Lilac Moves

I'm home for the summer, hanging about in my home town.  My mom's garden is in full bloom...

And look who has a new home!

My mom cleared up this space in the backyard, and her boyfriend built Lilac this outdoor pen.  Of course, I'm worried.  Will it be too hot? Well, despite the heat, it's cooler out there than in the house (which is like an oven).  Will she be lonely? What about bugs?

I also planted some seeds for her - arugala, cilantro, parsely, lavendar (okay, that one was more for me).  She also has a whole bed of mixed lettuce, too!

She snubbed me all yesterday evening, going into her little hut whenever I came by to offer her salad or clover or toys.  But this morning, I was putting laundry out and I saw her through the screen door, tossing her wicker ball up and down and generally being happy.  When I came out to give her some salad and a frozen banana, she hopped into the corner and glared at me.

Summer DAL Mood Board Submissions

Whoa, the past three months have been a blur! It's time for the next round of Design Along, a challenge which asks knit and crochet artists to make up a pattern from theme to finished product.  This round's theme is Mythology, and I have no clue what I'm going to (attempt to) make.  I have some pictures for the board, though.

I picked all my favorite myths :) I will admire someone who can recognize all of them!

Don't go to the forum and cheat before you guess - well, you should click here go to the thread and vote for your favorite submissions, because that makes making the mood board way easier.

You can also submit your own images if you feel inclined - the group is a lot of fun, though most of us haven't been able to make the deadline :X

Another WIP Update

Here's some more catching up to date with the projects that I have lying around. 

First off, there's this little monster.  I want to finish him fast, because he looks so lifeless and dead without stuffing or an armature. 

He's a gift for my best friend back home, Steph, who likes chameleons.  The pattern is Chameleon by Hansi Singh.  I really love it, but there are some errata which really frustrates me - I don't like finding errata in patterns, especially when I paid for them.  But thankfully all the fixes were on ravelry, so after I ran into my first snag I looked up any other errata and wrote it down in my moleskin. 

 

Anyway, it's coming along well but I want to finish it before I move home and see her again - so, by the middle of next week.  (My conscience is saying "good luck" here, but I believe in myself!)

There's also this kind of crazy thing:

I haven't been able to give it a good name yet, since most of the things I think of when I look at it could be mistaken for euphamisms.

The nickname "The Red Terror" was met with snickers and/or disgusted looks

It started out earlier this quarter when I saw that a sweater kit on knitpicks was on sale for $20.  The pattern was called Cozy Cocoon - which is about $5 in itself, so... I got a sweater's worth of yarn for $15.  This alone was incentive enough for me to buy it, since I've been telling myself I'm going to knit a sweater for years, and buying yarn for sweaters for years, now I finally get a pattern, with yarn, delivered to my door for about $25 when you factor in shipping?  That's too good!

It probably didn't help that everyone in Hooks and Needles has knit or is working on a sweater - Kay, Ash, Rebecca, Alysia... I just wanted to belong! So, I happily cast on, and kept knitting... and knitting... and knitting...

I'm not even halfway done. I just hope I don't get bored, or don't like it in the end.  I guess if I don't like it, I'll just give it to my mom.

So, that makes 3 out of 4 projects that I have to show for myself! The 4th one deserves a post all in itself, so I'll save that for another time I think.  I don't like having so many WIPs at once - I feel like nothing is getting done!

Lilac Festival!

This year's Lilac festival was kind of a drag, since we didn't have our traditional triple date (Only one of our three musketeers isn't single) and the mild winter and crazy Rochester weather have pretty much killed all the lilacs.  But there were still a few flowers!

This stuff...

And paw paw... (which I think is a flower.  I like it, anyway)

And, of course, the lilacs in the conservatory were in full bloom. The statue that I took a picture of two years ago year is pretty much hidden, too, poor thing.

Anyway, despite the lack of flowers, I still had a good time! I'm thinking of going again today (I wanted to go every day this week, but I don't have a car anymore...) so if I do I'll post up more pictures tomorrow.

WIP Update - Winter Socks

Do you guys remember this sock?

I started it back when I was living with W, mostly because I was going to see Anne Hanson last November and wanted to knit one of her patterns.  So, I started on the Longjohn Sock pattern in Regia Random Stripe.

Then I broke up with W, stopped knitting (stopped doing anything actually) and picked up the project again over winter, put it down when I started knitting bricks like crazy, picked it up again... the typical WIP dance.

I actually got pretty far on the sock, past the heel turn, until I saw this:

No, it's not a mistake.  I just like the way that this yarn looks in stockinette so much! I thought about it, and I decided to start over and just do two plain two-up stress socks.

I haven't looked back. I might make the long john socks again in a solid color, but for now? These are going to be my sock projects! I'm already done with the first sock, and I really like the way that it looks.

Viva finishing ancient WIPs! Or, at least, making progress? I hope to have this pair for when I move back home for summer "vacation."

Imagine RIT!

I'm so pumped to finally be able to share this project! Last Saturday, Hooks and Needles exhibited at Imagine RIT, a yearly festival hosted on campus.  Over 32,000 people showed up, and tons of them passed by us.

Our exhibit was three parts.  The first was Samson, who hung out all day and got to represent angora rabbits everywhere.

There was also spinning with drop spindles and Ash's wheel (which she isn't an expert at yet, so we made Nathaniel do it.)

The second was finger knitting lessons, which we gave to people of all ages.  I taught kids as young as two or three (who loved it but didn't quite get what was going on) and a couple of ladies that were in their seventies.  The whole club pitched in!

And the third and most impressive portion was this:

A wall of knit bricks. 

We knit and crocheted over 1,000 bricks to put up as part of the exhibit, which was the vision of the club's secretary and president-elect, Alysia.  This has been a process that started in September and has taken us through months and months.  There were several cases of carpal tunnel and tendonitis, and a few tears.

The day of the exhibit, we were there at 6AM setting up.  We were working almost to the finish line - that's four hours of cutting duct tape, folding it, and pressing bricks against the wall

The end result was nothing short of awesome.  I think people were totally impressed, and we did a ton of good work spreading awareness for the club and teaching people about fiber arts.  

Unexcused Absence

I know I shouldn't make excuses, but I feel bad about not being around blog-land lately.  I'm going through a kind of rocky breakup with W, and school kicked my butt, and work... well... let's just say there was a temporary meltdown and knitting/blogging/designing/blog reading fell to the wayside.  I'm going to try to blog more in the coming months, because I have designs that are ready to be publishing and photos that I want to take and a whole list of reasons.

For now, I have the DAL Spring Mood Boards to show you!

 
The theme is "Summer Romance" - I'm not sure if I'll participate this round, I have a LOT of WIPs I need to do, but I love the theme SO MUCH... It makes me want to make a skirt.

Not like I've ever knit a wearable...

If you'd like to participate in the DAL, you should check out our Ravelry group! :D

Whoops!

I've been so busy attempting to get back into the swing of school/work/misc that I forgot to mention that I did a guest post for the blog of one of my awesome online friends, Carla! She runs the blog Tiny Angry Crafter. 

So, if you're interested in designing knit toys, or just interested in a little bit of my process, check out my post on Carla's blog!

Retrospective

Happy New Year everyone! 

2011 was incredibly crazy for me.  I published six designs, made four pairs of socks, knit a sweater for a cat, sold toys at a craft sale... and that's just the knitting!

I made a little collage of all the things I've finished:

The project from 2011 that I'm most proud of is (of course) my Blackbird Shawlette.
The project from 2011 that I use the most are my Pomatomus Socks - I love having socks of my own!
The strangest project from 2011... well, that's hard to decide.

Of course, I didn't include photos of the 12 hedgehogs that I made for the craft sale, or the pile of bricks that I'm knitting for a project I haven't blogged about, or the latest design that I'm slow cooking.  I DO have a camera, though, I got one for Christmas, so... expect more blogging!

December has been incredibly busy, but, I know that I'm going to be able to use these next few days before school starts up again to hit the ground running.

What's in store for 2012? Not even I know!

How about everyone else? Best project? Biggest mistake? What are you happy to be finished with?

Notes From my First (Kind of) Craft Sale

Wow, it has been a crazy week! When the Metal Works Club approached Hooks and Needles about doing a craft sale, I thought "Whoa, cool!"  It seemed really easy.

1.) Make a bunch of stuff

2.) Sit at the table from 10AM - 4PM, M-R.

3.) ???

4.) Profit

Half of the profit would go to Hooks and Needles, since we're seriously in need of funding.  Right now, it's funded out of the pockets of the e-board, which is kind of stressful at the beginning of the year when we need supplies and when we want to do ANYTHING.  The other half goes to the person that made the item.

To answer your question, no, I'm not the only person who made stuff! Or sat at the table! W even helped out and sat at the table when no one else was around... bless his heart!

At first, people were being kind of rude, remarking how the stuff was expensive.  If they just offhandedly said something, I ignored them, but if they made a point off it, I commented how, per hour, I make about $2 from each hedgehog - just factoring labor in!

But after the first two days, hedgehogs started selling like hotcakes.  I took commissions, and I'm now 11 hedgehogs deep.  Six of them are dark brown.

At $20 a hog... that's a lot of cash for the club!

I'm excited to count all my money when the craft sale is over next week :3 And, partially inspired to open an etsy shop. 

Until then, though... I need to eke these babies out by Monday.  So, I'm going to be dreaming of sewing scales onto hogs...

P.S. - We looked at the metal scales and the naked hedgehogs and invented this:

Metal hog!! I think I could thread the scales onto the yarn before knitting.

Blarglglarmp.

Yes, I'm aware that the title of this post is not a word.  It is more like an onomatopeia, an expression of the feelings I've been feeling over the past week or two.  My new quarter has started, and I did a really stupid thing and picked 20 credits worth of classes.  Also, I'm driving back and forth between Rochester and work, and putting in between 15 and 20 hours for them each week!

Factor in trying to have a relationship, being president of a club... there is little to no designing going on, and very little crafting! 

But, I have an apartment! It's a different room in my old apartment, so it's nice and familiar.  Also, I got to take all of my junk out of storage, which is always a plus! It's so nice to have a quiet space to study and do work in, and not feel like I'm troubling people all the time by sitting on the couch or at their table, or cooking in their kitchen.

I have been working for the Hooks and Needles craft sale, too! I managed to finish five softies and four hats, which I'm pretty proud of considering I haven't even finished W's puppets... I had a bit of an assembly line going for hedgehogs but I never finished them.  Right now these are sitting on my desk...

With THESE...

Super delicious and colorful felt from Lupin Handmade. My housewarming present to me. :)

On top of all these things, the new DAL mood boards are done! My co-admin of the group made it, so, I'm really grateful.  I seriously don't know what I'd do without her :)

Winter 2011 Mood Board Submissions!

The next round for the Design Along is going to start soon, and mood board submissions are open until this Sunday! The theme is "Birds of a Feather."  And as usual, I'm showing off the images I chose to contribute :)  I actually have a LOT of bird photos, but they're all on my external hard drive, which I forgot to take with me during break.  C'est la vie. So, I dug around the internet looking for photos for the board!

I saw these feathers as a background on a blog, and I bookmarked the image source - but not the blog! So, if you know where this is from, let me know please :)

These cute things were my wallpaper for a while.  From Corby Wallpapers

I've also seen these two cuties on the internet in various places.  Not sure where the original source is.

Then, these birds.

Finally, an awesome feather drawing.  

I'm bummed out that I left my hard-drive in Rochester! If only the submission time was a little longer, I could post up my actual photos... but oh well.

Just like last time, even if you're not interested in submitting a photo, could you please vote in this thread on Ravelry? It helps me put the board together!

Hoof Mittens!

A while ago I got an e-mail from Lesley at Lyonesque about this awesome mod to my Kitten Mittens!

She changed the colors to make hoof mittens :)

I love seeing people change my pattern, strange as that may seem.  It makes me feel like people appreciate my work, more than wanting to make something from it.  That the pattern inspires them to make something original, something new! So I was super psyched, and I kept telling myself "I have to blog about this!"

So, here it is! You should definitely check out her blog, too, because she has a matching hat that goes with them!