So I spent all day on Friday working on getting knitting done for my Christmas party yesterday, which I ended up doing, but then I forgot to take pictures of any of it! Good job, katrina. Good job. So i finished my afghan, which turned out really well, and everyone at the Chinese auction loved, but I have no pics of it. :( I may be able to get some pictures of it though, since it went to a good friend who we see fairly frequently.
In other fun knitting news, the mittens were well loved, and the second pair of mittens that I'm making as a Christmas gift is half done, and are turning out beautifully. The first pair looked kind of funny, since I think that I kind of screwed up the pattern, but this second pair look pretty normal. :) They are also going to be fabulous. They're made out of the most wonderfully soft silk-cotton blend, which knit-knackers carries or makes or something. Anyhow, if you need silk, which I think that everyone probably does, I would highly recommend checking them out, since their product is always fabulous.
AND, in other also exciting knitting news, I ordered a bunch of new yarn from WEBS, just some Rowan chunky wool, since I've had a bunch of people ask for an afghan of their own after last night...not that they're all going to get one, but one of Par's friend's Jenny (who is a DOLL) had a painting of hers in the chinese auction last night too, and I really wanted it, but didn't get it. So we said that we'd effect a trade and she'd paint me something if I would make her a blanket. So that's going to be one of my next projects. :) VURRRY exciting! I'm also going to make a ton of mittens. I've got a few people in London who want some, and a bunch of people here who would like some more, and I don't have a whole lot else on my plate this week, since my boy went home and all my friends are doing Christmas-y type family things.
OH. And, Par loved the scarf that I made for her, the purple one that the dog's got on below. Now I just have to finish one just like it for my friend Erin who saw it and tried to steal loved it.
Remember when I said that I was NOT knitting anything for Christmas?
Well of course, I lied. The big, fat, delusional kind of lie where you try to trick yourself into believing it because you really want it to be true. SIGH. I knew that I just wasn't going to have the time. But then, I figured that with a month off, I would be FINE to knit an afghan and 3-4 pairs of mittens for people for Christmas. But I was full of it. I have knit SO little since I got home over a week ago, and I just got sick and now I've only got until Saturday to finish the better part of the stuff that I started, since that's when I'm going to see all the people that I knitted for. SIGH.
I do, however, think that I'll get the afghan and one pair of mittens done, and that's the most important parts, really. The rest of the people who want/were expecting mittens can just wait. Also, it means that my Top Secret take 2 sweater will just have to be put on hold as well until after Christmas. BOO.
On the plus side, I'm relishing the time off, since this past semester was pretty crazy up to the end. I'm also loving catching up with everyone who I haven't seen in months. AND, the afghan is going to be AMAZING. The mittens, I've frigged with patterns for a while now, and am not loving. But they're working out on three needles, and they do look like mittens in the end. I just don't love them. I'll post pics hopefully before Christmas, since that's my deadline for at least some of the stuff. :)
I'm going to blog for a bit and post some pics, and *then* go do some schoolwork...I swear!
To start with, I'm going to post a few pics from our SnB, which I'm absolutely adoring. Ashley (who lives upstairs from me) brought her cat to meet the dog because we want them to be friends, but the cat didn't like how excited the dog was getting. Jellico (Ash's dog) was ok until almost the end of the evening, when he decided that he wanted to be under the couch and growl at the dog when she walked by...Then he decided that he didn't want to come out, and so we ended up having to lift the couch and Ashley had to shimmy under it to try and grab the cat. A rousing success, as you can see.
Also, remember my Bad Penny tee that I made a MILLION years ago? (ok, probably only about one year ago, but still) Well, it was too long, and it was too heartbreaking for me to rip up the border to rip up a gew inches of the main colour and then have to redo the border. So, I didn't. I just put it in with my stash and ignored it. Well, Caroline is about the same size as me, but MUCH taller, so I thought that it would fit her very well, and guess what? It did! Look at how nice it looks on her? It fit perfectly. And so I pawned it off on her to relieve the guilt that I had just knowing that it was in the closet not getting fixed, worn or loved. :)
And here are a pic of my not-mittens. They're quite nice, and everyone at the SnB wants a pair for winter schoolworking. :) I also got one mitten almost finished, just have to complete the thumb. And also the second mitten. But, I think that my mom should like them, since they're pretty amazing for a first mitten effort. I'll post pics of the finished products when they're actually done and photographed, which should hopefully be in the next week or two at the very most.
AND, I almost forgot another exciting piece of knitting news...knitty_kat had a post about the London Hand Knitter's Guild, and she's going to send me some info about that group and another that both meet once a month here in London, so I'll have even more good excuses for knitting. :)
I'm officially addicted. I tried my first pair of mittens, which were really not-mittens, you know like wristwarmers, and with no fingers, on three needles and it went *incredibly* well. So now, as you can imagine, I'm fully addicted. Everyone is getting mittens from here on in, especially my mom for Christmas. I've actually just started her mittens, which prompted me to MAKE a mitten pattern, since I couldn't find a pattern that was the right gauge and had the right shape to the fingers part. I think that I figured the pattern all out, which, if it works out, will be the BEST mitten pattern EVER. I'm quite excited. I'll let you know how it goes, and will post pics when I've got something done, and also when I get around to uploading pics of my not-mittens. :) Also, this mitten business has been bad news for my schoolwork, although I'm striving to be productive today. Take right now, for instance...I'm doing school reading...you get the point.
Oh yeah! And tomorrow I'm hosting out SnB, so I'm going to try and weave in all the ends of the scarves that I've finished so that they're ACTUALLY finished, and then continue working on mittens. Because I LOVE mittens. Mittens is why I got into knitting in the first place-to learn how to make 3-needle mittens because my grandmother had to slow production because of her arthritis. Seriously.
It's that time of year where a young girl's fancy turns to knitting...despite the mountains of schoolwork that she has to do, and I'm no exception. Here are some updates on the former WIPs that are now FOs! YAY!
To begin, I know that I finished this a million years ago, but haven't posted pics (mainly because I'm lazy). It's my modified version of bobblicious. It's SO nice and roasty toasty. The only issue that I have with it is that it's leaving these little black fuzzies all over EVERYTHING. Even as I type, it's through a layer of this stuff on my computer monitor...
Then, I finished Parrish's scarf, which turned out absolutely beautifully. LOVE it. My friend Erin, one of the SnB crew, has decided that she wants one exactly like it, which she may get, since I only used one of the four skeins of the handspun that I had, and only a skein and a half of the other brown. We'll see if I can get my act in gear to finish that though...
And next, there is Scarf #2 which I also finished, just this minute actually...and isn't Diamond the cutest little model? It's amazing what a few liver treats will do to make a little dog more willing to participate in my insanity.
And finally, my most super exciting news is that my first try at an afghan is going SO well. The White Buffalo is knitting up SO nicely, and SO quickly. This is how far I've gotten in only two evenings of knitting, which is promising, as is the fact that I'm less than half through my stash of the White Buffalo which I wasn't sure that I'd have enough to finish my blanket.
We had our second meeting of our little stitch n bitch this week, and it was SO fun. There was a cosy wool fireplace, some cats, a TON of food, and so much fun. I love, love, LOVE it. And, it's nice that we all get to take a few hours off from our insanely hectic school schedules to have some fun every week. Like forced relaxation, but in a good way.
That being said, I've also been knitting up a storm since I'm getting kind of sick of schoolwork. Finished Parrish's scarf (minus, of course, the actual finishing and sewing in of ends), and then thought that I could justify starting an afghan with my stash of White Buffalo. It's coming along SO quickly and is absolutely gorgeous. I'm so impressed. I also started a pair of not-mittens. You know the ones. They're like wristwarmers, but they've got a thumb part but then nothing on the tops of your fingers. You know the ones I mean. Well anyhow, I got some brown-beige yarn and some bright pink mercanized cotton and I'm making them out of that. It's turning out really nicely, especially since my friend Erin made fun of me for picking those colours since she didn't think that they matched. But they do. So there!
I also got some purple-blue-white mercanized cotton to make some mittens for my mom for Christmas, since she's allergic to wool and acrylic really isn't very warm for mittens. This is the only Christmas present knitting that I'm doing, I've decided...except that I think that I may give Parrish the afghan for Christmas, since I think that she'll really love it. But, I've got almost a month off at Christmas, so it may just be mitten central at my place, since the three needle work that I'm doing with these not-mittens is going really surprisingly well. I'm impressed with myself, anyhow.
I'm back into the knitting, thank GOD. I've started a SnB here in London town with a few other librarian nerd types, and I'm back into my thousand project swing, which makes me ridiculously happy. :)
Here are some of the shots of the WIPs:
These are my first efforts at knitting once I found some time between school work...scarves, as usual. Then, I got bored with them (also as usual) and moved on to a thousand more projects. The all blue one is made from some SUPER soft yarn that my first SP sent me. The second scarf is made from some Patons Upcountry yarn which has now been discontinued (sadly, since it was so soft and warm) and brown Donna by Scheepjes. They should be very nice when they're done. Hopefully.
This is the third scarf that I'm presently working on, and it's going to be BEAUTIFUL. It's a double strand of brown Donna again, and then this REALLY nice handspun purpley-brown-turquoise handspun that I got from beavercraft.org's stash reduction sale. Both are quite soft, and the scarf is turning out really nicely. I think that it's going to be for my friend Parrish in the end. She should love it, I hope.
This is my favourite WIP picture ever. The dog is totally insane about hiding her bones around the house, and this was REALLY funny. To start, my house is a total disaster with WIPs every damned place, so here they were all taking up the space on the chair, minding their own business and the dog went to a LOT of trouble to hide her rawhide bone in my stuff. She's such a weirdo. But, as a WIP, it's my latest try at TopSecret, which I'm at least sure that I'm going to have enough yarn to complete this time. YAY! I still haven't been able to bring myself to rip up the first TopSecret attempt. This is also out of some nice yarn from Holly at beavercraft...it's got some *cashmere* in it! SOOOOO soft!
This is my soon to be WIP. I decided today (while perusing new knitting pattern books from the library) that I would like to start an afghan. SO, I was thinking about what I had already in my stash (since I don't really want to spend a gazillion dollars on a bunch of new yarn that I may or may not ever use) and thought of my pucks of White Buffalo. The most BEAUTIFUL purple...it seems like everything I've been knitting recently has been purple. So I'm going to start my next WIP, an afghan, but first I need to finish at LEAST one scarf, if not all the scarves. The sweater will have to wait for another little bit since I've got to find some circulars to be able to start the sleeves.
I've also got some other random cute pics for you all to see. The first ones are from Halloween, with my friend's nephew as a devil, and then the dog as a devil. Nick was NOT impressed that Diamond had his hat on. :)
This last one is a bit of a long story. It's Diamond and "kitty". Here, kitty is trying to nurse Diamond. Diamond is less than impressed, but put up with the whole thing until the little kitten teeth actually made contact with her belly. Then, she stood up really quickly, gave the cat a dirty look and nosed her, then wandered off and laid down in a new spot. But, kitty was persistent and this process went on for a good 15 minutes before I let Diamond have a break and picked kitty up. Here's the story with kitty: I went to my parent's place for my reading week and the first day that I was there, I parked my car in the driveway (they live in the country). When I went to leave about an hour and a half later, I was hearing mewing as I went up the driveway, and when I stopped to investigate, here was this little kitty on the ground in front of my front wheel! She fell out of my car, and she was all starved and sad, and with a little scratch on her face and a broken tail! Poor kitten. So we took her in and fed her and then I took her to the vet the next day to check her out before we tried to pawn her off on someone, and told them what happened, and one of the vet techs was making googly eyes at kitty, and so she took kitty home. It was SO nice, especially when we were facing the prospect of having to take kitty to the Humane Society. Well, actually, I burst into tears at that prospect, so my dad folded like a house of cards and said that we could do pretty much anything to not have to make me take kitty to the Humane Society. Daddy's are good like that with their little girls, and my dad is such a marshmallow where animals are concerned. So, saving a stray starved kitty should hopefully boost my karma for a little bit.
I'm going to try and update more often, since I've actually been knitting fairly regularly. Also, I think that I'm going to participate in the new SP exchange, hopefully...if I can get my act in gear.
