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Just a few WIP's to share:
That's Branching Out. It's still waiting to be blocked. I had planned to do it tonight, but, I'm feeling a bit lethargic, so, I'll save it for tomorrow. The whole time I was knitting it I had been stretching it out to see that the leaves were fully forming and that I wasn't making mistakes. Without being blocked, it looks pretty decent. I can't wait to see the finished-finished piece though.
Another glimpse of my Coach knock-off. The colors have been growing on me. They remind me of this one ice cream I had. Like... 5 chocolate ice cream or something. It's surprisingly quite long and I'll only need a few more sections in order to complete it. I'm not looking forward to weaving in the ends though. There are a lot of them.
This is my Hemlock Ring Blanket. I'm on row 70 and it's pretty big. The pattern is easy to follow for the most part, but, the endless rounds of plain stockinette are killing me. I haven't switched to brooklyntweed's chart yet. I understand how it works, but, this line-by-line thing is more comfortable for me. And once you do one repeat in the feather/fan section it's pretty easy to memorize.
I feel like I'm just not knitting fast enough. I've hired two friends "r" & "b" to help me out.
r & b are two felt monkeys made by my friend (and knitting student prodigy) Danielle. She hand crafted them for my birthday. ^_^
As you can see, they are quite busy. I have many more rows and endless rounds of stockinette to complete.
I'll leave you with one last image:
That is the current prototype of my DS Lite case pattern. I'm not too fond of the flap so I may have to rethink it. And, originally I planned to use snaps with a non-functional button on top... but, I feel like the constant snapping may damage the DS. I ended up using EZ's after thought buttonhole. She actually asks you to snip a thread in your knitting and unravel it from the middle. It was a mess. Me + knitted items + scissors = disaster. o_O Hopefully I'll come up with a decent flap soon so I can share my pattern with everyone.
I'll need to hire more monkeys to help me with my Christmas knitting.
Knit hard!
I seem to be on some sort of blogging binge. I just can't stop updating! =) Hopefully this trend continues.
As promised, I have some pictures to share. First, here's my fairly large Malabrigo purchase from Loopy.
Like little bundles of love. On the subject of love, I LOVE the color. It's called Olive. Very fitting.
Oh, Malabrigo. I e-mailed them the other day. I started this group on Ravelry called Malabrigo Junkies. We were discussing our favorite colors (Charrua!) and someone mentioned Little Lovely. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Lovely but she seemed to be quite coveted. The possibility of her being retired came up--a member may have read it somewhere I think, so, to finalize the matter I e-mailed the people up in Malabrigo land and asked them about their color cycle and retirees. (I also oh-so-shamelessly promoted Malabrigo Junkies). I got a reply in two days from Tobias who said that they've only retired a few colors and that Little Lovely (as well as Charrua) were still on the color card. He also mentioned that he'd be happy to link our group to the malabrigoyarn.com website. Mmm.
Just for that we'll celebrate with another picture of this delicious yarn:
I'm really churning out those bookmarks. They're really quick and easy. They'll probably serve as backup Christmas gifts.
The pattern calls for a 1.25mm crochet hook, but, unfortunately the store I bought the Malabrigo lace from had a 2.5 as their smallest. I purchased it anyway. On my way home I stopped at a Hobby Lobby and picked up a 2.0mm and a 1.5mm. 1.25 Just seemed to small for Malabrigo's thick&thin-ness. It turned out that the 1.5 was too small, I couldn't even hook the yarn. The 2.0 worked but the resulting bookmark ended up tight and lost a lot of stitch definition after I ironed it. I tried the 2.5mm and it worked perfectly.
Yay, tassels.
Crochet is surprisingly easy (and fast!) once you get a good feel for how to angle the hook. My tension is still a bit all over the place, but, I think it's becoming steadier as I continue to pop out these bookmarks. I love that there's only one live stitch, it's easy to drop it and pick it back up again. In knitting, when my needle falls out, I stop breathing and move as slowly as possible as not to disturb the now live stitches who's seemingly only desire is to drop. And then painstakingly re-inserting my needle, making sure each stitch is facing the correct direction. Tedious!
While, I AM growing a certain fondness towards the hook, I will always prefer the knitted fabric to the crocheted.
My sweater finally dried. My room is no longer filled with the odd scent of wet wool. The sweater though smells sweet and natural. I actually don't smell the Soak on it at all--I may not have used enough. The directions say one cap-full for every gallon... I soaked my sweater in my bathtub... how many gallons is that? I naively guessed 2 gallons because I ended up only using 2 cap fulls. ^_^ Oops?
Mr. Seamless Hybrid wasn't dry before my photoshoot, so, I'll have to take pictures of him another day.
I'll leave you with Branching Out. This scarf has been waiting patiently underneath my desk for me to finish the sweater. He's finally getting some pattern repeats knitted and is looking good, albeit a bit oatmeal-y.
I'm giving tassels a chance.
Knit hard!
check it out.
Stitches Midwest turned out to be... interesting. SO many stores and SO MUCH YARN. Quite overwhelming. Luckily, with the help of ravelry.com I was able to create a list of projects I wanted to knit in the future. My list included the pattern-suggested yarn as well as alternative yarns that other knitters used. Oh ravelry, so helpful.
I brought my friend Danielle along. Out of the 3 people I've taught to knit she's the only one who stuck with it. She already conquered cables and knitting in the round... it took me over 6 months to get that far... I guess she's a really good student... or I'm just an awesome teacher. LoL.
Tangent. ... So... here's what I managed to find:
Mmm, silky wool. I brought my Branching Out scarf as my WIP to Stitches... I was really enjoying knitting it at the time (right now it's been waiting for me to finish my circular shrug--see below). I had already decided it would make an awesome gift so I decided to grab another ball so I could make another. I think the second one will be for my mom.
This yarn is a long story. =)
At the end of last winter I was at Coach with my best friend Lora. They had these beautiful cashmere blend scarves for sale. Sale to them was still over $200. x_X I decided, that I would find similar colors and a similar cashmere yarn and knit them for myself.
Finding both the same colors and yarn proved to be difficult... it wasn't until Stitches that I saw 3 of the almost perfect color ways. They weren't cashmere though... they happened to be 100% alpaca. We passed up the table and I kept them in the back of my mind. Finally, on our semi-second round of the market I decided to buy them. 100% alpaca is cRaZy soft... of course, not as orgasmic as cashmere, but, would definitely make a great scarf. So, here's to my Coach knock-off.
Mmm, sock yarn. ... I hate knitting socks. =( After my 3 separate attempts I still don't have a pair of socks that fit or match. Luckily, this skein of Lorna's Lace is for Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. I've been eye-ing them ever since I fell into the world of knitting blogs. It'll be my first color work project, and, I'm quite excited. I, strangely, ended up with a very similar color choice to her original pair...
I just love the blue-brown combo.
Well, those were my purchases from this year's Stitches Midwest. I'm already looking forward to next year. Sadly, we didn't win any prizes, but, Danielle got a free mini-hank of Malabrigo lace weight. mmmm. I ended up getting my picture taken for The Panopticon's 1000 Knitter's Project--and I'm knitter 100!
We also felt some buttery soft cashmere... sadly the small skein was $46. Definitely out of my budget. It was so soft we went back after our initial round through the market to get a second touch. ^_^
I'll leave you with one last picture.
Danielle and I decided to do our own mini knit-along. We chose the Circular Shrug pattern, and, we've been working hardcore on it since we started. So hardcore, in fact, that we both claim the project is sucking the life out of us. Hopefully it'll be done soon so she can wear it and I can take pictures and gift it.
Knit hard!
I've been trying to find something 'nice' to knit for my old boss--the one who taught me the ways of knitting. I was considering another Clapotis... but, I don't really remember enjoying the process very much. o_O I've been eye-ing the Branching Out scarf for a while and on Ravelry.com it's one of the most knitted projects, so, I decided to go for it. I ended up going with the recommended Silky Wool.
It's such a complex pattern. I've even learned 3 new decreases. Branching Out is also my first lace pattern. I think I remember reading something from the Yarn Harlot about a lace project she as knitting... and how it started off as something really messy and how she regretted knitting it... but then once she blocked it then the magic started. That's sort of how my project is looking right now. I can definitely see the leafy pattern, but, blocking will DEFINITELY make this look better. I can't wait to finish. ^_^
This lace knitting takes up 100% of my concentration... so I can't knit while "watching my stories" like I can with most of my other projects. I decided that I needed a mindless WIP to have while traveling and sitting in front of some DVDs. That project ended up being a second Noro striped scarf.
It's still so magical to me... all the colors and the transitioning. Hahahaha. I was working on it yesterday and I ran into a few rows where both of the balls turned into brown-ish colors. o_O I didn't know what to do... I was considering cutting out the brown section on one ball, but, I really have difficulties ripping or frogging.. so, I just let it go. Hopefully the beauty of the rest of the scarf will drown out this one muddy patch.
I also wanted to share one of my only purchases from the Fiber Arts Fair thing from a few weeks ago. I ended up getting a skein of Briar Rose - Buff Beauty. It's a THICK single ply yarn. I seriously have to force myself not to try to take a bite out of it. o_O it's so springy and delicious.
I decided to knit a length-wise scarf with it. The recommended needles are a 13... but, after my first row I found it to be too tight. The resulting fabric was quite stiff, so, I switched to a 15. Of course, I didn't restart.. I just kinda switched right in the middle of my 2nd row. o_O But, you know me. I'm a bit afraid that my scarf won't be thick enough now... but, we'll see.
I'll be going to Stitches Midwest on Sunday. Just for the market... no classes for me. I'm gonna take a guess and say I'll be the only shaved-bald Asian/Filipino boy there, if you see me say hi! =) I'm not sure which project I'll be bringing to work on... I'm leaning towards the Noro scarf though.
