Crafty Tuesday

Well, my Craft Tuesday was productive again.  I finished my wine glasses and matching coasters for my upcoming craft show and now I'm trying to decide how to price them.  I'm thinking $5 for the glass and coaster.  Thoughts?

 

I finished my Sweetie Pie hat.  As predicted, it is wonderful!  105 yards of the softest wool to cradle my head.  This hat is mine.

I love the little cables, but most of all I like the crown. Worth the slight aggravation DPNs are to me.

Wait until you see the next hat I'm going to make--but I seem to be running out of acceptable yarn for hats.  I don't want to dip into my madelinetosh Vintage stash, but I just might have to.  I'm loving how my stash is decreasing!  And if I run out of yarn for hats, I can always just make socks!!

St. Patrick's Day and a Full Moon

That was the start to my day.  Full moon shining in and the realization that there will drunks loose all day. (Shudder)

Today was the final day of state testing and I got 3.5 stripes done on my Kroy socks.  Not too thrilled with the patterning, but I can tell you they will be mighty warm!

I got to the point where I can start the decreases on my Sweetie Pie Hat.

And I finished my first Rachael Herron book, "How to Knit a Love Story."  Not a bad day after all!!

3446 Yards of Joy

So, as predicted, I finished my Winter Pastel socks today.  I always screw up the finish, but no one really knows unless my shoes are off.  My left sock is 6 rows longer.  Phft! I entered them in a contest on ravelry.  If they are "chosen randomly" I get a yarn prize from Desert Vista Dyeworks. Cross your fingers for me!  

I started *another* hat! as Andrew likes to say.  My favorite hat to wear is the Sweetie Pie Hat by Jen from PurlSoho in NYC. I did the original in dark blue Malabrigo Rastita and it is so lovely.  I decided to make another one in red (Jupiter) from the leftover Rastita I used to make my hitchhiker this past summer.  It is just a lovely, so far.  I finished the ribbing this evening and will commence the body tomorrow.

And do you remember my battle to score this yarn?  It's Moondance by Lollipop Yarns.  I stalked it for weeks and finally was able to get one.  It is the color way for the next pair of socks I'm doing.  Yum!

And as the title suggests, I have my current total of yards knit for 2014--so far! 

3446 yards, baby!  The nerd in me wants to know how much yarn yardage I have in my stash, but I'll calculate that at another time.  I'm off to play Township on my iPad!

Unexpected Snow Day

Yes, I knew we were under a Winter Storm Warning. Did I expect Cleveland to shut down during OGT week?  Never!  So, I got up, showered, dressed, etc.  it's not until I'm getting ready to leave that I look at my phone and discover I have the day off.  Dang it!  That's almost as bad a s getting up on Saturday thinking you're late for work.

So, I crawled back into bed with wet hair and slept until 10:30.  Niiiiice!

How did I spend the rest of my day?  Finishing a hat, of course!  It's a snow day tradition!  This is the Pup Tent hat ( free in ravelry! ) that I made using left over yarn from my Range Wrap.  It's MarigoldJen worsted yarn and it is lovely!

Then I figured. I might as well crank out the heel on my March Socks!  It took a few hours, but I obviously had the time.  I worked 5 stripes and the heel.  It'll be finished Friday night.  Hopefully.

And what is this? Michele cooked?  Yes, she did.  Thank you to Campbellskitchen.com who provided me with this awesome recipe for mini chicken pot pies. They were so awesome!  They also have a recipe for mini Shepherd's Pie which I'll probably do next.  Yuuuuuummmmmm!

Slow Motion Sunday

Well, I'm sick.  Not real real sick, but droopy and cranky sick. Sneezy, coughy, sleepy sick.

So, instead of working on my afghan, I started a hat.  Something small I can lay down and pick back up in between naps.  It's called the Pup Tent.  No idea why, it just is.

I'm using the leftover yarn from my Range Wrap.  It is a butterscotch color that is warm and lovely.  I don't wear much yellow, but this is very nice...

I started my second Hitchhiker on Friday using a lovely variegated yarn.  I didn't get very far on it because once I started to feel crappy, I put it down--I didn't feel like paying attention.

And now?  I'm going to bed.  It's early, but I have a long week ahead of me.  I'm proctoring the Ohio Graduation Test every day this week.  Four hours on my feet with no breaks, no food, no nothing but walking up,and down the aisles making sure they don't cheat.  This should be fun with a cold....

Stashbust 2014

My resolution is still holding.  I'm still working strictly from my yarn stash. But let me tell you this, honey--there's this yarn from Turtlepurl Yarns in Canada that is making me weak!  Burberry striped yarn for socks.  Tears come to my eyes with it's loveliness.  I have resorted to begging Andrew to buy it for me, but he has such willpower.  I'm going to keep working on him, though.  Eventually, there will be something he wants and I'll negotiate for the yarn.

Sigh.

I got a little sidetracked for a minute.  Sorry about that.

Back to the stash...

I found this lovely pattern today on Pinterest.  The Harmony Cloche. It is totally awesome and I'm making that pattern mine.  It will be just as lovely as my Lucy Hat and I have the perfect madelinetosh vintage in "Whiskers". A light grey that is super squishy.  Yum!

I've had 3 skeins of madelinetosh DK in "Cathedral" for a very long time.  This shawl is called "Mara" and calls for 3 skeins of madelinetosh DK!  Win win win!  And the pattern is free!  It's amazing to me that once I made the decision to work from stash how the perfect patterns have floated to the surface.  This is definitely one of those.  I'm almost sad winter is almost over.  But I'll rock it anyway!

Project List for March

I sat down last night to start planning for March.  I finished February with 5 completed projects off the list.  The Arroyo was removed after 3 tries.  The wrap never got started.  The afghan only got 3 out of 10 squares.  I did, however, knit a hat for my boss that wasn't on the list and I started an extra pair of socks.

March will have smaller goals.  One is the beautiful cowl that looks like shawl. It is called Zuzu's Petals by Carina Spencer.  I'm going to used one of my Madelinetosh Texas Teacakes collections. Probably the greys.  I have them wound in an ombré magic cake.  Can't. Wait. 

Here's the socks I started.  (And one is almost finished...). I may knit an additional pair this month.

I'm going to make a crazy hat out of this yarnbox yarn.  

As for the rest of my projects, I'm going to knit another Hitchhiker out of Berroco Boboli Lace.  Another Lunule out of Malabrigo Rasta.  A grey wrap out of red heart super saver--Don't. Ask. And I changed my afghan goals to devoting Sunday to knitting on it.  3 squares per Sunday...

There should be plenty of space left over for reading and adding in another project towards the end of the month.

I Love This Hat!

I used to hate hats back when I had 80's hair (up until about 7 years ago!). I hated squishing my hair and messing up the hairspray.  Now, I have wild permed hair that occasionally looks like Mufasa from the Lion King. Hats are now no big deal.  And this hat? It is awesome!

Kind of a different yarn.  It's from Alina Shea's Disney Villians collection last year.  This color is "Jafar" from Aladdin. Lots of different shades of purples that pool in a diagonal.  Today a girl told me it was ugly.  Poo on her!

This is a picture of the Meret on Isabelle--my styrofoam head.  I did three pattern repeats to get a slouchy version.  I also did the brim for one inch in stockinette, so it would roll and then one inch of 1x1 rib.  It makes the hat extra cool, in my opinion.  (You can see the brim best in the top picture.)

Can't wait to wear this bad boy tomorrow!!

Meret

I worked on my lovely new hat today in the quiet house while listening to podcasts of ThuIs American Life.  I got 1.75 repeats finished.  1 more set of repeats and then decrease tomorrow.  I love it's squishy goodness.

I'm considering revamping the blog.  I'll leave all the current content, but I keep seeing other blogs and how much more they have that keeps me coming back.  Tutorials, contests, better layout... I'll keep you posted.

Smilies

Lots of things to smile about today:  a nap, selling stuff on eBay and getting it mailed off, finishing an awesome book (The Hypnotist's Love Story), pizza, and the following:

I finished the Man Hat for my principal.  And it is squishy and soft and lovely.

My Yarnbox subscription came and the yarn didn't suck!

And this cute book was waiting for me at the library.  The projects inside were kind of "not me," but the pictures and collages and drawings sparked creative ideas for decorating my craft room this spring.  Lots of color and rainbows and garlands and silly stuff that I like!

Lazy, Snowy Sunday

Started the hat for my principal.  He wanted a manly hat, so I searched on ravelry for "manly hat" and got "The Man Hat" which is a free pattern.  It works up really quick, but is incredibly boring to do because it's all in one boring, manly color

.,

And once I'm finished with his hat, I've discovered another hat that will be awesome for me!!  It's called Meret.  I'm going to use a yarn I've had for over a year in my stash, but could never decide what to use it for.  It's a rich purple with lighter purple and pink accents.  Yum!

Halfway through February

I checked my project list and it was pretty lofty.  Too many large projects to finish, so I'm already telling myself it's ok that I don't meet my goals this month.  One goal I DID meet was completing a pair of socks each month--here's this month's socks!!  Rainbow-y!!

I actually bought yarn Friday.  It's this lovely Madelinetosh Vintage, but it's for a good reason--my boss asked me to make him a hat.  It was not a frivolous whim purchase.  I promise.

And the stash bust continues!  I used up another miscellaneous skein of yarn on this Truffle Hat.  I modified the pattern so that every other rib was cabled instead of cabling every rib.  I like it better...

Now, back to the hat for Mr. Holmes. I wanted to finish my Trillian, but it will be a small miracle if it is finished by the end of the month.  To much "end" at the end of the pattern makes for a boring knit....  And the 10 squares on my afghan?  Forget about it...