Argosy Blanket

I frogged my first sweater because I decided I didn't like the yarn after all. It was pooling in a must unusual way and I couldn't imagine wearing it. All is well, though - because I found a very cool asymmetrical blanket pattern that I really like, so I've decided to use the yarn to make it instead. Who cares if a blanket pools, right? It just has more character if it does. Anyway, the pattern is so much fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks when it is complete. Here's a picture of my progress so far:

I am really enjoying the little squares and I love how you add one to each side by casting on - it's just enough to keep the pattern interesting, and the yarn overs are a great break in the stockinette stitch pattern. So yeah, I'm really enjoying it and I'm glad I frogged the sweater. It's not sweater weather anymore anyway!

counterpane 1

It's been a busy week, both at work and after work. I've been spending about an hour a day writing after work, which has been working out very well. I'd update the progress bar, but I forgot where I got the code and I can't find a good progress bar anywhere! I'll do some searching this weekend.

I've also been working on a very fun knitting project! My aunt gave me a ton of Christmas yarn last December, leftovers from her crocheted Christmas throw, and I finally found a pattern that I want to use. It's a counterpane square pattern, and I'm using some of my extra acrylic to test knit a square. Here it is:

The squares are large, so you only need four of them for a small throw. The first time I saw a complete version of the blanket, I thought the leaves all coming together in the center looked a bit like a flower, so I decided to make it a poinsettia. It obviously won't look exactly like one, but it'll give a nice impression of one, especially if I do the leaves in red and the background in green. The pattern has some clearly defined sections, so I'm changing colors in the logical places and will hopefully use up most of the yarn my aunt gave me. It'll probably end up being a gift for my mother, because she saw the pattern and loved it. I'll see how I feel about it after it's finished. I may love it too much! It's quite easy and quick, which kind of shocked me. I expected it to be very difficult. Well - we'll see how I feel when I get to the next section!

knitting disaster!

I finished my swap hat and for some reason it came out way too small! I'm not sure what happened, but there's no way I can give it to my swap partner. I sent a message to the leader of the swap telling her that I was going to be a bit late sending mine off because of the disaster and I started over. This time I did a gauge swatch and changed needle size. I think that's why it was wrong. So now I'm freaking out a little because the deadline is tomorrow and there's no way I'll get it finished by then! Yikes!

I do hope the swap master is understanding about it. I'd hate to be banned from the swap because I messed up my gift and wanted to start over.

No big news otherwise.

swap hat

I did some knitting this weekend. I need to finish my swap hat. It's not a difficult pattern. I chose the only hat pattern I've done before because I know I can do it and it will look decent. I don't want to try a new pattern when I'm making it for someone else. It may turn out to be a disaster and then what? So I'm sticking with something I know I can do. I got to the point in the pattern where the knitting goes fairly quickly, so I should be able to finish by the deadline, which is this week sometime. I'll have to check to make sure of the date, but I know it's this week. I might sit out the next swap, just to give myself a break and work on some of my other projects. I still haven't finished the purse I've been working on forever. I really want that purse, so when I'm finished with the swap hat, I'm going to concentrate on it.

my first hat!

This is the Brother in law basketweave hat! I finished it tonight. I love the pattern so much and had so much yarn left over that I immediately started a basketweave scarf to go with it. There are a couple of problem areas in the hat, but for my first hat and my first double pointed needle project, I'd say it looks pretty good! The yarn made some interesting patterns. I was hoping the colors would spiral around and up, but that didn't happen. Oh well! I still like it!

Cables!

This is my first attempt at cables, so don't be too hard on me, okay? It's just a swatch, done in cheap acrylic, but I wanted to see if I could do it so here you go.

knitting milestone: starting first sweater

Yes, I'm starting my first sweater. I picked a relatively easy pattern from the January 2008 issue of Creative Knitting. It's called the Ever-Cross Sweater. The pattern calls for a novelty yarn that I didn't like, but I was browsing through my local Hobby Lobby and found this Yarn Bee Mosaic Twist yarn that really caught my eye. Lo and behold, it was on sale for 99 cents a skein, so I bought enough for the sweater and am casting on tonight! Here's a picture of the pattern and the yarn. There will be progress photos as I go through the process, so stay tuned!

Last washcloth photos

The final two washcloths. As I said before, the aunts already have them, but I wanted to post the last two. I'm particularly proud of the green, white and red one. I think it turned out very nice indeed! Now I'm considering a felted bag, but am not sure which pattern I want to use. More on that when I decide!

stripey washcloth

Knitting

Another Christmas gift finished! Only two more to go! I'm pretty happy about the way these are turning out, and how quickly I have been able to complete the last two or three. My knitting is getting faster, no doubt about it. I'm loving the diagonal pattern. It's so easy and is great practice for increasing and decreasing. I should finish the one I started tonight fairly quickly tomorrow and will cast on the last one as soon as I'm finished with it. The last one is going to be fun, a combination of colors that I have left in a mitered square-type pattern.

Writing
Tried writing a short story tonight, but didn't finish. I got to a certain point and then just stopped, mostly because I had no idea where to go from there. I'm going back to it tomorrow to see what I can do with it. I also did some more work on Draha in Freemind, working on a few key points that I really need to work out before going much further in the story. I really want to avoid writing myself into a corner! More work on this tomorrow too.

Knitting with Emerson

I've had a couple of questions about my "I knit with Pushing Daisies" button and wanted to be sure I said one thing. Anyone is welcome to save this button and use it on their blog! I made the button after being inspired by another Pushing Daisies button on Ravelry, and I'm thrilled that people might want to use it on their blogs too! So please, feel free to save this button and use it on your own blogs, and please, let me know if you did so I can visit you! On that note, if you have a knitblog and you happen to visit here, let me know because I want to visit more knitblogs.

Christmas knitting

Here are some pics of the gifts I'm making for some of the women in my family. They are all such crafty ladies, so this year I'm giving them something I made! I thought starting small would be best, so I'm doing washcloths and am going to wrap them up with decorative soap. I thought it would be cute and useful. So here are some pics of the first two I've finished. Two down, four to go!

Writer's Block Square #2

My first lace project! Check out the pretty holes. I'm so happy about this square, although I did have to frog it a couple of times to get it right. The first block was a "beginner" block and this one was an "intermediate" block. I'm thinking of going for an "advanced" block next, just to see if I can do it! I can't do cables yet, simply because I haven't bought a cable needle, but that will be the next knitty purchase I make! Well, and some double pointed needles, probably a set like the bamboo straights and circulars I got from eBay. I love them!

Noah's blanket

Here are a couple of pictures of Noah's blanket so far. I'm using the Moderne Log Cabin pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting (a wonderful book!)

One great thing about this pattern is that it's totally garter stitch, which is great for mindless knitting in front of the TV, which is usually what I do. I'm trying to get a lot done on it now before November starts and I spend every waking moment in front of the computer, working on Downward Spiral. Here's a close up of the stitches:

It's going to be done in shades of green, yellow, and blue. Those are his favorite colors, so I had to use them! If this works out well, I'll do one for Hannah and one for Kohl. Well, I have a different idea for Hannah's, but I'll have to see if I can figure out how to do it before I commit to it. But at least I have a fallback! This is so much fun to knit!

Kohl's Blanket

The first picture is of the first two stripes and the second includes the third. The third picture includes a couple of rows from the fourth stripe, so you can't see the color as well as you will be able to when I get a few more rows in. It will all be done in shades of blue. I'm having so much fun with this pattern. It's called the Arctic Throw and the pattern can be found here. It's challenging enough for a newer knitter but not so challenging that it becomes discouraging. I've always been one of those people who wants to be able to play Mozart the first time I touch the keys of a piano, so learning to knit is really a great exercise in pacing myself and not getting frustrated. Anyway, I just wanted to share. More coming soon!

First square complete!

Finally, I finished my first square! I know, I know... at this rate, I'll never finish the blanket. Seriously, I've got to start knitting faster! The pictures are not the best, sorry about that! I used my little camera and the flash tends to wash out colors, so it's actually a lot brighter and prettier in person. One thing that sort of shocked me about this blanket is that it's a lot thinner than I expected. I guess I thought it would be a little more blankety. I know that's not actually a word, but oh well! So the first picture is of all the four miters and how I think I'll arrange them for the blanket and the second picture was my attempt to be a little artistic. Yeah, I know... it didn't work!

Work was rough today. I had to work with a budget today, which always gives me a headache. It's not difficult for me and I know it's something that has to be done, but it always gives me a headache. I have about 16 projects going on right now and while I don't have any problems juggling all of them, I think I'm internalizing everything too much. I keep having this odd dream during which I drive my car into a flooded area and drown because I can't get out of the car. Obviously, this dream is my brain telling me I'm stressing about things. I should stop doing that.

I checked out some freelance job sites (thanks, Devon!) today and am really excited about the prospect of possibly starting a freelance career. I've been thinking about it so much lately, and I have so much to do in order to get things started. I think I'll redesign my web site to make it look more professional. It's very pretty right now and I like it a lot, but I don't think it says what I want it to say. Not at this stage, anyway. It's a tough decision, though, because my best friend designed it and we're currently not in contact with each other (I'm not sure why) so I don't want to change it and have her thinking I did it because I'm upset with her or something. That's not the case at all and I'm probably being paranoid, so maybe I should just forget it and start looking into alternate designs. I'll do some research and see what I can come up with on my own. I did this blog, so hopefully a site won't be too difficult. Of course, the site will be a lot more professional than this blog!

Have I mentioned my recent obsession with beading? I really want to learn how to make jewelry. I blame all my trips to Michael's for knitting and mosaic materials. I kept walking through the bead aisle and going "ooo" and "ahhh" at the pretty beads. I can never find necklaces and earrings that I like, so I think it would be fun to try to make my own. At some point, I'm going to buy a book about making beaded jewelry so I can I'm so craft-obsessed lately! It's odd. I feel like I'm starving, you know? Like I haven't eaten in weeks and the only way to satisfy the hunger is to create something. Writing, knitting, creating mosaics... these things fill me and get rid of the starved feeling. I want to find more and more ways to satisfy that hunger. I know that sounds odd, but it's just how I'm feeling right now. I'm doing more writing these days than I ever have, and it's all because I need to create. I like it. It makes me more productive! I think this whole starving for creative activities has something to do with how not creative my job is right now. Or maybe it's something else. I don't know...

This week, I've been working on a few short stories. I didn't put them on the sidebar because they are mainly an experiment. I haven't written a short story in awhile. I thought I might write a few so I can enter them in several different contests that are coming up. There's a writing conference in my area in October and I'm finally going to go to it. They always have a short story contest associated with the conference. This year will be the third annual and I've never been able to go. This year, I'm making my reservations as soon as they announce the dates!

Wow, this was a long post! I'd better go now... time for bed!

Photo Hunters Theme: Colorful

For the "colorful" theme, I decided to take a picture of the yarn I'm using to make my mitered square blanket. I thought all this yarn was pretty colorful! I'm still playing with the color combinations for all the different squares. That's one of the best parts of the process, I think!

crochet? no way!

All my online knitting buddies keep talking about crochet. All the tutorials I've read and watched say it's easier than knitting. Are they kidding??? I tried last night. I really did. But for some reason, I can't seem to wrap my brain (or my yarn) around crochet. I can do a chain, but that's where it ends for me. The chains are rather cool all by themselves, I plan to give one to Hannah to wear as a bracelet, lol. But I wanted to try something different and I had this crochet hook just lying around, and some extra yarn after finishing a scarf, so I gave it a shot. I'm hoping it will be like knitting was for me at first. I had a really hard time with it in the beginning, but now it's easy. Of course, I'm still learning new knitting techniques, but feel like I've really mastered the basic stitches and have even moved on to some more difficult things. But crochet... it just escapes me. Hopefully as I keep trying it will get easier. You know me... always trying something new.

Wrote a few more pages on Under the Magnolia Tree last night. The story is getting more and more interesting. (interesting meaning bizarre) I might have to change some things. I found a couple of publishers who focus on Southern fiction. I'm going to do some research to see if they might be a fit for this story when it's finished. Of course, that's after extensive editing! I did some research for the FaithGirls series last night too. I wanted to see if there were other publishers I could query and I found a few. I'll be getting that package ready to send out in the next couple of weeks.

21 days until my summer vacation. Yes, I'm counting down!

knitting pics

I finally got around to photographing the next miter. Three down, one to go for my first square! So here are a few pics of the progress so far...

Look what I did!

I've been reading so much about how fun it is to be square. Mitered Square, that is! It sounded like so much fun so I decided to try it. Everyone is right... it really is great to knit mitered squares! I absolutely love watching them take shape. I'm sure I'll stop and start with this project, but for now, I'm going to be square as much as possible! So here are a few pictures of my very first mitered square. The first picture is the "right" side and the second is the "wrong side." There are a few mess-ups, but overall I'm pleased with the way it turned out. One really great thing about it is that I learned a few new knitting skills while attempting this square (two ways to decrease) and I finally feel confident with my purling. In fact, my purling is actually faster than my knitting now, which makes no sense at all! Anyway, that is how I spent my Sunday. Fun, huh?

yet another project

Okay, I think I might be out of control! But I've been planning to start this for awhile, so I don't feel too bad about it. This is the beginning of my log cabin blanket. Remember the pattern I posted some time ago? Well, I decided to chuck it and change the plan. I found a neat idea here: January One Chance Log Cabin, and decided to put my own spin on the concept. I don't want to knit one big blanket. I want to do squares and then sew them to each other to make a bigger blanket, so here's what I'm going to do. I numbered each color that I'm using. Before starting each square, I use a random sequence generator to determine the order of the colors used for that square. Then, I go to the random number generator to determine the number of rows to use for each color, except the last one. The last color will be used to make up the difference. If there is no difference to make up, the last color will not be used. If the square reaches its desired shape and size before I finish with the colors, I will stop there. This is all experimental, of course, and I've never done anything like it, but I think it will be very interesting indeed. There will be updates as I go along...