babette blanket, revisted

My mom and I started working on this project three years ago. A lot has happened since then, but I thought of it today- probably because I spent the entire day at home trying to be a responsible adult and get chores and studying done. It was not a generally good focusing day for me. I did finish a lecture and get three loads of laundry done. And two dried.

I think I will work on finishing up all the laundry today and do dishes tonight. I still need to make it to the gym and do four lectures. Ideally, I'd like to respond to e-mails too. We'll see how that goes.

I think the spring weather (and yesterday was surely summer) has been making me think about this blanket because of the colors. I think that this will be a good project to work on once school is over in only a month and a half. One of my goals for 2012 is going to be to finally finish this blanket from 2009. I really like it. But there are going to be a few issues because I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out of yarn and it's still going to be too small. Some problem-solving will be happening. This was one of the first projects we ever did. If I were to do it again, I would pick much thicker yarn, even though the colors of Koigu are amazing.

beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads, but they're just old light, they're just old light

Back in December, I made a few Christmas cards. I was only planning on making one, but then my mom asked me to make three for family members and I traded a card for my brother washing my dishes. Really. I did that. I just realized I completely forgot to take a picture of the only one without snowmen on it, but perhaps it reflects the nature of my accidental obsession with these snowmen. It's almost Valentine's day so it's time to be entirely too late with another set of cards.

the ultimate love letter

I mentioned last week that I had completed one of the items on my Bucket List to send out a really good package. I think "Ultimate" might've been the word I used, but I'm hoping that's just a phase I was going through because I entitled its contents the "Ultimate Love Letter" as well. I wanted to make a scrapbook that I eventually decided was not unlike a love letter in its mushiness. And thus was born this idea. I took pictures in case it got lost in the mail (upon which I would be subsequently crushed). I've been wanting to share projects on here lately, so here goes.

It was a huge mess, but also a lot of fun to use my hands and make something. I basically divided the book into two categories, "things I love about you" and "good or important moments." I used a black, smaller folder that I had saved at one point, probably thinking I could re-use it.

 

I liked it as a folder, but as I added more pages, I ended up having to cut it because it looked like it was exploding. As is hopefully not apparent from this blog, exploding/overflowing things seems to be a theme in my life. I've been trying to be flexible, rather than force something that's clearly not going to work... to work. (Another life theme) So it's become essentially two cardstock cover sheets. But I'm okay with that.

I also used pictures as their own pages and wrote on the picture or let it stand on its own as a "page." I really liked how that looked.

And here are some of the pages that had mostly words and paper. I did occasionally include pictures on the pages, but most of the pages were text. I blurred out the writing because while much of the book was light-hearted, ours is a deeply personal story to us.

Getting to send this and watching it be read over Skype was totally worth the broken hole puncher and exploded hole punches everywhere. I hope that we can keep adding to the book and adding to our memories in general.

this will be me.

[image from bigBANG studio]

One of my summer goals is to make a quilt-style duvet cover for my bed. Right now, my comforter (I think that's what it is?) doesn't match anything in my room or even come remotely close. The fact that it doesn't come remotely close is the part that bothers me. I have this image in my mind of a few quilts I want to do. I love this yellow and was thinking about doing some sort of gold-yellow with black triangle kind of a thing. I had a reason to try to get it done for early July, but now that that has kind of changed, I think I will just try to finish it by late July, probably.

scarf for jeff

It's really cold here. Still. I'm actually pretty okay with the alternating cold and hot weather, but it seemed appropriate to put up another project I worked on this winter. I haven't knit anything in probably the past month (and ripped out what I had been working on before that) due to traveling quite a bit and never being quite prepared enough to bring any knitting. But I'm determined not to pretty much completely stop knitting, as I did last summer.

Speaking of last summer...

Last summer, Jeff and I were heading to Whole Foods for lunch when we commented on how incredibly hot it was getting. Weather-wise, I am not entirely opposed to moving to Alaska in order to avoid the scorching, humid heat. I was just telling Jeff how I feel nervous just thinking about hot weather. As he was laughing about yet another irrational fear of mine, he asked if I could knit him a scarf for his birthday. He wanted it black.

Jeff's birthday was a few weeks away in early June, so that wasn't going to work out. In fact, I didn't even get started on this scarf until mid-October. And I also couldn't use black. This color, to me, screams Jeff. I tell him this all the time, but he has the most gorgeous green eyes. Green invariably reminds me of him.

I really loved working on this for a dear friend. The stitch pattern is pretty fun and easy to remember after awhile. Mostly, I loved that he loved it.

Project Details:
Pattern: Beagle Scarf by Nora Gaughan
Needles: Size 8
Yarn: KnitPicks Andean Treasure (100% Baby Alpaca)- 3.5-4 skeins

Oh, and here's Jeff (with me and Nitin).
And I can't help but mention this:

wintersong mittens

It's May. And yet, today I found myself wearing my winter jacket. I had been hesitating posting these since I didn't want to jinx anything, but since the weather is already jinxed, what is there left to lose?

I knit these in December, which meant that my hands were very cold in November and December since I refused to buy perfectly warm $2.99 gloves. I loved this pattern by Elli Stubenrauch. It was my first time doing colorwork and reading a chart, both skills that I felt I had, in theory.

My goal was to use yarn I already had and I finally settled on Misti Alpaca Worsted and Berocco Vintage Wool. I loved the combination of the wool and alpaca because the alpaca makes it warmer and softer but the wool is sturdy and keeps the mittens from stretching out. They received quite a bit of abuse this winter- gripping bus poles, being dropped in dirty melted snow, picking up snow for snowball fights, etc. And they held up exceptionally.

I added a few more rows than called for in the ribbed cuff for extra warmth and would probably have decreased the number of stitches because the cuff ended up being way too loose for me.

And I HAD to make the tops of the thumbs removable for texting purposes. I try to save time by responding to texts while I'm waiting for buses.

These mittens received so many compliments that by the time the bartender was calling me, "Mittens," it was a little bit ridiculous.



Project Info:
Yarn: 0.5-ish skein Misti Alpaca Royal (I think- this was very old) in white; Berocco Vintage (Purple)
Needle Size: ?
Pattern: Herringbone Mittens by Elli Stubenrauch
Modifications: Removable Thumb Tops; Additional Rows to the cuff

Needs-to-be-updated Ravelry Project Page.

keep me where the light is

Hand-knit items take time. And it's not always time that you feel is well-spent because your projects don't always turn out the way you imagined. Or maybe sometimes your imagination is a little bit off. Or a lot of a bit off. But that's neither here nor there.

That said, this cowl I knit is one of the most practical projects that I've made. And it's one of those truths that I acknowledge when I'm at the bus stop, freezing much less than I otherwise would. Or when I'm walking down the street and it's catching all the tears, snot, and other really great bodily fluids induced by your body being way colder than it can really endure. Is this my way of declaring love? By insisting upon the practicality of that which I love? Maybe.

This yarn, Twinkle Soft Chunky, is fantastic. It's so warm. I made a sweater out of it last fall, which I think I'm going to take apart and make into a blanket. I would recommend using it for smaller items or items that will take less wear and tear because as a chunkier yarn, it does pill much easier. The sweaters designed for this yarn are gorgeous, but somewhat unpractical, which, in my opinion, is completely fine.

Anyway, here is information on the project:
Yarn: 1 skein Twinkle Soft Chunky (I wish I knew the color, it's gorgeous)
Needle Size: 17s
Pattern: Marian by Jane Richmond
Modifications: I am pretty sure I accidentally twisted it twice while knitting it, although I was only trying to twist it once. Also, I used a smaller needle size, just because it's what I had on hand.

Ravelry page.