FOs and WIPs

Alright, since I last posted about the semester-long shawl project in September, it seems that I have gotten a lot of other stuff started and finished and haven't really worked on the shawl all that much. My only consolation is that I at least started it--my mom didn't even cast on for mine :( But, I know that that is something that I will get done once I am done with school--I have had very little time and/or patience to just sit with no sounds around me and knit for a good solid chunk of time. I've been sticking to less complicated items that I can knit while watching something on tv or hanging out with my friends.

So let's discuss FOs first. There have been quite a lot of accomplishments in the FO category (not as many as I would have hoped, but whatev), including my first sweater, my first cardigan, and a pair of convertible mittens!

I can partly attribute this fountain of FOs to my discovery of the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) group on Rav--it's SO AWESOME. There are classes every month and you can get sorted into a house and knit, crochet, dye, or spin up something related to the assignment! unfortunately, the first term I found it during had already started, and I stupidly missed the sorting for this term, but I have been playing as a Not Quite First Year (NQFY) and it's been fun, even though I haven't been able to earn any points.

So, a bulleted list of FOs will follow, with picture highlights of some of my favorites, and Rav pattern pages linked. :)

• A pair of Primavera Socks for my little sister
• A pair of Simply Ginny socks for my roomie (I promised them to her like 2 years ago, glad I finally got them done!)
• A pair of Susie's Reading Mitts for my friend
• My very first sweater--a $5 in Paris--for another of my roomies

• A Dharma Dishcloth (for the HPKCHC)
• Computer Belt (for the HPKCHC)
• Chichester the Pig (for the HPKCHC)
• 

• A (not really) Noro spiral one-skein hat to match the above reading mitts above
• A Drawstring Pouch, just because
  
• Two Well-Dressed Wheels (one for me, one for a manager at work)
• Two Thorpes --one for my sister for Christmas (also my first-ever color work project, and the first time I've had to crochet!) and the other for my roomie

• A Lattice Scarf (to match the hat and mitts above)
• A Monmouth Cap for my Dad for Christmas
• A Slouchy Hat with Picot Edge for my Mom, which turned out to be WAY too big :(
• A Cabled Kindle Sleeve for my friend's Nook
• A pair of Podster Gloves for myself
• A Large Earflap Hat for my sister's guy friend
• FINALLY finished my Lyra's Socks
• A Cabled Mug Cozy (for the HPKCHC)
• A Ball Sack (for the HPKCHC)
• and a Pick, Pick, Pick It Up! Cardigan! My first ever cardi for myself :)

Whew, that's a TON of FOs. But that's what I've been working on for the past 6 1/2 months, so I guess it's not that many.

As for WIPs:

• The second sock in a pair of Vinnland Socks
• A pair of Ken Gloves to match the large earflaps hat for my sister's guy friend
• A semi-adult-sized Baby Chalice Blanket for my roomie
• Annnd the Freya Shawl for my mom, which I haven't worked on for at least 5 months.

So for now, I've been trying to get rid of the WIPs that have been hanging around for weeks so that I can get them out of the way and start a whole new round of fun-a-licious projects! :)

I am currently obsessed with sweaters and colorwork, so I hope to start some projects like that after I get my WIPs done! :)

Semester-long Shawl Project

So my mom and I have decided to knit shawls for each other during this Fall semester. We each picked out a pattern we liked and a color yarn, and I just got the stuff for hers in the mail! It's Knit Picks Palette, in Chicory, which is a really bright blue. I think it will go well with the pattern, which is the Freya Shawl. I am finishing up a pair of socks for my sister at the moment, however, and really trying to resist from just dropping them and casting on for the shawl immediately. I already have about five pairs of socks on needles right now, and have for a really long time, but I have decided that realistically, I will finish my sister's socks, then cast on and knit the shawl, and then finish the other socks.

I am excited--I've never really done a lace pattern before, so I'm interested in how it will work for me. I've never knit a shawl, either, so all in all, I'm just very restless to get it started! :D

Hats Galore...

Alright, so this is what I've been working on since the last post:


--the feathers and fans throw is DONE. it's a little skinnier than I would have liked it to be, but it works perfectly for a lap blanket on the couch.

--Dad's fingerless gloves turned out well....until he decided to wear them out to feed the goats and do outdoor work, and they came back semi felted. they are now much shorter than they first were, but oh well. what can you do?

--The Christmas gifts came out fairly well. The pig more so than the hedgehog, but my mom liked it anyway. I found some soft boucle-type yarn that I had started out making a gross fun fur/ boucle scarf with, so I ripped it out and used that for the wings instead. It worked, and the piggy is so cute!

--I got a new coat, and ended up making a Button Tab Hat in Scarlet Vanna's Choice.

--With the rest of this skein, I also made some Diamond Handwarmers, and

--A Lucky 7 hat for my sister.

--With some Red Heart Heart and Sole, in Congo, I made her some Mock Cable Socks too. Fun stuff!! :)


COMING UP NEXT:

--I'm starting a Hannah (ponytail hat) tonight. I got some Lion Brand Jiffy in a Dark Grey, because there is some grey in the new coat I just got.

--Sometime soon I should be getting the wool from my sister's friend, so I can make him some socks. He lost it the last time he came over here, but he found it in his house recently, so I'll be able to make them. :)

--And that's it for now...I have a bunch of yarn now, so I need to see what I want to make next once I'm done with these things. :)

What's up, inheriting an icelandic, and Christmas knitting...

Alright, so I've been working on a bunch of things since my last post. Here they are.

--Did the Calorimetry for Alex, it turned out well.

--Used leftover yarn from that to make some Waffle Stitch Gloves. They turned out well too.

Over Thanksgiving break, I had four 5 hour car rides, so I got a lot done. I made:

--A Baroness Beret in really pretty red vanna's choice for my sister
--A matching pair of Cherry Red handwarmers
These both came out really well!

--A Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret for my room mate...This came out really really big and slouchy. As a result, she didn't really like it, so I offered to rip it out and make a different one. I'll probably make another Max's Staircase Tam instead.

--A Baroness Beret for me. I blocked it on a kind of small plate, so I think I'm going to reblock it on a bigger one so that it will cover up my ears.

**Note: If you like knitting hats, and berets/tams, then you should totally make the Baroness Beret. It's such a gorgeous pattern, and it's really nice to knit up. I wish I had about 500 more people I could make these for--this is one of my favorite patterns EVER!

Other than that, I've just been working on:

--The feathers and fans throw. I think that I'll finish this tonight. At this point, I just want it out of the way, and on my bed to keep me warm at night. :)

--A pair of fingerless gloves for my dad. I'm using the Plain 'Ole Fingerless Mitts pattern, and it's coming out well. One took me an evening, I just haven't gotten around to getting the other done.

--A Christmas gift for my mother...She loooves hedgehogs, so I'm making a Blue's Hedgehog stuffed toy for her. I just need to do the eyes and the nose, and then I'll be finished! :)

Tomorrow, once my sick sister goes back to school, I'll whip up a Petunia Phlying Piglet Peep for her. Then it's back to square one and deciding what to make next!! :D

**Also, sometime over break I should be making a pair of socks for my sister's guy friend. He's wanted me to knit him a pair ever since he saw the ones I made for her a while back, so when he was over the other day, I told him to get some worsted wool. Little did I know, but the next day his mother happened to be shopping at the same store we were, and asked me where to get worsted wool. I thought that was cute, so I need to find a good pattern to make some socks for him. :)

**Another note...I seem to have forgotten that I have a stash of leftovers, in which I haven't used the whole skein. This is good! I have wool! :D

****NOTICE****
Over Thanksgiving break, my aunt (who is a pretty experienced knitter herself) was looking at some of my knitting, and offered me a partially-finished Icelandic sweater that she had started about 15 or 20 years ago and never finished. Of course I couldn't turn that down, so I now had inherited that and all the wool, needles, and pattern to go with it! Coolio! :D

Bringing you up to date...

So since I posted that last entry, I've been knitting a bit, but being at school mostly.


So...what have I been working on?

--The other 2 pairs of socks for camp. I decided on your mama's big fat booties for the "beasts" session, and bayerische socks for the "invaders" session. Only one pair of those got finished, and i'm betting you can guess which pair it was...

--next project was another pair of your mama's, for my mom. not too much to say about these, although i did make them in caron simply soft, because they are slipper socks anywho.

--I'm currently working on a Feathers and Fans throw, using Red Heart in a color called Watercolors. It's pretty, and relatively cheap, and good for knitting I don't really have to concentrate on, as the pattern is easy to follow and memorize.

--This weekend I just finished a scarf and hat for one of my housemates. She has a bright red coat and wanted a hat and scarf to go with it. She chose black, and I used Patons Classic Merino, because that is literally the only wool you can buy in this town.
--The scarf was the Off Set Diamonds Scarf, and turned out pretty well, I think. It was the first time I'd ever blocked anything, and was given a surprise when I discovered that wet yarn still smells like wet sheep! lol. I don't know why I wasn't expecting it to--I guess just the processed nature of it made me think that it would have gotten all the smell out. anyway, here's a pic of the finished scarf:






























--The pattern i used for the hat was Max's Staircase Tam. This was SUCH a quick knit. I've never really been into slouchy hats, but I am so going to make myself a slouchy tam or beret now. so pretty! :)























she really liked both of them, which is good, because i made them into her birthday present ;)


Knitting to come:

--I'm making a Calorimetry for another of my housemates. I made her a hat last year, but she wants something that gives her the option of not messing her hair up/holding back the flyaways while still keeping her ears warm (that was the big selling point, haha).

--My third housemate wants a slouchy hat. I looked up a bunch of patterns on Rav, and showed her pictures, and she decided on the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret. She wants it in pink. Only a problem if it has to be done in wool, but I think with the slouchyness, it'll be alright in acrylic.

--I want a slouchy hat. I originally wanted to make it a Cabled Beret, but now that I've seen the Star Crossed, I may make that instead. I don't know what to make it with, though. I'm thinking wool, and could probably get a nice grey in Patons Classic Merino at Joann's, but another option came up--knitpurlgurl (on Rav and Plurk) saw my Plurk about making myself a slouchy hat, and my lack of wool, and offered up one of her own skeins of Cascade 220, in a heathery sage green, (which is a color and wool I wouldn't mind at all) for free!! I would love it, but I would feel bad about her paying shipping for it--she lives in CA, and I'm in NY...so I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I'm leaning toward the lovely green-ness of it, haha.


So that's what's up.

A funny knit-object note: Today two of my housemates and I went to the store. It's cold and snowy out, so we were all decked out in our wintery warm outdoor outfits. Then one of them goes, "Are we all wearing something Emma's knitted?" It's true, it's true...I like to keep my friends warm. :-P

Workin' 9 to 5's....

So my first full-time job is a counselor position at a day summer camp called Time Tunnel, which is run out of the NYS Museum. I attended the summer camp when I was a kid, and I always wanted to come back as a counselor.
Since I wanted to make some socks anyway, and the 9 to 5's were on my Ravelry queue, I coincided the creation of some 9 to 5's with my first 9-5 (although actually 9-4:30) job.

Then, my mother made a really good suggestion. Because I take a commuter bus into Albany with her (my mom works at the museum, and it's about an hour away from where we live), I have at least 3 hours a day in which I have nothing to do but ride a bus. Since I'm a pretty fast knitter, and socks are easy portable projects, she thought it would be cool to make three pairs of socks (for each of the three two-week summer camp sessions). So, that's what I have decided to do.

I haven't yet decided what the other two pairs are going to be, but I'll figure it out tomorrow. It's the end of week two and I'm not done with the 9 to 5's yet! Just a half a sock left to go...

Long time no knit...

So due to the lack of fingering weight yarn to go along with the majority of the sock patterns in my queue, as well as the lack of time that was brought about by last minute pre-school observations and cramming for second-semester finals, I haven't knit anything since...my Fetching, I do believe. I told my mom that I am going through yarn withdrawal, and she asked me what weight I needed. When I told her I needed fingering for a bunch of socks, she told me that she had a bunch that I could use. Soo, tonight when she gets home from work, she's going to let me pick out a few skeins to work on some more knitting...YAY. :D