Next up on the crafting block

I finally got started on those Halloween costumes. I cut out the pattern for the Saloon Girl last night. I was thinking of putting EL wire in the bodice instead of piping, but now I'm thinking it's not quite the right costume for EL wire. I also got a huge pile of fabric and notions at Fabricland yesterday for the Halloween costumes. (I would be posting a picture now, but my camera has mysteriously disappeared. It'll turn up soon, or I'll use my phone or something.) So I already had some black satiny stuff for the bodice, it's probably el cheapo lining, but its nice enough, and for Halloween its perfect.

We spent forever wandering around Fabricland looking for fabric so that our costumes would match or look nice together, but not be too matchy-matchy. We wound up finding the perfect combination on one of the upholstery fabric discount tables. So I got some shantung fabric in a light khaki green for the skirt of the dress. It matches well with the heavy twill paisley in mustard, green, and rust red that I got for the Old West Dude's vest. The green shantung will probably be used fo the tie on that costume as well, just to tie (aha!) it all together. And I also got a pile of black broadcloth and some interfacing. Still need some material for the shirt for Craig's costume.

I did get a bunch of notions as well, the Saloon Girl dress needs a whole bunch of trims and ribbons and stuff. Black lace in two different thicknesses, green and gold beaded trim, buttons (they're pewter coloured but now I'm thinking they should have been gold to match the beaded trim... oh well....), black satin and green grosgrain ribbon, bias tape, and I actually bought matching thread for once! Still need a few more things, including giant feathers which I'm hoping to get at the Oktoberfest store in Kitchener.

I'm a little bit ahead of myself too, because I've started working on Christmas and holiday gifts already too. So far the idea is to make knitted dishcloths and handmade soaps for friends, thrummed mittens for Craig's family and maybe my dad, this scarf for my mom, and I'm not really sure what Craig is getting yet. I've made one dishcloth, I dyed the yarn and have started the scarf for my mom. I'm hoping to get some roving and some worsted wool at the KW Knitter's Fair this weekend to make the mittens. And I'll get some extra so maybe I can make matching hats if I have a ton of extra time (which I might, seeing as I'm off work until January).

It's that time of year...

The man burns in three weeks from today. Which means we leave in two weeks. Which is frickin' awesome! Also awesome is the fact that Beth has decided to come with us, which bring us up to a group of six now. I happen to think that six is the perfect number, since we rented two pickup, and now it makes more sense to get a second hotel room on the way back (only three people per shower!). And we're building a hexagonal shade structure, which will be a living room in the middle, with one tent connected to each side. So now we'll have four tents, then one side will have a truck full of supplies, and the other side is the entrance. Oh and then girls aren't outnumbered anymore! And Beth is really fun and awesome and easy to get along with.

We've got all the sheets cut for the shade structure now, and are in the process of sewing it up now. First have to lay it out in the park to make sure it looks pretty!

Of course I've been busy crafting a whole bunch of stuff lately, to bring to burning man.

I knit a pair of legwarmers out of some leftover colours of Noro. Good for nighttime playa wear, on when its cold, anf taken off easily if its warm.


On the first day while we're building the shade structure, we'll wear white to keep cool. So I made this dress, using Burda 7808. The fabric is so pretty and has an irridescent mandala pattern that I'm sure will look great in the playa sun. Unfortunately the fabric doesn't photograph well.


And I knit this halter top out of Bamboo yarn, with sequins. Daytime playa wear!


And this is the basic slip dress from the book Knitting Lingerie Style. It took a while, but I can't wait to wear it at Burning Man!There's lots more stuff that I have't taken pictures of. Some thing I want to wait and take pictures of them on the playa, and other things I probably won't photograph at all. You'll have to be there to see them!

New bag! Newport!

A little while ago, I ordered the Namaste Laguna bag from Elann. I love love love it. Its big, and its fake leather but super soft, and its a lovely turquoise colour. Its big, its got lots of pockets, basically its the perfect bag for being a purse, and fitting a knitting project in there too.

So when I saw that Namaste was coming out with a new bag, the Newport, I had to preorder one from Dream Weaver yarns. It arrived today (super fast!), I got the limited edition peacock colour. And here is a photo of the bags side by side, the Laguna on the left, the Newport on the right:

Knitting Update

I have been neglecting this blog a whole lot, so here's a whole bunch of what I've been working on since the last update...

In very slow progress, a purple mohair sweater in a deep amethyst colour. I bought the pattern and yarn (Lily Chin Tribeca) on sale at Len's Mill in Cambridge. I keep picking it up and just knitting a few row here and there, so it's not hibernating, it's just progressing slowly.


I also finally finished the socks I was stalling on. My first socks are now done! I've worn them once, and they were super awesome and soft and warm, and now I just need to wash them once to make sure the dye won;t bleed or anything. I'm still not sure if they'll end up going in the regular load of laundry, or in the delicate soak, spin, and flat to dry with other knits (the Yarn Harlot sweater washing method).


And with the leftover, came more socks! Baby socks, for a coworkers 10-month old baby girl. One more purple picture:


Craig went on a snowboarding trip to Vermont, so I knit him a toque to wear that matches the scarf I gave him for xmas. It's knit in 1x1 rib in two-row alternating stripes of Patons SWS in Natural Russet and Natural Slate - exactly like the scarf. And it is long enough to fold up so he can cover his ears a lot or a little. The edge stretched out quite a bit by the end of his trip, which I think might be because I cast on really loosely. I gave it a soak and a spin in the washing mashing with some Eucalan, gave it a tug to stretch it out, and let it dry flat and it was all better. I just hope it doesn't keep happening. A picture of the matching set...

There's a cabley dog sweater almost done, and some furry stuff for Burning Man that I'm designing on the needles right now. Pictures soon!

First FO of the year!

But unfortunately the picture is blurry (and unblocked...)


It is blocked now and the squares don't look all drunk anymore like they do in the picture. I cast on last Wednesday at knitting night, and I'll be wearing it tomorrow night back to knitting night. Yay!

I knit my first sock, but I am stalling on finishing the second. I knit the heel way too long on the first one, but it fits okay so I don't want to frog it. So I am not enjoying knitting the second one very much. I am however looking forward to starting on a new, mistake-free pair of socks. Probably for Craig. And maybe toe-up. But I promised myself I wouldn't start more socks until I finished the current socks. Makes sense I guess. Taught myself magic loop (thank you knittinghelp!) to do them which I love, and am very proud of. Used it for the top of the hat too.



Now I'm watching American Idol, and going through my huge collection of knitting magazines and queuing patterns I like in ravelry so that I'm actually more like to knit them one day.

Reason #578697 why Ravelry is awesome...

Progress bars!

That right, little bars over on the right there tracking my knitting progress through the awesomeness that is ravelry. I was lucky enough to be online early enough on a Sunday morning to get myself on the progress bar list, and I am so so so happy about it. I even decided to make a little donation to Ravelry. I figure I donated to Craftster and I think I :heart: Ravelry even more so it only makes sense.

Now I just need to get a little "progress bars thanks to ravelry" button or something to go under them. And figure out how to get pictures of the projects to show...

Or maybe I'll just enjoy them how they are :)

Where my stitches at?

I am thoroughly amused by the debate over that phrase on ravelry. I didn't find it *that* funny, but I did order the only t-shirt that doesn't have the phrase on it. I ordered the "I swatched ravelry" one, because really "where my stitches at?" just doesn't say "I was on ravelry before it was open to the public cuz I'm such a cool hard core knitter!" So yeah, ok, onto craftier things... craftier things with pictures!

My newest WIPs! Everything is on ravelry, so I'll put the links to my ravelry notebook, but for now they'll only work for other ravelry beta testers. I guess they'll just work normally after ravelry goes public. Maybe? Ok, here goes:

Noro striped scarf, but not in Noro. It's in Patons SWS. Surprisingly I couldn't find anyone else on ravelry who'd made the scarf out of this yarn, but it is turning out beautifully so far. The pattern (if you can call it that) is here. And all the details for the project are here. It is a christmas gift for Craig, part of my goal of giving only handmade gifts this year at the holidays.




Pictures of the two colourways I am using for that one:







I also have a Branching Out on the needles, from Knitty. For Craig's mom. Details here. It's blue, a Debbie Bliss yarn that I don't love working with. It keeps splitting whenever I try to psso or k3tog. At least the pattern repeat isn't very long, so I can just do an inch or so at a time then put it down pretty easily.


I've also been working on Halloween costumes. More on that later.

Ravelry

So I finally got a ravelry invite! It seems to be helping at encouraging me to knit. I'm hoping for an entirely handmade holiday this year.



So I've made six dishcloths so far, and have almost finished the Carie Cropped Cardi from Fitted Knits, and a matching hat. Don't really want to say exactly what is for who just yet, just in case ;). I have finished sewing two items for Craig for xmas also.

I went to Romni in Toronto the other day, and bought some nice yarn to make some nice gifts. Yay natural fibres! Debbie Bliss Merino Aran in a robin egg blue:



Brown Sheep Burly Spun in Lotus Pink:


And Brown Sheep Prairie Silks in royal amethyst:

Oh my goodness, I never posted my HP crafts!

OK, so chronologically this goes before that tote bag for the craftster challenge, but somehow I forgot to post pictures about. I did mention on the cloud bolero, well, Harry Potter day was it's intended goal, and it *did* get done in time.

The release of the Deathly Hallows was a great excuse for me to do some crafting, since I work in a bookstore. We didn't have a midnight release party, but we did open super early Saturday morning, and had lots of decorations and stuff.

I really wanted a little purple sweater, so I decided to dress up as Luna Lovegood. I also ventured into the realm of polymer clay for the first time, to make her radish earrings:




And made a cork necklace, to keep away nargles:




And decoupaged a Luna quote on the bottom:




I also wanted to make a little cardigan like the one Luna wears in the OOTP movie. I dont crochet, so I found a knitting pattern I thought would look similar (cloud bolero by ysolda) and knit it in a similar colour. People recognized it, so I guess it was close enough




I also made a pair of pants based on ones Luna wore in OOTP, and also put crazy shoelaces in my all stars like Luna's.






I was going to put in an elastic waist, but ran around the house searching for thick elastic for hours and hours before I gave up and decided to just sew on ties. I had to wear a big long t-shirt provided by work, and the bow looked all poofy underneath so that wasn't good, but I think elastic may have looked weirder. Of course pretty much as soon as I got home from wearing the costume, I found the jar of elastic hiding behind a box that I'm sure I looked behind at least a dozen times while hunting. Oh well.






I also made a bunch of buttons. Some to give away to kids coming to get the book:





And some for those of us working to wear:




And wands! These were everyones favourite! People kept asking to buy them, so we started giving them away for a donation to charity. They are based on the tutorial here. I ended up making a few more batches, but only took pictures of the first one:



I just got a CD of pictures from my coworker from that day at work, so hopefully I'll remember to upload them soon!

Craftster Swap

Well my first Craftster swap is officially finished now. I am really happy with how everything turned out, and the stuff I got was amazing. I took a ton of pictures, and now that my partner Susanne (TAOJ) and I have both sent and received our packages, I can post pictures.

Way too many pictures...

First, here is the wonderful package I got from Susanne. All together:


First was a magic yarn ball in the most beautiful shade of pink, that Susanne dyed herself:


I immediately unwound it to find the treasures inside:


There's a mask, kool-aid for dying yarn (with instructions), and eyes to use in dolls. The eyes made a great rattling sound wound up inside the yarn, which made me even more curious to get to the middle. here's a close-up of the eyes:


And then wound the yarn back into a ball. I am not sure what I am going to make with it yet... any suggestions?





Then there were two little books. The first has two recipes for chocolatey stuff:





And the second is a mini scrapbook of my guinea pigs! TAOJ stalked me good! It is so awesome, you get to see every page!











And finally, a beautiful knitting needle roll, with flower applique:


The inside:


There are also stitch markers tied onto the end of the tie for the needle roll. At first I thought they were charms on the end of the tie, but Susanne pointed out what they really were.

And here is the package that I sent to her. First, a picture of everything together, taken by Susanne:



And the pictures of everything before I sent it:



The close-up was of a Hello Kitty dishcloth I knit for TAOJ, since she said she likes Hello Kitty. Hopefully the character shows up okay in the picture, its hard to photograph:




A wallet with cherry print. It's lined with lime green, and has two small pockets, and one larger zippered pocket. I thought I'd made peace with bias tape after the last apron I made, but apparently I was wrong. The bias tape is a little wonky, but for the sake of my sanity, and as a monument to my ongoing battle with bias tape, it stays a little wonky:




And this is a close-up of the button I made to close the wallet, using a phrase TAOJ suggested. I did it in illustrator and tried to make it match the fabric:




And the last small item is a set of buttons (badges, pins, whatever you call them!) There's two done in illustator, two done by hand with markers and gel pens, and one is fabric. The words on them are both things I thought up, and things my partner requested:




And finally the medium (large?) item - a skirt! TAOJ listed brown as her favourite colour, and said she liked retro fabrics too, and I thought the teddy bear print sort of had that feel. It's made from a free pattern from fitzpatterns.com, but I fudged the pattern to get the panel of contrasting fabric. It's a wrap skirt with a kangaroo pocket. I really hope it fits her, it's adjustable, but still, I am nervous!

The front:


The back:


Thanks Susanne, and thanks Kishcrafts for organizing!