Archive for the ‘Scouts Swag Club’ Category

Let’s get it started!

I’m psyched out for this year! Is it too early to start talking about Stitches West 2009? This will be my 2nd visit and I can’t wait, I tell you, I can’t! All the wooly goodness makes me super-uber happy! I have alot of sharing to do, and geez, just don’t know where to start? So excuse me if I’m all over the place

Since I’m talking about Stitches West, last year I saw Jennifer Hansen from Stitch Diva Studios there demonstrating her stash busting Tunisian blanket, which was totally gorgeous! I quickly bought the Jenkin’s Tunisian Crochet hook in S with a stopper, thankfully, her blanket was such a hit that Jenkin’s has these on back order still because of demand. After Stitches I went to a knit along for this blanket at Knitting Arts and started my blanket. I worked on it and found the method very easy and great “mindless” crocheting, or a cross between crocheting and knitting. I finally finished this, and am so proud of it. I love it so much. There are 9 different yarns in this, including Alpaca silk! It’s so soft, and warm, this is fast to make if you actually spend the time working it, for me I put it away and finally decided to bring it out again.

I’ve been steadily knitting along on my Tech Square Afghan blanket, and finally, oh finally finished my Pocket Square! There are 3 pockets to it, a Kangaroo, Ribbed, and Pouch pocket. All are different methods and pretty darn interesting. I went on faith when following the directions, and thankfully the designer didn’t fail.

In the middle is the Kangaroo pocket, method is fairly simple, you knit the center stitches to the desired length of the pocket, while leaving the sides on waste yarn, when your ready to knit the back of the pocket, you start knitting the live stitches on the waste yarn and when you get to the pocket front, pick up stitches in the back of it, in a straight line then continue knitting the remaining live stitches on yarn, and when you reach the same length of the front pocket, you use 2 needles, one for the back stitches and one for the front pocket stitches and knit the front and back stitches together, creating one seam stitch. Here’s a close up:

This is the Pouch Pocket, the angle is looking at the inside or opening, that is lined with Red yarn. To start it off you take waste yarn and knit 2 rows of X amount of stitches you want for your pocket width, and then continue re-knitting the same stitches of waste yarn with the working yarn, and continue on your piece. When your ready to work the pocket, you remove the waste yarn, leaving 2 rows of live stitches, top and bottom row. You take these stitches and knit in the round, picking up a stitch at the corners to close the gap, and knit for however deep you want your pocket. You knit in stockinette so when you push the pocket inwards, it’s knitted inside.

This is the back of the square:

The last pocket is a Ribbed square, you do a YO every other knit stitch, and then the next row you knit the knit stitches and transfer the YO’s to waste yarn. When your’ve ready to knit the back of the pocket, you knit the YO’s thru the back stitch, knit tightly, and keep going until you’ve reached the ribbing. You then seam up the sides.

Opening of pocket:

Out of all 3 pockets, all methods are pretty interesting, I like the Pouch pocket for being a loose change pocket, you really can’t loose anything in it, the Ribbed one is nice, but you need to seam nicely, and the Kangaroo I love, very pretty and so many designs you can incorporate with it, I just don’t care for picking up stitches on the purl bump side. I was so happy to finish this square, it had be hibernating for awhile because I was knitting other things or got stuck in the holidays.

I quicky cast on for my next square, the Entrelac square. I’ve made leaps of progress with this, almost done, but need to buy more yarn. It has 2 of my fave colors, green and red, oh my! I’ve never done Entrelac before, this is my first attempt, and I admit when I was first looking at the instructions, I was like, WTF, but mainly because the picture was far more confusing then the actual method. Anyways, I followed the instructions like a good little knitter, and sure as day, was speeding along in no time. This is why I love this project, you get something of everything and your smack ready for a real garment, like a sweater, or vest.

I’m loving the color combo, my hubby picked the 2 to go with out of my entire color scheme. So far these are all the squares I have done, the Entrelac is not shown yet cause it’s not yet finished.

From a previous post, I never got the chance to post a picture of the Dayflower gloves I knitted for my daughter for Christmas, here’s her pose (note she wouldn’t let me show her face, kids??!??)

This is yarn scrumptous!

I also participated in a Christmas Stocking Swap with Yarnwhisperer on Ravelry for the Death By Socks group. All the members thought it would be nice to knit a stocking, no competition, but a way of knitting something nice for someone else.

Here’s the stocking I sent her:

And here’s the goodies and stocking she sent me:

I love the stocking, good color choice, and I love the Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn! All the goodies she sent, plus the lovely magnets and ornament.

Oooh.. and last, but not least, I received my Scout’s Swag shipment, “Red Pear Tweed”, I’m loving this color! Great for the upcoming Valentines day!

Phew! Sorry for the long post, but gosh I just needed to share all this, I have more, but I’ll spare you and save it for another post.

R

Back to normal

My site is now back to normal, Halloween is officially over 8( As much as I love this time of year, it makes me sad sometimes because it goes by so fast. At least Thanksgiving comes late this year, so it gives us more time!

I have updates on my Traveling Scarve’s groups.

First up, Group 37 Noro Knit & Crochet combo, I decided to just knit this time, as opposed to crocheting. The stitch pattern I went with is “Mock Cable” pattern. You can’t really tell that much from the pictures, but it looks like cables but is really a combo Knits & Purls. The color transitioning is just beautiful, but too bad the pattern doesn’t show up much.

This is going in the mail, either today or tomorrow at the latest. The scarf’s owner is “Trustcrazyideas” on Ravelry.

Here’s a full view of the scarf so far:

It’s coming out very pretty! My contribution is on the far right end.

Onto the Traveling Scarves Group 25 Significant Others, this piece is knitted, only knitting allowed in this group. I went with the “Broken Rib” stitch, which doesn’t pull like regular ribbing. I strung balls of Koigu together to get the right weight. The scarf’s owner is “Lizabee” and her SO obviously likes greens, one of my fave colors. I was going to wind one of my greenie yarns, but I remembered I had 2 balls of Koigu from a previous project and thought, why not string together? Worked out perfect! I love the various tones of green? Don’t you??? This too will go to the post no later than tomorrow!

Here’s a full view:

That’s my contribution on the end of the far right. I really love this scarf!

I still have 2 more separate scarf’s to make, and then I’ll be “scarf less” for a bit, at least until the next section comes.

For some updates, I’ve been searching around for some reasonably priced tweed yarn to buy for my Central Park Hoodie I want to make, and have been unsuccessful. Is it too much to ask for a reasonably priced luscious soft green or brown tweed yarn??? Is it? For now I’m still searching and its upsetting me because I really want to get this one started. Hopefully by next week I’ll have found what I need. Soon I’ll have some snapshots of a seedling CPH!

A goodie for you, I received my latest shipment from my Scout’s Swag Sock Club, I give you “De Young”:

Happy Wednesday!

A Good Weekend Part DOS

Onto my other adventures from last weekend. I’ve been doing alot of reading and thinking about really getting into the dyeing arena, and I finally got the nerve up to dye one skein. *Baby Steps*
I kept lamenting over what color combination’s to use, so I ended up choosing 2 colors that are very close in color but the color tone is different and one real vibrant color.

Here’s how the skein came out (It’s self-striping):

I really love the rich vibrant blue, as I was putting the dye on, I just knew it was going to be a real pretty blue. The darker brown I was totally satisfied with, it has a nice deep tone to it. Now the other shade of brown, I was somewhat nervous about. I wasn’t sure how it would look once the dye was done setting in, but I’m just so happy with how it turned out.

Look at these colors, I just love them, it gives me the energy and excitement to forge ahead more with dyeing. Not sure if I should give it a name, guess “Blueberry Cake”???? In fact I have a good amount of BFL & Merino just waiting to be dyed.

Some other GREAT presents that showed up at my doorstep this past weekend was my “Hello Kitty” kit from Woolgirl.

Look at all these goodies!

I love these colors, so pretty & vibrant.

A Hello Kitty Stitch Marker! & WIP bag!

Plus I got the latest installment from Scout’s Swag Club, it is POSA!

And for Sundara’s Season’s Yarn Club. Both are lace, and OMG gorgeous! I’m in love with Mahogany Over Marmalade.

Honey Over Hibiscus

Last but not least, I ordered the Custom Knits book. Don’t you just love that green vest on the bottom left?

Photo courtesy of Scout

Look at this, isn’t is pretty? I would really love to make this, perfect for the upcoming Winter season.

Have a good weekend everyone