Wrists and Butter*

This is what happens when I don't post every time I plan to. I end up with pictures that should be on two separate posts all smushed (that should be a word) into one post. So bear with me, this might get confusing. 

A couple weeks ago, I started these Voodoo wrist warmers from Knitty. Once I started my mom's scarves, I put it in a drawer and ignored it (and never told you guys about it), but I picked it up on Wednesday afternoon and ended up finishing it that night.

Here it is on:

Just for the record, the awkward lump is my watch, not part of my arm (or the wrist warmer). Then yesterday, I started the second one:

which I finished a few hours ago. It was a little harder to get a good picture of this one:

because I'm stupid and I felt like it had to go on the other arm (which is my dominant arm). And here they are together:

Yes, the top one is a lot shorter than the bottom. Yes, it's extremely annoying. No, I'm not really sure how it happened, especially seeing as I measured them both the same way.

*Just a note about the title. I was thinking about how they make my wrists warm, and then I don't actually remember what I was thinking, but I do remember it had something to do with bread and butter. Oh! Maybe it was about making my wrists toasty, and then I thought about toast? I don't know. But I do know that it made sense when I wrote it.

You Have Been Assimilated

Sorry about that, but as you know, resistance is futile. So anyway, remember how on Friday I said I wanted to have Hugh done by Monday? I worked super fast, and I finished the knitting on Saturday afternoon. Then I stuck it in the washing machine with no detergent for about ten minutes. When I pulled it out, it weighed about twice as much as it should, and it took forever to wring it out. Once I got most of the water out, I laid it out on cardboard and towels:

(A few minutes after I took this, I got another piece of cardboard so the whole thing would be on it.) I left it there while I went to see some fireworks, and when I got home I ditched the cardboard and got fresh towels for the night. The next morning, it still was nowhere near being dry, so my mom and I hung it over a bunch of hangers on the shower rod. Then I figured I might as well do something while I waited, so I made this:

It's the final ruffle scarf for my mom (so I guess all the other ones should have been out of 18, not 17). Oh well. I'm just glad it's over, because just a few minutes ago I did this:

Hugh was finally dry, so I stitched up the ends, gave it to my mom, and it's all done now!

My mom and I went to Michaels on Sunday, since there was a really great coupon, and I'll show you what I got next time. Talk to you soon!

Oops

I never know how many Os to put in Oops...

Anyway, I think I got cocky. I was all, "Oh, I posted three days in a row, I got this!" And then two days with nothing. So since I owe you guys an update, the first book review is going to be next week. I do have some exciting news, though:

That's right, 15 of 17, 16 of 17, and (finally) 17 of 17! Now I'm down to one last scarf:

At least, one more scarf with a deadline. But more about that in a second. After much discussion with my mom, we settled on this pattern, which is actually for a Hogwarts scarf. Since this final scarf (I'm calling it Hugh, by the way) is for a guy, this seemed like a good way to go. One downside: it's taking a while. I'm at the very end of the third stripe (literally, there's one stitch left) of 19, which sort of stinks. Also, since the stripes are all the same length (22 rows), it's not quite as mindless as the ruffle scarves.

On the bright side, once I finish this one, I just have one more scarf to make. It's a ruffle scarf, just like the ones above, except it's black. And it's just something my mom wanted, so I don't need to worry about getting it done by a specific time. I am going to do it right after I finish Hugh though, or else I probably won't ever do it!

Have an awesome weekend, and a very happy Father's Day to any of the dads out there (especially mine)!

I Think I'm Defective

What's the easiest way to stop a member of the collective in their tracks? Ask them if they're defective. What's the easiest way to stop these posts in their tracks? Assign me a research paper, three final exams, five standardized tests, a few assorted projects, and administer a huge dose of laziness. Seriously. That has basically been my life since the last time I posted. (Also, my French teacher made us this French apple tart thing for the last class, and I discovered that apricot jam tastes oddly like prunes. Because, you know. Logic.)

Anyway, as you might guess, I have a lot to show you now. Today is just going to be the Borg Scarves, since I have a lot of them.

First, 5 of 17 and 6 of 17:

I have no idea when I finished any of these (until we get closer to the end), so I'm not going to worry about those. Al I know is that 5 of 17 was finished before May 4, and 6 of 17 was after May 5. 7 of 17 is seen here with a friend:

On the left is the scarf my mom requested I make and give to her for Mother's Day. (So I guess 7 of 17 was done before Mother's Day.) Now, 8 of 17, 9 of 17, and 10 of 17:

Here we get to the point where I know things about stuff.  Sort of. I know that I tacked down the edges of all three of these just a little while ago, and that I finished the knitting for 12 of 17 and 13 of 17 yesterday, but I don't really know when I knit 11 of 17. At all.

I feel like I need to tell you something else that's pretty important. While I was gone, I became a Sherlockian and a Whovian. Yeah. (I actually just started Doctor Who yesterday, hence the two scarves finished yesterday.) I know totally understand the intense hatred of Moffat, and completely share in it. MOFFAT!!!!!!!

I'll hopefully be back tomorrow with a normal post (but we all know that may not happen). Talk to you soon!

Resistance is Futile

I know I promised this picture for Friday, but after my seriously crapolicious (that's a scientific term there, folks) day, I didn't feel like posting. So now you may enjoy:

3 of 17! (I think. They're all sort of blurring together.) Anyway, I tacked down the edges on Friday night, and because of the aforementioned crapoliciousness, I didn't do anything else productive until Saturday, when I started 4 of 17.

Random note: For the first four ruffle scarves I made (plus 1 of 17), I spent the entire knitting time untwisting the yarn as I went:

Unlike with normal yarn, a specific side has to be on top at ALL TIMES. Seriously. The scarf will start yelling if you don't get that right. So, as I was about to start 2 of 17, I had an idea (go ahead, gasp with shock). Before I started knitting, I took the time to wrap the yarn around my needle gauge (it was the first rectangular thing I found), like so:

Then, as I knit, I just turned the roll, and the yarn came off quite nicely. The first time, it took me about an hour. (Although, I was doing this while watching Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows for the first time. It's sort of distracting.) Since then, I have turned this into somewhat of an art. The second time, I tried it with the ball on the floor, and me standing on the chair. Despite the fact that I almost fell off the chair, it worked a lot better, and it only took about 20 minutes. Yesterday, I did it sitting on a short dresser (a few feet of the ground), which also worked well, and was less dangerous. I didn't time that very well, but it was around 15 minutes. I think it's definitely worth a few minutes to make the actual knitting go faster, and I do recommend doing some version of this if you're going to make a lot of these. 

Speaking of a lot (by the way, kudos to you if you read that whole paragraph), my mom went to Michaels (without me!) and got the rest of the yarn:

Yeah. I internally cried a little when I looked at all the yarn together. However, there is good news! I did finish 4 of 17 yesterday:

Yay! Alright, I know I said I was hoping for two FOs this weekend, but since I didn't post on Friday, I technically did show you two completed scarves today. Technically.

Anyway, I am fully wound and a few inches into 5 of 17. Maybe a FO tomorrow, maybe not. However it turns out, have a wonderful evening!

Timewarp

I hope everyone had a nice weekend, and a happy Easter if you celebrate. Mine involved eating two servings of baby food: prunes and peas. (The prunes were easily one of the most disgusting things I've ever had, the peas were actually quite nice by comparison!) I kind of had a crazy weekend in terms of bloggables, starting with a shopping trip on Saturday. My original plan was to get this:

Hmm, that's not the picture I thought it was, but it does show some useful things. I got size 5 DPNs, not realizing I had already done so a few weeks ago, a charm I picked up on a whim, and some safety eyes. I also got that K hook, which will be explained momentarily.

Before you look at the next picture, explanations are in order. Remember how I made four ruffly scarves a while ago? And how I said I didn't want to make any more? Yeah, that's not going to work out:

My mom wants me to make a total of seventeen scarves for the members of a committee she runs. They're all going to be that white and blue ruffle yarn, except that black and white one, and a regular striped one using that blue yarn and white I already have. I totally would have said no, except she offered to pay me, and then I had this really great idea. (Well, I thought it was great....) A few days ago, I found this pattern for an Avatar blanket. And I really wanted to make it. Except the yarn for it would have cost about $40, taking into account I already have a few of the skeins I needed. Can you guess where I'm going with this? I asked my mom to buy the rest of the yarn I needed in exchange for making the scarves:

We had a pretty good coupon, so she agreed! Yay! I'm super excited to start working on it, and even more excited to have the finished product :). Right now, I'm going to focus on getting the scarves done. There was only enough yarn in that color for about half of the scarves, so I'm going to use up what I have right now, then start on my blanket! Speaking of which:

I'm already done with two of them, and I've also done a few inches on the third. 

I also bought a few other things: floss for the next segment of my HP cross stitch, and this frame:

Boy, am I glad to have this done! My aunt's birthday is this weekend, so it was perfect timing. Although the back is sort of ugly (yeah, I don't know why I used shiny duct tape either) I hope she'll like it!

I put one set of safety eyes to good use:

After finishing the head, making a new hair roll, and stitching down the collar and chest piece, all she needs is a crown! (And no, I have no idea how I'm going to pull that off.)

Just one more thing, I promise. I finally finished off the HP charm bracelet I've been collecting for for a while:

After messing around with spacing for a while, I decided not to use all the charms. In the end, I've kept the owl, crystal ball, dragon, "hippogriff," goblet/cup, tiara/diadem, and key. Basically, I left off the ones that take more interpretation. (Hey, they made sense to me!)

I'm pretty sure I warped time to get all this done. Seriously! Anyway, this is probably one of my longest posts, so I'm going to stop here. See you tomorrow!

Puffs

I've just reached a milestone in my knitting career:

My first sweater! It's all done, and I'm really excited to be able to say that. Just one problem: I don't really like it! It fits fine (which is a miracle because I never really measured for gauge), but I'm not a fan of the sleeves. Looking at the picture, they're flat and normal and everything, but on mine, they puff like nobody's business. And unlike Anne, I don't like puffed sleeves! I'm not sure if that's something I can fix, but I will be looking into it.

Oh, and did I mention I learned how to do set-in sleeves? I'm very proud of myself. :) I used this video, which was really helpful. (Although she did say that set-in sleeves are the most flattering and fit the human body the best. So maybe I just screwed that up really badly?)

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about upcoming projects. Specifically, gifts. A couple days ago, I borrowed my mom's address book and made a list of every occasion I want to make a gift for for the rest of the year. My first project is finishing off the Pooh latch hook. Yeah. I know I posted that over a year ago, and that was at least a year after I finished it, but it's still not done. It's still going to my aunt, but I'm not sure if it's going to be in a frame (my original plan) or a pillow, or something else.

Enjoy your Easter if you celebrate, and have a nice weekend!

Watches and Frogs

Hi guys! I hope you had an awesome week and as even better weekend! Sorry for not posting last week; my real life was sort of insane! But I did get some things done this weekend, so let's do this!

First, I need to tell you that I'm sort of obsessive about knowing what time it is. If I don't have an easy way to find out (a watch) I kind of freak out. It's not normal! So when this happened, I was predictably upset:

I honestly have no idea how this happened, but a chunk of it just fell off. I didn't do anything that was rougher than normal, so it's sort of a mystery to me, but I did know I had to do something. Enter weird crafty stuff! First, I cut off most of the strap with all the holes on it, which left me with this:

 Then, I marked and cut a little hole to put a slip ring through:

which was way harder than it should have been. For some reason, the slip ring requires a hole that's much bigger than it is to go through. Then, I took another slip ring, and did a basic friendship bracelet to create a little strap. I used a lobster closure and one of the original holes to have a way to take it on and off.

This definitely isn't a perfect solution, but at least I know what time it is!

I also made knitting happen:

You are looking at almost 16 inches of TTT front. For those of you keeping track, this means I have less than two inches to go until my next round of shaping. I would probably already be there, but I had a little issue yesterday. I think I've mentioned that I split each skein into smaller balls before I started using it, and yesterday I got to the point where I needed to join another ball. I tried it sort of in the middle of the row by knitting a few stitches with both strands of yarn, except somehow I ended up with three, so I had some awkward bunching and loops. By the next row, I had an unidentifiable loops, two hanging strands, and a major headache. I tried just dropping the offending stitches, but I sort of screwed it up, so I ended up frogging to about 1.5 inches back. I was smart about it, though, and I put a sort of lifeline through it before trying to rip. It wasn't perfect, and I went through the wrong stitches a few times, but it was definitely easier than trying to do a whole bunch at once! The whole thing wasted about an hour, but the second time I tried to join the new ball, I just started on with the new yarn and loosely knotted the ends. I'll make it pretty later!

Details

I'm sure you all noticed that yesterday's post was.... um... lacking? And by that I mean there was very little detail about anything I mentioned. Today, I shall fix that! (You may find it helpful to have yesterday's post open while you read this.)

• First, the captain's hat. This was the last one I did, and I honestly had no idea how to do it. I thought it should be a little taller at the front than the back, so I took a rectangle and cut it. My original plan was to use the piece on the bottom of the picture, but I decided the other piece was a better size, so I used that instead. I wasn't really a fan of how it turned out (it looked like the next Mario Bro) so I trashed it and tried again. It turned out a little better the second time! I just stitched on a little crochet chain for the trim.
• I sort of already said this, but the construction hat was really simple. I used the same pattern as the baseball cap, then sewed a strip down the middle instead of the circle. I also made the bill a lot smaller. Piece of cake!
• I didn't mention this at all yesterday, but I did go to Michaels on Friday. I picked up three sheets each of yellow, white, black, and blue felt, and a styrofoam ball. I didn't end up using the white, but I was already out so that's alright. I used the styrofoam ball to shape the baseball cap and construction hat, which worked, but wasn't perfect. They're now covered in little pieces of styrofoam on the inside, but that's okay.
• I just want to say that the glue worked amazingly well. Honestly, I had my doubts about it, but it definitely worked. Just a note, if you do this, make sure you give them plenty of time to dry. I had to wait overnight until I could attach the tags. 

Hopefully you now have your fill of details, so I'm going to get back to work on the TTT!

Spring Forward

This is going to have to be fast, so I'm doing sort of a photo essay. These were the pieces I cut out for my first try at the captain's hat:

I was going to use the bottom, but I ended up liking the piece I cut off better. This turned into that:

 But it was way too Mario Bros for me, so I tried again and made a new one. (No individual pics, sorry!) Here's all the hats before the glue:

The construction hat was made using the baseball hat pattern, with a line down the middle and a smaller brim. Random during shot of the glue process:

As you can see, I used a styrofoam ball to shape the baseball and construction hats. If I do this again, I would definitely try something else. The insides of both hats are covered in little pieces of styrofoam.

I did the glue yesterday afternoon, and they weren't really dry until this morning. I added the tags:

and now they're totally done. I'm turning them in tomorrow, along with the rest of my project, and I'm glad to have them off my to-do list!

Sorry for the quickie, but I'll have more details tomorrow!

More Hats!

First, I would like to ask you to please excuse the horrendous pictures in this post. My camera and I are currently not speaking.

And it's just one hat:

That's Hat #2, for anyone keeping track. Now, if I was on schedule, there would be two other hats (or at least 1.5), but I had to alter my schedule a bit lot. I barely had any white, blue or black felt when I started these, and after using most of the blue and white to make the baseball cap, I really have almost none. I also haven't had any yellow felt for ages. (This is mostly due to the fact that I haven't done much with felt lately.) This is sort of problematic, because the second top hat is black, the construction hat is yellow with white columns (still working on that one), and the captain's hat is blue. So instead of making hats, I've been doing every other part of the project. This included making a brochure about the State Department, making a "Bag-It" about United States v. Nixon, and making "price tags" to attach to the hats.  I've even already cut out the elephant and donkey that will go on the second top hat:

I should be able to go to Michaels tomorrow, so I'll be able to make the last three hats this weekend! (Which is good, because all that stuff is due on Tuesday.)

I got to stay home yesterday because of "inclement weather." (Snow day!!!!) I was super happy because I got to watch Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor! Don't worry, I put my down time to good use:

I'm now up to over 12 inches! Plus, do you see that little tiny ball? That's right, I'm about to start skein #2:

I gave my wrists a break this morning to start winding.

So basically, I'm super thrilled with my progress on everything, and I can't wait to get back to work. So I'm going to stop here. Goodbye!

One Hat, Two Hat; Red Hat, Blue Hat

I would just like to say now that I was originally going to have a ton of pictures today. But I decided to save some of them for tomorrow, when I'll be posting a tutorial for the top hat. So, today will be mostly for the baseball hat. I took more pictures than usual (that's not saying much), so you can actually see it coming together.

First, I cut out the pieces:

For a pattern, I used the picture from this site (about half way down the page). Since this is a project about the president, I went all national colors on it. Then, I hand stitched all the triangles together, with a little circle to cover up the center:

(Aside: Doesn't this kind of look like the radiation symbol? I feel like I could use that...) Here's a picture of the back:

Up to that point, it was pretty simple to get everything lined up. Then came the visor. When you put it how it's supposed to be, it lines up fine, right?

No problem. But when you put the right sides together to sew, it obviously doesn't work:

This involved some tugging, stretching, and pulling, but I promise, it will work. And the finished product:

I think it's really cool. My plan is to do something like this to all the hats to make them stiff. I'm also hoping that will help the cap keep its shape. Then, I'll add "price tags" with the information I need. I'm also done with Hat #2:

Once I finish stitching the $ on I'll be good. I'll have more details and pictures tomorrow.