I'm never getting gauge

Here is the sweater that I was knitting along with my friend Thuy... (Haven't shortened the zipper yet)

Yummy, yummy yarn.  I love the tonal brown.  "Fig" is the shade.

We converted the pattern to be a more seamless pattern.  Not the easiest thing, since the pattern wasn't exactly the easiest written pattern.   I normally knit quite loosely and with going down a couple needle sizes I seemed to roughly get gauge.  But the other tricky thing about sizing was that it was sizing the sweater according to your bust size, and I don't have a bust anymore.  So I tried to hedge it and make the next size up from my chest circumference.

 It was a top down pattern and everything seemed to be going swimmingly .... until I put in the raglan sleeves, and it was too tight right at the seams.  Aaagh!!

Pattern: Ribby cardi
Yarn: madelinetosh merino vintage

Counting, counting

Okay, so maybe I do have a stitch-marker problem. But marking every single decrease (armhole and v-neck) gave me the proper number of stitches in the end, so I'm sticking with this method for my sweater vest.

snow falling off (evan) cedar m.

E wanted to be Sensei Wu for Halloween (a character from the Lego Ninjago series).  The costume was pretty fun to assemble for the most part.  I bought a white ninja costume and a chinese hat;  made a black velvet sash;  and bought a beard.  The problem with the beard was that it was made with this faux fur stuff that was really itchy, so that didn't work.

So I tried making one out of velvetspun, the bulky weight chenille that you can get from Michaels.
I modified a Santa Beard pattern - made it way more skinny, only about 3 stitches on each side of the mouth.

Looks cute, no?
But it was a bad idea.
Because what happens when you cut chenille?
Lots of tiny white fibers fall off.  And keep falling off.
I thought it would stop.

(that's a downward shot of my pants)
My clothes were covered.  My carpets are covered.  The rug in his kindergarten class is covered.  It was as if snow were falling behind Sensei Wu as he flitted around trick-or-treating.