Stranded

Okay so I'm stuck here at work waiting on my ride and I'm bored, and I have a ton of FOs to show so I figured - why not write the blog you've been saying you're going to write soon? At the very least, it will make my ride call right before I'm ready to post but here goes.

Most recent FO:



Pattern: an adaptaion from Evelyn Clark's book
Yarn: Southwest Trading Company's Inspiration in Mountains
Needles: US 7 circulars
Notes: I really, really, really love how this turned out. My hands hurt
something fierce after binding off but it turned out beautiful.
I really loved the pattern and will dive into another of hers
(the Swallowtail Shawl) as soon as I finish Spring Things.

Speaking of which:



Pattern: Spring
Things by Susan Lawrence
Yarn: Jaeggerspun Zephyr Wool/Silk in Ruby
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 4
Notes: So far so good. I really love the yarn - sooo soft.

Also, there are socks to report but I only have pictures of one pair:





Pattern: my own
Yarn: Southwest Trading Company Inspiration (don't know the colorway)
Needles: Knit Picks Harmony Wood DPNs US 2.5
Notes: none

Also, I'm hooked on Ravelry (finally) so all of these items (and more!) are available there for your viewing pleasure (My Ravelry Page).

Touched and Inspired

I was just sitting in my office this morning and a co-worker from another department (with whom my team has been frantically working to roll out a new web system) suddenly appeared and gave me this:



How lovely! And it's my initial! Apparently it is a custom in Holland (he's Dutch) to gift people with chocolate in the form of their initial on December 5th. He missed that date by a little but who cares?! It's chocolate and it's from Holland - need I say more? I'm so touched (and apparently such a sap). Gifts are in rather short supply for me this year I'm afraid (which would account for my absolute delight at this unexpected one!).

So now, my mind is busily at work coming up with something to gift him and his team with. I think I have just the thing - pictures to follow!

Say Hello To My Little Friends

We're all still recuperating from our trip to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Mostly I'm going through withdrawal from all the extra knitting time. The tatting I completed while I was there will soon be for sale in my Etsy store. I'm not sure it will sell for anything but at least it will make me feel like my hobby isn't a complete financial black hole.

The most wonderful thing that came from our trip (aside from the snow) is a new computer complete with internet access and printer and even a new digital camera (though I won that separately in a work related contest). I'm so excited! Now I can blog at home without looking over my shoulder or feeling guilty for stealing company resources. :)

New projects to show (and the inspiration for the title of the blog) are:


Yep you guessed it, that's the Bob pattern from the Mocimochiland blog. I had so much fun knitting it that I knit up another one for my mother and surprised her with it. I think I'll knit up a couple more to give as gifts this season. They're so fast and really pretty fun. I did have some help knitting these though:


As you can see, she's hard at work supervising. In fact, she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't even see the potentially hostile alien being creeping up on her:


Okay, enough horseplay, can you tell that I got a new camera and got a little snap happy? I have to get down to business if I ever hope to finish all the Christmas gifts in time. Besides, our connection was so slow last night that I couldn't get any of the pictures uploaded so here I am blogging at work again.

I See Snow Flurries

No posts lately because I am (officially) on vacation. We flew to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving to visit with the boyfriend's family. I'm not sure I have to say too much more about that but the food was great and I'm ready to go back. This has, however, been a wonderful opportunity to get some crafting done. I've completed 2.5 of the charity afghan blocks for work, each of them with a different (and new to me) lace or cable pattern. The last one is my own design combining a lace and a cable pattern. It looks pretty good so far but only time will tell.

I've also been able to complete two tatted snowflakes that I originally planned to give as gifts to my carpoolers but I think I'll do something I've long thought of doing and open an Etsy shop and post them there just to see if I can sell them. I think they make great little tree ornaments.

Of course, I came all this way and forgot my camera so not only are there no pictures of Pennsylvania, there also aren't any completed projects pics either. Anyway, Rocky II beckons (not really but I'll watch it for the boyfriend's sake)..........

Finito! (almost)

Well it's finally done. I've never been so happy to bind off a project in my life. I hope that's not a sign of what's to come with my future lace endeavors - I really want to like this. Here's the finished product (pre-blocking):

Not a great picture I know - still working on getting a good camera (among other things). Maybe if I stopped spending money on yarn, that would become a reality. But we all know that's not gonna happen. The yarn was reclaimed from a very soft sweater I hated to give away (that's a whole other story). The neck and arms were constructed from the khaki color you see and the body was black. I ran out of the black yarn at the end (imagine that) so I decided to make a "border" of khaki starting halfway through the leaf patter at the bottom of the shawl. I like the effect.

So anyway, I hated the picot bind off specified in the pattern - it ended up looking like baby dread locks so I ripped it out (yet again - see why I hated working on this?) and made my own version of the picot bind off:

Mucho better! Here's what I did:

*Using the "knitting on" method cast on 2 stitches, knit 2 stitches, pass the first
knitted stitch over and of the right needle, continue to knit one stitch and
pass one stitch over until you have bound off 6 stitches. * Repeat from * to * until
completely bound off.

This one was worked over a multiple of 4 stitches obviously but it can be modified however you want by simply casting off more than 6 stitches. Viola! No more baby dreads. They were hideous.

So now I'm happy and can move on to all the other projects that have backed up in the making of this thing. Perhaps I should take this whole escapade as a hint that better project planning is in order? Post-blocking pictures coming soon to a blog near you.

Fiber Fiber Everywhere

I've always thought my family had a bit of an obsessive compulsive streak that I hoped to avoid but i think it's finally manifested itself in my current yarn obsession. Oh well, I guess there are worse things to think constantly about. But, I'm so excited because I've learned something new again:Check me out! I've had my eye on a drop spindle forever and I'm so excited that I finally got one. We went to the Kid 'n Ewe and Llamas Too fiber festival in Boerne on Saturday and it was awesome! I wish I could find more things like this in Texas. The only thing that would have made it better was lots of money to buy yarn and a spinning wheel but I'm definitely more than satisfied to walk away with the drop spindle and a little bit of fiber. The vendor I bought it from was so nice - he kept following me through the booths to give me more "practice" fiber (I told him it was my first attempt at spinning) and the spindle came with 4 ounces of bamboo fiber. Can't wait to start on that. After I got the hang of it I spun all the wool last night. I think the spinning wheel is going to move up on my wanted list!

The other great development that came from this trip is our new determination to purchase a couple of Alpacas as companion/fiber animals. We met a very nice lady who let us pet these guys:

and who sounds like she'll be very helpful when the time is right for us to buy them. We also got to watch (but not touch) a couple of Suri Alpacas:

but those are far, far, far out of our price range. They're so nimble and cute and I'm so blessed with a boyfriend that's all for feeding my obsession!

As for current projects - one more row to go and then I'm binding off the Rambling Leaves Shawl from Elann.com. I have to say - I hate this shawl right now. Every time I pick it up I end up making a mistake and having to un-knit massive amounts of stitches. I mean, ther are almost 500 live freaking stitches and I hate every last one of them. It was my first attempt at anything resembling lace and I have to admit there are errors though I haven't figured out if it was all me or partly the pattern (probably all me) but I got to a point where I refused to unknit anymore - there's only so much going backwards I can take! So I just sucked it up, re-worked the pattern to accommodate my mistakes and got on with it - I don't think I ever would have finished otherwise.

Also currently on the needles is the Branching Out lace scarf from Knitty. Almost done with that one thought I better hurry - we leave for PA on Sunday and it has to be done and blocked by then.

So, enough of this long winded post - back to work!

(I really need to get a laptop and go mobile instead of milking company resources huh?) ;)

Lost Forever

Okay so I've been gone forever but I'm hurtling through a creative streak right now and I have to share. I just spent six months in training for a new career (doesn't seem long but it was rather intensive) so now I guess I'm making up for all the lost craft time! I started my first knitted lace project which I'll show after I block it - it's still on the needles and just looks like a lump of black mess. I'm extra proud of it because I reclaimed the yarn from an old sweater and it's been pretty nice to knit with.

For now, since I'm at work and technically supposed to be working, I'll just post these pics of my quick gift project. It's a thank you for my boyfriend's mom - she invited us to stay with her in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. I went to the yarn shop on Saturday with my mother and (not being the yarn freak that I am) I think she got a little annoyed with me as I ran around with a goofy look on my face wishing I could strip and roll around in all the yarn naked. I swore it would be a quick trip and that I knew exactly what I wanted but she should have known better. I finally settled on a beautiful wool/silk blend from Lang Yarns and I love it so much that I'll have to buy more - it feels wonderful when knitting. So enough talk - here are the pics (bad ones from my cell phone - sorry):