post-birthday

October 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

Thanks everyone for the kind birthday wishes!  It was indeed fantastic!  Here’s a blurry picture of me taken by my dad at Buca di Beppo, a yummy Italian restaurant, with my free birthday dessert and candelabra, haha.

 

We had a great time, and my parents bought me some awesome yarny birthday gifts from the lovely yarn shop!  Unfortunately for this post, almost all of it is stuff for knitting — there’s just one neon ball of yarn that I got that could go either way (see post here for full birthday gift details).

While we were at the shop, I asked the lovely ladies there about spinning, thinking that I might like to start spinning my own yarn.  I asked if it is generally cheaper to spin your own yarn than to buy it, and basically they said it depends on what kind of yarn you’re making/buying and how much pre-spinning stuff you might need to do.  Of course the wheels are very expensive — upwards of $400 for the good brands.  The yarn shop does have spinning time where you can have a lesson and rent a wheel for $25/4 hours (which you spread out over the month), which sounds great.  I just need to get up there and try it out.

Again, I’m afraid I have no crochet to show you today.  I thought about starting a dog sweater for my baby girl but just couldn’t get motivated to start, even though I have enough of that frogged cotton yarn to do it.  Is it possible that I’m getting bored with crochet?  Goodness I hope not — I’ve been doing it for years and it’s meant so much to me!  I’ve just been knitting so much more lately… I don’t know if it’s the fact that knitting poses a new challenge for me (whereas I haven’t been too challenged by crochet in a while) or the fact that knitting takes up less yarn and therefore I have to spend less money on it.  Or perhaps I’ve run out of fun patterns that I’d like to try, or just don’t have the money to buy the yarn for it (which I know is the case for some projects, like blankets).

On another note, I’ve decided to go through my old crocheted hats and scarves and give some to Goodwill.  I’ve got TONS of items from over the 7 or 8 years I’ve been doing this, and since I live in South Carolina there’s no way I could possibly wear all my hats and scarves in one winter.  It just doesn’t get that cold!  But for someone less fortunate than me, these warm handmade items might be very welcome.

Sorry this has been such a wordy post.  I’ve just been feeling some post-birthday down-ness and this blog is sort of like a journal — I feel like I can say whatever I feel and nobody that I know personally will ever know (except my mom, who does pop in sometimes, and I tell her everything anyway so that’s fine).  Even if I don’t go into detail, the writing process itself is soothing to me.  Thanks for bearing with me today.  Hope to see you again soon!  Maybe then I’ll have some great crochet things. 🙂

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yaaaaaaaaaarn!

September 29, 2012 by 5 Comments

I’m so excited — I’ve got some new goods!  Usually I’d post new yarn on my crochet page but I know ahead of time that this is for knitting.  My parents got me this yarn for my birthday!

Those first two pictures are of two kinds of sock yarn.  I’m going to make two of this cowl, one for my mom, and one for one of her friends.  The pattern calls for chunky yarn and bigger needles, but I’m going to use this sock yarn and some smaller needles to make more of a necklace type thing (that’s what she wanted).  We’ll see how it goes.

This lovely multi-hued blue fingering weight yarn is for this shawl.  Can’t wait for that one!

And I’m not sure what this will be for, actually.  It’s enough to make a hat.  It’s the softest yarn I’ve ever felt — it’s Royal Alpaca — and it is gorgeous!  The picture doesn’t do it justice.  It’s actually more of a neon yellow-green…

So that’s my new mini-stash, and I can’t wait to get started!  But that’s not all the new stuff: my parents also got me something not related to yarn.  The new Fame perfume by Lady Gaga.  You may be thinking “ew, perfume by celebrities is always really gross,” and normally I agree, but this stuff is great!  My parents liked it, my boyfriend likes it, and I love it!

That’s still not all, though.  I also got this for my birthday:

It’s the KnitPicks Sunstruck Interchangeable Needle Set, which includes needles sizes 4-11 (including 10.5), two each of cables 24″ and 32″, vinyl needle case and vinyl cable pouch, end caps, and cable keys.  I also got two 40″ cables, some cable connectors, and some size tags.  I’m so excited.

You can imagine how incredibly happy I am with all these awesome new knitting things.  I can’t wait to get started, but for tonight I might just stare at it all, grinning goofily.  Although honestly, while I’m really happy, I also feel guilty for having so much new knitting stuff when my boyfriend and I are struggling so much, even though it is for my birthday.  His birthday last month was terrible — I didn’t have the money to do what I wanted to do for him and he didn’t get any presents.  I tried to make up for it later when I did have some money but it still wasn’t enough.  I’m really grateful for everything I have, and I want to make my boyfriend as happy as I am by being the best girlfriend I can be.

Well, that’s all for today.  You can of course look for posts soon of my progress with those projects.

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unspeakably horrible

September 21, 2012 by 14 Comments

I’m out of yarn.  There is nothing usable left in my stash of leftovers anymore.  It’s very upsetting.  Look at this:

I have those, but not enough of any of them to make anything.  OK, I could probably make a simple hat out of that bright blue one, but that’s no fun — I have tons of hats and I’m not making any for Christmas presents this year.  I don’t think the other ones could even make a hat.  I’d make a scrap something, but they’re all different brands and weights and fibers, so that’s no good.  Here’s my second drawer:

Again here, I could make a couple of hats with those two fun textured ones, but that’s no fun.  The sock yarn in the corner is unappealing to me — I don’t know why I bought it in the first place.  The gray stuff is usable, but I don’t know what to make with just two skeins.  I’m considering unraveling this:

That thing is older than this blog.  I meant it to be a wrap, but I couldn’t afford the yarn to finish it up.  I hesitate a bit to unravel that one because the yarn got kinda moldy once, being stored in a damp place.  I washed it, of course, but I wonder if washing will make it hard to unravel.  This next thing is the same (although without the mold and wash):

I think that one was going to be a blanket, but it’s so old I don’t even remember.  Both of those projects are made with soft worsted cotton.

So should I unravel those last 2 projects?  Do you think either of them would make something like this shawl?  I think it would make this.  Maybe I could combine them and make another Christmas-y dog sweater for my sweet puppy (my first attempt got immediately mangled in play due to the loose stitching).

OK so maybe I do have some yarn… that gray stuff and those two projects.  *sigh*  I just don’t know what to make with any of it.  I guess I can go ahead and unravel those things and assess my yarn quantities then.  I think I need a ball winder…

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yarn journal

August 15, 2012 by 5 Comments

Firstly, I want to say a big thank you to Hannah Ackroyd, who introduced me to this.  Thanks Hannah!

The Kathryn Ivy blog/site  provides free PDF pages for your printable organization needs.  You can make a binder (with dividers, perhaps) to organize your knitting/crocheting projects, your yarn stash, your needle/hook stash, your yarn wish list, your queue, notes, sketch pages, and graph paper of different sizes!  How cool would it be to be so organized, to be able to show off your finished projects with ease, and to be able to express your own yarny creativity all in one place?  Check out this screenshot of the crochet project sheet:

It’s a little small but you can see there’s space for a photo, all your yarn specs, notes, and at the bottom you can tape/paste your yarn label and a little snippet of yarn!  I can just picture a lovely neat binder full of these completed sheets!  So are you interested in making your own project journal?  Then please go to the site with all those lovely pages:

click here.

I do apologize if this is something everybody already knows about — it was new to me and I just had to share!  Thanks again to Hannah for enlightening me.  Now I just need to go out and buy a hole puncher and a nice pretty binder and I’ll be ready to start getting organized!  I’m so excited — it’s like Ravelry in physical form!

As always, thanks for stopping by!  I’ll be on a short vacay in Charleston with my mom starting tomorrow so I might not update for a few days, but I’ve left such a condensed wad of posts that it makes me feel like it somehow all equals out. 🙂

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reviewing yarn

August 14, 2012 by 5 Comments

I’ve begun working on an alphabetical list of yarns I’ve tried or that have been recommended to me by trusted sources (some of which are you lovely commenters).  Here’s the page that has it all so far.  I’ll be adding to this page as I find and try new yarns.  I hope it’s helpful, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

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