Gryffindor Bag

February 10: Started

March 19: I learned the most awesome fair isle technique this morning: Two Handed Fair Isle. I’ve only gone two rounds using this technique, but it’s pretty darn amazing so far. I was concerned about some of the long floats on this project (although not overly so since I plan to line the purse so I would be hiding the floats) and now I don’t have to worry about them! I was excited about fair isle before but now I’m just ecstatic! See the difference? The bottom part is with the floats and the top part is with the new technique.



March 21: And the body is finished! I’m going to have to figure out how to do the crochet parts for around the edges and the strap so I may put this on hold for a little while until I figure that out.

March 27: Finally getting around to blocking this, so I thought I’d add pictures. The picture at the very bottom is the reverse side, so you can see the difference between the regular stranded method (bottom) and the weaving in method (top) that I mentioned above.

March 30: Finished the crochet edging and strap. I’m not sure if I’m super keen on the strap but I think I’ll leave it for now. So all that’s left is the lining (need to go buy some fabric so I’ll do that in the next couple of days).

April 8: Finally started working on the lining today. I’m not the world’s greatest at sewing so this is going to take me quite a while because I really want to make sure that it all comes together well at the end.

May 12: In an effort to finish up some of the lingering projects, I pushed through sewing in the lining this morning. That’s one of my least favorite parts of a project, so I’m so happy it is done. This is a cute little purse!

Pattern: HP House Fair Isle Pouch Bags by Rosemary Waits (free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash in Maroon and Daffodil-Marigold

Available for sale in my etsy shop.

Mouse Queen

September 6, 2009: I decided to try a different approach with the Queen. Instead of knitting all the pieces first and then seaming them up (like I did with the King), I’m doing the finishing/seaming as I go. So today I was able to finish all of the lower part of her body. Next up will be the arms, and then I’ll work on putting together everything on the head. It did seem to go a lot better this way, with alternating knitting and sewing I was able to get more done in a shorter amount of time than with the King.

March 14: So this poor little mouse has been sitting around for far too long without a head and arms. I decided to finish her up today. Alas, that was not to be accomplished.

So I’m a little pissed off. I bought the kit from Knitbeads that’s supposed to contain all the yarn I’ll need to knit all of the medieval mice. Ha!

On the Mouse King, I was just shy of the brown color for his belt and had to use a little of another color to cast off. That worked okay, but I will need more of the original brown for one of the other mice.

So today I started in on one arm of the Mouse Queen. Hmm…I think. That pink color is getting awfully low. Will I have enough for the other arm? Definitely not since I have something like only 8 inches of yarn left after the first arm.

So now my Queen is missing an arm.

Then I went to knit the crown. I ran out of the metallic gold yarn with about half a dozen stitches to bind off (since I used glue to fold over the crown, I was able to just thread the last inch of yarn through the last few stitches and use glue to secure it). But I still have the clasp for her cloak that I’m supposed to make out of it as well as two more crowns for the prince and princess mice.

I’ve been making sure to have short tails for my cast on and bind off. I’ve been using thread to sew the pieces together rather than the yarn. I’ve been trying to make sure I have enough yarn. So I think that the kit just doesn’t contain the right amount of yarn to knit all of the mice.

So now I have my Queen almost finished. Just minus one arm (and one cloak clasp). And I’m going to email knitbeads and see if they’ll send me more yarn. If not, then I will never buy from them again and I’ll make sure to let others know.

May 12: I got my yarn a bit over a week ago (it was a rather lengthy process of emails back and forth before the yarn was ready) so I finally sat down this morning to finish off this little queen. About 30 minutes later and I was done!




King and Queen together:

Escher Socks

January 28: I’ve been itching to cast on for another pair of socks, so I decided to dive into these. I’m also trying out magic loop again (I usually prefer DPNs). I found the first 3 rounds rather fiddly, but now I’m on round 5 and it’s starting to get a lot better. Since I knit fairly tightly, I started with going up a needle size and casting on the larger size (60 stitches). I’ll knit a couple of pattern repeats and then see how the sizing is going. (Later: The fit is good!)

March 17: Wow. I started these quite a while ago. It usually doesn’t take me this long to finish a pair of socks and I’m nowhere close to finishing right now. Last night I did do another pattern repeat on the leg of the first sock. Just about 1 or 2 more of those and I’ll be ready to turn the heel.

April 2: Am now focusing my attention on these socks. Yesterday I turned the heel and got all that part taken care of so I’m working on the foot. Hope to finish the first sock in the next couple of days and start the second.

April 6: First sock finished. I’m really glad I did the large size because even so they still feel a bit tight. I’m wondering if I should go up a needle size for the second sock. I’m going to wait until this one dries from its blocking to see if that makes a difference before I decide and start the second sock.

May 9: Yeah, I’ve been sitting on these socks for far too long. In an effort to finish sock #2, I’ve been focused on knitting this project for the past couple of days. I’m past the heel and on the foot now. If I counted right, I have 6 more pattern repeats (or technically 3 more full pattern repeats) to go before I decrease for the toes.

May 11: Finished finally! (And yes, the blocking helped tremendously in making the first sock fit right.)

Pattern: Escher Socks by Lorna Miser (published in Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn)
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in In Vino Veritas

Dipped Infinity Scarf

April 9: I’ve been wanting to start this project for a while now so I finally gave in and began it. The stitch pattern is super easy and so I think it’ll be quite fun and simple to knit and look wonderful when it’s finished.

April 10: Got to the first color change today. Exciting! Later: Got to the second color change.

April 12: Worked on during knit night and just at the end of the evening, I dipped into Night Heron (fifth color, third color change).

April 15: Added in Pussywillow. Just one color more after that!

April 23: All finished! Just need to block (the ends want to curl in) and take pictures.

May 10: I’ve had one heck of a time getting this to dry after blocking. It sat on the blocking board for 3 days. Then I took it off and used a hair dryer on it. Still wet, I hung it on the towel rack. And this morning I finally ran it through the low heat cycle on my dryer. It’s still got a slight dampness to it but a lot better than it was. If it’s not completely dry by tomorrow morning, I may run it through the dryer again (although that caused the edges to want to start to curl in again).

May 12: Now dry.

Pattern: Dipped Infinity Scarf by Laura Chau (for sale on Ravelry)
Yarn: JulieSpins M370 in Black Beauty, Root Beer, Garnet, Bluebell Woods, Night Heron, Blue Slate, Pussywillow, and Christmas Cactus

Raverly Red Hat

April 10: I really liked the yellow cable hat that I made but the color doesn’t suit me. So I’ll save the yellow one for a gift and make this red one for me.

April 16: Finished tonight. Love! Super soft and cozy.

Pattern: Sarah's Cabled Hat by Sasha Stavsky (free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Malabrigo Twist in Ravelry Red

No Cable Needle Cabled Hat

April 7: Taking a knitting class tomorrow on cabling without a cable needle so I knit the ribbing tonight to prepare for the class.

April 8: Just back from the class. It was great. Now, the first round with cables went very slowly and was a bit frustrating because I had knit so tightly that instead of staying still while I moved stitches around (this technique involves letting stitches loose momentarily), I kept having the stitches drop, so I had to get out the ole crochet hook and pick up the dropped stitches. Grr. So the next time I made sure to consciously knit as loosely as possible for the next set-up row and that seemed to work as the stitches were so much easier to manipulate and I was able to get the hang of the technique. Now I can definitely see the benefits of doing it this way and how it will be much faster for doing cables. Yay!

April 9: All finished. I’m definitely a lot more comfortable with not using a cable needle after this project. I think I’ll make another hat with my Ravelry Red Malabrigo Twist.

April 10: As I’m looking at the pictures of the hat, I’m not liking the places where there are purl bumps in the middle of the cables. I wasn’t sure if the pattern was correct when it said to repeat those rows but I went ahead with it. Now I’m regretting it. So on the next one I make, I’ll just knit across instead of adding purls in the cables and see how it turns out.

Pattern: Sarah's Cabled Hat by Sasha Stavsky (free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Marigold

Gathered Scarf

February 6: Started for my MIL’s birthday or Mother's Day. I’m not sure yet whether or not I like the way it’s pooling.

February 22: I worked on this scarf a little bit more this evening. The blocks of pooling have broken up so it’s looking a bit better. I’m going to keep going with it because I think my MIL will love it no matter how it turns out.

March 19: Finished first skein of yarn and got well into the second skein.

March 31: And now finished! I’m not sure if/how to block this scarf with the whole gathered effect, but it does seem to want to curl inward so I might try to do some sort of blocking to see if I can get the curl to settle down just a bit. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to giving this to my MIL for Mother's Day.

Pattern: Gathered Scarf by Maryse Roudier
Yarn: Yarn Love Elizabeth Bennett in Maiden

Toe Up Practice Socks 2

February 16: Taking another knitting class, learning a different technique for toe up socks, using Judy’s Magic Cast-on. And I can say that it’s definitely magic!

February 22: Finished my homework and all ready for class tomorrow night.

February 23: Tonight’s class covered the heel which went quite well. Gotta finish up the leg this week so I’m ready for the bind off for next week’s class.

February 27: Finished my homework (the leg) and all ready for the cast off during Tuesday’s class.

March 2: Sock #1 finished in class (it’s just a tad bit tight) and Sock #2 started. For some reason I had a little bit more trouble with the cast on for the second sock (I had to start over about 4 times) than I did with the first, but I think I got it once again. I think I’ll do some extra practicing over the next few days, though, so that way I can make sure I remember how to do it.

March 15: Finished the foot and heel of Sock #2.

March 18: And finished Sock #2. The yarn feels a bit stiff and the socks are a bit tight, so I’ve tossed them in the washing machine and will block them, hoping to soften them up.

Pattern: Basic Toe-Up pattern passed out during knitting class
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash in Aran