Tentacles Ahoy!

I did not always have this fascination with the octopus. It is a recently re-discovered interest that has been cultivated by my re-invigoration with knitting. When I was first looking at patterns and geeky things I came across this little guy. It took me a while, but I found the pattern and vow to knit him one day!

I blame my random trip to the zoo, for the inital intrigue. I was attending a conference downtown when the lecture room was declared too full and any further participants would make it a fire hazard. So to not waste the trip, I walked over to the zoo...in February. It was early morning and I discovered that the zookeepers were feeding many of the animals. So wanting to go ahead and see as much as I could, especially when it was inside, I wandered over to the invertebrate house. Here I discovered an octopus named Rachel. I learned some amazing things, such as, they change colors and they can fit through any space as long as their beaks can. That is most fascinating.

Needless to say, this fascination expanded when I discovered steampunk. I can only deduce that the octopus is part of the genre due to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jules Verne. However, even with the confusion, that doesn't make them any less awesome.

So as I mentioned before, I've been knitting up this pair of mittens. I finished them after getting a bit side tracked due to other projects, the holidays creeping up, and general busyness with classes starting up and work.

I love how the colors turned out. I wasn't sure if they were going to work, and they actually photograph better for the contrast, but I really love how they look. It's almost like the octopi are mid change and blending with the seaish color of the background. ;D The yarn feels amazing, and they are toasty warm.

This was the first pair of full mittens I've completed. I've started two pairs in the past, but frogged due to size and not liking the color combination. I'm so pleased with these. Even if I occasionally felt like this guy while knitting them.

Something else I started with this set and the recent knittings I've been working on. I was looking through projects for a fellow Raveler and saw they listed what they'd audiobooked or watched while knitting, so I've decided to document it myself. I don't really remember much for the first one mitten of this pair other than it was Thanksgiving and there was a brief MythBusters marathon while I was finishing it up. The second one was knit in the car with music and Neil Gaiman's Stardust on. I still have a good chunk of the book to listen through. Love it (even if I've read it three times)!

Finally, in honor of the octopus and its eight tentacle glory, I found some fun and amusing little odds and ends on Etsy.