No knitting to post, sorry

I can't post any of my knitting pictures, but trust me they're good! Unfortunately they are all of Christmas presents and the only people who actually read my blog are people who are getting knit Christmas presents from me and I can't ruin the surprises! So, here's a picture of the pups being very ambiguously gay!!

Pup picture

I forgot to post this a minute ago. It's just a picture of my pups cuddling on the couch.
How adorable are they?!

Holiday knitting begins

I said I wasn't going to do any holiday knitting, but now that I've been working from home I seem to have an extra few hours every day (the time I would have been commuting). So, I'm going to knit as much as I can for the holidays. I started with some washclothes and then I will make homemade soap. This will go to the women in my boy's family, my cousins, my aunt, and my grandma.

I know this is a horrible picture. It's the only way I could show some of the pattern. It's supposed to be a leaf pattern. And an i-cord is woven through the top row of holes to hold the soap in. I've got 3 done and I need 8, I think.

Next I started on a bag for my niece. She loves pink. I made the pattern up as I went and thought it was just going to be a purse, but I had enough yarn that I decided it should be a messenger bag. I don't know if it will fit her as a messenger bag, but it barely fits around me so I think it will fit her fine. Here's a couple pre-felting pictures:

It's knit using Paton's Classic Wool and an embellishment pack of ribbons from my sister's local yarn shop, Wild and Woolly Wools. If you're ever on Long Island, you have to stop in. The owner is a hoot and she has a great selection of quality yarns. Anyway, here's a picture of it felted:I haven't decided yet if I should trim the ribbon or not. I think I'll leave it long and leave the decision up to my niece. It's cute though and the fabric is really thick and sturdy and hopefully it will last a while.

I took a trip to my local yarn shop, Knitting Sisters, today to get some needles to make another Christmas present and another ball of yarn. I so don't need it, but it was what they called for in the pattern and I didn't have a substitute in my stash, imagine that! It was a fun trip and I was actually amazed at how little I felt like I HAD to have. I think my stash is becoming overwhelming, I have to start using it up!

Charity auction craziness

I don't have any pictures to post. I know, what fun is a blog posting with no pictures. Well, i will point you in the direction of a blog with lots of pictures:

Jasmine Trust Charity Auction

I've been working on putting together a website for an auction to benefit the Jasmine Trust. Peopl ehave donated so much stuff for the auction. I personally have my eye on a piece of jewelry and a hat.

I'm in full out Christmas knitting mode. I told myself I wasn't going to knit this Christmas, being that I'm attempting to finish my doctoral degree, but who knows when that will actually happen. But, I'm making little knit washclothes and then I'm going to make some handmade soap to put in them and that will be all the girl presents (well most of them at least). I'll actually have to shop for the boys. Unfortunately the number of boys I have to shop for has increased dramatically when I married my boy. He's got his dad and 3, yes 3, brothers. Gift certificates for the lot of them! They don't care anyway and I don't have the time to go shopping.

My niece will be getting a special present this year. I'm knitting her a pink bag that will be felted. It should be pretty cool cause I'm adding ribbon as I knit, we'll just have to wait and see what that will look like felted. I'm also thinking of doing a few other special knitted items for Christmas, but I'm waiting for yarn and needles that were ordered online before I can decide if I have time for them.

Pictures of my washclothes and my nieces bag will be up soon.

Two color mittens done and gorgeous!

I actually finished the mittens that my mom and sisters got me the kit for. And they fit! I did them quickly thinking I would need them since the dogs just played tug of war with my store-bought gloves, but the temperatures are supposed to be in the upper 60s/low 70s all week. Then a big temperature drop down to the 50s! I'm going to wear them everywhere!

Yarn: 100% alpaca from Kilblaan Farm, NH

Needles: 11 and 13US

Pattern: Christina's mittens (kit from Kilblaan Farm)

I'm going to try to make a pair of small child's mittens with the rest of the yarn and put it in the auction. I don't think I'll have enough yarn to do that, we'll see.

2 colors, what fun!

First off, here's some pictures of finished projects that I just seem to forget posting. The felted bag:Yarn: Paton's SWS
Pattern: an original Buli design!
Needles: Size 10.5
Knitted for: the annual charity auction to benefit the Jasmine Charitable Trust
Yarn: Mango Moon alpaca
Pattern: Clapotis from Knitty.com
Needles: I don't remember, but I think 9
Knitted for: the charity auction

And the completed puppy quilt. I'm still not sure about the yellow binding, but it does keep with the outrageously loud color scheme for this quilt. Now if my neighbor will just have her baby already!! Although I still have to make a label, maybe the little boy will hold out for that. Amazingly, this quilt was finished before her due date, which is this Sunday. I think that's the first and last time that will ever happen! Fabric: all cotton (of course!) - most from my mom's fabric stash (Thanks Mom!)
Pattern: ripped off from a quilt given to my brother when he was a baby
Sewn for: My neighbor's soon to be new born son.

I've been having tons of fun today with my first ever attempt at fair isle knitting (using more than one color, 2 in my case). This is a kit my mom and sisters got for me at a fiber festival in NH. The yarn is an amazingly soft alpaca. It feels like there is lotion in the yarn, I love it! The only problem is there were lots of places in the skein where they tied the yarn together. I untied the knots (since they were barely holding together) and now I have a million ends to weave in. I guess it will just make the gloves thicker and warmer. I can't wait to finish it! A potential problem is that I didn't do a gauge swatch. It uses 2 different size needles and the pattern didn't state which size needle the gauge is for. I'm just going with the suggested needle size and seeing what happens. I've got pretty normal size hands and I'm usually spot on with the gauge with the suggested needle size, it shouldn't be a problem.

Next up:
-Finish the fair isle mittens - shouldn't take long with it being so much fun
-Work on some holiday knitting
-A sweater for Josh. I forgot to take pictures of the yarn, but it came in yesterday and I can't wait to start his baseball sweater. He's gonna love it! Hopefully I'll get it done by next winter, but who knows!

Puppy quilt

I've made some major progress on the puppy quilt, but I'm at a standstill. I'm posting some pictures so I can get feedback from my mom on what to do about a sashing. First off, here's the blocks all done:

And here are some blocks with a black sashing:

And here are some blocks with a green sashing:
So, what do you think?

My stash and a mouse

I made a silken braid catnip mouse. I don't know the link to the pattern since my friend Erica e-mailed me the pattern. It's got a great cable on the back and there is just one seam right up the belly. The ears are knitted right in and they're not sewn on later, it's great!!

My sister requested some pictures of my stash, so here we go!
There's some Patons SWS, some random skeins of baby homespun, some wool that my sister got me from a yarn store in New Hampshire, knit picks alpaca yarn for a shawl, a pink embellishment kit for a felted bag I'm going to make for my neice, some white brushed alpaca that I'm going to make a cowl out of, and what's left of the Mango moon alpaca that I used to make the clapotis and I'll use to make another clapotis.

Here we have cream Lamb's Pride that's leftover from a seaman's scarf I made for my husband, some gorgeous blue, green, and purple sock yarn, leftover woolease from hats, patons divine, Lopi leftover from the cardigan Erica made me hopefully I'll be able to make the matching hat one of these days, Lion cotton for dishcloths, and the beginnings of a hat and scarf that will be torn out and made into something way better.
This is pink woolease that will be a dog sweater for little Lizzy, Angelina (brown and white) that's super soft and will probably be a shawl or cowl or something, funky festival yarn that I have no idea what I'm going to do with, silky tweed that I want to make a hat out of, and sockatta sock yarn in a tweed blue and green, and more Patons divine.
Noro blue, green, and purple yarn, grey wool that someone else was getting rid of while clearing out their stash, grey New Zealand wool that I got while in NZ but haven't found the perfect project for yet, and green and orange manos.

Most things I have multiple skeins of so my stash is much bigger than what is in the pictures. I'm working on using up some of it. I really want to start a sweater for Josh but I'd have to buy $100+ more yarn and I should probably not do that until I have more room to store it.

Still working on the puppy quilt and VERY slowly making progress, but it's hard to do at night when I'm tired. OK, off to bathe the pups!!

Things are actually getting done!

I finished 2 whole projects this weekend. Things have a way of getting done when housework is ignored and a nice nor'easter is blowing through. I finally wove in the ends of the clapotis and started blocking it:
I also finished the SWS bag and felted it. It's blocking now and nearly dry. Here it is pre-felting.

And here it is blocking:

And detail of the fabric:

It turned out fantastic. I'm a little sorry to auction it off, but then again I can always make another and the money will go to a GREAT cause. I'm also putting up the clapotis for auction. I'm planning on making one of those for myself too. I've got enough of each type of yarn left to make both for myself.

And last but not least, I've finished blocks 3 and 4 of the puppy quilt. Yet again, it's turning out fantastic!
Happy crafting to all!

Clapotis done. . . almost

First off, here is a picture of the beginnings of my SWS bag. This is the bottom, cool colors!

This is the bottom and the beginning of the side. I definitely made it too small. I'm going to felt it and maybe someone will buy it from our auction for a child's gift. I think I'm going to try a buttonhole bag. My sister made me one and I love it.
Now onto the clapotis! I'm done with the knitting! I still need to weave in some ends and block it though. So, here it is:The colors don't look quite right in the picture. It's striped with dark brown, grey, and light brown but half the time the light brown is replaced with white. Here's the stitch detail.

Here's what it looks like when it's draped over something. It really curls up on itself, which is why it really needs to be blocked.

That's it for me now. I'm going to block my clapotis soon, but probably not tonight, I'm too tired. I think I'll work on my puppy quilt a little or maybe the SWS bag. More pictures another time.

Whew!

Thank goodness for Erica!!! She saved my clapotis! After the "incident" with the dogs, Erica came over and put the scarf back on needles for me. I've done a few repeats of the straight section and have dropped 2 or 3 stitches so far and it looks good.

I also started to knit with the Patons SWS yarn. I'm going to felt a bag with it. Right now I'm just doing a rectangular garter stitch bottom and then I'll pick up stitches around the rectangle and stockinette stitch til it's as big as I want. This is the first time I'm not really following a pattern, we'll see how it goes. I'll post some pictures in the next few days.

On the quilting side of my crafty life. . . I've started working on a rag quilt again that I put aside a while ago. It was going to be for my husband, but then my mom made us a beautiful rag quilt that he loves, so there's no need for me to make another one. This one will be donated to the auction that my knitting group holds around the holidays. I've got quite a few blocks ready to be joined. I haven't decided how big it should be. I'll see how far the blocks that I've already cut will take me. I was planning on making it huge since my husband is 6 feet tall and doesn't like short blankets, but now I'm thinking of making it a lap blanket.

More later, hopefully, I've been pretty lazy at home so we'll see if I get pictures taken and posted.

Puuuuuups!!!

My pups are now officially monsters!!! I made the horrible mistake of leaving my 100% alpaca yarn and partially knit clapotis in a bag in the den while my dogs were both in a bit of a frenzy (there were tons of squirrels outside and lots of garbage trucks. . . one loves squirrels, the other is terrified of trucks). This is the result:

They chewed the remaining needle (the other one has been lost in the backyard after they ran around with it), all 5 of the double pointed needles, and the instructions. My friend Erica is going to help me salvage it. The good news is it didn't unravel since part of the needle is still in the stitches. The really bad news is that if you look at the upper right of the scarf, the yarn has been torn!

On a happier note, here is my first knit-a-long dishcloth. I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It's a cool little pyramid, diamond thing. I can't wait for next months. I got some yellow yarn since my kitchen is mostly green and yellow towels and mats.

I went to Michaels today to get some replacement needles (metal this time!) and I found this cool yarn. It's so soft! Patons SWS (soy with stripes). It's wool and soy. It supposedly felts well. I think it will look great as a felted bag. So much for not buying any more yarn for a while!

Lots of Projects II

Ok, this thing is much faster now!

Here's my clapotis with 5 dropped stitches. Isn't it gorgeous! I can't wait to block it. I thought it was all over when my dogs decided to run around the yard, one with the ball, one with the scarf. But luckily only 3 stitched dropped off the needle and I think that I fixed it well enough. I guess we'll see in a few more rows. I did lose one of my needles in the yard, but I had double points in the same size and could use one of those with the handy yello sock on the end to keep the stitches from falling off. I may jinx myself, but I think that this is going to be a fast project!

Now onto my craft room. I wish I had taken some before pictures. I couldn't see my sewing machine and there were boxes of non-craft things all over the place. My craft room is a small addition to the house that I took over from my husband, who was using it as a computer room. This side is my quilting side. There is a book case filled with fabric and notions. I haven't decided what to do with the small cubbies. They were going to go on top of the cubbies on the other side, but it's not stable enough and would probably fall on the pups if they knocked into it.

Here is the sewing center. There is still some non-craft stuff (the big box on the left and the file cabinet on the right). It still needs a little work. I could also use a much sturdier sewing table, maybe in our next house!

Here is the knitting/quilting side. The built in shelves (on the left) have quilting and knitting notions and some work stuff. the cubbies on the right have fabric boxes that pull all the way out and are filled with yarn!! All my works in progress are kept on top of the cubbies. There's also all the prints that my husband and I had professionally framed and never got a chance to hang before he left for Iraq. That's ok, we'll find a place for them int he new house. No point in putting more holes in the wall at this point. And now for something completely different! My new pup, Trapper, is obsessed with playing fetch. Every once in a while he sneaks a ball in the house. Yesterday he snuck a ball in and then fell asleep with the ball in his mouth. I didn't ge tthe camera in time to get a picture of him sleeping with the ball in his mouth, but I got one of him snuggling up next to the ball. He's so cute!

Lots of Projects

Blogger is pretty slow right now and I'm having trouble posting my pictures, so this will be a multi-post day.

Here's a picture of the first few blocks for a quilt I'm making for my neighbor. The one on the left isn't finished yet. My neighbor's having a little boy and she's due the end of October. We probably would have never gotten to know each other if it wasn't for our dogs, who love each other! So I thought it was rather fitting to make a puppy quilt. It doesn't go at all with the decor of their room (light green and classic pooh) but that's ok, it can be a quilt to use anywhere but the nursery! I think it's turning out great. I'm doing 6 puppy blocks and then 6 four patches using the same bright colors.


Hopefully I'll be able to post about the clapotis and my craft room later. I'm taking the dogs for a walk now so it will have to be later today.

Beginning Clapotis

Ok, so I haven't posted in a very long time. I've been very busy though. I'm working on my dissertation, which honestly doesn't take up much time as compared to our pups. They are a handful and require a whole lot of exercise and attention. I love em though and they're keeping me occupied while my husband is over in Iraq.

I've been slowly working on my first pair of socks. I turned the heel and everything and now I've got to do like 6 or 7 inces of straight knitting and it's pretty boring, so it's being put on the back burner. And it's only the first sock! It's going to take forever.

I got some new yarn though and just had to make something with it. My sister suggested the Clapotis pattern from Knitty and I think it's looking real good so far. I'm using 100% alpaca. It's all natural, undyed yarn in three colors that are spun together. I love it!! I did one one repeat of section 2 and I'm not sure how many I will do of section 3. It's going really quick though. I'm glad I'm doing the smaller scarf size one, other wise the stripes wouldn't be so nice. It would probably go half a row before changing color. I've dropped 2 stitches so far and it looks pretty good. My sister's looked real good without blocking, but mine will definitely need to be blocked.

Here's a detail of the stitches and dropped stitches. It will look much better when it's blocked and the dropped stitches will be straighter.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some real progress to post soon!

I finished a project and have nothing on my needles!!!

I know, how could this ever happen. . . what kind of knitter am I to not have anything going on. Well, I blame it on a very difficult pattern. The scarf has been scrapped yet again and I'm going to try again with a new pattern that will hopefully look very similar but isn't so difficult. The pattern wasn't really that bad, there was just a weird part involving a yarn over, a slipped stitch, and passing that slipped stitch over. It was very hard to tell the yarn over from the slipped stitch when it came time to psso. So, I will start it again and it will be my next project. My new dog is keeping me very very busy though. He's a little (well, big. . . he's 60 pounds) fireball and is absolutely obsessed with tennis balls. Right now he's running 4 miles a day and walking another 4 miles, plus playing fetch all the other spare time of the day. Unfortunately, I don't have a treadmill so I'm also getting 8 miles of exercise.

So, some finished projects. Here is a picture of the bunny that I made and gave to the dog (I really didn't like the way it came out!)

Her is the sweater for my niece. It took me long enough, didn't it? It's very big and I hope it looks good on her. There's a hood and a pocket. Besides the enormity of it, I think that it turned out pretty good. It will probably fit her well into her teen years. Although hot pink may not be a part of her wardrobe much longer. I think I feel confident enough to move onto a big sweater. I think I'm going to make one for my hubby for when he gets back from his deployment. I just have to find the perfect pattern and buy a whole bunch of yarn (there goes my promise not to buy yarn until I use up what I have in my stash!!)

Here's a picture of my pups. The dark one (Cooper) we've had for almost a year, the white one (Trapper) we got one week ago today. They're already best buds and Trapper is fitting in just great!!

The dog ate my homework

Well, not really, but he did eat a few other things! I made a bunny stuffed animal and it looked absolutely horrible because I didn't measure it correctly before sewing and the head was tiny and the butt was huge. So I gave it to the dog. He immediately pulled the tail off then didn't touch it again for a few days. Now it's one of his favorite toys and he's always got it in his mouth when I come home from work. He was a little troublesome this morning though. I left him at home when I went for a run and he wasn't happy about that. He has knee surgery 2 months ago and still gets mad when I leave him home when I go running. One more month and he'll be able to join me again. Anyway, when I got back home the yarn for the scarf I'm working on was stretched across the den, through the kitchen, and into the sitting room. Luckily he didn't manage to pull any stitches off the needle!!

So, I've ALMOST got one sleeve done of my neice's sweater. The thing is going to be so huge!! I also started the scarf for the 3rd time. Hopefully 4th time is a charm! I somehow managed to lose the instructions though. I had them scribbled on a piece of paper that I was able to find, but the original pattern has disappeared into a black hole somewhere. I'm sure I'll find it the day after I finish the scarf. I think that's all I'm working on at the moment. I'm hoping to work on a baby blanket for my neighbor while I'm in NY at a conference and visiting my family.

The neverending blanket

The neverending blanket has finally been finished!! It took forever and I'm never making another blanket like this!! It came out very pretty and it's a nice lacey pattern, but I'm never making another thing so big on such small needles.


Yarn: Bernat Coordinates
Needles: Size 7US
Pattern: Baby Chevron Afghan, on Bernat label

Here's a picture of the blanket all packaged up and ready to be mailed. The baby shower is on Saturday and it's Wednesday right now. It should get in the mail today (if I ever get changed out of my pajamas) and it MAY make it there for the shower. I can only hope.

I also finished the seaman scarf for my husband, but didn't take a picture yet. I'll get it up eventually.

So, my projects that are on the needles now:
Pullover for my niece (I just messed up the sleeve, so it will probably go even slower now)
Bunny (a pattern from my sister to make a little bunny from a square, it will be an accompanying animal for an auction baby blanket)
Scarf (well, it was on the needles until I messed up the pattern for the millionith time, I just unravelled it and now the bunny is on those needles so it will have to wait a little bit)

I've also got a few random things in the craft room. I have a sock started and some washcloths and I think an ugly scarf, obviously not all that interesting since I haven't worked on them in a very long time.

Some pictures of my projects

I finally remembered and had time to download my photos I took a week ago. Here is the scarf I'm making for my hubby, more than halfway done! I'll have it done by next year since it's a little too hot now.
Now for the baby blanket that will never be a whole blanket. It is getting very boring since it's the same 4 rows over and over and over again. But, I've managed to finish the first skein of green and now I'm starting the second skein, which is white. Then I have one more skein after that, a yellow one.
Here's the detail of the pattern. I did mess up a little, but of course I didn't take a picture of that part!!