Shiny Objects

First of all your comments on my Target experience cracked me up!!! The holidays seriously bring out the crazy in people, don’t they. Anyways I have one other handmade gift that I can share on the blog… after that it all has to wait until next week….

So my other grandma – not the one I made the shawl for – isn’t so into the hand knits. Last year I knit a felted bag and a scarf for her and I don’t think she really liked it all that much. Which is fine because she appreciates and loves my handmade jewelry more than anyone ever has. She still wears things that I made for her literally when I was in grade school. She has also through the years given me many, many beads and necklaces, etc. that are basically bobbles from the ‘60’s for me to take apart and reuse. Gotta love that! She’s also one of the few people that I know who can really pull off fantabulous earrings.

So anyways this year I wanted to make her some truly spectacular jewelry:
I’m pretty happy with how it turned out… and all of the findings are sterling silver so it’s definitely a quality piece… I hope she likes it!

Chemo Cap Pattern

This is just a basic hat knit out of Cotton-ease that I made with leftovers from Odessa.


Materials:
Less than ½ ball of Cotton-ease
Size 5 circular needle
Size 6 circular needle
Size 6 double pointed needles

Setup:
Cast on 100 stitches on the size 5 needles, join for knitting in the round being careful not to twist. Knit 2 Purl 2 rib for 1 inch. Switch to larger needles. Knit one round then begin beaded rounds.

Beaded Rounds:
Round 1: Knit 3, Bead 1 (instructions on the odessa pattern)*Knit 9, Bead 1, repeat from * around, Knit 6
Round 2: Knit 8, Bead 1, *Knit 9, Bead 1, repeat from * around, Knit 1
Round 3: Knit One Round

Repeat beaded rounds 3 times total.
Knit even until hat measures 5 ½" from cast on edge.

Decrease rounds:
Round 1: *Knit 8, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 2: Knit
Round 3: *Knit 7, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 4: Knit
Round 5: *Knit 6, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 6: Knit
Round 7: *Knit 5, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 8: Knit
Round 9: *Knit 4, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 10: Knit
Round 11: *Knit 3, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 12: Knit
Round 13: *Knit 2, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 14: Knit
Round 15: *Knit 1, Knit two together, repeat from * around
Round 16: Knit two together around

Cut yarn leaving a long tail. Draw tail through remaining stitches, pull tight, and secure to inside of hat. Tuck in ends. Block if desired.

Bah humbug

Just an FYI. I don’t care how filled with holiday cheer you are…. if it’s 9:00 at night, the week before Christmas, and you’re checking me out at Target I do NOT want to chat with you. Especially if what you want to chat about is the fact that yes, my purchases include cute underwear and a bottle of wine, and no those are not "typical holiday necessities." Actually, the wine is completely necessary to survive conversations like this one thank you very much.

Is it Christmas yet?

Winner!

Ok so sorry I forgot to do this yesterday… the whole Christmas preparation thing… you know.

Aaanyways here’s how I did this… I took everyone’s name who commented on the post and made a numbered list… I listed your name twice if you gave me a pattern suggestion – 3 times if you gave me more than one (a few people had emailed me more suggestions). Then I went to the random number generator and this is what I got:

Lucky number 7 is the winner!

That means that Knitting Nurse – you’re getting some yummy pink merino! I can't wait to see what you make with it! Thanks for playing everyone… I will have to do this again sometime soon!

In other news I had a great weekend... I so wish this picture didn't come out blurry:

Aren't we cute in our matching aprons? Baking cookies w/ my mom and my grandma is one of my fav. traditions... although this year I relinquished my rights to the pizzelle iron b/c my grandma needed to sit down and that is a sitting down kindof job…

Speaking of grandma’s I finished a hat this weekend for Jennifer’s grandma. Hopefully I’ll have some time to write up the pattern and post it tomorrow...

Congrats, again Knitting Nurse!

Manly Knitting

Several of you commented that we should set up a knit along for the men in our lives… well… Robin and I did! This is the first time hosting a knit along for both of us so we’re very excited about it. Check it out:

Come on over if you want to play along and knit a sweater for a guy.

Other than that I’ve done no knitting of late. Haven’t even had a chance to swatch for the Durrow… it’s been a crazy week. But the tree is up, the annual shopping trip with my dad is complete, and I’m almost (meaning sortof kindof not really) done with my other shopping.

Tomorrow I’m baking cookies all day with my mom and my grandma – it’s tradition that we get together and do that… so I probably won’t get to picking names for the merino until Sunday. Just wanted to let you know.

Have a great weekend!!!

The next big thing

Check out what the UPS man brought me yesterday:
That would be 15 balls of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed to make my husband his very own Durrow. It’s seriously amazing yarn – 80% wool, 5% silk, 5% cashmere. By far the most expensive and luxurious thing I’ve ever knit.

I think he deserves to have me spend all of my time, energy, and good yarn on him, though, since he does put up with me spending my time and energy on good yarn!

I haven’t even swatched it yet. I was waiting until I finish the Thuja kneesocks and a few other things… my resolve is weakening, though… it’s just so soft….and really, I think I’ve done enough of the Christmas crafting for this year….

Who wants some hand painted lace weight merino?

First of all thank you for all of the wonderful compliments on my shawl! It made my weekend to read them… and holy crap I got over 20 comments?! I feel like a celebrity!

So anyways for the shawl I dyed 2 skeins of yarn…. And I used exactly one skein – I think I had literally less than 2 feet left...Now that I'm done I’m completely sick of the pink lace…. So who wants this?

It’s 880 yards of the knitpicks dye your own merino. I posted about dying it here. If you want it just comment on this post… then I’ll put all of your names in a hat and pick one! I should have time to mail it out this Sat… so I’ll pick names sometime Sat. (Dec 12) morning.

Oh and if you give me an idea for something lacy to knit with either of these (745ish yards each of laceweight from my last secret pal): I’ll put your name in the hat twice! I need a new lace project…

Ooooh this is fun. I’ve never had a contest before!

Cherry Blossom Shawl Block Party

Blocking lace is the coolest thing ever.... this was my first attempt at blocking something circular so I didn't really know what I was doing...

Basically I started by doing everything that I did when I blocked Adamas - I let it soak for about a half hour (with euclean) then being careful not to let any of it streach out I smooshed it in a towel to get rid of some of the excess water.

From there I was sortof at a loss. I didn’t know how to use my blocking wires effectively… I tried pinning the first repeat evenly but that was a mess… and the shawl started out really pouchy in the middle and somehow the middle pinning seemed to exaggerate that. Finally I came up with this solution:

I pinned my tape measure through the middle at the exact center of the shawl… this way I had a nice measure of radius. From there I just pinned out points at the same dimension (23.5"). First I pinned opposite sides, then the cross, then each middle point from there on.

Eventually I started pinning out each point.

Until it was finished.

This baby is seriously stretched within an inch of its life. I had to keep checking to make sure none of the pins had popped out! But eventually it relaxed into that shape – and no more pins were sent flying across the room.

Oh yeah - as soon as I put it on my blocking board I realized it was going to be way bigger than I had room for… luckily I had a hand-me-down board that used to be my great grandma’s. Putting the two boards together worked well enough but if I did it again I think I’d put something underneath them to keep them from sliding around.

anyways... here's what you really want to see:

Before:

After:


Before (last Friday's post)After:


Before:


After:


The specs:
Pattern: Cherry Blossom Shawl from the Spring 2002 Interweave knits
Modifications: I only knit 9 repeats of the third chart instead of whatever they called for… my grandma is a small woman so I didn’t want the shawl to be too big! It still came out a pretty decent size – about 45" across.
Yarn: Knitpicks Color your own that I Dyed myself with koolaid
Timeline: For-ever. Since June. I had some issues though…



 It was so very worth it in the end!

Sneak preview

I blocked the Cherry Blossom Shawl last night:

I made myself wait until last nigh to block it b/c I knew that if it was drying all weekend I would spend all weekend moving pins around. This way I’m at work and I can’t obsess over it….
Hopefully tonight it will be dry…. I will post lots and lots and lots more pictures when I unpin it!

In other news… if you live in Cleveland and haven’t been to the Barcelona exhibit yet go now. It’s awesome. The Gaudi models and Miro sketches alone are worth the admission price. Not to mention getting to see Dali's Accomodations of Desire up close and personal. We went on Sat with Osam & Alyson… we also went to the Botanical Garden to check out the gingerbread houses and had a lovely dinner at La Dolce Vita. Sadly I have no pictures of any of this … someday I’ll remember to photograph things other than yarn. Heh.

Awesomely Bad Friday

Two things that are awesomely bad that I’m totally addicted to right now:

1.) V-spot videos through VH1.com. Yeah… I’m ashamed to admit just how many times I’ve listened to the new Beyoncee song today… To the left to the left… And I fogot how hot the guy in the Crazy video was and how bad ass it was when Alicia bungee jumped in flannel.

You must not know ‘bout me…You must not know ‘bout me

2.) Beverly Hills 90210 on Soap Net. They’re back to the Brenda years and I can’t get enough of the teen angst. The sleepover episode is on December 6th – set your DVR’s. I know I did!

There must be some kindof early ‘90’s bug going around…

I can have another you in a minute… matter fact he’ll be here in a minute

Sorry – I’m a little giddy today… I just finished a huuuuge deadline at work. Everything got done, everything looks really good and the client is very happy with our work. Whoot!

Oh yeah and does anyone know how to block a circular shawl? ‘cause this baby’s done:

Hope you have an awesomely bad weekend!