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

Return of Haiku Friday

I'm Angry. Sad. Fazed. 

But, I do not feel Surprised. 

That terrifies me.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-respond-to-shooting-near-Seattle-Pacific-University-262043001.html

Lace and more lace!

Afternoon, Readers!

Look what I finished:

Pattern found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pineapple-lace-parasol-wedding-stick-umbrella-crochet-pattern-in-pdf

I've been wanting to make a crochet lace parasol ever since I saw these patterns pop up on Ravelry. I think this is the largest piece of lace that I've ever made!

The pattern itself is fairly simple (pineapple lace is quite easy, just single crochets and chains, mostly), but the actual crochet/construct process was a bit of an adventure:

I had to find a cheap stick umbrella to sacrifice to the cause, and I ended up finding a cheap one for sale at Daiso Japan. Cost me all of $1.99!

And because the umbrella base cost me all of $1.99, getting the lace on the umbrella skeleton was...interesting.

The instructions included in the crochet pattern gave some simple instructions for breaking down the sacrificial umbrella: according to the designer, just cutting away the fabric and saving the tips from the ribs would do the trick.

My umbrella would not give up its fabric without a fight.

There was a circle of tightly folded blue nylon underneath my umbrellas' ferrule that simply would. not. budge. I must have spent about a week fretting over how to get the fabric out without completely destroying the umbrella base; but about an hour and half of constantly cutting and picking at it with my pinking shears and tweezers eventually got it to slide off.

Now that I know that I CAN make this fabulous thing...I'm going to make it again! As happy as I am with the parasol, I want to make another one to enter into the state fair in September!

Parasol 2.0 is going to be classed up a bit! Can't wait to show the results!

Until next time!

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; 

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; 

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; 

So long as men can breathe

Or eyes can see,

So long lives this, 

And this gives life to thee. 

In which I realize that my thumb isn't as green as I'd like...

One of the best features of our new apartment, Readers, is the fact that we have a balcony.

Since this picture was taken, the tulips died. They have been replaced with tomato plants. 

I LOVE our balcony!

It's so wonderful to just have the option of enjoying my morning coffee outside if I want.

My husband and I are in LOVE with gardening. Flowers, herbs, vegetables...one of the things that my husband and I share is that we both relish in a feeling of granola-esque smugness and delight when we realize that we can produce our own food.

I'm sad to say that since picture has been taken, this pea plant shriveled up and died. (The one pea we got off of it was yummy, though). 

We've been putting together what our landlord has called our "balcony forest" since March. Unfortunately, in my eagerness to get started, I ordered and started planting our herbs/veggies WAY too early.

Readers, you guessed it...the cilantro and basil died. The dill seems to be on it's last legs as well...

And as you can tell by the pictures above, Readers,  many of my plants came up to a LOVELY start...but shriveled up as soon as the weather got warmer (except for that one pea vine, though. I think the pea vine died because there was a nasty crack at the bottom). I'd say that, sadly, only about a half of what I originally planted survived.

I wouldn't say that I'm an accidental plant killer. but my formerly glorious green thumb has gotten a bit rusty as of late. I'm just not used to container gardening, I guess...

Luckily for us, a few of the veggies we started were hearty enough to make it. I bought a spearmint plant that's starting to look like it has doubled in size AT LEAST, and the two other pea vines I stagger-planted seem to be coming up nice and healthy.

I guess that it helps when you plant them when it's warm enough. Who knew?

Plus, John built me a vertical garden, where we planted onions and butter lettuce. The lettuce seems to be doing okay (as long as I keep it watered), but the onions are going NUTS in there! I don't know if it's because of the soil or the location, but my green onions are shooting up like little green rockets!

Yes, that is an old shoe organizer. We punched holes in the bottom of each pocket for drainage. Since this has been taken, we've harvested two butter lettuce heads ("Tom Thumb" variety, only about the size of a baseball). 

I get just so much energy and joy out of planting things.

If I had to choose a favorite plant in our garden, it would definitely be our cherry tree seedling:

About a year ago, John found a cherry pit on the ground that looked like it had sprouted. On a whim, he planted it in a small pot and put it on our windowsill.

Sure enough, it grew! And it seems to be coming out of its winter hibernation! Since the above picture was taken (these were all taken mid-April), a teeny-tiny branch seems to be coming out of one side, and at least three more green leaves are visible!

I've taken to calling the lil' sprout our "metaphor tree".

Because we love and care for it in the same way we love, care, and work at our marriage <3

Anyways, If you're wondering where I've been during the past month, Readers, now you know! I've been on my balcony, up to my elbows in potting mix and fertilizer!

Until next time!

<3

Speak Friend, and....um....something knitting related!

Hullo, Readers!


Yikes...I'm getting terrible about keeping my blog updated!

The Year of the Sweater has taken a bit of a detour, ever since I started THIS:

BEHOLD, the never ending Evenstar Shawl!

Pattern found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/evenstar-shawl

I started this project about a month ago; all things considered it's been a fairly quick knit. I'm still working on my lace skills and shaping skills, and as such I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants with this pattern.

It's amazing how much your pattern can get mucked up by missing just ONE yarn over.

It's also amazing how much a bumpy bus ride can mess up your knitting! Yikes!

I'd like to level up on my lace skills and eventually enter something into the Washington State Fair.Once I finish this (there's NO WAY that the finished project here is State Fair worthy), I'll get some more yarn and give it another go, if I'm feeling more comfortable with the lace work.

Until next time, Readers!

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