Dresses

Dang, I was going through old blog posts and thought I had certainly blogged about the dresses I made my neices.   This is not the case.  In fact it has almost been a year since I blogged last.  Wow, time sure does fly.

I made these dresses last summer and thankfully they still fit.  While the girls were visiting this summer we did a photo shoot in my mom’s garden.

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Aren’t my girls adorable?  I had originally planned on writing up the pattern to publish it but they discontinued the yarn (Cottontail: 60% cotton/40% microfiber).  Maybe I will try and find a good substitute and force myself to do some pattern writing.  It is my least favorite part of design and I always put it off.  I have all my chicken scratch notes about sizes and everything, I have just been lazy about formalizing the pattern.  Then it needs to be edited and maybe even test knit.

I sure do sound like quite the complainer today so on that note, I’m out, see you in a year.

Leggings and vests

I am choosing not to look at how long it has been since I posted last.  I know it is more than a year and that I am not much of a blogger but the back log of FOs is high so I thought I would start small and show some pictures.

Knitting and Crochet Bolg Week, Day 3

Tidy Mind, Tidy Stitches

I am not an overly organized person.  I am not very neat either.  I would take pictures of my yarn and needle storage but my house is currently too messy to document (for fun we can pretend that it isn’t always that way.)

Yarn – I have a large cedar chest that stores almost all my yarn stash.  In general, each type of yarn is stored separately in clear gallon zip lock bags.  Balls that are singles or partial skeins will sometimes get put together in one bag.

Needles – I keep my knitting needles in a small plastic set of drawers.  The straight needles live together in one drawer and the circulars in another.  My best idea for needle storage was to include a needle gauge in the drawer with the circulars.  It is always on hand when looking for a certain needle size.  I have a lovely needle roll that Lora made me that stores all my double points.  The biggest key to needle organization is putting them back where they belong and I struggle with it.

The finished projects I keep organized on ravelry and here on the blog.

My favorite organizational tool is my knitting notebook.  I keep it with my knitting bag and write down patterns I design, notes on modifications to current projects and new pattern ideas/sketches.  It is really helpful to have records of my projects and I reference the information all the time.  Every once in a while I have a really hard time trying to interpret my notes but for the most part it is incredibly helpful.  I am actually on book two and find the graph paper lab notebooks to be the best.  I have a serious fondness for graph paper but it especially useful for knitting charts and drawings.

 

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, Day 2

Okay, I know that we are officially on Day 3, but I failed to blog on Day 2 so I am starting with Day 2’s topic.

Skill + 1UP

In the last year I have started knitting with two colors.  I finished the Sea Turtle Socks.

Also, I have started “The Fair Isle Sweater.”  I can’t seem to find a photo of anything but Swatch 1.0.

I thought that I had a picture of Swatch 2.0 but I can’t find it anywhere.

On to Day 3 Topic.

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, Day 1

In order to jump-start my blog (HA!) I am going to try to participate in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week again this year.  Info on the event is here.

Day 1 Topic – A Tale of Two Yarns

The suggestion for this topic is to pick a yarn that you loved and one that you didn’t.  I am not such a good follower of instructions so instead I am picking two yarns that I desperately want to own.

Quince & Co. – Yarn 1 is actually a newish yarn company.  I tried to narrow it down to one yarn but they all look so amazing.  I want to try this yarn so badly.  I love the colors, I love the names, I love the story (here), I love that it is a US based yarn and I really want to support that if possible.

SHELTER – Yarn 2 is also a US wool product and it looks amazing.  I am a huge fan of anything Jared Flood does.  Any yarn designed by such a great knitter has to be special, right?  If you have not seen the blog posts about the making of this yarn with photos from the mill, you should.  The first post is here.  (This is the mill that makes Harrisville Shetland, another all time favorite yarn of mine.)

There are multiple reasons I do not own either of these yarns yet:

1. I hate buying yarn on the internet.  I like to see the colors in person and touch the yarn before committing.
2. I have a knitting project back-log that is huge and more yarn with no real plans too.
3. The yarns seem really special and I want to have a project in mind ahead of buying so I can get the right amount in the right dye lot.  One skein would be fun but I think a sweaters worth would be much, much better.  I am still mulling over the pattern options.
4. I am on a moderately strict yarn budget (see reason 2) and these two yarns are competing with each other.  I can’t seem to pick which one I want more.  Not the worst position to be in, but sometimes I am not good at making decisions.

I am not sure how soon but someday I will have some of these yarns to knit with and it will be awesome.