I'm alive!!! Well, barely. There is finally snow on the ground and I have the worst cold/flu imaginable. Yes, that means it's December 1st. Which, in turn, means that there are 23 days to finish my knit tins projects, block what needs it and to give. Except those projects that need to be mailed for Christmas... but those will probably be late anyways due to an overflowing post office.

I was reluctant to knit while in my sick bed, which is actually a couch, but I gave in and cast on for a pair of socks last night. I'm about an inch into the cuff and I've got to say, wow! That Malabrigo Sock has a gorgeous colour way that doesn't pool, and the stitch definition is to die for. Ahh! What a great way to make myself feel a little better :)

I decided to only make a few items for Christmas this year and buy the rest. It turns out there are a few people on my list who are extremely hard to buy for and only slightly easier to make for so I decided to make for them.
Right now my list looks like this:
1. Twilight socks - finished
2. Square socks
3. Square socks
4. Cowl - finished
5. Tree Frog - started
6. More socks
7. Mittens - not gonna happen!
8. Probably a few more I'm not remembering now.
9. Crochet dragon

Now taking into account that each sock takes roughly 20 hours.. by my calculations.. I'm screwed!
Right now I'm making the tree frog while I wait for some sock yarn for the square socks to come in. (Pattern link later) So, hopefully I can get a lot of this frog finished before I have to start on a pair of socks.

Other than this, I am basically finished my Christmas shopping, which makes this a little easier, but not by much. :(
I'll post again when I'm not drowning in yarn.

We'll it's really Christmas that I'm more worried about. Instead of trying to knit/make something for everyone this year, I've decided to make some and buy others. I've realized that not everyone will appreciate the time and effort that goes into a hand made gift, and not everyone will appreciate it or use it so I can use that time to make something for others. On my list are a few pairs of socks, another Boscage Cowl, a tree frog, another messy, and some more items. The only one I've started is a pair of socks so far! Hopefully I can get some more finished soon but I'm working on a Ravenclaw Christmas stocking as part of my colour work knitting class and that has to be finished up soon. The yarn for the frog and nessy are on the way as well.

I'm just glad that I've finished Christmas shopping for Ji already and don't have to worry about it. I just have to decide if I want to try to make Harry Potter house stocking or Game of Thrones house stocking instead. Either way they would be awesome!

I decided to make some simple stitch markers for a swap... and then it got out of hand.

While looking on etsy for inspiration, I came across beaded stitch counters and had to make some for myself! So after a trip to Michael's and $50 later, I had all the supplies I needed... for a small knitting army.
 I started with this Pink Dragon's egg counter. The beads already had hoops on the top and bottom so I just had to put the rings between them and add a dragon charm and I was done.

*To use it, you just start at the top or bottom loop and use that as your first row. Each time you move on to a new row, you move to the next ring to count up to 10 rows. The charm is so you know which end you started at*
























































Happy Crafting,

Halloween is my favourite event of the year to celebrate so I've decided to have a costume party at my place. I've had a half finished kimono in a bag somewhere but Ji says I'm not allowed to wear it as he won't be able to match it. So I figured what better than a video game themed costume? I threw out the idea to go as lollipop chainsaw and Ji really liked it because he could go as a zombie, plus it's a bit of a running joke. I'll show you what it is and then you can get the joke a bit better.
First off, some concept art:

Yes, there are hearts on her chainsaw, and yes, you did see a head strapped to her chainsaw. That is the talking severed head of her boyfriend. Now you can kind of understand how ridiculous this game seems and yes, it looks terrible. But, it also look awesome in a terrible sort of way and I think it looks awesome because of how and it looks.





What could be more fun than mowing down zombies with a chainsaw that has hearts on it while following the advice of your boyfriend's talking head that is strapped to the back of your chainsaw? Now much is the answer!

Now the most difficult part of this is going to be the chainsaw so there's a good chance I won't be able to finish this costume by Halloween but I plan on going to Otakon next year and this could be an awesome cosplay idea.

Thoughts?




























Here's the trailer so you can see what I'm talking about.

Yay it's already october and with it comes Socktoberfest! A month long celebration of sock knitting. I'm currently working on my first pair of socks, only have about 4 inches to go in a top down pair. It's already become apparent to me that sock knitting is highly addictive. You can knit around and around with nota care in the world, but then you need to pay attention to do a magical heel turn and some gusset decreases. After that you can stop paying attention again and blissfully knit along.


What I love about socks:

1. The yarn comes in so many colour ways, in a variety of fibers.
2. Good bang for your buck: You can have a pair of socks for $10 of yarn and it's really nice yarn too.
    3. Portable. You can knit them anywhere if you've packed them properly. I'm knitting two at a time and put the two skeins in a small bag so the yarn doesn't tangle and I can put my unfinished socks in the bag while travelling.
    4. There are so many gorgeous patterns and you can try new techniques on them. Afraid to try an intricate lace pattern on a huge shawl? Give it a go on a pair of socks to get comfortable with it first.
    5. There's just something about it. Socks are a great knit and there's just something mystical about a heel turn to me.

My Goals for Socktober:
1. Finish my Twilght socks from Two-at-a-time socks.
2. Start and finish Monkey by Cookie A.
3. Start a 3rd pair of socks.


Happy sock knitting,

I signed up for the Givers and Needers Swap on Craftster where someone gives a box of craft supplies and the receiver of that box sends a thank you. Well I looked at my partners Pintrest and she had this headband pinned. The pattern was very vague and confusing so I asked for help on the Craftster knitting board and got an answer. I'm going to cast on tonight and hopefully I can finish it up in a week to get onto making some more Monsta items for my etsy shop.


Happy Crafting,

Since my New Years resolution to be more active was crushed as badly as my broken tailbone was in January it hasn't happened yet. In an attempt to get this health thing going before the wedding I signed up for yoga and got the mat needed to do the activity. What better way to help myself get motivated for Yoga than knit a new yoga mat bag! I'm using this Pattern and some Red Heart Collage yarn in the Wood Trail Colourway. I'm only a few inches and pattern repeats in so it probably won't be finished for some weeks but this and my socks will give me some knitting goodness before I'll let myself start my Burnished Tunic.

Just wanted to put up a quick welcome. I used to be Ilianora then PenguinSoup on wordpress but I wasn't able to customize my blog as much as I wanted so now I'm here. I love to knit, but I also sew, crochet, and just about anything else I need to do to complete a project. I plan to post my projects here (wether they're my pattern or not, and I'll always let you know where I got the idea or pattern from) as well as my ideas for new ones, and tutorials I come up with.