Fifth Annual Blogging Week

You may or may not remember last year when I joined the Fourth Annual Blogging Week, hosted by the wonderful Eskimimi Makes. It’s a week of posts on various topics.  She describes it as:

Once a year knitters and crocheters that blog are invited from all over the world to take part in a community blog week in which they are presented with a number of topics to blog about over the period of seven days. The topics are very flexible and can be interpreted in many ways, so there is a good deal of variety in the posts that this inspires, which then provide wonderful reading for anyone who enjoys reading the blogs that it inspires.

I had a lot of fun and was able to participate almost every day. If you would like to read those posts click below.

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Days Five, Six and Seven

Why am I telling you all about this? Well, it’s that time again. Eskimimi has announce that the Fifth Annual Blogging Week will start on May twelfth.

She has posted the tags and topics already. If you wish to join click on the blog link I posted above for more information (you might have to scroll down a bit). I leave the topics a secret so those who simply want to follow along will be surprised. Of course, if you decide to join please leave a comment down below so I can check out your blog, if I am not already doing so.

Thought it Wasn’t Thursday

What with Easter break started and a little spare time on my hands I decided I would try something new. I have seen W.I.P. Wednesdays before but I have never participated in one. I thought it would be fun to participate. Then I realized, it’s not Wednesday. Would you like to see what I’m working on anyway? I thought so.

The first Bahama Sock (AKA Turkish Walrus by: Rachel Brown) has reached the sole flap (part of the heel). I’ve been really enjoying the monotony of these socks. With the adaptations I’ve made there is minimal striping. That makes it a good TV project.

I ended up adding an extra two inches to Flower Power (AKA Tiny Tether by: Katie Franceschi) which brings the stem length to six inches. I added two more leaves and wove in all the ends except for those that I’ll need to attach the clip and the elastic. I count it as a WIP because it doesn’t have the pacifier, elastic of clip attached yet.

Blurred Lines

In the two-and-a-half years I have been blogging here I have always tried to keep my personal life separate from my knitting life. I use pseudonyms for nearly everyone and I don’t stray much from talking about knitting (who would want to though?). Last week, however, those lines blurred. My knitting was featured in the creative issue of my school’s newspaper. They were all patterns I designed and they were published under my real name.

I thought about adding my web address but decided against it. I do want this world to stay separate from my classmates. You can see the editor picked Bow Wow Beanie, E-String, Strawberry Mittens and a skein of the alpaca/silk blend I spun way back when. I was pleasantly surprised that she picked as many pictures as she did.

I started the gift for my friend whose wife is expecting a baby in August. The shower is in May though, so I thought I better get started. First, I knit up a tiny tether (from Knitty.com). The picture is kind of dark and blurry. It looks better if you squint. 🙂

the stem is about four inches long and to knit it up probably only took a few hours all together. It just doesn’t seem long enough so, I’m going to frog the flower and add another inch to the stem. I figure it’ll be pretty useful to have some way to hold onto a pacifier and keep it close to the baby. I also sent the rabbit, which I named Radish due to his coloring, to Rosie. Her little sister, Daisy, was born earlier this month and looks just like her.

He really isn’t that crooked in real life. He’s just very floppy. He turned out much better than the bear I made for her first birthday.

Resolution Recap #3

I’ve been way behind this month. I only got in about three weeks-worth of squares. I didn’t really knit on anything else after my last post. Life just been that brand of crazy that has me mixing up names with reckless abandon (seriously, it was bad yesterday). When I get stressed and busy I might call you by my great aunt’s name and you’re actually one of my coworkers. Ooops. Anyway, I waited until I had the weather scarf caught up before I posted. That’s why this month’s recap is a little late.

You can start to see the color transition from the dreary colors to the brighter, prettier ones.  April already requires a new color, purple. I think the final transition into spring has at least started. Hey, I head peepers on Thursday, anything is possible.

Since my computer didn’t want to cooperate I’ll just type the statistics down here. The coldest day was March third with a balmy sixteen degrees Fahrenheit. That’s about negative nine degrees Celsius. The warmest day was March thirty-first at forty-nine degrees. About nine degrees Celsius, positive this time.

0-10 degrees F: White

11-20 degrees F: Black

21-30 degrees F: Grey

31-40 degrees F: Dark Blue

41-50 degrees F: Green

51-60 degrees F: Purple

61-70 degrees F: Pink

71-80 degrees F: Teal

81-90 degrees F: Yellow

91-100 degrees F: Orange

101-110 degrees F: Red

(Temperatures are based on the average for the day.)

The blanket suffered this month. I just haven’t had enough time to work on it. It still grew though.

From this to…

this. This month I ran out of my green camo yarn.

The last square was a big one. I really wanted to make a big one with this yarn, it just looked good with the surrounding yarn colors. I knew that, in the past, it had created a very thin fabric though so I doubled up the yarn. You can see the color change between the single strand knit square in the bottom left corner of the picture and the big one. I just barely had enough to finish the square. All that was left was the tail.

This month I knit a square out of the yarn I dyed with blueberries this summer for the first time. I’m still a little worried about the dye being color-fast even though I used a salt fixative. I’ve kept it hidden away at the bottom of the my box holding all my yarns for this project. It seemed to need another purple in it though, (more purple is always an option) so I took a leap of faith and knitted with it. So far so good.

On another note I  see that a blogger I have been following for a while now has started a blanket of her own. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

 

Stash Fast

This year for Lent I decided to give up buying yarn (I also gave up tasty cakes- but that’s another matter entirely). It shouldn’t be too hard I have a little stash. I also have a few WIPs going all from stashed yarn.

I have the Bahamas Socks (Turkish Walrus) started with the blue yarn from my blanket for the toe, heel and top. As apposed to striping all the way up. The rest will be knit in plain stockinette with  Koigu Painters Pallet Premium Merino (100% Merino, 50 g, 175 yds/160 m,  Colorway; P113 ). I have two skeins of it and I’m just going to see how long I can make them.

I’m also working on Rosie’s ‘Big Sister’ present. As I found out the new baby is due in the beginning of April, not May, I’m trying to finish it this weekend and send it down next week some time.

I’m using the left over Silky Wool XL from a pair of legwarmers I made for a friend. I hated them so much I didn’t even take any pictures of  them. There was nothing wrong with them. I just hated them with an unjustifiable passion. The belly and ears are of some super soft yarn I’ve had stashed for a couple years. I can’t really remember what it’s called but I’ll look.

My other WIP is a SHEILD beanie. The logo for the intelligence agency mentioned in the Marvel movies is emblazoned on the front. I have all the colorwork done and I’m just starting the decreases. The yarn is a little over one skein of Caron Simply Soft and an unknown grey worsted weight yarn of an acrylic nature.

I think I’ll be sufficiently covered until Easter.

Resolution Recap #2

The weather scarf nearly doubled this month (due to there only being 28 days in February instead of the 31 in January). So how did it change this month? Well…

What do you know, it got warmer in January than it did in February!

0-10 degrees F: White

11-20 degrees F: Black

21-30 degrees F: Grey

31-40 degrees F: Dark Blue

41-50 degrees F: Green

51-60 degrees F: Purple

61-70 degrees F: Pink

71-80 degrees F: Teal

81-90 degrees F: Yellow

91-100 degrees F: Orange

101-110 degrees F: Red

(Temperatures are based on the average for the day.)

The blanket didn’t suffer at all this month. Whenever I missed a day I was able to play catch-up.

I believe there’s somewhere between 110 and 120 squares so far (counting each big square as 4 little squares). I even added a new color.

It’s part of the leftovers from my Christmas socks. It’s less than one skein of Claudia Hand Painted Yarns, Fingering (now labeled as Addiction), 175 yards (160 meters), 50 grams (1.76 ounces), and 100% merino. The colorway is Be My Valentine. Unfortunately this yarn has been discontinued. 😦 I really like the new tones and variegation it brings to the blanket. I’m almost out of (I don’t think I have enough for another square) of my hand-dyed Red Cabbage yarn and I don’t have any of my sour grass hand-dyed yarn left at all. I think the Blanket’s yarn colors are starting to shift for the first time as I run out of yarns and add new ones. (There won’t be any more dark blue, but more on that later 😉 )

Oh Baby!

There are a couple of ways this title could go.

Oh Baby, there’s a lot of snow!

We have about two feet of snow and there’s more falling today. The birds are fighting over the birdseed and Persephone is having way too much  fun watching them.

Oh Baby, there are a lot of babies!

It seems like everyone is having babies right now. My math teach Mrs. K is having  a baby girl in the middle of March and Rosie will be getting a new baby sister in the beginning of May. A bit further down the road, the wife of a friend of mine will be having a baby in August as well.  My biggest challenge would be to figure out what the heck one makes a spring baby. Sweaters and hats won’t get nearly as much use as if the baby was born in the fall so, I decided to make some toys.

I started with some garter knit squares.

And added some stuffing and rattles that I bought on etsy from American Felt and Craft.

I waved my magic knitting wand and poof! They turned into adorable little rabbits (by Artsy Fartsy Mama).

With huge pompom tails.

And they want to go outside and play in the snow.

As a ‘Big Sister’ gift for Rosie I’m planning on knitting a medium-sized bear from Emma King’s The Best-Dressed Knitted Bear and lengthening the ears so it becomes a rabbit. For the baby due in August I’m going to knit a bear as well and, if it’s a boy, I’m going to make it a cowboy outfit. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do for a girl. The best part about knitting for babies is that everything is so small.

Resolution Recap #1

Wait! Where did January go? Actually, if one wasn’t looking at a calendar one would probably not know it was February. It’s still cold and snowy. It seems like everywhere I go, work or school, people are complaining about the weather. But I digress. It’s been an odd month weather-wise. It’s been below zero and above forty degrees at times.

Enter the Weather scarf.

Each color represents a ten degree range (in Fahrenheit). Every day I knit two rounds for one stripe in Cascade 220 Superwash. I can see a little bias forming from the uninterrupted stockinette. Any tips on how combat this?

0-10 degrees F: White

11-20 degrees F: Black

21-30 degrees F: Grey

31-40 degrees F: Dark Blue

41-50 degrees F: Green

51-60 degrees F: Purple

61-70 degrees F: Pink

71-80 degrees F: Teal

81-90 degrees F: Yellow

91-100 degrees F: Orange

101-110 degrees F: Red

(Temperatures are based on the average for the day.)

The Blanket hasn’t fared as well as the scarf has. There was about a ten day stretch where I had simply too much schoolwork to be able to knit. There is noticeable progress though. I thought that because it has been such along time since I posted a picture of the blanket I’d repost the last one I uploaded.

This was last spring I think.

This was Friday.

The one from this spring is actually wrong side up. Woopsie.

Abnegation Knitting

I’ve been busy lately. I made a quick headband with a 100 yard skein of 100% wool yarn I bought off of ebay last summer.

It’s such a shame I wasn’t able to keep this. I love the pooling of the colors and the texture of the basket weave pattern. I do have two more skeins of this yarn though, I will probably be making myself one of these… 😉

Here’s a quick picture of another commission. It’s a hat for my friend Chris. I used a slip stitch  rib to create the alternating pattern. This is another I want to keep for myself. I’ve decided on a name for this one (I’ll be writing up a pattern); Stevedore. It’s the name of a knot that looks similar to the loop of slipped stitches. I’ll be posting more pictures to go with the pattern soon.

My next commission is a pair of legwarmers for a dancer friend of mine. I bought three skeins of Silky Wool XL (80% Wool 20% Silk) at 104 yards per skein. I’ll be working on size 10.5 US needles. I just hope I have enough.

Wish me luck!

A New Year

With the new year a little over a day old I decided that maybe I should think about what I wanted to different knitting-wise this year. I would like to add one square each day to the Blanket. It ,unfortunately, has been languishing in a box next to my chair for a couple months. I added a square last night while my brother and I were watching a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I’ll post pictures once in a while to show some progress. Another goal of mine for this year is to knit a weather scarf. That is, to add a row (or two perhaps) each day based on the weather. I’ve color coded ten degree increments and  will continuously add onto it. I’m imagining a sort of Doctor Who-ish scarf. Very long and very warm.

While I was on vacation  with my family I knitted up my first pair of toe-up socks. I knitted up a pair in Claudia Hand Painted yarns (100% extra fine merino wool, at 175 yards a skein I used just over one skein) with about five inch cuff in a K3 P3 ribbing. I used the universal toe-up sock pattern posted on knitty.com. I absolutely loved these socks. The pattern allows you to customize the patterns using a series of simple step by step instructions.

In the background you can see the snow. We’re expecting anywhere from  3 to 9 inches tonight and tomorrow. I’ll be glad to bundle up with my afghan and all my wips. 😉

On the plane ride home I knit a cowl from the borealis yarn. I did the entire thing (not counting swatching) while we were in the air. It kept my sanity while the baby in front of me would not stop screaming.  I know I was planning on knitting a hat but as I was reading ,on ravelry, comments about the yarn I noticed that a lot of people were saying it wouldn’t stretch and/or bounce back. In short, it had no elasticity. That turned me off from knitting a hat.

I decided on a cowl because, in this climate, sometimes a scarf just doesn’t cut it. I could wear a cowl underneath to keep any spots that the scarf doesn’t cover warm. Like tomorrow, when it’s supposed to be -3 degrees Fahrenheit. I cast on with a K2 P2 ribbing, hoping that it would lend the yarn some bounce. It did very nicely. I cast on about…. 64 stitches and just knit until it felt long enough and bound off using the YO bind off to keep it from being too tight to pull over my head. I even managed to seam it up before we began our descent.