Ooh.. Look! I finished a piece!

OK, I was supposed to post yesterday, but I wasn't in the house yesterday long enough to do most of my normal things, let alone post! So here's Monday and Tuesday combined:

Hmmmm, empty needles? Could this mean....

Yes!!! The first blue square is done and attached to the other finished squares!! I am now 3/4 done with this project!

This is a close-up of my version of mattress stitch: it is only loosely related, but it works, and you can't really see it. Now I just have to make the last piece, but I'm so sick of this blanket I haven't even cast on yet!

Instead, I've been working on this, and since I finished the blanket I've done about two rows of HDC, which for some reason seems to take more than twice as long as single crochet. The radius of it (that's from the center to any point around the edge) is almost ten inches, so I'm probably just over halfway done. It would make it so much more interesting if there were color changes, or some kind of picture, but that won't happen for two reasons. First, my mom wants it all done in plain white, with no patterns, and second, I don't know how to crochet a picture! (I tried looking at filet crochet, but it gave me a headache!)

So for now, I am working on the tree skirt, and once I get completely bored with that, I'll switch back to the blanket. I would like to get at least one of them done by Easter........

Cat, Candy Corn, Scrap Yarn

If you're one of those people that stays up until 3 in the morning everyday or a week before Christmas to get everything done, you are probably not going to be able to identify with this: I already made a list of presents for everyone on my list except my dad, my brother, and my uncle (see a pattern? I'm not great at picking out presents for guys) that goes from my best friend's birthday on March 25 to Christmas (I think you know when that is). Here are some of the things I made for my friend:

She loves cats, so I made her another (scroll down a lot) little kitty from this pattern.

She is also obsessed with candy corn, so I made her this little doodad from a Lion Brand pattern which I can't find right now.

 So I put the cat and the candy corn into one of the patchwork pouches, along with a yellow rose hairtie, and that's her present!

This is a picture of the yarn that is in my scrap bag. Hopefully some brilliant inspiration will come to me on how to use some of it!

Little Bee and Baby Blanket

Try saying that five times fast... heh heh heh.

This is a little bee I made for my friend. It took me almost exactly 1.5 hours, which is pretty good for something this cute! I used this pattern from Yellow Pink and Sparkly. I did exactly what it said, except for the wings, which I made a little smaller. They seemed like they were getting a little big for my taste, so I stopped after thirteen single crochets in round three.

side view

love the wings!

Wow! This baby blanket is working up really fast! This morning I had two, maybe three stripes, and now I have 8.5! I'm really happy, because I still have another square and the assembly to do. 

And now, some thoughts about acrylic yarn. More than one blog I've been to has described acrylic yarn as ugly or scratchy, or referred to it in a negative way (i.e. I had to resort to using acrylic yarn). I don't really understand why! Every yarn is different, and the yarn I made these socks out of was the exact some fiber content (100% acrylic) as the two projects above, but they are nothing alike! I don't think it's good to put labels on things and make generalizations, because even two different colors of the exact same yarn felt different to me. The yellow in the bee and the baby blankets are both Red Heart Super Saver. The yellow felt a little scratchy running through my fingers, but the blue was super soft, especially after being knit up. My point is (yes, I have one) don't be a yarn snob! Everyone has their own personal preference, and not all yarns are created equal. (Wait, I think I said that wrong..... Oh well!)

Rant over! Have a nice rest of your day!

Irish Cable Hat

This is the finished hat post! After a long, long, period of knitting, the Irish Cable Hat from Folk Hats by Vicki Square.

First, more strip progress:

3:30ish

4:30? Maybe?

5:30

And here we go......

**

Ta da!!!!!!! I love it, but there are two problems. First, the braid is too thick, so it sticks out funny near my forehead, and it's kind of tight. Second, I don't look good in hats! Maybe before my haircut it would have looked OK, but now the little bit of hair that sticks out from under it looks just plain odd. 

A top view

The little bits of yarn I had left. I think I'll make the Arrowhead Lace Headband from Persnickety Knitter with it.

I used most of a skein of Red Heart Super Saver in Aruba Sea. I can't wait to finish my baby blankets, then get started on a new project! 

**Special thanks to my yarn bucket for modeling it!

Happy Presidents' Day!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend, and that you have today off to relax!

I wanted to show you the progress on my seed stitch strip. Here it is at about 1:00 today:

 It's about 7 inches long.

There is a point about three inches in that doesn't look right and I think I may have done a little ribbing in there, but I am not ripping back for a third time for that! It will quite likely end up hidden in the braid anyway.

I'm hoping that before tonight, I'll be done with it and I can start assembly, but my wrists are starting to hurt, so I might have to switch to the baby blankets or the tree skirt. If I finish, I might have to post again tonight, but I wouldn't hold your breath!

Look! I'm eliminating some UFOs!

For all of you conspiracy theorists that just got really excited, no. I'm not talking about alien spacecrafts, I'm talking about UnFinished Objects! (At least I think that's what it stands for....) I have the rest of the jewelry pictures, some hat progress, and something you haven't seen for a long time!

The bracelets are all made with elastic thread, so they are pretty casual. I like the top two the best, because they are longer (not sure how that worked out between the two on the left, because they're identical) and the thread doesn't show. The necklace is double stranded, and I got a lot of compliments when I wore it! Only one person realized I had made it, so I'd say that's a score!

I have just one last piece before I can assemble my hat. It's absolutely killing me that you have to do all the knitting before you can start the finishing! I did the 2x2 ribbing strip all this weekend (I finished it at about 11 this morning) and I started the seed stitch a little while later. It looks like I haven't done much, but I didn't spend a ton of time on it, and I also had to get used to seed stitch. This is probably the most complicated project I've done so far, between knitting in the round, decreasing, and the two new textures, but I think it's going to be fine. There is one thing I don't like so far, and that's the hat. I think in my eagerness to finish it, I didn't do enough and now it's a little short for my taste, and it's loose around the bottom. I'm going to see how it feels when I sew the braid on, but if it doesn't work I may sew some elastic into the inside to give it some more structure.

Surprise! I broke out the baby blankets and I'm ready to finish! I'm trying to completely clean out my UFO, so once I finish the hat, I'm going to pick up my tree skirt. Then all I will have left is the sewing projects from a weekend or two ago. It's slow going, but I can't wait to start some more projects after those are done!