update, but no pictures

SO, swatched, and am almost bang-on for gauge, and i am casting on sleeve stitches tonight. and this malabrigo lace with the slightly-oversized needles makes such a lovely loft of fabric, the cardigan (if it fits, of course, i don’t want to tempt the knitting gods) is going to be freaking GORGEOUS. srsly. i’ve also been encouraged by my lys (not having the needles i wanted, but having lovely staff) to try the magic loop method. the girl was adorable. she was like “youtube videos. you’ll learn it in two seconds and save a bundle on needles!”, so that’s good. but in looking it up, i actually came across this traveling loop method, which the girl says she “unvented”, which i think is adorable, and seems more my speed than two loops and stress. so i’m going to give it a whirl with my LURVELY chiaogoo needles (which, btw, i will be buying exclusively from now on. not only is the cable the nicest i’ve used (including addi and hiyahiya), but it’s RED! you can’t get better than that) tonight! :)

in other news, i may have added every single knitting pattern ever to my ravelry queue, and i’ve cast on for a baktus scarf in recycled sari silk yarn, which is gorgeous. despite the misgivings of one of the knitting crew at work (she did one similar and said that it made a scarf that’s annoyingly heavy), i’m going to keep plugging away on it, because, dammit, i’ve already started! plus, i’m honestly not sure what else this sari silk yarn would be nice for if not a scarf. so a scarf it is!

finally, sad news: i’m going to have to spend all weekend packing up my laundry room/crafting space/spare-spare room. and it’s all going to have to go somewhere else in the house. it’s a basement space, and we’ve got mold. :( so yeah. all the yarn, the fabric, the sewing machine, the spare couch…all has to find a new home somewhere else in the house. and no access to the sewing machine for a few weeks. thankfully christmas crafting has come and gone, and all the babies are (currently) accounted for with gifts. and mister man? he hates clutter more than anything else EVAR. it’s going to be a super awful couple of weeks of crap crammed all over the place and me maybe having no dressing room, and so him being woken up when i get up to go to work so that i can get dressed. the only upside: we rent, so we don’t have to pay for any of the cleanup ourselves. oh, and the guys said that they could work around the washer and dryer so that we could leave them in the laundry room. because really, i was NOT impressed with the idea of having to move them our of the basement and having to find somewhere else to put them in the slightest.

i know that this is bad, but don’t judge me.

i’ve never swatched before. ok, well a couple of times, but not properly. (clearly, since these garments have since been frogged...) le sigh. so now i’ve gotten some delicious yarn for christmas (malabrigo lace), and would like to make an actual sweater that fits. (i know, crazy talk. but still.) so i’ve decided that i really, really need to just bite the bullet and swatch.

problem number 1: i don’t know how to swatch properly…thankfully google’s got my back. go first result!

problem number 2: i’m knitting with lace yarn, and all i want to do is really start my project! but i persevere. and may have a swatch done sometime this week and i can cast on for reals...

and on a less whiny note: christmas crafting was a success. everyone seemed to like what they got, and there was only SLIGHT being made fun of, courtesy of my dad who got some special socks last year, since they were the first pair i'd ever knitted...

so crafting fail. spectacular fail. long story short. my stupid effing february lady sweater from a gazillion (two) years ago, FINALLY got finished, but with a dropped stitch somewhere that spidered over a HUGE area, and so i'm SO frustrated with the whole thing, that i'm going to just pull the whole thing up! take THAT february lady sweater*.

i also started a raglan sweater ages ago, but CLEARLY didn't swatch well enough (AT ALL!), and so will also be frogging that. merry christmas me!



*the pattern is actually quite, QUITE lovely, it's just not happening in this particular instance...

(detour from crafting)

but only so far as the pets, which is pretty much my secondary mandate, so i feel like that's ok.

so i bought this cat cylinder-like-bed-thing, back when we had sophie, and neither of our cats has ever shown the LEAST interest in it, which annoys me an unreasonable amount, because i think that it's pretty awesome, and i would like it if i were a cat, dammit! so i keep trotting it back out to try and make sequoia love it, because EFFING LIKE IT YOU STUPID CAT, essentially.

and we seem to have taken a turn:



but i shouldn't complain, because at least someone likes it? although i could REALLY do without the constant dirty look because REALLY, i could have thought of someone other than myself and gotten a reasonable size so that she doesn't have to curl up into her tiniest little ball to sleep IN the stupid thing...and also, her interest in it has increased the cat's interest, since he likes anything his big dog-sister is doing, which is also pretty adorable.

oh christmas tree...

not that we have one. we have a kitteh instead. but anyhow. i'm not really feeling the spirit, to be totally honest. but, i got the christmas lights up, have only one more gift to finish with, as well as one gift to finish knitting, (BOOYAH) and i'm finally DONE baking stupid cookies for the work cookie exchange. and i only burnt myself once. :)

nothing particularly crafty to report. sick of socks.

the best part of having too many projects started

is getting to see them all come together and be finished.

a bee block, which is quite nice looking, but only from a distance. this block was just awful for me, not too sure why, but i was nowhere near getting it to lay flat. :(



another bee block, which turned out much better, and had FABULOUS fabrics. i have to do something in gray and yellow!



two sets of maplelea doll blanket and pillow sets for my nieces, to go with the beds that we got them:





and i'm hoping that every day will bring something more done: a cowl, two pairs of socks, and a hat are still on the list for christmas, and are all in various stages of completion.

reasons why i should not start projects on friday evening:

1--i'm tired and consequently, and without fail, fuck them up and end up spending the better part of the evening with the seam ripper, which is NOT good times. this has been true ever since i was a little sewer on my mom's old singer in the basement of our house back in the day.

and tonight is no different. i'm nothing if not consistent.

i couldn't bear to look at another sock, and have decided to make doll blankets for my neices. i had decided on pinwheels, which means half-square triangles. which i'm totally familiar with, and love. so in looking at sizing (add 5/8". five-eigths of an inch?? GUH @ quilters! but onwards.), i found this grid pattern thinger. so easy! FRIDAY EASY!

cut my pieces. drew my grid, sew, sew, sew. snag. out of bobbin thread, fine, move on. snag: i'm an idiot. harder to get over, unfortunately. instead of these lovely half-square triangles:



i managed to make a stack of quarter-square-good-for-nothings:



and of course, the inevitable date with my seam ripper. good times.

what a bunch of whiners over here

so i had started a koolhaas for mister man, but somehow managed to screw something up about three rows back, not notice, then notice, then think "maybe it'll be ok" and cable another row, and that somehow magically didn't fix it. so i was so angry that i needed to just put it down.

but i made the mistake of telling him that the hat was for him, and he's fresh out of hats presently (he's lost them all, somehow), so everty time he sees me knitting something, he looks sad and asks if it's his hat (because he has no hat, and it's cold out). and i have to tell him again that i screwed up his nice project and still can't bring myself to look at it, but he'll have a hat soon...

so last night, it finally occurred to me that i could get my brother-in-law gifts (hats) off my needles really quickly if i just made the yarn bulkier (DUH!), but then mister man noticed that there were hats, and was all "what about MY hat, i don't have a hat..."

so now he does:



and, it was all tucked up next to his pillow this morning when i got up, so he clearly wore it to bed! it's nice to be loved. or at least for the knitting to be loved...

also, on my way to stealthily (more or less) photograph the hat in its new natural environment, the cat was also being a big whiny baby, and kept throwing himself in front of me to play:



ps--sorry for such grainy photos, not sure what my problem last night was...

i ♥ my work(place)

well, i ♥ my work too, but still. my workplace is just adorable. we've started knitting twice a week, and we're going to start a knitalong. and even though i'm at home watching columbo (for reals) and knitting with the dog curled up with me and the cat watching for his opportunity to git my yarn, i was thinking of my work knitting cuties. and it makes me happy. especially with all of our mounting christmas knitting.

knitting like a fiend

so i've finished stockpiling bibs like it's 1999 (assuming, of course that y2k had more to do with spit up than mass chaos...), and now i've moved onto the insane christmas rush. which i was determined to avoid this year, and so started knitting christmas socks (6 pairs) for stocking stuffers in august. AUGUST. so that i wouldn't be rushing like last year.

and then, the group gift for mister man's family didn't work out, and now i've got 5 more adult gifts to figure out, and four gifts for our little neices. oh my! BUT, this *did* mean that i had good reason to get to a yarn store! :D and a craft show.

hit up the ottawa guild of potters annual christmas sale. and got some fabulous wine tumblers, as well as some mugs for mister man, which he didn't expressly say that he wanted, but i wanted to get for him, so that's what he's getting. and then the girls and i hit up wabi sabi, FREAKING FINALLY. none of us had ever been, and i got the last of the yarn that i needed for the adult gifts, including a cowl, a scarf, and two boy hats.

still not sure what the girls are getting. they are 5, 7, 9 & 11, so quite a range. maybe i'll sew something, since that's faster (unless i have to have to pull it up and start again...).

so yeah. no pictures, but lots of plans. good thing that we're knitting two days a week at lunch at work. PLUS, so exciting: there is talk about starting a knitalong in the new year. i've always wanted to be a part of a knitalong, but somehow have never managed to get on board with one...

so i've been doing stuff...

i swears!

started a knitting club at work! yay! so i'm getting my christmas sock knitting all finished up nicely. huzzah! thankfully, no one on my knitting list reads my blog. teehee. :)

and i've been getting baby things done up the wazoo. stockpiling bibs like it's 1999. and then the y2k was more about spit-up and less about computers. (no picture, they weren't turning out nicely.)

and i've been baby blanket'ing it up. unfortunately, no stockpile. that's my plan for the next year since a lot of people i know are getting married and knocked up. it's a bit surreal. but it ends up with cute knits and baby blankets:





this was my first dresden plate, which i made from amy's tutorial and a pattern that i made up out of bristol board. the part about pinning it flat was ESPECIALLY helpful.





and this is my first try at a values quilt, and in the sunlight it looks like it REALLY worked out well! :) i will for sure be making another one of these...

and i'm out. (like elvis.)

ooh, i forgot! i have cute pictures of the cat (who is pretty freaking awesome when he stays away from the yarn and stops meowing in the morning) from halloween. the dog got locked in the sewing room with me all night, barking her face off, and the cat spent all night here:





because he was afraid of the barking. poor little monkey!

sharing the yarn love

i've been knitting a lot lately, and have been able to share the yarn love a LOT--we've got a knitting group at work, i've got great ladies to knit with at home, i dragged a few people to a recent fibrefest, and i'm even getting the cat and the boy into it. it turns out that in another life, the cat and i would have been fast friends, what with our mutual love of yarn. sadly, in this life: the cat is a complete a-hole who rips my yarn apart if i leave it anywhere lower than the top of the bookshelf. SIGH. i'm figuring it out, but not without frustration, sadly.

BUT, i've been getting all kinds of things finished, and even more started. the girl at the yarn store has started making fun of me for turning up so often! i've uploaded some photos, but don't really have anything interesting, since i just remembered that i forgot to photgraph the two baby quilts that i just finished.

more soon!

oh blogging...how i have missed you. same old same old, with an added whinge about my computer giving out again a bit. managed to miss blogtoberfest, which makes me a bit sad. i've also been missing writing.

but, i've been crafting up a storm, and will have tons of pics soon. :) baby things galore, and i've started christmas knitting, and i just found out that almost everyone at work is crafty too, so we might start a lunch-time knitting club, which i think would be simply divine!

all for now, mostly a post for myself to assuage some of the guilt and get myself back here.

i am up to date on all of my committments, and am ahead on the baby gear that i've been knitting. have a ton of bibs to make, but they're easy to whip up. and i've got a whole weekend to ease up and do not much. and by "not much", i mean "a whole lot of crafting". it's going to be great.

ho.ly.hell.

that's how i'm feeling. i've been traveling a lot for my new job (as if a new job wasn't busy enough, but i've been on three trips in the last month and a half, and have another one coming up in june), and i'm tired. not to mention unkepmt and not-at-all crafty.

PLUS, it's wedding central here, and frankly, that's tiring me out too. i don't feel like i've had any time to just be at home. and we got a new kitten (who is freaking ADORABLE, even when i want to kill him at 5.30 this morning when he was trying to play with my hand. with his claws.), and he didn't want to come say hello when i got home last night, and he's gotten bigger, and the dog is all freaked out that i've been gone so much (maybe this time she won't come home...? every time i leave the front door), and i haven't been seeing the boy, and the sewing machine is WAY at the bottom of the list, which makes me sad.

but, not to be too whiny: i've seen some amazing stuff, and my job is challenging and great, and i'm thinking that i might even like owning a cat. once he learns to sleep through the night, and i train the boy to not get mad at me when i tell the cat to shut up in the middle of the night.

i think that i might have some pictures to post tomorrow. because i will have time tomorrow to craft a bit (YAY!) and also to FINALLY upload pictures from my camera. :)

thanks for listening to my whining, internets.

kind of quilting bee fail recovery...

SO, i'm not quite so behind on my bee blocks. although EVERY block that i tried today was some kind of fail. possibly something to do with being home sick for the last FIVE days, and still not being 100%. at least, that's the story i'm telling. i finally, FINALLY had some energy back, and thought that it would be good to catch up on some sewing. not catch up on laundry or house cleaning, no, no. the sewing machine. :)

first up was what i thought would be the easiest, a monkey wrench and a shoo-fly block:



if you notice, there's just one block there. yep. i managed to run out of fabric. and i swear that i followed the directions *exactly*! :( off to an excellent start.

on to an epic block fail. my genius...cut the fabric for paper piecing and THEN realised that i couldn't just mirror everything, because fabric has a right side and a wrong side. enter S,M,S and some more fabric, and the block FINALLY came together, althoguh not without some seam picking because i sewed the blocks together backwards. BUT, i REALLY like the block, and the fabrics Catherine picked were just gorgeous.



then on to what should not have been a block fail since all it consisted of was sewing scraps on a pre-cut template. but there was seam-picking here as well, and i'm not sure that i love the end result. i think that i didn't do a super job on the fabrics, but she wanted it to be scrappy, and no matter what i did, it won't match what everyone else did, and that's the point, right? or something. but i *do* love the spiderweb blocks, SO cute! i will definitely be doing this block for something. something small-ish, i think...



and then, since i was on a roll, i started cutting for some pillowcases for our throw pillows to go with our new couch. didn't get very far since i only had so much of our fabric pre-washed (since i wanted to test washing the upholstery fabric, and only wanted to possibly ruin some of it, not all of it). they're going to be cute!

and now for the best news: i think that i'm feeling well enough and sounding well enough that i can re-integrate with society tomorrow! :D my shadow will be sad, since she's spent the last 5 days napping with me and insisting that we dog park RIGHTNOW...hard life.

spring to finish...?

jacquie's hosting another "blank-to-finish", and i'm usually pretty enthusiastic. but i'm not today. i should be, but i'm sick, and i haven't been sewing much, and i'm behind in my bees, and yeah. i have one top that needs to be sandwiched and quilted, one wedding quilt that needs to be start-to-finished, a baby blanket ditto, and now two sets of quilting bee blocks from my lovely bee'ers that need to have something done with them. i'm not sure why i'm not just independently wealthy so that i can spend all day at my sewing machine, srsly.

plus, my little blog is terribly neglected.

also...

i accidentally effed up the stupid formatting for my stupid blog, and that's at least half the reason why i haven't been here at all. SO.ANNOYED.

oh.mai.hell.

so i've been ages. and i haven't really been present here at all. or a lot present in craftiness. but i'm here for the moment. i've had a bit of crafting sucess. i'm at least monstly caught up with my bees:















and i've been getting some baby stuffs done...




these bibs are SO tiny! i can't believe that i know people who are going to be in charge of people who are going to be small enough to fit into these bibs.





and i'm getting some wedding stuff done for my bride. and i just realised that next month is my month for one of my bees, so i'm going to have to start cutting up fabric and making out instructions. exciting, but scary!