Frogging a UFO!

Last christmas...I gave you my heart... Let's try that again!

Last christmas...I started on this mindless knitting project just to keep my hands in motion over the holidays...before I was suddely stricken with a sock commission from my sister in law. I had brought with me three skeins of this awesome fluffy lace-ish yarn called Delano which is just a bunch of fibers mixed together...I'm too lazy to get up and check.
I simply casted on 3 or 5 stitches on 3,5mm needles and knit garter stitch with one stitch increase at the end of each row.

Later on, I've learned that if you increase two stitches at the end of each row, it'll get wider, and I want this thing to be pretty wide! And it's not getting very wide with this! And also, garter stitch are boring as heck, so lets do something about that shall we? I frogged the whole ting down today and winded the yarn up into a gigantic yarn cake!

So I'm planning on maybe doing the next attemt here with double increases and a bit more fancy pattern.

We'll see how it turns out!

Pullover sleeves!

The sleeves for the pullover are comming along nicely! I've finished the increases and right now I just have to knit around and around until they're long enough. Haven't really decided if I'll be making them 3/4 or full lenght yet, but we'll see after I'm done working up this grey part.

 They might look short on this picture over here, but they're really poofy and fluffy that they actually reaches far above my elbow.

If I were to stop them now, I'd have short 3/4 sleeves. If I finish up the grey, I think I'd have a good 3/4 lenght going on. I am still discussing it with myself though, so only time will tell what I'll end up doing.

Multicolored socks!

Again, sorry for the lack of update!
The past couple of days, my knitting motivation has been down, but I'm trying to pick it up again.

As you know, I've been working with felted things lately, two pairs of slippes and a wine holder... They are all now more or less finished and I'll get around to talk about them later when they're all done!

But the last couple of days, I've been trying to make socks! My yarn trade with Brooke evolved into a socks vs cookies trade, and I'm not trying to work on the first pair for her. My plan was to make these, but sadly, the yarn I had in mind for them didn't work well together in fair-isle... I had to frog half a leg and just give up on that pattern. But I really wanted to use the yarn for her socks, so I decided on a simple pair with stripes instead.

Since I'm low on the purple yarn (cause the other skein is reserved for a Zelda contest), I made the stripes on the leg, while the foot with be just in the variegated yarn. The variegated are actually sock yarn as well with a bit of nylon and acryllic, while the purple's 100% superwash wool, so it'll make the heels and toes more dureable. Simple, yet pretty and very practical!

...and I think I need to get working on a spring-ish theme for my blog...

Cowl, headband and blankets!

And there we go! Three projects are finished!

First and foremost: the damned granny square blankets can finally be crossed off my list! Feels so good to be done with them! Washed them yesterday and now they were dry enough to photograph and folded. My mother will pick them up tomorrow sometime and I can't wait to get ridd of them!

Pickle's cowl is also finished! Washed it at along with the blankets and it is also dry enough to photograph finally. Yarn used is Trysil Garn's Alpa in 15%wool, 20% alpaca and 65% acryllic, but it doesn't have that icky acryllic feel to it. Knitted on needles 3,5mm.

Last but not least is the headband for Pickle's friend, Drunk Uncle June. She requested this after she was told I was making a cowl for Pickle. Made in the same yarn, on the same sized needles. The pattern sadly was in finnish so I couldn't understand a damned thing! Lucky for me, it had charts, so I did my best as to follow them, but I had to make some changes and it's not 100% the same after all...

Good to get these projects done and over with! Next projects are a wine holder for Bård's aunt and a pair of socks for a Zelda contest! The wine holder yarn is currently sitting closest to me, so I guess I'll start that next... See ya'll later!

Yarns and squares!

A little late for an update like this, but oh well... Got mail today! More squares from my lovely share-a-square attendants! I'm now up to 8...and we're two months on overtime...it's SO good that people actually follow through with this events and let ALL the others down by NOT sending out a single square in ALMOST A YEAR! Please note my sarcasm...

Anywho... My two squares came from MadeWithLove8 and they are beautiful!

I've also been yarnshopping today! Nothing much, but some skeins for some projects. I'm trying not to overdo my hoarding... Got two skeins of Alpa for a headband and also to complete Pickle's cowl.

Then I got some Artic, which is new, pure wool for felting. I've never tried this yarn before so I got some extra just in case. This will be a "santa gnome" wine holder, pattern can be found here. Bård's aunt really liked the one I made for his parents so I'm going to make her one as well. I'm hoping to get it finished pretty quickly cause Bård is going to visit his parents in march, and it would be great if he could deliver it for me.

 

There haven't been much progress on my projects today though... I've felt kinda tired and unmotivated so I haven't done much on my skirt, but it's looking pretty good so far! The colors go well together and look pretty in general. Any kind of flash is killing it though, so I'll have to get some good pictures in natural light when it's finished to really show it off! It's a hassle to knit with 5 different colors at once cause the yarn keeps on tangeling, but it's so fun to see it grow and to see the colors unfold.

But except for some rows on the skirt, I've been working on my eternity scrap blanket all evening. I got a bunch of scraps flowing around so I figured I'd clear some out of the way.

Yarn winder!

A little while ago, I ordered myself a yarn winder off eBay for little to nothing! I've been wanting one of these since I first saw one, and today it finally arrived in the mail!

Look at the awesomeness! This thingy will wind up all my yarn into pretty little yarn cakes!

It's both easy and entertaining to use, so I got to restrain myself before I start to wind up everything in sight!

All you have to do is to thread the yarn through the yarn guide, push the end down in the notches on top of the cylinder and then pull the crack clockwise.

And that's all you got to do! The yarn wraps itself unto the cylinder and creates a pretty yarn cake!

When you got all the yarn weaved up, you just pull it off the cylinder, easy as that! Then you can start pulling the yarn from the center of the cake, it'll sit still and it'll be easy to pull out more while working. And it's cute! All the kawaii desu right now!

 

I got a feeling that I'll be winding up all my yarn from now on...

I am currently working on a secret project so excuse me for not doing a "progress of the day" update...

Progress of the day - 18th of feb

Again, it's been too long since I did one of these... I would have done one yesterday, but DropBox was being an ass and wouldn't let me upload pictures to the computer from my phone, so I didn't get the chance to post anything.

Anyway! Now that Batman is finished, I've picked up the rompers for baby CarCar. I'm more or less finished with the knitting part, gonna weave in the ends and finish what I got. I am planning on doing the remaining knitting (neckline and those things) after I've heard the gender. The blue color I got was too bold to work with the other gender neutral colors without feelin too "manly", so I'm waiting to hear if it's a boy (and then do the remaining in blue) or a girl (do the remaining in either purple or yellow).

I've also started a little something for Pepsi. Last week, someone posted a picture of a crochet hammock for cats hanging under a chair and I knew that I had to try and make one for Pepsi. He'll most likely ignore it since he doesn't like to lie soft for some reason...but I want to try! So I pulled out this Caron skein that I got from Tiffany and some blue polyester yarn I had and started crocheting a flat, sturdy piece with single crochet. I hate working with synthetic yarn! It's horrible! But for Pepsi and as an experiment, acryllic and polyester gives a better and sturdier result than wool would have. It doesn't stretch much.

Batman sweater WIP

A quick little WIP on Batman here!
I'm only working on this sweater until it's finished, and since it's such a huge piece, it takes some time to make progress on it. I've done quite a good chunk of the fair-isle now and I'm almost done with the Batman logos in the middle. Before you ask, yes it is based of the ever so popular Marius pattern so you could say it's just another Marius version...but I still like to call it Batman.

Note to self though... Silja looks best when worked fair-isle on 3mm needles or thinner... I am using 3,5mm needles and I feel that the knitwork feels a little loose and the fair-isle ain't the prettiest... Gonna need a hell of a blocking when it's finished, that's for sure. Still love this yarn and I will for sure make more garments with it!

Batman is currently only 9 days in the making!

Pickles swing skirt?

I can't remember when I saw this skirt from Pickles, but I knew the moment I saw it that I NEEDED to make it, and it slid right into my non-excisting "have to knit" list.

But what yarn should I use? What colors? I was certain that if I were to make this skirt, I should make it in different colors, maybe even more colors than just two! And I would prefer it if I could use yarn from my own storage.

At first I thought I could use some of the remaining Lima yarn I got lying around, we're talking 20+ skeins here in different colors. But sadly, that yarn is thicker and more dense... It would take all my yarn and the skirt would probably end up way too big. The free patter size are L/XL, which should fit me (if not being too big), so I'd rather use a thinner yarn than a thicker one.

After some thinking and roaming in my yarn storage, I came across 10 skeins of Silja, a though superwash wool/nylon blend made for socks that could work perfectly, but the colors I had lying are horrible and don't fit well together... Three skeins of the colors 311, 304 and 318 and one skein of 390. More sad is the fact that I recently ordered yarn from this store... They got 20% on everything yarn right now, so I should have been smart and ordered some other colors while I could. I don't think I'll be able to order more from that store while they got this sale going...

What should I then do? Just go ahead and knit the skirt in horrible colors, hoping it'll turn out ok, or wait and maybe get more yarn at a later time? I'd really wish I could start this skirt soon...

Quatrefoil mittens WIP

Quick little update on the mittens before bedtime.

To start off with the bad news first, I will not have enough blue...or maybe even green and pink to finish of the second mitten...so I might actually have to buy more yarn to finish them off... Sad to think that a pair of these awesome mittens would cost me 6 skeins!
I'm thinking about maybe doing the second mitted totally different or mix the order of the colors if I have enough yarn. Whatever I can do so I don't have to buy more.

Good news though, it's simpler than I thought and I can work them on my shortes circular needle! I really do like how they turn out and I'll probably end up making more of these! And this pair is the third overall mitten pair so far this year! OMG! 2014 is the year of the mittens everybody! Watch me not make a single pair after I'm done with these...
Oh well... They look awesome though! Even though this is a color combination I would NEVER pick out for something for myself...but they will just have to be mine if nobody claims them. Maybe just pulling whatever colors I have from the storage should be a thing for me this year?

What do you guys think? Are they crazy enough for ya?

Making the connection!

So, earlier today, I finished the last 7 granny squares for my mother's blankets, making the total number 120! Oh what a glorious day!

But then came the hard part: asseble and connect them! Oh my god, this has been giving me a headache ever since I started to think about it. I was for sure going to crochet them together cause sewing is a bitch and I wouldn't be able to finish it at all if that was the plan. I was also hoping to get them all more or less crocheted together in one turn, having to weave in only a few ends, but as it turns out, I might need to do some kind of crocheting across of things.

My first plan was to just connect them without any more work...but seeing as that doesn't look quite good when the last round on each square are different colors.

Also, my mother wanted them on a black background...

So I had to crochet around each and every one of them, but a whole nother round of double crochet could be too much, so I just did single crochet and then slipstitched them together. But as I said, doing it all in one go can't be done.
The way I'm working right now works just fine. I start by crocheting around the left square (the pink in this case), going against the clock. When I'm back where I started I do the white in the same way. When I'm again back at the starting poing, I connect them down the middle and then continue to the square going underneath the pink.

When they're all connected like this, or atleast half of the blanket, then I'll do the other half the same way before connecting them horisontal and then the last vertical line in the middle.

...I really do prefer knitting over crocheting...

Can you craft with all the colors of the scraps?

The yarn count!

Welp... It's first of january allready (only two more days until my birthday! Woop woop! Nooo...) and I've done my counting of thy yarnz. The standings for last year looks like this:
Start 1.1.13: 14250gr
Purchased/recieved: 13800 gr
Knitted/given away: 12300 gr
Total weight: 15750gr

And after a run through my yarn storage, I realised that I got more yarn than this and I must have missed super hard somewhere! Cause after I counted it all (atleast what I could find lying around...I'm a scatterbrain), I ended up with 349 skeins! Which then translates to 17450gr! If you're wondering, 50gr skeins are the normal skein size over here and just about every single skein I own are of this size. The few others that's 100gr or more have not been counted for since it only creates a problem in my statitics. The same goes for scraps BTW...

But of all of this, about 25 skeins were acryllic, which I hate... 50 were cotton/bamboo while the rest were  different kinds of wool, wool blends, acryllic and a tiny bit merino. That's alot of yarn ya'll...

I got about 17 skeins reserved for a Marius sweater for my boyfriend. Another 17 skeins of Drops Nepal for a cable sweater I started last autumn. A whole bag of 23 Drops Lima in different colors + scraps reserved for a skirt! Not to mention all the wool yarn my mother bought for me to make her two chair blankets... That's atleast 10 whole skeins + a bunch of scraps.

 

Here's the closet I'm supposed to have my yarn in... I don't think even half is actually in there!

 

And you know the worst thing? You can never have too much yarn!