Picking this back up

I've neglected this blog for several months now, but I'm going to try to post regularly again. I need to get in a better habit of taking pictures of my WIPs, so I'll have interesting content. Currently I have 2 real projects going and one sort of going.

Project 1 is an amigurumi dragon. It's going to be very cute when I finish. It's a little slow-going, since I'm keeping it at work to work on over lunch. Oh yes, since I last posted I have started a new job and actually have people to knit/crochet with on a more-often-than-weekly basis!

Project 2 is an amigurumi wolf. My friend is working on a terribly cute red hooded cape for her little girl for Halloween and was wishing for a wolf for the baby to carry. I found the perfect pattern, so I'm working on that at home. I'm almost done with the head; today I sewed the ears on and sewed the muzzle to the head. I just need to embroider the eyes (I don't trust the safety eyes for such a young one) and stuff the head before moving on to the body. The head is the most detailed part, so it shouldn't take me to long to finish from this point.

Project 3 is an afghan. I'm calling it my "weight loss" blanket, because the idea is that I will do stripes, changing colors everytime I lose 5 pounds. At this rate, the stripes are going to be very wide...so I've slowed down on crocheting it. Not exactly working how it was supposed to!

Broken twigs

Branching out has been relegated to the frog pond for now. I got screwed up and don't feel like tackling it again just yet.

I finished the elephant in time for the baby shower, and it was cute. Pictures will come eventually. I'm a lazy picture-uploader.

I bought yarn to make a Mondrian blanket (I'm also a lazy link-finder right now), but, because I liked the colors best, I bought Lion Brand Vanna's Choice, which is acrylic. After doing part of two rows, I determined that acrylic won't work for this blanket. The stitch is too tight (it's only single crochet throughout) and it feels plasticky. I'm going to have to find some inexpensive cotton or super wash wool for this project. I think I'll try either Swish or Shine from KnitPicks. Or Comfy might be nice, too. I petted some a friend's Comfy recently, and it was very nice. The problem might be finding the right colors. I need white, and I'm not seeing white in any of these yarns. I'm between real projects right now and feeling antsy.

I also tried to do this stuffed dodecahedron using Berroco Sox, but that yarn and a small crochet hook aren't really friends. Too splitty. So, I'll stick the sock yarn away for a while until I'm brave enough to actually try socks.

Lace

I've successfully completed two row of the lace pattern on Branching Out, and oh, am I loving doing this scarf! This is so much fun! I'm loving the challenge of learning new stitches and watching the pattern reveal itself. So great!

I'm resigning myself to the fact that, yes, after all my reluctance, I do think I enjoy knitting more than crochet...

Finished!

I finished my super secret project, and I'll post pictures sometime next week. Yay for making deadlines!

Meanwhile, I'm still working on the elephant, which, unfortunately, seems to be a bit wonky. Assuming it's presentable when I finish, it's going to be a baby shower gift for a coworker.

I got my yarn order, and that Ella Rae Bamboo Silk is sooooo soft. I've cast on frogged twice now Branching Out from Knitty.com and am pleasantly surprised by how easy it is. I can now ssk, yo, and k2tog. Go me! Of course, I keep screwing up and having to frog, but what's a knitting project that's never been frogged, huh? I think my problem is with counting. I'll think I'm following the pattern and then suddenly run out of stitches. But I did manage to fix a dropped yo, which is quite impressive, even if it was before I frogged for the 2nd time.

The dodecahedron I'm going to crochet with the Berroco Sox may prove too tedious, and I may just have to attempt socks with that yarn instead. It's just so thin and the crochet starts out big and then decreases instead of the opposite, which is what I'm used to. I'm not sure how to join a chain of 25ish stitches without it twisting. Trial and error, I guess. Socks are sorta calling my name now, though, since I thought of it... I could always by more Berroco Sox... yeah...

Yarn order!

I haven't yet become a true yarn addict, but my habit is definitely taking hold. Books are my crack, though... Anyway, I saw this pattern for this really funky dodecahedron in someone's Ravelry queue earlier this week (http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/celestine_crochet/celestine_crochet.html) and had to buy the yarn for it. I just had to. And of course, since I was already placing an order, and WEBS was having a sale, and I might as well get more for the same shipping price (you know the drill here, right?) I ordered 2 balls of Ella Rae silk bamboo and am going to attempt to make Branching Out from knitty.com. This will be my first foray from pretty straightforward knitting and purling, but it's a challenge. I'm so excited because the yarn is shipping today, so I'll have it next week! Yay!

(I'm sorry that I can't post cool pictures and links, but I'm posting via e-mail and am not sure how much formatting I can actually manage...)

Plodding along

I'm at one of those stages where there's nothing new to post about. I'm still working on the "secret" project, but it's getting close to being done. Can't wait to post pictures in a few weeks (when it's safe)!

I started working on an amigurumi elephant last night. I needed a change of pace. This'll be quick and cute. I'll try to post a picture of my progress soon.

I'm eager to challenge myself. I want to try socks. Very scary prospect.

Felting attempt

I tried to felt the coffee sleeve, and maybe I just didn't do it long enough, but it didn't felt very well. Or, at least, it didn't shrink. It is nice and fuzzy, though! I used it for my water bottle today, and it worked well. I may put some puffy paint or something on the inside to keep it from sliding, though. The one thing I learned from this is that while Noro Kureyon is pretty scratchy when worked up, it has a really nice feel after being washed! I couldn't stop petting the sleeve today!

I'm looking forward to knitting at lunch tomorrow with my friend! I'm about halfway done with a project that I would like to finish within the next couple of weeks.

Coffee Mitt

Well, I finished the coffee mitt, but I'm not terribly pleased. Not bad for a first attempt, though.

Here it is on the needles just before binding off:



And here it is immediately after binding off:



And here is the finished project:



What did I learn? I shoulda done a gauge swatch, as this is too big for a standard coffee cup. It works for my 32 oz water bottle, though, which sweats terribly, so at least it's not a complete waste.

Also, my seam is terrible, but I didn't care too much. Need to work on that in the future.

I'm still working on my scarf and hope to have it finished within a couple of weeks, if not sooner. Depends on how much time I get to work on it this week. I can't wait to buy more Malabrigo to knit with. I think, however, that I will get solid colors in the future, as I'm not terribly fond of the variegated that I have (Peach Tree), even though I like the individual colors that are integrated.

Cast on

I cast on the One Row Handspun Scarf yesterday with my malabrigo worsted. I think maybe this yarn has finally found its project. I tried this scarf when I first got my Options in February, but just couldn't make it work and ended up in tears. Amazing what patience and a few months can do. I'm fairy certain I was using 5mm needles, which was what was recommended on the Yarn Harlot's page, but I for some reason chose 11mm needles last night. I think I must have seen these used in someone's Ravelry projects and thought I had gotten my needles mixed up. Huh. Now I don't know why I chose those and really hope I have enough of this yarn to finish the project without it being too short... I really like the loose gauge with the bigger needles, and the stitch couldn't be easier, now that I've gotten the hang of it. I can't post pictures yet, though, because this will be a gift (assuming I don't run out of yarn). I wonder how different two different dye lots of Malabrigo Worsted in Peach Tree would be...

Weekday knitting

I meet regularly with a few people from Ravelry during the week to stitch over lunch. Virginia and I meet when we can, and Rachel, Elizabeth, and I meet every Wednesday. This week I've gotten to do both, which is nice.

Today I learned to increase. But I also now have 53 stitches on the needle instead of the 52 I should have, and I don't know what went wrong or how to fix it. In this particular situation, I don't think it's going to be the end of the world, but it is rather annoying. I suspect it happened on my increase row, but I don't really want to tink the whole row I've done since then. It's just a coffee mitt and the mistake won't really show. I hope.

Sunday wrap-up

I made decent progress on the coffee sleeve today. I, ahem, knit through church off and on and then again later in the day and am 11 rows into the project. I don't remember how many rows the project it, but I'm thinking I'm probably about 1/4 done.

This evening I switched gears and started working on a crochet block for a CAL I'm doing on Ravelry. I've done 8 of 11 rounds on it. This is the first of 3 of this particular block I'll do.

All in all it's been a pretty good stitchin' weekend.

Progress

I thought I'd post proof that I actually can knit. Here's the progress I made on the coffee sleeve while at my daughter's band competition this afternoon.

Ribbit freakin ribbit

Frogged again. I could easily have fixed this if it weren't for that darn K1Sl1 at the beginning. Whenever I tink I just can't see where I'm supposed to place the needle in those stitches. I think I'm going to just slip at the beginning of the row instead of doing the whole K1Sl1 thing.

And what's a blog without pictures?

Feast your eyes upon the mess that is my frogged yarn. The first is Malabrigo Peach Tree. The second is Noro Kureyon (don't remember the colorway).

Sigh

I screwed up and can't figure out how to fix my mistake. This is why knitting frustrates me. I fix it if it were a normal stitch but there is a double knit border and I can't figure out how to insert a needle through those stitches so that I can just rip back to that point. I refuse to frog this damn thing again!

Comin' along

My knitting is steadily improving! I finally figured out what I was doing wrong on the project I'm working on and now have 12 rows completed. I had a friend tink out some of it for me at lunch yesterday, only to screw it up worse later on. So yes. I had to frog it again. It was a good thing, though, since that final restart got me going in the right direction - finally! I'm now at a long stretch of stockinette, so I don't foresee any problems. I want to post pictures so bad, but it's a gift, so it will have to wait until it's completed and been gifted!

I keep starting a coffee sleeve that I keep thinking is going right. Then I'll look at it and realize I was off. I'll post pictures of that one to show my progress. I'll try to do that tonight.

This whole knitting thing is seriously eating into my reading time.

Where I stand

I've knitted before, but not a lot. I think I've completed 2 scarves. And then I picked up crochet and preferred it for its portability. Plus, knitting stresses me out. Well, ok, it doesn't always stress me out - just when I make a mistake. I love how in crochet, if I screw up, I can just pull out the stitches until I get to my mistake. Fixing mistakes in knitting isn't so easy... *That* stresses me out.

That said, I feel such an accomplishment at completing just a little bit of knitting, where crochet just flows for me. Of course, I feel accomplished when I finish a crochet project, but it's not the same.

I spent this weekend knitting and undoing my mistakes. Over and over again. Finally last night it clicked that I had been purling wrong all weekend. Duh!

So tonight I re-started a project I had given up on Friday night, which other than a few small mistakes that I don't care enough about to fix, is going well. And I just frogged - again - my malabrigo because I *do* care about the mistakes I had made in it. I'm going to restart that project and hopefully I'll have good news next time I post!

Yarn blog. Day one.

After much thought, I've decided to start a blog for my yarn activity. I've been crocheting for a while now, and I picked up knitting over the weekend. (Not a first attempt, but I'm enough of a newbie to consider it a fresh start.) I want a place to talk about the trials and tribulations of being a newbie knitter, plus a place to post pictures of my works in progress. I'm on Ravelry (SheMumbles), but I want a different sort of thing for this. I hope you enjoy reading!