Return to knitting!

I honestly can't remember the last time I knit anything. Between the unbearably hot Texas summer, my newfound obsession with sewing, and also just general impatience for how slow knitting can be, I sort of lost interest for a while. But last weekend, I went to visit my best friend in Philadelphia and at the last minute grabbed one of my many unfinished projects work on during the plane ride.

It turned out to be a lifesaver as my flight ended up delayed over 3 hours; I had no music to listen to, and I couldn't focus enough to read the book I'd also brought. I'd forgotten how soothing it can be to just mindlessly knit while watching crappy TV or chit-chatting with a neighbor.

Sadly enough, the project I brought ended up frogged, but I did find some fun new yarn & related supplies to work with on my trip. I got a very cute toddler sweater pattern and some more circular needles (one can never have too many!) at Loop. I also couldn't resist some of the adorable fat quarter bundles at their sister store, Spool. And then I picked up some crazy fun "marshmallow" yarn at Nangellini, which I ended up mixing with some hot pink eyelash yarn to make this funky scarf.


I very rarely work with bulky yarns, and it was really gratifying to be able to start and finish a project in a day. It really re-inspired me to pick up my knitting again and now I'm combing through my various bookmarked and queued patterns trying to decide what to work on next. In retrospect, I should have sprung for a second ball of the marshmallows so that I could have done a tighter knit, but I think the eyelash yarn fills in the holes nicely. I also picked up some super soft green & brown variegated wool that was half off. Score! Not sure what I'm going to do with it just yet though. Oh and of course the pattern I bought calls for bulky yarn, which I don't have, so I guess I'll need to make another trip to my favorite local yarn store. ;)

Oh, and I had to come back and add that the yarn stores I went to in Philly were so different from one another, but both absolutely fabulous! Nancy, the owner of Nangellini, was particularly friendly and cool and my friend and I had a great time chatting with her.

Fun with Kool-Aid

A while back I bought a bunch of white/natural colored wool yarn with the intention of dyeing it. Well, the day has finally come! Last week I saw this tutorial on dyeing with Kool-Aid, which I happen to have a ton of (yes, we love Kool-Aid around here), so I figured why not?

I rarely do step-by-step stuff on this blog, mostly because I'm lazy and forgetful when it comes to hauling out my camera until things are finished, but today is a new day! Woohoo!

First, I wound the skein around the back of a chair so that it'd be one even piece and easier to get the dye on evenly. Sorry, no pic of that, but I'm sure you can picture it in your head. Next, as per instructions, I soaked it in a bucket of warm water with a little white vinegar.


Here's the initial colors I started out with. Lemonade on the left, Blue Berry Blast on the right, and kind of a mix of the two in the middle.

And a before pic (kinda looks like spaghetti, doesn't it?)



First lesson I learned? Three packages worth is not going to be nearly enough. Crap. So off to the store I went. Of course, I had to be dumb and forget to get more lemonade (I was distracted by the unusually wide variety of flavors they had at the particular store I went to), so I settled for Lemon-Lime instead. In the end, I think I ended up using something like 7 or 8 packets.

Here's the after:



Note to self, next time wear gloves.


After a couple zaps in the microwave, I let it cool and then started rinsing. This wasn't in the instructions, but after rinsing I stuck it back in the water/vinegar mix for a few minutes. And now here it is outside, drying.


I'm surprised by how vibrant the colors stayed. If I'd known they would set that bright, I probably would've diluted the kool-aid powder a bit more. I was hoping for more of a graded effect of blue-green-yellow, but my lack of yellow kind of nixed that. Still, I think it'll make a cute pair of longies or something. And I figure I can always try selling it if I don't like it for E. I'll try and take another picture after it's dry and I've wound it into a ball or skein.

Just when I think I'm out...

I know I said that I was taking a break from knitting....but that was before I got my Ravelry invite! OK, a little backstory: about a month ago, I heard about a site called Ravelry which is kind of like a MySpace but for knitters and crocheters. How much more up my alley could this be? Even better than that, besides the friends/networking aspect, it's got all these great tools to help you keep track of projects, patterns, yarn, even your library of knitting books. The only problem is that it's still in Beta, so you have to sign up on a waiting list to join.

Well, after waiting about 3 weeks (and impatiently hitting their "wait list checker" several times a week), I finally got my invite over the weekend. All I can say is that it is awesome. Pretty much as sweet as I thought it would be. The only terrible thing about it is that I've now found about two dozen more projects that I want to start. Oh, and the fact that by cataloging my yarn, I'm going to reveal to the world just how ridiculous my yarn stash is. Eek!

On the plus side though, it's gotten me to drag out some old projects, take pictures and actually think about maybe finally finishing them. A good example is this top that I started as a birthday gift for my mom about 4 years ago. It's been laying around half-finished but now I am determined to have it done by Christmas. Seriously. I mean it this time.

Switching modes (part one)

I think that skull hat really burned me out on knitting. I've been trying very half-heartedly to start a few new projects (I really wanted to make a "cupcake" hat), but they don't seem to be going anywhere. And this is even after I just bought some gorgeous Jaeger yarn for 75% off (shh...don't tell T). Not to mention that my hands have been hurting too from working with such small needles and fine yarn. So I think I'm going to put the knitting aside for a while - so much for selling hats - and move back to sewing. Sorry Amber, looks like you won't be getting those skull mittens anytime soon.

Part of my renewed interest in sewing also comes from the fact that I've been thinking a lot lately about felting. I got a bunch of wool yarn on sale last week, and was thinking about making this skull bag, but then I got to thinking that you know, it's a lot of work to knit something and then felt it too. I could easily skip the most time-consuming aspect (the knitting) and skip right to the felting if I found some old wool sweaters. So off to the Salvation Army store I went. And not only did I find a good number of 100% wool sweaters, but they were all 50% off, so I ended up with a five sweaters for under $15. I had to resist the urge to buy every single one I could find, but if these first few projects go well, then I'll definitely be heading back on the next 50% off day and cleaning them out. Oh, and I also found a wool sweater in T's closet that had a few holes in it and convinced him that it was time to retire it. So make that six sweaters.

The problem is, once I got all these sweaters home, I realized that I didn't really know what I was going to do with them all. I mean, how many tote bags does a girl need? Even a super crafty bag-addicted girl like myself can only use one at a time. I did some googling, and found this really cool idea from Martha Stewart. And I even found a great handknit cabled/textured sweater (pictured, right) that I could use. But now I'm kind of toying with the idea of unravelling the sweater so I can repurpose the yarn. I know, it's crazy. But it does seem like really nice yarn. And I could even dye it. Ack, what am I saying?!

I also ended up getting a couple good project ideas from a moms board that I'm on. One is to take the sleeves and make them into little wool pants for E (commonly known as "longies" in the world of cloth diapering). I love this idea! Although, it's really going to put my sewing skills to the test. I've never sewn any kind of garment before, baby or otherwise. And then someone else mentioned making a baby sweater out of the adult sweater, and then adding needle felted embellishments (also a Martha project). I actually really love this idea too. The sweaters are too cute. But it requires me to delve into a whole other hobby - needle felting. This means buying new supplies like needles, roving and foam pads. I can already see it getting out of hand. But I'm so tempted.

To be continued...

On second thought...

I guess there is something to be said for gauge after all. And my punishment for willfully ignoring it? I finally finished the skull hat, and it fits no one. It's too big for E, and too small for me.

I also have to say, this was a lot harder to make than I thought. This was my first effort at fair isle knitting , and I'm not sure how much more I'll be doing in the future. By the time I got a little more than half finished, I was really sick of working on it (not to mention my hands were hurting from working with such fine yarn) and it required a lot of will power for me to not just abandon the whole thing and start unraveling. I also don't really like how "busy" the pattern looks. I do really like the skulls though, so I may make a hat with just a ring of skulls running around it.

I think I'm going to stick with fruit hats for now. I'm actually toying with the idea of selling hats too. Although, if I'm really going to do that, I should probably start cranking them out since the holidays and cold weather will be upon us soon.

Here's a funny picture I couldn't resist posting of E wearing the hat:

ETA: I realized after posting this that technically, the hat isn't 100% finished. I still have to do a little work on the bottom edge. But you get the point.

Amigurumi Mania

A couple weeks ago, I was IMing with Mee and she innocently sent me a link to a site with some books of amigurumi patterns. There was all sorts of cute little animals, as well as garden gnomes and flowers...and thus, a new obsession was born. So what the heck am I talking about? For those of you that don't know, amigurumi is a japanese term for cute little crochet dolls or critters, usually made in the round from the top down. I started poking around, searching on google, and I realized that this would be an excellent way to use up a lot of the cheapo yarn that I don't have any other use for. In fact, the more I surfed, the more I couldn't believe that I had never stumbled upon this before! Besides being a good way to use up all the random odds and ends of leftover yarn, amigurumi are also very quick and easy to make. Gotta love anything that's easy and FAST.

One odd thing I discovered though is that there aren't a ton of great patterns out there, at least, not free ones (yes, I am a cheapskate). There's a lot of people who are creative and talented enough to come up with their own patterns (the best of which are for sale on Etsy), but it seems like the rest are making them from a series Japanese pattern books that seem to be readily available on the west coast. Grrrr. I found the books both on Ebay and on Amazon Japan, but I'm not sure I'm ready to spend $20-$30 for a book that originally cost about $10. Actually, I probably would spend that much if I didn't know that A) it would only feed my compulsion to buy more crafty amigurumi-related stuff, and B) T would kill me.

I finally found a pattern that I thought was both easy to follow and very cute - the Amineko Cat. It turned out pretty well (see above), for a first effort, although it did end up being a lot bigger than I expected. I kinda assumed it'd be little, like beanie baby size. It's actually more like a regular stuffed animal, maybe 20 inches long. I think this is one of the first times I worked on a project nonstop from beginning to end (usually, I get bored halfway through and abandon it to start something else). I'm actually a little bit proud of myself.

With that under my belt, I decided to try my hand at making my own amigurumi without a pattern. I'd seen these very cute little birdies on another site and figured I could wing it (no pun intended...well, maybe a little intended) just by looking at the picture. Well...it didn't go so well. I won't say it looks bad. It's just...weird. For one thing, it's not quite as round and bird-like as I was aiming for; it's more bullet-shaped. The other problem is that I put the face and wings on before I put the tail on, and they're not quite lined up right, so it looks all crooked. I took one wing off to reposition it and haven't gotten around to putting it back. I'm thinking about pulling the face off too. He looks like a demented baby bald eagle.

But I've already moved on and started another critter with some super soft yarn that was leftover from a blanket I made. I'm not quite sure what it's going to be yet. Maybe a bunny? Or maybe just some sort of random made-up animal. We'll see.

Admitting I have a problem (part two)

So last night, I went searching through my stash, trying to find a hot glue gun. In the process, I ended up pulling out just about every bin I could find and I realized that my problem extends way beyond yarn. I think in the past ten years or so, I've gone through a phase where I was obsessed with just about every craft out there, maybe with the exceptions of sewing (which I really do want to take up at some point), soap-making, and scrapbooking. I found crafty crap that I totally forgot I owned.

Some examples:

A small bin that was FULL of origami paper - I went through a phase where I was really really into making these modular origami boxes. I also have two books of instructions.

A small jewelry box that had naked hair clips and pins.

Lots of beads (nice ones, too). I can't remember the last time I was remotely interested in jewelry or beading. In fact, I could swear I gave away all my beading stuff to my cousin years ago.

Some cording (maybe hemp?) for macrame.

Glass bubbles and magnets. I made several hundred of those little bubble magnets as a favor for our wedding reception and, as tedious as it was, I kind of enjoyed it, so of course I went out and bought a whole bunch more.

You get the idea. The irony of all this is, that hot glue gun I was looking for? Never found it. I think somehow in the shuffle of moving cross-country three times in the last five years, it must have gotten lost. So what did I do? I went to Hobby Lobby today and picked one up, along with a few other things. So what did I need the glue gun for anyway? I've started making little hair bows for E. Never mind that she doesn't have enough hair to clip them to just yet. Like I said, it's a sickness.

Admitting I have a problem (part one)

I think I'm addicted to yarn. I have so much yarn now, that I've lost track of my stash. A couple months ago, I did what I thought was a thorough inventory. I came up with two large rubbermaid storage bins, in addition to a duffle bag and a large zipped bag that originally held a comforter. That's pretty bad, in and of itself. I didn't dare count the number of actual skeins or even colors, but let's just say that it's way more than any reasonable person should have.

Then last night, I was looking for something else (more on that in later), and found yet another bin under the guestroom bed...and then another one. I also realized I have two small bags that have been kind of floating around the house. **sigh** I should also now confess that in the past couple weeks, I've been buying more. What can I say? I can't help myself. I keep seeing yarn that's so cheap, I can't pass it up, so I pick up a few skeins, rationalizing that I'll eventually find a use for it. Or, I get fixated on some new project idea that, of course requires a new and specific type of yarn that I don't already have.

Most recently, I became obsessed with making baby hats. Never mind that it's currently 102 degrees in Texas right now. I figured I'd get a head start on the winter. I started out with a very cute strawberry hat (see above). But when I finished it, I plopped it on E's head and realized it's too small. Crap. I guess it'll make a good baby gift. So I started another one that I thought would be much much bigger, this one stripey. It fits her head perfectly, which means that in a couple months, it will also be way too small. Dammit. Then I started thinking, maybe I'll make one for a friend who's having a little boy soon. But I didn't have any boy colored yarn. Another trip to the store. Or maybe I'll make a whole bunch of different ones and sell them... You can see the downward spiral.