Yeah, so I actually made this quilt quite awhile ago but never really shared it. Since my latest posts have mostly been knitting, I’d thought it was time to share this one.
My friend Nicole had a baby girl in July and this is the quilt I made for her. It’s made from 2 charm packs and I grouped like colors together. I also did not over think the piecing or the layout. The quilting pattern is a bunch of little rectangles just free motioned across the entire top.
I love this one. It is so huge and so squishy it is like a blanket wrapped around my neck. If you recall, this is the project made with yarn I dyed myself back in November. It was slow going for awhile – those rows, man, they just got so long. And then I ran out of yarn. Twice. So if you look at mine versus the one on the pattern, mine definitely does not look the same.
We were out the other morning, and I asked my Seester to snap a photo of me and Miles in front of the colorful mural. She noticed that I matched the colors.
I enjoyed knitting this one. The pattern – Drachenfels – was well written. The yarn -Blue Faced Leicester sport weight – is nice and soft and warm and was a dream to knit. A shawl done up in sport weight yarn comes together pretty quickly. Details are on my Ravelry project page.
…not like a shawl knitted in sock weight yarn. Which brings me to my Daybreak. I started this back in March 2015, worked on it for awhile and then stuffed it away in my craft closet when I got too bored. A Ravelry challenge motivated me to just finish it. Details are on my Ravelry project page.
Welp. So much for these! They do not fit well on my foot, so I just ripped out what I’ve got so far and balled it all back up. Which is a shame really. I tried a short row toe, and when I say ‘try’ I mean I tried. Like a million times. I watched video after video to try to figure it out and must have started over half a million times. Except, I really like how the short row toe looks and fits… So I’m gonna have to go back and re-watch how to do it.
And then Bane thinks my Makers Tote is his new CatBed. I had just cleaned it out too, so he must think it is all for him now….
Photo heavy post! (I’ve had some time to go through my photos!)
I started the Tread Hat around Halloween. I am a big fan of the designer, Shannon Cook, and this pattern is in the book Within. My mom was visiting for awhile and she wanted to buy some yarn for a scarf. We went to Fancy Tiger and I picked out this Cormo Worsted by Sincere Sheep.
Mom had such a good time with us, walking Miles to/from school and then knitting and taking care of Cats during the day.
While I finished the actual knitting a few weeks ago, I was waiting for the arrival of the faux fur pompom. I stitched it down this morning. Love this hat. This is my first time knitting with Cormo and I really like the yarn. It is stiff yet soft. And I still have like half the skein left.
Meanwhile, I also spent time taking photos and weighing some of my leftover yarn. I catalogued them into Ravelry’s stash page. 
I’ve also made some significant progress on my Dragon Lady shawl. This is knitting up nicely, and the BFL yarn is lovely.
I’m actually using my Caravan Tote as intended – as a knitting project bag!
So, it’s been about a year since I last dyed yarn. Terribly unhappy with the color for the Iridium sweater, I thought I’d overdye it and see what happens. Sweater quantity of yarn is a LOT OF YARN, and I couldn’t just … toss it or give it away.
I was shooting for a navy-ish color, so I just used blue, with a little black mixed in. I weighed the yarn, and then calculated how much dyestock I’d need to get the shade I would want.
I threw the dye in the pot, gave it a quick stir and then dumped the yarn it. That ‘quick stir’ was a mistake. When you pour dyestock into a pot of water, it doesn’t mix. The color kind of suspends there, which can lead to some really great tonal colors, but I was aiming for a more consistent application of color than what I’ve got.
I also have some Blue Faced Leicester sport weight undyed yarn hanging out in my yarn stash. Drachenfels has been in my knitting queue for almost 2 years, and I bought this yarn to make one. I split the yarn – 70g, 125g and the rest 205g – and dyed it. I was aiming for pink but I added too much blue to the red and now I’ve got this light purple. Happy accident. I like the light purple. The two grays are made from the same dye, just a different ‘depths of shade’ – the light is at 0.5 DOS while the darker… well, I started at 0.75 DOS, but then I poured more dyestock into the pot. I don’t exactly know what DOS I ended up with. Either way, I’m in love with these!
… and of course it is another knitting project bag! Really, I don’t need anymore; I just like making them.
This is Noodlehead‘s Maker Tote. Love her patterns – I’ve made almost every one!
For the exterior, I had some leftover strips of Allison Glass fabric and I made lots and lots and lots of flying geese. I used a paper piece template (free over at Fresh Lemons) which made easy and accurate work.
I can’t decide which is my favorite – the sparkly gray used in the handles, binding or zipper tape or the hot pink wood grain lining or the cats I used for the pockets. I can’t decide.
“Uh, WUT?” You’re probably asking.
From the Ravelry Group Page
The Ravellenic Summer Games 2016
Dates: Friday, August 5 – Sunday, August 21The One Rule To Rule Them All: Challenge yourself by starting and finishing one or more projects during the 2016 Summer Olympics.
What will be a stretch for you? It could be a new technique, that first sweater or pair of socks, something massive, something delicate, or maybe finishing that monster in the closet. The goal of the Ravellenic Games is to support you in expanding your knitting/crocheting horizons.
I’ve mentioned it before, but Ravelry is like the best website for knitting/crocheting. Community driven, visually pleasing and an amazing resource – if you knit you should be on Ravelry. Every Olympics, a group starts up and thousands of people join in to ‘compete’ in different events. I’ve joined a team of knitting redditors called Team Upvotes. But truthfully, there’s no competition and you don’t need to join a team. The goal really is … whatever you want it to be. Though it is fun to participate in something that a whole bunch of people from all around the world are doing at the same time.
I think I’ve been a bit ambitious in my goals for the next two weeks. I’ve entered three “Events”
WIP (Work In Progress) Wrestling: Talia Take Two
WIP Wrestling: Strokkur I am seriously still only like 4 rows from completing this.
Sock Put: Another Hermione Every Day Sock
Sweater Triathlon: Blank Canvas I’ve had this yarn for over a year, with the intent to knit this sweater. The two yarns will be held together to create a pretty unique color. This event is a bit ambitious because, well, it’s a sweater.
I’m so way late on posting this – I worked on this mini last fall!
My randomly assigned partner likes biology mostly, and warm-ish palette and submitted a favorite science-y quote. I settled on making a mini-quilt of the quote, using paper-pieced alphabet patterns I bought from the etsy shop From Blank Pages I still have most of the jelly roll from the baby girl quilt I made in August, which matched the warm-ish colors that my partner favors.
This. Took. Forever.
There are like a million pieces and a million seams in these little letters. Ok. I exaggerate. But it felt like a million.
My partner, who lives in Texas, also likes to receive things from where I’m from, so I included a Bronco’s Mystery Lego Figure (I’m hoping she got Payton!) and a Colorado sticker. I also included some fabric mini charms (2.5″ squares) and an adult coloring book. Not exactly the sciency-theme, but I think she liked what I sent!
In turn, a different partner made these for me! A LOST themed mini quilt – which is amazing! 2 fat quarters (18″ x 22″) of this awesome math-geeky fabric, elephant poo note paper, decals and a needle book that glows in the dark! AWESOME.
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I’m a big fan of Shannon Cook. Even though she primarily designs knitting patterns, I’ve made more of her project bags than any of her knit stuff. (Like this but then I also made this.) I don’t exactly need anymore project bags, but I have fabric that needs to be used. The reversible project bag is a free tutorial on Shannon’s blog, and it came together pretty quickly.
I picked up this text fabric a few years ago and I probably had a bag in mind when I bought it. Who know what I was thinking when I bought it. Anyway, the tutorial recommends that you interface one layer. After putting this together, I think I used one that is a bit thicker than I should have. That’s why it looks kinda wrinkly in the photos.
Right now I’m using it to hold the knitted hexagons I started way back when.
And meet Bane. Our Bengal kitten. He’s been with us for a little over a month, and I am the primary caregiver. Well, I’m the only one home right now, so he only has me to hang out with. He follows me everywhere and it is adorable – until it is annoying, like when I’m trying to take photos.
Ok, so these two things did NOT happen on the same day, but I’m just now getting around to writing up this post.
I can tick off a laundry list of reasons as to why I haven’t knitted socks in the 6+ years I’ve been knitting.
– why knit them, when you can buy them so cheaply
– toes and heels intimidate me
– I have other things I want to knit
And well, I had a problem where I’d buy sock yarn because it was so pretty. Yet, I didn’t knit socks. I’d end up knitting a shawl, or attempting to knit a shawl with the yarn. *sigh* So I have this stash of sock yarn, and after finishing all those hats over Christmas, I cast on some socks.
The pattern is a free one on Ravelry called the Hermoine Everyday Socks. It was mostly knit stitches with a purl stitch thrown in a few times resulting in a cool texture. I used this greenish hand painted skein that I picked up while in Ohio for Christmas 2014. The toes, heels and cuffs are done up in gray. I like the look of it.
I’m not sure exactly why I chose to knit them toe-up vs cuff down, but that’s what I did. And to avoid the whole ‘turn the heel’ thing, I found a pattern called the Afterthought Heel. Which I followed and the pattern told me to use a strand of waste yarn as a placeholder for the heel.
I knitted up both socks and then added the heels at the end.
They look pretty good! They need a good soak, but man, they are pretty comfortable. And luxurious if I’m being honest. And I probably feel that way because of all the hand work that goes into knitting anything. These particular socks are good ‘TV knitting’ and I did spend most of my time watching the playoffs knitting these things.
