Lauren Knits and Crochets!

2012 Goals and Stuff

2012-02-11T02:32:00.004-06:00

So, after I signed off on my last post about a month ago, I said I would post more but I haven't yet. I did, however, mention that I'd be updating about what my plans were for the upcoming year.

In 2010, I laid out a long list of "knitting resolutions" that were all pretty detailed and then I failed pretty spectacularly on them. In 2011, I never laid out any "knitting resolutions," but then I didn't accomplish as much as I hoped (though the elbow problems in early 2011 didn't help much).

This year's "knitting resolutions" are very simple.

1. Stash down.

2. Knit AT LEAST 15k of yarn this year.

Now, how I go about stashing down is pretty open-ended. I'm even part of a stashdown group on Ravelry (the Pre-Process Knitters), so I'm keeping track of my yarn in/out as well as my actual knitting.

With 15k yards of yarn to knit this year, it comes out to roughly 1250 yards per month. This does, however, ONLY include FOs (finished objects).

January's total yardage knit: 859 yards...okay, so I didn't hit my goal of 1250 yards in January. Oops.

That being said, however, I have a lot of high yardage projects going right now, rather than smaller projects that don't take up a lot of yardage. So if when I finish those, it'll mean more yardage down!

So what projects made up those 859 yards?

First was a hat that I made for my Dad, using the Man Hat pattern. This pattern is absolutely great, in my opinion a nice twist on the standards K1,P1 ribbed hat. Pattern called for a bulky weight yarn, so I started by using some KP Wool of the Andes Bulky that I had on hand, but I didn't care for the fabric it was making and I wasn't too sure about the color (Emerald) either. I didn't have any other bulky yarn on hand so I checked the project notes on Ravelry and decided to give it a try using a worsted weight. I actually had bought some Wool of the Andes worsted in Mist (a solid, non-heathered gray) at the end of 2010 to make a hat for my Dad but never got around to it. Since the bulky weight version called for 64 stitches, I tried 96 stitches for the worsted weight version. Other than that, no mods to the pattern except to do some extra rounds of decreasing at the crown to adjust for the extra stitches. I have been meaning to get a picture of the hat but haven't yet and won't for at least another week as the hat recipient is in Jamaica till next Saturday. :)

The next pattern was a long-unfinished WIP, affectionately named the Christmas Cowl (of DOOM). I used the Chrysalis Cowl pattern that I got on the back of a package from Jimmy Beans Wool. Unfortunately for me, I didn't use the yarn that the pattern called for or even anything close. I bought some Plymouth Mulberry Merino yarn at the Knitting Knook last December because it was shiny and soft and a really pretty red (color 2060). I liked the idea of the yarn because it was single ply wool and silk blend like Malabrigo Silky Merino, but instead of being a DK weight it is worsted weight. Unfortunately, the similarities stop there. Plymouth Mulberry Merino is extremely loosely spun so my cowl started pilled even before I finished knitting it. It was also very splitty, so if I ever use it again (not likely) I'd use a much pointier needle. The yarn stuck to itself like crazy so I had a very difficult unknitting and when it came to securing my bind off it was a DISASTER. The ends didn't stay buried very well, which isn't that big of a deal to me since I usually use a drop of clear nail polish to secure my ends anyway, but it was still disappointing. I did not block my cowl because I was afraid my joins would come undone. I think it's okay because silk grows a lot, and the cowl is a good size anyway.

The pattern however, was a very nice one. It calls for a 90 stitch cast on, but I doubled it to make it long so I could wrap it around my neck more than once, and I only did 5 pattern repeats instead of 6. I think it would be great with a semi-solid yarn like the Tosh Vintage that it calls for. It has some simple eyelet rows and some garter stitch rather than being straight stockinette. A really basic pattern, I would consider knitting it again, actually. Just no way would I use the same yarn again!

A picture of the cowl wrapped:

Unwrapped:

(please excuse the bad pictures...)

I do wear the cowl quite a bit, but I'm knitting another cowl (using a different pattern) right now and using a plied yarn instead of a single. I'm thinking (hoping) this one will hold up better!

My last project for January was one I've knitted many of before- the Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief. I used some KP City Tweed DK in Emerald Isle. It's a very lovely green, and the yarn is very soft! I do not, however, have any post-blocking pictures because I haven't blocked it yet. I have just been lazy. :) But I did buy some blocking wires (FINALLY!) thanks to a LivingSocial deal to Overstock.com (woo-hoo!).

I really liked working with the City Tweed DK, so I am curious to see how it blocks up. My very Age of Brass and Steam (make out of Malabrigo Silky Merino) is still holding up great- I probably wear it the most out of any of my shawls.

So that's what I accomplished in January, finished-object-wise.

I did start a number of projects during the last month or so:

Sapphire Sky Stole- Tree & Sky Lace Stole (rav link), using Elann Peruvian Baby Silk in Sapphire (a rich blue). Progress has been slow...for some reason, the edging is kicking my ass. :)

Rios Cowl- Honey Cowl (rav link), using Malabrigo Rios in Purpuras. This was part of a KAL in the Pre-Process Knitters group, the group that is hosting our 2012 Stashdown. I am working on the bind-off right now, so should have another 400 yards down as well as another awesome finished object cowl!

Lady Ice Queen(a)- Lady Kina sweater pattern (rav link), using KP WotA in Lake Ice Heather. Lovely color of yarn, it's a heathered silver gray with hints of blue. This is a top-down sweater, so the rows at the top of the sweater are very, very long. :) One the sleeves are separated, I'm hoping the sweater will go much faster.

Smoothie Scarf- Potato Chip Scarf, using KP Chroma Worsted in Smoothie. I got this yarn in a trade for some other Chroma Worsted yarn. The color is VERY bright. I originally thought I would make a worsted weight shawl out of this, but the colors are just too much. A potato chip scarf will be a nice accessory without being overboard on the color.

Forest Green Hat- Another Man Hat, using Malabrigo Worsted Merino in Forest Green. Pretty much done with this, just need to get out my DPNs to shape the crown.

Neapoli-Shawl- Another 22.5 Degrees (rav link) using some CraftsMeow Ice Cream Sundae in Strawberry Twist (pink and brown with hints of white). It's a good "purse project" for now, easy repeats and straight garter stitch.

Mystery Project- Using some yarn, and a knitting needle. :)

Happy 2012!

2012-01-09T01:02:00.005-06:00

I really dislike New Year's Resolutions, apparently. I dislike them so much that I defy doing them for OVER A YEAR.

Yes, readers (if there are any), on January 1, 2011 I promised I would write up and post my 2011 Knitting Resolutions. And then....I didn't. I didn't post my 2011 Knitting Resolutions...nor did I blog here at all.

So on January 9, 2012...I'm actually updating this thing again.

Truth be told: 2011 sucked monkey balls. Early on in the year, my elbow started acting up which made knitting pretty painful. If I did knit at all, it was small projects and even so, not a whole lot got done. So I started reading books at an alarmingly fast rate since I needed SOMETHING to do that didn't involve using my elbow and wrists (knitting and anything computer related wasn't so popular).

Disclaimed: Post is very long! I also did not bother to link patterns or yarn, but every project that I listed has a project page on my Ravelry account. Feel free to check it out there, otherwise if you're interested in a pattern and where to get it, leave a comment and I'll let you know!

So from January through March, I didn't knit much at all. What I did instead: read (a lot!) and buy cotton yarn (also a lot!). Why cotton yarn? Because despite my best efforts, Pisgah Yarn & Dyeing Co is no longer. Bah, humbug. They were bought out in February. Naturally, I had to stock up. I mean, I cannot be expected to suffer with inferior cotton yarn for the rest of my life. So I may have gone a bit overboard on stockpiling cotton yarn....I'm okay with that, though.

I did do a bit of knitting from January to March. Lots of starting, not so much finishing though. On January 1, 2011 I started a Baktus Scarf with some Kauni Wool Effektgarn in EQ (rainbow!) and Solid in DD2 (navy blue). It still languishes on the needles. On January 12, I started a Saroyan in Malabrigo Silky Merino, but the skeins don't match very well and I'm lazy and don't want to unravel so I just haven't finished it at all. On January 23, I did FINISH my mom's 2010 Christmas present, a Citron in Malabrigo Lace. I do not have photographic proof of a finished object, though.

On February 2, I decided to start a reversible cable cowl out of Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky. I knitted the whole thing! Unfortunately, it needed to be grafted together and that just did not happen without some tear shedding, some throwing the project across the room, some violent frogging and some selling of the yarn. After that, I started a dishcloth. But it hurt my hands, so it's still on the needles, in a box somewhere.

Finally in March, I started AND finished a project. I knit the Hat Fit for a Boyfriend pattern out of KP Wool of the Andes in Spruce with intentions of giving it to Andy, but I ended up donating it to a Knitters for Obama project to give all of the Wisconsin Democratic senators/assembly reps for all of their work during the Scott Walker Union Fiasco. March 3 I started my Malabrigo March project - a 198 Yards of Heaven Shawl out of Mal Worsted in Azul Bolita. I happily knitted along until I ran out of yarn on the last row before the bindoff (guess it wasn't 198 yards since Mal Worsted has 210 yards in a skein!). I actually HAD another skein of the same color, but I just never got around to winding it in March. In mid-March, I decided to do another Malabrigo March project, the Adelei Shawl. This was inspired by my extremely strong desire to have a shawl to wear to church on Easter (the adult knitter equivalent of an Easter dress), and my curiosity on adding beads to shawls. I started the shawl, did all of the increases and started the lace portion. Failed. Frogged. Started again. Did all the increases and started the lace portion. Failed even more spectacularly the 2nd time around. Frogged again. Might have cried. Gave up. At the end of March, I did get some good news- found out I won 2 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in the Mr. Yarn Mal March giveaway contest. Yay! Got a skein of Pagoda and Sapphire Green (and both were already wound). Cast on for another 198 Yards of Heaven with Sapphire Green and used a smaller size needle so finished with yarn leftover. Blocked, and gave to my mother for Mother's Day. No photographic proof. I finished 3 projects between January and March and did not get a single picture of any of them. No, really, I did finish them.

April brought Easter. Remember that overwhelming desire to have a shawl to wear for Easter? It motivated me to bring out my Traveling Woman shawl and finish it. So I did. Unfortunately, I finished this shawl prior to learning about the wonder that is Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bindoff, so blocking this thing was a bitch. I need to reblock it now that it's been a number of months and I just don't want to. But I finished it in time for Easter. And I have a picture!

After Easter and discovering that hey, shawls might actually be the most awesome thing ever, I started another one. This one was the Ishbel shawl, knitted out of Malabrigo Lace in Indigo. I finished the actual knitting of this in May, but didn't block it until July. And, I must confess- I've never worn it. But I have a picture!

I was so excited by my success with Ishbel, that I cast on for yet ANOTHER shawl, the Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief, with yet another Malabrigo yarn- this time the Silky Merino in Blackberry. Of all the shawls I've knit both before and since, I wear this one the most. It is a great shawl, very versatile. I can wear it for both a casual and dressy look. I did not, however, block this one till July. Blocking is actually easier for me when it's hot because then I block it while the a/c is running, and it dries faster. :)

In May, I started my Winter Flame scarf using Malabrigo sock in Cote d'Azure for a shawl swap. It took me forever because the pattern was so damn boring that it was getting painful to work on after a while. The yarn was lovely though. I didn't finish the scarf till the end of June, and I never got a picture of it before I mailed it to my swap partner.

In June, I started another Traveling Woman using some merino/silk sock yarn in Indigo from an indie dyer, and another Citron out of Malabrigo lace in Velvet Grapes. Neither are done. At the end of June, I decided to use the Malabrigo sock from the ill-fated Adelei Shawl and use it for a Spring Shawl! Much better choice. Took forever to finish the last few rows, so I didn't finish it until September. But I do wear it a lot!

In July, I started my first pair of socks, using Cherry Tree Hill Fingerpaints in Black Cherry. I knitted and knitted and knitted and ripped a bit, and knitted some more and finished 1 sock. Yay! Unfortunately, I have second sock syndrome really bad, so I haven't started the 2nd sock yet. The end of July I started a Sunrise Shawlette with KP Chroma Fingering in U-Pick, but it's not done.

In August I started the Hestia Cardigan out of DiC Smooshy in Bermuda Teal, but it's also not done (17 inches of stockinette before even starting the sleeve shaping? I must be mad).

At the beginning of September it got to be about 90 degrees so I did what any normal knitter would do- I started a hat out of wool. I made the Hurricane Hat out of Patons Wool in Royal Purple. It's a great pattern, and a cute hat. However, upon wearing the hat when I was in northern Wisconsin on an outdoor tour that required some walking around on the shore of Lake Michigan, I discovered that the ribbing was actually a bit too loose on my head, and the cold air wasn't exactly staying out. So now it's not really a useful hat, but it is cute to wear.

After I finished the hat, I started another Saroyan with more Malabrigo Silky, this time in Matisse Blue. It's still not done. After that, I started the Noro Striped Scarf using 2 skeins of KP Chroma Worsted in Prism (I started 1 skein at red, and the other skein at green so the colors never match up). It's a traveling project that I bring along for times when I have a free minute here or there, it's really mindless to just knit a row here and there. Then I started the Chrysalis Cowl out of Plymouth Mulberry Merino but didn't finish it in 2011 (I just finished it, so will talk about it in a future blog post). At the end of September, I started the 22.5 Degrees shawlette out of KP Imagination in Seven Dwarves. I decided I needed another traveling project to switch out with my Prism Striped Scarf. This one should be done soon though, I put my striped scarf into a bin for a few months and didn't knit on it at all, so this was my only traveling project for a while. But the last rows are really.freaking.long, and the needles and yarn are really.freaking.small.

October was Malabrigo Stockpile! I only finished one project for stockpile but it was an awesome project and I love the finished object. It was Azzu's Shawl and I used Malabrigo sock in Terracotta. Awesome, awesome shawl...affectionately named the Bat Shawl because of it's shape when I was blocking it.

After I finished the Bat Shawl, I started a Harry Shawl using KP Chroma Worsted in Midwinter. Awesome shawl, really really warm. No picture though.

My big project was to knit a sweater in October. I had grand plans of wearing the sweater when Andy & I went out of town at the end of October. I didn't start the sweater until October 18 though. Because I totally thought I would be able to knit a full sweater in 10 days? Even with bulky yarn...yep, not possible. I'm working on the sleeves. Still.

Didn't knit much in November, but found some Holiday Homespun in a really pretty deep red that had sparkly strands running through it, so I decided to start a throw, named the Christmas Blanket. Not done by Christmas, but again, I wasn't expecting to be done by Christmas. I knit a row here or there- I'm just using the Diagonal Baby Blanket pattern but only doing 1 stitch before the YOs so I can crochet a border on when I'm done.

In December I made some plans to knit the Age of Brass & Steam Kerchief as Christmas presents for my mom and sister. I didn't have any yarn that I wanted to use for this, so I had to order more. So I got choice #1, some KP City Tweed DK in Emerald Isle for my mom's shawl. It's a nice yarn, but it wasn't really what I was looking for and then I realized that I had knitted my mom 2 shawls already and both were in green. I was more than halfway through the shawl though, so uh...I'm keeping it. So...back to the drawing board. Bought some KP Gloss DK in Blackberry for my mom's shawl. I figured I had used 2 skeins (~300 yards) of Malabrigo Silky for my shawl but I had run out of yarn a few rows early since I did an extra repeat. I wanted to make sure I could knit all the rows, including the extra repeat, so I got 3 skeins (~375 yards) of Gloss DK. Aaaaaaaaand I ran out of yarn. And KP was out. I got 1/2 skein from a kind Raveler, but it didn't come until after Christmas. I finished that shawl up on December 30th, but I just gave it to my mom this past Saturday, because I wanted to knit something for my Dad too. I didn't get a picture of the shawl before I gave it away.

Just over a week before Christmas I decided I needed a red shawl/scarf to wear on Christmas Eve. I had some Gloss DK in Cranberry, so I knitted myself the Chinook Scarf. I finished binding off on December 23, soaked it, and finished pinning it out on December 24 at about 4am, just over 12 hours before I had to be at church for Christmas Eve. I put the space heater in front of my shawl, and I just made it. Too bad the thing curls like mad. I'm going to reblock it more aggressively and see what happens, but no pictures in the meantime.

My final project of the year was a Snuggery Shawl, using Malabrigo sock in Solis. I started it Christmas Day while the Packer game was on. I'm not done with it, but that's okay....

So! All in all I started 30 projects in 2011, and only finished 14. A 46% success rate. Ah well.

In 2012, I have some big plans already, as well as a few finished objects already! I'm off to a way better start.

If you made it all the way through this post, congratulations! You deserve a cookie. Go get one, and enjoy it guilt-free!

Happy Knitting!

2010 Knitting Resolutions - Follow Up :)

2011-01-01T04:17:00.002-06:00

Hello 2011! WTF, where did 2010 go? Oh well.

Well as I promised, I'm going to do a (probably relatively quick) follow up on my 2010 Knitting Resolutions! Sometime this weekend I am going to figure out my 2011 Knitting Resolutions and post them too! :)

1. Reduce my stash and try not to buy more yarn unless there is a very specific project in mind for said yarn.

Wow, I honestly can't think of anything I failed more miserably at. Ah well. I discovered my passion for natural fibers in 2010, and a fair amount of my stash previously was acrylic. That being said, I am by no means a yarn snob. My favorite place to get natural fiber yarn is Knit Picks. I love their Wool of the Andes so very very much. I also like Patons Classic Wool which has a great price point if you wait for sales at Joanns or Michaels. Anyway, I now have a fair amount of stuff stashed away....I think 2011 is going to be the year of the yarn diet. I even started tweeting with the hashtag #yarndiet2011. Now I HAVE to stick to it. :)

2. Knit at least 10 things from my queue since I have been adding stuff to my queue pretty much non stop since I joined Ravelry (in July 2007!) and I haven't knitted many things from my queue.

I went back a re-read this. I just wrote to "knit 10 things from my queue," I specified nothing about FINISHING them. I did start knitting 10 items from my queue this year- the Sutro Heights Hat, Simple Burp Cloth (ended up being a hand towel), Waffle Knit Dishcloth (in a burp cloth size which ended up being a hand towel), the Fantasy Naturale Market Bag, the Lingonberry Scarf, the Citron, the February Lady Sweater, the Traveling Woman Shawl, the Clapotis, and the Autumn Red Lace Scarf. And I finished 6 of the 10 items! I'd say I succeeded.

3. Learn Magic Loop.

Hm. I sort-of succeeded. I started a hat with Magic Loop. I didn't finish the hat because the hat pattern I picked out had too many yarn overs. This will most likely not be a problem when I am more proficient at Magic Loop, but I was having a very difficult time doing yarn overs when the yarn over was in between the two stitches that were separated by the excess cable. However, I am going to do a "plain vanilla hat" soon since it's effing cold out, and I'm going to try and find a top down one. So I call this a half-success, half-failure. Though again, I just said I would learn Magic Loop, not that I would actually finish an item using it. :) It's a Magic-Loophole! (har har har)

4. Learn how to make socks.

Didn't happen. Fail.

5. Do a Lace Project.

I did a project out of lace yarn (a Citron) that wasn't very lacy, and I did projects out of fingering yarn (Lingonberry Scarf) and worsted weight yarn (Twilight Mist Wrap) that were very lacy. I'll say this one was a success!

6. Knit a sweater.

I started and finished 75% of a sweater. I did not, however, finish the sleeves. I'll say this is a half-success....

7. Work on a crochet project.

Yes indeed, I worked on one (didn't finish it...I'm really sensing a theme here!). With any luck I'm going to try and finish it by April.

9. Knit/crochet a blanket for myself.

I did do this. But I did not finish. I also did not plan on finishing. I am doing a lovely feather & fan afghan. I really like the colors, but I do not like working with the yarn, it's like knitting with barbed wire. Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic...it's like knitting with twine! So I am doing a very small amount at a time. I am also in no huge hurry to finish this. If I finish it by 2012, I will be happy.

10. Plan Xmas knitting prior to November.

I planned it, but I planned on starting in September. Thanks to the nature of my work schedule that didn't happen, and I didn't fully start until November. However- unlike in years past, I did not make Xmas knitting plans a "OMG I MUST DO THIS AND I WILL FINISH IT NO MATTER WHAT EVEN IF IT MEANS I DON'T SLEEP ALL WEEK!" I had initially planned to knit 3 hats, and 2 shawls. I only finished 1 shawl, and got very very close to finishing the 2nd shawl (and I probably would have finished the 2nd shawl, if it hadn't been for that WONDERFUL cold that plagued me for the entire week before Christmas....*shoots dirty look at cold germs*). The hats were put on the back burner. I'm not upset about it- the hats were deliberately planned to be a "if I get around to it, awesome, if not, oh well, I have other presents to give." So I'd say it was a success. (And the 2nd shawl is currently being bound off...only about 3/5ths left of the stitches to bind off, and it was for my mother, who is understanding!)

11. Take pictures of the Wedding Roses Filet Crochet Afghan.

I totally rocked this. I even took the pictures in January! And about halfway through the year, the photos were added to the pattern page on Ravelry. So what if mine is the only project?? :)

I am working on my 2011 Knitting Resolutions. I think I will try and keep out magic-loopholes from these though! :) Happy 2011!

Holy Updates, Batman!

2010-12-13T01:53:00.002-06:00

Well, I kinda never got around to posting in October even after I promised. Sorry. Life is a crazy around here. That whole "work" thing is really getting in the way! But in a good way! I am loving about 85% of my jobs. With any luck in 2011, I'll be able to eliminate the 15% I don't like. :)

In the meantime, since my free time is lesser, I am trying to spend more time knitting and less time reading and writing about knitting related things. I have, however, spent lots of time hitting up knitting related sales. LOL, thanks to Knit Picks, Eat Sleep Knit and Tightly Wound Yarn for eating up a lot of my disposable income.

Anyway, I can't blog about some of my current projects because come December 24th or 25th they will be wrapped up under the Christmas tree and opened by (hopefully) appreciative recipients! :) After Christmas (at some point, I am hoping to have this post/set of posts up by 2011), I will blog about my Christmas knitting. I haven't done any Christmas crafting since 2007, so I'm kind of excited about this year's "crop" of Christmas presents.

In the meantime, I have a progress on a couple of my other projects.

First is my 95% finished Lingonberry Scarf (rav link), affectionately termed the "Mulled Grapenberry Scarf" on my Rav projects page. I used two skeins of Elann's Peruvian Baby Cashmere in (surprise surprise) Mulled Grape. I would definitely use this yarn again! It was very soft, and it knitted up nicely. However, I have not yet blocked it (it's been on my to-do list since I finished knitting it in October). This project was also my first time doing kitchener stitch. All I have to say about kitchener is "yick." I'm not a fan! I also did not heed the advice of the advice of TheKnitWitch (who had a lovely video on youtube showing kitchener stitch!) and didn't practice this on worsted weight yarn first....however, in my defense I was in Door County on a mini-vacation at the time and didn't have worsted weight on hand. :)

I did have a horrible frogging incident with this scarf. The pattern calls to knit the first 16 rows (the border), cut a 36 inch tail, and put the border on a empty cable/scrap yarn. Then cast on again for the 2nd border, knit the first 16 rows again and then continue on with the scarf pattern. Well, me, in my infinite wisdom and eagerness to get started decided to cast on, knit the border and continue on with the pattern, THEN come back later and do the 2nd border. So I knitted away on the pattern, and was almost done, so I cast on for the 2nd border. I finished the 2nd border, and held up the two borders together to line them up. And then I realized that on the first border (the one with the rest of the scarf attached), I had skipped a row or something. They didn't match! Crisis!!! I had to rip out the entire scarf. I may have done that with a chocolate-covered strawberry blizzard from DQ, to numb the pain...:) But the 2nd knit through actually was not too bad (since, it was the 2nd time through...). I'll be double-checking things like that in the future....

My 2nd WIP that has been a WIP forever (or since early August....) is my Traveling Woman Shawl (rav link), aka the Gypsy Woman. I am currently working on Chart B...but it's been placed on hold for Christmas knitting. Still, I'm loving it. I'm going to try and finish it up as soon as Christmas is over.

Oh, in case you didn't notice, so far the best place I've found to photograph my FOs is on my piano keyboard. Creativity, I has it.

I am also still knitting away on my Morning Frost Wrap. It is also slow going. I have two halves that have taken up 1 ball of the yarn each. I'm not sure how much longer I want to make it. I might be procrastinating on this because I know I'm going to have to kitchener the two halves together...I don't have any new project pictures but it is twice as big as it was when I last updated.

Coming after Christmas-

1. My Christmas knitting pictures/project notes!

2. 2010 Knitting Resolutions follow up post.

3. 2011 Knitting Resolutions!

4. New project ideas!

Erm....

2010-10-21T01:36:00.002-05:00

So, in case anyone actually still reads this, you might be worrying that I was eaten by alligators or whisked away to a mysterious castle or something equally fabulous and exotic. The sad reality is actually that I've been working (a lot) and my new apartment is not as photographing friendly. Bah humbug. But I'm working on finding a good location in the apt with good lighting for my fabulous pictures. :)

Coming soon should be some progress and updates on my three current projects:

the Lingonberry Scarf (ravelry link, this is an elann pattern but you have to be logged into elann to access it).

the Traveling Woman shawl

and

the Morning Frost (rav link) wrap.

I will do my best to update on Friday since I'm actually free all day! :)

Stitch & Pitch!

2010-08-28T03:21:00.004-05:00

I meant to post about Stitch & Pitch sooner, but I was hoping I'd have more knitting related updates in addition to Stitch & Pitch to post along with Stitch & Pitch. :) But alas, life has gotten in the way. Since my last post, I've interviewed for, accepted and started a new part time job. This is the 3rd time I've worked for this kind of store (note: it is NOT a local yarn store/LYS or any sort of craft store at all!). :) I also packed up and moved 4 blocks west of where I used to live, but I'm not quite done with the packing and cleaning of the old place yet and that needs to be finished this weekend! But since this isn't my personal blog, I'll spare the rest of the details, except for this one- upon the "Big Stuff Move" on Monday (when I was conveniently at work, ha!) the doors were open too long and now there are moths in the apartment! So not excited about that. Smores the permanently-on-strike bug killer has killed 1 moth (probably by accident), but there have been at least 4-5, so she is pretty useless. Never fear fiber friends, my natural fiber yarn is either in plastic bags (thank you, knock off dollar store ziplocs!) or not moved over yet. :)

But I digress. So Stitch & Pitch was August 11!

It was a great time, albeit VERY hot and humid, and the Brewers got their asses kicked. By the Arizona ~~D-bags~~ D-backs.

I went to the game with 3 of my sorority sisters- Emily B, Emily H and Sandy. My mom was supposed to come, but she double booked herself, so Andy tagged along with me, and Sandy's husband Greg came along too- it was their 3rd anniversary! And what better way to spend it than been geeky and knitting/crocheting at a baseball game! We were evenly split too between both fiber arts, with Sandy & I bringing along our knitting, and the Emilys bringing along their crocheting.

I had a difficult time deciding what to bring along, but I ended up bringing along another size 9 circular needle and a new ball of Bamboo Ewe for my Morning Frost Wrap. I had finished the first ball (out of 3), but as I previously mentioned it was flipping hot, so I just decided to start the 2nd half (less of a chance of having bamboo/wool sitting in my lap).

I didn't get very far with it at the game. Too much chatting. I still maintain that I did better on my knitting than the Brewers did with pitching, offense, and defense, or...well, playing baseball. :) But hey, we got to see history tied! 4 home runs in a row! Too bad the D-~~bags~~backs were the ones hitting those 4 consecutive home runs.../Brewers fail.

Overall though, a fun time. Minus the heat and especially the humidity, I could do without that. I'm already looking forward to next year. Besides, how could a game be a total failure if you got a bobblehead of Bernie Brewer knitting? :)

Slightly related to the Stitch & Pitch game, the Sunday before Stitch & Pitch, I agreed to meet Emily B at Loop where she was taking a crochet sock class, with the intention of looking around to see if they had any Malabrigo Worsted that I couldn't live with out (hahaha, I slay me). And huzzah, I found some and bought a skein of Azul Bolita (beautiful bright blue). Unfortunately for me my wallet, Loop had a display of Misti Alpaca Hand Painted Sock Yarn in blue and yellow (it's not on the website). As any good Milwaukee native knows, blue and yellow is none other than MILWAUKEE BREWERS COLORS! And the Marquette ~~Warriors~~ Golden Eagles, if you care about that (I do not). Sigh. Resistance was futile and the yarn just happened to jump into my hands and suddenly I was walking out of the store with more yarn that I didn't know what to do with (seriously, I don't even knit socks yet). :)

Anyway, so in other geek news, two of my photos have been featured on Ravelry (so what if one of them was be default??): my Wedding Roses afghan on the pattern page and my Twilight Bamboo Ewe on the yarn page (links to rav pages). Yay me!

I have also decided I really am going to attempt to fulfill one of my knitting resolutions (and here you thought I'd forgotten about them!)- I joined the Toe-Up Sock KAL on the Appalachian Yarn group on Ravelry. One of my old coworkers is a mod there, so she invited me to do a KAL there that she was hosting in August, but I was afraid I wouldn't have a chance with the move and stuff so I declined (new job popped up after I had declined the KAL too!), but I'm going to try out the Toe-Up Sock KAL. I got the pattern on Sunday. It looks pretty straightforward and lots of baby steps! I'm gonna need that....and I have a pretty skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Blue Lagoon just for the project. :)

And last but not least - I finally started my first shawl! I picked the Traveling Woman Shawl and I loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove it. I love the pattern, and I really love the yarn I picked (which was, ironically, going to be turned into a gift for someone else! Ha! Sucker, you lost out! Too bad you don't actually know that you lost out on anything...): KnitPicks Stroll Tonal in Gypsy. Consequently, my shawl has been named the "Gypsy Woman" after the Brian Hyland song. :)

I love red. I love shaded red even more. And I love this yarn. I love this yarn with this pattern. I have never worn a shawl in my life but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to incorporate them into my wardrobe frequently since I have a bazillion more shawls queued up on Rav...

Well, I think this will be it for August, since I have a huge laundry list of things to finish up before we officially check out of our old apartment on the 31st. The Toe-Up KAL starts on Sept 3rd. I am going to try (key word: TRY) to update weekly on my KAL status, but September is a busy month for my current job, and I start my 2nd job on the 11th as well and I'm not sure how much prep time will be required prior to starting. :)

Till next time, happy kntting/crocheting! :D

Oops.

2010-08-05T01:55:00.002-05:00

So, I didn't ever get around to posting that 2nd post I had (still have, actually) planned out for July. Oops. Oh well. :)

Lately, I've been attempting to knit one thing at a time. That attempt of course is failing because I keep getting distracted by yarn that I find and new patterns (cough - KnitPicks IDP program - cough).

That being said, however, I think I'm doing pretty good. Even though my Ravelry projects page says that I have 17 WIPs, don't believe it (okay, believe it). Some of them just really need to be sent to the "hibernating" phase but I just never get around to it. Some of them are ongoing projects (such as the diagonal dishcloths, I don't want to create a new project for all of them, but I want to track what yarn I'm using up). So of the 17, I'd say I'm actually actively working on about 7. Or maybe 8. Let's go with 8. :)

So, what's "actively being worked on?"

My crochet project is slowly being worked on. Really slowly. A little too slowly.

My April Lady Sweater- um...not really actively being worked on. It's hot here and the last thing I want is a wool sweater anywhere near me. So never mind...

At the beginning of June when I was ~~organizing~~ pretending to organize my craft room, I found the Bernat Bamboo yarn I've had for, oh, a couple years now. So I cast on for a quick garter stitch scarf with big needles. Still not done. About 1/3 done though since I finished the first of 3 skeins. :)

Chocolate Raspberry Clapotis...Um...yeah. So, after I posted about it in June, I worked on it some more, and was happily knitting and purling along when I discovered I'd missed an increase somewhere. So it involved much ripping. It was 100% salvageable, but I just kinda lost interest after that! So I've only knitted it once or twice since then...

The Booga Bag Cheap Knock-Off is just waiting to be felted. I more or less finished it right before my friend came to visit at the end of June and it has since sat forgotten. But part of that was also because of the fact that our laundry room is in the basement, which was pretty unusable thanks to flooding for about 2.5 weeks (it has just now finished drying out).

However, I do have 3 projects going that I am rotating in and out and working on regularly! Hooray!

The first one is my long-anticipated feather & fan afghan. I fully intend on this taking a long time, for two reasons- 1. because hello, it's an afghan. It's going to take a while and 2. i am using *whispers* red heart supersaver. Eeeeee, the horrors. In all seriousness, this is really brutal. Like, holy crap, I'm turning into a yarn snob, I used to use that on a regular basis?? That being said- I am absolutely loving the colors. And I have confidence it will soften up once finished and washed (in hair conditioner! or lots of fabric softener! or both!). But in the meantime, slow going. I am using size 10 needles anyway, and it seems like larger needles are more tough on my hands as well. So if this gets finished by next summer, I'll be fine.

I'm not following any specific pattern for this- the pattern repeats are 18 stitches, and I am doing a border of 10 stitches on each side. I cast on 200 stitches for this, 10 pattern repeats + 20 stitches for the border. I'm using the colors Coffee (dark brown), Magenta, and Cherry Chip (mix of coffee, magenta and a light brown). Great colors- nice and cheery!

My next project is a miniature market bag, loosely based on the Fantasy Naturale Bag. I am using up seme America's Best Cotton Cabled in Raspberry Swirls that has been sitting in my stash forever and since I foolishly only ordered 2 balls, I wasn't sure what to do with it.

Obviously since it's a miniature market bag, I did a lot of mods, to the point of having to frog the entire thing because it turned out poorly. First mistake: casting on 40 stitches for the base with a size 5 needle, and then trying to pick up the mesh stitches with a size 7. Let's just say the finished product ended up very wide and very short and very much out of yarn. So I frogged it, rewound it, and set it aside. I ended up going back to it a few days later, cast on 22 stitches with a size 5 needle again, and picked up stitches around the base (in multiples of 4) for the mesh. I am not sure exactly how many stitches I picked up because I had to do some adjustments. This time I decided to use a size 8 instead of 7 to see how it worked out, since the size 7 seemed to be a bit unforgiving. Size 8 is working nicely. I am about halfway done with the mesh and I think I'm going to do i-cord for the handles, but I'm not sure how I am going to do that yet.

Finally- I found the pattern for the Morning Frost Wrap (Rav link) in the new Stitch Nation Collection 1 and thought it would be a perfect wrap to make- good for fall and spring when it's not quite jacket weather but not quite short-sleeve weather, and also doubling as a scarf in the winter! As luck would have it, when I found this pattern, Joanns had the Bamboo Ewe on sale for $2.99 a skein. Perfect. I am about 1/3 done with the wrap. Since it has scalloped edges, it's going to need to be knitted in two halves and then grafted together, rather than knitted in one piece. I think it would be silly looking to have one scalloped edge and one not, plus it'll be an exercise in grafting! I really like this yarn, it is silky smooth and very soft against the skin. Pretty much everyone on Ravelry seems to say that it grows a ton after blocking, so that is helpful info. I may adjust how big I make each half then, but we'll see how much yarn I have left. I bought 3 skeins of the Twilight since the pattern called for 3 skeins.

Well, that's about all for now. I had some money in my PayPal account that I got from destashing, so I picked up some delicious Malabrigo which I cannot wait to knit with...or possibly just pet and drool over for a while...

Hopefully August brings more posts than July did! :)

Time for a Yarn PSA :)

2010-07-23T23:52:00.005-05:00

As many of you may know, I'm hopelessly addicted to Peaches & Creme yarn. Why Peaches & Creme, when so many other places stock Sugar & Cream?

Well, my obsession with Peaches & Creme yarn started when I needed to make my Navy Eagle Dishcloth in December 2007. I wanted to make this out of blue cotton yarn, but I had no blue cotton yarn in my stash at the time (this was in 2007 prior to the Peaches & Creme obsession!). I believe I came to this realization on Friday afternoon at work. By the time I was done with work, the last thing I wanted to do was drive across Appleton to get to Hobby Lobby over on the west side of town. The Joanns in Appleton sucked at the time, and Appleton didn't get their Michaels until 2008. As luck would have it, we needed to pick up some sort of household essential, so we went to the Walmart in DePere. They had lots of Peaches & Creme yarn, which I figured couldn't have been that much worse, and they had a nice light blue which would be perfect. To my amazement, I found that the Peaches & Creme yarn was much nicer than Sugar & Cream. Softer, thicker and easier to work with.

The label on my yarn showed me they had a website where you could order direct, and, as they say, the rest is history.

So why do I like Peaches & Creme yarn better?

1. Made in the USA! Seriously, it seems like everything we buy now is made somewhere else.

2. Customer service from the source is top notch! Flo and her crew are amazing. The very first order I placed with Peaches & Creme was actually a bit screwed up. I had ordered a 4 pack of the burgundy and a 4 pack of the chocolate (along with other things too, of course!). In the order, I received a cone of the burgundy and no chocolate. I emailed customer service and had a reply within a few hours- they saw their error and said they would ship out the chocolate asap, and that I didn't need to return the cone to exchange it for the 4 pack. I had the chocolate within days, too.

3. Shipping is so fast!! If I place an order in the morning, it's usually shipped out that day. If it's afternoon, it might get shipped out that day, but if not, the next day. I've never waited more than a few days for my order (from North Carolina to Wisconsin), and sometimes the delay was because UPS required me to sign for the package and I worked during the day.

4. All of their colors come on cones, not just 5. I hate weaving in ends. I hate weaving in ends on a dishcloth even more. If I use a cone, I only have 2 ends to weave in! Victory!

5. I think the quality of the yarn is better. Cotton yarn is pretty rough on my hands (no give at all compared to wool). Peaches & Creme yarn is softer than S&C, and it's thicker too, so I think the finished product is nicer. I also have noticed that it is dyed better. I have a few balls of S&C in my stash, and it doesn't seem to be as thoroughly dyed, I've noticed on some balls in the store that the dye didn't even saturate through a strand of yarn...can't imagine that will stand up well to being washed.

6. They carry more than just "dishcloth cotton." I'm knitting a mini market bag out of their Article 940, the cabled cotton (mercerized cotton). It is really nice, and due to the mercerizing, it's not going to fade. They also have a double worsted weight (article 980) which is also very nice- I'm working on a market bag out of that too (just ignore the fact it's been sitting OTN for 2 years...that's user error, not yarn error!), and I'm hoping someday to make a bathroom rug out of it.

Yeah, yeah, Lauren...we know all that. What's the problem? Why this PSA??

Well, it has come to my attention that Walmart (one of the biggest carriers of P&C yarn) is discontinuing their stock in about half of their stores. They are going to replace it with Sugar & Cream yarn. What they are doing for this year (not sure when their "test year" began) is remove the Peaches & Creme from about half of the stores, and replace it with Sugar & Cream. Then, they will leave Peaches & Creme in the other half of their stores. They are then going to compare the sales of the two yarns and at the end of their "test run," decide which yarn is going to be carried permanently.

This upsets me a lot and I don't even shop at Walmart anymore (I'm not going to go into it here since I've got a number of reasons, but my main reason is hello, have you seen the Walmart that is nearest me? I doubt you'd go there either). But if one of the largest ~~evil~~ corporations in the county pulls their yarn, it's really going to hurt Pisgah Yarn & Dyeing Co, which is a family owned business that's 100% American. So. Not. Cool.

As for Sugar & Cream, well, in case you didn't notice, you can get it anywhere- Michaels, Joanns and Hobby Lobby all carry it, so if Walmart doesn't, I'm sure they'll be fine...

So what can we do? Well, if you do shop at Walmart and you notice that they have replaced the Peaches & Creme, complain! You can either complain in person, or via the Contact Us link on the Walmart website.

/steps off soapbox, resumes knitting.

Please feel free to link this anywhere, just make sure to give me credit. :) I am trying to spread the word to make sure that we can continue to support this American business!

Updatextravaganza!

2010-06-19T01:14:00.003-05:00

I have a confession to make. In the last few weeks there has been lots of knitting and lots of ~~yarn~~ craft room organization, but not so much blogging or picture taking. Laziness, I sort-of have it (at least I have it where photographing and blogging are concerned).

So, my last blog post was more me posting about my knitting resolutions and pictures of yarn and stuff. But I promise, I've actually done some knitting, too.

I mentioned in my last blog post that I worked on a Mitered Hanging Towel. That is about 95% done since I have two things to do: weave in ends, sew on button. Then it will be done. Not sure exactly who this is going to be for yet. I don't think it is going to be for my towel exchange buddy, but I'm not sure (or I'm being sneaky...lol). Pattern: easy-peasy, piece o'cake. And it turned out cute. This could be a useful thing to knit multiples of, since you can never really have too many hanging towels.

I also mentioned in my previous post about buying KP Imagination in Seven Dwarves for the infamous Clapotis. I don't really have any inclination to knit a Clapotis right now made out of fingering weight alpaca and merino wool yarn though. But I did have an inclination to knit a Clapotis RIGHT. NOW. What better yarn to knit this with in summer? Cotton, of course! I decided that I must knit one out of Peaches & Creme Raspberry Swirls (a pretty mixture of dark brown, light brown, burgundy and a little bit of light pink, at least on the cone I have). I also decided that Raspberry Swirls was way too pretty to use for anything kitchen related, or even face cloth related.

I nicknamed my Clapotis the Raspberry Chocolate Clapotis and even included a picture of raspberries and chocolate for my Ravelry project picture. :) So getting used to the kfb was awkward and clumsy at first but now I've got it down. Now it's just more or less mindless stockinette stitch. But by mindless, I actually mean mind-numbing. It's still somewhat of a novelty, but I'm definitely going to be working on a more stimulating project after this...dropping stitches is fun though! :)

I'm hoping to have this done so that I can actually use it in summer. This is definitely going to need an aggressive blocking since it's curling like whoa. Blocking won't fix all the curl, but it should fix some. I may be making a trip to the Home Depot or some other home improvement store to pick up those foam rubber interlocking boards to block on...

I made two Grandmother's Favorite dishcloths for my mom. I didn't bother taking a picture of them though. I used Peaches & Creme Spring Meadows. They turned out cute and she was thrilled to have some dishcloths that weren't all faded and gross. I cast on another in Spring Meadows too, and I'm about 75% of the way done.

Since we're going to be moving soon, I decided it might be a good time to start digging through my ~~yarn~~ craft room. I also started panicking about my animal fiber yarns because I keep finding those #@&%$! Asian Lady Beetles (aka Japanese DEATH BEETLES) all over my craft room...all of them dead, which is weird. So I went to the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago and picked up three boxes of gallon knock-off Ziploc bags, and then I found some Xtra Large ginormous sized plastic storage bags, probably most used for clothes, but I bought a box of 2 to try out. Majority of the balls of cotton yarn I have are now sitting in those two bags, and the cones are going into a Rubbermaid bin. Score. I also have most of my wool/alpaca/animal fiber yarns in knock-off Ziplocs. Phew. I got tired just thinking about it. When I was digging through my ~~yarn~~ closet, I found a box marked "scrap skeins," but by "scrap skeins" I apparently meant 5 full skeins and 2 partial skeins of Caron Simply Soft Brites...clearly that means scrap skeins, I mean, clearly. My fiber friend Autumn is so kind as to take most of them off my hands (I'm keeping the Rose Violet, but getting rid of the Rubine Red, Watermelon, Berry Blue, Grape, White and Blue Mint)...great colors, but since I only bought 1 skein of each, totally useless to me. They will be useful to her since she makes tons of purses and has kiddos who will like the bright colors. It's a win-win all around! However, in the "scrap skeins" box, I also found 3 full skeins of Caron Felt-It Yarn that I bought in 2007. I started to worry because since I didn't know those were there, I also didn't have them in plastic. So I wound up one ball of the yarn, and one thing led to another and all the sudden I've got 3 inches of knitting done on the bottom of what will be a bag. I just kind of made it up, but it's pretty similar to the Booga Bag pattern I guess. I'm calling it my Booga Bag Cheap Knock-Off, because I wasn't really following the pattern anyway, and instead of using the recommended yarn, Noro Kureyon, which goes for about $9 a skein for 110 yards, I'm using Caron Felt-It which was significantly cheaper per skein for 93 yards. :)

So far this has been totally mindless. I used a size 9 needle for the bottom and am using size 10 for the rest of the bag. I have no idea how it's going to felt, but it will be an experiment! I will probably have yarn left over so I may try making a little matching clutch-type thing to carry credit cards, driver's license and cash so it can be stashed in the bag neatly. I am not sure what to line the bag with, but I'll see what my mom's fabric stash holds before I rush to Joann's or Michael's. The last thing I need is to get hooked on buying fabric...

Well that's pretty much it for now. See? I did get a lot done. Sorry about the less than stellar picture quality this time, I was playing around with my camera's "night" settings because when I used the flash it looked washed out, and no flash it didn't show up. Someday I'll learn to just take the pictures during daylight and we'll be fine. Till next time...

Um, oops.

2010-06-02T04:11:00.004-05:00

So back in January, I blogged about my 2010 Knitting Resolutions (it's been a while since I've dragged out that link!!). So far, I have officially crossed off #11 (Take pictures of the Wedding Roses filet crochet afghan). #2 (Knit at least 10 things from my queue)is coming along nicely (I have 4 things crossed off already: the Sutro Heights Hat, Simple Burp Cloth, Waffle Knit Dishcloth, and Fantasy Naturale Market Bag. I am 65% of the way done with a 5th item: my February Lady Sweater. Once the sweater is done, I will be halfway done with my 10 item queue challenge AND I will be able to cross off #6 (Knit a Sweater). I might even be able to cross off #3 (Learn Magic Loop) when the sweater is done because I might do the sweater sleeves with Magic Loop. #7 (Work on a crochet project) is happening too, I just haven't worked on my crochet project for a while...

However, #1 has been a complete failure so far. I broke my yarn diet. Oops. But I think I broke it for a good cause- some special edition KnitPicks yarns!

Here's the KnitPicks Felici (fingering weight) in Rainbow.

Can yarn get cuter? I really don't think yarn can get cuter. Nothing is more fun than some rainbow stripes.

Along with that there were a few other purchases:

Some KnitPicks Imagination in Seven Dwarves...

I have wanted this for a while now, and I think I am going to cave to the pressure of the Clapotis (as soon as I finish some other projects) with this yarn.

...and more KnitPicks Imagination in Ruby Slippers.

As a die-hard Wizard of Oz fan, I think I might actually have to turn in my fan card if I didn't order this yarn. It is SO pretty. As an extra tidbit of trivia (who says this blog isn't educational??)- the ruby slippers were NOT in the original book. In the book, the Witch of the East had a pair of silver shoes, but since the movie was filmed in Technicolor, TPTB in the movie biz changed the silver shoes into ruby slippers so that they would show up better in the movie. See? You learn something every day!

Some KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in Grass...

This yarn is going to be an Xmas present for my mom (ha! this fulfills resolution #10). I know I will do 198 Yards of Heaven (rav link) and I'm going to do a hat to match but I have not decided the pattern for the hat yet (and it's June, so I have some time). :)

And finally, I saw some yarn in a stash on Ravelry that I knew I HAD to have. It was the now-discontinued KnitPicks Memories (rav link) line, and it was shades of brown, white and a little gray....the name of the colorway was SMORES!!

Also named Smores? My diva of a tortoiseshell cat. :)

Seriously HAD to get a yarn to match my cat (though you can't see the white on my cat in this picture, it's on her chest and tummy)!! Luckily, I found a nice person on Rav who was destashing it.

I came up with a really creative way to photograph my yarn from now on too so that you all don't have to see my ugly carpet (I just love generic apartment carpet!). Some people put their yarn into a bowl, and others use a posterboard. Me, well I do neither. My method includes a box, some books and a roll of wrapping paper. I unroll the wrapping paper with the white side facing up, place some books on the edges to keep them from curling, and then put a box on its side where I then attempt to balance the roll on top of the box. Works like a charm, but isn't very kitty friendly since kitty likes to sit on wrapping paper. Distract kitty with a piece of yarn, THEN it works like a charm. Also, I've taken to using natural light. That, combined with my Red Green-style background and my photos are A-#1.

Uh, so back to the resolutions. #1- Broken. Oops. #2- Working on it! Almost 1/2 done with 10-item-queue-challenge! #3- Might be accomplished soon for FLS sleeves. #4- Not yet... #5- So far I've failed. I started a lace scarf and frogged it, and haven't re-started it. But the year's not over yet... #6- All that's left on my sweater is the sleeves! #7- Crochet project has begun, but is not off to a great start yet... #8- So far I have totally succeeded! #9- I've looked all over the city for RHSS in Magenta. It apparently does not exist and I refuse to order online and pay for shipping. It might happen this year...but is not looking likely. #10- I've planned for Xmas gifts, but have not started knitting any yet. #11- Yay! I succeeded!

So, uh, on to knitting. Over the weekend, I knitted a Mitered Hanging Hand Towel out of Peaches & Creme Blue Swirls for the main color and Light Blue for the top. I joined a hanging towel swap through the Peaches & Creme group on Rav, but I don't think this towel will be going to my swap buddy. I also knitted a Light Blue Grandmother's Favorite and am more than halfway done with a Grandmother's Favorite in Blue Swirls to complete the "set." I'm not sure exactly what this "set" is for yet, but I just have to finish up the rest of the Blue Swirls cloth, sew the button on the towel and weave in the ends on everything and I'll photograph it. :) I also am going to knit my mom some more dishcloths since I noticed yesterday when I was at their house that the daisy ombre (yellow and white) cloth was more of a dingy white and no yellow at all, definitely needs replacing!

So hopefully I'll have a post with some finished object pictures soon, rather than just pictures of yarn and my cat, and me rambling on and on about what I hope to accomplish by Dec 31, 2010. :)

More Sweater Updates!

2010-05-28T17:49:00.003-05:00

Last night I finished the body of my February Lady Sweater (rav link)! Now I only have to work the sleeves, weave in the ends, block it a bit to open up the lace and we're all set. Hooray!

The pattern calls to bind off with a size 10 needle (entire sweater was worked in a size 8 needle). I couldn't figure out why, but since I am using my Harmony Interchangeable set, I just swapped the right needle up to a size 10, and the bind off row is very neat and even. I'm not sure if that's what the author intended but it certainly worked well!

I don't have much else to update, so I have a few pictures of the sweater.

Close-up of the lace pattern:

Please excuse my awesome Dazed and Confused Derby Days shirt:

My Autumn Red Lace Scarf is coming along quite nicely as well. I work 1-2 repeats at a time since I'm clearly not in the market for a scarf anytime soon (knock on wood). I am definitely going to have to attempt to block this though, since the lace pattern is beautiful but is not showing up as is right now!

However, to take a break from the sweater and scarf (and to do something that isn't in a shade of red!), I did my first Mermaid pattern (The Mermaid Surfaces) and it is so pretty! When I get around to dyeing that bare yarn I have, I want to make a Traveling Woman (rav link) and it uses that pattern. I don't have a picture yet of my Mermaid Surfaces because I want to block it first.

Going along with my Mermaid pattern, I've also decided I want to do two things: 1- Knit down my cotton stash (it is a bit out of control), and 2- stop buying any sort of store bought dish cloths. So, in an effort to knit down my cotton stash, I'm working on making lots more dish cloths for use around my house. I love making dish cloths, but it never really occurred to me to use them for things aside from dish cloths and face cloths - but the other day I used one to clean my sink, wipe down the stove, etc etc etc. If I have a large stash, then I can use them for just about anything, and consequently knitting down my stash. :) I started by doing a standard Grandmother's Favorite in Peaches & Creme Aztec (a fun color of purple, brown and green!). So, we'll see how that goes...we're going to be moving soon so any amount of time I can spend knitting down stash means less boxes to move. :)

April/May/June(!?!?!) Lady Sweater and a Lace Scarf

2010-05-22T01:45:00.003-05:00

It has been a while since I've been able to update because I had to go almost 2 weeks without knitting anything. Oh, the horrors! I somehow managed to hurt my back a few weeks ago so I spent quite a bit of the last week and a half or so lying in bed or on the floor. Good times. My back is feeling better now, so I have been able to resume working on my February Lady Sweater, which started out as the April Lady Sweater, then became the April/May Lady Sweater but at this rate, it is soon to be the April/May/June Lady Sweater! If I have to tag on July too....well....

I am still working on the body of the sweater, though I'm about 3/4ths of the way done with that part! I have not yet worked out how I am going to do the sleeves. I don't think I have DPNs in size 8 (and my size 7dpns are only 5" long so I'm not sure they'd work for the sleeves either) and I don't know that I want to buy them. I may try doing the sleeves with Magic Loop. That might not be a bad first ML "project" but I'll work that out later. :)

I took a couple of progress photos tonight to show what I've gotten done so far. My preferred method is to take a picture into a mirror but I wasn't able to do this for two reasons- 1. can't use flash that way, 2. I don't have a full length mirror at this house...

Anyway, I am super excited about how the sweater is coming along. I was a little disappointed at first because the first two skeins of the Kettle Dyed Wool of the Andes was more or less a solid red, but all of the skeins since then have been more variegated in the shades of wine/red. I think I am on skein 6, but I'll have to check. I bought 10 skeins for the project since I didn't know how the sizing would work out. I'm glad I waited a while to start this since I bought the yarn almost a year ago and I was between 15-20 pounds heavier then, so I might have had to make the Medium instead of the small and risk it not fitting now! I know I will definitely have yarn left over, so I might make a hat and maybe a scarf or mittens (depending on how much is leftover) to match the sweater. :)

I was also going through my craft room and starting to take more of a mental inventory of what's in there. I found some random skeins in a box, and one of them was a partially used skein of Simply Soft in the Autumn Red that I had used when I started swatching for the filet crochet afghan that I made in '07. Since it was partially used, I ripped out the project, but of course I didn't want to tote around yarn barf, so I wound it on my ball winder. For some reason, I hate having acrylic yarn in yarn cakes, so I decided I wanted to use it up, fast. I was flipping through my pattern binder and found a printout of the Lion Brand Lace Scarf. I printed this out a few years ago but put it in my binder and forgot about it. I figured this would be a good lace scarf project and should use up the bulk of this skein of Simply Soft. I am not sure how it will work with acrylic though, so I may have to do an experiment with "killing" acrylic after I'm done...

And finally- I am hoping that this weekend will yield some Kool-Aid dyeing! I went to Goodwill on Monday and bought a microwave safe plastic measuring cup (I used to have on just like it when I was in college...used to make ramen in it...blech) and another microwave safe bowl for under $5. I don't want to ruin any of my bowls and stain them with Kool-Aid. I have cherry, black cherry, lemon-lime, orange, grape, ice blue raspberry lemonade and surfin' berry punch to experiment with! I am going to try dyeing the KP bare yarns I have (two skeins of merino fingering wool and one skein of superwash merino/nylon fingering weight) and I might try "overdyeing" some Andy's Merino yarn I got a few years ago from Farmhouse Yarns. The yarn is lovely, I'm just not in love with a lot of the colors I have. Naturally, if I do end up dyeing tomorrow, I will document it with pictures. :) I am hoping to get my dyeing in soon, because one of the skeins of the KP Bare fingering weight merino is going to be a Traveling Woman scarf (ravelry link) and I am dying (no pun intended, har har) to start that shawl. :)

Some April/May Lady Sweater updates and a canine friend!

2010-05-06T01:28:00.005-05:00

So I had a post written out and then Blogger crapped on me and everything disappeared! Boo!

I have spent the majority of the last week working on my sweater. Andy & I went to Door County for our 3rd anniversary vacation, and I had lots of kitty-free knitting time (sorry, Smores!). Don't get me wrong, I love my kitty, but kitty-free knitting is a lot easier than knitting with a curious kitty. :)

Over the weekend, I finished the yoke, separated the sleeves, and started on the gull lace pattern. Once I finished the yoke, there is an eyelet row to set up. The pattern just stated to place the eyelets evenly, but I wasn't really sure how to go about doing that. I was able to find this handy tutorial on how to place eyelets evenly. I initially set it up for the xtra-small size and couldn't figure out why I didn't have the eyelets correctly, and then I realized I had plugged the wrong numbers. So make sure you have the right size and you'll be fine! :)

As long as my dentist appointment goes okay tomorrow, I should be heading to my church's craft group to do some more work on my sweater!

Finally, in July 2008 I began working on That Old Beagle...but while I was moving and just trying to pack up my apartment etc etc etc, this project got sidelined for, well, almost 2 years... I found it in my craft room and realized that it had been holding my KP fixed Harmony size 7 circs hostage! I decided I needed to either finish or frog, and since it's That Old Beagle, I didn't want to frog (even though I'd only finished 18 rows on the pattern). I finally finished the pattern, and went to do the seed stitch top border, but I realized the pattern was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I'm currently working on re-working the top so that I can get it turned into a small hanging towel since I don't think that it's really suitable for washing dishes, that's for sure!

Hooray for Joe Cool!

Woodstock is coming soon, whenever I can locate my yellow cotton yarn!

Also coming soon- I've decided that I want to try my hand at dying yarn with Kool-Aid. Stay tuned. :)

Cable = it's not just for TV anymore (and lots of other updates!) :)

2010-04-27T03:08:00.004-05:00

So many updates, so I'm just going to dive right in. :)

A few weeks back, I decided that I wanted to work on learning cables. I love the look of cables...so elegant and intricate, but I had never really attempted them before. As you may know (or if you don't, you might not have tuned in before now), my go-to project for learning how to do techniques is to work on dishcloths. :)

My first cable dishcloth was one I had printed out a while ago, the Bridge Over the River pattern from the COTW Yahoo Group. You have to be a member of the group to access the pattern there, but an identical pattern (as far as I can tell the patterns are identical) by the same designer is found here (A Cable & A Zig). Whatever the pattern really is, I absolutely love it. I like that the lace and the cable patterns compliment each other nicely. In this pattern, I think that the lace is the dominant feature, at least in my opinion, while the cables are almost an after thought. I also think it is deceptively difficult- it looks a lot more complicated than it actually is.

I used the Peaches & Creme colorway Passion, which is currently one of their Premium colors. This cloth was made out of one of my leftover balls of Passion from when it was a Special and not part of their normal line, but it was so beautiful that luckily the lovely people at Pisgah took notice and added it to the Premium line. Hooray! I do wish that it showed the cables a bit better, but the K1P1 link shows a cloth in a solid color which shows off the cable and lace pattern nicely.

The next cable cloth that I picked on has been affectionately named my "ER dishcloth" because I started it and finished about 3/4ths of it while I took my mom to the ER a few weeks ago (note: Mom is fine now). It kept the waiting game from being boring! I did this pattern by default- I put all of my COTW patterns into plastic sleeves and keep them in a binder. Since the COTW patterns are only a page long, I can put 2 patterns into one plastic sleeve. I grabbed the same plastic sleeve that housed Bridge Over the River and thought I would do another BOTR cloth, but the back of BOTR had the C4 Lattice Pattern, which was another pattern featuring cables (no lace on this one though).

I am kind of neutral on this pattern. It was good for practicing both front cross cables and back cross cables, but I'm not all "OMG I LOVE THIS PATTERN." Still, it served its purpose and it has a great texture. I made sure to take a close up of this cable pattern because a- it has great texture, and b- I didn't really think of this as a cable pattern at first, but it is.

Since I was taking these pictures at night (when, oh when will I learn to take these during the day with natural light??), the Peaches & Creme teal is somewhere between the picture taken without the flash and the picture taken with the flash.

My next pattern was also done in the Peaches & Creme Teal, the Lace & Cable Ensemble. This cable is more of the cable I think of when someone says knitting cable- a 3 stitch back cross. There might be a zillion scarf and sweater patterns with a variation of this cable (or maybe I'm exaggerating). :)

This cable proved a bit more tricky because the other two cable patterns had a 2 stitch cross and this one had a 3 stitch cross. Aside from that, a cable is a cable is a cable- it's more or less just rearranging the order that you knit the stitches!

I did want to show a close up of this one to show how nicely the cables and lace compliment each other in this pattern too. In this pattern, unlike with the Bridge Over the River, I felt like the cables were the center of the pattern, with the lace just as a compliment to the cables. YMMV, of course. The only problem I had with this one is that the lace pattern consistently did not "open up" in one particular spot. I don't usually block dishcloths, but I may try it with this one. I will post updated pictures if I do end up doing that.

Anywho, so that's all for the dishcloths right now. I do have another cotton project on the needles, but it is undergoing some re-working since it came out a lot bigger than I expected. It also may have to do with a certain famous Beagle, so I will definitely wait until I have photographed it to say more...in this case, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Oooh, but what's this?

After working on all those exciting cable projects, I felt the need to expand on my newly acquired skills. I found a really cute sweater, the Cables & Garter Cardi (ravelry link), that I thought would be a nice follow up on my cable fun! I decided that I would bring this pattern along to my new "young and knitting" group (which met this past Sunday). However, when I went to go print the pattern, only the pictures printed with no text. Blegh. I had even selected the yarn, some Lavish Alpaca Light Worsted (ravelry link) in white since then it would go with anything! But no such luck for now.

But I still had to find something to bring to my knitting group. Hm. It was as good a time as any to bring along my February Lady Sweater (ravelry link) pattern and Wine Kettle-Dyed WotA to start the sweater. Of course, I forgot to bring stitch markers, so I couldn't actually do anything except cast on and knit the first three rows, but I got out the stitch markers at home and continued progressing on my sweater. I even managed to work the first button hole (with a LOT of trial and error), using the Buttonhole Knit Over One Row D, including the Twisted Purl Cast On too. We'll see if I'll be able to replicate it again for the next buttonhole...I'm sure I'll be able to do it, but it may take more trial and error and reading the directions aloud slowly (my cat must think I'm nuts). Anyway, so far the sweater is going pretty well (but I'm only about 5 inches in). I like the yarn color, but I'm finding that even though it's supposed to be kettle-dyed, there aren't any color variations in this skein of WotA. I still love the color anyway, so I'm not complaining too much.

I probably won't have another update for a while, unless I finish tweaking my famous beagle project and have it photographed before Thursday. That is pretty highly unlikely at this point, though! :)

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home...

2010-04-09T00:27:00.003-05:00

....okay so this post has nothing whatsoever to do with piggies, but it was the only clever thing I could come up with having to do with market. :)

Once upon a time, I started working on a market bag. And then I moved to Milwaukee and this project got packed into a bag, and got put into my ~~yarn~~ spare room closet, and I never got around to finishing it...(it's still in the closet, I really should dig that thing out). The other day, I went to dig out a cone of Raspberry Swirls Peaches & Creme, and I found a couple other cones of cotton yarn that I really wanted to use up, one of them being Blue Swirls.

I bought this color a while ago, and it got buried in the same closet after the move, of course...

Anyway, so I've been looking for a good market bag pattern. I like the one that I used with the previous market bag, but the Blue Swirls is a worsted weight, and not a double worsted weight. Plus I have a bunch of market bag patterns in my Ravelry queue, so I figured I should branch out. I settled on the Fantasy Naturale Market Bag pattern from the Plymouth Yarn website.

The pattern initially called for size 10 needles and size 15 needles, but since I was doing this in worsted weight yarn and it does eventually have to hold things, I looked through the projects on Ravelry and decided to make some modifications.

I cast on the bottom of the bag with size 7 needles (pattern calls for straights, but I used a KnitPicks fixed circular). This made a pretty firm fabric for the bottom of the bag. I did the same number of stitches that the pattern called for. I have never picked up stitches before, so when I went to pick them up, I only picked up 98 stitches instead of 100. So I decreased down 2 stitches since the pattern is repeats of 4. I didn't start on the pattern right away, but I "extended" the bottom doing just straight knitting for a while before switching to the bigger needles for the mesh part of the bag.

I switched to size 10 needles, and I used the size 10 from my Denise set. The pattern was easy to memorize, so I did most of the knitting while watching TV.

I didn't change anything else for the rest of the pattern, except since I only had 96 stitches instead of 100, I had to adjust the knitting at the end a bit. For Round 5, I changed it to: Knit 29, Bind Off 14, Knit 34, Bind Off 15 and Knit 5. That was the only adjustment I made for the end, I still re-cast on 20 stitches for the handle.

I really like this pattern, and I may knit more of it. However, there are so many market bag patterns and so little time, we'll see if I get back to doing this one! I think this will end up being a Mother's Day present for my mom so she can take it to farmer's markets this summer, but we'll see. ;)

Incidentally, I had this market bag in my Ravelry queue since 9/20/2008, so it officially counts as a project from my queue! That marks queue project #4 in as many months of 2010, so I should have no problem finishing 10 queue projects by the end of 2010. Hooray!

Easter Fun!

2010-04-03T03:19:00.005-05:00

Aaaaaaaaaaaas promised, I will be showing off my exciting projects made after being "inspired" by the "colorways that make you want to stab your eyes out" on Ravelry (oh, how I love Ravelry for inspiration!). Surprise! Juanita Rose Peaches & Creme does NOT make me want to stab my eyes out. Repeat: does NOT want to make my stab my eyes out. I'm going to take a break from it for a while, but I do that after I use a colorway for a while (see also Pink Lilacs after the baby blankets! I still have the equivalent of about 2/3rds of a cone left of this colorway, buuuuuut I'm definitely not interested in using it for a while!). Anywho, without further ado, the fruits of this week's projects! Fun times with cotton variegated yarn!

All of the dishcloths used a size 6 needle which can be quite rough on the hands when combined with cotton. Remember to take breaks even if the dishcloth is calling your name and you just have to get another pattern repeat in there. Don't do it!

Oh, and I also took all these pictures without the flash. I think they are pretty close to the actual colors (after doing a little editing on the photos), but they might seem a little less "bright"....someday I'll do this during the daylight, I mean it. Oh, and if you haven't figured it out already, you can click on the photo and it should take you to my flickr page where you can see the whole picture. Since my template is kind of narrow, it tends to cut off part of the pictures.

ORRRRRRRRRRRR, The Powers That Be at Ravelry just unrolled a brand new feature, the SHARE BUTTON! Yay! So if you want to see more details on the entire project (including pictures), click here!

#1- Garter Dishcloth w/Pointy Corners (Ravelry linky): Have had this pattern memorized pretty much as soon as I learned it. Love it, but get bored with it quite easily. Pros: can tune out knitting and watch TV.

#2- Feather & Fan Dishcloth: Also have had this memorized forever. And love this one too. I've done it a bunch of times, more times than I can count, actually. Not as mindless as the aforementioned dishcloth as I have to tune in to do the lace row, but aside from that, it's pretty mindless.

#3- Eyelet Rib : I've done this one once before in a solid, but it isn't so lacy that the pattern disappeared in a variegated/ombre. I prefer it with a solid, but this one turned out pretty nicely too, I'd say. I didn't do the Slip1-Knit1-Pass Slipped Stitch Over (Sl1, K1, PSSO) and instead used the Slip-Slip-Knit (SSK). Why? Whenever I do a Sl1, K1, PSSO with cotton yarn, my passed slip stitch looks uneven and kind of wonky. I think it's just because cotton yarn has a lot less give and my gauge is a bit tighter. Your mileage may vary, of course, so if you want to do this pattern I recommend trying both and using whichever one you like better/looks better.

For this one, I even took a close up. Ta-da!

#4- The infamous BallBand pattern: As you may be able to guess, this pattern, in addition to being found at the Peaches & Creme website, is found on the ballband (clever!) of every single skein of Peaches & Creme you will ever buy. Since I didn't want to tote around my computer while I was working on this (since, it's a- annoying, b- distracting, and c- I do have to share it!), I just went up to my craft room, rummaged around for about 5 seconds and found a ballband. Voila, a BallBand pattern! Yay!

For this one, since it requires two colors, the other color I used was the remains of the Tea Rose skein that I used on my Lilacs on the Veranda cloth (found here). I didn't even use up about 1/2 of what I had left (so I'm guessing I only used about 1/4 a solid skein, or approximately 25 yards), so there might be another BallBand in the near future using Tea Rose...

I even took a closeup of the ballband too.

I'd just like to warn people that these are actually like crack. They are so addictive. And not hard. And there's also a crochet-friendly variation: The Brick Wall Dishcloth (I have not crocheted this since my problem with crocheting mainly is that I crochet waaaaaay too tightly and cotton has no give, so me+crochet+cotton=major disaster, and yes I've tried crocheting with cotton, so I cannot comment as to whether this is like crack for crocheters). I lurves me the ballband pattern. I already cannot wait to start my next one (which will most likely not be a present, but who knows) and am planning many fun color combinations with this!

My one beef with this project was actually not with the patterns at all, it was actually with the yarn. Weird, I know. The Juanita Rose colorway is, according to the Peaches & Creme website (found here- scroll to the bottom of the page, Juanita Rose is 229) is Sage Green, Lemon and Shrimp. I had no problems with the Lemon (which is more of a soft yellow, not an ugly neon yellow like the poster in the Ravelry thread described it as, haha) and Shrimp as they were pretty neatly and tightly wound, but the Sage Green was often very splitty. That is very unusual for Peaches & Creme (in my experience, anyway). I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that I did not buy this cone from the factory directly, but I bought it at the Evil Empire. I hadn't even set foot in that store in over a year because a- the one near me is waaaaaaay ghetto-fab, b- it's not far away, but it's totally out of my way for the most part, and c- well, I won't go into it....but after going to 2 Joann's and 2 Michael's in ONE DAY trying to find a color of yarn, it was my last option (short of ordering online and having to pay higher prices + shipping)... so while I was there, I got some Juanita Rose since I hadn't tried that color yet. Hmm, lesson learned. I'll just order from the factory from now on (though I am well stocked in Peaches & Creme yarn, so I won't need to order for a while....maybe not till 2020). :)

And now that I've finished that project, I've updated my KnitMeter! I have now knitted 859 meters this year. Well on my way to knit 2000 meters in 2010! If I keep this up, I should be able to for sure hit, if not exceed, my goal. :)

Well, that's it for now (it took me about two hours to write this, wtf!)...now that I've got this out of the way and over a month till Mother's Day (my mom's present usually involves dishcloths), I'll try to accomplish some non-dishcloth knitting. I hear that Shimmer Yarn and CashSilk Fern Scarf calling.......

Dishcloth Fun!

2010-03-31T23:50:00.000-05:00

I am trying to blog twice a month, but so far I have failed for March by only posting once! The horrors! :)

Anyway, I spent a while attempting to design a hanging dishtowel based on the VanDyke Lace Panel cloth by Maile Mauch. It is a beautiful pattern, but I just haven't quite figured out how to work the top decreases in a flattering way. So I will keep working on it.

In the meantime, what have I been knitting? Well, I had made some dishcloths for my Grandma as an Easter '08 present. I decided that I would make her some more as an Easter '10 present. But what color scheme to use this time? Well, in the interest of amusement's sake, in the "Yarn" forum on Ravelry, I had come across a thread about "colorways that make you want to stab your eyes out," which happened to be in regards to the Peaches & Creme colorway, Juanita Rose. So I dug my cone of Juanita Rose out and decided that would be the dishcloth colorway that I would use for this year.

I am going to do a total of four cloths, and so far I have picked out the standard Grandmother's Favorite, but am using the pattern with Pointy Corners (Ravelry link) because I think it looks better, the standard Feather & Fan that I have done many, many times, the Eyelet Rib pattern (another favorite from Maile Mauch!), and for my last one I am not sure yet on what I will pick, but I am thinking this might be the time to attempt the infamous BallBand. I am not sure what coordinating color I will use to go along with the BallBand, but I am thinking either shrimp or tea rose (tea rose is looking like a good option since I have a partial ball that needs to be used up, lol!) :)

Anyway, I will post pictures once I am done with all of them!

Yay, I'm back!

2010-03-24T00:59:00.003-05:00

I really haven't posted in a while, but I haven't done a huge amount of knitting lately. :)

As for the lovely lace scarf, I re-wound the yarn and put it away for now. I really am going to start working on it, but just have not motivated myself yet to re-cast on. So short of casting on and knitting like mad 24/7, I won't be wearing a lovely lace scarf on Easter. I'm guessing that the 24/7 knitting isn't going to happen, so c'est la vie. :)

As for my crochet project, it is coming along slowly but surely. The hook really is hard to get used to. But like I said, I have quite a while to work on this, so I'm just doing a little bit at a time.

In the meantime, I keep pretending that I am organizing my craft room. By organizing, I mean I've put a couple of my COTW patterns into plastic sleeves and then into my binder. Aside from that, I might have moved a few skeins of yarn into various boxes, but the room still looks kind of disastrous (yarn everywhere!). I guess I can give myself a pat on the back though, the closet is still organized (all of the yarn in the closet is in a bin or box).

However, while I was "organizing" my craft room and adding patterns to binders, I found a bunch of dishcloth patterns that I printed out over the last few years, but didn't print out a copy with a picture. I looked at those as a "mystery" knit and I looked at the skeins and skeins and cones and cones of cotton yarn I have and figured that the "mystery" knits would be fun.

The first "mystery knit" I picked out was the Lilacs on the Veranda cloth. Since it's a lace pattern, I decided to pick out a solid color, so I used up about half a skein of Peaches & Creme in Tea Rose.

The pattern is not difficult at all, especially now that I've mastered the ssk. :) I think this pattern would work well in a variegated or ombre yarn, but I wanted to see how it looked in a solid. I may do this one in an ombre should I ever want to give this as a gift set or anything.

The next "mystery" knit I picked out was the Waterfall Bubbles. For this one I picked out a variegated that has been sitting in my stash for a while, the Peaches & Creme Newport color scheme. This is a really pretty ombre of burgundy, navy blue and tan.

However....as beautiful of a color scheme as this is, I really should have picked a solid to show off the lace pattern. I am giving serious consideration to using this pattern for a lace scarf with real lace yarn sometime (okay okay okay, after the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf is done!). I did like the cool pooling that happened though.

So that's what I've done in the past week or so.

After I finish this post, I am going to start working on the Vandyke Lace Panel cloth, but adjust it to be hand-towel sized as a gift for a friend's parents. I am also going to knit up a cloth and do an accompanying Jonathan Livingston Seagull cloth too. Since this is going to be a gift, I am using Peaches & Creme Ecru, a nice neutral shade. One I have finished the Vandyke Lace Panel towel, I will post my modifications to make this "towel sized."

Maybe after this is done, I will get around to starting up my AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf.....

C-R-O-C-H-E-T!

2010-02-28T04:47:00.003-06:00

Well, I've decided to put off the pretty pretty lace scarf for a while. I attempted it first with this beautiful yarn

and a size 3 MeiMei Pro Bamboo 24" Circular needle. And it didn't work because the cable on that needle was too thick. Attempt #0 (not quite 1, lol): Fail.

Attempt #1- After I received my pretty size 3 KnitPicks fixed 40" Harmony Circular, I re-cast on with the pretty yarn. I had two repeats done, and was working on the third when a stitch disappeared, and after tinking and counting and trying to figure out what stitch disappeared, I finally just decided to frog, and re-wind the yarn. Then, as I blogged about here, I decided to knit up a quick dishcloth as an instant gratification to make myself feel better about lace attempt fail #1. :)

So, I cast on again, for lace attempt fail #2...and I didn't even make it through the first repeat before I realized that I was again missing a stitch. Sigh....so, I frogged again.

This time, I decided I was going to forget the Shimmer yarn and try a different lace yarn (because as one knows, I've got too much yarn that I don't need as it is). I decided on the KnitPicks Gossamer (ravelry link as this yarn is now discontinued).

The only thing that I accomplished with this yarn was proof that my long tail cast on sucks hardcore and cannot be used. Boooooooo.

I decided to take a break from the lace knitting with lace yarn to mull over what my next project should be.

I decided that one again, an instant gratification project was necessary. :) So I pulled out some Peaches & Creme worsted weight in Shaded Pastels (because I don't even really LIKE that color scheme, but I've got 12 skeins of it...so I'm always looking for excuses to use it up. Only 10 skeins left.....).

While I was knitting up my Feather & Fan, I decided that my next step was going to include CROCHETING! (gasp!)

So tonight, I chained up what I needed to, and crocheted up the first 3 rows.

And that's all the info I'm going to volunteer since the crochet project may or may not be a gift in the near or possibly not near future!

Oh, except I will let you know that the crochet project involves the following:

So far, so good. Though crocheting with a hook this big is kind of a pain in the rear. But I think the finished project will be a happy success. :)

Lace Attempt #2 - Fail...ish

2010-02-18T04:17:00.003-06:00

Well, the bad news is that I already had to frog my pretty lace scarf. But it really was more or less my own fault for just being careless and not paying attention to the stitches on my needles. And it was only into the very beginning of the 3rd repeat. I spent about 35+ minutes trying to figure out where the dropped stitch was and how the hell I dropped it, before I just gave up, and frogged it. I figure I didn't really lose a whole lot of work in the grand scheme of things. So yes, I'm sad, but I saw a few lace projects on Ravelry where the knitter noted that they made so many mistakes, they just frogged the WHOLE THING. I'd rather frog not quite 3 pattern repeats, learn where I made my mistakes, and re-cast on later. Whew. So that is what I will do....sometime this week.

After that lace yarn fiasco, I didn't want to cast on right away again, I figured I needed something to do that was an instant gratification type project so that I didn't decide that I was a total failure as a knitter. :) So I pulled out my trusty size 6 needles and a cone of Peaches & Creme cotton and knitted a Garter Dishcloth with Pointy Corners (ravelry link) which is basically your standard Grandmother's Favorite dishcloth. I like this pattern better than the regular because of the short-rows that allow for a pointier corner. Call me a perfectionist who likes my dishcloths to have all four corners pointy. Which is odd, given that I got a D in high school geometry.... Anyway. Quick, useful, and instantly gratifying. I actually use these as facecloths in the shower. More exfoliating than a regular washcloth, in my opinion, and I can make them out of fun colors. This one wasn't so much a "fun colors" as it was "oh hey, I've got this 787-yard cone of Aqua Mist because I just frogged another project so I could get my needle cord back...let's use some up!" I do like the Aqua Mist though. Next time I think I'd go for a more fun set of colors, but right now I wasn't about to be picky. Or use Teal Ombre since it too closely resembles that lace yarn....

Last but not least, I found a fun "counter" to add to my blog: The KnitMeter! Can be normally found on the right hand side of the blog, but for your enjoyment, I am adding it to this post. Ta-da!

I'm going to try and knit 1500-2000 meters this year. So far, almost 400 meters in almost 2 months. That puts me on track to knit...let's see...200 meters a month, 12 months a year....2400 meters (there's that pesky math again!). Not bad...not bad. :)

And I lied when I said last but not least before, but oh well. If you have a fiber related blog that you'd like me to link to, I'm trying to compile a list of knitting/crocheting blogs that I follow and would like to start a "Fiber Blogs I Read" sidebar. Just let me know! :)

Olympic knitting project, some FO's and a new template to boot!

2010-02-16T04:04:00.004-06:00

I hope you all like the new template! I had fun picking out my template...I think it makes my blog more fun looking than it used to. I had a hard time finding a template that fit my blog without having to make a lot of obnoxious changes. But I persisted and success!

Anyway, on to the knitting content, which there has been a relative amount of lately.

As you know, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics started on Friday! On Ravelry, the Ravelympics started as well. I didn't join up on a team, but I'd had a blast doing the 2008 Summer Ravelympics, so I figured I would use the Olympics to at least start a project I'd been wanting to work on for a while. I had narrowed it down to three choices: The February Lady Sweater (Ravelry link), Bella's Mittens, and the CashSilk Fern Scarf (Ravelry link). As you may remember, I attempted the CashSilk Fern Scarf last week without success. That was mostly because the only size 3 needle I had was not pointy enough, and the cable was too thick, so even once I got the stitches off the actual needle, there wasn't a ton of room on the cable...so back to the drawing board. At the beginning of the year, I blogged about staying on a yarn diet. I am ashamed to confess that I broke my yarn diet again, but this time it was so I could order from KnitPicks in order to get the size 3 needles I need. I picked up some skeins of Wool of the Andes too since those are a- inexpensive and b- good workhorse yarns. I'm developing a bit of a yarn snob complex and I like worsted weight wool a lot better than worsted weight acrylic...but I digress. In addition to the Wool of the Andes, I bought a two 40" size 3 fixed circular needles, one Nickel Plated and one Harmony Wood. And who could resist this???

Now I promise that aside from that Magenta Red Heart SuperSaver I need for another project, I really am sticking with my yarn diet for a while. Because now I really am broke...that KnitPicks order ate up my Christmas money. :)

Anyway, back to the CashSilk Fern Scarf (I have now named mine the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf, because I am using KnitPicks Shimmer yarn which is 70% Baby Alpaca and 30% Silk. Mmmm....

More yarn p0rn:

So I cast on to the 40" Harmony Circular needle. It was rough going at first. I have never used a yarn even remotely this small, and I think the smallest size needle I've ever used was a size 5 and that was almost 3 years ago. After about the 4th row of the pattern I was about ready to frog already! But I persisted, and gradually it got easier. Hooray! I made it through one pattern repeat (12 rows, and half of those were purl rows).

I am feeling very good about this project so far! I love the color, and working with the tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny yarn is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be! I am not sure that I will be done with this by the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics however. I am thinking a more realistic goal will be to have this done by the end of Lent so that I can wear said lace scarf to church on Easter. :)

Anyway...before I decided on the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf as my Olympics project, I was also contemplating the February Lady Sweater. However, the gull lace pattern on that sweater involved lots and lots of slip-slip-knits (SSKs). I was very fearful of the SSK, so I decided that before I could even contemplate doing the February Lady Sweater, I would need to master the SSK. A quick trip to my Cloth of the Week Yahoo Group helped solve that problem! In the December 2009 COTW, there is a pattern called Amelia that calls for SSKs everywhere. If you are not a member of COTW, I can not say enough good things about it. As the group name indicates, there is a new dishcloth pattern every week with a variety of techniques. I have knit a number of the COTW patterns and while I have not loved all of them, I have learned a lot of new techniques I might not have otherwise attempted. Plus, a dishcloth is useful way to learn a technique, in my opinion. :) So after I found the Amelia pattern, I went to KnittingHelp and found a quick video tutorial on SSK. After watching the video once through, I realized why I had been so afraid of the SSK...I had gotten very poor instructions on it initially! Live and learn...after I knitted the entire Amelia cloth, I am now a master at SSK. :)

I picked the Mocha Swirls colorway in the Peaches & Creme Article 930 Worsted Weight Cotton. I adore this colorway, but now I have this weird craving for Neapolitan Ice Cream....

Please excuse the fact that I have not yet woven the ends in yet. :)

Finally, I finished this scarf a while ago but hadn't gotten around to photographing it yet. I bought some Malabrigo Chunky Yarn in Brilliante a while ago at Iris Fine Yarns in Appleton, but never found a pattern that claimed the yarn.

At the end of fall, I realized I wanted to make a scarf of this, so I dug through Ravelry in search of the perfect pattern for this yarn. I stumbled across the Scrunchable Scarf pattern and decided that this WAS the pattern for the yarn. It didn't take long using size 11 needles and both skeins of yarn. Soft, cuddly and warm.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I will make some more progress with my lace scarf this week and I will try to post another project picture at the end of the week.

Sigh...cats.

2010-02-10T17:50:00.003-06:00

This afternoon, I came downstairs and was greeted by this in the living room!

I followed the trail of yarn to the kitchen....

And was greeted by this!

And then this!

The culprit, however, was nowhere to be found....until I followed the yarn back to the living room and what do you know??

Smores, you are a bad liar and I'm not buying your "I'm innocent" look. So much for the rest of my sparkly wool-ease. :)

Lace Attempt #1 - Fail.

2010-02-09T02:35:00.003-06:00

As I blogged about in my 2010 Knitting Resolutions, I really want to start knitting lace. I have queued a number of lace patterns on Ravelry for a while, but either I didn't have the right yarn, didn't have the right yardage, didn't like that specific pattern, etc. I finally, finally, FINALLY found my ideal pattern. Hooray! I decided on the CashSilk Fern Scarf (ravelry link) because I liked the relative simplicity of the scarf, but it is a gorgeous scarf.

So tonight, I decided that I was going to cast on for this scarf. I dug through my craft room, and found a size 3, 24" circular needle, and then dug through my yarn to find some lace yarn for the project. I considered using the Cashmere/Wool Laceweight yarn that I bought as a 26th birthday to me present from Mad Angel Creations, but I decided against it for now...I'm not sure I really "see" this pattern with this yarn, though I could end up proving to be wrong. Instead, I picked out this beauty- KnitPicks Shimmer in Turquoise Splendor.

So, I cast on the required number of stitches, and knitted the first row. The needles I picked out (MeiMei Pro Bamboo)...NOT working. I think I need a metal needle of some sort. Unfortunately, my KnitPicks Interchangeable needles only go down to a size 4, and this requires a size 3. I checked some other Ravelers project notes, and going to size 4 doesn't seem like a good plan. So for now, the project is halted until I can get a metal needle with a pointy tip. Possibly a KnitPicks fixed circular either in the Nickel-Plated or Harmony Wood, or maybe an Addi Lace. We shall see.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and figure out a different project until I can get my hands on the required needle. :)

Baby Gift Extraordinaire!

2010-02-05T08:52:00.003-06:00

My main project for this week was to accomplish two things: 1. Finish up the baby blanket that has been sitting on my needles for over a year waiting to find a recipient. 2. Make two burp cloths to go along with the baby blanket and the onesies I bought for said baby.

Check and check. Man, I rule.

I even have pictures, because I am just that awesome.

First, the blanket. I did not use a blanket pattern for this one, just a stitch pattern and some simple math. I used the feather and fan pattern, which is, for this blanket, multiples of 18 + 20. My major mistake with this was GAUGE. And a gauge swatch that lied. This isn't a baby blanket so much as it is a small rug. But by the time I realized "oh crap, this is too big" I was almost out of variegated yarn and was over halfway done. No way was I going to frog that much work. So, it's an all-purpose, take-it-everywhere blanket. Use it while kiddo is playing on the floor, use it while kiddo is playing outside, use it when kiddo gets a bigger bed...okay maybe not the last part, but you get the idea.

Another mistake I made was mixing and matching my yarns. I used Caron Natura Baby Rainbow Ombre yarn for the varigated, and Red Heart SuperSaver for the solid. No, the problem isn't that acrylic melts babies. No, the problem isn't that Red Heart SuperSaver is actually the devil incarnate. The problem is that Caron Natura and Red Heart SuperSaver aren't exactly the same yarn weight. So the needle size I picked (US 10.5) was a bit too thick when it came to the SuperSaver, even though it was perfect with the Natura. Live and learn. Next time, either a- don't mix and match Natura and SuperSaver, or b- use a smaller needle size. That would have solved the overall size of the blanket too. Oh well. Anyway, so along with the Baby Rainbow in Natura, I used SuperSaver in Petal Pink, Pale Green and Light Blue (oh, what original names!). I had initially planned on panels of yellow, but see aforementioned "running out of variegated yarn" and that is why there were only three solid panels. :) Aside from the things I'd change if I could re-do it now, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and only hope the recipient likes it too.

The two best pictures I got of the afghan are just before I finished (a few more rows to go):

and just after I finished and folded up the blanket.

To accompany the blanket, I made two quick burp cloths out of Peaches & Creme worsted weight cotton in Spring Meadows. The first one I used a pattern called Plain & Simple Burp & Wash Cloths (ravelry link). The medium called for 36 stitches and the large called for 41, but I settled on "medium plus" and cast on 39 stitches. Quick, mindless knit. I like this color scheme for baby girls.

And a close up to show off the colors a little better:

The second burp cloth I made using a dishcloth pattern and just continuing to knit it to make it a long rectangular rather than a square. This was made using the Waffle Knit Dishcloth pattern from Homespun Living. Again, a pretty mindless knit. My trouble was actually getting the hang of the P2, K1 for the first few rows, for whatever reason I was having a difficult time with that particular row. Aside from that, the pattern was, I think, a success. I like the texture of this one a lot, and I will probably make some dish/wash cloths using this pattern.

And another one to show off the whole cloth:

All in all, I feel pretty successful in completing these projects this week (and last!). Hooray for me! Now, I am going to try and make some baby hats for Laura & Elizabeth so I can ship off that baby blanket as well. Then my project choices are wide open!

Oh, and what kind of a Wisconsinite would I be if I didn't send off some Green Bay Packer onesies along with the blanket and burp cloths! Not a big Packer fan here, but the recipient's parents sure are....

Now I need to find two more skeins of the Red Heart Super Saver in the colorway Magenta. I have located it online at Joann's and Knitting-Warehouse, but not locally. I only need two skeins, I'm not gonna pay shipping. I am going to have to do another craft store round next week in my question for this seemingly non-existent yarn. Who saw that one coming??

Wedding Roses Filet Crochet Afghan, pictures available 2+ years later....

2010-01-18T17:45:00.003-06:00

So I'm sure a lot of you were puzzling over the "Lauren Knits and Crochets" in this title since there isn't a whole lot about crocheting. Here's some crocheting!! Yay!

Once upon a time in 2007, I briefly mentioned this project, which was a 30th Wedding Anniversary/Christmas Present for my parents. I did (as you might be able to figure out) finish the afghan a few days before Christmas, but since that was in the days before I had a digital camera that didn't require 4 AAA batteries and was a pain to load pictures with, I never photographed it. Even after we bought our digital camera, I just kept forgetting to take pictures or ask my parents to take pictures for me. So when I was writing my 2010 Knitting Resolutions, I added photographing this afghan to the list in hopes that I would inspire myself to go photograph it.

Lo and behold, that day was today! And there was much rejoicing!

Some projects specs before I show the photos:

I got this pattern out of the American School of Needlework's The Great Big Crochet Afghan Book that I bought when it was clearanced at Annie's Attic. In the book, the suggested yarn was Red Heart Super Saver and the suggested hook size was a 4.5 G hook. I started this project by doing only one square to see how it looked and see if I could get a rough idea of how the pattern went before chaining on the amount of stitches that the pattern required to make the afghan. For my "swatch" I used Walmart Mainstays (anyone remember that yarn????) in a beige and a size G Boye hook which I believe was 4.0 instead of 4.5. The pattern worked well with the yarn and color, but the product was a little to scratchy. I also did not have enough skeins of the Mainstays, and Walmart had discontinued Mainstays. After going to look at the other inexpensive acrylics and acrylic blends, I decided on the Caron Simply Soft because I really liked the Autumn Red. My parents have beige couches and an Oriental area rug that has a similar shade of red as the main color in it, so this was a pretty perfect match.

I began working on this in April 2007 with the Caron Simply Soft and a 4.0 Boye hook again, but I just felt like using a hook that small would end up with a very tightly gauged afghan. I switched to a Bates 4.5 G hook, frogged again because it wasn't working out, and then finally decided on a Bates H hook and it worked much better. I finished the first row of panels with the H hook.

I put the project away for the summer months as it is very difficult to work on an afghan when it's upwards of 85 degrees and humid all the time. :) I pulled it back out in fall, and worked on it a little bit at a time, but only got halfway done before December due to being distracted by other projects and shiny things (ha!). In December, I set out to finish the afghan. I also was not sure what to do with the border. So I brought it to my knitting group and asked if anyone had any suggestions as to what I should do. Pretty much we thought that maybe I could extend the natural border, but then I ended up doing nothing at all.

So I finally finished up the last row of panels and then single crocheted one more row at the top.

All done!

2010 Knitting Resolutions

2010-01-14T03:52:00.004-06:00

So, I think I've been struck with a bout of insomnia over the past few weeks. It really is starting to suck. However, last night while I was staying up too late for my own good, I came up with a list of ten "2010 knitting resolutions" that I posted on Ravelry in my "about me" section.

I figure this is another good place to post those 'resolutions' so that I can try and hold myself accountable for them. I listed 11, so we shall see how I do by the end of the year.

So here are my 2010 goals (again):

1. Reduce my stash and try not to buy more yarn unless there is a very specific project in mind for said yarn. My budget is really limited right now so that shouldn't be a problem. Also, according to my stash on ravelry, I have 236 stashed yarns. Um, yikes. I can't really imagine that I am going to need more for a while.

2. Knit at least 10 things from my queue since I have been adding stuff to my queue pretty much non stop since I joined Ravelry (in July 2007!) and I haven't knitted many things from my queue. Since the beginning of the year, I have deleted a few items that I either a- won't make, or b- what the heck was I thinking when I queued that anyway?? Of course, then I found more stuff to add....so I'm pretty much back up to 13 pages of queued stuff. Oh well. That should make it that much easier to find 10 things to knit then, right?

3. Learn Magic Loop because I really hate using DPNs and try to avoid using them at any cost. I also really hate switching needles when I am working on a project, for example hats. I also am not sure where some of my normal sized DPNs went and I don't really want to buy more (see limited budget), and also, a few weeks ago I got out my size 9 DPNs and now I'm missing one, thanks to a certain kitty. I am fairly certain this does not happen with Magic Loop.

4. Learn how to make socks (see aforementioned Magic Loop). Another thing with socks is that there are so many fun and cute sock patterns, socks are portable, and also, my feet are cold ALL THE TIME from about November until April. Also, I've already got some sock yarn: some Wonderfalls inspired sock yarn, some Barack Obama inspired sock yarn, and various KnitPicks sock yarn that helped qualify my orders for free shipping. And their Gelato color scheme, because it was super cute, available for a limited time only, and it's named Gelato, for pete's sake.

5. Do a lace project. Lace scarves are pretty sweet. I also have lace yarn, because I bought some before I really understood what yarn weights were....did you know that someone wrote a book called Charmed Knits (as in, Harry Potter)? And there's a pattern in there for an Invisibility Shawl? I want to make that!!

6. Knit a sweater. I love sweaters and I wear them all the time- from about November until April....first on my list is the February Lady Sweater. As luck would have it, February is coming up!

7. Work on a crochet project, in addition to knitting. I like crocheting, I'm just not very good at it. However, on my trip to Loop with the Emilys, you may remember that I bought a crochet hook. I do have a specific project in mind for that. :)

8. Update my knitting blog at least twice a month, or more if possible! In order to update a knitting blog, one must knit. I guess this is kind of a two-part resolution!

9. Knit/crochet a blanket for MYSELF. I've made a blanket for my parents, a blanket for my sister, and various baby blankets for people...and I have a knitted bedspread from a friend, and a crochet afghan from my aunt-in-law, as well as a really ugly, 1970s retro, scratchy-stands-on-its-own-acrylic afghan that is in Andy's trunk that my late Grandma made, which is pretty much the only reason I have it. But I don't have a blanket that I've made for ME. This may be the exception to the "knit from stash" rule, since I really want to make a pink and brown blanket and I don't have any pink and brown stash yarn that is in blanket quantity.

10. If I decide to knit any Christmas gifts, deciding this in October or November isn't usually a good plan. I never knit well under pressure.

11. Finally, and this should be easiest, take pictures of the Wedding Roses Filet Crochet afghan because I made it in 2007 and still have not taken pictures and posted them on Ravelry (even though I have a project page for it). It really was one of my favorite projects to make! This is on my to-do list for this week since my parents are out of town and I'm going to stop and check on their cats. Now, I just need to remember to bring my camera to said cat-sitting trip.- DONE!

Okay, so #11 is kind of a 'cheat' resolution, but I really need to remember to do that!

So hopefully, by December 31, 2010, I will have accomplished at least 6 of my goals, with any luck I will have accomplished all 11!

My latest adventure- the Washington Heights Hat!

2010-01-10T03:43:00.002-06:00

Well, as you may remember from my last post, I was looking to make a hat as winter is upon us in full force here in Milwaukee. I had queued up a bunch of hats on Ravelry, but the one that I just kept coming back to was the Sutro Heights Hat. I felt that the simplicity of the pattern would work well with the yarn I had picked out- Lion Brand Wool-Ease in White/Multi (Sparkly!).

I began on the hat, cast on 85 stitches and began the ribbing. The pattern calls for a worsted weight wool yarn, and size 7 needles. Since the Wool-Ease is 80% acrylic, 20% wool, I knew the blocking was not going to be an option after the hat was finished, so I needed to make sure it fit. To be on the safe side, I went up a needle size, and used a 16" size 8 Harmony Wood Fixed Circular from KnitPicks. The ribbing was somewhat tedious, and I guessed when I got to about an inch.

Per the pattern, I knitted four repeats of the pattern, and began to decrease. All was good, until I got to the last two rows, and I realized I really should have used DPNs to decrease since the cable on the 16" is not long enough to fudge any sort of Magic Loop. It was somewhat of a disaster, but stubbornly, I finished off the last two rows, threaded my tapestry needle and finished up the hat.

I tried it on and immediately noticed a problem: It was too big to be considered a "beanie" and too small to be considered "slouchy." Crap. I looked on ravelry and google and found there's not a good way to "shrink" the Wool-Ease. I put on the hat anyway and mulled over what to do. Finally, I decided in the interest of being a slight perfectionist, that my only real option to avoid being annoyed for the rest of the winter was to rip out the hat so that I could remove some of the rows. I decided to rip back to row 3 of the fourth repeat. After I verified that all of the stitches had made it back on the needles, I doubled checked row #3, and skipped ahead to row #9 to begin the decrease. It seemed to be a better "beanie" size this time around, so I kept going. I finished row 15 in the pattern, and switched from my size 8 circular needle to size 7 DPNs to finish off the hat.

Success! I finished up the hat, wove in the ends and it was the perfect beanie size. Hooray! I now have a hat to wear, and it matches all three of my coats.

As for the name. In the pattern, it is noted that Sutro Heights Park is a park in San Francisco and that's what the hat is named after. Since I've never been to San Francisco, and this hat is to battle the cold cold un-ending Milwaukee winter, I thought it might be clever to name my hat after a Milwaukee neighborhood. I vetoed the Hampton Heights Hat, and named it the Franklin Heights Hat, but then decided on the Washington Heights Hat, named after one of my favorite Milwaukee neighborhoods.

And now, here's the required self-portrait of me with the hat.

I enjoyed this pattern a lot, and I may make it again. Probably not for myself, but possibly for a gift or if I really need another hat. Knowing Milwaukee winters- it's a definite possibility. This was also the first time I knitted from a chart, and I thought it was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I have filet crocheted from a chart before, so that helped. I think knitting this hat from a written pattern might have actually been more confusing, but the chart made it simple. Now, to get printer ink so that I can print out the pattern and keep it in my binder, rather than having to follow along on the computer screen....

Now, I'm trying to decide what my next project should be!

New yarn and new ideas!

2009-12-30T19:35:00.003-06:00

So, I didn't really accomplish any sort of Christmas knitting this year, but that's okay with me. I have lots of time on my hands now, and a lot of stash to knit from...however, that didn't stop me from buying some new yarn and new supplies yesterday. :)

Yesterday, I got together with Emily B and Emily H in order to go searching for some new crafty things (ie yarn). Emily H stopped by my house yesterday, and we headed over to Beans and Barley on the East Side for lunch. We met Emily B there, but there was a 45 minute wait for a table. We decided instead to head over to Alterra on Humboldt instead where there were tasty sandwiches and soups, as well as yummy drinks. Although, it took them a while to make my hot chocolate....but I digress.

Next was a stop at Loop Yarn Shop, which coincidentally happens to be right next door to Alterra. Perfect.

We spent a while browsing and looking at all of the different yarns. I was on a quest to find some yarn to make Bella's Mittens, while I do not like Twilight and Kristen Stewart actually makes me want to punch babies, I LOVE these mittens. Originally, I had hoped to find some Malabrigo to make these mittens, but while they had quite a bit of Malabrigo chunky at Loop, there just weren't any colors there that jumped out at me as something that needs to be made into Bella's Mittens.

I finally settled on some Lamb's Pride Bulky by Brown Sheep in Winter Blue. It's really pretty and should be really warm.

I also found an S crochet hook at Loop! I was very excited. I have wanted to make a 5 and 1/2 hour throw by LionBrand for a while, but last year the largest hook I could find was a P hook. Not quite big enough for triple-stranding the yarn. But yesterday I was successful!

So, the trip to Loop was successful. I do like that store and I like that it is right next to Alterra. :)

Even though a trip to Loop only would constitute a successful yarn shopping day, later on in the day, Andy & I had to run errands, and I also ended up taking a trip to Michaels out on Brown Deer Road on a quest to get the yarn for the Jayne Hat (ravelry link) I am planning on making. I settled on Vanna's Choice in Brick, Rust and Mustard.

I also found some Lion Brand Wool-Ease, it is called White/Multi which basically means it is white with a sparkly strand in it too. :) I am going to make a hat out of it, but I'm not sure what pattern to use yet. I am thinking possibly the Sutro Heights Hat, or maybe a cabled hat of some sort. White, sparkly yarn will go with my black coat, my red coat AND my gray coat. Yay!

Here's hoping for some projects to be posted soon!

Baby Blanket Finished, finally!

2009-12-23T00:34:00.005-06:00

So I finally finished the 2nd of the two baby blankets that I made for Jamie's twins of the Simply Perfect Baby Set from LionBrand. It took a lot longer than it should have, but I am going to admit that it was a combination of laziness and forgetfulness. So there you have it. I am happy to have finished them though, hopefully the girls will like using the blankets much more than I liked making them, haha. :)

I do, however, have about 1/3 of each cone leftover of the Pink Lilacs. I am thinking of making some bibs or something for the girls, maybe hats. I am doing my very best to not go anywhere near the post office until after Christmas, so I have some additional time.

I took pictures of the 2nd blanket (I did not get a picture of the first blanket), but hey, they are identical....so just pretend that the pictures are of both.

As I most likely will not post again before Christmas...Happy Holidays to all of my readers!

Bringing the Blog to Life!

2009-12-05T02:02:00.002-06:00

So it's been almost a year since I actually posted on this, and even longer ago since there has been knitting related content. I am going to do my best to start keeping this up again, of course that also means I will have to actually knit things too.

So, what have I been doing over the last year?

Well, not a whole lot on the knitting front.

According to my ravelry projects list, I have done a few things over the last year but nothing major:

24 blanket squares for a blanket exchange project using the Reverse Mitered Dishcloth pattern. It was extremely easy to get the hang up, and since we had to make 10" squares, it was easy to measure as I went along and use whatever yarn and needle size I happened to have handy. I used a number of different yarns that I had in my stash: Bernat Satin in Sapphire, Bernat Super Value Ombre in Wine Twist, Caron Simply Soft in Light Country Blue, Wool-Easy in Blush Heather, Rose Heather and Dark Rose Heather, Patons Astra in Bright Lilac, Lip Pink and Copen Blue, and Red Heart Soft Multi in Sweet Pea. A lot of those yarns I have had in my stash for a long time, so it was really nice to use them up!

A Scrunchable Scarf using Malabrigo Chunky in Brilliante. If you have never used Malabrigo before, I highly recommend that you find the nearest yarn store that stocks it and buy some, or just pet it for a while. It is soooooooooooooooooo soft, and warm and has gorgeous colorways. I had never used Malabrigo before this, I had bought the Brilliante at Iris Fine Yarns almost two years ago but I could not find the right project for it. I finally just put my mind to finding something that would be good for this yarn. The scarf was really a quick knit, I used size 11 needles and it took only a few weeks (and that was with knitting it for not very long every day). It is done now, but needs to be blocked before it can be worn. Wisconsin winter has come on in full force, so this scarf will be perfect!

Two box stitch baby blankets (roughly based on the blanket in this pattern, the Simply Perfect Baby Set from LionBrand) using Peaches & Creme Worsted Weight in Pink Lilacs. One is completed, and the other one is about 85% done. Why two? My friend Jamie had twin girls born on Aug 22, 2009. They were 10 weeks early, but now both girls are home and are doing very well. I went to go see Jamie and the babies in Ohio over Labor Day weekend, and I brought her the first blanket, but the second blanket has been sitting unfinished for a few months now (oops). I am forcing myself to finish it so that I can send it out to her and the girls can actually use it!

I will be finishing the Feather & Fan baby blanket (of DOOM) finally, once the second box stitch blanket is done. One of my friends is having a girl, and I am broke, so she is getting the blanket. I think it will be perfect for her and she is a knitter so she will appreciate it. It's also easily washable so it won't be hard to take care of!

Finally, the other remaining thing on my needles is a scarf I based off the Fantazia Bath Ensemble using Peaches & Creme Premium in Abbey Rose. The modifications I made is to cast on 25 stitches instead of 29, and use a 2 stitch border instead of 4. The back scrubber called for 19 stitches, but I thought that would be too narrow. I am trying to knit both halves of the scarf at once so that the ends match. I am about 1/4 of the way done with each side so this could be a long process!

I did a bunch of dishcloths/facecloths over the last year or so too for mindless knitting, but nothing extraordinary or really worth mentioning.

Hopefully it will not be another year before I update. I need to take pictures of the scarves and the blankets, so with any luck I will have those up before the new year!

Christmas Fun!

2008-12-15T20:41:00.002-06:00

So, I have no idea where the camera charger is so I haven't been able to take pictures of my knitting stuff.

What's being knitted?

1. Knit Knack Scarf Exchange Scarf

2. Front/Back Cross Scarf

3. Feather & Fan Baby Blanket for Stacey

4. I'm trying my hand at crochet again! Whoa!

In the meantime- a Christmas fun survey! :)

Welcome to the Christmas Edition of getting to know your friends! Okay, here's what you're supposed to do (and try not to be a SCROOGE!). Copy this email and paste it into a new email (or a blog post!). Change all your answers. Then send. Tis the season to fill out stupid surveys!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? A little of both, depends on the gift.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial- real trees are not kitty friendly (or maybe TOO kitty friendly!)

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually Thanksgiving weekend or the first weekend in December but this year I've failed to put it up yet....

4. When do you take the tree down? Usually later than I should. ;)

5. Do you like eggnog? No!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? When I was 7, I got a really awesome stuffed Garfield. I've still got him! :D

7. Hardest person to buy for? My father in law since he hates everything. :D

8. Easiest person to buy for? Me! Umm....I'm not sure, probably my dad.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope!

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Like I have time to send out Christmas cards at all...

11. Worst Christmas gift you received? Um, anything from my crazy great aunt...lol. :)

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL!!!

13. When do you start shopping? Later than I should! I haven't started yet! Crap!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? We're doing a White Elephant this year!! Yea!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cookies! :)

16. Lights on the tree? Yes, my artificial tree comes with them! :)

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night
18. Home on Christmas? I'd prefer it that way!
19. There was no 19, so I added one- What is your favorite Christmas TV Special? Tie between 3, of course! Garfield Christmas, Claymation Christmas and Charlie Brown Christmas!!
20. Angel or Star on top of the tree? I don't have a tree topper, but at home we have an angel.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Mostly Christmas Eve.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The fact that the stupid radio stations have a playlist of something like 5 songs. Holy crap. There are enough songs out there that they don't have to play the same ones twice!!!!
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Um, yeah, we don't really have a theme, more of a hodgepodge. Lots of Snoopy and Garfield ornaments though. A few Scooby Doo ones too.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Wasn't this question already asked? Ohhh, dinner...um, I don't know. Chinese food, lol. :)
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Peace on earth, I'm a closet hippie.
26. Who is most likely to respond? I dunno.
27. Who is least likely to respond? I dunno.

Feel free to post this on your blog if you want! :)

Sorry, that hiatus was not so brief...

2008-09-23T17:12:00.001-05:00

Okay so I didn't mean to take this long of a break from blogging. Right now I'm currently unemployed and knitting like mad. Today I went outside to get my mail, and got locked out with no shoes, no cell phone, and no house keys. I walked circles around the house trying to figure out how to get inside again but of course no windows were open. I ended up back at the front door again- where the door still stood open but the screen door was locked. In desperation, I started pressing on the screen itself and voila- the lower corner popped out of place. Haha! I managed to unlock the screen door through the corner of screen. Who the hell locked the screen door??? I didn't even know it COULD lock. And that's been about the most excitement I've had all week.
The hat that I was modeling in the previous post is still not done as I can't find my Stitch N Bitch book that has the pattern in it. It's in a box....somewhere. Hopefully I'll find it soon.
In the meantime I signed up for another Knit Knack exchange- this one's to make a scarf. I found the perfect pattern and pattern kit so I'm busily assembling an order to put on a gift card I got (because with no money it's usually hard to justify buying yarn) so I can get the pattern and yarn. Unlike in the last exchange we're not going to exchange goodies because we're all broke, but I suggested that we make a mix CD for our buddy, and that seemed to be a well received suggestion. I can't wait to get a mix CD from my buddy, I hope it has music on there that I would have never heard of/bought for myself.
And now for the pictures!

2008-09-23T17:01:00.002-05:00

13 cloths going to the homeless veterans project!! I have 2 more done too, but not photographed as of today as I haven't woven the ends in yet, and I can't find the camera charger either.
So what's all there? Well first let me say that any of the diagonal cloths are the Grandmother's Favorite pattern. And all of the yarn used is Peaches & Creme Worsted Weight unless specified otherwise.
So....starting in the top left corner:
1. Grandmother's Favorite in Pink Lemonade
2. Grandmother's Favorite in Sea Mist #1
3. Grandmother's Favorite in Sea Mist and White
4. Grandmother's Favorite in Shaded Denim
5. Rice Paddy Cloth in Olive

Middle Row:
6. Grandmother's Favorite in Sea Mist #2
7. Fiesta Rib Cloth in Earth Tones
8. Grandmother's Favorite in Faded Denim
9. Grandmother's Favorite in Black

Bottom Row:
10. Seed Stitch in Double Worsted White
11. Grandmother's Favorite in Lemon Lime
12. DW Cloth in Shaded Denim
13. Grandmother's Favorite in Faded Glory

Woohoo! Yay me!
The two not photographed are also Grandmother's Favorite- one in double worsted white, and one in worsted Yankee Doodle. 15! Yea!

2008-09-23T16:59:00.000-05:00

Stack o' cloths!

2008-09-23T16:58:00.002-05:00

The finished DW Cloth. It was the death of me. Not a fan of the pattern. Also not a fan of the shaded denim either. I did kinda like the argyle-esque pooling though.

2008-09-23T16:58:00.001-05:00

Also, not so recently, but fairly recently, I bought a ball winder. Winding yarn is addicting. And now lots of my yarn is in cute little yarn cakes like this one.
This particular yarn cake is made out of Peaches & Creme Worsted Weight in Lemon Lime. Awww, cute!!!

2008-09-23T16:55:00.002-05:00

I got this yarn on Etsy, when I was browsing just for fun (that never ends well now, does it?). What is so special about this yarn, you may ask? Well, the colorway is "Jaye & Eric" which can only mean one thing....WONDERFALLS!!!! Yes, it's Wonderfalls yarn!
In fact, the etsy seller has decided to do a whole color scheme based on Wonderfalls. I hope I find a job soon so I can buy more Wonderfalls yarn.
For those of you who are familiar with the show, the orange-red in the yarn stands for the Wax Lion, and the blue is for Niagara Falls.

2008-09-23T16:53:00.000-05:00

I got more Audacity yarn! Yay for BlackBunny Fibers!

Brief Hiatus...

2008-08-18T00:29:00.002-05:00

Not from knitting silly! But from knitting-related content.
I will hardly ever mix politics and knitting on this blog, but today, I must explain to you why I am knitting charity items like mad.

This Diary Should Never Be Written from DailyKos (an admittedly very left-leaning blog).
The thing is though, that this shouldn't even be an issue. No matter what side of the fence you're on- conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. We got into this war, and our soldiers are fighting it honorably. It's their job. They are putting their lives on the line in service to our country.No matter what your position on the war is, please do not take it out on the soldiers. For them to come home and be poor and homeless, it's a downright embarrassment to our country.
And THAT is why I have gotten so involved in knitting charity items for the homeless veterans.
In fact, I even took on the 25-item challenge. Sadly, it is not going so well....
4 are done!
3 are on the needles!
21 finished items to go (but 3 will be done soon!).

/end political soapbox rant, return to knitting next time!

UFO Sighting!

2008-08-05T23:35:00.005-05:00

I have not been knitting much lately because I feel like I've been either a- at work, b- in Milwaukee, c- job-hunting, or d- packing. The bad news is that I took on the 25-Item Challenge for the Knitters for Barack Obama General Charity Knitting!!
So far, I have the four washcloths picture in my previous post, and a washcloth and hat on the needles. 4 down, 2 in progress, only 19 to go! Crap.
Big News! This knitter is relocating at the end of this month!!! Hence the packing, job-hunting, and Milwaukee travels. Not fun.
In other news, I love the KnitPicks Harmony Options. I totally want the interchangeable set.
I have finished (about 95%) cataloging my yarn on Ravelry. I now know that I have too much yarn. I have started planning stash busters- there will probably be a post about that soon!
I want to try the Bernat Cot'n'Corn yarn! Cotton and Corn???
I also got some awesome yarn from a shop in Connecticut thanks to one of my Ravelry friends. I have not cataloged it on a Ravelry yet, but I'll give you guys a quick shot of one of the yummy skeins of yarn (the tags even have pictures of the sheep the yarn came from!!!).....it is being given a cat scan. :)
That's all for now.... but stash busting coming soon!!

2008-08-05T23:21:00.003-05:00

2008-08-05T23:14:00.003-05:00

In addition to all the washcloths, I'm also working on a hat for the homeless veterans for the Knitters for Barack Obama charity event. Please excuse the silly picture(s). :)
I am using Bernat Softee Chunky yarn (stash buster #1!!!) in Gray Heather, with my new KnitPicks Harmony Fixed Circular needle in size 9 (btw, I LOVE the Harmony Needles!!!). The pattern is loosely based on the Hot Head pattern in the first Stitch N Bitch book. I changed the yarn, changed the needle size, changed the number of cast-on......but still doing the 2x2 ribbing. :)

2008-08-05T23:13:00.002-05:00

2008-08-05T23:13:00.001-05:00

2008-08-05T23:03:00.002-05:00

The beginnings of another washcloth for the Knitters for Obama General Election Charity Project! This one is the Darrell Waltrip knitted cloth, and no, I'm not a fan of Nascar (Darrell who?)...I found the pattern thanks to the wonder that is Ravelry!
This is using Peaches & Creme Worsted in Shaded Denim. Next time I think I want to use a more variegated yarn, but it's not bad for a first attempt!

2008-08-05T22:57:00.002-05:00

Finally, another Feather & Fan....this one is made out of Peaches & Creme in Potpourri Ombre. I am not sure if I like this. Eh, it used up some yarn.

Lots of updates!

2008-07-20T02:12:00.002-05:00

Well I've got lots of updates: WIP, Yarn, New Totebag, and finished objects!
Currently I've got a market bag on the needles, it's a really nice relatively easy pattern, and it's working up quickly (okay, so the size 13 needles help). I'm planning on making more for Christmas presents this year in an effort to be more "green."
I celebrated my 25th birthday last week and to celebrate I bought some yarn (Audacity!) from Black Bunny Fibers, and some needles from KnitPicks. I bought some of the Harmony fixed circulars in 7, 8, and 9. I have the Options in nickel, but I don't know if I like them. I might look into getting a Harmony interchangeable set in the next year or so. I also got a size 1 needle in both the Option (nickel) and Harmony (wood) to try my luck at Magic Loop with socks (eventually).
I joined Team Obama in the Knitting Olympics on Ravelry- now I just need to pick my project!
Like the preemie hats in the primaries, the Knitters for Obama on Ravelry have started up the charity knitting for the general election. This time around it's for homeless veterans. We're making hats, scarves, wash cloths and lap blankets. I finished 4 cloths with many more planned.
I am trying to get all my yarn, needles and patterns organized for my upcoming move sometime before the end of August, it's been quite the task!
And now, for the WIP, Yarn, Totebag, and FOs!

2008-07-20T02:07:00.002-05:00

My latest WIP is a Market Bag. I'm trying to be more "green"....and plastic bags are just awful for the environment.
I'm using the Market and Bottle Bag pattern/kit from Peaches & Creme. I'm using the Gumdrops color scheme. It is not my favorite, but it was my favorite of the colors offered. Just because I knew that I would probably want to make more (and I really do!), I got some more colors of the double worsted: Mocha Swirls, Seabreeze, Blackwatch, and Daisy Ombre. I think I'm going to make market bags for Christmas presents this year.
I started the bag at Stitch N Pitch. Right now I'm getting to be pretty close to being done with the "mesh" part of the bag. It was a pretty quick knit, and the double worsted is a great choice for a market bag. The mesh is very stretchy. This was also my first project knitted in the round. Hooray!

2008-07-20T02:06:00.002-05:00

2008-07-20T02:06:00.001-05:00

2008-07-20T02:04:00.001-05:00

This is the Audacity colorway from Black Bunny Fibers. All the proceeds go to Obama.
This is a wool/nylon blend sock yarn. So now I need to learn how to make socks!! I just bought some KnitPicks needles, so I'm gonna have to learn how to do Magic Loop and learn how to make socks (I hate DPNs!). Maybe for the Knitting Olympics....I'm gonna have to figure out what I'm doing for the Olympics!

2008-07-20T02:02:00.003-05:00

Some pictures of my new knitting bag!! In addition to being an awesome bag for Obama, it's a pretty awesome sized bag for toting around my projects and such! Yea!!

2008-07-20T02:02:00.001-05:00

2008-07-20T01:58:00.002-05:00

This is the Skrap Lace Rice Paddy from the Cloth of the Week group on Yahoo. I liked this pattern too, but it got kinda boring because of the sheer size of this cloth. I did the biggest size on this one. It will be a really nice size cloth, but it got pretty boring! I used the Olive color in a worsted weight cotton, but I like to refer to it as the Army Green color. :)

2008-07-20T01:57:00.000-05:00

Close-up of the Lace Rice Paddy.

2008-07-20T01:54:00.004-05:00

I kinda made up this pattern. Instead of using the typical worsted weight, I decided to use up some of the Peaches & Creme Double Worsted Weight yarn that I have on hand. It makes for a very thick washcloth!! This particular cloth used US size 10 needles. I think the combination of the thicker double weight yarn and texture of the seed stitch will make for an awesome cloth.

2008-07-20T01:54:00.001-05:00

Close-up of the seed stitch. Blech to seed stitch.

2008-07-20T01:47:00.002-05:00

I really like this pattern. I used the Southwest Fiesta Rib cloth pattern from Maile Mauch. It was a really easy pattern but seed stitch and I are not friends. The border was sheer torture. It looks cool though. I used Peaches & Creme Earthtone instead of the Fiesta color because the shelters are requesting "male" colors rather than "female" colors, which is totally fine with me. :) It gives me a chance to use up some of the yarns that I have (ie the P&C Earthtone, which is a really nice color scheme, but I don't like it that much for me).

2008-07-20T01:45:00.001-05:00

The four cloth- just need to weave the ends in. I'm not a huge fan because I miscalculated the ends again but a cloth is a cloth. It'll work. Plus, I like the colors!

Stitch N Pitch!

2008-07-08T01:09:00.002-05:00

Stitch N Pitch is coming up! It's on Wednesday! Hooray!
I don't know what I'm going to work on at Stitch N Pitch. I have a lot of market bags in the works but I am having a devil of a time with the long tail cast on and it's driving me crazy. Sigh.
Number one in my ravelry queue is Knitty's Everlasting Bagstopper. Seriously, it doesn't even look hard. What am I having trouble with? Oh yeah, that's right, the freaking cast on!!!! I love the long-tail cast on, but mine is starting to look like absolute garbage. I have no idea what I am doing wrong and some of the ladies in my knitting group can't figure it out either. So I have had to resort to using the cable cast on for anything that I want to have a decent edge.
I wish I had a picture of what I'm doing wrong but I get too frustrated to keep it around for long enough. Maybe tomorrow I will spend some time working on it, and post pics so hopefully one of the two or so people that read my knitting blog will be able to help out. :)

Up and running!

2008-06-27T00:43:00.004-05:00

I have a number of things that are sort-of in the works right now.
On an unrelated note, it really felt like summer today! It was pushing 90 degrees. Yuck. Perfect knitting weather *sarcasm*. :)
Despite the heat, I took my latest knitting project to City Park at the tail end of my lunch break and knitted a little bit. It was fabulous.
What is my latest knitting project?
Well, the Ravelry group Knitters for Obama is at it again- this time for homeless vets. For the general election, our latest project is to knit/crochet hats, scarves, and washcloths. They will be donated to various veterans shelters/agencies in some specific states (namely swing states). I have already finished two washcloths, and I am working on a third.
Currently, I am working on a Skrap Cloth Lace Rice Paddy from the Cloth of the Week Yahoo Group. It's really not very difficult but looks much more difficult than it actually is. I'm making it out of Peaches & Creme Article 930 Worsted Weight in Olive (but I call it Army Green). I have two enormous skeins of Army Green in my stash and I had no idea what to do with it. I also did the Fiesta Rib Cloth from K1P1 Keeping You in Stitches Studio in P&C Worsted "Earth Tone" that I had in my stash, and a regular diagonal dish cloth out of P&C Worsted in Faded Denim.

What else do I have coming up, you may ask? About two months ago (see May 1), I was talking about making the Tempest from the Spring 2008 Knitty out of that Caribbean Teal and White Lavish Alpaca I have in my stash. Well, I read the pattern again and I found out that Tempest calls for a fingering weight yarn, and my Lavish Alpaca is a worsted weight yarn. Well, I don't really want to have to try and figure out dimensions and how they differ because of yarn weight, so I went on the search for the perfect fingering weight yarn for the project. And I found it! I got the yarn from Elann, and I had never ordered from them before, but I have to say I will definitely order from them again! I settled on the Peruvian Baby Silk (80% baby alpaca, 20% silk- aka yarn sent from heaven). I picked Raspberry and Parchment (they are currently out of Parchment on the website), or basically a rich dark red and a slightly off-white. Woohoo! I cannot wait to get started, but I need to finish up some other stuff first.
I also bought the yarn (when paying for shipping from Canada, you make the order worthwhile, haha) for the Mariah sweater from the Winter 2004 Knitty. I actually might be even more excited about this because I love hooded sweaters. For this one I bought the Elann Superwash Wool in Celestial Teal (I must have a thing for teal- refer back a paragraph to "caribbean teal" in the Lavish alpaca). It is even more beautiful than it shows up on the monitor!
I can't decide what to do first. :)

Remember how I posted about doing some beta testing for Lion Brand yarn? Well, as a thank-you for testing their site, they sent me yarn! More yarn! This time it was two skeins of the new Lion Brand Sockease, I got one skein of Toffee and 1 skein of Sour Ball. I now have enough sock yarn for five pairs of socks and I have no idea how to knit socks. I better get cracking on that, because I really want to have another type of "portable" project to tote around besides dishcloths.

Stitch N Pitch with the Milwaukee Brewers is coming up!! July 9th! I'm totally psyched.
That is all for now. Pictures of my washcloths for the veterans, plus my new, totally rockin' Knitters for Obama tote bag.

Ugh.

2008-06-03T01:50:00.002-05:00

So, that project I was talking about? The Big Project? Not gonna happen. No time, no motivation. Crap. My work is not in vain though- I'm going to keep it on the needles and make it for the day that Andy & I buy a king-size bed. This could be like, 5 years from now, but that's about how long it'll take me to make the damn thing. Ugh.
In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out the Pinwheel Baby Blanket which will be relatively simple once I figure out how to do the stupid first four rows! OMG, seriously. What a pain in the ass. One of the girls in the Knit Knack Ravelry made a pinwheel out of the Rainbow Boucle in the red (not shown on the website which is a huge pain) and it was gorgeous! I want to make one!! I have the rainbow boucle in blue, and in berry. It's just sitting there, collecting dust in my stash and I want to use it. Then I can justify buying it in red when I ever see the red again. Feh. But I don't get double pointed needles anyway, and I really don't get the beginning of the Pinwheel pattern anyway. I will succeed- eventually, but tonight I spent most of the night cleaning. So much for productivity.
With any luck I can get some knitting done this week or at least over the weekend- when I'm not apartment hunting, that is. Crap, I hate moving!!!

Blargh...

2008-05-19T22:00:00.003-05:00

So, The Big Project was halted temporarily. Only due to my incessant stupidity and inability to count stitches or pay attention to them. I had to rip all of it out after I dropped a stitch and then realized that I had completely miscounted everything. So yeah, I'm totally an idiot. :) I re-cast on the project Friday and thanks to the 3.5+ hour UW-Milwaukee graduation on Sunday, I'm more than caught up with what I lost. I am liking it so far but I am getting more and more nervous that I will not finish in time.
I also was in Milwaukee this past week (in case you didn't figure that out by the mention of the UW-Milwaukee graduation, which, surprisingly enough, took place in Milwaukee). I stopped at Loop Yarn Shop on the east side on Saturday and while I found many many tempting yarns/patterns/books, I refrained from buying anything because I rule...err....because I have yarn on the way from Peaches & Creme that I ordered last week. I bought some stuff I really wanted: the Lattice Texture Tablescape Kit in Combination #2 (with light blue as the main color), Baby Texture Plaid Ensemble Kit in the neutral shower kit color combination (once again, not pregnant myself!! but another one of my friends just said she's preggers), the Passion Special because I just love that color combination, as well as a couple single skeins: delft blue, rainbow, and mar-di-gras. As usual, I have too much yarn on the way. :)
Errr, anyway, back to Loop Yarn Shop....awesome shop. I almost bought some yarn and a pattern for a cropped cardigan that I really want to make. Here's the pattern: Cropped Cardigan by Amy O'Neill Houck by Blue Sky Alpaca yarn. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my bank account), Loop was out of the pattern so I opted not to buy it. However, according to the Blue Sky website, both Iris Fine Yarns in Appleton and Yarns by Design in Neenah carry Blue Sky Alpaca yarn and patterns....and yours truly just happens to have a gift certificate to Iris Fine Yarns that may need to be used up relatively soon (I'm gonna keep mum on that one). :)
Tomorrow I have to go to Howards Grove for a rental meeting, so I am hoping that I will get some much-needed knitting done on the way!

The BIG Project hath begun...

2008-05-12T23:00:00.002-05:00

The big wedding present has been started.
I would just like to take this time to state that I really dislike working with Red Heart Super Saver. The colors I have picked are beautiful: Windsor Blue (380), Buff (334), and Painted Desert (303). Really though, my finger is already raw from using RH SS. Arguhhhhh. I have been way too spoiled with my Caron yarns- both Simply Soft and One Pounders. I'm not a yarn snob- NO WAY, I'm too cheap to be a yarn snob- but I am not a huge Super Saver fan anymore.
Oh well.
Anyway, on to the specs of the "big project"....
Cast on 524 (Holy Mother of God, did I really cast on 524 stitches) to a US 10.5 60" circular needle....yes'm.
I'm doing a feather and fan pattern on this one, similar to the Feather & Fan dishcloth pattern that I posted pics of in previous blogs. So the pattern is really easy and mindless, so I can knit it while watching my 3 favorite regular shows: Countdown with Keith Olberman, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. In addition to that, I'm going to start re-watching the series M*A*S*H. I finished 5 episodes from Season 1 Disc 1 while casting on/knitting the first few rows of The Big Wedding Present.
This could be a long month or so....:)
I'll post pics of the minute progress soon!

Knitters for Obama!

2008-05-04T23:05:00.002-05:00

This knitter tries not to mix politics and knitting outside of on Ravelry - heehee, but Ravelry led me to the Knitters for Obama group. One of the group's ideas is to knit/crochet hats for preemie babies and donate them to local hospitals/shelters. The hats are donated the week of the particular primary- for example, last week I mailed off hats to Indiana so that they could be donated to hospitals in Indiana for this upcoming primary on May 6. These are four of the hats I've completed so far- the two light blue/red/white hats and the red/white/dark blue hat 2nd from the left have been mailed to Indiana. The last hat (first one on the left) is being mailed to West Virginia along with two other hats I haven't photographed yet for next week's primary.
I have been knitting up a storm with these preemie hats- they are super quick to knit and the only pain is seaming them. Must learn magic loop, 'cause DPNs suck.

2008-05-04T23:01:00.002-05:00

2008-05-04T23:01:00.001-05:00

Lion Brand Website Beta

2008-05-01T10:46:00.002-05:00

Well, I have been lucky enough to be considered as a beta tester for the new Lion Brand website. Wahoo!! I use the Lion site to get ideas though I haven't used a ton of their patterns yet. One of my main beefs with the website is the login, it's a real pain if you forget your password because it never seems to get sent to you even if you request it. A lot of times I have to go to bugmenot.com just to get a phony password and login, which isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world, but enough of a pain when I have my own login.
I will keep you all posted on my Lion Brand beta testing!
In the meantime, Knitty posted a spring surprise cardigan that I think will be THE answer to my "What do I do with all the Lavish Alpaca yarn I bought?" A few months ago, I bought 10 skeins of Lavish Alpaca worsted weight in white and Caribbean teal....it's GORGEOUS. So far, it has been sitting in my yarn bin (one of many) while I decide what to do with it. Here's hoping that Knitty has come up with the answer!!!

Dishcloth Mania!

2008-04-23T00:31:00.002-05:00

This is what began the dish cloth craze!!
I used the Navy Eagle Dish Cloth pattern because my brother-in-law is in the Navy.
I used Peaches & Creme worsted weight yarn in light blue and size 6 needles. I had a devil of a time working with worsted weight yarn and needles that small, and the pattern called for size 5 needles. If I ever make that pattern again, I will try to see if I can find a sport weight yarn or something.

2008-04-23T00:28:00.000-05:00

Standard diagonal dish cloth pattern. I used Peaches & Creme Pink Lilacs yarn and size 8 needles. Boring but fast!
This and next few things in Pink Lilacs are all for Grandma as a belated Easter present.

2008-04-23T00:25:00.003-05:00

I used a basic box stitch (knit 3 purl 3) pattern for this. I used Peaches & Creme yarn in Pink Lilacs. The freaking awesome zig zag was not intentional, but how cool is that??
I used size 8 needles, CO on 36 stitches and did a B3 on each side of the pattern. Easy pattern, but kind of boring.

2008-04-23T00:16:00.003-05:00

I've become obsessed with the Feather & Fan Dishcloth pattern by Linda Smith. It is so simple, but so cute and looks really complex.
For this dishcloth (I made 2 of them), I used Peaches & Creme Pink Lilacs worsted weight yarn. Peaches & Creme is my favorite cotton yarn, though I do like Sugan N Cream, just not nearly as much as P&C.
Each dishcloth took about 3/4 of a 2 oz skein of yarn.
Really quick easy knit, great pattern!

2008-04-23T00:07:00.004-05:00

Here's a dish towel that I was in the progress of working on (it has since been finished). I modified the Feather & Fan dishcloth pattern to be a dish towel. It turned out okay. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. I would probably modify it again if I ever make it again.
For this towel, I used Peaches & Creme worsted weight in the Pink Lilacs ombre. It took about 1.5 two ounce skeins.

2008-04-23T00:01:00.002-05:00

Another feather & fan dishcloth. I freaking love this pattern. This particular cloth was made out of Peaches & Creme worsted weight in colorway Flair. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, it's much prettier in person. Either way, a quick knit, only took a couple hours.

FOs, yarn, and the promise of Christmas

2008-03-31T22:20:00.002-05:00

So, with Christmas looming in the very distant future, and two Christmas '07 presents lingering unfinished on needles that I really need to be using for something else, I have decided to get a head start on Christmas. Yeah, I know, highly unbelievable. Though, I'll let you in on a secret- I did start my Christmas crafting at about this time last year too. But, the one thing I started got frogged at the end of April because I didn't get a good gauge with the stupid G (4.0 mm Boye hook), so I switched to a 4.5 mm Susan Bates hook, not to mention I put the project in a "place I knew I'd find it" (the top pocket of one of my suitcases) and promptly forgot that it was there, then looked all over for the stupid project, finally just re-started it with another hook (5.0 mm Susan Bates H hook) but not until August. Whoops....
Anyway, so what do I have on the needles currently??
1. Feather and Fan Dishcloth and a Feather and Fan dish towel that I created on my own by modifying the dishcloth pattern. I am making that out of Peaches N Creme cotton, Article 930 Worsted Weight Yarn in the Pink Lilacs colorway. This dishcloth/dish towel set is going to be a belated Easter gift for my grandma.
2. A Diagonal Throw that is a way belated Christmas present for my sister. I am using the recommended yarn, the Lion Brand Homespun, which, while it is not anywhere near my favorite yarn to work with, I LOVE the finished product. The blanket is soooooooo soft and warm. I am using the Colonial colorway, which is a dark blue. So far I've used about 4 skeins, I think I'll probably end up using about 1.5 more skeins. I have no idea what I'll do with the leftover Homespun- any ideas??
3. A boring garter stitch scarf that I am making for me! I am using the Bernat Bamboo Yarn in the Water color. It is beautiful yarn, soft and warm, but the scarf is just getting tedious and boring. It is basically just 20 stitches, all knit stitches and I am using the size 10 needles from my Denise set.
What's on my upcoming agenda?
1. Feather and Fan bedspread/afghan as a gift for one of the upcoming summer weddings! I am using Red Heart Super Saver...DEFINITELY not my favorite yarn by any means, but I love the colors and since the bedspread is going to be rather large, I need to fit it into my budget. I also had some of the colors I picked out in my stash already. I am using the Buff, Windsor Blue and Painted Desert colors. Those colors look lovely together, and I am excited to get started, but I am using size 10.5 needles and my large 10.5 circulars are being used right now. I am madly trying to finish up the Diagonal Throw because I am using my 10.5 47" Addi Turbos on that project right now and would like to have that needle free!
2. More dishcloths!
3. I am waiting on some more Peaches N Creme yarn to get started on a baby-related project (note: NOT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).
4. Along with the baby-related project (note: STILL NOT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I ordered a few more single skeins of P&C Worsted Yarn. I am getting at least a head start on my Christmas knitting and so I ordered 1 skein each of the Mistletoe Ombre, Victorian Christmas Ombre, Christmas Ombre, Red and Christmas Green. I am going to do some "test" dishcloths out of those colors and see which color scheme of theirs I like the best when it comes to Christmas colors. I like the Sugar N Cream yarn but I like the variety of colors that Peaches N Creme provides (WAY more than any chain store every carries!). I am excited to see their different color varieties of Christmas colors.

Finally, there will be pictures of FOs coming soon. I already have completely 1 of the feather & fan dishcloths and the feather & fan dish towel- it only needs a button, I also finished a bag out of cotton yarn, and I previously blogged about the Navy Eagle dishcloth, I have a picture of that too...hopefully I will get those soon (I took the pictures on an actual camera with actual film, the leftovers of a disposable camera I bought for my Cedar Point trip back in September!)!

Still sort-of slumping...

2008-03-19T12:37:00.006-05:00

Since my last post, I actually finished one of the aforementioned projects! Hooray for me! I finished the hat for my hat swap buddy (the night before I mailed it out, hooray for me!).
Note: I am not modeling the hat, but I think it turned out pretty cute! Not bad for a first attempt at a hat!

I got the pattern out of the first Stitch N Bitch, but I made a fair amount of modifications. Instead of using the recommended Brown Sheep yarn, I substituted Tahki Cotton Classic in green and white, and I double-stranded the yarn. I also used size 11 needles instead of the recommended size because I couldn't get a proper gauge with the recommended needles (10.5, I think), and I cast on 76 stitches. I'm also fairly certain I didn't use the correct number of rows, I just measured as I went along using my basic math skills (math? shudders!). But, it turned out pretty nicely, and I already have another request to make the hat! :)

In the true exchange form, I also came up with some other goodies to send along. I picked out two skeins of KnitPicks' Wool of the Andes Bulky Hand Dye Yarn in the Ireland colorway, two skeins of KnitPick's Felici sock yarn in Arugula, and what kind of a person would I be if I didn't send along some of the areas finest chocolate? Unfortunately, a major time crunch didn't allow me to get to Seroogy's, but I did have time to go to Wilmar's for a chocolate bunny and some other chocolate-y goodness!

Schizknit....what a slump!

2008-02-22T00:38:00.002-06:00

There has been very little knitting and way too much playing on Ravelry, the most addicting website known to a yarnie.
What should I be working on?
1. My Knit Knack hat exchange hat.
2. That stupid garter stitch scarf made out of Bernat Bamboo in the Water color way. Literally, I have been working on it since Christmas. It's freaking cold in Wisconsin and I don't have a scarf that I either a- can find or b- like wearing. I'm going to finish that scarf just in time for spring.
3. My sister's Christmas present. Right, it's February.
4. The secret covert operation blanket. I am not going to elaborate now, because I don't know who is reading this. In my defense, however, I am waiting for squares still. Can't assemble a blanket without squares.
4b. Need to finish at least one stupid square of my own for the aforementioned blanket.
5. My husband's Packer-ghan. It is painfully boring. I haven't even finished increasing. Also a Christmas present. I wouldn't have even mentioned it to him if he hadn't caught me working on it one night (er, early morning) before Christmas when I fell asleep knitting it. I was thinking maybe it would be a Christmas 08 present...

What do I want to be working on?
Well, I am going to make a really cute dish towel/dish cloth set for my grandma for Easter using this pattern. I am using the Peaches N Creme worsted weight yarn in the Pink Lilacs colorway. I have way too much fun with cotton yarn, I think it might be becoming a problem. :)

Supporting the troops through yarn!

2007-12-31T01:00:00.000-06:00

I know, when did I get even remotely patriotic?? Well, I'll tell you....
My brother-in-law is joining the Navy. He leaves for boot camp on January 7th. To show my support, I've abandoned all other WIPs to cast on for the Navy Eagle Dishcloth. I'm giving it to my mother-in-law when he leaves.
Yarn used: Peaches & Cream in colorway 25- light blue.
Needles used: Pattern calls for US 5 but I'm using my Mei-Mei Pro Bamboo Straights in a US6 (4.00 mm).
I'm aiming to have this project done by next week Saturday. It should be a quick knit but we shall see.

On an unrelated note, if you don't have any Mei-Mei Pro needles, might I recommend them?? You can find them on Ebay. If you like the Clover Bamboo needles as I do, you'll LOVE these. They are smoother than Clover and more inexpensive because you buy them in lots on ebay. Since one of the ladies in my MySpace knitting groups introduced me to them, I've bought a set (US 0-15) of the 14" straight needles, the 16" circular, the 24" circular and the 60" circular needles. It's cost me around $100 (US), but it is totally worth it!!

Two in one day! Egad!

2007-12-10T23:37:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah, and I forgot that while I was at Herrschner's, another customer expressed interest in the Denise Interchangeable Knitting Needle set that I previously blogged about. Well, they had some in stock (not in the breast cancer pink, but the regular blue), so they pulled out a case for us to look at. Um, yeah, I don't really like them. So I informed my mom and she was like "oh good, I was going to buy them for you, so I'm glad we looked at them already. Let me know what you would want instead."
Unfortunately, my dear husband already bought them for me. For Christmas. Whoops. I told him I still wanted them. Hopefully he'll give them to me.
But as for my parents, I think I'll add the KnitPicks Options set to my list....hmmm....

I have been too busy playing with yarn to blog!

2007-12-10T00:09:00.000-06:00

Yes folks that is true. Because Christmas is freaking two weeks away and I'm not anywhere near finishing a Christmas present (so much for people getting Christmas dishcloths, sorry if you were looking forward to receiving one!).
I busted out the Wedding Roses afghan last week and now I am proud to say that I have finished the 4th panel (out of 6). Over halfway done!! SWEET!!! I am not sure what I'm going to do with the border yet, there's no way in hell that I'm going to actually make the crocheted roses, yeah that's way too much work in not-nearly-enough time. I brought it to the knitting group this afternoon and one of the girls seconded my other idea of just extending the natural border. It will be much quicker, though not as fancy, and it will still look nice. I like the look of the Simply Soft as opposed to the suggested Red Heart SuperSaver (though Red Heart soft would probably have been a good substitute except that Simply Soft is a- cheaper, b- you get more yarn per skein than Red Heart Soft, and c- much easier to come by).
Yesterday (by yesterday I mean Saturday), I went to Stevens Point and made a quick stop (under an hour!) at Herrschner's Retail Store. I am proud to say that despite the fact that there were a few skeins of yarn I really really wanted, I did come out almost empty-handed. Almost. I bought an Addi-Turbo 10.5, 47" needle for one of my Xmas project. Working on a blanket on an 29" circular was getting to be difficult as it's coming along pretty nicely. This wouldn't have been a necessity had I planned out the blankets better in the first place instead of doing both of the knitted blankets on a 10.5 needle. Live and learn....
Katie's blanket is coming along fairly nicely, it should be done by Xmas without any problems at all, especially with the new Addi Turbo to help it along.
Lastly, the Packer-ghan is not going so well. I am hoping to at least be halfway done by Christmas so I can wrap it while it is still on the needles.
Only 16 days until my knitted gifts must be complete! Agh!

Christmas Presents!

2007-11-02T00:26:00.000-05:00

It's about 53 days till Christmas (according to the tracker that's on my MySpace page, lol!)....I've got a few too many projects in the works, I'll be knitting away until Christmas Eve!
Anyway, so I drove all over the general northeastern Wisco looking for a 29" 10.5 Clover Takumi circular needle. I started at Hobby Lobby in A-town yesterday, then went to Hobby Lobby in GB, and then got lost looking for Joann Fabrics and drove around GB for an hour looking for the damn store! I finally found it, bought my circular needle, resisted buying more yarn, and then left to drive back to K-town.
I need a pair of interchangeable knitting needles yesterday. Dear Santa.......

Dear Santa,

2007-10-29T00:24:00.001-05:00

I want a set of the Denise Interchangeable Needles in Breast Cancer Pink.
I am now in LOVE with circular needles but I also really don't like crappy circular needles, and I don't really like the Clover Circular needles, the cord is kind of crappy. I am in love with my Addi Natura, and my Addi Turbos (but they are freaking expensive!), and I've read rave reviews of the Denise Set. Plus, $5 goes directly to breast cancer research.
So yeah, Santa, if you're reading this, I want the Denise Interchangeable needles. And maybe another set of Susan Bates crochet hooks.

Halfway done with knitting class!

2007-10-22T21:51:00.001-05:00

I am halfway done with my 4 week long knitting class....it meets on Saturday mornings for 2 hours. I did start knitting when I was 18, however, I never really pursued the craft except to make some scarves. I also never learned to purl and my friend Kali cringed when she saw how I cast on when she tried to teach me how to use a circular needle. So I turned away from knitting and focused on crocheting....but now I am getting back into knitting because I want to make a sweater (eventually).
Either way, I am now in love with addi needles. And I can cast on, do the garter stitch AND purl. So I am on my way to great things with knitting! Hooray!
In the crochet world, however, I'm working on an afghan called "Wedding Roses" from the book Great Big Crochet Afghan Book. It calls for worsted weight yarn, the suggested yarn is Red Heart Super Saver in an off-white and a G hook, however, I substituted Caron Simply Soft in Autumn Red and an H hook instead. It also calls for 6 panels of 3, but instead I am going to do 8 or 9 panels because the width is not quite there. Either way, I have until December 24 to finish this!! I will post pictures when I have some of my WIP!

Yarn-ing: Take One

2007-10-15T01:23:00.000-05:00

Since I have tried this a couple times since giving up the real blog, I am now bound and determined to actually succeed at another blog. This time I am going to detail my travels through the arts and crafts world of knitting and crocheting! (yep, I'm a dork!)
I have never been successful at actually finishing projects but now I am bound and determined to do so. First step: Christmas presents. Only 2 months and 9 days until Christmas! This gives roughly ten weeks and three days (believe me, I'll be using those three days!) to finish my Christmas presents. So far there are two afghans, a possible felted bag, and a bunch of dishclothes. Here's hoping that success will take hold instead of the usual failure (and yarn-A.D.D!)!!!