Done, Working, Waiting

Done:

Crazy Granny Blankie.  The center squares are from the square swap I was in recently.  Some were squares I did to use up odd bits of DK weight yarn.

Roamin’ Hat from the Kate Davies book.

Asteroid Socks, fresh off of the needles.  They were an experiment and used some of the mini skeins from the advent box.  I finally got around to trying Jeni’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.  I highly recommend it.

Working:

Dolores’ Winter Accessories.  The hat has been done for weeks.  The scarf is a boring striped thing.  I bribed myself with the Asteroid Socks.  I would knit a section on the socks and do a couple of scarf stripes.

Thirteenth Scarf.  With no Doctor Who for a year, I had to start a Who project to help with the withdrawal.  The scarf is a take on the one she wore in the most recent episode.  It is all garter stitch and knit lengthwise.  The fringe yarn is put in place as you go, so no ends to weave in.  The fringe involves knotting the loose ends together then trimming them.  It is rainbow-ish, so at least there are lots of color changes.

Twist Again Sweater.  Looks like 2019 might be my year of the sweater.  I have a bag of Malabrigo in a blue/green mix.  It wants me to wind it up and cast on.

Waiting:

Dolores Sun Goddess Bikini and Beach Robe.  On the way from WEBS.  Dolores is sulking because she cannot have this outfit until I finish her stupid scarf.

SnOwl Sweater.  Berroco Ultra Fine Alpaca in a Turquoise mix, on the way from WEBS.  A bit indulgent, maybe.  Besides the Twist Again sweater, I have plans for two other sweaters from yarn I already have.  It did save money on the Dolores kit and it saved $14 on this sweater.

Peerie Flooers hat.  I am using leftovers from the Roamin hat along with some more Scottish tweed to make another hat from the Kate Davies book.  I will probably use all of the leftovers for a third hat
from the book.  Yarn should show up in a couple of weeks.

Victorian knit-along scarf.  Yarn is on the way from Makers Mercantile.   It is Franklin Habit’s first knit-along and uses an interesting sounding shaded yarn.

2018 in review

This is the last completed project for the year.

It is prettier in real life, with sparkles in some of the yarn.

I finished:

• 30 pair of socks.  It is crazy when this is the fewest I have done in recent years.  When one is addicted to buying sock yarn, one has to do something with it.
• 7 amigurumi/soft toys.
• 6 outfits for Dolores the sheep.
• 5 hats.
• 3 pillows.
• 2 pair of slippers.
• A shawl, an afghan, a sweater, and a woven curtain.
• 10 squares for swapping plus a bunch of granny squares to turn into one big blanket.

My plans in general for next year are to do more big projects and to work from stash.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

What I Ordered from Santa

There’s not much gift exchanging in my life these days, unfortunately.  At least there are fewer opportunities to buy or make presents that just don’t work for the recipient.  I am good at that.  I allow myself to order things at this time of year and open them on Christmas.

I broke my favorite Pawley Studio mug recently, so I ordered a custom one.  I picked the wrong size, so it will be a holder for my many sock size DPNs.  The tool bag and the pins came from Becka Rahn on Etsy.  The bag has a sonic crochet hook on it,  The pins all have knitting/Firefly sayings on them.

The embroidery kit is from Sublime Stitching.  It is a chambray bandana printed with many designs and lots of embroidery floss.  The book is from Kate Davies Designs and has many cool hats.  I have yarn on the way from the UK to make one of them.  The yarn in front is the 25th of my advent calendar yarns from Happy Little Yarns.  The colorway is Aurora Borealis, which kind of goes with the last package.

It is Must Stash’s Space Camp KAL kit.  There’s a project bag printed in sparkly ink. There’s a astronaut ice cream sandwich,  There are hand and sock bar soaps and skin balm, all in a nice scent called Night Sky.  There’s a mug from Hill Country Pottery.  I bought last year’s mug and use it all the time.  This one is even nicer.  The yarn is self striping sock yarn in two matched skeins.  It has stellina for that night sky sparkle.

Merry holidays to those that celebrate them, and much fibery goodness to all.

Knit one, buy two

After a couple of weeks of intermittent cat barfing, I took Jasmine to the vet.  Long story short, the vet said he doesn’t expect that she’ll be around much longer.  I am very sad.  The only thing I can do is try and come up with anything that she’ll eat.

I am not concentrating well on my knitting so I keep starting projects and not finishing anything.  Whenever I see something I think might be fun, I buy it.  It is going to be lonely without my furry pal.  Maybe a big pile of projects may help a little bit.

I got some patterns from Mochmochi Land and managed to get some sugarplum fairies and nutcrackers made.  The nutcrackers look like they need an orthodontist.  I considered redoing the teeth but figured the whole face might fall apart if the existing teeth were removed.

The crocheted square they are sitting on is one I got in a swap.  The swap squares were all really nice and it will be fun to get them all together some day.

What I have been up to

I gave up on the advent socks.  I am making an advent pillow instead.  Every day I open an advent box and knit two squares for the pillow.  There’s still a lot of yarn left, so I will come up with a plan for it later.  The pillow looks like the colored squares are floating on it.  The effect  is hard to see until the whole thing is assembled.  I can see it a little bit now.

These are the Red Robin socks, the last pair from the Handmade Sock Society.  Pretend you can’t see that bit of laddering in the middle, okay?

I am getting my swap squares and have started working on getting them together.  It is a challenge to get things to match up that we’re made by 10 different people.  It is fun, though.

Possible projects:
-Dolores Transatlantic outfit, waiting for lost needles (long boring story)
-Dolores Sugarplum Fairy outfit, maybe next if lost needles don’t appear
-Roamin’ hat by Kate Davies, book and yarns on the way from the UK
-Thirteenth Doctor Rainbow scarf, waiting for:  pattern to be released, yarn to arrive from the UK,  out of stock color to appear so the rest of the colors can be ordered

TARDIS Wreath

I saw a picture of a TARDIS wreath that someone on Facebook had done.  This is what I did.

The one that was the inspiration for it was much cooler than what I ended up doing, but I still had fun with it.  Everything, including the base for the wreath, was created from things I already had.  I made everything except the Adipose (little white thing next to the bow tie) and the TARDIS ornament.

Sweaters, Socks, and Squares

Rose sweater:  I decided that it was going to be too big and that I probably wouldn’t have worn it much even if it had fit.  I am going to wash it in hot water and make a pillow out of the felted remains.

Moon sweater:  haven’t yet worked out the extended pattern, so it remains in time out.

Sweaters using the Danish yarn:  the yarn is light fingering so it didn’t work for the pattern I was using which called for regular fingering.  I may try the yarn on a sweater pattern I tried last year.  I was burned out after trying the yarn twice on the same pattern, so no sweaters for me for awhile.

Socks:  I finished three pair.  Let’s see if I can find the pictures.

I decided to do my own advent socks this year, instead of the frankensocks I have done in the past years.  I am going to use a Drops pattern with white yarn as the background color.  The pattern will be done using the advent calendar yarns.

That leaves squares.  I crocheted some for a swap that I am in.  The ones I receive will be used for the  center of a blanket.  Since I don’t have anything in the works at the moment, I am making more squares for the blanket.  I went looking through my Ravelry library for patterns to try.  I discovered that I have a book of 200 patterns.  I found it eventually on a bookshelf.  It still had the receipt inside, dated 2010!