My creativity astounds me

I brought my knitting to work, and lo and behold, I forgot my cable needle! But I wasn't going to be defeated so easily... so, I improvised!

That's my bobbypin! Not the best thing I've ever knit with .. but hey, it works!

Merry Christmas (almost)

Christmas decorations at my family home are up!

The festivities and Christmas fuzzies have begun! I hope everybody is enjoying their Christmas preparations as much as I am. As a bonus .. does anybody recognize my knitted stocking up on the fireplace? It's in use, and blending in well with the rest of its fellow stockings :)

 

Here's a sneak peek by the way, of what's been keeping me busy lately!

More info on that once its all done! Enjoy the Christmas cheers!

It's a Bird, it's a Plane!

 

It's a hooded lace scarf!

I think it turned out super cute, and it's such a uniquely knitted project too! Saves you the trouble of bringing both a hat and a scarf out I suppose! My boyfriend keeps saying I look like a mage though, haha!

 

It was much simpler to knit than I originally thought too. Basically, all you do is knit a giant rectangle first, and then bind off in the middle, then keep working the ends until they reach your desired length. Pompom and fringes are optional, although I always enjoy making those, so I added them for sure.

This is how it looks before you knit the back seems to create the hood:

The lace pattern is so pretty too! Kept me pretty occupied as I began my climb onto the Doctor Who bandwagon. I only watched ten episodes though (starting at the 2005 reboot). I was never into Sci-Fi, but it kept me interested enough.

 

Now that I'm done, I know exactly what I'm going to do next! I've been itching to dive into my new yarn stash!

 

Edit: Here's my sweetie modelling for me!

Two Years of Knitting!

It's been two years of knitting, but November marks one year since when I began to actually be a knitter and not somebody who just knit one thing! It's nice to look back at all my projects!

When its all put together like this, its so much easier to see how far I've come and how I've tried really hard to learn something per project. I think the fourth project is when I really started to get better. 8 scarves, 5 hats, 3 gloves/mitts, 3 bookmarks, 3 tops, 2 pairs of socks, one stocking, one doll, one headband, and one blanket later, and I'm still knitting to improve! I hope by next year, a sweater will be added to the mix! And if I've said it once, I've said it a million times ... but I hope I'll have a better camera to show off all my proud proud creations!

Beginning of November surprise!

Yesterday was an amazing day! I went over to my friends' house for a sleepover where we engaged in post-Halloween pumpkin carving! It was really fun! We put our finished products up on Facebook and held a contest to see which teams' pumpkin got the most votes! Which one would you have voted for?

If you chose the Olaf pumpkin, then you have good taste! That's the one my team carved! Our prize was an After Eight tin full of mint chocolate! I was already feeling awesome for winning the contest since last year when my friends and I did this, my partner and I came in dead last, but when I got home, I got yet another surprise ....

 

Ta-dah! Look what was waiting for me in my room! It's a gift from my aunt who has been so supportive of my knitting hobby! Inside has six giant balls of Red Heart comfort yarn in beige, white and black! It was bought at such a bargain too! Only $39.00 for the whole thing! With all the yarn I recently received from my boyfriend and my friend, and now this, I feel like I have enough to keep me knitting for the next ten years!



So Much Yarn

So remember how yesterday I received my giant yarn haul? Well guess what! I got even more yarn today! My friend went to Seattle to a placed called 'So Much Yarn', and bought me a hank of yarn!

The color is beautiful! It's hard to tell with my blurry camera, but the color is actually variegated with different hues of brown! It gives a very Autumn feel. I'm not sure what type of yarn it is because my friend ripped the tag off because the pricetag was on there (although I know it is way more expensive than I usually spend on a skein of yarn so I am so grateful they would put such thought for me). It looks like its worsted weight though, and it feels super soft! I love it!!

My Long Awaited Yarn Haul

Finally, something to cheer me up from an unfulfilling work and social life... a giant bag of soft cuddly yarn! Now I can spend more time knitting and watching dramas alone! (Haha, half kidding on the dramatic parts..)

I'm definitely going to knit at least 2 sweaters out of this stash! I had a vague plan of what I was going to do with each skein, but maybe because it was too vague that I forgot the plans for the balls where I only bought one of it. But I'm sure I'll figure something out. It was my first time buying from the website 'Webs'. Previously, I used the website 'Knitpicks' or just bought from Michaels or Wal-Mart, but I wanted to try something new.

 

Unfortunately, there's so much yarn there, six skeins of it cannot fit in my three drawers, so now it looks messy again. I think that's a sign that I'm not knitting enough, haha, so I guess I better get to it! 

A Study in Mustard Yellow

Finally, the sock section of my blog is a lot less lonely! I made it from Twisted Lizzy's Sock Pattern.

What I love about these socks is that it looks really fancy when I wear boots, but the bottom half where nobody sees is just a super comfy plain stockinette stitch.The pattern was really easy to memorize (and do), and I found socks were a lot easier to make than I remembered. I definitely want to do something much more challenging next time! Because it was pretty mindless to make, I managed to watch the entire series of Sherlock that's available right now. And, I don't know why I didn't watch it sooner, I'm in love! I used to think Benedict Cumberbatch was not very attractive, but now I think he looks kinda cute when he's acting. I keep thinking 'Hobbit' when I see Martin Freeman though, ha (I do think he's a great actor however)! 

Anyway, I suppose I'll have to find a new series for my future project .. maybe I should jump on the Doctor Who bandwagon?

Updated list Part 3

It's been around six months since I've updated my knitting list of things to do, so I thought it'd be a good time to see how I've progressed in my knitting quest. Time sure flies though! I've been looking at all my old knitted finished objects and thinking about how I used to think it was so hard to make them, and had to look at endless Youtube tutorials, and endlessly frog, knit and refrog my work until it was perfect. Now, I'm confident I can make most of anything as long as I find a nice well written pattern!

So, things I can cross off my list:
1. Organize: I sort of accomplished this with the purchase of my three shelves. I mean, it could be neater, but at least they're not all thrown into several environmental bags anymore.

2. Mistake-less project: well, that cabled headband I made my sister was pretty flawless, as was that diamond headband I made for myself!

3. Vest: My beautiful red vest that I made knocks this off my to do list! The only regret that I have is that I didn't take clearer photos of it before giving it away to my aunt. Now the only way to reminisce about it is through my blurry photos..

4. Blanket: One of my most prized creation helps cross this one off! The Game of Thrones blanket.. it really turned out very well!

5. Headband: And it was finished quite recently too... twice!

So, what's still on the list?
1. Sweater: something that I've been preparing for.. just need to wait for my yarn to come!!

2. Bag: This one and the sweater have been on my list for forever, but unlike the sweater, I haven't really thought about this one very much.

3. Brioche: I want to do this, but I'm so intimidated!

4. Design my own pattern: Well, this won't be happening anytime soon .. my skill level is not even close yet!

5. Dishtowel: This one is the most likely to be accomplished next since its so easy to make, but for some reason I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I only have a few things to add to my list:
6. Steeking: I literally just heard of this, and is supposedly super daunting ... I want to try it (successfully) at least once!

7. Mittens with fingers: I've made gloves, and mitts with half fingers, but none with full fingers yet!

And.. that's it! While I'm at it, I'll give you a sneak peek at what I've been working on lately!

That's right, it's socks! Hasn't it been forever since I've made socks? And I find it much easier this time around! 

Another headband!

I made another headband at the request of my sister who liked the previous headband that I made, minus the color. So, she went through my stash and picked out the yarn she'd like to make her headband in and it turned out to be a ball of the grey and black homespun yarn! At first, I was still contemplating whether I wanted to make another headband so soon, and plus, I don't like making the same pattern twice. But when I saw it could help me use up that ball of homespun yarn, I agreed to it. I didn't end up using the same pattern because I knew it wouldn't really be that visible with that type of yarn, so I just made your basic cable headband with a similar style as my original headband by adding that wrap around it. I still have an entire ball of homespun yarn left, but at least it used up all the leftovers of the second ball I had! Anyway, I hope this will keep her head warm with winter approaching!