Head and Foot Finishes

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Heather

More knitting! You all know how much I love to cross stitch, but there is no denying that knitting is much faster.

Saturday Socks from Knit Picks

The foot finish is one sock: Saturday Socks from the discontinued Knit Picks Fancy Feet Anklets kit. The yarn is Comfy Fingering in colour Lilac (although it is much darker than I what I think of as lilac). I think I’ve said this before, but if not, for the record, I don’t really recommend Comfy Fingering for socks. It is an okay sock yarn, but far from ideal. I think it would be great for something like mittens or shawls, but I worry that it won’t hold up to all the wear that socks get. So, why am I making another pair of socks with it? Well, what else can I do with one skein of it?

Lotus Hat from UptownPurl

The head finish is this lovely Lotus Hat knit with Takhi Yarns Nova, a lovely soft cotton with a gold metallic thread. I love this hat, but it looks awful on me. 🙁 Anyone want to make me an offer for it? 🙂

I hope all of your recent finishes have been more successful than some of mine.

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February 2011 Stitching Blogger Question

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Heather

I completely forgot about the Stitching Blogger Questions that Lee over at Lakeside Stitcher posts. (Thanks to Anna at Stitch Bitch for the reminder.)

This month’s prompt is:
We like to stitch things for people we love.  Show us and tell us about one (or more) of your favorite needlework projects that expresses your love for someone.

As sappy as it sounds, I only stitch for someone else if I love the. (Okay, exchanges are different, but you know what I mean.) And I have stitched a lot of things for a lot of people. I’ve stitched ships for my dad, Santas for my mom, I even stitched a Spitfire for the boy I thought I love (and I did get it back after he cheated on me).

It is difficult for me to say what is my favourite out of all of these projects. Perhaps it is The Wedding, which I’ve stitched twice. The first time (and no picture, sadly) was when my best friend from middle school got married back in 2000 (I think). And I stitched it again in 2005 when my husband (a boy who really did love me, and who I love with all of my heart) and I got married.

The Wedding from Lavender and Lace

There is one other piece that I feel expresses my love for someone:

You Were Hatched by Teresa Wentzler

This is now framed and hanging in the little man’s room. I love him fiercely, and I hope he will always know that.

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A Little Stitched Heart

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Heather

February is my least favourite month. The days may be getting longer, but the cold and the dark nights just weight on me so much. In an attempt to brighten up the month, I signed up for a Valentine card exchange through the KYS group on Ravelry. And, since I was feeling a wee bit crafty, I decided to make my own cards.

Valentine Cards

The pattern is Mini Heart A from About.com, stitched using Carrie’s Creations thread in colour Pink Taffy. The fabric is a random piece of 28 count something or other. And the wee bit of red you see peeking out is a heart with a face (made with stickers) that Little Man helped me decorate. He also coloured on the back of the heart.

Do you have any plans to make Valentine cards? I’d love to see them.

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Gong Hei Fat Choi! (And February TUSAL)

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Heather

Gong Hei Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is also TUSAL day! I think my jar is looking pretty good this month. There are lots of yarn bits from all the dishcloths I made (which I didn’t bother to share since they aren’t very exciting), and floss bits from 12 Days of Christmas, etc.

TUSAL - February 2011

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15-Sided Biscornu – Part 4 and Goal Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Heather

I’m really enjoying working on the 15-sided biscornu being offered for free by my sorta-LNS. I’m a little bit out of my comfort zone for a lot of reasons, including using a non-standard fabric colour that I picked without input from anyone.

15-Sided Biscornu - Part4

Again, I wasn’t able to get a true colour picture of it. For some reason this fabric is very hard to photograph. Notice I still haven’t added any beads. I’ve decided that I want to see what silver will look like. If I like them, I will buy a package. I’m justifying it by saying it isn’t stash if I use them right away. And, I would rather spend a few dollars on beads and have the colour I like, rather than use the beads I have in hand and ruin my project.

And that brings me to my goal review. You may remember that I’ve decided not to set monthly goals this year. Instead, I’ve set goals for the entire year, which I will work on every month. I have not bought any knitting or stitching stash, which is great. I have done a bit of swapping, but keeping to my rule, the number of grams out is equal or exceeds the number of grams in. (I did have some yarn RAK’ed to me, and I believe that is a happy exception.) As of this morning, my yarn stash sits at 253 balls of yarn, with an expected five balls in the mail on their way to me (three of which are from RAKs).

I managed to complete both my January ornament and my January socks. I also did a little bit of stitching on Kitchen Blessings, and on Saturday I finally got started on Joan Elliot’s 12 Days of Christmas. (More about that last design in a few days.) I also completed the H Sampler from Victoria Sampler. Not a bad start to the year, I think. I hope you are doing just as well complete your goals.

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January Socks

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Heather

One pair down, and eleven more to go!

Flamewave Socks

These are Flame Wave Socks by Ann Budd from Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave. They are knit using Cascade Fixation in colour Orchid, which, unfortunately, is a bit too busy for the pattern to show up nicely.

I’m thinking of using two circular needles to knit any further socks with Cascade Fixation, because I have an awful time with laddering between needles when I use dpns. Some serious poking and pulling after the fact helped me to tidy up these socks.

Even though it is a day and a half early, I’ve already picked February’s socks. (I have an eye appointment on February 1st, and I want to make sure I’ve got something ready to knit, which means casting on ahead of time). Thanks to the handy random number generator at Random.org, February’s socks are Pirate Danger by Jeannie Cartmel using a hand-dyed yarn from the Painted Fleece, a Toronto-based indie dyer.

And, I’ve been meaning to share these for ages:

Needleminders

I made a pile of needle minders using Missy Ann’s tutorial. The cameos came from CathysJewels on etsy (she is closed right now because she just became a grandma). If you’ve been thinking of making some of these for yourself, give it a try! Make yourself a needle minder suited to your style.

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Scarf Fail

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Heather

Sometimes, things look better in the store than they do at home. One of my recent knitting finishes is a good example of that:

"Ruby" garter stitch scarf

This weird mass of black and purple is actually a very nice garter stitch scarf. Knit, knit, knit until there is no more yarn using big needles. And it is nice, but it isn’t my style. But, when I saw it on display in the Black Sheep and Ewe booth at the CreativFestival, I totally thought I could pull it off.  It helps that they had it stretched out so it was more like a wrap. (Check it out.) Mine stretches out, but not quite that far.

Sadly, this is a big fail. It is well knit and looks good, but it isn’t right for me. The husband refers to it as “the feather boa”, and if you know me, you know that isn’t my style at all. So, it will live unloved in a corner until I figure out what to do with it. Hopefully my third kit from Black Sheep and Ewe will turn out better.

There is one great thing about finishing this scarf: two more balls of yarn are out of my stash! If you look over on the right sidebar of my blog, you’ll see a little section named “2011 Yarn Stash-Down”. Take a look at the totals. I’ve gone from 271 balls of yarn at the start of the year to 255. Yay! The number will bump up again a little bit since I have two skeins of yarn on their way to me (one was a RAK), as well as two exchanges. But, when I do an exchange or a swap, I am following the one-in-one out rule. The number fluctuates because I remove the yarn from my total when I send it out, and add again when I receive something. Nonetheless, I’ve made excellent progress.

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