Monday, July 30, 2007

Big Trouble in Little Yarn Store

D. and I embarked on a quest for mischief this weekend. With her husband's blessing (sort of) and my boyfriend being out of town, we decided to go on a yarn store crawl. I had not planned to buy any yarn, but... oops? Well, not entirely. For months, I have been checking out the Central Park Hoodie. As per usual, the yarn specified is far too expensive for me and I have not had the time to rethink the gauge. I had not even decided on the color, until stumbled upon six balls of Cestari washable wool in purple tweed. The pattern runs small, so I made a slightly larger size. I really hope this fits properly when the dust finally settles.

In my free time, the monkey socks were finally completed! I took nice photos for Ravelry and my camera promptly died after the last picture. Of course it did.

Finally, my morning could not be complete without an acquaintance walking up to my desk and hurling balls of yarn at me. Nothing says guilt-free stash building like an umprompted fiber attack.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Finally Finished!

Great news! My mother LOVES her new felted bunny. I can't think of a better compliment, especially since she is an incredible artist and very picky about her handmade gifts. I walked into the house and put it down to get my current sock project out of my bag. When I turned around, she had noticed the bunny and started playing with it. What a nice way to start my Sunday.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Toiling Away

So... I have not made much progress on the UFOs. I have been knitting feverishly on my monkey socks, and I hope to finish by early next week. Perhaps this will happen sooner, but I can't be too sure. I plan to show my bunny-in-progress to my mother tomorrow. Hopefully, it will be more on the FO than the WIP side. I think I have been spending too much time on Ravelry and too little time knitting.

Some projects are nearing completion, like a cat bed that was started, oh, about nine months ago. I bought a cheap kit for a few dollars and got very frustrated with the yarn. The chenille they provided was of incredibly cheap quality, so it kept breaking and shedding all over the place. The pattern itself is pretty straightforward, so I think I am going to start another one with nicer yarn when this is finished. Hopefully, I will have the new bed ready by the time he tears up this one. He's a tad on the violent side.

Last night, I met up with friends for a Harry Potter book launch at a local store. We had a lot of fun, but I was surprised to see that the Charmed Knits book was not on display. After searching, we couldn't find it on the shelf containing the rest of the knitting books, either. After asking an employee to run a search, they located it in the children's activity section. Several copies were actually sandwiched between some coloring books. This discovery was especially ironic, since we saw a number of people with hand-knitted house scarves milling about. A classic example of muggles in action, if I ever saw one.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

New Beginnings, Old Yarn

After corrupting my old blog and annoying my friends with craft-centric posts, I have finally made the move to a create a journal to chronicle my projects. Although I have always worked on various crafts throughout my life, the past two years have been consumed with knitting, cross stitch, embroidery and sewing. Right now, I am completely obsessed with making socks. Working full time, I have found that I can complete a pair in two weeks with casual knitting. My first attempt at the monkey socks has been a great success! I used Brown Sheep Wildfoote in the Brown Sugar colorway. The results have been amazing! I will post photos as soon as I learn how to properly use my digital camera. Thus far, pictures have been either blurry, or the colors are not quite right. And those are the good ones.

Next up, I am going through my UFOs and completing them one by one. Surprisingly, one project is only waiting on a pom pom. I tried making one last night and it looked like a tangled mess. I am going to download a tutorial and make another attempt today. My mother really needs her felted bunny as soon as possible.

In August, I am hosting a craft panel at AtsuiCon, so I need to finish my strawberry purse and my plush "Squarey" toy. They have lingered longer than they should have, so I need to begin finishing some things before I can embark on new projects. I have a lot of sock yarn stashed specifically for my boyfriend and I am starting to feel guilty about neglecting his socks. A few friends are still waiting on scarves, socks, a sushi toilet roll cover and a yarmulke. It's evil to make my own monkey socks with so many outstanding projects, I know.