So Many WIPs...

This is my desk this morning. It's a mess of wonderful crochet goodness. I have so much on the go right now. I can't decide what to work on! I really can't wait until I have conquered this finishing challenge and have a reasonable amount of WIPs.

(Also, aren't my mug and ipod case just so cute? I love them!)

This tanktop I finished ages ago, but I never actually took any pictures of it. This morning I went on a photo taking binge and finally got a shot of it. I love it. It's super comfy and flattering. I have the same yarn in a blue/green mix and I'm planning on making another one that's basically the same.

I got a picture of this long time WIP- it's another tank top done in this totally crazy rainbow ribbon yarn.

These arm warmers are just about done, I only need to weave in the ends. I think I might line them with fleece, too. The multicoloured yarn is Sakura Silk I won at Pucks N Purls this year, and the lovely red is Noro Retro I got at my stitching group's 2011 Christmas party from my awesome friend Alia.

I also finished this project- another one started after the challenge, though. These socks are done sideways. Other than maybe needing a bit of knitting elastic at the top to keep them up better, they are super comfy. I love the pooling that happened!

I put my first Colourmart order in and got these beautiful cones of yarn. They're various combinations of silk, merino and cashmere. I was hoping they'd be white enough for my veil (they all looked white on the site and had no colour info...) but sadly, even the white looking one at the front is distinctly cream.
I'll still use them, and they were still a great deal, but I was disappointed. I will probably try dying them, though, which should be fun.

Luckily we carry one of the brightest white laceweight wool yarns I've ever seen at work. I suppose I should have just gotten this in the first place, but where's the fun in that? So I've started my veil with it. I'm using Aiobhe Ni's Honeymeade shawl. I love her tunisian lacework. I'm definitely adding beads to the picot edging.

I am really excited about this sweater. It's my own design, and it's gonna be so comfy! The pockets will be generous, and if I have enough yarn I will be making a hood on it. I mussed up the first part of the cabling by using dc/tc instead of hdc/dc, but it'll block out and there was no way I was pulling back that many hours of work!

I'm pleased that the way I did the pockets worked out, too. I did the sections before, after and in the middle of the pockets separately and then joined them in one row like a yoke. When I make the pockets, I'll join them with a round of sc or sl st that will give the pockets a nice even look.  

I'll be making it a zip-up cardi. I love the ease of zip ups, and having a classy handmade zip up... I can already tell it will be a go-to sweater.

I've been busy doing some spinning, too. I finished this super fast, really fun thick n thin merino. It's just a little skein, but I had fun making it and it was a nice in between project from things I was trying to spin really fine and even.

This is the new project. I'm finally starting on my lovely merino/firestar in it's fantastically bright rainbowness!
I unfolded the two batts and refolded them together. I want to make one long, continuous rainbow. I'm hoping I have enough for a shawl or a small cardigan. I'm really pleased with how fine I'm able to spin it. I'm spinning much more fine than I ever have before. I thought I couldn't do it, but it turns out I was just really nervous about spinning that fine. It seemed waaay too thin! I had a bit of trouble with part of it last night, but mostly it's gone well.

Speaking of yarn I've made, I've been trying to figure out what I want to make with my pretty silk. Something nice to go around the neck and keep me just a bit warmer inside, that's all I've figured out. I started this little shell pattern yesterday and I'm not sure about it, but it looks kinda promising.

 

Also, I made these the other night for dinner and OH MY GOD they were SO good. I keep eating them long after I was too full. They're pretzel rolls, and they tasted just like soft pretzels. Mmmm...
I got the recipe here: http://une-bonne-vie.blogspot.ca/2010/08/pretzel-rolls.html

Now off to get ready for the afternoon of DND with my friends! What project to work on, that's the question...

Quick Update

I finished more projects! This cardigan got pulled out more times than I want to remember. It had more ends than I'd like to think about and it just generally conspired to be a right pain for me.
But it's done! It's done and I love it! It's cozy and soft and I love how it fits. I'm really pleased that I got the fronts of the sleeves to line up with the front, the buttons I found in my stash were great and the button band is sitting pretty nicely.
I'm pleased that I finally have one of the big projects knocked off the list.

This is another of the smaller projects. It's a simple shawl pattern I wrote up to be a sample for work. I really like how the dark grey sets of the fantastic bright pink.

Yesterday we had some friends over for a session of Dungeons and Dragons. When you get a bunch of really creative people who are quick witted and imaginative together to play a game with basically no rules, it ends up as something really awesome. We always just about keel over laughing once or twice, and the bad puns and great jokes that get made are amazing.
I spent the day working on a super comfy sideways slip stitch sock. I'm really excited about it. I've long wanted a pattern for the perfect crochet "vanilla" socks- something simple and really comfortable. I think this might be it. I'm almost halfway through the first sock and very excited.
 
I've actually been doing some animating. I'm trying to get a really outstanding piece to add to my demo reel so I can apply for some jobs. I've been so frustrated lately. I like my job, but I feel really stuck in it right now. I don't want to work a retail job forever. I want a career.
Getting back into animating again has reminded me that I really do actually like it. Somehow I'd convinced myself that I just wanted to do it for a job, and that I really didn't care for it that much outside of being happy to do it for pay. That's not true, though. I like it. I find it satisfying and enjoyable- it's no crochet, but what are you going to do.  Nothing else is crochet for me.
Bringing something to life is challenging, yes, but I'm enjoying that challenge.
It's also scaring the crap out of me. Choosing the line to animate intimidated me. Opening up the program and finding a rig to work with scared me. Sketching my key poses and posing the rigs into them terrified me. Now starting to work on timing and breakdowns of poses is my next hurdle. This one I am going to get to today. No more delaying. I want to start making real progress. I want to start taking control of my career and doing something good for myself.
Alright, enough talking about it. Time to get back to work.

Finishing Challenge:
Blue Cowl
Block Party Mitts
Silk Spinning 
Granny Shawl
Colourwork Cardigan

Two More FOs

I finally finished a few more things! This morning, I finished my fingerless mitts. I'm really excited about them- they're so comfy and I love the pattern on them.

I did the second one with a longer basketweave section. It looks a lot better. I also changed the thumbhole decreases slightly. I really need to get this pattern written up and tested.
Yeah, I really need to sit down and write out several patterns.

I also finished spinning my silk! It's exciting because I haven't finished a big spinning project before this.

I love how it turned out, but it's also a little disappointing to do all that work for 90-100 yards. I'll find something awesome to make with it, though. I'm still really proud!

I rearranged my stash a bit, too. I wanted the little shelves I had for a stand for the keyboard my parents brought me. I grabbed some more of the little white wire stands from the dollar store (2.50$ each, not bad!) and set things up like this.
It's nice to go through the stash and get a chance to actually see what you have. Once I finish some more projects, I'm pretty excited about starting some new stuff.

Finishing Challenge:
Blue Cowl
Block Party Mitts
Silk Spinning

My Capelet!

I finished my capelet awhile ago, and finally got around to taking pictures of it earlier this week.

I am so pleased with how it turned out. It's cozy and wonderful and I am just searching for an excuse to wear it.

I'm also quite pleased with how the lace turned out. Little crowns!

This is something else I finished last week or so (before my challenge, of course). It's a double layered cowl. It's SO warm. It's better than wearing a scarf and a little cowl, which is what I had been doing.

It's not my usual colours, which is fun. I'm more of a bright jewel tone person. If I go pale, it's just pinks and blues and yellows. Oranges and greens are almost never on my radar. This project was two balls of Knitpicks Chroma I got intending to make a Noro striped scarf style project. It sat in my stash and stubbornly did not want to be that until I finally saw a picture and bam. That was it- that was what the yarn was for. I'm so pleased with how it turned out, and how it filled a gap in my accessories I didn't even know was there!

Here's a much better snap of the cowl I made my Mom. Still the only thing I've finished in my crochet project challenge, but I've made lots of other progress.
I sent the cowls off to Mom and they should get to her soon. Hope she likes them- my parents have a ski trip coming up soon. They invited me, but I sadly had to turn them down. Sigh.

Since this picture, I've finished this mitt and just need to do fingers and thumbs on the second one. You can see the changed stitch pattern in the fingers. I like it much better now, and they're much more comfy.

I must admit, I haven't done too much crocheting this weekend. Friday night I ended up digging into my fabric stash and doing some sewing. I made a very simple pair of pants. I like them- they're a nice dark charcoal grey, very slim fitted and while they are a bit too short I decided that I didn't care and with dark socks or boots, no one will notice. It's on purpose, I swear.
I also took in a shirt I made ages ago. It was lovely but shapeless, and that just does not suit my body. Now it's fitted and flattering. I'm really pleased with it. I need to take pictures of my sewing. It's lazy and poorly done, but I'm still kinda proud of it!

Andrew is out of town this weekend in Seattle. He's doing a con there with a bunch of his friends. It's pretty cool, and I'm hoping next year I'll be able to join him. It's strange being here alone so long now that I've started getting used to having him around all the time. It has been a good time to host a few girls nights, though.
Time to get back to the blankets I'm working on, and do a bit of cleaning from last night's party before some friends come over this evening.

A Challenge (and a Guy in a Scarf)

I told Andrew I needed to take pictures of his scarf, and of course he made this face at me.
Just for you guys, I managed to get him to take a nicer picture, too.

So I've started a new challenge for myself. I was talking with Gabe at work today and realized that I have way too many projects on the go. Like, way too many. Really. I started figuring it out, and... I have more than 30 projects going. 

I decided to challenge myself to finish some of them. I want to see how long it takes to finish 25 projects. That will get at least some of these projects finished!

The rules are:

1) It has to be something I've already started

2) I have to finish it completely

3) I can start any new projects I want- but they don't count.

My guess is on 5 months to accomplish 25 finished projects. That's 5 a month- it seems manageable. Some are simple (like half finished socks) and some are absolutely crazy (like cobweb weight dresses). Either way, I'll get some old projects going again and maybe finally finish some of them.

The first one is already complete. Today I finished off this cowl for my Mom- simple, but it's done. I have a whole set of them I promised her for Christmas (she knew they would be late), and this one is for her birthday. I'm hoping to send them all off to her soon. There might still be skiing days left in the year for her!

I also got work done on a blanket I'm making, a pretty good chunk of my half-fingered mitts finished and started into the sleeve caps on my colourwork sweater. Not bad for day 1- here's hoping I can keep up the enthusiasm.
Now for a list that will be at the bottom of my blog for awhile;

Finishing Challenge:
Mom's Cowl

WIP and Crochet Stockinette, 2.0

Check out the progress I made on my afghan! I love it. It's getting so big and cuddly and warm. I'm only starting in on the 4th ball of each colour now, so it's about half the size it will be. Plus I have 4 more balls of yarn in my cubby at work, although it might be big enough after these in which case I will have to make a matching pillow.

I mean, we're getting a new couch soon, and this afghan tossed artfully over an awesome new couch with a throw pillow to match would seriously elevate our living room from college-y to kinda grownupish.

I started working on these half-finger mitts, because my knuckles are always super cold. Especially at work in the back room. I really need something to keep me warm, and regular fingerless mitts just don't have quite the coverage.
I started these working bottom up, but realized that the palm section would be much more strechy and comfy if I worked it sideways along with the cuff. So I pulled it out and started again. Much better, I was right.

The top part and fingers I'm really not sure about. It's a nice stitch pattern, but I think it might be a little bulky for the fingers. When I go into work, my coworkers will be forced to try them on to give me a second opinion.

The rainbow stripey pullover has progressed! The body is finished. It's time to start on the sleeves now, then all the pieces will be joined together at the yoke.

I even got some spinning done this weekend. I know, right? I had a long weekend because of Family Day Monday. Since I usually have Mondays off, my boss was nice enough to give me Tuesday off too so I still got a long weekend. I did nothing and ate yummy food and spent time with Andrew and it was wonderful.

Ok, I didn't do entirely nothing. On Sunday, I walked to a yarn store that opened in my neighborhood recently. It's called Ladeebee and it is very sweet! It's on the bottom floor of another store, but has nice natural lighting and a small but sweet selection. I was pretty good with all the shinies, but I had to get something! Four balls of super cheap sock yarn, little paper cut out hearts, awesome labels to sew into gifts and a totally sweet handmade project bag. I was really tempted by some of the fantastic deals on cotton she had, but I have so much cotton already.
Sundays are sit and stitch day there, and the group was small but really nice. I had a good time and will definitely be returning- but when it's warmer. I was bundled in two hats, a neckwarmer and scarf, two sweaters and a jacket, two pairs of mitts, wooly legwarmers and wool socks in my snowboots and my thighs were frozen by the time I got there. It was a much longer walk than I expected. Spring will be here soon, right?
Speaking of that walk, I saw the most hilarious and very Canadian thing (or just cold weather area thing, I suppose) on the way back. I had gotten all the way to my townhouse complex and looked up to see a guy in shorts and flip flops carrying his laundry down the sidewalk to the laundry room. Reread what I told you I was wearing and think about it being -20 C with the windchill and that insane man was wearing shorts. And flip flops. Bare feet! In the snow and ice! I'm cold just thinking about it (says the woman who eats frozen yogurt outside in January).

I also published two more patterns today! Yay! One of them, my Sophisticated Chevrons Cowl, has been done for ages. I just need to make a gauge swatch because the yarn I used was a mystery skein.
The other was just a simple freebie pattern for the scarf I made Andrew for his birthday- Basket Weave Slip Stitch Scarf.
It's a really simple pattern using slip stitch front loop only and slip stitch inverse back loop only. The little picture above is the photo tutorial I made to show the inverse back loop stitch.
If you remember, I posted about crochet stockinette quite some time ago. I used a technique I figured out because I had no idea that iB (inverse back loop only) existed. It totally works, but it's not useful if you want to do something like basket weave where you have the front and back of the stitches showing on the same row. Using iB is way better, and while it takes a bit of figuring (make sure the yarn is in front- that messed me up for awhile!) it ends up being so much easier. It's really freed up my design in slip stitch crochet.
I owe a lot of what I've learned about slip stitch to the group on Rav, and the tutorial on the yarn guy site- Slip Stitch Crochet. I've come a long way since my crochet stockinette "discovery", but I'm still proud I figured that out independently, even if it wasn't exactly the smartest technique!

Alright, time to go have some lunch. I think we still have leftover potato pancakes (so good!) and maybe some other yummy leftovers from our delicious weekend off cooking.

Rainbows!

I love my new curtains. My bedroom looks like this in the morning now. It's so inviting! That can be a problem when I need to, you know, get out of freakin' bed in the morning. I have the most comfortable, cozy, amazing trap of a bed in the world. I love it.

And yes, those are my stuffed toys you see sitting on the bed. Andrew has long since given up on laughing at them. I've had them on my bed my whole life, I'm not stopping now!

I completely forgot to mention the designs I did for work that are now available. I've actually been published, woah! Someone posted one of the patterns on Rav and I realized I should have done that, so I posted the other.

Here they are on Rav: Cotton Shrug and Stacked Shells Cardigan

And here they are on the Mary Maxim site: Shrug and Cardigan

It's so cool to be published! I have more designs I'm working on for them, but to actually see these in print was really cool.

I took a bunch of pictures of recent stuff and realized that I have a whole bunch of rainbows going on in my crafting right now. This is definitely a good thing. I love rainbows, love love love. They are bright and sunshiny and happy. I'm a big fan of pretty much all bright, saturated happy colours.

This rainbow is a bunch of merino fluffy I got to spin- the shiny white bits are firestar that make it sparkle and GLOW under blacklight! Awesome!

I got this from etsy: Zauberzeug on Etsy

 

Speaking of things I've gotten for spinning, here's a look at my spinning stash. You can see I've made some progress on my pink silk, although I must admit I haven't worked on it at all this week.

That reminds me, I should tell you where I got that awesome snowflake drop spindle. 

It was also an Etsy thing: Sevenyaks on Etsy

Take a look at my new afghan project (and I still have a motif afghan to finish that I've been working on for years, naughty me!). It's to cuddle with on our new couch, which we're hoping to get in March. It's 100% wool I got from the clearance section at work. I love how it's turning out, and I can't wait for the super cuddly finished product.

This is the project I'm most excited about right now. I'm so close to finished with my capelet and I am trying to push my way through, but I just want to work on this!
It's sock yarn that I got on sale at work, and I love it. My coworker and I have started a challenge with this. We both have the same yarn and are making sweaters. Totally different sweaters- she's making a cardigan, I'm making a pullover. Hers is knit, mine is crochet.

I went for sl st blo in the round to get a nice mock-garter stitch. I've never been a huge fan of the look of garter stitch, but this is convincing me. That, and garter in finer gauge is much nicer.

I haven't yet decided which side is the right side. Really, it'll be reversible so the right side is whichever way I decide to pull it on.
The side facing me while I work has nice, clean stripes (aside from where the colours jog in the round), but the inside has some fun play going on with the stripes I like too.
Decisions...