Pictures!

As promised, I have pictures from my week with my sister's camera. Of course the minute I go to import them, her camera decides it doesn't like my computer or the other way around, so getting these up was a bit of an effort.

Here are all 18 granny squares that I finished crocheting for Hannah's bag.

And here they are blocking.
They look so nice all lined up like that. They would make a nice blanket I think. But in this life they shall be a bag. I am unsure what the strap will look like though. I am thinking about braiding i-cords or something? I was also planning on single crocheting the seams together. Suggestions? This is one of my first completely self-designed projects so I don't really know what I am doing.


Last night, while watching Into the Wild (which was quite excellent) I knitted up this swatch for Demi. Can you tell it isn't four inches? More like 3.5. Which would make sense since I used US7s for this swatch and the pattern called for US8s. My personal tension seems to differ from most others, but I guess not with this yarn. And luckily, using Ravelry, I just found out that I do have US8s circs and I was thinking I might not. I just have to find them... Still the swatch looks very nice in my opinion. It is Cascade 220 if you couldn't tell. I am curious to see what it will look like as most of the projects on Ravelry were done with a tweed and this is more of a heather.


Last thursday was the library book sale of the next town over and I picked up some awesome stuff. I got a bag full of Victoria magazines for free! Cannot beat that for sure. I haven't gone through them thoroughly, but I know I will love them.


I also got 33 books for $39. I live for used book sales okay. Look at all these great titles and most of them are in really good condition. I bought so many that I had to bring up another bookcase to my room bringing the grand total of bookcases in my room to 6. Although to be fair, one bookcase hold my stash.


I've got some more pictures that I will reserve for later posts, perhaps with an "abandoned projects" theme. So happy end-of-June everyone! Summer is halfway over!

Where is summer going?

I'm kind of upset over the fact that it is June 24th already. Summer is going way too quickly and I still have so much to do. So much knitting, reading sewing, preparing for London... It is kind of depressing.

However, expect something (hopefully) good on the blog arena soon. My sister is at a youth group conference this week and we have traded cameras. She didn't want to risk taking her Canon Rebel to a college campus with a thousand other teens, so I gave her mine. In exchange, I have full access to the beauty all week. So hopefully I'll get some good shots of... stuff.

I've been crocheting the granny square bag, but things are not going very quickly. I'm up to 11/18 squares completed. Then I need to find fabric to line it and block the squares and stitch it all together and yeah. Luckily my friend is on a nine day roadtrip so I have plenty of time before she returns.

I've been watching a lot of period movies lately as they are pretty much my favorite genre. I am finding that the knits from the first half of the 20th century are quite stunning. I basically want them all. For examples, see Sons and Lovers, The Heart of Me, and Sylvia. And after typing that sentence, I realized that I am a food for not making screencaps of these movies for future reference. But I guess it can still be done, they are all from the library anyway. Rowan's Vintage Knits has excellent stuff that is in that vein of course. I hope to start work on Demi soon. However, having lost one of my interchangeable needles while knitting the Dollar and a Half cardigan, that may be a problem.

Sorry there are no pictures. I hate reading posts without pictures, but I am sure there will be plenty in the future.

The completely finished Dollar and a Half Cardigan

Here it is folks. All the pieces have been blocked, assembled, the ends sewn in, the buttons attached. It is a real live cardigan!



My sister and I went down to the river walk in my town to take pictures. The water was quite high from all the rain. Thankfully we haven't experienced the flooding like others have.


I could never be an actress/model. Well for obvious reasons, but also because I cannot keep a straight face in a photo. That's when my sister decided to keep my face out of the photo. Focusing on the sweater is the point anyway.




Dollar and a Half Cardigan
Specs are on my Ravelry project page. I'll have you know that I lost two needles in the process of making this thing. I do not know how it happened, perhaps transporting the whole thing between my house and boy's was too chaotic. But the real problem is that I lost one US4 and one US6. I couldn't even lose the same pair so I could easily replace them!

I am quite happy with the results. It is not quite fitted enough for my tastes, perhaps a bit too slouchy. The shoulder seems also hit a bit low on my arms which is kind of a mystery to me. But it is a nice length. The sleeves ended up belling out towards the end which isn't awesome, but bearable. It is definitely something that I will wear and that is what counts.

Here are more pictures from the adventure. Muffin made me take off my shoes and walk across the flooded path even though I am kind of a safety freak.





Goosies!

It's done!

This may be a pictureless post, but my Dollar and a Half Cardigan is completely finished! I went to Hobby Lobby last night and picked out a few buttons and sewed them on while watching Enchanted, which my dad mistakenly called "Charmed." And I also spent Sunday knitting up the ribbed neckband/button band part while watching the Masterpiece Theatre version of Jane Eyre. Not that impressed is my personal opinion. But anyway, hopefully tomorrow will be picture day. It's been so hot that I cannot imagine taking decent photos outside in this thing. Beautiful, but quite toasty. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 70s, so I will have my little sister and her expensive camera go somewhere pretty with me.

Oh and hopefully soon, Boy and I's little Etsy experiment will get underway. We're almost done with one tote bag. Of course next week he starts his summer class so the whole thing may be a waste of money, but let's hope not.

It's coming together!

I'm onto the seaming of the Dollar and a Half cardigan! I was originally excited to start putting it altogether, but then I remembered that seaming is boring. Last night I got through the three needle bindoff on the shoulders and stitched in the sleeves on one side.

Oh wait, first I blocked it.

Blocking was amazing. Some people on Ravelry had complained that the bumps and such did not block out, but mine came out beautifully. The yarn has really softened too. I threw in a little conditioner into the water which helped. I really had no idea what I was doing as far as the blocking goes. I've read a lot of stuff, but I didn't follow any one set of instructions. I basically just dunked in in some warm water, rolled it up in a towel to get some of the water out, and then pinned it out to dry on a towel. But I am happy with the results and that is what counts, right?

Here is the shoulder seam. Once again, kind of just winging it, but I am satisfied with the results. There are a couple places where the horizontal stripes are just misaligned by maybe just one row, but I really don't care at this point. I don't think it is that noticeable. I hate having to do things over. Especially when you leave the house and get almost out of the neighborhood when you realize that you forgot something. I did that three times the other day. I was so frustrated afterwards that I accidentally ran a stop sign. Ugh.

Now this picture is a sampling of the present I am making for my friend Hannah. She is also a knitter so we have a good time sharing patterns and projects and doing knitterly things together. I am going to make a cute little bag with these granny squares. I'm thinking that there will be nine on each side. I have an old pillow case that I think will line it nicely. The yarn was a Christmas present from my aunt. It's all hand spun and hand dyed from somewhere in Ohio that I cannot remember at this moment because the yarn band has disappeared. But it is lovely and has that nice sheepy smell.

Until these projects are finished (and I still need buttons for the cardigan!) I am refusing to think about what might be coming next. But it may just be Demi from Rowan's Vintage Knits. Hint hint. It will be perfect for my time spent in England this fall.

June already?

Time is just slipping away from me here. Last weekend was my brother's graduation from high school. We had relatives over and there was a party as well as much stress and chaos. But now my beautiful sweater is 90% done! I have even blocked parts of it and it is lovely. However, that is all I am going to say on that subject. I will wait until I have pictures uploaded, but trust me it is coming soon.

In the meantime, enjoy some yarn porn, taken by me over spring break when I endeavored to build a lightbox. I have since put the box away, but I was quite happy with the results. The tutorial I used can be found here from the Lolly Knitting Around blog.

The yarn featured is nothing special, but the colors turned out accurate so I was pleased. First is Sugar'n Cream, pretty much all I have left after my dishcloth making frenzy of a few summers ago. Second is Wool of the Andes bulky from Knit Picks, leftover from making my roommate Foliage for Christmas. Click to enlarge!