Cotton coup d'état.

As warmer weather has blessed State College, I have turned to my stash of cotton yarn for springy knitting. The cotton yarn reigns supreme right now. I started a new scarf that is CROCHETED! No way. It's really weird to crochet. Using a crochet hook is a very unfamiliar movement for my hands. But it's fun. And who can resist these Rainbow Brite colors??? I'm making a long lengthwise-striped scarf using single crochet. Very simple.

Rainbow Brite scarf.

I also finished this bitty baby sweater for charity through the United Methodist church. It was pretty fun to make; very quick and easy. The only thing is my wrist started to ache if I knit with cotton too long. Dang non-elastic fibers. Hopefully, this tiny sweater will fit a cute newborn somewhere and make his or her mom smile.

Baby sweater ala primary colors.

I have also decided to use my lovely blue Cara Mia yarn in a different form. After knitting on this bias cabled scarf for awhile, I have come to realize I don't like it all that much. I mean, I like the pattern and I love the yarn, I just don't think I would wear a scarf like this very much. So I'm going to make a Mimi Verylong. Hopefully this reincarnation of this yarn will work out. Third times a charm? Right.

Doomed blue scarf.

Ooo, it's raining! April showers, finally. I was so nice out earlier today! Valerie, Kristy, and I were walking around downtown State College all day. I got my hair cut (twice), donated blood (yay for O- blood), and got a free Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone (Mint Chocolate Chunk)! Fun day.

One last thing, I'm working on a redesign for my site, so keep an eye out. I love making new graphics. I can't help myself, even though I really like the layout now. Have a great day! ♥

Cable Hoodie

It was finally cool enough today to put on my warm cozy sweater and take some official FO photos in the sun. :)

Official front of sweater photo.

Sweater Specs:
Pattern: Cabled Hoodie from Patons Street Smart booklet
(same booklet as the Must Have Cardigan)
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Collection Sierra Light Indigo
80% Highland wool, 20% Alpaca
Amt: ~14 50g balls or 1400 m
Needles: US8 & US7
Gauge: 20 sts/26 rows per 4"

Official back of sweater photo.

Yay. This sweater is slightly itchy so I have to wear a long sleeved shirt underneath. It's super warm and comfy though. It'll definitely get some wear this season on cool spring days.

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My girly gloves just had a bath to prepare for their official FO photo shoot.

Wet-sheep, smelly gloves: blocking.

Now I have to decide which knitting project to start next... It has to be something spring-y. Hmmm. I'll have to peruse the new spring knitty. ♥

Meh.

I haven't felt much like blogging lately for some reason. And school is coming to an end, which means craziness with homework, presentations, exams, ect.

It was gorgeous out today. It was nice to be outside in just a light sleeveless shirt. Not really conducive weather to knitting warm woolen objects. Not to mention that last weekend my wrist started hurting in an alarming way when I was knitting a baby sweater out of Cotton-Ease. I had to stop knitting because of the pain!!! That has never happened to me before. So I haven't knit much since. So... I'll show you a picture of a sweater my mom knit. She is way more prolific than I am; she knit 9 sweaters last year! This is just one of them. Pretty non?

My mom knits a lot.

And now a sneaky peeky of my finished cabled hoodie before it was finished. It is finished now, but wouldn't you know that spring has decided to sprung. Too warm for wool and alpaca.

Blurry and unfinished.

Back to homework. And writing technical reports about process control and CSTRs (Continuously Stirred Tank Reactors). Fun. ♥

Self control.

Ay. I'm so close to finishing my gloves AND my sweater. The gloves only need a thumb. This will be quick and painless. However, the cabled hoodie is in time-out right now.

I seamed the whole thing last weekend and was optimistic that I could get it done. But then the zipper threw me a curveball. Dude, those things are finicky to install. I tried myself using my mom's sewing machine, but that was disastrous. All stretched out and misaligned and WRONG. Then my mom had a go at it, but no dice. *sigh* So I will attempt to handsew the blasted thing in. I will persevere. Hopefully, nice finished object pictures soon so that I can start something new. My self control has been amazing. I really want to start a Flower Basket Shawl. I will use this to motivate myself towards zipper victory. Hopefully...

Krazy Koigu.

I finially finished my first skein of Koigu for the gloves. I'm amazed at how far the one little ball went. I'll have a good bit left over I think... about 30g. I think I'll have to get some coordinating Koigu and make a chevron scarf. Because I really like Koigu and would love to cover myself in it. Nevermind. Scratch that. I saw the Koigu pants in the most recent Vogue knitting magazine and they are just really bad. So I'll stick to Koigu accesories.

Wow! Look how far one skein of Koigu goes!

And now a picture of a ball of yummy Koigu for the heck of it. Have a lovely evening. ♥

Koigu for the sake of Koigu.

Catnip craze.

I have a new friend living with me in my apartment. Introducing the golden Buddah: coolest cat ever.

Attack of Buddah. He really likes catnip.

I had to make him a catnip toy real quick as a housewarming gift. I used the knitty Feline Dim Sum pattern to make a wonton. It was really fast; just a square from some stash wool that is stuffed with some catnip and sewn together.

Kitty wonton.

Buddah's story is pretty crazy. My family adopted him when he was a tiny kitten along with one of his gray sisters Shotze. He grew up to be a really cool cat! He will "talk" to you and he is very inquisitive. He lived with us for about 2 years when he was lost. We put up posters and searched everywhere to no avail. We were sad about losing him, but there wasn't much more we could do.

Fast forward 2 years (I was in TX for training): My family was at a local fair when they saw a poster about a cat that needed a new home because it's owners couldn't keep him in their apartment anymore. The cat looked exactly like Buddah. My parents figured it was a long shot, but went to the local police department where he was being held to check it out anyway. The cat looked like Buddah, acted like Buddah, but was it really him? The police told them that a local family had found him about 2 years ago limping. The family figured he was hit by a car, took him to the vet to get fixed up, and kept him as a pet for the past 2 years. But they were moving and couldn't keep him anymore. My parents were mostly convinced and brought him back home... to his original home! After a little while we are totally convinced that IS Buddah. It's pretty crazy, but true. And now my dad wants to get rid of all our cats (urine and carpet... long bad story) so I brought Buddah up here to live with me. It's fun to have a kitty here to keep me company. :) Have a great day and hug your cat if you have one. ♥

Finishing.

I was on Spring Break last week, so I had time to knit. And knit I did.

I finished all the knitting on my cabled hoodie. Hoods are deceiving. That thing is bigger than a sleeve! But I finished them all, gave them a good wash and conditioning, and they are now pinned out on my bedroom floor back home. I wish I would have bought more pins. Eighty wasn't enough. Anyhow, they will be good and dry by the next time I go home, which probably won't be for 3 weeks. By then my zipper order should be in and I'll sew this baby up.

Pinned down.

Before I left for home, I finished my first glove. Here is a shot of the inside. I love how well the glove is customized to my hand. I can't wait to make the second. Now that the sweater is 150 miles away, I will focus on my other WIPs.

Inside out.

I can't believe I have only 7 weeks of school left. Bizarre. ♥

At my fingertips.

I started the mitten flap of my girly gloves. I made a nice picot edge, picked up stitches across the back of the glove, joined in the round, and went to town. But it just wasn't meant to be. I wasn't feeling the "this is going to be cool" vibe as I was knitting. So I re-thought the idea of the gloves. They don't want to be practical and useful. They want to be dainty and fun. So I ripped the mitten bugger out.

The beginning... and end of the mitten flap.

The good thing: fingertips are quick and easy. The bad part: if I would have figured this out a week ago, the first glove would be done and the second one would be on its way.

Four fingertips to go...

Yay for swirly girly gloves that have finally figured out what they want to be! ♥

Chickadees

I have started a cross-stitch called Chickadees in Spring. It's snowing like crazy right now in State College, so it's a nice reminder that it won't be snowy forever.

New craftiness.

I am really enjoying it. I haven't done a cross-stitch since I was about 10 years old. That cross-stitch was a teddy bear in a heart-shaped frame. I never actually finished it because I shifted a huge portion of the pattern off one stitch. After I realized what I had done, I got frustrated and gave up. But this time, I will go slowly and enjoy the picture that is forming.

Extreeeeme close-up.

I find the whole cross-stitch process a bit like tetris. :) Different shaped blocks of different colors, all falling into place. It takes more concentration than knitting, so I have a feeling it's going to take awhile. Have a great day! ♥

In Memory of Abby

Mike's cute little dog Abby passed away last night.

Sweet little Abby.

Kisses for Mikey.

Rest in peace Abby. We will miss you. ♥

Clapotis Photo Shoot!

So as I said, there are tons of pictures of the lovely Clapotis in this post. I made them smaller in size to help out the ease of viewing, but you can always click for bigger pics. :)

First a little story. Clapotis was whizzing along and I couldn't stop! Would I have enough yarn? The suspense was too much! Let's just say, I was up until 4am when OH NO!!! The picture below is when I ran out of yarn. I had about 4 more decreases until the final section of the pattern. I was defeated. I went to sleep and resolved to finish/fix it in the morning when I woke up.

Denial isn't only a river in Egypt.

I ended up using some long ends I had left myself when changing balls (in order to match up color) to spit-n-splice myself 2 more feet of yarn. With that much length, I cobbled together this semi-graceful end to Clapotis. Not ideal, but it works just fine for me. You can see the beginning and the end of Clapotis below.

We will MAKE it work.

And now on to the photo shoot. Ok. Just a warning. I got progressively creative (and perhaps a bit scandalous by the end). But I was having fun with this amazingly versatile scarf!

First, the shoulder wrap. Sweet and sophisticated.

Shoulder wrap Clapotis.

Now a shot of Clapotis as a shawl. It's amazing how this baby stretches. She's probably 2' by 5.5' fully extended.

Shawl Clapotis.

Then I discovered that Clapotis was at home... on my head! As a babushka! Heh.

Babushka Clapotis.

Or maybe a more "chic" head wrap?

Head wrap Clapotis.

She then got back to her roots, as a scarf.

Scarf Clapotis.

Clapotis as a belt is not so practical... But practicality is not really important in these next few pictures.

Belt Clapotis .

After the belt... I got really creative. "This would make a cool tank top..." I thought to myself...

Asymmetric tank top Clapotis.

And then came this...

OH MY Clapotis.

LOL. I hope I did not offend anyone's sensibilities. Needless to say, Clapotis will not be worn in many of these configurations. However, with inspiration from others, I could not resist! Have a great night! ♥

Give me an F! Give me an O!

I finished Clapotis! Many pictures to follow. I had fun modeling this one. So verstile!

♥

Progress!

I've been knitting! Quite a bit actually. First, the swirly girly gloves. This little experiment has been slow going. Very much one step forward and half step back. I'm enjoying the process though. I have decided on fingerless gloves and a mitten flap. I definitely have enough yarn. In hindsight, I would have done the increases on the palm differently. I would have increased on the left of the stitch marker so that the increases made a "V" instead of a section of parallel increases. Does that make sense? Now the question is, do I make the second glove differently? Or keep them the same? I think I'll keep them the same. But for the next pair, I'll know.

Glovin' it.

I also checked-out of the Sleeve Island Hotel. I went incognito as to not prolong my stay. Now I have two fronts to do... which are rather like sleeves... darn. I'm hoping to finish the two front pieces simultaneously as I did the sleeves. I can't wait to finish this!!!

Fresh off sleeve island.

And this is actually a dated picture. I have actually finished the first ball of Lion&Lamb. Half way done!!! I love this yarn. So silky smooth.

Almost half a Clapotis...

Hopefully, I'll finish something before Spring. It's fun to switch between projects though. I need the variety. I am easily distracted... :) ♥

Growing

Clapotis is growing. I am aiming for a repeat a day. I am enjoying the purly side very much. The colors are starting to make me worrisome though. Too rainbow-y?

Clappin' along...

I don't know... time will tell. I currently have a rainbow-ish scarf that I love and wear all the time, so it should seem that I will wear this one too. Oh well. It sure is fun to knit!!! Off to the lab... ♥

Re: Designing

The one thing about designing is you can't be afraid to take a trip to the frog pond. I was knitting the thumb gusset on my glove when I realized the glove wasn't getting wide enough. My wrist is much smaller than the widest part of my palm so I have to increase to accommodate the difference. I should have charted this out before starting just to get an idea of the increases I need. So I printed out some handy dandy knitter's graphing paper in the appropriate gauge, traced my hand, and charted out some increases.

Bad news for le Swirly Glove.

Eek! I guess I should be optimistic and remind myself how fun it is to knit with Koigu. *sigh* And that this glove will actually FIT my hand. Like a glove. Kind of important.

Ribbit, ribbit.

It's fun to post in the morning. :) OH! And in the picture above you can see my stitch marker/safety pin/darning needle holder. It's the Very Cherry Gum tin I bought it at Target. After I finished the gum, I decided that it would be a great "thingy" holder. I highly recommend these snappy tin things. They are fun to open and close too. And they make cool *POP* noises when opening. *POP* ♥

Color!

Here are some pictures of my newest yarn: Lorna Laces Lion & Lamb Happy Valley. This is cool on two levels.

One, I love the sherbet-y rainbow colors.

Two, I am currently in my last semester at Penn State University Park a.k.a. Happy Valley!

Happy Valley.

That picture is currently my desktop background... I have begun knitting the addition that is Clapotis. Such speedy knitting when compared to the tiny gauge of Koigu. Fun!

The Clapotis has begun.

I have actually knit much farther than this picture shows. I have turned the corner and dropped two columns of stitches. The colors pool a bit, I still love them and can't wait to have a new scarf! ♥

Swirly Gloves

I have been knitting away on my Koigu gloves and something peculiar started happening. The colors are swirling! Now, in my many trips around knitting blogworld, I should have realized that this was going to happen. Many-a-sock made of Koigu has this same swirl effect going on. Not that I don't like it, I was just surprised when I probably should have expected it. In the picture below you can see the dominate green color moving in a swirl to the left around the glove. The other picture is of the opposite side of the glove; the pink/blue side with green peeking in on the corners. Interesting.

Green?


Pink?

So the gloves have a new name: Swirly Girly Gloves. Ha. I love knitting with Koigu. I even love the US1 toothpick needles. :) I have started the thumb gusset since taking these pictures. I'm going to use an Asymmetrical gusset as explained in the Winter 2003 issue of Interweave Knits. I hadn't subscribed to the magazine at that point, but they have a .pdf file of the Beyond Basics gusset article in the subscriber-only area. Those Beyond Basics articles are pretty handy. Huh. ♥

Woot!

I think I finally figured out the CSS positioning on this layout so that it looks the way I want AND it is readable on all screen resolutions. Woot! I also spiffed up my links and updated the sidebar. Now it accurately describes the projects I'm working on. I fear I have caught a bit of "startitis" so I'm going to concentrate on finishing something. Chances are it will be Clapotis because it is addictive knitting. I'll post pictures soon...

Time to catch some zzzz. ♥

Not enough time.

This is what has been taking up my time...

Mr. Engineer!!

Valerie & I are committee chairs of the Mr. Engineer competition here at Penn State. It has been the focus of most of my time.

And I started a pair of gloves for myself from the Koigu PPPM I bought over Winter break. Pretty picot edges to up the girly-ness.

Girly gloves... the beginning.

Ok, I really have to do homework.

Egh.

Very busy. Sorta sick. And CSS hates me. I can't figure out how to make this layout look nice in all resolutions. I... am an amateur. I wish I had more to say... Maybe later this weekend.

Sleevies.

Aaaah. Knitting content ahead. Finally. First is a swatch of the loveliest yarn ever: Koigu PPPM. I knit this swatch on teeny tiny toothpick-like US1 bamboo needles. I thought I was going to snap them in-half the entire time. I am planning on designing some girly gloves with these two hanks of Koigu; something with a picot edge and maybe convertible fingerless gloves/mittens. I ♥ the colors. They are a little more vibrant in real life: purples, olive greens, blue, with zaps of pink and aqua through it. Yum.

Yummy.

And, I started the sleeves of my Cozy Hoodie. I'm going to do them at the same time so that they are exactly the same (with increases ect.) and I don't end up with one really long sleeve. Here is a joke:

Q: Where does the king keep his armies?
A: Up his sleevies!

Haha. Um. Sorry. That came to mind when I was typing about sleeves. Anyway, here is a picture of the things. They have a fold back cuff which is pretty snazzy.

One, two, buckle my shoe.

Off to run errands! Happy Friday everyone! ♥

New look!

Look!!! I redesigned my little corner of the web. I rather like it. I will call it... my blue lady phase. :) I absolutely fell in love with the models on antique sewing patterns! They are all so classy. I wish it was still in-fashion to dress in snappy dresses and pumps. I also happened to find a calendar called Hemlines that has all these retro patterns on them. Here is a link that is a similar style as the calendar I bought (it's from the same company). Anyway take my button! But save you your own server please...

In other (not so surprising news), school is insane. I have a lot going on right now. I have an exam next Tuesday! Already!!! An exam on chemical engineering principles that should have been learned in the last 4 years... It's very comprehensive and I'm very apprehensive about the whole thing. ERK. I will have to dredge into the depths of my brain for this one...

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I was caught out in a snow storm today on the way home from class. It's amazing how fast it fell. It was very pretty for awhile, but now it's all melting to slush as the temp outside rises. Here is a view out of my window.

Snow!

Good thing I have pretty little GelGem flowers to hold me out until Spring. Okey, time to sleep. A post about knitting tomorrow! ♥

First FOs of OhFive

Sorry for the unannounced break from blogging. I have been enjoying my time off from school. When I get back to school I will have a new look for my blog. I was going to update it for the new year, but all the graphics are on my computer at school. Ooops. I've been doing lots of knitting (and some beading). My Christmas gifts took a bit longer than Christmas to make... but they were finished eventually.

Tessa (hi!) asked for a cell phone cozy like mine. Well, I made some improvements to the design: adding a drawstring and an opening on the bottom for the charger. I really like the colors. It's a little cell phone sock. It was a quick knit too. And my official "First FO of OhFive."

Cell phone cozy.

My sister's herringbone clutch and her boyfriend's military style hat both turned out well. I designed both of them from scratch and I'm especially proud of the hat. I'll get better pictures and pattern specs later, but here is a pic of both in action. Kaylee is in the foreground with the clutch and Paul is in the backround with the hat. We were at PepBoys... heh.

Action shot.

Also, Mikey got a new toy. A Dell Axiom for his re-entry as a full-time student. I put the shipping boxes to good use...

New toy.

I made a make-shift swift! I bought some lovely Koigu to make myself girly gloves and the hanks needed to be wound into balls. Mikey, who helped me wind a ball previously by being a swift, refused to employ his hands in anything other than playing with his Axiom soooo I used my engineeing saavy to make this setup.

Dell boxes put to good use.

I have many more pictures and things planned for this blog. Classes start next Monday the 10th, so look for more posts then when I'm back with my usual computer. ♥