UGH!

Okay, so I can't give any details here because this is a Christmas present we're talking about, but holy crap, knitting can SUCK sometimes! I knitted last night for roughly 4 hours and when midnight rolled around, what did I have? Nothing. Really. Nothing. Literally zero. I ripped my little heart out. I restarted this morning and things are going much better but JESUS.

Word to my future self: do not jump into a pattern before making sure that you know exactly what everything on the chart means. Even that red box around certain stitches which you completely ignored. And OH YEAH, don't forget to maybe find a photo of a stitch before attempting it!

In short: yarn-overs can bite me!

Anyway, I'll be working on Christmas stuff for the next little while so I'll be adding photos and whatnot after the gifts are given. I'd love to rant and rave some more, but it would ruin the surprise. Also, I couldn't digital-photo-take my way out of paper bag. I have to play with the settings on my camera.

Simple jewelry

I played around with my jewelry stuff tonight. I made a few pairs of earrings, really quick and easy ones. Hopefully I'll wear them a few times. I'd like to improve my jewelry-making techniques - all I can really do is bead and attach things with jump rings. I'd love to pull off complex designs, but... I've got a list of hobby-related "things to do" up to here. I have to pick and choose. As an interesting contrast to the homemade-ness of my jewelry, I've drooling over the jewelry here. My favourite is this pair of earrings. Nerdy, but not obvious! Also - thirty dollars. But beautiful.

Anyway, I finally got my camera back but don't really know how to use it, so I can't figure out how to get my photos any less blurry than these. Onto the jewelry!



Pretty much the easiest earrings ever. Add beads, make a loop at the top of the straight wire, attach hooks. Done.



Slightly more "labour"-intensive, but not by much! Still, looks good.



Wacky picture frame earrings! They don't match! Zany! I like these. The picture frames are actually meant for scrapbooking. They came with these little pointy things to stick them into paper. Dollar store, baby!



Memory wire bracelet. Again with the same beads. I like doing memory wire stuff, it always looks good at the end and it's so easy.



This is a weird little lariat necklace I made awhile ago. You'll notice I have pretty limited supplies - that's the same picture frame-y pendant as the earrings. Plus I have only one type of bead. I don't wear this very often, I haven't quite figured out the best way to.

I have plans for some sea glass jewelry, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to mount/attach/secure the glass. I'm not crazy about wire wrapping, I'd like something more polished. I don't really have the tools for anything else more metalwork-ish. I have some really great pieces that would make an awesome necklace.

I started my first doggie blanket too.



You probably can't see in this tiny photo, but I'm doing a seed stitch border and garter stitch for the rest (I was going to do all seed stitch, but I kept getting distracted and making mistakes and I'd like this to be as quick a knit as possible). The colour looks pretty yellow in the photo, but it's really a bright, not-quite-neon orange. I have about 12 skeins of the stuff, which is good because it will probably take me several more to finish this. Also, it's my first time using circular needles, which is great. I'm not knitting in the round, but it's great to have everything attached and all. My next project will probably be something in the round, once I finish my Christmas stuff.

Oh, the plaid backdrop on some of the photos? My couch. Yeah, I know.

Yay!

The SPCA person emailed me back and seemed really excited. So I'm going to start with some truly heinous orange stuff that my mom gave me and which I never make into anything that anybody will ever want to wear. Hopefully I'll get to start this weekend.

An interesting idea...

So when I started knitting, I got a bunch of yarn from family members that had been lying around. Some of the colours are, well, ugly. And it's good yarn, but mostly acrylic, which I don't really like the feel of. Also, I'm low on cash right now and I can't really afford to buy yarn to work on my other planned projects, stuff that I'll be wearing and so would rather do in wool.

But today I came across a great suggestion - use the yarn you don't want to wear to knit small blankets to donate to a local animal shelter! They're washable, warm, free, and good practice for me! So I emailed my local SPCA branch to see if they'd be interested in a couple of blankets. I might also make some ipod "socks" and other small projects with it. That way I can use the crazy colours.

Anyway, I'd really like to get some practice with circular needles in AND help keep some kitty warm!

New projects in mind

Okay, so it's been a little while since I posted. I'm working on a couple of knitting projects right now, one of which is the Noro scarf you can find here. The others are Christmas-related and so I can't post anything right now, since my "fan base" is made up of mostly family members. Anyway, I'd like to post some better photos of projects when I get my camera back. I've also got some photo-related things I'd like to work on. 

My main crafty time right now is spent on knitting and reviving my journal, which used to be noting more than a place for whining but which I'm trying to make more interesting. 

I started by gathering a bunch of odds and ends that I've been saving and gluing them in, scrapbook-ishly. Heather, if you're reading, can you spot the thing you wrote (hint: it's backwards, it's blurry, and it's in German).

There's also the Great Wall of Movies, spanning 1999-2003, otherwise known as the Era of Cheap Tickets.

Anyway, that's it for now. Hope to get the camera back soon.