One Great Knitter

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Write about a knitter whose work (whether because of project choice, photography, styling, scale of projects, stash, etc) you enjoy. If they have an enjoyable blog, you might find it a good opportunity to send a smile their way.

One knitter that really gets my mojo going is Norah Gaughan. I love her patterns and I have many in my queue. She is inspired by nature and currently has 453 patterns listed on Ravelry. Her latest feat is a collaboration for a book Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans. I just bought it and I am waiting for it to be shipped. I want to knit afghans now. Every one of them in this book!

I don't have a crocheter that I absolutely adore so its all about knitting today:(

Here are some of Norah's patterns that I hope to be knitting soon....





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In other news, I am so close to finishing Citron for Marcy. I have to ship it by Monday at the latest unless I ship it UPS. Which I will probably do anyways since the USPS is so unreliable.

I also think that I am going to try and post certain things on different days of the week. Wednesday will be current WIPs (works in progress). Friday will be FOs (finished objects). I haven't thought of the other days and I don't know if my life and knitting is interesting enough to write about every day. Two days is enough consistent blogging.

I found some novelty (gasp!) yarn at Stitches that I really like Cocoon or something. Webs carries it and it will be about $150 to knit/crochet a blanket out of it. It reminds me of a fuzzy caterpillar. I fondled it at the Universal Yarn stand at Stitches and was amazed. Its soft and can be made in a variety of ways for different effects.

I had some moles removed last Friday and I am pretty sure the one on my chest has become infected even with the use of Polysporin. I can't really access the ones on my back so I have to rely on the Mister.

The Mister has been overwhelmingly nice lately and I hope that this trend is here to stay. He will be going with me back home in a couple of weeks for my brother's graduation. I am having someone come look at my apartment and meet me on Friday afternoon to see if she wants to rent it. Hopefully she works out. I have weeded out some crazies and scammers already.

Inspiration

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!

This is extreme inspiration:



This is ma-cherie from Ravelry. A wedding dress. Crocheted. Floor length. Need I say more?

And this is a fair-isle sweater which I absolutely love. lorijo from Ravelry knit this. Beautiful colors and FAIR ISLE. I will knit a least 1 fair isle sweater this year. One for Drew and possibly one for me:)




What inspires you?

Starting out!

Monday, April 26, 2010

This is the start of a week long blog week hosted by Eskimimi Knits.

How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

I began crocheting around the age of 5. My dad asked an older woman to teach my mother and me. I remember my great-grandmother crocheting as a child and I have many of her blankets. I crocheted lots of crochet booties that were basically rectangles that I sewed up. I was ambitious at that age even with some Red Heart---I wanted to crochet a blanket in candy apple red and white. Needless to say that it didn't get very far. I didn't pick up the hooks again consistently until I discovered real patterns that were new exciting and updated around the time that I learned to knit.

I learned to knit when I was 17 and my Latin teacher taught me. She even let me skip class one day to go to a yarn/needlepoint store about a block away from my high school. I knit like 30 scarves that year almost all of them with fringe and cheap cheap yarn. The ones I have given to a select few of my family still wear them even though I cringe when I see them. I also learned how to cable and knit in the round. I made many hats as well. I got made fun of by my family and some pals that didn't knit but now I have them begging for items;)

I have dabbled in many other craft mediums: beadwork, painting, papermaking, calligraphy, sewing, paper mache...well you get the idea. I really feel connected to my knitting and crochet. I love wearing things that I have made and I like giving them as gifts even those who don't really understand the love and care that goes into making something. Check out Knitterella's gift labels here and they are perfect for those sort of people.

Stitches South

Sunday, April 25, 2010

I went to Stitches with a pal and met up with all of our regular knitting group. I didn't take pictures while I was there. I must say I was a little disappointed by the number of booths but I found some great yarn! I admired the yarn for quite sometime at Tess' Designer yarns. Great colors and yardage. I bought the most yarn from Webs. I discovered Berroco Vintage which I cannot wait to knit up. I also bought some Noro Yuzen that was on sale. I bought 3 skeins from Miss Babs and she is very nice. I am in love with Lisa Souza yarns. Their colors are so rich and saturated its amazing. The picture doesn't do it justice.

In other news, I am trying to get back into running shape. Its rough and I am sore everyday. It will pay off though sitting in a little bikini in Puerto Rico in a couple of months! I put an ad for a roommate up today and in like an hour I had someone respond. We are meeting on Friday and I hope she will be a good fit. I am really not ready to give up my freedom but I am not in my apartment a lot. The extra money will be really nice. I will post pictures of my yarn next time it is taking forever for them to load tonight:)

Weekend!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Ah, my week is now complete. Having Fridays off is really awesome. I do have to get up early tomorrow for 2 morning doctor's appointments. I have horrible anxiety about going to the doctor. If I have to sit in a room for more than 15 minutes before they come in I really start to panic. I don't know why and unlike most people, I love going to the dentist. Maybe because they always tell me I have great teeth:)

Marcy's Citron is chugging along and I hope to get it finished by next weekend at the latest. Its mindless but lace weight white yarn is a big difficult to see sometimes. I am blocking my Clapotis today on my couch and I hope it will be dry before I go to Stitches South tomorrow afternoon. If not I will whip out the blow dryer.

I bought a domain today for my 'brand' if you must. So I will be moving over to a new place that I can call my own soon! I have been watching Etsy daily at different times to see what price points that items are selling and it just has gotten ridiculously cheap. I will have more freedoms at my own site so I will be working on that probably on Fridays. My blog will move over there and I will be selling items that I have made and patterns eventually.

I am going to the Ravelry event tonight and I hope to have pictures posted of all the festivities of Stitches at some point.

Catch up

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

So last week was tough for me. I got fired on Wednesday after having my personal character and work ethic attacked and discredited. Lots of wine and resume writing later... Then I was re-hired on Friday with many apologies. I did agree to come back and now I am working in another department. I was happy that it was realized that my quick exit was not with merit of any kind. I did have extreme doubts all weekend about coming back to a company that allowed this to happen in the first place. So far so good:)



Here is a picture of the Noro soaker I made. It took around 115 yards of Kureyon which is technically one skein. I made the small size of the Vanilla pattern so I should be able to make the newborn size with under one skein! I also bought some more Cashwool from a fellow raveler. One is a great pink and the other a nice light lavender. I am going to make another Citron for myself and a cute lace shrug from Stitch Diva. Its a new pattern with the yarn held double. I think I am going to use the lighter color for it and the pink for the Citron. I just blocked my entrelac tee and I have to add a lower garter stitch border. I tried it on today and I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE it even as it is unfinished!

Next week I will be participating in Knit and Crochet Blog week held by Eskimimi Knits. Every day there will be a new topic that everyone participating will write about. I think it will be a fun thing to do for a week!

Best of all I will be off on Fridays now:) More time for life and knitting!

I close with an unblocked picture of my Clapotis...

Analytics

Thursday, April 15, 2010

I find myself addicted to Google Analytics like some people are addicted to facebook. I check it at least once a day. Here are some stats. The average time spent on my site is 4 minutes and 40 seconds. Out of 13 visitors, only 11% have only came to my site once. I am happy so far with the numbers since this blog is only a month old. Maybe I can right about more interesting things:)

I found my camera charger and I will be hopefully posting a picture-rich post by this afternoon or at least by tomorrow.

Noro soakers will be added to my Etsy along with some flower earrings:)