rusted root

...is done!



(there is so much random crap in the background of this picture! my cat's toy cherry, weights, window screen, charging ipod...i'll do a better job of tidying up first next time i do a photo shoot)

pattern: rusted root, by zephyr style
needles: denise needles, size 6 & 5
yarn: cotton fleece, in emperor's robe, about 3.75 skeins
started some time in april, finished earlier this week

i've been nearly done with this sweater for ages, and i finally did all of the finishing over the weekend. i love it! it fits perfectly, save for the sleeves being just a tad too loose. the pattern called for using size 4 needles for the arm bands and i probably should have done that instead of using the 5s, but my denise needles were out and i don't have 4s with that set. it's a pretty minor issue. oh yeah...one other little thing. my last skein of the cotton fleece was a different dye lot. i was planning on mixing the last two skeins, but then got lazy, and unfortunately, you can tell the difference in certain lights. the bottom three or four inches of the sweater are a different color, as are the neck and arm bands. but in most light you can't tell, and hopefully it won't be glaringly obvious. i learned my lesson though - laziness in knitting does not pay off!



now that this sweater is off my plate, i am starting brigitte with some rowan cotton braid that i picked up for cheap. i think it's also about time i started up on my brother's socks again. better luck to me this time!

and the winner is...

michael! i've sent you an email so you can let me know which color you'd like.

thanks for playing, everyone! i can definitely see why people like having contests. having all those comments roll in was lots of fun. and you all have such great taste in cake! i forgot about red velvet and ice cream cake...those two would definitely be up there on my list of favorites as well.



just so i don't have a photo-less blog post, check out what i got at anthropologie today. i got a gift card from my in-laws for my birthday, and i decided to just get a few cute little kitchen items. i'm in love with these napkins (and i didn't get charged for one of them. score!) and this mini collander, which is the perfect size for washing fruit. a somewhat frivolous purchase for sure, which is exactly how birthday money should be spent, right?

happy birthday to me!

as i mentioned the other day, today is my birthday! i am 28. it's been a pretty low-key birthday this year - i worked, and we're going out for pizza here in a bit. i'm going out for drinks with some friends next week, but that's it for the celebrations this year!

last year, when i turned 27, i decided that 27 was going to be really great year for me, and that i really wanted to develop my creative skills and interests. i think i've done a pretty good job. i took up sewing, and continue to learn more about that. i've definitely developed as a knitter. and i started this here blog, which has certainly pushed me to put my crafty skills to work more often. it's also afforded me the opportunity to be inspired by other crafters like me. so i thought that today would be a good time to have my first contest, to thank you all for reading and inspiring me, and to celebrate the year ahead.

so i'm going to make it really, really easy. just leave me a comment on this post, telling me what your favorite birthday cake is. mine? when i was a kid i always asked my mom to make me pumpkin pie for my birthday, but there's also something really good about plain yellow cake with chocolate frosting, too. i'll pick a winner probably on sunday evening.



and the prize? some yarn pirate yarn! you can pick one of the two shown above. that's clementine on the left and sadie on the right. if you win you can pick your fave!

catching up

wow, it's been an exhausting week and i don't even know where to start writing! i guess i should start by saying thanks to everyone who left me a nice comment about losing my job. all those comments really did make me feel better. so thanks!

this week has been a total whirlwind and i feel completely off, out of my normal flow. my in-laws were in town all week and while it was fun, i was pretty glad to see them leave today. that sounds really mean. i'm just tired of sleeping on an air mattress in the living room, tired of my cat waking me up at 5 in the morning because i'm in 'his' room and he's a morning person, tired of eating rich food at restaurants and tired of having to entertain. i think that makes me a big whiner, but there you have it. i spent all of today napping, reading a book and trying to catch up on my out-of-control bloglines. and it felt goooooood.

while we were entertaining this week, i also managed to get a job! i know, crazy! it happened really, really fast. i applied on monday, got a call on tuesday, went for an interview wednesday and was offered the job on friday. i'm not 100 percent sure about this job, but i think for now it will be good, and i'm thankful i didn't have to be out of work for too long (though after my exhausting week, i could do with another week or two of slackerdom). i start tomorrow!

i also managed to work in a quick little project. it was my friend's birthday this week, so i made her what else? fingerless gloves! my fourth or fifth pair this year. this time i made the hand/wrist warmers from last minute knitted gifts. i used the called-for noro cash iroha, and though it's very beautiful, i had some issues with it. namely, the huge variation in thickness of this yarn. i would say it's mostly a worsted weight, but there were some parts that were really chunky, and those parts sort of obscured the pattern, a diagonal rib that was really fun to knit. still, i like how these turned out. snug and comfy, and they really did only take a few hours to make. my kind of project!



here's a picture of one of them...i really did make two, but i only finished one in time for my friend's birthday party, so i gave her that one then, and finished the second one the next morning.

my birthday is on thursday, so i think to celebrate, i'm going to have my first-ever contest later this week. stay tuned!

thank goodness for mail

so i had kind of a bad day yesterday. yesterday i lost my job. actually the whole company went under, so quite a few people in the bellevue, washington area lost their jobs. it's unfortunate, and definitely not what i was wanting to deal with at the moment, but i'm sure it will all be okay in the end. i felt fairly fine about it yesterday but today started to feel kind of down, so the sound swap cd that arrived in the mail from jennie cheered me up even more than it normally would have. it totally made my day!



when i signed up for the sound swap, i was secretly hoping that jennie would be the one sending me a mix because i felt like she probably knew a whole lot about an area of music that i was curious about. and lucky me, i did indeed get a great mix from her! and one that i know i'll get a lot of enjoyment from and that will prompt me to look into many of the artists on here that i'm not already familiar with.

the tracklisting for 'phonographic: a saturday morning anytime feel good mix'

1. rum and coca cola - andrews sisters
2. pistol packin' mama - al dexter and his troopers
3. let me play with your poodle - tampa red w/ big maceo
4. scatterbrain mama - delmore brothers
5. chicago rhythm - jimmie noone
6. make up your mind - kitty wells
7. i'm wild about that thing - bessie smith
8. coucou - django reinhardt
9. barbecue bust - mississippi jook band
10. coney isle - roscoe holcomb
11. roly poly - bob wills and his light crust dough boys
12. corina - carter sisters
13. don't try to keep up with the joneses - dizzy gillespie
14. country blues - dock boggs
15. wish i was a single girl again - lulu belle and scotty
16. if i didn't love you - hank williams
17. beans and cornbread - louis jordan
18. little satchel - fred cocherham
19. lord, i want to die easy - josh white
20. big leg blues - mississippi john hurt
21. she's got money too - uncle dave macon
22. don't falter at the altar - cab calloway

and the cover is cute to boot! jennie also sent me a skein of sundara sport weight in a gorgeous blue, which is just about the most exciting thing to happen to me in a very long while - i've been lusting after some sundara yarn for ages now but never seem to get to the website in time to make one of her yarn updates. thank you so much jennie! i love everything!



and while i'm showing off cool mail, i also wanted to say thanks to stickchicky for the lace book that i won in a contest she had on her blog. that arrived this week too, and the book is gorgeous. i think most of the patterns are waaaaay beyond my skill set right now, but it's nice to have something to aspire to, and there are some things in there that i'd love to make some day. so thank you!

that's all the exciting mail for me for the week...probably next week the thing i'll look forward to receiving most will be my unemployment check!

airy scarf

i finally finished a knitting project! it's been...way too long. like, the beginning of april i think. yikes! but i haven't finished rusted root, the project that really should be done by now (i'm almost there...i just got a little tired of all that stockinette in the round). instead, after my trip to portland where i picked up last-minute knitted gifts, i sort of decided one afternoon that i'd take a quick detour and make the airy scarf from the book. it's quick, it's short, it's light - perfect for this time of year, when the weather is warm, and my knitting attention span is even shorter than it normally is.

i used some habu textiles silk/mohair that my friend aruni sent me back in february. i have loads left of the cone she sent me, so i may have to make a few more of these as gifts at some point. the habu is a little finer than the kidsilk haze called for in the pattern, so my scarf is slightly narrower and shorter, but it's still the perfect lenght for tying around your neck for a little decoration without a lot of warmth.



i knit this up on size 10.5 needles, and at first the little yarn/big needle combo was so fiddly, i never thought i'd be able to finish! but i persevered, even when the scarf was only a couple of inches long and looked like a really bad toupee. i think it looks a little better now.

our lovely pacific northwest, in song and picture

i finally finished the cover for my sound swap cd, and it should be in the hands of its recipient here shortly. i finished the cd weeks ago! i don't know why i took so long to do the cover, but i'm pretty happy with the end result. the cd is all (well, mostly...) songs by artists from this neck of the woods. i hope my swap person likes it!

market bag

another sewing project, this one much more successful! this is the market bag from the crafter's companion. i've been looking forward to making this bag since i got the book, and it ended up being really fun to make.

the fabric is from my favorite online fabric store, superbuzzy. i picked the pear fabric out first, then had to choose something that matched for the lining and top part of the outside bag. i like the one i chose, but it doesn't quite match - i kind of wish i'd gone for something a little brighter. does anyone else think that the hardest part about sewing is the cutting of the fabric? it takes me forever and totally stresses me out. but...this was my first time adding piping to a sewing project! this thrilled me to no end when i sewed up those two outer pieces with the piping sandwiched in between, and saw when i was done sewing that it worked! it's not completely even and the piping is probably a little thinner than it should be, but i'm still quite impressed with myself for learning that new skill. also, i learned how to make a bag gusset. i seriously stared at the instructions in the book for like an hour, and kept putting the outer bag and liner aside to do other parts of the bag, because i could NOT figure out how to do the gusset. then, i woke up the next morning and magically had figured it out. i love when that happens.

and look! the coolest thing about this bag:











i really, truly think i should have an honest-to-goodness finished knitted object by the end of the week, though it might not be the one you're expecting to see (oops!).

i love the city of roses

this weekend we went to portland! i love portland so much - and luckily it's only a 2.5 hour drive from seattle, so we can go often (though we usually don't...but we should!). we planned to visit with some friends on friday and saturday evening, and drive back up on sunday afternoon. however, my hubby made it clear to me that during the day on saturday, i was on my own, as he had plans to hit up ALL of the city's record stores. fine with me!

after breakfast at the tin shed, we parted ways and my day of fun-ness began. first up was bolt, a fabric store i'd heard of but hadn't gotten to try yet. i went a little nuts in there but it was fun! things i'd only seen online before were right there in person. i love this paper crane fabric:



and also this:



then i went to the yarn store next door (i'm sorry - i can't remember its name!), and it was great, but i didn't buy anything. they had some pretty fancy yarn - the jade sapphire cashmere, in particular, caught my eye. but i wasn't in a yarn-buying mood, so off i went to the pearl district and checked out powell's. i bought last minute knitted gifts (am i the last knitter in the world to own this book?) and a few used novels, and then just wandered around the area for a while. i went to saint cupcake for an afternoon treat and had these three mini cupcakes:



that's red velvet, carrot and coconut cream. yum!

i saw this little bunny graffiti:



then i headed over to hawthorne and rummaged through the red light and buffalo exchange. i was on the lookout for the perfect pair of vintage sandals, which of course i didn't find, but i did come away with a weird little bead necklace and a pretty bag:



that was about it for the day...we met up with one of my friends and we went to hotlips pizza for pizza and on-tap blackberry soda.

it was a good weekend (we also went here for breakfast on sunday...the chocolate chip banana pancakes were SO good), and we got home exhausted sunday evening. but now i can't wait to go back!

an apple a day

i feel like such a lame blogger of late. i've been a busy bee with other stuff, so i don't really have much knitting progress to show. but i guess i have a few thing of interest to report, so here goes!

first off, despite my whinging about my bad sewing skills in my last post (thanks for making me feel better, by the way), i still continue to buy fabric and sewing books at an alarming rate. it seems that in my head, sewing skill is directly proportional to the amount of fabric in your stash. at least i look like a real sewer with all these piles of fabric! anywho...i got the lotta jansdotter book at last, and there are several cute little projects that i can't wait to make (why am i SO excited about making a draft snake? i don't know, but i really, really am). i picked up some fabric from sarah's new etsy shop, including some of the new denyse schmidt katy jump rope fabric. it's so pretty...i feel like denyse schmidt can do no wrong as far as her fabrics are concerned.

second, progress continues to be made on my rusted root - i need to do probably another four pattern repeats, and then the neck and sleeve ribbing and then...i'll be done! but i've had to momentarily set it aside while i make yet another pair of fetching (my third pair, to be exact. that's crazy!). fetching just makes such a great gift - all three pairs that i've made have been gifted. but hopefully i can finish rusted root by early next week. that would be almost exactly a month since i started it, and i think that's pretty respectable.

rr however has gotten too big to carry around with me to work, so i've started a lunchtime project - a pair of socks, my first knitted with magic loop, which i'm loving. i'm doing the oak rib socks from nancy bush's knitting vintage socks, and using some yarn pirate in apple. so i'm calling them my oak and apple socks - i know, i'm so clever! i've barely started, but you can see that these not only fit in perfectly with project spectrum, but they're like spring personified (or sockified?!). i really like how they're mostly green, and actually lots of different greens, with the thin stripes of bubblegum pink and rosy mauve thrown in. love!





alrighty! i have to go get ready for the craft night i'm hosting tonight - jenna and shannon will be there, as well as all my other crafty-though-blogless friends. good times!

the ugly apron

oh my. i think i hit an absolute low point in my crafting career last night. i had admirable intentions, inspiring materials to work with, and there was the potential for everything to work out okay, but somewhere along the way, things went seriously pear-shaped.



i picked up this pillow case at the thrift store a few months ago, with the pillow case apron from the crafter's companion in mind. i washed it and ironed it, and didn't get much further than that until this week. i have several other little crafty projects in mind for the next few weeks, so i thought i'd get this one out of the way first. plus, it's pink - so project spectrum! i love aprons, i love the crafter's companion - what could go wrong?

well for starters, i have very limited sewing skills. i don't think that can be over-emphasized here. obvious issues:

• the pocket i created is noticeably crooked
  
• the pocket is made by sewing a zig-zag stitch through two layers then carefully cutting down the center of the zig zap to create a slit. i did this, but the result was a very sloppy, uneven looking pocket. it looks like a giant gash in the fabric - like a mistake with the rotary cutter. not like a pocket, though it certainly can function as a pocket.
  
• because of the pillow case's weird dimensions (it's a king size pillow case, so it was a lot longer than normal, but not wider), i folded it length-wise instead of width-wise as the pattern calls for. this made sense to me at the time but now i have no idea why i did it! the result is a really long, REALLY skinny apron

i think that's about it, but it's enough. the whole thing is just funny looking. the good news is that it was my first time making little darts, where the apron ties are sewn to the apron body. those worked out fine!



ugh...please ignore the clutter in my apartment. it's always like that.

for all that went wrong, i'm not actually too sad about this project. i mean, it's an apron! i now don't have to feel bad about getting it really messy, right? and if i really hate it, it means i have about a pillow case worth of cute, pink flowery fabric. i guess it's projects like this (this was supposed to be a really easy project, damn it!) that keep you humble, and i'm definitely feeling humble right about now, for sure. better luck next time!

orangina, orangina, where you been so long?

as promised, here's a progress shot of my orangina. none of this is new progress - this is as far as i got with the project last july, when i started it, pre-blog. back then, i was sooooooo excited about getting this done - i loved (and still do!) the design, and couldn't wait to wear it. but then a few gift knits got in the way, and before you know it, it's april and i still don't have an orangina to my name! still, that first half is complete, and i think the second half will go pretty fast as well. not that i've cast on for it yet! soon, soon.





the yarn is rowan 4-ply cotton, which is lovely and soft to work with. the color is 'fennel,' which is fun to say and always makes me smile. i'm excited, if nothing else, to just not have it hanging over my head. but i think i'll enjoy wearing it as well.

and i try not to post too many pictures of my cat, but i can't resist sharing this one. he's just too darn cute here! he was helping with the photo shoot.

feeling blue

hello!

first off, i wanted to say thanks to chris for the cute card she sent me this week as part of the knitterly letter swap. look, it's knitters, knitting:



thanks chris - your return letter is on the way!

in my last post i mentioned that i was going to focus on getting two sweaters done in the next two months: finishing my orangina from last summer, and starting rusted root. well, rusted root came first, and so far i'm really enjoying it. this is my first top-down sweater that i've attempted, and i can already see why people like this method so much. i'm almost done with the raglan increases, and it looks, believe it or not, like a sweater! this thrills me way more than it should, i know. but...like i said before, i've started many a sweater and not finished a single one, largely because i get bored of knitting large rectangles, and have a hard time imagining the final product. here, i can definitely see the puffy sleeves taking shape, the neckline is obviously a neckline, and the length of the sweater is growing. i hope to get this done in the next few weeks, as it's knitting up really fast, and i'm feeling really motivated by the project. and as long as i don't have any more mishaps like i had the other night, when the two connected cords of my denise needles spontaneously unconnected, leaving me with a few severely dropped stitches, then i think that goal is attainable.



i'm using lamb's pride cotton fleece, in the 'emperor's robe' color. i know, i should have picked a pink or a green! but when i went to buy the yarn, none of the pinks or greens really thrilled me, and my orangina is green anyway, so i thought i'd go for another color. now that i'm knitting with this color, i'm not sure if i like it or not. i kind of wish it was more of a navy blue, but oh well. maybe it will bring out the blue in my eyes!

hopefully i'll have an orangina progress shot for you later this week as well...

fake-a-gamo completo!

it's been a while since i last posted, mostly for lack of anything to post about. i feel like any knitting i've done over the past few weeks has fallen into some mysterious knitting black hole, leaving me nothing to show for my efforts. but finally (and it does feel like ages since i can say this), i have a finished object to show off - fake-a-gamo is finally done!





i got really excited about this project the second i laid eyes on it, way back in october. and i remained excited through the first side of the bag. but when i realized i had to do it all over again, what originally seemed fun and cool and whatnot suddenly seemed...not so much those things. i REALLY struggled to bother finishing the second side. i'm still not exactly sure if it was worth the effort either - i think it looks nice, but i don't really know how much i'll use this bag - i need a BIG purse, and this is not that. it's teeny! at about 11 inches across and five or six inches tall (not including the handle strap parts), this bag basically holds my pretty darn big wallet, and not much else. so i guess it will get use as an occasional bag when i go out, but i don't see me using it as an everyday bag. but i sound so negative! i do like it - i like the triangle patterns, i love the lining, and i think it's a super cute summery bag. so yay- a cute, finished knit!

the details:

pattern: fake-a-gamo (this is a free pattern - i just emailed kate and she sent it right to me)
yarn: lamb's pride cotton fleece, in buttercream - one skein (a sidenote on that...i bought WAY too much of this stuff. i really don't know what i was thinking at the time, but seriously - way too much. after i finished the first half, it looked like i had used less than 1/2 of the first skein, so i took the other skeins back to the yarn store and exchanged it for another color, for another project. of course...i ran out of yarn before i got to the end of the second half of the bag. i felt *this* dumb. luckily, i ran out on the last folded-over handle bit, and luckily, i had a wool yarn that matched almost exactly, but still...silly me.)
needles: denise needles, size 6
modifications: i didn't do the little curlicue thingies at the bottom, and my bag is quite a bit smaller than the dimensions in the pattern, which is because i used a different yarn and didn't bother swatching first...i figured it didn't matter too much since it's just a bag. i'm just lazy like that.

i've decided that for april and may, i'm going to focus on finishing my orangina that i started last july (it's green, for project spectrum!), and also finish up another sweater that i started this week - the popular rusted root. please keep me honest here - i really want some cute summer tops to wear this year, and i'm excited to work on these, but i always lose steam on sweaters. i've actually never finished one (orangina is a good example of my typical sweater experience), though i've started many. i find that really sad, so i'm hoping to change that soon.

oh yeah! last week veronica emailed me to say that i had won some yarn on her blog. we both live in seattle, so last saturday we met up for chai, which was a fun treat, and she gave me this:



that's three skeins of art yarns regal silk, and one of a matching art yarns silk tape. it's gorgeous! i keep petting it. thanks again veronica! i'm not sure what i'm going to do with it yet, but i'm starting to think about making a second, smaller clapotis. any other ideas?

pink, green, yellow...the colors of our lives

today lolly asked to see our pink, green and yellow stash, and i was happy to oblige...i think green is the most represented color in my stash. i can't get enough green! and if it's the right pink or the right yellow, i can't get enough of that either.

so here are the greens:



(that's roughly, from top right, trekking xxl, rowan 4-ply cotton, yarn pirate in 'sadie,' frog tree, socks that rock in 'alina,' yarn pirate in 'apple,' socks that rock in 'watermelon tourmaline,' the knittery (shade unknown), and louet gems in 'fern')

and the pinks (much fewer of those):



(knit picks shine in orchid - i have LOTS of this stuff!, and yarntini in 'pomtini')

and the yellow:



(that's jamieson's shetland spindrift in 'flax,' lisa souza sock! yarn in 'ginger peach,' and some unknown cotton that i used last year to make my mom some dish cloths)

and some more project spectrum around my house...

about five or six years ago, i bought these japanese/chinese language flash cards at a little boutique and bought some cheapo frames from ikea to frame them. i painted them yellow and green because that matched my bathroom at the time. these live in our kitchen now.



tea is a very important part of my day:



soy bean afro ken!



this is an afghan that my great-grandmother crocheted. i love it!



this is where my button collection lives:



and some buttons:



and my book journal, where i record lists of all the books i read in a year:

alpaca love

today, my friend and i went to alpacapalooza! i've been wanting to go for months, ever since i first learned of the festival from a fridge magnet on my office refridgerator for a previous alpacapalooza. i think the festival lived up to the enormous hype i'd built up in my mind - there were SO many adorable little alpacas, and tons of alpaca yarn for sale too. i was well behaved and didn't buy any yarn (or alpacas for that matter, though i was tempted), but i definitely fondled a lot of yarn, watched some being spun, petted some alpacas, and even got a kiss from one! we decided we definitely want an alpaca farm one day - i want a fluffy tan alpaca, to be named butterscotch. :) here are some pictures from our day.

















(sorry for so many pictures...i couldn't pick just a few)

ooh! i also got some exciting mail yesterday. a month or so ago, i commented on kristie's blog that i loved the green yarn she was using for a pair of socks. she responded that it was one of the few australian sock yarns that she thought was really good, and would i like to do a sock yarn swap? knowing what an awesome swap partner she is, i was quick to agree. and she sent me the best stuff! the yarn is gorgeous and so soft, and lots of lovely shades of green - i like how it is labeled as 'cheerfully handpainted'! and then she also sent me a cute brooch that i've already worn twice, a little fabric pouch, a sweet little roll of trim (i'm so excited to find something to use this with!), and a cd of australian bands. i love it all! thanks kristie!