Book Review: Handmade Style Series

So I should be writing papers for school right now, but I'm just not feeling the inspiration. Dr. BF's mom came to visit for the day yesterday and we ran around to a bunch of shops, including the giant crafty warehouse, and a big book store. Keep in mind that I had already that morning purchased 3 crafty books from amazon... but I won't get to look at those until I get back to the States in a couple of weeks anyway, so that's besides the point. So I got a few pairs of needles (including the elusive (in the States anyway) 7.0mm & 7.5mm) at the crafty ware house and a set of 3 books in the handmade style series from the bookstore. (They were 3 for $30... how could I resist?!)

So I present here, a review of the handmade style series Crochet, Felt, and Sew (which I couldn't find a link for, even on the site of the store that I bought it in....). Book reviews are like school work, right?



First Up: Crochet

I bought the crochet one because despite the fact that I have crocheted a hat before (and still have it... and was still wearing it last winter because I hadn't knitted myself a decent one...) I'm not very well versed in the world of crochet. Part of the turnoff for me is the strange differences in terminology. Double Crochet in England and Canada means something completely different than DC in the US. If you don't know where the pattern is from you could run into some serious trouble. This book is clearly English style crochet, but gives a very clear definition of both terminologies and where they interchange. It also has some great edgings and seaming tips at the beginning.

Some patterns that caught my eye at first glance:

The beaded cuff. (Not so much of a choker person myself, but the bracelet is quite cute and despite it's size, fairly understated given the colour choice. I might not make this exact cuff but I will probably use some of the techniques for attaching beads to things).


Beaded Door Curtain. I know it's kind of cliché and 1960's (and then again mid '90s) but we have a big window on the door to our back porch (ok so it's a wooden fire escape, but serves much the same purpose) and I think that this would look pretty cool and with the right beads catch the light nicely. Not to be used as a room divider/entrance, I promise. (Even if as a teenager I would have died to have one...)


Filigree Drawstring Bag. I just think it's pretty. And hard. Not for my first (in about 6 years) crochet project.


Next up: Felt. Not a lot of the actual patterns caught my eye, so much as the idea of felting wool batting. There are so many pretty handdyed batts on etsy that I would buy if I knew what to do with them. I don't spin and right now I don't have the time or the space to learn. But felting batts would be possible.

A sample project from the book:
Champagne cooler. Don't know if I'll actually ever make one, but it was one of the prettier patterns (to my eye... some of the colour combos in this book just weren't my thing).


And finally: Sew. I would really like to sew properly, with a nice machine, but again, time, space and, well, money are all factors here. This book focuses more on sewing skills to finish projects, such as cross stitch and adding a nice hem, by hand. I wanted this one especially, to help improve my finishing skills on knitted items. Lots of people tell me I knit beautifully, but sometimes my sewing/finishing skills are lacking. Which is why I prefer to knit sweaters entirely in the round, usually, but some patterns just can't be adapted.

Potential project:
Buttons. Take some cheapy buttons (the kind with the extra bit at the back for sewing on) and make them pretty with material and embroidery. Duh... but I might never have thought of it on my own. There are a couple of other things in here that I would like to try too, but this one was the cutest, most "duh"-inspiring for me.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! No real resolutions around here, except maybe the usual work harder at school (yeah, gotta get right on that this afternoon actually...), try to be nicer in general and all that stuff. And I was going to sign up for yoga, etc at the gym at school this semester, but I don't like making that sort of stuff a "resolution" because I am invariable disappointed when I don't do it. Although I do plan to. Anyway...

There has been some knitting going on since the mad dash to the finished Christmas Knitting line. I made another Bear for the Mother Bear Project, unfortunately this is the only picture I have of him:


I named him Bernard, probably because the main character from "Black Books" had gotten into my subconscious after watching all 3 seasons with Dr. BF the week before. In any case, I think that Bernard is an eclectic bear, and I very much hope that he will be well loved by the child who receives him. He was sent to Lovelyarns in this state, to be stuffed, sewn up and sent off to Africa.


I can't show off any of the other knitting that I've been doing because it is a sweater I am test knitting for a yarn company. And it's quite a headache, let me tell you. I'm just glad that the yarn is such a nice one that I don't mind working with it. I've done the main part of the torso (in the round, thank goodness), the back and one side of the front. I just can't wait for this thing to be done!

So, instead of new knitting, I'll show you some old knitting... but stuff that's new here! I knit these last April for my SP. Unfortunately she never got the 2nd or 3rd package I sent her and the 2nd one never came back to me. The 3rd one, however, did. In fact, it came back to Canada (where I am currently for break until the 20th of Jan) and has been sitting, waiting for me at Dr. BF's apartment ever since.

These mice are from Stitch n Bitch Nation's catwarming set. I knit them out of Berroco Ultra Alpaca remnants that I had from old projects. They were (obviously) supposed to be for SP's cat.

And the rest is the yarn b00ty I had bought her. Trust me when I say that I attempted to contact this pal several times. I sent her many emails and also emailed the coordinator of the swap who in turn attempted to contact her several times. According to the post office there were several attempted deliveries too. So now it's my yarn b00ty, although I feel a bit weird about it.


1 skein Rowan Damask


1 skein Koigu KPM


and 1 skein Debbie Bliss Pure Silk.

Birthday Mittens

These have been done for a few days, but now that we're back State-side for a week, (Dr. BF is here with me for a conference that just happens to be held right where I live!) I can use the cord to download photos to my computer again. So I present the complete set of Grady's Birthday Mittens! One squirrel, one oak leaf:




Pattern: Squirrel Mittens from Hello Yarn
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca
Needles: US 3 for cuff, US 6 for rest of mitten
Mods: None
Recipient: Grady

These were fun and I'm going to have to make a second pair since I was originally planning on making these for myself (in different colours, though)!

Post-christmas posting

Well, things should be back to normal a bit here - I can show off most of the projects I'm now working on without worrying that I'll be ruining any Christmas Surprises. I also need to do a major reassessment of the wips I had going before all the Christmas knitting began about a month ago! There are a lot of angry, neglected projects in my knitting basket!

But first, a look at another gift that was being kept under wraps (pun intended):


A stripey scarf? But wait...


At the right angle you can see the heroes symbol (means "God send")

Pattern: Heroes Illusion Scarf, pattern available in my etsy shop
Yarn: Cascade 220, one skein grey, one skein black
Needles: US 7 / 4.5mm
Recipient: Dr. BF

Merry Christmas!

I know it's not politically correct... but it is Christmas today, so I'm going to say it anyway! Plus, it's a day off for everyone (or at least, it should be) so no one can argue with that!

For Christmas, I present another Christmas FO picture:



Pattern: Multidirectional Scarf
Yarn: Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in colourway Iris
Needles: US 6 / 4mm circ
Recipient: My mom

Sorry for the bad picture... winter grey day + lots of indoor lighting and flash makes for not very pretty colours. The yarn varigates from pink to purple to blue and has a tiny metallic gold thread running through it.

Whoops!

So I was going to take some pictures to share with the blog... I got back to Canada on Tuesday and a package that I had sent to a secret pal had been returned (months ago, actually, but I forgot about it the last time I was home). I tried to get in touch with that secret pal many, many times but I've never heard back from her. So, according to the secret pal people, I've tried everything I can (and I have, really) and so it becomes mine! Which is sad, because I did want my secret pal to enjoy the stuff, but happy for me because it's super nice yarn! Koigu, Pure Silk, etc.

However... I did bring my camera, but not the cord. So I can't download the pictures to my computer. I am going back to the States next week so I'll get the cord then. I can, however, share one Christmas present that has already been presented to Dr. BF:



I used what I remembered of the Mother Bear Project pattern and made a ninja for Dr. BF. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but he was invited by Team Canada to compete in a Hapkeido tournament in Korea next year and I'm going with him! He (the ninja that is) is wearing what is apparently called a "Blood Belt", which is the highest level obtainable - so don't mess with him! Nah, he's really just a teddy bear, much like Dr. BF himself! :)

Christmas Knitting DONE!

I just bound off the last Christmas Knitting project! Wohoo! Too bad you'll all have to wait until next week to see the FOs... unless you're on ravelry, and then you can take a look whenever you want! Link to my project page.

Christmas Time Post Slump

I haven't been posting much lately, despite a frenzy of knitting going on. I'm knitting the majority of my Christmas gifts, and I have shared some, but there are some I don't want to share just in case the recipients will check here. So it may be a while before I have knitting I can share. I am, however, documenting it all over at ravelry (link is to my project page so you must be a signed-in ravelry member to see the goodies).

I've also recently opened up an etsy shop to sell my new patterns. In the new year, I may also sell small knitted items - I know I'm missing out on the Christmas market, but knitting for my own loved ones was more important to me this year!

Grady's Birthday Mitten

squirrel.JPG, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

My friend Grady saw these mittens when I was "studying" at the cafe that he was working at and by studying I mean playing around on ravelry and knitting. They're the Squirrel and Oak mittens from Hello Yarn. She has lots of cool patterns, including a blank "fill in your own" pattern for mittens, which I have used in the past as well. Anyway, I really want to make these for myself (especially since I have lost one of my fingerless mittens and one of my regular mittens is at the LYS as a demo. Maybe I'll have to steal that one back though... it's getting to be darn cold out!) but when I showed them to Grady he flipped and begged for a pair for himself for his birthday (which is in January). He also strongly hinted that they should be grey, with blue squirrel/oak leaf. So, here is the first one. It took very little time at all (once I got past the corrugated ribbing).

Christmas Knitting Part the Third

I have now completed the last Christmas knitting project - minus the NaKniSweMo that stalled out weeks ago when I tried to start a sleeve. I'm going to have to re-start with the sleeves and find a different way to incorporate them into the sweater. I have all my other Christmas knits complete, including these convertible mittens for my little brother:


Fingerless...



Or pop-top!


And the upclose and personal shot.


My brother recently moved to the West Coast of Canada, which doesn't really get the same kind of winter that Eastern Canada gets. So these were made for a not-so-cold winter.

Notes:
Pattern: My own, available here.
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, one skien black
Needles: size 3 US circs

Something wicked this way comes...

So I was hanging out in my lys yesterday (what else would I do on Black Friday? You weren't gonna catch this gal at the outlet mall at 4am!) and I saw a colour of Berroco Ultra Alpaca that I had never noticed before. It's a deep reddish burgundy and there was 3 skeins. (It's # 6236 "Chianti" and you can see it about half way down the page here.) I have been wanting to make Wicked by Zephyr Style for the longest time, but I want to make a long-sleeved version which would call for 4 skeins of Ultra Alpaca. So I reached deep down into the back of the yarn cube and pulled out 2 more skeins! It was hiding! So I grabbed 4 skeins and ran with it. It will be my reward for finishing up all my Christmas knitting.

Speaking of which, I finished up the mystery present yesterday and now it is blocking on my futon. Just a couple of finishing touches once it is dried and it can be checked off the list too! The devil that is ravelry, however, has me finding all kinds of other cute little things that I want to make for extra presents. There's only 30 more knitting days before Christmas though! (Shhhh, pretend I didn't say that outloud...)

One more down, eleventy hundred to go*

Another Christmas Knit bites the dust! This one is for my dad (who I don't *think* reads this... or at least I hope he doesn't!) This was a fairly easy knit, except that my freakishly small hands had a hard time with the ginormous yarn and size 19/15mm needles! Once I got used to it, it went really quickly.

The following is pretty much the same info as yesterday, just slightly more organized...
Pattern: Big Fat Cable Scarf by my friend Julia
Yarn: Cascade Magnum
Needles: Size 19/15mm
Mods: Used size 19 instead of size 35 needles; added one extra seed stitch on either side of the cable, added pattern row 8 with purls (otherwise the cable would switch sides every time).
Notes: This did not turn out quite as long as I hoped, although the smaller needles and extra stitches probably account for that. I used every last inch of the skien - literally, there was about an inch left when I bound off that I wove in using my fingers (Magnum = too fat for tapestry needle). I don't care though, because this scarf is so fat I can't imagine anyone wanting to wrap it around their neck all that much.
For: Dad's Christmas Gift.

* eleventy hundred is one of the trademark sayings of one of my fav non-knitting bloggers: Loralee. I can't claim to have come up with this one myself. Ridonkulous, however, I do claim as my own. :D

Happy US Turkey Day!

So, I'm not American, but I do live in the States and so today, if nothing else for me, means a day off! And actually, I am going to have Thanksgiving dinner with a couple of friends and one of the friends' family, so yay turkey!

So on my day off I have done this:


On the left is my mom's famous apple cake and on the right is a blueberry pie. The apple cake is always a hit, the blueberry pie I'm a little less confident about. It's my first "on my own" pie crust (that's right, no frozen pie crust for this gal!) and it's my first blueberry pie. The last pie I made (which was about a year ago) was peach, also a first time, and a hit. I didn't make the pie crust that time though, my friend Andrew did...


And a little of the Christmas Knitting:

A giagantor cabled scarf (on size 19, not 35 as directed). Pattern is Big Fat Cable Scarf by a friend of mine. If you are going to try out this pattern, make sure you add an 8th row to purl across the cable... you'll see what I mean. Oh, and I also added an extra stitch on either side of the cable.

OK, back to the baking... time to whip some cream!

ta-da!

Behold, ladies and gentlemen - the first Christmas FO:



Pattern: Wisp from Knitty Summer '07
Yarn: Slightly less than 1 skein Rowan Kidsilk Haze
Needles: Bamboo US 7 / 4.5mm straights
Recipient: Nana
Mods: No buttons, not blocked (I like the way the lace looks right now and I'm afraid that it may become one big, wet, tangled mohair mess...)

in which we explore other people's knitting...

but more specifically, people who are knitting things that I designed! Remember the mittens I knit last year around super bowl time? I was in my fav LYS a few weeks ago and a girl came in and saw one of them and lurved it, so she asked me if she could buy the pattern. Being that it's free for whoever finds their way to this blog, I gave her the blog address and she picked out some Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light, mixed it with some Trendsetter's Dune, and voila! Someone else's version of my very own pattern! I find it exciting anyway...

As for my own knitting, things are coming along. I'm more than 3/4 of the way through wisp and I'm hoping to be done and able to take FO photos tomorrow afternoon!

help!

I'm designing a couple of the presents that are on my to-make-for-Christmas (this Christmas too - I know, I'm crazy...). Anyway, one of them is the sweater that I'm supposed to be knitting for NaKniSweMo (which totally stalled out about a week and a half ago) and the other is this scarf. (Sorry for the non-ravelrers but I can't risk letting the intended recipient see! If you aren't on ravelry and you aren't a potential knitted-gift receiver, email or comment and I'll let you in on the secret via email!) What I need help with is: do you see the patterning? Do you have any suggestions / comments / constructive criticism? If I decide to write the pattern up for sale on etsy (or through the blog or LYS) would you be interested in being a test-knitter?

And now, some knitting that I can share (it's for my Nana for Christmas, but she doesn't own a computer, much less know how to use one!):



Pattern: Wisp from Knitty Summer 07
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze in a grey-ish colour (I lost the tags so I don't know the exact colour # / name)
Needles: ChiaoGoo US 7 circ
Mods: None so far, but I don't think I'm going to add buttons - I want it to be more of a scarf / light shawl, and I don't see my nana fiddling with buttons and mohair...

Thanks in advance for anyone who emails / comments (on ravelry only please... don't want to give anything away!) on the design dilema!

Norwegian colourwork

HPIM0907.JPG, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

I'm going to be teaching a class on colourwork at my fav LYS later this month so I whipped up a sample mitten (only one! tee hee) this weekend. These went pretty quick but they're a little small, even for me (I have pretty small hands). I think they'd be fine with a bit of blocking.

Here's a picture of the inside:



Stats:
Yarn: Cascade 220
Needles: US 3 (2 circs)
Pattern: Hello Yarn's Generic Norwegian Mitten filled in with a pattern from Vogue's Stitchionary Vol. 3

And speaking of new hats...

I was feeling antsy last night, and despite the fact that I have a semi-ridiculous amount of wips (4, if anyone's counting - not totally ridiculous, but bordering on it...) right now, I thought about my stash and decided to use this for this. The Fall Issue of Knitty hadn't really impressed me when it first came out, but there are a few patterns that have grown on me and Urchin is one of them. Plus I knew that that yarn would be perfect for it and I had no idea what else to do with it.

So I cast on yesterday evening and this morning I just had to graft the stitches together and the end result is this:





(Sorry for the bathrobe chic pics... It was just too cute to wait to share!)

This hat is ridiculously easy to knit, even if you've never done short rows or grafting before, I swear! My only mods were using bigger needles (Size US 11/8mm... 7mm doesn't come in US sizes and would have been hard to get here... and it would have meant waiting... I wanted instant gratification!) and 1 extra wedge before grafting. The yarn I used is a thick & thin, but not nearly as thick in the thick parts as the original.

It's finally cold!

Ok, so I don't really *like* the cold... in fact I really hate being cold - I'm a very baaaaaad Canadian, ok? - but I am happy about the fact that I actually got to wear my new hat last night for the first time!

No pictures this time... there is knitting getting done, but almost exclusively on the NaKniSweMo Sweater. I'm actually designing a sweater on my own because the yarn wasn't working with any of the patterns I wanted to use, so I'm almost done the lower body and I'm going to have to work out a plan to attach the sleeves... but I'll probably have to knit the sleeves first!

2nd pair done!

twinww.JPG, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Second set of wrist warmers for friends done! Early, early morning this morning. 5am by the clock (although we did have the time fall back last night so really it was 6... but still, very early!). So I've finished these up and tried to go back to sleep (unsuccessfully) and watched the latest episode of the Office. Perhaps a nap later this afternoon will be in order...