Bad Blogger!

I've been terrible about blogging since the summer ended.
I finally finished my Swallowtail, it is currently soaking in Soak, waiting to be blocked. I am such a goof and forgot to get a picture before I dropped it in the water, but it measured at 37" across the top and 16" down the center. We'll see how it ends up. It was a little smaller than I'd wanted, but I'm hoping it will block larger.

I have quite a few WIP's going right now. I'm finishing up a crocheted granny-square afghan for my mother-in-law. I need to just sit down and get to work and it will be finished. I've been joining the squares as I go, which was a brilliant idea. I hate seaming, so it will be nice to only have ends to sew in as I finish instead of piecing the whole darn thing together.
I'm also working on the Woodland Scarf. I really like the pattern. Once I "got" what it should look like, memorizing the chart was a snap. I haven't even looked at it for the past few repeats, which is nice. I don't have any pictures up yet, but I will soon.
The last two WIP's are a diagonal baby blanket, and my two-at-a-time socks. Both are coming along, but barely. I was so excited to finish the Swallowtail, and need to get moving on the afghan, so they have sort of been put on the back-burner.

Well, I think it is time to get out the pins and block this sucker!

Making A Dent?

I really want to get some new yarn and start a few Christmas presents, but first I have to make a dent in my WIPs! I picked up my ripple afghan again, and am just about out of yarn. I'd like to think that by tonight the body will be finished and I'll just need to add the edging tomorrow afternoon. The diagonal baby blanket I'm making with Crayon is taking FOREVER. A stitch is added every row so it just gets slower and slower as I go. I also discovered I'm going to need approximately 6.4 skeins to make it the size I want, and I only ordered 6, so I need to get one more. I think I'm going to get white instead of the same blue so I don't have to worry about dyelots, then it will have a diagonal white stripe in the middle. It should work out ok, I guess we'll see!
I also have my socks going right now, plus my dad's deer. I've sort of given up on the deer - my brother joked that I should make the body the neck instead, and then mount it on a piece of wood. Slightly morbid, but something my dad would think is funny. Oh, plus the Sweet Dreams throw. I'm thinking of making my MIL the same throw in colors to match their new living room, but I'm not even 1/3 of the way done with mine, so that might be too ambitious. I just have too many different projects going at once! I really want to start a shawl, but clearly I have other things to do first :)
Since every post needs a picture, here is the most recent shot of the ripple:

Done!

I finally finished my sisters blanket, just in time to give it to her this past weekend when she visited. It was a complete surprise (yay, I handled keeping a secret!) for her to use when she moves into her new apartment today. Hopefully she'll get lots of use out of it.
It ended up taking around 2.5 skeins of each color of Loops and Threads Impeccable. I didn't measure it before I gave it to her, but it was probably around 4'x5.5'. A good snuggling on the couch size. I used the pattern I found on a leaflet at Michael's and followed it for the squares and color placement. Then I did a border of black sc, white hdc, and blue dc. The squares are seamed together using a sc join through BOTH loops of the edges.
Not only am I done, but I was the first person to finish one and post it on Ravelry, so my picture is the main picture for the pattern :) How fun!
Up next - socks! I am using the Lifestyle Toe Up Socks patern from Charisa Martin Cairn that I found on Ravelry. Really, the thing that drew me to it was the no-swatch needed aspect. It takes me so gosh darn long to make a 4"x4" square on sz 3 (or less) needles, I figured by the time I had it done I could be halfway done with socks! So far, I love it. Judy Becker's Brilliant Cast On is, well, brilliant. It worked so much better than all of the other methods I'd been trying. As for now, I'm just knitting one sock on two circulars, but I can see how next time it will be really easy to do two at a time instead. Ah, pretty Knit Picks yarn, already made into a toe for a sock! So excited! In fact, I'm so pumped, it's time to work on it some more. I'm doing a K2P2 rib for the instep that will carry up the leg, and I think I'll finish the cuff with a k1p1. We'll see.
Here's a picture, on my foot :)

Super Secret Afghan Project

My sister still doesn't know about the GVSU afghan I'm making for her, but she's visiting this weekend, so I'm working on getting it done. All it needs is a few more ends sewn in, and I'm set! It has made me decided I'm tired of working on afghans with lots of different squares. It is way too time consuming seaming and weaving in ends.
I'm ready for something that is all one color! I ordered more yarn from KnitPicks yesterday, plus some new needles. I picked out 6 skeins of Crayon in Azure to make a diagonal knit baby blanket. There are (at least) 4 babies coming up that need things made for them, so odds are at least one is a boy, right? I just fell in love with the color and had to get it. It helps that it was only $1.99 a skein - this blanket could cost me a total of $12, which is even cheaper than the ones I made with the $0.99 yarn! I also picked out some sock yarn. I need to practice a bit before I get it, but I found a tutorial on the figure-8 cast on, and think I might be able to do this after all. Finally, I ordered two skeins of laceweight to make a shawl with. With my cousin's wedding coming up in October, I figured I could make a shawl to wear over one of my dresses to keep me warm. I'm planning on Swallowtail for now, but that could change. My plan is to practice a few repeats with sportweight and big needles first, so I can make sure I know what I'm doing.
I just finished uploading all of our vacation pictures to the computer, time to get them online!
Mr. Giraffe says goodbye!

It's Time To Frog!

I started making another Starghan for my mom to give at a baby shower, but for the life of me couldn't get it to lie flat. Since it's acrylic yarn, I knew I couldn't block it, plus it just DID not want to be flat. At all.

While deliberating, I started making a Ripple Afghan. While researching patterns on Ravelry, I came across a CAL that had started ripples the day before! Yay! That was all I needed to get started. My leftover skeins from the Starghan are clearly not going to be enough yarn, so it looks like I've figured out what to do with the Starghan. Time to rip!
I have a lot more in the Mint colorway than I do Duckie, so I decided to make just a thin yellow stripe every 5 rows. I like it so far - it's different, and doesn't look like the 70's Ripple afghan from my gramma's basement :) That's coming next, with all of the orangey/redy/peachy yarn donated from Bumpa's sister!
(All of my GVSU afghan squares are done, most ends woven in, just sitting there in a big stack watiting, patiently, to be put together. Ugh)
(Oh, and Sweet Dreams? Two strips are also patiently waiting in the box for me to make four more and stitch them together. Someday.)

WIP

I am really, really terrible at finishing things before starting a new project. After talking to the hubs the other night, I need to use up some of my stash yarn before I will not feel guilty about another KnitPicks order. I have a bunch of $0.99 yarn I got from Michael's before they'd changed over yarn departments, so it's time to get to work on using some of it up. Really, I should finish the GVSU afghan and the deer first, but I'm at a stalemate with the deer and I'm SO BORED of making squares. I started my next Starghan even though it doesn't need to be done until September (I think). Since the last one was so quick, I figured it would make a significant dent in my stash fairly quickly. I guess we'll see, though.

The deer is giving me issues. I made a foot following the same thought process as the body (using sc instead of knitting and modifying the # of rows as I go to keep the shape somewhat on) and it absolutely did not work. It was very awkward looking. This means I'm going to have to be more inventive with it, which also means more thinking and less soap-watching. I'm not in the mood for that right now, so I guess the deer will be hibernating until I am feeling up to the challenge.

The Sweet Dreams throw is also taking a quick nap. I discovered that I have been knitting wrong my entire life - I was wrapping the yarn backwards when doing a knit stitch (but correctly when purling), so all of my stitches have been twisted. Luckily the Suri Dream yarn is pretty forgiving, so you can't even tell, but now I'm torn. Should I make the next 4 strips correctly, or should I stick to the backwards-ness for this project and THEN correct my stitches on the next project? I've noticed that it changes my gauge ever so slightly (just a bit looser the correct way), so I'm pretty sure I'll continue incorrectly so I don't have to worry about very differently sized strips, and I know they will all behave (stretch and lie) the same way.

Oops

I didn't get the deer done in time for Father's Day. As you can see, I have the head, body, and antlers, but no appendages. I did give it to my dad like this, but told him I'd finish it for when we visit on the 4th. It doesn't look like the reindeer in the booklet AT ALL, but I'm pretty happy with it - it looks much more like a Whitetail, which it's supposed to be anyway.

I've also been making progress on my sister's GVSU afghan. I'm on the last set of 16, and hopefully those will be wrapped up by the end of the week. Although, today is Wednesday, so that is sounding less likely. . .Since I am an extremely ADD yarn-er, I also had to start making my Luxurious throw with the Suri Dream yarn I just got from KnitPicks. It is lovely, lovely, lovely. The only problem is with my gauge. With size 10 1/2 needles, it wasn't nearly wide enough, so I went up a few times and wound up with a 13. Now the strip is WIDE enough, but it is much longer than it needs to be. This makes me nervous that I won't have enough yarn to finish. . .I guess worst case scenario means I'll have one less strip, and it will be more of a lapghan than a throw.

It's time for One Life to Live and folding laundry, then more GVSU squares!

Just in Time

The hubs and I were talking the other night about how we need to work on saving money. He eats out pretty frequently (I would guess 3-4 lunches a week), and I tend to buy yarn, so we decided we need to go on a fast food/yarn diet.
LUCKILY last week I saw things about a sale at KnitPicks, and ordered 9 balls of Suri Dream yarn to make a throw. It came in the mail yesterday, and I am in heaven. I am so excited to start knitting this throw - only one thing in the way. I'm supposed to be making a deer for my dad for Father's Day. The original pattern, from Jean Greenhowe, is knit. I tried to start it over and over, but for some reason can't get a handle on it. I'm just not very good at increasing, I guess. I can do k2tog to DECREASE, but. . .I dunno what I'm doing wrong. I've tried a few different methods and it just isn't pretty.
Anyway, a few nights ago I decided it was time to experiment a little. Instead of knitting, I'm attempting to crochet the pattern using sc. Everywhere it says knit or purl, I sc. Cast on 30 stitches? Chain 30 and sc in each of them. Increase 1 in every stitch? I sc twice in every stich. Sc2tog for k2tog. So far, it seems to be working ok. My dimensions are a little off (I think the body is a little longer and thinner than it was supposed to be), but I made an antler and it looks ok so far, and that is the most important part. We'll see how it goes!
Until I'm done with it, I'll just be daydreaming about my new yarn (and needles! I got some Harmony needles because I'd heard good things about the sharp points!). My last batch of new yarn until I find SOMETHING to do with my stash. At least some of my stash. Once he sees it moving along, I'm sure I can sneak some new yarn in there :)

Things I'm Bad At

1. Updating my blog
2. Finishing the Waterlily Afghan
3. Staying away from fast food
That's about it. Well, I'm sure I'm bad at other things, but they aren't coming to mind right now :) I've put the Waterlily on hold (with only 4 blocks left to go!) to make a Starghan real quick for a baby shower my mom is going to. I found yarn super cheap ($0.99!) at Michael's, so I was very inspired to get it done. I'm getting closer to the end, so when I'm finished with that (by tomorrow in order to get it mailed in time) I'll go back to the original afghan. I've even started piecing it together, so it shouldn't be much longer until that one is done too. Finally! Then I can look into quilting with my new birthday sewing machine.
I should be either reading for book club tomorrow night, or working on the Starghan, so no more blogging for this girl!

Closer to the End

I re-counted my blocks the other night and realized I had 63 done instead of 53. How exciting! I'm getting closer and closer to finishing my Waterlily Pond! I have no idea what my next big project is going to be. I keep looking through my 200 Crochet blocks book and seeing all sorts of blocks I'd like to make, but I know I also want to work on knitting a pair of socks, and maybe some more hats. Plus I have the stuffed (rein)deer to make for my dad for Father's Day.
Better not get ahead of myself - it's a busy week, so I probably won't have much time for yarn work, so this thing could potentially run into May. I just want to finish :)

Almost done. . .

I'm pretty excited to be almost done with my lacy crosses. I counted the squares last night and realized I had one more than I thought - I'm on 25/28 now. Yay! I've gotten pretty fast at making them, so hopefully by this afternoon I'll be done. Then it's on to my pink squares - Alhambra. I'm not looking forward to those - I tried to make one about a week ago, when I was getting tired of green, and failed miserably. I'm missing a step somewhere. I think I've gotten good enough at interpreting patterns/looking at pictures to figure out where I keep screwing up, but I just haven't dedicated the time to it yet. I'm sure once I get it going I'll fly through all 28 of those squares just like I did the lacy crosses.
I'm already excited for my next project, too. I've never used circular knitting needles OR dpns, and the hat I want to make requires both. I found some Thick & Quick on clearance at Michael's yesterday. It's not the greatest color, but I figured it would be good to learn on, that way when it is all misshapen and full of mistakes, I won't be annoyed. Then I'll get a better color (or yarn, even!) and make it again for real. I think it is going to be a good idea to try big dpns with big yarn first, then I'll be ready to attempt socks. I want to spend the whole summer knitting socks, crocheting sweet afgans, and basically playing with yarn. The joy of being a teacher :)