bit for a couple of days. The aftercare sucked, my piercer recommended a spray that contained chicken fat. Instead of going with the H2Ocean yuck I did regular salt water soaks. A bit messy but better than having dead animal fat on my wounds.

After a week they stopped bleeding completely and ended up a lot like this:

and to make myself invest a little bit in this size, so that I don’t keep on stretching up even more, the way I want to… I now am the proud owner of lots of funky plugs and tunnels. I love how the dollar is worth shit these days, makes shopping online a lot more fun Olivewood plugs for the same price as two packs of cigarettes, that’s good especially since you don’t get them at all over here.

Tags: bodymod, ear, piercing, Vegan

Usually I don’t name my socks. But this is the exception. Sergei Rachmaninoff was a composer of classical music. And the one that wrote the piece I spent some time knitting to indoors on a fine saturday afternoon, KIP’ing away. It’s not a great story, but I liked the name (russian and french names always make tongue tie itself into a know when I try to say them, it’s fun )

The special thing about them is that they are, in fact, my first pair of completly vegan socks! made in panda cotton. A yarn so lovely that I’m considering buying enough for 5 more pairs of socks…

For the rest of the details, check them out at ravelry.

As a ps. I’m not knitting as much as I used to these days, I don’t know why, I just dont. So these socks have been with me for a long time, and I’m still not finished with them.

Tags: kip, knitting in public, ravelry, socks, toe-up sock, Vegan, yarn

It’s the last day of january today, it seems like a good time to make this years resolutions regarding knitting, and especially one aspect of it has been on my mind the last couple of days.
Stash… (long pause)

In 2006 I had no money, bought next to no new yarn except on a couple of occasions and was really modest about taking in new stuff just because I had no choice.

In 2007 I got my economy somewhat on my feet, and vowed to build myself a stash, just so that I would have a backup plan if I was back in the position from the previous year. I also went vegan in october, and stopped buying animal fibers.

And now it’s 2008. I got my stash, some of it is pretty, some of it isn’t, and most of it isn’t vegan. It might be a little late to have resolutions for the new year now, but I do.

• I will continue to not buy animal fibers, and knit down a lot of what I have
• I will try to use more from the stash than I put into it
• I will learn to knit socks without wool that I can love as much as the ones with wool
• I will make at least one hoodie, that I will wear regularly
• I have joined a stash-turnover group at Ravelry and I will follow it’s lead. By adding new gorgeus yarn to it, and use up the old

Tags: knit, ravelry, socks, stash, Vegan, yarn

I love participating in swaps
Rigth now it’s a Vegan post-holiday swap, over at the group Vegan knitters and crocheters at ravelry. The swap was a great idea, and the fact that ravelry exists makes it so much easier to join something like that.

I haven’t sent mine yet, but I hope to do it in a couple of days. I went a bit overboard with yarn shopping for my partner, and tomorrow I’m off to get some cheezly and stuff like that for her. I’m extra motivated to do compose a good package now, after I got mine today *squeee*

When I got home today I checked the mail, a nd the second I opened it, a nice smell started drifting out of the postbox, not strong, but really nice. And in my joy I discovered a package, for ME!
I ran in and tore it open, and inside I found

• Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton (organic) that I’ve wanted to try for a long time, I prefer stroking this yarn over any other I’ve stroked so far
• a bag of loose tea, with bits of fruit in it
• a 101 Vegan book in swedish, with recipes, looks cool/fun/educational
• a bar of Lush soap in peppermint, the thing that smelled so good
• A handmade sock-bag, with the words “I knit socks” embroiderd on it, lined and in a lovely floral fabric
• Small bags of a nutty spread
• a cute pen with fruits on it
• and Blue candy! I love blue candy!
• and a sweet letter

Malinmerino, that sent me this, is awesome. Words fail me when I try to say how much I digg this package, you really hit the spot with this one. It made my week

Tags: ravelry, swap, Vegan, yarn