A Post!
I changed the name of this post, because I realized that the original title didn't make sense. It was more of a private joke in my head.
I haven't posted because I have no pictures and I can't talk about anything I'm knitting. It's all gifts, and it's all for knitters, and those knitters read my blog. Go read
Kiki's essay on why you should only knit for knitters. It's guaranteed to crack you up or your money back.
Speaking of Kiki, I finished knitting her pattern, which is called
Illanna. I finished it a long time ago, and I forgot that I took pictures already. It's named after me, in case you didn't put two and two together. "Two and two together" is kind of a grandma thing to say, but that's ok. I sort of speak like a grandmother sometimes.
I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece for Illanna, and I wouldn't recommend it for this pattern. Kiki recommends wool, and so would I. The cotton doesn't blossom and stretch enough to provide the best coverage.
I also didn't use
Kiki's random lace technique. I used the Japanese lantern pattern from Folk Shawls instead, except I messed it up. Now I wish I did random lace. The bottom part is a pattern from Knitting Over the Edge that I adapted.
I'll try to think of interesting knitting things to blog about. Maybe I'll bring back Fun Knitting Fact Thursday again.
my polar coat is now a puddle of yarn on the floor.
I changed my mind about the
Polar Coat. I think Rowan Polar needs to be a sweater instead. After all the positive progress on my newly finished projects, maybe I really just needed some negative knitting.
I still need to take some pictures of all my new finished knits. I'm wearing
Cyd right now and it's keeping me warm. Maybe I'll post some pictures tomorrow.
if ordering handmade stuff online is bad, then i don't wanna be good
I found this really new store called
Piddleloop from
Karin's blog. They make the
best accessories for knitters! That picture up there is a close-up of the pouch I ordered. Here's what it looks like:
The Chococat card was included in the package. It had a hand-written note thanking me for ordering. Now
that's customer service! The pouch is really well made. There were no strings hanging out, and it feels sturdy. There's a zipper at the top, and the lining is pink polka dots.
I also ordered their sheep notecards. So cute! The store now has sheep knitting gift tags for giving knitted gifts for the holidays. I was only the second customer to their store, so they sent me a free little gift:
It's a monkey! Who doesn't like monkeys? I sure love them. Plus, it's holding yarn. These notecards will be perfect for giving with gifts.
The best part of the whole deal is this zipperpull:
I've
expressed my love for zipperpulls before on this blog, and this here zipperpull is no exception! When I saw the option to add a handmade zipper pull to my pouch, I jumped on it. I didn't even know what it would look like, but I needed it, and it's beautiful.
Thanks to everyone who said such nice things about my shrug yesterday. It was so ridiculously easy to make, and the yarn is really what makes it stand out. Thank you for all the compliments.
P.S. I finished
Cyd yesterday. I'll post pics soon.
P.P.S. I'm on a roll: I just finished Max's scarf too!P.P.P.S. Get me some butter, because I just finished the Illanna and Sari Silk Purse also!(Get it? Butter? On a roll? Ahhahahhaaa!)
a fancy kind of math
I finally used my
Bulky Lobster Pot and
My Paper Crane Yarns! What do you get when you put your two fanciest yarns together?
You get a cute new shrug! I found
this shrug on craftster last night, and I decided it would be the perfect use of my fancy yarns that I have been saving. What a super quick knit! I finished it all last night!
That's the back. You can really see the ric rac and lace that was tied on to the yarn. Extra textures in yarn really show up on the purl side, which made this an awesome candidate for such interesting yarn. The reverse stockinette stitch really made the textre stand out.
Those buttons were a gift from Letoya for my birthday. She gave me an awesome box filled with notions, buttons, sequins, and even more. These green buttons really matched the pretty greens in the shrug. I didn't think of adding buttons til the end, so I didn't have buttonholes. I just stick the buttons between the stitches, because the stitches are so big.
I plan on wearing it tonight, so maybe I'll get some pics of me wearing it. I must say, it fits perfectly!
one finished gift, one not-so-finished gift
Last Tuesday was my friend
Melanie's birthday. I made these fingerless mitts for her using the pattern from
Alterknits. It happens to be a wonderful book. The yarn is Karabella (yum) Aurora Bulky and Margherite Bulky. I got them marked REALLY low on sale at
Flying Fingers over the summer.
To lace them up, I used
Hanah Silk. It's a hand dyed silk ribbon that comes in a Treasure Box of assorted colors and widths. It's really fun to use as fringe or lacing things up. Leigh Radford uses it a lot in Alterknits, for lacing up sweater cuffs and such. It was fun to watch Melanie take the mitts out of the box, because there was a fun streamer of silk attached.
In other news, I've turned the heel of my
Socktoberfest socks. I was originally calling them Jungle socks because the
yarn is called "Jungle Stripe". I decided to start calling them the Boy Meets World socks now, because I like to knit them while I watch Boy Meets World. Here's an artsy accidental picture of my socks:
socks, or torture device? you decide!
Dyeing Yarns
Tuesday was dye day for me. I dyed up a bunch of Plymouth Galway using Mexican Kool-aid. I got it at Food City (which might be a local chain in Arizona- I don't know). Look at the weird flavors:
Especially, look at this one:
Unfortunately it's not Tuna Juice (gross). It's actually Prickly Pear Cactus Juice. The other flavors are Tamarind, Watermelon, Guava, and Pineapple. I messed up though, because I didn't realize that the Tuna and Tamarindo came already sweetened, which means I couldn't use it for dyeing. I did use the others though:
I dyed the three skeins with different mixtures of green and pink. The best pink came from a mix of Guava, Watermelon, and Kool-aid brand Pink Lemonade. The best green came from Kool-aid Lemon Lime and Kool-aid Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade.
I'll post the yarns all balled up another day, because Blogger only lets me post 5 pictures per post. If I try to do more, they just don't show up.
and if you think i haven't been knitting...
You're dead wrong!
First off, go wish
Melanie a super Happy Birthday!!! Do it right now and come back. I'll wait.
The Polar Coat is coming along nicely, and I'm keeping track of what I'm doing in case anyone else wants to make it someday. Maybe I'll sell the pattern, or maybe I'll make it free. I think that will depend on the quality of the pattern. The problem is that Rowan Polar is now discontinued, and who likes to buy patterns made from discontinued yarns? Nobody, that's who! Well, maybe somebody does, but now I'm rambling.
Check out those badass stitch markers with my initial on them. I got them from
Splityarn. She makes every letter. The coolest part is that I originally didn't buy them because of my initial... it came in a pack of 4, with 2 letter I's and 2 letter D's. Get it? Increase and decrease! I didn't even realize that it was my initial until I put them on my coat in progress. I'm happy with the quality of these stitch markers, and I'm very picky so that's saying a lot.
My camera/camera software/computer are holding my other pictures ransom right now. I'll post more when those become available to me. I might just need to reboot the computer...
I added Notes!
I used my awesome flickr pro account that
Yahaira gave me to add labels to each yarn. Click on it to find out more about my stash!
New Organizational System
Zira and I took a trip to Target and bought some storage units for the yarn stash. The units were all on sale! They are called "Organize-It" and they are stackable. The shoe cubby fits my whole stash! I tried to make it fancy by arranging the yarns in a pretty way.
The bottom part is just cubes, and I bought canvas drawers which were also on sale. The cubes are tall enough to hold knitting books, which I seem to have a lot of. There is a bookcase on the right that's not pictured; it holds the majority of my knitting books.
Oh yeah, about knitting... I've been knitting mostly super secret items, like gifts for people who read this blog. I'll post about those when I can.
