a rainbow in my knitting bag

Just a quick post this week, so much to do.  This upcoming week is sure to be a big one, but more on that next time.

Sewing has taken up most of my crafty time lately, but I have been chipping away at my largest knitting project yet in my down time.

It`s certainly a colourful one, isn`t it.  I`m attempting the hue shift afghan from knitpicks, and I must say, as a person who has sworn to never again knit a baby blanket, I`m really enjoying it!  You see, it`s divided into little squares (what with it being an afghan and all), but it seems so much less tedious for it.  Instead of working away for an evening and having no real difference to show for it, you have one more happy little square.  I also love how you pick up the stitches at the beginning of each square, so I`m knitting right onto the main thing, not ending up with a hundred tiny squares to sew together (tying in the ends is another matter, but I`m no where near that yet).

So right now, this is my happy-for-me project, feel free to check it out on my ravelry.

nautical charts

Ouch!  2012 has not been my year for blogging.  And embarrassingly, 2013 seems to be following suit.  However, I'm not ready to let go yet, and so I stride forth, once again into the blogosphere and give you an update on my crazy cozy life.

I do have a project or two to ready to share, but instead, I have a little giftie.  Remember a long long time ago when I was saying how I was going to do up a nice proper version of the graphs I used to make my octopus hat and pirate ship scarf?  Well, voila, tout finis!

Here's the Octopus Chart (click for full view):

for a finished product that looks something like this:

or this:

And here's the Pirate Ship Chart:

for a little something that will turn out like this:

Yay! (You may notice that my charts are different formats.  Well, I actually had a much more detailed and therefor larger chart drawn up for the pirate ship, but it would have made the scarf too big for my little guy.  I had wanted to giver you that chart as well, but my computer is full of gremlins and the process by which my octopus chart was made would not be duplicated.  I made the small ship chart with a lot of cut and paste blocks; very tedious.)

With any luck, these will be understandable and useful.  Basically, it's just simple intarsia, using two colours for the octopus (the x being one colour and the o another) and three for the ship (the blue squares are supposed to be white, and the blank squares are blue).  Perhaps I will make a tutorial for intarsia one day, but for now, your best bets lay with a 'how to' book or the youtubes!

Happy knitting and if anyone finishes a project with either of these, I would be simply over the moon to see a picture of it!  Nautical charts indeed, oh the cleverness of me!

Ta!

fall, fall, glorious fall! oh, and an octopus

Best Season Ever!

Even out here in the ever so slightly drab west coast, it makes me so happy! So a new baby and a new house make it a lot of fun (and a lot of work, but it's fun work, so that's great!).

Due to the craziness of life in general, I'm keeping things short (never know when a 4 week old little girl is going to wake up from her nap).

House=a long way to go before any exciting progress can be reported.

Knitting=looky what I made! (I'm referring here to the knitting, not the baby, allthough, yeah, I made that too)

This is what I'm calling my Octopus Sleep Sac. It's based on the Owlie Sleep Sac pattern found on Ravelry, but when I looked at my yarn options, I saw octopus, not owl, so that's what I did.

I had been wanting to try making a pattern, and with my mom here, she was able to guide me through how to knit it up once it was made. I think I've found a whole new element of knitting to become addicted to, and am scheming of many more intarsia patterns to come (um, once I get a bit more time on my hands though). All I did was draw the octopus I wanted, and then traced over it by blocking out which squares I wanted orange and which were to be blue. Feel free to use the x&o pattern here (if you can see it well enough), but I am planning on making a nice and proper one to post on Ravelry, so you could wait for that too.

Oh, and celebrating fall, we went to the local pumpkin patch for some fun.

And fun was had!

snugly bugly rugly

Ok baby, I'm ready!

Well, I've actually been ready for a while, however, I have happily completed both a girl sweater and a boy sweater, meaning that my knitting is in order and you can be born anytime now. Please!


In all honesty, I finished the little boy sweater a week or so ago, but have had no energy for photographing it, and so it waited. But Costco had sheepskin rugs on sale (I've wanted one forever) and I magically found inspiration for a few snugly photos. In other news, Bugaboo approves of the sheepskin for snuggle purposes. We'll have to find a nice central spot in the new house where it can be readily available for snuggles whenever.





Back to the sweater. I found it on Ravelry; 'Knitted Jacket with Raglan Sleeves and Cables' by DROPS design. The pattern is fabulous, but the way it's written is horrendous. Literally, I had to decode it every step of the way. I'm honestly thinking of organizing all my notes and posting a user friendly version. The biggest issue I had, was most of the pattern seemed to be nonsense until you tried it, failed, realized what they had meant, and then did it again. For example, the cables are all from charts. The key to the charts are on a separate page. I was within an inch of the end when I realized that I had been doing them upside down all along (no big deal though). The decrease pattern at the end was similar, however I did do it right. I think if I try this one again (which I think I will now that I have it deciphered) I'll decrease a lot more though, because the neck is really big. We'll see how it looks on the baby (if he's a boy).






Anyhow, it's lovely and soft and warm and I'm really pleased with how it came out, mistakes and all.

Oh, and for the record, Mom did all they tying in of the loose ends for me. :)