I Haven't Bought Yarn In . .

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

A Great Way to Eat Your Veggies!

I bought the book Hello Cupcake a while ago, there are some amazing things in the book and I have wanted to make something out of it for a while. My parents and their RV club came into town and they invited me to hang out for the day and join them for a Pot Luck dinner so I wanted to make something special to say thank you. So I decided to make the Garden Party cupcakes.

IMG_5402

It took a while to make the vegetables but it was well worth it, they looked so cute sitting on top of their Oreos crumbs "dirt", the best part is everything is edible. It's a great book there are some awesome things in it, can't wait to try another one out.

There has been a little bit of knitting, a baby hat, a hat for a friend, and knitting my replacement Jaywalker Sock in Strange Little Mama.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Where Did the Summer Go?

Seriously where did it go, if someone finds the rest of my summer please let me know.

Well the last thing I posted about was my Molly Kingscot sweater. I finished the back of it and I finished the left side with a lot of complications (knitter error, not pattern error). I've never knit a sweater with hand-dyed yarn so I never had to alternate skeins while knitting, and boy did it show. Between the cabling, chart reading, annoying bobbles, and alternating skeins there was a point where I thought I was just going to walk away in frustration. I didn't realize that when you cast on on the same side that you alternate you have to carry the yarn you aren't binding off (ask me how I learned this painful lesson). The top part of the left side almost killed me since there was binding off at different rates on both sides with the alternating thing, sucked, but at least I learned something. But as proof that I did finish the left front here is a picture (the color is not accurate, it's much more red purple). I have had a nice long break from this project and I think I might be able to handle the other side, so I might finally cast on for it. Also the word from the Wollmeise is that there will be no more Molly for sale (it was too costly to offer) so this will most likely be my only Molly sweater.



The second project is because everyone I know was having a baby this summer/fall. There were three baby boys on the way so I made three pairs of the ever so housebreakingly cute Moc-a-sock booties. The great thing about this project is they look like shoes and socks but they are one piece and you get to use up some sock yarn scraps. The first pair (cream socks) was for Baby Pearce, the second pair (blue socks) was for Baby Novak, and the third pair (Boston Red Sox) are for Baby Lebo (due any day now). The pattern was easy, it was fast and it was cute, you can't go wrong.



The third project I casted on and finished is my "Drop it Like it's Hawt" pooling scarf made out of a We're Different skein of Wollmeise in Pfauenauge (German for peacock feathers). A Rav friend is famous for her pooling stoles, and her pooling projects inspired me to pool my drop stitch scarf pattern I already had. It was great mindless knitting project because except for the first, second and last row it's all garter stitch. I knit it while watching TV, waiting in line at various things, Oktober-fest, and car knitting. The picture does not do the color of this yarn justice, the color is so much more deep in person. But I do have a picture of the finished project.



The fourth project is a basic pair of socks, I got the yarn for $2 a ball so these are my 4 Dollar Socks. The yarn is like Cascade Fixation but it's made by Knit One Crochet Two, it's called Soxx Appeal.



The last project was much more of an organizational move, but I'm proud of it none the less. I decided after some fabric crafts for the holidays that I need to get my fabric stash (which thank god is much smaller than my fiber stash) organized. So after about 3 hours of hunting it all down from all over the house, and folding for three hours and now it looks like this, I love it.



Last month I celebrated my sixth wedding anniversary in Boston, we went to two Red Sox games, spent time with old friends from college, hung out, ate some ridiculously good food, played with a 4 year old, went to a beer festival, went apple picking and generally had a wonderful time. Big A surprised me with a single tier replica of our wedding cake from the same bakery, it was delicious (but huge, it's was over 6 inches high) and I was so surprised.



And here is a picture of us and the Green Monster at the last game of the '09 season that the Red Sox's ever won, we had a great time.

Where Did the Summer Go?

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Good Golly Miss Molly!

IMG_4693

The woman I learned to knit from always told me to knit with the nicest stuff I could afford and that would work for my project. Great advice! And I have knit with some really nice yarn since I have become a knitter. There have been very few projects however that I can honestly say I never wanted to end because I like to have a finished project in the end. However I think I have found a yarn that I love knitting with the yarn and pattern so much I don't want it to end. I was lucky enough to get my hot little hands on some Molly and after swatching (and finding out from others that have knit it) that it acts more like a DK than a worsted weight yarn I knew I have to knit Kingscot with my Molly. Kingscot was designed by Norah Gaughan and released in the Winter 2008 Twist Collective (that same issue has also has Vivian which I HAVE to knit).

The only problem was I had 2 different orders of Molly from two different updates and they were so different it almost looked like a different colorway. I loved the dyelot of yarn that I got from FluffyKira (a Rav friend) in exchange for Wollmeise Lace. Thank the knitting gods from Ravelry because I found someone that bought yarn from the same update that Fluffy got her yarn from and she was more than happy to trade me my batch from her batch. Her batch matched mine a little better so I was excited but I knew I had to alternate skeins since they were different.

So I casted on and knitting with Molly has been nothing sort of a dream, I love it so much it's not even funny. It has awesome stitch definition, the color is gorgeous, and it's so easy to knit with, no joke.

Here is a picture of my progress so far, this is the back of the sweater. And I have been knitting on other things so I can make the Molly knitting last a bit longer. I finished three pairs of baby booties and finally finished that pair of house socks that have been waiting over a year for the other sock.

IMG_4860

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Got Molly?

I'm sure lately that there has been an increase the the word Molly on a few knitting blogs out there, and this blog is no exception. Why the increase you ask? Well the Wollmeise has come out with a worsted weight yarn to replace Lammdochtwolle which was also worsted but more like Manos or Malabrigo (single ply) with Molly which is just like her sock yarn (many piles) just a bit thicker.

I wanted enough Molly to make a sweater. Wollmeise sells Molly in individual skeins, 400 grams, and 800 grams (which I call an 8-ball). There are 220 yards in 100 grams so I ideally I wanted 6 skeins. I got 4 skeins in the update 2 days ago, there are a few sweater patterns out there that I could have made but I went on the hunt to see if someone wanted to trade Wollmeise Lace for Molly. Luckily there was another Ravelry and swapper that wanted to trade with me. So now I will have an 8-ball of Molly, very exciting. I just hope that the two dye lots match, I will probably sort them and then knit from alternating skeins.

I wish that the color I got Fliederbusch, which is Lilac in English was a little more solid than variegated. Because I found a lot of patterns with crazy cables that I would love to make with Molly but I think the color will clash with a complicated pattern (sigh). I imagine that it's the darker lilac that this yarn is in tribute to.



Now to find the perfect pattern which you would hope would be easy.

Also I had to re-start my "I Haven't Bought Yarn In" clock, I've re-set it twice both times for Wollmeise.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

My Favorite Thing (right now)

I got a chance yesterday to take my shawl outside while I was running around town, and thankfully I decided at the last minute to take my camera. I took a few shots of my new favorite thing outside and I thought I would share them.





And now on to very cute small lovely baby things. There are three babies coming up in 4 months, gotta get working on gifts.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

SIMURGH!

A.K.A. The Stole That Used to Scare the Shit Out of Me.

That's right I'm finished.
It's blocking right now. Don't believe me?
Here are some pictures.

IMG_4548

IMG_4551\

IMG_4556

This was a project that scared me from the beginning, but I always tell people that knitting is just a knit stitch and a purl stitch in different combinations, and that they should be the master of their own knitting. SO I took my advice casted on and I'm happy to report I finished it.

There were several tinkings but over all it was fine, except for a dropped stitch on the first half. I tried to fix it but it was really bothering me but I let it go because the edging it very complicated and it sucked big time to do it the first time. I convinced myself that it was fine, no one would see it and I would just have to get over it.

So when I finished the second side I was so proud, but my lame "trying to fix the dropped stitch" thingy was really bothering me. So I ripped the first half back to the patch, and re-knit it. The bottom edge is directional and the first half of the stole is a pain in the ass because it has a bunch of P2TBL. So if I had to chose I would have much rather ripped the second half, but that's not the side I dropped the stitch. This project is probably the most complicated I have ever knit and since it's lace I didn't fudge anything, if I had the wrong stitch count I tinked it, every time, and I'm so glad I did.

I calculated that the stole takes 61,714 stitches to complete it, needless to say that there were tinked stitches and the entire two bottom sections that I ripped out and re-knit so I figured I was close to 65,000 stitche, pretty cool huh?

I'm so excited about this project I can't even describe it.