Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Yay for hat making!

A co-worker of mine, Ashley, wanted me to make an oversized beret for her (she didn't really say "beret", but I knew what she meant). So for the past couple of months, I've been debating over all of my blue yarn in my stash, trying to figure out which yarn she would actually like. I'm always so paranoid about that type of stuff. Anyway, I finally found a good yarn, and I started on it.
Well..... I got 5 rows in, and I kept getting stuck on this one increase row. I kept getting the wrong amount of stitches on the needles, and I had NO IDEA why! After a month and a half of trying, and 3 very sad froggings, I figured it out, and after that, it took my a day to finish the hat. So here it is:

lol... Josh says hi....

She wants to have this kind of hat because she goes camping alot, and so when there are times that they have to go without a shower, this hat will hide her greasy hair. I think you'll get a good idea of how it's gonna look, given that her hair has about the same curliness and length...



Hope you like it. I think I'll make it for myself. It's called the "Huggy Bear", and it originally calls for Noro Iro yarn, which I might go ahead and use, cause it looks really pretty.

Safe knitting!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Field Trip!!!

I'm so happy! Mom and I just went on a field trip out of nowhere and went to my favorite yarn shop ever!!! It's called Acorn St. Yarn and Needlework in Seattle. Yay!!!




I LOVE this shop! It's right downtown by the college up here, and it has SOOOOOOO MUCH YARN!!! Shelf upon shelf upon basket upon shelf! Crazy amount! EVERYTHING! We were in there for a while too. Here's mom's fun findings:



And here's mine:


I'm so happy! I saw this yarn and I fell in LOVE with it! same with the buttons! There are 4 buttons altogether. I think I'm gonna use both of these and find a cool pattern for a cowl. I've been wanting to make a really cool cowl, since I have so many scarves, and I think that these are just the right things to make it! Oh! And here's a felted fish we saw in the window lol:



Fun times! Next time we'll bring Josh with us, and I promise I won't forget the camera...

Safe knitting!

Sunday, January 4, 2009

In my closet.....

Ok, so every knitter that I know has to admit that they have at least one project on the needles that's hidden away under the bed, behind the couch, in the fireplace.... for me, I'm pretty simple and just hide them in the back of my closet.
Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking, and I know that I just blogged about an hour ago, but I'm listening to a podcast right now (It's a Purl, Man), and he mentioned all of his projects on his needles, and it made me think of aaaaaaaalllllllll the projects that I have on needles, and which ones are just sitting, and will probably remain sitting for a while longer..... just until I get enough nerve to finish them.
So I went into my closet just now to see how many unfinished projects I could find, and (thank GOD, I thought there'd be more)I found three. And here they are, I am showing my "closet shame" to the world:


Yes. So I'm a bit ashamed, but I will tell you that this hoodie has been sitting on the needles, progressing painfully slow, for about....... 4 years. yeah. This is the first sweater I had ever started, but, obviously, not the first one I finished.


Here's where it's from and what it's supposed to look like:



Ok, that's out of the way.

The next one might look familiar to you:



...........yeah.



.............I know.

I will say that I am very proud with how the back turned out on this sweater. This, as I mentioned in one of my previous blogs about this sweater, is my very first project working with color. I really was proud. But, honestly, I'm not a fan of working with color knitting. I much prefer the challenge of lace and cables. I think that's why I've put this away. I was afraid that if I kept going, I would get annoyed. I could do it, but I guess......... color knitting's just not something that I prefer to do. I mean, I like the look of it, I think this sweater, when I finally finish it, will be awesome. I just don't like the work. Oh well, onto the last project that I found:



This
one I'm not so ashamed of. I remember picking this one up, not really that long ago, just because I didn't have anything on the needles that I was doing, and I wanted to avoid the "hidden objects" in my closet, so I got out some cheap Red Heart yarn and started this striped St st scarf. So I'm not all that surprised that I put this one up. It got very repetitive and..... frankly, boring. And I didn't want this to be the cause of a "loss of interest" for knitting, so I shunned it before it was too late. So that's my excuse......

So there you go. Now my dark secrets are known to the world..... well, at least all who read this blog (mom and dad, right?). Sorry mom, don't be ashamed. I promise I'll pick them back up someday.

Safe knitting!

You know what's NOT fun?...

..... frogging.

Yeah. I had to frog my Mottled Olive Sweater and had to start over. Yeah. It starts out knitting in the round, and I didn't realize that I had twisted it in the first row, so the only thing I could do was start over. sad. Oh well. I was only 10 rows in, so it's not a big deal. I'm already 5 rows into the new attempt.

Anyway, I wanted to show you pictures of Josh's new discovery! As some of you may know, all he has ever knit is hats, and he has never used a pattern before. Well...... my mom showed him.....



.... and he fell in love with it. So....................




So yeah. He's REALLY loving making this too. He's using Wool of the Andes from Knitpicks, and he's made a few modifications to the sides of the sweater. There's supposed to be a line of garter stitch going up the sides of the sweater, but it didn't really appeal to Josh's style, so he's doing ribbing up the sides instead. It looks really good too. YAY!

Anyway, I thought I would bring everybody's day down with my horrible frogging story and then lift everyone up with Josh's Cobblestone Sweater progress. I like to play with people's emotions (teehee). But I'll end this blog by showing you a picture that I came across today that has to be one of my favorite pictures from our wedding. It's a picture of "mine mother" adjusting the piece of art that I still can't believe she knit for me to wear and treasure....



Safe knitting!