Two Posts in One

So, I haven't been posting, and unlike most times, it is not because I've ceased crafting. It is because I'm a lazy jerk who values reading crappy books and playing silly videogames over blogging at times. I know! I suck. Also, Facebook (FRIEND ME!) and Flickr. They kill me by sucking up time.

Anyway, as I've said, I've been crafting. Helen has been knitting and favoriting fingerless mitts on Ravelry, and finally we decided to do a KAL on two different mitts. The first was Sophy's pattern, the Friendship Fingerless Mitts (ravel it). I finished those very quickly and will have pictures of it in Ravelry and on my blog soon! I will gush over them appropriately in their own post. We plan to do the Endpaper Mitts next, but I need to get the yarn, as does Helen. (This will be my first foray into colorwork!)

As I mentioned in a previous post, Helen is the fastest knitter in the world, and she is once again tempting me to try my hand at Continental knitting. Is it that much faster or is she just a very quick knitter? She's made a bevy of adorable hats, and if she does Thorpe, I might ask for a KAL on that too since my brother-in-law wants that.

I also did a burp cloth or two for my sewing. They are cute, but nothing spectacular, so no pics, and no love for them. (I will note that one is an adorable flannel one with penguins sledding. I love the fabric's whimsy.)

Now, as to Podcasts -- some updates first. Knitting at Night has gone by the wayside of my podcasts, and I deleted it from my subscriptions last night. It was a fine podcast, but the podcaster never managed to get organized. I liked her conversational style, but others such as Never Not Knitting do it better and more smoothly. As I have a limited amount of time and a numerous amount of podcasts, I dropped it. I'm thinking of dropping Knit Pick's Podcast. I still like it, but Kelley seems to only do interviews any more, and I don't even super care for her essays lately. Her voice is very stilted and slow during those sections, while being so much more spontaneous during her "What I'm Knitting Now" sections. I've been sticking with it, though, because I still like the odd show enough to keep with it.

I've tried Sticks and Strings, and I liked the latest episodes well enough to go back and listen to some of the early ones. The same is true of DestiKnit. I will give an in-depth review of both soon. I've only listened to three of DestiKnit, and six of Sticks and Strings, so I want to listen to a bit more of each before giving a more final word on them.

So, posts I want to do in the future: highlighting other people's finished projects, comment answers, and Friendship Fingerless Mitts finished project page!

2009 Crafting Resolutions

I know that I owe some other posts to you guys (and that's how you know I'm from Philly, 'you guys'!), but I need to get my resolutions out before this year passes, you dig?

So, without further ado, here are some of my crafting resolutions. These are the resolutions I've thought of in the last two minutes or so.

1. I will make more cupcakes. I've been wanting to improve my cake decorating skills, but solely in the field of cupcakes. What am I waiting for? How will I ever make the best cupcakes in the world if I don't start improving my skillz?

2. I'd like to make some holiday pillowcases using my sewing skills. ANY HOLIDAY will work at this point, and I'm counting birthdays as a holiday. These pillowcases would be for my bed pillows.

3. I'd like to make Paula (and myself) some Halloween table napkins, much like my Thanksgiving napkins. In fact, I'd just like to make some more table napkins since I feel fancy when I use them, and they're now out of season.

4. Knit with Malabrigo yarn.

5. Use up some of my stash.

6. Knit several pairs of socks, but try Shaeffer Anne, Dream in Color Smooshy, and Duet Sock Yarn for some of those socks.

7. Sew a skirt.

8. Learn the skills to make my favorite dress pattern ever. I don't need to make the dress this year, but I need to get more skills.

9. Blog at least once a week.

10. Knit a sweater.

11. Lose some damned weight. (Only crafting related because it means I can buy less yarn/fabric to make clothing items!)

Finished Projects 2008

Two thousand and eight was a good year for my crafting, believe it or not. I did quite a bit of knitting, pre-Nathan, and even a bit more after he was born. I got a sewing machine and learned some basics of sewing.



I am pretty proud of everything I did minus the bibs and the Ballband Dishcloth. I'm especially proud of the Cotton Booties and the Spiral Boot Socks. I wish I had some of the items here that I finished but didn't get pictures of, such as my mom's Apron (sewing) and Isaac's Baby Blanket (knitting).

My favorite finished object of 2008?

Nathaniel

Ahem, Ahem -- Is This Thing On?

It's been about eight billion years, friends! I had so many blog posts I could have made too, but Paul took two weeks off, and I spent the majority of those two weeks chilling, relaxing, and maxing, or whatnot. I didn't knit a lot, but I did sew some. I don't have ANY pictures of my knitting or sewing too.

My first post now that I'm back is one that it is long overdue. A while back, Helen told me of a person she knew that had a knitting blog and who was a new mother. Since I had earlier this year met Sophy by blog, I was feeling positive about blogging friends, so I checked out the blog, which is called little feet, big sky.

I ended up liking the blog quite a bit, so I wrote to the blog author via Ravelry, where she is known as 'ecofriendlybaby'. She was extremely friendly and willing to message me about being a mother -- and that's my favorite topic nowadays. (Besides how much I love Pushing Daisies and how people suck for not watching it. It's just as well Pushing Daisies is dying. I'm sure people were tired of hearing me bitch and moan about Veronica Mars dying. I have a new show to bitch about now, folks!)

Anyway, where was I? Yes! So, this year, ECB sent me a lovely lovely package. It was a sock bag from The Tipsy Knitter. Well, I've been thinking about getting a sock knitting bag for awhile, so I was thrilled as all get out to receive this. Look how pretty it is too!



She did not know it, but I'm a sucker for Neapolitan coloured items too. Pink, brown, and white is one of my favorite color combinations. (I also like pink and green, blue and cream and brown, mint and brown, orange and blue, red and green, and apparently every color with every other color.) Do you see my Pomatomus socks peeking out of the bag? I've gotten next to nothing done on them!

Inside the bag, at the time of the gifting, there was some Knit Picks Bare sock yarn.



I'm thinking it is time for some Kool-Aid dying, no? Only, I'm having problems picking which shade I want to dye with.

This was a terrific gift! Thank you so much!

(Upcoming posts, knitting/sewing round-up 2008, knitting/sewing resolutions 2009, why Helen is the fastest knitter in the world, answers to comments on my blog posts, podcast reviews, highlighting other blogger's finished projects, and more!)

Actual Knitting Content

There is so much knitting content that I'm dreading typing up this entry, believe it or not. First off, my yarn came from the Loopy Ewe. As you might not be aware, the Loopy Ewe promises small gifts with your first five purchases, and then you become a "Loopy Groupie". What came in that first package with my single $11 skein of yarn? Two samples of yarn -- Mountain Colors Bearfoot and Fiesta Boomerang.



I also received some cards for helping me to track my needles. Eh -- I threw them out as I didn't need them since I have Ravelry. I never impulse buy knitting needles of any type. This was still a pretty nice little set of gifts for one skein of Lorna's Laces.

I was extremely happy that I got the yarn, as I managed to finish Helen's Socks (ravel it)!! I met Helen on Saturday, and gifted them to her, and she allowed me to take some quick shots of them.



I was so amazed by my ability to do a sock in a pattern that I immediately cast on for a pair of Pomatomus with my Socks that Rock yarn that I bought at Rhinebeck. I have only just finished the ribbing on the first sock, and the pattern is looking a tiny bit wonky now which is making me nervous.



In much, much, much more exciting news, Sophy is visiting Philadelphia this week! We got together, along with Helen, and Sophy's sister Sophea. Sophea was awesome to meet, too, but I wish I knew her Ravelry name.



As you can clearly see, we also took a trip to Loop! I didn't purchase much, just one skein of Malabrigo's Silky Merino and one skein of Koigu Mori.



After we went shopping, we went to Helen's place to knit, which is where I started my socks and worked a bit on my Slytherin Scarf.



All in all, it was a great day, but the best part of it was actually getting to meet Sophy! I'm glad that Bryan directed me to her blog while I was sick this year.

This was a photo-intense blog entry, and I'm not even finished. I have so much more to add this week, including some adventures in sewing, and another package I got in the mail!

Podcasts, Sewing, and Knitting Projects

This is certainly a hodgepodge post coming up. First up, podcasts -- had to give up on Cast On. I had been listening to it and I found it acceptable, if not great. Then, in one of the early episodes, the podcaster starts to rant about someone who gave her podcast a negative review on their blog, stating that that person should do their own podcast and how she, the podcaster, was being brave putting herself out there. Blah. It is tough to put yourself out there. I agree. But, I feel this is the same argument authors make when they get a bad review on Amazon. They feel perfectly justified in arguing that bad review.

Listen, a bad review is not the worst thing in the world to happen to you, folks. If someone hates my blog, they hate my blog. If someone hates me, they hate me. It's an opinion. Listening to another person's opinion does not make it fact. For instance, I'm giving up on Cast On because I feel the podcaster is too thin-skinned and she intersperses too much music with her podcast and her knitting content does not thrill me. Does this make her a bad podcaster? No. Does this mean you shouldn't listen to her podcast? Not unless you dislike thin-skinned podcasters, too much music, and we have the exact same knitting tastes. If this is true, don't listen to her. Otherwise, give her a try. She's popular. I might be wrong.

Next up, knitting. Okay, it's boring. Again, I ordered the third skein, and I await it to complete those socks. Secondly, I'm knitting on my Slytherin Scarf again. I know! I forgot it existed too!

Lastly, the exciting stuff! Around a week before Thanksgiving, Paul said that I should sew some nice napkins for the dinner for six people we were having. Slightly intimidated by the idea, I decided to try it. Looking around, it appeared I would need a rotary cutter, self-healing pad, ruler, a yard and a half of fabric, another yard and a half of fabric, bias tape maker, and two yards of fabric for the tape.

After putting that all, plus some fabric bolts, into my cart at Joann's Fabric, I realized I had roughly one hundred dollars worth of goods for six napkins. That's ridiculous, especially considering the pure number of sales that Joann's has! I put everything back but the fabric bolts and the ruler. I went and got some tailor's chalk. Then, I asked for one and a half yards of two of the fabrics and asked for the third to be taken back. I was sadly surprised to learn that my first print choice (a set of leaves and pumpkins on a neutral background) only had one yard left, so I bought a half of a yard of my third fabric choice. After this, I went to the bias tape section and looked through the paltry selection for some matches to my fabric.

I was right to do all this, because now I have a coupon for 50% off of a single item to Joann's which takes my self-healing mat from $50.00 to $25.00! A $25.00 savings for patience. I like!

Anyway, I got home, and started chalking up some squares and cutting 'em out. This was hard for two of the fabrics which had enough stretch that the squares are more square like than perfectly square. The third, nearly thrown away, fabric had no stretch and was lovely.

The next night, I pinned everything together and started to sew! I'm fairly happy with how things came out, and now I want to do way more of these. I want a Christmas set, a winter set, a birthday set, a Halloween set, and more! I want Easter sets, summery beach sets, spring flower sets. I love them. I also want to make them for everyone I know.



Seriously, I am going to use these until I make more. And now I want all those expensive tools!



♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Doing Much of Nothing

I've been very fake busy lately, with the holidays and all sneaking up on me out of nowhere. I've not been crafting a lot. I've done some stuff, which I'll be posting about later, after I've taken pictures, but nothing horribly exciting.

My knitting has been sort of tossed to the wayside. Poor Helen's poor socks. I should have known it would happen. I've... run out of yarn. An inch before the toe. The bad part? I'll have nine/tenths of a skein left after I finish these socks. The good part? This calls for a purchase at ♥the Loopy Ewe♥. I'll be honest and say I was so tempted to buy more lovely sock yarn, but I limited myself to the skein I needed and a gift certificate for someone else. I'll get the sock yarn I want next time when I've worked through the yarn I've currently got stashed. Plus, this way, I can become a loopy groupie faster.

I've been really slow with this second sock. As most sock knitters know, once you know you're going to run out of yarn, you do one of two things. You either knit so quickly that it hurts, hoping that the pure speed of your knitting will prevent you from running out of yarn. Alternatively, you stall. You never knit on the project because you know what's coming.

What have I been doing then, you ask? Caring for a baby and reading blogs mostly. The baby has the sniffles and the blogs have a lot of posts. I've also been up and about, which is better, visiting people, lunching, whatnot. I've done a bit of sewing.

Here's some cute little 0-3 month booties for my eldest cousin's soon-to-be-arriving baby.



As the little girl will be arriving in April, I thought that some nice cool cotton booties might look sharp. My mom has asked for several more sewn items for the baby such as bibs and/or burp cloths.

Anyway, that's it for today. This is just meant to be a quick update. I'll update my next post with more pics of what I've been doing, hopefully, and include some of my future crafting plans!

RIP Beloved Socks

I finished a pair of socks this year out of Artyarns Ultramerino 4 that I loved. They were finished during my first hospital stay of the year. I LOVED THEM. I can't even describe my love adequately. As soon as those socks came out of the dryer, they were on my feet. I wore them every day in the hospital after my delivery. I wouldn't wear them outside the house because they might get dirty in my shoes. They were basically thin slippers for my house. I wore them too much, washed them too much, and didn't consider that I probably should have reinforced the heels and toes with some nylon thread.

Two nights ago, while wearing them, I noticed that my normally cozy warm feet felt a little draft on my heel. One sock had a hole in the heel. On close inspection, the other sock's heel had gotten dangerously thin. It was with a heavy heart that I threw them into the trash bin last night. I loved you, socks. You did a good job. I'm going to buy more of the Artyarns, and I'm going to reinforce it this time, but it'll never be the same. You were with my during both my hospital stays and you are the first pair of knit socks I wore out.

R.I.P.

Sewing Makes Me Cry

As everyone knows, blogs without pictures blow. Sorry for those bloggers who don't use photos, but this is like a universal truth. It's also why blogs with great photos get large readerships. This is how I know that my photos need work. If I had great photos, I'd have a ton of readers even if I posted once a lifetime.

Anyway, I've been photoless recently, with a ton of podcast reviews, and whatnot, but, if I want people to read, I need to post. I've been sewing more than knitting recently, and after knocking out a few bibs and burpcloths as seen in the past, I decided I was a more confident person who was going to move on to sewing booties. Wow, my first pair sucked.



Those booties are coming apart. You can probably see it if you zoom in on the large size. I didn't cry, however, because from doing it that first time, I saw where my mistakes were, and planned a second try. I also decided that it was clear it was time for me to move on to patterns. So, I went to Joanne's and bought five (for five bucks)! There were some cute patterns there such as a baby bunting and a cute dress. The highlight purchase, however, the one I would start with, was Sewing for Dummies pattern 4178 for bags.

On the good side, I don't appear to be a dummy. On the bad side, I appear to be even more stupid than dummies. I opened the pattern hopefully, and started to read. Shortly thereafter, I became all "notches", "Sel?", "WTF!?!"



I would keep flipping to newer and more complicated descriptions of what to do.



I'm not sure if I'm meant to sew, people. This shit looks hard to do. I mean, I see a knitting pattern, and there is no panic (unless it includes putting in a zipper which is a matter of sewing). I open up a simple sewing pattern and I have a breakdown.

I tried to pull myself together, but I think it might actually be time to start buying some of the books I've wanted regarding sewing. Next paycheck, I'm going to plunk down some money on one of the more conversational ones. January, I'm going to get myself the Reader's Digest guide. I'm going to work through their stupid little projects too. I clearly need to.

Podcast Review Thursday

It's that time again! Review time for crafting podcasts.

Knit Picks Episode 73: Eh, it was a decent episode. At least it wasn't another damned interview! Kelley talked a lot about fair isle projects which doesn't really interest me. She also talked about how she doesn't like to be too organized with a "project interest" notebook because half the fun is in not being too organized, and she lost me with that. I'm the exact opposite of this woman, I think. It got better when she got to book reviews and her personal life knitting. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep with this podcast just due to the pure number of interviews she has and the fact that I don't care for her interviewing style.

Knitter's Wading Pool Episode 15: This was an interview with the author Maggie Sefton. Ms. Sefton writes some mystery books centered around a knitter/yarn store. I started to listen to the interview, but after ten minutes I lost all interest. I'll hope the next episode is more interesting to me.

Never Not Knitting Episode 9: As usual, Alana just discusses her experiences with yarn and has some stories about projects. Loved her discussion of how she shops because this is exactly how I shop. I also tend to pick up a bunch of stuff from the shelves, and then, slowly return them to the shelves after feeling guilty for picking them up, leaving a store empty-handed. I also got overwhelmed when I went to Rhinebeck and then I bought yarn because I felt I had to. I also never know what to do with gift certificates! Still love this podcast.

Manic Purl's Episode 18: BLAH! BLAH! It's all spinning all the time. I still love this podcaster, but I hate that everyone is so focused on spinning.

SockTart Episode 11: Knitting for Victory. This episode spent a lot of time discussing Rock Band and the latest World of Warcraft expansion. This is absolutely fascinating to me, but if she has trouble gathering a knitting audience, I would not be surprised. I'd be sad as well. Oddly, some of her comments about World War II sounded anti-United States, as did some of her comments about recent events. This is kind of disheartening. Can't you all just like us now that we voted Obama into office?

Welp, I'm giving Cast On another try and I plan to start at the beginning, so that'll take a long while. Anyone else have some recommendations for me to try? I'd also gladly welcome any sewing podcast recommendations.