Doh, still no pictures

Lawrence left the camera at work yesterday...tonight I'm going to my parents' place. Bleh. I did finish the bulky socks, so that's pretty cool. I'm going to give them to my grandpa tonight instead of waiting for Christmas. I've started a pair of Dashings for my brother, which I had to frog and re-knit because I did NOT check the gauge (bad!). I started crocheting baby ducky parts for the duck amigurumi. I really don't like working with the pure cotton. The non-stretchiness is tough on my hands and the fiber splits really easily so it's hard on my eyes too.

My list of things to finish:

• puffy slouchy hat (tweedle dee cinnamon twist)
  
• dashings (nashua creative focus) - 25%
  
• 3 baby ducks and a mommy duck (lily's sugar'n cream) - 10%
  
• triforce scarf (vanna's choice) - 40%
  
• crochet striped scarf (vanna's choice)
  
• bunny slippers (bernat cashmere/moda dea dream)
  
• shrug (black shimmer snowflake chunky)
• argyle golf cozy (red heart)
• baby booties (bernat be mine)
• basketball (orange yarn)
• amigurumi/fetching
  

Wow, that's still quite a bit. Most of these aren't difficult...just time consuming.

Other Photos

Ok, I guess it just felt like I had a lot of pictures. There aren't really that many new finished projects.

Mommy Duck from Anapaulaoli's Mommy Duck & Baby Duck pattern
Lily's Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn - yellow & orange
polyester filling, black snap on eyes


Saartje's Bootees
Bernat Satin Sport Solids in Aran and Wine, buttons from JoAnn's
- nice spare booties for last minute baby gifts, probably going to my erhu teacher, Karen Han


Ela's Scarf (finished at last)
Vanna's Choice in chocolate, olive, & honey
- doesn't look that much different from the last picture of it I put up. There's more brown...but it IS done and being shipped to its recipient this week.

Amigurumi make for quick cute presents indeed

The first mommy duck needs to be stuffed & sewn together. The first baby duck just needs its head and then it's ready for stuffing & sewing. That'll be 2 down and 3 more to go! ;) I could have this finished by the end of the week! Or maybe not. I need to leave work earlier today so I can pick up my KnitPicks package. That means I can start knitting more things!

A few items from my Ravelry queue and Christmas gift list that I want to start on:

• the Peripatetic Knitter's Bag
• the Juno Regina Stole from Knitty
• a sweater that cats love
  
• a large, fancy, complicated lace stole/shawl like this, this, this, this, or this.
• socks
• a Zelda-inspired triforce scarf (for my cousin)
• slippers (for my grandpa)
• gray bunny slippers (for my cousin-in-law)

BTW, yesterday night I stopped by Vons on my way home and picked up several packets of Kool-Aid in cherry, strawberry, grape, lemonade, mango, lemon-lime, orange, and I think pina-pineapple. Unfortunately, there were no blue flavors. :(

Picking up the amigurumi again

At tonight's (last night's?) knitting night, out of all my projects, I decided to start on the amigurumi Christmas gifts for my coworkers. I'm thinking of making a mommy duck for each of my 2 bosses, and then baby ducks for the 3 other coworkers on my team.

The lady at the coffee shop asked me if I made my hat. She said it was really cute. That made me happy! :D

While (yarn<infinity) { yarn+=100; project+=1;}

The yarn I ordered from Knit Picks arrived last week! I picked it up yesterday because I didn't realize it would ship SO quickly! I made my order on Sunday, Oct. 28th, and apparently the package arrived at the end of the week. I didn't even check the mail because I thought it would take 2 weeks minimum. Then Lawrence told me yesterday that when he checked the mail, there was a package notification slip...which must have been my package of yarn!

I bought several skeins of lace weight yarn in colorways that were on sale. In fact, I think they still have more of it that's on sale because they're making room for more colors. Of course, I ordered $47-worth of yarn because orders over $45 get free shipping.

Shadow
100% merino wool
440 yards
$1.99/hank

Gossamer
100% merino wool
440 yards
$2.99/hank

Alpaca Cloud
100% baby alpaca
440 yards
$3.99/hank

Then yesterday when we went to Arcadia to buy Chinese newspapers, we stopped by the JoAnn's there and I bought $27 more in yarn. I bought some Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn for amigurumi, some JoAnn Sensations yarn that was on sale (omg that stuff is so soft!), and some Patons worsted weight classic wool in Aran so that I can try dyeing and maybe felting.

.._.._.._.._.._.._..

Last night I finished weaving in the random ends that were sticking out of the bunny slippers. So that project is completed.

On Sunday, I finished up the lace cuff of the butterfly wrap and wove the ends in. I didn't have time to properly finish the ribbon ties, so I will need to do that. I didn't end up wearing it to the Nightwish concert...and truthfully I probably would have been very cold if I wore it. It still needs to be blocked, and I hope I find another occasion to wear it.

Being a productive weekend, I also finished up Sly's scarf last night. I don't know what the hell is up with my row counting, but it turns out that after "fixing" the red stripe, I ended up with an extra row. However, it's okay because I just made sure that the horizontal red stripe connecting the two pieces had the same number of stitches on both pieces so when I sewed it together, it would just kind of...line itself up. It doesn't look so bad, and will probably be better after I block it. If I can block it. I just realized the Vanna's Choice yarn is acrylic.

I frogged the beginning of Ela's scarf and restarted it to go along with the striped self-fringing scarf pattern in The Happy Hooker. I made it slightly shorter so it's 250 stitches-long instead of 300.

I sewed the body to the head of the amigurumi elephant. I ran out of yarn in the ball I was using, so I'm using the other balls of random blue yarn I had. I thought they were all the same color, but it looks like the other balls are slightly darker. This elephant is going to be kind of weird looking. I also sewed on two of the legs, but I think I sewed them in the wrong place. Maybe it will still be cute in a sort of deformed way... :/

This morning on my way to work, I wound one of the hanks of Knit Picks Shadow into a yarn cocoon so I can start knitting (w00t, knitting!) a lace scarf for my mom's Christmas present. The pattern looks insanely easy...it's just 4 rows of alternating knit increases/decreases & purls, repeated to the desired length or until your yarn runs out. It's the Party Lace Scarf from MagKnits, but without the beads. I'm just doing knit stitches where the beads would have been.

Baby Jellyfish Amigurumi Photo

Here's a photo of the finished baby jellyfish (pattern by Anapaulaoli), made with Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn.


I put the bunny slippers through the washer & dryer so they're a lot fuzzier now. But, after giving them to Lawrence to play with, somehow I'm missing a slipper so I won't have pictures of them up tonight.

Progress, all around

I finally got my invite to Ravelry yesterday! I spent all day on the site, and it looks pretty awesome. I will probably spend a large portion of Saturday entering project & yarn information.

Lawrence helped me sew the button eyes onto the bunny slippers, so they are also finally, um, non-eyeless! I think I'm supposed to wash them and let them dry to fluff them up a bit, and then they will be completely finished.

Unfortunately Lawrence left his Nikon at work so I'll have to wait for tonight to take pictures.

I am on the last row of the right sleeve before the lace work on the butterfly wrap. I may save that for when I get home just because I don't want to have to deal with losing my place in the pattern. Or I won't be able to help myself and I will work on the lace at every spare moment I get.

It's really a toss up because yesterday I started the mommy elephant amigurumi from Anapaulaoli. I finished stuffing the head last night, and as of this morning I've got 1 ear done. The other ear shouldn't take too long, and then there's the body and 4 legs. Making these is actually very fun! Even though the long stretches of single crochet are monotonous and make me impatient, I love how these things get created so quickly. It's like "Rows 4-11: sc 18" and you're like "4, 5, 6, ....that's 8 rows of single crochet...am i done yet? how many more rows?" But before you know it, you're decreasing and decreasing, and you've just got a little hole left for the stuffing. Like most crochet & knitting, the foundation row/chain and the first row are the most annoying.

The great thing about this elephant is that I get to use up the gigantic balls of blue yarn that my mom and I found in our garage many years ago. I don't know what the fiber is or what brand it is, I just know I have several huge balls of it. There are 4 plys and it splits easily if it becomes untwisted, which it tends to do. However, for some reason it has been fairly easy to work with for this elephant. That's good because I had no idea what I was going to do with all the yarn and it was just taking up space in my stash. On a side note, I think it would be very cute to tie little bow ribbons on these amigurumi.

Eyes

Eyes are an important anchor in a face. They bring soul to inanimate objects and can convey a variety of emotions and impressions.

That said, my bunny slippers are still missing their eyes. My [almost] complete baby jellyfish is also waiting for eyes. I need to finish them before I start to amass a horde of eyeless animals in my apartment. That could be pretty creepy.

#580 on Ravelry!

Amigurumi Jellyfish

No pictures, I forgot. :( I was busy last night going to Michaels (Vanna's Choice on sale for $2!), the supermarket, cooking food, going to the gym, and also trying out the amigurumi patterns I bought from Anapaulaoli!

I started with the baby jellyfish because I had some leftover cotton yarn. It's a natural off-white color, with random flecks of blue, red, yellow, and purple thrown in. It crocheted up really quickly - which, I suppose, isn't a surprise but I've never gotten that far on an amigurumi before. Before I knew it the instructions called for me to embroider the mouth and put on the eyes, but I had no eyes! Hence, I convinced Lawrence to drive me to Michaels so I could get eyes to finish the jellyfish. :) While I was there I also picked up 4 balls of Vanna's Choice in brick, chocolate, honey, and olive for another striped gift scarf.

As of this morning after the walk to the train station and the train ride to work, I have only 3 tentacles left to finish the jellyfish. :) I bet the mommy and daddy amigurumis would work up pretty quickly too. I could make pairs of them in a period of 2-3 days each and give those out as Christmas gifts!

Amigurumi

I bought these amigurumi patterns from Anapaulaoli at www.etsy.com

They are SO cute, and I can't wait to make a bunch to give to people as Christmas presents.