re: Christmas knitting

So, i decided weeks ago to keep half of my "Christmas knitting" for myself, because the more i worked on it, the more i couldn't bear to think of giving it away. i am 2/3 of the way through a sock, which is just sitting on a shelf above the head of my bed. i hardly put it down for a week and since then i haven't touched it. i've been so busy.

Finals are finally over, however. So i do need to finish my one piece of Christmas knitting, finish my Christmas shopping, and continue putting thought into my Etsy shop. i haven't listed anything there yet, i ran out of time to put up what i was thinking of, as the project didn't work out and it had a clear Christmas theme and it's too close to Christmas now (maybe next year)? i am now working at Hobby Lobby, so my employee discount should come in handy when it comes to mats. i'm thinking about making stitch markers, decorating canvas bags (maybe even buying some at Goodwill and fixing them up, thus Reusing), but knitting is still too dear to my heart at this point. It's too much effort to put a reasonable price on and i pour too much of myself into it to give away to someone who won't fully appreciate it.

Anyway, i hope to buy a digital camera soon, but i also need to save money to pay back my sis... and of course there's so much yarn that i want to buy, that i've been waiting forever to buy. /sigh We'll have to see what works out. i need to buy new glasses first.

Christmas knitting underway

i spent way too much money at Tangle yesterday: fifty dollars and change for three balls of yarn and two sets of needles. Unbelievable. But i'm knitting again, and i like that. i bought quality knitting tools and i am now more broke than i would like to be. i need a job but don't know how to handle having one. Hopefully once i get into the swing of knitting my second pair of socks (my first real pair, mind you, the first pair were kind of slipper socks and i'm not sure they count) it will help calm me down. i don't know, i'm just so happy to be knitting again. i'm thinking about opening an Etsy shop, maybe that's what i should do with the last of my money, but it would require me making an investment and taking a chance. i don't know what i'm going to do.

grr

Blogger keeps losing my list of knitting blogs, and it's irritating me. How am i supposed to keep up with my blogs if they delete them? Luckily, i bookmark them as well. i still wish that the stinking thing worked.

a new left-over-yarn stash use?

i just started running this week (amazing, i know, but true). The trouble is, i'm not sure what to do with my cellphone/mp3player while i'm running. i'm afraid that if i hold it in my hand i'll drop it, and it's already awkward enough switching my water bottle back and forth. i'm kind of ashamed to admit that i have been putting my cellphone in my bra, in between my breasts, but it gets sweaty in there and that's just... gross. i need to figure out a way to carry my water bottle without it being difficult to use and bouncing all over the place, too.

While i haven't figured out what to do about the water bottle yet, my thoughts immediately turned to the iPod armband that was featured in one of the first issues of Knit1. A quick Ravelry search has uncovered several options. i'm not sure how well an armband will work, or how long it will fit (my goal is to lose weight after all!). Maybe i can knit it to the size of my forearm and hope that it will fit my bicep eventually? Another option is a pouch around my neck, which i like, but i'm not sure i want another thing bouncing around all over the place up there.

Of course i'm bouncing around up there, i'm running. i want to find some exercise bras, bandeaus, or tube tops to use as an alternative to my bras. i'm worried about the fact that, though my bras fit just fine, they get to be uncomfortable, and when i take them off i itch. i know this is a similar phenomenon to when i take off my socks, it just means that i'm getting a return in circulation, kind of a subdued, barely noticeable, waking up from being asleep affect (like when your leg falls asleep and tingles). This can't be good for my breasts or my body. i'm thoroughly disgusted with bras really, i'm anti-females-as-a-sex-object outside of the privacy of my bedroom, tyvm. i only want my husband (whoever he may be) to think of me like that. That's part of why i dress in such an androgynous manner (though i'm sure my mother would probably say i dress in a masculine way).

i don't wear a lot of skirts because they're either old fashioned/not my style or too short/not my style (not to mention that thighs rubbing together gets to be a tad uncomfortable). i've wanted to start wrapping shawls or scarves (the thin, silky kind, not the warm kind) around my hips over jeans as a more feminine touch but it seems a tad extraneous and over the top (not to mention the fact that i don't own any shawls, can't afford any yarn, and most scarves aren't long enough to fit around me).

Anyway, back on topic. i'm going to get out my old yarn and try to figure out a quick solution. Ravelry awaits....

i just put ice in my waterbottle

It feels cold now. Is there a way to knit a cover that will keep my bottle cold? Would the condensation get the yarn soggy? Which type of yarn would i use? Those wetsuit-material bags that are sold at REI are neat but way too expensive.

All these thoughts were going through my head as i was walking from lunch to the computer lab. Not knitting is definitely getting to me, especially considering the fact that when i knit in class i have better focus and remember lectures more clearly. Drat it all, why can't i find a job so i can fund my knitting obsession???

September is here...

...and once again i have an itch to see snow and strap on my board. In fact, the itch started before September did, in a rather typical fashion for me, that is no doubt amplified by the fact that i spent most of my last winter in warm Savannah, GA (it also doesn't help that the leaves are starting to change early this year). So i've been browsing the usual places for new gloves for when i hit the snow. i have horrible luck with gloves, and seem doomed to always lose one glove right away, or discover that i have paid too much for a product that is going to start falling apart the first time i wear it, or even more annoying is the tendency for my hands/gloves to get wet and freezing long before the rest of my body is. Snowboarding requires one to put her hands in the snow a lot, far more than when skiing. Every time one sits down, gets up, turns too sharp, grabs, scrapes the excess snow off the top and out of the bindings, straps in, you're probably going to get snow on your hands and/or gloves/mittens. Even so called "waterproof" materials allow far too much moisture to accumulate in the place where i get cold first... my hands.

So i don't want to pay $50 for some nice gloves that i'll probably just lose and/or won't keep me dry and warm. And because i'm crafty i'd much rather be able to knit something at a fraction of the price. Browsing at all the handmade things at Etsy got me thinking... even wool yarn gets wet, right? Maybe i've found a solution.

The Knitter's Reviwe wrote Yarn Profile: Dalegarn Hauk four and a half years ago... and it looks promising. Not only is it wool, it's teflon coated so it repels water. Other water-repelling options seem to be tencel, yarn spun from ecospun (fiber made from soda bottles), jellycord, or fuax cashmere (though i'm not sure how warm all of these choices would be). i think that as soon as i find a job i'm going to have to buy some of this Hauk and knit myself some gloves or mittens. Yarndex features some Gryffindor colors, as well as some choices that would match my board nicely (it's even an affordable price). i'm excited that i discovered this! Thanks to Knit Lit and the power of Google!

knitting deprivation!!!

My yarn stash is pretty much exhausted at the moment, except for personal wips that i don't want to focus on before Christmas (and the dreaded afghan for Mom that i don't know if i'll ever complete)... and i have no money to buy the yarn for the gifts i want to knit!!! The places i've put applications in at have yet to get back to me or are waiting on background checks. Financial aid is similarly wishy-washy and i don't even have money for my tuition or textbooks yet. /sigh

Ravelry updates

i finally got a lot of pics of finished projects up, though not all of them yet. i hope to get some wip pics up soon, too. Finally, some updates of consequence!

Abby's sweater--now for Alice--update

So far i have sewn the shoulders together and one of the sides. i have also picked up stitches for one of the sleeves and it is nearly halfway done. i think they're going to end up being 3/4 sleeves but i'm worried about running out of yarn and no matter what i do they're going to be too short on Alice eventually. So hopefully i'll be finished with this project within the next couple of weeks.

whew

So i didn't finish one of the gifts i wanted to give, but it was the one i started a long time ago for Abby and meant to give Alice, so i did finish everything i started this past year (hurray!). Abby's upset that she got a scarf instead of mittens or gloves, d'oh; guess i can't please everyone. (: Pics will be forthcoming soon (well, within the next month sometime).

I FOUND IT!!!

:jumps up and down in glee:

Which is a relief, because otherwise i would have wasted the last two hours of my life and never gotten to try this method. It was on a site that i had bookmarked the hompage of, Ysolda, which wasn't very helpful to myself. It's called Tubular Cast On and apparently there are a couple of different methods (that are featured on other websites and blogs) and i'm going to try them all! Eventually, at least. (: Here's the video, which you can find by searching for "Tubular Cast On" using her site search engine.

Casting On

So i have discovered (though long suspected) that my casting on method does not really have a name or actually exists as a taught method. i learned to knit a long time ago, when i was still in junior high, and taught myself from a book that did not have the best illustrations. For a long time my knitting was perfected through the elbow grease of trial and error, and as a result i probably don't know all of the tricks that would have been taught to me had i learned from another knitter. i'd been meaning to look up cast on methods, but last night i was talking to one of the women i work with, and she said that all cast on methods are supposed to have elasticity, and i inwardly knew that my cast on has never been elastic. It used to be tight, even, but though my tension has improved with time, the resulting edge has always been rigid. i imagine that this might actually be something that could be helpful in certain situations and projects, but not usually. (:

So i visited KnittingHelp.com and here is my discovery: my cast on is a modified version of Knitting On, though i don't twist the stitch the way they do (i sometimes twist the sts while working the second row, but usually just leave it as normal).

Grandma tried to teach me the Long Tail Cast On when i had only been knitting for a few weeks but my brain couldn't wrap around it at the time, and she didn't do enough knitting anymore to really answer my questions (i couldn't even form them yet, as i recall). Though now it looks easy enough i still am not thrilled about figuring out how much yarn i need before hand.

The Single cast on looks like it's cheating. A row of half hitches, come on, how sturdy can that be? But there a lot more methods of casting on for me to try that there are videos for on this website! i am so excited. Incidentally, the KnittingHelp website also says "Casting Off" instead of "Binding Off", so i'm not a total loser!

But the method of casting on that i really wanted to try i can no longer find for some reason. i know that i had it bookmarked, and i know that i watched it last week, but now i can't find it! i went through all my knitting bookmarks and still can't find it!!! And that's why i started writing this post in the first place, to tell you about that method, and in the meantime i got sidetracked finding the other webpage and trying to find the one video i wanted to show you in the first place. ):

December already?

Another present project down, three to go, and i'm dreaming of knitting my grandma some socks with a new elastic-y cast-on that i saw online. Today i joined Ravelry and archived what knitting needles and crochet hooks i have. i wish i could knit more!

Christmas projects update

Well some of my Christmas projects have morphed into sewing instead of knitting, but they are coming along. In the knitting department i have two completely finished, one finished but i think i'll be adding another piece, one started, and two planned. In the sewing department i have three projects with the material and notions purchased but haven't started on any of them yet. i have my work cut out for me.

Working where i do, at a Hancock Fabrics, i get plenty of inspiration, but no time to sew and little time to knit. i want a new job, mostly because of coworkers. The job isn't hard, but it can be annoying and is definitely exhausting. It's also tempting... i have got to stop buying fabric and start working on projects, whether the items are on sale or not.

update

sigh...

Well, i've completed knitting projects for two Christmas presents, and bought some yarn for additional projects, but haven't started them. It seems like so many of my projects don't turn out the way i expect them to or age prematurely. My PoA scarf looks horrid, probably because i washed it in the machine and wore it every day and the yarn was hand wash only, and the scarf really wasn't wide enough or long enough in the first place. My messenger bag never got truly finished, it turned out that i didn't purchase quite enough fabric, and the flap was too short, which didn't stop me from using the bag every day... and a seam needs to be repaired as a result, but i don't even know where i stashed the bag, it probably needs to be washed, too. i've never found a pattern that would work for the Fox beanie visor. The crocheted newsboy cap from Knit 1 has never looked right on me, and i'm not happy with the visor on it. My swimsuit/coverup project has been a complete fiasco. i haven't taken the time to sew all the projects i've cut out. My digital camera's screen is totally messed up now for no explicable reason. It's all very discouraging. i must get some more projects done but i'm not sure that i can take failure right now...

re: beanie visor

Would you believe that i still have not knit this project? This winter Wal-Mart had rip offs of the elusive Fox beanie visor but they looked poorly knit. i'm still searching for the zigzag knit stitch pattern that i know must be out there in order to allow me to recreate this pattern myself... So far my efforts have been unsuccessful.

Has it really been that long?

Well i've been working full time, going to school full time, and not knitting nearly enough to keep down my stress levels. i've knitted two hats for Christmas presents for next year... but i'm not posting photos of them until at least December 25th! Now that i've finally bought a digital camera i guess i need to start updating though, huh?

re: messenger bag

i got most of it sewed on Saturday but my machine will not sew the strap on for nothing. i'm going to borrow a family member's machine to put on the finishing touches and then put the two parts together. i didn't really have enough fabric so i'm going to be making pockets on the sides which are great for my water bottles (just the right size) but i hope they look okay. Pics are probably not going to be forthcoming for a while though. ): i've got no-nothing digi camera to use (okay, so sue me, i liked Jar Jar in ep. i).

Summer's here

Well my swimsuit has become a swimsuit coverup and is currently in progress using a Vogue pattern. Brinna's swimsuit was crocheted (based on a Macy's product, i believe) and i hear it's done but haven't seen it. i've began collecting yarn for Christmas presents; need to get started soon while i have plenty of time! So far i will be knitting a fancy fur coonskin cap, a scarf, and some socks.

oh yeah

i finished knitting my coffee brimmed beanie and it was such a fiasco that i'm not sure i'll ever wear it again (i wore it to church once on a very-bad-hair-day). i may just take it out and do something completely different with the yarn.