This and that.

So, I have been incredibly productive, knitting-wise. this may be because I have officially finished my honours year, and now I find myself at a bit of a loss. I got a 2a, if you're wondering, which is the third best. Not too bad, but not great, either, considering one of my friends got a first class. Then again, she had the year from hell, and just about killed herself with the stress, whereas I sort of floated through, in retrospect. Which means both that I got the score I deserved, for the amount of work I was willing to put in, and I am also happy with my result. Now that I've gotten over my jealousy and my might-have-beens. Frankly, I just wasn't prepared to put in the amount of extra work it would have taken. I should be, I know. It goes against the Protestant work ethic to admit that. But since I'm a lapsed-catholic/agnostic, I think that fits right in, don't you?

Anyway, the point is, I have some fantastic things to show you, but my sister has broken her camera (how inconsiderate!) so until she gets it fixed or I break down and buy myself one (but that would mean I couldn't afford more yarn!) I'll have to be content to show you what I did before she broke it.



I got excited by the discovery of fabric stash from goodness knows when, and whipped these up. I can sew sqaures, people! Are you proud of me? The idea was to cover the shelves in my wadrobe-thingy which store rarely used stuff. Because I'm living with my parents this year, and am back in my old, dark, TINY room (my sister's is huge. Don't get me started) there is a serious lack of storage space. Which is a problem I am well used to, being a pack-rat by nature. I have ribbon that I'm planning to make into proper... what would the word be? I'm planning on hemming the ribbon and sewing on snap-studs, for easy access. I was considering some embroidery, but I like them simple, especially since uncluttered space is at a premium in my life, even if it is vertical.


Along the same vein of reducing visual clutter:


I used more fabric-stash (it's got parrots on) to make a bag. I made it around a canvas green-bag. The idea occured to me a while back, since I am definately a novice-knitter. It was fun to make, but it's really too floppy, and the pockets are poorly placed. I might consider using it as a real bag, since I often use a green bag when lugging books etc around. They're a handy size. But it was not what my knitting needed, so I managed to find about 5 unused bags from my bag collection (you can never have too much wool or too many bags) which are now storing individual projects.


In leiu of photos, I'll just tell you what's on my needles:

1) Jo Sharpe cardigan: back cast off today. Front to commence as soon as I can work up the steam.
2) scarf for sister: almost finished the next installment. Now only one more strip, then blocking and finishing (oy)
3) A nautiloid as a chrissie present for an old science teacher (I am such a nerd. But she was my fave teacher, and my mother now works at my old school, and apparently the year 12s this year were less than grateful. Also, I've been dying to knit one. Gee, this was a long parenthesis) Almost done, only the tentacles left to knit.
4)Fingerless gloves: no more progress (boring)
5)Tool-case from Creative Knitting with fair-isle rose: finished, only blocking and finishing left. First attempt at fair-isle a little tight, but who's counting?
6)Cardigan for Arwen: eagerly awaiting yarn in the mail.

There. How productive am I? (That's a rhetorical question. The answer would be: very) Also fixated on the beret from Interweave Knits. My sister wanted me to knit one for her. I said, buy the yarn and I'll knit it. She discovered how much yarn costs and suffered a severe change of mind. Besides, after I've finished this blasted scarf and those gloves, I have decided I will no longer knit for her. She doesn't appreciate it. So there *crosses arms* So, if I have enough tweedy yarn left over when I finish this dratted scarf, which I think I will have, I'll be making a cream-coloured one for myself. I've discovered that knitting for oneself is lovely.


In other knitting news, I read a great kids book the other day. (I clean a primary school. I snoop in the library. So sue me) It was called Emily and the Dragon, and it was about Emily, who loved to dance, her pet chicken Egg and her noxious brother Jock who tells her at the start that "girls are feeble. They can't fight Dragons. Everybody knows that." To which Emily gamely replies "I don't know that." and sets off to find a dragon to fight.


Instead, she makes friends with a witch, a knight and the dragon who doesn't want to fight, she'd rather dance (everybody knows that dragons don't dance - I don't know) The reason it's knitting news is because the knight doesn't want to fight: he'd rather knit (but everybody knows knights don't knit.) Thankfully, Emily doesn't know that, and she teaches him, and there's some nice little educational graphics for any reader who'd like to join the knight. I thought it was charming, and the knight's droopy mustache reminded me of that Dick King Smith book - what was it?
I don't remember, but it was about a dubiously talented knight with a clever (talking) horse, and who is aided in the rescue of a princess by a horrible witch, who turns out to be both quite nice and the princess. I'm sure it was DKS. Anyway, I'll find out. It was a good book. Nice antidote to fairy-tale stupidness.

Well, i think that's enough rambling for now. I'm off to try to figure out how to put a button on my sidebar, and mayb e even update my links, which are woefully behind my voracious bookmarks. I'm addicted, people. Addicted...

My sort-of quilt

This is a pic of the quilt cover I did for my sister years ago, that I mentioned earlier on. I made it the year I graduated from high school, when I had started holidays but no one else had yet, so I had the house to myself.

It was Lord of the Rings themed, since the first movie had just come out
and we were both on a Tolkien kick. See, there's the ring in the middle, painstakingly copied out.

A better shot of the ring picture:

You can't really see, but in the red part, I painted on the runes or whatever they are that say "one ring to etc etc" It was hard. I did the same on the pillowcase I made to match. I originally wanted to embroider it, at least on the pillow, but it got too hard. I might give it a go if I was doing it again now, and I had enough time.



The thing I loved best (apart from having the final product all done) was choosing the fabrics. Check them out:

You can't really see very well. The top looks all fiery and lava-like. The red on the bottom looks like tangled branches. The idea was to sort of describe the journey they had to take to get rid of the ring, with the ring in the centre. The picture below shows it better.
I was thinking of putting some foresty fabrics on the edge, but I ran out of room, and the colours didn't really go.

My sister still uses it on her bed, although with different pillowceses now. Which is pretty flattering if you think about it. Or maybe not - she did use a fairy quilt set she got when she was tiny up until just a few years ago when it fell apart...

Anyway, I'm surprised by how good it still looks. It was my first proper project, and still my only really big one. Hmmmm... I'm being tempted into doing something similar... cos I totally need new project, I don't think.

I dream of quilting...

I don't know if this counts as a project, yet. It's still in the planning stages. My mother gets quilting magazines and fairly regularly she buys doubles by accident or there's a 'bonus' package which she alreay has (don't you hate that?) so I end up with the extras. I've never tried quilting before, although technically I can sew. And I also made a quilt cover for my sis about 5 years ago now, using semi-quilting techniques. Semi-using quilting techniques. Whatever.

Anyway, I saw this, and I just had to have it. I'm sure you all know the feeling. It's flannel, and I know this isn't the season (at least in this hemisphere) but maybe if I start it now, it'll be ready for winter (Yeah, right. Winter what year?)

A friend of my mother's has said she'll help me/us work out how to go about it, so this could launch me into the world of quilting, although it's not as comforting as knitting. I can't wait to get my hands on the finished product, it's going to be so snuggly and wonderful.




Here's the fabric I've bought for it so far. The only flannel I could find in the all-purpose craft-sew-whatever stored in town was the red check at the back. The fabrics on the right aren't even flannel - just boring old cotton. The left is flannel, a jackpot was found at a local quilting store, but I ran out of dough, so I will be revisiting the Patchwork Apple when next I get payed. *excitement!*