Sheepy!

You may not know this… but I have the cutest puppy in the entire world.* Really. The cutest.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a photo as proof:

Obviously, a puppy so cute is in need of a christmas present – and while it is technically before christmas, the surprise has already been ruined for her… as you’ll see below.

I had some bulky organic wool (from an ex who’s parents had an organic sheep farm) and I thought that a dog toy would be the perfect use for it… so I made her a sheepy…

It turned out pretty darn cute! The specifics:

Pattern: Felt Flock (Bev G.) – this is available as a fiber trends pattern, but I had the pattern in Donna Kooler’s Knitting Encyclopedia gifted to me by my sister a few years back.
Needles: Size 11 US plastic circulars that I got at an auction…
Yarn: Gift
Mods: None.  I’m really pretty thrilled with the pattern.  I’d recommend it to others.

She loves the sheep! Want proof?

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope it’s a good one!

*This is actually my sister’s puppy – since I live in the residence halls at IU (in an apartment) I am not allowed to have puppies… But still, it’s like my puppy.

Buttons!

Remember those slippers that I knit a while ago?

These ones?

Since I’m up, I just wanted to share the mods that I made, per my knitting group’s fantastic advice:

Don’t they look just perfect now?  These buttons came from a good friend – someone who makes me feel much like these slippers do (warm and comfortable).

The Christmas List

What I’ll be knitting this year (forgive the coding – I have family who read this now):

• Dashing
• Shedir or Knucks for my sister (if I have time, Shedir might be for my brother)
• either a set of ornaments for my mother or finishing her sweater or a set of slippers
• 6 Dishcloths (for cousins)
•  A knitted/felted sheep for Mitzy – with some source of sound inside
• A baby sweater (and/or finishing the baby blanket)
•  Something for Keith and something for Steve

P.S. – So, grad school is busy 🙂

Ok, ok, I’m back. (An Update Post)

Sheila left me this comment on my last post the other day…

OMG! Are you ever going to start blogging again? I miss seeing your knitting!

My mom has scolded me, as has Roni, my first secret pal and practically like my second mom. I feel so bad about not posting!

First, some explanations of why I’ve been gone so long.

As you might remember in my last post, August has been the month of transition for me. I’m no longer in NYC and I’m back in sunny Bloomington, where … the grass is brown.

It hasn’t rained any significant amount in the month I’ve been here and the grass is crying for some love. I keep seeing the students out smoking and I’m just waiting for a patch of grass to go up in flames. Fortunately, I bought a new umbrella (ella, ella ella – oh god- someone kill me) and some rainboots and so I’m ready for when the rain really does come. Hopefully it’s soon.

I’ve met with some new knitting friends! I got together a couple times with some knitters from Bloomington and we knitted! It was fun – like a real knitting group. I’d had some knitting circles in my dorm, but the girls were always really, really beginner – and had no knowledge of the online community – I was the most hard-core one, and that wasn’t really fun for me.

I’m making progress on the mitered square blanket. Unfortunately, the baby is a couple weeks old. I suck with deadlines (I should be writing a paper right now, actually). Nevertheless, I’ve hot 5 1/2 blocks (of 9) seamed together. I haven’t knit all the miters, however. As I discussed at my knitting group, once I finish that miter, I have to kick it into gear and finish the seaming (and weaving in ends). As long as I don’t finish that miter, the seaming I have done now… means that I’m ahead of the game. Yes, I’m lying to myself.

I also finished some slippers. I needed some that I could slip on and respond to fire alarms. Or run to the ambulance when a student is being transported for alcohol poisoning. I’m thinking of sewing some buttons on them – what are your thoughts? Same color tones or some that are bright? Also – I’m going to use silicone cauck stuff to seal the bottom (and make them not-slippery). I’ll throw some photos up when I finish them. Heck, I’ll make a tutorial out of it!  Anyway, as it is, I’m pretty happy with them.  They’re really warm and comfortable.  I may just wear them to class a few times.

Hmmm. I think that’s it for now.

Does confidence come before a fall?

I’m still chugging along on this blanket. When I was first working on this, I’d thought I’d do 3 blocks across by 4 blocks deep (a block being 4 mitered squares) and had thought that was only 36 miters… but my math was wrong – that would be 48 squares. Since I’m pretty happy with the current size of the blanket, I’m sticking with 36, but obviously, only 3 block by 3 blocks.

I’m knitting this for a baby that is due on the 7th of September and I’ve only got 8 more blocks left.  Now, you should know that the mom said that she doesn’t think he’s going to wait until the 7th.  But 8 blocks isn’t that much.  After that, I’ll only have to seam them and knit the borders.  I’m feeling pretty confident about my ability to finish this.

In a previous post about this blanket, someone left a comment suggesting that I must want to add some blue to the blanket.  And while I’m appreciative of that person’s kidn suggestion, at the same time I don’t intend to add any blue to this blanket for two reasons:

1. I chose a color them of greens and neutrals and adding blue to the mix would kinda mess that up.  And I haven’t done all this work for nothing.
2. I’m a feminist and one of the issues that peeves me the most is gender stereotyping.  I’ve pretty much decided that unless it’s a special request, I’m probably not going to be knitting any pink or blue baby blankets.  *I tried to write a few sentences explaining myself here, but nothing I could come up that was adequate could be said succinctly – so I think that’s going to have to be another post.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep knitting this blanket. And I’ll be sure that I’m going to finish it in about a month, never mind that while I’ll be working on this, I’ll also be doing the following:

• Moving 1/2 way across the country again (see the box in the top photo)
• Unpacking an entire apartment’s worth of stuff
• Ending my summer job
• Completing about 2 weeks of intense training for my new job
• Beginning my new job
• Leading about 2 weeks of intense training for my RAs (by intense, I mean 12 hour day…)
• Completing orientation and registering for graduate school
• Beginning Graduate school

Strangling Vine (RAOK Pattern 1)

I’m sorry – I moved blogs!
You can find what you’re looking for right here: http://theknitter.nicolehindes.com/2007/07/06/strangling-vine-raok-pattern-1/

workin’ “9 to 5…” (A Free Pattern)

I’m sorry. I’ve moved blogs. You can find the post you’re looking for right here.

More mitering…

First of all, you should know that watching streaming TV shows online can be really addicting: Case in point – Jericho (you can stream it online for free at cbs)… I’ve watched about 18 episodes in the past 7 days or so – and I love this show! It’s awesome. You should go watch it too – especially if you’re feeling bored and you don’t have a TV (like me this summer!).

Another addicting thing:

Miters. They are sooo pretty and so addicting. And great for when you’re watching a TV show about the world coming to an end (or does it???)… And they look so nice stacked up:

The only thing is: I’ve knit about 14 of these – and I still don’t have the pattern memorized! I feel like a bad knitter because of this – it’s hard because the numbers of when you start the decreases don’t go in the most memorable number… so as I’m knitting these, I have to refer to the pattern a lot – which is very weird for me – usually once I’m a few repeats in, I got it. Not so with these.

The details:

It’s the mason dixon miter’ed blanket pattern (I’m even using the Cotton Classic that the pattern recommends).  I’m not doing the seamless version (do a search on their blog and you’ll find it) because, honestly, I kind of like seaming.  Granted, I say this now.  We’ll see when I have 36 miters to seam into a blanket.

Again, I’m keeping things mostly 2 tone with 2 neutrals thrown in there.  The baby’s due in September.  I have more than 1/3 the blanket done already.  I’m not scared of this deadline.

I know I promised some exciting news… I’m going to wait until Thursday night to spill the beans on this one – After then I’ll have some more details than what I have now.

Oh no. Someone stop me now.

I was only trying to do something nice. You know the story. Someone you (a knitter), knows is pregnant, expecting, has a bun in the oven. This can mean one of two things. Baby sweaters or baby blankets. This particular story involves a baby blanket.

It began many weeks ago, when stressed from finals, moving and a break up I succumbed to some yarn-type retail therapy. I bought 6 skeins of green Cotton Classic for a summery top I was going to design.

Days later, I knew it was a poor, impulse buy. I didn’t want to take it back (because, lets be honest, that would have been the smart thing to do and knitters are not smart about their stash), and by guilt alone, I decided to pack it for my summer in New York. This was the only yarn that I broke my strict sock-yarn-only rule for. Again, it was the guilt.

Knowing that I would be bringing it with me, the idea occurred to me that I ought to use it to knit a baby blanket for a woman I’ll be working with in August (well, her baby anyway). I thought about doing another pinwheel blanket, but dismissed it. Too boring. Plus, the next one I was going to knit would have ruffles and be for a girl. We are talking about a little baby boy here.

The next idea I had was to knit the blanket as a standard rectangle (I brought a US 6 circular needle) with stripes of linen stitch. A good idea. Something I may do in the future, but not now.

Now, it’s miters.

Heavenly, addicting, satisfying, teasing, pleasing, miters.

I can’t stop.

Of course, I couldn’t do miters in just one color. So I popped into a yarn store and bought 2 more colors.

After I knit one miter, I realized that the yarn I had would not suffice. It was evident that I needed more yarn and, likely more colors.

I’ve since bought more yarn and knit more miters. My rules are thus: Only 2 tone miters. Only greens or neutrals (but mostly greens). The final color count cannot be an even number. Final blanket size – 6 blocks (24 miters) or 9 blocks (36 miters).

This is not good. I totally understand the addiction now. Now, to cast on for my next miter…

Pomp and Circumstance

I’m graduating from Indiana University today (Bachelors in Journalism and Human Sexuality)!