Blogiversary

I almost forgot! Happy Blogiversary to me!!!!!!!!! Since Dec 2nd, it's been ONE YEAR since I started this blog. WOW. I can't believe it's been a year already. What the hell have I been doing all this time? Heh heh. I just want to say thanks to all you faithful readers out there (all 5 of you)... you guys are the best. ;-)

Fringe time!!!!! Look, mom's scarf was done blocking so I fringed it up and now its REALLY DONE! I even went ahead and put it in a box ready to be wrapped. Woot!




(Sorry for crappy photo quality, I need to get a digital camera. Also: sorry for crappy model quality, I need to take a shower. lol)

OK time to go knit more. :)

Almost forgot:

I made this ballband dishcloth real quick the other week for my friend Alicia. She picked out the colors from my cotton stash, and it knit up pretty darn fast. Just forgot to post it. I did give it to her as an xmas present, so I guess it counts as Christmas knitting that's done. Woot!


Not bad, eh? I also cast on for another dishcloth last night. I hope to have it done by Saturday so I can give it to my Aunt as a xmas gift, especially since she's my godmother and gets ME a present every Christmas.

I checked on my blocking items this morning, the scarf feels dry already, the gloves a bit damp still. Ill leave the gloves sit until this weekend, but I might unpin the scarf tonight so I can add fringe. Mom requested some!!!! I mentioned maybe making a hat out of the other skein, but she didn't seem too interested. She said I could save it to make something else. Now there's a Christmas present! haha.

I was over at my parents' last night to help bake cookies for the party this weekend. It was tiring! Got a bunch done though. (Also ATE a bunch... ugh too much sugar...) I haven't eaten any candy or anything yet today, so yay for me.

Oh, and I have the first green stripe done on the yellow side of my baby hat! I totally am going to get it done in time. What a relief! :-)

OK, back to work (hah)... good luck everyone with your own Christmas knitting. :)

In your FACE, christmas knitting!!!!!

Look!!!!! What's that??? Mark one item off the christmas knitting list!!!! WOOO! Got my mom's scarf DONE.... look at that baby. Awesome. It only used one skein of Manos! So the other skein could maybe become a hat???? We will see.
Check out that sweet progress on my baby hat! Done with the green, and halfway with the yellow! I totally am going to have it done by Saturday. (yeah... I hope!)


Surprise! Remember these? Fetching! I had them done months ago... Its nice to have had one christmas thing done, but next year I need to do that with MORE... heh heh. Anyhoo, giving them a block so the top ends don't curl. I also stuck some highlighters in the thumb holes to try and help shape them.... weird, probably, but I thought it would work.




While I am on my blocking frenzy, I got mom's scarf blocking too!


I considerately pointed out my tools of the trade for blocking. ;-) It looks pretty good! Finished blocking dimensions are 4 1/2 inches by 58 1/2 inches. Perfect! Love that Manos del Uruguay yarn. If anyone else wants to make one, I just cast on 20 stitches and did k1, p1 ribbing. Thats it! Easy as... a scarf. Heh.

SO! Now to finish the baby hat, and if I am really crazy, do some more dishcloths or another pair of fetching. (But that's just nuts! :-))

Im alive!

Look! It's me! Knitting.... at lunch!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing. Thanks to Cynthia for the pic (she even posted it on her blog!). I am shown working on the manos scarf for dear ol' mom. It is going pretty fast. I just need to finish that... and oh RIGHT i have a baby hat im supposed to be working on... whoops! With only 8 days till the christmas party, I dont know if my cousin will be getting a handmade baby gift... but I haven't told anyone about it, so if I don't have it done, no big deal!

Christmas is coming... eek!

Christmas 06 Knitting Update

Well! The preemie blanket was a bust... somehow I had been mysteriously decreasing without knowing it, so I had to rip it... (because it was more of a trapezoid than a rectangle... heh). BUT: I got the scarf done for my coworker and gave it to her, she was very pleased! :) Woot.

On to more knitting - baby hat: still chugging along, abeit slowly.
(click for bigger)

And!!! Started the commissioned scarf for mom out of the beautiful Manos yarn:


It knits up so quickly, I LOVE IT! Look at that progress, just from yesterday!

OK kids, back to work, more later!

Overdue update!

Whew! OK well, sorry it's been awhile, but I have a lot of updates!!!!!
First off, I went to columbus last weekend to visit Jessica! I had a great time and got to experience what its like during OSU-MI football weekend (nuts!!!) Now THAT is a football rivalry. (P.s. IU lost to Purdue, ugh... oh well... stupid IU football). But as I was getting ready to leave, Jessica gave me some fun yarn:


Pretty purple chenille and some fun little ribbony-yarn that I might carry along with a nice blue yarn or something. :-) Thanks so much to jessica!!!! I might use the chenille to make a scarf for my friend megan!

OK, next: making another simple scarf from Lion Brand Homespun for a lady at work... she saw the one I made a few weeks ago for a work auction, tried to bid on it but lost.... so I said, hey - I can just make you one anyway! It is already about halfway done, since I am knitting it sideways:


I hope she likes it. :-) OK moving on... still working on my ND baby hat for my cousin's kid... I did two yellow stripes. I think it looks pretty cute. I also got a good start yesterday on a "preemie" blanket. A woman at work asked several of us knitters if we would make small 12-14 inch blankets for preemies at some hospital... so I grabbed a cute stitch out of my Barbara Walker book, and here it is: (using leftover Caron "Simply Soft" from my cousin's baby blanket)


OK, so! Spent a lot of time with the folks for Thanksgiving yesterday (and it was delicious).. but we all talked about knitting... and my dad mentioned he had a knit tie he liked, but it was too short. It is made of silk, and is definitely machine-made, but he asked if I could possibly knit a tie. I was like, .... sure? Haha. So then he got really excited and starting sketching out all these cool tie ideas and talking about colors, etc... it was cute. So today, mom and I hit the yarn store (WOO) and got a ton of yarn!!!!! Here is what we found for the tie (also pictured is the silk knit tie that dad already owned):


It's some "Silky Wool"... 65% Wool 35% Silk. He liked the blue and the gold colors, and we're thinking a mostly blue tie with thin gold stripes. We will see how I do!!!! (but who knows when I will get that started...) Dad even was talking about me knitting many ties, and then selling them... heh... now that would be a nice side job! ;-) (Note: mom paid for this yarn, hooray!)

Then I had to buy yet ANOTHER skein of Cascade 220 for my Harry Potter scarf.... whew! That thing is eating this stuff up! This is skein #4 of the red. BUT: this will be the last one I have to buy. Hooray!


Last but certainly not least, my mom picked out some BEAUTIFUL Manos del Uruguay in a pretty deep crimson color for a scarf I am commisioned to make for her. She even paid for the yarn!!! I am so excited to knit with this... I just need a pretty pattern. She said she wanted a thin scarf, maybe some sort of slightly lacy pattern? I was thinking of just using large needles to give it a "lacy look". We will see what we can come up with...


So much yarn!!!!!!!!! So many projects!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE IT! :-D

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving! :) Hooray for leftovers!

Never too poor for yarn....

OK first off: the ND baby hat for my cousin's little boy. Not going too shabbily now that I am on the nice long stockinette part (and on circulars instead of the dpns). :) I even have one stripe done!


It looks small now, but Cynthia warned me that it gets bigger off the needles... so I am confident it should turn out well! Can't wait to get to the halfway point and start knitting the "other side". (P.s. I like the Baby Ull yarn, but it still feels so tiny to me!)

Today I went to our LYS with Cynthia and Angela... and definitely spent more than I should have, lol. (should have spent NONE) But I got two skeins of Rowan Classic Cashsoft DK to make cute baby hats out of for yet ANOTHER cousin who has little kiddies... can't let any cousin feel left out!!!!


And what is in that brown paper bag behind the yarn????? It's a little present for my good friend Jessica, who I am going to visit this weekend and meet for the first time!!!! I am totally excited. I predict lots of knitting, video games, and drinking all weekend. I hope she likes me! ;-)

OK back to work....

Mood swings

OK so I decided to cast on for the baby hat. I sat down to watch the Office (best show ever!) while i knit. A half-hour later, when the show was over, i FINALLY had one row knit on the stupid hat. The picture below expresses my sentiments towards knitting at the moment of completion of that row:



See, knitting doesn't always relieve stress. Sometimes it causes it! After that, I quit for the night...

So today at lunch I got crackin' for a good hour, knitting away with these teeeny tiny needles.. (ok they feel teeny to me, even though i know there are smaller sizes!)... and I actually made some nice progress! Total 180 on my knitting mood, as you can see below:



I am definitely glad to have the beginning of this darn hat DONE. :-) So we will see how things go from here!

Quick and Dirty

Whatever could my title be referring to??? Nothing like that, all you sick-minded people! I'm talking about this quick scarf I made over the past 48 hours to give to a charity auction thing they are holding at work. (I love knitting scarves 'sideways'.. they go so fast!) Not that this is a particularly awesome scarf, but I wonder how much it will go for.... if someone pays 5 bucks, i would be amazed. (since I didnt exactly use fancy yarn... it's Lion Brand!)



The picture is kind of washed out, but it's a pretty charcoal-y grey/black. Like black yarn with white woven in. Or something. But I went with a plain scarf so it would go with the coat of whoever buys it. :-)

Still probably going to put fringe on it, cuz who doesnt love fringe?

Not much else going on, cept I am planning on starting a cute baby hat soon, from a pattern written by Cynthia. She rocks!

OK well, time to work. Hope everyone has a good wednesday!

i am a knitting machine

Gryffindor Scarf?

or... Kleenex box cozy???????????????



I am moving along nicely, just to the point where I am ready to start stripe #8. Woo!

pathetic progress and field trip(s)

OK so, the ol' Harry Potter scarf. I searched back in my blog, and found a picture i had taken of the scarf in May (2006). In that picture I had 5 sets of yellow stripes on that scarf. That was 5 months ago.

Here is the scarf as of noon today:



6 MEASLY STRIPES!!!!!! Wow, talk about lack of progress, eh? I just have to remind myself that during that time i made several other projects (blanket, scarf, etc)... so I can't feel too bad, but still! Wow. But I did have to get another ball of the cascade 220 in the reddish color, so off to the yarn store with cynthia and girls from work!!!!!!


oops, whats that other yarn? It was on sale! I HAD to get it (ha)... it is an alpaca/merino/acrylic blend... its very subtle and pretty. I am thinking I might make a lacy scarf with it. (ooh, yeah lace! haven't done that yet...)

Oh! and Cynthia and I took a field trip to the post office too... what for you ask? To mail off our squares for grandmother purl! Here I am filling out my postcard, with both of our squares sitting in front of me:


I wonder what all the other people at the post office thought of us crazy chicks taking pictures and running around with handknitted blanket squares. Oh well ;-)

OK i have been sickly all week (I heart nyquil/dayquil) so I am going to relax! Have a good weekend everyone. :)

WOW!!!!!

OMG so I found out that I have not ONE, but TWO extremely kind knitterly friends who both got me awesome birthday presents!

Number A, my knitting mentor Cynthia. She pulled a reversal on me, like one I did for her in the past.... she ordered me a present on Amazon and then had it delivered straight from them to me. When I did this to HER, and she found a package waiting at home, she thought, "Oh, I must have ordered this for myself and forgot that I did!" Later on it finally came out that I was the one who had ordered it, and she finally realized it was a gift ;-). With the present cynthia just gave me, it was delivered to my old address (my parents' house). My mom called me and was like, "You have a package here!". I didnt get around to picking it up from them for a day or so. During that day, I spent a lot of time trying to remember what the hell I ordered from amazon, and why it was sent to my parents house! LOL! So hey Cynthia, you got me back ;-). But without further ado, here is the present:

Woohoo!!! The yarn harlot's first book! You will have to excuse me for not stopping from reading it while taking the picture. This is so perfect, because I just bought myself her second book, and was thinking, man I really should have the first one too!!!!!!!!! so THANK YOU CYNTHIA so much! :-D You rock!

Number B: My newbie knitter friend Shawn. I had taught her to knit a few months ago, and she enjoyed it, but isnt quite as obsessed as I am becoming. :-) So last night when she showed up at my birthday party, she pulls out the most amazing present any knitter could ever ever wish to have:


YES - that is an ORIGINAL COPY of BARBARA WALKER's Treasury of Knitting Patterns.
Look at the date!!!!!!!!!!!


OMGOMGOMG! I knew she had this book, she had gotten it as a gift from her boyfriend's grandmother, and had shown it to me ( i was so jealous) and then she GIVES IT TO ME for a present, saying "you will get more use out of it than I will"...... WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I fondle the book lovingly:



WHAT A GREAT BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Also: I realized that I have a stash. For real. It totally snuck up on me. IM A REAL KNITTER NOW!!!!! Embarrasing picture of sneaky stash pile crammed into corner of bedroom to hide from my friends: (in plastic bags in a poor attempt at organization)

Knit - a- longs

OK so I have made ballband dishcloths, so i gotta add the Mason-Dixon Knitalong! And of course, the one for Grandmother Purl's blanket!

Just posting them here so i can use them for my sidebar. ;-)

Update on a blustery October evening

Yes folks, it is time to throw some more pictures out there of stuff I finished and havent shown you yet!

First, the blanket square for Grandmother Purl (unblocked):


And who can forget? The baby blanket that took 500 million months to finish! ta da:


It makes a decent shawl. Hmm maybe i should make another one.. NO! AHH!


To show off the two different sides of the blanket:


So yay! Not much else going on right now. Working on the Gryffindor scarf intermittently. Oh, a friend of mine from work started to teach me how to crochet... it was her birthday present to me! She bought me a skein of yarn and some crochet hooks. So far I can make a chain and do single and double crochet. Not too bad for one lesson! Now, if I can remember how to do it on my own... I figure it is good to learn for all those knitting patterns where they say "crochet on a border" or something like that. So far I still think knitting is cooler, as far as the look of the stitches when done. :-)

Oh, and I might have accidentally bought myself a little present on amazon.....


Can't wait to read this!!!!!!!!

Have a good wednesday evening, everyone dont forget to watch the Office on NBC tomorrow night (8:30), I am so mad I forgot last week! Best show ever!!!!!

Time flies.

Cast off the baby blanket. Finally! Ok it probably could stand to be longer, but I was really tired of knitting it. Plus I didnt want it to be too rectangular. ill get some pictures up later.

Also finished a basketweave square for Grandmother Purl's knit-a-long. Gotta get that sent off in the mail!

Now I am down to one WiP: the Gryffindor scarf. Kind of odd to only have one project going.... eek! Quick, better start something else. My first sweater? Another pair of fetching? Baby hat? Decisions Decisions.

Finished Object!!!!

Guess what I finished!





Unfortunately, I didnt get to make them from just one skein, I had to buy a second one friday. But they are done, and they dont look half bad! The bind off around the knuckes is curling a little, so I will probably try to block them lightly eventually. I am planning on giving these to my mom for Christmas. Whats that? I have one Christmas knitting object DONE IN SEPTEMBER???? Yeah, i rule. ;-)

SO anyway, last night was KICK ASS! I dont know if any of you faithful readers listen to a morning radio show called Bob & Tom, but they are hilarious and have many talented and hilarious comedians on their show. Last night I went to the "Friends of Bob & Tom" Comedy Show, and it was great! It was at the embassy downtown, very nice, and then afterwards I went to the bar (Buckets) where the comedians were planning on heading after the show, and we got to HANG OUT with them!!!! It was SO awesome, I mean, these guys are pretty famous. I was there with my friend Alicia and her friend Kelly, and I had made us all Tshirts that said "BIRBIGS" on the front with iron on letters. Birbigs is a nickname for one of the comedians, Mike Birbiglia. Anyway, all the guys (like 5 of them) were VERY nice and funny and totally sat at our table and talked to us, gave us drinks, etc. It was AWESOME! :-) Kelly had a digital camera, so I will post her good quality pictures she took when she emails them to me.


Kelly and Mike Birbiglia, haha.


OK, gonna go grab some dinner and watch the ND game, bye!

Remember this?

OK! The long promised "Adventure of Scarfy!" Remember the IHS I made? and gave to my father for his birthday? Well, he liked it so much, he decided to take pictures of the scarf during one of it's "typical days"....hahaha. My dad is hilarious. :-) Enjoy!


First: the scarf relaxes in the backyard, enjoying the nice weather:



Then the scarf relaxes in the living room for a bit:


On to the daily piano lesson! (Probably playing chopsticks)


A delicious snack of cheese-its while reading a good book:


Rocking out on the drums:


Better get a quick work out in!


And finally, watching a little tv to unwind.....


Hahaha... Thanks dad!

Tailgating at ND!

Look how close we were to the stadium! It was a really fun day, too bad ND lost so bad to Michigan, ugh.

OK this is the only pic that blogger is letting me upload, more later!