First Laceweight Project

I have Laceweight yarn. I also have quite a few projects I'd like to do, but first a simple one, a one row lace scarf. With this yarn 

Air Plants!

I have been fascinated lately with Air Plants. Also known as Tilandsia epiphytes. They don't need dirt to live. They just need to be dunked in water once a week or so, depending on how humid your  area is.

My birthday was coming up, so I had the perfect excuse to get some.
I ordered them from Tropical Expressions. Since I am just starting out, I got the 11 pack of random plants. I ordered them on a Thursday and they arrived on the Tuesday. (Monday was a stat, so they might even have been here faster!).

Here they are soaking after their arduous journey:

And drying out, I attempted to figure out which plant they were and labelled em, correctly, I hope!



and all together:


I forgot to get a labelled pic of the Bulbosa....

Here is one of the little displays I have put together:


Another display:



And the display I am most excited about (excuse the crap lighting...raining, AGAIN, here)



I glued together some of the wine corks I have been saving and put it up on a little stand. I am really pleased with this one.

ciao!

Been a While

So, I haven't posted lately because I was on vacation in Italy and then work kind of ate my life. This is where I was:





In the Alps near Trento. The  weather was unseasonably cold.

So the vacation knitting I brought along turned out to be useful too:



These are the Slouchy Gauntlets made in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. Nice easy pattern, great for vacation knitting.

Antique Yarn

Many moons ago my aunt let my sister and i go stash diving in HER stash and take home yarn from Italy. I saw some red angora that just SCREAMED at me to take. So I did.  And it sat in MY stash for years waiting for just the right project.,  Then Kate Middleton got married and wore a little angora number at her reception. I am not a 'royal watcher' but the sweater looked perfect!

Tada!



Pattern: Royal Shrug
Yarn: Angor'Anny, 6 balls of it. A fair bit leftover from those 6.
Needles: size 9
Modifications: Many. I knit the sweater 2 inches longer and blocked severely for length. I have a 38.5" chest which falls right in between 2 sizes, So I knit the smaller size and added 4 stitches to each front piece.
I knit the sleeves 3 quarter length and did no decreases. I did the front and back separate,seamed together and then knit the sleeves on instead of seaming them on. (I picked up the total number of stitches around the whole armhole and then did short rows corresponding to the pattern backwards from the shoulder down.) I DID do the crochet edging as the edges really needed that finishing touch.

Overall I am VERY pleased.

Beltway

I recently went shopping and found a black jumpsuit. (you know, shirt attached to pants) that made me feel very Audrey Hepburn-esque when I tried it on. So of course I bought it!  The belt is a bit sad. A black elastic affair with 2 small pseudo-leather strips that have gold studs (to match the god buttons). So I decided I should knit myself a colourful belt to wear.

In keeping with my efforts to knit down stash, I went stash diving and found some banana silk yarn I acquired ages ago.



Now to find a pattern.....

Nessie Knit

I recently participated in a scarf themed swap. Here was my contribution:



Pattern: Nessie-English
Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit sock yarn
Modifications: The lace inset is written as a doubling of stitches (k1 yo) but I did not have enough yarn when I did that, despite the pattern's statement that 400yds should be enough. I was seriously short even thought the skein was 459 yards. So I did yo k2tog. I also did a picot bindoff.

This yarn is a lovely soft wool. A pleasure to knit with. It had been sitting in my stash for way too long, so I am glad it has gone to a good home!

ciao

Stash Shrug

I've had this Rowan linen Print yarn in the stash for a while and never really saw a pattern I wanted to make  with it. Then I saw the Shrug pattern by Bonnie Jacobs. However I did not have enough yarn to do it without mods. In addition, the Rowan was bulkier than the yarn called for. So, this is heavily modified.

Yarn: Rowan linen print
Mods:

•  Size 8 needles for cuffs and 10’s for sleeves/body. 
•  Did increase on rows 1 AND 3 of the the 5 row repeat (instead of just row 1) 
•  Did a garter border on the body to prevent stockinette roll  (not enough yarn to knit on                  border after). Thus sleeves are shorter and more dolman-like

Piccies!

Happy knitting!

Stash Using

I am trying to use up some stash, so I have been matching up yarn I have with patterns I have queued on Ravelry. Here is one such project.




Pattern: Poplar Cowl
Yarn: Lana Grossa Basics Stop

This is an easy 4 row per repeat cowl. Good tv knitting. The yarn is an acrylic rayon blend. Can be splitty, but not horribly so. This is going in the gift box for whoever I decide it goes to, in time.....

Ciao

Warm Feet

And a little stashbusting project. I needed new slippers, so I dug out the Paton's Classic leftovers, this time in black,brown and blue and knit up slippers.
I present, the B3 Slippers.

Pre-felting:




Post felting:




Pattern: Fibre Trends Clogs

Ciao!

Skinny Scarf 2

The first skinny scarf turned out so well, I wanted one for myself. Thus:








350 stitches cast on longways, knit 2 rows each colour ending with the same colour you started with. This turned out to be almost double my height. And I am 5'3".  I lurves it.

It is knit out of Steve sport yarn. From Rain's Obsessive Stitchery
I cannot emphasize enough how soft this yarn is.

Ciao!

Gfitmas Knitting

It was decided that the Secret Santa at one of my job sites was going to have a theme of DIY gifts. This was decided on my day off. I'm sure the idea was well meant, but damn. They all know I knit, so I am sure that is exactly what they are expecting. As tempting as it was to go to Etsy and buy a handmade gift, I had a skein of bulky chenille that some well-meaning non-knitter had given me, so I  figured this was as a good a time as any to use it.

First, the Quick and Easy Ribbed Hat

And matching scarf, although that was knit as garter stitch on bamboo needles:



None of it was fancy, but given the time constraints, I am rather pleased with the result. Although I will  never be knitting with chenille again. Wow that was frustrating.

Fingernail Friday

Christmas!

Fingernail Friday!

I have been lax in posting pictures of pretty fingernails. So here is the current set!

Skinny Scarf

I mentioned to an indie dyer that I wanted to make a skinny scarf in these colours. And she oh so kindly dyed the yarn for me! This yarn is so very very soft. It's Steve sportweight.  It's from Rain's Obsessive Stichery. The yarn is  60% Cotton, 40% Plant fiber and oh so lovely. This is the Bohol (brown) colourway and  Waterloo(the green) colourway. The pattern is Reversible Stripes Scarf but I cast on longways, 351 stitches! 




I have more of this lovely stuff, I am sure  there will be more knitting done with it!

Stop the Presses!

I have an FO!




Pattern: Age of Brass and Steam
Yarn: Cantata (Diamond yarns cotton DK)
Quantity: Around 200 yards

I wasn't sure about the colour while I was knitting it, but it kinda grew on me. Still, I may give it away as a Christmas gift if the right person comes along.....It was definitely a fun fast knit. Very good purse knitting.

Hippy-Trippy

I am still working on my crochet project. At first I was afraid it would look too hippy-dippy.  However the stores are full of badly made similar cardigans, so I now figure I'm good. Not sure how long to make it. The pattern is knee length. I don't want to go that long. Nor do I think I have the yardage for that. I think just below my fat butt may be a good length.  Please excuse the odd angle for the progress picture, but here is how far I have gotten:




I am hoping to get this done so I can wear it to the Knitter's Fair in Waterloo this September....

ciao!

Must Learn

Lately I keep seeing crochet projects that are lovely. My crochet skills are rudimentary. My crochet pattern reading skills are practically nonexistent. So in typical fashion I decided I wanted to make a little cardigan type thing to wear. In crochet. The first pattern I perused had a lot of comments on Ravelry that were along the lines of "pattern badly written, I had to wing it with what I thought should happen". NOT a good idea for a neophyte hooker.

The second pattern I attempted was a little too advanced, it had stitches I had never heard of and that weren't in my Happy Hooker book.

The third one appears to be working. I am learning crochet-speak. AND the pattern is turning out the way I think it is supposed to. WIN. One of the main stumbling blocks was realizing that in crochet, you often do more than one stitch into a space or chain. In knitting it is 1 stitch per space, more often than not. (excepting lace, of course).So when the crochet pattern tells you 'slip stitch double crochet into next chain' it does not mean into 2 different chains. It means into the SAME chain. Which I figured out when I ran out of chain.  Fortunately, frogging crochet is not nearly as heart-stopping as frogging knitting since there is only 1 live stitch to keep track of.

It is the Lacy Duster. Although I probably won't make it quite as long as the picture.

It is worked from the neck down. As you can see, my piece so far actually looks like a neck and yoke to a cardigan! HOORAY!

Shellspawn Blanket

A friend is having a baby (spawning) and I made a play on the parents' name for the title of this post/project name.

The pattern is Opart and the yarn is various acrylics I had in my stash. Canadiana was one. This is a garter stitch blanket knit in the round. I started it on dpn's after the first attempt at using 2 circs created giant holes in the fabric at the changeovers. Once it was bigger I switched to one circ. Given that the yarn I was using was worsted weight, I also went up a needle size, so I used an US8. Even with the change, there were rather substantial holes at the colour changeovers.

After weaving in the ends, the holes all went away, though. But I was a bit concerned, I can tell you!
The final blankie:



I am quite pleased with it. The only thing I didn't take into consideration is that the pattern calls for blocking into a square shape. Obviously, with acrylic, the blocking does not 'take' really well. But hey, the blankie is square-ish, and the visual swirly effect should make up for that, right? (and I REALLY did not want to saddle a new mom, who doesn't knit and thus is not familiar with the arcana of knitted projects and blocking with a blanket with a lot of special care instructions)

Overall I am quite pleased with the effect.

Yarn Barf

I cannot be the only person who has this problem. I get a supposedly center pull ball, done commercially. I follow the instructions to 'pull the loose end out of center, insert fingers into either side and then pull beginning out of center'. Every time I try to find the beginning of a center pull ball, I get this:



It doesn't seem to matter what method I try, I still get the same awful mess. Half the skein/ball barfs out and I wind up wrapping the whole thing up by hand to find the beginning. Phooey.

Hairstick

With the advent of warmer weather, I have been wearing my hair up quite a bit. I find that ponytails tend to pull and buns do as well. However, hairsticks keep my hair up and don't pull or hurt. I have no idea why the difference, but hey, if it works...

So I went to the dollar store and bought 10 chopsticks for $1. Then , of course, I thought, hey, why not decorate em?  This is my first attempt.

Step one, find nail polish that you already own:




Step 2, paint on a couple of coats  of one: (after wrapping masking tape on the chopstick to make a nice neat line)




Let it dry and then paint a couple of coats of the second polish. Let dry, peel tape and you  have:



A hairstick that your 5 year old might have painted!  Tada!

Seriously, not bad, but not great. Some of the polish managed to leak under the masking tape and the polish started to dry before I was done painting, so the result is NOT a nice smooth finish as I had envisioned.  Might try wrapping the next one with sock yarn.....

As for how to put my hair up, this was the clearest video.