Free Pattern: Tiling Tiger Print

This isn't exactly a pattern, per se... but it's a useful download nonetheless! This chart is a tiger print pattern, which you can apply to any knitting pattern - just work the colors off the chart whenever your pattern calls for stockinette stitch.

I can see tons of awesome uses for this! Tiger print hats, tiger print dishcloths, tiger print bath mats, felted tiger print bags, tiger print laptop cases, tiger print scarves, cowls, mittens...

While I was uploading the pdf to ravelry, W told me that it could be zebra print... just change the colors!

Another plus to this pattern is that it tiles! Which means that you can repeat the pattern over and over, with not a lot of troubles.

Anyway, click the link here to download a copy of the chart: download now

If you're on Ravelry, check out the pattern page here!

Walkabout

Exams are finally over, final projects are turned in, hearts were broken and drama was had.  I'm happy to say that I spent the past (almost) 24 hours being a lazy young person. There was a short time where I worked, but for the most part, laziness!

And it was glorious.

Today me, W, and two of our friends decided to go to Eastview Mall, just for the heck of it.  Two things I love about Eastview. [1]: Yogenfruz.  It is a yuppie frozen yogurt stand with (usually) sour-tempered employees who go to private school and hate their families.  At least, today it was.

The second, and perhaps most important one, is ANTHROPOLOGIE.

I love the anthropologie store.  I love walking around and looking at the expensive clothes, not touching them because it's like a museum of glorious clothing, if I were to touch them then the oils from my skin would stay on them forever, and then sediment will be unable to deposit there, and people that want to come and see them in the future will never be able to! Or is that a limestone formation?

But really, I do love that store.  It really inspires me, mostly because I could make things like the stuff in anthropologie! It wouldn't be that hard! Ever been to a paint-your-own pottery studio? Corning NY has one and I'm totally going on a date with W over break to make some dishware :)

Here are some other goods that I thought "Oh, man, I could make that myself!!"

I could probably make this BETTER than Anthropologie... This looks kind of shoddy, for $15...

The cardboard stumps just made me think of W, wouldn't that be a cool stop motion set?

And some gloves from Charlotte Russe.  They're really chic, but if I knit myself a pair I would make glittens.

So what do you think? Do you get inspired by stuff you see in stores or magazines? Do you buy it, or go and craft it? What will happen when the crafty look goes out of style!?

Burning Low

The Hooks and Needles Felting Party was Friday! I made roast chicken, corn, and roasted carrots and onions (assisted by Ash, of course.) Gillian brought brownies, and Rebecca, who's moved to town, came!

I would show you pictures of our felted slippers, but I'm the only person who's finished them, so you'll just have to see pics of mine.  Other people's projects were just these :P

And, our special guest was Samson, fresh from the vet.

He's coming home with me for Thanksgiving break, so there will be plenty more gorgeous angora photos then!

Right now, I feel burnt out... like, I'm a candle that's about to die. I can't wait for break! It'll be nice to relax, visit family, and sleep without an alarm.  Then, next quarter, I'm cutting back on credit hours a bit, so that will be nice too.

Time to get back to studying and paper-writing.  I wrote this post while the rice for my soup was cooking :)

Happy Thursday

This week is destroying me.  I have some much done - but so much left to do.  It's the story of my life.

But in good news, the Hooks and Needles Felting Party is tomorrow! We're keeping it small, only 4 or 5 of us will be here, so I'm roasting a chicken and making roast vegetables.  It's going to be lovely and stress-free.

Then Saturday is my HAZWOPER refresher course, where I hope to do some novel writing (bad me, I know, but I'm falling behind! Mostly because of time, partly because I have no idea what to write.)

Also, I have another slipper set done, and I'm starting on a hat that may turn into a published design! (Note the 'may,' haha) 

As for the picture? A little bit of happiness from a midnight snack, of course! :)

Knitted Totoro Cat Bus

This is the amigurumi mystery project that I've been holding back on for almost a month! I wanted to make sure my swap partner got the package, so I wouldn't be ruining some great surprise for her.

I may eventually release a felted pattern, which would probably look better and have more stability than this one. Plus, my mom REALLY wants one, so eventually it'll happen...

Anyway, I made it really quickly and the pattern notes are ALL OVER, so it will take some time to type of the notes, let alone edit it to be a full pattern... so I don't think I'll be releasing this any time soon :P

A Knitting Miracle

Well, last night at club I merrily finished the last two pieces of my first pair of French Press Slippers! I wanted to start sewing them together, when I realized that I had made three of the same piece instead of two each for the top pieces.

My jaw was slack.  I held up the pieces, compared them.  Tried to stretch one so that maybe it would fit into shape.  Three other knitters were there, and they confirmed the diagnosis: I had made three of the right top piece, and one of the left.  I felt defeated.  This was the second mistake on these slippers this week!

Ash suggested that I just sew it together anyway and felt it up, since it probably wouldn't matter.  I just didn't like this idea - maybe it wouldn't matter, but I would know.  I would see W's mom in the slippers, and wonder if they're not the best they could be because I messed up.  I wouldn't give her the slippers saying "Yeah, hey, I messed these up, but you know, you won't notice," but I'll be thinking that.  I guess you could say I'm a perfectionist...

This morning, I went to throw in the towel and give up, ready to move onto my next set of slippers, when I discovered something amazing.

The two halves match.  They are mirror images.  They line up evenly.  They were made correctly.

How do I explain this? I choose not to.  I'm going to accept this as a crafty miracle and not draw too much attention to it.  Whoa, you might be thinking. This just means that you weren't paying attention last night when you went to put it together. But it wasn't just me.  Three other people looked at those pieces and shook their heads and said "Jeez, if this is your knitting your homework must look really bad." Maybe the four of us were off our rockers from end-of-the-quarter papers, but I doubt no one noticed.

But maybe it's not a miracle.  Maybe there's a troupe of elves hiding under my bed, who have decided to help me by fixing my stupid knitting mistakes at night. I'm not going to test this theory, though!

Just Got a Little Classier.

Hope you don't mind! :)

I SWEAR, this is the last change in layout you're going to see for a WHILE... it was all a matter of me not being able to do what I wanted.  But we're good now.

Finished: Little String Bean

This is project 1 of ??? for W's big sister, who's child is due in May!

W's sis is going to know the sex of the baby, but she isn't telling anyone, mostly from a fear of primary colors.  I feel for her.  I wouldn't want a bunch of all-pink or all-blue stuff for my kid, either.

A note on the buttons: I picked them out at JoAnn's, having forgotten to actually bring the sweater with me! So I didn't want to go green for fear of not matching, and I saw these orange buttons and thought that they were perfect, just not-matching enough to seem chic.

Project notes:

Pattern: Little Coffee Bean from The Brown Stitch

Yarn: Cascade 220 in Green and White

Needles: Size 6 and size 5

Well, there we go! A FO to make up for the lack of knitting I've been doing this week (due to Week 9)

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those self-esteem-destroying days where you just can't do anything right?  Yeah, welcome to today. 

It took me two hours to do a lab that should've taken me less than one because I kept messing up simple math.  2+5=8? Sorry, that doesn't fly in college.

Then, when I was in class, I was still messing up basic addition! Maybe it's the lack of food (and lack of time to eat food) or the lack of sleep or the lack of free time.  Anyway, I went to eat with Ash and we went to club, where I thought I could chat and work on my slippers.  Knitting.  What could be more easy?

Yeah, when you're having one of those days where your brain is in backwards, you probably shouldn't knit something that requires PAYING ATTENTION to each row, because there be increasing and decreasing going on in here.

Want to defy me? Learn from my example.

Maybe you're wondering what this picture is.  I can clarify.  Above please note the two pieces around a central, larger piece.  This would be the two halves of my French Press Slipper.  See how one piece is smaller than the other? That's where I decreased, forgot to knit the bit of stockinette in the middle that makes the piece long, then increased again for the top of the foot. 

If words are hard for you, this is how it SHOULD look.

... One of the girls at club said "I feel sorry for you." as I laid out the pieces to memorialize my idiocy.  Ash suggested maybe it will felt out... but I can't do that, I have to frog it back and rework it.  It'll be fine. I can fix this.

In other news, I've written 5,000 word for NaNoWriMo and finished my baby sweater! I plan on making a FO post tomorrow for it.

National (BLANK) (BLANK) Month

This year, I'm participating in my very first NaNoWriMo!  So if you're doing it to, you should add me as a writing buddy.  

My novel is a chick lit novel about knitting, death, and friendship... I think it's going to be pretty good.  I've got a tart and an end, and some things in between, but I don't really have it all in place.

Also, I heard about this awesome thing called NaKniSweMo ... and I cursed myself. I would totally rather knit a sweater than write a novel!

Although when I was growing up, I really wanted to be a writer... knitting is more my thing now.  If you don't want to think for yourself, you can knit a really gorgeous sweater.  Writing on the other hand...

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! :(

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.

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).

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!

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!

Rhinebeck Recap

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!

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:

Sleepy rabbit.

Ash and I have decided to share joint custody of this angora rabbit.  He is totally cute!

Note the absolute look of terror on his face.

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!

Apple cider donuts - YUM.

This stall was my favorite - it was like a forest of Christmas trees made of yarn.

All in all, a great trip.

My favorite photo of the weekend

Recent Aquisitions

More on Rhinebeck later :)

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 :)

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. :)