Is my blanket in jeopardy?!

Well I finished the second mystery stitch block of my blanket!

To be honest, it looks a little unimpressive. It's simple enough to do, only knits and purls arranged to create this zigzag texture. However, it isn't because it's easy that I'm not too fond of it. It's because it is actually hard to see. Granted it may have something to do with the bright yellow colour, but I still expected it to stick out a little more.

Also, because I'm using scrap yarn, I knew I was in trouble when I saw this: 

There was no way I could finish this square with that amount of yarn left. So at this point, I saw three options. The first is frog the whole thing and save the scrap yarn for something else. But .. Lazy me, I didn't want to start over, and I was so close to finishing! I'm just missing a couple rows! Also, I really really want to use up this scrap yarn and never think up any filler projects just to finish it. The second option is knitting as much of the square as I can with the yarn and then attach a new colour to it to complete the square. I seriously considered this option because I have a pale yellow yarn I am planning to use, which I could potentially also use to finish up this square. However, I think the result would be too striking, and I don't want to draw any attention to something that will look so ugly and obvious and ruin my blanket. So where does that leave us? With option three! Because I'm not missing too much rows, I chose to simply cast off early. I'll probably just stretch the fabric when I sew everything together so it matches the size of the other squares. The problem with this is when it stretches, the zigzag pattern is even harder to see! I'm also sure that it will somehow negatively affect how my blanket drapes. Despite all this, I still believe it to be the best option. 

I hope hope hope the blanket won't turn out hideous! I've been having a good streak of making beautiful projects that I'm 100% proud of lately!

I hope the rest of my mystery stitches won't bully me like this one did! 

Hop onto the Mystery Machine!

So after knitting so much this past weekend, (and literally just finishing a project just this morning) I was going to take a break for a week or two- especially since a cousin of mine is flying in from Hong Kong tomorrow and will be staying at our house for an entire month! .. But after sitting around at home, walking the dogs, and watching my shows for several hours, my hands were already itching to cast on. 

I was debating whether or not to knit a blanket, or crochet an amigurumi doll since I've only ever made one of each .. Or perhaps even knit another mitten/glove since its been a while since I've made a good one. In the end, after endless hours of browsing Ravelry, I decided that I will knit a blanket! The pattern is made from 16 squares, and each square is a mystery stitch! So you will have to blindly follow a pattern and you will only see which stitch it is until the end! 

This pattern seems the right fit for a project for several reasons. First, the successful completion of all these stitches will showcase my skills as a knitter in the form of the blanket. What's more, I still am trying to get rid of all the scrap yarn made from my first blanket (I only have several balls left to go!!) Lastly, each stitch square is quick to knit so that I can feel small accomplishments often, but also that it's overall a large project so I have a long term goal to look forward to. 

Well, quick knits per square they are! I've already finished the first mystery stitch! 

From the amazing way it looks, I think I got it right! I'll try to hold off until tomorrow to knit another mystery square - but I'm super excited with wondering what it's going to be!

More Baby Things!

I'm so paranoid that the owl earflap hat wouldn't even fit a newborn because it is just so small, so I decided to knit something a little bigger this time that would hopefully fit even a one year old. As a result, I feel like I made the cutest project ever: the Apple Blossom Cardigan.


The cardigan, the bow, and close-ups of the edge and lace pattern!
 

Cardigan without the bow

The bow, I actually made from another pattern because I felt like it would be much cuter than a simple tied together bow string that the original pattern suggests. The only part I had to figure out was how I can make it so that one could clip on and clip off the little bow. Well, thank goodness I bought all those buttons, because I thought of a good solution that will utilize it! I single crocheted a long chord, and double crocheted one end for a button hole, and attached the bow with a button on the back on the other end, so that it will fit together like this:

(Left) Bow on (Right) bow off

Pretty creative right? While knitting the bow, I actually wasn't sure if I was doing it right, since before you tie the whole thing together, it looks like this:

Anyway, one of my favourite things from the cardigan pattern is that I learned to make a picot edging!! I actually had no clue what the pattern meant when it said to 'sew down the picot edges' and I had to Google it. Suddenly, all the yarn overs and k2tog made sense! The end result is so pretty and it looks much neater than a cast on/ off edge. So basically, the YO and k2tog will get you this:

After that, you literally just fold it in half, and sew it down (but having to remember to be careful to not sew into any of the stitches in the front so you won't see the seam in the front).

And so, you should end up with this:

Besides my first picot edging, it was also my first top-down cardigan. It was pretty cool to see it come together in this way, and much easier to gauge whether or not it was long enough.

Anyway, I love it! I almost want to keep it for my own future children and give my coworker something else, ha! But I won't ... hopefully, they'll love it as much as I do! I can't wait until I have kids of my own, I will knit them into the most fashionable baby ever!

 

 

Owl you need is love

A coworker of mine asked if I would be willing to make some things for a baby shower, so I began planning things I could make for her! So, here is one of hopefully several projects that I'm going to make for a future baby girl! 

 

Isn't it cute? I think the pretty pink bow really completes the picture! And I Crocheted it (except for the bow which was knit)!! The bad thing about crochet is that I honestly can't tell if I made any mistakes ..not even when I'm pretty sure I messed up the pattern somewhere. But it looks like everything turned out alright! I think anyone can tell its an owl right? What's more, I crocheted this in maybe ~3 hours! So fast!! There's no way you could knit a newborn hat in that amount of time!

It was pretty fun to make, and it increased my confidence in my ability to try out new things for crocheting! How many things must I crochet until I'm considered a full fledge hooker?!

The Moose is on the Loose

So, just under one month of straight knitting - knitting when home from work, before work, before bed, weekends .. basically until my fingers have all but given up on life, will get you this:

Man, it was fun to make. But by the time I got to the last sleeve, I was ready to call it quits. The first reaction I got from the first few people I showed it to went along the lines of "Wow, that's nice.. but can you make it a little longer?" Well, no I can't! I've casted off already! And, this was a 90's style pattern so I'm pretty sure (not that sure ..) that this was the style back then.

 

Like the problem with my slippers, when it came down to finding buttons, I just had to settle for ones that looked similar enough. Who knew there was fifty shades of brown that existed?

I made this cardigan out of that giant worsted weight red heart package my aunt bought me, if anyone recalls. I thought I'd have used up at least three of the four balls. But, nope. I didn't even use up one. There is a lot of yardage in one of those balls.

All the material needed to make this thing!

I feel like I still need to work on my colorwork. I'm actually not sure if I'm doing it right! In the picture below, you can see how some of the black is peeking out where it should be all white.



 

Regardless, I love the way it turned out.What drew me to this pattern is sort of cheesy. Something romantic about two moose coming out to eat on a chilly winter evening.

 

[Edit: I forgot to credit the pattern designer! Here it is!] 

Cherry Blossoms just make everything look beautiful, doesn't it?

The above picture was part of the beautiful scenery during my walk today. It was actually a gloomy cloudy morning, but as I got off work, the clouds parted, and in shone the bright blue sky! This sort of a lovely natural spectacle is what I imagine inspires people to write romantic poetry. Sadly, I am not gifted with literary talent, but at least I'm still able to appreciate these wonderful cherry blossoms!

When you add in my adorable pup, Ellie, then it just completes the picture! I can't stop looking at how pretty she is! It was one of those days where I actually felt a little guilty knitting for most of the day instead of spending time outdoors. But, I'm trying to rush the last portion of my project as I feel I can finish it up this weekend!! So stay tuned!

Solo Adventure

It's almost been a month since my boyfriend flew back to China, so I guess I just have to wait for four more months until he comes back! Meanwhile, I find myself watching a lot of my home videos of us two. It's nice to reminisce old adventures we went on, and I'm actually pretty jealous he's out on a solo adventure on his own (although he'd state the contrary; always saying he misses home).

Anyway, I apologize for whining like a lovesick schoolgirl! It's one of those nights where I wish my life was more exciting! I just wish something would happen! And I know, blah blah blah .. I should go out to find adventure and not expect it to find me, but wouldn't it be more fun if it came up from behind and surprised you (thanks to a dirty minded co-worker, I really want to insert a 'that's what she said joke here)?

Anyway, I want to put in something knitted related in this post, so here's a sneak peek of a sleeve of what's to come:

That's all I'll provide you with for now. I'll give full details when the project is completely finished, and my intuition says I should be done in at most 2 weeks!

A day in my life

I had one of those 3 hour gaps between clients at work, so I set up a little private station to pass the time.

You can't tell but I'm sitting on a bean bag while knitting, so I was as comfortable as I can at work. And yes, that's Host Club on Netflix (don't judge)! 

After a stressful day at work, I decided to go for a walk and give myself some room to think. That's when I encountered this beautiful scene!

Two little boys came up to talk to me. They called me 'lady' (I'm at that age already?) and were telling me how I should jump in the water with them, told me to watch them as they climbed on rocks and asked if I enjoyed the holidays. Did I get a lot of presents? They sure did. Bye they said, they hope to see me again! 

It was really refreshing, and I was frankly a bit flattered that I seem approachable and worthy enough for kids to take an interest in me. Now I'm back home, prepared to knit til sleep time, and I just feel like it's one of those days where I have a lot of thoughts in my head. 

I'd make bad tutorials

So a friend at work wanted to learn knitting, so of course (me being a tad arrogant I guess) jumped at the chance at teaching somebody. I had an extra US size 8 straight needles anyway that I could give her and a bunch of scrap yarn she could help take off my hands that she could practice with, so with that, I thought I was prepared.

... Well, it's a wonder any of my clients learn anything from me. I'm a terrible teacher. I forgot how difficult it was when I was first starting out. I just thought that if she saw me do it, then she'd just be able to magically copy me. Just like that. Well, from the tone this post is going, that clearly did not happen. My explanations were really choppy and unclear and my demonstrations were so quick she struggled to copy me. 

I decided to teach her the long tail cast-on rather than the standard cast-on because the basic one doesn't really have good elasticity, and I myself, haven't used the basic one since I learned long tail cast-on. I also taught her knit stitch and tried to give a crash course in casting off (although we didn't have enough time for her to really get it). 

At the end of the 'lesson' however, she told me she wanted to do it again next week too! And also she said she had a lot of fun! I guess that must mean I'm doing something right! Hope she's ready to learn purling next week!!

Weekends are the best

I just love doing nothing, sitting at home, with a sweater and sweat pants on, knitting and watching Netflix. What a great escape from reality! I can pretend that I don't have work the next day or that there aren't any stressors in my life. I can just totally be submersed into the world of what I'm watching (just finished Sword Art Online and now half way through Deadman Wonderland). The only guilt I feel is staying in on such a sunny day .. But hey, I can always take the dogs out for a walk later!

Not that I have any big things going on right now for me to feel any great pressure, but I'm in the midst of deciding if I really want to attempt at leaving my comfort zone and making a (hopefully better) change. I'm a naturally anxious person, so I keep imagining the worst. Normally, it's tough to get me to feel 'ready' to leave anything I've settled down on, (not that I feel ready now) but somebody might do it with me, and isn't it easy when there's somebody who's there supporting you? 

Anyway, whatever happens, or whatever I decide on, I just want to relish the moment right now. Not thinking of anything besides some plot line and my knitting!

I leveled up!

After I made my Game of Thrones blanket, I feel like I was always trying to find ways to get rid of the scrap yarn leftover from that project. Thankfully, I found this project pattern that seemed like a good way to say goodbye to these guys:

I chose crochet on purpose because I want to improve on that skill, and what better way to do it than to practice on yarn I don't really care about?

 

Well, first I learned the magic circle (pictured below):

And then I got treble crochet and half treble crochet drilled into my brain, and learned how to attach multiple colors, as my project soon became this:

To this (Left: back, right: front):

To finally, this:

 

I'm aware of how it looks not like a flower and sort of ragged looking compared to the Ravelry projects of this cushion. I'm also quite aware of how the colors don't really match, but I just used what I have! However it turned out, I'm still proud of it because I feel like my crochet level went up! Not to mention it was my first time reading a crochet written pattern (that wasn't only single chain this square a billion times). Hopefully it will catch up with my knitting skills!

This project is actually very fast - people were right, crocheting is much quicker than knitting (once you get the hang of it anyway). So why did it take me such a long time to finish? Well, notice how its a circular cushion? Yeah. Apparently those are impossible to find anymore. I went to every store that would potentially sell cushions, but they all just had only square cushions (squares are totally overrated). However, this realization only came about after I've already finished half the project, and I didn't want to frog it so I desperately looked even harder for a circle. Luckily for me, my mom, the expert seamstress, made a cushion for me after days of begging her to help me.

Maybe I'm an eensie bit biased, but the cushion was worth the wait. It was better than any cushion I could've found in the store since it was exactly how I wanted it to be- plain white, round, and stuffed to the exact amount that it is (well, and also that it's free)!

The last thing I learned, was seaming up two crochet pieces together with a simple slip stitch.

In conclusion, my mission was accomplished. I'm better at crochet than I was before, and I got rid of a ton of scrap yarn. And now I even have a cute cushion!