Monday, August 18, 2008

Time flies when you're knitting!

WOW! I Can't believe I haven't had time to post about my Ravelympics adventures yet! Well, I've been very busy knitting like a maniac trying to get as many projects completed as possible! Believe it or not, I'm a LOT slower in real life than I am in my mind! I'm WAY WAY behind on my spreadsheet! According to that I should've been done with everything by Saturday! LOL!!!! Oh well, it's all for fun anyway huh? And I'm having a great time! Here's a run down of how it's gone.
Day 1: Got up "early" (about 7:00am) to cast on, completed a Dayflower washcloth:


Then I took this Alpaca Fleece:
And carded it up into these lovely batts:
And spun up this yarn:
And knit these gloves. But don't let me fool you, gloves take a LOT of time to knit! All those sillly little fingers are so fiddly! So it actually took me all of day 2, and part of day 3 to complete these gloves. But it'll all have been worth it this winter when it's freezing outside and my new gloves can keep my hands toasty warm! :)
So Day 3, which was a Sunday, and therefore knitting was not high on the priority list I completed less than my needed 2.65 (or whatever) projects per day needed to actually complete everything by the end of the games. There's a reason I joined the Hopelessly Overcommited team though you know! Anyway, on day 3 I finished the gloves in the morning, and then Cast on some lovely socks that I knit out of a great bamboo/merino/nylon yarn that I hand dyed. This will be a new base for my shop when I can get some more in. But like gloves socks also take longer than one would think, and I didn't even knit toes! (though secretly I'd like to one day!) So day 3, 4 and 5 I worked on these:
And this cute hat:
And this Swiffer Wet Jet cover:
And I was on a roll, and really far behind! So, I knit these washcloths on my USM Knitting machine, and crocheted a border around them. The verigated yarn is Sugar 'n' Cream cotton yarn, the green is cotton yarn I hand dyed.


Then on day 6, I knit these mittens from the top down, I really like this pattern! There's no grafting at the top, and NO seaming!
And that evening I cast on this lovely preemie hat that will be donated to the NICU where my twins stayed for the first 11 days of their lives. Every day I was there they always had a different adorable tiny hat to wear, and every single one was hand knit by someone who would never meet my boys, and I thought that one day I'd like to donate some adorable hats too because every baby needs an adorable hat! So here's one of what I hope will be many.
I finished the hat on day 7, and then cast on this purse:
I don't really know what I'll do with it, but I'm sure it'll be a gift for someone who wants/needs a fuzzy purse. I just thought it'd be fun to knit, and it was! It does remind me a bit of a sesame street monster though LOL! I knit this one with wool yarn held together with eyelash yarn, and felted it in the washer to shrink it and make it more sturdy, though it didn't felt quite as much as I wanted due to the eyelash yarn. But it sure is soft and fuzzy! hehe.

I also knit these UGLY mittens on my knitting machine on day 7. I was trying to make up the pattern as I went, and they didn't really turn out, but I'm keeping them anyway because my 3yo won't care that they're ugly, she'll just love them because they're pink! And she'll loose them so quickly anyway that I won't care when they're lost because they're ugly. And this was a learning experience. It really is worth it to go to more trouble when machine knitting because if you don't your mittens will look like this!

Well, that purse took more than a day too, so day 8 was spent finishing up the purse.


Day 9 was rather productive! I started by figuring out how to knit a preemie hat FASTER! I mean they're SO tiny! Why should it take so long? So I fiddled around with needles and yarn and gauge swatches a bit, and came up with this hat:



I plan to post this hat pattern as a free patter on my blog when the games end I have a chance to type it up. I doubt that posting my scribbles about gague and whatnot would be very easy to follow! LOL!

So after the hat was done I knit up another washcloth:


This was a quick easy pattern made all the more wonderful with some striping cotton sugar 'n' cream yarn. And it went so quickly that I immediatley casted on these wrist wamers. They're so soft! I knit them out of Bamboo which I LOVE because it's kinda shiny, and very soft and smooth. These I think will be a gift for someone... Can't tell who! hehe
Well those wrist warmers pretty much finished up up day 9 for me.

So on day 10, also a Sunday I picked up these socks that had been a WIP (work in progress) for a long time! Socks knit on size 1 needles work up slowly, so I did not finish them on day 10 even though they were 1/2 done when I picked them up. BUT on day 11 (that would be today) I finished them up! And I'm wearing them on my very happy feet!


And then I spun up this lovely sparkly yarn from fiber I'd blended up on my home made hackle. It is an un-known wool/coopsworth/firestar blend. .6oz, 35yds. And it was a great fun, quick spin! I think this one will end up in my shop with my next update.
And that is all that I have completed thus far in my ravelympics journey. Oh, but I've gotten medals (aka: really cool pic/files) to show off for completing these. I'll have to show those off another day because I don't have them neat and orderly. I think I'll show you all of them when the games end.

And now I'm REALLY far behind!!! So I must be off to cast on something new! Happy knitting!

2 comments:

Cindi said...

So you are the totally awesome knitter. Wow! I was worn out just reading about it.

Do you do "commissioned" projects?

Celeste said...

Ok seriously, you are far too crafty. You make me look bad! :)