CrafTBQ

I finally hooked up my digital camera to my laptop which means that it’s much easier for me to upload pictures!

So, here’s some stuff:

These are the cards and bags that I made at the Stampin’ Up party that I mentioned earlier. The bags were filled with candy, which I am told was yummy.

This is a pair of Fetching fingergless gloves that I made for my sweet baboo (aka Cindy). The color here was a sort of burgundy/purple.

This is another pair that I made for my Mom for her birthday. It was a very easy gift to figure out for her since she admired the pair I had so much   The color in the picture is pretty true to the color of the gloves.  I thought it would go well with her hair and she agreed with me.

Just some links for me. Turning comments off because this is for my benefit plus I’ve been getting hit with a lot of spam.

The Aardvark Project

(email photos to art at zucky dot com)

Hats that avoid the eyebrows

As though I don’t have enough crafts to spend money on, today I got pimped into rubber stamping.  Actually I’ve had my eye on that for a while because I’ve seen some nifty tricks you can do with embossing.  This year I was even more interested because I’m trying to be better about sending cards to people, and having things on hand to make cards would be a way to help with the “ZOMG I haven’t gone to the store to buy anything!” issue.

(Granted, so would buying cards in advance, which I’ve also done this year, but still. Making my own seems like a fun thing.)

So a girl in my SnB held a Stampin’ Up party and we made Valentine’s cards and treat bags. One of the things I liked about it was that it was surprisingly less than wasteful.  Going into it you’d think there’d be a lot of paper and what have you thrown away, but what actually happens is that as you put things together you realize you can use a bit of leftover paper from over here to do one thing, and a slice of leftover paper from over there to do another.  Which isn’t to say there wasn’t a big ol’ mess to clean up when we were done, but it wasn’t as horrible as you might think.

After we had our stamping fill we sat and knitted. Then it was off for home where I managed to make it out of there without ordering any stamping products, but it was a near thing.

No pictures yet because I’m making a care package for someone out of things I made today and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

It’s been a thousand years since I’ve updated, I know. Er - whoops?

I have been busy with knitting, however. The SnB in my hometown is still going on and I manage to make it over there once or twice a month. This creates a nice mix of knitting projects because I enjoy having “TV knitting” when I’m over there, and it’s a solid two hours of work that I can count on. Then when I’m at home I can work on things that require a little more attention from me.

I also have a cameraphone, which makes taking and uploading pictures a much faster and easier process. I’m also trying out a new online album for much the same reason, so let’s see how this goes. Picture #1 is the ribbed hat that I was working on:

From Crafting Pics

Picture #2 is a wee sock that I did just to see if I could make a sock at all. The pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks [ETA: My bad. It’s Cool Socks Warm Feet] and it’s a regular sock pattern, only smaller. So I got to practice all the necessary techniques without having to worry that I was throwing away hours of my time if I screwed up:

From Crafting Pics

I’m now working on a sock-sized sock with that exact same pattern. I had to frog it last night when I was not only displeased with the ribbing, but noticed that I’d dropped a stitch and knit right over it a few rows back. So I’m starting over and I’m just on the ribbing right now, but I remain confident that I can succeed!

I also ponder the concept of using a lifeline while working on a sock. We’ll see.

Am way behind on posting FOs and the like, I know. I’m waiting on pics of the hat that I made. I’m also in the home stretch of another FH scarf.

Anyway, just for my reference is Tasha. Also anybody else using WordPress may want to get the latest update.

I finally got off my butt and uploaded pictures of my first finished BGAL project. You can see pics of the ribbed scarf I made over in the BGAL blog.

Yesterday I made it to my LYS in record time, given that I found out at the last minute that they close a half hour earlier on Fridays during the summer.  I bought the yarn I needed, bought a nifty little toy that I’ll post more about if it works, and treated myself to size 2 DPNs because those have come up often enough on patterns I’m interested in trying (*cough*socks*cough*) that I knew I’d get around to needing them eventually.

Thus armed with materials, I was prepared to finish off my hat this weekend.

Only problem? I don’t have the DPNs I need.  When I checked my supplies it turns out I somehow, in the past year, managed to buy three sets of 7s and no sets of 6s.

Wah!

And my LYS is closed on Sundays and Mondays, and won’t be open late until Wednesday.  Which means either I go to Michael’s, which I might not have time or energy to do tomorrow (plus I have no idea if they’d have size 6 DPNs) or I have to put my hat on hold for a few days and start up another project to take with me to SnB on Tuesday.

I MUST DELAY THE JOY OF HAT CLOSURE FOR DAYS!! SUCH IS THE HORROR OF MY LIFE! WOE, WOE I TELL YOU!

Clearly I need to get off my butt and start using the needle inventory section in my knitting journal.

Harumph.

I decided to frog the hat I’ve been working on because I just did not feel confident about the ribbing being strong enough to stay on my, or anyone’s head.

I recast with the same number of stitches but switched to 5s for the ribbing and 6s for the body of the hat.  I’m still not sure it’ll fit on my head but I do believe it’ll fit on someone’s now. 

It’s not quite done yet, but there’s an outside chance I’ll have it done by the end of this weekend.  (And of course by saying so I have guaranteed that will not happen.)

I’ve finished my first BGAL project. Rather, I have my first BGAL project which is finished. It is not the first BGAL project that I started.  I have pictures of it that I will post here and to BGAL once I get them on my computer.

Finally, this week saw the very first SnB in my hometown. I dare not say much for fear I will make it vanish, but suffice it to say that within minutes of meeting we were snarking on the snotty owner of one of the local yarn stores, so I knew I was amongst my people.

This past weekend I made significant progress on the hat. I sat and knit for hours while listening to the DVD commentary on Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  (The one with the kids, who are a-freaking-dorable.)  So I’d say I’ve got… four inches? Five? More? Somewhere around there.  It looks like a thing, and that’s what counts.

I tested it on my head and it fits in the sense of my head can go into the space, not so sure it fits in the sense of being able to stay on my head once it’s there.  But my hair is very slippy and tends to throw hats like a horse bucking a particularly annoying rider.  So if it doesn’t stay on this might not be a fault of the hat design per se.  (Though it does make me ponder possibly adding elastic to the band after the fact. Hmm.)

The latest Knitty is up.  There’s a couple of patterns I could see myself trying, especially Fetching, because I like cables and it seems a quick knit, and Halfdome, which I suspect would look good on Older Brother.

My LYS sent mixed news in their latest letter. The original owners are moving, which makes me yipey about the continued future of the store. However the new owners just added a buttload of sit-n-knit groups, one of which is scheduled for a time I could theoretically go to.  I’m so tempted to go this week but I don’t know if the schedule will allow. Perhaps I’ll play it by ear.

I cast on last night for a hat to match the ribbed scarf. I’m using the third ball of yarn that I bought, with an anticipation that I may need to dip into a fourth. If so I’m going to switch to another color.

Pattern-wise I’m basing it off of the ribbed brim variation in Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but I’m doing a 2×2 rib instead of 1×1, again to match the scarf.  I’ve never done an adult hat before, let alone made adjustments to a pattern for one, so we’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and I had to change the count to adjust for the different yarn and subsequent gague.  But, you know, other than that exactly like the pattern in the book.

To be honest this is one of the things that I like about knitting. It’s similar to cooking in that I like having some general guidelines, but tweaking them as needed.  That the tweaking often involves math is merely a geeky side benefit.

Granted we’ll see if the hat fits and/or stays on my head once I’m done, but if not that’s what gifts or ripping is for.

So project wise on the needles now are the hat, which is good brainless knitting, and my BGAL project which is good for when I have a brain and wish to sit and knit.