Actually managed to squeeze in a wee valentine’s day craft Wednesday night – a knitted heart from pattern by Mochimochi Land! :D
I enjoyed the pattern very much because it’s knitted flat (I’m not very good at knitting in the round). And I attached a pin on the back so I can wear it proudly, this heart that is very plump and full of gratitude and love for the wonderful, most amazing and supportive man I’m married to.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
Part of my Christmas present for Mike this year is a knitted tiny donut from a Mochimochi Land pattern. Because it looks a lot like the donut in the Excel gum commercial (I can’t find a better quality video of it, but this version of the gum commercial is extra special because it was filmed at Dupont subway station in Toronto, which is also one of Mike’s favourite subway station, featuring two large glass tile mosaics of giant flowers :D) and Mike really likes that donut.
Close to Christmas we got into a conversation about sprinkles, and Mike mentioned that metallic sprinkles are his favourite, so I added silvery beads to the donut.
I got a lot of help from my friend, who is a very skilled knitter and very patient. It took three hours altogether for a pattern that consists of 13 rows of knitting, which is kind of astonishing for me since I’m used to crocheting. The donut is especially challenging for me because it’s tiny and involves knitting in the round!
So you can probably see huge gaps between stitches where the needles join, but I’m still happy with my first attempt of tiny knit in the round :D
And the most important thing is that Mike loves it :D
He carried it in his coat when we visited families over the holidays…
The first night we arrived in Mike’s hometown, there was a lot of snow.
The next morning, there was even more snow.
Then we went on a bus toward my family’s home…
First dim sum gathering with the extended family…
Second dim sum gathering with the extended family…
It’s kind of hilarious how it always looks surprised.
Donut still living in Mike’s coat pocket at the moment. He’s not sure whether he wants to keep it at work or at home. Maybe he’ll take more photos for the travelling donut posts!
Happy travels, wherever you go! :D
Been working on a couple of owl projects lately. I can show them to you now that they’ve safely arrived at their new homes :D
Knitted this cup sleeve for a friend who loves owls and caramel macchiato. From a pattern I found on Ravelry (there are several if you search “owl cup sleeve”, and I can’t remember which one I used…).
It’s my first time knitting in the round since I was a teenager! Definitely don’t remember how to do it anymore, good thing a knitter friend helped me start the first few rows (I got so confused :S). I thought the owls looked really smart with their orange eyes. It also works as a wrist warmer :D
Then I crocheted these owls for another friend while watching The Owls of Ga’hoole :D
The pink one’s a pin, the yellow one’s a magnet, and the white one’s an ornament – I took the picture before stitching the ribbon to the top of his head.
They were inspired by this crochet owl pattern.
Have a great start to the week, everyone! :D
Look! New finished project! :D
I finally decided that the oval shrug in my yarn-crafting resolution list is way beyond my knitting skill level, so I found another pattern to replace it. It’s by Tiny Owl Knits.
It’s kind of shaped like the oval shrug, but much simpler! AND it has a crocheted edging :D It’s perfect because a) I wanted to practice knitting cables, and b) I don’t know how to pick up stitches from a knitted edge to knit an edging. So it’s a collaborative effort between knitting and crocheting :D
Fits well, and it’s really rather warm, because it’s knitted with 2 strands of bulky weight yarn held together on 10mm needles. Which means that it also knits up very quickly :D
When it first came off the needles the cables looked really bulky, but I wasn’t sure if blocking would work because the yarn I used is a wool/acrylic blend. And it’s been used in another knitting project before, washed, and frogged. But my friend shared with me a method of blocking for acrylic that involves ironing the garment under a wet towel, so I tried it…
… and it worked! :D
I’m not exactly blocking here, as I’m not pinning the shrug down to measurement. But the cables stayed flat nonetheless, which makes it look more “store-bought” and polished-looking, I think.
I’m now working on another knitting experiment… might be able to get a pattern out of it, will let you know! :D
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
And the Canadian groundhogs forecast an early spring! :D
Groundhog at home is already getting into spring spirit!
If you’d like to crochet a groundhog to celebrate groundhog’s day and the upcoming spring, here’s a quick tiny groundhog plush pattern I wrote up last year :D
On a separate note, yesterday I finally visited Lettuce Knit, a local friendly yarn shop :D
Doesn’t everything looks so cozy and amazing? All the colours, a much needed antidote to a grey dreary winter day. I was just browsing and checking out what’s there, but will definitely go back just to knit for an afternoon with friends!
Hope your groundhog day was lovely!
Completed first project on my yarn crafting resolution list! :D
Not only is it a knit hat, it’s a knit cable hat :D I’m quite happy with it. I wanted the cables only around the brim but couldn’t find a free pattern for it, but I came across this awesome cable headband pattern, so I just followed it and then knitted the rest of the hat using the decrease method in this hat pattern as a guide.
Here’s a closer look at the cables…
I was also testing out the Retro Camera App on my phone, so here’s one taken from the “pinhole camera” mode…
We’ve had a great snowfall in the city today! And I’m well-equipped with my cozy new hat :D
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Here’s a list of projects that I’d like to work on in 2012 :D
Been wanting to try weaving for a long time. I want to try my hands on it so maybe I can do this with groups :D (instruction from Full Circle)
This trilobite is calling my name… (free pattern on Ravelry)
I have a lot of blue yarn that would be quite nice for this pattern. Also a great way to learn to make cables. ALSO knitted flat and seamed together :D (I have quite a bit of trouble using circular needles) Picturing it with some round buttons with flowers printed on them. (free pattern from Stitch Nation)
This would be the next step up after the cable cardigan. It’s a pattern from a book and I borrowed it from the library. I can’t quite understand the pattern right now but I can probably ask my knitting friends to help, which means knitting/crocheting tea parties are in order! :D
In the meanwhile, I’ll practice my knitting with hats :D I made this hat I found on Ravelry for Mike for Christmas, and I’m planning on making a longer one for myself, so it’s a bit slouchy, because I lost my perfect slouch hat on the bus earlier in the fall :’(
A pretty manageable list, I think. Will keep you posted on the progress!
Happy new year, friends! Wishing you a wonderful year of good health, new inspirations and life-enriching creativity!
Sky scarf is a very neat project, part of the Conceptual Knitting Project by Leafcutter Designs. (via WhipUp)
It documents the weather by knitting a stripe that matches the colour of the sky each day. Intrigued? Here’s a video with more details.
I love that one doesn’t have to spend a ton of time on it each day, but it still requires commitment and consistency – commitment to do something creative each day. It even makes one look up at the sky once a day in the midst of busyness and appreciate it for what it is. A great project for the fall when school and work and everything else is starting up again!
There are Flickr and Ravelry groups for the project as well – it would be fun to see all the different weather patterns in different corners of the world!
Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.
I have my very own colour-coordinated wall of yarn! So excited XD
This past weekend Mike and I completely reorganized our apartment to make room for more work surfaces. And yes, to contain my ever spreading “crafty corner”. I used to have yarn in bins and bags all over the apartment, beside the couch and under the bed and stacked against the wall. But now it’s all in one place! :D These shelving units that the yarn is in at the moment were originally our bookshelves. We moved all our books onto new bookshelves in our bedroom.
Filbert the Chococat is in yarn heaven right now :D
Here’s another view of it from a different angle… I’m so proud!
Sadly, the yarn is not going to stay this way for very long. It’s just not practical to stack yarn on top of one another like that; I’d have an avalanche of yarn every time I rummage through the shelves (“would that be a dream or a nightmare?” Mike muses). So I’m going to find the cheapest bins possible to fit into those shelves to hold the yarn. But for now it’s pretty to look at!
I particularly enjoy all the different shades of white/beige yarn together.
In the process I also learned that I have a huge amount of blue yarn. (nearly three full shelves!)
Quite a bit of grey and black…
A healthy amount of green and red/pink…
And a bit low on yellow, peach, and purple.
I’ve also put my spider plant, wedding bouquet, terrarium and jar of seashells on top of the wall of yarn :D
My other terrarium sits on one of the bookshelves in the wall of books in the bedroom. It makes me happy :)
And we also made room for a small studio space – no more sewing and painting on the dinner table! :D
The space where I kept all the art supplies before was a bit of a disaster. I had pile and pile of things at the foot of the utility shelf, and things on the shelves are always falling over. So over the weekend I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things and put things that I don’t use on a regular basis in bins and boxes. I used to think that art supplies need to be out in the open as much as possible so everything is easily accessible. But now I’ve learned that it’s easier to dust a box than it is to dust between sheets of handmade paper and bottles of paint. If I really needed the handmade paper or the paint it’s not hard to open a box to get it.
Mike also got a new six feet long desk, which he is rather happy about. Now he has enough room to draw at his desk, rather than having to hunch over the coffee table.
It’s really funny how it works. The apartment didn’t get any bigger but we got more space just moving stuff around. I guess over the past few years of living in it we learned how we can use this space more effectively to suit the work that we do.
We did a lot of work this weekend; the only furniture we didn’t move was the bed. And still a lot of finishing and vacuuming to do, but everything is pretty much organized and I’m feeling more motivated than before. Not really about anything in particular, just generally more motivated and energized. It’s funny what our surroundings can do to our moods.
Hope you have a great start to the week! :D
The weather is getting a bit too warm for my thick, crocheted-with-two-strands-of-yarn-held-together hat. Even my crocheted slouch hat feels like a bit of an overkill. Perhaps it’s best to leave crocheted headgear for the winter. So I just stopped wearing hats whenever I go out.
But one grey, sunless day, after standing in a windy playground for half an hour, and realizing that there are still 20 more minutes to go before the end of my recess duty, I wished I were one of the kids runny around and around the sandbox. Yes, I may look silly, but at least I’d be warm. Or, better yet, I wish I had a hat. Then I’d look warm and stylish. Plus, they say we lose heat through the top of our heads (but apparently that’s a myth).
Losing heat or not, a lighter hat is needed for the rainy, grey, spring season (OK, I’ll be honest. I just like hats). Then one day, we were at a tea shop and I saw a guy working behind the counter wearing a green hat, like a regular toque, with just a bit of slouch to make it look stylish. I loved the simplicity of it. That was the perfect hat.
And if I see something I like, I’ve got to make it.
There was a problem, however: I don’t know how to knit in rounds with double-pointed needles. Plus, I only have one pair of needles for each size, which means that I don’t have enough needles to knit in rounds.
No problem, I will knit the pattern flat, then seam it together. It’s not going to look as good but I’m OK with a bit of flaw.
So I first tried this pattern from Sarah Bear Crafts via Ravelry. It looks like it has the tiny bit of slouch that I wanted and seemed simple enough.
I’m not very familiar with knitting, and so it wasn’t until row 4 or 5 that I realized when one knits in rounds, there are no purl rows. But I was knitting back and front, so I tried to figure out what to do on the purl rows with the ribbing pattern. And I wasn’t good enough in knitting to figure that out, so after casting on and ripping out 3 or 4 times I had to abandon the project and miss out on a great hat :(
So then I found the Rikke hat pattern on Happy Knits, also via Ravelry. Entire hat is made of garter stitch. I can handle garter stitch. It doesn’t look very slouchy in the picture, so I was really surprised when I tried it on…
If I had knitted it in white, I would look like a Smurf. And that wouldn’t be half bad, wouldn’t it? But I just can’t see myself wearing that to work. I don’t think it was the pattern’s fault. Perhaps I have a smaller than average head. Perhaps it was the yarn substitution and my faulty calculation. Even though I decreased the number of stitches all around it was still too big.
So! I took it apart and tried again with a lighter yarn. I also made it 2.5 inches shorter than the pattern. And it worked out just the way I wanted :D (Isn’t it a great feeling when that happens with knitting? I guess it’s such a big deal for me because I’m not very good at checking gauge. And unlike crocheting, one can’t take the stitches off the needle and try it on along the way.)
Here it is from the side…
And here it is from the front :D
Yes, I’m just that happy about a new hat :P
(The truth is that I’ve taken way too many pictures of myself, trying to frame it properly while keeping a straight face, and in the one before this for some reason I looked shocked and scared and mad altogether. I looked so ridiculous it was hilarious. So this is more about me laughing at myself. Makes a pretty candid shot though!)
And let me show you a close up of this yarn, with the different colours in it. I believe it’s DK or sport weight. It was given to me without a label.
I wore it out today. It’s very light and doesn’t give me hat hair. It’s perfect for spring :D
Cheers!
