Baa...baa

Apparently I am a sheep. Why? Because I could not resist this scarf
and had to follow all of the other people who have made it and cast on
for one of my own!

It's the "noro scarf" that I keep seeing all over the 'net. It's made
from 4 balls of at least two different colors of Noro Silk Garden
which are alternated every two rows. The result is fantastic... I love
how the colors shift slowly and intertwine with each other. So fun!

I decided to get 4 different colorways, two in a pink/purple warm
colorway, and two in a blue/purple cool colorway. (I don't have the
color numbers at hand right now but will share them later.) The colors
in this photo are actually a little muted...imagine them much brighter
and you've got the idea. I love this scarf so far! And the yarn is
softer than I'd expected.

I liked what the Yarn Harlot pointed out about this scarf...no matter
how many people make it there will always be variations. And not just
because people's knitting can vary, but because even if the same
colors are used they will still be a little different! And there are
just so many options out there. I decided to use four different ones
so that nothing at all would repeat even on my scarf.

It's a fun knit so far!

Holiday frazzle

Hi folks!

I know I owe you a post with photos but I can't oblige at the moment (my photos are on flickr which is blocked at work. At least I can still access blogger during my lunch break!).

I started early on planning for the holidays but even so I am feeling a tad stressed already. ugh! Does anyone else get this way? I am such an organization-freak that I need to feel organized and ready early or I can't sit back and enjoy. It's not like I'm making all that much stuff, I just want to be done with it early (including shopping and cards) so I can enjoy some of the season and not feel so frazzled. But every time I look at the calendar I do get frazzled!

For gifts, so far I've made two cotton crocheted grocery bags for my SILs that came out pretty well I think. I used this pattern, although I had to make them bigger. I ended up not increasing stitch count, just row count, and used a much larger hook. Apparently I crochet very tightly so my first one came out way too small.

I am also making two little coin purses for the SILs, which are almost done and I'm also pretty happy with them. Thus far I am using only stash yarn! Yay. I REALLY need to curb my yarn purchases for a while. (Especially since I just made an impulse purchase because of something I saw on a bunch of blogs lately. COUGH. Ahem. More on that later.)

I also have another project I'm working on for a friend that's not knitting but is something way overdue that I promised ages ago. It's just a baby blanket (it's fleece, so a no-sew project) onto which I'll be stitching some cross stitch fabric once I cross stitch the words on. I think it'll be cute when it's done, but it's time consuming. I also need to do some craft painting...for my friend's older daughter I had given her a little name train years ago, and now I need something similar for her younger girl. So that needs to get done.

I am also making the same friend a pair of socks, but that's easy peasy of course. No worries there.

Then there's this photo book I'm creating for my dad, which I need to get done so I can order it and cross it off my list and be done with it. This is why I get frazzled! There's just so much to do. And beyond all the gifts, there are a few little ornaments I wanted to make for myself as well, not to mention I might want to make some of those tiny sweater ornaments for my cousins for Christmas day. But we'll see if I'm that ambitious! Heh. What happened to not making anything for Christmas?!

Leaves!

Sorry for no knitting updates here! I offer this photo by way of
explanation... This is my reality every weekend in the fall. Our
driveway is under there somewhere.

F.O. update

I need to do some blogging catch-up and I'll start with the F.O.s from over the summer!  Some stuff I've blogged about and some stuff I started and finished during my blog "hiatus".  

You might remember these...they are stockinette socks in Opal Flamingo yarn.  I love them!  They're a teensy bit tight but they fit.  I was working on tweaking my pattern and have now done so and the new version fits better.  Anyway, love these socks. 

And completely by accident, the stripes sorta matched up.  Bonus!

Click here to view the specifics on those socks.

~ ~ ~

Up next is a very exciting photo of some black mittens.  The mittens themselves are just about as exciting, but I really wanted some black handknit mittens to wear with my handknit scarves and such.  These are made from Manos del Uruguay and are thick!  I can tell they're going to be cozy and warm.

Here's my page for those.

~ ~ ~

Now here we have a pair of Fetching mitts.  I wanted to make these to go with my lightweight fall jacket.  I found this yarn (which happened to be the yarn the pattern called for) that matched the coat about as perfectly as possible.  It's Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, and it is lovely and soft.  So even though the pattern warned that one ball was just barely enough to make the pair, I threw caution to the wind and got just the one ball.

Luckily, I was successful.

Here is the jacket in question:

And here, folks, is the teeny bit of yarn I was left with.  They weren't kidding!!

And here are the specifics on that project.

~ ~ ~

Okay, up next is something kinda cute.  I have a coworker/friend who was expecting a baby (she's since had a healthy, beautiful baby girl) and I wanted to make a hat.  I found this pattern on the ball band of a ball of Bernat Baby Jacquards.  It's a little Jester Hat!

I knit it in the round, even though the pattern called for flat knitting, but in my experience self-striping yarn behaves better when it's knit in the round as opposed to flat.  But even with all the stitches it worked fine on 5 DPNs.

For this hat you knit even for a while and then start increasing in four corners and when you cast off you have this:

Then you stitch all the seams at the top and you have this:

Then you make four pompoms...

Assemble, and voila!

Cuteness in the form of a hat!  Here's my project page on that.

~ ~ ~

So that's what I finished this summer and fall.  I have quite a few things on the needles, including some Christmas gifts.  I'll round those up soon and be back to post that stuff!

Happy Halloween!

I have no idea if this will work or not... I'm trying to email a post
with a photo from my phone. If it works you'll see a jack o' lantern
below!

Either way, Happy Halloween!