Woop! Another one bites the dust

Yup, that's my most recent hat. I really need to get a picture of it on a head! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The yarn is Cascade Paints. It makes me think of the desert weirdly enough.

I also finished the belly of my dragon, the back scale ridge, and the wings! The only thing keeping me from finishing is that I need stuffing stuff! It's going to be perfect :)

The booties, they sleep with the froggies

Well thats a disappointment....I was working on the little converse booties for my Boot camp instructors baby. 

The dream:

The reality:

One of these things is DEFINITELY not like the other! I followed the instructions, paid attention to what I was doing, frogged and re-attempted, but it just didn't get any better than this. I don't think that it is all on my end though. I'm fairly certain that there was something lost in translation on the toe portion. Literally, its originally in german!

Luckily, I'm looking it over and I think I know how to fix it. I tell you, there is something thrilling when you realize that you can think your way through a knitting glitch. I'm going to get on a few other little knits while I sort out the whole thing. I still have to figure out how to make those Viking Horns work proper like!

TO THE NEEDLES ROBIN!

OMG I actually finished something!

The gloves all done up! I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I got quite a bit of a hat done but the pattern is off so I need to frog it at least half way. ADVENTURES!

I have Knitting ADD

I remember reading Free Range Knitter in my new days o'knitting and I her writing about having multiple projects on the needles at any given time and I was thinking that there was no way I could do it. One project at a time is what seemed responsible and practical!

How little did I know. Right now I currently have a viking set 2/3 complete (and half of a horn waiting for me to figure out how to do short row shaping), the upper 2 rows of a baby sock, 1.5 mitts, and the lower 1/2 of a converse booty waiting for me. OH and that crib blanket and a doll sized blanket. If I was to sit my butt down and muscle my way through it, it would only take a day for each item AND their matching set. I totally need to take another week off the internet because its cutting into my mad knitting time. There are just so many awesome things begging to be made!

Add to my current desire to dink around in the virtuality I now have MORE projects. Its like an addiction. There is no such thing as too many things to do or that need done. OMG it turns out my sister is expecting a girl! NEED BLESSING DRESS AND A CABLED BLANKET CUZ SHE LOVES CABLES! I'm seeing my nephews and nieces for the first time in years/ever OMG I NEED TO MAKE THEM ALL SOMETHING (you know to be that cool aunt). Oh, and my sister is commissioning booties and hats that need to be done asap for twin girls! I need more size 7s.

I'm like a frickin ferret on pixie stix being let loose in a shop full of super shinyness. At least those things aren't due until June and August respectively. I'll post some pics, the gloves should be done tomorrow at least so I can get started on the twins-ies

My additions:

I'm thinking cream with light and dark pink

I currently have 5 plus 1 for my own!

Seriously, she loves Cables

Samba-latta fun

I love my days off. Tuesday was Hubby's day off so in the afternoon I ran errands and headed out to my fav caffeinated watering hole to get my knit on. It was super busy but hey, you know they've got to have yummy stuff if they are packed at 4:30 when everyone is out of work. I was happy to sit and sniff in the aroma of brewing grounds, sweet treats, and savory sandwiches! And the guy in front of me. Omg, he smelled like HEAVEN! Anyway after a happy tete a tete with the counter girl I placed my order. The results:

Yes, that's a WHOLE french press of coffee and it was just $6.50! Plus I have no idea how to pronounce the type of coffee so it HAS to be good.

The only table available was a little corner one that required me to navigate around a table full of women in various stages of workout gear and a couple of fabulous men. I would have happily taken up residence at one of the little wicker chairs but I was expecting girlfriends to be stopping by for visiting! I hunkered down happily and cast on to start the mitts for xmas gifts for next year. I managed 2 rounds of k2 p2 before my darling friend Megan showed up. 

 

I learned something I should have known. I like to really focus on people I'm talking to, especially if its a very small group. I'm big on eye contact and listening. THAT means that not a lot of knitting done! 3 hours late, and the joining in of my friend Bookie and Megan's departure this is how much had been completed:

Bookie is a crocheter and she was going to show me how to conquer that evil hobby but we sat and gabbed instead!

I don't mind so much that I didn't accomplish a lot. In the 4.5 hours I was there I got about 7 rows total, but I felt like myself instead of full on mom and wife. Yay for mental health! Plus I was all sorts of jittery from drinking a whole french press of coffee o.O

I have been able to sit down and do a little work over the last few days and I've managed to make it past the first bit of knotting (after having to rip back 10 rows). I've come to the conclusion that I really do prefer charts over written out instructions and that sort of surprises me. It makes me feel like I've leveled up!

One leg on the dark side

I have a goal. I shall become a hooker! Okay, I totally titter every time I say that. Heck, I want to learn how to crochet just because I can add Hooker to my fiber arts resume. In all reality, there are just so many absolutely adorable patterns out there and everyone keeps sending them to me and I hate admitting that I'm unable to do them! So off to my dear fabulous friend, the library,  to snag my other close darling friend, Debbie Stoller! Seriously, this woman is absolutely amazing. I love her writing style and how she makes it genuinely interesting and easy to follow!

I bet some people get this without reading the rest of the cover and are sorely disappointed!

I haven't been able to do more than read the first bit and the chapter on how to begin. I did manage to make a chain but then of course before I could even start on the next section my duties as mommy called to me and I haven't been able to do anything since. I really do need to sort out how to make the horns and a few baby booties and such, but I have such high aspirations! Here are a few of the projects I'd like to make :) GOALS PEOPLE GOALS! Being able to crochet and knit is a lot like being ambidexterous and I can do it! Granted if things go horrible and I'm completely incompetent I can at least still knit so I win!

Blanket of doom

I'd like it to be noted that I initially had written out an awesome post, then then internet ate it. I totally got all whiney. I'm sure facebook had a ton of pity for my rant. SO TAKE TWO and if the internet eats this one I'm going to post pictures of me all crying

A little over a year ago I bought 5 skeins of Bernat's Baby Coordinates in soft grey. I had this lofty notion that in the 2 months before we moved I'd figure out how to knit more than basic stockinette stitch and pump it out in no time. Oh how naive I was in my youtful folly. The rose colored glasses were firmly affixed to my face.

Here is the pattern I figured I was awesome enough to make:

Exhibit A

I'm fairly certain the adorableness of that little girl was totally meant to distract me from the fact that I knew nothing about knitting and lull me into the belief that this "easy" pattern was well within my scope. After all I did know which end of the needles to knit with!

That yarn slowly but surely became the bane of my existence. Casting on was a serious chore, I had no idea what a psso was but I was so certain it would be my friend! It was just repetition right? After finally casting everything on, I managed not to do the yarn overs. Slowly but surely my blanket became more and more narrow. Frog. Youtubed yarn overs, started again, at some point I missed a stitch because the concept of counting when you are doing any sort of lace-like knitting hadn't been discovered. Frog. Forget where I was in the pattern and don't have a grasp of how stitches are supposed to look. FROG. This was getting ridiculous. I changed to a basic fan and feather pattern and frogfrogfrogfrog. It was like the buffet at a cajun mardi gras festival. The yarn was irritatingly tossed into the back of my tiny box of yarn. 

September rolled around and I suddenly had a freakish desire to learn how to sew and I figured I shouldn't start a new hobby if I hadn't done anything with my current hobby I'd already invested money into. BACK TO THE BLANKET.  I finally found the Feathered Baby Blanket on Ravelry and nearly wept when I saw that it wasn't a ton of pattern rows. I'd have a break! And so it began. 

Of course I misread the pattern and instead of it being all lacey with a band like so:

Mine had 1 row of feather and fan instead of a bunch:

In all reality I liked it. I figured if I was going to make a mistake it was something easily applied to the rest of the blanket and it made for a bit more of a solid blanket with texture. So I happily kept on going! From September to November I worked on the blanket off and on. I was very happy with how it was looking and then on the 10th pattern repeat I suddenly realized there was something amiss...

WHERE DID THE FAN GO?!?!

Yup I had miscounted and the Right Side was now the Wrong side. I had a moment of disbelieving angst before I thought, hey, this could work! If I did 8 sets facing the opposite side, I'd just have to make sure I skipped a row at the 17th pattern repeat but it would work and look like it was on purpose! BWAHAHAHAHA i felt like an evil genius.

Then December rolled around and the frantic Christmas knitting began. Blanket got shelved into a nice comfortable basket to await my attention. Of course this meant that things got going and the blanket sat there, a pile of silvery neglected softness. 

Then something kicked in a few days ago. I do have a lot on the burner but nothing that is super necessary and has to be done asap and I had some books on tape I wanted to listen to and its a lot harder to follow a story if you have to read a pattern. So the viking hat got put aside, the pattern for the converse booties filed away and out comes the blanket!

Now at the time the pattern was doable with just a little bit of challenge. Out of 12 rows only 2 weren't knit and of those two one was a purl row. Serious, super easy+10 after some of the other stuff I've done. I zoned and it was nice. I've added 4 more pattern repeats and have moved into the reverse section. Who knows maybe I'll have it done and on BB's bed before her b-day in June! GOALS!

Thus far

P.S. Its not all blanket and nothing else. I did do the 5 minutes of work I had left on the insignia on the stocking cap for my former Bootcamp instructors impending child! I did take up the needles to work on the converse booties so I'm feeling pretty good.

Norseman FTW!

You know what's awesome? People paying for materials to enable you to make something you wanted to make anyway! My delicious friend (known for 10+ years) from college has a little boy and she gave me some cash and asked me to make a viking hat for him. I nearly frothed, I've always wanted to make one and here was that push to just do it.

There are plenty of patterns online but I felt like I could do something on my own. I did check out some pictures to get some ideas on how to go about it. It was pretty simple, doing the (simple) math to come up with size and where to put (as well as how to make) the bobbles, what needed to be garter stitch and what needed to be stockinette, etc. I was comfortable winging it! 

My first time I messed up on the count (even though I checked multiple times) and it got frogged, which wasn't a bad thing. It was good practice with the bobbles. My second time was much more awesome.

Now it looks pretty decent. I got up to the decreases and actually did the first round and second after but it felt off. First off, I had decreased in the stockinette section when the garter section had the bobbles. There also felt like something was...off. The bobbles don't stand out on the garter panels AND the stockinette seem more "raised". So froggy went a courtin on the hat and I pulled back to the brim!

In one day I managed to finish the hat portion

Please ignore my awesomely terrible hair

I'm pretty satisfied with the results. There are tweaks I'd like to do with the pattern but that's for the future. I'm currently working on a super awesomely red beard and getting myself all revved up to figure out how to make horns!