Hooray for the new buttons...and hooray for early Christmas presents!

Well, the other Emily has made some new and improved buttons for the Tartan Jacket Knitalong. These are 100-pixel images, which makes them much more manageable to steal. Neither of us could decide which font was better (we think the second one is kind of hard to read), so I just thought I'd put them both out here. Take whichever one you would like.





In other news, I have already received some Christmas presents that I want to show off. My friend and knitting protege Sara (I taught her to knit about a year and a half ago and now she is almost as obsessed with it as I am) gave me this:



Yes, it's the 2005 Pattern-A-Day Knitting Calendar. I have already flipped through and found several patterns that I like.

Then, my husband and I exchanged gifts last night, so that we could do it privately before traveling to Chicago today. Here is what he got me:




It's hard to see, but it's a garnet ring, and I absolutely love it.

I gave him the golf club covers I made, although only two out of three of them are done, so he technically got a present-in-progress. But he seemed to like them anyway. Here he is enjoying them:



Well, I have to go finish packing, since we are supposed to leave in about an hour. I promise I will post again soon to relate the story of the Lace Ornament Disaster. How's that for a suspenseful ending?

Hooray for the button!

Well, the other Emily (aka Fathom) kept her word and made us a button for the Tartan Jacket Knitalong. I have to say, it's pretty snazzy.



I really can't wait for the knitalong. It's what's keeping me going as I plug away on my numerous lace ball ornaments. I'm working on the last one, though. Then I get to do the fun part (covering them in glue) this weekend.

Tartan Jacket Knitalong

Okay, I finally decided that I can't wait any longer. I'm going to make the official announcement about the Tartan Jacket Knitalong. The pattern is, obviously, Tartan Jacket from the Fall 2004 issue of Interweave Knits. A picture can be seen here. The start date is not until January 1, although there's no reason to be too strict with that. If you can dig yourself out from under your holiday knitting to start sooner, go ahead. And people joining after January 1 are definitely welcome. If you would like to be a part of it, leave me a comment and let me know. I'll get a button up here sooner or later. (Fathom has mentioned that she would be interested in making one.) I can't wait to start knitting along with everyone!

Thanksgiving

Well, I don't have much to report, but I felt like I should post since it's been a while. The reason for that, quite obviously, was Thanksgiving. My husband and I drove to Chicago to visit both of our families, so I have been away from home since last Wednesday morning. The visit was a lot of fun, although the drive wasn't, since we ran into snow both on the way there and on the way back. It was really nice to have a break from the daily grind. However, I did not get a chance to knit the whole time we were gone, so I am going through knitting withdrawal. I think that I will settle in with my lace ornaments when I get home from work today. And I will probably add a cup of tea or hot chocolate to that thought, as it is cold out, we have finally gotten our first snow, and the thermostat at work is not working properly, so I will need to thaw out when I get home!

Fairway Fair Isles pictures

I have made considerable progress on the golf club covers for my husband, mostly because I have thrown caution to the wind and decided that it's okay if I work on them in front of him, since I have next to no knitting time away from him now that I don't knit at work due to a shorter lunch hour. I actually have made more progress than these pictures show, as I have finished two of the covers and just barely started the third one.
Here is the first one completed:



Here is a close-up of the colorwork:



And here is the second one in progress, although like I said, it is completed now:



I think that for my second ever attempt at fair isle, I did not do too badly, although I still need to work on not pulling the yarn so tightly when I carry the colors along. You can probably tell this by the fact that the fair isle sections of the covers are slightly skinnier than the rest of them.

Knitting Meetup

Well, I know I haven't posted in a while, and I don't have any new pictures to share, but I did want to share my excitement that the Lincoln Knitting Meetup is finally up and running. After a series of false starts due to lack of interest, we have had three meetings now (two of which I have attended). The most recent was last night, and it was a really great experience. There were seven of us there - our largest crowd yet. I got to see two socks being worked on two circular needles, something that I had heard about but never seen. I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept, but now that I have seen it done in person, I am at least open to the idea that it could be easier than using double pointed needles (although I have never had any particular problem with dpns), and I think I will at least look into trying it. I also got to see the Denise Interchangeable Needle Set in person for the first time (thanks to the same woman), and I am glad that I decided to ask for a set for Christmas.
I also got some positive feedback on my own knitting. Everyone oohed and ahhed over the colorwork on my one completed Fairway Fair Isle golf club cover (which I will post a picture of soon, I promise), and when we got into a discussion about Knitty patterns, I pulled out the Broad Street Mittens that I made last winter, and they all liked those too. When some of them said that they didn't think they would be able to do anything like either of these projects, I responded with my philosophy that nothing that I've encountered in knitting has been as hard as it seemed initially, and that if I just take the time to figure things out, I can usually do any pattern that I've attempted. I think my determination is at least partially due to the fact that I taught myself to knit from a book with no one to show me how to do it, and it took me a while to get the hang of it, but I did it, and so now I figure that if I take enough time, I can figure out just about anything.

Ornament burnout

Well, over the weekend, I decided I was really sick of working on the lace ornaments (which is not good, since I am only in the middle of my third one, and I'm going to need at least ten of them). So I decided to start working on the golf club covers I am going to give my husband for Christmas. He is pretty much oblivious to my blog, so it is okay to talk about them here. I am using the Fairway Fair Isles pattern from Knitty, only instead of making each cover in a different color scheme, I am making them all in the blue/green pattern and putting stripes around the necks of the covers to indicate which clubs they are. Here is a picture of my progress so far:



It's going fairly quickly. This is basically what I've done over the course of a day and a half. And I feel like I can justify working on this instead of the ornaments because this is also Christmas knitting.

Lace hand grenades?

Okay, I know it's completely silly (and perhaps even a little tasteless), but that is honestly what the two lace ornaments I have finished look like to me. See?



I'm sure they will look much better once they have been stretched into their proper round shape by the balloons.
In other knitting news, for the first time ever, I have received a knitting magazine in the mail and been so inspired that I had to start a project from it right away. My winter Interweave Knits came on Monday, and I was absolutely taken with the handknit shoelaces featured near the beginning. So I dug out some leftover sock yarn, and here is my shoelace so far:



This was just the type of quick-knit project I needed, as I have been in kind of a knitting slump lately, not wanting to work on any of my current projects, but not having the motivation to start a major project. I'm very pleased with how the shoelace is turning out, and I'm looking forward to having a pair of them for my running shoes!

French Market Bag is finished!

Okay, I know it's been a hideously long time since I last posted, but things have been a little crazy around here. But anyway, I finally got my French Market Bag felted. I've been done knitting it for about a week, but I didn't get around to felting it until tonight. I think it turned out pretty well. Here it is pre-felting:



And here it is post-felting:



I finished my black poncho, too, but I don't have any pictures of it yet. But I promise I will be better about posting, and I'll get some pictures up here soon.

New yarn!

The yarn that I ordered for my Tartan Jacket arrived yesterday. I know the knitalong doesn't start until January, but I'm getting excited about it already, so I thought I'd show off the yarn. I got it from Elann, and it's called Gjestal Naturgarn #1. Here it is being inspected by Franklin upon arrival:



And here's a slightly closer shot of the yarn:



I can't wait for January!

No new pictures

But I have made some progress, I promise. My poncho pieces are blocking as we speak. I finished the front of my sweater and have started on the sleeves. I haven't worked on the French Market Bag much, but I am planning on taking it to my Knitting Meetup this Wednesday. (My first Knitting Meetup - yay!) However, instead of working on any of these last night while my friend Sara was over and we were knitting while our husbands played video games, I cast on for a new project. I am making lace ball ornaments for my family for Christmas, and I figured I should probably get started on those. Here is the pattern for that, in case anyone is interested. They're pretty cool, actually. You knit the ball, then dip it in glue and blow up a balloon inside it. When the glue is dry, you pop the balloon and you have a stiff ball ornament.
Well, to make up for not having any pictures of my knitting, I thought I'd include some pictures of Franklin in my knitting bag. This actually happened months ago, but I was looking at them again today and realized that they were so cute, they should be shared.
Here he is inside the bag on the couch:



And here he is once I picked up the bag with him inside it. Please excuse my bare stomach. I had just come back from a run and was wearing a sports bra.

Progress

Well, one of the few benefits of being unemployed is that I have had lots of knitting time, so I have made a decent amount of progress on my various projects. I have completed both of the rectangles for my poncho, seen here:



Now they need to be blocked and sewn together. I have also made a decent amount of progress on my French Market Bag, as I am about 5 inches into the body of the bag.



And I have finished the back of my cotton sweater.



I just cast on for the front tonight and I already have about six inches done - thank you, size 13 needles!
In other news, I got a call from the temp agency today, and I will be starting a receptionist/administrative assistant position tomorrow. While I will miss all of this knitting time, it will be nice to be bringing in a paycheck again. It would be nicer if it was a job in my field, but I'll take what I can get for now.

Start-itis!

Yesterday, while waiting for my poncho to block, I developed a terrible case of start-itis and cast on for not one, but two new projects! Instead of working on the sweater I started over the weekend, I cast on for another poncho (of the two rectangles variety) and for a French Market Bag. At least I am using stash yarn for both of them. Then, toward the end of the day, I was inspired to knit golf club covers for my husband for Christmas, but I am going to make myself finish one of my current projects before I start those.
Well, I kept forgetting to ask my husband to take pictures of me in my recently finished projects, so I finally broke down and took some pictures myself, with the help of the timer on my camera. Here, finally, is Rosy:



And here are some shots of the Falling Leaves Poncho, which I fringed this morning. First a front view (which includes Franklin peeking around my shoulder, as he had to see what the beeping noise in the kitchen was all about):



And here is a side view, to give you a better view of the leaf pattern:



I know the dark brown color does not make it very easy to see the pattern, but hopefully you can at least get an idea of what it looks like.

Welcome to the future site of the Tartan Jacket Knitalong

As I posted on the Knitty message boards last night, I have officially decided to host a knitalong for the Tartan Jacket (from the fall issue of Interweave Knits. Here is the picture from Interweave's website, in case anyone is wondering what I am talking about:



Since most people who expressed interest are too swamped with projects to start now, the official start date is January 1. I'll post about this again in December, when everything is more finalized, but I am very excited about my first time hosting a knitalong, so I decided I had to share.
But enough about future knitting. As far as my current knitting goes, I finished the Falling Leaves Poncho yesterday. It still needs to be blocked and fringed, but here it is pre-blocking:



I will get a picture of Rosy up here soon, I promise, but I keep forgetting to ask my photographer (aka husband) to take a picture of me in it, which will be much more interesting to look at than a picture of it laying on my shag carpeting.

In the meantime, I have begun a stash-busting project, the Straight Neck Pullover from the Winter 02/03 issue of Interweave Knits. (It is originally from the book Hollywood Knits, by Suss Cousins, but it was featured in the magazine). I had a few different colors of Lion Brand Cotton-Ease laying around, so here is the beginning of my striped concoction:



I have to say, I'm loving size 13 needles lately. They allowed me to finish the poncho in about 5 days, and I have made it up to the armholes on the sweater in just 2 days.

A quick update

I finished sewing my sweater together on Thursday (it's blocking now), and the kilt pins arrived on Friday (not bad, considering that I bought them on Wednesday), so I will have pictures of the completed project to show soon.
In the meantime, I cast on for the Falling Leaves Poncho. I finally decided to admit that I am getting swept up in the current poncho craze. I figured I had better make it soon before ponchos go out of style. I really think it's funny that I have been so intrigued by ponchos, since I am usually pretty oblivious to fashion trends. I think what intrigues me the most is that it is so easy to knit ponchos that I can make something that will end up being totally in fashion. Of course, this is somewhat silly, since the fact that ponchos will be out of style in about five minutes should give me all the more reason to buy a poncho instead of putting all the time and energy into making one, but my brain has wrapped itself around the idea of making a poncho and it refuses to let go. It is coming along rather quickly actually, since this particular pattern uses bulky yarn and size 13 needles. I just started on Thursday, and I am already over one-third of the way done. I will post some pictures of that soon, too, I promise.

Finally, some pictures

Okay, I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of Rosy in progress. First, here is a picture of what it is going to look like when it is finished:



And here are my sweater pieces so far. The back:



The front:



And the sleeves-in-progress:


I spent the morning trying to find a kilt pin for the closure, and I ended up buying one on ebay. Hopefully, it will arrive just about the time that I am done with the sweater.

Oh, by the way...

Well, it just occurred to me that, with everything that's been going on in my life lately, I forgot to mention the fact that I am officially a published knitwear designer! My Skating Queen skirt pattern was published in the latest issue of Knitty, which came out earlier in September. You can check it out here. I'm pretty excited about it!
Anyway, to go into more detail about what's been going on in my life and why I haven't been posting, I started a new job on September 13, but I quickly decided that I didn't like it. I won't go into the details, but there were a lot of things about it that I didn't like. Normally, I would have toughed it out and stayed with the job, but I decided that it was not worth being 500 miles away from my husband, who was having a very hard time finding a job in Chicago. So, I quit after a week and came back to Lincoln, where I will be temping until I can find a museum job.
In other knitting news, I am making a lot of progress on my Rosy sweater. I have the back and both of the fronts done, and I am now working on the sleeves. I will post pictures soon, I promise!

It's done!

My afghan is finished! It really went by amazingly quickly. I guess size 35 needles are good for something, although I do still feel like I'm knitting with turkey basters when I use them. I would have finished it more quickly, but I was too exhausted from starting my new job this week to work on it at all until last night. My new job is also the reason that I haven't posted in so freakin' long. And now, I don't even think I like my new job, but that's another story...
Anyway, here is a picture of the afghan:



I also broke down and started my Rosy sweater before I finished the afghan. Basically, I have been so stressed and depressed about how my job is turning out that I felt like I needed to do some comfort knitting (meaning knitting that I have been really looking forward to doing, whereas the afghan had become kind of a chore toward the end). So on Tuesday night, I cast on. I don't have any pics of it yet, but I am pretty happy with it so far. I think that the finished product will live up to my high expectations.

A new arrival

I'm so excited! Since my yarn ban was only for the month of August, on September 1, I ordered some Schachenmayr Aurora from Elann, and it arrived today. It is sort of an olive green color (I think it is called Pine), as you can see:



I am going to use it to make the "Rosy" sweater from the Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora Collection. I have had the book for several months now, and I have been drooling over this sweater, but I have not been willing to shell out the money required to purchase the actual Cotton Angora, and so I have been searching for an acceptable substitute that is more in my price range. I think this will do nicely. It is sort of a ribbon yarn, as you might be able to see in this close-up:



Now the question is, can I make myself hold off on starting the sweater until I have finished the afghan? I am almost done with the afghan, although I will not make the deadline of finishing it before I move to Chicago. I should definitely be able to finish it next week, though, assuming that adjusting to my new job and the commute does not wear me out too much to knit!

Long time, no post

I guess it hasn't been that long, really. It hasn't even been a week yet since my last post, but it feels like it's been a while. The afghan is progressing nicely, as you can see:



It is about 40 inches long, and it is going to end up being around 60 inches, so I have two-thirds of it done. I've decided that my goal is to have it done by the time I leave for Chicago to start my new job, which is on September 10. So I have a little more than a week. The only thing that will deter me from getting this done is the fact that we are flying to Chicago for Labor Day this weekend (we had planned the trip to visit our families a long time before I found out that I would be moving to Chicago the weekend after Labor Day). Since I am not going to lug a whole afghan on the plane with me, I will be missing a lot of potential afghan-knitting time. And I need to find a new, smaller project to take with me!

Instant gratification

I didn't have any major project that I was really excited to start after I finished the camisole, and I needed a break from the afghan because the size 35 needles were making my wrists hurt, so I decided that I needed to take a break and do a quick little project. I had some leftover Magic Stripes sock yarn and Fun Fur in my stash, so I gave into temptation and made the condom cozy from the summer issue of Knitty. I will probably end up using it for a change purse instead of for its intended purpose, but it was a fun and easy one-evening project. Here is the finished product:



Then, after trying the finished cozy on my cell phone and finding out it was almost the right size, I decided to knit myself a cell phone case out of some more leftover Magic Stripes. I used the condom cozy pattern as a guide, but I made it slightly longer, added a flap at the top with a button closure, knit it in the round, used a 3-needle bind-off at the bottom, and added an I-cord strap. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Here is a shot of it against the ever-popular shag carpeting background:



And here's me (well, my arm, anyway) modeling the I-cord wrist strap:



Now, back to the afghan!

Woo hoo!

I have good news...I got a new job! I've been pretty happy at my current job, but it's only part-time, and therefore, I'm not bringing in the money that I would like to be. My new job is at a place called The HistoryMakers, which is an oral history archive for African American history. I will be indexing oral history videos so that they can be put into a searchable internet database. I will start on September 13, and I'm very excited. Besides finally having a full-time job in my field, I will get to move back to Chicago, where the rest of my family lives. The one downside is that my husband will be staying here until he finds a job in Chicago, so we will have to be apart for a little while, but hopefully not for too long.
In knitting news, my camisole is finished. Well, it's mostly finished. I still need to thread ribbon through the eyelet trim and straps, but I haven't found time to go out and buy ribbon yet. But here is what it looks like so far:



I also have been making progress on the afghan for my inlaws. Since I don't think I mentioned it before, the pattern I'm using is the free pattern for the Quick-Knit Throw on the Lion Brand website. Here it is:



Once again, Franklin had to sneak into the photo!

I'm back

Well, I've been away from my blog for a while now. As I mentioned before, my two sisters and my brother-in-law came to visit from Chicago for the weekend. It was a lot of fun, but tiring. Also, I'll admit that my obsession with watching the Olympics has taken away from my blogging time. I'm getting a lot of knitting done in front of the TV, though.
I've made a decent amount of progress on my camisole. This is mainly because I worked on it on Saturday night while waiting for my family to arrive. They were originally going to get here around midnight, but because of car trouble, they left three hours late, so they did not get here until 3 in the morning. So I stayed up late knitting while I waited for them. I now have both pieces of the camisole completed and sewed together, and I am working on the straps and the trim. I don't have any pictures of it, but hopefully I will have pictures of the finished project soon.
I also just cast on tonight for an afghan out of Lion Brand Homespun. It is going to be a Christmas present for my inlaws. I know I have a lot of time to get it done yet, but I wanted to get it out of the way, because I have had the yarn for it for a long time, and it has been hanging over my head.

Making progress

I finished one side of the front of my camisole. It actually is going by pretty quickly, to my surprise. I was a little bit scared of it at first because this is the first time I have used size 3 needles to make anything bigger than a sock.
Here is a picture:



I'm sure I won't get around to posting this weekend, because my two sisters and my brother-in-law are coming to visit from Chicago, so I will be pretty busy.

A recent project

Well, I'm sure people don't want to keep seeing pictures of my camisole as I slowly make progress - and I do mean slowly, because I am also in the middle of training to run the Chicago half-marathon on September 19. Running takes up a lot of my time, and it also saps my energy, so that I often don't even feel like knitting. (I never thought I'd say that!)
So anyway, since I haven't made a lot of progress on my current project, I thought I'd put up some pictures of my most recent finished project (other than my hat) - Mon Petit Chou from the summer issue of Knitty.
Here are a couple of pictures:





The first picture also includes my cat, Franklin, who doesn't see any reason for a ribbon to be laying around unless it is meant to be played with by a cat.
I made it out of Sock It To Me Collection Esprit, which I got from Elann. It is meant to be a surprise for my husband for our anniversary, which is next Tuesday. The second anniversary is traditionally the cotton anniversary, right?

Still figuring this out...

Well, I'm still trying to find my way around the whole posting photos thing. I think I've gotten the hang of it, but I thought I'd test it out by putting up some pictures of my lace camisole in progress.
Here is the back:



It is waiting patiently on a spare needle to be sewn together with the front, which admittedly is not much to look at right now, as you can see:

Fun with felting

Well, I did it. I felted my hat yesterday. Here is the result:



I am pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I found out that felting is surprisingly easy and fun. Now I am looking forward to working on the French Market Bag from Knitty, which I have been wanting to make for a while, but have been somewhat afraid of, due to the whole felting aspect. However, it will have to wait a little bit, since I have decided not to buy yarn (or any knitting-related supplies) for the rest of August, since the husband and I decided to make an effort to cut back expenses. Don't worry, I have plenty of stuff in my stash to work with.

Hello, world!

Welcome to my blog! After months of deliberating over whether I would actually have the work ethic to post regularly to a blog, I decided to go for it. Looking at other people's knitting blogs was just too tempting! I decided I need to be able to share my knitting with the world. I promise I'll get back and post some photos later to make this more interesting, but for now, I'll just tell you what I'm working on.
1. Bottoms Up bucket hat by Bonne Marie Burns. I've actually finished knitting it, and I'm going to felt it soon, hopefully tomorrow (my first attempt at felting - yikes!) I'm making it in Brown Sheep Nature Spun in black.
2. Lace Camisole from Vintage Knits (with a couple minor modifications). This is going along pretty well. I just completed the back and started the front today. I'm using Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in dusty sage. (If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of Brown Sheep. Well, it is made in Nebraska.)