Monday, January 21, 2008

*sigh*

School starts tomorrow. I start at 8 am...So early. Normally I would be a little excited, at least but right now all I want to do is finish all my projects.

I cast on a pair of Fetching the other day. *big smile* I'm excited. I finished the left hand and started on the right. Pictures coming eventually.

Friday, January 18, 2008

It's Coming

School starts on Tuesday. I think I'll try to post once a week, at least. We'll see how that goes. I don't think I'm going to have much time for anything once classes start. I'm taking 5 classes, 16 units, I think. One Math class, 3 Engineering and 1 English. I'm excited for the English class. I've been dying to take a non-technical course. But we have 8 books to read over the course of 16 weeks...wow, that's two weeks per book, plus whatever other work I'll have to do. Yeah...I don't know how much time I'll have sleep, much less knit/crochet. I'm sure I'll get something in somehow.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

My first lace project

I've been working on my Mom's scarf since before Christmas...it was supposed to be a quick gift that but lace is taking me longer than expected. Actually, that's not true - it's taking a while because I haven't really gotten a chance to sit down and focus on it, not because it's lace or anything. The pattern actually isn't too bad for my first lace project, but if I'm not giving it my full attention, I tend to make mistakes (2 major ones so far). I need to figure out how to fix lace. I can undo the yarn overs and the k2tog but when it comes to the slip stitch overs, I get messed up.

Anyway, what did I do today? Oh it was my special someone's birthday today ^.^ We celebrated by just hanging out together. He went back to Davis today, though...sad. I probably won't see him for a couple weeks. I know, so long! Silly me.

I played Metroid Prime 3 with Cathy (again) and we're making slow progress on the game, but it's really fun. We just rented it, though, from Blockbuster and it's due tomorrow, I think. Either that or Tuesday...good thing there are no late fees.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Finished Object!


Here they are =) So, as you can probably tell in the picture, the left and right glittons don't exactly match. I did the right one first and just happened to read the pattern wrong. Instead of ribbing for 6 rows and then knitting until the mitten part is 1.5 inches from your fingers, I did ribbing the whole time...oops. And then I forgot to do some decreases on the top of the mitten part (notice how its a lot flatter than the left hand). But I realized this much too late (when I did the left hand) to redo it, and I think it looks okay when you wear them. Barely noticeable and I know Miriam will still appreciate them. Since it was a men's pattern, there wasn't really too much shaping for women's dainty little wrists so I decided to add a ribbon (from JoAnn's) to narrow that part. And then of course the buttons (so cute! Also from JoAnn's (did I mention I heart JoAnn's?)) which hold the mitten part back when you're not using them. Aren't they just adorable? Very feminine; I think they're more me than they are Miriam but that's okay.

I'm trying my hand at embroidery for Cathy's bag. It's not really embroidery - I'm kinda winging it. So far it looks alright, dare I say, cute? It's got a very handmade look to it. I'll have to take a picture of it. The design is this sort of tree/sun thing. More abstract, though.

w00t

Yay, I finished Miriam's glittons. I have to say they are very cute. Definitely not perfect though...But I know Miriam will like them anyway. Pictures coming soon.

I think I have a problem. At the moment, I have 151 projects queued in Ravelry. And that doesn't even count projects from the magazines I have. I don't think I could finish them in this lifetime. Okay, maybe I could. If I did 15 a year it would only take 10 years...only....

So this morning our alarm went off and scared the crap out of me. I thought someone was trying to break into the house and I was hearing all these noises (all in my head, really). Turns out the garage door wasn't completely closed and opened enough to set the alarm off during the night. 'Twas a long night.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Lookie, lookie!

I got two gifts done, one of which was on my previous list. Mary's legwarmers were finished on Monday and Izzy's winter set was finished Sunday? Maybe? Lookie! (with gift tags and everything):
I feel a little better but I still want to finish my dad's sweater before break is over (I'm not sure that's going to happen). I'm making progress on Miriam's glittons, though. I should be finished with those later today. I better start making things work - oh Project Runway tonight!

Monday, January 7, 2008

Cute finds

I'm trying to organize my stash and projects and stuff, and while I was searching for the kit I got some yarn from I ran into these:
and these:
Aren't they adorable? So cute! Anyway...back to organizing!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Here we go

I've been meaning to start a(nother) blog for quite a while now. I keep finding myself taking pictures and thinking of what I would write in my blog about it them if I had one. After many instances of this I decided I must start one now.

So here I am. A little
about me: I'm studying Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley (go Bears!) as an undergraduate. I grew up in the Bay Area and love it here. And, well, I love to knit and crochet, and really just craft in general. I learned how to crochet first, when I was in middle school (7th grade I think) and then I learned how to knit in high school (I think sophomore year). I'd like to consider myself somewhat artsy/creative; usually I try to incorporate art into whatever I can. Every once and a while I'll paint something or draw something or make something non-fiber-related, but mostly I knit and crochet.

I think that's enough about me for now. Let's see...how about that holiday crafting? Being a college student, I get a few weeks (4) for winter break. That gives me about a week before Christmas to get all my gifts together. This year I decided to make a lot of the gifts...not a good idea when you only have a week. But lucky for my I had other gifts (non-handmade) for my parents and I have pretty understanding friends (i.e. they haven't put together gifts, either), so I have been diligently working away at the list. In fact, th
is list here:

1. Dad's Ribbed Sweater
2. Mom's Branching Out Scarf

3. Miriam's Hanukkah Glittons
4. Cathy's All Seasons Bag
5. Mary's Leg Warmers


I think that's it? Of course there are other things I want to make for myself...for instance, I really want to start a pair of Fetching before school starts back up. But those will have to wait. My dad's sweater is taking forever...I wished I had worked it in the round instead of in two separate panels but I don't really know how to do that just yet so it wasn't exactly an option. I guess it's technically my first sweater? I was working on one for myself until I put that aside for other things, so this one might be my first finished sweater. A lot of firsts here - well, three. First sweater, first lace project and first gloves/mittons/dpns/knitting in the round project. Exciting!

Okay, so this is going to be an uber long post because remember how I said I took a whole bunch of pictures for my imaginary blog? Yeah, I'm gonna put those here. Let's see...what first...

This magazine is absolutely adorable. My friends and I were at Joann's and were looking through some of the magazines and Miriam found this one. And of course, since I had a 40% coupon (damn those coupons) I had to get the magazine. I've never really done any stamping or embossing besides stuff we did in elementary school but the samples they have in the magazine are so inspirational. I've done a little scrapbooking and I'm a sucker for cute/artsy things so I might give this a go sometime. The magazine comes with free paper so you can make something like the card above. I haven't gotten a chance to give it a good look through but this caught my eye:Look at those colors! I love the black with it, too.

While we were at Joann's, I took a look at some of the fabric, even though I am terrible at sewing. They were having their end of the year sale and the fabric squares were only 99 cents (that's reasonable, right?). So I loaded up on a few to save for little projects that need lining or maybe some fabric boxes (we got a magazine on that, too). Here are some of the prints I got (sorry for the bad lighting...):





























Okay, that only took forever to format. But, yeah, those are my fabrics.

I think that's enough for now. Now I have a blog, yay!

Oh, by the way, I'm on Ravelry as eliannaknits ^.^