Wash's Sweater

Though I had planned to finish this sweater before our second anniversary, I was at least able to finish it, well, about a month late. Either way, my hubby seemed to like it -- though he'll probably like it a lot more when it's not 95 degrees outside!

I used Lion Brand Fisherman's wool in Oak Tweed - actually a color that David had picked out several years ago for something or another. I had taught him to crochet, though he's lost interest in it the past few years. If you know anything about David (and his family), you would know that they really, really enjoy their entertainment - TV shows, movies, etc. He's always been a fan of Firefly, so, when I came across the Wash's Sweater pattern by Don Yarman on Ravelry, I knew exactly what to do with that ball of yarn!

And here is a picture of the finished product, being modeled in the nice warm weather, outside, by my lovely husband. I love how it turned out, and I'm sure that come winter time, David's brother Alan - also a huge fan of the show - will be quite jealous!

Hats, hats, hats...

So, I have gotten a little busy the past few months. Apparently knitting much more than I am blogging! Anyways, I have a lot more FO's to show off now. I've finished a lot of hats over the past few months -- hats are a lot of fun to do! They can be as complicated or a simple as you like, they generally knit up pretty quickly, and since they take so little yarn, they are easy projects to carry around with you! Needless to say, I love knitting hats. Here are a few pictures of the past few I've managed to finish:

I made this hat for my friend, Lee, using Lion Brand Wool-ease in Forest Green Heather. The pattern is Irish Hiking by Jo Blackhorse. In retrospect, I should have done one more repeat of the cables -- Lee is a rather tall guy, and even makes David look kinda small in comparison, so the hat is probably just a little too small. Though he would not admit it when I gave it to him!

I made this for Katherine in her favorite color - orange! She really liked it, and I enjoyed the pattern - Hermione's Cable and Eyelet Hat by Jackie Lauseng. The yarn on the other hand, not so much. I used Caron Vicki Howell Sheep(ish) in Pumpkin(ish) and it was very splitty. I usually do not mind splitty yarns, but this one was really hard to work with.

I finally got around to making a hat I had promised Heidi - a simple ribbed beanie for the fall. I still have some leftover yarn from this project that will probably turn into some fingerless gloves for her!

This one I made just to use up some of the old Lion Brand Thick and Quick still lingering in my stash. The pattern is Chunky Slouch Cap by Melissa Hills, and it was fun to make. I alternated two colors after the ribbing - Grey and Cream -- which I think makes a pretty interesting effect. It came out a little small, and will probably be gifted during Christmas to someone - We'll see!

Sunflower Camisole

Designer: Heather Dixon (Army of Knitters)
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK (Lotus)

I finished this a little while ago, and now I'm finally getting around to posting about it. This was a very fun knit, and really simple pattern. After blocking, it turned out really nice and relatively comfortable, though the straps are a bit long for my taste, but they don't slip off. One thing to note about this pattern is that you should bind off relatively tightly, otherwise it will flare out at the bottom and not look so nice. It's a bit toasty, but that's fine since I'm usually cold, and it will be nice to wear in winter to look a bit dressier. Here's a picture of me in it wearing a purple tank top underneath.


Since I have found that I really enjoy knitting, I've decided to alternate between knitting projects I really want to work on with crafts that I'm much less excited to work on. This ensures that I'll get all the things that have been cluttering up my house finished and have room for what I would really like to work on, without having to be in a constant state of boredom from my current project. Well, hopefully it will work like that.

Sewing for the wedding

I did get to spend a little time sewing before Laurie's Wedding. I bought most of my outfit from my belly dance studio and from renaissance festival last year, but I needed a chemise of some sort to wear underneath the small corset, lest I show my lovely stomach the entire time. I love to belly dance, but we cover up after we dance, so wearing the corset sans chemise was not really something appealing to me. I went to Jo-ann's and bought a yard of cotton fabric, which I thought would be enough for a little shirt. Well, when it came down to it, there wouldn't be enough fabric for sleeves, so I kinda designed something sleeveless that still covered everything necessary for the event.

Basically I decided to use a tutorial I had used before for circle skirts and make the fabric square and put a circle in the middle of it:

After figuring out how wide I wanted the hole to be, I just folded the square fabric twice and laid a piece of paper with the outline of the quartered circle on top. Using some fabric chalk, I traced the circle and cut. I added a strip of leftover fabric from a previous project and some that was left over after making this fabric square to the circle to create a ruffle effect by using a simple drawstring.

I think it turned out rather nicely with the rest of the costume (which included the solomon's knot shawl -- not particularly visible in any pictures, but hey, if you were there it looked nice!)

Here's a picture of myself and the bride -- my lovely friend Laurie who I've known since high school: 

My first sweater... and a few other things

So, after finishing some of the smaller projects I have been working on, I decided a little while ago to finally get down to making an actual garment. I decided to use up my small stash of Lion Brand Thick and Quick in Claret. The sweater took about a week to complete, since the yarn was so bulky, and I really enjoyed working the horseshoe lace pattern. Here's a picture of the finished sweater:

I think I may give this to my mother if it fits her well. It's a beautiful sweater, but the color doesn't look that awesome on me seeing as I have red hair and incredibly pale skin. My mom, on the other hand, has a bit darker skin than me and brownish-blonde hair, so this dark red color would look really nice on her.

I have also managed to finish up a few more things over the past month. I finished up the Wine Pathways Hat from Once Upon a Time:

Also not the greatest color on me, but for some reason I do have a lot of red yarn in the stash. That's probably because my family looks good in red and/or likes the color -- my dad certainly does! That's the color of his truck and uniforms at the place he owns.

The Chestnut Windsor Warmer and Solomon's knot shawl also can be added to my list of FO's for the year. The little cowl will also likely be a gift for someone, though I used the shawl for part of my costume for my dear friend's renaissance themed wedding.

The Windsor warmer was done at half the length recommended in the book (125 sts instead of 244 sts), mostly because I only had a little yarn left in my stash to do the project.

The shawl was worked by chaining 42 solomon's knots, and working in a triangular pattern until, well, I ran out of yarn. This created a kind of trapezoidal shawl since there wasn't enough yarn to make a complete triangle, but it will work for a beach or belly dance wrap!

Updates

So apparently I have been knitting more than I have been blogging. So here it goes: Over the past month, I've managed to get several projects finished, so I'll probably try to spread it all out over a few posts instead of putting them all in one.

After finishing the shrug, I was able to finish up two regular guy hats, which is only half way through the hats I need to make since I gave one to my store manager, Cody, who left us to go to Cartersville during a random changing of the management that occasionally happens at work. Here's him enjoying showing off his new hat:

The other one was shipped to Travis, my brother-in-law who lives in upper New York state. I really like the hat pattern. It is very simple, and a great "brought this in my purse to work on it during lunch" project. Though, after making two of them, I'm going to move on to a different pattern. I still have to make a hat for Lee at least, thought there will be enough yarn to make probably about two more hats, so I may as well! I also LOVE the yarn -- Lion Brand Wool-ease -- very soft and springy.

I also was able to finish up my first knitted shawl, Autumn flies. I really like the color, but it did end up really small. The pattern was very simple, each like written out individually, so it was really easy to understand. I did have to bind off a few rows short, though they were just stockinette rows. Even cutting the pattern a little short, I ran out of yarn only a few stitches from the end, and used another type of yarn in a very similar color to finish up the bind off -- Yes, bask in the glory of my willpower to NOT buy more yarn to finish up the last 10 stitches of a project ;-). Huzzah!

Progress is relative...

So I have been knitting (and crocheting!) more than blogging it seems. I've managed to finish several items in the past month or so, however I have been buying more crafting supplies. I know, I know, this seems to be counter to my goal, but inevitably, I knew I would have to buy more stuff to finish a few of the items on my list. It all started with this shrug I was working on....

It was a lovely shrug, and the lace looked great after blocking, but as I added the ribbing, there was a problem; a project-breaking problem. The skein I used to make the lovely shrug, was, in fact, deficient of yardage to finish the shrug. To solve this problem, I could use yarn from my stash. However, the only other white yarn in my stash was the TLC Essentials yarn -- yarn that was used to make pillows, yarn that was scratchy -- scary scratchy. The other solution was to break my vow to buy more yarn-- and buy more yarn. So, left with the choice to finish a garment with scratchy yarn -- scary scratchy yarn -- or just buy another skein of caron simply soft that could be used later to make, say, a yoga mat bag, I chose the latter.

And thus the shrug was complete:

And I learned a great lesson about blocking lace:

One skein of yarn is not so bad to add to the stash, but then I had a conversation with my friend and dance partner Stephanie. Stephanie and I had been planning on auditioning for the Student-Teacher-Troupe Night at the Red Light Cafe with the studio at which we take belly dance lessons. We wanted to do Menni, a sword dance that they taught at the beginning of the year. We both love the dance; it's very cute, sassy, and fun. When we were discussing the costumes we would pick out (both of us being a little strapped for cash), Stephanie said she could not imagine dancing that dance without the costumes that the troupe members wear: a pink and green crocheted number with a halter top and fringe belt.

I though about it for a while, and I had made a halter top from a pattern on ravelry, but it was much to stretchy and the cups were not close enough together. So, I decided I would try to make a pattern that would work in a yarn that had less stretch in it. And I was successful! So now, in order for us to have costumes that match (and don't look totally insane -- yeah using all my stash yarn that's all different colors and weights probably wouldn't work for something the public is going to see) I had to buy more yarn. I did end up buying a LARGE skein of black Red Heart supersaver and a smaller one of pink -- our costumes will be similar to Nazeem Allayl's, but pink and black instead. There is a solid reason for buying large skeins though -- the fringe belts will be long -- like from our waist to almost our ankles long, so I'll need a LOT of yarn to make them long enough (and will hopefully use all of it!)! Also, I didn't just buy red heart for just any reason --for this type of outfit there are certain things you need for it to work:

First, the yarn cannot have a lot of stretch to it and it has to be pretty sturdy when crocheted in a hdc to support the weight of some coins and other decorative things (cowrie shells!). Second, you don't want it to felt -- it still needs to have the crochet texture. Third, as stated before, I need a LOT of it, so it wouldn't be too economical to buy expensive yarn. With that said, I wouldn't make a sweater out of the stuff, but it will work just great for this halter top and fringe belt!

These outfits are still a work in progress, and I don't want to spoil the fun, so I'll post a pic when they are all complete -- cowrie shells, coins and all!

Finally done!

I finished up David's scarf last night and sewed in the ends/blocked it today! I'm glad this is finally done, it certainly took long enough (2 years -- yikes!). Here's a pic:

I really like how it turned out. Despite the yarn being a poly/acrylic blend (Yes, good old Red Heart Eco), the scarf is really soft and will be nice to wear (and easy to clean!). Blocking really helped the pattern look more tight. Here's a picture before blocking:

And a close-up of the stitches after blocking:

 I am really (REALLY) relieved to have this finished. I think I'm pretty done with scarves at the moment -- too much repetition over much too long a period of time. I only have 1 more scarf already in my queue, so at least I will have a break from scarves for a little while. Now if only I can finish the shrug before tomorrow night (yeah, right!).

Making Progress...

Things are going along pretty well. I managed to get hat #2 finished (Janelle's hat). I decided to make the brattleboro hat from New England Knits instead of the slouchy hat I made before, and it turned out really nice. Here's a pic:

Since Valentine's Day is only a week away (yikes!), I am going to focus on getting David's scarf finished. It's slightly over half-way done, so there's a lot of time I'll have to invest to get it finished. I've also cast on the sagebrush shrug that will use up the white caron simply soft I have stashed away. The pattern is super easy so far. Well, there were a few things I had to learn first before I would classify it as "easy", namely that stitch markers are REALLY helpful, and maybe casting on a project at my friend's house during the superbowl is not the best time to do it when you need to have an exact number of stitches on your needle. So yeah, you do learn something new every day! Here's a pic of the shrug so far:

I would like to get the shrug done before Valentine's day as well, since it will look really nice with the dress I plan to wear, but the likelihood of me finishing both on time is, well, minimal at this point. I can always dream!

Oh, and I thought a "before" picture would be nice for the blog since it does document my progress with minimizing the amount of crafting clutter I have laying around, so here goes nothing (be warned, it is very scary!):

Getting things organized!

Over the past few weeks, I've gone through and documented all of the yarn I have gathering dust in my closet. I've decided to donate some of it (the stuff that is about 20 years old in a color I will probably never wear), but the rest I have assigned an appropriate project via ravelry.com. Yarn will be my first priorty, as I only make accessories with them, and will need some time to accomplish some other goals I have, namely preparing for the 5K David, Chip (his brother), and I are planning to run towards the end of February AND practicing for the studio show in March -- did I mention I LOVE bellydance? Oh, yeah, and there's the whole "find a job that isn't the one I have right now and preferably uses my Master's degree." Hunting for a job is just... fantastic.. right?

Many of the first projects I will be working on will be birthday hats that David promised his family, but does not have time to finish. Hats are fast, and I'm mid-way through my second one. That leaves.... lets see... 3 more to go. Maybe four, depending on how much yarn is left over. I also plan to finish David's scarf before valentine's day... it is about time, I've only been working on it intermittently for 2 years.

It begins...

For one of my New Year's resolutions, I decided to finally get around to living the minimalist lifestyle that I really wanted. There is little room for much of anything living in a tiny two-bedroom, one-bath with myself, my hubby, and our minagerie of pets; Rocky, the boxer; Copperfield, the corgi-husky; and Lord Sesshomarou, the grey tabby kitty. Our tiny living space, and the prospect of moving in the not-so-distant future (we are NOT having babies in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house---never going to happen!), gives me plenty of reason to pare-down on some of my things. Thus it begins....

So, sometime around mid-January, I started digging through some of my crafting supplies, mainly my collection of inexpensive acrylic yarns, and realized that I had a LOT more yarn that I thought I did, in addition to several yards of fabric for various sewing projects.This was about the time I decided to finish these projects I already started, from the dreaded cross-stitch project from 6 years ago that I'm only part the way through, to the wedding scrapbook that never-was, and to make space for crafts that I really could enjoy. Scrapbooking was only something I did intermittently during high school and college, but its not something I'm really interested in. The same goes for cross-stitch; this was a fleeting (very fleeting) idea that I had while working at Emory--waaay too tedious for me, and not really useful (sorry folks that like cross-stitch, I'm just not the type of person to decorate my house with framed cross-stitch projects). So, I think its about time to finish up what I have with these crafts, and move on. This year, it will all get done!