Scallop Scarf Update

It's been a while since I posted! :(

The scarf is about 25 - 30 inches long now. 25 if I don't play with it. 30+ if I tugged it a bit.

I've decided that I'm going to keep it. I can't see giving it away since it's the first project that I've worked on without handing the needles to my mom when I made a mistake. Pulling it out and reworking it hasn't been fun, but I've certainly learned a lot from it.

I plan to make another scarf after this one is finished. I have some purple yarn (the stuff I used for my wrist warmers) that I want to knit with. So, I'm going to make a scarf for Brian's cousin. She loves purple and looks gorgeous in it. Me, not so much.

I have a pattern all picked out. I found it on ravelry.com. The project is in my queue already. I can't wait. :)

"Knit Nut"

I went on a quest for local yarn shops. My quest led me to a woman's house. She had owned a yarn shop in Long Beach and when she retired, she moved all her yarn into her house and garage (and a storage unit somewhere).

She has TONS of yarn and she'll sell most of it for 25 cents an ounce. I got two skeins of wool sock yarn, three skeins of Egyptian cotton yarn, two skeins of "Gelato cotone" yarn, and two cones of yarn for $24.

If you want to go see her, she's in Huntington Beach. Just call her first so she can put your name in with the guard at the gate. Here is the information: Knit Nut.

Looking for Stole/Shawl pattern

While entering my yarn stash on my Ravelry account, I saw my Bernat Boa yarn and thought how nice it would be to have a classy looking shawl/stole made out of it.

I have three skeins (mini-skeins?) of that yarn in black and 2.5 in Phoenix (orange).

I need a pattern.

Any suggestions? Please post a comment.

Update

The scarf is around 21 inches long. I didn't work on it much yesterday. Instead I was crocheting some projects that will be a gift.

Brian said he would take the octopus and give it a good home on his desk at work. :)

FO: dishcloths

These will be part of a gift. I got the patterns from lionbrand.com. However, the patterns were single colored. I added everything that is in red yarn. The one with the border didn't even have a border in the pattern.


If you have a Lion Brand login, here are the patterns that I based these on:
left: Back Loop Stitch Washcloth
center: Sedge Stitch Washcloth
right: Double Crochet Washcloth

Scarf Progress

The scarf is coming along well. It is 14 inches long, 7 of which were done today. The pattern calls for 59 inches. So, theoretically, it should be finished in about a week.

I had to frog back twice today. Kept getting the pattern appearing on the wrong side.

Still haven't figured out what I'll do with it when it's finished. Being wool, I dont think I could wear it. Since my mom has about the same allergies I do, she's out, too. I thought about giving it to my brother, but it's a bit too feminine.

Any suggestions? Add a comment.

Looking at my scarf yarn...

I'm not sure I have enough yarn to make a 59 inch scarf.

It's hard to tell how much yarn I've used from the first skein. But I would guess somewhere between a third and half of the skein has gone into the 9 inches of the scarf.

I started with 2 full skeins, so hopefully the scarf will be long enough when I'm finished.

Ravelry.com!

I got my Ravelry.com invite! :) yay!

Ravelry.com is a website where you can store information about your projects (past, present, and future), your yarn stash, your patterns, your needles/hooks, etc.

You can also see what other people are making, see pictures of their FOs, and talk to them about their projects. It should be handy.

My username is Blamdarot.

My First Frog!

While working on my scarf, I suddenly realized that I had skipped a row and the result was that the front design was appearing on the back of the scarf!!

So, I looked up how to frog on the interweb, and nervously set to work.

Long story short: it worked. I used some fingering yarn and a tapesty needle to keep from losing the stitches. (I found the suggestion on the Internet.)

The scarf us about nine inches long. Fifty inches to go!! Whoo!!

I'm allergic!!!

It appears that I am highly allergic to wool.

I've been working on my scarf and I decided to sniff it. (Wool smells nice and the yarn I'm using is 20% wool. Dont look at me like that.)

Each time I sniffed it, I sneezed immediatly and my left ear got itchy. (I'm weird. When I have an allergy attack, the insides of my ears get unbearably itchy.)

This is a very sad allergy for a yarn lover to have. :(

Frogged the Scallop Scarf

I frogged the three inches I had done on the Scallop Scarf. Got back to about the same point in a little over an hour, so I'm glad I did it.

Now, to figure out how to tell what the last row I did was so I can tell where I am in the pattern....

EDIT: 2/21/08
I've got about 5 inches done now. I sent Mindi the picture of it asking her if it was looking the way it was supposed to. She said that it was, but that I had taken a picture of the backside. :) oopsie!

Mouth on the octopus?

The pattern for the octopus says to sew a mouth on. But the mouth of an octopus is at the apex of it's tentacles. So, I'm thinking I'll leave it as it is.

Anyone have an opinion? Please post in the comments. :)

New Project: Scallop Scarf

The scallop scarf is underway! :)



After practicing a bit on my UFO scarf, I realised that I was casting on too tightly and then knitting far too tightly, as well. So, I took a deep breath. Relaxed a bit. And started again.

It's coming along decently. There are bunch of mistakes: I missed a row of knit, I keep ending up with one too many stitches on my needle, and I can't imagine that my stitches are even. I'm hoping that the scarf will be a testimony to the improvement of my knitting. One end a mess, and one end gorgeous and a slow transition through the rest of the piece.

Oh! and I love the color of the yarn I'm using for it. It's mostly blue with specs of green, pink, purple, and a darker blue through it. It's beautiful. However, it's Lion's Brand (Wool-Ease) and the plys are hard to keep together. This is the second time I've tried using Lion's Brand for something and I can't say I'm impressed.

EDIT: One last thing.
I started being able to read my stitches while they are on the needle. I can tell the difference between the regular stitches and the YOK1 stitches. I think I could tell a K2tog stitch, too, but I'm not certain.

However, after the stitches aren't on the needle any more, I can't tell what they are. Aw, well. Baby-steps. :)

FO: Amigurumi Octopus!

I finished the Octopus tonight.



Sewing on the tentacles was tricky. It didn't seem like they would fit correctly. And I couldn't get them lined up with the eyes the way I wanted them to be. But they are on. It looks decent.

Not sure what I'll do with it now that it's finished. I really have no room for a purple octopus. Maybe Brian would like it for his desk at work. He has mentioned that he doesn't have enough toys on it.

Knitting is hard

I haven't done any knitting in a few years, so I'm quite out of practice. Especially when you consider what a noob I was when I was knitting.

So, after I finished crocheting the last two tentacles, I tried to knit the scallop scarf pattern that Mindi gave to me last Saturday.

This turned out to be an exercise in futility since I don't know how to cast on. I tried it a few times, but couldn't do whatever magic my mom uses to cast on. Then I watched some demonstrations on youtube.com and I managed to find a method that I could get to work for me.

However, once I had cast-on, I kept messing up the stitches and dropping them all over the place (even the standard knit and purl). I must have torn it out and cast it back on three or four times before my hands started to cramp and I gave up.

Aw, well. Hopefully I'll have time to call mom sometime this week and have her help me through casting-on. Sadly, I doubt I'll have time to work on it again before the weekend.

Progress on Octopus

Most of the body is made. I need to go buy stuffing before I can finish that part.

Six of the tentacles are complete. I need to make two more. I expect to finish them up later today.

Then I need to get the stuffing, finish the body, stuff the tentacles, attach the tentacles, and add some eyes.

Mindi's Knitting Patterns

Last night I saw Mindi (an avid knitter) at a party. She gave me some knitting patterns to try to help me learn the knitting craft. I had emailed her describing how much I can do (knit and purl, baby) and had asked her to recommend some patterns or a book to get me going onto harder stuff. She gave me a pattern for a scarf that will teach me to knit multiple stitches together, a hat that will teach me to do "short rows", and a dishcloth.

I will need to call my mom and have her help me cast-on over the phone. She does it in this odd way that want to preserve. I say "odd" because I have yet to see her method on any of the tutorials I've found online.

She does some very simple thing to get loops on the needle while leaving a long tail. Then she uses the tail to knit into the loops on the needle. And that's her cast-on.

If it turns out I can't get that to work for me, I'll probably go with the "Italian Cast-On". I saw a tutorial on it and gave it a try. I almost managed it, but it will take a bit more practice.

Amigurumi Octopussy

Last night I started an Amigurumi Octopus.


I have the body mostly done and two tentacles complete. I couldn't finish the body because I didn't have anything to stuff it with. I need to hit the craft store for stuffing (for this project) and some double-ended knitting needles (for the condom project).

If you have a Lion Brand login, here is the pattern: amigurumi Octopus.

FO: Cat Mat

Two years ago this past New Years Eve, I started crocheting an afghan without a pattern. I started with a granny square, and then started adding to the outer edge of the granny square with different stitches I found on the internet. I learned treble stitches, cross-stitches, etc.

Mid-January, I put the project aside and never went back to it. Yesterday, I tied off the end and gave it to Brian's girl-cat. She seemed to like Tyler's Baby Blanket so much, I figured she would like a blanket of her own. When I came out to the living room this morning, she was sleeping on top of it. :)


When I went out to take the picture of her, she was more in the mood for playing. So, I had to recruit Brian into helping me keep her on the mat long enough to snap the photo.

You can see how curly it is all around the edges. I think I was adding too many stitches in the corners. It was definitely a project that had to be ended. It couldn't become the blanket I had envisioned and it couldn't be frogged with all those tied off ends. I'm glad I found someone to appreciate it. :)

FO: Hooded Baby Afghan

I finished the "Hooded Baby Afghan" at 3:00am yesterday morning. Here is a picture of my coconut-pirate wearing it:



I really like this blanket. It's not too fancy, so it's less likely to end up unused in a drawer. When I send it to Nikki, I'm going to include the title of the pattern and the washing instructions.

If you have a Lion Brand login, here is the free pattern: Hooded Baby Afghan

Future Projects

See sidebar for updated listing.

Yarn User's Dictionary

Here is my personal dictionary of new slang words (to be edited as needed):

stash: the "collection" of yarn kept by someone that knits, crochets, or uses yarn for some other purpose.

frog/frogging: to pull out your stitches when knitting or doing crochet work.

UFO: Un-Finished Object. Refers to a project that isn't finished and isn't being worked on.

FO: Finished Object. Refers to a project that has been completed.

Amigurumi: (from Wikipedia) the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. (added 2/17/08)

WIP: Work In Progress. A project that you are currently working on. Some people set limits for themselves, such as: "It's only a WIP if I have worked on it in the last 30 days. Otherwise it is a UFO." (added 3/21/08)

***Urban dictionary: I added the definition for "stash" and "frog" to Urban Dictionary. UFO was already in there. :)

Podcasts!

I'm an avid podcast listener. I started by listening to Rachel Maddow and then included NPR. Lately, I've started listening to podcasts about yarn, knitting, and yarn projects. I started with YarnCraft (the Lion Brand podcast) because it was the first one I had heard about.

In one of their episodes, they talked about related podcasts that their listeners had mentioned during a poll they had done. So, that led me to downloading about half a dozen shows.

Yesterday, I listened to the first show or two of each of these while I drove to school, walked to class, and sat around waiting for a class to start. My favorite so far: Stash and Burn.

Stash and Burn is almost a support group for dealing with your stash. It's two woman talking about trips to yarn shows, "yarn crawls" (like a pub-crawl but to yarn shops), the projects they are working on, their UFOs, their destashing efforts, etc. They are very amusing to listen to.

Another I liked was Lime and Violet, but it didn't seem as good as I'd been led to believe it would be. Maybe because it was the first episode. Perhaps it gets better as they get more practice podcasting.

There was another that annoyed me while I was listening, but I've come away with some interesting images in my head. So, I'll have to listen to that one a few more times. What was annoying was that the woman that did most of the speaking had an annoying voice and sounded like a pushy sort of over-friendly type person. While the quiet woman had a voice I could listen to for weeks and not get tired of hearing it.

I'll do an update to my podcast preferences after I've had more time to listen to them.

One thing I've found is that there is brand new slang to learn! Which is exciting for me because I'm such a word lover. My next post will be a dictionary.

FO: Wrist Warmers

I finished a pair of wrist warmers:



I started these on Saturday, February 9th and finished them Monday evening. I used this pattern: Fingerless Mittens. However, I changed row 8 to be:

Row 8: Hdc in BLO first 20 hdc of row 7 , chain 5, skip 5 hdc and hdc in BLO of remaining 9 hdc of row 7. Chain 2 turn.

I made this change because I plan to wear these when I'm at the computer and I didn't want them to cover my fingers at all. The yarn I used was very fluffy, so it was tricky to crochet them with G-sized hook: I had to guess where my stitches were. But they came out great and I'm really happy with them.

They stretched a bit more than I was expecting them to, but that's no fault of the pattern.

Project Binder

On my way home, I thought of a great way to keep track of past projects.

A project binder.

I'm going to get a binder and those inserts with pockets. Then I will include a picture of each completed project, a sample of the yarn I used, the yarn label (whenever possible), and the print out of the pattern.

Now, to find time to go to the office supply store...

Goals and Resolutions

I learned to crochet a couple years ago (Christmas of 2005). My mom taught me. Recently, I've been crocheting a lot and I realised that my crocheting projects are going the same route as all my other craft projects: I start a project, then set it aside and start a new one.

Enter Resolution #1: finish your projects!

That's easier said than done, so I've started this blog in hopes that it helps me see what I've got going and encourages me to finish what is started. How else can I expect to get that feeling of accomplishment? :)

I then started thinking about past projects and found that it was getting hard to remember them all. So, I want to start taking pictures of my completed projects and post them on my website. But I don't have time to update my website as often as I plan to finish projects, so I started this blog to help with:

Resolution #2: keep track of what you've finished!

and

Resolution #3: keep photo records of the progress made on current projects!

I figure Resolution #3 will help keep me motivated to finish something. Seeing a project grow in the weekly pictures should help. When the project is in your lap and it seems like you've been doing the same set of stitches for an eternity, it's difficult to see how much you are accomplishing. Hopefully the weekly photos will help me see my progress and keep me excited about each project.

Soon I will post pics of my past projects.

Current Projects

Crochet:
- baby blanket (started spring of 2007)
- sweater-like poncho (started spring of 2007) I think I need to start over. The yarn is broken even before I've used it....

Cross-stitch:
- a large tiger in a jungle (started in fall of 2001)
- a Chinese Character (started in fall of 2001)

Knit:
- a scarf <-- many errors, should probably start over (started in spring of 2006??)

Why Start This Blog?

Hello, there! :)

FAQ1: Why are you starting this blog?
A: To keep track of the crochet projects I do this year. I want to keep records about what I'm working on, how my progress is. I plan to post pictures of my projects about once a week.

FAQ2: How often will you post?
A: I'd like to post once per day, but with schoolwork and housework interfering, I will probably only get time to post a couple times a week.

FAQ3: Why an online blog and not a notebook or journal?
A: I don't want to carry another item around with me. I currently carry my school bag (with laptop), all the stuff from my purse, a Nalgene bottle of water, and a crochet project. However, I have internet everywhere I go thanks to the laptop and my iPhone. So, it will be easy for me to post online and difficult for me to write in a journal. Also, I have a bad hand that makes it much easier to type than to write.

I guess that's enough for now. I plan to post again tonight with a list of my projects. This means I'll have to dig through my supplies and find them all. I'm sure I've completely forgotten about a few.

Cheers!