One down...

Finished one! Hooray! Pictures will follow, promise. I just have get my act together and find my camera.

14 weeks till Xmas. 13 gifts to make. YIKES!

Time to start the Xmas stash

Man, do I wish I could knit at work. Not to say that I'm not busy. But there are little moments during the day, when the workload lightens, or I take a short mental break. A few rows here and there would go a long way towards making this day seem shorter.

Also, I've just made the list of Xmas presents I'm making this year. And I'm very excited about getting them going. Pictures will be forthcoming, but I made a hat last weekend.

It ended up smaller than I wanted, but no big deal. It just took a couple days, so I'll save it until the right small-headed-person comes along. I bought more yarn yesterday to make a slightly bigger version of the same design. Better colors the second time around I think.

Only 15 weeks till Xmas, and I have at least that many projects to start and finish within that timeframe. And none of them can suck.

Whoops...

Well, looks like I did disappear after all... hmmm. Alas. I'll see what I can do from here on out. No promises this time though.

I have been doing a fair bit of knitting, but I've just been lazy about taking pictures. I'll dig around and see what I can find.

See! I didn't disappear!

Whew! That was a lot of posting... enjoy!

I'll try to get pictures up more regularly, but no promises.

Anyway, happy holiday knitting everyone!

Matching Caps

As you may recognize, these hats are the Newsboy-style Caps from S&B Nation.


I've made three of these in the past, and only heard positive reviews. They are pretty fast to knit & can be made with only 6oz of yarn. Also, they're pretty funky and cool and definitely not boring.


They look way different laying on the table than they do when they are actually being worn, so here are some lovely, slightly blurry, pictures of how they really look:



Hooray again! Feels good to finish projects!

Purple Alaska Sock up to HERE!

The purple Alaska socks are done! and they are definitely knee-high at least!

They are so comfy, it's gonna pain me to give them away for Xmas. My only consolation being that if anyone could love these socks more than I do, it's the person who's getting them for Xmas.


Hooray! If anyone wants to knit something happy, make knee high socks with really soft yarn. It was a blast & they make me smile when I see them. :)

Lover's Mitten

Sorry in advance for the poor quality of some of these pictures, but yeah, no natural light.


Here is a normal mitten:


Here is a Lover's Mitten:

Kinda like conjoined mitten twins. The point is that you can hold hands with someone inside the mitten & your hands won't get cold. I made a few changes to the Lover's Mitten pattern in the link above, but mostly just for sizing.

And I made a matching set of mittens, so the lovebirds can keep their outside hands warm as well.


A Lover's Mitten...what a cute idea! It's been a big hit with everyone who's seen it. It seems to be what everyone wants for Xmas.

Asherton at Last!

Voila!

I know it's not a super picture, but it seems like it's dark all the time, so no luck having natural light. Anyway, you can see what it looks like. Very geometric pattern. Almost appears to be 3-D cubes.

And since it's made with only knits and purls, it looks much more challenging than it was. Though, the 44-row repeat in the pattern definitely made me pay attention.

The Deluge Begins...

Ok, I've finally done it! I took pictures of the things I've finished in the past couple months & I will now post them.

I've been such a blog slacker....


And on that note, I present the Ribbon Hat:

The black is a microspun cotton blend that's been sitting in my closet for ages, and the green is ribbon yarn that I think I bought at my first trip to a real yarn store. ...long time ago. Anyway, that was back when I thought it'd be really fun to knit with ribbon yarn. Silly me.

But, two bits of my stash were eaten up by this project. So, huzzah! It's really nothing too amazing, but it is pretty soft, so that's good.

knitting goddess

hey, check it out -

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Goddess. You are constantly giving and are unconcerned with reward, you simply want others to love knitting as much as you do. If someone wants to knit miles of novelty yarns, you are there for them. If someone wants to learn short row shaping, you can help. There are no taboos in knitting, only opportunities to grow. Everyone should have friend like you around if they want to learn to knit, and there's a good chance that your passion has rubbed off on a few others.http://marniemaclean.com Take this quiz!

another silly quiz result -- but this time it's about knitting! Hooray!

so, I don't agree with your choice of FunFur, but I will fight to the death for your right to knit with it.

I've also been called an knitting evangelical...as pretty much every one of my family and friends have been or will be (strongly) encouraged to learn to knit...as it is clearly the best hobby in the world.

For real this time, I promise that I'll put new pictures up. You'll all be impressed with the progress I've made. The Xmas stash is really growing, but I think I'll still have to be up burning the midnight oil to get everything done in time. Who knew, August wasn't early enough to start for Xmas...one of these days I suppose I'll get sick of knitting, but until then I'll squeeze it into every spare 5 minutes of my busy life.

Nerd Alert!

You all know that I'm a knitting nerd and a science nerd, but apparently that nerdiness extends even further....

I am officially a Slightly Dorky Nerd Queen!






... so I'm feeling pretty good! I challenge any of you to out-nerd me!

I know, I know...

I have been a total slacker!! I admit it! But I have an excuse (or two or three).... also, even though I haven't been posting for over a month, I have still been knitting & there has been progress! Though not as much as you might expect.

I finished the Purple Alaska Socks, I made a rough draft Lover's Mitten (will explain this later), then made regular mittens and a lover's mitten for someone's Xmas present, started new socks, and I'm halfway done with another Coronet hat.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. It's not like I can just go take a walk around my apartment and look, because now I'm employed (woo!). And that's pretty much my excuse for the lack of blog progress.

Well, that and going out with friends in the evening... And having a computer from the stone age so it's like a 3 hour commitment to upload pictures. But I promise to post pictures soon. Really. Cross my heart.

but until then, be patient

Asherton

I have not been able to get a good photo of the completed Asherton Scarf. As soon I as I can come up with some way to do that, you'll see how awesome it looks. Until then, take my word for it...it's done. Promise.

Surprise!

Haha! Oh yeah, I made another one of these a few weeks ago. They just kept appearing all over my apartment....no real recollection of making it, it just blends in with all the other similar ones.

Anyway, I recommend this pattern. It looks way more complicated than it is, and seriously, isn't that what all knitters really want?

My New Bag!

I'm so excited about finishing this bag. First of all, I only started it a couple days ago, so that's exciting in itself. But also, my primary bag, which I use to carry around my wallet, phone, keys, etc, has had a broken zipper since about 14 minutes after I bought it at an NYC flea market.


I sewed a new zipper in this one, so if it breaks....well, I guess I can always fix it.



So yeah, a new bag is good news.

The pattern I used was Brea from Berroco Yarn's Free Patterns. I decided to do a knit handle instead of buying a leather one, and I used rings from an old belt to attach the handle to the bag.

Again, I've been so good as to knit from my stash, using leftover afghan yarn for this project.

To add a little spice to this neutral colored bag, I lined it with a crazy print fabric.

Here's a photo using the flash that really shows how bright the inside is:



It's CRAZY! Crazy-awesome, that is. Anyway, I love it. It's the perfect size for all the essentials and it's super cool because I made it and it's not about to fall apart. (woo!) And a few hours later, the zipper still works.

For another instance of this cool pattern, check out Kaydo's!

Reversible Cables

Not much to see yet, but a reversible cable scarf is always newsworthy. This is my new project for working on when I need something mindless to do. The pattern is very simple, but the end result will be fabulous! And it's alpaca, so it's super soft.

As always, it'll take forever because it's a scarf, so anytime I feel like I've made any sort of progress, you will probably see a picture of it... because that's how I operate.

Socks up to HERE!

Voila!



I have created another knee-length purple alaska sock! I want to work some elastic into the cuffs of these socks to keep them from sagging, and I just haven't been to the store yet. As soon as I get my hands on some thin elastic-type thread, they will be finished in a snap!

Preview

Despite the lack of progress on the blog, there has been much knitting progress in the last few weeks.

Here's the rundown:

-finished the Asherton Scarf
-almost finished both knee-length Purple Alaska Socks
-started and have almost finished a new bag
-progressed slightly on the Rainbow Railway Socks
-started a reversible cabled scarf with blue alpaca yarn

Pictures will be forthcoming, I promise. I just really want to finish lining this bag first, and we all know how slow I am at sewing.

PS: I have a question. I 'sewer' the proper word to use when describing 'one who sews', because to me, sewer is where the teenage mutant ninja turtles live, etc...

Hat Factory

After pawing around in my stash some more, I was inspired to knit up a couple more Coronets in the past couple days. Yeah, 2 hats in like a day and a half. First it's clear that (if only for the moment) I have no life.

Also, I think my knitting has sped up. I don't know why or how, but I'm pretty sure it's faster now. Cool, but I hope I don't knit myself into early knitting retirement.


Anyway, the hats are called Little Thing 1 and Little Thing 2...a la Dr Seuss... And they were knit entirely from stash yarn. I think they are fun little hats and they're really comfy. Too bad it's 80ish degrees outside. Alas...


Oh what will my stash think of next?? ...we shall seeeeeee...

Another one bites the dust...

All done and shipped out. Sorry I didn't include a picture of the entire scarf stretched out, but you've all seen the pattern from every conceivable angle...because I posted a picture every time I needed to feel like I was making progress on this project.

Overall, I enjoyed making it. The pattern was challenging and the chart was always necessary, but after a while it was easy enough to knit while watching TV. Not mindless, but it didn't require lots of thought.

I hope he likes it...I'll let you know!