Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Here's my 2nd bowl and much to my excitement, the bottom did well this time and I didn't get a hole in it. It's sitting here on top of my washing machine drying. I put it on top of a ceramic pot that I placed upside down so as it dries, it's slowly taking the shape of that pot. It's still damp so I've left it alone for now although I'm anxious for it to dry.

Tomorrow is the sock class that I organized at my office. Claire will be coming at noon and hopefully we'll get in a solid hour of instruction. There is only four of us taking the class so it should be smooth sailing. I picked up some size 3 DPNs for my friend Susan whose AC Moore store was out of size 3 at her store in Maryland. Since I live in Virginia, I ran over there tonight to get them for her. I'll have a full report tomorrow! Yippie.

Friday, May 26, 2006

So much to do so little time....

So I had not mentioned this before but I just cut all my hair last week. A total of 14 inches was cut off and I donated it to Locks of Love which is a charity organization that makes wigs for children with cancer. It was my second time donating and it's a great feeling. It will always grow back and I'd do it again and again! Here is what my blue bowl looks like, I'm working on it tonight so I think I'll have that done and ready for felting tomorrow. Hopefully I will be more successful with this one... to be continued!
I have this sock yarn ready for my sock class on Wednesday. I am very excited. I also saw these "footies" in a magazine that I subscribe to called Creative Knitting. I want to make these for myself when I finally learn the mystery behind socks!

How cute are these!!!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

On and on and on..

So last night I started on another bowl in the blue/teal "AztecTurquoise". These really knit up fast. I had a couple of rows done and then proceeded to really get it moving this morning on the train. I will probably have it done to the decreasing part on the way home on the train. Maybe I'll make one for my mother-in-law and my husband's grandmother. We're going to Montana in June to visit them and that's something quick I can make to give them since we haven't seen them in quite awhile (2 years). I could also just save a bunch for Christmas presents :-) now there's an idea!

Small projects are great for the train and I've been dying to learn how to make socks so I have asked Claire (instructor that came to my office to teach knitting) to come in and teach a few of us how to knit socks on DPNs. She has accepted and our first class with her will be on the 31st. She'll come at lunch time and we'll get together and knit away. I'm really looking forward to it. Problem around this area is that when stores put up their class schedules, if you don't call that day, you can't get in. It's nuts so I'm glad she's coming for a "private" session if you will.

I'm not sure what I want to start on next but I was wanting to make the cute pink clutch from the one skein book. It's also a felted project but there are a few things in the pattern that I'm not quite sure about. These are the times that I really wish my Mom lived closer. I showed her my pink pot last night on our web camera. We do that often and it works very well. Sometimes, though, it's just better in person.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Success!


So here it is... the bowl I was talking about in my last post. It was a super fast project. This was my very first felting as well. I made a few mistakes but I think that the finished project came out cute. When I got to the end which is actually the bottom and wove in the end, it either came out during the felting process or something else but there is a hole in the bottom about the size of a quarter. It doesn't matter though, I'm already starting on my second bowl and should do better with that one.





I'm working on the blue one and I'm excited to see how it goes. I'm knitting it a little tighter because I had thought that it was going to be a bit smaller buy the picture in the book.

Also today, I met with the instructor that came to my office to teach beginning knitting. She helped me finish my tank top. I'm going to do a little stretching/blocking on it this weekend and I'll have a picture of it up. I'm not sure if I will be in it or not but we'll see. Not sure if it will fit still. The jury is out. Posted by Picasa

Sunday, May 14, 2006

New Purchase

 
 
So yesterday I went to a local knitting shop and I picked up these items. I'm going to make something that I saw in the One Skein book that I purchased! I'm high tailing it on my tank top so that I can start on it. I promised myself that I'd only be working on one thing at a time and not get nuts with a "stash" and so far... I'm staying true to my word. I think this lady in the store overheard me saying that yesterday and she laughed at me. I'm going to hopefully have pictures of my tank today... and the mystery of weather or not it will fit will be solved. More later. Posted by Picasa

Monday, May 08, 2006

No Progress

So my plan was to sew up and block my tank top this weekend but it didn't happen. My friend had a baby on Friday night so I went to the hospital on Saturday and out to dinner afterwards which pretty much killed the evening since I was in a giant food coma when we got back. Sunday was food shopping and the like. My husband and I started the South Beach Diet (again) today so I had to get all the food we needed for the week. By the time I ate our last "free" meal last night, I was too tired to knit. Maybe tonight. We'll see...

Saturday, May 06, 2006

SP8 - Questionnaire

Some of the questions on the questionnaire I've already covered in my previous posts so I'll cover the rest here.
1. My favorite yarn to knit with... hmmm... I'm still a new knitter so I don't really have a favorite yarn YET. I can tell you this... Mohair YUCK. Hate it. I had made a scarf with it and it's so messy - shedding and everything. I won't knit with that again if I can help it.

2. I store my needles in a needle case. I have two of them. One is from AC Moore and one is from Joanne's. My mom bought me the one from Joanne's. I don't have many needles just yet.




4. Hmmm.. an Amazon wish list.. wow guess I better get that rolling! I love Amazon.com and order from there often. I just purchased the book called Onskein by Leigh Radford as well as a knitting Journal. Both were great deals. I have purchased yarn from an Ebay store called Supercrafty. They have good deals as well.

5. Favorite Scent??? Anything.... I love candles.

6. Sweet tooth? Who doesn't ;-) but my husband and I are going on the South Beach diet starting Monday so sweets will be off limits for awhile.

7. Other crafts... I think I already mentioned that I cross stitch and make other things as well. I recently saw on Martha Stewart.com her craft armoire and had to get one for myself so here is a picture of mine. It's great for storage!



8. Music... I like all kinds of music. I have an Ipod that I use to listen to tunes on the go. MP3s are okay.

9. Favorite color? Hmmm... I have painted a lot of red in my house. My favorite crayons are periwinkle and midnight blue.

10. Family: Married 7 years. No kids, no pets. One step son... he's 17 in September and lives in Montana. Mom and brother live in Florida and my 2 older sisters each with their husbands and three boys live in Long Island.

11. I wear scarves, hats, mittens and ponchos (I don't actually have a poncho but would wear one if I did). It does get cold here where I live so I need to be prepared when I'm waiting outside on the platform for a train to arrive to take me to work.

12. Favorite items to knit. Not really sure just yet.

14. Handmade gifts are great. Especially when they are given to someone who can really appreciate the time it takes to make them.

15. Needles.... I like straight but love the addi turbo circular needles. I like the bamboo needles... I have a bunch of them.

16. I don't have a yarn winder or swift yet. I've been looking to pick one up but they are expensive here. I'll wait until I have a need for it first.

18. Oldest UFO... welll.... actually my old UFO is my Mom's UFO. Before I started to learn how to knit I saw this beautiful scarf I wanted when I was visiting Scotland 2 years ago. I bought the yarn, beads and the book for my mom. Unfortunately, she couldn't do it. The pattern with the beads was too much for her to do so now I've inherited that project. Other than that... no other UFOs. To be honest, when I started to knit, I promised myself that I wouldn't create this HUGE stash of yarn that would take years and years to knit and to only work on one project at a time. So far, I have held true to this (not including this hand me down UFO). Sounds crazy right? All knitters have stashes??? I just don't want to have happen what happened with all my cross stitch stuff. Bought way too much and now it just sits around. I do love yarn stores and looking and touching and it's so hard not to buy something. Hmmm... I might have to change my "rule".

19. Favorite Holiday? Actually it isn't a holiday but actually it's VACATION time. Love to go away and travel any time of the year.

20. I don't collect anything.

22. New technique and 23. sock knitter. Actually the new technique I want to learn is to make socks. I tried to learn via a book on dpns but it's tough. I used a cool website I found called www.knittinghelp.com but I still had issues. I'm going to try to take a class at a local yarn shop. Problem with this is there is always a waiting list to get into a classes. Darn. I'm a size 6.5 and would love love love hand made knitted socks.

24. Birthday? Just passed - April 27th

Thursday, May 04, 2006

On the road...

I've been out of town for about a week on vacation. I went to Vegas with my husband for a few days and then off to Bald Head Island for a few days with friends. The weather was great in North Carolina so there was not much time for knitting but instead much time was spent at the beach playing in the sand. I did however, work on my current project (discussed below) in the car ride. I'm sad that vacation is over but we are already planning our next one.

MY CURRENT PROJECT:

I'm working on a tank top that I saw in a book at Michael's. I normally wouldn't purchase a book for one lonely pattern but there were a few other items of interest in the book. The book is called Desperate Knitting. The pattern is called Strut Your Stuff. I'm knitting it using the yarn called for in the pattern Caron Jewel Box in a ruby red color. I did make a gauge swatch and thought that I could get away with making a size small but now that I see it coming to light, I think that I should have gone with a bigger size. What happens if I can't block it to size? I've just knit this whole thing for nothing. What a disappointment. I'll wait and see. I'm going to work on it tomorrow. I still have to sew it up. Since I'm a beginner knitter, I'm using my Stitch n Bitch book for some helpful hints on blocking and such. Tomorrow I'll have up a picture before blocking.