Stash Enhancement Saturday

It's not exactly stash.  It's the yarn I need to finish my 64 Colors blankie

I will not work on it right now.  I need to crawl back into my bed until I start feeling better/

Stitch Along Wednesday

I bounced around a lot of project this week.

64 Colors afghan:  ran out of yarn with half of the last strip to go.  This is on hold until the yarn appears.

Van Gogh mini pillow:  started it, developed a counting problem, put it back down.  I picked it up later with a lot more success.

Doctor Who messenger bag:  decided I didn't like the fabrics I picked out for it.  It's on hold until I get an idea that I like better.

Russian dolls project bag:  decided I didn't want to work on it until I could have a sew-a-thon with it and the Doctor Who bag.

Curtain re-knit:  I found the leftover yarn but not the pattern which had stitch counts and things scrawled on it.  I misremembered the number of stitches that I cast on last time.  I put it back down until I feel like casting on all those stitches again.

Mystery afghan:  I made last week's squares.  I remembered to print out today's clue.  Progress!

Looks like I'm at least a week away from having anything done.

Love Your Library - February prep

February's book is American Sock Knitting by Beth Moriarty.  The book's divided up into five sections:  Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and Northeast.  Each section has a story about a historical location in the region.  It has a recipe inspired by the area.  And it has a sock patterns also inspired by the area.  The patterns are by a variety of designers.  I think I got the book originally to do the Jersey Turnpike socks by Heatherly Walker.  Maybe I'll do them later this year if I get stalled for ideas.

I'm going to do Appalachian Trail (knit the socks, not walk the trail).  The yarn is the delightful Unicorn Rainbow Fight! from The Cyborg's Craft Room. 

Spotted on Ravelry

Doctor Ewe.

I've been working on stuff but nothing's finished.  It looks like I use up a lot more yarn in the 64 Colors afghan than it calls for.  I ordered on more ball of Kureyon which should do the trick.

Stitch Along Wednesday

Ooops!  The new pattern for the mystery knit along came out today and I don't have it yet.

I worked on the Van Gogh mini cushion and I think got the mistakes fixed.

I stopped working on it mainly because the yarn for the 64 Crayons afghan appeared.  Here's the first half.

The colors are a little stronger in real life.

The project bag fabric is sitting untouched with the fabric for the Doctor Who messenger bag.  They whisper, "Cut us out.  Cut us out".  I do not listen.  Many pretty balls of Noro are speaking louder at the moment.

Adding to the queue will be a re-knit of the French door curtains.  Gravity has made them much too long.  They could both stand to be a little wider.  I'll start them when I figure out where I stashed the leftover yarn from the original project.  I had an idea of where that was, but I was wrong.  I think it is with the catnip cheeseburger I crocheted for my cat for Christmas.  Gone, baby, gone.

Stash Saturday

I got the Noro Kureyon for my 64 Colors throw:

It's almost as good as being a little kid and getting a 64 color box of crayons.

I aimed to misbehave and signed up for not one but two yarn clubs.  They alternate for six months.  One's Doctor Who and the other is Firefly.

Stitch Along Wednesday

1.  This week's afghan mystery squares.  The plan is to use solid greens in whatever shades I can find in my stash.  The other color should be a multicolor with pink or other flower colors.  I found a bunch of leftover Wisdom Poems yarn in a multi color so that one will appear for weeks to come.  So will the Avocado, since I had a couple of balls left over from the Kaffe Fassett afghan.

2.  Van Gogh mini cushion cross stitch.  It needs a bit of frogging and recounting.

3.  I want a Russian dolls project bag.  I knew I had some fabric and I managed to dig it out.  I think I'll combine it with the embroidered denim fabric.  I got a lot of it for not very much money when a fabric store closed.  It is about time at least a little bit of it was used up.

I better get back to work and finish something up.  The yarn for my 64 Colors afghan will be here today or tomorrow.

Love your Library - January edition

My first book/pattern choice did not work out.  I decided to move on to a different book.  I chose Think Outside The Sox.  I saw a display of some of the socks at Stitches South several years ago.  I had to have the book to find out how the leopard print socks were made.  The book is a compilation of winning designs from a Knitter's Magazine contest.  There are a lot of excellent patterns in the book and I may start another one before the year is out.

I decided to use the skein of Monet's Garden yarn.  This was best suited to a plain vanilla pattern.  I am unable to do a plain vanilla sock.  I have been known to fall asleep while knitting boring socks.  I chose Wandering Vines.  The vines would've shown up better with a plain solid color.  I am unable to knit a plain solid color unless there are other plain solid colors with it.  That's why I ended up with this.

Crafty games

A person on a Doctor Who thread in Ravelry is talking about craft games.  There's Nerdopolis, which seems to use a setup like Nerd Wars.  There's on for Star Trek fans called Starfleet Fiber Arts Corps.  It looks like it has some similarities to Nerd Wars but less competitive.  I'm not throwing rocks at Nerd Wars.   The pressure I felt to do as much as I could for my team came from me.  I'd like to play a game where I wouldn't get myself wound up so tight.  This might work.  Anyway, the person in the thread is talking about setting up a Doctor Who game like the Star Trek one.  I think I see a fibery adventure in space and time about to happen.

Friday Finishes

The Kaffe Fassett afghan is done.  Some of the seams want to be steamed but otherwise it is all done and I don't have to think about it at all.

The Hopsalot bunny slippers are done.  I knew it had been some time since I had worked on them.  I laughed when I looked at the Ravelry dates on them and found it had been nearly 3 YEARS.

The Grandpa sweater has been done for some time.  I never seemed to get around to get buttons.  Now I have.  Per usual, it's a crummy picture but the sweater's rather nice.

It's been a crazy week for finishing things.  I've got one more, the Deco'Ghan.

Stitch Along Wednesday

I've got a number of things that kind of qualify as work in progress.  These are the ones I'm actually working on.

I'm doing a mystery knit along afghan.  It's actually for a scarf, but the designer has kindly included instructions for those of us who want to make afghan squares.  We get a new stitch pattern weekly for 46 weeks!  These are the first two weeks.

The knitting portion of the Kaffe Fassett afghan is done.  You can't imagine how long the last four squares took or how happy I was when they were finally off the needles.  I've got them sewn in strips.  I need to decide the order in which the strips will be sewn.  If I don't have a tantrum part way through the strip sewing, I'll be crocheting a border.

Not pictured is my LYL January project.  I picked a book, a project from the book, and wound the yarn to make it.  In theory, I'll finish the afghan and then start the socks.  If the tantrum occurs, it'll happen in the opposite order.

LYL: the projects begin

I established rules for my Love Your Library adventure.

Rule 1:  Do one project per month.
Rule 2:  Patterns should come from books and they should be sock books.  Did I have 12 books to use?  This is what I pulled off of the bookshelf:

I have used some of these before, but not very many.  There were several that I'd completely forgotten about.  I chose Socktopus by Alice Yu for my January project. 

Rule 3:   I can pick any yarn I want from my stash.  I spent a couple of years trying to use up my oldest yarns.  I discovered that one of the reasons yarns stay in my stash for a long time is that I don't like them.  I decided to use one of my brand new yarns, Monet's Garden. 

Crayons in the night

I had another one of my late-night shopping attacks last night.  It wasn't Ravelry that set it off.  This time it was Twitter.  There was a tweet about  a cool afghan pattern called 64 Crayons.  It uses Noro Kureyon (the yarn name was named after crayon).  I love Noro.  I know that some people think it is too scratchy and the thickness is not consistent enough.  Those things don't bother me at all.  I love the colors and enjoy the texture.  I read some of the comments people had made about the pattern and how addictive it is to make.  I started clicking around and discovered that Little Knits had Kureyon on sale for 30% off.

Yes, the yarn for this is on the way.  I got the confirmation email a little while ago.  At the same time, an email came from Slipped Stitch Studios.  Their project bag of the month is based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Stop me before I shop some more.  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!

Love Your Library

Love your Library challenges us to use books and patterns we already have.  I found it on Tammy's site. (I'm not stalking you, Tammy.  You come up with such useful stuff!)  When I said that project bags were the third thing that I had too many of, I lied.  Actually, they are fourth after pattern books.

My goal is to do one pair of socks per month.  The patterns will come from books I haven't used yet.  Do I have a dozen unused sock books?  Probably.  I want to focus on the multicolored yarns in my stash.  Details will be posted once I've had a chance to study the situation.

LOL

I got myself a little knitting kit from Slipped Stitch Studios. It's cute and useful and Doctor Who-themed. The think that made me actually laugh out loud was this little button that came with it.

In case the picture's not clear enough, it's the Twitter bird with #ProjectBagsdon'tcount.

Project bags are the third thing that there are too many of in this house. Socks are first and yarn's second.

Friday Finishes

Tammy's also got a linky thing for finished things. I actually has some completed things this week. The photographs leave something to be desired, but at least they are DONE. Irma cardigan:

Mystery blue yarn:

In real life it is more of a Tardis blue.