Barely in on time . . .

Well, I have started one of the Pay It Forward gifts, my mothers. A few pictures, but no real information, she will have to wait until it is done and she gets it in the mail.










My mother goes into surgery tomorrow and I am sure everything will go well. Since she has to experience this, I felt like I would give her a little show of what is to come.




This is a kit from Annie's Attic, that is part of the Hook & Needle club. I joined because I figured this would get me making things that I might not have experienced otherwise, but in all honesty, this is the first kit and I am quite disappointed. It's very easy and not all that interesting to me personally because I don't do purses/bags. Since, my mother is doing this club also, I gave the yarn to her when I went out there so she can make a larger bag. I will give this club one more try, but if the next kit isn't very appealing, I will probably not continue with it.




These are some lovely yarns that my sister, Rhoni, got for me and surprised me with when I went out to Washington State. She's not a crafter, so she doesn't really know what she is picking out, but I think she picked out some lovely yarns. Top left: Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton Stretch in a medium gray, 100g. Top right: Fortissima Socka in a brown with red and white tweed, 50g. Lastly, the bottom: Online Trend Collection Linie 163 Bingo, in a soft olive green color, 50g. The Lana Grossa might become some socks, not sure. I really love the colors of the Fortissima Socka. The Online is a very soft cotton made in Croatia. All of it is very nice!

Peace

Well, I am back and I will have a normal post once I have gotten some sleep and all.

Over all, the trip was very beneficial. It reminded me that my grandpa was where he wanted to be most, with my grandma and my biological father. I am sure where ever he is right now, he's enjoying himself. . . probably a little too much. :)

Be back later.

Change

Well, my 365 blogging may have to take a small break. My grandfather passed away and I am flying back to Washington State early Friday morning. I will be back in New York on Sunday night, but probably won't post again until Monday or Tuesday.

Change has come, for my grandfather, this is good. He was never been the same after my grandma passed away. For everyone who loved him, it is just sad.

Remember, if anyone else wants to take place in the Pay It Forward, leave a comment on the post before this. First three comments will receive something hand made and you don't have to Pay It Forward yourself, unless you wish to do so.

Pay It Forward

Jennifer from Somewhere, knitting has posted a Pay It Forward in an attempt to redeem herself Karma-wise. The first person that commented on her post would get something hand-made, as long as they promised to Pay It Forward also. I think this is a nifty idea, so I responded. I saw last year when people were doing this, but I didn't have a blog then and didn't participate, so here I am now. If you would like to receive a hand-made gift from me with in the next 365, be one of the first three people to comment.(You must have a blog.) I will make a gift for you that I choose and think fits you from what I know of you from your blog.

I know this has already gone around, so I won't require you to also Pay It Forward, but you can if you want to.

Good luck!

The Return of Craftiness

So, I have made some progress with my doll. She's hairless, faceless, and naked, but still, it's progress. :) I am not sure if I want to sew her some clothes or maybe knit or crochet some. She is still very much a blank canvas right now.






I have been working a little on my gloves. I have decided to start the second glove, in case I run out of the hand spun yarn, that way, everything matches up nicely. So I made my first center pull ball so I didn't have to cut the yarn at all and I will work on then together. I know and am okay with the fact that the fingers and thumb will probably also be black. They are still going to be fingerless, so each finger will only go about half way up each finger. I am still loving how they look and can't wait to be able to wear them.







I have also been working on baby Vera's blanket. I am shooting for approximately 36 squares. Here is the few I have so far. Every square will have the tan to keep them more unified. Each square will use the same colors, just in different orders. I really love how different each square looks just because of the order. I think I will be very pleased with this blanket when it is done. It is going to be a whole heck of a lot of ends to weave in though!
















We are working on pop-up stuff in my 3-D class and I might show some of that tomorrow. See you then!

Swamped

Well, I have a lot of stuff to show you guys that I am making progress on, but I am rather swamped with homework tonight. They are giving plenty of homework already. So, I will try to take pictures tomorrow after I get out of work and post a much better post than this tomorrow.

On the positive side, feeling much better, I think the sickness is pretty much gone.

My sister is going to help me do my taxes tomorrow, hopefully, that way I get all the little school credits that I should.

I really didn't want to end up making only little post like this, but I really forgot all about the blog until now, I was busy with school and grocery shopping. The best laid plans, right? Oh well, will be back tomorrow with a more crafty post.

Dyeing Debacle

So, I really was going to post all this last night, but then sickness, again . . .yes, I know you are tired of hearing about it.

So anyways, the dyeing, I am sure you won't believe me on some of these, as I didn't believe them myself. I am convinced there is something up with the yarn, like a chemical or something on it, because I have never had issues like this when dyeing before. Here goes. . .

First off, Purple attempt:

As you can plainly see, there isn't any purple even in this, it looks like a calico cat. The color is somewhere between the color of these two pics, but closer to the top one. The second picture shows how many knots where in this skein and how close some of them were, I only cut the skein where there was a knot.








Next up, the Blue:

This on also, the dye split and didn't dye even. Okay, two pics with this one too, because the top one shows more accurately the rich color of the yarn and how many knots were in the skein. The second one shows better shade differences within the skein. So, the colors are more like the second picture, only richer, like the first. :)








Next up, Green:
This dyed up a lovely emerald green color and color is mostly consistent, with only slight variations in green. At least here there was only one knot.








Next is Black:
As you can see, not black. The dye split again and it is shades of dark purple, dark maroon, and gray/green. Also, only one knot in this one.





Lastly, Orange:
Like the green, this one dyed up fairly evenly and had only one knot in it.





Overall, I like the colors, just not what I was looking for when I started dyeing the colors and then dyed a couple of them other colors than what was planned since the first few skeins hadn't worked out like I wanted. Still nice colors and will use them for something else.

Truly annoying part of the yarn. There was a lot of VM(vegetable matter) in the skeins that I couldn't really see before dyeing. After dyeing, it was quite obvious and I had to pick out WAY too much VM from these skeins. Also, each skein had a least on knot, with one skein having FOUR and the knots were close together, check out how small three of those bundles are in the Calico Cat/Purple color. That is simply ridiculous. These skeins will probably be going into time-out for a while because of these two reasons, my annoyance level with them is very high right now.

So, two things learned from this adventure:
1. I will not, in the future, ever buy yarn from Barlett Yarns/Halcyon Yarn. Nope.
2. I will probably not buy from some one's de-stashing again either. My theory is, the person I purchased these from, had to know about some of the VM problem since she wound one of the skeins into a center pull ball. Therefore, she was not as honest as she should have been.