YVR hat

Well, I'm back in Ottawa, (brrr! it is cold here! COLD. Like, I've been contemplating BUYING mittens. BUYING. How wrong is that?? I guess I know what I'm knitting myself next. Let's just hope I can hold out until after Christmas!) but I have another Vancouver knit to brag about. Look!

I saw something similar to this when I was walking the streets of Vancouver (only in white) and I decided to make it. This blue was the only yarn I had with me, so this is what I used. & I like it!

If I were to make it again I'd probably only do one cable and I'd make it bigger. 10 or 12 stitches wide rather than 8 stitches.

But all in all, pretty good for a random pattern completely made up. (We all know, I've had some disasters!) Now I just actually have to finish my other Christmas projects! It's looking unlikely that it's going to happen! But I still am hopeful.

Vancouver!

I love vacations. Sure. Who doesn't, right? It's a great time to get out and see new things and do things you wouldn't otherwise do. It is also a chance to do MORE of the things you already do. Just in a different location.

I've been in Vancouver/Seattle for the past week and have been having a freaking fabulous time! I think in the past week I've centupled (initupled?) my coffee intake. When in the Northwest and all... And thus I've learned that, yes, I still don't like coffee. Lattes, sure. As long as they have good flavour to them.

But I do still love chocolate. On Monday we went on the Theo Chocolate tour and it was SOOO worth the $6. I'm sure I ate at least that much, if not more in the samples.

And the chocolate was sooo good. So good in fact that that I think I bought like $50 worth of chocolate. (Christmas gifts. ... really... they're Christmas gifts.)

Plus, the tour was educational as well! If you are in Seattle, you have to go on this tour!

And although it has been a little rainy... I don't mind too much. It is Vancouver after all. That's why I brought a rain jacket!

Okay. But onto the point of this blog. This vacation has also given me the chance to finish a few knitting projects. Like my Hermione hat! (you know... the hat she's wearing in the graveyard scene) It didn't turn out great... but I like it.

This is another pattern that came from my head. Here's what I did:

CO 80 sitches.

Join and K1, P1 for 1 inch

Then repeat Row1-4 until it measures 6 inches. (Or longer if you want a longer hat)

R1: K1, P1 to end

R2: K to end

R3: P1, K1 to end

R4: K to end

Then... I wouldn't follow my decreasing method. It was very random. Just decrease as you normally would for a hat.

Being me, I'll probably make a better one. One that will hopefully look better once it's done. But for now it is my go to hat. (Every time I wear it I want to go see the movie again. What's better than that!?)

Re-sewn

Wow. I can't believe that it's already December! How did that happen? More importantly, how is it December, and I'm only done one of my many Christmas crafting. This might turn out to be ugly!

Unfortunately, I don't have a good excuse. But I do have a few random craft (among other things...) to show for my busy-ness. Like this hood-type-thing:

This one took me a whole, about 15 minutes. Okay. Maybe twenty. Because this hood is 100% reused. Even the i-cord. Even the button!

As you may recall, this isn't the first time I've tried to reuse an old sweater, but I do think it's the time it came out the best. (Okay. Almost anything would have turned out better than those other times! Those were some bad crafts that I don't think have ever been used in real life.)

For this hood, I took the sweater, but it at the seams and then along the top. I picked up the stitches and then sewed it. Voila! I'm planning to line it with fleece to make it warm enough for the winter.

Tassels

Can you guess where we are?

Yup! Just about to watch Deathly Hallows (Part 1). Look at all those lovely scarves!

(Note: I didn't make the Slytherin one. Richard bought his.)

But how nice that it's almost a perfect set! Once I make Adrian his Hufflepuff scarf it will be one of each! Oh... Well... once I do that and once I actually finish Corrie's scarf. Can you tell it's not done?? Yup. She was nice enough to wear it unfinished. (Really! I will finish it! Promise!)

But those are my first tassels! I've made pompoms before, but never a tassel. I like 'em! In fact, I think the make the scarf. Don't you?

Even with the half completed scarf it was an awesome fun time! Love, love, loved the movie. I can't wait to see the next one and get to dress up all over again. :)

Petit Lapins

It has arrived! The time when I start to show off what I'm making the kiddies for Christmas! Here's the first cardigan, made for my youngest niece:

You may recall that I made something ridiculously similar last year. ... Yeah. It's the same cardigan... only the lace patter is different this time. And the colour. And really? It's so cute on N and that I wanted to make one for M.

(PS - as you can see... I found my camera. It took me a LONG time with lots of looking... and I found so many other things while looking. My winter boots! {phew} Fifteen dollars. Some old CDs. ... but I finally found it. Where? you ask. ... you'll never guess. In the middle console on my car. You know... between the two seats? Whatever possessed me to put it there I'll never know. But at least it's been found!)

Oh where oh where has my camera gone?

So.... Yup. It's finally happened. My messiness and randomness has caught up with me and I have officially lost my camera. And by lost I really mean I put it somewhere and I have no idea where that place is, but it's somewhere and I haven't been able to find it, but it should turn up at some point in time. But until then it's anyone's guess where it is. Thus, for now, you'll just have to imagine all the cute things I've been knitting. Really. I have something to show. And once I get the camera back, I promise I'll post about them! Promise.

Hmm... Maybe I'll commandeer a camera tomorrow when I go a-visiting.

nanowri...snow?

Yup. It's happened. I'm not ready... but it happened.

This morning I woke up to SNOW. It's cold, it's wet and (in a way) it's beautiful. But it's still snow! And it's only October!! I mean, I knew when I moved to Ottawa that I wasn't going to have Bay Area weather anymore... but I'm not sure I realized just how EARLY I'd be dealing with snow. I haven't even unpacked my boots yet. I still have to find full on mittens. I only have my fingerless ones unpacked! Ahh.

But at least I have hats. An abundance of them it seems. Like this new one that came in useful this morning.

So this is a totally weird hat. I made it with more free yarn from my grandma. Thus... I didn't have enough for what I originally planned. I got more than halfway through and then ran out. So I frogged it back and made up the rest.

As you can see, it's a mixture of knit and crochet. Normally crochet sucks up yarn, but with the huge holes it actually worked out pretty well. Once I was just about out of yarn I switched back to knitting for decreasing along the top.

So there's my new it's snowing hat. Just in time for November and all of the snow that is forecast for this week. (Cause we are supposed to get MORE?!)

Speaking of November... It just happens to normally be one of my favourite months of the year! How could it not be when I'm in the middle of doing this awesome event? Seriously - if you've never tried it, you don't know what you are missing. This year will be even more super awesome because this fun lady and I are collaborating! I have a feeling it is going to be hilariously amazing.

I'm still going to post at points throughout the month. I have a few project that are near completion and I hope to get one up every Friday. (Or for some of you firday.) But based on recent history we'll see how that goes!

(And what do you think of the new banner? I love it. I didn't make it, but I still love it. And I'm still working on trying to make a better layout for the blog. Give me time. I am not good at artsy stuff... although I try.)

Halloween in Norway

When I saw the hat pattern for From Norway with Love, it's totally understandable why I wanted to make it. What isn't understandable is why I decided to make it with orange.

What is up with that? Isn't this the most obnoxious hat you ever did see?

So I will be keeping this one. I don't know who else would wear this! And to be fair, there are some good things about the ridiculous colour combinations. 1) Cars will be able to see me when I go running. 2) No one's going to steal it. 3) I have an orange hat just in time for Halloween.

But I liked the pattern enough that one day I just might make another one.

Orange

The trees are changing colour. There are butternut squashes on the table. The morning air has just enough of a nip that I want to wear a light scarf.

Fall is really here!

And that means it's time for me to bring out the sweaters! For the first time in seven years I'll get to actually wear fall and winter clothes. It's exciting! And exciting to finally pull this out:

I've been sitting on this sweater since the spring. (not literally sitting mind you... it's been in the closet) I was happy with it when I finished it back in May, but for some reason (the colour mainly) I thought it was better left until fall.
You may recognize the yarn from another project I made. Luckily I had enough to make this too. I really like it.

And now that fall is here, it's time for me to bust out some more I think!

Kleptomania

I can't explain it, but sometimes there are just projects that I *love* to knit. Sometimes they are the randomest things too. Some are easy. Some are hard. Some are because of the yarn. Some are because of who I'm going to give it to.

I just started one of those projects. I'm in love with it.

It's hard to explain why. I don't love the colour. (Free yarn from my Grandma. She gave me some of her stash last weekend because she can no longer knit. :( ) And I don't love the raglan increases, but I am in love with the image of the FO I have in my head. It's going to be so CUTE!

But really, I have no idea how this is going to turn out because this is another one of those patterns that I'm making up as I go along.

See... I have this problem. It's a stealing problem. Yes. When it comes to knitting I'm a kleptomaniac. I stole so many things for this sweater. I stole this lace pattern.

I saw the little bunnies in another pattern and thought - I should use that. So I am! I stole of the body from a sweater I gifted last year for Christmas. And I think I'm going to steal a few other ideas for the sleeves.

But that's how it goes with knitting. Isn't it? See something. Love it. Use it. Make it into something new. I just hope my stealing ways turn to profit, cause this could be one cute Christmas gift.

So it begins

So it begins. Christmas crafting!!

My list is smaller this year. Last year I decided to make every single person in my immediate family a hat for Christmas. The kiddies got cardigans. And my brother and his gf got mittens. It doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me. Ten hats, three cardigans and two sets of mitts (all different patterns) took me a long time!

This year? Well, I just don't have time to do all that. But I'm still going to make the kiddies their cardigans. I gotta! It's tradition! And if I'm lucky I've got a few other things I'd like to make and gift as well.

And this is the first one! Isn't this crochet hook the best? I don't know why, but I love love love how it says it's worth 10c. I have no idea which relative I inherited this specific hook from, but I love the fact it comes a different era. I wonder what this crochet hook made before it came to me. And I wonder what I'll make now that it's in my possession.

Only one way to find out. Keep crocheting!

Autumn!

Is anyone else out there wondering what happened to summer? I swear, two weeks ago I was wearing tank tops and shorts. Now? Today I had to look through my sweaters to figure out which one I wanted to wear! And last weekend it was so cold that I wore a toque on my run. (Seriously. I did. But maybe that's just cause 6 years in Cali made me a wimp...)

But I can't say I mind the cooler temperatures. I'm looking forward to fall! I haven't had a real fall in sooo long! I'm looking forward to the changing of the leaves. And fall veggies! (I already made pumpkin muffins this weekend!)

And! I'm looking forward to fall/winter wearing my wardrobe. Including new hats!

Like this one I crocheted over the weekend. I got the pattern from here. I've made a few of her hats. Not surprisingly this one was just as well written and understandable. I just had to make them into an adult size!

Those mods?

1) I did double crochets rather than half double crochets. (This was more by accident than on purpose, but I think it helped.)

2) I did an extra row of increasing for the crown of the hat.

3) I did 10 repeats of the shell pattern

(Another great thing about fall? I feel like I can spend all day curled up with a good book.)

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this hat. Now I just need it to drop one or two more degrees and I'll be wearing it all of the time.

For Grandma

I have an awesome Grandma. Seriously. I love her. She turned 95 this summer and she still lives on her own. Sure, she has help. She's never driven a car, so my aunt takes her to do groceries and other errands. But my Grandma still does all her other housekeeping tasks. She cooks for herself. Cleans. Gets up on chairs to get her good teacups down. (Giving all of US heart attacks meanwhile.)

So when I was knitting this dishcloth at my parents a while ago and my mom mentioned Grandma would love one, it wasn't a hard sell. I was doing it to use up the yarn anyways, and pretty much anything I can do for my Grandma, I'm there.

I mean, considering my knitting love probably does mainly stem from my afghan love - an afghan my grandma made me by the way. So, I kinda owe the woman my life and my love of knitting. Two very important things. Right?

Thus Grandma, next time I see you, expect this to be coming your way!

I gots me some AMAZING jam!

It's no secret that I love bread. Toast in particular is a favourite of mine. Well, the toast I had this morning for breakfast was the best I've had in a long while. Why? Cause it was topped with some *awesome* jam exchange jam!

Thank you Steve for sending me so much amazing looking jam! I think he even said most (all?) of the fruit comes out of his So-Cal backyard garden. How cool is that?

I love the jars and I love the labels! And they all look so tasty! I had a hard time trying to decide which one to open first!!

I mean, don't they all sound amazing?? Green Fig Preserves, Apple jelly, Mulberry & Cranberry and Ginger-Plum. Which one would you open first?

In the end, I went for the Ginger-Plum. I have a crazy love for ginger so that tipped the scales. And while I didn't find it overly ginger-y (Um... maybe because I could probably eat ginger raw...) I did *love* the taste of this jam. I immediately went back for seconds. :)

So thank you Steve for sending such amazing jam! I'm so happy we got paired up. I can't wait to try the rest. I'm sure they will be just as great!!

Dishcloths and Jam

Blog? Hunh? What's a blog? Wait, I have a blog??

Oh yeah. ... totally forgot about that one.

Just joking. But it's been so long since I've blogged that it feels like I've forgotten about it. I have the general excuses of being busy. (My go to excuse...) But so many things have been keeping me busy and not blogging. Things like CAMPING! So much fun!! :) Things like my garden. Things like soccer 4 nights a week most of the time. Things like having a TON of tiny homegrown pears to use up. (Well, grandma-grown pears.)

I used some of those pears to make jam:

The pear jam is the one on the left. Doesn't it look yummy? It is! I'm so proud of it!! It's cinnamon/ginger pear jam. And once I was done my mom took the spatula to the pot and cleaned out every last drop. She loved it too!

So the jam above is for the Steph Chows 2nd Annual Jam exchange. Yay! I love jam exchanges. :) I'm sending Pear jam, peach jam, blueberry jam and cucumber sula. (Cucumber Sula is a family recipe that makes a relish. I don't love it, but the rest of my family does...)

And I'm also sending two granny square dishcloths. Com'on. I can't not send something I knit.

Not the cutest thing ever, but I thought they were cute in the simple old-fashioned I-just-made-jam sort of a way. Right? Plus, SUPER simple to make. I'm still liking simple these days.

So hopefully my jam exchange buddy enjoys my jam. Can't wait to see what I get! :)

Easy is good

In case y'all hadn't noticed... I've kinda been in a crafting slump of late. That's why it took me a month to finish this bolero! I just haven't felt inspired to knit or craft recently. Maybe it's because it's SUMMER. Or maybe because I'm so busy with a super secret project. Or because I play soccer 3 times a week. Or perhaps it's because I'm turning !30! . Um... no. I don't think that last one is it...

What ever the reason, I figured I'd do the only sensible thing there is to do. Go back to basics.

Garter Stitch!

I decided to make some dishcloths. You can't get more easy than that! Good thing they are super cute!!

But be prepared to see a lot of simple little projects over the next little while. I'm hoping they will pump me up and inspire me to do more exciting stuff!

That's Hew to you

I'm finally done! This bolero/shrug thing has taken me a month, but it's worth it. I think I love it!

I made a few modifications that I'm not sure I'd do again. I slipped the first stitch at the start of every row on both the body and the collar. I thought on the body that would make it easier to pick up one stitch while adding the collar. It didn't really. For the collar I thought it would make the edge smoother and lie flat. The jury is still out on that one.

The thing I like the least about this sweater is my fault too. From reading other people's notes, I added 12 sts under the arms. Big mistake. The sweater is bulky there now and you can see the shirt underneath. See. -->

So next time I won't add so many stitches, and then I think it'll be perfect! Now I have to block it. But first I'm going to wear it.

Hew

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been BUSY! And it's summer... I don't feel like knitting all of the time. I know. GASP. Did I really just say that??

So what am I working on? Well, those socks are still on the go. And I started some arm warmers last weekend. And then I frogged them because they weren't turning out as I'd hoped. But I'm going to cast them back on. I promise I have a pattern in my head that is dying to be made.

I'm also working on this shrug/bolero thing:

I have been for almost a full month!! (I got the pattern from here.)

Thus far, I think I'm going to love it! In fact there's been at least three times when I've gotten dressed in the morning in the morning and totally wished that it was done so that I could wear it! I already have an outfit planned!

The only thing I don't like about this bolero? That I was too stupid to understand the pattern. It's a top down sweater. No problem there. I've made tons of those. But this one? There was just something about the pattern I didn't understand.

It was that you add on the collar AFTER you've knitted the rest. See how I'm knitting up the collar now, picking up one stitch on every RS row? Ingenious. But a note about that might have been nice.

But I'm so excited to get this one done. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I'll have a finished project to blog about. Finished project? Imagine that!

Summer weekend

Oh summer weekends!

They are the perfect time to visit friends, go for a long run, good talks, make jam, see a ridiculous movie, drink ice tea, eat outside, talk about future endeavours and so much more!

And based off of my Friday night drive, it's also the perfect time for high speed chases, resulting in very, very, very slow traffic.

And by slow traffic, I mean stopped. As in, I turned off my car and was standing at the side of the road for at least 30 min. So, tip for long drives: always have knitting close by! You never know when you'll get the opportunity to do a few rows. Yup. That's right. I stood knitting at the side of the road on Friday night. Needless to say I got one or two weird looks, but whatev. I thought it was a good use of my time!

Side note - don't knit while driving. I think the police might not like that very much...

But onto one of the things I made this weekend: raspberry jam!

Isn't it beautiful! And isn't that cute round jam adorable!? I want to eat it up! The jam and the jar.

I can't wait to try some for real.

Yay for summer weekends.

Too HOT

Well, summer is finally here. Sure summer officially starts on June 21, but it wasn't until this past week that I felt like it was really SUMMER. Why? Lots of reasons, but the biggest one? The Heat wave! It was HOT this past week. Too hot to sleep hot. Dare I say it? Too hot to knit hot!

So since I haven't crafted anything in a while, I thought I'd show what it hasn't been too hot for.

My parent's garden:

Isn't it beautiful??

With all this heat and a few rain showers here and there it's starting to produce like crazy. I don't think that mere words can describe my excitement about eating all of the produce. We already have beans, peas, spinach, lettuce, green onions, green tomatoes, and my favourite:

Raspberries!

And yes, they are as yummy as they look. I taste tested about 100 yesterday just to make sure. Guess who will be making raspberry jam soon!

I love summer! Hope you are enjoying it too.

Just Cause

Do you ever find yourself doing something... and you don't know why? Like playing hours upon hours of free cell? Or what is that other game called? Bejeweled? I'd like to say I'm one of those people who cleans the kitchen when it's already clean. I'm not. But sometimes I do do things just cause... Mainly knitting. Like this!

But what is up with this hat? It's kinda ugly... Why did I make it? I don't know. I don't need another hat. Especially not in these colours.

In this case, the only reason I made this hat was because I wanted to be knitting. My fingers wanted to do the action, my mind wanted the getaway that knitting (when I don't have to follow a pattern) provides. So randomly looking through my stash I saw this lone ball of yarn and somehow it just made sense to make a simple hat. The pattern, yo and all, came from my head and what I remembered from the multitude of other hats I've made.
Simple!

What am I going to do with it? Probably not wear it... Or at least I won't wear it that often. But that's okay... Sometimes you just do something, to do it.

Little projects

Having just finished a pretty freaking huge project, I'll be honest with ya... I haven't really been in the mood to craft these past week. There's just been other things to do. Like pick strawberries and make jam! And finally get out for a bike ride. And hang out with my brother. And read a book or two.

Even so, it didn't take that long for my fingers to start itching to knit. Like a marathoner needing to run, my fingers felt like they were getting lazy. I decided to compromise. I didn't want to start another big project, so I decided to make a little one. One that I could start and finish well within the time frame of a World Cup soccer game.

With this little key cozy, that was easy!

I've had this pattern in my ravelry queue for months now. (pattern from here.) And now I finally got around to doing it. It was fun, and fit the key to my parent's house without any mods required. Super fun! Too bad I don't have other keys that need colour coding, cause I would definitely make this pattern again.

Wedding gift! A QUILT!

As you should probably realize by now, I'm all about giving people homemade gifts! Christmas, weddings, babies, birthdays and unbirthdays too! Really, any day is a good day for a homemade gift. But special occasions are more fun!

So when I got the invite to this very awesome girl's wedding, I knew I was going to have to make her something pretty special! Really special!

So since a friend of mine has been offering to teach me how to quilt, I figured this was a great time to learn how! And I have to say it turned out pretty nice for a first quilt!

I have to say right off that quilting is very, very different from knitting. It requires a whole other set of skills. I knew from the very first task that I was WAY out of my element.

When knitting the first thing you do is choose a pattern and the yarn. Similarly you have to choose a pattern and material. Only when choosing material there is now colour matching, minor colour coordinating, pattern matching and material placement. Let's just say it's a good think I had help and guidance on this step - and every single step - of the process!

Translation: Any part that is perfect, was probably the part my friend made. What isn't so perfect (like how I went through all of the layers a few times when I was hand stitching the border... Oops!) was done by me.

Because there are still some sewing that allude me. For example:

Does this look like an excessive amount of pins to you?

It probably would have to me the first block that I quilted... but it was HARD to get the two layers to lay flat enough so that they could be quilted together.

The pinning is probably what was the hardest and what took the longest. I backed it in a fleece that was warm and fuzzy, making perfect for the new spouses to curl up under in the winter and watch some tv. ... It also make it fussy to work with.

But it was worth it. And I'm pretty proud of the quilt. In fact, I love it! (I especially love the polka dot material!)

So, to end: Congrats Steph and John! All the best in your life together!!

(In case you are interested, I got the basic pattern for this quilt from here.)