finished The Northern Loop cowl

October 29, 2013 by 8 Comments

northernloopfinishedI love it!  It’s made with 2 full skeins of KnitPicks Billow in the shade Lichen and size 10.5 straight needles.  It includes a provisional cast on and a three needle bind of.  This was my first three needle bind off ever:

northernloopthreeneedlebindoffI think it turned out fine!  There’s a bit of a bump where I weaved in the ends at the spot where I changed from one skein to the other:

northernloopedgeBut it’s not too noticeable, especially when you have it on.  The two skeins gave me about 50 inches of cowl, and the yarn is SUPER SOFT.  I think the thick and thin bits make the cowl look somehow more handmade and maybe a little “rustic.”  Not sure if that’s the right word… What do you think?  Click here for the Ravelry page (the pattern is free).

Now there are only 4 WIPs left to finish.  I would like to finish one or two before moving on and starting something new, although I have lots of things I want to start now!  Do you find yourself with multitudes of WIPs, or are you a one-project-at-a-time kind of gal?

That’s all for today, I think.  I do have a crochet WIP to share but it can wait until it’s a bit further along.  I hope you have a wonderful day/night, and thanks for stopping by!

 

 

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done with the move!

October 23, 2013 by 10 Comments

Well, mostly.  A couple of boxes are left to unpack, but all in all I’m very satisfied with our new house.  Zero loves it too!  Here she is sitting on the daybed with my CAL blanket:

zero2That’s her “what are you doing?” face.

zero1She loves the yard so much!  I’m so glad she’s finally happy.  We threw away a LOT of stuff so it’s nice and uncluttered and very roomy inside, as well!

Today is the first day I could post because today is our first day having Internet.  I know I’m spoiled because it was very difficult going without it!  I know I must have used a ton of data on my phone…

I was busy knitting and crocheting, too!  I started crocheting a shawl:

frogged(Yep, no sheets on the daybed at the point that was taken, and yep, I love to sit cross-legged/Indian style.)  As you can see I’m unraveling it to knit a scarf — the pattern was so hard for me to follow!  It’s cheche a la sauce and it was originally in French, so perhaps that was part of the problem.  The beginnings and ends of the rows don’t match up!  I must have been missing something but I could not figure it out, and after hours of re-working and re-working it, trying to get the edges correct, I gave up.  I think I’m giving up on that scarf, too, in favor of something that will take up all 3 balls of yarn I got for that project.

My knitting has much more to show for the effort.  I finished the Bajada scarf for my friend.  It took approximately 18 hours total of very focused knitting to complete, and because of that I don’t think I’ll be making another one (after all, I can whip up a crocheted scarf in an hour and a half).  I also had to write out the pattern row by row to keep track of everything and squinting at the small print in the booklet got old real quick.  It was worth it though:

bajada3It totals at 69 inches (175cm) long and 11.5 inches (29cm) tall at its widest point.

bajada4

bajada6As you can see, I need to purchase some blocking wires.  They’re just so expensive for little wires (at least on KnitPicks, where I got everything else for relatively cheap), and I keep meaning to just go to a hardware store and get some wires cut for me.  It just hasn’t happened yet.

bajada5I can’t wait for it to dry so that I can mail it to my friend!  I’ll be back up there in a couple of weeks for the yearly Renaissance Fair but I don’t want her to have to wait that long.  I hope she likes it!

The Northern Loop cowl has been my other knitting project.  I’ve been using KnitPicks’ Billow bulky yarn and it is so wonderful to work with!  So very soft, and what gorgeous colors they have available!  I’ll definitely be repurchasing this.  This could be dangerous…  Here’s a bit of my cowl:

northernloop2I’m loving it!  The only thing that was kinda iffy about the pattern was the provisional cast on, but I looked up a tutorial on YouTube and did it easily with a length of crochet chain:

northernloop1Not as bad as I thought it would be!  Grafting it together at the end might be difficult, but I’ll just look up another tutorial for that later.

Well, that’s all the catch-up I have that I can think of right now.  I’m still editing the site so if you see anything that looks crazy (like the site title overlapping with the menu bar or something), please let me know.  I’m unsure how it will look on tablets or really large screens, but I’m trying to learn to use rem spacing instead of pixels in my CSS coding, so hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Let me know what ya’ll have been up to while I’ve been away!  I’m trying to catch up with everyone’s news!  Thanks for stopping by!

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back to the yarn!

October 4, 2013 by 11 Comments

It’s been weird post CAL not having to work to a deadline.  Also weird because I haven’t been crafting much.  The only think I’m working on actively is the bajada shawl/scarf for my friend — she bought the yarn so I want to get it to her ASAP so she can enjoy it.  It’s slow going though; after 3 weeks here’s what I’ve got:

bajada2It will certainly need some blocking before I give it to her, but that’s OK.

As far as crochet goes, I’ve been meaning to get going on a new ripple afghan — baby sized — out of my leftover CAL yarn:

photo 1Yep, I only used half of what I ordered in the CAL.  That’s the great thing about Stylecraft Special DK — I’m always pleasantly surprised that I have so much of it leftover!  Well, as great as it is, I still haven’t started the blanket.  Hopefully soon.  I need the stress relief of crochet.

The stress partially comes from the upcoming move — all the large furniture is being transferred on the 13th, so before that I want to have taken a good number of things already (the wonderful, amazing, fantastic landlord gave us the key waaaaay early).  Before that, though, the new house has to be thoroughly cleaned.  The landlord “cleaned,” but as one of my favorite books says, “no man can clean anything.”  My parents are going to help me clean this Sunday while Chris hacks through the patio jungle here at the apartment with his old chef knife.  On her first trip to the new house, Zero finally discovered that she can smell things outside through the air vents in my car:

photo

She doesn’t like sticking her head out the window — she’s a scaredy cat — so she stood like this, nose glued to the vent, for a very long time.

Looking at lovely yarns I’d like to try using calms me down a bit (so does looking on Pinterest for beautiful and clever decorating ideas).  Check these out.  The first one I’d like to try is called Vinni’s Colours (Nikkim) and was introduced to me via crochetime, and the second one is from Camellia Fiber Company and was introduced to me via one sheepish girl (she’s currently hosting a giveaway for a skein of the stuff, so sign up soon).  I added these beautiful yarns to my ever growing list of things I need to try!  Have you tried them?  What do you think?

Well that’s all for one night — I may try and read some to de-stress, or perhaps I’ll start on that crochet ripple blanket.  Or perhaps I’ll spend my time sitting around wondering what to do until it’s way past time to go to bed, so that I’m nice and exhausted tomorrow for work.  Can you tell I’m a worrier?  I get it from my mom, who got it from her mom.  At least I’ve got a very understanding ear — calling my mom always makes me feel better.  Anyway, thanks for stopping by!  Hope to see you back soon!

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a project for a friend

September 16, 2013 by 9 Comments

My friend Tara, for whom I made this hat, met me for lunch the other day at a cafe near the local yarn shop.  She went with me after we ate to just browse through the yarn, and ended up purchasing some yarn and a pattern booklet for me to make her a second item!  The yarn is K’acha from Mirasol Yarn (of merino, alpaca, and silk) in shade 1201:

yarn for tara

What a lovely color for fall!  The yarn is listed on Ravelry as being DK weight but it seems more like a heavy worsted as I’m working.  Anyway, Tara bought 4 skeins to be sure there was enough for the whole project.

The shawl/scarf is called “bajada,” it is knit on size 8 straight needles, and is more crescent shaped than triangle shaped.

I would like a similarly shaped shawl/scarf myself, but I don’t think it’ll be another one of these — this pattern is so hard!  You have to have your eyes glued to the booklet instructions — every row of small print contains a different combination of “stitch pattern A” and “stitch pattern B” so you have to pay careful attention!  In fact, I couldn’t keep track of it all in my head so I wrote out the combinations for each row (as well as reminders to increase every 4th row) on notebook paper and am checking them off as I go.  I think that’s what makes it hard (that and the time it’s taken to get where I am), because the stitches themselves aren’t too crazy.  The weirdest stitch so far has been purling 2 through the back loops.  Here’s what I’ve done:

bajada1

Not very impressive yet, as it’s such a small amount of the finished product, but I’m proud of it nonetheless for all the time and effort it is taking.  When it is blocked the lacy edges will appear more obviously, I assume.  There have been a couple of scary points where I’ve had less stitches after a row than I should, and having to go back to fix it is terrifying — I’m not at all sure that I’m undoing some of the stitches properly!  Looks OK so far, though.

Well, that’s all for today.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

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finished a fun shawl!

September 7, 2013 by 12 Comments

A little over a week ago I posted some pictures of projects on Ravelry that I would like to knit.  Well, I made one!  It’s the lace mess shawl.

lace mess shawl 2

This is actually the first time I’ve ever blocked anything.  Ever.  I’ve had the blocking mats and pins (from KnitPicks) for a while now, but have never needed to use them.  With this project, it specifically calls for blocking, and since I intend to sell it, I figured it would be a good idea.  Being inexperienced in blocking, I am of the hope that misting the shawl with a spray bottle of water will be good enough — I didn’t want to soak it and roll it in a towel because I don’t have any clean towels (I need to go to the laundromat… ugh).  Do you think misting it with water will suffice?  We’ll see soon enough, but I’d rather not have to do it twice.

lace mess shawl 1

There’s not a row by row pattern — the instructions just tell you how to make the bare bones of the shawl and it lets you put in the holes at your discretion.  It was neat not having to follow a pattern, but because of this I did end up making the shawl rather larger than the original appears to be on the pattern’s Ravelry page.  Not that that’s a problem.  It was a fun pattern, and quick too, because it called for bulky yarn and very large needles.  I would certainly not mind making another of these.

I think the yarn used is Lion Brand Jiffy, but it had been sitting in my stash bin for a long time without labels so I’m not positive.

I almost forgot — the edging has little picots where the pins are, made by implementing the knitted cast on, which I’d never attempted before.  They don’t look like very distinctive picots on my shawl, whereas pictures of other people’s shawls on Ravelry do seem to have more pronounced picots.  The instructions in the pattern seemed detailed enough, and I double checked with a video on YouTube to be sure I was doing it right, and I think I was, but they still look almost nonexistent.  Any ideas on why this might be?

Thanks for stopping by, and please leave your opinion on using a spray bottle for blocking and the proper method to make picots with the knitted cast on!  Thanks so much!

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