My Fiber Adventures!
I just got my blocking board in from Knit Picks (it’s fabulous by the way; highly suggest it to anyone) and I now have Sleepy Monkey blocking. Once I pinned it all down, the pattern and the colors really popped!
Never mind the mess around it. I have to do it in the office so I could close the door and keep the kitten out because she’ll destroy it and it’s really cramped in there.
I’ve had a fairly productive night tonight! I’ve got two completed projects that I took pictures of fresh off the needles. First is the Sleepy Monkey!
Please, don’t mind the wrinkliness of it. I haven’t blocked it yet since I just finished it. I think it came out gorgeous, and will be even better once it’s blocked. I’m totally in love with this baby blanket!
The second project is a Baby Kimono that I’m gifting in the very near future. I finally seamed it and got the ribbons sewn on.
How much use this is going to get, I don’t know. That’s what I hate about Miami. There’s so many cute things to knit, especially for babies, but it’s so freakin’ hot that it really isn’t going to get much use! We’ll see. Maybe we’ll have a colder than usual winter and the baby will get to use it more than once or twice.
I’m sure you noticed the Etsy banner on the top of this page. I’ve decided to revive my Etsy shop! I enjoy crafting just way too much, and sometimes just the joy of making things (even if it’s not something I’m going to use) is enough. Of course, that just leads to an overwhelming collection of crafted items laying around, so the etsy shop is back!
First, I finished the Impressionist Colorway spinning project, and honestly I love it! It’s 3-ply and about a sock weight yarn. It’s so soft, bouncy, and shiny! There’s 425 yards in this skein, so it could easily become a pair of socks!
Another one that I finished is Boot Cut Barbie. This one is 2-ply and also about sock weight with 346 yards to the skein. I love this one because the way the plying brought out a contrast of colors is just amazing to me! The barber poles are contrasts between the black and pink, khaki and lighter pink, khaki and black. It’s just too cool! This would knit up to a really interesting object, and it’s so smooshy!
A while back I decided to throw some fiber in my crock pot and play with how the dyes would take under certain conditions. What I came up with are these two rovings.
The blue one is called Falling Tears and the red is Bleeding Heart. The blue one has areas of darker blue and even purples, and the red, as you could see, is missing areas contrasted by darker reds, and both are superwash.
Honestly, I hate to see this any of this go, but I honestly don’t know what to do with it all, and I need the money. Grad school starts in a month and I could use the extra income. I also decided to play around with my sewing machine this weekend and some fabric that I had laying around and created these cute little bags.
![il_fullxfull.81920100[1]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3450/3761610459_bf09f8627b_m.jpg)
![il_fullxfull.81877062[1]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2605/3762411198_1d50d12791_m.jpg)
They’re the perfect size for a sock project! I kept one for myself. I also want to experiment with different bags to see what I could create and what I could come up with. That will come later.
There’s another single sitting on a bobbin that is just waiting to be plyed and I may just do that tonight or tomorrow, depending on how crazy my night turns out to be.
I’m amazed at everything I did because I did all this plying, spinning, sewing, and still managed to clean the house, do 3 loads of laundry, and cook a meal worthy of a king! I was a busy girl this weekend and am happy at how everything turned out. Let me know what you think!
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Now playing: Duran Duran – Ordinary World
via FoxyTunes
As you can tell, I changed the look of my blog. I’m still going to tweek it some, but for now, this’ll do.
I finished some socks! Actually, I finished two pairs of socks! Firstly, I finally finished the Summer of Love Socks. These fit nice, and they’re cute little socks to wear around, especially with a pair of Mary Janes. I don’t know why it took me so long, because in truth they’re incredibly easy to knit up, and they don’t take very long. The longest part is the lace, and after that it’s a breeze.
Even though these are super easy socks, I messed them up. As you can see from the one on the right, the toe is not quite right, but in truth, I don’t care. I only ever show off my socks when they’re in shoes, so nobody’s going to see that I messed that u, so please don’t look at this sock. If I get frustrated enough later, I’ll redo the toe, but I redid this toe about 3 times and still messed it up. The error was totally my error and my not paying attention to what I was doing with the stitches.
Another pair of socks I finished were the Leafling socks. These socks were fabulous to knit! I can’t explain to you guys what a dream these socks were. Firstly, I usually don’t like knitting cuff to toe because I like to be able to try on socks as I go and I’ve found that knitting toe up is easier for trying on purposes. You get a true feel for how it’ll fit that way, but once I cast these on, I could not stop! The pattern is awesome, the way the heel was knit is awesome! I truly liked how easy the heel was to knit, without the dreaded picking up of the stitches along the gusset, nor the short row heel that always leaves extra space so it gets all poofy in shoes. I had none of that with these socks! Love them! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THEM! I’m probably going to knit a whole army of these with some of the other yarns I have laying around the house that I really should start using up instead of buying more yarn.
Here’s a quick close up of this sock. This ridge was made with a series of k2tog and picking up stitches, and because of these methods, you get a great ridge in the middle, and great little bumps that makes the leaves. It took me about a week to two weeks to finish these because it was one of those knits that you wanted to find out how it was all going to work. Since it was a technique I’d never used, getting to the next portion of the sock was a fun and exciting thing.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged much of anything, but that’s what happens when you’re a full-time stepMOM, when you’re a full-time student, and when you do everything that I do in a day, which I really don’t understand how I get everything done. My last knitting related post I asked you all a question regarding this fabulous yarn I’ve had sitting around the house for practically a year. I decided to use it. I’m turning it into a Lace Leaf Shawl from the Evelyn Clark Knitting Lace Triangles book. I know this picture of it is HORRIBLE beyond words, but I took it with my phone real quick. I’ll have to take another picture a little later showing the actual lace and how it’s coming out. I think since the pattern is a simple leaf motif that it’s coming out nice, but I would love a critique. If you think the lace is getting lost because of the colors, let me know.
Lastly, I know you can’t really see it in the picture of the shawl, but I was finally able to pick up something that I’ve always wanted! Let me introduce MY NEW NEEDLES! I’ve been wanting this set for a long time now, and I finally had a little extra money to be able to afford the set. Oh.my.Goddess are these needles sweet! They’re pretty, they’re sharp, they don’t snag, and I actually think these are faster than my Addi’s. These needles are FABULOUS beyond words!
I would like to leave you all with my Cocoa and I having a quick conversation. I promised some of the girls from my Stitch n’ Bitch that I would record and show her talking to me, so I thought I would share with you all. Hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think of the new look .
This is just a quick note showing off my newly finished wrist warmers for my freezing cold office. I’ve been able to use them at the office, and figured I would show them offa t work. This was knit with my handspun. It was fiber purchased from the Loopy Ewe, and is from Sakina Needles. I love, love, LOVE this fiber. It’s uber soft BFL, is nice and warm, and considering my handa and feet are my bodily thermostats, these wrist warmers are keeping the rest of me warm while in the office. So check out my one-by-one pictures (took a stealth picture from work so I couldn’t take both hands at the same time) of these guys. The stripping doesn’t match, but I wanted the randomness.
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