Almost too Hot to Knit

It has gotten so hot here recently. My family really didn't want to do anything that required any heat for dinner last night, so we went out for parfaits instead. They were really delicious. I normally get something with caramel on all three layers, but this time I opted for strawberries and walnuts in maple syrup. It was so delicious.

My fiance and I went to see Iron Man 3 yesterday. It was really fun to watch even if the ending was a little stranger than normal. Iron Man was our very first date movie, so we have tried to see every Iron Man (and by extension, every Marvel movie) in theaters together since. It is really sweet and we have never had a disappointing time at the theaters ever.

I have been slowly working on a scarf. I swear that I started this thing when the weather was bearable, but knitting a wool scarf in the middle of this scorching summer heat is a little crazy making. The scarf started out as a striped scarf a la the Noro Striped scarf, but it has evolved to have the stripes as an accent color to the main wine color. It is nowhere near complete, but it is something simple I can pick up and knit on whenever I feel like it.

The yarn is really nice to work with too. It is Patons Wool Merino worsted weight. It has such a nice luster and it is really soft to work with. The multicolor is just Patons Wool which is less soft, but still really nice to have in your hands when you are knitting. I have a feeling that I will make either a matching pair of fingerless gloves, full gloves, or a hat to go with the scarf before I am done since I have two balls of each color. This is basically knitting from the deep stash that I still have on hand since before I went to college.

My cotton hasn't grown much since my last picture. I think it is time to feed it some weak fertilizer to make sure that they are getting enough nutrients through the soil. They should be getting their photosynthesizing leaves soon and then their first set of real leaves. Then I can transplant them to bigger pots. Hopefully it will all go well.

Traveling Through my WIP Pile!

I am slowly getting things out of my WIP pile. In the past two weeks the pile has shrunk from four projects to only two projects and that is only because I almost immediately cast on another scarf after casting off my Noro Striped Scarf.

I decided to take a leaf out of the Yarn Harlot's book and wet block my scarf. It is a shorter scarf that (as my fiance has pointed out) is going to be perfect for spring and fall when I don't want to be wearing my longer scarf just yet. It is also the perfect length to use to tie around my head and wear it as a headband/earmuffs.

I am trying to decide if I want the stripes to be all the way up my next scarf or if I just want the two color striping bits at the ends of the scarf and keep the rest in the main color that I started with. But other than that, I am on a 1x1 ribbed scarf kick for some reason. It is easy and fun and always looks good no matter what you do with it, so I think that is part of the reason why I can't stop knitting 1x1 ribbed scarves at the moment.

I am also back at making my scrappy crumb blocks again. My mom's old sewing machine is acting up again, so I am back to hand sewing the blocks. The top two on the right were completely done by hand while most of the others were done either by machine or half by hand and half by machine.

Ironing the blocks really makes a difference with how they lay. The last block I made was ironed before it was trimmed down to size to make the cutting easier (and it was).

 I also did a very loose Jelly Roll Race Block (the one on the upper right corner) where I took scraps of fabric that were about the same width and sewed them all end to end. Then I folded the ends in half and sewed along one side and cut the fold then repeated that until it was a square block. It sounds complicated, but it really wasn't. I understand why people would like to buy a precut jelly rolls of a fabric line to make a quilt with. It really doesn't take that much time and I imagine that if you were doing that on a sewing machine that it would fly by.

My cotton is growing quite nicely. They finally sprouted and the seedlings are growing nice and tall. I'm not sure a couple of them will make it, but my dad (who gardens a lot) thinks that they might all survive to be strong cotton plants. Hopefully in another week or two they will have their true leaves instead of the seedling leaves. When that happens then I will transfer them to other bigger pots to grow up the rest of the way.

This makes me hopeful that I can actually grow things and that my dream of having a small garden one day will come to life. I mostly would want a small herb garden with maybe a couple of veggies, but I haven't had anything grow like this before. I will report back with their progress in about a week.

New Job, New Scarf

I feel bad that I haven't been able to update my blog recently because I love writing about the topics on here, but I can't feel too bad because I have some exciting news.

I finally got a job.

I'll admit that it is just a part-time job at McDonalds, but it is really exciting to me at the moment. That is why I have been too exhausted to actually do much on here and why I haven't been updating nearly as much as I had been doing. This job will also give me time to do guilt-free research about finding a real career path that I can get started on and possibly go back to school for. Plus I will have a little bit of money to actually put into my savings so that I can save up to knit my Dr Who scarf that I have been wanting to do for a few years now.

Remember years ago when Brooklyn Tweed and Yarn Harlot were blogging about the Noro Striped Scarves and sent everybody back on the massive viral Noro Striped Scarf knitting once again? Then last year I got a couple of balls of Chroma from KnitPicks to make my version of the scarf. Well, I got my hands on a couple of balls of Noro Kureyon and they will turn into a brand new striped scarf. The colorways are 307 and 170. I only have a ball in each color and they say that the yardage on the balls are about 110 yards each, so I am thinking that I will have enough for a scarf but reading back over old posts, most people used four balls.

The only way to see for sure is to start knitting and see how far it gets me. If worse comes to worse, I will just have to get two more balls of yarn. The hard part will be getting the right colorways because the site we got these from refused to use the colorway numbers to describe the actual colorway.

Attack of the Ruffles

My head cold is finally disappearing! This means I can go back to doing my normal things, like pirating the high seas or taking a caravan across the endless desert safely while avoiding mirages or even making it to the local library to return my library books before the end of the world comes again.

It also means that I can go outside in the chilly winter air and take pictures of my ruffle scarf in a tree. I have christened my scarf the Rufflebutt Scarf. Why? Well, why not? Rufflebutt is very hard to say without grinning. If you don't believe me, give it a try right now. Yep, just say rufflebutt and tell me if that doesn't make you at least feel better.

In case you haven't noticed (or haven't wanted to notice) there is a grand total of five more days before Christmas. Those of you with last minute Christmas knitting need to hurry up and get those things finished. With my personal Christmas knitting, I have decided to modify my mom's socks that I am knitting for her because they just aren't going how I want them to go. The pattern and I are not cooperating and I would really like to give mom a pair of socks for Christmas. So, instead of carrying the pattern down the foot, I have decided to knit a plain foot after the garter stitch short-row heel and then knit a garter stitch short-row toe at the end of the foot so that the texture is brought all the way through the sock. Then I get to knit a second one.

This will be a busy five days.

Knitting makes everything better...

The cough that I had for the past week turned into a cough with a cold. There wasn't very much I felt like doing since I would get worse during the afternoons. So, what else was I to do then to turn to my trusty companion: knitting.

I did manage to finish my Mom's Cosimo Scarf in time for her Christmas party. It is so pretty and glittery. The finished scarf almost makes me want to knit my own version of it in a glittery solid color. Let's say KnitPicks Stroll Glimmer in Foxglove or Jay. Almost. My mom has been wearing it ever since it came off the needles. I was barely able to get it off of her to dangle it over the Christmas tree for a glamor shot.

Right before my cold smacked me over the head (or in this case is it in the throat?), my parents and I went out shopping at AC Moore. My mom and I practically fell over a ruffled scarf that was made out of Bernat Twist and Twirl. Now, I know what you are thinking. This yarn is this year's fun fur yarn. Why would I possibly even think about knitting with this? It would probably be horrible and fun fur is atrocious to actually knit with. What would make this yarn be any different?

This yarn must be made out of fairy dust and unicorn farts as far as I can tell. No, it isn't cashmere or quiviut, but it is so fun to knit with! You take a relatively flat piece of yarn and unfold it to reveal a lacy ribbon. Then you jab it onto your needle, knit with it as normal, and it just ruffles up into a boatload of ruffles.

It makes me happy and it matches my new coat.

And really, what more to knitting do you really need if it makes you happy to do it? Even the most technical and advanced knitters have some sort of simple knitting that they like to do just to keep their hands busy and not because it is the most complicated thing in the world.

Lots and Lots of Christmas Knitting

I have actually been knitting up a storm over here during the past week. Most of the knitting has been done on one project: a sparkly scarf for my mom. My mom has arthritis in her hands and it has been acting up recently because she has been knitting steadily on her Christmas stocking for this year. This has been preventing her from knitting the sparkly yarn she bought at our somewhat-local yarn store. She asked me if I would knit the scarf for her and if I could get it done in time for her work's holiday party. Of course I said I would!

I have a few more repeats to go until it is done. I can't really get a good picture of it yet because it is a bit of lace and whenever you try to get a picture of unblocked lace it just looks terrible.

I have also been working on a few hats for the survivors of Hurricane Sandy. As I was making them I discovered the pleasure of working with big needles and bulky yarn. It is like instant gratification! They were so quick to make. The only downside is that I couldn't knit on them for a long period of time because big needle knitting is really hard on my hands.

If you look closely at the picture, you will see that the hats show no sign of pooling even though I used a variegated yarn. I discovered a trick to preventing it. The yarn I used was a worsted-weight yarn, so I ended up triple stranding it. The colors landed wherever they wanted to, but it looks exactly like it does in the skein. I don't mind pooling, but I thought that this was a pretty awesome way to prevent it. Might not be the most practical way to prevent it, but I love the way it looks and people look good in bulky hats.

It has finally reached the end of the year and I have a feeling that this December is going to be slightly crazy around my house. It will be my first real Christmas season at home for four years and my brother will be coming back home from college to get his very own job. Hopefully the job searching will pay off and I will be able to start my own career soon.

The only tree up around our house so far is my little miniature tree that my mom got for me when I was in college. I decided to do things a little bit different and set my blind bag ponies up in the tree. I am pretty sure that my cat approves even though I had to discourage her from stealing one of the ponies.