blog land makes me happy

leah and jodi both made my friday with a 'you make my day' award. yay! leah, with her great taste in music (and a shared love of wes anderson), has been one of my favorite blogs to read from day 1. and jodi always posts great recipes and beautiful knitted projects, and is just lovely in general. thanks girls!

Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.

so in addition to the above lovely ladies, i want to give the award to the following ten bloggers: people whose blogs i absolutely love, and always am inspired by. blogs that i rush to read when i see they have a new post in bloglines. this was such a hard choice! these ten are only a sample of my many, many favorites.

1. twinknit. i just love jennie! i've been reading her blog since i started reading blogs, and hers is still one of my favorites. i'm always inspired by her choice of projects, and i like hearing about her music studies. i miss all the posts about her life in rural appalachia though!

2. me, myself and kai. karen is so prolific in her crafting, and is talented at knitting, sewing, embroidering...plus i admire her frequency in blog posting, which is something i always strive to improve but never quite achieve. her star pillow pattern is on my to-make list. and her doggy is so darn cute!

3. brainylady. i just love her whole aesthetic--the yarn and fabric she chooses, the projects she makes...i'm always left feeling like, 'i want that!' i love hearing about her thrifting adventures as well.

4. carrie girl. one of my newer reads! carrie is a fellow gocco-er, and in addition is a talented seamstress and all-around crafter. plus she gets the coolest stuff at the midwest thrift stores she frequents.

5. chrysanthemum. a fellow seattle-ite, and we also have a shared love of trophy cupcakes (and, looking at her sidebar, eerily similar taste in books as well).

6. kitty genius. i have SUCH a crush on ashley's art, especially her little beardy men. plus, her success in making a living from doing what she loves is great to see, and reminds me that it can be done.

7. quelle erqsome. more than anything, emma's blog makes me laugh. her stories about work and home life are hilarious. and her zeal for buying new sock yarn is infectious. also a fellow cupcake lover!

8. knotty bits. i'm glad that maritza has taken up the knit blogging again, in addition to blogging about her cute, cute softies. her color choices leave me breathless--check out the daisy stitch hand warmers she's working on (and she's already inspired me to make at least one of her projects, same yarn choice and all: the chevron scarf).

9. knitting school dropout. melissa never fails to inspire me with her amazing, amazing sweaters. seriously, this girl has given me knitter's envy more times than i care to admit (and i dream of one day making her scottish tweed raglan sweater). plus, we have the same name!

10. zeitgeist. again with the pretty, pretty sweaters! kate doesn't just choose patterns that i also happen to like...she designs her own sweaters that i absolutely love. sweaters are not my strong suit...seeing sweaters like hers makes me want to get better.

that's it! thanks to you all for bringing a little cheer to my days.

a work in progress

thanks for all the kind words and support for my 2008 goals! though i have to admit...i'm failing somewhat already. i have done a terrible job of cutting back on sugar, and my first efforts at making jam...well let's just say i spent three hours yesterday making pink grapefruit marmalade, and instead ended up with two jars of hard candy that i'm pretty sure i will never be able to get out of the jars. good thing jars are cheap! (it's also worth noting that those two resolutions are in direct conflict with each other...there is a LOT of sugar in jam!) anyway, i will persevere with the jam-making efforts. i think next time i'll try some apple jelly.

one other thing i also want to be better about this year is showing more works-in-progress. i tend to only post about things when they're all done, which isn't much fun, and really, i think, not the point of blogging. so, seeing as i'm in the middle of quite a few projects at the moment and don't have any finished objects on the immediate horizon, i thought i'd show something i'm still working on. after making my raven mittens, i got the taste for doing some more color work. so i cast on for a project i've been dreaming of for some time, some endpaper mitts.



i struggled a bit with deciding on a color combination. i bought yarn for this project about a year ago: two skeins of louet gems in teal and green. but when i finally got around to starting the project, i decided the colors weren't contrast-y enough. so i decided i needed to buy more yarn! eventuallly i settled on some shibuiknits sock in bark, and some nature's palette in coral, both from the loopy ewe. perfect! i'm so in love with this combination, and i'm even more in love with the nature's palette yarn in general. the color is heartbreakingly beautiful, and the yarn is the perfect amount of squishy. so right away this project seems destined to be a winner. i'm almost done with the first mitt - i just need to do the ribbing around the top and the thumb. i can't wait to wear these!

looking forward, looking back

Knits of 2007
Originally uploaded by owlandacorn

here we are, well into january, but i'm still feeling reflective about the past year. craft-wise and otherwise, i did quite alot in 2007! it was also a pretty stressful year, with both good and bad stress: i lost a job and found a new one, i moved out of my house for two months while our kitchen was remodeled, we bought our first house (well, condo. but still!), and my brother moved from seattle to another country (sob!). i also made some great new friends, read 26 books, watched more movies than i could count, and completed 19 knitting projects (and failed to complete a few others).

i think my fave projects of the year were my silk garden socks, my le slouch, and my foliage. i learned this year that i'm a hat girl!

looking forward, i have quite a few goals for next year, all of which seem pretty attainable right now. my list:

1. take a spanish class (already signed up!).
2. bake bread in my new dutch oven.
3. beat the 26 books i read in 2007 - i'm aiming for 30. there was a time when i easily read twice that amount in any given year...now 30 will be a struggle, but i think i can do it.
4. learn to make jam.
5. learn more about food preserving in general, and preserve some food this summer for the winter.
6. eat something i've grown myself.
7. buy a real bed...our mattress is still just sitting on the floor. i'm not in college anymore! i think it's finally time.
8. knit at least one sweater.
9. sew some clothes, starting with a skirt.
10. try my hand at crewel.
11. make a small quilt.
12. the one that will definitely be hardest for me...eat less sugar!

happy new year!

i thought i'd fit one more post, one more finished project in before 2007 draws to a close. i had all of last week and today off work, and i've been pretty lazy, but i did manage to knit up this cute beret. it's wendy bernard's le slouch, and i've had my eye on this project since the moment it came out, but am only now getting around to making it. i love it! i'm in an instant gratification, small project kind of mood right now, and this was perfect. it took just two evenings, and i know i will wear it a lot.





pattern: le slouch yarn: peace fleece, negotiation gray needles: size 8 and 9 denise



i love how it looks like a sea urchin. i thought it would be a lot slouchier--i knit it to the full six inches before decreasing, but i think i might have misunderstood the directions for finishing the decreasing and finished it too soon, so i probably lost a little slouch that way. still, i don't think i would have liked it any baggier. i think i might make another one, possibly in red, and possibly in stockinette instead of the seed stitch.

happy new year everyone!

more handmade holidays!

merry christmas, a little late! i hope everyone had a good day, if you celebrate, and got all the presents your little heart desired. my friends and family spoiled me absolutely rotten, and i got some really wonderful things this year, as well as some really lovely handmade gifts. yay! i got so many books, i should be set for at least the next six months. i absolutely love getting books for christmas! ooh, and i also got another beardy man from my friend brooke, which was a really exciting surprise. i'm growing a little collection of men on my kitchen wall!

it's not all about the getting though, right? i definitely did my fair share of giving this year too, and much of it was handmade. besides what i've already shown off, i made a pair of the raven mittens (annemor #5) from terri shea's selbuvotter book. i picked this book up a few months ago and only now got around to trying one of the patterns out. besides the thumbs turning out weird, i think these turned out really great (even though they weren't done in time for christmas). the pattern is sized for small children; i went up a couple of needle sizes to get a small woman's size. still, they were a bit too small. they fit my sister-in-law, but i would have been more comfortable if they were a tad larger. i'll go up another needle size if i make these again.



pattern: annemor #5, selbuvotter: biography of a knitting tradition
yarn: dalegarn heilo, one ball each of navy and oatmeal
needle: addi turbo size 4

i also made several of these little clutches from bend-the-rules sewing. these are so fun and quick to make--i need to make one for myself now!



i have one other gift knit that's still on the needles. i really, really tried to get it done in time for christmas, but it just didn't happen. hopefully, soon!

handmade holidays: sugar on snow

last year, i made this totoro hat for my friend's soon-to-be-born baby, cora. in the past year, cora has worn the hat a lot, and looked cute to boot, but as babies are prone to doing, she's grown out of it. so i decided to make her a new hat, one that would grow with her, at least for a while. enter sugar on snow, from the fall 2006 knitty. it doesn't seem like that many people have made this hat, and i don't know why, because it's so cute! the baby cable pattern is really stretchy, and a little different from typical ribbed hats. the size i made is supposed to fit a child aged one to three, and i think that's very well possible, especially since i think it's a little on the large size right now. room to grow! anyway, i really enjoyed making this hat. the knit picks swish, held double, made a soft, squishy fabric that knit up very quickly, and the leaves add just the right amount of interest and cuteness. i think i would make this in the adult size for me!



pattern: sugar on snow
yarn: knit picks swish superwash, in sand dune, two balls, and some red scrap yarn for the i-cord and leaves
needles: size 9 denise needles
model: cora. isn't she cute? check out that dimple!



(thanks to brooke for taking the photos!)

handmade holidays: a knit tie

so...holiday gift making is going...okay. i felt really confident and not stressed about a week ago, but now i'm not so sure. most of my big sewing projects are done (and gifted already! i'll have to wait till i give the last couple away til i show them off though), but the knitting is taking a lot longer. i really only have four knitted gifts in mind, and i finally finished two of them. the first one i can show here is a tie. my brother asked for an 80s-style knitted tie, and i said, why not! so i picked out a sock yarn that looked suitably 80s knit tie-ish and cast on. i couldn't really find a pattern that matched what i had in mind, so i just sort of improvised, using one of my husband's ties as a guide. i worked the self-striping yarn in seed stitch, and you know what? it really does look like an 80s knit tie! it's off the needles now and blocking. some of the edges look a little ragged, so hopefully blocking will tidy those up. i'll take a picture of my brother wearing it on christmas!



pattern: my own
yarn: universal yarn inc. ditto
needles: clover bamboo size 2 dpns

i also made my christmas cards with my gocco again. these look a little more rustic than i'd like, but i still think they turned out pretty cute. i need to break out the gocco more often than just for holiday cards!



now...back to the other knitted gifts.

being naughty, not nice

sorry for the extended blog break...it's not for lack of knitting, purely a lack of light to take pictures. it's impossible to get a good picture after work, since it's dark before i even leave. and even the daylight is pretty dim these days. but the darkness and cold does make for good knitting. i finished the noro silk garden lite socks, and i'm very happy with them.



these were my first toe-ups, and as such, the toes are both slightly wonky, and the short-row heels are not perfect, though the second one came out much better than the first. still, i really liked knitting these toe-up! i can see it being my sock knitting method of choice in the future. i'm a little bummed out that my stripes don't match - the second ball had the beige at the end of the ball, as opposed to the beginning, like the first. so my stripes were offset by one color throughout, but i made up for that by making the foot of the second one slightly shorter. the first sock is just a touch too slouchy, and the second one fits perfectly. and in the end, the stripes pretty much match up on the leg, but not the foot, which is fine. i've been wearing these as house socks, and also over tights and thinner socks, in my rain boots. comfy!



pattern: none really. i used the toe-up sock guide in the summer 2007 IK as a guide, but really, i kind of just cast on and went for it.
yarn: noro silk garden lite, color 2015, two balls
needles: addi turbo size 4

so...once the socks were done, i was supposed to get right back into my christmas knitting. here's where the naughty part comes in. instead of getting going with my gifts, i decided it would be a great idea to make myself a hat! i've had this frog tree merino in my stash since i went to the madrona fiber festival in january. i was flipping through ravelry the other day and realized that the yarn would be perfect for foliage.



i had some of the called-for malabrigo, but i thought that the variegation would obscure the leaf pattern too much. i'm glad i went for this solid yarn instead. it's super soft, and has a nice halo to it. it almost looks like it glows! i really had fun making this hat - it took just a couple of hours, and was an easy enough lace pattern to make while watching tv. and it's so cute!



though my version looks less like the autumn leaves in the original pattern, and more like a spring green version. or maybe a 1970s shag carpet version? it's very avocado! in any case, i've been wearing it non-stop, and it's kept my head warm this weekend when we had SNOW!



pattern: foliage, fall 2007 knitty
yarn: frog tree merino worsted, color 46, one whole ball and a few yards of a second
needles: inox bamboo dpns size 7, and brittany birch dpns, size 6

anyway...i will have progress shots of my holiday knitting soon! i promise, i really, truly am going to get to work on it now (though now i want to make myself more hats...namely, le slouch and tillie)!

some good things

1. any carrie brownstein/sleater kinney fans out there? i found out the other day that carrie now has a blog on the npr website. i love her, so this excites me greatly.

2. i ordered this on amazon this week. i'm picturing lots of evenings knitting in front of the tv in my future (as if that's not what i already do every night, but still...yay!)

3. i also ordered a beardy man print from ashley g, after spotting it on the design*sponge blog. i love those beardy men! (can you tell i just got paid and have money burning a hole in my pocket...?)

4. i started some noro silk garden lite socks this week, and they are flying along. the first one is done! they're my first toe-up socks, and i don't know if it's just the fact that i'm knitting them on size 4 needles or what, but toe-up seems so much faster! i think it's psychological...the foot part is always what seems to take the longest for me with socks, so getting that out of the way first seems so liberating. i'm so much in love with these socks.



i knit the foot slightly too long, but otherwise, it's really cute!

kubota garden, and a finished drops jacket

this weekend we went to kubota garden. i'd never been before, and it's hard to believe this huge, beautiful spot is just a 15-minute drive from where we live. the japanese maples were flaming red, and all of the other plants were in the midst of their downward decay into winter-ness, which i think is so beautiful. i'm eager to visit the garden again in winter, spring and summer; if it's half as gorgeous as it is in the fall, i feel i'll be going back many, many times. here are a LOT of pictures!

























i also used our visit to kubota garden as a backdrop for taking pictures of my drops jacket, which i finished early last week. i didn't really get any good shots, but here is one, plus another one in my living room.





pattern: drops jacket
yarn: rowan yorkshire tweed chunky in damp, exactly seven balls
needles: size 11 denise needles
buttons: vintage plastic

as excited as i initially was about this project, i ended up feeling disappointed in the end result, and feeling like i should have known better than to use such a chunky yarn. my disappointment is two-fold: i think the finished sweater is way too bulky and wildly unflattering, and also, the finishing of the sweater turned out very poorly. i shouldn't have used the chunky yarn to seam the sweater, but i did, resulting in very bulky seams. also, the yarn kept breaking! i liked the yorkshire tweed though - the tweediness itself is beautiful, and it created a soft fabric. i will probably still wear this as a house sweater, and maybe occasionally out. it's very warm, and it does have those cute vintage buttons working in its favor! at least i feel like i learned some valuable lessons with this sweater. next time will be better!

now that the drops jacket is done, i'm back to work on the back-to-school u-neck, and have also started three (!) other projects. i'll show those off, plus some pretty new yarn, later this week!

Handmade Holidays -- 30 Days of Gifts to Sew

have you all heard about the sew, mama, sew project that's going on in the month of november? i'm super duper excited about it (yes, super duper!). every day in november, sew, mama, sew will post tutorials for a different handmade gift. today, kicking off november, is aprons. i never do too well at cranking out loads of knitted gifts each year, but sewing? i think can probably do a little better with that. i was already planning to make a lunch bag for someone, so i especially look forward to that tutorial, but i'm also interested in the baby items and household items.

what do you plan to make for holiday gifts this year?

my knitting gets a new home

how has it been two weeks since my last post? i have no idea! i'm sorry to say i still don't have much to report on, but yesterday, i did get some exciting mail. a month or so ago, karen made a fabulous knitting bag, and i fell in love with it. she suggested we do a little swap, and then she proceeded to make ME! a fabulous knitting bag too! after the postal service sent the bag on a little adventure from new mexico to washington to georgia and then back to washington, it finally arrived on my doorstep. and it was worth the wait!



i love the nautical theme karen went for, and i love the combination of mint green and red. so cute! she's really thought through her construction of these bags as well, and has included little nooks for needles, notions and projects. plus, i think it's the perfect size for carting around town. i think i'll be getting a lot of use out of it. she also kindly sent along some cute fabric-covered buttons, some candy, some vintage bright red knitting needles (!) and an adorable pin cushion that i am obsessing over. of course, i don't have pictures of any of that, but rest assured, it's all good, and i'll try to take pictures over the weekend when i have some daylight hours for picture taking. thanks again karen! i'll swap with you any day.

in actual knitting news, the drops jacket is getting very close to being done. i just have to finish up the right front and do one other sleeve (the first one only took a couple of hours), so i'm anticipating finishing this up maybe this week? don't hold me to that though!

what are your thoughts on blocking before vs. blocking after seaming? this sweater is going to be heavy...i'm scared that if i block it after seaming, it will never ever dry. but blocking all the pieces separately seems like a pain. i don't know. you tell me!

sweater love

it's gotten chilly here in seattle these past few weeks...maybe it's always like this this time of year, but to me it feels colder much earlier this year. not that i'm complaining! i live for this time of year, when i'm perfectly justified in making a little nest of blankets/cat/knitting on the couch and settling in to watch lots of movies (i pulled out our american splendor dvd the other day...i love that movie so much!). it's also when my mind turns to sweaters--the cozier the better.



with that in mind, here's one i've been working on for a while actually, but haven't had time to blog about. it's the back-to-school u-neck sweater from fitted knits, done up in some pretty cascade 220 heathers. i'm just past the boob darts, which didn't go so well, but i think they'll do. just an inch or so more of the waffle stitch, then i can split for the arms. i'm really liking this sweater! the cascade 220 is squishy and lovely as always, and the color, paired with the waffle stitch, reminds me of honeycomb. i'm a little scared that all that ribbing will be unflattering, but i plan to wear it over another top, so hopefully that will reduce the clingyness.

then this weekend...i accidentally cast on for a new sweater, that drops 3/4-sleeve jacket that is so popular in blog land right now. i knew i was going to make this, i just didn't expect to make it right now. and yet, here i am! this is knitting up very fast - i finished a sleeve in a day, and am now well into the back (too bad it's an unphotogenic sweater...i could not get a non-blurry shot of it!). i've heard of people knitting this up in four days, and i don't think i'll finish that fast, but i think i should be wearing this one pretty soon. and i have the most perfect turquoise vintage buttons that match the blue, tweedy flecks in this yarn. i'm going to be so sad if they turn out to be too small!



which one will i finish first? i'm feeling more excited about the drops cardigan right now, but the u-neck vest is further along, so i guess only time will tell which sweater i'll be wearing first.

happiness is...

...a quick, cute knitting project





making new throw pillows for the couch



10 balls of beautiful yarn to make this

oregon flock and fiber

this week i turned one in blog years! blog years must be something akin to dog years...it feels like i've had this little blog for much longer than just one year (in a good way!), but the numbers don't lie. i remember starting it on impulse while bored at work, thinking i would probably abandon the idea in a short time, but instead, it turns out i really like blogging. so here's to another year!

saturday morning, jenna and i got up early and drove to the oregon flock and fiber festival. it was such a nice day! we got to the festival a little past noon, and immediately hit up the blue moon fiber arts booth, where i scored some much-coveted socks that rock lightweight in oregon red clover honey. i'm so in love with this color, and i contemplated buying it in the silk thread and lace yarns as well, but my better sense prevailed.



i also picked up a cheapo mill ends skein of the medium weight, in a color i've admired for some time, blue moonstone. i'm really going for the semi-solid yarns these days.



i had planned to buy some yarn to make the drops cardigan that everyone seems to be making these days, but i didn't find anything suitable at the festival. instead, the only other thing i picked up was some sock hop handspun in 'my boyfriend's back' -- this will hopefully become calorimetry here shortly.



so three skeins of yarn - less than $40. i was pretty well behaved!

of course what fiber festival would be complete without some cute, fuzzy little animals? we saw goats, sheep, bunnies, alpacas, llamas, yaks and even two teenaged camels.







and that was our exciting day! we headed home at around 5:30 (not before getting some great photos of the clackamas county fair and rodeo queens and princesses), stopping near mt. st. helens for some roadside mexican food, and got home at about 10. it was a long day, and i was glad for sleep, but it was a really fun little road trip. i'm looking forward to going again next year!

fo: chevron scarf

so my plan was to get this done before i moved back home, and i almost made it. i had all of three inches, plus the border, left to do the night before we were to move, and i fully planned to come home and finish it up, but my car had other plans. i ended up spending that night waiting for a tow truck, so scarfy had to wait. if only i'd had the scarf with me at the time, that two-hour wait wouldn't have been so bad. but i did finish it the day after i moved back - i can live with that!

the end result is, i think, really great. i had kind of a roller coaster of emotions about the color combo all the way through - i love it! it's too green! it's too burgundy! it's perfect! in the end, i think i am happy with the colors. it's not a subtle scarf, for sure, but i think the blend of goldenrods and olives and navies and peaches is actually quite lovely, and will match many things in my closet - including my new navy coat!



it's funny though - these two, disparate colorways look nice together, but individually, i think they've got to be two of the ugliest skeins of yarn i've ever bought! or not ugly exactly...just really not to my taste. watermelon tourmaline is way too pastel-y, and farmhouse reminds me of the early 90s when people wore mustard and forest green jeans and thought that was a good idea. yet somehow the two together work!

i did not knit it to the full 72 or so inches called for in the pattern - i knit it to 65 inches, which is how tall i am. it seemed like a good place to stop. i blocked it though, and it grew several more inches - i haven't measured, but it's probably around 70 inches now - a good scarf length. a good weight too - i used socks that rock lightweight, as opposed to the medium weight that many others have used, and it makes for a warm but not heavy scarf that feels really nice around the neck.



i'm so pleased with my new scarf!

here are the details: pattern: chevron scarf, last-minute knitted gifts
yarn: str lightweight, in farmhouse and watermelon tourmaline. i used a little more than half of each, so i have enough for baby booties or something else small in each color still
needles: size 5 denise
modifications: i added two stitches at either end to prevent curling, which worked pretty well. i also made it shorter.

yesterday i went to oregon flock & fiber with jenna - i'll show off my goodies later this week!

home again, home again

we are finally back home! it's been a hectic couple of weeks getting everything finalized and getting moved back in, but it's pretty much calmed down now, and we are now homeowners! even though one of the benefits of buying our apartment was that we wouldn't have to move, it pretty much felt like we had to move anyway, even though most of our stuff never left the apartment. everything was boxed and moved to one side in the living room so construction in the kitchen and bathroom could take place. our house was an absolute mess of dust and boxes and crumpled newspaper. so i took thursday off to unpack and get settled, and i spent a whole lot of the weekend doing the same. but who cares about that...want to see some 'after' shots?

first, the kitchen 'before,' in case you forgot what it looked like pre-remodel:



and partially through the process, when i thought it would never end:



and finally...ta-da!





i really like it, though it feels way fancy. i can't actually believe it's our kitchen. i was worried it would look a little too show-homey, but i've tried to put in some personal touches, like all our colorful plates and mugs, and some art, and lots of photos. and already, it feels like home again.