Pop That Bottle Top for 2012

I know I'm stating the obvious but 2012 is right around the corner! 2011 wasn't such a horrible year, all things considered, but I am so looking forward to 2012. I feel optimistic and bright at the thought of "starting over" for lack of better wording.

Naturally, I have a laundry list of resolutions for the upcoming year. One of these that falls into the crafts category is to:

Choose one pattern from one of the many craft books in my personal library to make each month.

I purposely made it vague. I don't want to feel too confined because I'll be less likely to follow through. I made this resolution because I own an obscene amount of knitting, crocheting, spinning and sewing books that I rarely use. By use I mean actually make items from the patterns offered as opposed to flipping through the pages and saying "Oooooo, pretty!" Plus I may get some inspiration for the blog if I'm actually finishing stuff. If all goes well, I should have 12 new items by year end.

My other craft resolution is to:

Finish or frog (rip out) at least one WIP (work in progress) per month.

That one is pretty self explanatory. I don't know how many WIPs I have but I think at least more than five and less than ten.

I have a few other craft related resolutions that I may get into at a later date. For now, here are some pics of recently finished object for this year in ni particular order. 2011 seems to have been the year of baby sweaters and hand warmers. Have a great one yall and Happy New Year!

I made these for a nice MTA worker that gave me a break when she really didn't have to.

Believe it or not, that there's handspun! I ran out of hanspun yarn as you can probably tell, hence the short sleeves and yellow borders. Thankfully, the shower was in August.


Finally finished this sweater. Wasn't too pleased with how it came out but the mom to be loved it and that's all that matters.

Made this potholder for charity. Its kitchy and I love it!

Made this baby set in record time. I think I found out about the shower on Wednesday and had it done by Saturday in time for the shower.

This hat was en experiment in gradients. I used three strands of sock yarn in two colors to gradually change from one to the other.

Made these for my son's teachers for Christmas.

Pondering Fair Isle

- I think I like looking at fair isle stitches rather than knitting them.

- I realize why most fair isle sweaters are knit in the round and steeked. Purling + Fair Isle = No fun!

- EZ recommends in Knitting Without Tears to put a couple of short rows in the back neck so the collar will sit better. I felt really smart for doing the calcs and executing the short rows all by myself. Then I thought after I knit them, does a baby really need the sweater neck to lay properly? All they do is lay down and sit up anyway right? oh well.


- One must have options when executing a make one to get the effect you want. I tried 3 different ones before I found the one that worked properly.

- Buttonholes? I can barely pay attention to what row I'm on, then to throw a [K2tog, YO] into the mix. Thank goodness for plan B, sew on snaps!

- I found another reason why fair isle is knit in the round. Three words: Weaving. In. Ends.


- I should have done a gauge swatch, but I like living on the edge :-) I still hold the option to eat those words later.

- This is the first time I'm actually looking forward to knitting many rows in stockinette.

Try'in Design'in

I'm not ready to give up on this blog. Even though I neglect the poor thing, I still like to express myself this way every once in a while. I've been up to a lot but I'd rather not be guilty of information overload so I'll just talk about what I'm working on right now.

I have a baby shower to attend pretty soon so I had to think of what I would make for this event. My buddy Maribel from my Barnes & Nobles knitting group has been working on this baby set for her cousin who's due. The set consists of a log cabin baby blanket and the five hour baby sweater all done in shades of purples. I fell in love with her sweater because the increases didn't look like the ones done in the original 5 hour baby sweater. Of course when I looked on Ravelry there were about 80 different versions of this sweater but I narrowed it down to the one Maribel used which is this one (rav link).

I thought this sweater would look great with a fair isle yoke so I decided to try and design one. I'm using all the stitch and row counts from the original pattern but I'm only doing 3 increase rows based on the Elizabeth Zimmerman Percentage System (EPS, they have a group on Rav, go check it out) I'm using 5, 11 and 4 row patterns from Sheila McGregors book Traditional Fair Isle Knitting and Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting book. I have every thing mapped out so all that's left to do is cast on. Hopefully, I'll be able to document the whole process or at least show pics of the FO. Until next time.

Insomnia

Happy July! For some reason, I can't sleep right now even though it's way past my bedtime. I guess I can blame it on a restless mind. I've got like a million insignificant things running through it right now and I can't seem to find the off switch.

While I'm up, lets talk crafts. My crafts have pretty much been as erratic as my thoughts right now. On Monday I knitted, on Tuesday I spun (well actually plied), on Wednesday I quilted and on Thursday I sewed(sp?).

I'm knitting a newborn christening gown requested by one of my coworkers. The pattern is called Floral Trellis and can be found here on ravelry. There's an error in one of the beginning rows but its pretty obvious. All in all, its a good pattern but I just wish I would've read the pattern before I started because the whole thing is knit on a background of purl. Had I known that before hand, I would have knit it from the wrong side on a background of knit. Either way, I'm about 90 percent done.

I plied some ashland bay fiber on my wheel this week to make room for Tour de Fleece. For those who don't know, rules are simple, you spin every day the Tour de France spins. There's a ravelry group with prizes and such. I've joined about three groups already so we'll see how it goes.

I started my first quilt, I think over a year ago. I'll have to check my blog to see when exactly that was. But anyhoo, I got discouraged when it came time to quilt because I suck at it. I decided to pick it up and try again. I watched a lot of you tube videos and I still suck at it, but I'm getting better.

I'm working on sewing project for my cousin right now. She's getting married at the end of this month and wants these cute satin roses to throw birdseed out of when they leave the church, Her mom was supposed to make them but she passed away last year. My aunt loved to sew so I felt so honored when my cousin told me I could have her sewing machine. It took me a while to get the machine calibrated but I finally got it with a little prayer. It also helped that her machine is a Singer which is the same brand as my original machine.

I apologize for the pictureless post, I really do. I'll make it up next time. Now its really past my bedtime so I'm going to try and get some rest. g'night or g'morning, whatever suits your fancy.

A Little Blue and Grey

I just got the urge to blog. I don't have anything profound to say, really. I just happen to glance over at my latest FO looking all purty folded up in my craft corner and thought about posting pictures.

I made this sweater for one of my husbands friends who's girlfriend is expecting. I planned to gift this item at the shower last Saturday but we didn't make it out to Jersey that day.As long as I get it to them before the baby's born, I'm good.

The pattern is called Green zebra baby sweater (rav link) and I used TLC Essentials yarn for this version.