So, I've been saving all these nubbins of yarn and putting them in the jar in the middle for the last year. Yesterday, I found a whole ziplock of other remnants in my stash and put them into other jars. These are quart jars, by the by. Each of these represents a finished object and I feel pretty proud of myself each time I look at them. I keep these on my desk at home.
Here is my finished Clockwork, spread out on the king sized bed. I didn't wet or steam block it because I'm still scarred by the sadness of my last project.
This is knitted of 4 balls of KnitPicks City Tweed dk in Romance and 5 in Orca. I made 3 slightly smaller sections. This thing is snugglier than you can imagine. I will not be cold at work this winter! Take that crappy HVAC!
Here you can see the nugget of yarn leftover on top of the baktus. There is quite a contrast in the brightness of the yarn vs the product that apparently CAN'T EVER GET WET! I didn't even impulsively wear it before blocking so this never got out and about before it turned to muddy pale green crap. BOO.
I knitted this baktus with a lattice edging. I put it aside for the Ravellenic games. I need to block it yet and I think I will string block it. I'd like to get a little more depth out of it. There was a lot of pooling in the yarn, Knit It Up: Squishy. Hey, that is the price you pay with hand paint. I will say that I found the base yarn a bit splitty. Blue shoes and happiness is the color name. I may not keep this one. I have a couple of aunts who want shawls and this seems like a good one to give up.
The Cowl is a simple seed stitch border, some stripes with slipped stitches, and then another seed stitch border. I made it for Chas. The yarn is Red Heart Soft.
The WIP Wrestling is Byron the Clubfoot Sheep. He was knitted in fourteen pieces that then had to be sewn up together. Did I mention I hate sewing up? I knitted 7 feet in order to produce 2 pairs that matched. There was no way I could have knitted 4 that matched. The yarns are Hobby Lobby's Bamboo Spun for the wooly parts and Bernat Cotton Tots for his head and extremities.
The Scarf Hockey has a 6 stitch cast on, twisted loop bottom in lieu of fringe, knit all the even rows, expand to 20 stitches by adding 1 stitch on each side on every odd row. Then GARTER GARTER GARTER until it's time to reduce down to 6, do the twisted loops, and cast off. The yarn is the remainder of the bamboo spun from Byron plus another skein I bought at the same time because I thought I might want to make a bunch of sheep. HAR.
All in all, I am quite pleased with the amount of knitting I did during Those Games That Don't Want Us To Associate With Them. I am having some neck pain on the left and elbow pain on the right. We won't even start on how sore my eyes are.
I think my favorite part of the Olympics is seeing countries recently or not so recently liberated, where the athletes may now truly sing their own anthems.
Seeing the moms hug their winners gets me every time as well.
In Mom News at my house, my baby turned EIGHT today. My mind, she is blown. The day he was born, he turned at the last minute, to an unfavorable position, leading to an emergency c-section. There was a hurricane Charley on the news. Life has been like that since then. This kid, my Charlie, continues to amaze me with his curiosity, his humor, his volcanic temper, his foul feet, his amazing energy and his big, loving heart.
I just strained my first batch of shrub. (A colonial era method for preserving fruit where you steep it with vinegar and sugar and drink it later mixed with water and possibly a little hooch.)
I made it with a bag of frozen mixed berries, 3/4 cup turbinado sugar, and 1 1/2 cups vinegar. I basically chucked it in the fridge, giving it a little shake now and again over the course of 3 weeks. I am having 4T in a pint of club soda. It's delicious.
This is the Radiating Star blanket, by Alexis Layton. I used just shy of 4 skeins of Lion Wool-Ease and it's 4 ft across. The edge does curl a bit, so I believe that after it's had a little bath, I shall block it aggressively into an octagon shape. The bind off was a real slog.
I did end up using the expanded rows, so if you make this of worsted yarn, be prepared to have both parts.
This pattern from Westknits is mostly garter stitch, and yet, I didn't find it too much of a slog at the end.
I swapped with a friend it for some cross stitch. I knitted it in dk yarn (Kashmira from Joann's Sensations line) on a size six needle. It blocked out to be the size of the top bunk-- a twin bed. Well, a wee bit wider. After blocking, I would have liked the gauge a bit more snug. I have some other dk yarn set aside to make one for myself. I may though, make West's current pattern from Knitty. This one was well worth the money, so I may also buy another of his lovely shawl patterns for the yarn in question. The yarn is rather aggressively girly, so the geometric qualities of his patters will balance things out.
There are a crapzillion tutorials on the web for making these. Here is mine.
For tools, I had only crimping pliers and some sort of pliers with a bent front? I think I needed some other needle nose pliers. I may well have them, but I can't find them. Oh, and I spilled an entire jar of glitter in my craftsman tool chest that I use for nonknitting craft stuff. Glitter: The Herpes of Crafting. I will NEVER get rid of that shit.
For materials, I had findings in gold plate. I couldn't find sterling and nickel irritates my skin. I'm a thenthive printhess. The findings included 2 inch gold plated headpins, 10 mm rings, gold crimp beads, bead spacers. I bought a small tube of beads to supplement my random leftover beads.
Put 3 random beads with spacers or crimpers between them. I used some crimp beads as spacers because I am pretty sure there are no crafting cops.
Above that, put a crimp bead.
Bend the head pin over, making a loop and thread the non-head end into the crimp bead. That was the part that was the biggest hassle. I had a couple head pins that got hopelessly mangled.
Crimp.
Add 10mm ring to the loop on the headpin.
If I were doing these again, I would use a 3 inch headpin and skip the 10mm ring. I would make the loop and then give the end a little twist above the beads, on the stem, as it were.
So now. . . .my knitting has jewelry. More jewelry than I do, actually. I think I spent about 90 minutes making 24 of them. I am not built for speed though. I tend to fuss unnecessarily over things like making them all the same or all unique. I went with unique, but then I wondered if I had randomized the bead placement enough. It's tough work being nuts.
