Finished Objects!

It's been a while since I had any of these, isn't it?

First up, I made another Charlotte. For this one, I used a different yarn and a smaller needle size for a slightly different fit. These photos were taken before blocking. Once it's dry, I'll get some nicer pics that I can add to the pattern page on Ravelry:

(FYI, the Charlotte pattern is on sale for 50% off on Ravelry right now. You can also download through the patterns tab above, but I'm not sure if that link will reflect the discount or not.)

Yesterday, I spent all day writing and knitting and sewing. Missouri requested a rice cozy, and I found the perfect fabric for it at Joann's. No pictures of that yet, but I also finished this, a replacement for my favorite flamingo tote bag that is sadly falling apart:

The inside of the bag, complete with interior pocket. The lining fabric comes
from a box of vintage skirts that I was given last year.

I also made a couple of other little goodies, which will be going off to my partner for a swap I'm doing, but I don't want to post photos just yet--I will once she gets her package, just in case she decides to pop by the blog.

Body Work

I finally cast off the body of the London Calling cardigan!

Now I just have the sleeves...and the collar...and the button band...and the finnishing...

I might be at this a while yet.

What I Made on My Day Off

That would be the top portion of a quilt, made from my old work shirts. The patterned material is from my favorite pillow sham which met an untimely death.

Somehow, I wound up with exactly the right number of blocks. No leftovers, none missing. When I get more fabric, I'll add to it (this is about the right width for a twin bed, but only half the length), but considering my cashflow problems at the moment...that'll have to wait. I also have no idea how I want to finish it. Full quilting? Batting? Border? Or just slap a backing onto it and topstitch the edges (since I lack a quilting machine and I am not up to hand quilting).

So, quilt top: 1 day. Rest of the quilt? That will probably take a year or more.

Shh!!!

You can't tell anyone.

I'm making a present.

I can't tell you who it's for, or what it is yet, because she might be reading this. I don't know.

But oh my god, I love this yarn:

Bernat Mosaic in "Calypso", just for the record.

RAINBOWS!!!

It's That Time of Year Again

Remember this?

It's the sweater that never ends: London Calling.

For those keeping track, this would be my fourth year of working on it.

Last year, if you recall, I discovered that the cables on the decreases of the shoulders did not line up, so I started over and decided to make the entire thing seamless (or nearly seamless. There will still be seams at the shoulders and on the armholes). Most of this work was done last winter. I've got maybe 3 more inches to go before I split for the armholes. Since I'm almost done with a ball of yarn, I figure I will just knit until I run out, and then join new yarn to make the right front, back, and left front. I think that once the body of this sweater is done, the sleeves and the finishing will go a lot faster. One thing I need to do, though, it sit down with the pattern and microsoft word and rewrite the decreases. Since it came from a magazine, space was limited. Full directions for one of the fronts is listed, but for the other, it just says "do the reverse." Um...okay. Very detailed. I'm also going to make a copy  of the directions for the decreases on the back. The stitch pattern is very easy to remember, but the shoulder shaping? Not so much.

I have no ambitions of finishing this sweater this year. Sure, I would love to. But I'm only working on it to kill time until I hear back from my publisher. Once I get the yarn for the samples for the book, I'm not going to have time to knit on anything else--particularly since I'm also making a couple of baby gifts for someone at work.

Clearly, I need at least one extra set of hands.

UFO Sightings

I made a few small dents in the UnFinished Object bin over the weekend. On Friday, I cast off the dish mat that I started just before we moved into our current house--back in November, I think. It's been languishing for a while. First because lack of yarn, and then because I just plain forgot about it.

When that was done, I had some scraps leftover. Not enough for a new project, but enough that I felt bad about throwing them away. I remembered seeing several small balls the other day when I was organizing the stash, so I laid them all out on my bed, grabbed a couple of crochet hooks, and started work on some more squares for my scrapghan (afghan made of scraps). It's been well over a year since I made any progress at all on it; partially because of my wrists (the main reason that I don't really crochet anymore) and the fact that I've been concentrating on other things.

I finished Missouri's socks, too. No pictures, since they are currently wadded in a ball under her desk. :/

I've got about six inches and then the trim left on the work shrug. Hoping to finish that up today or tomorrow.

Lastly, my first batch of yarn for the book came in last week. One of the blends is a superwash merino/cashmere blend that is DIVINE. More details once I get the rest of the yarn and can really start to play around with it.

Odds and Ends

I've done a little bit of shuffling around on my projects this week. I usually try to keep no more than 3 active knitting projects going at any one time, since that seems to be the limit of my attention span.

My nook cover--which you'll hear a lot more about once it's done--is on hold at the moment. I need something stiff, sturdier than cardboard, to use as an insert, and so far haven't been able to come up with anything. Book board would be ideal, or perhaps a really heavy matte board, but I'd rather not buy a full size sheet when I only need two 6x6" squares. I'm hoping that among my many artist friends, I can find someone with some scraps lying around that they'll let me take. If not, I may break down and get a full sheet once I've knocked a few other projects off of my list. In the mean time, it's hibernating in a storage bin on my new yarn shelf:

Last weekend for Pride and the Raverly meetup, I decided that I needed a new project. I've been tripping over the same hole in my wardrobe for the past couple of weeks, so I pulled some really old yarn out of my stash (it's been marinating since spring of 2008) and cast on for a really simple shrug to wear over tank tops at work. We're not supposed to wear tank tops, but I don't have any sleeveless tops (basically, a tank top with a 4" strap) so at least this way I can be a little cooler and not show my shoulders.The yarn matches about 75% of my work clothes.

Another need that I've discovered--or rather, rediscovered--is for another dish drying mat for the kitchen. I started one just before we moved into this place, but never got around to finishing it. I fished it out of storage while my hand was bothering me, since it's plain stockinette and uses much larger needles than all of my other projects. It's moving right along and I'll probably finish it tonight or tomorrow, provided I don't run out of yarn first.

My last project is the socks I'm working on for Missouri. No pictures of those just yet, but they should be off the needles this week and I will post pictures then.

I know it's a little early but for those in the US--Happy 4th!

Finally Finished!

Some knitters can knock out  a pair of socks in a week or two.

According to Ravelry, these socks have been on the needles for about two months.

I like to knit socks. I really do. But I only make about two pair a year because they take me forever.

I might be faster, except that lately it seems I have lost my sock mojo. I ripped this pair back to the toe once, then tore out the heel twice. Even then, it wasn't until I started the leg that I was convinced the fit would work.

I love the design, though. That's a slipped stitch cable with a seed stitch interior. It was fun to do and I think it looks really great on that yarn.

Stats
Yarn:Premier Yarns Serenity Garden (from the Deborah Norville Collection) in "Roses"
Needles: Chiao Goo 2.75mm circular
Knit using the two-at-a-time method (toe up).

I'm still not 100% happy with these, mostly because of the fit. I used the same method I normally do for ribbed socks, but the slipped/seed/stockinette combination reduces the amount of give in the material. They fit, they're just not completely right.

But they're off the needles, and they're on my feet, and that's the important thing for me right now. I don't think I could have tolerated ripping back and re-knitting them again.

 Hope you had a good holiday weekend, if you're in the states.

4KCBWDAY4 Color!

What are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects. Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting.

Only after writing this part of your post should you then actually look to see what colours you have used in your projects. Make a quick tally of what colours you have used in your projects over the past year and compare it to the colours you have written about. Compare this, in turn, to the colours that are most dominant in your yarn stash – do they correlate?

Now think back to your house animal - do the colours you have chosen relate to your animal in anyway - if you are in the house of peacock, for example, are your projects often multicoloured and bright?

 Color, color. Like the projects I talked about the other day, I am constantly surprised by the colors that end up in my wardrobe.

My favorite color is turquoise or teal (basically light and dark of the same color). I could happily put it on everything, but I try to reign myself in so that it doesn't get overwhealming. I often pair it with purple, because they look awesome together, and black, because black makes any bright color look excellent.

I tend to gravitate towards a lot of neutrals for items that I know I'll wear a lot--things that will go with everything, since they'll be worn with everything. So most of my work clothes are in black, grey, or brown, with some solid color tops.

I love bright colors, but something weird about me--I can't do patterns. I will always pick a solid or maybe a striped fabric over one that has a pattern on it. Patterns get dated so easily, they're harder to pair with other things, and in general I find them unflattering. So for me, solids are the way to go.

I also love horizontal stripes, but I dislike vertical ones. I know that vertical stripes are supposed to be more flattering, but with the exception of very subtle pinstripe pants, I hate wearing them. They just look....wrong. Horizontal stripes, every time for me.

When buying yarn, it's very easy for me to fill my entire cart with blue yarn. Since I have found myself in the position of having an entire wardrobe that is nothing but black and blue, however, I try to curb that inclination. I might put a yarn back and pick the same type in a different color (usually purple, pink or red).

For a long time, pink was a no-no on my list, but I find myself gravitating towards it again, especially if it's a pink/brown combo. Brown, I find, classes things up. Softens them. My bedroom is done in brown and turquoise.

I am making a conscious effort to bring red back into my wardrobe. In high school, my closet was full of black and red. I blame subliminal messaging, since those were our school colors. Eventually, the red got phased out and somehow, I wound up with a single red shirt. Since it's a very flattering color on me and one that I love, I'm trying to get more of it now, though fashion is conspiring against me. It hasn't been a popular color for a couple of years now.

One color that I adore but can't wear is yellow. I'm olive complected, so most greens and yellows are a no-no. Green must be at least 50% blue (teal), and the yellows have to be more of a neutral, butter yellow, usually lighter in tone. I tend to avoid green and yellow altogether (except for teal).

Looking at my project page, there's some pink, some purple, and some blue. Only one mostly blue object (Charlotte). There's a green afghan, but that was a gift. The illusion patterns involve horizontal stripes, and I tend to use a lot of black in my illusion work (trying to curb that, too). I did use yellow on a couple of projects, but one of them had to use yellow because of what I was making. In both cases, I used a lighter yellow that works better with my skin tone.

So, are my projects bright and colorful? I think so. I don't make a lot of things with more than 2 yarns, but I've been delving into variegated and multicolor yarns more and more, and trying to expand my color horizons. What do you think?

4KCBWDAY3 Infographic

Today's prompt is to create an infographic describing something in your knitting. For mine, I plugged a couple of numbers into Excel and hit "insert pie chart".


I went through my project page on Ravelry to get the numbers, though I suspect they are slightly skewed. I have a bad habit of not adding things to my project page. I think I've completed a lot more than 88 projects since I started Ravelry, and I know I've frogged more than just 2 (although, to be fair, most of the frogged  items did get reworked into new versions of themselves. I seldom abandon a project completely. See "bull-headedness," yesterday's post).

And since making pretty pictures in Excel is easy and fun, here's another one for you:


 I'm kind of surprised at the percentage of baby/doll items compared to everyone else, since I really don't make them that often. Then again, I can finish a doll hat in less than an hour, so they aren't exactly a huge commitment. I did think that socks would be a larger part, but maybe that's just because I'm a slow sock knitter. I only make about 2 pair a year, at most.

So that's your daily dose of infographic. Anyone else having fun with this tool?