So, it's been awhile

Again, I have been slacking in the blogging department.

In my defense, I started a new semester with 5 literature classes. If I actually did all my reading, I'd be reading, on average, 200-350 pages a day. It's a lot.

On top of that, Life has certainly been dealing out the crazy lately.

I have, at least, managed to get one thing done: the Concentric Stripes Cardigan from ravelry, and I even finished it in time before the baby was born.

Apparently, however, I'll have to add pictures later.

I am also apparently suffering from a massive case of startitis. I have about four things on the needles/hooks right now and just can't wait to start an afghan, a cardigan, some socks, and some wrist warmers despite the half finished scarves and hats still in progress (yes, there are multiples of each) and the bit of lace I tried knitting while under the influence (note to self: beer plus lace knitting is not the best combo).

However, instead of going home to knit, I will be heading back to class in a scant 15 minutes, to waste the rest of my afternoon listening to professors prattle on about Romantic-era notions of "freedom" in terms of wacked-out poets like Coleridge or discussing random, disjointed essays about marionettes (personally, I can't think of anything more creepy than a marionette. Except maybe a clown-marionette).

so far, on track

yeah, yeah, it's only january 5th, i know.

but, i finished my first project of the year! granted, i started it in october last year, but whatever. i'm still proud of it. unfortunately, it's not the last of the christmas yarn projects.

grandma's beaded shawl - it's a bit short, but grandma likes them that way, so i hope it'll be okay. there's 5 frickin' tubes of seed beads on there that i had to pre-string and work in as i went. it's probably the second-most-epic project i've ever done (the first being the 120 square wedding afghan, and the third being the other wedding afghan).

these photos are all post-blocking....

and a close up! beads, beads, more beads

this whole cone is gone.... i have 6 beads left and a one-inch ball of silk. all finished.

in other news, i finished ALL my christmas sewing shopping, and i hope to report the first bag will be finished by the end of the month. that would be the goal, after all. i had also hoped to be wittier today, but i still feel quite under the weather. 'epic' is the word of the day apparently, because there's not other way to describe my headache!

and, shown here, is the first few inches of the concentric stripes baby cardigan from ravelry. it's my first sweater! so far it's going okay, but i need longer needles. badly. there's no way double-that-amount of stitches is going to fit on that needle. i'm feeling kind of cocky (spare me, oh knitting fates), but so far, this sweater has been CAKE. i've done three new techniques already (knit 2 together, yarn overs, and changing colors) and i'm having no problems. maybe i'd better knock on the coffee table, just in case.

and no, i have nothing to announce. the sweater is for bairloch's friend, who is expecting in march. trust me, if and when our own blessed event occurs, i will not announce it on the blog (well, not first, anyway).

p.s. jon stewart? hilarious.

crunch, crunch, crunch

i wish it was a cereal thing.

instead i'm feeling the holiday pressure, and the final exam pressure, all coming down at once. it's monday night, which means i will be studying until my caffeine buzz from my Stash White Christmas Tea (spectacular stuff, love it, especially with a 3-second squeeze of honey) wears off, and i will be studying tomorrow, both before and after work, then i will be going to two finals on wednesday, coming home and finishing two (hopefully three) christmas presents, one of which i have to completely re-chart.

i know i don't blog about this kind of stuff usually, but i couldn't help sharing. i did some christmas-presents-for-myself shopping last weekend because it was so cold outside and i wanted more cozy things to wear to work, so i sort of did this...

it's not my fault. i'm helpless and weak in the face of words like "extra-fine merino" and "fifty percent off." i got the sweaters for about $6 each though, so i don't feel so bad. one of them is a brooks brothers sweater.

i made some more headway on christmas presents too. this is the five-spice hat from the crochet me! website through interweave, and as a pattern review, it was pretty easy to follow, though it had a couple major drawbacks. it is pretty though, isn't it?

one: there's an error in the pattern. to fix it, don't do any decreases in round 15 and follow the rest of the pattern as directed.
two: gauge was nearly impossible to get, if you're a tight crocheter, like me, you may want to configure some way to do a size up.
three: instructions on the different stitches used (slip stitch front and back loop, slip stitch decreases) aren't given in the pattern, so you should know how to do them before trying it.

if i made it again for myself (and i'm going to), i'm going to make it just a tad bigger and definitely longer. the earflaps on this one are my addition, and i made it in a yummy thick-thin wool called "licorice."

it's for a twelve-year-old girl, so i hope she likes it!

i don't know why i'm speaking so technically about projects tonight. to keep this one simple, it's for a sixteen-year-old girl and its an adaptation of a knit pattern called "just enough ruffles." wool of the andes bulky, colorway "spumoni."

again, blogging with cell pictures stinks. i wish i had my camera fixed!!

i don't think i'm going to be able to get my father-in-law's scarf done on time. i hope he understands.

more tea. more studying. more crocheting.

a woman possessed

the fury has not abated.
i finished all three papers (mostly) on time and i was really happy with two of them.
now i have a test to study for on friday and my story is due on monday. speaking of, i need to do a bit of research.

throughout all this i kept at that kinda tiny shawl from the previous post.... yeah... it's big now, and finished. i used the floaty fall scarf pattern from the sept/oct. 2009 crochet! today except i upped the yarn size from thread to worsted weight.

i used a skein my friend gave me (the one in the middle), and a lot of leftovers: the brown was leftover from one afghan, the orange from a jayne hat, the green from the other wedding afghan, and the red from the jayne hat. after it was washed and dried it got really really soft!! my new pretty...

i'm still not getting some of the subtleties with my crap camera phone, but the colors are pretty darn close. i should add it to the christmas pile, but i kinda want to snuggle it instead.

a cutey pair of booties

I love it when friends have babies. It means i get to make all sorts of cute stuff.

I mean, my one friend has a 1.5-year-old and a four-year-old, and they're a hoot and a half (I love Sheldon), but there's nothing quite like newborns.

My T.A. friend and his wife had their baby boy on Thursday night! So Friday afternoon I whipped up some casseroles and brought them over, and I finished up this tiny pair of booties today.

And one of my husband's friends will have another baby boy in about six months! Here's one of those places where and impulse buy from Houseworks can pay off - I bought a bag that had pretty green fabric in it one day, to match something else I already had in my stash, but, lo and behold, it wasn't fabric, but flannel, and there were kiddie animal prints in there too!

Somebody's getting a rag quilt for a baby gift.

Oh, and I'm thinking about writing a book... On top of the three papers and two swap packages I have due next weekend.

i've been gone awhile....

so, here's some stuff i've been working on since august:

wedding afghan #1:

 homemade macaroni and cheese recipe:

wedding afghan #2:

commissioned necklaces:

scarf recplica (crocheted): it's a christmas present for someone, but i'm not telling who!

homemade meatball and cabbage soup recipe:

coca-cola sleep shorts!

crochet owlets (that's a quarter for reference):

mi frist amigurumi! link from zelda (he got sent away in a craft swap and has a happy new home now):

another in a long line of christmas presents - a cutesy fuzzy hat for a friend's daughter:

i've got about a dozen projects in the works right now, and for today, i cleaned the kitchen so i could cook, put on a roast, started the laundry, and i'm in the process of cleaning our bedroom so the laundry clothes can migrate from the hallway, clearing up the hallway for the as-yet-unpacked boxes from the game room, so we can get the old couch out of there, so the boxes can go back in and hopefully be unpacked, so we can move the big green chair in so the new loveseat can come in from my parent's garage.

i'd rather be knitting.

plus side is we had some $ for furniture as a wedding present from my parents. my brother and his wife chose to get a leather sectional couch, but we waited until we saw a store going out of business and we got a new coffee table, 2 matching end tables, a couch, a loveseat, and a dresser and mirror for the same price. it was pretty awesome. the one end table and the mirror is in storage right now, but we managed to find room for the rest. we got rid of the old tables and gave the couch to a very deserving family we know. the old couch from the game room and dresser are on their way to being sold - we might even turn a profit on the little couch.

*sigh* commercial break over. back to work.

the countdown begins

16 days until the wedding. i have five seven more projects to do. it was five (pillow, basket, 3 pairs of earrings), but then i made my final trip to the rental place and the "wood arbor" they had us renting for $250 was painted plywood that was so flimsy they have to stake it to the ground so it doesn't blow away. shit, i can make one for about $50 and then sell it after the wedding. and we need something to put the wedding cards in. i shouldn't even count that one, all i have to do is wrap a box and cut a hole in the top.

i made this yesterday; my headpiece for the wedding!

the flowers are my grandmas, from her wedding headpiece about 50 years ago, then i used seed beads and 2 sizes of swarowski bicones to fill in the rest of it. there were a ton more on hers, but i'm more of a delicate gal. i had my hair done today for my bridal photo session and it looked pretty good! i just can't get good pictures at night because the flash washes everything out.

i went shopping with pauraniente yesterday, ostensibly to find something to put wedding cards in, but instead i rescued this guy from the thrift store:

i think he's some sort of giraffe. anyway, technically he's supposed to be a planter but i put my crochet hooks and scissors in there. handy, i thought. i was also going through my cupboard trying to figure out creative ways to store stuff and came up with this idea too:

just an old vase i had lying around and the leftover tiny balls of yarn from projects. i thought the tape measure ribbon was appropriate.

oh yeah, and i made this tonight too:

yep. a giant hat. no, not really, not a giant hat. it's a produce bag for fruit! it just seems silly that we go to all this trouble to use reusable shopping bags and then throw away our efforts by putting our fruit and veggies into plastic bags. i'm not a fanatic about recycling or anything; all i'm saying is sometimes you can't choose your packaging (for your food), and sometimes, you can.

it still needs a drawstring cord, so more photos and a pattern tomorrow. but i'll leave you with an artsy close-up of the yarn; peaches n' cream twist in some colorway i forget, but it reminds me of a cherry candy cane. (why do they make the cherry ones rainbow colored?)

i'm a harlot, i know....

it's time. hi, my name is ScrapJam and i have an addiction to yarn. this is my stash. *ahem* er, um, sorta, some of my stash. the other bits not shown is all the afghan yarn.

in my defense, most of this stuff has a purpose. the pink stuff in the upper left? felted slippers for someone for christmas. the stuff in the upper middle? socks for me and my man and some mission falls cotton i couldn't fit in the tub. there's really too much to name... the clear boxes in the back is most of my wool/silk/linen/cashmere/merino/alpaca/bamboo yarns. in other words, the good stuff. there's some peruvian highland and some wool blend left out in the back right of the main portion, but for the most part what's out is acrlylic. the basket is for leftover or small balls of yarn, like the patons soy wool stripes on the top. the baby blue and chocolate brown in the front left are a shawl that has yet to be born. the other pale yarns are baby yarns for when i get to occassionally make a hat or some booties for a charity effort in town. all of this stuff had plans for it, once upon a time. i just bought the gray yarn in front today to make mittens for my hubby, but i'll be darned if i remember what some of the other stuff was for.

so, in other shameful news:

the afghan was driving me crazy. this is a crochet version of this knit vest, done in red heart "peruvian print" colorway. i originally had mittens planned for this yarn, back when i didn't know any better, so now the yarn gets sacrificed as test yarn. plus it's an outer garment, so i don't have to worry about it being all scratchy next to my skin.

remember the lotus cardigan from ravelry? i looked at the pattern and had real trouble figuring it out. so i dug through all my magazines, looking for the right shirt/sweater/cardi with the right yarn weight and yardage, and i found these two options:

(from crochet today)

(crochet fantasy; excuse the model, it was the mid-80's)

i actually think i'm leaning toward the peach colored one. i really like the boat neck, the flutter sleeves and the ribbed bottom. would it look good in purple? i have this knitpicks yarn in eggplant, and i know i definitely have enough. if i do the other sweater, i'll have to shorten the sleeves.

back to the afghan tomorrow, though i may reward myself by working on my vest in between squares. i've been soaking the red squares over and over to try and bleed out as much excess dye as possible. they've been through three 8-hour soaks and a machine wash, and i think that's about it for them. they're drying under a fan in the kitchen now. i've decided that instead of sewing in all 282 ends by myself, i'm going to have a sewing party in july.

 
and you know, it just occured to me, i've got space in the upper right corner of my yarn cabinet.

progress

38/120.... possibly 143 squares?

almost 3 full skeins out of 12 are done... sigh.

something something something dark side...

double points if you get the reference.

today, i officially crossed over into the dark side.
look at me, i'm knitting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am so beyond thrilled at this point, but i'm also exhausted. i learned the long tail cast on, which was so much easier than i thought it would be, and to do stockinette stitch and garter stitch! it helps i had a good teacher, who also happens to be left handed :)

we also made dinner tonight! she grilled steak and i made salad: dried apricots cut small, walnuts, feta and dark greens with an Asian vinaigrette. yum.

next time we hang out i should teach her crochet. she want to make little amigurumis. not really my forte, but i know how to crochet in the round, so we're good!

doom update: after doing some quick math, i discovered that the afghan i'm making 80 squares for will only end up about four feet wide. yeah... i'll have to up the total to 120. which means i'm 1/12 of the way done. if i do three squares every day, i'll be done by mid july. this does not include soaking the damn red yarn until it doesn't bleed anymore, blocking, sewing, weaving in what will be something like 260-some ends, and adding a border. we're going to be cutting it close to the wire. i made 5 squares today.

picturific!

today i went to the yarn store. i didn't buy anything (there) and i made this:

this is one of the squares for one of the wedding afghans i'm doing. it's the good cause afghan from one of the crochet today mags, but i don't want to get up right now and dig out which one. please note that this particular picture is pre-blocking, and yes, it is acrylic, and yes, it still blocks.

and i also worked on this:

the dreaded tension curse!!! i don't know how to fix it, and i really don't want to rip out umpteen rows. i plan on adding a large ruffle border. do you think that will hide it? how do i get through the rest of the blanket???

then i went shopping at ben franklin, but i didn't spend any money, because my honey got me a gift card for my birthday. i picked out these:

a cool tips cookbook and birch knitting needles. i'm slowly being drawn in by the dark side. though have you ever noticed that some crochet patterns tout "knit-look!" stitchery, but you never see knitting patterns bragging that they've achieved a "crochet-look!" ??

then i went home.

i baked.

yes, that's supposed to be orange frosting on brownies. it's the fifth graders last band practice tomorrow. if you're really observant you'll notice the little swatch i made to test my eucalan on the towel in the background.

then, while doing laundry, i worked on this:

tardis!!! which is part of this:

damn. i want to keep this one too. it still has to be washed with a load of whites. the great thing about doing bleach stencil on a black shirt?? you can touch it up with a black sharpie and no one is the wiser... heh heh. yeah, i hate spray adhesive.

i also attempted to tie-dye a green t-shirt, and that was an epic fail. i used a different kind of dye, and i was out of rubber bands, or at least i couldn't find any (not that i looked past the room i was in) so i used bits of yarn, and, yeah, it didn't work. then i couldn't get all the dye out so i said screw it and tossed it. it was a $2 goodwill shirt. however, that does mean that unless i get another one and give it another go (back to rubber bands and good ol' rit dye for me), i have to give up my brown-striped, crochet-embellished shirt. oh, and the cat got into the thread. i could only salvage half of it.

currently, the laundry is going, a&e pride and prejudice is playing, the fan is blowing (damn no air conditioning), and this is soaking:

i hope it works. it should... i don't know why it wouldn't. i would like to be able to wear it without wanting to scratch my arms off.

and, because i can, gratuitous kitty pic:

sometimes when she's being a real angel kitty she'll still curl up and sleep with me. aww.

damn. the soak timer and the laundry timer just went off. which one first??

so much work... so little to show

so, bunch of little things, and probably two posts tonight, since i'm waiting for my darling FH to get home so he can take pictures of my new shrug (that's right, it's all finished!!)

i've entered into the "black hole" on the baby blanket (for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, check here). so no progress pictures on that one... come to think of it, i don't think i've shown any pictures on that one. i'll post one after the stitch and bitch tomorrow.

here are three pairs of earrings i made to angel for the swap i was just in... i think my favorite is the third pair.

oh, and this one was hard to send off! it's a big bang theory charm bracelet (i love that show... i love it so much i put the first season on my wedding registry).... problem is i don't think my partner shall be reciprocating. she seems to have disappeared.

and progress!!! the second mitten has been sewn and the top has been added. now we just need the cuff and the thumb!

and in an immense feat of personal growth, i finished the second slipper. i had the first one finished and sewn, and three of the small squares made for the second one (they're the kabouter slippers from ravelry). so i undid and re-sewed the first slipper because i didn't like the way i did it before, then made the fourth small square and the large square for the second one.

note to self: when leaving a project for months (like... january...) try and stick a note on it that tells you which hook you were using. still, i think they turned out ok.

tomorrow i plan on going to yarn group, doing all the laundry, soaking my shrug in eucalan (after i test it on a swatch, of course) and bleach stenciling and tie-dyeing a few shirts for a different swap. think i'll get it all done??

still here!!

how awesome is it that i don't have to go to work on friday, and i still get paid? apparently there's some sort of ITED reward trip (and don't get me started on how dumb that is), but they're short on chaperones, so i get to go. and it gets better. i work an hour away from where i live. the field trip is to the mall, 20 minutes from where i live. so instead of driving all the way down to school, getting on a bus with a bunch of asinine teenagers (i should have made a transcription from the last bus trip i took), then passing my house on the way to the field trip, the boss says i can just meet them there. suckers.

oh, yeah, and this was in the news today. call me out of my mind, but i think this reflects really poorly on one of the finest academic institutions in the country. don't they vet their students before they let them in? hey, kids, don't spend too much time on your college apps! turns out you can just make them up, and you might just get away with it for, oh, five years.

i've been going insane on these larger projects i've been doing, so i set about some small ones lately to distract me.

i made this shrug about a year ago out of 2 skeins of Noro Silk Garden (i forget the colorway). not having used a pattern, i thought i was being really clever with the shaping. for instance, i tapered the sleeves so they fit snug all the way through the arm (which worked), then thought, well, i''ll need the most mobility in my shoulders, so i increased again in the shouldes. yeah. that didn't work. so here's my fix:

you can't tell, but i have to admit... it's not really finished. the ribbon isn't sewn in yet... i'll try and get action pictures some other time. cut me a break. i left for work at 7 am yesterday and didn't get home until 10 pm. no exaggeration.
my friend who goes to the yarny shop with me gave me a leftover ball of malabrigo merino, so i made this small coffee cup cozy for her, with a cable pattern i thought up but am pretty sure i did not invent.

yeah, yeah, this one's not quite done yet either. it needs buttons. and a better picture. the flash washes out the cable.

i also got fabric for a yarn saver bag! (a yarn-saver bag is a little drawstring bag to keep your yarn in, so when you're working on something and tugging on your yarn the ball doesn't go rolling across the floor). one of the other girls at the s&b group showed me hers and it had this nifty satin lining so the yarn slips around really easily. now i just need a pattern for a small, lined drawstring bag. i think i've got one drawn up, but i haven't tried it yet. and i couldn't get a decent picture of the fabric either. it has parasols on it. and the lining is bright blue.

and the piece de resistance: my first crochet thread adventure.

p.s. aunt lydia's bamboo crochet thread is not stiff like cotton. it might even be slightly too slippery, but hey, look what i made!!!

it's supposed to be for a swap partner, but i want to keep it. so i probably will. i have other shirts i can send her. the pattern is from the sept/oct 2009 crochet today. the only alteration i did was to sew my blanket stitch at 3/16" instead of a quarter inch.
nothing else witty today. just waiting on my knitpicks order for fingering weight peruvian highland wool! enough to make the lotus cardigan from ravelry, in a lovely eggplant color.

i need more sleep.