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Okay, first off: I’m fine, my folks are fine. We’re in DC and just got some rain. Never even lost power. My heart goes out to those in NY and Delaware (including the boy’s folks and my aunt) and everywhere else and I hope everyone’s okay or at least doing the best they can.
In lighter knittier news, I knit a scarf. It’s for Ongoing Wish Swap, which I got around to rejoining. It’s a super simple scarf–just knit length-wise in garter.
Pattern: I CO like 175 and worked garter stitch
Needles: US 8/5 mm
Yarn: All the leftover bits from shark mittens. As you can see, shark mittens have been many shades over the years.
It has fringe. I’m pretty chuffed with it. Sort of displeased I have to send it away, but I think I’m going to make a similar one for myself with the various other wool scraps I have kicking around. I’m thinking rainbow colors. Fun.
I took a picture of this the other day intending to do a WIP post of everything I’m working on, but I realized I was only a couple of rows from the end, so I just finished it and photographed the finished scarf. I will have a WIP post up soon as even though I’ve been remiss about posting, I have certainly been knitting and working on lots of things.
If you’re on the East coast, stay safe and dry. I know I got super lucky but a lot of people didn’t.
Soo hi there! Sorry for the radio silence. Anyway, I can finally show off one of the super secret projects I’ve been working on. This past weekend the boy and I traveled up to Pittburgh for our friend’s wedding. And I, being the crafty sort, made her gift. It is totally geeky, like the newly weds. So yeah.
Pattern: EXTERMIKNIT
Yarn: 50/50 wool/acrylic blends recycled from sweaters in pink and black. Also some scraps of grey and a tiiiiny bit of blue.
Needles: US 8/5mm
Modifications: I started with the base then switched to pink to work from the bottom up. I also knit icord for the plunger and gun arms. My bobbles are also a bit smaller than written. There is floral gauge wire in the appendages. Oh, and I used slip stitches in the neck stripes bit to make it look more like a classic Dalek.
I’m kind of inordinately pleased with the eyestalk and the little blue bit. Yay.
If I were more clever, I would have included on the care tag (which I made later and did not photograph) some sort of “Exterminate” or Dalek pun buuuuut I’m not so I didn’t.
I also sewed up a drawstring bag to package everything in. Because wrapping paper is for people who don’t sew apparently. IDEK. Anyway.
So yeah. Wedding present times. Whoo! More knitting/crafting FOs soon, I promise.
Good news first: I am employed! It’s only part time, but it’s working with a nanny agency and I quite like it. We’ll let that be the reason I’ve been terrible about blogging. Because I’ve been doing a bit of crafting, mostly knitting. I currently have two projects on the needles, though one is a super secret wedding present, so no pictures of that because the recipient might wander over here. The other is a lace sweater of my own design:
Top down, set in sleeves, making it up as I go. I’m using a half pound cone of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece fine. I think I should have enough yarn, but I’m going to do all the cuffs/edgings in a blue of the same yarn. I’m pretty thrilled with the way things have turned out so far.
Here’s a close up of the stitch pattern I’m using:
I do sort of have a finished object, but it’s a pair of shark mittens for an Etsy buyer. You guys all know what they look like and anyway I forgot to snap a picture before I packaged them up.
I’m also doing two swaps: a yarn/hooper swap (for which I am a yarnie and will be knitting) and a Doctor Who swap. The new season starts Sept. 1 and I cannot wait at all. Love that show. : )
When I click on the Yarns tab on Ravelry now, it tells me there are a whopping 13 yarn stores near me, which is many more than the 2 I was getting in Virginia Beach (even though there were about 4). There are tons of yarn stores in Northern Virginia, as far away as Bethesda, MD and as close as Vienna, which is the city I’m living in now. The store in Vienna, Uniquities, held a fiber market on Saturday at the Vienna Community Center and I couldn’t not go.
The focus was definitely on spinning, though there was a lot of yarn too. The list of vendors that were there is listed here. I bought… many things. Because, apparently, to hell with my budget/unemployment. Anyway.
From Dancing Leaf Farm, I purchased this GORG Fairy Batt:
It’s 2 oz, wool/glitz/mohair/tencel/bamboo and I love it. I’ve never spun from a batt before and this was super affordable ($12). Also pretty!
From Solitude Wool I bought this art batt:
It’s about 1.5 oz ish and it was $4. FOUR DOLLARS. Yeah.
From Mt. Airy Farm, I bought an oz. of dyed mohair locks. PRETTY.
It’s sort of a darker purple than what appears on my monitor. But love. Will have to spin up some art yarn.
From Avalon Springs Farm 4oz of Targee/Mohair/Glitz:
Not my usual colors at all, but it’s so happy! Also, it’s sparkly! I love it. I already started spinning it as you can see.
Finally, I purchased a Tibetan supported spindle from Spanish Peacock:
That is a terrible photo because it’s been rainy and gloomy, but yeah. I’m practicing on some left over BFL. I think I sort of have the hang of it, though I end up spinning straight up off the tip rather than 45 degrees. Also it falls over a lot, but I did just start like, three days ago. So yeah.
I have lots of things OTN and The Event Formerly Known as the Ravelympics (TEFKA Ravalympics) starts in just a few days. There will be more on that when it actually gets started.
Greetings, blog folk! I am mostly settled in, though things are still kind of a mess. Anyway, I’ve finished up some socks. Some delightful Who-inspired socks. Whoo!
Pattern: TARDIS Socks
Yarn: Lion Brand Sock-Ease in Snowcone, overdyed by a WWFYer, recycled wool/nylon (white) and Sanguine Gryphon Bugga (black)
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm
Mods: I continued to reduce gusset stitches until I was at a 64st foot instead of 72.
You guys. These socks. SO MUCH FUN. There was colorwork, which I don’t usually do so that was good practice. There was a flap and gusset heel, which I love. There was leg patterning. And there was easy cruising down the foot. Also, the fit is PERFECT. I went down to 64 sts for the foot and it fits just right. The 72 st leg is wide enough to get over my heel despite some snug stranding but tight enough to stay up.
TARDIS socks = love, is what I’m saying.
I wasn’t too crazy about the yarn, mostly because Sock-Ease is on the thin side. The color was perfect though. The white is not superwash but considering there’s not that much of it, I think it’ll be okay to go through the washing machine.
I have since cast on for about four more projects, one of which is super fast and I am halfway through. Also yesterday (Saturday) I went to a fiber event. But more on that next time.
Hello from my apartment in Northern Virginia where I am all moved in. I want to show you pictures of the place but it’s kind of a disaster area at the moment. Lots of organizing to do. Anyway, in between that, I made a bathmat:
Pattern: By Your Bed/Bathmat/Doormat
Yarn: Navy (it’s darker than the picture shows) t-shirt yarn/tarn I got in a swap on Craftster a while ago. I used 7/8 balls. (The last might become a dishcloth if I ever find it.)
Hook: GIGANTIC plastic 15mm hook
Mods: I added an extra row of shells/3dc in ch1 sp.
Woo! Pretty simple project; went by super quickly. And now we have a pretty bathmat.
This next week will likely be spent cleaning and organizing and a little bit of job hunting. I’m applying to the Fairfax school system, which I likely won’t get but would be awesome if I did. Cheers!
You guys, packing is stressful. I have to cull everything I own until I can fit it all in a minivan, and I have a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff. Mostly yarn and clothes. I have four plastic bins and a cardboard box full of yarn, plus I have yarn or unravels-in-progress stuffed in every tiny nook and cranny of the rest of the bags and boxes and bins. Probably 80% of my stuff is either craft supplies or clothes, both of which are things I enjoy frequently and can get for very cheap. The other 20% is books. Maybe there’s 1% “other stuff”. Mostly clothes and books and craft supplies and books. I like books.
ANYWAY, I made a sweater. It looks like this:
(Do ignore my blurry arm meat there.)
Pattern: My own. Thinking about writing it up.
Yarn: Recycled mercerized cotton from a Ralph Lauren pullover (I have lots left)
Needles: US 3/2.75mm straights and a US 5/3.25 circular for the ruffles
Please appreciate that it is approximately five hundred degrees outside, into which I ventured to get pictures of this sweater. (The actual temperature is like 97 but at a certain point it all just feels HOT.) I jumped into the pool right after (I changed first) but still. HOT.
I really like knitting summer sweaters and tanks. They’re fast and I can wear them pretty much year round (though with a shirt under for the winter), unlike a sweater, which is really only good when it’s cold enough.
So I love this thing. I knit it in a strip like the Carousel socks from Knitty that I made a couple weeks ago. I do love the strip construction. It keeps my attention for the whole project so I never get bored like I do with things that are just long rows of stockinette.
In further life news, if I have no said exactly so yet, I will be moving to Fairfax on Tuesday. You might not hear from me for a little while after that while I settle in/job hunt. I’ll almost certainly be on Twitter frequently though, so feel free to drop me a line. I almost always respond on Twitter. I love Twitter.
Happy Independence Day, Americans! I’m safely back in Virginia Beach for the week and am knitting again. I only have two things on the needles and they happen to be red, white, and blue!
There’s the Roundabout sweater:
I’m just over the bust at this point so I’ll need to figure out how I want to do sleeves/straps.
Then there’s my TARDIS socks, which are half done:
I haven’t yet cast on for the second sock, so I guess these aren’t really OTN per se, but I’ll get the other one on there soon.
In life news: Much of this week will be spent packing. I’m hoping to have an actual moving date of Monday for when I’m going up to Northern Virginia to move in with my boyfriend. I’ll keep you posted on the job status but for right now, my only income is my Ravelry pattern store. I’ll start looking in depth when I get up there.
But today’s for drinking and knitting and fireworks and whatall. And watching Independence Day, natch.
I haven’t been doing much crafting on this trip, but I have been doing some cool things. On Wednesday I went to Niagara Falls with my brother, mother, and grandmother. It was super fun and we got really close to the falls. We parked on Goat Island, where we saw the Tesla Memorial and Horseshoe Falls:
Then we went of the “Cave of the Winds Tour”. It’s a bunch of stairs and platforms next to the American Falls. Here’s what it looks like from above:
Not too bad, right? A little mist. So we get to climbing (they give you ponchos; my brother and I elected not to wear ours) and there’s like, a lovely little stream coming down some rocks:
So we climb some more stairs and reach something called the Hurricane Deck:
It was aptly named. We got thoroughly drenched with Niagara river water. Completely saturated.
We went to the Three Sisters Islands, three tiny islands that used to be underwater. You can get right up close to the river:
So close, in fact, that I could put my toe in the water (it was cold):
We also stared longingly across the river to Canada, where you now need a passport to get to:
We watched the traffic on the Rainbow Bridge to Asgard Canada (that is its actual name):
I hear today is Canada, so three cheers. I’ll drink to that.
Soo I am in New York this week (near Buffalo) visiting my grandparents, who are there for the summer. It’s partially a visit and partially a mission to help my grandparents go through the stuff in their closes/attic so the house can be sold at some point. I haven’t been doing a whole lot of knitting, but I have been doing some hiking.
On the drive up, we stopped at an overlook in Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna river. There was some very soft mud/quicksand:
Earlier today (having arrived in New York on Monday), we went on a hike here:
There was hiking:
And a “waterfall”:
There hasn’t been a tremendous amount of rain lately. (And that’s my younger brother, btw.)
I’ll have to snap some pictures when we go into Newfane (the town we’re in). It’s super cute and tiny and all slice-of-Americana. I love it.
One final note: I’m going to continue to call it the Ravelympics. The USOC should see someone about that stick they’ve got up their ass.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 