Spinning - Maybe I won't suck this time

I haven't been crafting a lot; thus, I haven't blogged since November of last year. There is no excuse for it really. I got swept up by birthdays, Christmas, New Years, vacation, and laying on the floor lethargically because I was immobilized either by my happy food belly or fitness routine.

However, Spring is near and I'm starting to get crafty urges. Although intense indoor crafting would make more sense in the Winter, there is actually very little daylight resulting in me uncomfortably squinting at my knitting by a lamp.



Oh, aren't you lovely!



I started on another crocheted throw as the hubby and I yank competitively at the only one we currently have. Actually, at times we race to the couch to get it first. We do have the fleece throws. You know, the ones you can get at Ikea for super cheap. However, they're not that great at trapping heat. So I went to Walmart, and bought a humongous 1000g ball of turquoise acrylic goodness. No scolding about acrylic please. I am not going to handwash and air dry a wool blanket. Here's what I've got so far...

In other news, my practically-a-sister gf and I spent Friday together. This typically means we eat McDonald's, go to yarn stores, do impulsive shopping at Walmart, swim, yoga, paint our toes, knit, watch horrible movies, or BBT (aka bubble tea) our faces off. We did knit this past Friday, where she spent 40 minutes learning and doing a new cast on method...which she then promptly ripped apart. Oh, Melody.

We had stopped by Baaad Anna's on Hastings to use a gift certificate I received from a friend for my birthday. Leora, you are an enabler and it's awesome. At Baaad Anna's, I was baaad blublu as I loaded up my arms with roving and skeins of Noro.

Roving? Why, yes! After chatting with Leah (my internet-crafting-and-random-humour buddy) and seeing her gorgeously handspun skein, I decided to give spinning another try. I had tried spinning before, but was using a short fiber which resulted in my craptastic looking yarn. So I picked up some roving with longer fibers from Baaad Anna's.

Yes, you are yummy!

The hubby had commented that it looked like treasure troll hair when I had pulled out a tuft of it. Blasphemy!

I created a leader and started spinning on my bottom whorl spindle.

 

 I'm much more consistent this time around, but it's still thicker and thinner in some places. It's still going to be "specialty yarn". We shall see what happens!

Here is some yarn pr0n for you. Noro!

 

Happy Crafting!

Blublu

I am around!

I have disappeared for an entire season! What have I been doing for the past 3 months?

I was getting my perma-tan in Mexico! (Seriously, that tan lasts about a year. After a year, I go back and get another one). It was an awesome trip that included swimming with the dolphins, horseback riding, snorkeling, and kayaking. The kayaking (1.5 to 2 hours) made me seasick as the waves were very rough, but I slept it away once I got back to the resort.

The hubby was afraid that I would throw up in our kayak. He's the type where others puking induces him to puke or feel nausea. If anything, I would let it all out in the open ocean, but you can't really puke if your stomach is empty. Puke puke puke. There is a lot of "puke" in this paragraph. If hubby is reading this, it would surely make him ill.  Know what would make me nauseous? Scrolling too fast up and down the page, that's what.

Also went for a hike with the colleagues in my department (plus hubby and friend). Upon seeing my photos on FB, one of my other coworkers commented, "I think it's cute that your department goes on nature walks!" Lady, this was no nature walk, it was a 4 hour hike and I had to scale down a tree via some rope and step through creeks. Haha! That and Hubby had me get on this suspension bridge while he rapidly jumped up and down. That was fun for 2 minutes before I started freaking out.

When we found our waterfall, we drank its cool, crisp water, and hoped that we would not get beaver fever.

I'm sure others at work can confirm that we are no madder than usual.

In crafty updates, here's the pic of the blanket I promised to post 3 months ago. It is complete and I find the colors quite suitable for October.

I best be getting that to the baby. It's all of a sudden deceivingly cold in Vancouver. It's sunny out, but you will surely freeze your buns off.

I had to wear my wool jacket the other day as it was cold enough. However, other Vancouverites begged to differ as they ran about the city in their cardigans and sandals -- they are in denial about the cold. Listen,  I was born and raised here, put your jacket on before you catch a cold or I tell your mother.

I'm still working on that rug. I took a picture before I continued working on it. I have finally attached the second canvas. Am closer to getting it done but I must hurry as the floor is freaking cold and winter is creeping up on us. 

I currently have it laying out on the floor so that I can run down the hallway from the bedroom and stand on it to give my cold feet some relief.

 I am also working on a secret project that I can't talk a lot about as it is a gift. But it is in a fabulous purple and knit with a diamond pattern.

My friend is coming home for Christmas early. Basically, this week and I am knitting this thing everywhere: at home, on the train, during lunch, etc.

My friend Mel came back from Hong Kong and presented me with 6 skeins of silk-cashmere-wool blend yarn. Bwahaha. Enabler.

It's in a fabulous green color and I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet but it'll be awhile before I have time to knit something for myself. For now,  it will live happily under my bed with my stash.

That's the update, y'all. I promise to not wait another 3 months before I update again!

<3blublu

The stash has been found, I repeat, the stash has been found.

Sunday afternoon, the hubby is pulling throws out of our antique apple basket when underneath he finds a stash of yarn.

Above: Under the throws, he finds a part of my stash.

He is staring at the yarn at the bottom of the basket. I am tossing the throws back into the basket, "Shhh! Put the blankets back before the hubby sees the stash!" He looks at me incredulously and laughs. "I AM hubby!"

He looks over to my works-in-progress basket by the piano which is also overflowing with yarn, and smirks. The picture below is actually after I've emptied out some of the yarn. So imagine it overflowing and ridiculous. (Ridiculously cool! Hellz to the ya!)

Under the bed, we have two large Sterilite 62L containers holding my stash -- also overflowing. The  picture below shows the container we use for yarn stashing (times two) -- they're pretty big!

 Above: Underbed storage container, I heart thee!

Later on, we are out grabbing some dinner and are having a casual conversation.

"I think I need another one of those underbed storage containers!" I say smiling.

"We don't need another one, do we? Your stash seems fine with the storage we have. Do we even have room under the bed for another container?"

"Yea, we have room underbed for another one. My stash at home is trying to escape the underbed containers - overflow! But what about the stash at work that needs to come home?"

"The stash at work??!"

He got wide-eyed. He sorta looked like this: O_O.

I would describe it as bewildered. Not understanding my psyche.Yet, he was understanding of what he couldn't understand.

After dinner, we went ahead and got me another underbed storage container. Yay! Now there are three. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags containers full.

 Above: Missing the work stash.

Needless to say, no more yarn purchases for blublu for awhile. Not until I knit down the stash. 

Final thoughts on the matter: I <3 hubby.

In other news, I've picked up the Tunisian Crochet technique. It's the love child of knitting and crocheting. Whoever says the two techniques should never be mixed is nuts, especially when you see how great it looks!

The technique uses a long double ended crochet hook (or alternatively, a hook with a cord), there is a knit and a purl stitch, the work above curls like stockinette stitch (as it's all knit), and it is also one of the few ways in which I will tolerate variegated yarn.  Most other times, I think variegated yarn just looks like a clown puked a rainbow on a skein of yarn. Not pleasant.

Lazy Sunday Knits and some Yarn Pron

DRESSEW - Yarn Pron
Last week during lunch, my coworker and I ventured out to Dressew as it was pertinent that he have a  leprechaun hat to wear whilst drinking green beer for St. Patrick's Day. So off we walked into historical Gastown from Yaletown. Actually, more like I skipped and sang...then I deemed this slow, and perhaps ran...because I was THAT excited.

If you're not a craftster in Vancouver, you may not know that Dressew is where you can find all types of treasures like yarn, knitting tools, fabric, buttons, sewing tools, cross stitch tools, and apparently, leprechaun hats amongst other costumes, and more! To top it all off, their items are all more than reasonably priced. For example, each skein of yarn I purchased was $1.99 (CAD) and no, it wasn't novelty yarn (although, they have some of that too). This is what I got...

Two balls of Regia sock yarn, Nashua Cilantro (cotton-acrylic blend yarn) in a yellow-green, and Nashua Velvet Wool (wool-nylon blend) in a turquoise-cyan.

I initially only wanted to get the sock yarn, but my coworker kept egging me on with, "Dooooo EEEET!" as I cradled the Nashua yarn in my arms like a baby. If I had a basket, I'd be in even bigger trouble. When I succumbed to the seduction of yarn, my coworker exclaimed, "Hells to the ya!" which made me feel instantly better.

Now, I actually want to go back for more yarn and most likely will again at lunch. Then I will most likely go again with my mother on the weekend because we are a family of knitters and are typical knitter-enablers.

Dressew is two floors of awesome AND a bag of chips (AND a set of crochet hooks). Now I did not take any pics of this Dressew, but some other bloggers have....like this blogger. If you're ever in the Vancouver area, it is a place worth checking out even if you don't craft much...because it may inspire you to be creative.

Lazy Meditative Sunday Knitting
Today, I woke up, sat on the couch and knitted. Other than steaming dumplings, baking chicken, and going out for dinner, knitting was all I did today. I finished up the baby kimono sweater.

I opted out of knitting ties for it and went with ribbon instead. I have a thing for the green and brown colour combo.

As well, I finally finished up that beret that I made for my mom. When I say finish up, I mean sew in the ends. If you know me, seaming and weaving in tails is my least favourite thing to do. I'd rather try to do a handstand and then lose control and crash my knee into the mirror at the gym -- wait, this has already happened. Nevertheless, here's the beret. I only have this one photo, perhaps will post alternate views when I update my website.

When my mom had tried it on for size, she asked me whether I knit it from a pattern. Then she interrupted herself and said, "Of course you didn't, you're smart. Like your mom." Sassy. Indeed no pattern, matter of knowing how to knit a circle.

I'm currently knitting a batch of fish hats (see Knitty for the pattern).  The one at the bottom left is for my brother who spends his weekends snowboarding at Whistler. He asked me, "Can you man it up a bit by adding teeth?" I am taking his request into consideration. Clearly, it's a WIP. Poor eyeless fishes.

You may also notice the little pink hippo. It's a Clover container holding my mini-Swiss army knife (for cutting yarn), stitch markers, seaming pins, darning needle, and other notions. I also have an alligator one that holds my double-pointed needles. Handy and CUTE! If you're looking to get one, try KnitPicks.

That's it for now!

Signing off,
blublu

Bulky Seamless Kimono Sweater

I'm on my second bulky seamless baby kimono from The Complete Fabrication blog (here's the pattern: http://thecompletefabrication.blogspot.com/2007/11/bulky-seamless-baby-kimono.html). I can't stress how awesome this sweater is. I hate seaming, and this has none. It's knit from the top down in one entire piece. I think I've learned quite a bit from knitting this sweater and am feeling pretty good about designing my own top-down one-piece sweaters. YAY!

 As you can see, I'm still working on it. It has not been bind off at the bottom yet, and it still remains sleeveless. I also plan to modify the pattern a bit. I am not loving the ties on the original pattern, and may even out the edge along the front as well.

This time around, I chose to knit the sweater in Lion Brand's HomeSpun in Apple Green because I could not resist the color.

Isn't it a lovely colour? I had stolen that pic from the Lion Brand website as my pics were taken indoors at night and thus, aren't that accurate for color. What can I say, I'm a night-owl blogger.

I've never knit with a yarn with such texture. Seriously. With all the knitting I've ever done, it's always been with smooth yarn. This results in nice and even stitches. But look at this yarn...it has got a ripply thing going on.

When knit up, as you can see from the first photo, it has a bumpy texture to it. I'm not used to it as I've been knitting with smooth yarn for years. I don't hate, I don't love it...I just think, "Hmm! Now that's different!" or "I bet this is what knits would look like if a drunken monkeys could knit!" Here's a close up!

It's like forcing uneven stitches. It looks like something I might have spun myself off my spindle...except better. haha. I find that the yarn splices easily. In the above picture, you can see one of the ends sticking out, and it has completely been fuzzed up. Worth it for the effect though. :)

Currently, these are WIP projects:
*2 fish hats: 1 needs eyes, 1 needs eyes and fins
*FO a beret. Even sewing in ends deters me from finishing a project

Haven't made much of a dent this weekend as I went running, and then went to a bbq and gobbled away all benefits of said running.

Currently, on my to-knit list
*another kimono baby sweater (wow, people are really popping out those babies!)
*1 more fish hat
*baby blanket
*socks*cowl
*coffee cup cozy

Time for bed!
blublu