Projects

So far, the talley of completed projects is:

2 hats
1 1/2 scarf
1 wristband

The most recent hat was a really easy one to whip up, and I found it here, called the London Beanie.

Ah, but I am an ambitious girl, and now that I have the Denise Knitting Kit and skeins upon skeins of yarn enough for a variety of projects, I am going to be knitting up a storm. On the horizon:

Teva Durham's jeans-to-skirt with lacy mohair panel, and the Tubey and Tempting I patterns from knitty.com. I'm also working on a pair of legwarmers for Clorissa, they should be fun to do. I'm excited!

The Hat

So I finished the hat, and then I set it free into the wilds of the Philadelphia subway transit system. It immediately looked for the panic button.

The next one gets earflaps and a pompom, but it has to be the right colors for the Jayne Cobb hat. I'm also waiting to get the denise knitting kit, because the circulars I used were so infernally difficult to use. There was very little cord between them, and they kept snagging.

I also modified the pattern just to see if I could follow the seed pearl heart from S'n'B.

My third project, which won't get its own entry, was the little 'geek' band from S'n'B. It came out great, but my yarn choice continues to suck majorly. I'm going to have to find some more yarn for projects.

Fourth project? Making a knit skirt out of a pair of army green pants I got from the thrift store. I can't find the link to it at the moment, but it's inutterably cute.

Project #2 begins (sort of), and Misty goes thrifting

So I started on the hat, but I know I'm not doing the ribbing right. It's come out looking interesting, and I'm sure it's a stitch that has a name-- it has a ribbing-like stretchiness to it... but this is going to be the Jayne Cobb hat, just all in purple. And possibly without a pompom on top. Definitely with the earflaps. Like so:



So on my way back from work, I hit up a thrift store and went thrifting for crafts for the first time-- I've gone many times before for clothes. At the time, it was because my family was poor and on welfare. Now, I feel weirdly pretentious and trendy for doing it. At the same time, it's exhilarating to run across a bunch of stuff that you may or may not need, for ridiculously cheap.

This thrift store claims that all of its proceeds to go orphans in Africa, and it is black-owned and black-run. This is what I purchased to help both myself and some African children:

Seen here: 2 heart-shaped boxes (don't all start humming Nirvana at once), a cute picture frame, an Italian cookie tin (the buttons were in a box and being sold by the handful, so I asked if I could just buy them all), an old book on typography, a size H crochet hook, and a Dick Tracy lunchbox with metal closure. Unseen: a pair of gray boots in very good condition, a piece of colorful felt that might get turned into an iPod sleeve, and a perfectly beautiful brown sweatery shirt for Clorissa.

The price on all that? $6.50. As if my day wasn't going well enough, my best friend Becca sent me these from Tejas:


A knitting magazine with a centerfold pull-out, for chrissake. Men holding big knitting sticks and actually making things with them.

I am new to the world of knitting, but she knows me well enough to know that anything can be made better with a sexy man thrown in the mix.

I lurve her.

Project #1, and the search for #2

So I've finished the scarf, and it is beautiful!



Closer:



I still have a lot to learn about casting on and binding off evenly. Also, I suck at picking up dropped stitches and so must practice that some more.

I am looking for a hat pattern for #2, and I found someone who did a pattern for Jayne Cobb's hat (if you are a Firefly fan, you might know the one). Like so:

Jayne Cobb Hat @ google.com's image search.

There are tons of people who've made this hat and are selling them. God, I miss that show! Anyhow, it's a relatively easy pattern, except I don't know how to do a RIB STITCH to save my life. They say it's just K1, P1, except there's something weird going on - I figured out that I might have to shift the thread from front to back before doing each stitch, otherwise it picks up two weirdly crossed strands . . . but I'm not sure if it's correct.

I am also scouting out fabric - I am about to become a craft store whore - to find a good sewing pattern for a needle roll.

Last thought, I really need to get Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch and Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, as everyone swears all up and down that it is the bible for the modern knitter. Maybe I will grab a copy of the first for my also knitty co-worker Marie for Christmas.

Craftster

I just discovered Craftster, and I think I might become irrevocably addicted. I have been wanting to sew things for a while, but my machine's just been sitting there neglected. I've also been itching to make jewelery.

I think perhaps crafts are good things for me to do. They provide almost immediate gratification, and my brain is just geared to see the results of what I do sooner rather than later, or I lose focus.

Not to mention, when you're finished, you've got stuff! To give away or to hoard greedily.

Mm, greedy hoarding.

Project #1: La Blue Scarf

So the easiest thing to do is a scarf, and that's what I'm starting out with. I've been practicing the pattern I want to use - a drop stitch - on some cheap purple yarn and size 6 starter needles that I got with my copy of "Knitting and Crocheting for Dummies."

The test run was small yet successful:



So I decided to start on some prettier, more expensive yarn. I'm only a few rows in, but it looks pretty snazzy:



I got the pattern and the idea for the yarn mixture (Moda Dea's Eden in "Paradise" and Barnat's Matrix in "Acid Axis") from this very lovely, crafty young woman. She named hers The Grass Scarf, which is gorgeous and completely appropriate.

If you can think of a name for this blue one, feel free to share.