The Christmas Aftermath

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas full of family and friends! I just got back from my vacation home, and I had a great time!  The gifts I gave were well received, those bought, those computer designed, and those knitted!  However, I need to work on my graphics for my knitting!  It wasn't clear enough that the card came with the gift, and that it indicated a hand-knit.  I've brought home some light cotton/linen cloth to try and make actual tags for my knits, I'll have to see what I can come up with!

The rest of my time at home was fabulous - I got to hang out with my good friends, try out a bunch of new bars, and eat some tasty home-cooked meals!  I also got to try my hand (again) at screen printing.  We did the easy way this time - no burning the image onto the screen, just using plastic sheet stencils.  Check out my bibs!

Butterflies!

Flowers!

My screen printing partner - not as useful as you would think!

I need to work on my screen print photography - those are terrible, eep.

ALSO - I did, in fact, FINALLY finish the Simplicity Cowl!  Drumroll please:

TA-DA!  Looks good, don't it?

Completed before I even made it home!  OH YEAH.  I think it looks pretty snazzy, here's hoping it gets good use!  

The fingerless mitts however, were not completed without a mad knitting session at the airport, on the airplane, and at 11pm on Christmas Eve.  But they were done before Christmas, and that's all that matters!  I did not take a photo, however, because I am a genius.  Oops.  I'll have to ask the sister for that as well.  She and her husband both liked them, I'll see what I can do for him.  It'll probably be next Christmas.  I'm not really what anyone would call, "Speedy".

In other hometown adventures, I took the parents to the Science Museum (since I bought them a membership last year and all).  I think this is some amazing wayfinding signage:

It's really well-balanced and instructional!  You can see the passage of time and the variety of the species on the planet, and it's a pretty graphic!  I love it!

While at the museum, we saw some re-created panels from the Lascaux Caves:

The Panel of the Great Black Cow, in the Nave of the caves

The newly renovated Hall of Egyptology:

This gave me some color ideas - should I ever start doing something colorful!

And some gems.  Lots and lots of shiny gems.  It was a little overwhelming, those gems.  I'm not as much of a fan as I feel I should be.  Oh well.  It was a good time anyway, and the parents got out of the house!

How was everyone else's Christmas?  Any awesome adventures or gifts?  Amazing food perhaps?  hmmm, food.....  :)

I'm going to coordinate my thoughts for my New Year's post and get that up as soon as possible.  Until then, I leave you with Glitter Dancer and Friends:

Meet Stompy the Parapalegic Trike, Glitter Dancer, and as-yet-unnamed Mr Fox.  They only came together this year to form my supporting crew.  :)

Have a great night!

My, it has been a while

Sorry for the long span between posts, been a little busy with job things, then there was some camping,

The right honorable Earl Harold Higgenbottom the Tenth, Esquire.
Tuckahoe, MD

and then general laziness/ i'm going to play on the internet instead of write in a blog.  Whoops.

Also, seeing as how I haven't done much knitting, it's a little silly to post in a knitting blog.  I did make one thing, the "Mile-a-Minute" scarf, turned it into a cowl, and it took very little time.  Now that it's super freezing outside, I might use it (although it's pretty open, so may only be helpful a few minutes at a time).

Other than that, I've been a little lazy with the knitting, altho I have tons of ideas in my head and want to make ALL THE THINGS!!!  the problem is starting on anything.  oof.

Alright, this is a pretty sad update, but it's all I have for now.  I'll try to finish something over thanksgiving....

They're done! They're done!

The socks are done!!! WHEEEEEEE!  I'm so excited, it's a little ridiculous.  But they're so soft and squooshy, I love them.  :)

As you can see, they don't match patterns, and one is bigger than the other.  Actually, one fits in the foot, while the other one fits on the ankle.  It's pretty funny, but they are oh so comfy and I'm very happy!  They are on Ravelry here.  Now onto the next pair!  My mom requested a pair while I was still working on them (but in a very sideways, "look, these ones fit me just right" sort of asking, lol).  So I'm checking some patterns on Ravelry to see what to make.  I think she'll get something somewhat lacy, in a solid color, with a higher cuff, maybe a couple of inches.  I only hope I can keep them from laddering so much!  That was my main problem, with both of the socks - I couldn't keep my stitches tight enough.  How do you handle that?  Any suggestions? 

I've also added to the Simplicity Cowl, but not enough for a photo.  I'm hoping I can finish it by end of the month.  It depends how distracted I get by everything else!

In other knitting notes, I had to work late one day, but I wasn't really doing any work, so I was looking at tips on dyeing yarn, and this koolaid thing looks pretty fun and easy, so I think I might be trying that soon.  I already have some ideas of some small projects, but one thing I really want to make is a shawl that has the colors of a Bermudan beach.  I went there this past summer and it was gorgeous!  See below:

See? Gorgeous!

I was thinking it would be a super lightweight airy shawl, but I have to build up some courage to do that.  It's very different from everything else I've done (which isn't much, granted).  I could probably find yarn in those colors and make an "ombre" shawl, but it would be pretty cool to dye the colors myself!

I also attempt to grow plants.  I'm not that great at it, but everything's alive, plus check out the color fade on this basil!  Now I want to make or find something that looks like that!  Inspiration is everywhere!

I'm keeping it to knitting this week (I have a cold today-boooo), so thanks for reading, I'll see you next week!

Dang - a second week?

Woo hoo!  Look at me, two weeks in a row!  That's 2x better than my last blog!  :)  I was actually super excited to write a new post - just to share everything new!

*Knitting Projects*
Never-ending Socks - I actually worked on my sock this week!  See?

New stitches have been added - 10 repeats of the Bamboo Weave stitch (*/yo, k2, pass yo over the 2 knit stitches/*, even rows are all knit).  I realize now I didn't post a photo of the sock last week, so here it is - see that tiny grouping stitches on the right?

yea, that was my sock last week.  But it looks much better now! yay!  I didn't reduce the number of stitches while I did the pattern, so unfortunately, this sock is probably another wide slipper sock just to wear around my apartment in the winter.  Oh well, I call them my practice socks.  Next time, I should probably do a gauge swatch before I pick a pattern.  I really want to do lace socks, I have a really weird fascination with lace.
Simplicity Cowl- I haven't worked on the cowl at all.  I have some tinking to do, and I've been at work late, so I don't want to do anything that requires brain power.

iPod Case - Here's a project I completed for a Christmas gift last year, but have never taken a photo of.  It's an iPod case with a Lopapeyesa (Icelandic) pattern.  It was a memento to my boyfriend for our amazing trip to Iceland.  He loves it and uses it all the time.  It's a little fuzzy tho, but that's what happens with Icelandic wool I suppose.  I also never blocked it. Do you think that would have helped?

*In my ears*
I've been listening to the Knitting Pipeline with Paula, and I love it!  I actually joined the group on Ravelry and introduced myself, and she is so nice, she responds to everyone's messages, AND mentions you on the podcast!  She called me "J-Yo-Pat-Knots".  I should probably have put a pronunciation guide to my name (It's Jo-Pat-Knots).  My name has a silent "y" in English.  Oh well, I still felt special!  yayyyy!  I've also checked out a ton of other blogs, and one of them mentioned this awesome book of patterns that I think is super creative: Lit Knits.  All of the patterns are inspired by literary characters! super cool!
I've also been listening to The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King, also read by him.  It's considered book 4.5 of the Dark Tower series.  I absolutely *love* the Dark Tower series, so I was excited this book was on CD at the MLK library!  I'm not a huge fan of Sai King's voice, but it has grown on me as I've been listening.  I think I just start hearing the characters in my head as I want them to sound.  Roland's voice gets deeper, and Susannah's gets sassier.  It was pretty funny to hear some Detta Walker curses out loud.  Those are ridiculous!!

*Other life*
Did some climbing today, 6 climbs, but I bailed close to the top of the last one - my arms were DONE for the day.  So they weren't terribly hard climbs, but there was more than the usual quantity.  PLUS - it was prefaced with some delicious Vietnamese food at Pho Nom Nom!!  yum!

Finally - I give you a photo shot by the bf.  It makes me chuckle.

Alright everybody, thanks for reading, see you next week!