Recently

Look how far I’ve gotten on my Razor Cami!

 

All that’s left are the straps, and those shouldn’t take too long at all.

Also, check out my catch from a post on Destash:

8 whole skeins of Berocco Touche for only about $30, including shipping! I think this will be used for at least 2 Baby Surprise Jackets I plan on making for two mothers expecting in January, about two weeks apart. They both already have kids in the daycare that I work at, and I’ve talked to them enough that I know both would appreciate the gesture of the jackets. Right about when Florida gets chilly, too!

Right now I’m waiting on a couple packages, including a ballwinder and enough Ella Rae worsted yarn (also about 8 skeins for $33 including shipping, yay Webs!) to make my Central Park Hoodie. If anyone has the pattern that they want to donate to me or sell, I’d be very glad to have it!

I’ll leave you with one more shot of my Berocco Touche. Enjoy!

Pay IT forward

I joined this little game from In the Skein of Things — Here’s how to play or pay…….This is the “Pay It Forward” exchange, based on the concept of the movie where acts of kindness are done without expecting anything in return…just passing it on, with the hope that the recipients of your kind acts will pass it along to someone else. Here’s how it works: I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what the gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month and maybe not next month either, but it will be sent within 6 months and that’s a promise!
What you have to do in return then is “pay it forward” by making the same promise on your blog. Isn’t this a great way to brighten someone’s day! Let’s play AND pay!!

Secret

So as you can see from the button in my sidebar (that I finally got to work!), I’m going to be participating in the Secret of the Stole KAL. This is new to me, both because of the mystery project and the fact that I’ve never made a lace project yet! I just ordered the yarn and beads for it, and I’m excited. I splurged for once, and bought some Steel colored Zephyr Wool-Silk from SarahsYarns.com for an awesome price, and bought some pretty size 6 seed beads from Artbeads.com. This will also be my first beading project and I’m not sure where I can find a crochet hook small enough for the beading. This will be my first attempt at beading in knitting, also!

I figure since I don’t wear stoles very often this will probably be a Christmas knit for someone lucky in the family. I’m a process knitter too – most of my finished objects are sitting in another knitted bag I made. I need to gift some of these things out!

Anyways, I’ll be posting some yarn pr0n as soon as my packages get here, and here’s a cute picture of some of the ducklings Trevor and I saw when we went to the lake yesterday to feed the ducks. There were so many chicks all over the lake!

P.S. : I just bought a ballwinder too.

New project!

I was getting tired of the only two projects that I have on the needles right now, so I wanted something that was a bit more “instant gratification”. I’ve been eyeing the Dreamswatch Headband for a while now, and have some pretty hand-dyed yarn from eBay in my stash, so I got started this morning while watching the boys play video games! This was after about an hour or so of knitting and figuring out the stitch pattern:

It’s rolled up some on the end, but so far there are about 7 pattern repeats. I really like the simple cross-overs!

 

The yarn though – definitely teaches me to research yarns better on eBay before buying them, because while this yarn is pretty, the colors are a little more washed out than in the original picture (the second picture is more like the actual colors) and the wool itself is very scratchy, and you can see that it’s already fuzzing up like mad. Oh well, I’ve learned my eBay lesson.

Also, last weekend I made cupcakes! It was our school’s first football game of the season, and since we are now the house with the huge TV, it’s become the place for watching TV and playing videogames. And although we played pretty poorly at first and lost the game (18-24), the cupcakes were winner!

 

They were very tasty cupcakes, too.

To complete this post, let me show you what I won from Cat bingo in the Cat Knits group on Ravelry!

A cool handmade kitty pin from Endless Whimsy on Etsy, healthy cat treats, a set of two jingly balls (one of which has already been claimed by Misty), and some adorable stitchmarkers! These are the first stitchmarkers I’ve owned that haven’t been hair rubber bands, so I’m delighted with them. Thanks mitchypoo for hosting the game!

Closeup of the markers:

 

Since Trevor and I aren’t going to the home game today, much relaxing and knitting will be done! Yay!

Grr

Okay, so project Gir is being abandoned for now.

 

I just tried to finish him after about 3 months of hibernation, and I’m just not feeling the vibes anymore. Originally, he was going to be a gift to a high school friend who absolutely loves Invader Zim, but I think I also messed up on the first leg and there’s no way to get stuffing in there! The friend’s birthday is in November, so I still have time to either restart and use my learning to make Gir number 2 better, or I think up something else that will be loved as much. Oh well.

Pattern Details:

Yarn:  Caron Simply Soft and Lion Brand Woolease, both under one ball each.
Pattern:  Knit Robot by johnny’s stew.
Comments:  The blue block in the middle was my first try at intarsia, only about 2 weeks after I first started knitting again! I think I did pretty well, no huge gaps in the fabric or anything.
Final Result: ABANDONED!

Lack of Knittage

So this weekend has been jam-packed full of chores that were necessary, so not so much knitting. I got a little bit more done on my Razor Cami, but other than that it’s been quiet. But let me share another crafty thing that I made out of necessity!

I made this curtain with some pretty $1 fabric from Walmart, because…it’s our bathroom and the neighbors so kindly left a note that they can kind of see into the shower at night. Yeah. Pretty embarassing. In other news, we had a great surprise this week – the huge TV we found in the dumpster of a liquor store (while looking for boxes to pack up with) was fixed for much cheaper than it would have been bought, and it is now the newest highlight of the TV room! This just means that our house is the going-to now for football games at the like. I don’t mind, I enjoy having the company of people over. Check it out:

Lucky, no? Other than that, here’s a shot of Misty helping me with the Razor Cami – don’t worry, she doesn’t mind being a model at all!

Summer Knits

Okay, so here’s just a quick post of the projects I enjoyed knitting this summer.

julesy’s Anthropologie Capelet, made with JoAnn Sensations Dulcetto yarn.

It still needs a proper clasp and I’m searching for that.

Next up is Knitty’s Coronet, knit using Caron Simply Soft. My first attempt at cabling, and when I realized knitting combined in the round doesn’t work!

And finally, my first pair of socks EVAR: Knitty’s Thuja in Patons Classic Merino. I chose this pattern and yarn because I wanted something simple (but not all stocking stitch), and to use what limited yarn I had in my stash. So a quick ravelry search for worsted socks with a high rating yielded this pattern, and Voila! My first pair of socks.

These were also knitted with my friend Carol, the only friend I have in person who also knits avidly. We sat down one Saturday and knit almost the entire first sock, that’s how determined we were to learn how to knit a sock. It’s a tiny bit small, but that’s okay.

Success!

Introductions

I’m sitting at home in between two classes that were supposed to be 15 minutes apart, but seeing as this is the first day, the Lab class let out an hour and a half early, so I made my way back home to relax and have lunch. Might as well take this time to start with pictures, right?

Anyways, I just wanted to show off the kitten I acquired last weekend, after deciding that I wanted to adopt one from the Humane Society. She’s under 6 months, so it was a little expensive, but definitely worth it. Look how cute she is!

I’m also sending off my Ravelry Summer Camp Swap pal gift tomorrow, here’s a sneak peek! (And I forgot to take pictures of everything before it was wrapped, whoops.)

First post

So I decided I’d start my own knitblog, seeing as I never really mention knitting in my LJ – that’s pretty much for friends to read and see what I’ve been up to. I started knitting when I was in high school, but never got into it seriously and dropped it a couple of weeks later. At the beginning of this summer I decided I’d take up knitting again after my boyfriend (Trevor) asked me to teach him – I know, right? Now I’m a junior psychology major at FSU, not sure where I’m going with my life but enjoying my job at a daycare working with the 1-year-olds for now.

So anyways, I’ve been knitting for this whole summer, created a bunch of finished projects (of course with some WIPs), and am itching to buy more yarn and knit up a storm! Unfortunately, my budget can’t handle having a stash, so I’ll take this one step at a time, much as I love browsing sale yarns online. I’ve gotten better at controlling my yarn-purchasing impulses, so things are looking good!

Classes start tomorrow so I’ll start posting pictures of what I’ve completed this summer when I get back and get into the swing of things, it shouldn’t be too long. I just hope I have the patience to regularly update this thing so that it stays interesting, and people might even read it!

Oh yeah – Pictures can be seen on my Flickr and on Ravelry, and I’m deliriousduckie on both.