FO Friday

Welcome to the last FO Friday of 2010!  I, for one, decided to send the year out with a bang.  No, I'm not huddled up with a zillion of my closest friends in Times Square.  But I did manage to finish a project.  Yay!

As promised, I put the finishing touches on Eliza last night, and this morning, for that matter.  I knit ear #2, then knit it again, and again, and... It turns out that it's really hard to knit symmetrical body parts, even if they do belong to a heavily stylized elephant.  Ditto for the embroidered eyes.  In the end, I decided to embrace her imperfections rather than drive myself batty trying to make her perfect.  Hmm... that smacks of a New Years resolution.  I should write that down somewhere so I don't forget.

Anyway, enough babbling.  Here she is, in all her slightly lopsided glory!

And again from a slightly more flattering angle, because she really is pretty stinking cute.





I'm super happy that she's done, and excited to stick her in the mail as a belated Christmas gift.  Hope her new keeper is as happy with her as I am.

I'm off to get ready for a houseful of folks tonight, but before I do, I'm heading over to Tami's to check out everyone else's successes.  You should, too.

Happy New Year, everyone! 

Work In Progress Wednesday v.21

Here we are, at the very last Wednesday of 2010 -- the year knitting went from something I did here and there to Knitting -- A Way of Life.  Seriously.  I'm never not knitting *something* these days.

I finished the Snowbaby Hat just in time for Christmas (I couldn't wrap it til Christmas morning because it took forever to dry after blocking), and Mr. Right's mom loved it.  It earned me the biggest hug I've ever gotten from her and a kiss on the cheek.  And then she checked my finishing work, proclaimed that I had done a beautiful job and hugged me again.  I couldn't have asked for a better reaction.  Phew!

I'm determined to finish Eliza this week, now that my finger is mostly healed, so check back on Friday for the final unveiling.  I promise!  For now, she still looks like this:

I've also unearthed that cable lace vest that got buried during the holidays.  I'm resolving to pick it up again, but just for a little refresher, here's what it looked like when I stuffed into my knitting back about 6 weeks ago...

It's pretty, and I'm excited to wear it.  But lately, I've become inexplicably obsessed with making mittens.  It's supposed to snow like crazy here tomorrow, and what sort of self-respecting knitter goes into an impending blizzard with only one pair of mittens???  Not this one, that's for sure.

And so.  Instead of knitting an elephant ear or the top of a vest, I cast on for a new pair of MITTENS!  I love mittens. I love the coziness, I love the super cool patterns that are available, I even love the word.  Mittens. Mittens. Mittens!  Phew. Glad I got that out of my system.  Anyway, after realizing that I had no Progress to report for WIPW, I got up early this morning and cast on for a pair of Chevalier Mittens.  Then I spent the whole morning working on them (I love vacation).  Here's what we have so far, after having tinked a few rows due to the dreaded KBMC syndrome -- that's Knitting Before Morning Caffeine...

That's the back of the hand side, with the beginnings of the cabling.  Here's what the palm side looks like...

I'm loving the yarn and the pattern so far, though this is the first thing that I've knit entirely from a chart and it's a little scary (see tinking, above).

Hope everyone is having a great week.  For more crafty loveliness, head over to Tami's blog and check out everyone else's progress this week. 

Work In Progress Wednesday v.19

I was SO hoping that I'd be able to write this post today and be all, "No elephant pics for you guys!  You'll have to wait til FO Friday for that -- cuz she's DONE!"  But I cannot be all like that.  Because she is still not done.  She would have been done, if not for this...

That's what's left of my right index finger after I tried to amputate the top half while slicing a loaf of french bread last night for Mr. Right's birthday party #2.  Bread knives are sharp (Ow.).  They are also serrated (Ow.), and sometimes slippery (Seriously. Ow.).  Out of respect for the gaping wound on my finger, I decided to take a day or two off from wrestling worsted weight yarn on size 3 dpns.  So here's our Miss Eliza, one ear and two eyes shy of her full pachyderm glory...

Still cute!  And I kitchenered that ear all by myself, with a bit of help from this youtube video.  If ever you need assistance with any sort of knitterly technique (please tell me I'm not the only one?), I highly recommend any videos by the knitwitch.  She's awesome at super clear videos and explanations.

Anyway, I'm still semi-hoping she'll be done in time for FO Friday, but we'll see.

Since I couldn't work on the elephant, and because I'm insane, I decided to start a hat for Mr. Right's mom for Christmas.  Brilliant!  Also?  Stranded colorwork.  Have I ever done stranded colorwork before?  Why no.  I have not.  I'm sure it'll be fine.  I mean I started at lunch, cast on twice (first long-tail wasn't long enough), could have sworn that I joined to work in the round (I didn't), and have managed one and a half rounds of ribbing so far.

But I have this stunning pattern by the lovely and talented Eskimimi, and this gorgeous yarn (ravelry link - sorry), and buckets of irrational optimism.  What could go wrong?*

Speaking of irrational optimism, I'm sure all of the other WIPW-ers are long done knitting their Christmas gifts and are busily basking in the warm glow of a stress-free holiday.  The only way to find out for sure is to head over to Tami's blog and see for yourself.


*Don't answer that.  Please?

Work In Progress Wednesday v.18

Aw, look at that... WIPW is old enough to vote!  They grow up so fast, don't they?  All those weeks, and yet so little progress.  Sigh.  I'm still working away on Elijah (recently re-dubbed Eliza) over here.  She's getting cuter by the minute.  I just wish I had more time to work on her! 

She's a couple of limbs closer to finished!  One arm, two ears and a couple of embroidered eyes still to come.  This is a really fun knit, and I'd make another one in a heartbeat.  Ysolda's patterns are really kind of genius.

And, just so you can all share in my vision of Eliza, here's how she'll look with a rose barrette clipped on her ear.  Once she has ears, that is...

Pretty cute, eh?  I'm tempted to skip arm #2 and head straight for her ears so I can clip it on, but I don't think the instruction follower in me will allow it.  We'll see who wins.

Sadly, that's it for me this week.  I've got Mr. Right back and we're heading off for the Big Birthday Weekend tomorrow.  Unfortunately, it's no longer a surprise, but that's another story for another day.  There will still be plenty of fun to be had, I hope!

At the moment, I'm off to check out everyone else's WIPW projects over at Tamis blog.  You should too.

Work in Progress Wednesday v.17

It's WIPW again!  These things seem to be coming faster and faster, especially as Christmas gets *gulp* closer and closer.  Since Mr. Right's been away, I've had way more time to knit work on projects this past week.  It's been fun, but I'd rather have him hanging around interrupting me.  Ah well.

The Big News is that Avast is really, truly, FINALLY finished.  I took it over to my neighbor the other night for a zipper consult, and she spread it out on her kitchen table, showed me exactly how to do put in the zipper, then proceeded to sew the whole blinking thing in (and then add a second line of reinforcement stitches) while we chatted.  The whole operation from basting to done took about an hour and a half.  I'm so grateful I could cry.  Because really, with my mad sewing skillz, it would've taken me a solid week.  And it looks great!  I think I need to bake her something.

Totally off track, sorry!  This is supposed to be about all the stuff I'm working on now.  Right then.  Elijah is coming along great.  He has a head, complete with extra-cute trunk, a body, and a whole leg.  Oh, and pay
no attention to the shiny green knitting needle sticking out of his noggin.  Turns out it's super difficult to get a one-legged elephant to sit up properly for a photo...

I'm dying of the cute.  Hopefully, he'll get another leg tonight and some arms tomorrow so that he'll be all ready for FO Friday.  Fingers crossed!  I am contemplating a gender change, though.  Wouldn't he be SO cute as an Eliza?  We'll see what happens once all his/her limbs are in place.

That little felt project I was working last week is still in the hopper, even though I haven't had any time to work on it.  I still think I'll be able to finish one by Friday.  Lofty ambitions this week!

Finally, here's the cable lace vest ...

It doesn't look like much progress has been made, but I was able to navigate the row after the short rows, picking up the wraps and purling them in with no problems.  A few more rows of waist decreases done and I've just started the top of the vest with ribbing in back and cables in front.  Pretty good, considering.

S'all for me this week.  Head over to Tami's Blog and check out everyone else's WIPW projects.  Holiday presents galore!

Which reminds me...  Hanukkah starts tonight.  Happy Hanukkah to everyone who's celebrating!

Work In Progress Wednesday v.16

Happy Wednesday Before Thanksgiving to everyone in the US (and any celebrating expats), and Happy WIPW to the rest of you!

Personally, I'm gearing up to cook my face off tomorrow.  But in between roasting and baking and brining (not in that order), I plan to sneak in some more time knitting on my new projects.  Both of them are super fun, so I'm having a hard time putting them down.

Elijah is coming along nicely, once I got past that crazy disappearing loop cast on that the pattern calls for.  Seriously, it's only 6 stitches, but between Mr. Right (did I mention he's an engineer?) and I we spent 45 minutes or so going through the directions and diagrams and still didn't have it right.  Thank goodness for youtube.  This video finally did the trick though, and is a total lifesaver if you're looking to knit up an elephant.  I'm finishing up the trunk now, and here's what he's looking like...

Something still went a bit amiss with the cast on, unfortunately, and I did the first two rounds of stitches inside out.  Oops.  I think you can't tell unless you're looking for it and I know the recipient won't mind, so I'm soldiering on.  Not too bad, right?

He's not so cute yet, but I have high hopes for him.  I'm not quite sure about the stuffing though.  Does anyone have tips for how much polyfill one should cram in into one's elephant?  I want him to be soft, but not wobbly, and it seems no matter how much stuffing I stuff, there's room for more.  I'd love any suggestions from any of you who've knit (or crocheted!) any stuffies.

I have another new project this week, too.  And *gasp*, it's not knitting.  I know, right?  Who woulda thunk.  We'll keep it a mystery at the moment, but I'm hoping for an FO to share with you on Friday.  Here's what it looks like at the moment...

In the in between spots, I'm also still plugging away at the cable lace vest, which continues to go pretty well.  On Saturday, Mr. Right and I drove up to Wyoming to pick up some truck parts he'd bought, and I decided it would be a perfect time to knit lace short rows in the car on the way.  I am not super smart, sometimes.  So I knitted away for a while, juggling pattern and needles and row counter, and when I got to the end of the short rows, things didn't add up.  So 1 hour into our 12 hour day of driving, I crammed the vest back into the bag, grumbled a bit, and that was that.

Turns out I hadn't screwed anything up, I'd just misread the instructions.  There are different numbers of short rows on the left and the right, see.  And I expected them to be symmetrical.  Silly me.  So in the end, I was fine.  I just missed out on oodles of car knitting time.  I'm done with the short rows on the vest now, and I think it's looking pretty good.

I'm going to give myself a few more days of knitting on it before I put it down to finish up Elijah and start  working on an Ice Queen to give as a Christmas gift.  Once the Christmas knitting is finished up, I'll dive back in to vest-land.

At the moment, though, I'm going to head over and check out everyone else's progress over at Tami's blog.  You should too.

Cheers!

WIPW v.15, And... We Have a Winnah!

It's Wednesday again, and that means two things.  First (like I'd make y'all wait any longer...), we have a winner for the yarn giveaway!  To keep things ultra-fair and super-scientific-like, I went to random.org's Random Number Generator, and entered numbers between 1 and 18.  It thought for a nanosecond, then coughed up this:  6.  Comment #6 was left by the lucky Noreen.  Congratulations, Noreen!

Unfortunately, Noreen didn't leave any contact information, and her blogger profile is set to "private", so I don't have any way to get in touch.  Noreen, please zip me a quick email with your mailing address to KnitandSeek at gmail dot com.  I'll give Noreen until Saturday morning to claim her yummy yarn prize, and then we'll choose another random number, if necessary.  Thanks to everyone who entered, this was really fun to do.  So much fun, in fact, that we'll do it again for sure.

And now on to Work In Progress Wednesday #15.  I'm still knitting away on the Cabled Lace Vest that I started last week, and while I've made a fair amount of progress, I'm still at that point where it doesn't look very interesting.   The lace pattern is super simple, but with 236 stitches in a row, I'm about ready for something new.  You'd think after having knit 3 months of straight stockinette, I'd have a little more patience with 58 rows of lace, wouldn't you?  Here's what I've got so far...

8 rows to go, and then we start the short rows.  That should be interesting, as I've never done the whole "wrap and turn" thing before.  I sense some knitting videos in my future.

In other news, Avast blocked beautifully.  I was pretty worried, as it stunk to high heaven when I pulled it from the sink.  Blech.  Fortunately, the smell faded as it dried and now it doesn't smell much at all.  Also, the zipperstop zipper arrived and looks fantastic.  I'm really happy with it, apart from the fact that I must've measured wrong and it's about 4" too short.  Oops.  We've worked it out that it'll start about 1/2" from the bottom, and will end just before the collar, and it should be okay.

Now we're in a bit of a bind since I don't sew and have no idea how to install this thing.  I'm thinking a visit to my next door neighbor is in order tonight.  Hopefully, she'll give me some direction and lend me her sewing skills.  No pictures for you, though.  I don't want to spoil my FO Friday post.  Also, I'm having a really hard time getting Mr. Right to take the thing off.  LOVE that guy.

I was really hoping to start working on an Elijah this week, but when I found my size 3 dpns, I discovered that I have 2 of them.  Where are the rest?  No idea.  And really, I'm not that kind of girl.  Usually it's a place for everything and everything in its place and all that.  So this is extra frustrating.  For now, here's what I have of Elijah...

I can't tell you how much I wish there was a set of dpns in that picture. Sigh.   Hopefully we'll have a bit more accomplished next week.

Oh, also, some housekeeping stuff:  First, look at this awesome WIPW button that Stacey made! 

We're so official-looking now!  Just as soon as I figure out how to make it work (any minute now, I'm sure), I'll be stashing it in the sidebar over there ----------->

Also, you might've noticed the little thumbnails along the bottom of each post.  On the sage advice of The Crafty Cripple, I installed Link Within.  I'm not sure exactly what algorithm they use (beyond labels) to determine related posts, but some of the connections they make are kinda funny.  Anyway, I think it's pretty cool.  More sprucing up to come as I get smarter about all this. 

What sorts of widgets and gadgets do you use that you'd recommend?  Leave 'em in the comments.  I'd love to hear!