Another Sheep(ish) Hooker

Project Name: Another Sheep(ish) Hooker
Pattern Name: n/a (Just Double Crochet)
Yarn: Caron Vickie Howell Sheep(ish) 2 skeins = 334.0 yards (305.4m) in Magenta(ish)
Hook: 10.0 (N) hook
Size: 72 inches x 5.5 inches
Love: ♥♥♥♥

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

More stash busting and lunchtime crocheting. I held two strands of this yarn together and chained 12 stitches, then worked double crochet until I ran out of yarn. The last one I made was really warm and I found myself wearing it all the time. (January in Minnesota = Lots of knitwear!) Very pleased with this. It worked up fast and even though it's a holey stitch the scarf is still very warm. Can't wait to wear this!

The Sheep(ish) Hooker

Project Name: Sheep(ish) Hooker
Pattern Name: N/A (An improvised Crochet Scarf)
Yarn: Caron Vickie Howell Sheep(ish), 2 skeins = 334.0 yards (305.4m)
Hook: 10.00mm (N)
Size:6.5" x 54"
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥ - Full of Love and had to keep it for myself!

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

I am in love with the Extended Single Crochet stitch and can't seem to stop using it in crochet projects. I chained 12 stitches and worked this scarf in (what else?) extended single crochet with two strands of yarn held together on a N (10.00 mm) hook. Fast, furry and fabulous! I thought it might be a charity scarf when I started it, my hesitation being the wool content. I try to donate machine washable and dryable items. When I finished I tried it on and did NOT want to take it off! It's super warm and just a snuggler of a scarf. LOVE IT!

You will notice my dog is doing a lot of modeling this week. I still look a bit like warmed over death so I am employing her talents for modeling my knitwear until I can get my self put back together. And since it is January and Minnesota - we have pretty much no daylight at this point. One day I will make a lightbox for taking knitwear photos, but until that day it's too much flash and a dog model! ;)

i said a knit knot the knitty the knitty to the knitknit knot

 

I finished a little shawlette! It's the "Just Knit it!" pattern on Ravelry by Susan Ashcroft of Stitchnerd Designs. It was given out free during the Olympics and is now a pay pattern. Super cute. Super easy. And I got to stashbust on this (mostly) which is super awesome!

 

I knit this out of mochi and Sheep(ish). For the edge I ended up doing a row of single crochet all the way around the entire thing in gray. Then I went down to the lower two sides (not the neck side) and did a row of double crochet all the way across in the mochi (colored) yarn. I was going to go back and frame it all in with gray again - but I loved how it looked as is - so I stopped.

It is the perfect length and width. I can use it to wrap around my shoulders if I am wearing a dress - or wrap it around my neck like Emma is wearing it below with a jacket in the winter for super snowy day warmth. The mochi and the sheep(ish) went together like a dream and it is just squishy and so warm! I really enjoyed working on it!

 



Nice to have a WIP out of my Queue on Ravelry. I have had start-itis lately. Like RAGING start-itis. It's been killer. I am bored with items I have started already and want to do something New and exciting! Fickle knitter am I! So yay for getting something finished! Now on to the next!

Hello! I am still here!

I have been rather quite lately but I am still poking around here. My Grandma died last week and we had to travel a little for the funeral. My energy level has been rather low and blogging just didn't appeal much over the last two weeks. Am trying to get myself back into normal though, so I thought I would talk about the shawl I started at the end of the Olympic games.

 

 

The Shawl is called "Just Knit It" by Susan Ashcroft of Stitchnerd Designs on Ravelry. It was offered free during the Olympics, but is now a pay pattern on Ravelry. I am really enjoying the shawl! I am knitting it out of Sheep(ish) I had left over in my stash in the color Gun Metal(ish) and some Mochi Plus I had in my stash and another ball I hunted down at a LYS. I love the colors and find this a very relaxing knit. I had about 5 hours of knitting time in the car the day of the funeral, and then I also brought this with to work on at my Brothers house when we went "Up North" for a visit last weekend.

 

I hit the point in the shawl where I am thinking about the edging. This is going to be more of a shawlette for me - I want to wear it wrapped around my neck this winter with my coats, so I don't want it to get too much larger. I really want to do a crochet edge, so I thought I would practice first. I went through my scrap projects in my craft room and found a shawl that I had abandoned years ago. Perfect for practice!

 

I did a single crochet around the entire shawl and then I practiced a shell stitch on either side. I did a 5 stitch shell on one side and a 7 stitch shell on the other. I like the 7 stitch shell better than the 5 - but am not in love with either. I am going to rip out all the shell stitching and try a few other things.

 

I have been chewing on this a lot this week, and this morning I decided to stop forcing stitch design and asked myself what I really wanted for an edge? Changing my focus from "Will this stitch work? Ok , how about this one?" to "what do I want my shawl to look like?" really  excited me and gave me all kinds of ideas. My crochet ability is not huge, but I think I found something that will work! I will be giving it a go on the practice shawl first to see if I can execute it, but I am excited. Hopefully I will have some happy finished shots to show off soon.

Kal Shawl Complete!

GLORY!

I have finally finished my Kal Shawl!

This was the Knit A Long put on by Vickie Howell in the Stitch.Rock.Love. group on Ravelry and with Knit Simple Magazine and Caron Yarns. A very simple shawl knit from the top down and then we got to chose one of three edging types. I decided to use the crochet edge and am really happy with the results.

Of course the day I finished the shawl it was 92F (33.3C) and 30 mile an hour winds. It made blocking a cinch though as I just tied it to my fence and sprayed it with water. It was dry in no time at all!

I really love the shawl. It took 4 skeins of Sheep(ish) yarn in Magenta(ish). Just over three skeins in the body and the bulk of the 4th went into the border. The border was really easy and I whipped it out in less than a day!

The shawl was supposed to be completed in one week. Seriously? I don't know how fast other people knit, but there was no way this was getting done in a week. I haven't done many KALS, so I have to wonder how they are run compared to the ones Vickie Howell has been hosting. I feel like there is room for improvement. The patterns for the two I have done are only available if you purchase the magazine. I think they should make them available for download for either free or for a minimal fee. Some people really struggle to find the magazine. The yarn (Vickie Howell's Sheep(ish) yarn has very limited availability. It's getting more available - but right now many people write that they cannot find the yarn. And this pattern in particular should have had a minimum of two weeks to finish.

I also have to say I felt like Vickie was not really there for us much. She didn't knit along with us. She complained of having guests at her house during the week she was running the Kal so she was having a hard time getting on the boards. (And she forgot to subscribe to the board where she posted the KAL for awhile - so people were asking questions about how much yarn to purchase for the shawl because two different amounts were given (oops!) and were met by silence.) And the last day of the KAL she flew out of town and was basically like "Help each other - I am out of here!" I kind of felt like she was happy to pimp her stuff at us and to use our photos and comments to promote her products, but she wasn't there all that much for us. Do I have unrealistic expectations? Should the host of a KAL actually be knitting a long with the group and there to answer questions? Maybe I expect too much.

The community on the other hand was wonderful! There were many great people I "met" on Ravelry and we all supported each other and encouraged each other. I would do another KAL through Vickie/Knit Simple/Caron yarns just for the wonderful community of people that it draws. I shouldn't be surprised about the community of wonderful people on Ravelry though, should I?

I have a ton of pictures on my Project page on Ravelry if anyone wants to see more of them or wants the details on the shawl. I really love the Sheep(ish) yarn and am tickled with my shawl.

YAY FOR Finished Objects!

Oops! I did it again!

There is a hole in my shawl that does not belong. DOH! I let it sit for awhile to decide what I was going to do and ended up deciding that I would pull the needle out and tearing out the four or so rows to get past the hole, then put the stitches back on the needle and keep going.

So I carefully tore back four rows and then I tried to get the stitches back on the needle. I did not manage sadly. I ended up tearing the hole thing out!

Sad looking isn't it? I started over but I just didn't have the heart to do much work on it last night after a swim in the FROG pond. Hopefully I will catch up to the rest of the group this weekend. (Not likely - but hey - everyone at their own pace, right?)

And how is your knitting/hooking going? Happy Friday!

KAL progress, Fugly Blanket update

So I started a KAL yesterday and I am loving it so far. It's a very basic shawl pattern that will end with an edging I have never attempted before and I am a little nervous about. Vickie Howell is leading us in her usual wonderful fashion though, so I am fairly confident I will get er done. I didn't get lots of time to work on it on Day 1, but here is my first days work.

The flash on my camera bleached the color out of the yarn, but you can see it's taking shape. Love working with this yarn and love the color so much! I took it with me to work today and knit on my lunch hour. Would have loved to just knit the day away.

And here is my Fugly Blanket. I am almost out of scraps and will soon have to dig into my stash of cotton yarn and start working whole skeins. Maybe I will make myself take only balls with labels torn off so I can have a really clean stash bin. I have this laying across my Queen sized bed and it covers most of the width of the bed and about two fifths the length. Not sure if I am going for a square or a rectangle. Guess I will know when I get there.

Because I am working on this KAL shawl I will have to put my crochet hook down for the next week until the KAL if finished. It saddens me but conversely I think my wrists can use the break.

Another KAL for me

I have decided to join another KAL and it is once again with Vickie Howell and Caron.com. This time I will be using Magenta(ish) in her Sheep(ish) brand yarn and the project is a simple knit shawlette.

The Ravelry group for this can be found here.
The pattern is in the Spring/Summer 2012 Knit Simple Magazine.

The KAL runs from April 10 (today!) through April 16th. I am betting I need more than a week to knit this up!

I can't wait to start!

Sparkle & Shine Holiday Scarf

I fell in love with Martha Stewart's Glitter Eyelash Yarn when I was at Michael's Craft store about two weeks ago. I picked up 6 skeins of it (There is only 39 yards on a skein  - so it's not THAT much!) and then tried to think up a pattern for a scarf or cowl to go with my velvety winter dress coat. After a few swatches and finding a yarn to work with it (I loath knitting with just an eyelash yarn - Must always combine another yarn with it!) I had a simple pattern for a scarf with pointy ends.

I pulled out my tri-pod and hit the self timer button on my camera to take pictures, so I look a little "Is it working" in every picture I snapped. Plus I was running back to my spot and hoping I was in frame, on a snowy deck, in heals.... Yeah. But I got the pictures! In this one I wrapped the scarf around and around to make it look like a cowl. The end untucked when I ran for my spot.

In this one I have the scarf wrapped around my neck twice. I like this look and it looks really cute looped twice and then loosely tying the ends. (No photo of that!)

This is looped once and the ends loose. You can see the tapered ends in this shot a little better.

And an almost full length shot to show how long I knit this guy. It only took about three hours of slow knitting to get this done on my Size 19 needles. It went super fast and I love the Sheep(ish) yarn in Gun Metal (ish) held together with the silver eyelash. It worked perfectly!

This is the first picture I took - I am trying to figure out if I am in frame and if the timer is still on and did I shut off the flash??? I cropped the picture and turned it into a Black and white. Cuz it's fun to do.

Final shot of the scarf without a person. You can see the Sheep(ish) yarn in this shot a little better. 

I have more specific pattern notes up on my Ravelry page for this scarf. Am hoping to add it as a PDF file to my blog one day, but I need to figure out how to do that.

Tuesday - Insomnia Fest Continues!

I am kind of getting sick of this. Yesterday I had a TERRIBLE headache and went to bed at 7:00 pm. Woke up at 12:30 in the morning and could NOT go back to sleep. UGH! Come on! So I finished knitting my KAL cowl and got caught up on this season's "The Biggest Loser". Then I went to work knowing I needed to cut the day short so I could come home and get a nap and try and be less of a Zombie and more of a Jenny. Of course this happens when my full timer took a day off and my other worker decided to call in. (Am pretty sure they planned this in advance since they decided to "Work ahead" the day before.....) Grrrrrrrrr.

So I went in and performed all the "Have to get done's" and then went home. Got back to sleep at 11:00 this morning and didn't wake up until about 4:00 this afternoon. Am trying not to think about what is going to happen tonight. (will I be able to go to sleep at a normal time? will I get any amount of sleep tonight?) And I still have my headache. Which is often a precursor to a cold. Think I will need to get some of those Cold Eeze products and take care of myself the next few days. I do not need to spend my vacation sick! :) Oh yeah - I am off next week on vacation! Wahoo!

The Girls were being very cute this morning when I was up early. Emma loves being snuggled in our old blankets and Izzi will seek out any heat source to snuggle on, so I get a picture like this every once in awhile. Too cute!

This is my KAL Cowl with all the ends woven in and it pinned out on my blocking boards. I really like this Yarn! It's

Vickie Howell's yarn for Caron Yarns called Sheep(ish) and it's cheap, soft and you get good yardage. I had not splits in my two skeins I used for this pattern as well - which is always a nice bonus! I will be making more projects with this yarn!

So this is the blocking method Vickie Howell recommended for this project. Apparently this yarn does not react well to steam blocking, so this is just a wet cotton hand towel that I pinned over the top of the whole thing. I placed this in the basement to dry over night and (hopefully) when I get home from work tomorrow and get through my work outs I will be able to get the buttons on and have it be DONE! It's in the 40's and raining here today - so we are hitting that time of year when knit accessories are a must. Looking forward to wearing this!

Seriously?!?!

Another night with me waking up at 1:30 in the morning and not being able to fall back asleep. This stinks! I only tossed and turned an hour in bed before I gave up and got up.

I know there are several factors causing my sleeplessness.
1) The last week of my cycle is almost always when I have insomnia.
2) I didn't eat enough calories yesterday and my stomach was growling when I went to sleep. (too much food and not enough food are factors for me.)
3) I woke up overheated. I assume this is from my work-outs since I can't blame the food.
4) Stress. I am having a pile of stress lately and it's causing me to wake up in mid dialog. (Often yelling at a co-worker or a family member in my dream....) And there is nothing like middle of the night sleeplessness for ramping up negative thoughts - let me tell you. Depressing.

And normally I would subscribe to the "Knowledge is Power!" motto, but sadly in this case it's not actualization. So instead I just have to roll with the punches here and make the best of a pile of lemons.

Starbucks opens in two hours.

In other news....

I started my Kal last night! I finished the initial ribbing section and will start the cables next. This is the first time I have worked with this yarn. It's the Vicky Howell yarn from Caron called Sheep(ish) in the color Gun Metal(ish). I am loving on this yarn! It's cheap. It's pretty. And it feels like soy yarn or maybe even approaching Malabrigo for softness. You get 167yd/152.7m per skein of yarn, and each skein was under $4.00 US at JoAnn's Craft and Fabrics. My only question now is how well this yarn will wear. I love malabrigo and other soft yarns - but they pill and wear rather poorly - so we will have to see how this looks after a Minnesota winter!

I am really enjoying the KAL. I was a bit nervous about it to be honest - which sounds silly - but I didn't know how the vibe would be or how much pressure there would be to get knitting done, etc... Man - if we could let go the fear of being stupid (or the perception of looking stupid?) we could accomplish so much more. So I found the schedule for the KAL yesterday morning and printed it out and placed it in my magazine I am working out of. And then I didn't read it right and thought I needed to work through the entire rib section on night one. (Up at 4:45, To work by 6:30, Home from work at 3:30, finish work-outs at 5:30, Shower and dinner, then knit on cowl. It was a busy day!) Apparently though it was divided into two nights - so I really could have knocked out the days schedule in a lazy hour of knitting rather than two hours. So the pace is really easy and there is no pressure. There is of course people way ahead of the herd and there are people who are struggling to find the pattern and the supplies. Vicky is being very receptive and warm and a great hostess of the Kal. I think it was perhaps a mistake to host a KAL where you can't offer the pattern up for free or even to purchase other than through the magazine - but I don't think that was thought of until after people started saying that they could not find the magazine and there was no other way to join the knit-a-long other than to purchase the magazine. Vicky pretty much told people to "Help each other out" with the pattern - ie: pattern share. You got to love someone who says that!  So yeah - this is going really well and I think I will get a bit addicted to KAL's. It's fun to be a part of a community knitting the same project and I am picking up wonderful tips and ideas on the Forums. (All of this stuff is on Ravelry btw. I just assume everyone knows that - and you know what happens when you ASSume! ;)

Notice my pretty Knit Picks needles? I really love their Harmony Wood needles. They hold up well to my really tight grip. I bend my wood Takumi needles all the time. One day I will loosen up my grip - but it's been years and years and I still knit tight as the dickens.

OK - think I will pay a few bills, feed my critters and get ready for work. Happy Thursday everyone! :)