Sad Story

I have decided to not keep this blog up and running any longer. I feel like I’m doing everything twice since I use Ravelry also. Please keep up with me there if you so choose, I am moving such efforts to first passions and leaving my knitting on Ravelry. My username there is the same CoveredInYarn look me up and be my friend there.

Love you all,

Carrie

Where Do I Keep Going?

Good question…I’m not sure myself.

I’m working a lot and knitting some. I’ve finished a few projects, started a few projects, and ripped a few projects since my last entry.

Someday I will write on here more faithfully. Just letting you know that I’m still here and I will post soon, promise!!!

Boobless in Blood

Wow that sounds like a graphic and scary title.

Boobless would be more or less the project that I’ve been working on. It’s called the Boobholder, only I have no boobs so to speak so on ravelry I called it “If I Had Boobs.” I am pleased overall with how it came out. There is an odd place where there is pulling in the photos, this is where I put an extra snap to secure the fabric, however after seeing the photos I saw that this was both unattractive and unnecessary.

So it doesn’t do that anymore. I used Blue Sky Organic Cotton and I believe that I’m in love. It was a pure dream to work with and the stitch definition is beyond beautiful. I have enough left that I’m going to make fingerless mitts to match and put matching buttons on the side, I’m super excited. I may not start that until later in the year, there will be little need for now, but I do love the way that the sweater turned out.

For now I am back to working on Juliet…I think anyway. Who knows what will be my way soon.

As for the blood, I have finished all three of the Twilight Saga’s thus far, and I am beside myself for Breaking Dawn to come out in about two weeks. I love these books so much. I would however like to say to those of you who are “Team Jacob” that there should not be a team Jacob, that you are all dillusional. No offense of course but I am Coven all the way. Jacob doesn’t, nor should he have a shot in Hell. Just IMO! Haha, can you tell that I feel quite passionately about this? Some of my personal friends are split too and I tell them jus the same thing. However, I suppose if Bella wants Jacob I’d be more than happy to take Edward off of her hands, no questions asked! Hahahahaha!

Ok, enough of that, those of you who haven’t dealved into that realm of geekdom are now going to be both bored and worried about my mental well being. I’m fine, really!

Little Obsessions

I have been knitting, some of my projects right now are a secret so I’m not sharing much…sorry kids.

However, one of the greatest reasons for my silence is my new book obsession. I have just been introduced to my new favorite series. These are the Twilight Saga’s by Stephenie Meyer. I am in love! With a vampire none the less. I am through Twilight and New Moon and just started Eclipes this morning, the new book Breaking Dawn comes out August 4th and I am completely beside myself. I believe the fourth to be the last book from Bella’s perspective. I crave to read however I will be desperately sad when it is all over, and much more so than I have been for any other series. I am obsessive. I know it’s silly for a grown woman to feel this way, but it’s true, I can’t deny it. Secretly, or not so secretly anymore, I long to be bitten!

Spin me right round…

I must begin by sharing that I was going to imbed the video for “Spin Me Round” but it scared me a little and I didn’t want to shoo you away! So…go youtube it and thank me later!

Now…I FINISHED THE BABY BLANKET!!!!

Project: Pinwheel Baby Blanket
Yarn: Lion Brand Organic Cotton
Amount Used: 7 balls

Color: Green, Brown, Baby Blue
Needle Size: 10
Time: One week and one hour

Notes: Very fun knit, quick. Great for time mgt.

Knit on!

The Sigh and the Slouch

I have finally finished another project!

I suppose that this is the part that I’m expected to apologize yet again for my absence in writing, but quite frankly no one wants to read: “Dear Blog, I knitted two rounds today, sorry you can’t tell that I’ve made any progress. The end.” So I’m going to skip that garbage and just say, I’ll update you to new movements. I’m moving newly, so here I am.

The Rebecca sweater is FINISHED!

Project: Cropped Sweater, Rebecca Magazine
Yarn: Elzabeth Llavold Cotton Patine
Amount Used: 6.75 Balls

Color: Maroon
Needle Size: 6
Time: Two Months

Notes: This is a highly altered version of the pattern. I made it to fit how I thought it would best stuite me, now that I’m wearing it there are a few other minor changes that I would make, but I still love love love it!

So as I sat on my couch for seemingly hours soaking up the seasons of Sex and the City as if they were the meat and potatoes of my life seaming my sweater when it was finally over I did that thing that I firmly believe that all good knitters do at the end of a big project:
1. I held it up and looked at it proudly.
2. Threw it and the needles back in my lap.
3. Sighed a HUGE sigh of relief.
4. Leaned my head against the back of the couch soaking up the previous moments.
5. Sat up jarred and proclaimed loudly “What’s next?!”

The answer was looming over my head, it had been for months, five months to be exact. Though I walked into the other room, printed off the Juliet pattern and wound three hanks of Malabrigo and begin casting on, I knew that I was cheating…again…
The husband caught me and scolded me. I had promised to knit a baby blanket for someone that i didn’t know. They are paying me of course, but still, the idea of a knit baby blanket sort of seemed to dig at my core. After a day on ravelry and hours walking around AC Moore I saddled up, bought the organic cotton yarn and cast on. In less than a week I am nearly done with the blanket that I thought was going to be hell. And I’m loving it! If the parents don’t like it I’ll keep it! It’s groovy! It’s perfect! I choose the pinwheel pattern and was inspired by a blanket that resembled a beach umbrella and then I just used some colors that were fitting for a growing baby boy. Here’s what I’ve got!

I’m thinking that in the end it’ll be about three and half feet in diameter. It seems to be a fairly good size for a baby. Three strips in the green and three in the brown since three is the perfect number. I think it’s so cute and I should be done and sighing on my couch in the next few days…if work doesn’t kill me first that is.

Side note, I got a job as a barista at Starbucks, not glamerous, but challanging enough, and I’m to be put on management track, so I’m not horrified. Anyway, they seem to like to suddenly schedule me for a lot of 5am shifts! Hooray! Because I love mornings (um…yeah…no)! Oh well, guess I’ll learn!

Anyway, that’s not what this is about. Until the next sigh of relief…knit on!

Improptu and the Art or Trend of Knitting

I have lots of photos to share today! Yippee, unfortunate for you, you must muddle through a lot of words also because I also have a lot to say.

I’ll begin with my rant of the day. Knitting has or perhaps had, become quite popular, we watch the resurgence with excitement, a glimmer in the eye of the fiber arts community, finally there would be recognition of our form. Knitting books were popping up on every corner end cap in every store all over the country, and books with stylish patterns tantalized the eyes of even the most fashion backward knitter. In bus stations, in airports, in doctors offices all over the world you could see people young and old stitching away at the latest pattern. Me, though I am “trendy” with some things, I am quite steadfast in others, this is my art, this is my yoga, this is my rebellion. When a new book came out last month I was of course out of the starting gate ahead of that pack to get to the local book store on that Tuesday to check it out, could it be added to my drool-but-not-buy-list? However when I got to the book store it was nowhere to be found. I stood stone still in-front of the book shelves that once overflowed with all of the newest and best knitting books to find them spread apart and lacking in title and excitement. Irritated my friend and I rushed to yet another store, only to find it the same way. The once floor to ceiling racks of knitting books barely took up floor to mid-waist. I stood staring, mouth agape, a tear trickling down my cheek. What has happened? Have we the faithful to suffer for the indifference of those who no longer consider knitting “trendy,” must we all be forced to look at ten books full of nothing but 101 scarves because that is all that “they” can knit. *screaming* IT’S STRAIGHT KNIT PEOPLE, IT’S NOT THAT FRIGGIN’ HARD!!! Had only I thought of publishing a book for five thousand of the same scarf in different colors, I’d be rich. But now I stand unable to get my greedy hands on a new book, I NEED THEM…I NEED new patterns…they are my crack and I must suffer because there is a newer and perhaps easier drug out there, puff painting perhaps.

On that note, to show my knitting failures at long last. First we have the giant yamaka, the color I am still quite captivated by, but it doesn’t make the bloody thing fit, unfortunately , so now it just stares at me from my basket of unwanted projects. This basket floats quietly next to the Island of Misfit Toys. Maybe one day I’ll actually rip it out and try to start over, until then I’ll let it fraternize with Rudloph and that kid in the green hat with the poof ball, maybe this will fit him….HEY KID!

Next we have the TERRIBLE attempt at the Juliet pattern. This would be what yarn vomit looks like…what not to knit…a garment out of this garbage….I now have $100 worth of this lovely Colenette Prism if anyone is interested in a trade or I’ll sell it to you for half price since two balls are already wound!

This would be when the sweater finally started looking better…unwound…get that garbage off my needles. There is my pile of yarn puke! A shame really…

In keeping with my disasters I felt that I could use a bit of an unravel last week. So I went and got my hair cut. Very exciting, it was fairly longish and I needed a dramatic change. I was so happy with it, I still am. I LOVE IT. Here are a few photos of that. (per mother’s request)

As for knitting successes, I do have a few. Yay! I have been working away at the Rebecca “crop” sweater of which is be anything but cropped on me. The original alteration as seen below was elongated, mine will be elongated even further. I like the look of long lines to make the body appear longer, being that I’m a slight woman, this is good for me. I am using Elsebeth Llavold Cotton Patine and I am absolutely smitten. Here’s what I’ve got so far. A lot of this has been knit on the road this weekend. Jonathan and I took an improptu trip to Florida on Sunday and came back just a few hours ago. We went down to visit his grandmother and then went on to Destin for the night. AND being a good little knitter I also looked up the local yarn shops. The one that I went to Unwind in Ft. Walton Beach was about the cutest with the best curb appeal that I’ve seen by a yarn shop in a long while. We were driving through on Sunday and I spotted it…my yarn dar was going nuts. I started clapping my hand excitedly and squeeling about how beautiful it was. Jonathan rolled his eyes and slowed down so I could eye rape the yarn in the window. I could almost smell it. The other shop in Destin didn’t have an address written but we found it by accident at 11pm next to mattress warehouse…the big red sign in the dark red “Destin Mattresses” and right netx door “Yarn Shop,” this made me giggle a bit as a thought of me wallowing on a mattress naked with Malabrigo flashed in my head, but my actual desire to go there was very little. I wanted to get a good photo of Unwind, but my camera batteries were dead by the time that we go there :(. I did however get three skeins of Malabrigo in colorway Applewood, it’s an interesting color, but it’s Malabrigo, and you guys know my vice. And I suppose that there is no trip to the beach complete without beach photos. So here are two of the better ones…unfortunately I had handed over the camera to the husband and requested “cute photos of me” I came back with about a dozen of nothing but my butt and me making strange faces.

The Spiritual Business of Knitting

Yes yes, it’s the jargin again. How spiritual knitting can be, pull out your yoga mat that has collected dust in the corner and sit cross legged knitting away allowing the knitting gods to impress themselves upon you, no really, do it!  Kidding of course. But I will say that breeding the perfect pattern with the perfect yarn can be a spiritual business. I seem to have had a multi-week bad knitting joo-joo kind of experiences **looks to the yoga mat sitting idol in the corner and wonders**.

My Juliet got frogged last night because I had much higher hopes for the yarn that I chose than should have ever actually been there. Colinette or not, $25 hanks or not, the yarn was bad and that pattern got lost, and really had my cat thrown up on the thing it probably would have looked much improved. So I am now going on two days without a knitting project! I have yarn porn spread to the four corners of my house threatening to overtake the couch and beginning feeding from the dog bowl and still I sit uninspired. **looks over at stash waiting for something to happen** I did however hear a sweet lullaby kind of sound coming from one corner of the cabinet, a color inspired by fair skin and vibrant eyes, something made just for me, bought with purpose and ambition…I looked over my ravelry, my queue of 100 projects and none that entice me, except maybe, that one…no I could just cast on Juliet again in some malabrigo…it’s calling…I can’t deny it. It must be done. It’s another Rebecca pattern **gasp come from the knitting muse that sits on my shoulder** “didn’t you swear them off” she whispers, **I flick her from my shoulder and she lands safely in a vat of Elzabeth Llvold Silky Wool**. It must be done, it can’t be denyed, it’s so adorable. The weather is getting warmer and something like that would be brilliant. I believe I have bread it…I will cast on tomorrow and we will see….Come to Mama!

Sweater Woe’s

Sweater woe’s…we all have them…some of us are just lucky and get to experience that character building phenomena more than others. *turns head to the heavens nodding* Thank you great sweater gods!

I decided to buckle down and knit. I was going to get at least the front portion of the Garn Studio sweater off of my needles if it killed me. It had turned up significantly warmer down here so I had the intentions of finishing this part up, put it in a plastic bag, and setting it aside for a day when there was a crispness to the air again (go figure that’s today, but who’s counting?). My skein was in my knitting bag as I sat cross-legged on the couch knitting away while watching one of those corny Family Channel movies that are slightly reminiscent of Lifetime movies, only minus the crazy man trying to kill you. You may have seen the one with the chubby girl from Hairspray and Fran Drecher, I think it’s called Beautiful, or something cliche like that. Anyway, I’m sitting there all engulfed in the movie knowing that no matter what the girl is going to be true to herself, wear something heinous, and still place in the beauty contest (thank you family channel for warping reality, you are now responsible for some teenage chubster getting her heart broken in a beauty contest)…Anyway, I was knitting…I notice as I’m excitedly coming to a bindoff point (and the movie’s climax) that something feels very light from inside my bag, I look down and my ball is nearly gone. Oh dear. I have one skein left…183 yards to do two 3/4 sleeves and finish up the collar…not going to happen. Now I’m a faith knitter, you all know that…but really? So…I have to call the yarn shop…Oh…I’ll do that right now…I’m on hold…Yarnergency…AND THERE IS NONE LEFT!!!! It’s ok…I’ll make this work.

Anyway…my other exciting disaster is the accidental giant yamaka that I knitted. My friend and I have not been referring to this blunder in quite so politically correct terms, and I took a photo but it’s so sad that I’m ashamed to show it. I did the Koolhaus again, this time for me, in this beautiful Sapphire and Red kettle dyed. Apparently I got a little excited and forgot the last repeat. When I got done and attempted to plop it on my head it popped right off…that’s saying something…I have a small head. So…if you happen to know a largish man with the need for a cold weather yamaka, I have a rather lovely one for him. Several tears have been shed over it…I loved that yarn…

So…my new project is the Juliet. We’ll see how that goes. I’m using Colinette Prism so it’ll be interesting. Perhaps you’ll get some pictures once there’s more than an inch done and no disasters to speak of. So far so good.

I’m here…really I am…

I’ve been a terribly blogger…really I’ve been a terrible knitter. Knitting has been happening only I haven’t been committed to any one project, so nothing seems to get done…I did finish yet another Kool Haus today. I love that pattern…this hat I’ve yet to decide which part of the world it’s going to. It was initially for a friend of mine in Canada, but I may send it to Germany instead and do the same pattern…yes again…in a blue for my friend in Canada. It’s in autumn colors so I deemed the name “Falling for Canada” so for the purpose of the shots, it will remain that, until I decide to change the name “Falling for Germany” haha.

Project: Koolhaas, Holiday Interweave 2007
Yarn: Araucania Magallanes
Amount Used: .5 skeins
Color: Autumn Love
Needle Size: 8
Time: Too Long
Notes: “Falling for…fill in the blank with location” The color takes away from the pattern too much, but what have you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok so here’s the Cabled Rangoli that I did forever ago too.

I wasn’t all about it, which is why I’ve neither worn it nor shared it. It’s done in Noro which is lovely in and of itself, but this hat doesn’t look that great on me. Sadly.

 

 

 

 

The boy’s sweater is done and he has worn it, but he refuses to let me snap a photo. So oh well. You got one of the sweater by itself, sadly that’s all you get.

I’ve been working also on 103-1 Jacket in Eskimo or Silke-Alpaca with A-shape by DROPS design. I’ve got the back and nearly both of the fronts done, however the weather is warming up significantly so I’ve been slow about it since I won’t be able to wear it until next year anyway. But here’s a sneak peak.

I’m going to make a modification to the collar if I have enough yarn, right now, as it usually is with me, that would be the ultimate question…do I have enough? Haha! I live on the edge!

 And yes, in February Stephanie and I went to Birmingham to the LYS’s there. My report, go to In the Making, hear the angel’s sing as you walk through the door, and go no further. In fact, if you can hide in one of the bins and just take up general residence there until someone notices. Here’s what I got.

I had to have multiple pictures of the Malabrigo, it makes me squee with joy.

 In the long run the most beautiful aqua Malabrigo that Stephanie bought ended up being for me for my birthday. Here it is. I’m not sure what I can do with two balls, but it’s going to be kickin’ when I figure it out.

That’s about all that I’ve been up to. I’ve cast on the Juliet, but I’m not sure if that yarn’s gonna cut it for the pattern, so I don’t care to share that quite yet.

Also if you like Indie Rock/Folk music you should check out Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Hat” it’s about knitting a hat, it’s awesome.