oops.

I'm a very very bad blogger. Back when I was introduced to the world of blogging through LiveJournal (which I still have one today) I used to post all the time... multiple times a day... whether I had something to say or not. Now a days, all my blogs seem to be lacking the love. It's not like I haven't been knitting... it's that there are so many other shiny things for me to do.

I've found lovely books to read, whether it's the Dresden Files or one of my many manga or novels that I have been collecting over the past few years. I also fell in love with a new game, Mabinogi. I have enjoyed playing as "Honeko" with Philip playing "Kagaea" and playing with other friends in my guild the RPSociety. They are cool folk and I love the freeform feel of this game. I can go whatever path I feel like when it so strikes me. It's fun and pretty relaxing. The beginning of gameplay is free, but if you want special features that's when you shell out the money. I think it's worth it... so long as I have money to spend.

That has been consuming my time, as well as hanging out with friends, attempting to clean room and failing and thus gettting onto Mabinogi or lounging on the MIMIC. My apartment is abysmal in mess, and it is very overwhelming to look at and try to get started on. But I need to get started and finished. Maybe I'm going to have to put down the needles and turn off the computer to get it done. Maybe. If I can.

I finished my "Fire Brigade Cape" back around the 20th of June. I made the little flower and used a snap enclosure. It suited it's purpose extremely well, better than I had hoped. Although after the fact I found that the stitching holding the snaps in place are slowly coming undone, so I think I'm going to need to rework the enclosure before the next time I take it out on the town.

I also made some gloves in the NaturallyCaron.com Spa yarn. It breathes really well and I could hardly tell they were even on my hands during a summer afternoon. I say that is a success in what I was trying with them.


I began a new project from my birthday present "Fitted Knits". This is the "Boatneck Bluebell" sweater. It came out a lot better than originally thought and it was a pleasure to knit. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I still have the seaming of the sleeves to do left. But that can probably wait until I 1) feel like seaming or 2) it gets closer to the proper season to wear a sweater. Lets see if I actually remember the sweater exists by that time.

I hope you enjoyed this sum up of what's been going on in my life since. I need to really get back into a blogging regularly habit because it sometimes helps me sort through my crazy thoughts that I have these days.

"It's like magic to me"

This is what a man I was sitting next to while waiting for my car's tire to be fixed (it had gotten bowed out and could cause a problem in the future if I didn't get it fixed) said in commenting about my knitting. His wife apparently crochets and he doesn't really know what the difference is, and as far as I'm concerned, I could explain it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he would remember. But it definitely made my day.

So apparently, I know magic. My magic is knitting. And I'm so much more patient when I have my knitting on my lap.

I meant to blog so many times, but I'm a very forgetful person and I get wrapped up in a lot of things to do... projects, games, books, work, the list continues. So I am finally getting around to posting again and I will give y'all a catch up.

Stargazer
I finished my very first shirt/sweater project. It took me quite some time, but in the end I like how it turned out. I'm also quite amused about taking my own picture in my bathroom mirror and making interesting photos. Well, except for my hair, which doesn't normally behave. But that's not the focus of the picture. The focus is that I made my own shirt that actually fit me quite well. It's a little tighter on the bottom part, but that's one of the things about making ribbing. It makes things slimmer. This shirt is made from alpaca yarn and is slightly itchy against my skin. I attribute that to the fact that is now summer and such things should be put away until the fall. It's a pity though. I guess that's what usually happens you begin a project and it isn't finished until it's out of season. Oh well.

Glamour Capelet









I started a new project back in May. I started with making the capelet in the taupe color (I am using NaturallyCaron's Country for both of these). Then I got it in my mind that I must of messed up. So I pulled the cape off my needles and started the red one. I started the red one on May 28, better known as my birthday (old age of 26). I'm a lot further along than I was on the taupe cape now. THE END IS IN SIGHT! But thinking back, I don't think I actually did make a mistake on the taupe cape. I think what I will end up doing when the red cape is done is picking the taupe one back up, counting the stitches to make certain that I really didn't goof up and then finally finish that one. So I will have two glamour capelets in the end...

I really like the pattern. It's pretty easy at this moment and nice enough to do my editing job while working on it. At least the part where I'm reading the documents and looking for grammatical errors. I hope to have the red one finished by June 21st, where I will be wearing it for part of SimTerra. Most likely the beginning and then at night, because, after all, this yarn is part wool. Wool in summer? Yeah, I'm insane and want to wear my hand knits. Can you blame me?

Don't answer that.

Yosemite
I've been wanting to start the short sleeve pattern for a while and I've been holding onto the KnitPicks Comfy yarn in two colors (dark purple and red) for sometime to make two of these (yes for myself... I'm stingy when I'm not Christmas knitting). So, being my silly self, I started up the project before I finished the Glamour Capelet (a feat that my boyfriend is frustrated about... he's all about me learning to finish projects I start instead of starting and not finishing and starting new ones and the like. Now Yarn Harlot encourages this (and more yarn buying)... and I like her ideas better, but that may not be conducive to a healthy relationship... *shrugg* I will try to find a happy medium. I hope)...

I started this to get my mind off of the tornado warnings that were all over the place here in NoVA on this past Wednesday, but I put it down in lieu of the capelet when I went to roleplay on Dasaria later... When just standing around Cear, I might as well keep my hands busy when not typing or attacking wild mean animals.

Birthday Loot!
Perhaps the most exciting thing for me this past week was the accumulation of new yarn and "birthday loot". I ended up getting some yarn for my birthday directly from friends. The big balls I don't know what to do with yet, but the Jitterbug yarn I will make some simple socks with... once I find some 2.5 mm needles (hard in stores, easy online). Everything else I bought on my own, I knew what pattern I was going to use. The orange yarn on top (Cascade 220 Quatro) I am going to make a sweater from the pictured book with. I look forward to that. Hopefully by the time I finish it, needing to wear it won't be so far away. The red and purple yarn in the middle I will be making the Honeycomb vest with. Oh and don't forget the d20 knitting needles. I so want to use them once I figure out a good pattern for them.

Anyways this is my sum up of what I've been up to. Hopefully I'll try to be more regular. Depends on the traffic, which despite Obama being at Nissan pavilion, wasn't as bad as it normally is for a Nissan event in the rush hour. Part of me wonders if that was just a bunch of hype or what....

Oops, it's been a while hasn't it?

I got a little carried away with things over the past weeks, but I have kept up with my knitting. This past Mother's Day I delivered the following "secret project" to my mother to a delighted response.This pattern is called Andean Treasure Shawl and I used the Andean Treasure yarn from knitpicks (and the pattern is free from there as well).

This shawl I had been working on since February and I just finally got around to figuring out how to block it just so. It turned out so nice I'm considering making a banner for my blog with this picture:
I have also been working on a new project called Stargazer. It was published in MagKnits awhile ago, but since that online mag no longer exists I was glad to purchase it from the designer Sarah Wilson on Ravelry. I love being on Ravelry so much I forgot I had the Facebook Application called StitchBook... it's so much easier to manage things you're working on in Ravelry.

With Stargazer I had to frog the beginning because I did the ribbing wrong and had the wrong amount of stitches in a row... but that's okay... since now I'm almost done with the second sleeve.

I am using elann.com's Pure Alpaca Fina for this pattern. The yarn turned out thinner than I expected, but it is knitting up real nice and I think it is just what I was looking for. I do intend to make another one of these in the future, but I have so many new projects on my backburner now.
I purchased a new pattern that I have been eying for months from StitchDiva called Casual Glamour Capelet. I've been wanting to try it for a while and I think I found the yarn to do it with. I may end up making two with the amount of yarn I just bought (yay stimulus check that I stimulated my credit cards and the Swedish economy read: IKEA... and my yarn collection with). I made the Mary Jane Pithy hat with this yarn, NaturallyCaron.com Country, before and I like it. I think it should make a nice cape. And NatuallyCaron.com Spa will probably make some good Knucks in the future.In the future I hope to post here more often.. but I say this a lot. Other than that, there will be more to come... eventually.