Ubercrafty

casting on, again

I'm between projects, again. In the past couple of months, I have been compulsively knitting to deal with stress. This week, things with Dumpling and her school sent me even further over the edge and I found myself frozen, unable to knit. 

My knitting group meets at the same coffee shop every Wednesday, so we decided that for the holidays, we would each knit one gender-neutral item, put everything in the a basket and give it to the staff of the shop to choose from. I happen to have one nice skein of Manos Del Uruguay in the wrong color, so I figured I would make a hat, which I cast on last weekend.

But I haven been totally unable to make progress on it. I take it everywhere with me, I've committed the texture pattern to memory, but yet, there it sat, still only with the rib edge.... Today, I did knit. About 12 rows. And tonight, I took a closer look. Totally messed up. On row 3, I'm supposed to knit 2, not 1, at the beginning of each row to stagger the texture. I didn't, and now I had a ladder of holes.... I just ripped the entire thing and am casting on, again.

I need to get my rhythm back

the iv kept me from knitting

It was another totally craft-less day today. Even though it's Wednesday an I went to my weekly stich-and-bitch, it was preceeded and followed by a hematologist appointment and a 3 hour iron infusion. I cannot knit with an IV, and during the knitting coffee-clatch, I couldn't concentrate and didn't pick up my project.

sorry, I'll do better tomorrow.

glitter glitter everywhere

Another day without a stitch. While i spent the afternoon putting out fires at work, my morning was very very crafty: I supervised a bunch of 6 y.o. girls who had no school today and used my house as the central playdate location. Do you have any idea how much glitter-glue and sparkles was used in my house today?

At some point, from the bathroom, I heard "There is glitter on my bum!". Seriously.

Not exactely the kind of crafting I usually go for, but at least i'm still keeping up with Nablopomo!

pretty balls

I didn't knit a single stitch today. it was a crazy day of parent-teacher interviews (shockingly upsetting) and work related stress, then violin lesson (BB plays the violin! and she's really good!). At no point did I get to pick up the sticks. The blue scarf is on the way to its recipient and I didn't get a chance to read my next pattern.

so instead, today, I wound some balls. With my new-but-used ball winder. I bought it on Ebay a few weeks ago after a fun time googling Ball Winders..... I'll let you enjoy that one! It did lead to a few funny Facebook exanges about winding balls and pretty balls and blue balls.... yes, sometimes, I'm a 14 y.o. boy.

that is one LONG skinny scarf!

this was a special request for a very special recipient. The brief was long, skinny, bright blue or eggplant. First, I agonized over how long and how skinny. Because we are talking fashion royalty here, but when I found the yarn at the store, everything fell into place. I used 3 balls of the Babybamboo yarn. Suer nice to knit and the color is stunning, almost shiny.

Here is my girl, modeling the scarf. on her, it's wrapped 4 times, because the thing is 6 feet long!

a future knitter

here is a glimpse of Dumpling, now 6 3/4 y.o., learning to knit on one of those bobbin thingys.

poor kid is struggling with reading and writing, but this, she's got downpath!

my new favorite scarf pattern

My knitting group was asked to knit a bunch of red scarves with green fringe for the local food bank. Never mind that every single member of the knitting group, save one, are Jewish! Still, we always need excuses to knit, so we agreed, and I set out earlier this week to make one red scarf. It had to be a quick and easy project, but I didn't want to do just a plain stitch. After yet another hour spent on Ravelry, I found this pattern. Super easy, but very very textured ans squishy.

The red scarf, with one skein of donated Red Heart Bulky, in red, turned out very well.

 

so well in fact, that I'm making a very long, very skinny version in bright blue bamboo for a poet friend who needs something stylish to wrap around her neck a few times.

I have a secret

If you want to know what it is, you have to either email me or leave a comment with your email address.

(and yes, this is a total cop-out post! it's late and i was out at a concert!

and now, for the last Entrelac post

the mitts.

I used the pattern from yesterday, but like the hat, I made an Entrelac band of 2 x 5 sts triangle (cast on 10) then continued the pattern as is. I skipped the ribbing on the end, selecting instead to finish with 2 purl rows.

Hopefully it will be freezing outside tomorrow and I can wear it all. I ended up steam pressing the scarf and it looks fabulous. Less bulky/squishy, but a lot prettier.

The Entrelac Hat (that I made up)

when I was done with my scarf, I still had 2 skeins of the fab yarn (having bought all 4), so I started looking for a matching hat pattern. The very few entrelac hat pattern were, well, frightful. Pouffy beret types. Not me at all. Eventually, I did come across this fabulous hat and mitt set by Blacker Designs.

At first, I was going to knit it as is. But then while I was sitting at my weekly knitting clatch with my friend Melissa, she suggested and I agreed that I should change the cable band to create an entrelac band.

The one from the scarf was way too wide, so I cast on 10 and built it on triangles of 5 stitches instead of 8. Then i just kept following the pattern for size and picked up the 80 stitches recommended. Since I'm not a big fan of poofy hats, I did a K2T, K9 decrease pattern instead and got a much tighter fit.

Voila, the new and improved Entrelac Hat.

 Tomorrow, the mitts!