Day 4

Day Four: 31st March. Where are they now?

Whatever happened to your __________?

Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

There are a lot of different aspects to look at when looking back at a knitting project and it can make for interesting blogging, as much of the time we blog about items recently completed, new and freshly completed. It is not so often that we look back at what has happened to these items after they have been around for a while.

How has one of your past knits lived up to wear. Maybe an item has become lost. Maybe you spent weeks knitting your giant-footed dad a pair of socks in bright pink and green stripes which the then ‘lost’. If you have knit items to donate to a good cause, you could reflect on the was in which you hope that item is still doing good for it’s owner or the cause it was made to support.

I love this question. It gives me a chance to prove that not everything I start ends up on the island of forgotten projects. Seriously, I promise I make stuff. 

Anyways, back in the day when I taught a craft class to youngsters, we decided to do a class of embroidery. That's where I learned I totally loved sewing as well as knitting. It was my junior year of high school when I got back into knitting, I decided to combine the two...sorta. Okay maybe not at all, but I thought the things I made with felt and knitting were pretty awesome. I ended up making a bunch of little bags and pouches that could fit in mine and other's purses. I also learned some new knitting patterns and stitches through making these. I don't have pictures of some of them, but my mom owns her own blanket gallery on facebook, so I swiped some pictures that she took of my stuff from her facebook. So here they are, and what happened to them.

This is the first purse I ever made, for my mom. She puts her change in it and stuff. It's really small, which I wasn't expecting being that it was the first purse/bag thing I'd ever made. I'm not sure if she still uses it, but it sits on her dresser.

I sold this. I wish I hadn't because I think it's awesome. I think this one was the most time consuming. It had a lot of details. The pattern is a basket weave stitch. It sold.

I also really like this one. My boyfriend drew the giraffe for me because I seemed to be incapable of pulling it together. Stitched some brown spots, used twine for the tail and we were good to go. The stitch is moss stitch. This one sold as well.

This one made be want to sell things on etsy. It's just a simple knit stitch so I figured anyone could make it. I think the little ice cream is too cute. It sold. I miss it 

I  dont' remember what the pattern I used for this one is, but it was kind of intense. I wish I could find a photo of the lining that I put inside this one, because it's one of my favorites! It's so colorful..and I'm a sucker for crazy rainbows. This 'clutch' was one of my best stitching endeavors. I do love it. 

Those aren't the only ones that have been made, just the only ones that are documented and I currently have access to. Man I can't wait till I have a regular apartment room and I can get all my project here, where I live. Till then, I'll look at my flimsy collecting and pine for the yarns of home.

toodles  ♥

Day 3!

Day Three: Wednesday, 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organized? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organization exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organized at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organized, blog about an aspect of that organization process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organized stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

I wish I could answer this accurately. 

I'm gonna sound a lot more orderly than I actually am.

I live with a roommate, In a dorm so really, I try not to keep much of a stash around here, there's just no room. I have a few skeins of yarn kept in my project bag for the things I'm working on and I get more to put in there when I go home or decide to message my mom to send me more (wouldn't happen). I have about 3 crafting/knitting books on the ledge along my window to keep me company and my first drawer of my built in dresser contains several hats that I've knitted. (I'm addicted to quick projects. send help)

I sound so organized, but if you saw my house, it would be a different story entirely. My dad hates it. My mom and I are both avid yarn users so naturally, there's a lot of product to rummage around in. The crafting closet in our home office has a big storage tub of yarn and more yarn surrounding it, shoved into different bags. Our front room has a basket filled with fun fur and several projects my mom is working on. Then there's my room. God bless my mom for trying to get this basket of nightmares in order when I moved out of my room. It's near impossible. I am just not the organized type, I'm the 'in-hindsight' organizer. I look at that terrifying pile of tangled yarn and I think to myself how I would use it, if only it weren't in an impossible state. Keep dreaming. My room back home has my projects stuffed in all kinds of places. I need help.

From the home mess.

My needles are a totally different story. I keep them all in one place, for fear that they would get lost. My mom bought me a case with interchangeable circular needles. Bliss. There's a place for everything there. When I got into crocheting last year, that was my present this christmas. Hooks! I have nearly every size, and I can keep them in the handy package they came in! Then my boyfriend bought me a package of every size DPN you could think of as his christmas gift. I ended up making my first sewing project to hold them. So on that front, I'd say I'm good. They all fit in my nifty second sewing project (my bag)

That about wraps this day up. Anyone wanna become a professional de-tangler? I know someone in Florida who needs it.

My project bag. You can see my needle case poking up from the depths.

Day 2 (or day 1 for me)

Considering I've been stressed, dealing with the woe-is-me car trouble I've had this weekend, I forgot about Day one. So here's my Day 2!

Day Two: 29th March. Skill + 1UP

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

Okay so here it goes. I've known how to knit since like forever I think. I was never really good at it and the urge to do it would come in waves and then subside. I've even taught a knitting class to 10 year-olds, who, probably didn't care for it. Oh well. I got a book for knitting toys about two christmas' ago and that forever prompted me to wanna make stuff. This last year, I've attempted things that I never thought I would try just because they simply seemed to hard. Most of them I haven't finished (true to form), but I'm really glad to have started these project, motivating me to learn new skills. I started knitting a sweater (just the sleeves left) and a pair of sock (which I despise, but won't give up on). I've grown away from just making straight, boring knitted hats and opened up to the wonderful world of fingerling and lace weight yarn. I'm really excited to start a lace project and plan to get it going as soon as I can find the perfect yarn price color. I've learned to be fluent in DPNs and I've even created a few patterns and made things from what I'd like to call, thin air. I feel accomplished in my knitting development over the last year.

Crocheting is a different story. My mom always crocheted when I would knit and just looking at it used to make me on edge. I just didn't get it. One needle hook made absolutely no sense to me. My aunt was having the opposite problem and we promised to never try to teach each other, for the sake of our relationship. Last year, around this time, I was auditioning for colleges. My dad went with me to NC, but my mom bit the bullet and flew with me to Alabama. In the airport, she was crocheting, I was knitting and I don't know what happened (I think I was bored with what I was working on). I asked her to teach me how to do what she was doing. It didn't click for days. Crocheting just seemed to be the thing that was going to allude me my entire life. Until it didn't. It's a very strange thing when you just get something, without any kind of warning. Just something sparks in your brain and suddenly, what your doing makes sense, where perviously, it did not. That what happened. No learning, no tutorials, nothing. I could suddenly crochet. And I like it now. It's still not my vice of choice, knitting will always be much more relaxing to me, but there you go. Twas only about last year when I learned to crochet.

Stay tuned for day 3!

Open up

It's no secret that IRL, I'm superdupertrooper shy. It's like, absurd and kinda a damper when it comes to the whole life thing. I have problems answering the phone and blah blah blah. That's part of the reason I could never imagine becoming a musician in the performance track. I'd like to give a shout out to being in college. I feel like I've grown and become a person I would have never known in high school. 95% of the people I was friends with in highschool, if asked, would say that they thought I hated them when we first met. This always leaves me at a loss, because it's never true. I must give off a vibe (my dad always says it's about the body language). But here's the point of this post. Being the shy, apparently cold bitch that I am, I started this blog to meet people with the same interests as me, primarily knitting. This is what I've really realized as I've delved deeper into the blogging community, I have too many interests! I've got blogs bookmarked for nail polish, beauty products, food blogs and just general people I find interesting. I guess it's not the subjects I'm super interested in, it's the people. I've found that I LOVE the people who write these blog, want to meet them and become friends. (they would probably guess I hated them). Thank god for the internet. Anyways, I guess if you find any of my stuff interesting or cool or you just like me, I'd love an email (jennieatszombies@hotmail.com) or a comment. I want to connect with people! So lets go and chat over some tea in our separate worlds. : D
(Because this post is boring, word-y, and non-knitting related, here's pictures of my hair)

UGH. I wish hair color would just stay forever instead of fade away. Oh well. At least it poetic in a way that it fades out...not. 

Toodles ♥

Spring Fling!

I love giving people things that I make. I think it's the best feeling in the world, possibly better than how the person feels about the gift in general. This has by far been the best gift I've ever given.
She's so appreciative! Such a warm fuzzy feeling to make someone's day.

La Tardis IPOD Case:

A FO for Friday

Meet Griswold. Gris for short. This is his life story.
First he was born, on the needles of course. DPNs.

He grew up, but still had some loose ends

But eventually, he matured into a bundle of wonderful awesomeness.

But the life he was living, wasn't enough for poor Griswold. He wanted more from the life he was living.  So he decided to stop messing around and get down to business. So he went to college and got himself enrolled in the wonderful world of criminal justice. But just when he was about to graduate and get his degree in criminal forensics, a new calling entered his life. He knew what he wanted to do and how he needed to achieve his goals. Griswold P. Pod wanted to be a private detective. This job could only be done with one thing. A mustache, naturally. So he grew one and achieved his dreams. The end.

Some week in review

Spring break is over and it's back to school. I spent most of my time just sitting on the couch doing nothing, but in between that time, I got some crafting into the way. Life of course, got in the ways of my endeavors in crafting and I only really tried two of the ideas from the book. Lets start with the plates.
Because I'm adventurous, I decided to do a bowl while my sister and mom both did plates.

The idea is to spray paint a lace pattern onto the glass plate or substitute then spray a contrasting color to make the pattern stand out.

First step is to spray adhesive the lace to the glass.

You're suppose to you the krylon brand adhesive, but we had a different brand...that apparently wasn't suppose to be used on glass. Oops.

It kinda took some of the paint with it when we tried to take off the lace.

mine

my sister

moms

you live you learn when it comes to mixing different brands of spray paints. Of course, mom's did turn out the best with little botching in one area.

sister's

Mine

mom's

overall, a great idea, but didn't really work. It wasn't just the glue's fault, the paint ran and bled together so the patter was really botched on mine. Also, we worked with the right clear top coat spray and still, the plates were sticky and smelled like heavy duty chemicals on the bottom. Fail.

I also got to work on my decoupaging of one of my dad's handcut table tops. I decided harry potter themed. So we got some old paperback books and went to town.

Idea

Finished with a layer of varnish.

I really lied this idea and loved how it turned out. Again, instead of using the book recomended polyurethane, we used a lacquer based varnish, giving it an amber glaze over top of the words and pictures. I really liked the effect.

Of course, I knitted. Finished the legwarmers! and I didn't like how they looked on me : /

So I gave them to my sister

footloose and fancy free!

Till next time!

What to Expect

I would like to be doing this again please.

You'd think the week before spring break would be the easiest of my life, being that there's no orchestra rehearsals to attend and my english class is cancelled for the week, but you'd be wrong. I've spent my three last afternoon either working on homework for my core frustration classes (sight-singing/theory) or working on re-writes of this research paper that I've come to affectionately loath. I've had no time this week for any kind of knitting...yet. But I'm sure another post will follow this sometime for I am almost finished with my lovely leg-warmers. I digress. On to the main point.
Due to spring break, all the dorms on campus are closing, joy. Despite this putting a serious dent in my little practice time I have with accompanist, I'm going home and I'm excited. I've made a plan with my mom and have decided this:

For the next week that I have off, we will be crafting one craft from the big ol' book of crafts that was purchased for me and I have yet to use. I'm so excited for this project because it's my dream to decoupage something. My father has been working on a table that he's designed himself. They're pretty spiffy and I'm dying to add something wonderful to them. So starting Monday or Tuesday afternoon, expect very awesomely vividly detailed posts about the project I've picked out the night before. I'll let you know if their even worth the effort, how mine turned out (I'm not the best crafter), how my mom's turned out (she is the best crafter) and so on.

So if crafting is the big thing that your into and you've always been debating on this book, then let the reading begin! Maybe it can help you figure out if it's really worth it, or not. I've heard mix reviews. As always, I'll also be knitting (I have a lot of free time in my future). Looking forward to the hodge-podge.