Eeek! Steek!

A good afternoon to you all, my lovely Readers!

I've decided to try a couple of new knitting techniques, so that I may create this glorious blanket. Such a beautiful and striking design!

While I absolutely love the finished projects that incorporate it, stranded color-work in knitting has always been a challenge for me. I taught myself the basics of the technique many moons ago when I made the Zelda Purse, and since the technique was self-taught, I often find myself struggling with knitting patterns that were written under the assumption that those following them know how to hold the yarn correctly.

So, I've made it a goal of mine to re-learn how to do stranded color work. The above blanket looks like a prime opportunity for me to do exactly that!

Not only does this blanket pattern call for a fancy-pants stranding technique, but it also calls for...

...a steek.

For those of you who are not familiar with knitting lingo, let me break it down:  A steek is when a garment is knit in the round, and then after some specific stitches are reinforced with either crochet stitches or with a sewing machine, is cut with a pair of scissors.

Yikes.

As of now, I'm feeling pretty confident in my (corrected) stranded knitting skills. The pattern I chose calls for a specific kind of color-work called Armenian Stranding, and I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I am MADLY in love with the fact that the back of the pattern is just as pretty as the front:

So far, so good, Readers! I'll keep posting pictures as this glorious beast progresses.

Until next time!

<3

What I've been up to: Autumn edition!

Hi Readers!

It's been a while since my last blog update, so I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know what I've been doing for the past month:

First, I finally finished up and blocked this sweater...

 Pattern found here, btw: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sweetheart-sweater-5

...and I have to say that I am delighted with how it came out! The yarn is a mite bit itchy, though, so if I were to knit this again I'd use something different.

But my word. I love this sweater. I wore it for two days in a row after it was completely finished.

I've also been working on building up Lace Mountain 2014...

...which is considerably smaller than last year's Lace Mountain. I'm aiming to have at least thirty flakes, though.

I haven't had a chance to crochet as many snowflakes as I'd like; my inner ears are acting like divas so I can't crochet on my bus commute like I usually do. I'd make more time to crochet at home, but I've been distracted from my crochet projects because WE GOT A PET!

 Readers, meet Carl Sagan the Angry Fish, the newest member of our family!

Here he is showing off his gorgeous fins <3 He's his most impressive when he's hacked off. 

FISHY LASER BEAM POWERS ACTIVATE!

...thus named because the very first thing he did when we put him in his bowl was to attack his own reflection.

He's also known as Carl, Sagan, Fish, and Fishy (depending on our moods).

While it has been noted that there is the possibility of this little guy developing an identity crisis, Carl Sagan the Angry Fish doesn't really seem to care one way or the other about what we call him.

Because...you know...he's a fish.

It's been a lot of fun having a pet for the first time in goodness knows how long. Cats and Dogs are strictly forbidden in our rent agreement (And keeping Carl Sagan the Angry Fish is...kind of toeing the line on what exactly is allowed), so it's nice to be greeted after a long day.

Even when that greeting is coming from a homicidal Betta fish; swimming out with his gills and fins all puffed out in an attempt to destroy any and all who try to intrude on his fish bowl.

I caught a nasty head-cold last week and had to stay home from work for a couple of days. Carl isn't nearly as comforting as a furry kitty cat, but he did come out of his favorite hiding place (behind a large, flat rock) and followed my finger around the fishbowl glass.

Then he puffed his fins out and swam/crashed into the side of his bowl in an attempt to kill my finger.

He shows his affection in his own 'lil fishy way.

So anyways, that was my October, Readers! I'll try to be better about updating this blog, although it may be a little while before I have anything to report apart from Carl Sagan the Angry Fish's murder attempts.

Until next time!

Washington State Fair: Entry Etiquette

You know, Readers, one would think that by now our society would have come to a generalized consensus about acceptable standards for civilized behavior.

Especially when it comes to participating in competitive exhibit entries at the Washington State Fair.

I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY, KNITTERS/CROCHETERS OF WASHINGTON STATE? DO I REALLY NEED TO HAVE THIS CONVERSATION WITH YOU?

*snort*. I guess I should start from the beginning.

As my regular readers may know, I've decided to enter some of my knitting and crochet work into the Washington State Fair for the very first time. The deadline for dropping off items for judging in the Home Arts/ Textile division was last weekend, so Mr. Orb Weaver and I packed up my entries and drove down on Saturday.

Ooh! Ooh! Let me shamelessly show off my entries before I launch into my rant!

I re-did the lace parasol using a merino wool/silk blend in charcoal grey:

...and I am VERY, VERY happy with the end result! The yarn I used (Juniper Moon Farm Findley) ended up making the lace quite a bit smaller than my first go-around, but it had a lovely stretch to it; shaping the final parasol into a glorious bell when opened. The picture doesn't show it (and all of my attempts at getting a close up shot did not do the yarn justice, because my camera is terrible), but the yarn also has a lovely yet very subtle shine to it.

I had a bunch of the Findley left over, so I whipped out my lace working hooks and made a doily, which I also ended up entering:

It's nothing special, but I thought it would be worth a shot.

So, I packed these guys up along with the Spaceship baby blanket...

(which I'm posting again because I just love it so much!)

...and drove down to Puyallup on Saturday with the hubs to turn in the entries along with the paperwork.

It wasn't too busy by the time we got there, but the volunteers at the main pavilion (where they were collecting and organizing the entries) all seemed to have their hands full. The woman who helped me enter my crochet lace items looked absolutely exhausted.

She took my name, I signed the papers, and all that jazz. When I handed her the clipboard with all the t's crossed and i's dotted, she looked at me and said,

"Thank you, THANK YOU for being so nice and polite."

At first I thought nothing of the comment. I told her she was welcome, and then made my way towards the volunteers sorting the knit items.

After I was done entering the baby blanket, the volunteer from the lace area stopped me and asked if I could specify which side of my doily I wanted to be displayed, since "many participants get very upset if the doilies aren't shown correctly."

Um...I can understand feeling mildly peeved, but getting very upset?

Seriously?

For the doily I made, it really doesn't matter which side is which, so I just told her to display it however she liked.

But for other crochet pieces that incorporate cables, clusters and such, one would think that it was obvious what is right-side up. And even then, the judges inspect all of the entries BEFORE they are displayed, so in the grand scheme of things in really doesn't matter that much.

Readers, if you find yourselves getting very upset at a poor, over-worked fair volunteer because your doily is upside-down, you may need to re-examine your priorities in life.

Plus, on our way out, I witnessed some ridiculous behavior: as I left the main pavilion, I saw a woman scream at a poor security guard because the guard wasn't able to escort her to the pavilion personally.

Admittedly, I may be a bit of a Pollyanna when it comes to the culture surrounding competitive fair entries, since I've never done this before. But holy hell, knitters of Washington State, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT?

Is this a thing? Is it expected for participants to treat fair employees and volunteers in this way?

Perhaps I came in on an "off" day. I dunno.

But still, one would think that by now our society would have come to a generalized consensus about what's acceptable behavior when participating as an exhibitor at the state fair.

Anyways. Thanks for sticking with me through the above rant, Readers! Wish me luck!

Orb Weaver out!

Pew-Pew-Pew, Pew-Pew!

Afternoon, Readers! Time for a knitting project update!

I bought a spectacular knitting pattern book a while back called Knits of Tomorrow, by the very fabulous Sue Culligan. The patterns designed here are delightfully retro-nerd!

My favorite of the books' patterns is definitely the Starship baby blanket: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/starship-afghan

I love this pattern so much, I'm knitting it even though there aren't any behbehs in my foreseeable future! Plus, I'm going to enter this adorable thing into the Washington State fair as soon as it's finished.

I officially registered myself as an exhibitor this morning. It was super easy and FREE, as well!

When the judging is all done, I'm going to send the Spaceship Blankie to a high-school buddy of mine, who just had a baby boy. <3

It's been a while since I've done real intarsia work. I know I like to talk about intarsia in the same way an adventurer would talk about fighting a fire-breathing dragon, but in all honesty, the technique is much simpler and straightforward than I like to think. I might need to re-do the orange/green rocket ship because I over-thought it and made my intarsia links WAY more complicated than they needed to be; as a result of my stubborn "I can do this, no need to look the technique up!" mindset, there's a small row of green/orange lines along the left side of the patch (right where the orange/green meet the dark blue).

I've got six patches finished, and ten left to go!

Until next time, Readers!

<3

Year of Using Up the Stash: ERHMEGHERD BABY SOCKS

Wow! It's been a while since I've updated you all with my knitting escapades, Readers!

Those of you who've been following me will be pleased to know that I've finished the socks:

Beautiful pattern, and a reasonably quick knit too!

I also finished Pop's gloves:

She absolutely loves them! Now to pick a second pattern for pair number two!

I also started working on this wonderful thing:

I was looking for something to use up the rest of my bright green acrylic, and came across a fabulous pattern for a Minecraft Creeper doll! I finished the head up just fine, (not bad for my first attempt at the duplicate stitch), but I find that I'm struggling with knitting the body. The pattern is a mite bit confusing in the way of attaching the rectangly limbs to the body; I'm going to give the body a few more attempts, but if I'm still messing it up after a few tries I may just wing it.

A while ago, a good friend gave me one of the "Jane Austen Knits" magazines, and I found a gorgeous pattern for a re-usable grocery bag. I've used up all of my purple wool blend on the bottom/body of the bag, and I've used up nearly all of the chunky gray wool for the top of the bag:

I still need to do more of the lace pattern on top, as well as the straps for the bag. I'm going to use a chunky dark purple for that; it may not be the prettiest thing to come from my knitting needles, but it's certainly going to be one of my most useful projects, given Seattle's plastic bag ban.

Lastly, I have the perfect use for (at least a good chunk of) my sock yarn! An old high school friend of mine just gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Readers! You guys know what that means....

BABY BOOTIES!!!!!!

My word, Readers, baby  booties are so much fun to knit! It's like instant knitting-project gratification! I finished both of the purple booties in one day!

So, Readers, here is my list of my current projects to help keep me on track!

1. Baby booties: Purple 2/2; Gray with lace trim, 1/2
2. Minecraft Creeper: Head: finished. Body: still working on attaching the feet.
3. Grocery bag: About 3/4 of the way finished!
4. Pop's gloves: Need to pick out a pattern and get started!
5. New Snowflake Pattern: We've got a title! New snowflake, I dub thee: "Odette/Odille!" Still working on two prototypes; "Odette" is crocheted in all white, and "Odille" is crocheted in all black.
6: Space Invaders Warm Up America Square: Not even started yet, heh. I'll start that one as soon as I finish the Minecraft Creeper; that little guy is capitalizing on all of my bright green yarn.

Until next time Readers! *Muah!*

Year of Using Up the Stash: Husband's Gloves

Hello, Readers! 

This past week, I've met not one, but TWO project Using Up the Stash goals! 

First goal met: Since starting project Using Up the Stash, I've used up FIVE skeins of yarn! *arm-flailing YAAAYYYYYYYY!*

Second, I knit my husband a pair of elbow-length gloves! 

Pattern found here: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEff12/KSPATTprocess.php

He's been patiently waiting for these gloves since November, and I FINALLY FINISHED THEM! :-D 

The gloves were a refreshing change of pace from my earlier projects, which (aside from the Warm Up America segments) were either: 

a. Full of complicated and poorly-explained techniques that I had to tear out and redo TWICE before I got the hang of said techniques, (both of the knit Christmas stockings had this problem when I was turning the heel), 

b. Knit on size 1 needles, taking FOREVER to finish (I spent at least three weeks on the Chrysanthemum mittens), or

c. Really repetitive and boring. Now, don't get me wrong, Readers. A bit of calming repetition in my knitting has been shown to be good for my nerves, BUT, I get REALLY BORED after making five dishcloths from the exact same pattern. 

I'd recommend this glove pattern to any intermediate level knitter! They were a fairly quick knit (I finished both gloves in about a week), and my husband absolutely loves them! 

Until next time, Readers! You can look forward to some crochet lace in my next installment! 

Note: I am well aware that there is a line running down the left side of both of these images. I'm no expert on camera repair, but I have a hunch that the lens on my trusty digital camera is damaged. Aside from the ever-present line, the camera works fine...and guess who has two thumbs and is a bit too broke at the moment to replace her camera? THIS GIRL!

2.0 Turtles

I'm back, Readers!

Whoof. I'm still recovering from the hurricane that was our Nuptials. I'm currently working on a blog post about our wedding day/honeymoon, which will be up when I'm entirely satisfied with it. It's been four days since I've been back to work, and yet I'm still feeling like a member of the walking dead.

Luckily, my office is located right next to a coffee machine.

As you guys can probably infer from the above picture and my Etsy gadget, I re-did the NES Ninja Turtle pillow. This time, I made sure that ALL of the yarn used was the same kind/brand; this was knit entirely from a machine-washable mercerised cotton. Also, I whipped out my size 1 needles for this project so that the pillow turned out a bit smaller.

In addition, I knit the entire pillow in one piece as opposed to knitting the turtles separate. This time around it was much easier, as I had (mostly) perfected the intarsia technique and I was already familiar with the image pattern.

I'm really starting to enjoy intarsia. It's a  royal pain, but the end result makes the whole thing worth it. Once I have enough snowflakes for the upcoming X-mas season, I might turn my attention toward knitting more pillows made from pixelated images...possibly celebrity portraits? Flowers? Simple landscapes?

Ideally, I'd like to shy away from doing more video game images. They're fun, but overdone, in my opinion.

Now that the pillow is finished, I'm finding myself yet again preparing for my offices' annual craft fair. I'm working on another snowflake pattern, which also will be posted as soon as I'm satisfied with the end result.

<3 Until next time!

The invasion has begun!

Wait...

What's going on here?

Could it be?

Is it POSSIBLE?

Did I ACTUALLY FINISH SOME PROJECTS???

Yes, Readers, it's a miracle! I've FINISHED SOMETHING!

Two and a half YEARS, Readers. The above blanket took me two and a half years to finish.

The project was knit in two pieces: one with the faire isle space invaders (not bad for my first attempt at the technique), and one that was all black (to cover up the "floats", which are long pieces of yarn that hang on the back of the blanket). The piece with the aliens only took me a few weeks to finish; I was excited and motivated to learn a new knitting skill, and I had a ton of time on my hands as I was unemployed.

The plain black piece took me forever, I must admit, partially because I had just found a new job as I started it, and also because I have the attention span of a small insect.

SQUIRREL!

image found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel

Sewing the two pieces together was frustrating, I must say. To save time, I attempted to sew the blanket together using Dumpy (my sewing machine). It worked...but not very well.

I had to adjust the tension about six and a half billion times, and the project seemed to eat up ALL of my black sewing thread. On top of that, the acrylic yarn I used was VERY stretchy. This made the edges pull weird while the blanket was going through the sewing machine (although, this is probably because I didn't adjust the Dumpy's feet correctly, so the yarn isn't entirely at fault), so instead of being a nice, neat, rectangle...the finished blanket turned out to be more of a rhombus.

All in all, the blanket turned out quite nicely. Next time, with a project of this size, I'll pin it together and sew it by hand using yarn instead of sewing thread.

I hate to admit it...but I'm already getting a head start in the way of Christmas decorations.

Yes, Readers, snowflakes. Already. Don't judge.

I've got a plan in place for the craft fair season. Snowflakes, and lots of 'em.

I'm also making some of my own snowflake patterns, Readers! I'm in the process of finalizing/testing one, so stay tuned!

For flakes that are meant to be Christmas tree decorations, I'm going to put them in groups of either four or six of the same pattern (depending on the size of the flake). I've had several people mention to me last year that they would prefer decorations that match, so I'm gonna give that idea a shot.

Also, I'm going to try and make a few tree toppers this year!

image found here: http://myoldejunque.ecrater.com/p/12170267/

I'm thinking of doing something similar to the above topper, but take away the ribbon/buttons/flowers, replace the hair with a lacy circle of picots to imply a halo, get rid of the puffy sleeves and change her arm position so the arms are out (so that she looks like she's proclaiming something), make her bright white instead of ecru, add beading to her wings...

Heck, I might as well start from scratch, huh?

Looking up ideas for various tree toppers has sparked a debate with my fiance. He insists that a STAR belongs on the top of a Christmas tree, not an angel.

He also suggested crocheting Cthulu in a Santa suit.

Well. Maybe I'll make ONE star just for him.

And maybe a Cthulu hat.

I'm trying a new stiffener for my lace projects. This new stuff makes me a bit nervous, I have to admit, since I can't pronounce a single ingredient they list in it and it stinks to high heaven. Plus, this stuff is notorious for ruining your clothes if you spill it on yourself and let it dry. My usual hippie-dippie stiffening methods (the cornstarch method/sugar method) were both simply too messy and time consuming, and the flakes didn't turn out as stiff as I'd like.

The first batch of snowflakes turned out almost creepily perfect, though. And since I haven't sprouted a second head, I guess I'm alright as long as I open a window and keep a fan running.

I've also been doing a ton of embroidery lately.

It's kind of a tradition, Readers, for me to embroider a set of "day of the week" towels for people I love who are getting married. My brother and his wonderful bride to be are tying the knot in less than a month, so naturally I've been stitching away!

I know for a fact that both my brother and future sister in law read my blog ;-) So, John and Jen, I'm posting your tea-towel "previews":

So happy for you guys! Love you so much!

Until next time, Readers!

Sweater concepts

Hullo again, my dear Readers!

First of all, I wanted to thank those of you who have sent my family messages of love and support regarding my mom's chemo. She did beautifully, and will be going in for another round in a couple of weeks. As of now, things are going VERY WELL.

I'm proud to say that I FINALLY finished knitting the second half of the space-invaders afghan. I will post pictures once the whole piece is sewn together and finished.

Now that I've got one of the BIG projects out of the way (mostly), I thought it would be fun to return to the idea of creating my own knitting patterns.

I've always admired a smart, nice-fitting, ladylike sweater. After perusing the Internet and knitty.com, I came up with a couple of ideas for a modified drop-shoulder cardigan:




Wee strawberries? Yay!

 Doesn't necessarily need to be strawberries. Wee pears, apples, cherries...I dunno if this is my inner old lady coming out, but I love prints that feature itty-bitty fruits <3

Ideally, I'd like the pattern to keep the "polka-berries" as tiny as possible. I KNOW that this will be a challenge...but I'm confident that after some trial and error, SOMETHING will come out of it, even if it turns out to be an entirely different garment! Another instarsia project? Perhaps this is simple enough for fair isle? Or should I embroider the berries/pears/apples whatever over the finished knitted fabric?

Only time will tell, Readers! Stay tuned!

Turtle Power!

Readers, if you would be so kind as to turn on the music linked below. The post just wouldn't be the same without it...

Ahem.




TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA PILLOWS!

Leonardo leads...

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA PILLOWS!

Gimmie a break...

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA PILLOWS!

Cowabunga!!!

HEROES KNIT ENTIRELY IN INSTARSIA!!!!

Donatello does machines!

TURTLE POWER!!!!!