FO: Buttony

(Excuse my weird vacant expression and crazy hair...)

Buttony is finished - after starting it in MAY i'm glad its done! This picture was taken pre-blocking, so hopefully it won't look so bunchy after a wash. I'm pretty happy with it though.

I wanted to try something different with the buttons - one of my sewing books says you can sew buttons with four holes on to look like little birds feet, so I gave that a go. I love the contrast of black on red!

I got the yarn for this from a closeout sale at WEBS a long time ago, as it was discontinued. That meant I had to make the most of what I had - hence the shorter sleeves and slightly short body. It was still great to work with though - and I do have a little left over to make something else small with. In hindsight I could have just added this to the length! Oh well :)

The pattern [Rav link] is more of a recipe - as with most raglans you can choose what size you want and therefore how many increases you do. My big fault with this one was to make the increases one inch longer than I should have, resulting in the slightly bigger size. I think I also cast on too many stitches in the first place - the maths I had to do for the cast on with this yarn wasn't quite right... but live and learn.

Overall i'm pretty happy with it - and glad that the weather here is still kinda grey so I might be able to wear it before next winter! It will be great to take to New York with me in a few months time.

~Happy knitting!~

Award and update

I got this award from Sarah over at Class and Coffee, so if you regularly comment on my blog, I’m awarding this to you! I love this – I’ve been saying ‘OTT’ quite a bit lately about different things, so its very fitting!

Now the fun part! You have to answer these questions, only using ONE WORD:

1. Where is your cell phone? handbag
2. Your hair? frizzy
3. Your mother? Smiley
4. Your father? Funny!
5. Your favorite food? Grapes
6. Your dream last night? None
7. Your favorite drink? tea
8. Your dream/goal? Happiness (I’m stealing Sarah’s answer!)
9. What room are you in? office
10. Your hobby? Knitting…
11. Your fear? Loneliness (again, stealing answers!)
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? married
13. Where were you last night? Lounge-room
14. Something that you aren’t? quick!
15. Muffins? Yum
16. Wish list item? Touch-phone
17. Where did you grow up? Australia
18. Last thing you did? Typed…
19. What are you wearing? Yellow
20. Your TV? Old!
21. Your pets? Cobby
22. Friends? Few
23. Your life? Limbo
24. Your mood? Bored!
25. Missing someone? Family
26. Vehicle? Dying
27. Something you’re not wearing? Necklace
28. Your favorite store? Spotlight!
29. Your favorite color? Blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? 7am
31. Last time you cried? June
32. Your best friend? Unknown…
33. One place that I go to over and over? Subway
34. One person who emails me regularly? Matt
35. Favorite place to eat? BNZ (ok, it seems weird with just the one word – yes, it’s a bank, but they have an amazing foodcourt underneath!)

Let me know when you’ve come up with your answers, I’d love to check them out!

Knitting update
I’m working on lots of things at the moment.

• I’ve seamed up one shoulder of the Baby Surprise Jacket, so I have to do the other one and sew on the buttons.
• I’m making a red mohair beret out of some stashed yarn I have, so I have something pretty and warm to wear in New York in January – I think it will have a matching scarf too! I couldn’t find a pattern I absolutely loved so I’m kinda just making it up. So far so good – about halfway through!
• There’s a little purple preemie beanie sitting staring at me from my desk that needs to be finished too… just need to figure out how to stop the stitches at the ends of each DPN being so loose, its not looking that great.
• We had a craft day with some ladies from church on the weekend and we've now knit enough squares for three small baby blankets for Casa Kiwi! They need to be sewn together.
  
• I knit up a cotton bath mitt last night, as something I might be able to sell –unfortunately it’s a little too big but again I was making up the pattern, so I know what to fix for the next one.
• Speaking of selling, I have to get my A into G, a craft fair is coming up the first week of September and someone has offered to sell my stuff there, so I have to get a move on with lots of knitting and sewing for this! I have visions of tote bags floating around in my head…
• That Buttony sweater is now my new lunchtime project – I’m managing at least two rows per break, because there are so many stitches, but slow and steady wins the race – at least I’m working on it again!
• I’ve been reminded that its about 130 days until Christmas, so I’m thinking about Christmas knitting in the back of my head… probably not a lot this year, since I’m going away, but who knows!

What’s on your to-do list? Have you started thinking about your Christmas knitting?

~Happy knitting!~

What's in a name?

I'm up to the 9th button hole on the Buttony sweater, but i've put it down for the moment, not only because i'm moving out of my flat this weekend (finally - that's another long story!), but because i'm also making up some new stuff. A friend of mine from work makes candles and quilts, and is going on a roadtrip tour around the North Island in July to try and sell them to different places - and she's asked if I want to make some knitted things to go with it! Of course I said yes :)

But that meant coming up with a name to sell under. You may remember a while ago I asked for suggestions, thinking that Monarch Knits sounded good to me, and you agreed. I changed my mind though, now that i'm sewing and wouldn't only be selling knitting, and decided on Monarch Creations. Unfortunately, my mum was in Melbourne last week and brought back a present - and its brand was Monarch Creations! So there went that idea. We were pondering changing it to MonArk Creations, or something similar - mum's obsessed with Noah's Ark - but that still didn't sit right with me. I decided that I don't really like the look of monarch butterflies anyway - orange isn't my colour, I prefer blue.

So I googled 'butterfly species' and it came up with a couple of suggestions - I was going to go with Ulysses, because I love their colour. That was until I came across the Summer Azure Butterfly. The original picture I saw showed them in an even-more-gorgeous pale blue colour, so that settled it. THEN I saw the genus name for them - Celastrina neglecta. See that? CelasTRINA. That's me! (Ok, its pronounced 'sell-us-TRY-nah', but still!) And so a store name was born. All it took then was an email to my clever sister, who came up with this logo for me*, to which I added my own image:

"Ok, who did you have to bribe to get a butterfly named after you!!"

- Mum

I'm glad its all coming together. Now all I have to do is start making stuff to sell! I have a few ideas, but it will mean that things will probably be quiet on here until I have it all done. But don't worry, you'll be the first to know when things are up and running!

~Happy Knitting!~

*she also noted that the font used for Celastrina is 'Edwardian' - to fit my Twilight obsession!!

Motivation

Progress on Buttony is coming along slowly... i've been busy the last couple of lunchtimes so I haven't worked on it that much (and nights have been busy sewing ribbons onto a dress for B!), and to be honest, i'm at that point in the project where is SO slow that i'm close to giving up! What a waste of effort that would be, especially as i'm not far off finishing the body!

So, for motivation, I was looking at my Ravelry queue to see what i've got coming up:

(Click on the link above to get to the patterns)

This queue has changed alot recently - I was hit by the reality that i'm REALLY never going to get around to knitting everything, so i've been adding to my favourites more than my queue. The order changes often as well, as I come across new project to knit as presents! At least there are some projects on there that I can work on simultaneously - the hat at the same time as the B.O.B jersey, and Clapotis at the same time as CPH - to keep up the interest! I'm also likely to work on Thermal at the same time as Wicked, in hopes that the boring stockinette of Wicked will balance the intense pattern of Thermal.

Just need to get through Buttony now... Wish me luck!

~Happy knitting!~

Book worm

I'm sorry i've been quiet on the blog front recently... i've been doing little knitting, but much reading! As of last week, I have officially completed the Twilight Saga :) I started reading book one at Easter, and have found all four of them hard to put down! What to do now though, that i've finished? Start again! Well, i'm going to have a break, I have other books to read for other people, but I definately plan to get back to them soon. In the meantime, i'll keep watching the movie and wait for movie two to come out at the end of the year.

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Knitting update

Amongst the reading I have managed to sneak in some knitting - mostly when i'm at my parents house where I can't read while watching tv!

First project was to make a square for UNICEF - they were aiming to collect 1,400 squares to make into a large blanket to present to parliament, to represent children in need - turns out they got over 3,000! This was my little contribution, a good way to practise my weak crochet skills: (Rav link)

Next on the list was a cowl, using the Cleckheaton Vintage Hues yarn I brought at easter. (Sorry, no photo yet, hopefully tonight!) My plan was to knit a scarf on huge needles to make it stretch and look lacy, and just keep knitting until I ran out of yarn. Sadly I ran out much sooner than I thought, so it turned into a squishy cowl instead!

On top of all that, I knitted up a mothers day present from this pattern. (My photo to come) Nice easy knit, although I changed the chart to say mUm rather than mOm. Finished just in time, 11pm on Saturday night to be precise, so it was still wet from blocking when I gave it to her, but I don't think she minded. I'm looking forward to knitting some more of KrisKnit's dishcloths in the future, she has some fantastic patterns!

Progress on Buttony continues - the sleeves are seperated, and I added some waist shaping today. I'm worried that the sleeves may be a little big, but i'm assured that's a good thing since i'll be able to wear layers underneath as well. Time will tell... Anyway, here's the latest progress picture - just after i'd seperated the sleeves:

In sewing news, I got a new book today - 'A is for Apron'! Its got a whole lot of awesome vintage-looking patterns that I can't wait to try! And guess what - it's available here on Amazon.com if you're interested! (Just realised - lots of exclamation marks - can you tell i'm excited??)

~Happy Knitting!~

I'm still here!

Sorry to not have had a decent blog post for a while - i'm still alive, just busy with all things non-knitting, so I haven't got alot to report!

Well, that's not strictly true - I've been working on some easter presents for the family, which I can't show you until next week or it will spoil the suprise :)

I'm also starting to get into the habit of making at least one Casa Kiwi blanket square each night before I go to bed, so I think i'm almost ready to make up one blanket. Mum got me some black yarn to sew them together with, so I think they'll look pretty smart. Don't forget you can help out with squares too if you want - just leave me a comment and i'll send you some more details. Here are a bunch of squares that I received a while ago from a Ravelry friend - the colours match perfectly with the other squares that i've made!

Over Easter i'm only taking Buttony with me, so I should have some more progress on that to show you upon my return (amidst the painting and gardening over the weekend of course!).

Also - thanks for your feedback about the butterfly hat! I believe i'll be frogging it and starting on a shawlette in the near future :)

~Happy knitting!~

A new book review

The Reptile Room
Author: Lemony Snicket
Started: 9-Mar-09
Finished: 17-Mar-09

From audible.com

Following on from the first book, A Series of Unfortunate Events (which I read a while ago, but it doesn't look like I did a review on it!), this reading was slightly different, with Tim Curry covering all the voices, instead of having different readers. I very much enjoyed this book - after seeing the movie which covered all the different stories, it was good to get a bit more information about the characters. It was alot shorter than I was expecting though, so the story was rather basic, and a little predictable. Still recommended though :)

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Knitting update

I'm still in a bit of a knitting funk. I'm at the depressing stage of Buttony where it doesn't seem to be getting any longer, but for fear that one day i'll measure it and it will be perfect to put onto scrap yarn, i'm only knitting it at home when I have scrap yarn around! I needed some road trip knitting though last week so I cast on for Fern Glade again, and so far so good - although its stretching quite a bit around the cable, so I'll need to get a shorter one before I go much further. So far i've done one full pattern repeat (while sitting at a homestead looking out over the country side - it was lovely!) so there are five more to go for my size. The green acrylic is interesting to knit with...

I have a friend coming over tomorrow night to have his first knitting lesson; i'm definately looking forward to that! I might get him started on some squares for the Casa Kiwi blankets, to speed that project along a little, while I continue to forge my way through Buttony some more, aided by a nice glass of white...

~Happy knitting!~

Sunburnt

Have a tomato near you? That's the colour of my face. Totally self inflicted - I didn't put on nearly enough sunblock yesterday morning before watching our church's U30s v. O30s soccer match yesterday afternoon! Thank goodness for aloe cream! It was worth it though, the U30s won the game :)

Mingus Big Band was fantastic on Friday night! We shifted seats at intermission to get a view of something other than the pianist's back... And, I've never seem a baritone sax that big - it was a big guy that was playing it, and it came down to his knee! Promptly went home and downloaded a Charles Mingus album from iTunes to listen to. I also managed to pop into the free open concert in the square on Saturday to watch the Vaughan Roberts Big Band, they were great too, with a mixture of swing and salsa and remakes of some old tunes. It was a good weekend.

Knitting update

I finally got up the energy late yesterday afternoon to work some more on Buttony - sadly its not turning out to be the 'quick because its bulky' project I thought it would be, but i'll stick with it, and ignore the urge to cast on the sleeve for Thermal...

(the safety pins mark where the button holes are)

Looking at some of my other raglan projects, I'm estimating that the increases need to be 8 inches long before seperating the sleeves. Here's where I'm up to:

Not long to go!

As you can see from the progress bars, i'm also making ascots for quick presents. I ran out of the yarn I needed, so a quick trip out at lunchtime means that they should be finished and ready to send off tonight, while Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, and Nip/Tuck is on. (I love Mondays!)

Quote of the week

From the Yarn Harlot's page-a-day calendar:

"All knitterly creation stems from one simple element: yarn. It is the baker's flour, the jeweler's gold, the gardener's soil. Yarn is creation, consolation, and chaos all spun together into one perfect ball."
- Clara Parkes

This quote makes me feel better about my stash :)

~Happy knitting!~

The knitting code

I studied web design for about a year, before waking up one morning and realising that I wanted to do something other than sitting in front of a computer for the rest of my working life. Selfish, I know - a job like that is for some people, just not for me. However, I still remember a fair amount of code from all the study I had to do, so it still catches my ear when I hear someone talking about it.

That's why this morning, listening to episode 73 of Cast-On on the train, I was intrigued to hear about KnitML - a coding language being developed to assist with knitting patterns! The aim is for designers to use KEL (Knitting Expression Language) to write a standard pattern in KnitML, which can then be not only translated into different languages and measurement systems, but also allow people to only find information relating to their size, and easily sub in other yarns and needles. What a brilliant idea! "KnitML was based on Laura Porter's vision to create a standard markup language for knitting patterns. She had noticed that patterns tended to be written using non-standard styles and abbreviations, so it was often difficult to convey meaning universally." (from the website) Jonathan Whitall was joking about it one day with his collegues, and is now looking at it seriously!

If you're interested, have a look at their website (complete with sample patterns) - and there's even a Ravelry group!

(Think all this code talk is too much for you? Take a look at the pattern you're working on. Do you know what 'ssk' is? Or 'k2tog'? Or 'YO'? Then you know some knitting code already!)

Knitting news

I'm still going on Buttony, although i'm no further along than the last time I talked about it. Why? About 4 inches into the increases I took a serious look at it to figure out how it was going to work, only to realise that i'd missed out a whole set of increases! So, I ripped back the whole thing and started again. I didn't mind so much, because that allowed me to cast on 90st instead of the 82 I had originally, which was looking a little small. I'm happier with it now :)

Random...

Martha Stewart is on Twitter!

~Happy Knitting!~

Buttony begins

Buttony Sweater

I got started on this last night - it took a while to figure out how the sizing worked (its only written for size M, and i'm a size S) - i'm still not sure i'm on the right track as the collar looks smaller than I would like, so there's a definate possibility that I will start again with a different cast on number! I love the colour though, and the yarn is lovely to use :)

Ballatrina's Books

I was thinking the other day that I haven't had an update on when i'm reading for a while - and that's because I haven't been reading anything! I've become obsessed with listening to podcasts on the bus. I'm fully up to date with Ready, Set, Knit, the podcast from the awesome team at WEBS, and now i'm listening my way through the Cast On podcast - which is great so far, a little longer than RSK, but it plays full tracks between the talking, which is a good mix. If you have an iPod I recommend you check these out - I found them through a search of 'knitting' on iTunes (yes, yes, i'm obsessed, we know this!)

Quote of the week

Another quote from the Yarn Harlot's page-a-day calendar:

"If you're crazy, there's two things you can do to make yourself feel better: One is to get yourself cured. The other is to make everyone you have to deal with crazy."
- Alan Dean Foster

Stephanie's response to that puts it into knitterly context:

"This is the reason every knitter tries to teach everyone she knows to knit... or at least suggests that they should try it."

~Happy knitting!~

Where to from here?

Looking back on some of my last posts, I seem to have mentioned a few things i'm working on and what i'd like to do coming up. I thought i'd give you a proper update, as I think I have things cleared up a bit now - the wonders of a stash tidy up!
Earlier I mentioned i'd been working on this Fern Glade beret. I'd only done the first couple of rounds of ribbing, but as I needed the cable for my blue tam, I ripped out that project. I do plan on starting it again soon though.

I also mentioned that I seperated pre-determined yarn and matched it with their projects so they are ready to pick up and go. There are two in particular that i'm dying to start - the Buttony Sweater in red Gedifra (left), and the Wicked sweater by Zephyr in light blue Patons Soft Haze (below).

Also prepared in my Ravelry queue are the Coffee tunic in Taeri Plains 8ply, a Clapotis in Patons Smoothie DK, Thermal in Elle Pure Gold, as well as the obligitory Central Park Hoodie in London Tweed. Too many to choose from!

Also sitting in the back of my head is more charity work - the preemie baby stuff for the Wellington Hospital, more puppy jumpers, and squares for Casa Kiwi blankets. I also promised my sister that I would make her a little Fireman Sam toy (yes, she's 22, but it brings back good memories!) and she leaves for her big trip soon and i'd like to get that done before she goes.

In the meantime, the ribbon x-back top is staring at me from my WIP pile... I'm not sure that i'm so keen on it any more, but i'm determined to finish it anyway. That will be my next project out of the way! (Just in the interest of updating, i'm choosing to forget about Talia for the moment, but I know its still there!)

Common sense and practical thinking tell me that since the Thermal pattern has been in my queue the longest, that's the next big project I should start on. The other part of my head says that Buttony has been on there almost as long, and that's in chunky so it will go faster! So that's what i'll do - Buttony then Thermal.

Don't hold me to that though, the mind is a crazy thing that changes more than this weird Wellington weather...

~Happy knitting!~