Posts Tagged ‘knitting loom’

“Particularly Talented”

February 17th, 2009 mio

As promised, I’ve been working on something other than baby blankets!

I was eying the stash yesterday. I was thinking that I should probably make some hats and scarves, but wanted to try something new. What would two strands of Bernat Soft Boucle look like, I wondered.

So I made these:
hat and scarf set

And these:
hat and scarf set

(Don’t adjust your monitor, they’re out of focus in person, too.)

I go through phases of charity crafting, and I think the reason for this is because I don’t have any real goals for it. I had been using the “go until the yarn runs out” method, but that’s clearly not going to cut it anymore. So, I came up with a point system. One point each for hats and scarves, and three points per baby blanket. My goal for February is 25 points. Here is a screen shot of the spreadsheet I made:
charity craft tracker spreadsheet screenshot
(of *course* I invented this entire system just so that I could make a colourful spreadsheet!)

On a related note, I discovered today that my obsessive need to buy yarn (especially when it’s on sale) appears to be genetic. I e-mailed my Mom last night to tell her about how well the Soft Boucle was working out and she e-mailed back today saying she’d gone out this morning and bought two more skeins of it, with plans to buy even more (she has coupons!) and as an aside asked if I needed any more baby yarn for the blankets. This explains my yarn stash a bit, I think!

I was working on this at work today:
hat in progress
One of my co-workers asked what I was making, and when I told him it was a hat, he said that I’m always making hats and should make something different for a change. (Maybe I’ll bring in a baby blanket to work on tomorrow.)

That same co-worker tipped me off to this article from The Walrus magazine about CAPTCHAs. It’s a fairly interesting article, I think, but what really got me excited appears in the seventh paragraph.

I’ll wait while you go read it.

Surely you see the error: I CROCHET!!! *shakes a fist*

I’ll forgive them this time, though. The crocheting I was doing while scanning was crochet-on-the-double, and that can look a lot like knitting to the muggles.

Posted in charity, knitting loom Tags: , , , , No Comments »

One down…

February 3rd, 2009 mio

Here’s my update on the minty toothpaste baby blanket:

baby blanket
Almost finished! It just needs a few more rounds for the border.

I really wish I could get an accurate picture of the colour on this blanket. It’s something to see! I’ll try to take the finished picture outside and see if that helps.

I stopped at the store on the way home from work today and picked up some scissors that are not only awesomeness defined, but I think they’ll allow them on the plane in my carry-on, too.

flower safety scissors
“The children are right to laugh, these couldn’t cut butter.”

And the big news:

I finished something last night! I am now the proud owner of a double-thick short scarf. When I got home from work today I thought to myself, “What would be the best background for a totally black scarf picture? If only there was an abundance of whiteness that also represents the function of the item…” Stupid snow.

black scarf

One finished project down, a few hundred left to go…

Posted in Afghans, charity Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments »

Happy Half-Birthday To Me!

January 28th, 2009 mio

I’m 31.5 years old today! I’ve been celebrating my half-birthday since I was 8.5. Others might remember that day as the day the space shuttle exploded. My memory of that day was something like:

*counting on fingers* “Hey! I’m eight and a half today!” *looks at tv* “is it supposed to do that?”

Obviously, I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation at the time (give me a break… I was only eight. And a half!).

Back to the point: I like to do something fun to commemorate the day. In the past I’ve had frosting for dessert (instead of a whole piece of cake). I’ve taken a half-day off of work. I’ve watched 15 minutes of one sitcom then changed channels and watched 15 minutes of another sitcom and pretended the were the same show (sometimes this make the shows funnier… sometimes it just shows you how similar sitcoms are…).

This year I’ve decided to take stock and show all of you my half-finished projects.

Baby blankets:

Red/Orange Crochet-on-the-Double using Bernat Satin:
red and orange blanket

Yellow/Green Crochet-on-the-Double using Bernat Satin:
yellow and green blanket

Green blanket using Bernat Baby Coordinates:
green baby blanket

The start of a strip for Blankets For Canada using Bernat Softee Chunky (which I seem to be allergic to… it’s ok, I wear gloves while working with this yarn now!) using a Knifty Knitter long loom:
Blankets for Canada strip

Not baby blankets:

My Halloween costume not finished for 2008, maybe it’ll be ready for 2009? The costume was to be a Crazy Cat Lady. I was going to make (and buy) toy cats and sew them on my housecoat, then fill my pockets with these little kitties, which would then be thrown at people. Awesome, I know. I used Bernat Satin for these.
mellon ball kitties

A green purse, using Bernat Satin, abandoned due to an inability to sew the two pieces together properly. They have the same number of stitches on a side, so I’m not sure where the problem was. I’ll try it again when I have time.
green purse

And finally, a yellow dishcloth, Tunisian stitch, using Bernat Handicrafter cotton.
yellow dishcloth

This last picture reveals one of my favourite yarn crafting tips: Slurpee cups make excellent yarn barns. Put the yarn in the cup, pull an end through the hole in the dome, then put the dome on the cup. The best part of this system: you now have an excellent reason to get a large Slurpee!

My more observant friends will probably be thinking to themselves, “That can’t possibly be all of her half-finished projects”. Well, it’s true. There is the scarf (I haven’t worked more on that since you saw it last), the yellow and green baby blanket (OCD won, math geek blanket pattern planned for the next blanket), and the ripple baby blanket at my parents’ house. Dad’s Christmas blanket is in the planning stages, so I’m not sure if that counts or not. In a non-yarn vein, I have a couple dozen un-decorated magnets on my fridge that are waiting for pretty pictures and flat marbles to be glued to them

Annnnd…. I only glanced around the apartment for about five minutes to find the projects shown here. There very well may be many more projects hiding in boxes and bags and in closets. Let’s try not to think about those. ^_^

Posted in Afghans, charity, knitting loom Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments »
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