3KCBWDAY3 : Be My Hero

Blog about someone in the fibre crafts who truly inspires you. There are not too many guidelines for this, it's really about introducing your readers to someone who they might not know who is an inspiration to you. It might be a family member or friend, a specific designer or writer, indie dyer or another blogger. If you are writing about a knitting designer and you have knitted some of their designs, don't forget to show them off. Remember to get permission from the owner if you wish to use another person's pictures.

If I had any sense, I would have planned these posts out way in advance so that my overworked little brain could take a break, instead of trying to be witty and creative when it's running on empty. Okay, I'm not particularly witty or creative whenever I'm not exhausted, but that's beside the point.

My first thought when I read this post was the Knitmore Girls. Dedicated, generous, adventurous, and amazingly entertaining, their podcast was what really motivated me to go beyond the realm of garter stitch scarves and the occasional amigurumi. Thanks to them, I:

Tackled my citron.


Mastered entrelac
 

Crossed a few cables



And was introduced to the wonderful world of Rebecca Danger and Rachael Herron, and countless other amazing things.




But as heroic as Gigi and Jasmin are, they are  by no means my only knitting heroes. One of the reasons I'm friend happy on Ravelry is because I love trolling through the friend activity tab. Absolutely fabulous inspiration there! I'm always so excited to see the various knitting adventures people are going through, and frequently find myself planning my own expeditions. Some of my recent obsessions?

• Eskimimi's Cthulhu Mask.  my "little brother" is in an HP Lovecraft inspired band. Whether or not he's ever read Lovecraft is up for debate.



• MissCookie's monstrously cute creations. I can't tell you how many times I've found myself squealing over her stuffies.



• JadeBlade's missoni inspired blanket. Holy cow. The colors, the size, the pattern! Jade did a fabulous job on this. I want to make one for every room of my house!

To sum up: I find my heroes everywhere. Even the newest, most inexperienced knitter (crocheter, dyer, etc.) has something fabulous to add. You never know who you'll inspire!

3kcbwday2 : Photography Challenge(d)

Photography Challenge Day! Today challenges you to be creative with your photography, and get yourself in with the chance to win the photography prize. Taking interesting photographs in this instance isn't about flashy cameras or a great deal of technical know-how, it's about setting up a story or scene in a photograph and capturing something imaginative. Your photograph(s) should feature something related to your craft, so that might be either a knitted or crocheted item, yarn, or one of your craft tools. One example of setting a scene would be to photograph a girl in a knitted red cape walking through the woodlands with a basket of goodies, as in the Red Riding Hood tale, or you might photograph a knitted gnome hiding among the flowers in your garden. Photo editing is permitted for competition photos. Here are a few examples of my own photographs to illustrate an imaginative use of photography, but you can do much better than these...

Okay. I kind of ran out of time (and ideas) for this one. That's not a good sign, right? Day two and I'm already scrambling for ideas?
 

After panicking for a few days, when Monkey passed out last night, I was struck by a "brilliant" idea. Glasglow was more than happy to assist, and thus, these photos were created. My monster buddy can't turn down an opportunity to snuggle and be mischievous- especially not at the same time! I can't believe Monkey slept through our posing, as Glasglow and I were giggling loud enough to wake the dead.


 

Monkey still hasn't seen these yet. Hopefully, when he does, he won't be grumpy about it!

Also, note to self: when rotating pictures, rotate words as well. D'oh.

3kcbwday1 : Color Lovers

Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects - do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.

My interest in color has always sided with the... obnoxious spectrum. In elementary school, I'd dress in completely garish combinations: purple turtlenecks with kelly green leggings, pink plaid skirt and vest combos, etc. In middle school, I abandoned the ridiculous clothes for entirely too much eyeliner and brightly colored shadow. In high school, I hopped on the neon skinny jeans trend and wore the heck out of the array of brightly colored pants topped by my various club shirts.



While my clothing style certainly has developed past that point (I wear dresses almost exclusively), my obsession with color hasn't faded. While I don't wear quite as many neon pants (mostly, because I've gained too much weight to fit comfortably in them any more!), I still sneak in the saturated colors whenever I can- including in my still obnoxious eyeshadow. Why limit the blue eyeshadow in the 80s? Even beyond that, My obsession with highlighter shades has been well documented recently.

With that thought in mind, I looked through my various projects expecting to see a full array of bright, thoroughly saturated projects. Consequentially, I was a bit surprised to note there really isn't too much of a color trend with my projects. I don't seem to shy away from *any* color- except white and black. I've even knit with the dreaded burnt orange that makes my flesh crawl. (Dear mom, why are you obsessed with the color that my university's rival touts?). Still determined to find a pattern, I finally wound up collecting up my "nice" yarn and trying to find a theme.



Still not seeing it. For every brightly colored beauty, there's an an equally stunning muted skein. For every cool color, there's a matching warm ball. The only colors I see missing are black, white, grey and purple, which can be explained away, as I usually actually wear those colors, rather than accessorize with them!

In short, my brief forays into assigning a colorwheel to my knitting has only served to remind me that I adore all colors (except burnt orange), and that definitely shines through in my knitting.

Announcing Blog Week!

This is just a quick and dirty post today, as I've got tons to do.



I really enjoyed participating in Blog Week last year, even though I didn't finish. I can't wait to see what the prompts are for this year! Even more than that, I can't wait to read all of the responses. I think that may be my new form of procrastination- going through the answers from last year... Uh oh! So much for getting things done!

2KCBWDAY3 : Stashin' It Away

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised?

My organizational skills are pretty lacking when it comes to my stash. It's not that I don't know where everything is and that I don't have a system, it's that I have i my system scattered in so many places. Because I have pretty limited space and I have to look to moving the stash every few months when I'm shuttled from my room at my parents house and my apartment, it needs to be fairly portable, so I use a few bags.



This is where the majority of my stash lives. Pretty pathetic, isn't it? The drawers aren't even really full. The top drawer is filled with knitting needles and labels (and trash, but shush. Clearly I need to go on a major cleaning spree). It also has a few ball of oddball yarn- meaning the yarn I intend to knit a pair of Jaywalker socks in once I free up my size 1 needles from my Vinterblomster mittens. You know, those mittens I started in January and still haven't even finished the first one.

The middle drawer has a few full skeins of Caron Simply Soft that are intended for specific projects. Most of it is for a blanket I intend to knit once my current ripple afghan is finished.

The third drawer has a few skeins of red heart and other yarn I'm not overly fond of.

I very rarely actually go into these drawers, unless I'm searching for a needle. Most of what I use is in other places. That Little Mermaid lunchbox is filled with bits of yarn for stuffing, needles, stitch holders, and other little tools that I use occasionally. There's also a cone of cotton and a calendar with patterns that a family friend gave me for Christmas last year- complete with hamsters hiding underneath.


This is the box I slip under my bed that holds all of my cotton and remnants. I dive into here fairly often for toys, and it's probably used the most often of all of my stash locations.


This is the bag of shame. I hide knitting that I want to pretend is still not on the needles. Like the vinterblomster mittens. I think those mittens are going to be the death of me.


This bag is filled with projects I drag over to my SO's place. They're not portable enough to stick in my backpack to bring with me wherever I go, but I still work on them when I have the chance. You can bits of my clapotis scarf and kitten peeking out.


I've really got to put this in a nicer bag. It's my ripple blanket. Since it's so darn large, I can't really bring it anywhere other than to Monkey's place for Buffy marathons. I usually throw in a pair of scissors in the bag when I move it. Thankfully, the blanket seems to be outgrowing this bag, so I should be done with it soon.


Last photo! This is where I put my bags of cotton and skeins of evil Manos. This is what I don't intend to work on for quite a while, just because other projects are taking precedence. That and the Manos is in time out.

I also have big bag of random acrylic stuff that my SO's mom gave me. It was her mother's so it's older than me by quite a few years. Because it's not stuff I necessarily want to use, it's at my parents house. I do intend to use it, but my own, handpicked stash takes priority.

This probably wasn't the most entertaining blog entry, but at least there were lots of pictures! And if you want to see what my stash looks like all laid out, you can see this post. A few balls have been knit up, but there's not a significant difference.

2KCBWDAY2 : Mad Skillz

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year.

This story dates back to my very first introduction to knitting. I'm not who exactly knit and how I learned about it, but I do remember that my great-aunt Lil used to crochet- as does my Grandma Arlene. Neither were interested in teaching me in the least bit, which is quite understandable considering I remember asking them to teach me when I was an obnoxious little kid. It also probably didn't help that they were both left handed and I most definitely am right handed. In any case, I was always a crafty kid and knitting sounded like the bees knees for me. So I conned my parents into buying me yarn and a set of size 13 Boye straight needles and a booklet.

Let's just say that it didn't go very far.

Fast forward to the summer of 2009. My friend Veronica and I were hanging out in my room. I think I was digging through my closet or investigating the dark recesses of my room and came across the yarn and needles. Upon seeing the knitting tools, Veronica squealed and asked if I knew how to knit. After I admitted that I didn't know how, she said she had always wanted to learn. That set it off. We both promptly went on the Internet and learned the knit stitch.

It took me until March of 2010 and infinite garter stitch scarves to stop knitting and learn how to purl. Veronica was more proactive. She not only finally prodding into learning to purl, she also showed me Ravelry. And that was love at first sight- although it probably took me a good three or four months to find the boards.



I began with toys. My first project on Ravelry was a tiny turtle, though I soon progressed to birds, headbands, and a RHSS linen stitch scarf. Then I started to look for more and more complicated patterns. I think I've covered a good chunk of knitting techniques in this last year. There are still certain things that elude me- like doing a decent mattress stitch and knitting socks- but those are things I fully intend to conquer relatively soon. Things I have conquered?



Entrelac. Easy as pie.



Lace. Easy, but I have yet to try a super complicated pattern. I prefer things I can easily memorize and lug around with me everywhere. This is probably the easiest lace pattern I've knit, (see the sweater picture for a slightly more complicated pattern) but I think it demonstrates it pretty well



Cables! The Knitmore Girls are right. These are definitely potato chip knitting.



A sweater. Wow this was fun and turned out beautifully. I definitely will be knitting more of these.



Colorwork. Again, easy. I've since learned to tension my yarn better, however, which is why my vinterblomster mittens are still on the needles. Well, that and the fact that they involve staring at a chart and thus, aren't very portable.

I've made all of this progress in terms of skill, yet still, what am I knitting the majority of the time? Scarves. I guess we all go back to what we know the best. That or I'm just plain obsessed. Somehow, I'm thinking it's the latter. Who actually needs a million scarves anyways?

2KCBWDAY1 : One Skein, Two Skein, Manos Skein, Blue Skein!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled hamster update for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!



Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

The first yarn I chose was Manos Del Uruguay Maxima. I bought this yarn over Christmas break last year, while the Woolie Ewe was having it's annual year end sale. When I initially went, I tried to deny myself the loveliness of this yarn, but I eventually went back that day with my SO to pick it up. I had only ever knit Manos Silk Blend before, and absolutely loved it. Since this was a similar colorway to that, I figured hey, what could go wrong?



This looks like clown barf knit up. That's what could go wrong.

Jeeze, it's bad. My first attempt at knitting it was the Honey Cowl. I knit a good three inches of it while Monkey and I were attempting to drive to Midwest City to get his uniform altered. Attempting, because he is incapable of listening to my directions and managed to make what should have been an half hour drive stretch out to an hour and a half. By the time I got out of the car, I was resigned to the frogging fate. Which, honestly, really torqued me. I still am obsessed with this cowl, but I'm going to wait until I get my hands on a semi-solid yarn to knit it.

Next, I opted for simple, but previously attempted. I found Mara, complete with a project on Ravelry that was in the same colorway, but with a suspiciously bad picture. It was difficult to see how the colors looked because of the lighting. Still, I thought, Mara has been in my queue for approximately a hundred years, it's so simple, it'll go great!

Again. Clown barf.

Finally, I gave up. I put the yarn on the shelf and decided that maybe, what it need is to be knit against a contrast color. I'm planning on knitting a Prism Wrap with it, once I get a white or off-white yarn to knit it up against. If it still looks like clown barf... Well, let's just say it will be put in the time out box for a while. (Have I mentioned I have not one but TWO balls of this stuff?)



The second yarn I'm writing about is Red Heart Super Saver. This is a yarn that really polarizes knitters, and I can understand both sides of the coin. Not only is it cheap, readily available, and in plenty of colors, but it is also scratchy, squeaky, and just generally not the greatest quality. I've heard rumors that it softens up tremendously in the wash, but the one scarf I've knit for myself out of it didn't managed to get much softer.

I've knit a fair share of projects out of RHSS, but I've come to one ultimate conclusion. This yarn is made for toys, and really, that's all I really intend to knit with it anymore. Currently, I'm knitting up a cat for my baby sister for Easter. No project link this time before for once, I'm doing it on my own. The color combination isn't exactly my favorite, but hopefully my sister will like it.