Coronet

I ended up deciding on not making a new pair of travel socks this weekend. Instead, I decided on making a hat out of the leftover malabrigo. Even after completing the hat, I probably have enough malabrigo left to do one more hat, so I'll probably work on that after I finish clue three from The Enchanted Woods KAL. Currently I am on row 18 of clue 3 after working on it yesterday afternoon. I'm hoping to work on it while between classes today, so we'll see how much free time I have.Here is the finished hat. Fits perfectly, but I just washed my hair and it's still wet, so no modeling pictures for me today. The hat is coronet from Knitty.com and it's really such a simple and easy pattern. Really liked the braided cable band.

Finished Object and Pondering

I finished the socks that have been my work project for the past few weeks. They are knit out of Patons Kroy FX sock yarn, which is a very smooshy sock yarn and a little thicker than I normally like. I do like the socks though because it's been cold and thicker socks are a good thing right now. Here's the finished pair:And now I am pondering the weekend knitting. Do I cast on another pair of socks? Do I start a hat out of the lone skein of Malabrigo in my stash? What shall I knit? I guess Monday will reveal what I decided.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. See you on Monday and I'll have some kind of knitting to show you then!

Knit on...

Clue 2 Enchanted Woods

This is the finished clue 2 from the Enchanted Woods KAL. The beads are very sparkly and pretty in the shawl, but I'll be darned if I can get them to show up in a picture at all. I'll try to pull out the SLR here soon and get some better shots before clue 3 releases tomorrow sometime. Tonight I don't plan on doing any knitting, although knowing me that will change, but we'll see. Instead, I'm intended to focus solely on Dragonquest Swords for the Wii. I beat level 1 last night and am having fun swinging the controller around like a sword.

Anyways, here's the picture of clue 2:

Into the Woods

As the clues keep coming, I am inching farther into the Enchanted Woods. The lace started off as snow covered ice and is now progressing into a deeper color in the frozen water winding through the woods. The colors are so pretty and I am reminded of the pine and maple trees where I used to go hiking in Kentucky. The motifs are stunning and the beads add just the right amount of sparkle to the shawl. This will make a lovely wedding present for my friend. Here's the progress:Knit on...

The Fish and the Shawl

Yesterday I ran out of yarn on the fish hat. I'm still debating on what to do. I finished everything except the fins. I'm looking around the yarn stash right now, trying to see if I have anything that could work for fins. If I do, I may just avoid buying one more ball for three little fins. Anyways, here's the fish hat, sans fins:At first I wasn't sure if I really liked this one, but it's grown on me, and I really like how it turned out so far. Now if it just had fins and eyes...hopefully this weekend.

Once I finished the fish hat, I started working on The Enchanted Woods shawl. I got through row 9 of clue number 2 yesterday and since it's movie day at work today, I should make some decent progress on that today too. Here's the blobby, lacy form:I'm enjoying this one so much that I signed up for the Evenstar KAL. I went to buy beads yesterday and may have also slipped yet another beaded shawl kit into the order too. I'm on a lace and beads kick, what can I say.

Knit on...

Swimming, swimming, swimming

That's all that keeps going through my head when I'm knitting a fish hat. The hat is almost done now and I'm going to see if I can finish it this afternoon before I start the Enchanted Wood shawl clue 2. Here's the hat:I like the colors on this even if I do hate the yarn. It's acrylic I picked up while visiting DF one weekend since I had no worsted weight yarn to make myself a fish hat. I may run out of yarn before it's finished and if that's the case, I'll pick up one more ball of the stuff just so I can finish the hat.

I was going to work on the Enchanted Wood shawl this weekend some, but I saw that there was some major errata for clue 2. I decided that instead of trying to read charts on the tiny computer screen, I would wait until today when I go in to work and print out a new copy of the pattern with all the changes in it. So far my strategy of waiting at least 2 days before starting the clue is working out wonderfully. Haven't had to rip back because of a pattern mistake yet!

Tomorrow, I will either have a finished or mostly finished fish hat to show you and hopefully some shawl progress.

Knit on...

An FO and a New WIP

Last night I did finish my lap afghan. I used it all evening too and it's nice to be able to turn the heat down some and cozy up with the smooshy afghan. Anyways, here is the finished blue and white boucle blob:Granny squares are so super easy and mindless that I may have fallen in love with them. I'll have to remember this whenever I am fed up with a current project and need something I can accomplish.

I also started another project last night. I decided to make myself a fish hat. I didn't have any yarn lying around that I wanted to use, so I had picked up some acrylic at a store where DF lives. It's not going to be the prettiest fish hat or the softest, but it will be a fish hat and I'll make another one someday when I get some better woolen leftovers (yes, I still have leftover malabrigo, but it seems sacrilage to me to use it for a fish hat. It will become something else...).

Hope everyone has a great weekend with lots of knitting. Are you all getting ready for the Knitting Olympics? If so, what are you making? My Olympic post will come on Monday with my goals and intentions for the event.

Knit on...

The Sock

Ok, I managed to grab sock pictures this morning. The blanket is almost finished and I should have that done this evening sometime unless something really weird were to happen. So tomorrow I should have an FO to show you if nothing else. Here's the sock:Paton's Kroy FX yarn in some colorway I can't remember off the top of my head. I really like how smooshy these socks are coming out. I did learn that Paton's Kroy barely gives me enough yarn for one of my giant feet, so I'll have to make note to buy an extra ball if I ever pick this yarn up again.

That's it for today. Check back tomorrow for a finished afghan.

Knit on...

The Blanket Grows Some More

I'm working on a lap afghan blue and white granny square right now while I'm at home. It's now just too big to travel and it's keeping me warm while crocheting on it at the apartment. Here it is so far, with my hand thrown in for scale:I'm hoping to be finished with the afghan by this weekend, which given the progress on it the past two days is not totally unreasonable. I kinda despise working with boucle yarns, but this one isn't totally terrible, although still frustrating at times. I do really like the squishy factor though and it's very warm, which is what I wanted for something that is intended to keep me warm so I can turn the heat down and save more money and energy.

I also have a pair of socks on the needles out of Kroy FX, but they are at the school since they're the work project. I'll try to remember to sneak a picture of the finished one today so I can show you all the progress on those tomorrow.

Knit on...

Resolving and Resolutions Updates

This is the next in the planned posts I had prior to the craziness of a couple of weeks ago.

Last year I made some resolutions. While most of these were not yarn-related, they were about my life and this would affect the yarn and the knitting.

The first big resolution I made was to lose weight. Now I know, lots of people make resolutions to lose weight and then flop after a month or so. I'm guilty of that many times before. But this January, something was different. I determined that I was not going to go on a diet. Yes, I would count calories, but I would eat the calories it takes to maintain a healthy weight for my height. The number that I chose was somewhere between 160 and 165 pounds.

So, I hopped on the scale to get my first weigh in for 2009.

240 pounds.

I cried. I won't be too ashamed to say that. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I had let myself go that far bad. I was sick and tired of always being sick and tired. Here is a picture taken in February that probably has me closest to the heaviest I have ever been:I was shocked to find this picture the other day. Especially when I compare it to this one that was taken in the middle of December:It's hard to tell, especially since I have on heavy winter clothing, but you can clearly see that I accomplished the goal of losing some weight. In fact, I weighed myself on the same scale that weighed me at 240 pounds on January 1, 2009. I weighed on January 1, 2010 at 52 pounds lighter. I've since lost another 3 and am now down 55 pounds. I'm within 20ish pounds of being at goal weight now and I can't even express how much better I feel and how happy I am to start seeing pictures like this trickle in to show that I've slimmed. I went from a size 18-20 to a size 12-14 so far. Ultimately, I'll probably wind up somewhere between an 8-10, which looks good on my 5 foot 10 inch frame.

Plus I think my hair looks a lot better in the second picture :oP

The other resolution I had was to run in a 5k race and beat my last time of 43 minutes. Well, in November, I did that and ran 5k in 33:03, blowing my last record out of the water.

So how does all this relate to knitting? Well, it now takes significantly less yarn to make a sweater for me. I'm making the M-L size instead of the XL or XXL or higher sizes! That equates generally to at least a full ball of yarn less per pattern! Saving money and knitting away!

Tomorrow: updates on the works in progress, or, a blanket grows...

Knit on...

The Yarn That Beat Me

For those of you who have been reading my blog, you know of the woe that has been the maroon merino sport-weight yarn. Well, it beat me again.

I cast on for the Drops Vest that I liked. Got through the ribbing. It looked a bit small. Measured, and yes, it was a little too small. Great, I'm thinking. I'm losing weight, so that's ok if it's a little small. Go to print out the pattern (yes, I had only been looking at it online thus far) and the Drops site was down. Checked the next day: Site was back up, but the pattern was gone.

This yarn and pattern choices have defeated me. I give. I ripped out the vest and decided that the yarn is in time out until the Knitting Olympics are over in February. Once I have had victory there, perhaps I can bend this yarn into what I want it to be. I'm thinking nice, pleated skirt right now may be what it is destined to be.

I'm sure that'll change 20,000 times more by the time I get to it.

This weekend I have plans to make socks out of Patons Kroy FX. About half way done with the cuff of one of them and have a SnB on Saturday and some knitting time on the bus back and forth. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Knit on...

The Knitting

My knitting world has been taken over in the past two days by the Enchanted Woods Shawl KAL. I received the clue on Sunday evening my time and wound the ball of yarn. Monday afternoon I cast on (which took almost 2 hours alone), and yesterday I got 12 of the 19 rows finished from clue 1. I'm hoping to finish the rest of the clue today sometime. Here's the progress as of last night:I'm really enjoying the beading on the shawl too, especially since this is my first time ever actually making a beaded shawl.

I also finished a lap afghan for DF this weekend. It's out of fuzzy boucle yarn. Here's the finished project:Decent-sized granny square afghan. It's fuzzy and warm which is what I wanted it to be.

And I'll leave you with a rare "in the wild" knitted object use by DF this weekend. Yes, that would be the fish hat. I finally got eyes put on the darned thing this weekend and that same day, DF had it on, in all it's fishy glory:Tomorrow: Hopefully a finished clue 1 and the story of how a yarn has defeated me.

Knit on...

Life

Yep, I had a bunch of posts planned as you can recall. You're probably wondering where they are. Well, life happened last week. Life has a tendency to stall your plans when you make them, but it leaves you thankful for it when all is said and done.

On Wednesday morning I got a call from DF that I never expected to get. He was in the hospital with chest pains. Turns out that he was having a heart attack as we later found out via angiogram. I got on a bus as quick as I could and got to the hospital in time for them to take him in for emergency angioplasty surgery. Thankfully he is going to be ok. God has allowed him to stay here and deal with my yarn stash and running obsession for at least a little longer :oP I'm so thankful that everything worked out ok and times like this really remind me of just how much I do love DF, not that I need any more reminders like this, God. Ok?

The posts from last week will get posted this week unless some other life event would like to change those plans. I'm personally just hoping that life decides to stay quiet this week and let me work quietly on the Enchanted Woods Shawl KAL first clue that was in my email box Monday morning.

Knit on...and be thankful!

Holiday Yarn Aquisition

So as I mentioned before on the blog, my stash was getting low. Now this does not mean I was down to just one or two project's worth of yarn, but it was entering that uncomfortable stage for me where I could see the wood associated with the bookshelves. Prior to the holiday aquisition, this is what the stash looked like:Like I said, most people would be ok with this. I however was getting antsy. So, on Christmas day I was able to unwrap a few things from my parents. First was two needle sets. They got me the Harmony wood DPN sock set and the Zephyr interchangeable needle set. Don't have a picture of the clear needles since they are already in the zippered notebook with the rest of the Options needles, but here is one of the Harmony needles:They also got me two skeins of the Risata sock yarn:And 15 skeins of Swish Worsted in the Lava Heather colorway. This will become my Knitting Olympics project, but that will be talked about another day:After Christmas, I hit JoAnn Fabrics for an after Christmas sale. First, I picked up a couple skeins of Bernat Sox to try out since I've never used this yarn before:Then I saw Paton's Kroy and Stretch were also on sale, so I picked up a few skeins of those:And then I hit the Sensations Bamboo and Ewe sock yarn line and went a little nuts:And to just add insult to injury, I picked up some cheapo boucle to make a lap blanket to keep my legs warm at night:Lastly, I joined the Enchanted Woods KAL from the Unique Sheep and my yarn had arrived by the time I showed up in Florida. Here's my colorway:I also picked up beads to go with this, but forgot to take a picture. Maybe as the KAL begins and moves along I'll get some photos. This starts on January 10.

After the great stash aquisition, this is what my stash bookshelf looks like now:Ah, much better now, don't you think?

Knit on...

The Inevitable Catch Up

Yep, I'm back from vacation now, so the blog posts will be coming back again. In fact, I have more to blog about right now than I have time, so there should be a series of several posts catching up on the victories, the defeats, and the resolutions that happened while I was on a blogging vacation as well as a real one.

In short, here is the blog schedule:

1. The yarn: Victory was mine at a JoAnn Fabrics' Sale

2. The maroon merino: Defeat, in every way possible...

3. The current knitting/crocheting (yes, there is some!)

4. Resolving and resolutions: How I did with the resolutions from last year and what I resolve to do this year.

5. Knitting Olympics: Oh yeah, that is this year isn't it!?

Tomorrow: The yarn will take over the blog, and possibly my apartment

Knit on...