in progress

yarny goodness

Mmmmm... fiber. It was my birthday yesterday so this required an outing to Selwood. Selwood means two things: lunch at Papa Haydens (crazy tasty club sandwich, rasberry lemonade and a panna cotta) and Abundant Yarn and Fiber.
Not a huge hall, just some yarn for mindless scarf knitting. The caramel and chocolate will become a herringbone pattern and the noro will be my mindless book knitting in garter stitch.
The obsevant will also note a strange teal... thing flopping out the back of the knitting basket. It is a sleeve for a cabled hoodie I'm designing. The increases are working out a little bit wonky though:

I'm not totally sure if I like how the increases are turning out, but I don't really think it is enought to bother me. I've been trying to increase so as not to screw up the pattern too badly (6 st cable, 2 purl, 2 knit, 2 purl, 6st cable, etc). I implemented a Eunny fake seam type to divide the two sides and it seems to be working out better then my first few (frogged) attempts.

I told you I'd be knitting more of these, and so I did. I love this one sooo much more and have worn it a couple of times this last week.
Yarn: 5 balls cascade pima tencel
Pattern: two tone shrug from fitted knits
ETK: about 13 days

The cuffs are already pilling a bit though :P


Yay wrap skirts!! I'm wearing it in the pic, but here is another to give you an idea of the shape. This has got to be my favorite skirt ever! I drafted it out from my measurements based an intruction from a book (Sew Skirts, I think)

I'm seeing green

Yesterday my mom and I made a pilgrimage to Bohersma (I don't know If I spelled that right) It may be an hour long trek but well worth it. The place is in McMinville and on one side of the street is a quilt shop and on the other side is a knitting shop. Both are the same company which means the reward cards are good at both!! We filled up ours between the two places :)
First the quilt shop finds...
Both are Amy Butler fabrics destined for spring skirts. I really love the blue and red floral one, I wanted to just buy the whole bolt :(






These are the yarn shop finds. A bunch of cascade pima tencel on sale at 30% off (14balls green and
19 teal) The green is already well on its way to becoming a long sleeve version of the fitted knits shrug. I also got a skein of mostly green Trekking with blues and purples.
The needles are rosewoods I picked up for a song in carlton and I am sold. If only they were cheaper I would probably never buy another kind of needle. Except maybe brittanys. They are just sooo smooth and nice to work with.
Oh, and my knitted apple has found his calling: dpn assistance

mmmm... sushi wallet

I Have Been Crafting I Swear!

Crafting, but not blogging. Mostly because I haven't had a lot of good light for pictures. But the last few days have been really nice so I could finally get at least semi nice pics.

It really isn't a garter blob eatting a pillow. I swear. Its a soon to be baby sweater for my new baby cousin who is due this spring. It needs embellishments though... ideas? I'm afraid to do too many buttons for fear he might try to eat them :(



Paper bead braclets!!! These were so much fun to make. They're made from a paper bag from Fossil which had cool stripes on it. They didn't show up at all until I coated them in nail polish. Different parts of the paper took the polish differently too so there are slight variations on the beads. I love them! Much better then the paper beads I made in the 3rd grade with my girl scout troop. :)






This is the shrug from Fitted Knits (love the book, if you don't have it yet well... I think you should. Consider it enabling.)

Yarn: 3ish balls of Artful Yarn's Fable (cotton/ silk blend, dunno how much of each since the ball band is long gone) and ITS FROM THE STASH!!! YAY STASHBUSTING!!!
Needles: Bamboo circs and dpns in sizes 5mm and 3.75mm
EKT (estimated knitting time) 7 days

Notes: I love this shrug!! I sense more coming. I used eyelet increases on the back for fun. I really want to play with different edging on this like a lace edge or a garter edge.

Projects in the works:
2 bags (my apple bag had an, er, nuclear melt down in the wash :( and I want to make a smaller one for day to day stuff)
1 skirt

Projects on the Way
more things from Fitted Knits
a sweater of my own design
more knitted fruit and stuffies (yay stash knitting!)
Sewn organizers for desk

Appley goodness

There's something weirdly amusing about waking up in the morning and spotting a weird face on a knitted apple... its cheerfull because it serves no other purpose in life other then to amuse.
Its nice to accasionally knit things that have no use. Many times, a knitter chooses a project based on its practicallity which is good in its own way. Its lovely to actually use things you make. But when you make something without a real use it becomes more about the process and more about enjoying the knitting then the end product.


That and he's just so darn cute! :)


Specs:
Yarn: Natures Palette sock spring green color (much brighter then in the photo, no natural light around here.) and angora oddball for leaf and stem
Needles: Crappy metal DPNs I picked up for a dollar a looong time ago 2.5mm
Finished size: about 4 inches wide at the widest part and 3 inches high

Fun Things

Class preview today. I HAD NO SIGN UPS FOR THE KNITTING CLASS!!! Everyone signed up for cake decorating or scrapbooking. :P I guess they just don't see the fun in creating something yummy that is useful. A scrapbook page doesn't keep you warm much now does it?

Anyway, before I get to insensed about that... fun things I found

Coin Ring
Make Your Own Circular Needles
Knitted Apple

And some fun things I made
2 sets of button post earrings and some dangly rocks (they are posed on some ball-band warsh rags)











sorry for the sideways pic :/ just some more rock jewelery.

Also made progress on the baby sweater, i knit about half way through it today. That was the plus side of the preview, I got to knit through most of it.

sqwee blogging!

mmmm... blogging... tasty.

not much to say today (busy, must make knitting samples for a class.) But I present some FOs in the sewing and notebook catogories.

First some notebooks. The first one (w/ the robot) is one I bound myself with coptic stitch. Its my first notebook ever! the other three are moleskeins a doodled on/pasted pics to. the one with the yellow chompy mouth says "a hunger for knowledge"

Please excuse the bad photos, there has been almost zero good natural light around here lately. This is a messanger bag half my design and half stolen from a pattern for a bedside organizer. I've also made a few skirts.
Weirdly enough I haven't done much knitting this week which is odd because it is my usual thing. I have 1 sweater and a pair of socks. I also bought yarn for a baby sweater to knit for my cousin's son who's due in May (I think :/) But I need to finish 6 pattern swatches for a class I'm teaching ASAP so everything is a little on hold right now.