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.