WiP Wednesday: Introducing Catkin

I've wanted to make a Catkin forever, but could never find the right yarn for it. A few months ago, while I was picking out yarn for that giant green baby blanket that took forever, I stumbled across a sale on JoJoland Ballad, a solid, fingering-weight yarn. I picked up two skeins each of lavendar and navy, and cast on a few weeks ago. So far, it's going quite nicely, though I imagine it's going to take me a pretty long time to finish. It's knit at a much tighter gauge than I typically use, which means more stitches, more yarn, and more time.

I've completed part one so far. I love the way the colors look together as well as the overall crescent shape. I think it'll look pretty awesome-- assuming I ever finish it.

WiP Wednesday: Lady of the Blue/Purple Forest Shawl

It's pretty rare that I knit for other people. As a rule, I don't have enough time to finish the projects I want to make for myself and don't care to add to the pile by promising friends and family members handknits. However, I sometimes find myself with yarn that isn't suitable for something for me, and that's when I designate it "present yarn."

This is Malabrigo sock yarn in eggplant. I originally intended to use it in a gigantic stole of doom, but wound up unraveling it because the color differences between the skeins were too big and caused the pattern to disappear. I decided to repurpose it, and used about 2/3 of a skein on the clockwork scarf I made a few months ago. The remainder of that skein will be used for some matching mitts, which I'll start sometime in the near future.

That still left me with one untouched skein, and I didn't want to use it on something else for me. Lately, I've been trying to branch out with the colors I knit with, and I do not need another dark blue/purple anything. So, I decided to make a shawl from it and give it to a classmate who 1) really likes to wear purple and 2) admires my shawls.

I'm not really in a hurry to finish this as I won't be seeing her again until August. That's probably for the best, as my knitting mojo tends to crawl into a hole and die when it's warm out. So far, I've completed the first chart (pictured) and have sort of started the second, but haven't made a whole lot of progress on it just yet.

WiP Wednesday: Putting the Gloves Before the Scarf

A few weeks ago, I decided to make a clapotis out of some yarn a random Raveler gave me last summer. I have seven skeins of Filatura di Crosa 501 in the 600 colorway. Each skein contains 137 yards of yarn, way more than I need for the scarf itself. So, I decided to go ahead and make a set of mitts to go with it:

So far, so good! I'll be posting a picture of the scarf-in-progress sometime next week. I imagine it'll take me a good while to finish it; I'm only 1/6th of the way done as of now. 

WiP Wednesday: A Baby Blanket for Andi

Keeping your sanity in grad school isn't always easy. I consider myself very fortunate to have a number of hilarious classmates who keep me entertained and my head (more or less) together through the darkest, most boring of lectures. We pass notes, surreptitiously text, and try to quote gangsta rap when we answer the professor's questions without them noticing, among many other excellent (and totally juvenile) boredom-reducing endeavors.

One of us got knocked up earlier this year, and I decided to make her a blanket for the baby. Sort of a "Thanks for being such an awesome classmate, sorry you're due at the beginning of the semester" present. I'm exactly two-thirds of the way done:

Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it early next week and get it blocked. While I'm really liking the project, it's too freaking hot to be working on a 100% wool, worsted weight baby blanket, even in air-conditioned buildings. 

WiP Wednesday: Sewing a Bag at Night Edition

Since the weather has gotten warmer, my knitting motivation has fallen off a cliff (happens every year, but even more so this year because it never got cold enough for me to wear my handknits much), so I've decided to use the time I was devoting to knitting for sewing a few things for summer. 

I'm working on a runaround bag. Two, actually, but I haven't started the second one yet. So far, I have accomplished cutting out the exterior fabric and the interfacing. Next up: cutting the lining and pocket fabrics, finishing cutting the interfacing, fusing the interfacing, and putting the whole shebang together. 

First on the agenda: bags. I love lightweight canvas bags (think bungalow 360); they're cute, colorful, and are usually big enough to hold the necessities: a book, my cell phone, my wallet, a knitting project, and my giant freaking water bottle (optional: small makeup bag, tablet, extra pair of undies, hair straightener). The downside to these bags is twofold: 1) they don't hold up super well and 2) I therefore have a hard time spending $20-30 on them. In the interest of having bags on the cheap, I decided to find a suitable pattern and make my own. The runaround bag fits the bill nicely. 

I went to the fabric store a few days ago to buy some fabric for the bags. The red and the black multi are together, and the cream and the stripes are also together. I'm not sure what I'm going to use the apple fabric for; I couldn't find a coordinating fabric that matched it so I'll probably hang onto it for a while. Since duck cloth was on sale, I only spent about $15 on the fabric, total. With the cost of interfacing, zippers, bias tape and notions factored in, each one will probably come to be about $12 in materials. Way better than $30, I think, and if the pattern executes well, I can re-use it for birthday or xmas presents this year. 

WiP Wednesday: A Clockwork Scarf

New scarf time! Pattern is Clockwork by Stephen West, and I have just finished Section 1. 

Yarn is malabrigo sock. The dark purple is eggplant, the lighter pinkish multi is archangel.

WiP Wednesday: A Sort of Ugly Hat

Getting a somewhat late start on my March hat (I knew this challenge was too ambitious!)

WiP Wednesday: Matchy-Matchy Mitts

To go with the scarf I'm working on. One down, one to go.

WiP Wednesday: Scarf for February

A few rows away from being halfway done. 

Hopefully, I'll have this finished quick-like. 

It's going to match a hat I made a long time ago, and I should have enough left over to make some mittens, too. 

WiP Wednesday: Deux!

ROBOT MITTENS.

WiP Wednesday: March Hat

Now with mathy goodness!

WiP Wednesday: Two Socks

I think it's really crazy how I can bang out a plain sock in ~two days, whereas it takes me weeks to do a patterned one. Either way, the patterned sock on the left is part of my February Socks, and the blue one on the right is left over from January. I should be able to finish both by the end of the month (I hope). 

WiP Wednesday: Fingerless Mitts

I started these almost two years ago, but never got around to finishing them.

I have a hat to match, and I'm looking forward to wearing them all together-- if it ever gets cold. Seriously, this is one of the warmest winters I've experienced in this area.

A different kind of WiP!

Now that I am working at a grownup job (of sorts), I have come to the realization that I have very little by way of professional clothing. My wardrobe primarily consists of t-shirts, minis, yoga skirts, the odd pair of jeans, and a few sweaters and hoodies for when it's cold. Needless to say, I wound up spending my birthday and Xmas money on textbooks and new clothes. While I have enough to last me until the end of the semester, my wardrobe still needs some serious updating.

Enter my sewing machine, Sparky the Singer.

I've had Sparky since 2007, but have neglected him since I left Nashville in 2009. A lack of space combined with laziness and general life busyness have caused my sewing skills and machine to fall into disrepair. My stepmother was able to fix my machine (the tension was funny and it desperately needed to be oiled!), but my skills, which weren't all that great to begin with, still need a fair bit of work.

My end goal is to be able to sew a good portion of my work wardrobe. I'm probably going to stick to skirts and (sleeveless) dresses (which I will wear with the 18,000 cardigans I own). Sewing them is generally more cost-effective than buying them. That's not usually the case with shirts or pants, and, based on my limited experience, shirts and pants are a giant pain to put together. Sleeves are hard. So are crotch seams, hidden zippers, and pockets that lay flat.

I'm starting out small with a quilt. When it's finished, it will be about three feet by four feet. Thus far, I have managed to:

1. Cut out the pieces (more or less) without incident.
2. Sew the triangles into squares that are (more or less) even.
3. Sew the squares into long strips. 

After that, I will need to:

1. Sew the strips into a completed top.
2. Cut the underside of the quilt out of the leftover green fabric.
3. Acquire the batting.
4. Layer the batting, top, and bottom together.
5. Do the actual quilting part.
6. Cut out and apply the binding.
7. Do whatever else I need to do to finish it off. 

It'll probably take me until the end of next week at the least. I've never made a full quilt before. Most of my previous sewing endeavors were pajama pants, tote bags, and wrap skirts, none of which are overly complicated or involve a lot of finishing. 

We'll see how it goes!

WiP Wednesday: Scarftastic

I am making a clapoktus-- a mash-up of the incredibly popular clapotis and baktus patterns. I'm just over halfway finished with it. Hopefully, it'll be done by the end of this weekend, as I still need to finish my sock and glove projects for January.

WiP Wednesday: Blue Socks, Take the Millionth

This is the FOURTH FREAKING ITERATION of socks made from this yarn. No matter what I do, it pools or stripes, and it is driving me slowly insane.

I have given up on finding a pattern/stitch/gauge/whatever combination that fixes the issue. I will have slightly striped socks and I will like them, damnit.

WiP Wednesday: Origami Hat

I'm making a red Quincy hat for myself. I really love the pattern and its unique construction, but garter stitch takes foreverrrrrr, even in bulky weight yarn. I've finally made it to the crown decreases and would finish tonight, but will be attending a sleepover at a friend's house instead. I'm trying to be more social this year (on top of everything else).

WiP Wednesday: This year's scarf.

I am almost halfway done.

WiP Wednesday: Taffy Socks

My addiction to self-striping sock yarns continues. May I never have cold feet again.

This project is next on my list of things to be completed once I finish my sister's scarf (which will probably be featured in next week's WiP Wednesday because I seriously doubt it'll be done before then).

WiP Wednesday: 14,552 Stitches Edition

That, by the way, is the number of stitches I ripped out the other night when I frogged this scarf. I love the yarn (malabrigo sock in "eggplant") and the pattern ("Carlina" by Kitman Figueroa), but my gauge was off and it was looking to be about two feet wide post-blocking. That wouldn't have been a problem by itself except for the fact that I would have run out of yarn after about five and a half feet and I bought the yarn a really long time ago so I couldn't get another skein. Alas.

Sadly, it's probably going to be a few weeks before I can start over on this. I still have to knit my sister's scarf for her, and I have barely started it.

One day, I will learn to make gauge swatches.