dontcallmebecky

mini projects

I will be done with my master's degree next Saturday(!) and I can almost taste the freedom! I've been finishing up little projects here and there lately because that's all that I can handle in my overused brain and overtired body.

Camera Case

I made this a few months ago to fit my new mini camera. I used this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew and made the dimensions a bit smaller for a snug fit. I actually made two cases because I wasn't following directions closely and made it too small. (The octopus print is facing in the right direction on the first case, but not on the final case). My only hint for the pattern is to sew the button on before sewing up the sides - it's a tight fit for a needle if you sew it on last.

Mittens

This is from a basic mitten pattern that I found on ravelry. I've been wanting to work my way up to stranded mittens, so I thought I'd start with a basic pattern first to learn the details of mitten knitting. These ended up a little "off." On one mitten, the hand is too long and the thumb is to short. On the other mitten, the thumb is too long and the hand is too short. They fit well if I make a "C" with my hands, so I'm just going to leave them as is. Here's a link to my ravelry project for more details.

Maverick Star Charity Quilt

My dad recruited me to make a twin sized quilt for teen girls living at Children's Village in Detroit (his coworker is collecting handmade quilts). I made this quilt to donate and I recruited the ladies in the Bee Beautiful VQB to help make a second quilt. We all made Maverick Star blocks for the quilt and then I put the quilt top together and dropped it off at the long armer earlier this week. This is my first quilt being outsourced for quilting, so I can't wait to see how it turns out!

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I discovered that my Doll Quilt Swap Quilt was included in a mosaic of solid quilts on Whipup today. It was fun to see my quilt included in such an inspiring mosaic. I spotted Amy's Zen Mini Quilt in there too.

Diorama

Here's my latest finished knitting project (and one of a whole slew of purple projects that are in the works). I discovered Berroco Vintage yarn and it's awesome pattern support at my LYS a few weeks ago and bought three skeins to make this vest from Arts & Crafts booklet.

The project came together quickly and was a very satisfying knit. I finished most of this on the train ride to and from Toronto a few weeks ago. The yarn is great to work with and I'll definitely be using it on other projects once I knit down some of my stash.

Here are the pattern details:
Pattern: Diorama from Berroco's Arts & Crafts booklet
Yarn: Berroco Vintage, 3 skeins of Dewberry
Needles: Us 8
Ravelry Link: craftr's Diorama

Helleborus Yoke Cardigan

The Olympic sweater is finally finished!

I ripped out the bottom edging last weekend and reknit it with a larger needle size to eliminate the 80's-esque gathering on the bottom. Then I tackled the collar on Wednesday night and made lots of adjustments to get it to fit my neckline correctly. You can read about my adjustments to the pattern in ravelry if you're interested (craftr's Helleborus Yoke).

I finished up the buttonbands and attached the buttons on Thursday night. The sweater hasn't been blocked yet, but that's not stopping me from wearing it! The cabling pattern is gorgeous and I love the thick and nubbly feeling of the moss stitch throughout the sweater. I was really intrigued with the side to side knitting construction with this pattern and it was fun to try a new construction technique for this. 

The Universal Yarn Classic Chunky Tweed yarn was great to work with, but I did find 1 knot in one of the seven balls that I used. It's an acrylic and wool blend that is mostly acrylic, but it has a nice give to it and all of the tweedy chunks give some nice texture to the sweater.

Here are the details:

Pattern: Helleborus Yoke from Knitscene Winter 2010

Yarn: Universal Yarn Classic Chunky Tweed Burgundy, 6.5 balls

Needles: 9 and 10.5

Started February 13 and finished March 11 (with a brief hiatus in between)

Ravelry link: craftr's Helleborus Yoke

PS...yes, these photos are extremely cheesy but they crack Jon up so I'm keeping them :)

catching up

I spent Sunday catching up on life around our house. Now our pantry is stocked, laundry is finished (and put away!), soups are stored in the freezer and my head is clear and ready for another week. It feels good to get things accomplished.

I made the most delicious loaf of Mediterranean Olive, Sun Dried Tomato and Walnut bread from The Joy of Vegan Baking. So delicious! I'll share the recipe later this week. The second favorite recipe I made was the Pickle Soup from Love Soup...so yummy!

I started working on my failed Ravelympics project again. It's coming along much better now and I hope to have it finished by this weekend.

Jon and I have been burning the candle at both ends, so it was nice to have a day to get caught up on things and relax before the start of another busy week.

creatively procrastinating

My ravelympics project was the Helleborus Yoke Cardigan from Knitscene and knit with Universal Yarns Classic Chunky Tweed yarn.  I put all of my eggs in one basket, so to speak, for the Ravelympics and things did not turn out so good. I let lots of things slip to the side as I crammed in knitting time and things ended poorly on Sunday night (poorly, as in me throwing an "I'm never going to knit anything again, ever!" tantrum at midnight). Needless to say, I did not finish the sweater in time and it needs a few more modifications before it's wearable.

After sleeping on it, I've realized that things aren't so bad and everything is easily fixable. The body of the sweater went great and I found the perfect buttons yesterday. But, I made the bottom edging a little bit too tight, so the sweater looks like an eighties sweatshirt, instead of a relaxed cardigan. The collar turned out awful too. I read about a lot of complaints about having to reknit the collar multiple times on ravelry, so I should have known that I would have to also. I'm going to add some additional short rows to the collar so that it lays flat and does not gape out so much. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time reknitting the sweater this weekend to make it wearable.

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To make things better, I did some playing around with a fun photography website that has been around for quite a while now, Tilt Shift Maker. Why I didn't try this out when I first learned about it, I don't know. But, I'm glad to have had a chance to play with it today. You upload your picture and tweak the settings and it makes your photo look like a miniature scene.

Brussels

Bikes in Berlin

Paris rooftops

Our little garden

Foliage in Ometepe, Nicaragua

Granada, Nicaragua with Mombacho Volcano in the background

My favorite garden and restaurant in Kyoto, Japan

Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto

Shibuya intersection in Tokyo

 

adorable and quaint Bamberg, Germany

knitting projects & the Ravelympics

Saying that I fell off the wagon in the yarn buying department lately is a major understatement! But, I have been busy knitting up my purchases lately and making a dent in my stash.

I have been slightly obsessed with hot water bottles lately. They seem like a great alternative to heating pads because they are inexpensive and don't require electricity. I knit this up with a few leftover balls of The Plucky Knitter Worsted Merino Singly Ply and had fun playing around with stripes. Now I'm just waiting to get cramps or a muscle ache so I can try out its healing powers :). In the meantime, I'm using it to warm up my feet at night in bed. Here's a link to the pattern that I found via flickr: Green Olives Designs Hot Water Bottle Cover and my ravelry project link: craftr's Hot Water Bottle Cozy.

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My sister and I visited a local yarn shop (her second trip to a yarn store with me) and she was totally in love with all of the bright colors. I even caught her looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching her before she leaned down to smell the yarn. I think that she is slowly becoming a convert to knitting and yarn buying. She picked up two balls of yarn to make a scarf and I came away with these two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Worsted. I couldn't pick out my favorite color, so I bought both.

I cast on immediately for the Darkside Cowl (rav link) and finished it up in two days because it was so much fun to knit with and the pattern was fun to follow. Here are the details on ravelry: craftr's Darkside Cowl.

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I bought this yarn, Plymouth Trabajos del Peru, after I saw a sample of these handwarmers knit up at a local yarn shop (samples do help drive sales!). These were a quick knit and the yarn is so soft and great to knit. Here are the details on Ravelry: craftr's Ribbed Handwarmers

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I've taken the plunge and joined the Manic Purl Podcast Ravelympic group on Ravelry for the 2010 Ravelympics. I'll be casting on tonight during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics for the Helleborous Yoke Cardigan from the new Knitscene Magazine. If everything goes according to plan, I'll have knitted a complete sweater once the Olympics are over on February 28. Wish me luck! It's not too late to join a Ravelympic team if you want to jump on the bandwagon.

Simple Yet Effective Shawl

Here's my first finished object of 2010!

I had so much fun working with Angela's handspun and this was such a simple and gratifying project to make. The pattern was simple, so I was able to admire the yarn and color changes throughout the project.

I've been wanting to try spinning for a while now, but since 2010 has been deemed "use my stash" year, working with Angela's handspun was the perfect way to hold off starting a new hobby (for now!)

Pattern: Simple Yet Effective Shawl (Fingering Weight)

Yarn: Patchwork Handspun from ATD Crafts

Yardage: 453 yards

Needles: US4

Rav link: Craftr's SYES

2009 Finished Projects

It's become my yearly tradition to post these project mosaics (see 2008 and 2007). So here is my 2009 project mosaic:

You'll notice that I ramped up the knitting projects considerably this year...all I can say is that knitting has been a great stress reliever (ahem!).

I'm looking forward to turning 2010 into a "use my stash" year and I've got plenty of projects to keep me busy. I'll be staying away from retail stores in 2010 and unsubscribing myself from email sales blasts to keep the temptation at bay. Wish me luck!

end of the year projects

Here's my final two projects of 2009...I wasn't able to finish any of my WIPs for Jacquie's Joy in the New Year challenge, but we were able to finish up our basement and I've been devouring lots of great books lately.

My first project is this hat pattern that I knit up from { a-black-pepper }. I had some leftover yarn from my red scarf project scarf and was debating about making another Koolhaas with it when Lucy published this pattern. I love the bubbly cables on this hat and it was really fun to knit.

I made the medium size for the hat...either I'm a looser knitter than I thought or my head is smaller than I thought, but this hat turned out a little bit too big for me. (note: I actually think my head is smaller than I think it is, so for all future knitting projects, I'm going to go with the smaller size option).

The crown instructions were really confusing to me and I ended up knitting and frogging the top three different times before it finally made sense. My adjustments to the top are included in my ravelry project notes if you're interested.

This is such a lovely pattern, the crown is striking and I think it looks so great in red, so my little problems with the hat are completely minor in the long run. Lucy is so good at designing with cables and I always love seeing what new patterns she publishes.

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After seeing Amy's Lonely Dollop, I had to buy the materials to make one for my sister for this year's Christmas gift exchange. We're always getting each other random and off the wall gifts, so I think this was perfect for her.

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And finally, Audrie asked me to be a part of her new quilting bee, Bee Beautiful, a few months ago. We're starting the year with my month and I just mailed the fabric to my other group members today. You can click on the link in my sidebar to see what the group creates this year.

it's not Christmas unless there's a home improvement project in the works

I've got two weeks off of work for Christmas and New Year's. It's the perfect time to relax, watch Christmas movies, catch up on my reading list and enjoy time with family, right?

True to form, Jon and I got it in our heads that these two weeks would be the perfect time to work on a little home improvement project. We're tackling our basement and sprucing the place up and cleaning it out. Things are moving along and we should have everything finished by the end of next week. I'll have lots of before and after pictures to share then.

In the mean time, I have been working on this Simple Yet Effective Shawl by Cosmicpluto knits at night. I purchased this fingering weight yarn from Oiyi's new etsy shop, ATD Crafts, and it is so lovely to work with. I am trying very hard to resist the urge to invest in a spinning wheel and start a new hobby. I have a feeling that 2010 will be turning into the "use what I have year."

I also received a lovely package from my Holiday Traditions Exchange partner, Carrie. She made these cute little twig star ornaments and pine scented bags for me. I used them to decorate the little Christmas tree in my office. Now everything smells pine scented and Christmasy.