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Sunday Summary

Stripe Study Shawl

I started this while watching the royal wedding.  I have been very slow with my knitting as of late.

I made this for my brother.  Every college professor needs one, right?

Here is a summary of my container gardening attempts this summer:

Died Very Quickly – lavander, dhalia, zinnia, impatiens, some type of white hanging flower

Died a Slow Death – African violet (2), geranium, rosemary

Still Alive and Well (since January!) – jade plant

I’m sticking with succulents from now on.

Here are some things

So, yeah.  It’s been a while.  The reason for my absence is that my crafting lately has consisted only of buying patterns and materials.  I’ve been busy with other boring things.  But look, I did make this sweater:

Now that the mama-to-be has received it, I can share it with you.  This is for my college roommate’s first baby, due in July.  I appreciate that she pretended to be enthusiastic about my first ugly garter stitch scarf when I was first learning to knit in college.  Good thing my skills have improved over the past ten years.

The pattern is Ella Funt, knit with Berroco Vintage.  It’s a great pattern, and easy to follow.  I highly recommend it.

So what else have I been doing?  Reading, drinking wine, buying pants on ebay, watching Dexter, cuddling Gracie, selling jewelry, having brunch – I’m terribly busy and important, what can I say?

Here is a gratuitous picture of my niece with my brother:

Aww, look – she picked a flower for you all!

DIY Curtains

After many weeks of agonizing over fabric choices, I finally have curtains in my study and living room:

 

 

Study curtains were made with Deer Valley by Joel Dewberry and living room curtains were made with City Weekend by Oliver + S.  Here is my long, complicated tutorial for curtains, ready?  1 – Cut a rectangle of fabric.  2 – Hem all four sides.  3 – Hang with drapery clips.  THE END.

My coffee table and two end tables (one is in the bedroom) were a $40 craigslist find – sweet!  I’m considering staining the tops a darker color but am undecided for the following reasons:  1 – Erm, that seems like a lot of work.  (Ok, that’s the only reason).  I just purchased my clock on Sunday after visiting and re-visiting many different clocks in a variety of stores.  I found it in an antique store with a price tag of $3.50!  As I was carrying it around with me, the owner of the booth saw it and apologized because it was from a box of stuff that wasn’t for sale yet so it wasn’t priced correctly.  BUT, it was $8.50 if I wanted it.  Um, OKAY!  It works and she even put a battery in it for me.

I love it, and it goes so well with my antique-y gallery wall:

And just because, here is a picture of my second (second!!) bathroom, which is rarely used, so it is always clean and pretty!

The rug is my favorite:

The end.

Love

I have found a new love, just in time for Valentine’s Day.  (And it’s not one of the creeps from internet dating – seriously, can you please not use the non-smiling webcam photos lit only by the electronic glow of the computer screen?  You all look like serial killers!)  My new love is knitting designer Veera Valimaki.  I’m currently making her Hooray Cardigan:

Image borrowed from 100-rain.blogspot.com

I seriously want to make every. sweater. she has designed. ever.  When I opened up go.ogle reader this morning I found Veera has published a new book of patterns, called Book of Gray – be still, my heart!  If only I could knit faster – winter is quickly coming to an end!

Other things I am in love with – Brenna’s new baby patterns!

Hoot Cardigan (image borrowed from beknitpicky.blogspot.com)

Hunter's Vest (image borrowed from beknitpicky.blogspot.com)

And I have a special new baby to knit for, too.  My college roommate (who lives just ten minutes away!) is due in July.  Not the greatest season for newborn knits, but I guess I’ll forgive her and knit 3-6 month sizes.  This somewhat mitigates the blow that my brother and sister-in-law have struck – they’re kidnapping my niece and moving back to Kentucky – noooooo!!  I do not love this.

Now I don’t have to do laundry, yesssss

Arriving just in time to push laundry back one more day is my completed Rosamund’s Cardigan knit with Patons Shetland Chunky in Dark Sage Green.  This is a really great pattern.  It was easy to follow and produced a very wear-worthy result.  I chose to do stockinette instead of reverse stockinette, so the waist shaping is a bit different (see Ravelry link above for notes).  The owl buttons are an etsy purchase from a couple years ago (hard to tell they’re owls in the horribly lit and noisy picture, I know).  I may still sew on hook and eye closures so that it fastens completely, but I forgot to do a stretchy bind-off on the bottom and it doesn’t…quite…close properly.

One more sweater to do and then I will be officially de-stashed (of all my sweater-quantity yarn, that is).  Then I get to start planning more baby knitting……..

In Celebration

In celebration of my niece’s first birthday, I made her two sweaters.  (Because she’s one and I can still get away with not giving her toys – don’t worry, she is definitely not lacking in the toy department).

The first sweater is a Whirligig Shrug using Knit Picks Swish DK in Bordeaux.  Despite having made this before, using the exact same yarn, with the exact same size needles, I ended up re-doing the edging not once, but twice.  I’ve decided that picking up stitches is just not my strongest skill.  (By the way, the yardage requirements listed in this pattern are waaay off.  I bought the yardage listed for the newborn size, and I have knit a newborn shrug and a 12-18 months shrug and I still have one skein left).  I didn’t have time to block the sweater, as I finished making it, oh, about two hours before the party. 

The second sweater is Camilla Babe knit with Patons Beehive Baby Chunky in Swifter Sea.  I triumphantly corrected the mistakes made in my adult size Camilla, and it turned out really well.  This sweater was finished about seven hours before the party.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  I did a lot of knitting this past weekend.  About three seasons of Weeds worth.

Happy Birthday, Lucy!

Analysis of a Tragedy

Well, I figured out what went wrong with Camilla.  It is incredibly stupid.  The instructions for the yoke decreases read:  *K1, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before marker, ssk, slide marker; repeat from * 3 times – 8 stitches decreased.  Here is where I should have checked my stitch count to make sure I was actually decreasing by the correct number of stitches each row.  Because I got confused and only did the decreases inside the sleeve markers, not on each side of each marker.  Here is a drawing to illustrate my error:

The little rectangles represent stitch markers.  The decreases in red are the ones I failed to do.  I was only decreasing 4 stitches per row – no wonder the neck is twice as big as it should be.  (HUGE SIGH)  Of course, I also neglected to do a gauge swatch, so the whole sweater turned out bigger than I intended.  Eventually I’m going to rework the yoke and try to shrink it a bit.  Right now it’s balled up in a box of Christmas decorations because looking at it made me angry.  And then embarrassed of my mistake.

Holiday Recap and New Year’s Tragedy

Ashley was my Christmas 2010 Craft Exchange recipient.

I made her the Creature Comforts Cardi in Berroco Vintage.

Craig was my secret santa for the craft exchange.

He made me a very cool mosaic out of all of my pictures!

And finally, the New Year’s Tragedy, my Camilla sweater.  I don’t understand – I followed the directions exactly….

I knew something was wrong when I realized that even after the yoke decreases there would be more stitches than on the hem.  I don’t even want to save the yarn.  I want to throw the whole thing in the dumpster.

Almost Done

My Camilla sweater is entering the home stretch.  I mostly laid on the couch this weekend, so now both sleeves are done and it’s time to join them to the body and finish up this project.

A warm blanket, knitting, a Law and Order SVU marathon, and the new Vampire Academy book on my Kindle (yes, I will admit to it).  Cozy.