Blankets are soft... and done. :)

So, while I was doing the 2012 Bernat Mystery Crochet along afghan - well more like before - I was working on a blanket for my sister.  Actually, what really happened was I ordered my yarn for the CAL and then got bored waiting for yarn and waiting for it to start, so I started another afghan.

It's a pattern I've been dying to try because it looked so pretty, but until now I've lacked confidence in my skills as a crocheter and thought it might be a little hard for me.  I love the colour combination that they put together in the pattern - the purple, blue and green - but when looking for yarn, I just couldn't find a green that went with my blue and purple, so I chose a grey instead.  I think it'll be more timeless with the grey anyways (or at least that's what I keep telling myself).

Pretty colours

I am having a lot of trouble getting the colour to come through in the pictures (I'm betting it's because it's spring, which means it's very very very grey here right now) but these are the best I've managed to pull off.  They're really very rich colours that go very well together, they just look kind of dull and grey in all my pictures.  :(

Nice big afghan!

Then!  My husband's cousin had a baby, so I started a blanket for him (the baby is a boy).  :)

I started a baby blanket with this pattern and ended up tearing it out because I hated it.  It was so boring!  The pattern does specifically say that it is meant for variegated yarn and I am using a solid colour.  So, I'm betting it was my fault.

dislike!

Then I found a baby blanket pattern that had cables in it.  That made me a touch wary, as I'm not a huge fan of cables, but I thought I'd try my hand at it anyways!  SO glad I did!  This turned out fantastic!  I was working on this a lot while in hotel rooms on our fantastic Utah road trip and there wasn't very much left to do by the time we got home - so WOO! I'm done!

VOILA!

All folded up and ready for baby Bryce!

The best laid schemes

Hey there!  We're back from our amazing Southern Utah road trip.  We put over 5500km on the truck, her odometer rolled over 100,000kms, we were gone for 11 days (we had 14 planned but came home a little early) and saw 4 National Monuments, 4 State Parks, 1 Tribal Park, and an annular solar eclipse.  Phew!  How on earth did we do that AND all that drving in 11 days?  No idea!  But we're home now.

I had expected to get a lot of knitting / crocheting done while we were gone, but no such luck.  My husband loaned me a book - oops.  Now I'm on book 3 of the series.  I can't stop.  BUT - I did finish the lovely spring cardigan (new yarn) that I made, didn't like, tore out, and redid.

I don't have a very good picture, but here is the one I do have for now.  I'll get a better one later.

Cute, right?

So, the cardigan didn't turn out quite how I had planned.  On the model in the picture from Mary Maxim, she doesn't have any ties on the cardigan and it doesn't make her look fat - probably because she is a stick - but it doesn't look like that on me.  I added a ribbon, which made it work quite well.  Without the ribbon, well, it looks just plain frumpy.  I just happened to have some pink ribbon on hand - it was supposed to go into a baby  blanket but then I made stupid mistakes and ended up cutting it all too short - and hey!  It's handy now! (thank god!)

More pictures!

Much better angle

Stash Monster

It's official, my craft-room / office cannot survive any longer as a craft room / office and it must learn to exist in a state that is more craft room less office.  So I've been revamping the space.  It still needs to be able to hold my financial files, but it needs to look less like WW3 happened inside my teeny tiny little space.

I've been trying to simplify furnishings and make more storage space without adding clutter and while, in fact, REMOVING clutter.  The desk I've had since I was a child is going back to its original home (ie. my parents' house) and I've bought a very plain craft table with no drawers and a filing cabinet to be its replacements.  I know, two pieces of furniture instead of one, but I'm hoping it will work out for the best.

So far it's looking like a bomb went off in my craft room AND living room.  I might have the smallest room in the house - it would make a nice office - as my craft room so in order to clean up and purge, I've been pulling everything out the door into my living room.  My husband loves this.  Or at least he tolerates it.  Well, he hasn't complained yet.

Anyhow, so I tried to better organize my stash.  That worked out great - except - holy stash!  I really need to use some of that up.  WOW!  I didn't realize I had so much in there and it's kind of frightening what I've purchased and put aside.  Anyone feeling a stash-ghan?  Yeah, me too.

The stash has grown into a monster of epic proportions.  I'm reminded of Winnie the Pooh - how "under the bed" had so much stuff in it that it had morphed into it's own land of scary and forgotten things.  Yep, that's my stash.

Somewhat more organized
Stash-Monster!!!

New Yarn / Old Project

Now that the Mystery Crochet along is over, I can get started on my brand new yarn... sort of.

I made myself a promise that I would finish two very specific almost completed projects before I started into my new yarn, however, I have since royally mucked one of them up (joy) while grafting (double joy) and now I have to fix it.  BUT... the other one (cutest baby skirt ever) turned out great!  I had so little left to do, but I was being slow because I didn't have any elastic.  Oh, well, fine then, MAKE me go to Michael's.

Such fun yarn!

Anyhow, you know how I bought some yarn from that online store?  It came AFTER my Mary Maxim order.  Don't ask me why, but free shipping also apparently means expedited shipping.  Okay, that works.  Anyhow, there isn't much of each type of yarn - very much a grab bag - but so much of it seems so soft and so neat.  There's maybe two balls of yarn out of the bunch that aren't really my favourites (thus far), so I'm thinking we're doing pretty well here!

MORE YARN!

Already I'm looking into what I can do with the fingering weight ball (it's the one furthest to the left).  It's such a pretty colour and apparently it will make a nice shawl.

Finished Product for the Mystery Afghan

After a couple weeks of agonizing over not really liking the layout and the border, I've finally finished my afghan.  It's all sewn up, all the ends are tucked in, and it is just wonderful.  To be quite honest, I wasn't really sure how I was going to feel about this throughout the project.  It was a really neat experience to start from the beginning with no clue what I would be making or where my colours would go or how it would all look in the end, but at the same time that is nerve wracking!

My finished afghan!

Better view of the border

Its home!

Anyhow, after altering the layout to something more my style and making the border just a little more interesting, I fell in love with my afghan.  Couldn't be happier!

Final Layout for the CAL - pre-seaming

So, the final layout is out for the CAL.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  So, I figured out an alternate layout - and then asked the husband what he thought.

Anyhow, here is what the afghan will look like when laid out as in the official layout:

ooooh!  aaaah!

And here is how I want to lay it out:

Seriously?  How'd you get in here?

Just kidding!  That's my cat enjoying "his" new blanket.  Here's a REAL picture of how the "stripey" layout looks:

So, here's the deal.  I like this layout, but it needs a couple changes.  1. The white clue #1 square needs to be red.  2. the pink clue #1 square needs to be green (according to the husband.)  He says that the green is a nice offset for the red and it goes well with the white too - thus, it should replace the pink since the pink is not a good offset for the red.  My argument is that the blanket is symmetrical with the pink and the green clue #1 squares where they are.

yarnyarnyarnyarnyarn! YARN!

I might be excited!

Wanna know why?  Do ya? Do ya? Do ya?

My Mary Maxim parcel with all sorts of yarn in it was shipped ridiculously quickly!  I came home today hoping to find my grab bag of yarn in my mailbox and instead found AN ENORMOUS box sitting on my front step!

Well, that'll do!

This is for a cabled cardigan

This is for a lacy spring cardigan

This is for a heavier lace cardigan

My cats were way more excited about the box.

I am super happy with my colour choices!  Woo!

Though, I must not start ANY of these today.  As I assumed last week, this week's job for the CAL is a blocking week / catch up week.  I've never blocked anything before, so I set to it and then decided that EVEN after blocking the clue 6 motifs don't sit properly in the middle.  A lovely lady on the forums suggested dtr clusters instead of CH11 spaces.  I think I'm going to frog ALL 6 clue 6 motifs and re-do them with dtr clusters. So, I am SUPER far behind now.  YAY!  Hopefully I can finish both blocking AND the new clue 6 motifs this weekend.

*Fingers crossed!*

Oh my @#$! That hurt!

Ever have one of those mornings?  Of course you have.  Everyone has.  Well, I was happily going about my business this morning when the alarms bells in my pain sensor went off and said "look at your finger, you idiot" and there was a pin sticking out of it.  So, I did what any normal person would do and I shook my hand thinking it would come out on its own (I haven't had my coffee yet.  I know, stupid) and that just hurt more, so I pulled the stick pin out of my finger and looked at it thought "gee, for something that made no mark and isn't even bleeding, that sure hurt" and continued about my business.  Now apparently I bled all over whatever square I was working on at the time (adds character, right?) as I looked down and my finger that was fine is now just a smudge of blood.  Awesome.  Time for coffee.

Anyhow, so the whole reason I am playing with stick pins, which is something I rarely do, for obvious reasons, is that our mystery CAL is over - sort of.  It's not over, but this past week's clue was the last of square making.  We still have blocking, sewing up, and adding a border.  I heard a rumour that this CAL was supposed to last 15 weeks and be done near the end of May (ish) and we're only just finished week 6.  Anyhow, my guess is that next week, we'll have to block our squares - so I started blocking last night - and it went great!  Thus, this morning, my motivation to keep the progress at a high level, resulting in the stick-pin-blood-smudged-squares.  :(

This morning's progress!

Last night's progress.

On a positive note, I can't see the blood on the squares, so I must have got it all over one of the red ones! hahahaha!

Right, so I am a delinquent blogger / CALer.  I seem to give you two clues at a time because I don't finish one before the weekend is over and then I work my butt off to make sure I have two for the next weekend.  

So, clue #5 - every "square" in this CAL is so interesting and different - and then there's this clue.  It took me forever to finish it because I just wasn't interested.  Introducing - GRANNY SQUARE OCTAGONS!  I must admit, it's a cool / super easy technique that was used to turn a granny square into an octagon, but I still find I have very little interest in it.  I'm assuming it'll look great in the finished product.

mmm... granny squares

And, clue #6 - This square is G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S!  I had so much fun making this piece -even if on Friday I was JUST getting my first finished one done.  I had a hard time with this clue because I'm a little fussy and I didn't like how the inside of the circle was done, so I altered that and then I had an issue with the join from round 6 to round 7, so I changed that too.  The Bernat CAL forums were a ton of help for the ideas for slight edits to the pattern.

worsted weight doily for the win!

In other random news, I have been a very very bad yarn addict this past month.  My bank account is going to be mad at me for it, but I am super excited for all this yarn to show up on my doorstep!  

First, Facebook told me there was a yarn store that was having a grab bag sale because the couple who own the store are getting married.  How exciting!  So, I checked out the grab bags and thought - yeah, for $22 I can get me some chocolate brown yarn in small quantities for "testing out" and see if I like it.  I got an email from Yarns of Italy a couple days ago to say that my yarn has shipped, so now I'm anxiously awaiting it to show up at my door.  

THEN, Mary Maxim, who has ridiculously expensive shipping, sent me an email to say that they were having a 3-day free shipping (when you order $70+ of merch online) sale.  I just happened to have a list of stuff I wanted from them and I was really contemplating buying it all as a prezzie to myself for a nice bonus this year.   So I pared my list down to the three things I wanted the most, picked some gorgeous colours, got myself just over $70 and sent in my order.  But they don't tell me when my product has shipped... and it takes forever to get to me for some reason.  I'm less anxiously awaiting the arrival of this yarn, but it'll be coming soon enough!  AND!  Everything I bought was for making myself cardigans.  I'm stoked.  :D

My stash is growing by the week.  ooops.

Up to date on the CAL - Clue #3 and Clue #4

Well, I've been quite ill this week, with no more energy than to get up, get dressed (sometimes) and crochet or read a book, so I got caught up with the Crochet Along.  Not that I was really all that behind.  I think I finished off clue #3 the Sunday before the clue #4 came out, so I'm still pulling off getting each clue done before the next one comes out, just not always before the weekend so that I have time to write about it.

Okay, clue #3 - more octagons!  This time in green (contrast C) and the red that is my MC.  Some people think the middle motif looks like a snowflake - I think it looks like a sun!

Anyhow, my blanket colours are great, but they really don't work without the contrast D colour.  I'm so glad that clue #4 was itty bitty popcorn stitch squares in contrast D... they're pretty fantastic and are currently stealing the show from the rest of the squares (ouch!).

omg.  These are sooo cute.  :)

On another note, I'm finding that my pink octagons with the flowers in the middle are much bigger than everything else.  This is because I was crocheting very loose.  I don't tend to do that, which is why I sized up my hook in the first place, so I should really pull them apart and redo them with the right (see also "the same") tension - like the rest of my squares... *sigh*  oh well.  :)  Everyone was so worried about their gauge that I got caught up in it.  I don't find it's really a big deal as long as you stick to the directions - AND you make a test swatch - which I did - and it was awesome.  So, I shouldn't have worried. 

Here's all my pieces to date!

Popcorn squares steal the show, right?

Socks - in the meantime

So, I'm slow this week and I haven't finished clue #3 yet (only one more piece to go).  But I did say that I finished those socks I was making right?  Right.

I took pictures with my blackberry because I was feeling incredibly lazy, sorry if the quality is kind of crappy.

Anyhow, from the socks from the toe up book by Wendy Johnson - here are my Traditional Gansey socks.

mmm... stripey.

I started out making these as the posie socks, but the stripes overpowered the pattern (I honestly didn't realize that this sock yarn was MAJORLY striped.  oops).  Anyhow, so I tore out my first sock after getting just about to the heel, and then went searching for a pattern that would compliment - or at least not detract from - the stripes in the yarn.  TA DA!

That totally isn't a two-at-a-time sock book in the background.  Totally.

Now, back to the crochet along... *sigh*

Clue #2!!

Okay, so I did finish my in-the-meantime-socks this time (and started a new pair) but the pictures are on my blackberry - it's dead - as are all the batteries in my house... you can imagine how detrimental this is to taking pictures of finished work.  Oh well, just gives me more to post about later.

So... clue #2 of the Mystery Crochet Along!

This one took MUCH longer than the last and I only finished our 6 "squares" (octagons this time) last night!  It took me a full 4 evenings (well, what time I had of those evenings) to finish these squares.  Last time it took me two evenings.  Bigger clue.  Good times!

My MC - Incense - oooOOOoooh

Contrast A - Bitter Rose

Anyhow, it would seem that my gauge is quite different between my MC (Incense) and my Contrast A (Bitter Rose).  I'm thinking this is because I wasn't really paying attention when I did the MC and thus, crocheted the same way I always do, whereas I was focusing on being loose for the Contrast A colour.  Woops.  Oh well, I guess I'm going to have to block these (actually, it's really really looking like that!)

These are all the squares finished to date (less a little red one)

Clue #1 Complete

Well, I didn't quite get finished my "in the mean time" socks yet, but they're awfully close.  Those will have to come later

So, instead I'll just post about the crochet along!

The first clue came out on Wednesday (awesome!) and I got 10 of the 12 squares done on Wednesday night and finished the last 2 last night.  The squares are more circular than square, but apparently this is ok and they will be more circular when everything is put together... sure... sounds good to me...

Score... love the colours so much.

My gauge swatch!  Had to size up the hook because I crochet tight.

First square!  (ahem - circle!)

The complete first clue!  Woo hoo!

So, this morning I went to Michael's to help pick up yarn for a friend's project.  She's decided to do the KAL, so I hope that will be awesome.  She picked such an amazing colour palette... :)  Hers is going to be Chocolate brown, navy blue, cream, goldenrod, and a really deep purple (with red tones to it!).
And of course, I can't sit by and watch when there is a yarn purchasing trip to be made (as evidenced by the recent stop at Gina Brown's that resulted in some beautiful merino sock yarn being purchased), so I picked up a purple, navy and light grey with which to make a blanket for my sister... but shhh!  don't tell her!

My cat thinks my CAL square is a toy... awwww!

2012 Mystery Crochet Along

So, Bernat is having a mystery crochet-along / mystery knit-along.  This sounds like so much fun, so I decided I would try it.  Knitting a bunch of squares and then sewing them together didn't sound like too much fun to me, and I crochet faster, so I picked the CAL afghan.  :)  (If you want to join me, you have to sign up for the bernat forum - no idea why)

I picked myself out some purdy colours and then I ordered them and sat patiently ("Did I get a package today?  How about today?  No?  Today?") and waited for them to show up at my doorstep.

My husband brought the package to dinner with his family last night when it showed up (squeeee!) coz he thought I'd be sooooo excited that I couldn't stand that all my brand-spanking new yarn was at home and I wasn't!

But I wasn't QUITE that bad.... I cracked into the box this morning and LOVE the colours I picked.  I am a huge fan of red, so my mystery afghan is going to have a red base - and lots of purdy floral colours - Beautiful Things is definitely the Waverly palette I picked - Coz I'm a sucker for reds / pinks - especially together!

Beautiful!  I totally have a couch-full of yarn!

First clue doesn't come out until mid-February, so I'm going to be im-patiently waiting for that too...

Thankfully, I have a really pretty sock pattern to work on until then!

Blog? What blog?

So, it's been a while, oops.

Anyhow... why don't I just do a massive dump of everything I've finished since I last blogged (really, it's not that much) and then we can get on with the future!

So, my sister came over around Christmas and asked me to teach her how to knit.  So, I started her on a dishcloth, which means that I started a dishcloth at the same time.  This is one that I had knit a long time ago, and FINALLY got around to using... then decided that the pattern - though I hated making it - was amazing, as it makes a nice thick dish cloth.

I knit tight... oops

 The details

I also am a copy-cat as usual, and Jenn was making this awesome scarf for her mom and I just happened to find some similar yarn at the store, so I picked up some colours that I thought MY mom would like.  Lovely.  Easy.  Don't think I'd do it again.  The yarn is just kind of strange to work with, and man, garter stitch all the way is just plain boring.

I made two!  Pretty blues & browns + blues

And... I finished another one of those adorable cross-stitch ornaments.  Then I figured out that I wasn't going to pull off six by Christmas, so they got put on pause.

Even more adorable than the last two!

FINALLY, my wonderful husband got me the socks from the toe up book by Wendy Johnson.  OMG... I am in love.  I really like two at a time socks, it's great - but I still get lots of holes where I join the heel flap... this method is amazing and really cuts the hole out... it's fantastic... though I was a little off-put by the wrap and turn... what the heck is that?  You tube is my friend.  :)  So I made trilobite socks.  It has nothing to do with being a geologist, I swear. 

I used Kroy Sock yarn in "clover colors"

The toes are too pointy - oops, but you can't really tell...

Cross-stitch, you are so slow!

Okay, so I promised finished projects... of the cross-stitching variety.

I thought I would be faster than this.

The finished cuties!

I picked up this lovely set from Mary Maxim.  I adore these Christmas tree ornaments.  They're super super cute!  I managed to finish one before we took off to Europe, and then another while we were there.  Since we got back, I've ALMOST finished a third.  I highly doubt these will be ready to be gift-toppers for Christmas.  Oh well, there's always next year!

Love them though!

Right... and a pic or two from our trip.  :)  Started in Paris and worked our way to Rome.  

I'm BACK! And I made socks!

I'm a married woman now!  WOO!

Anyhow, before we go off to see the world (well, okay, maybe not the WHOLE world, but parts of it... in Europe...), I should put some "stuff" up here.

So, I've recently rediscovered my love of cross-stitch - but with a twist... so stay tuned for finished projects (oh yes, I said finished).

This means my knitting has taken a hit though.  I finished these socks right before the wedding (I know, I shouldn't have been knitting then, but it really helps with the stress levels!)

They're awesome!  From the 2-at-a-time socks book... can't remember what these were called... huh... oh well..

Feet!

Aww... what a fun sock pattern!

So, what I'm looking for now is a really really really amazing pattern for a kitchen hand towel to knit.  You know the ones with the button that go through your drawer handles?  Yeah... one of those!  If you know of a great pattern, let me know!