Projects Update

So for the HLBOES, I think I know what pattern I'm going to make for Minerva's hat. That is, if I can pull it off... it's an intermediate-level pattern with lots of cables. Fun.

Projects to Start/Finish:

• Snake for Jax! It was supposed to be done by Christmas... sorta, but I haven't quite started yet. Maybe it'll be for her birthday instead.
• Hat for my sister. It'll be a simple one, knitted in bulky weight and only one color. It's just that I have to get off my behind and start working on it.
• Mini-sock for the Reducio Mini-Sock Swap! Since I don't know what colors it'll be in, I can't exactly start that yet.
• Crocheting a squid for the Mini-Swap. Again, I have to go get the yarn or use stash yarn. Either would work, probably.
• Uhm, my socks? I fail epically at picking up along the gusset and I still haven't been able to figure it out, so I don't think they'll get done very soon.
• Tube scarf for me. This'll be my "take with me in my bag" project, as a tube scarf in stockinette stitch is very easy, just a lot of knitting.

Newly Finished Projects (Pictures Soon?):

• Fair Isle bag I made for my sister! I am most proud of this one because it took me forever to finish it, though most of it was telling myself to finish the lining.
  
• Wine cosy I made for my grandmother. This one was just a major pain because the yarn was more difficult to handle than what I'm used to.
  
• Two hats as Christmas gifts.
• Almost a plethora of washcloths... I still want one for myself, so that's what I'll be knitting while traveling today, probably.

But that's all for now! See you all later.

Finished SPEW Hat!

So I finished the hat I'm making for SPEW... I think it's the fastest thing I've ever knit. And here are a few pictures of it. This is probably one of the best pictures out of the several I took.And this is a close-up of the colorwork. So it'll soon be going off to someone who needs a hat a whole lot more than I do. ^_^

Accidental Colorwork

So I don't know what the name of the technique I was using to do the colorwork is, but for the SPEW hat I'm making (SPEW=Society for the Production of Excellent Wearables), I did this cool design with the white on the navy blue. I think it was some variation of a Fair Isle knitting technique because I let the color A run along the back while I was knitting with B.

Of course, since it happened by accident, I didn't use proper technique by any stretch of the imagination. I was actually waiting for a meeting and I was about to begin a white stripe in a blue hat I'm making. Since I didn't have scissors with me, I decided that maybe doing every couple of stitches with white and the rest with blue would be an interesting idea to try out. I figured I could always unravel if it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

Fortunately, it turned out much nicer and I just made up the pattern row by row as I went along, working with multiples of five stitches (there were 80 stitches total, so that's a nice round number to play with). This turned out excellently for a first color project (besides for your basic horizontal stripes).

I'm back onto stockinette stitching in the blue yarn (my MC for this project) and I have yet to do the decreases for the hat, but it looks like my first hat will turn out nicely. I'm quite excited and I'll be sending it off to SPEW after taking lots of pictures when it's done.

I'll also post the pattern (including the colorwork pattern) here when I'm finished. It's pretty basic and out of a complexity scale from 1-10 (10 being cabled and lacework socks, 1 being your basic garter stitch scarf), I'd give it about a 3 or so.

ETA: I was actually doing a stranded Fair Isle colorwork technique, albeit a simple pattern and not doing it correctly (accidents happen, right?).