Felted Bag, Afghans, More Sewing...

The end of the month is quickly approaching. I've gotten quite a bit of knitting done, but I've also been sidelined the last few days due to dental surgery. I got several old fillings replaced, which requires them to cut away part of my gums so they can go underneath of the gum level with the filling, etc.. mainly, it's gross, bloody and painful. I've just been taking a lot of extra strength tylenol and trying to sleep a lot. Which, you can imagine, cuts into my knitting time a considerable amount. This is in addition to my normal, end of the month stress levels due to work.. and ugh.. nothing is getting done around here. Anyway! I finished another afghan square, my first ever felted bag (oooo) and did some more sewing.

This is the pre-felted bag, done with a pattern named "Angela's Fabulous Felted Bag". It suggested using 600yds of a super bulky yarn, but I used some Cascade 220 I had, one skein in "highland green" and one in "oyster". I ended up using almost every bit of the green, but had about 50 or so yards left of the oyster. Overall I used about 375-380 yds for this project. I have since felted it, but, it needs to be refelted this weekend, since I only apparently felted 3/4 of it. Ugh. Will repost once it's done, because it really needs its own entry.

Another afghan square, the blue is really a lot deeper, but, meh. I finished it at like 10pm and wanted to just take a photo. This was about 80 yds.

And look, more sewing! I made two of these little DPN holders (in addition to 4 bags with the same material), and I'd like to make 1-2 more. They're really cute and convenient, and as the collection of my sock size dpns is growing, I'm running out of room in the big holder for it all.

I'm going to try to finish up my second Crosswalker sock by the end of the weekend, and if I focus, that will be easily done. I'm casting on tonight, wish me luck with that :-p. With my current projects finished, I have used 900yds in March, bringing my YTD total to 3200yds.

Sewing

I made some knitting project bags last night. I've been itching to sew lately, just too lazy to do it. I love how they turned out, and I love the fabric (bought off the remnant table at JoAnn). So while I'm still knitting my to-be-felted bag (still.. it's going to be huge!), I made a lot of progress on these. All three only took me about 3 hours, and it only took that long, because I screwed up the first one and had to rip stitches out and resew it all. Each bag is roughly 8" deep by 12" wide, making it great for a smaller project, socks, gloves, whatnot.

The outside, pretty fabric!
The inside of one, each inside looked different.
All three togetherAnd of course, a puppy.

Wrist Cuffs & Afghan Squares

Another short update. This weekend has been great for knitting, as the weather outside has been awful and leaving me wanting to spend all day in bed. I finished up another project for Julie, some sweatbands/wrist cuffs for her upcoming half marathon. These were made using up some scraps from a project I made for her a LONG time ago (keyhole scarf and convertible mitts), in KP's Shine (sport).

I made four, two of the single pattern and two of the double, and it only took me about an hour and a half total. Definitely not bad! I really liked how they turned out, and I really liked the pattern in general.. I think these would be great for a teenager in some funky colors. Overall, I'm estimating that these four wrist bands took up about 100yds of yarn.

This was the second afghan square completed for a KYS group project. It's the colors of the Russian flag, using spare acrylics/wool-ease that I had laying around. The woman we're making it for has adopted children from Russia, and when I first "met" her, we spent a lot of time talking about the Motherland and sharing photos.. so I thought it would be fun to make her an ode to that. Another 80 or so yards used up on this one, too, woot!

I also cast on today for my first felted project, a bag that I'm looking forward to. I will post photos when I have more then just the bottom of it done, hah. I'm anticipating it going quickly, because it seems like after knitting primarily socks for two months, EVERYTHING is going quickly.

These few projects bring my March totals to 440 yards, and my YTD totals to 2740yds. Awesome! The felted project will give me another 400+ yards, and I'm hoping to finish the second sock (of Julie's sock), which should tip me over 1000 yards for this month. Hopefully I can get through all of this by then :)

Crosswalkers & Afghans

Just a quick update, as I have a ton of knitting I need to accomplish this weekend if I ever want to make progress with my projects.

First of all, I finished the first JULIE sock. It's the Crosswalkers pattern, using my own hand dyed yarn. It took FOREVER (or so it feels), on those teeny tiny little needles (even by sock standards), but it turned out really awesome. The only thing I"m not happy with is the cuff. It's standard 2x2 ribbing, but it's loose, really loose. I have noticed this with all my socks, so I'm considering trying out a 1x1 ribbing on my next pair to see if that helps the issue. I hand dyed 440 yards of yarn for this project, but am not going to use anywhere close to that, it seems. As best as I can figure, I used about 180yds on this one sock.

Secondly, I have been participating in a group afghan activity to help out someone in our group that is having some medical issues. I would say that it's also a good stashbusting project (which it is), but with the giant-log-cabin-afghan-of-doom looming on the horizon, I am clinging onto all of my acrylics. More about that later. Here is the first square, seamed up and ready to go!

It's from an improvised mitered pattern which consists of CO2 stitches, then increase 2st, every other row. It ends up looking like: kx,kfb,slip marker,kfb,kx.. but it's great because you never decrease (your "working" row is actually two sides), and you just bind off when it's the desired size. I'm using about 80 yards of yarn with each of these squares, and have the second one (and probably final for me) on the needles right now.

Both of these FOs bring my March total up to 260 yards, that brings my YTD total up to 2560.. and I used up another ball of yarn completely, which increase my YTD deduction to 6 full skeins (I think?). As for now, I'm going to head out and try to finish knitting up this square.

Revisions

My knitting objectives for this month have changed slightly. I'm still working on Julie's socks, however she has put in a request for several wrist bands to use while running. I found a really cool pattern (for free, woot), and I'm going to whip up a few this week for her and get them sent out. She's running a half marathon in a few weeks from now and will need them by then, so they are needing to be done ASAP. As a result, I'm finishing up the sock I'm working on (still the first, ugh) and going to put off the second sock for right now while I complete the wrist bands.

After that, hopefully by this weekend, I'm going to cast on for a KAL with a group on Ravelry, for my first felted project. At this point, I think I've decided on Angela's Fabulous Felted Bag, but haven't decided on what yarn to use yet. I have some Cascade 220 in a bright kelly green and "oyster", a creamy-grayish color.. the contract would be really pretty I think. But I also have some Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb in a sky blue and tealy-blue, which would also look nice. Hmmm.. can't decide. :)

AFTER THAT, hopefully by the weekend of the 20th, I want to finish Julie's other sock, start on something for myself (a hat? mitts? I'm not in a scarf mood right now). By the end of the month, I'm hoping to finish all of these projects, and start one more... a log cabin afghan.

I recently borrowed Mason-Dixon knitting from my local library. As I was browsing through it, my husband, who generally dislikes knit items and refuses to let me make anything for him (other than the one pair of socks I made last month), STOPPED me when I got to the page with the log cabin aghans and told me he wanted one. FOr a second I thought he was kidding, but it turns out he's not.. he actually wants one. Knitting an afghan has been a goal of mine for some time, but I feel that an afghan should truly be made up of leftover bits and pieces. When people purposely buy yarn for afghans, it doesn't feel the same to me as one made up of half a skein here, and 40 yds there, etc. My problem is that I'm currently in a cold sheep pattern, and although I have quite a bit of odd-ball stash that I would like to use up, I certainly do not have anywhere near enough for an afghan. This weekend I'm going to go through my stash and put all of my oddballs and left overs into a bag and evaluate from there what I can do. Just mentally going through my inventory, I think I'd have enough for MOST of the blanket, say 75-80% of it, I even have a TON of creamy-white that I could use as a main color (of sorts) for part of it. But I'm considering buying a few skeins of Caron Simply Soft in a dark color to tie the other half of it altogether. I'm thinking half in darks, half in lights, with the creamy-white being the MC for the light side and the simply soft being the MC for the dark side.. HMM! Like I said, I'll have to take inventory of what I have first and see if this is going to be feasible at this point. I certainly have enough projects for right now that I don't NEED to cast on for this, but the more my DH was pushing for it, the more I wanted to do it. Partially because I would really love a blanket like that, partially because I wanted to make one anyway and partially because he never asks for anything from me and it feels special to me to be able to make something for him.

We'll see. I have plenty of time to decide about the afghan.. it's going to take me awhile to get through all of this :)

Everlasting Bagstopper

As previously stated, I eeked in a finish to my Everlasting Bagstopper on the last day of the month, to bring my monthly yarn total to 1070 yards, and my 2009 total to 2300 yards. Woo! I love, love, LOVE this bag too! It makes me yearn for spring and the farmers market and fresh fruit stands and raspberries the size of my thumb. Mmmm.

The bag was knit with KP's CotLin (70% cotton, 30% linen), and took up about 1.75 skeins of the brown and about 3/4 of one skein of the green, totalling about 300 yards. I did not have a net deduction from my stash in February, for previously stated reasons (my sock yarn binge at the beginning of the month), but I'm very committed for the rest of March. I have one exception for the month of April, when I visit the local Alpaca farm, but other than that I'm staying clean from buying anything unless absolutely 100% necessary. I've discovered that since my yarn binge last month, I have ran out of room in my stash area. I'm considering taking half of my sewing stash area, that is currently unused, and putting my knitting stuff in it just to get it out of the way. I currently have a giant bag sitting inside my laundry hamper that is full of yarn.

Anyway, I am currently knitting a pair of Crosswalker socks for Julie, out of the hand dyed stuff I whipped up last month. The colors are turning out awesome so far, and I'm really happy with it. I am hoping to finish these up within a week or so, but on size 2 needles, they're slow going. Plus I'm constantly afraid that I'm going to snap the needles in half. So tiny.

March Goals

Well I have pictures of new FOs to share, but since I don't have them uploaded right now, I'll post this for the time being. First are my February goals, revisited.

February goals:
- Dye worsted weight yarn (220 yds), in green/blue/purple -- should be doing this tonight
- Finish Scott's socks, 1 down and 1 to go
- Start (and finish) Julie's socks

2009 goals:
- Knit myself a scarf, hat and gloves before winter
- Knit 10000 yds of yarn
- Do not buy any new yarn except under certain conditions (running out of yarn during a project, having an emergency of sorts where I NEED a certain kind of yarn), going forward, except in April at the alpaca farm and once this summer/fall.

I did dye the yarn I needed to, I did finish Scott's socks, I did CO Julie's socks, but got sidetracked making an Everlasting Bagstopper instead. As far as year-long goals, well.. I have some work to do. I haven't started with knitting myself anything for next winter.. and I bought yarn this week. After a trip to my LYS, I spent nearly an hour in there petting everything and walked out with a single skein of Crystal Palace Fizz, for kitchy x-mas trees. A pattern that I found recently and want to make this year. I still feel like my commitment is strong, because although I was SEVERELY tempted to buy a lot more yarn (it was pay day, afterall), I bought only what I knew I was going to use, with a pattern in mind.

My February yardage ended up at 1070 yards, which brings my 2009 total to 2300 yards! If I continue with this pace, I will not only hit my 2009 goal for 10,000 yards, but beat it by a significant margin. Yay! :) In February I knit:

- 1 cowl (Cherry Garcia)
- my first pair of socks!
- 2 dishcloths
- a pair of house socks for hubby
- 1 market bag (Everlasting Bagstopper)

Here are my March goals that I will revisit at the end of the month.

March Goals:
- Finish Julie's socks
- Complete at least 1 charity item
- Knit at least one thing for myself

2009 goals:
- Knit myself a scarf, hat and gloves before winter
- Knit 10000 yds of yarn
- Do not buy any new yarn except under certain conditions (running out of yarn during a project, having an emergency of sorts where I NEED a certain kind of yarn), going forward, except in April at the alpaca farm and once this summer/fall.