Another snowflake ….

back to the fabric kind this time.

I got all my pieces fused and the cuts made so they are all ready for my Mom, Aunt and I to put the glue guns to work.

Here’s the fabric combinations I put together

So here’s one side of each group of fabrics.  There’s 10 different snowflakes there.

and then the opposite side is

they match up in order left to right in the top and bottom photo. Some of the silver and gold glitzes on some fabrics aren’t showing up in the photos.

So for instance the first fabric in the top left (which is actually a pale gray with silvery glitzy swirls on it) will go with the first left fabric in the bottom photo – a blue and gray snowflake print with silver glitz in it.

 

 

I couldn’t resist – after I got done getting all these ready I took the one set that I wasn’t sure I’d really like when it was done and decided to glue it up and see how it looked.

  I love it!. The only reason I thought it wouldn’t look as good was the yellow side was really bright yellow batik but because of the black print batik it’s fused to, it really dulled down the yellow.  But it still looks great.

I had to make myself “step away from the glue gun!”  – it’s one of those things where you want to see what the next combination will look like and then the next… but I’ve packed it all up.

 

I managed to get all the laundry caught up, I baked a pan of really horrific bars (I don’t know what happened to them, I’ve made them before, but I think wasn’t exactly paying attention and added too much butter).    But I did make a totally delicious crock pot of split pea, ham and carrot soup.  A couple containers are doing their final cool down in the frig before I stick them in the freezer and there’s a bowl full waiting for me to reheat for dinner.  Yum.

 

I also just updated the final tally for yarn knit for this year since I won’t get anything else finished before the end of the year – 22,597 yards knit this year.  Click on the button in the sidebar for Knitting the Stash and you can see all the projects finished.  AND (and this is a big AND) I did it this year – I knit more yarn that I purchased.  It’s a miracle — over 8,000 yards more than I purchased.   I’ve knit more than that but I’m only counting it when the project is complete.  So my two sweaters awaiting seaming – well maybe they’ll get me off to a good start next year.

It’s Many Snowflakes….

This time, not the fabric kind — tho here’s my stack of some of the fabrics I still need to fuse to each other in order to make more fabric snowflakes

 No they are mostly not what you would think of as creamy or bluish snowflake colors — not many of those in the stash and I can’t wait to see some of the more dramatic colored ones.

What I’m talking about this morning is this kind of snowflakes

  Winter finally arrived yesterday – with sleet, then inches of snow, and when I walked out of the office yesterday about 4:30 p.m. it was sleet – not the really rainy kind that builds up on things (thank goodness  because that could have really caused some damage) but the pelt you in the head and face stinging kind since it was pretty large and the winds were very strong.

 

All the way home it sounded like a sandblaster pelting the bus.  Luckily, many people are still on vacation or left work early so other than the semi that had slid into the middle of a road and got stuck and backed up traffic a huge distance, the rest of the ride proceeded at a slower, but steady pace with the bus only getting stuck once and having to back up to get a run at a little hill.    The timing was just right tho – the guys who clear the snow around the apartment building had just cleared the steps I need to take and were just finishing the sidewalk and in front of my door.   I haven’t heard yet how much snow we got- it was blowing so much that it was sort of drifting away from my door so I didn’t have as much right outside.

I sent some time last night doing the final bind off on my Olethea but I think I will probably be ripping it back and restarting.

I made it larger than the pattern so it would fit nicely around my shoulders.  I also added a few repeats from the beginning which with the weight of this yarn makes it feel like the neck edge is too large – should have left it about what it was.    When I added my extra increase row around the shoulder area, I increased in every section.  After I did that I thought it might be to much but decided to carry on.  It was too much.  I probably should have increased in every other section.

The yarn is pretty, it’s comfy and warm to toss over my shoulders while sitting and knitting, but I think I’ll wear it more if I do a remake on it.    Good thing it’s a quick and easy knit.

Now to get to the rest of the things I need to do around here today.  I’m off work until after the New Year.  Hopefully the weather wont’ throw a wrench into some plans for visiting with family part of the time I’m off.

This morning – laundry has been going – last load nearly done.   I’ve started a big crock pot of split pea and ham soup with the ham bone from my Christmas dinner.  So I’ll have soup for the freezer and I think soup and corn muffins for dinner which sounds like comfort food to me.  I may even bake some cookies.     But time to fill my coffee cup and first on my agenda is to finish fusing all the fabrics for the snowflakes so I can clear all that mess away since I decided to work in the living room and then on to the rest of the cleaning.

Loopy Legend, Denise’s Gannets, Sweater finished

This afternoon, coffee cup and little bowl of chocolates at my side, I finally finished the side/underarm seams on my sweater.  The yarn was my Loopy Legends yarn dyed for me according to an inspiration photo – this bird is a Gannet.

I started the sweater August 30, 2015, — it’s a CustomFit pattern called Afterlight.  I wanted just a simple pull over that I could toss on with my jeans around the house.

This is the yarn based on that photo:

I didn’t want to bother with alternating hanks of yarn so decided it would be my “pooling” experiment.  I got several different types of pooling.  The widest swatch of pooling is on the back and if I were choosing placement, right across my backside would not be where I’d put it but it is what it is.  🙂

I need to bury a few ends and block it but here’s what it looks like right now.

 I have jeans the same bluey/gray color as in the yarn but I was way to lazy to put those on for the photo.   Fingering weight yarn – tho it takes longer of course to knit a sweater in it – is a great weight sweater to wear.  The Lorna’s Laces Loopy Legends have a nice bit of drape – which helped create the bit of gathers at the bottom of the vee neck.  The vee neck is ribbed and then finished with a little rolled stockinette edging.

I updated my “Knit the Stash” page with this finished project.  Over 2,000 more yards of yarn added to the “knit” list.   I have converted those yarns knit/woven to date to miles – because I like seeing how many miles it converts to and so far I have FINISHED knitting/weaving nearly 12 and one half miles of yarn.

A fun knit

 A project off the needles this week.

This cowl collared shoulder warmer is a Laura Aylor pattern called Olethea.  It’s knit in bulky yarn on 10.5 needles so it’s pretty quick to knit up – I cast it on last Saturday night and had it off the needles by Wednesday night.  And the yarn – Malabrigo Mecha – is lovely soft, squishy and warm.  I love the bit of weight it gives this .  Very fun knit and very easy.   I’ve got yarn sitting here to make a second one since I think I will give this one away.

I updated the Stash Knitting page – the net stash used didn’t change since I had to add in this yarn which I bought and then add it to the knit up tally.  So far 19,695 yards knit into finished projects (more knit into projects I need to finish).

There will be a bit more yarn coming in since there should be some more chunky/bulky yarn coming – just a bit – which hopefully will arrive tomorrow since I’m now a day late for another Laura Aylor knit – her holiday MKAL called Just For You, Two which started today with the first clue.  One clue each day from today thru December.  Clues are broken down to be about an hour’s worth of knitting so I should be able to catch up quickly.

Now to think about pulling the Christmas tree out of the box and fluffing some branches.

 

On the Needles – 12/5/15

I still need to seam my Loopy Legend Gannets yarn sweater.  The side seams are all clipped together so maybe this evening I’ll get that done so I can wear it.

In the meantime, I started a new sweater – CustomFit Charlie’s Cardigan.   My yarn arrived on Monday (my Black Friday purchase) so got busy swatching.

It’s Cascade 220 (nonsuperwash) and the color is Opal.  The swatch is true to color on my monitor – sort of a slightly pinkish tank.   So Tuesday night I cast on and here’s my progress so far.  I’ve got about 12″ – 14″ knit already.   This is knitting up really quickly so far, but then of course my last two sweaters were fingering weight.

 

 

The other yarn I had ordered was originally for Olethea but I wasn’t thinking correctly when I ordered it because I need to make it larger and longer and didn’t order the extra yarn to do so.  But it all worked out well since Laura Aylor is running another holiday MKAL that uses the same weight (bulky) and I’ll have enough to make the MKAL project for me and enough leftover to make Oppose as a gift for someone else.   That’s my favorite kind of gift giving — one for you; one for me. 🙂  Plus I love the colors of this yarn (which are a bit darker/richer looking that my photo) and Malabrigo Mecha is so soft.  The color is Solis.

So that’s what’s in the works at the moment.  Today, once I convince myself I really should get dressed, I think will be spent doing a bit of cleaning and pulling out the Christmas Tree and setting it up even if I don’t decorate it yet.  And maybe tomorrow putting up the lights outside since it’s supposed to be a fairly nice day  (39 degrees and not windy on  December 6 is pretty good – and no snow on the ground).    But then I also have a quilt I really need to finish so I’d better get busy around here!

It’s nearly a sweater

Well I never did get those borders onto my quilt — tomorrow’s project I think.  But I did finish off the sleeve for my sweater and I did just finish setting in the sleeve cap area of both sleeves.  I kept telling myself I had to wait to eat dinner until I had both those sleeves sewn in — and I did — and it’s 8 p.m. and I’m hungry!  (Okay – I did have popcorn midafternoon while watching a movie so I’m not that hungry).  But my turkey sandwich is calling.

This evening I hope to get the neck band put on which is a little trickey because there are small gathers that go into the picking up of stitches on the neckband since the sweater is supposed to have a few drapey gathers there.  Hopefully I can get it to look right and I chose yarn with enough drape to it.

Notice the red clips — those quilt binding clips are perfect for lining up knitwear pieces while you are sewing them together.

Winter has arrived – I’d better knit faster….

I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie and finally at about 3 a.m. decided I should got to bed.  I took a peek outside to see what was going on and yes indeed, our first snowfall of the season was occurring.

I always take a photo of my birdhouse so I can tell how much snow as falled as it’s piled up on the birdhouse’s flat roof.

Then about 7:30 or 8:ooa.m. this morning – it looked like this in the light of day

It’s a fluffy but rather wet snow so it has all the tree limbs coated.  I love the little woods outside my door when it snows like this — so pretty with all the limbs covered in snow.

And despite the fact that it’s supposed to be only about 26 degrees outside – I was outside filling up my two birdfeeders in my sweater and jeans and no coat and it didn’t fee bad at all.

I don’t think the snow will stick around too long — it’s still falling — because I think the temps will be too warm.  But I guess the snow season has officially started even if I have still not had to turn on my furnace.   I did remember to bring my snowboots home with me yesterday from my locker at work where they were hiding.  May need to find where the mittens got put.

And to my what’s on the needles report – which since I’m always late should be the “what’s on the needles the day after everyone else reports in “….

I’m closing in on getting the second sleeve finished for my pooling sweater.

They both will have some interesting pooling on them.  I’m hoping to get the sleeve on the right finished off in the next day or two.

I also was digging through a large knitting basket of works in progress and pulled out my vest.   It only needs the edging on the armholes added and the side seams sewn.  I my have to see if I can’t get that one finished off too.

I have a note pinned to it (I finally got smart) because I took the circular needle from it to use on another project so will have to go see if that needle has been freed up or if it’s still in some other project.

This vest just does not want to photograph properly – it is such pretty yarn.  You can see a photo of the yarn in hanks here which is a bit better tho the colors are a bit darker yet.   I love the colors in this yarn so much that when I bought the dk for my vest, I also got a couple hanks in fingering weight but haven’t decided if I’ll make socks or something else or maybe use it on the loom.

The current scarf on the loom is coming along nicely two but that will have to wait until later for me to get back at it — I’ve got a quilt top I need to get together after I clear my table off a bit.

 

 

 

I Love Yarn Day

Yes – today is I love yarn day.  Doesn’t that mean I should have bought some yarn?  I didn’t – but then there’s still several hours left in the day. 😉    I just adjusted my tallies and added  to the yarn stash page a new photo of a finished project.  So, I have now knit 700+ yards more than I have purchased.  The “knit” tally just counts finished projects, not those in the works in various stages (there are a lot in the “various stages” of completion category).

This week I finished the last of my Loopy Academy knitting projects for Sophomore Semester 1.

Each side of the pillow has a different design.  I used the Decorative Pillow Cases pattern.  Both are intarsia patterns – which is just short rows but no wraps  or wraps to pick up.

I like the patterns, and it was my first intarsia which went pretty well, but I did  make a change to the side of the pillow that looks like a flower.  The pattern said to make only 12 petals but that was not looking right when I tried sewing the end together so I made 13 petals which seemed to match better the 13 blades on the blue pillow and make them the same size.

I had such a fat 22″ down pillow form that I had to add a little to each side of the pillow.  since the inside circle of the pillows is closed up with single crochets, the slipped knit stitches around the outside edge of the pillow were perfect to single crochet in.  I added two rounds of SC in the  respective background colors for each side of the pillow and then one round of SC on each side using the off white yarn.  Then just slipped stitched it shut with the crochet hook.

Clover Wonder Clips which I use for holding quilt binding while hand sewing are also a perfect knitter’s tool.  They are great for holding pieces of sweaters, etc. together while seaming.  They also worked great to clip the two sides of the pillow around the pillow form so I could slip stitch it shut while on the pillow form.

As I was finishing up sewing the pillow I happened across a popcorn stitch flower pattern that I thought might look great in the center of the pillow rather than just the brown circle there.  It was the perfect accent to the pillow.  All that crocheting did remind me why I don’t crochet anymore tho.  Boy it is hard on my hands, but even more so my wrists.   I’m glad that project is done.

The back is nearly done on my Pooling Experiment sweater made from my Loopy Legends Denise’s Gannets yarn.  First major pooling at the bottom is where the waist shaping stitches are and then again above the armholes.  I’m just letting it pool at will.   And while there are those “oh the horror your yarn is pooling” group of knitters – I’m not one of them.  Sure some things I don’t want to pool and I will take steps to avoid it but this sweater is my “toss on with jeans” sweater and since jeans are my weekend attire and not office attire – a comfy sweater with pooly splotches is just fine with me.  It will be interesting to see how the front differs in pooling from the back and what the sleeves will do.  (Don’t you love my bright green Loopy Ewe bag – it’s a great project bag.)

This week my order of purse closures also arrived.  There’s two Mickey Mouse type closures and then two others.  I love the coppery color of the one Mickey Mouse closure.  So I’m anxious to get started on one of these little purses.

 

 

Crazy Busy

Goodness this week was insane.  Just too much going on – next week has got to be better!  No sewing going on – I need to get back to my Loopy Academy projects;  very little knitting going on, other than on my bus ride; but many hours of quilt designing and tweaking going on tho.  Quilt Market is very soon and those new Hoffman Fabric lines need some quilt designs and I was busy design quilts for two of my favorite types of fabric – a new fall line that will be coming out called Frosted Fall – you know I’m all about fall colors which are my absolute favorites.  The other was a new Christmas line which I love.

There are also a EQ design or two left over (okay maybe five or six or eight that were rejects for the purposes above) that might make a good mystery or quilt along project so I’ll have to revisit those later.

Anyway  – to catch up on what’s on the needles

You can see that  it was going along rather stripey but then when I got to where the waist shaping changed the stitch count there’s a wide swath of pooling.   This is going to be my “jeans” sweater – fairly plain pullover to wear with my jeans – so I decided I was just going to let it pool however it liked.   Now that I’ve gotten above the shaping, its gone back to somewhat stripey.  This is the back so it will be interesting to see what happens after I start decreasing for the armhole edges but I’ve got a ways to go before that.

and my Socktoberfest Crocodylia socks –

they got a few more rows added but not much.  Not too late to join in the KAL for a chance to win that Wollmeise yarn – over two and a half months left to knit on them. 😉

Off the Needles

This week I managed to get two things off the needles.  Both are for Loopy Academy projects

My cable project – the Burberry Inspired Cable Cowl .  It is definitely going to be warm come this winter in the Tundra yarn – makes it a bit heavy.   Eight stitch cables  which alternate across the cowl – one single one in the center and then several rows later, one on each edge of the cowl – make it a more drapey look rather than a distinct cable look but I love it. I used every bit of my two hanks of yarn and actually had to rip back one row I knit because I realized I had gone too far and need some yarn to kitchner it closed.  I pulled the kitchner stitches tight as I was going along so with the bit stitches (size 10 needles) I was able to sort of add some gathering into the kitchner seam which makes the seam even less obvious since it has some drape like the rest of the cowl rather than being the only straight area on the cowl.

I also have my textured project done except for the blocking – which I plan to do today – and I need to dig through the button bin to see if I have anything that will work on this baby sweater.

  So just need to finish the second pillow design and my LA projects will be well in hand for the first semester.