Knitting Projects and Lace Doodles in Progress...

Hello, Readers! It has been entirely too long!

It's true that I've been neglecting this blog, but I haven't been neglecting my knitting!

The Year of the Sweater is off to an excellent start, I must say! Look what I finished a few weeks ago!

Pattern found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plain-and-simple-pullover

I'm still waiting on some blocking supplies to arrive in the mail before I model this sweater properly. I'm VERY pleased with how the sweater looks, but I have to say that the yarn I picked out is....itchy. VERY ITCHY. If I want to actually wear this sweater outside of the house (which I absolutely will, once it's been blocked), I'll have to wear a long-sleeved shirt underneath.

Plus, I'm going to re-attach some of the buttons to make it just a bit more aesthetically pleasing. I'm not going to wear it with the turtleneck buttoned up, anyway.

Too itchy.

Serves me right for picking out the cheapest yarn. Ah well. It looks lovely, at the very least.

I'm making very good progress on sweaters two and three as well! I'll be posting those in the coming weeks.

In addition to the Year of the Sweater, I've been knitting lots of little lovely things for all of my family members who are having babies.

Three cousins have had their babies within the past two months. That's THREE knit baby gifts!

I'm VERY pleased with knit baby gift number one:

Pattern found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/foglie-su-legaccio---leaves-of-garter-stitch

Just needs buttons and blocking!

I'm also working the kinks out of a new crochet snowflake pattern. I've been inspired by some gorgeous macro-photography shots of snowflakes; one Russian photographer in particular has been catching my eye lately:

http://chaoticmind75.blogspot.com/

His name is Alexey Kljatov, and oh my sweet holy mother he takes gorgeous pictures.

I've crocheted a flake that's based off of this photograph here:

http://500px.com/photo/22899889

...and the finished result, I find, is just kind of "Meh".

The flake was also VERY sloppily starched. Yuck. 

The flake NEEDS just a little something, but I don't want to over-work it and make it into a jumble of un-necessary do-dads. In the few years that I've been designing crochet lace, I've learned a few things:

1. Less is More
2. Always make one more chain than you think you need
3. The popcorn stitch doesn't starch well.

I'm thinking the best thing I can do for "Kljatov 1" is to make it bigger, for one thing. I want the negative space in the center of the flake to stand out a bit more, and making it larger will give me a little bit more freedom in playing with the shapes that the negative space can create.

I may also do a row of single crochets along the outer-most edge, but I think that may draw the eye away from the center.

If anybody has any suggestions, I'm all ears! Leave me a comment, Readers!

Until next time! <3

Out with the old, in with the sweaters!

The tree this year <3

A very happy new year to you all, my dear Readers!

Hoo, what a wonderful Christmas! Mr. Orb Weaver and I spent the holiday in Massachusetts, enjoying a nice long break spent with family and friends.

Now that we've returned to the lovely non-frozen Pacific Northwest, (we left Massachusetts JUST before the Polar Vortex set in), I can turn my attention to the fact the Year of Using Up the Stash is officially over!

Whoo hoo!

I have to say that I haven't been as successful as I'd like. A great deal of the Stash was used up, though, and I'm proud to say that I've been (reasonably) good about not buying any yarn. I purchased a ball of lovely hand dyed wool from a sheep/goat farm in New Hampshire when Mr. Orb Weaver and I flew out to the East Coast this past fall (with the understanding that I was going to wait until the Year of Using Up the Stash was over until I would use it), and a bunch of yarn has been gifted to me for various reasons throughout the year. My friend (who I made that wedding cake for a while back) gave me a few skeins of a lovely wool acrylic blend as a thank-you gift, and Mr. Orb Weaver's aunt VERY generously gave me at least an entire sheep's worth of wool that she wasn't using.

Now that the Stash has grown exponentially, I think that I'm going to challenge myself a bit as far as my knitting projects go. This year, I'd like to focus on knitting sweaters.

At the moment, I've got three sweaters in the making: one for Mr. Orb Weaver and two for myself. Mr. Orb Weaver's sweater is simple enough;  but I'm a bit nervous about knitting an actual hoodie. Never made one before!

In addition to the sweaters, I've got a new snowflake pattern in the works! It needs a few revisions, but it's almost finished!

Until next time, Readers!

Naaaaa na na na na na na na...

Pattern found here: http://amysbabies.wordpress.com/magnetic-katamari-pattern

Katamari Damacy is, in my humble opinion, one of the very best video games ever made. It's delightfully colorful, fast-paced, clever, and has cornered the market on WEIRD FUN.

You guys know who else is delightfully colorful, fact-paced, clever, and full of weird fun? My sister!

This awesome anigurumi is my sister's birthday present! I had a ton of fun making it, and will definitely be making more!

I used up the last of the purple mercerized cotton (as well as a bunch of the green, and all of the light blue when I made my first attempt at the magnetic nubs around the side) in my stash to make little piece of adhesive-star-magic. Woo!

Until next time, Readers! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Introducing: Sir Keiko Von StashBuster.

Hello, Readers. This is Keiko Von StashBuster.

I finished him yesterday, and he is absolutely adorable.

This cute lil' oceanic dolphin is made from a free pattern on Ravelry! Readers, I don't know why this pattern isn't more popular; it was super easy to follow, was VERY forgiving (I skipped over some pattern repeats but the finished project doesn't show it), and used up ALL of my leftover black acrylic yarn, as well as my white acrylic!

Whoo!

I've also finished another softie; I finished this one last week, but haven't found the time to post it:

Recently, I've been in contact with one of the donation.volunteer coordinators from Seattle Children's Hospital. I shot her an email, asking if Seattle Children's accepted knit hats/booties. She told me no, they don't accept knit hats/ booties for preemies and newborns (because their little hands can get caught in the knit fabric), but they DID accept all kinds of knit/crochet toys!

I was absolutely delighted by the details she put in what it was they were looking for in the knit toy donations: the toys should be:

1: Machine washable (for obvious reasons, they are a hospital after all and want things to be kept clean/sterilized),

2: Snuggleable: nothing quite like holding a soft toy to help take a sick child's mind off things, and

3: Meltdown proof. Readers, when a child (especially a small one) is sick or injured, it can be a very scary and overwhelming time. It's inevitable that at least a few patients will have a bit of a meltdown moment, and when this happens, parents/caretakers/nurses will try to distract the child with a stuffed animal, which may or may not be chucked across the room at the medical equipment.

Which is perfectly okay with me :-).

The dinosaur I posted last week, the rocket ship, and Sir Keiko Von StashBuster will be donated to Seattle Children's hospital, just as soon as I finish knitting up a few more things. I'd like to have a basket of at least five toys to donate.

I'll keep you guys posted, Readers! Until next time!

Apple Peeerrrr...

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,
You must first invent the universe. 
                                     -Carl Sagan

 <3 Until next time!

October in review:

Hello, Readers! It's good to be back from a month-and-a-half-long hiatus!

Let me go ahead and give you all a rundown on what I did while I was away from Blogger:

This October, Mr. Orb Weaver and I:

Moved! We've found what may be the Holy Grail of apartments in Seattle. We're renting a condo in Queen Anne that has a dishwasher, a balcony, and.....



wait for it....



PARKING INCLUDED IN THE RENT.

awwwwwe yis.

Plus, I have a REAL KITCHEN. One that is larger than a porto-potty! 

Also during the month of October, I have:

Knit this dinosaur:

This little nugget is going to be donated to Seattle Children's Hospital, along with a few other knit softies that I have in the works. 

Knit these gloves for co-worker Pop:

Built up quite a bit of Lace Mountain 2013:

Knit all of these Warm Up America squares:

Made and wore this Star Trek Red-Shirt:

Yes, I did knit my communicator pin :-)

Carved these pumpkins:

Gawked at this stellar view:

(I work on the 49th floor of a very tall sky-scraper in downtown Seattle. When it gets super foggy, it feels like I'm working on Bespin).

Knit this pincushion:

I'm really happy with how this one turned out, and I'm definitely going to make more!

...and knit this bunny hat:

Cute, but the ear flaps ended up being in kind of a weird position...

Whoof!

It's good to be back, Readers!

<3 Until next time!

Wedding cake success!

Well, Readers, after two and a half months of planning, testing, practicing, baking, decorating, the wedding cake is (well, WAS, since it was entirely eaten within twenty minutes of me slicing it) finished!

Yikes, I really messed up the piping on the top tier...

All in all, Readers, I think I can say that this isn't a bad result. Not too shabby for my first-ever wedding cake!

Here are the cakey details:

The bottom layer was a dark chocolate cake, filled with ganache. The recipe I used is FANTASTIC, and can be found here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Double-Chocolate-Layer-Cake-101275

The second tier is Martha Stewart's Whipped Cream Cake, filled with the same icing that's seen on the sides of the cake. That recipe can't be found online, I'm afraid; but it CAN be found in "The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Everyday."

The top tier is Martha Stewart's Sour Lemon Cake I. Again, this recipe is not found on the internet, folks, but can be found in same cookbook. I filled that one up with an imported lemon curd.

The icing recipe I ended up using is one of the BEST. TASTING. ICING. RECIPES. IN. THE HISTORY. OF. THE. UNIVERSE. You guys, seriously, if you're making a cake for a special occasion, you simply MUST try making some of this wonderful stuff:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/07/project-wedding-cake-swiss-buttercream/

Readers, for a cake of this size, the recipe calls for TEN. STICKS. OF. BUTTER.

The tree and apples were made from gumpaste.

My brother and his lovely wife very generously offered up their enormous kitchen, so that I may create this glorious beast without losing my mind.

The cake layers were baked at my mother's house about two weeks ago. We froze them, and transported them in a cooler with some dry ice so that they could stay frozen and not lose their flavor.

On the day before the wedding, I arrived at my brother's house and started work on torting, filling and decorating the layers at around 7:30 pm.

I finished the cake at around 5 am.

Whew!

Now that THAT's over, I can turn my attention towards the upcoming holiday craft fair! I will keep you posted, Readers!

Orb Weaver Out!

<3