Long time no see

So...um...hi! ::waves::

It's been quite a while, I know. Largely I haven't been updating since I haven't been crafting, but that's not completely true. Since my last post, I finished my monkey socks and my fire fetchings, and I started sewing an apron. Oh, and I finished the first heart on my Be Mine socks. Partly I've been going slowly because I've never really gotten momentum on my Be Mines, but since they were my project spectrum feb/march socks, I didn't feel comfortable starting a new project until they were done. Now, though, now it's april. This means "earth" is officially in swing, and I can start my next pair of socks, which I've admitedly been getting more and more excited about. Even better, I can sew the project bag whose fabric has been sitting stacked next to my computer!

For my earth one-person-KAL with already purchased yarn, I'm going to be knitting the Embossed Leaves socks from the Interweave Favorite Socks book, in Knit Picks Risata in Grass. I think the 'leaves' aspect of Embossed Leaves makes this a good thematic choice, as well as the fact I think I'm just in love with the pattern. I can usually recognize it right away if done in most solid colored yarns, but there are some times when I'll see a pair on flickr or something and think "wow, those socks look awesome! I want to knit those!" Another thing I'm liking about this pattern is that it's all friendly stitches: mostly knits with a few purls, k2togs, ssks and yos thrown in there. As much as I think the Be Mines are maybe the cutest socks in the world, their pattern is too thought intensive for me. These should, hopefully, be a little easier.

If I end up finishing these, or if I end up devoting a lot more time to knitting these months than I previously have, I might work on finishing up my Branching Out, in it's beautiful and thematically appropriate yarn choice. The trouble with the Branching Out is that I don't like the needles it's currently on. It's on some of my grandmother's old aluminum straight needles. They're too long, overly heavy, and they make a sound when knitting that reminds me of nails on a chalkboard. After the major crush I've developed on the Knit Picks long circular sock needles I bought, I've been heavily debating getting a set of their Options, once I've saved up the money. I know there have been some complaints about the cables breaking or the needles coming undone from the cables, but I think I'm willing to risk it. For things like the branching out that I'm currently doing on old-but-annoying straights, I suspect options would be prefereable. As it is, I think I prefer circular to straight simply for the portability factor, and the nice smooth cables of the Options add to that.

As far as my sewing goes, I've been working on a skirt from Sew What Skirts, but it's been frustrating me. I'm looking forward to a nice break with my pattern bag. Though I have a decent amount of fat quarters to choose from (I stocked up when JoAnn's was having a 1 for $1 sale) I ended up chosing two that aren't my favorite pattern or color, but which go very well together. Both are from a fat quarter package I purchased at PurlSoho back in NYC. The outside is an asian inspired brown fabric with orange, pink, yellow, and green flowers and leaves. The lining will be a lime green that matches the green on the outside pretty well. Unfortunately, the only zipper I have that'd work size wise for the project is dark green, and I'm not much in the mood to go out and buy a new one. I'm trying to convince myself it'll look kicky, not tacky.

Oh well, off to work! I'll try and post more pictures once I've started knitting/sewing.

Project Spectrum "Knitting club"

For at least the past year, if not the past two years (it's so hard to keep track of these things) I've been reading and loving Lolly's blog. Last year I admired all the Project Spectrum posts and I realized that sort of a project is exactly why I wanted my own blog.

Well, now I have a blog, so I can join Project Spectrum!
If I was as wonderful a blogger as Lolly or some other people I could mention, I'd bring my camera with me everywhere and have pictures of everything in every color. Unfortunately, I have yet to get into that habit, and even when I've remembered to take my camera with me, I've forgotten to take pictures! I decided that for my own personal way of celebrating/experiencing project spectrum, I was going to make up a knitting club.

When I say knitting club I don't mean a "lets get together and knit" stitch and bitch type club, I mean like the Rockin' Socks club. I'm going to assign myself to knit (or at least start) at least one project spectrum project for each of the four elements. I purchased yarn for the first three on Knitpicks: red sock yarn for fire, green sock yarn for earth, and grey lace weight for air. I'm going to pack up the earth and air yarn and force myself to wait until the appropriate months before taking it out and knitting.

My goals for creativity for project spectrum are as follows:
1. Knit (or at least start to knit) one theme project per element.
2. Sew one theme project per element.
3. Try and join all the ATC swaps.

When it comes to what I'm knitting and sewing, I'm giving myself some leeway as to how I interpret the theme: at the very least, the color must be one of the accepted colors. Ideally, the pattern will meaningfully relate to the theme as well, but especially as far as the sewing goes, I'm giving myself some options there.

I've already started my fire sewing project. I'm making a box bag (the likes of Dragon[knit]fly) for my fire knitting project. I've wanted a project bag, and this pattern keeps popping up on all the cool blogs, so I figure I'll start here. All I have left to do is make the handle and the lining, but it's too late now. I'll post more later. (And update this with links!)

A Fun Little Meme and some more Fos!

" You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes."


That just might be my favorite quiz I've ever taken! Breakfast, especially a breakfast at 10am, (which, to me, means a leisurely breakfast) is my favorite meal of the day, and reading the paper every morning has become an important part of my daily ritual. That time of morning always holds so much promise for things to be accomplished in the day!


I really haven't been doing a spectacular job at updating the blog. I blame this on the fact that I'm still not in the habit of unloading my camera each time I use it, and who wants a pictureless blog post?


Since finishing my Urchin, I have two more recent FOs, neither of which I've had a chance to photograph. A pair of Fetchings for me, and a watchcap for my stepbrother. Though I'm not officially trying to only knit from my stash in any real way, I *am* trying to keep it from getting much bigger, and both of these projects were good stash projects. The Cashmerino for the fetchings I bought back in December when I was making a pair for my friend, and the Cascade 220 was bought in Pittsburgh at the beginning of the year because it was on sale. Happily, its shade of blue works well for my stepbrother!


The other finished objects I'll have to share with you are two sewing projects I made - two purses which were belated Christmas presents for friends of mine. Those I can show you now! (The astute might've noticed the green tweed purse as having appeared on my giftmas wrap up page a while back.)

Erika's Tweed Pleated Beauty:

Pattern: Pleated Beauty Bag from Bend the Rules Sewing
Materials: Sparkly tweed "holiday" fabric, green "spring suiting" fabric, interfacing, flannel, magnetic snap
Purchased at: All materials are from JoAnn's Fabric.
Cost: I should pay more attention to this...

Started: 1/6
Finished: 1/12
Total time: 3+ hours, over a number of days





I like the way the green fabric sets off the gold sparkles in the tweed. Though this is definitely more of a fall/winter bag, hopefully the green can help it transition through spring.

Hannah's Clutch:

Pattern: Pleated Beauty Bag from InStitches
Materials: Brown cotton, Alexander Henry Loteria fabric, cotton batting, magnetic closure.
Purchased at: All materials are from JoAnn's Fabrics.
Cost: I should pay more attention to this...

Started: 1/12
Finished: 1/20
Total time: 4+ hours, over a number of days
Modifications: Due to a mistake on my part with the magnetic snap, I had to remake the closure tab, and make it longer than the one in the pattern. I also chose to line the tab with the lining fabric instead of with the exterior fabric.






Pattern notes: This was the first Amy Butler pattern I'd sewn, and the book was from the library, so there was a bit of a time crunch. Though the pattern was not as simple and easy to understand as the patterns in Bend the Rules Sewing, it was more precise. Steps like basting all layers together, though a pain to do, helped to make the finished purse look professional. I definitely plan on purchasing the book for myself so I can make more of these, and so I can make some other patterns in the book. The pattern was quite frustrating at times, but this was also the first "real" pattern I've sewn anything from, so I'm pleased with the result.

As far as the fabrics go, I love the loteria fabric, and it reminds me of the style of jewelry my friend Hannah, the recipient, wears. I liked how I was able to center the magnetic closure on the center of the devil, and if I had enough of this fabric to work a pattern like this again, next time I'll pay more attention to matching up the pattern. Though the brown wasn't an obvious choice to match with the fabric, I think it works, and Hannah enjoys brown.

There, that's enough for now I think!

So much for writing about senior year...

Okay, so I guess doing the actual homework (and socializing) took precedence over starting this blog. I’m okay with that. However, I do still want to *have* a blog. These days I’m leaning more towards a knitting blog (or an all inclusive blog) than towards the previously attempted foodblog. (see: http://kitchenphilosophy.blogspot.com/ )

So, how about I include some actual content…
Sometime toward the middle or end of this past August, I found myself in a strange city (well, not that strange, it was in New Jersey) with no knitting to speak of and time on my hands. I went to my LYS (local yarn store) and asked the woman for her recommendation on a one or two skein project that would be portable. She asked me if I’d tried socks yet, and when I said I hadn’t because I’d been afraid of them, she told me not to worry, everyone she knew tried the pattern she gave me (Yankee Knitters #29) to great success. She even let me borrow a #4 needle for casting on, since my needle stash was at ‘home’, still not unpacked from my move out of my apartment, post graduation.

Well, I’ve been working on those on and off (I had to take a break to knit a friend a squid, like you do) and here’s today’s update:

So, I’d left the socks mid heel-decrease (or, in the technical term, mid heel-gusset, but Coupling made that word make me giggle. Heh. Gusset.) and didn’t want to pick them up again. Two days ago I finished the heel gusset (heh) and went on to the foot!

Now, I’d been debating for a while wanting to try knitting on two circular needles. I like double pointed needles, but I’m always worried about taking the sock places. I’m somehow convinced one of the needles will fall out or break or something. SO I decided to try knitting the rest of this sock (or at least the foot part) on two circulars. With Cat Bordhi’s book in hand I transfered the sock over and I realized one of the other benefits of knitting on two circulars: You can try on the sock!

Well, I have to admit I’m not as pleased as I’d hoped. The mess ups in the ribbing (why is it I always mess up at the beginning of a project, long after I’d let myself rip it) are noticeable, but otherwise the socks fit nicely. They’re looser than my normal socks, as well as thicker (duh) but I think they’ll look nice peeping out from my Dansko MaryJanes.

I think on the next pair of socks I do I’m going to cary the ribbing down the top of the foot. It should help keep them a little tighter, and I personally think it looks nicer. Now, here’s hoping I finish this sock!

Thank you, loyal internet (I’d say readers, but I am pretty sure I don’t have any yet). Expect a picture of sock-on-foot coming hopefully soon.