Daisy Baby

Well, I finally am getting around to posting pictures of the baby sweater that derailed me from my Tubey. This should have been my olympic project. Finishing it in one week was a HUGE challenge involving several late nights, but it was worth it.

The pattern is Daisy from Knitty, designed by none other than the Yarn Harlot herself. I think she would approve.


Wanting something not traditionally pink, I went with Sugar and Cream yarn in grape, with accents in hot pink, hot green, and sunshine. The combination of the bright colors and the 3 AM flower embroidery gave the sweater a sort of Dr Seuss feeling, which I kind of liked.


Not wanting to go nuts with the flowers (and did I mention it was 3 AM) I just did a short row of them across the back.


My one bit of uber-cuteness were the three buttons. The picture came out kind of blurry but I managed to find 3 little flower buttons that matched the 3 different colors of embroidery yarn. It was too cute for words.

Tubey Update

OK, so I didn't exactly finish my Tubey by the deadline. I'm a lousy olympian, as I wouldn't sacrifice what social life I have to get my knitting time in. But I am making good progress and am happy with the results so far.

Here I am modeling my shrug, which I finished last Monday. The markers on the sleeves were where I decreased to make fitted rather than bell sleeves. I also made the sleeves shorter than the pattern, as I have very stubby arms. Not sure how but the sleeves are two different lengths. I will fix that when the sweater is finished.

Here is a rather unflattering picture of the back. I made a size large to fit my shoulders. It looks like a good choice, but I'll have to see how the rest of the sweater fits. I'm worried it will be a little big.






Finally, here it is today. Starting to look like a real sweater. Only about 14 inches to go!

Olympic Tubey Fever

So, I've decided to join the Knitting Olympics. I'm a little late in posting because I was trying to finish up some other projects, then Friday came along and I had to start knitting. I'm making tubey - my first sweater ever! It's pretty intimidating, but we're supposed to be challenging ourselves, right?

I really wanted to make a striped sweater, but skin, cost, and yarn issues prevented me from going that route. Instead, I decided on using Peruvian Collection Sierra Aran from Elann in Jasper, an absolutely gorgeous blue-green color.



Here it is, hermetically sealed in it's package, fresh from Elann.












This was the best photo I could get to show the color of the yarn. It's dreamy.










I think this sweater will be great, if it fits. I also intend to make straight sleeves rather than including the bell. I like the bell with the stripes, but on a solid I'm not sure.

So, I started late Friday night, with a brief casting on, then did a bit on Saturday and Sunday. Last night I finally got some significant knitting time in, then tonight was Gilmore Girls night so I got some more done. I need 23 inches of flat back before I can start knitting the sleeve in the round, and I'm at just about 20. Hopefully I'll get some knitting in tomorrow so I can start with the DPNs.

I'll post more pictures when I have something more interesting than a green rectangle.

PS - for anyone who's interested, check out the Tubey Knit Along. Lots of good examples and you get a gold star next to your name when you're finished.

Socktastic!

The Christmas sock project is a little behind schedule, but I'm OK with that. Really I am. Score card - finished 2 pair, in progress 1 pair, to be done 2 pair. I still haven't mailed my cards or wrapped my gifts, or anything else I need to do before Friday, but all I want to do is knit.

Finished socks:

Dolly Llama - for my mom. These are my first-ever toe-up socks. I LOVE these socks. They are so cheery and bright. Plus they're super thick and warm. I hope she likes them as much as I do (or I might have to steal them back).





Brad's self-striping socks. Otherwise known as the socks that wouldn't die. These were my first socks with size 1 DPNs and real sock-weight yarn. They took forever. I really like how the contrasting toe and heel came out. But there are a lot of mistakes - like 2 different sized toes (not sure how that happened) and the mismatched stripes. But Brad likes them and they should be nice and warm.



Socks in progress:

These are for my dad. I really love this new yarn with the smaller stripes. I was mistaken thinking that the dark stripe was black, when it's actually dark grey, but the black toe still looks OK, I think. I hope I can get through these mistake free.






Future Socks:

OK, so maybe that's kind of cheating, but Dharia sent me a picture today of my custom-dyed yarn for my brother and SIL's socks. I am so excited. Yes, the black and gold is for the Steeler's. Dan will be thrilled with these. And the SIL will like the pink/purple, as they seem to be her favorite colors. Can't wait to start these when I get home.

Needle Carrier

I finally got fed up with having all my knitting stuff strewn across my apartment. My ingenious method of storing needles in the long skinny plastic bags that the newspaper comes in worked for a while, but eventually fell apart. So I decided to stitch myself up a needle carrier.

After some research I settled on this pattern It seemed to have the right size and number of pockets and I liked the flap.

Next, I dug though my fabric stash and found - the last of the bedskirt velvet and matching blue fabric. Just enough, too. Perfect!


I wound up making 2 modifications. One, I added elastic loops instead of the ribbon. I thought it would be more secure. And two, I put a layer of cotton batting inside to give it a little more structure. (note that the batting only went as high as the flap, you can almost see in the photo on the left that there's a seam across the bag. I put it there to anchor the batting and delineate the beginning of the flap).










The finished product.

Scarfy

So while I was home for the Thanksgiving holiday, I found myself short of knitting. I decided to make my mom a scarf as a birthday present. I'm not a fan of the fuzzy yarn, but she likes it and it is warmer than what she ususally wears. I found it rather a pain to work with, but it knitted up quickly and the texture hid any imperfections in the stitching.

Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

Yes, I can do more than knit.

This is the cake I made for my friend's baby shower today. It's a triple version of my favorite recipe from The Cake Bible.

The bottom layer is made with bittersweet (56%) chocolate. The top layer I went nuts and made with extra super dark (73%) chocolate and a shot of rum.

The red top is actually a thin glaze of the fresh raspberry sauce (recipe also in the book) which was served next to the cake, along with whipped cream. Fresh raspberries were used for garnish.



The writing and decoration were done with coconut-flavored white chocolate (actually a mistake, I bought white chocolate with coconut instead of regular white chocolate).

She's having twins, hence the "Baby Baby"






This cake served about 45 people. You don't need large pieces since it's like eating pure fudge.

More baby cozies

Here are the rest of the presents for my cousin's twins. Hats and booties in a lovely cashmere blend. Not the most practical baby yarn, but oh so decadently soft and hopefully very warm.


This is for the girl. (along with the ruby slippers) I'm not as crazy about the snowflakes as I thought I'd be, but they keep it from being totally plain.









These are for the boy. The booties looked cute in the picture that came with the pattern, but were the most boring things imaginable when finished.











I added the blanket stitching to give them a little visual interest. Plus, having the opposite colors on the pieces gave more of an appearance of a set.