Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed

I know it's a lot earlier than I normally post, but I figured I would just do this now. Yesterday I told you that I went to Michaels on Sunday, and I had some stuff to show you guys. Let's start with this:

I want to start scrapbooking some of my memories from middle school: pictures, programs, movie tickets, stuff like that. My mom used to scrapbook, so she said she would help me get started. I basically just picked stuff with my school colors, red, white, and black (the paper inside the book is black). 

So after that, I was looking in this big bin of clearance yarn, and I found this:

It's this super soft, squishy, beautiful Bernat Bamboo yarn. It didn't have a tag on it, and I figured it would be pretty expensive, but since it was on clearance I figured I should just go for it. And I'm really happy I did, since it was only about $3 a ball, and it's so wonderful! Here's a close-up of the color:

Lovely, right? :) I think I'm going to make a thin little scarf out of it. It's so nice, I want to be able to feel it. (OK, so that sounded really weird, so I'm going to move on now.) I also got a little ball of torture:

After making all those scarves, I wanted to have one for my own. Yeah. I have issues. 

I also picked up a couple random things:

Some wire, and a thing of floss. The gold thing came off a necklace my mom got, but she had a different charm to put on it, so she gave that to me.

Now that all the scarves are done, I'm looking forward to starting some new stuff. I probably won't be using any of the yarn from this post, since I want a bit of a change from what I've been doing. Talk to you later!

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!

The Force is with me....

I think I may have used some sort of magical force yesterday, because I did this:

And this:

All I have to do for the purple one is tack those ends down, which I'll probably do when I'm done with this. And yes, that is a tuba mouthpiece. I didn't feel like moving it. (It is only now occurring to me that if I had put the scarf on the other door handle it wouldn't have been in the picture.) For the other one, I have that little blob of yarn to do, then I'll be all done with that. And I think I'm going to take a nice, long break from ruffle scarves. While they are highly addictive, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. (By the way, I gave my friend the first two scarves today, and I ended up giving her both of them. I tried one on this morning and I wasn't a fan.)

Once I finish that business, I'll be free to start on my next project, which I've already done the prep work for:

OK, honesty time. I actually already started this, and I got half-way through the first row before I realized that I had started it one size too small. I ripped it out, highlighted the numbers I'm supposed to be using, then started the fourth ruffle scarf. Apparently they've become stupid-therapy for me. :)

I mentioned yesterday that I bought yarn to make Yoda:

See? Yoda yarn! Anyway, I was on Craftster on Sunday, and I found these awesome patterns for Star Wars mini amigurumi people/other things. I linked all fourteen patterns, but she has different deals for different numbers of patterns (that didn't make any sense). I'm going to get two: Yoda and the Ewok! Ewoks are my favorite. Seriously. I get more emotional over that one ewok dying than Qui-Gon, Padmé, and Obi-Wan combined. (Oh, right. Spoiler Alert!) I have everything I need now except the safety eyes (Michaels doesn't have them, but JoAnn apparently does) and the patterns. 

All the red lines in that paragraph are bothering me. Obviously, Blogger is not a Star Wars fan! :)

I've blabbered enough today. Go look at some yarn! See ya!

Prolific

That is such a fun word to say! It's relevant today because I got a ton done this weekend. Shall we take a look?

1. I finished the second ruffle scarf:

and here they are together:

I think this is from Friday night, but I'm not really sure. I'm home sick today (blech), so I'll give one of these away tomorrow.

2. After much thought (okay, I just did it on a whim) I frogged the Blossom Scarf, and am now the proud owner of these:

3. With that taken care of, I didn't have any short-term WIPs, so I decided to go through the time-out bag. First, I dug out the sequin skirt, and decided to just pull them all off. Here's what it looks like now:

Well, sort of. As you can see, my picture taking skills haven't improved any. That's now done and officially crossed off the list!

4. Next, I found the t-shirt quilt stuff and a pile of t-shirts. I spent about an hour cutting them up, until I had these:

The smaller bag has the actual pictures, and the bigger bag has all the scraps. When I took this picture (Friday night) I had just shoved all the scraps into it, but I went back on Saturday and spent another hourish cutting off the ribbing, seams, etc. until I just had a bunch of rectangles. I took a cool picture of that:

Well, I think it's cool!

5. I had this dress:

You can't see from this picture, but the top is coming off the waistband in the back. It's also rather unflattering, and I wouldn't have worn it if I had fixed it, so I finished the job:

and now I have a skirt that I might actually wear. If that waistband wasn't so big. I may need to fix that.

6. I went shopping yesterday! Here's what I got: 

You didn't believe me when I said I was going to get more, did you? The purple is for my favorite teacher's birthday (next Monday) and the other one is for one of my mom's friends. 

More yarn! This is for this, which is going to be awesome. I was originally going to use Ocean, but I couldn't find it in two stores, and I decided to do this color instead. With a solid color, I don't have to worry about pooling or flashing or anything like that.

This will be used to make this. I've never done anything like this before, but it doesn't look too hard (remind me of this a week from now, please).

The two circulars are for the Teal Tween Top (henceforth known as TTT) and the DPNs are for Voodoo Wristwarmers. I already have yarn for these (I hope).

I also picked up another charm and beading needles. Not really sure what was going through my head, but those do not do what I thought they did.

This is for Yoda, which will be explained tomorrow, as this post is way too long already.

Keys and Teapots

Despite my utter lack of posting last week, I've gotten some more done on my cross stitching:

I'm chugging along with it, and I'm still hoping for a finish by next Friday. And I mean done done, because I went to Michaels yesterday! I picked up a few things, including the last color I need for the center, and these charms:

Can you figure out the theme for these? Maybe this will help:

Yeah. I managed to find five completely unrelated charms at Michaels, and connect them all to Harry Potter. It's a talent. 

(I feel like I should explain those: the owl, the crystal ball, and the dragon are pretty obvious, and the key and the teapot are just weird. The key reminded me of the flying keys from the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone, and the teapot made me think of reading tea leaves. I know, I'm crazy.)

Have a great evening! :)

It's October?!?!

I did some thinking this weekend, and I figured out that until I go to the store, the only thing I can really work on is the needle roll. That's just fine with me, so I picked out the fabrics I'm going to use for it. Here are all the pieces:

I am going to have to think about the size of the needles carefully, though. Obviously, I won't be putting my long size 10s in here, or my size 50s, and it will probably be all DPNs and a few short straights.

On a different subject, today is the first day of October. (Yeah, I know.) I wanted to do something a little special this month, so I'm going to post a link to something Halloweeny every time I post this month. I might even make some of it! :) Today, I wanted to post this little pumpkin:

Picture from Handmade by Anne Potter.

 I think it's super cute, and this might be one of the ones I make! Her website has some other neat patterns, so go check it out.

I was able to get to the store yesterday, and I got almost everything I needed:

The only thing was, they didn't have thread #451, so I'll have to go back soonish. (Wow, that's a word?) I also got this pendant, and these closures:

which I'm going to make into a necklace for myself. I'm a sucker for Eiffel Tower stuff! (Plus, it opens!)

Now I'm able to start work on the Harry Potter stuff, I have the Velcro for the needle roll, and I have the ExActo knife for the etching projects. Now (and cross your fingers) I think I have everything I need to finish Christmas. Maybe. I don't want to tempt Fate.

Have a great day, and enjoy your October!

Attic Hunts

I love hearing stories about people that went into their grandmother's attic, so I was really excited when I found two such bins in my basement. (I know, I know, it's not an attic, but we don't have one!) Anyway, one of them was actually my mom's. She used to be huge on cross stitch, and she has this big bin full of kits, projects she never finished, and the like. The other bin actually did have old stuff (but I'm pretty sure it was from my great-grand-aunts, not my grandma), and it was mostly fabric. Lots of fabric. And some doilies....

I think it's cool that I was the niece that looked through that bin, because a lot of my cousins would have said, "Why would anyone need that much fabric?" and I say, "Wow. Someone had a big plan. Why don't I finish it for them?" In that category, there are things like a whole pile of pinked hearts. I have no idea what they're for, though! I am totally entranced by the idea of making something from this really old fabric and passing it down, through the generations. First, I need a really good project, so I have been doing a lot of research to see what I could make. I'm really excited!

Now, I know what you're all thinking. None of this is on my list, right? Well, I don't care. I won't start any of it, but I am going to keep looking! Besides, I only found this stuff because I thought there might be some of the thread I need in my mom's bin. There wasn't, so I'm going to need to go to Jo-Ann or something. (Am I the only one that thinks that looks wrong? I googled it to check, and that is how it looks on their website.) While I was on their site, I did check that they have DMC thread, so hopefully that will all work out. I also need to pick up another zipper. Hopefully, I will make it there soonish.

To Do To Start:

• the center square of my HP cross stitch (house emblems)
• sew the pockets for needle sizes 000-3
• figure out and implement the closure for the brown skirt
• make the etching projects
• sew on ten sequins every day I work on these other things

Gingerbread Factory

Can you imagine how good that would smell? Anyway, on Thursday afternoon I made these:

I am seriously considering redoing this one's face. It's kind of ugly.

Then on Friday I made this:

Well, I actually finished some of the knitting on Saturday morning, and I still have to put in the mohawk. But still. I did most of it on Friday.

When I was helping my friend move, we found a plastic container filled with little erasers. She didn't want them, so I took a bunch:

I took all the whales and parrots! Plus some fish. I'm thinking jewelry.....

Yesterday I went to Michaels (again) and got these things:

Charms, pliers, mohawk yarn, and glass things. I now have everything I need to finish Christmas. I honestly can't believe it! (OK, so right after I typed that sentence I had a little panic attack about masking tape. I seriously thought that I didn't have any, and because of that sentence I would be unable to find any anywhere. But it's OK. I found some under the knife drawer.) Now all I have to do is make it all. Speaking of which:

My Crafty Christmas To-Do List

• make two etching projects
• put the mohawk on the mohawk hat
• make two charm necklaces
• finish catnip ornament
• make another cross stitch ornament

I'm getting to the end. I'm super excited. On Saturday I spent a lot of time making a list of things I was going to make, just for me. For fun. After the Christmas stuff is done. I can't wait.