Tag: wip

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

A WIP, a pic, and an off-topic plug

four green yarns on chopping board
Photo by Surene Palvie on Pexels.com

Sorry for the hiatus, I was at Comic-Con this weekend in San Diego. Such a fun time! Oddly, though, I never saw anyone but myself knitting (or crocheting, for that matter) in the busy hallways of the Convention Center.

I couldn’t bring the log cabin scrap blanket, as it’s getting too big for easy transport, so I grabbed a bag of three balls of Cascade 220 that had already been ziplocked into complementary colors, printed out a copy of the Booga Bag pattern, and threw it all into my suitcase for the trip.

WIP: handbagI didn’t get very far on it–I mostly only knit in the car up and down, and a little between sessions while sitting on the floor of the main lobby–but it was nice to be knitting again after crocheting for so long. I’ll admit I was afraid I’d forget something, but my fingers knew what they were doing as soon as they touched the Addi circs, so much so that I didn’t even have to look down half the time. (This was important when the carsickness hit on the drive back north.) The color is of course slightly off–the green is more of a kelly than the forest that it looks there.

As for finished projects, I was a bad photographer and forgot to photograph the finished blankets for Grace and Noah before I delivered them to their mother on Friday. Suffice to say, they’re adorable with their single crochet borders of pink and green (Noah’s border is pink and Grace’s green, so that they match their sib’s colorway).

That’s all I’ve got for needlework/yarn news.  In off-topic news, check out page 75 of this week’s Entertainment Weekly (the one with The Deathly Hallows on the cover) for a cute write-up of my friend Allyson’s first book, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?

Categories
Blogs

Hooks and Books

crop woman crocheting soft pink scarf
Photo by Anete Lusina on Pexels.com

First up, a sale!
If you’re a subscriber to Knitting Daily, then you’re already aware that Interweave Press is having a “hurt book” sale, selling off damaged books at deeply discounted sales.  I was verra excited about this, as I’ve been barely holding back purchasing 200 Crochet Blocks and I figured this would be the perfect incentive.  Until, that is, I went to the website.

Now, I’m at work, which means I’m on a pretty fast connection–usually.  The Hurt Books website, however, is agonizingly slow.  Like, having a car park right on your foot and the driver can’t hear you so he leaves it there for awhile, slow. Agonizing.  But I stuck it out, ’cause I wanted that book.  Took about 20 minutes, but I finally got the main page, then the “shopping” page, then the specific book page to open.  (Three pages, 20 minutes. Why don’t they just stick a pen in my eye and get it over with?)  I added it to my cart. (Another five minutes.)  Then it was time to check out! Except….there was no link to my cart.  No “view cart”, no “checkout” button, no nuthin’ to indicate it was even a shopping site.  WTF?! I had to go back to the homepage (……………..load already!…….) to find a “View Cart” link in the left nav, and when I clicked on it?  A 404.

I gave up.  A half hour to buy a book at 50% off, and no way to checkout?  I’d rather pay Amazon’s price.

Now granted, it’s entirely possible, even probable, that the site’s problems are due to a higher than usual traffic rate, but in the end, it just wasn’t worth it to me. But if you want to try it out, I wish you luck, speed, and much patience. 🙂

In Crochet News
Last week I was doing my usual blog sweep, and found the coolest bag on L.A. Is My Beat. It’s called “Larger Than Life,” the pattern for which was included in the spring issue of Interweave Crochet. It was so beautiful, with so many vibrant colors, I just had to have one! I hit Borders on Independence Day and picked up a copy of the magazine, and I got started on my first square this past Sunday.

Wow, it’s harder than it looks!  Also, it’s my first square, so I’m still learning the basics, but this square is definitely teaching me lots!  It’s not finished–one more round to go–and I have no pictures yet, but this first one is yellow in the center, green in the middle layer, and purple on the outside–perfect Mardi Gras colors, actually.  I’m verra proud of it so far, and can’t wait to make more, but it requires concentration, which makes it difficult to work on when there are distractions, like conversations and dvds and inquisitive cats.  I’ll try to remember to take a picture tonight.

Also this weekend, I crochet my first flower, from a pattern in The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches.  It was easy–boring, really.  I made two, one in yellow, one in purple.  I’ll take pictures of those tonight, too.

And finally, today I brought Grace’s blanket with me to work.  I’ll be weaving in ends and adding a lime-green sc border during lunch, as it’s about time I got both hers and Noah’s blankets finished, washed and delivered to their rightful homes.

And that’s what’s up with me in the world of yarn.  I haven’t picked up the knitting needles in what seems like ages–crochet is just so much easier and quicker.  Maybe once these projects are complete, I’ll try to knit some booties from a little booklet I got at the grocery store checkout line.

Until then, always remember, you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever! 😀

Aiko the Amigurumi Bunny

As I sat here all freakin’ day waiting for an overnighted delivery (4:30, they showed up–4:30!), I worked on my first amigurumi animal, Aiko the bunny.  It’s been a little frustrating, as the pattern has a couple of mistakes, and the body appears to be half the size of the head, and shaped like a vase, and looks nothing like the picture.  Maybe it’ll all become clear once I’ve stuffed the pieces (no polyfill in the house), but at the moment, I’m looking at it all and wondering if I’ve wasted my day on something that can never work as written.  Poop.

Finally, pictures of WIPs

I know, it took way too long to get these up, but I finally got around to it, and now, yay! Pictures!  All blankets below were crocheted in the log cabin style featured in Mason-Dixon Knitting.

WIP: Noah's Buffy Season Two blanketFirst is my favorite, Noah’s Buffy Season Two Blanket, so named because that’s what I’ve been watching while I’ve worked on it.  I picked up the yarn two weeks ago at Handmade–five shades of Plymouth Encore, as it’s one of the easiest yarns to work with, has neato bright colors, and is washable.  There are two blues, one (bright) green, one purple and one variegated.  I’m very happy with it so far, I think the colors work together beautifully.  It needs three more sections to be complete (i.e., the same size as Grace’s).

The second is Grace’s Sorcerer’s Stone Blanket (named for the audio book I was listening to while working on it).  While I adore the bright oranges, yellows and pink of this blanket, I think I failed on the execution.  The problems:

WIP: Grace's Sorcerer's Stone blanket1.  I used the same color for two consecutive sections each, which worked great when I only had three colors, but not so much with five.

2.  Each section is made up of nine rows–way too many, it turns out.  Five rows worked so much better with Noah’s blanket.  This problem, mixed with the first problem, meant I ran out of pink when I was only four rows from being finished, requiring me to buy a whole new ball.  Bah.

 3.  I didn’t order the colors very well, and the two oranges that look really similar–but aren’t–ended up too close in the order, which meant switching things up.  I don’t think this mistake hurt as much as the other two, but it offends my own anal-retentive need for order and symmetry.

This blanket will be finished when I finally get around to adding the last four rows of pink (plus a border, of course).  So, very close now.

WIP: Scrap blanketThe final blanket is just a hodgepodge of the leftover yarn from the other two blankets.  No clue how it’ll look, as I’m really not planning it at all; nor how big it’ll be.  I might go out of my way to make it larger, large enough to give it to my aunt for a lap blanket for Christmas.

I’m really enjoying the log cabin styled blanket, and crochet in general.  However, I don’t think I’m spacing my stitches very well when I’m picking up along the edges, hence the weird puckering in all the blankets.  Just when I think I’ve figured it out, I lay it flat and voila! Puckers aplenty!  Fortunately, I don’t think the babies will care.

Outta yarn

First, let me say that I’m coming to adore crochet.  It’s so much faster than knitting, that I can finish a baby blanket in a week with double crochet, when it takes me three times that (if not more) to knit a Big Bad Baby Blanket.  That said, however, it uses more yarn than I expected–I’m about five rows from finishing Grace’s log cabin blanket, and I ran out of yarn!  Ok, so I didn’t run out of *all* yarn, but I ran out of the pink Plymouth Encore about halfway through the last pink stripe.  Not fair!  I mean, sure, it’s a great color, so even if (when) I buy another ball of the pink, I know I’ll use the rest of it in another project, ’cause it’s just too cute not to.  But I was so close to being finished, and now I have to wait until I can find time for a trip into the Valley to get another skein.  And you just know I won’t be walking out of there with just the one skein.  *sigh*

 Just as well, I suppose, as I have to stock up on the right colors for Noah’s blanket, which will be my next project.  And no, I still haven’t gone back to my ribbon tank top.  Sadly.