Life has been crazy

I'm sorry I haven't posted since September. 

The last few months of 2013 were pretty crazy busy, and a lot of wonderful and not so wonderful things happened. 

My great grandma passed away in the fall. It was a hard time for my family, and she is greatly missed. 

But many good things happened as well. 

Wonderfullest of the wonderfuls: My niece Devlin was born on September 16, 2013

Christmas was wonderful, and everyone enjoyed their handmade presents

And, of course, Milo is adorable as ever (and is now ENORMOUS)

I don't have a lot of time to write details about projects, but you can find out everything on my project pages on Ravelry

Recently Finished Projects

1) Arabella Lace Shawl

2) Broken rib handspun cowl

3) Nature's Lace shawl

4) Not so recent, but here's my final drawing for my art class

5) Tons of Christmas presents (see above)

6) Christmas socks for me

Works in Progress

1) Toe up anklets 

2) Sock head hat

3) Toujours sweater for Molly

4) Singles of Malabrigo Nube

That's all for now, folks. I have to go get ready for class. I'm going to try to post more often, but they may be mostly picture based posts, like today's, since I'm going to be busy with school for a while.

-Nicole

Technical Difficulties

Hi everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas/Tuesday, and that you are staying warm and out of the snow this week.

I had a wonderful Christmas with my family, and have been knitting up a storm the last few days. I came down with a cold the day after Christmas, so yesterday I just laid in bed, knitted, and caught up on some TV shows. 

A few days before Christmas, I hung out with my best friend, Hannah. We made chocolate peppermint and chocolate chip pomegranate cookies, and she let me teach her how to knit!! 

I started teaching her in the English style (holding the yarn in the right hand), but she wanted to learn to knit the continental style like her Grandma (and I) knit. I was surprised by how easily she picked up knitting continental, since it took me a lot longer to get the hang out it. I think that it is easier to learn an entirely new skill than it is to change the way you have been doing something for years.

I am really hoping she gets hooked on knitting so that we can be knitting nerds together.

Last Sunday, I had Christmas with my mom, stepdad, my sisters, and my step-brothers. It was a lot of fun, and we spent hours eating delicious food and playing board games. I got a lot of wonderful presents including this gem from my sister and brother-in-law

I am, of course, currently using it to hold my works-in-progress.

On Christmas Eve, Brandon and I both worked all day and then had Christmas with his family, which was also a lot of fun. His parents and siblings got us a computer chair, a new vacuum, and a new set of silverware and dinnerware. Awesome!

Brandon and I exchanged presents Christmas morning. He loves his scarf, and he got me some wonderful presents as well!

He definitely spoiled me this year, with yarn, a new blender and iced-coffee maker, some board games, and a ton of candy. But best of all he got me a webcam, so I can finally start making my podcast. Hannah told me that I can't call it a podcast because it will actually be a videocast, but anyway. It will be some sort of video-thingy. 

Then we went up to my grandparent's house and had Christmas there. It was so much fun to spend time with my cousins and grandparents, and my aunt and uncle whom I don't see very often. Everyone loved their handmade gifts, which made me really happy.

Molly and Brandon

Molly, mom, and Celeste modeling their presents

I love my family

My mom looks great in her sweater!

Celeste and Levi

My mom and Ken

I am always reminded this time of the year how much I love my family. They are so awesome, and so much fun to be around. 

Now, on to the knitting!

Finished Objects

The only thing that I have finished recently is my adorable little monster for the 600 Monsters project. 

He is so adorable. I definitely want to make another one to keep. I made him out of Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn in the Peacock color, and I used Michele Lugo's Adorkable Monster pattern. I was not completely in love with this pattern, but the result is so adorable that I can understand the fiddliness (my spell checker is telling me that is not a word, but I am too sick and grumpy to care :P)  of the pattern. This little guy will be going out in the mail on Monday, and will be sent with hundreds of other monsters to Sandy Hook Elementary at the end of January.

Works in Progress

This is where the title "technical difficulties" comes in. I was home sick from work yesterday, so I spent all day knitting this:

I'm sorry about the poor picture quality. The camera has been acting funny. This is my first ever sweater for myself. I am using Blue Alvarez's Nutmeg sweater pattern, which is a wonderful unisex top-down, seamless raglan sweater and I am really loving it. I am adding some waist shaping and ribbing at the neckline, sleeves, and hem.  I am also probably going to have to make 3/4 length sleeves because I only have two balls of the Laines du Nord Prancer yarn (in color number 77). I am in love with this yarn. It is very soft and snuggly, and the color changes are beautiful. 

I am knitting this on my size 9, 5.5 mm, circular bamboo needles. Or I was knitting with them, until the cord completely snapped off the needle halfway through a round. I was very upset, but  I cannot say that I am surprised- I bought this needle as part of a very cheap set on Ebay a few years ago, and the cables are extremely flexible, but they do not stand up well to magic loop knitting. So, unfortunately, this sweater will have to be on hiatus until my new needles come in the mail, since I do not have another set of size 9 circulars. 

2) Since I could no longer work on my sweater, I cast on for my first pair of toe up socks

I am using Knit Picks Felici Sport in the Groovy color, and am using size 2, 2.75 mm, dpn's. I absolutely love how soft and smooth this yarn is. This was one of the yarns I got from Knit Pick's black Friday sale. I believe it is still on sale on their website. 

I used the figure 8 cast-on method, which was way more difficult than it should have been.  I tried three different cast-on methods before I finally got it right. I don't know if it is my cold, or my crappy needles, but I was definitely having some knitting problems yesterday. 

One of the main problems was that my size 2 needles are super dull, and I kept casting on too tightly. Finally, I just decided to knit the first row in the next needle size down, and that worked perfectly. It also had the added benefit of eliminating the looseness that this cast-on can sometimes cause. I am using Wendy D. Johnson's Sport Weigh Toe-up Socks pattern as a guideline.

Stash Enhancement 

I have actually purchased a little bit of yarn with my Christmas money, but for the moment all I have to show you is this wonderful yarn that Brandon got me as a present.

These are five balls of Bernat Natural Blends Alpaca yarn. He got me the Natural, Lavender, Aqua, Tomato, and Forest colors. They are very beautiful and soft yarns. I am not sure what I will be making with them yet, but I may either buy a couple more skeins to make a striped or colorwork (eeks) sweater, or make a striped cowl or scarf. 

Hopefully I will be feeling (and looking) better soon so I can officially start my videos. It is snowing like crazy outside right now, which makes me think it is a perfect time for a nap.

Have a great weekend!

Nicole

So much stash!!

I'm almost done with finals!!

Finally! I can relax! I just have one little paper left to write, and then I am done for the semester.

I have to say, this was a tough semester. Not because of my classes, or the work load, but because of me! I usually have no problem focusing in class or on doing homework, but this semester I found it almost impossible to make myself work on school work. Because of this, and wanting to save up more money, I have decided to take next semester off. I will definitely be going back in the fall, but I think I just need a little break. After sixteen years of getting straight A's, I am exhausted! 

I have not gotten a ton of knitting done lately, due to finals, but I did finally finish one project!

Finished Object

1) I finished Brandon's scarf! Finally!! I am so sick of scarf knitting. My next project is going to have to be in the round, or I will go crazy. 

 

This was made with Knitpicks Brava Sport and some recycled sweater yarn. It's really soft and long (over 70 in long after blocking). I will post more pictures of Brandon wearing it after Christmas. 

So now I am finally done with holiday knitting! Woohoo! I was going to make a couple more things for people, but I am totally burnt out on knitting for other people. I almost never knit for myself, which is ridiculous. I think my New Year's resolution for next year is going to be to only knit things for ME! Selfish knitting all the way.

2) I also finished spinning the singles of the undyed BFL that I have been working on FOREVER! I was really proud of how even and consistent it was, until I started unwinding it onto a "bobbin" (AKA toilet paper roll). Somehow I managed to spin a very consistent lace weight for a third of the fiber, then a few dozen yards of a fingering weight, and finishing with a very consistent, very thin, lace weight. I have no idea how I am going to spin the other 2 oz in order to make it an even and balanced two-ply. I think I'm just going to have to accept that my first yarn is going to be a little thick and thin. 

3) Last night I attempted dyeing a gradient yarn in green, and it did not work out so well. It may have been the yarn's fault, and the fact that it was white instead of natural  yarn means it does not soak up dye as well as I would like. Or it could be that my dyeing skills have not been perfected yet. But anyway, this morning I over-dyed the yarn with blue, and I love it!!

It is still not done drying, but I will post another picture of it in a hank or ball so you can marvel at the beauty. This was a yarn that I bought on Ebay for about two dollars a long time ago. It's a Chinese yarn, so I have a hard time finding the information about it to share with you, but it is a silk, merino, and (apparently) cashmere blend. It is very very soft and smooth. I am not 100% confident about the fiber content, since the yarn is so cheap, but it definitely has wool in it (it smells like clean wool when wet) and it feels soft enough to have silk and cashmere in it too. Who knows. Here is the page on Ebay.

Stash Enhancement

I have a hard time justifying this, but I will try. 

As you can see, I have a lot of new yarn and fiber. So much that as I was photographing it all my boyfriend was sitting on the couch shaking his head at me in shame. BUT, as I tried to explain to him, I am not crazy! Everything in this picture cost me less than 40 dollars!  Let me explain.

Way back in October, I bought a bunch of yarn from a Chinese yarn company on Ebay. I couldn't resist the low price! It took over a month to get here, but I am very happy with the yarn. It is the same brand as the yarn that I dyed in the picture above. I am planning a sweater with these lovelies. 

Then, on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I had a bit of a yarn buying relapse. I had managed to avoid buying yarn for SO LONG, but how I am supposed to resist awesome discounts and free shipping!? I CAN'T!

Brandon bought me some yarn as an early Christmas present from the Knitpicks Cyber Monday sale (or should I say, he gave me permission to use his card to order myself some yarn). I got some lovely Stroll and Andean Treasure for under ten dollars!

THIS IS THE SOFTEST YARN EVER!!

Then, the next day, when I saw that the sale was still going on, I couldn't resist buying some more, for myself. I got three balls of Palette for only ten dollars. So beautiful!

I actually bought two more skeins of yarn, but Knitpicks ran out of it before they could put my order through. And, because they are such lovely and wonderful people, they sent me a coupon for ten dollars worth of yarn FOR FREE!!!!! And, of course, they still had a bunch of fantastic yarn on clearance. I got two skeins each of Felici Sport and Shadow Tonal, for TEN DOLLARS!!

So I got all this fantastical wonderful beauty and only spent ten dollars (plus shipping). 

THEN I was on Etsy, and saw some beautiful fiber on sale that I could not pass up. 

This is the Topaz Tempest wool from The Joyful Sheep . It is a wool and mohair blend, and I cannot wait to spin it. The shop owner also sent me a cute little button and a little sample of fiber as well, because she is fantastic!!

Adorable

And last, but not least, I purchased some of this 

This, my dear friends, is possibly the softest, squishiest thing I have ever felt. It is eight ounces of faux (yes, that means it's synthetic. AAAAAH!) cashmere from Yarn 2 Spin on Etsy.  Since it will be a very veeeeery long time (if ever) that I will have the means to spin real cashmere, this is the next best thing. Seriously, when I say soft, I mean floating on clouds made of marshmallow puff and baby kisses soft. I am planning on dyeing this wonderful rainbow colors and spinning it up to make a shawl or hat/gloves/scarf combo. 

That is all the news I have of the knitting/yarn variety. I am currently also working on a recycled T-shirt quilt that I started sewing two years ago and have yet to finish. I am setting a goal for myself to finish it by the end of the year. EEP. I will update you with it's progress in my next post. 

Now that I have showcased my gluttony and yarn addiction, I think I will head to bed. Boyfriend and I have lots of Christmas shopping to get done tomorrow. :P

Have a great weekend! I will post again next week, barring any unseen obstacles like more Christmas shopping or the Mayan Apocalypse. 

-Nicole