Sucessfully Branching Out

Victory is mine! I started again on Branching Out and it's going great now. As I suspected before, the yarn I chose the first time around was the problem. The original yarn choice was Cascade 200 Superwash, which is nice but very... sproingy. (is sproingy a word?) It made a veeerrry stretchy fabric and didn't work for the lace pretty much at all. I've set it aside to try to make Fetching in though, so all is not lost. The yarn that is working well for Branching Out is Lamb's Pride worsted in a nice purple color. I'm working on several projects with this yarn and I think it is going to be a favorite of mine because it's so nice to work with.

So far I've done 6 lace repeats of the scarf, and supposedly I will be able to get around 27 of them from the yarn, so with my fabulous math skills I can deduce that if I do 3 repeats a day I'll finish it in a week, which would be nice because I'd like to send it to my mom for Mother's Day.


Oh, also, lifelines are a must and I will likely use them from now on for anything even slightly complicated.

Stockinette Tubes are the Devil

Not a lot of posting going on lately, mostly because I haven't done a lot of blog-worthy crafting. I'm working on Cleaves, and I'm about halfway done with one sleeve... working on DPNs is lame, and stockinette tubes are lame. I keep telling myself that all I have to do is 10 more inches and another sleeve and then I can move it onto circulars but I can't get motivated to do it. So instead I've been making dishcloths up the wazoo. They're quick, easy, and the colors are so bright and fun... how can I resist??

And because Blogger wouldn't let me add a picture in my last post, this is the cutesy little Urchin hat:

Swatch is a four letter word

Over the weekend I made the Urchin hat from Knitty. I was making it for myself, but it's come out small enough to fit a small child or a large baby, because I used worsted weight yarn instead of what it called for... which was super bulky. HA HA HA. Oh well, it's going to a supercute kid who will hopefully wear it and love it. I'm making another one with the right size yarn and so far it looks good but I'm running out of yarn at 50% done, because I was using stash yarn. Go figure.

This is the little bitty hat, it's an adorable little hat. It's just... little.

(pics coming later when blogger stops being stupid and giving me errors)

Ouch!

I've been working on a Speed Stix throw off and on for a while. After my abject Branching Out failure, I picked it up again yesterday and knit all day on it. I went from this:

To this:

in a few hours. When I woke up this morning, my right shoulder was stiff and sore from what I am calling Afghan Arm, which is caused by manouvering the giant size 50 needles back and forth. The purl rows aren't so bad, but the knitting rows are murder!

Aaaarg!

I'm knitting trying to knit Branching Out and it's really kicking my butt. I had to frog it last night for the first time, and I'm looking at frogging again today because somehow on row 9 I lost a stitch. This is my first time knitting lace and it's really discouraging to not be able to even complete one pattern repeat. I think it's one of the more complicated stitches that tripped me up but I really don't know which one. :( And the yarn I'm using is splitting a lot, which isn't helping matters at all.

Unrelated but I also fixed the comments so anyone can leave one.

Spot the Loony!

Lizard season is starting.

And yes, I stink at picture-taking.

Victory Is Mine!

I finished the Gryffindor scarf today! It was my first "big" (as in long, not necessarily complicated) knitting project-- all I've finished before were dishcloths (which I lurve). I'm sure the hubby will like it, even if he only gets to wear it twice a year. Expecto Patroknit!

Did you say Everlasting Gobstopper?

I've been knitting my husband a Hogwarts scarf for a while now and I've come to think of it like an Everlasting Gobstopper. You can knit it and knit it and knit it, and it never gets finished. Although finally, after weeks of seemingly endless *k1, repeat from *29,260 times, I'm nearly done. I did a marathon knit day yesterday (from 11am to 11pm, with breaks of course) and I only have 3 stripes left. If I'm particularly industrious, I can finish the knitting part today. I'm not so optimistic about weaving in ends and tying on the fringe though. I may not weave in the ends, I may just go back through and re-tie all my knots and call it good. It's a tube! No one will see the inside, so what's it matter?

Temptation

Somehow, even when jobless, I still can't resist spending money on fabric and yarn. Just as I use my "knitting" as a vehicle for yarn purchases, I use my "sewing" to justify buying more fabric. Even though I know that I'll just stash it away and pull it out now and then saying "This is would make a cute ____, but then I would have to cut it up! And use it! Nah, let's just save it for another day..." My hoarder mentality at its worst.

My mom sent me a link to http://www.reprodepot.com/, which has some of the coolest fabric I've ever seen, and I couldn't resist buying half-yards of two fabrics and an embroidery pattern that I don't know when I'll use, but needed. You know what I mean. It wasn't a want, it was a need.

These are the fabrics that I got:

and

Now I will wait anxiously for the UPS man...

First Post!

Welcome to my shiny new crafty blog! There's not much here yet but hopefully I'll stick with blogging about all my little crafty projects longer than I stuck with some other hobbies I've had over the years... like horseback riding... or tap dancing (neither of which lasted very long.)

A little about me: I'm 23, married, and I live in Jacksonville, Florida. In my spare time (that I now have considerably more of, more on that in a moment), I enjoy embroidery, sewing and most recently, knitting. Actually, for a new hobby I have way too much yarn already stashed away which is something that I'm scared and proud of at the same time. I think I started knitting as an excuse to buy yarn... is that wrong?

I just quit my incredibly soul-sucking job (in the new home building field, if you're curious) and am now looking for a new soul-sucking job, but hopefully one that won't make me want to drown myself in the shower at the end of the day. I am digging all the extra craft time I have in the meantime, though.

So, that's a little about me. I'll save fun pictures for my next post while I play around with Blogger a little bit more.

Oh, and if you're on Ravelry, I'm there as YarnBandit if you want to see my wares :)