pokingmyeyesout

Two prez projects for undetermined recipients.

The first one is knitted with a gorgeous saturated bright royal blue. I tried indoor, outdoor, all sorts of camera settings but still failed to captured the color of this yarn. (I also ran into the same issue with this burgundy too). I am very sad I can not capture the beauty of these colors. (But I am sure I should not run out to replace my trusty antique digital cameras right now.)

ravelry link

And, for some quick satisfaction.I "had" to make this cute hat with the perfect color combination bits of leftovers Karabella Aurora 8 from J and GD. Thanks for enabling me!

ravelry link

P.S. I had a couple inches of pink after I finished the hat. Big phew.

With all the little projects washed and drying, I stared at the empty project bucket, I (ahem, tried to) start a new project. First, I picked up bits of leftover blue Hamanaka Bonny and started an elephant. "Oh, I should have enough"). Clearly, I was in denial. I ran out after I finished the body. Oops. And finding Japanese Antibacterial yarn without a well stocked Daiso nearby is just plain difficult.

So this morning, I called Mom to talk to her about a project I had in mind for her ... much musing and helpful suggestion from J .. I still need to purchase a bit more yarn for that project.

Oye.

Posted by E at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I stashed Rowan 4 ply cotton a few years ago at Knit Happens closing sale. It sat in stash for a long time. I hesitated to tackle tiny. 4 ply. cotton. Somehow I got in my head that crochet is the way for me ...

ravelry link

I found a cute free Japanese pattern and winged it with the chart. Rowan 4 ply is thicker than pattern suggested yarn. I ran into trouble with the shoulder strap / armsyce. It is wearable, just a little snug in the armhole. I also tried crochet buttons, but didn't find small enough buttons / too fiddle at smaller size. I ended up with purchased fabric buttons.

So this is in a 'almost there' project for me. Not exactly right. But not bad. I have more 4 ply cotton in stash to give it another go!

Posted by E at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ravelry link

This one is a Mouse Blanket.

Work in progress can be so much fun, especially when I ask DH what it is, which I like to do, and he guesses correctly some of the time.

In other news, I tried a crochet button for an almost finished crochet cardigan ( pic and ravelry link), but the smallest button I found was too big and heavy and did not work with the 'button holes'. So I went the lazy route and bought fabric covered buttons on etsy. Waiting... and hoping they will work.

Posted by E at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was reading this blog post Knits Men Want on Twist Collective (read: procrastinating) this morning. I have seen various promotions / book review on the book. "The 10 Rules Every Woman Should Know ..." sounds like a Cosmopolitan magazine story ...

... anyways, all this reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom a couple of weeks ago ...

Me: "That's a color [of yarn] dad would like."
M: "I am not knitting sweaters for dad anymore. He is too fickle."
Me: "Yes, even if it is exactly what they asked for."

for some background ... I've knitted a vest and a henley sweater for Dad. I knitted the vest and henley exactly to custom pattern Mom sent. In both cases, I 'fixed' various issues with the sweaters when I visited. (reference funny story from last September)

Mom got the knitting bug from me and she re-started knitting last year (?). She was being nice to me and took a turn on sweater knitting duty. Oh, did I mention Mom told me he has always coveted hand knitted sweaters? She also tells me he wears the hand-knits sweaters all the time. And he wants a sweater a year. She ended up ripping two sleeves to take in an inch from the elbow. The sleeves were too big. And he was complaining there is too much fabric under the armpit. (Hi, lots of ease = lots of fabric).

I have also knitted a sweater for DH , it was exactly what he says he wanted. I checked reference material, sketched, double checked the lettering, showed him another finished sweater of the same base sweater, had him tried on someone's sweater of the same measurement he asked for, checked work in progress, fixed issues along the way ... and after he wore it once, he declared it too big.

So it is funny, the ironic kind, when I read the blog post Knits Men Want. There are no magic 10 rules for knitting for my dad and DH, and no 12 steps program to cure me of the urge to knit for them.

Posted by E at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)