I've been doing a little knitting.

A few months ago I picked up some Mission Falls wool on clearance at my LYS. I wound up with 8 balls, and I made a few hats for the general election campaign with Knitters for Obama. We're trying to hit up swing states and focus on homeless veteran's charities.


For the most part, I used Ellen's Knit Hat pattern, although I sampled the London Beanie and The Boy Hat. The other patterns were great, but I liked the first one best for simplicity purposes. These hats are my purse projects, and I needed something that I can just throw in a bag and go.

Pattern Specs:
Patterns: Ellen's Knit Hat, London Beanie, The Boy Hat
Needles: Size 7 circs & dpns
Time: A few days a piece
Cost: $24 total, or about $3.50 each

I'm moving back to Tennessee next week, and I cannot wait. And when I say "move" - I mean, living/working there for the rest of the summer. It might only be 7 weeks, but it's going to be awesome. I can't wait to spend the 4th of July grilling out with my family.

Funk.

I've been in a funk - both in my knitting and my personal life. I've had a lot on my mind, and usually knitting works to help bring me out the funk that's going on. Not today.

However - I'm trying! Since the Obama Knitting Mania, I've tried to keep working on a few smaller projects so that I'm at least being productive. I figure that one day I'll snap out of it if I just keep at it for awhile.

So I made these:

Project Specifics:
Pattern: Feather & Fan; Waffle Texture Ensemble
Yarn: Sugar & Cream - Swimming Pool & Landscape
Needles: Size 7
Time: About 2 hours each
Cost: About $1 in stash yarn

The photos don't do the waffle stitch cloth justice. It makes a great textured cloth, but I'd recommend people use a solid or semisolid color. I think it would make it "pop" a bit more.

I also made a hat...

I wanted something simple to work on while I was flipping back and forth between CNN and the Bourne Identity on cable. It really was a hard choice - Matt Damon being a badass or knowing what's going on with the Obama/Hillary neverending saga. In the end, Matt won.



Project Specifications:
Pattern: London Beanie
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Wool - Dark green & light green
Time: One afternoon of TV knitting
Cost: About $3 (yay for sales at my LYS!)

This hat turned out a little small. It fit me nicely, but it's for a charity knitting drive where most of the recipients will be men. I have a small head, and the other other adult that I've knit a hat for is the Boyfriend who has a HUUUUGE head. I realize that all men won't be competing with him for Largest Dome in North America, but I expect they'll be somewhere in between.

If I make this hat again, I'd cast on extra stitches and knit an extra inch or two before doing the decrease rounds. It's a cute and simple pattern with lots of room for variations.

My Noro Splurge!

Why yes.. I do know how to knit things other than baby hats!

When Amy and I went to see the Yarn Harlot in April, we of course went yarn shopping. Busy Hands was having a sale, and I picked up Noro at 20% off. It was still a little on the pricey side, but I just couldn't pass it up.

I cast on for this scarf almost immediately, but it took nearly a month to finish. Between exams and 35 baby caps, I had a few other things on my plate.

I like how it turned out. I picked one colorway that was mostly pink and another that was blue/green.

Every once and awhile the colors would be too similar, so I had to do some split splicing to make the stripes a bit shorter. I probably have the equivalent of 1/4 of a skein leftover.

After blocking (although it really didn't need it, I just wanted to wash the cat hair off) - it wound up being 85" long. It wraps around my neck and still has enough "dangle" to make me happy. I'm a fan of long scarves.

Although it's allegedly summer around these parts, we didn't get out of the 50's today. If this keeps up, I might get to use this scarf well before the fall!

Final Specs:
Pattern: Noro Scarf by Jared Flood, Free
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, 4 skeins - $36
Needles: Size 8's
Time: One month of on & off (mostly off) knitting

Obama Knitting and a Contest

I've been knitting as many hats for Obama as I can, but I've started to burn out a little. It seems that a few of us are experiencing burnout after making a blue million of these guys. So, I decided that I'd have a contest to help us chug through the final few states.

We still have primaries in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana left to knit for. (The mailing dates have already passed for Kentucky and Oregon.) For every hat or bib that you knit for any of these three primaries, your name gets entered once in the drawing.

I realize that we don't all support the same political platforms, and I support anyone's decision to chose another candidate. However, this charity drive is to drum up positive support for Obama's campaign and to show that we've taken Obama's message to heart. Seeing hundreds of baby caps being donated to a local hospital is a change that we all can believe in!

Sign me up! How do I enter?
If you're on Ravelry, sign up for Knitters for Obama. There's a thread that discusses all the ins out outs which will help you get started. You can knit either hats or baby bibs. Just make sure you use soft fibers which are machine washable.

Just send either knittinggurl or knitnic a private ravelry message with the number of hats/bibs that you'd like to donate. When it gets closer to the mailing date, you'll get a ravelry message with the address to send your goodies. The moderators keep up with the tallies, and I'll put you in the drawing based on the number of donations that you have pledged.

Don't have ravelry? No problem! Email me at goldendomer [at] gmail [dot] com and tell me how many hats you'd like to donate. I'll make sure your name gets put in the hat!

Where do I find patterns?
There's so many free patterns out there for you! Here's just a few suggestions:

Bibs:
Simple Baby Bib

Hats:
Caps for the Capital
TLL Hat

The TLL Hat is my go-to pattern:


How soon do you need things?
The primaries are coming up quickly. We try to get the donations mailed to the contact person in each state 10 days beforehand.

Puerto Rico - Primary 6/1 **Mailing date will be very soon
Montana - Primary 6/3
South Dakota - Primary 6/3

The contest will end after the mail date for the last primaries!

Enough of this Babbling! What do I win?
I decided to go stash diving to see what I could come up with, and I remembered some Artyarn Regal Silk that I got on sale a few months ago. It's hard to part with this because I love it so much, but it's for a great cause!

The prize is for two skeins, 163 yards each. It's 100% silk and uses a recommended needle size of 7. The retail price of this yarn is $22 a skein, and you can get it for free for just donating a few hours of knitting time to a great cause.

Knit On!

Two-Thirds.

As of 4:18 this afternoon, I am officially 2/3 of the way through law school. It felt amazing to turn in my last paper for the semester. I finished up exams Tuesday, but I still had a bear of a paper to finish. Before they unleash us onto the world as lawyers, we have to satisfy this enormous writing requirement. I decided to get mine out of the way this semester, and it feels like a HUGE weight has been lifted.

To celebrate, I got take out sushi, poured myself a giant glass of wine and plopped in front of the tv and knit another hat for Obama. I haven't gotten much accomplished other than hats these days.

These guys went to Kentucky:


These went to Oregon:

(I swear, I don't have a prejudice against Oregon. I hear it's quite lovely, actually. I had just pledged my hats to Kentucky instead, but at the last minute I realized I had extras so I mailed them out West.)

And these went wee wee wee, all the way home. Or, maybe just to West Virgina.


There's so many people involved with this project it's insane! West Virgina got a donation of a little more than 100 caps. Here's a picture of the loot that Melissa collected:

Knitting for Obama

I'm in a Ravelry group called "Knitters for Obama." They got a little fed up with the negative media that was happening in this election, and decided to do something about it. In each state that still has a primary, they are collecting baby hats & bibs to do a mass donation in honor of Obama. We all know how much I love knitting baby hats, so I had to contribute a few.

The plan is to use the campaign colors (or, quite honestly, whatever you have in your stash). I ran over to Jo-Ann's and picked up some Caron Simply Soft in red and white, and some Vanna's Choice in Blue. They didn't quite have the right color of blue in Caron at the time, so I did a little mix and matching. I like the results!

These little things knit up pretty fast, so I'm hoping to get a few more than my initial pledge of 6 completed. They've collected about 100 for the Pennsylvania primaries, and the movement seems to be gaining momentum. If you're interested in donating a few, see this thread for details.

Yarn Harlot Visit

On Friday, the Yarn Harlot was in Ann Arbor, and Amy and I went down to see. We did a lot of yarn shopping, and for the most part, I was good. I did accidentally buy some Noro to make a striped scarf while I was at Busy Hands. Oops. They were having a 20% off the entire store sale. Resistance was futile.

We got to the library an hour early, but we still had to sit in the overflow room. Rumors were flying that people started getting there as early as 1pm for a 7pm talk. I think I preferred yarn shopping. She was really funny, and I laughed the whole time. I must confess, I don't read her blog as religiously as others, but I didn't realize she would be quite so much fun.

We stood in line for hours to meet her. Literally. We were the last people to get in line, and we didn't leave the library until 10:30 at night. We happened to get in line behind people that were fun and chatty, so the time went by a lot faster than it could have.

It doesn't look like much of a line, but this was how many people were ahead of us after about an hour and a half of standing around knitting.

It was a great night, and I'm so glad that I went. Although there was one rather awkward moment of the night.

Random Lady: You could have went to the front of the line!
Me: (puzzled look) What? Why?
RL: Stephanie loves women like you!
Me: Like me!?
RL: Yes, Pregnant women!
Me: (Awkward silence)

Ummmm... I'm not pregnant. Apparently just fat.

(I did get my picture made with the Harlot, but it's an extremely unflattering photo so it isn't getting posted. Instead, look at my sock!)


It's much cuter than the bitter face that I was still sporting after the earlier comment.

St. Patrick's Day Socks (A Week Late)

I knit as fast as my little fingers would let me, but I still didn't these socks finished by St. Patrick's Day. Silly school stuff - always getting in the way of perfectly good knitting time.

I finished these over the weekend, and I really like them. I'm loving the color! I've definitely been on a green kick in my personal life lately.

I can't wait to wear these socks! They feel really comfy when I model them.

(Don't you hate it that self-modeling sock pictures always make the model look like she has cankles?)

I had several comments (both in real life and on the blog) of people not thinking that these would fit around the wearer's ankles. Rest assured - they do. Honestly, I never really thought about it until so many people asked, but in pictures like this one, it really does look like there's an extremely small leg that's going to fit into the sock. However, the leg is made out of ribbing which stretches for eternity, so once you put it on, it fits perfectly!

Final Specs:
Pattern: Oak Ribbed Sock, from Knitting Vintage Socks
Needles: Size 1 dpn's
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici (Arugula), About $9
Time: 3 weeks total without a lot of non-knitting school time in there

Calorimetry

I'd seen a zillion people make the calorimetry and it looks so cute on them! On me? Not so much.

I reduced the number of cast on stitches like people have recommended, but that wasn't the problem. I used some of my favorite yarn in one of my favorite colors, but that wasn't the problem either. It just wasn't... me.

However, as long as I live in the frozen tundra (aka Michigan), I'll wear this guy.

Finished Specs:
Pattern: Calorimetry from Knitty, Free
Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted, Jewel Blue, $11
Needles: Size 8 circs

Total Random Content

I'm in love.

I've been sick and cooped up in my house for the past few days and to entertain myself, I sat and knit and watched TV. Tonight, I turned the heel on a sock and I watched the season finale of October Road. I laughed and cried in so many cycles that I really couldn't keep track. There were even a few random shouts at the TV when I didn't agree with the twists and turns. I can't decide what it is that I love so much, but there's just something about that show that really resonates with me. Maybe it's the small town life that I've been missing so much lately. Maybe it's the soundtrack that has some of the best music of any TV show. Maybe it's just the close bond that the friends have. That's something I've been missing so much since moving North.

Whatever it is. I'm in love with October Road. I want to live in Knight's Ridge and be friends with them all too.

Just to throw in some knitting - here's a sneak peek of a sock:

Waiting Scarf

Scarves are definitely my go-to project. When in doubt about what to cast on next, a scarf is always high on my list. Ironically, I only have two scarves that I wear that are handmade. The rest all get donated to charities. That's the fate of my latest scarf.

I started this scarf without a pattern in mind, and just kinda made it up as I went. This was my travel project for a few weeks, and I really only knit on it while I was doing other things, like sitting in moot court dress rehearsals, waiting on my oil change, getting my hair colored, etc. Because knitting only happened while I was waiting on things, I started calling it my waiting scarf.

I got the yarn on sale at Threadbear a few months ago. It's Mission Falls Wool 1824 in Rhubarb. It's normally about $6 a skein, and I got it for $3. Yay for deals!


Blocking really made a world of difference. The fabric doesn't even feel the same, and it blocked out really nicely. Here's the before picture so you can see for yourself:

Final Specs:
Pattern: No real pattern.
Yarn: Mission Falls Wool 1824, 4 skeins - $12
Needles: Size 8
Time: About a month of travel knitting

Multidirectional Scarf

I'm so behind in blogland. I'm way behind in my blog reading, and it's been a month since I last posted. Oh well.. life gets in the way sometimes!

There has been some knitting happening even though it's not being reflected on the blog!

I finished up my multidirectional scarf and I've been wearing the fire out of it with all the snow and ice we've been getting lately. It "warmed up" to 40 the other day but rained all day and turned into sleet at night, so I refuse to count that as good weather.

Overall, I really like the scarf. I'm not a big fan of the sudden light purple streaks in the middle of the dark, dark purple spots, but I like the scarf in the end. Ironically, the stark contrast is what my friend Amy likes the best.

Overall Specs:
Pattern: Multidirectional Scarf, Free
Yarn: Austerman Murano, One skein - About $23
Needles: Size 9
Time: About three evenings of TV knitting

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P.S. I have yet to break my Lent promise of no yarn buying! I even held up through a HUGE sale at Threadbear.

Ash Wednesday

I decided that this year for Lent, I was going to make a true sacrifice. None of this, "no chocolate" or "no caffeine" business for me. No siree! I, my friend, will be giving up yarn buying.

You read that correctly. I am about to attempt a feat so horrible, so gruesome, that only few will attempt it, and even fewer complete the mission successfully. From February 6, 2008 to April 27, 2008, I shall make no yarn purchases.*

People outside of the knitting world think that it's a light promise and that I'm not truly making a sacrifice. However, I know that anyone who reads this message will understand just how painfully difficult it is to resist a beautiful skein on Malabrigo that screams at you to take it home.

Plus, knitting from stash is going to help me out in the long run. I'm moving at the end of the semester, so my yarn will have to go into storage for the summer. That means that it gets packed, toted to the truck, unloaded into a storage locker, sits for the summer, loaded back into a truck and then toted into my new apartment where it gets unpacked. The fewer things that can be included into that vicious cycle, the better!

*Promise excludes yarn related items needed to complete a current project. For example, needles or stitch markers.

Snow Day!

This morning, I woke up to this:

Yuck. Although it doesn't look like it, we got 6-8 inches of snow. (Those cars had been moved during the day, so they are deceiving!) I decided that the best thing I could do would to be stay at home and knit. :-) Life is terrible, I know.

Did I decide to finish one of the 15 UFO's that I have? No. I decided to cast on for another project. That's much more fun!

Back on December, I had an interview in Chicago. Sarah met me afterwards and we went yarn shopping. I didn't get the job, but I did get some fabulous yarn.

It's Austermann Murano in Blue/Purple. It comes in 240m skeins, so one is all you need for a scarf.

To be perfectly honest, I've never been a huge fan of the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf, but this yarn seemed to be calling out for it with the really long self-striping sections. I like the results so far. There's really more color variation than shows up in the picture, and there's a black section that still hasn't came around too.






I'm about a foot into it and I'm liking what I see so far.

This is the last "free" weekend that I have for awhile and I plan to spend as much time as possible knitting. Wish me luck!
I hope that you all have a fabulous weekend as well!

Cleaning out the cotton stash!

This Sunday at our Knit Night, Marcy was knitting ballbands & it inspired me to knit my own. As soon as I got home, I had to cast on. I honestly have absolutely no idea what colors I used, but I do know that the yarn was Sugar n' Cream.

I love this little pattern. It's so easy & I just love the end results. I really don't know that I've seen a completed one that I've thought looked bad. Although, there are some questionable colors out there, so I'm sure that it could be done.

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth, Mason-Dixon Knitting
Yarn: Sugar n' Cream, less than half a skein of each color
Needles: Size 7
Time: About 2 hours
Total Cost: About $1


I was still in the cotton dishcloth mood today, so I cast on for another dishcloth and knit this one while I was reading for Criminal Procedure. I did more reading than knitting, but in my defense - knitting was much for exciting.


This is the Feather & Fan Dishcloth by Linda Smith. I'd never made one of these before, but I thought it was pretty. It was a surprisingly simple pattern. I noticed on Ravelry that a lot of people were getting rid of the garter ridge in between pattern repeats, and it looks fabulous. I'm definitely trying that next time.


I have no idea what I'm doing with these dishcloths. Maybe they will end up as a gift one day. For now, they are sitting in the "Finished Objects without a Home" box in my closet.

Pattern: Feather and Fan Dishcloth, Free
Yarn: Sugar n' Cream, about 3/4 of a skein
Needles: Size 7
Time: About 2 hours
Total Cost: About $1

P.S. I almost forgot to mention this groundbreaking news! Amy and I went to have our picture taken by Franklin for his 1000 Knitters Project. It was lots of fun, but I was really nervous to meet him. He came to Threadbear in Lansing, and 111 people came out for the photo shoot. Seriously.. 111 knitters came out in the snow to have their picture taken.

Imperfect Unoriginal Hat

Have you ever cast on for a project that you were really, really excited to make, yet it just didn't seem meant to be? That was me and this hat!


It all started innocently enough. I spotted this beautiful yarn at my LYS and fell in love instantly. Amy had given me a gift certificate and it was burning a hole in my pocket! I saw The Yarn and I knew that it was destined to be an Unoriginal Hat. After looking over the pattern, I figured that this would be my "bag" knitting for the week - which means that it's my go-to project for those spare minutes you find randomly.

If only it went so well. After casting on 3 times because I couldn't properly measure yarn, I got started. About an inch into the pattern, I found myself with about 10 minutes to spare, so I broke out the knitting. The next thing I know, someone had come up to me, grabbed my knitting from my hands, said "let me show you how I do it" and started knitting on my project! I kid you not.

Instead of saying anything, I just sat there speechless watching this woman proceed to knit my hat completely out of pattern. Looking back now, I can think of all kinds of witty things, but at the moment - I could will no words to come out of my mouth. Nothing.

So, after that debacle, my hat sat in time out for a few days because I couldn't bear to rip it out. Frogging this on dpn's just drives me batty. Turns out, I didn't rip far enough back and I completely missed a cable crossing, somewhere along the way I dropped a stitch that could never be found, and then I crossed other cables too soon. Good times!

The point of the story is that at the end of the day, I didn't care. I thought about ripping it back and starting over.. but then I looked outside at the 2-3 inches of snow that had fallen over the past 24 hours. I decided that I liked my Imperfect Unoriginal Hat just the way it was.


Pattern: Unoriginal Hat by The Yarn Harlot
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Chunky in Whale's Road, $11
Needles: Size 10.5 dpn's
Time: About 3-4 hours of total knitting/frogging time

Sparkley goodness!

A girlfriend of mine is celebrating a birthday today. When I made this scarf for another friend of mine earlier this month, she strongly started dropping hints that she wanted a scarf too. So.. I made her a scarf.

She has this really awesome hat that is charcoal and white with sparkles, so I thought I would make her a sparkly scarf to match. The colors look a little washed out in the pictures, but believe me, there's some serious sparkle in this sucker!

I tried a few different stitch patterns and then realized that I just needed to go plain old ribbing to get the full effect. It was a quick knit. I picked up the yarn Saturday and had all but the last few inches done by Monday. I finished up the last of it this morning, cast off.. and then whipped up a little sparkly gift bag on my new handy-dandy sewing machine!

I shopped the 50% off the clearance fabric sale at JoAnn's and picked up some silver fabric and lining. I just kinda winged the bag, but I think it looks ok. I only got 1/8 a yard of each, but I have enough leftover for another gift bag! Yay for remnants!



In Summary:
Pattern: 2x2 ribbed scarf
Yarn:

• 1 skein Cascade 220, Gray, $6.60
  
• 2 skeins Filtes King Australian Merinos, $8.60
  

Needles: Size 11
Time: One knit night and one evening of movie night
Total Cost: $24

Totally unrelated to knitting.

For Christmas, I asked Santa for a sewing machine. I'm in love with my new toy. So far, I've made several small things that are almost done, and one thing that's 100% completed.

I made a skirt out of the brown flowery material, and I had a lot of leftovers, so I went back and got some muslin and made a little bag. I didn't really use a pattern, but I based the idea in my head off of this pattern. Mine isn't reversible though.

This has now been christened my new knitting bag. I debuted it last night at our knitting group and it held up pretty well. I can already tell that the sewing machine and I are going to be great friends!

Mysterious appearances.

It's amazing what you find when you clean your apartment. I don't even remember knitting this, but obviously I did.


Pattern: Bib O' Love, Mason-Dixon Knitting
Yarn: Sugar n' Cream
Needles: Size 7
Time: I have no clue.

Benjamin's Cable Hat

I made this hat for my brother at Christmas, and then made a second one to donate. Over Thanksgiving, I taught my mom how to do cables. She was so shocked at how easy it was. We then sat and designed a simple cable scarf for her to make, and she decided that it was going to be my brother's Christmas present, and I should make him a hat. So, like a good daughter, I cast on for a hat.

I did a little bit of a modification and added about an inch or so of ribbing at the bottom.

Pattern: Chunky Cabled Beanie, Free
Yarn: Less than 1 skein Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky, Charcoal - $4
Needles: 10.5 dpn's
Time: 1 night of TV knitting

The only cute for a knitting emergency

While studying for final exams last fall, I had a knitting emergency. You know the kind. The "I-Must-Knit-Something-Before-I-Go-Crazy" kind. So, I dug through my stash and pulled out some Lion Brand Homespun that I bought more than a year ago and had forsaken for more delicious yarns. I immediately cast on for a Diagonal Baby Blanket.


I've made like 3 of these things so far, so I hated to make yet another carbon copy, but - again, this was a knitting emergency. The requirements were that the project be simple and made on big needles. It really just fit the bill.

Again though, the stupid yarn was different dyelots when it said that it wasn't. So, some of my blanket is a different color. Oh well, what can you do? I wove a purple ribbon through the eyelets to spice things up a bit, and personally, I think it's really cute.

Pattern: Diagonal Baby Blanket, Free
Yarn: Lion Brand Homespun in lavender sachet, 2 skeins; less than $10
Extras: 1 spool of ribbon, less than $2
Needles: Size 13 circs
Time: About 2 weeks of random knitting
Total Cost: Less than $12

Have a great weekend everyone!