Sunday, July 31, 2011

IWTMT: Ardor Shawl

I will be honest with you; I forget exactly why I faved the Ardor Shawl (Rav only). I'm thinking because I have a lone skein of Malabrigo Sock that's begging to be a shawl, but that might be a lie.

Anyway, I'm kind of on a shawl kick (2 in one year -- that's big for me), so I hope you can log in and see it!

Monday, July 25, 2011

IWTMT: A Trio of Necklaces

Right, so I had jewelry on the IWTMT last week. But that was a knitted bracelet and this week's is a crocheted necklace, so that's totally different! (I'm reaching and I know it.)

A Trio of Necklaces (Rav) is a free tutorial on -- however did you guess? -- how to make 3 crocheted necklaces.

I've worked with the flexible beading wire, but I imagine this calls for something a bit more mold-able. I'll have to go to the store and see what's there. I've definitely got enough beads for this!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

IWTMT: Keeland Bracelet

Remember how I looked up knitted bracelets at midnight-something a few weeks ago? I had a very specific type in mind -- probably one that is not knitted. But whatever, I found one that was close enough to what I was looking for.

The Keeland Bracelet (Rav) is a neat little pattern for a cabled bracelet. Worsted weight scraps, you say? I've got plenty. In fact, I've been making them into coasters.

But that's neither here nor there.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Forgive Me, Hand

For I have sinned. Look, I managed the yarncraft hiatus for almost 3 weeks, but my mother-in-law visited us this weekend and we don't have cable, so what else was I going to do with her?

We went yarn shopping and I didn't buy anything. Does that get me any points?

We made felted dryer balls, and she used up some of my Simply Soft.

I led her completely astray on making some felted coasters because I've never felted anything but dryer balls before, but it was okay because we ripped it out during Inception.

But I couldn't have all these yarny pursuits for her and not help her out, so I maybe started a coaster with some of my bad handspun. It turns out it's probably going to be more like a hotpad, once I figure out how to felt it. And then I maybe started a coaster out of Noro scraps, but only so I could keep her company.

I did give her some of my stash. Does that get me any points either?

I'll stop again until next Sunday, when I expect to dye, spin and make some loom hats.

Forgive me, hand, but I'd do it all again. The time with my mother-in-law was worth it.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

IWTMT: Mossy Zen Rock Garden

I won a giveaway over at Just Add Glitter and Stir! A copy of Kooky Crochet is making its way to me even as we speak ... (I hope!) She sent it via UPS as opposed to FedEx -- you've gotta read her story. This is really cool because I don't have many crochet books.

Looking at the patterns on Ravelry, one really jumped out at me: Mossy Zen Rock Garden. It's basically a cozy for a rock.

The pattern seemed really familiar, and it turns out I'd read about a similar pattern on Eclectic Chica!

I'm thinking crocheted rock cozies are in this season. Finally, I'll be ahead of the trend!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Lady Greenskeins

Okay, at first the green hat thing was a joke. I like hat quantities of worsted weight green yarn, I've never made a green hat despite all this yarn, ha ha ha.

So I got serious about it. I bought some hat patterns. I even started mentally assigning the yarn to the pattern. "Okay, Wonderfully Wooly, you're going to be a Koolhaas, and Kathmandu Aran, I think you'll be a Habitat! No, you can't switch bunks, sheesh."

And then I started to stray. All of a sudden maybe the Wonderfully Wooly wanted to be a Seedling instead, and who was I to stifle its creativity? I had yellow WW too; it could still be a Koolhaas.

Man, was I going to have a lot of hats.

And then my sister wanted a worsted weight green hat, so she got one. And maybe since then, I've gone a little crazy.

Last night I lay in bed at 12:30, tossing and turning. I swear to god, green hats were tossing and turning in my mind's eye like some knitterly version of the twister from The Wizard of Oz. They were mocking me, mocking my plans for them and mocking all the other projects I should finish first before I start them. They were mocking my knitting hiatus. They were mocking my love of green yarn. I literally couldn't sleep. It was pretty bad.

I finally fell asleep at one-something after I went on Ravelry and looked up bracelets. Don't ask.

I still don't have a plan for that single skein of green yarn I bought at the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival. Maybe I'll dream about that one tonight.

(Yes, the blog title is a play on Greensleeves. Yes, I'm a dork. No, no one's written a song about me ... yet.)

Sunday, July 3, 2011

IWTMT: Sparreholm

I am currently playing several games.

Game 1: My mother-in-law is visiting next weekend and she's staying in the craft room. Crap! Time to clean!

Game 2: Why have I not washed any of my cold-weather knits yet? It's July! Well, if I wash them and lay them out to dry in the craft room, they should be done by the time she gets here.

Game 3: Oh, is it Sunday again?

I've been looking through a lot of my knitting books again while I'm on hiatus. (Does anyone know what day this is? I have no idea. Have I made it to 2 weeks yet?) I have a really bad habit of buying pattern books and -- well -- not making anything in them. I have 22 pattern books in my Rav library and by my count, I've made something out of a whopping 5 of them. And at least two of them were dishcloths.

Approximately a billion years ago I bought a Noro book. Looking through the book again, I've decided I want to make Sparreholm (Rav link). It's in Silk Garden, which is pretty easily attainable at my LYS. It's a vest, which may help me build my way up to a sweater. (We're going to pretend I don't have a sweater-quantity of yarn already.) It's Noro. It may flatter my figure if I ever lose some weight -- which I might by the time I actually get around to knitting this. Who knows?

Don't have the book or can't see Rav? Check out Chocolate A Chuva's post on it. Ugh. Gorgeous.

Friday, July 1, 2011

As Much As Possible: 2nd Quarter

Let's check in, shall we?

1. Not buy yarn.

Compared to last quarter I did pretty well. The only yarn I purchased was a skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride. I did win 3 skeins in a contest, so I will count their yardage even though I didn't buy them.

2. 1st in, 1st out.

I'm doing better here. An early entry into my stash is the Caron Simply Soft in Dark Country Blue, which I used in my loom hat. So it's not gone, but it's getting used. Once my hiatus is done I have another loom hat started with the same yarn.

3. Craft for charity first.


Loom hat! I don't know where it's going to be donated, but I fully intend to whip out a bunch of hats from my stash. But I did make one, at least.

4. Projects for others before myself.

I totally finished my sister's Sneaky Snakes hat before making my Gaenor shawl.

5. 2 skeins a month.

I'm beginning to think this is a flawed goal. Noble, but flawed.

6. USE IT UP.

Well, nothing was completely removed from stash, so I suppose this is technically a fail.

---

I did crunch some numbers this quarter, which may redeem me.

Yarn purchased/received:

1. Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted - 190 yards
2. Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool XL - 104 yards
3. Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran - 104 yards
4. Elsebeth Lavold Twice Tweed - 82 yards

Total: 480 yards

Projects completed:

1. Gaenor shawl - 399.5 yards
2. Boneyard shawl - 502.9 yards
3. Sneaky Snakes hat - 133.2 yards
4. Loom hat - 100.8 yards
5. Dryer balls (wool) - 104.5
6. Dryer balls (acrylic) - 190.5

Total: 1431.4 yards

So, if you subtract the second total from the first total, you get -951.4 yards total gain, which you may notice is actually a loss! Almost a thousand yards out of stash in 3 months?

I'm going to consider that a success.