AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

last knits of 2010

I didn't finish that many knits this year, but I did finally make two projects by Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochiland. I gave them at a New Year's party/birthday party (hot dang, multitasking) this weekend. It was fun to end the year with a cute, fun project for a pair of people that really appreciate their gifts (you know the people who aren't fun to give knitting to, so I appreciate those expressive people all the more).

The first one I knit was Squirrels on Wheels (ravelry link).

Knit out of Tahki Cotton Classic (leftovers from the stash), please do not mind the super perky tail or the misaligned wheels. He could use a trip to the shop, but only if it doesn't interfere with his racing career!

I started this one before I found safety eyes. For those local in Boston, there are safety eyes at Windsor Button. The ones I eventually bought were under $2 for 8 eyes.

The wheels are detailed with leftover pink sock yarn, making this a very stash friendly project. Aren't those the best kind?

My next project was much less stash focused. I don't normally have that much cotton yarn in stock, so I went back to Windsor Button and found some cotton yarn... pink, white and black. I also bought the safety eyes.

About safety eyes. Double, heck triple check your eye placement before you put the second piece on. Once they are together they are locked in place and at least with my equipment could not be separated. I needed to frog the nose and reknit it with an extra few rows to prevent the super stubby face look.

The second project was Pigs with Wigs (ravelry link).

The sparkliest beehive goes to Ms. Pig with Wig, who was trying to channel both her inner Miss Piggy and her Audrey Hepburn.

I used size 6 seed beads in two sparkly shades of pink and a single shade of white. I randomly added them in, trying to make sure that I wasn't creating a pattern (no columns or diagonals).

The curls had additional size 11 seed beads strung on perle cotton and knit along. I didn't try to force the beads to the front of the knitting on the curls, and it worked pretty well.

I probably should have placed the front legs further back. It is pretty hard to tie the wig on in front of the legs, so most of the time I imagine the wig will be tied around the torso.

I actually used some leftover yarn to try and help mark where to place the legs. It helped to do the front legs as a pair, marking two diagonal lines with yarn so I could place the legs at a similar angle.

I did the back legs the same way, except I also used some of the yarn to try and make sure the back legs were aligned with the front legs.

These were both a ton of finishing work, but they are worth it. With something like this, the finishing work is the difference between a shape that might be a toy and something with personality.

The perfect couple.

FO!!! (Le Slouch is better than emergency backup hat)

Le Slouch.  I love it.  I've worn it almost every day since I finished it.

Particulars:
2 balls (just over 1 ball actually) of Harris DK. 
Size 6 seed beads, about 100.
Size 5/6 needles.

Modifications:
I rejiggered the numbers for my finer yarn, slid about 100 beads onto the yarn and knit the ribbing in the twisted rib.  It took a little longer to knit because I was constantly pushing the beads further down the yarn, and because I'm just slow (I needed a second ball of yarn, so things were at a standstill for a day or so, then I forgot dpns, etc.). 

I wore the hat nearly all day at put in, and for all that it looks like it would fall off all the time it only threatened to come off when I tipped my head all the way back to look for screws coming through the flat.  Not bad at all.  And not bad for a hat made in under a week.  I wouldn't look to this hat to keep me warm in the dead of winter, but for Monday's temperatures (low 50s? in December) it is fine.  It's really a hat for when I want to feel pretty, for the grey slushy days and their ilk. 

Another picture so the beads will show up better.

I really do love this hat, though I know I should have checked in the mirror to see how far back I was wearing it before my hubby snapped the pictures. 

Other than put in, I did a lot of other things over the holiday weekend.  Cooking (thank goodness for friends who will eat my mistakes), sewing, and working on some of my older FOs in an attempt not to work on socks over the weekend.

Of course, that was the weekend.  During the week, it is rehearsal and sock knitting during my commute, over lunch, while I am eating, and any other time I can cram a bit of it in.  I'm almost done sock 3 of 4 for my mother-in-law, so I want to get cracking (also because the scarf for my father-in-law will take at least 2 weeks, probably more).  There are just not enough knitting days until Christmas!

counting my knitting hours

I didn't get anything I wanted to finish done over the weekend.  Not too surprising.  I am in the slog part of the rehearsal schedule, and all I wanted to do this weekend was sleep. 

What I did was work on my hat.  It's waiting for me to get home and finish up the decreases with double points, as it is getting a wee too spread out on my circular.

What I didn't do was work on the socks or on my sweater.  Heck, I stuck my backpack (aka, roaming boredom survival kit) in the closet and really didn't pull it out all weekend.  With that, I ignored the deadline knitting.  I ignored the random crochet project I started, and I just sat down with a skein of yarn and some beads. 

Now, I am working on Le Slouch, which is a reasonably fast project.  About 200 yards worth of yarn-y goodness, made into a much slower project by the introduction of beads.  I favor Grumperina's method of stringing beads, but that does make for a much slower project as you slide beads down on a relatively frequent basis.  I would be done, except no dpns.  C'est la vie.  I will be able to wear it tomorrow or Thursday if I get lucky enough to have some extra knitting time.

Otherwise, it probably won't be until Monday.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays (it's a cook's holiday), and there will be cooking Wednesday and Thursday (I started Monday morning with crack of dawn cookie fiesta).  I will be sewing sashes for Pirates on Friday, and probably helping with Light Hang on Saturday.  Put in is Sunday.  The hours at the end of a show get compressed, each one becoming correspondingly more valuable.  We are at that stage.  I will get to surface again in mid-December.

Sometimes the simplest pieces take the longest

I was at Lush Beads a few weeks ago (she was having a mega sale).  I bought a lot of seed beads, some findings, a spider pin, and some of the last chance goodies.  I also bought this gorgeous glass bead, shaped like a petal.  It has the colors and patterning that reminds me of iris.  I wanted it, but I didn't have the foggiest idea of what to do with it.  So I got some of the satin rattail cord and foldover ends (and more findings) and when I was home I did my best to put the necklace together.

Let's just say that I have one severely mangled foldover end and I needed to order another bag.  So, I eventually got off my butt and sent her some money via paypal and said please oh please send me this and while I am at it this and this too.  Shortly they arrived and now I have a necklace.  A nice shiny necklace that doesn't photograph well.

Like I said.  Shiny.

I love this necklace.  I cut the rattail a trifle too long, so I need to wear it with my more V necked tops but it makes me feel pretty and feminine (which aren't always the same thing) on days when I need it.  The necklace reminds me of spring and crocus and iris and the word purple. 

I will probably make more necklaces like these.  They are very simple, but some beads are beautiful or interesting enough that anything more complicated than this just needlessly distracts from the piece.  I mean, this bead is more like art than just a piece of glass even though part of me is tempted to take a sewing thread and add a tiny amount of seed beads to the cord itself.

OEP*

Earlier this week when I was looking for something else I found a gift card for AC Moore.  I used to love AC Moore.  I lived at two separate times about a 30-40 minute walk away, a distance I found perfectly acceptable distance to travel when I didn't feel up to taking the bus.

The closest AC Moore to me now is in Dedham, and I steadfastly refuse to go there via public transit.  It appears that there are two buses, but they leave from Forest Hills.  I don't want to go from Braintree (the end of the Red Line) to Forest Hills (end of the Orange Line) only to hop on a bus for a craft store, even a good one.  That is what shopping with friends or online is for after all.  So, instead I bribed my hubby to drive out there. 

Of course, the day after Black Friday is no better a day to be out than Black Friday itself.  I wandered through the GameStop, which was bad because I reaffirmed that there were four or five games that I might still want in January.  But first there was AC Moore.

I don't remember going to the AC Moore in Somerville during the holiday season.  Maybe I was brighter then.  But I went into the AC Moore which had more pine and potpourri scents than I could truly stand.  Despite that I managed to mostly ninja my way through the store and find the beads and findings section.  I was looking for bead caps to use on the ends of some of my knitted wreaths as an attractive way to finish them off without doing a 3 hour bail. 

I also managed to find something for the Yankee Swap.  Last year I wanted to get one of the giant remotes for the swap, but there wasn't one in the area when I finally got around to getting the gift.  Of course, I have let too many people know about the remote as a perfect Yankee Swap gift (for when the $ limit is about 10 bucks) to get it this year, so I found something else that with the 40% off coupon was just outside the price limit.

Now I'm going back to squares.  I haven't gotten nearly as far today as I did yesterday.  I blame the nap, because I did about the same amount of stuff each day but I still haven't learned to knit in my sleep.

*This is for my hubby who reads the blog but claims not to understand most of what I write. 

When is there enough progress for a progress picture?

I signed up for the holiday bazaar yesterday, which means it is now Go time (and that green is probably not quite the right choice, but green for go right?). 

Go time means full speed ahead on the blanket.  No news there.  Go time means pulling out the beads and seeing if I remember how to do the peyote stitch.  I can go up to Lush Beads and ask L, but I'm pretty sure I remember.  Go time means knitting as much for speed as for pleasure. 

Go time means pictures.

These pictures:

The crocheted beaded wreath is really easy to work up.  I have other similar ideas and a lot of spools of wire that I bought either earlier this year or late last year.  The iCord braided wreath isn't hard to work up either, but it is much more time consuming.  The peyote stitch bail took me most of 2 football games (the standard time unit of the fall) for maybe 3 square inches of beading.  Of course, the reds are hard to photograph, so the stitch definition is completely missing.

I have one more of the knitted wreaths waiting for its decoration and probably a half dozen more crocheted wreaths I can do before the beginning of December.

(and just to be clear, I worked on these because I ran out of yarn for the baby blanket with about 12 rows left to knit - I'm going to pick up more yarn today.)

transferral (Namaste)

Namaste Everyday Knitting Bag  I loved my bag because it was professional enough to bring to work (otherwise I bring my backpack, which just doesn't look professional at all), but I had grossly overstuffed the bag.  The handles broke and I put the bag aside, thinking to email them or seek out recommendations for the repair, because the repair looked to be a simple one.

I'm pretty lazy, so I only got around to emailing them about the bag about a year after the handles gave.  But once I emailed them things moved quickly.  I brought the bag to the post office, sent it back priority and was sent a replacement.  I got my replacement last night.  So, I began the careful transferral of materials into my knitting bag.  Small project, check.  Smaller project, check.  Small trade paperback, check.  Games and other tech?  Check.  Of course, I forgot my thumb drive for homework, so obviously the transfer of stuff was not perfect.  C'est la vie.

I'm hoping to keep this bag in much better condition, so I figured I'd leave the blanket at home.  I put the ribwarmer in the bag and then tossed in the project I started last night (yup, another project - giving me random test Christmas stockings, the ribwarmer and the blanket as my big projects).

The new project?  Christmas ornaments.  Little bits of icord which I plan to braid together and hide the connecting area under a beaded bail of peyote stitch.  I have a ton of seed beads, and if these come together as I hope, then I will have a good item to sell at the holiday bazaar.  Every year I do this.  Try and find something interesting, but not too time consuming to knit for the bazaar.  Maybe this will be the year where most of it sells.

Knitting beautiful jewelry

Steph made this gorgeous necklace from a kit, which got me to thinking.  I've done beaded crochet and some beaded knitting, and it isn't hard.  It can be a tiny bit tedious, but a lot of beading (and knitting and nearly every other craft I've ever done) is like that.  It is the joy and peace that is in the interstices of the project - admiring the section of cross-stitch, seeing the clean line of decreases in a sweater, the play of colors and light in lace or beading - that makes these crafts worthwhile, fun when people look at you crazy. 

I was going to make a second (correctly done) version of the red/white/black beaded necklace I worked on a few months ago.  I love it, but I am pretty sure that I don't have the time to do the stringing.  It took a few days to work on and was definitely not a TV project.  I would need to concentrate on almost nothing else.  I should start it certainly, but I also have beads a plenty, lots of colors and sizes.  I am almost positive that I can create something to match the dress I'm wearing to the wedding with beads and knitting.

I am 100% positive that everything I need is in my stash.

I'm 200% positive (because I'm silly) that I will start this tonight.

Bead and Button 2007

I get a subscription to Bead and Button from my inlaws (they are actually the source of most of my magazine subscriptions, which is awfully nice).

Bead and Button is a magazine I have a love-hate relationship with.  It has a bit of pattern variety, but there is usually one pattern that I truly despise and one that I love (though not usually enough to get around to making one, sadly).  But there are ads.  The ads are everywhere.  They interfere with the look and feel of the rest of the magazine and some of them look like parts of a project, making following the instructions sometimes extra difficult.

By nature, I tend to do either simple stringing or bead loom work (mostly this is laziness - I'm willing to learn new knitting things, but slower to pick up new techniques in other crafts).  In the latest issue, there was a daisy vine necklace - delicate and just a bit elegant.  I wanted to make one, so I dug out my travel beading box and my notions and started working.

On Saturday, I went up to Lowell to Lush Beads to get some help with the project and buy materials for a couple of other small projects.  Liz (the owner) is excellent.  She showed me how to do the flat-stitch peyote, which was giving me the heebie jeebies and helped me pick out colors for another one without my beginner errors to wear at all of the weddings this year.  She even helped me make wine glass charms for a friend's bridal luncheon that was today. 

In even more other news, our cat found out how to get to the top of the refrigerator today and knocked down the bag of cat food onto the floor.  Oy, what a mess!  (She also obviously knew she did something bad, because as I walked to the kitchen she darted to the other side of the room away from her crime.)  I cleaned the floor and gave her dinner and generally haven't tried to make her realize that it was wrong (above and beyond watching her run out of the kitchen), because how do you tell a little kitty that something that probably happened hours ago was wrong and to not do it again.