Long Time Coming

As of right now, I have four FOs, and three are knitted. My health and school were all up in the air for a while and it was very scary but everything is fine now. I'm alive, I'm healthy, I got knitting done.
This first one is a commission, and the second is the match to a scarf I finished finally as well.

These earrings have also been finished recently as well, so there's going to be an update in the shop within the next few days as well. Keep an eye out! I promise I'll blog more now that school is done for the summer, too!

Blog week fail

Sorry guys, I kind of screwed that one up. Things went nuts. I promise I'll explain when I have energy. I finished a scarf. I'll post it soon, too.

4KCBWDAY4

Day Four (Thursday April 25th): Colour Review
What are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects. Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting.
Only after writing this part of your post should you then actually look to see what colours you have used in your projects. Make a quick tally of what colours you have used in your projects over the past year and compare it to the colours you have written about. Compare this, in turn, to the colours that are most dominant in your yarn stash – do they correlate?


My favorite colors for any project are brown and blue. I buy a lot of neutral tones, or red (because red is my favorite), and blues because brown and blue go well together.
According to the pictures of my FOs, this is accurate, but a lot of the stuff in my stash is brightly colored and rainbow-y and the like.

Sorry for the short post today, I don't have a lot of time!

4KCBWDAY3

Day Three (Wednesday April 24th): Infographic
There are many ways of conveying information on a blog; text and images being the two most widely used. Many infographics combine both these elements to provide a visual way of presenting text information.
Make your own infogaphic (no fancy imaging software needed, you can draw it on paper and photograph it if you want) to convey any element of your craft(s). It can be just for fun or a 
thoroughly researched presentation of an idea/finding.


Now, I'm not that great at these. So, all I did was play around in Paint. Sorry if it's poop. But it gets the point across. I don't really have much time for anything besides this. Sorry!

4KCBW Day One and Two

I know, I know, I'm a day behind. I'm sorry! I didn't realize that it was time for 4KCBW already! So, two-in-one today!

Day One: A bit like Harry Potter, but not quite, this year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is split into 4 houses. Don your favourite knitted or crocheted hat and let it guide you to which house you will be in. 

I'm going with the Manatee. Knitting and crocheting is a stress relief and an outlet for me. The things I make aren't always perfect or beautiful or flashy or fantastic, but they are full of love and myself and everything I am, and regardless of what they look like, they are still an embodiment of my love. Also manatees are cute.




Day Two (Tuesday April 23rd): A Mascot Project.
Your task today is to either think of or research a project that embodies that house/animal. It could be a knitting or crochet pattern – either of the animal itself or something that makes you think of the qualities of that house. Alternatively it could be a type or colour of yarn, or a single button. Whatever you choose, decide upon a project and blog about how and why it relates to your house/creature. You do not have to make this project! It is simply an exercise in blogging about how you come to decide upon what projects to make. Try and blog about the journey which inspiration and investigating patterns, yarns, stitches, (etc) can often guide you through. You may wish to make a collage or 'mood board' to present several ideas, or even sketch out your own design.

This screams blankets to me. Any kinds of blankets, all kinds of blankets. They're something you wrap around someone you love, and knitters, tell me about your babies that don't even exist yet that you've knitted blankets for, or at least thought about doing so. Because I know you've done it. I've done it. I think most knitters have done it. I knit baby stuff all the time!

New stuff!

 I've finished two baby sets! The two baby sets are up in my shop now, as well as a few other things, so take a look!

I'm 21 days into a cross stitch. I haven't actually worked on it since day 18, but I'm pretty far into it at this point so it's worth showing off.

In other news, my life is mostly boring. I quit smoking. I have lots of doctor stuff going on, and pending test results tomorrow, I may or may not have bad-ish news. I'll keep you posted.

Quick news post

My online shop is back up and running. Only two things sold from the shop that I was renting my space from, and when I came back for all my stuff, they neglected to return a pair of earrings that didn't mark as sold. Hopefully, that was a mistake of some sort. I'm waiting on an email back from them.

A quick life update: I got a job, they started being super douchey about my availability (I CAN NOT go into work while I'm in class!) so I told them I was quitting. Their response was that they want me to come back in once I'm done with school for the semester. We'll see, I'm unsure about that yet.

A quick knitting update: I'm almost done with another baby set, which will be up in the shop soon too. :D

Sweet Nothings Swap

It's been a while, I know. I'm sorry. I've been lazy. Crafting, yes, but blogging, not so much.
So let's catch up. I signed up for a swap for Valentines day. My "downstream" was the ever-awesome Alyssa, and my "upstream was someone who I don't have a link to. :(
I made Alyssa three pairs of stitch markers, and sent them off with a promise of another item when I found what I was looking for. Almost a week later, I found what I had been looking for, and that has been sent as well.

 I also made this pair of stitch markers, with the intention of also mailing them off to Alyssa, but ended up falling in love with them and keeping them. It's my own fault, I should know better than to do ANYTHING blue and brown and then try to give it away. I just love the combination too much. Alyssa, if you're reading this, I'm sorry! I can still make you a pair if you want!

 My wonderful "upstream" partner sent me all of this:

 A card, with a very sweet message inside, four felted balls, a business card, and two handmade ceramic buttons. I'm seriously in love with them. In fact, they've been in my knitting bag since I got them!

 In FO news, I finished TWO cross-stitches that I was working on, and both are for sale. Since the shop is currently closed down (reasoning here), if you want to buy either of these, send me an email or Facebook and we'll discuss prices.

I also finished this hat that I have since dubbed "The Beast", because it has honestly been one of the worst knitting experiences of my life. I used this pattern with this yarn, and size 4 needles for the ribbing, with size 7 needles for the rest of the hat. The first time, I used size 4s for the ribbing, and size 5 for the body, and it was WAY too tight, and was WAY too stiff of a fabric. So I had to start over. Twice. I've decided that I hated knitting with this yarn because of the constant splitting, and that's what made it hard to get into a rhythm. By the end of the first skein, I was only half done with the hat, and I was so shocked that the entire 185 yards had disappeared so quickly. All in all, this took me almost two full skeins and almost two full months of knitting, and I actually GAVE AWAY the rest of the skein when I was done with the hat because I hated the yarn SO much.

That's me, wearing The Beast. It is HUGELY slouchy, just like my friend asked me to make it. It's warm, it's a little heavy. All in all, I actually think it turned out appealing, but this yarn and this pattern were never EVER meant to be. EVER. Thus, The Beast will soon find its proper home and I'll never have to look at it again, thank God...

Back To School

My spring semester starts on Monday, and I can honestly say that I can not wait. This break has been nice, and well deserved, but I'm ready to be busy again.
My favorite part of this break was that I did not do a single thing that I did not want to do. I slept when I was tired, I ate when I was hungry, I worked out when I felt like it, and mostly, really, I created.
I made earrings that I might keep or sell.

 I made a birthday present.

 I decided to try cross-stitching. (It's kind of hard.)

 I (finally) finished spinning the black Shetland that I ordered ages ago.

 Do you see that total? 93.5 feet. Based on that, I can estimate that I will have (roughly) just under 500 feet of yarn. This translates into roughly 165 yards, so I'm probably going to end up with a gradient hat, and not a gradient scarf. We'll see.

I also began spinning the rest of the llama.

This is the biggest deal. I've talked about this scarf so many times. I've never been able to wear it because I'm an idiot and did stockinette stitch through the whole thing. Finally, it has been backed by a flannel fabric, and now it lies flat. It is perfect. It is warm, soft, and amazing.

It is perfect.

The rest of my weekend is going to be spent snuggling with my kitty, knitting this hat (with Lion Brand Homespun, which I sort of hate), and watching Doctor Who.

This hat is my second to last commission that I have backed up. I will finish it, and then a pair of double-knit gloves (which I REALLY don't want to do.) and then I can finally tackle that giant bag of WIPs sitting in my closet. And I think, really truly, once I'm done with that, I can (maybe probably) stick to ONE project at a time. Maybe then, I won't have this problem again.

Chaos.

Life happens.
Life is weird, and exhausting, and emotional, and painful, and wonderful. My life has been all of these things, especially recently.
I've been blogging rather sparingly over the recent months because life happened. Around midterms, everything happened all at once. Chris and I broke up, my family started having a lot of problems, midterms themselves kicked my ass, I moved out and then back home, learned that another student at my school was stalking me to my home, and what more, I've been incredibly ill on top of all of this (I wasn't keeping any food down for about a month, so I essentially had to resort to a liquid diet.)
So, like I said, life happens. That being said, in an effort to not go insane by all of this chaos suddenly inflicted upon me, I've crafted. Knitted, at times. But not just that. I've done new crafts as well. The jewelry making, crocheting, and so on.
I'm ok now. Things are better now, all the situations are handled, I finished this semester with straight A's after my finals were all said and done, and I'm getting better. Whatever this illness was, it's passing. The chaos has blown past, and I'm left to clean up the rubble, and then rest. In the meantime, I have pictures of finished stuff.
First up, my Slytherin hat. MY hat. MINE!! I knitted it, and then sewed the lining in by hand.

 Then, earrings and a bracelet.

 A commission.

 A Christmas present for my younger sister (a bracelet)

 More earrings.

 A weeping Angel for my brother in law.

 More earrings.

My dad got a sock monkey hat, and my brother got a moogle, that I forgot to take pictures of, and my grandmother and other sister got the white and pink earring sets that I showed last time I blogged.