Vacation Wardrobe: Crocheted Top

So, Darryl and I have been planning a vacation for a while now.  We're pretty excited about it, and I've been saving up for ages for this.  Where are we going?

CUBA!  For two weeks, too.  :)

And since I'm me, I'm making things hard for myself by trying to make up a vacation wardrobe for this trip.

I have a plan, and it's a pretty good one too.  I should write up a post about it, actually.  A couple of dresses (one that's basically a strip of fabric sewn to the bottom of a cropped tank top), a skirt, a t-shirt reconstructed into a tank top, maybe a pair of shorts I started well over a year ago now and basically just needs a waistband, and a crocheted top.

I'm stoked about this crocheted top - I've been wanting to make it for a while now.  It's a lovely v-neck top built around a lacy doily.  The pattern is from an out of print Japanese magazine, and it's a pain to get a hold of.  I was pretty sure this pattern would always stay on the wish-list, but a friend of mine showed me her copy of it she's had since her trip to Japan a few years back, and I all but jumped her for it!

I started it last Wednesday, and finished the back doily today.  Despite working from crochet charts alone, it's going pretty good.  Especially since this is only my second time using crochet charts!  It's challenging and I have to pay attention, but I'm still able to do it while watching tv, so it's been a great relaxing-on-the-couch project.

The medallion is about 18" across, which is what the pattern calls for (after blocking, I believe).  Considering that this pattern is one-sized and a Japanese pattern, I know I need to make this bigger.  I'm pretty sure I'll get that once this is blocked.  Look at the pattern picture above - you can see how much open the lace is - and using a wool, this should open up nicely.

I'm using Nice & Knit Fingering in the Lobster Pot colourway.  The pictures above don't show the colour well, mostly because I was too eager to show you guys so took them in my sewing room with the blinding fluorescent light on.  It's gorgeous though, a lovely tonal reddish-orange - you can sort of see the tonal varigation in the first pic.

Considering that I started this 4 days ago, I should be able to get this done before the 22nd, right?  Right??!

As for the other projects, well, I got a skirt done already and I have a basic t-shirt dress cut out already. More on those later.  I should've had my tank-top dress finished, but I decided that I want to match the stripes and I need more fabric for that.  Or I need to re-think the skirt.  Either way, I left it be for the weekend.

It's been a good crafty weekend!  I think I needed this, I've been in the dumps lately and it was good to get some creative time in.  How was your weekend?  Did you get any craft-time in?

fo: Rock-Paper-Scissors...Shoot!

I love doing KALs.  They're great motivation to finish a sweater and so much fun to knit with other people.  I've met some fantastic people during KALs, and I always feel a little sad when they're over.

Often the organizers will have prizes for people who finish their projects during the KAL.  While these aren't the reason I join them, it's a fun perk.  During the last Holla Knits KAL, I received a pattern for fingerless mitts I'd been eyeing up for ages.  I was so excited about them that I cast them on almost immediately.

That was in May, and I only just finished them last week.  Oops.

Rock Paper Scissors!

Pattern: Rock, Paper, Scissors...SHOOT! by Annie Watts
Yarn: Sandnes Garn Sisu Solids, fingering weight
Needles: 2.25 mm and 2.75 mm*
Mods: none (surprise!!!)
Here's my Ravelry project page

*For the second mitt, anyways

I finished the first mitt pretty quickly, but then waited a long time to start on the second one.  That's...probably where I ran into trouble.

See normally, I use my Ravelry project pages to record everything, because sometimes I have the memory of a goldfish (I assume they have a short memory - I'm no damn elephant, that's for sure).  When I went back to check the needles I needed for the second one, I'd neglected to note the size.  There was, however, a set of needles in with the yarn I was using, so I used those.  As my main needles.

The mitt on the right is smaller than the one on the right.  Oops.

Considering how much smaller the second mitt turned out, I suspect they were originally the ribbing needles.  It makes the mitt on the right hand much snugger, but it's not too bad, and I prefer a snug mitt anyways, especially on my dominant hand.

I haven't actually blocked these yet though, so they might grow a little bit anyways, and the stitches should even out.  I probably should've waited to blog about these then, but oh well.  I had good light and free time this afternoon, so photos got taken.

Oh you can see it much better here.  So much smaller! 

Aren't they great though?  I love the pattern - people always get a laugh when they realize what they are.  I'm hoping to play rock-paper-scissors with friends at the next knit night!

The pattern itself was good - very clear and the chart was easy to follow, or as easy to follow as such a detailed chart can be.  I admit though, I was ready for these to be finished.  I like colourwork, but this was a bit intense on such a small circumference.  I'd bought this yarn a couple of years ago specifically to make a pair of detailed colourwork mittens, so I call this job well done.

Have you ever knit a detailed colourwork pattern like this before?  I know there's a lot more complicated patterns out there, but I'm pretty chuffed about this one.  Ooo and who wants to play Rock-Paper-Scissors?

2015 Blogging Goals: How'd I do?

I'm not good at these end-of-year posts.  I usually get bored half way though writing them.  ETA: and I totally did with this one.  It was supposed to be posted on the 31st, but I got bored and wandered off despite almost being done.  You're only getting this because I just needed a bit more to finish it.  It's not very polished, but oh well.  So lets review my 2015 Goals and see if I managed to follow any of them!

1. Sew More!

Uh...not so much.  I tried joining Make a Garment a Month, but I was more of a facebook liker than a contributor. I did manage to sew a couple of garments, including my purple Linden (which I've almost worn out by now and is actually a bit small because of my love of pie and lack of exercise...oops), a bikini top (and an attempted at a bottom from a crappy pattern), and a foxy beach bag.

There is my spring/fall jacket and a mostly finished quilt, but they've both stalled out for now.  :(

I have a ton of plans, and hopefully I can get to them.  Ooo and I have a final garment for 2015, but I'm hand sewing the seam finishing.  I'll show it to you guys in a few days. 

I may have to revisit this goal for 2016.  More on that next year!

2. Make Garments I'll Actually Wear

YES!  This year has been great for this.  I wore the heck out of that bathingsuit, and we've already talked about me destroying that purple Linden.  For sweaters, I've knit and worn the heck out of my Cardboard Cafe and Henri!  In fact, I'm actually wearing Henri right now.  :)

 

 

I did knit a tank top, but it's hideous on me.  I knew it would be, but I wanted to try it out.  I don't have any regrets.  I do...need to photograph that and show you just how horrible it is...on me - it's actually quite cute laid out on the floor! 

(There's...a lot of purple and beige/light brown in the photos above.  Hmmm.)

I'm working on another very practical sweater right now, something I chose to do because there was a huge gap in my wardrobe.  Again, more on that in the new year!  I have a lot of posts to write up, holy cow.

3. Blog More

Despite recent months, I blogged a lot more this year!  Including this post, I wrote up 77 posts this year!  ETA: Whoops, this didn't get posted on Dec 31 as planned.  Guess that means 76 posts in 2015.

I should be blogging more going forward.  The course I'm teaching is done (mostly - still waiting to receive final exams from off-campus folks) and daylight hours are slowly increasing again.  I'm also making some changes in my life to give myself more me-time.  I love volunteering myself for things, but I WAY over did it this fall - gotta make time for me again.


4. Play Time With Rocks

I think I did fairly well with this goal.  I only wrote a handful of rock-related posts, but they were generally well liked.  Hands down, one of my most popular blog posts was when I talked about my job at the mine.

I also talked about slicks along faults, the rocks in the Sea-to-Sky wall at the Vancouver airport, and a fun post about the rose quartz I gave away in my 1st blogiversary giveaway (I really liked that post).

I could improve on this though.  Teaching my environmental geology course this fall has brought up a ton of post ideas - I just didn't have the time to write them up.  Watch for those in the coming year, as I want to dig into the material more, and what better way to prepare but to teach some of the content to you folks!

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Overall, I think I did fairly well with these goals.  I'm glad I made goals, since I think they're less set-in-stone than my impression of resolutions.  It was easy to keep in mind. 

In fact, I liked these goals so much, I'm going to carry them forward into 2016.  I can definitely improve on all of them (SEW MORE, HEATHER, GEEZ)!  I am going to add one more goal though:

5. Do More Community Knitting

I've mentioned it before, but I'm part of a knitting group that does projects for the community.  We've raised money for a woman who had to make multiple trips down south for her young daughter's medical treatment.  We knit for the homeless shelter and the women's shelter.  We've knit hearts for the hospice to give away to family members to carry with them when they've lost someone they love.  We're knitting warm woolies for the two Syrian families that will be settling in our community.  And we have a thing coming up this January or February (whenever there's a bad cold snap) where we'll hang up all sorts of warm accessories downtown and in other central hubs, so that anyone who needs a hat/scarf/mitts/etc can take one to keep warm.  I love being a part of this group - it's nice to think that we're sending out something made with love to people who made need it, whether they understand the love that comes with it or not, and I want to keep it up.


Happy New Year, folks!  I hope that 2015 was good to you, and I hope that 2016 is even better!  Here's to another fun and productive year!

fo: Fingerless Mitts for a Friend

Whoops, sorry folks - didn't mean to disappear for so long there.  Between the class I'm teaching kicking it up into overdrive for exam prep, frantically trying to tie up ends at the end of my contract at the 9-5 job, spending time with new friends, multiple house-guests, and a week-long visit from my best friend (!!!) last month, it's been a little frantic around these parts.

I've been doing a lot of knitting though, mostly for stress relief.  There's been days where the only thing that's saved me was taking 20 minutes to just knit and read a book!

One of the things I've made is one of the only knitted gifts I'm doing for December's Christmas (as opposed to April's Christmas when I fly down to celebrate with family); a pair of fingerless mitts for a friend.

This buddy of mine just landed herself a geology job in the far FAR north - so far north that I believe they're under 24 hour darkness right now!  She was my cross-shift at my last mining job, and I remember finding all sorts of warming devices on our shared office when I'd come into camp.

I figured a pair of fingerless mitts might come in handy for office work up there!

Pattern: Edith Mitts and Mittens, by Faye Perriam-Reed
Yarn: Drops Nepal in Deep Ocean colourway
Needles: 3.5 mm and 4 mm
Mods: ALL OF THEM.

I'm not actually a big fan of this pattern.  I got it ages ago, thinking it was charming, but in reality they're really large and long mitts.  I made a size small and they were almost too big for my larger (for a woman) hands.  I mean, I've learned that I have short palms, but the first mitt went to my fingertips when I followed the pattern, and would've covered my entire thumb if I didn't modify it.  Sort of defeats the purpose of fingerless mitts, in my mind.

So I ripped the first mitt back and adjusted the pattern.  Here's my Rav page for a quick summary.  First off, I did an extra round of increases before separating the thumb stitches since the thumb gusset was too short.  Then I cast on 2 less stitches over the gusset to keep the amount of stitches the same.  I still feel like there was too many stitches around the thumb, but my mods made it work.  On the hand, I removed one lace repeat and started the ribbing early and did 5 rows of ribbing before loosely binding off.

For the thumb, I skipped all of the extra rows the pattern has you knit before the ribbing.  I only did the initial row where you pick up stitches, then one more after that to do the decreases before doing 4 rounds of ribbing with the smaller needle size.  This snugged up the thumb nicely.

I don't like giving poor reviews for patterns since there's usually some silver lining, especially when this is probably more of a personal preference thing rather than an issue with the pattern (other than these tending large - which others on Ravelry have noted).  This pattern is well written and the finished mitts are cute.  I think these would work out just fine if you used a thinner weight yarn than the recommended aran weight.

Overall, I do like how they turned out with my modifications.  I think my friend will like them too, I just hope her hands aren't much narrower than mine.

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How are you folks doing?  Are you already for Christmas (if you celebrate)?  I hope you're finding some relaxing time too in all of this craziness.  I also hope you have a fantastic holiday and that you get to spend it with people that you love!  <3

Knitting WiPs for a Lazy Saturday

I'm not feeling that great, so a quiet night on the couch sounded like a fantastic idea!  I'd originally planned to sew this evening, and I'm sad to have skipped out, but it's also nice to sit and knit for a bit (haha).

Despite having grown my wip pile (again - ye gods, I think I have about 20 projects on the go), I started a new hat on Thursday.  AHA.  But it's for a good cause!  The community knitting group I'm involved with plans to hang up a bunch of warm stuff around downtown this winter, and I plan to knit a few hats for it.  And what better than another one of Kat Riddell's patterns from her Granite collection!  This time I'm knitting Portsmouth in Cascade 220 in a dark heather grey.  I'm loving how it's turning out!  The rippley pattern looks like it'll be really warm too, which is what I'm looking for in these hats.

The other project I'm working on (and that I think I mentioned in erm, my last post) is my Year in Temps scarf.  I'm itching to get caught up on this one, since I really do need a new warm scarf, and it's looking so good.  I changed the colour scheme from the suggestions in the pattern, since I'm not actually a big fan of the colours they used. Darryl won't stop bugging me about how purple this is.  Just reinforces the fact that I'm in love with purple.  :)  I'm up to the end of May.  Yes, I know, I'm way behind, especially since I'd hoped to do this in real time.  Oh well.  Hopefully I'll catch up by the end of the year!

Anywho, that's two of my (way too many) wips.  The ones I'm working on today anyways. 

Sadly, not my jacket wip, but oh well.

How's your wip pile doing?  Are you guys more disciplined than I am?  I seem to be seduced by every single pattern out there.

Hot Tub + Friends + a lot of Ciders =

a really hapy Heather!

HI GUYS.  I love you all, I have the best readers. :D  Also I love living in a place with a cold winter, especially when you get to star gaze from a hot tub, ESPECIALLY when friends come over and bring you lovely bevvies.

Haha I'm probbaly not going to be pleased about this post tomorrow but WHATEVER I don't tell you that I love you all so much enough.  :)  You guys are the bestest.

Also, this is apparently my 100th post on this blog so YAY!  I trhought about doig something special but I'm just happy to have som free time so YAY look I'm blogging!

Okay, gonna go dry off some more and work on my scarf.  I'M CATCHING UP!  it loosk asesome.  can I link to it?  MAYBE.  We'll see. 

Everyone os sit=ll in the hottub, so I'm gonnan relax a bit.  I think I spelled 'gonna' wrong.  wait, gona go fix it.

Hope you guys are doing aas awesome as I am right now. :)  <3

fo: Haines Hampton Hat

I LIIIIIIVE!  Aha it's been a crazy few weeks, but the final exams for the course I'm teaching has been submitted and I'm finally having a relaxing night off!  This post is going to be short because as soon as it's done, I'm putting on a girly movie and grabbing some knitting for a chill me-night!

So this toque has been done for a while, but I put off blocking it for ages.  Then winter arrived last Saturday and I needed a hat, so huzzah warm head!

Here's my Ravelry project page, if you want to take a peak.

Pattern: Hampton, from Granite: Four Hats for Any Adventure by Kat Riddell.  I actually won a copy of the ebook from her website.
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Alpaca Lana D'Ore, bought at the Dalton City Yarn Emporium in Haines, AK
Mods: NONE.  Although I did use the chart instead of the written instructions for the lace because of a mistake in the instructions.  I think they've been corrected though, so woo!

I have a habit of buying yarn and making myself a souvenir when I go places, and I had this planned out for my trip to Haines, Alaska last month...or uh actually, in September.  Oops, where did October go?!  Anyways, I love the little yarn shop in Haines, so of course I went down for a visit, and did approximately 1200 laps around the store and stared at the worsted weight yarn until I decided on this lovely grey.

Which is ridiculous because I knew going in that I wanted a light grey for this hat.  On top of the rock theme of the patterns, Haines has a bunch of pretty sculptures all over town carved out of local granite.  I knew they'd be my inspiration behind this project.  Never mind the foggy weather along the coast, which pushed me more toward a light grey over a medium or dark shade.

And then there were these beautiful old graves in a hidden little early 1900s graveyard I stumbled across on a walk along the shore.  There was less than 20 of them, but it was such a lovely, peaceful area, and I had a nice chat with them as I wandered through.  I love graveyards, especially old ones.  It was a lovely place, and I'm glad I came across it.

Anyways, the pattern was a fun knit.  The lace was enough of a challenge to keep my attention, but not too challenging that I was antisocial while hanging hanging out with friends.

I really liked how Kat designed the decreases at the top.  I wasn't sure about it at first, but the finished result looks awesome.  And I like how the top isn't smoothly rounded but a bit...gathered?  Not sure of the word, but I like it. 

Like the background here?  We stopped somewhere between Haines, Alaska and Haines Junction, Yukon, in the Haines range above the treeline.  I didn't even see the rainbow, but Darryl did and arranged me here for the photo.  There are times when I think he's completely oblivious, and then there are times like this when he proves me wrong.  :) 

It was really windy up there.  And probably a lot snowier now since Whitehorse is buried in a few inches already.


I'll definitely be knitting up more of Kat's hats (haha that rhymes!) in her ebook.  While I don't need more hats, our community knitting group is collecting hats, scarves, mitts, etc for a big donation thing next month, so it's a good opportunity.

Oh and the dreaded C word too.  ACK!

Are you guys all geared up and ready for winter?  Or uh, summer for those of you in the southern hemisphere?  Also, any idea where October went?  I think I misplaced it.