Saturday, December 4, 2010

Fun with Alpaca

Cable Hat

I have wanted to try a few new different types of yarn other than the usual wool and cotton I have been using lately. 

When I had birthday money to spend in September I bought some wonderful Alpaca for a hat for myself and some Alpaca silk blend for a scarf for my friend.  The hat is a wonderful cable pattern I especially like the view from the top it looks like a star.  I finished this last week just in time for our very early snow.  It was so nice to have a warm hat to wear in the morning.  Now all that wonderful snow is melting and I am wishing it would snow again so I can continue to wear my hat without looking out of season.

Wedge Vertical Stripe Scarf
The scarf for my friend was a scarf pattern she picked out from Knitting New Scarves
It was a bit of a challenge because it was a wedge and had to work short rows that I am not familiar with and she wanted it a bit longer and I had to do math (not my strong suit).  I do think it turned out alright and she loved it so that is all that matters.

What kind of things are you working during all this cold weather?
~B

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Sock Knitting.... and other updates

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Back in January I said that by the end of the year I would make 22 pairs of socks or die trying.  The time has come and my last birthday is is coming up at the end of December.  Did I make it?  Do I still have the use of my fingers?  Was I crazy to try and attempt it?  Will I ever do it again?

I am sitting here typing so I did not die and since I am also able to type I do still have the use of my fingers. Am I crazy well that is still to be determined even though my hubby says I was crazy a long time ago.  I will never do that again!  I promise you that.  If I do something similar it will be for just one side of the family at a time not both sides.  I did finish although a few people in the 3 months of hell did get their socks a week late they were still happy to get them later.  It was the most terrible thing I could think of to go to a birthday party without a present and just a card and a promise to give them their gift next week.  The other sad part is our back-up hard drive crashed and burned and I lost over half of the pictures of the socks so I only have a handful of pictures to show for all my hard work.   It is done and not need to dwell on it.

Doctor Who Scarf FinishedMy next obsession has been Doctor Who.  Our friends told us to start watching the new series and man I am hooked!  I have started to watch all of the old ones one by one and reading about the ones that the episodes were lost.  I have gone nuts for a Sci-Fi show and I never go nuts over Sci-Fi shows I really could take them or leave them but something about this show makes me crazy for it.

So crazy that when a friend asked me to make him a Doctor Who Scarf I quickly said yes without realizing it is a huge scarf and so crazy big it is not even funny.  Luckily he asked for a Season 14 scarf and that is the shortest scarf there is.  I was able to finish it is in 16 days I was quite surprised but once I got started I had to finish it was lots of fun with all of the color changes. To give you an idea how big this scarf is he is 6'1".

Doctor who Season 12Now before I made this scarf for a friend I asked Brian 3 separate times if he wanted a scarf he defiantly said no three times.  With that I felt confident to start making a scarf for our friend and as I progressed Brian kept looking longingly at the scarf and saying how cool the scarf was how he would like one and why was I not making him one. 

I was like really you told me no three times... He sheepishly said no I never said that and he knows I was right.  I told him I already promised this one so he would get the next one.  So after I finished the first scarf at the end of September I went right in to work on this scarf.  This scarf took a bit longer because I actually started on it and figured out I would not have enough yarn so I had to order more which would not be a problem except that two colors were discontinued.  I am like really I have already started and knit a huge chunk.  To make this long story a bit shorter I had to pull out all that I started because I needed to get a different color for the tan and then I went about to start again.  This one is a Season 12 the original scarf and longer than Season 14.  Brian is 6'4" so you can see how much longer it is.  The real crazy thing is that I plan to make two more.  One for our Friends Wife (my best friend) and myself. 

See me being crazy is still to be decided.  That is just a small amount of what I have been up to since my break.  I will write a bit more once I get the pictures uploaded.  Oh I also got a new scanner so I should have more patterns to scan soon.

What have you been up to this fall?
~B