Roving winner!

For the second week contest EGunn of Knitting Freestyle won her choice of the two rovings! Thanks again for everyone that commented.

3 out of 4

So this begins our 3rd contest week out of the planned four. This weeks theme is sewing. So as I rifled through all my fabric I picked out some that I really like and hoped some of you might like too. Because lets face it, I just don't spend enough time with my fabric anymore.






This contest has the same rules as the previous two weeks. Just make sure you comment on a post between today and 11:59pm on Saturday. Next Sunday the sewing winner will be announced.

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I will announce the winner of the fiber much later today when I get out of work.

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Lastly, fate kicked me in the butt for trying to work on something when I had other things to finish. I had made it all the way down and past the heel and had just begun the foot of Echo's sock, when I thought it looked a little too big for her small feet. Yep, my gauge had changed from 9.5/1" from my gauge swatch to 8/1" in the sock! The yarn is so soft and nice, and a tad bit slippery that my gauge changed. Sometimes I am too focused when I make gauge swatches and I need to just calm the heck down. Any who, now it looks like this:





and will stay like that until at least Echo and Justice's birthday presents are done. I had even done some Leyburn patterning on the top, it was looking wonderful.

Last Day for this weeks contest

Today is the last day to comment to be in the drawing to win the choice of the natural wool roving or the dyed wool roving.

I already have the fabric picked out for next weeks drawing. Will post it in the wee hours on Sunday. Good luck!

Selkie!

The beebonnet report, Janel Laidman's website, has been holding contests for a different pattern a week from her upcoming book The Enchanted Sole. I won for Tuesday's drawing! Yeah, I love her patterns and her first book The Eclectic Sole is high on my to get list. Now I will have a copy of the Selkie pattern . . . it's going to be very hard to continue with gift knits and not cast on.

Cheating and Forgiveness

So, I have decided that technically since I dyed that roving for this contest, it is only fair that it be in the contest, sort of. The winner of this weeks contest will get to choose which roving they would like. The dyed one is also 3 ounces of the same wool. Dyed with Wilton's Icing Dyes and set with vinegar and baked. Isn't it lovely?







Monogamy is not my style, as we have discussed before. This is a major reason my gifts are rarely on time. In crafts I like the planning, the strategies, etc. Secondly I like the making. So, working on Echo's purse and Dad's blanket left me feeling a little too focused (yes you may laugh at me, that is fine). So I only cheated a little, I started a sock. But you see it's Echo's, it's just her Christmas sock.

This is the second time around, because the variegated yarn created HORRIBLE pooling the first time around. I mean the colors literally stacked right upon each other like vertical stripes. Wasn't pleasing at all. So I changed the Cast On amount slightly and the ribbing from K2P2 to K3P2, you may wonder how this changes things, but my gauge is always slight different when purling vs. knitting.

Echo's Purple Socks
Yarn: Panda Silk
Content: 52% Bamboo, 43% superwash wool, and 5% combed silk
Care: Machine Wash, lay flat to dry
Color: 4006 (variegated plum/pink)
Needles: US1/ 2.25mm








Lastly, I found the fabric to make Justice's journal. Orange, just as she prefers, but with a little bit of funkiness that is reminiscent of her mother's tastes.



Some wonderful colored pencils I found for her to write and color with in her journal.


Lastly, I nice orange drawstring bag for her to carry them around in. It's all coming together.




As a reminder for the contest. Comments must be made on a post some time this week before Saturday at 11:59p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

2nd Week Give Away

I was torn between giving away something to do with dyeing and something to do with spinning. I even dyed up some roving this morning to offer up for the give away . . . result= I think I like it too much to give away. I know, I know horrible. :)

So, I've decided to give the winner of this week something that they could use in multiple different crafts along the way. They can choose to dye it or not. They can choose to use it in felting, spin it, etc. And then they can choose to knit it, crochet it, whatever. So, here is this weeks give away:





3 OUNCES OF NATURAL ROVING, WOOL.

I didn't keep the tag so I am not sure what kind of wool, but it is soft and not dyed. This contest is the same as the last, leave a comment on any post this week to get your name in the drawing. Contest closes at 11:59p.m on Saturday, Eastern Standard Time.

Edited to add: This will be the 2nd out of 4 weeks. As I kind of mentioned in the first contest post, I was considering doing more than one give away for different crafts. A little something for everyone type of thing. So there will be 2 more after this. Next week will probably be sewing(fabric or something), and still not sure what the last week will be.

Ah, late. . . .

Okay, well I ended up having to work almost twice as long as I was suppose to because we were busy. So, I didn't have time to go through my stuff today to figure out the contest for this week. I will do it tomorrow and post it tomorrow . . . although I am thinking either something to do with spinning or dyeing . . .we shall see.

For last weeks winner, my random number generator (also known as they boy) picked number ten and number ten was Sourire11. I will be emailing you tomorrow to find out your address to send you the yarn. To everyone else, better luck next week. See you tomorrow.

Casting On and Continuing

Well, for the casting on bit, it's really just a short video for my sister, Echo, on how to do the long tail cast-on, if she'd like to try it out. I find videos like this the best, because they are taken from the persons perspective. It can often be hard to mirror someone else's actions if looking at them straight on. Which can also be the difficulty of learning from someone in person.








Also, is some pictures of the progress I am making on Echo's purse for her birthday. I am almost finished with the first black stripe. It's moving along nicely for the complication involved, but I can read my knitting with it now, so at least I don't loose my place anymore. :)







Lastly, remember the contest that was announced on Sunday. Tomorrow by midnight Eastern Standard Time is when it ends, just comment on any post this week to get into the drawing.

Weaving progress . . .

I am making progress on the first strip of my dad's blanket. At first, I had intended for this to be kind of a sampler/crazy quilt type blanket. Basically, lots of little sections of different kinds of weaves that were connected together, ergo crazy quilt technique. However, after working for a while on this strip, I think it might want to be more coordinated.





Here is a rough sketch of the new idea I have. The middle strip would be the strip I am weaving now. Then I would create corresponding sections that were in the pattern of the strip. Such as, A section in the strip, I would take that design and create a large section to be placed on the side, in the A section. Not sure if this will work how I am thinking or if I need to improvise some. We shall see.







Don't forget to comment on a post from this week, before midnight Saturday to be entered into a drawing to win the 2 Debbie Bliss Stella balls of yarn!

Blogiversary!?!

Ah, it is my blogiversary today. Seems like not that long ago that I first began blogging. Unfortunately for you, I am going to talk a little about my day first. We have been spring cleaning and there is still more to do. Negative side, neither one of us is feeling the greatest today.

Here are some outdoor, nice pictures of the yarn for my shawl/veil:









I made home-made-ish Ravioli today. Inside the ravioli is spinach, zucchini, mushroom, pizza white cheese blend, and ricotta cheese:




I do not make my own dough, but use these won ton wrappers, which work wonderfully.


Here is what they look like before they get boiled.


Spinach, zucchini, and mushroom ravioli with mushroom spaghetti sauce, and fried zucchini and mushrooms on the side. Yummy!





I finished dressing the loom last night and began the first few inches of one of the strips that will make up my dad's blanket.







Last, but not least! Blogiversary give away. I will actually be giving things away for approximately four weeks, one winner a week, to correspond with different arts/crafts that I do. All you have to do is comment on this post or any other post THIS WEEK, some time between now and Saturday at midnight (Eastern Standard Time) and you might win this:





Two balls of Debbie Bliss Stella. 60% Silk, 20% Rayon, and 20% Cotton. Color is 38004, which is between an off-white and light tan color. Each are 50g. Winners will be chosen by random number.

Thanks for reading my blog, hopefully there are many years still to come!

Yes!

My yarn for my wedding shawl/veil arrived today. I have been in contact with Tanis Fiber Arts on Etsy.com because I love her colorway Orange Blossom, but she wasn't selling lace weight yet. She was very kind with my constant nagging. :) Today I have two beautiful skeins of Orange Blossom in lace weight. They are beyond beautiful and are exactly what I wanted. I would recommend her shop to anyone and everyone. Lovely experience.







I will get a couple better pictures tomorrow, out in natural light. But I couldn't wait to post about it tonight. It is even more what I wanted than what I thought I wanted. So extremely happy. This yarn will be shipped off to my mother, who has agreed to knit the lace pattern I want. So excited!!

The smell of defeat is surprisingly . . . lemon.

I have had hives for the past four weeks of my life. Yes, this is a long time with itchy hives. Come along with me on my confusing journey.

First it started out on my arms and I thought it was a stress rash because I have been overwhelmingly stressed out by numerous things in my life this semester. I didn't do anything about it because I figure it would go away on its own when the semester was over and most of my stress was back at a normal level.

But no, it continued to spread. I went to a doctor, mostly to make sure it wasn't something contagious, after all, I was going to be in a classroom teaching small children and didn't want to give them anything. No, no, they assured me, it is definitely hives. We went through the last few weeks to find anything new in my life, because they considered my hives to be so bad, that it couldn't be just from stress, if stress was even part of it at all. They said with how badly I had them, I probably came in contact with more than one thing that my body was somewhat allergic to and my system was kind of overloaded and ended up with hives everywhere. The only new things in my life were some tank tops from Old Navy and some lotion that my mom got me while I was in Washington State. They doubted it was the lotion, seeing as I had been using it for about two weeks before I broke out in hives and nothing had happened, but just to be safe, no tank tops or lotion until things were figured out. They prescribed me a weeks worth of steroids and told me to take Benadryl at night. Nifty, by the end of the week, the hives pretty much gone and healing from all my scratching.

Two days after the steroids were over, they were back, and with a vengeance. Still no tank tops or lotion have been used since before first initial outbreak. I go back to the doctor, she is confused. She prescribes a prescription level antihistamine and tells me to log everything I eat, touch, wear, etc. and this way we can find the culprit from when I flair up. So I do this . . . nothing except for stress makes it flair up. No new allergy or allergy to something that I use to be fine around. Also, the antihistamine was not doing anything.

So the theory was, it was stress related and not much to do about it except try to relax and bring the stress level down. I used Caladryl lotion to help with the itching and tried to ignore it. Stress is going down, only a couple more things to do during this finals week and as of yesterday, my hives were almost gone and healing nicely. So, with the tank tops and lotion declared not a problem since the hives continued long after their use, I used the lotion again yesterday. I took a nap and woke up with hives EVERYWHERE again.


Here is my neck and as you can see, everywhere. Sucks!


The mob that attacked me.


The main culprit!





So, why did I not break out in hives when I first started using the lotion, why did it take a little over two weeks for me to break out in hives? Why did they stay around for ever? and come back after the whole steroids thing?

Theory is similar to the doctor's theory the first day, the hives didn't only have one cause. Hives due to my eventual allergic reaction to the lotion and the stress kept them going. We shall see how long it takes for these ones to go away now. How long does lotion stay in ones system?

So, my list of allergies: angora bunnies, guinea pigs, and lotion . . . someone, somewhere has a sick and twisted sense of humor.

Okie Dokie

So, I am going to try to blog every day this week. Why you ask, because I like blogging, but if I don't do it regularly, I kind of get side tracked. I kept telling myself last week, I need to post about this or I want to post about that, but I just never got around to it . . . so, a post for every day this week. Finals be darned.

So, first up, Echo's birthday present. It is a version of Knitty's Via Diagonale. I am changing up and doing some stripes within the pattern essentially, hope it works out how I envision it.




There will also be a section of just the teal and the black.





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Justice's journal . . . haven't started yet, but I did find the perfect paper today to use in it. It is meant for K-2nd grade and it had about 1/3 blank on the top and lines that children learn to write on, with the dotted middle line and everything.







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I have begun to dress the loom for my dad's Father's Day blanket, this will be worked in sections and then connected to make a blanket:







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Some spinning, this is the yarn from THIS dyeing session. You can't see in the picture, but there are hints/tints of the blue in the black, I will see if I can get a good outdoor picture of it tomorrow. It is spinning up lovely. As you can tell, I always revert back to my super skinning spinning . . . oh well, maybe it'll end up being some beautiful lace.







Well, that is all for tonight, I will see you all tomorrow.

WIPs for the time being

Here are a couple of things I am working on right now. Vera's top, I mentioned it before, but my math was slightly off and I had to start again. Not too much further on the length and then I'll start on the sleeves. I made it a little large, figuring it would take me my usual FOREVER to finish it and I have actually worked quite a bit on it. Go figure, she'll have to wait a while to get some use out of it. I love the self-patterning yarn.


Front


Back




Here is my progress on my knee high socks. Haven't been working too much on them recently because I need to have some time to do some measurements and figure out just how often and how much I need to increase to move up the calves.




My shift is going to have to change here after school is done, I need to work on Echo and Justice's birthdays are coming up in June. Also need to really start on my dad's blanket that I was going to weave. Never quite enough time to work on everything I want. I have already started Echo's present and know what I want to do for Justices, just need to get some time to work on them. My hand made gifts are almost always late . . . it's the thought that counts, right? :)

Mr. Elefante

Today I finished up my Elefante. He is adorable. He is made with the Cascade 220 from my frogged cowl. I would definitely consider making another one of him.



Here he is exploring the kitchen.



Here you can see Mr. Elefante has a slight balance issue, unfortunately.


Here is a shot from the front.


Mr. Elefante made me take a picture of his tiny little tail and he'd like to know, does it makes him look fat?


Here he is showing of his skills as he hopes to one day join the circus.


And lastly, here is a good picture of his ears. I thought the turned out pretty much as I had intended.


I decided to make my own kind of ears though, because I wanted something more than just a circle. I wanted them to look a little more like elephant ears. I still used a size E/3.5mm hook.

Ears
Chain two.
In first chain stitch, make 4 sc stitches, ch1 and turn
Sc twice in each stitch, at end ch 1 and turn (do this for three rows total).
Sc in each stitch once, at end ch 1 and turn.
Sc in first 8 stitches, 1 hdc, 2 dc, 1 hdc, 5 sc, slip stitch in next 8 stitches, 1 hdc, 1 dc, 1 hdc, slip stitch in last four. Bind off, this is the bottom of the ear. (On opposite ear, I did this row backwards: Slip stitch in first four, 1 hdc, 1 dc, 1 hdc, slip stitch in next 8 stitches, 5 sc, 1 hdc, 2 dc, 1 hdc, sc in last 8 stitches. Bind off, this is the top of the ear. This is so they mirror each other.)

I also changed the tail, but I just did a crocheted chain of about 8 or 10 and frayed the end of the yarn and attached it.

He does not have eyes for two reasons. No buttons because he will be traveling to my nieces house to live with them and buttons are bad for babies. He does not have embroidered eyes because I do not feel confident in my embroidering skills, especially on knitting.

Over all, very glad I ended up doing this pattern. I think he looks adorable and honestly thought about keeping him instead, but I am sure they will enjoy his company more.

Still here

I am still here. This semester has been stressful due to school and life, as I have said before and I have been in a been in a funk that I really didn't want to spread to the blog . . . sorry I have ignored it so much. I did not mean to and in fact, thought of blogging pretty much every day . . . I just didn't. The semester is ending though, just two weeks left: one of classes and then finals week. I am going to start actively looking for a different job again and in general hope to make some changes that are just more positive. I have been crafting, just not very much, but I have ideas for stuff . . . boy howdy do I! So I hope I didn't loose anyone and I will be back tomorrow with an update on some things I have been working on. See you then!