LittleYarn’s Neighborhood

If i had to decide where my favourite place in the entire world was it would have to be somewhere that is tranquil, somewhere I can reflect and somewhere that is just as fantastic in all the seasons. My bedroom window, in fact, has displayed some of the most glorious sunsets that I have never seen in photos or on travels. It never fails, no matter what the season, to amaze me as I spend countless hours at my desk, admiring the passing clouds and planes. Also, the river walk that runs for a mile and a bit past my house is incredible during the summer when the sun shines off the water and the air is fresh from the sea. In winter, it is a nice place to escape for a while amongst the bare trees and soothing sound of the crashing waves. But, saying that, my abnormally warm and comfy bed could also be a contender along with my kitchen fridge! So, I guess if someone ever asked me where my favourite place in the world was, I would have to say 'home'. 

Who are you dying to see in concert?

Rascal Flatts / Taylor Swift / Jason Mraz

I actually finished this six weeks ago, but never posted! I'm pretty proud of this one...I picked my favorite stitch pattern, planned my stripes, figured out how to make ruffles and managed to create a vertical keyhole without screwing up my pattern that did not lend itself well to a keyhole. All with great success!

I didn't intend for only the pink bands at the end..it was going to stripe with the others (alternating 5 and 10 rows with three colors - would have been neat) but the pink didn't look as great with my coat as I thought. Blah. Still, I like the stripes.

I can't wait to wear this all winter long! I've worn it once so far and it is snuggly.

Yarns: Rowan Purelife Wool in Welsh Black (brown) and Steel Suffolk (grey), accented with Rowan chunky Scottish tweed (rose). Knit for Potions class, September '09: a warm up potion.

Suncatcher Eyes Group on Flickr

Wikipedia defines amigurumi as "the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures."   If you Google the word "amigurumi," 837,000 links come up, and there are 196,000 images.  On Flickr there are 68,900 photos tagged with "amigurumi."  A few years ago amigurumi was a difficult-to-explain, hard-to-pronounce craft that few knew about.  Today it has exploded into a craft revolution. 

There is an amigurumi for just about anything you can imagine, and most of the patterns are available too.  How about a pig, cat, dog, bear, bunny, dog in a bear suit, pear, apple, tree, hamburger and hot dog, fish bones, robots, a skeleton, any cartoon and pop culture character you can imagine, dolls, mermaids, and of course mushrooms and snails.

I learned to crochet more than 25 years ago, long before crochet was cool.  Crochet used to be thought of as little old ladies making afghans, slippers, and scarves.  With the introduction of amigurumi, that has all changed.  Crafters have embraced amigurumi and even created micro businesses.  They sell amigurumi dolls and patterns, and there are even those who sell the materials used to make amigurumi.

Crocheting is popular again, and it's being learned by a whole new generation of crafters.  What a wonderful way to keep the art of crochet going.

I finally had a chance to add the 19 new opaque colors to the Suncatcher Eyes website.  Now the colors shown below can be ordered individually in 6mm, 7.5mm, 9mm, 10.5mm, 12mm, 15mm, 18mm, 20mm, and 24mm.  Click here to visit the opaque colors page.

Who wants to join a crochetalong to make this adorable fuzzy panda?  Join Roxycraft at Craftzine.com at this link to make your own panda.  Panda's eyes are 18mm Suncatcher Eyes in Shimmer Aqua.

These are the newest colors in the Radiance line of Suncatcher Eyes.  Only available in my Etsy shop for now.

Two completed items in one week!! Amazing. This is a Not-So-Elizabethtown Hat in Three Irish Girls Galenas, Cinnamon Spice colorway.

The pattern is great - super easy. What slowed me down was that fourth round of cables. I ended up using the cabling without a needle method, except, um, I used a needle. ;) Instead of sliding two stitches to a needle, holding to the back, knitting the third stitch, knitting the two from the cable needle and then purling the last stitch, I slipped two stitches to the other needle, slid the third needle to another needle that I held in front, slipped the two back and then slipped the one back, knit the three and then purled the last. The slipping and knitting off just one needle did speed things up and made it a lot less fiddly.

I think it looks cute on. It matches my winter coat exactly, which is nearly impossible.

I goofed at the end, though. I shouldn't have done an extra decrease row, which I think caused some of the puckering, and I got carried away and bound off instead of running yarn through the stitches and scrunching them together. It doesn't look bad, though, and has a bit of a star effect. I don't mind it.

To complete my winter set, next will be a keyhole scarf in grey, brown and pink stripes to complement the reds, and possibly mittens in the above colors with perhaps some of the leftover red. We'll see.

I started this Sunday Market Shawl this past spring, with Wexford Silk Merino from Three Irish Girls, in I'm Just A Girl.

I was at Torchsong in June. I paid for priority seating, along with the caberet. Sadly, John Barrowman broke his ankle and couldn't attend. Instead, he did a two way video link so he could do Q&As and still see us from his office in Wales and we could see him on a big screen.

I brought my knitting with me since I was sitting alone and I like having something to concentrate on while I listen. My assigned seat was on the far end of the row, just behind the microphone where con attendees went to ask the Torchwood actors questions and such.

John came on, and was chatty and friendly and having a great time talking with the people lined up next to me asking him questions. Then, about ten minutes in, he stopped the next person and said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I have to ask. Is that lady knitting?! What are you making, honey?" I froze, looked up at the giant screen of him leaning towards the camera, squinting at me. I finally was able to tell him that it was a shawl, and held it up. "That looks great!" he said. "See, I am paying attention!"

Yes, he was, and he made my day, weekend, month, summer! I never would have felt comfortable getting in line, but I didn't have to - he initiated the interaction! Thanks, John. :)

So, this was renamed from Summer Nights Shawl to The Oh Holy Hell John Barrowman Noticed Me And Asked Me About My Project Shawl. ;)

It was pretty simple - first row, k2 yo all the way across, then knit straight stockinette. Last row, drop the yos and unravel them down to create the ladders. It jumped from about 44x8 to 66x12 after that - seriously impressive.

I did have an hour of fear when, trying to bind off as loosely as possible per the directions, my stitches came off the needle and I couldn't tell which were accidentally dropped and which were purposely so! It was awful...an hour of frantically catching them all and figuring out which belonged where and how to pick them up from several rows down, etc. I did manage it, though, although something got twisted in the bind off row, creating my only error of the piece. (Of course something had to happen - my knitting is always imperfectly perfect!) The unraveling itself was a blast. It took about another hour, and the immediate change of dense, thick stockinette to loose, drapey, big stitches was amazing. See?

I wore it the day after I finished (knit in Pleasant Prairie during a Doctor Who marathon with Meg) to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, as pictured. It was a delight - I could wear it as a shawl, scarf, hood or shrug to stay warm. However, as you can see, I had a problem that many others encountered with this pattern - half of it has stayed laddered (the bind off edge, where I started dropping) and the other half lost the ladders and just looks like loose stockinette. Hmm. A knitty friend from work recommended blocking it and picking apart the ladders, as they do still exist in there. I'm worried what that will do to the perfect length of this, though. Must decide what to do about it, if anything.

The yarn is a silk/wool blend, in shades of blue and purple. It's soft and gorgeous and lovely. Definitely recommended.