Laugh out loud!

It's been a long time since I wrote, and a whole bunch of things have happened since. One of which was me going back to work, and even though it's only part-time right now, it's made me a lot busier than I used to be. The other thing that was occupying a lot of my time was a big show I just did with the Chinese Dance Workshop to celebrate its 35th anniversary. Now that it's over, I can actually breathe again and devote my spare time to other things.

One of the things I'd like to do more of is give Andrew the chance to play with other kids. He's in daycare now, so I know he plays with lots of kids all the time, but I never get to see it. Plus he has so much fun when other kids are around. Here's some video proof.

Andrew and his friend W (I won't give the full name here) were sitting patiently while their respective mommies were doing some shopping, and Jamie managed to catch it on video. Even when they're just sitting around, they seem to amuse each other! Love it.

There unfortunately hasn't been a lot of time for crafting though. Only recently have I been able to do a little here and there while watching a rather ridiculous show that Jamie introduced me to. It's absolutely moronic when you think about it, but I can't stop watching! It's called Deadliest Warriors, and it basically pit two historical warriors against each other in a virtual arena based on data collected by measuring different parameters like strike speed, force of impact, and type/severity of damage. They basically constructed a computer model that takes in all the data collected, and then runs a battle simulation 1000 times to see which fighter wins the majority of the fights.Stuff like, Samurai vs. Viking, or Spartan vs. Ninja. I know. Totally stupid, right? And yet I've watched about 4 episodes already! While watching it, I can't help but think that humans are a truly messed up species for having come up with so many ways to kill each other.

But I digress. This TV watching has allowed me to do some crafting, and here's what I've been working on. First up is a baby sweater that I'm working on for a friend of mine who has already had her baby. Yes, I am terribly late, but I console myself with the fact that her daughter was premature and that I have chosen a size that couldn't possibly fit now anyway.

That's just the back. I've finished the sleeves, and am just finishing up the front now. Hoping to finish it before the end of the month, but we'll see.


These little guys are quickly becoming a bit of an obsession of mine. I found the pattern for them over at Attic 24, and got addicted. I'm not really an expert in crochet by any stretch of the imagination, but these are really fun. I'm joining them together as I go, which is a lovely, lovely technique that Lucy (the lovely author of Attic 24) explains so nicely. It's not that I'm looking to make a blanket or anything though; just going to make them here and there and see what I get.

Plugging along

We're plugging along over here in our little corner of the world. Andrew is almost a year old now, always on the go, doing lots of babbling, and eats so much that we can barely keep up with making food for him. All in all, it's been a most awesome year.

What isn't so awesome is how long it took me to finish knitting my sweater for him. I guess I can take solace in the fact that I got it done before he turned one.

It's yet another Tulip Sweater, but using just two colours instead of the eight that it usually is. Haven't tried it out on Andrew yet, but I hope it fits.

In other news, we are still trying to get my craft room set up.

We got an Expedit from Ikea, and it does a fantastic job of holding my stash and other goodies. Now all we need to get is a work table for me, and I'm going to start moving things like my computer, and a small filing cabinet, and then I'll have a little craft room/office. I'm really looking forward to that. Eventually, we're going to change the floor, but we decided not to wait for that to be done before actually using the room.

Can someone please tell me where the spring weather is? I remember it being nice and warm last year; warm enough for the cherry blossoms to bloom, for us to take super long walks, and for me to eat ice cream without a jacket on. The only reason I remember that is because we were waiting for Andrew to make his appearance, and we went on lots of walks to see if we could get labour going. I also find it weird that there is still hockey being played, and considering how long playoffs go for, we will still be watching hockey well into May, perhaps even until June. That's just not right.

A few things

With a few babies just entering the world, I managed to polish off a couple things.

There's the finished Helena for Kim's baby. I think in the future, I might make i-cord ties instead of the flat ones they have in the pattern.

And with Janice's new baby boy, I made a vest. She mentioned to me that vests were really easy to put on Anderson, so I thought I'd make one for Carter.

This is the Owl Baby Vest. I had a fun time knitting this one, but i have to say that the instructions for this needed some interpretation. But it's still a pretty fun little knit.

I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out. Hope the kids they're destined for enjoy them too.

Knitting on a deadline

Went to Ottawa for Kim's baby shower, and still wasn't done the second sweater that I wanted to give her. I'm usually pretty good at knitting for a deadline, but with the whole house thing, I've been a little preoccupied. I was close enough though that I thought I could finish on the drive up. This is as far as I got.


I think I would've finished had I not forgotten my dpns at home. And so, I presented the almost finished sweater to her, and then took it back with me so I could finish the ties before giving it back to her. So close, yet so far. Oh well. It's still a pretty sweet little sweater, and since I made the 12mo size, I'll see her again before the baby fits into it. I highly recommend Helena as a pattern, and Swish superwash as a yarn - this was a really enjoyable knit.

I still dislike finishing and sewing in ends

Another finished object! Yay!

It's the Baby Yours that I started a while ago, and now that I know someone who's having a girl, I decided to hurry up and finish it. This involved more sewing together than I usually like. I'm not too sure if I'd knit it again without trying to figure out how to take away some of the seaming.

Here's a photo that shows the cables better, but the colour is totally off. I'm a bit too lazy to adjust the levels in Photoshop. Just imagine this in the colours of the first photo. Haha!


I still need to block this, but on the whole I guess it's okay. I made some boo-boo's on it, but I think I managed to hide them. Haha!!

Opinions welome

I took the opportunity to photograph what I've knit so far of Baby Yours in some natural light this morning (and let me tell you we've had very little natural light lately), and that's what it looks like.

So, before I venture forth with the rest of this sweater, I'd like to solicit some opinions from you. Keep on knitting, or start a-froggin'?

[And in case any of you are wondering, I do have my own opinions about this, but I wanted to see what you all say without me polluting your initial thoughts.]

Finishing what you start

Many of you know that finishing is one of my least favourite parts of the whole knitting process. I try to take as many sneaky tricks as possible to minimize the amout of it I have to do, but sometimes there's just no helping it. And so, after having put it off for a little while, I decided to sew the seams and put the buttons on that Baby Surprise Jacket.

Having learned from the first BSJ that I knit, I resolved to do a better job of the seams this time.

I think they turned out pretty well this time around (and my camera fails at taking close-up shots like that).

With all sorts of friends with something cooking in the oven so to speak, I decided to start yet another baby sweater.

DETAILS
Pattern: Baby Yours by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Jasper
Needles: US size 4 Addi Turbos

I'm not sure about the colour, to tell you the truth. Or rather, I'm not sure about how all those lovely cables will look considering the amount of striping that's happening. I'm not really an experienced cable knitter, so I'm not sure if cables+variagated will still turn out to be perfectly lovely. The only time I've really done cables have been with non-variagated yarns. I do admit to being quite enamored with the pattern so far, and have been enjoying it greatly, so the only question now is if I should really be getting a different colourway. Any thoughts before I get too far with it?

Getting closer

Little by little, I'm getting closer to finishing up projects that I've had going. The first is another EZ Baby Surprise Jacket that I'm making from some friends of mine who are expecting. They've elected not to find out the baby's gender, so I tried to pick something relatively neutral.

This sweater turned out a lot more brown than I thought it would based on the yarn. I thought the light blue would be more obvious. In some ways, all that brown makes me feel like the sweater has a more "manly" feel to it, but I guess it's still pretty gender neutral. Just need to sew up the shoulders and put the buttons on. I wasn't in much of a finishing mood today, so I decided to just leave it for now.

Since I was in the mood to do some more brainless knitting, I decided to finish off one of those toe socks that have been on my needles forever now.

I am now exactly 50% done this project. Someday, I'll get off my butt and cast on the second sock. But today's not that day either. I made these with size 0 needles, and found those to be a huge pain in the rear. These will probably be the last pair of socks that I make on size 0's. That said, the small needles have produced a wonderfully cozy sock, but I'm just not sure they're worth the pain (quite literally too since my hands were starting to ache from those ridiculously small dpns).

Tulips II

My cousin in Hong Kong is expecting, so I originally was going to take my time and knit some things up for her and ship them over. Then my mom pointed out that her father was coming to Toronto to visit, so why don't I save myself the shipping cost and give it to him. Great idea mom! Only drawback is that I originally had until December to get my knitting done, and now I have until mid-October. Eek! So what's a girl do to when she doesn't know if it's going to be a girl or boy, and she's finding herself in crunch time? Go with something she knows she can do.


And so, my second Tulips kit got knitted up, and will be winging its way to Hong Kong via Uncle Ronald's luggage. I think I'm going to make a little matching hat with the yarn that I've got left over from the kit. Even though I think Tulips is supposed to be for a girl, I think the colours are sufficiently gender neutral that it'll be okay even if it turns out to be a boy.

This time around, I used that trick of weaving in the ends as I went (thanks, Adrienne), so finishing was such a breeze! I think I did a better job of doing the sleeves this time than the first time I made it. The photo is pre-blocking, so there's some curling happening, but the cute little sweater is pinned out and drying as I type this entry.

I just love this pattern!! Even though it was my second time knitting it, I still had a good time!

Approaching the finish line!

Hooray for the Olympics! Hooray for lots of late night TV for me to knit by!



Finished my EZ BSJ. The pattern is a little tricky to decipher if you're going from the one re-printed in Knitting Workshop, but with some help from all you lovely people, I've finished it! And so, I've completed my first item for the Ravelympics!

I have just less than one skein of that yarn left (only had to dip into it to sew up the edges and sew on the buttons), but I'm not sure what to make with it. I'm a little worried that it's a bit too scratchy to make a good hat or booties. Any opinions?

EDIT: Received my medal for this item, so I thought I'd post it here.

And I just wanted to say that Ravelry is doing an awesome job co-ordinating the over 5000 Raveletes.

Colourful FOs

I've been doing some finishing lately. First of all my basketweave scarf knit out of a Sophie's Toes Magic Ball, in all sorts of pretty pastel colourways.



Then the Tulip Baby Cardigan from Dream in Color, knit from a kit purchased at Lettuce Knit last Christmas.



(the sleeveless cardigan-in-progress fit her much better. Maybe I'll have to make her a little Dream in Color vest!)

And there are even more colourful knits on the horizon. When WEBS was having its anniversary sale, I bought a bunch of Reynolds Whiskey for Fiddlehead Mittens.



I also got some bright Plymouth Encore for a Circle of Friends blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.



I'm very glad that there are so many ways for me to indulge my love of all things rainbow. =)

Some fun photos

As promised, here are some stacked cats.

Please forgive the blurriness; my hand isn't as steady as I'd like it to be when taking no-flash photos.

Also, I'm making good progress on my EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. It's still a bit of a mystery how it all will magically form into a sweater, but I'm sure it'll become clear when I've got it all off my needles.

This isn't really the best photo ever, but it showed the colour of the Jojoland best.

Man...I always seem to take terrible photos...I need to learn how to do that better. Then again, I probably chose the absolute worst time of day to do it. The dead of night is when natural light is at it's worst, but is unfortunately when I'm most liable to blog. Oh well!

I understand what the Harlot meant

Remember this post? Well, I sort of get it now. I haven't even finished one measly Tulip sweater yet, but I already want to buy more. And more and more and more, in a bunch of different colour combinations (I already have one other kit, but I want like 3 or 4. Or 5).



This is the squishiest yarn ever! And so easy to work with! And look at the pretty colours! Yeah, I know that everyone else in the entire world has already knit with it, but I didn't realize just how great it was until I finally tried it for myself. Must. Buy. More.

This little cardigan isn't being knit for any baby in particular, in fact it's MINE and will stay MINE so I can pet it and look at all the pretty colours forever and ever. Oh, and humiliate my cat with it, too. I think she actually liked this one, though.

ALL for me!

I guess it's my turn to show off my purchases, huh? Unlike Karen, I was not nearly so generous with my shopping. Everything I bought was for ME. Me me me. =)

Socks That Rock Lightweight in Count Cluckula:



Dream in Color Tulip Cardigan Kit. I love this thing. I didn't buy it with a particular baby in mind, and I will probably never ever give this away. I will knit it up and it will sit in storage forever, and I will look at it and admire it and pet it periodically. Unless for some reason I end up with a baby girl, then she will be dressed up in it and photographed extensively.



C'est tout. I was pretty restrained and only bought what I was initially planning to. Progress!

Tulip finished!

Hooray! Another baby sweater done! This was a really fun knit. Easy pattern, great yarn. I ended up calling Lettuce Knit to ask them if they had any more of that blue that I ran out of, and sure enough I was in luck! They're so nice over there; all I had to do was drop by and they just gave me another little ball.

I took the picture a few days ago, so by now all the ends have been woven in, and it's all set to be given away.

Details:
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy (superwash merino)
Needles: Knit Picks Options - size 5 and 7; bamboo dpns size 5 and 7

Now, on to the next thing! I think I might take a break from baby stuff since my other friends who preggers aren't due for another 5-6 months.

So close, yet so far

I was really planning to finish Tulip today, but things just didn't turn out that way. Here's as far as I got to.

First of all, I want to apologize for the horrible quality of the photo. The flash totally bleached out some of the colours. And the reason why I couldn't finish? Well, you see the partially finished sleeve on the right side of the photo? Well, it turned out that I didn't have enough of the light blue yarn in my kit to finish the stripe on that sleeve. So, I have to make a trek to the yarn store to get some more. I'm gonna see if they have any scraps left of it because I really don't want to buy a whole skein of that stuff just to knit 3 more rounds on the sleeve. But I suppose it wouldn't be terrible to have some of that stuff kicking around in my stash.

The border/edging is puckering a little bit strangely at the bottom, but I'm hoping that a little bit of blocking and maybe some ironing will help solve that. I-cord edging is fun!!

More baby knitting

I bring photos! Hooray!



These are the baby booties that I made from a pattern that was written incorrectly. It was a pretty fun and quick knit and made use of short rows, which I think is awesome. Only downside is the fact that it still needed seaming.

I'm also working on another baby sweater made from more of that Dream in Colour stuff. I love working with it. It's that Tulip cardigan that seems to be quite popular. I bought the kit at Lettuce Knit without knowing that it was such a big deal. Here's a photo of the WIP.

I'm quite enjoying this knit. The colours are so happy, and the yarn so soft, that I'd knit this over and over again.

Oh crap...

So, I went through the pattern for that placket-neck pullover, and I'm pretty screwed. First of all, the number of stitches to cast on is wrong. That wasn't the biggest problem though since it's only off by one. The sleeves are the same, so no biggie there. The real problem starts when you get to the yoke. All the decreasing is written incorrectly. I'm going to have to pretty much rip everything from right after you add the sleeves. I'm also going to try and figure out where I can introduce the missing stitch. I might have to rip past the sleeves to get that part right.

bleh...

Photos!

Alright, photos just like I promised!


That's one of the socks that I made. Of course I made a second one to go with it (haha!).


Here are my two sock on one needle. I haven't made much progress with them though. I'm debating with myself as to how much ribbing I want to put on it.


And here's my messed up baby sweater. I downloaded the corrected pattern, but haven't gone through to compare yet. Hopefully I won't have to tear the whole thing out. Man, that would be a pain.

I've also started some baby booties, but I'll take pictures of those when they're closer to being done.

Something weird...

So, I've been knitting my own version of that baby sweater out of Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and I think I've screwed something up. I'm at the part where you're supposed to make the neck placket, and I think I've somehow messed up the decreases at the shoulder. For one of the sleeves, I'm getting dangerously close to the actual seed stitch section as I continue to decrease. I'm going to re-read the pattern again. I sure hope I don't have to rip away too much of my work.

In other news, I've started knitting some socks. They're toe up socks made from that blue/aqua worsted weight Dream in Colour stuff that I bought when I got the peach yarn. I'll take some pictures soon. I know worsted weight isn't usually what you use to make socks with, but it's been a nice fun and quick knit. And remember the beautiful blue, sock weight Koigu Adrienne gave me once upon a time? Well, I've started some socks with them too. I'm trying an experiment - making both socks (toe up) on a single circular needle. It's a little hairy sometimes because I've realized that the needle isn't quite long enough to do the magic loop comfortably, but other than that it's working pretty well.

Pictures of everything to follow!!