Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!

 This picture of Rocky is pretty scary!


We've found him a great home at a local nature center, so sadly I won't be able to baby him for very much longer! :(

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Table for 6?

The quarter is almost over, and with that comes the joyous thing called free time. Until then, I have a ton of paperwork to do and not enough time to knit.  This Monday marks the beginning of two-three weeks of stress, squabbles (from the stress) and indigestion (also from stress, but possibly from eating out every night.)

But, a few good things have happened this week that deserve to be memorialized in blog form.

I started working on Christmas gifts! For W's mother and sisters, I'm making French Press Slippers.  They work up really fast! It's really gratifying to make these.

Yesterday, I saw a rainbow outside of my building! That was pretty sweet.


Lotus and Rocky have been very active lately.  They're much less skittish much more adventurous.  If I let one out of their cage, the other wakes up and wants to sit on my lap (they aren't allowed to be out together, for obvious reasons!)

The number one good thing of the week, though, is this.


I bought a 35-piece set of China.  Yeah, I know, what will I do with that? The future is ripe with dinner parties followed by dessert and tea.


I just need a table for us all to sit at.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Knitting (And Other) Updates

Whew! It seems like since I came back from my trip I've been working double time to make up for all the stuff I missed! But while I was gone, I managed to finish a lot of stuff, and start a few new things, so here we go!

My first FO to share... I finally finished my mom's socks! I managed to mess up the bind off twice, and ended up using a really nice sewn bind off that Joansie from Knitting By the Ocean told me about! And it worked awesomely! I've been plagued by too-tight bind offs, and she really saved my butt :) Never more will I be fearing the end of toe-up socks.

My second FO is this hat, which I am test knitting through the Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry.  I still have to finish filling out my comments, but I'm super happy with how the hat turned out! I'm so lucky that I got the chance to test it, and I'll post up when the pattern is for sale to the rest of the world. 

This is meant to be FOR ME. Let's see if we can keep it that way! If I had to knit it over again, I would add an extra repeat to make it a little more floppy. 

And now, a picture of a current WIP.  
It's a baby sweater! The pattern I used was Little Coffee Bean, and I love the way this is going.  I used Cascade 220 Superwash and size 5 and 6 needles for a denser fabric.  I made the size for a 6 month old, but I really think that it lies somewhere between 3 and 6 months because of my needle change.  W's sister is due in May... so I hope her baby gets a chance to wear it!!

 Off the subject of knitting: Samson is adjusting well to his new surroundings.  Ash brought him to club and he sat with us on the couch, and we plucked him a bit.  We're thinking of shearing him, since he doesn't like to be plucked very much... :(

 Also, I'm making these! Clothes for stop motion puppets! I have to admit, I don't like sewing as much as I like knitting.  It doesn't help that I thought I would be a kind of advisor to this: showing them how to cut out the patterns, lending them my machine, sewing the stitches - but it turns out that they want me to do the whole thing, which wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have 12,000 other things to do.  I don't really know anything about their film, but I'll show you guys when it's done (I hope!)

Other than that, things have been gearing up at school.  It's week 8 and I spent two hours today calibrating equipment for my sampling project tomorrow - I'm nervous! If a single thing goes wrong, I could fail the class... and so many things have gone wrong!

Phew.  Anyway, there's where life is (right now at least).

Friday, October 22, 2010

Return to Normalcy

Whew! I'm back from my trip, back home with my lovely Lotus and Rocky, and now I can catch up on all the work I missed (ha, ha.) W is gone for the weekend to the Ottowa Film Festival, and so are all of my roommates, so the apartment is pretty quiet.

I thought I'd also share more of my Rhinebeck spoils!

IMG_0168

From right to left:
  1. 2 skeins of hand dyed wool from Meadowland Farm (They don't have a website, but they're based in Hinesburg, Vermont)
  2. 1 skein of Opal Sox
  3. 1 Zauberball - I have to admit, these are the coolest things ever! I had trouble deciding which one to buy to make socks for myself.
  4. 1 skein of periwinkle sheep watercolor worsted superwash in "Hydrangea" - this color really reminded me of W, so maybe sometime in the future it will become something for him?
  5. 2 skeins of Spinnery Sock Art from Green Mountain Spinnery, one in a purpleish handpainted colorway and one undyed
  6. 770 yards of Merino Superwash in a lace weight from Maple Creek Farms. (They also don't have a website, but they mentioned an Etsy shop coming eventually!)
  7. 1 skein of handspun mystery yarn... I can't remember where I bought it, whoops!

The majority of these yarns I just bought on a whim - I like, so I buy. I'm hoping I can figure out what to do with all of them...
Urg, I need to not by any more yarn for a long, long time... At least not until I use it up!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Rhinebeck Recap

IMG_0132

I have to say, Rhinebeck was pretty awesome! I had a great time with Ash and we will definitely be doing this again, with some more planning. So before I disappear for a while to go to a conference, I can grace you guys with this nice long post about it!

IMG_0115

Ash and I had been talking with Rebecca about going to NYS&W this year, but we hadn't made any concrete plans.  Then, at the Yarn Crawl, we met a really nice lady that suggested that we go... and that was the sunny day that made the seed of the idea sprout up.  We reserved a hotel room.  I saved two paychecks.

We made the trip down in the dead of night on Friday, checked into the hotel at around midnight, and couldn't sleep.  Regardless, we were bright eyed and ready to go both mornings!

Our spoils:
  1. Yarn. A lot of yarn. I actually don't have a picture of all the yarn together (that will have to wait until Friday!) but it wasn't a lot of yarn... but it was nice, fancy, expensive yarn.
  2. A commemorative re-useable tote bag (Ash knows me waaaay too well.)
  3. A ravelry button (pictured above. We went to the Ravelry meet up but got there too late - some guy gave us horrible directions and we wandered lost for almost an hour - to get any gift bags!)
  4. A yarn swift (This was much-needed, and will be shared among the club.)
  5. Sustainably harvested birch size five dpns.
  6. Samson:
IMG_0164
Sleepy rabbit.

Ash and I have decided to share joint custody of this angora rabbit.  He is totally cute!
IMG_0022
Note the absolute look of terror on his face.
IMG_0140
Being plucked on the ride home.

On top of that, I got a lot of inspiration.  I saw a few familiar faces, and took a ton of pictures!

IMG_0072
Apple cider donuts - YUM.
IMG_0011
This stall was my favorite - it was like a forest of Christmas trees made of yarn.
IMG_0078
IMG_0066

All in all, a great trip.
IMG_0084
My favorite photo of the weekend

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Recent Aquisitions

IMG_0047
IMG_0054
IMG_0037

More on Rhinebeck later :)

Friday, October 15, 2010

Rhinebeck: Day 0

Ash picked me up and we arrived at the hotel around midnight.

It's in a lovely town called Fishkill.

We oogled over yarn that she won, which I tried to take pictures of.

I wanted to take a picture with my camera but it died.

Tomorrow, Walmart to buy a new camera quick.

Then RHINEBECK.

For now, here's a picture of Ash's glorious, glorious winnings.
 One day, I will be a famous knit designer and people will be sending me yarn like this :)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

A Quickie.

Just an update - my life is kind of crazy right now, preparing for a convention all next week. Lots of schoolwork... boo!

But a few things you should know.

1. We have aquired another hedgehog, hopefully temporarilly, but he is too cute.

2. I'm going to Rhinebeck! I didn't know for sure what the plans were until a few hours ago, but hopefully I'll be there with Ash :) I'm super excited!

3. I really need a hat. Today is cold, rainy, and gross and I wish I had one :(

4. Today is W's birthday. :)

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

A Glimpse into the Design Notebooks

Lots of fun things are happening around here, which I'll be able to blog about later in the week, but for now I thought I'd share something very personal... my design notebooks.
100_3861
This book was started when I was still in high school (over 4 years ago!) The title of the book became the title of my old knitting blog. It has some great ideas...
100_3859
Kitten mittens and a not so bad hat.
100_3860
;)

My current book is a bit smaller.
100_3874
It also has some great ideas... but some of them are in progress, or I looked them up and there are patterns that do the same durn thing... or I just don't feel like making them.
100_3869
Yes, my original owl design had colorwork... but it didn't look good at all!
100_3871
Moustache Mittens! Teehee.

I also do a lot of doodling on papers... in class...
100_3864
Trying to figure out mittens for W... but they're all girly.
100_3868
Pokemon schematics! My mom really wants a Meowth...
100_3867
Pikachu schematics :)
100_3866
Sometimes I'll draw the same thing obsessively...

There are also some horrible, horrible ideas.
100_3863
Can you imagine how terrifying these would look? Baklavas are scary enough.
100_3873
This sweater turned out HORRIBLY.

And then there are doodles of the cats that lived in my neighborhood in Sidney.
100_3872

I have so many pages and pages of ideas... I think if I dropped out of school and just knit, I'd be 100 before I made them all!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

How to Draw an Owl

IMG_0037

Yes. Another one of these? I don't know, I thought I'd share my madness method.  Also, I would like to post something but am rather depressed and stressed and super-over-worked.  But the quarter is half way over, only 5 more weeks, and next quarter I'm taking less credits (or my parents will cut me off.)

These are, of course, based on the 1,000,000,000,000 doodles I did before I even started working on the owls pattern. I tend to get things in my head, and think about them over and over again, and when they don't go according to plan (as in, I don't see anyone make them, don't have any test knitters, no one says they like them, blah blah) I get rather glum and down on myself. I won't say I'm a perfectionist, just an expectionist, I guess.  

Anyway, here's the little how-to, I'm going to get some cheese for my whine.

(There's a jump, so if you don't want to draw an owl, you don't have to ;P)

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Rochester 2010 Yarn Crawl!

Today, I went with Ash and two friends from Hooks and Needles for the 2nd annual Rochester yarn crawl!

Before hand, I made a map, so we wouldn't get lost...
100_3832

And we made four stops:
1.  The Yarne Source, where I got fun fur for a dollar.
100_3833

100_3855
Here's the Fun Fur plan: I have some blue fun fur, and not I have pink fun fur. I also have some natural colored wool... to make hedgehogs! Maybe a blue on for me and a pink one for W.

2.  The Yarn Boutique, where I was totally impressed by their amazing selection... and space! It was awesome!
100_3834
100_3836
100_3839
100_3857
I bought some purple and white yarn for my brother's Christmas present, which will be slipper socks in Alfred U colors :)  The purple looks like blue on the camera :(

3.  The Village Yarn, with mountains of books, magazines, and pretty patterns.
100_3842
100_3843
100_3844
I bought two magazines and the Lion Brand Homespun Afghan Book!  I admit, I'm not really an afghan person, but I really love the projects in this book.  I would definitely make these afghans. :)
100_3852
100_3858
And yarn to make W's Christmas present and my next design :)

4. The Fiber Cafe, which...
100_3846
... sells baked goods!!
100_3847
Where we bought cake and sandwiches, and ooh'd and ahh'd at the beautiful atmosphere.
100_3849

This trip was definitely a day well spent, as each yarn shop was slighty different and had different products to offer... not to mention different sales! I got the fun fur for a dollar, the Alfred U yarn for five dollars each, and the yarn for W for $3.50 each :) 

Who says yarn shops are more expensive than big box stores? There's a better quality and we're supporting local businesses.

Here's a parting shot of the back of Ash's car :)
100_3850
And also... Ash won the grand prize! I can't wait to see what's in the giant gift basket :)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...