An invasion of socks actually seems pretty appealing to me. There's just something about them that is almost like knitting crack to me. There are about a billion patterns, almost to many options for yarn with different patterns (self striping is nice) and lots of different techniques (top up, toe down, after thought heel, dpn, circular needles, ect.) The best part(s) you get great bang for your buck, which could be as many as 20+ hours of knitting fun for $10 or less AND it's portable. Who doesn't like a project they can tote anywhere! Oh, and an added bonus, those little bits of left overs can be used for hexipuffs to make your own Beekeepers Quilt.

I started knitting socks before Christmas last year and man did it take off. I knit my first pair of socks for Ji, then my grandpa got a pair for Christmas, as did Ji's dad. I've started a pair of self striping socks for my sister and now I'm working on my first pair of knee high socks for my friend Sierra. I also have plans of knitting my dad and mom a pair for Christmas. The only problem is, is that I don't yet have a pair of hand knitted snugglyness for myself! I'm spreading the hand knit comfy foot love, but have yet to experience it myself.

I think my problem with knitting myself a pair of socks is that there are just too many options! I think I've narrowed my first pair for myself down to a Cookie A. pattern, probably from Knit. Sock. Love (and probably Monkey) OR an Alice Yu pattern, probably Farmer McGregor from her book that I'm going to buy soon because I love all the patterns.And there's also the yarn. For Peter's sock, I splurged and got some wonderful Malabrigo sock and it was heavenly to knit with. I won some Malabrigo sock and some Malabrigo lace from the wonderful Flannelberry Fiber and am afraid to use it! I'm afraid to knit the wrong pattern with this yarn since it's so amazing.

There's also the shawls that will be coming. It almost seems criminal to knit up my precious fingering weight into something other than lovely warm socks. But, I have found a shawl that's just calling for me and I've got enough (I hope) yarn for it as well. The Haruni shawl is gorgeous and makes me excited to start. But, alas, I am moving and am afraid of losing it or the stitches falling out. I also have to finish those socks for Sierra so I swore I won't knit anything else (except hexipuffs) until I finish her socks.

So there was my little rant or my gushing about my love of sock yarn and what's going on with my stash of sock yarn. It turns out that after I emptied my big plastic bin of acrylic yarn, it was full again with all of my sock yarn and I still don't have enough.

Happy Crafting!

I haven't blogged in quite a while, but not have I crafted either, and that's a bit of a sad thing. But I really feel like the March Hare and you may even hear me scream "I'm late, I'm late!" And this is due to an overly large amount of stress. And usually I knit when I'm stressed, but I guess there is too much stress and not enough time to actually get anything done.

What's causing all of this stress, you may ask? Well I'll tell you! I'm getting married in June and have about a billion and 2 things that needs to be done, checked, double checked and confirmed finished. I've got invitations to finish up and a seating chart to go about and other wedding-y stuff. There's also the move. Ji and I are moving at the beginning of April and that means packing is involved BUT some things can't be finished until after the wedding stuff because we might need it. This makes the packing job extremely complicated and a pain in the arse. But there are some upsides to all this packing and moving.

Because we're moving into a slightly smaller place (which we don't mind since the layout is better and we don't and can't use all the space in this house) that we need to downgrade a bit on the stuff. It's kind of nice to throw out the crappy containers we got when we first moved in and barely stayed closed, or the papers we won't need as we've changed our majors and other random stuff like that. And I know you must be thinking, "but what does this have to do with crafting?" and you must have already thought "oh no, not the yarn!" Yes, yes the yarn.

At the beginning of the year, Ji said I wasn't allowed to buy anymore yarn until after the wedding (saving for rings and all that) At first I was mortified. How was I supposed to go almost six months without buying any more yarn!  I thought it was impossible, but then I remembered that our friend Gord had given me a KnitPicks gift card and that for Christmas, Ji has given me an IOU for any amount of yarn I needed to make a sweater. (This IOU is because he's such a sweetheart and felt bad that my first sweater was out of terrible Bernat Alpaca yarn, that I bought when I was still young and foolish about fiber and other knitting goodness, and that the yarn was almost too itchy for me to knit with never mind wear.) So I decided that I would accept his challenge.

About half way through January I decided I had to use my coveted gift card to buy some sock yarn for my friend Sierra who is making my bridal party jewellery in exchange for socks and a hooded scarf. So I bought 2 balls of a grey Stroll Tonal called Thunderhead, 1 ball of Gypsy (she only wanted about 3" worth of red in her socks so I figured, yay! a pair of red socks for me) and a ball of Nevermore for me because it was on sale and was being discontinued and always wanted to try it. Plus, I can never shop at KnitPicks without getting myself some sock yarn as well. When the yarn finally got here I wound it into center pull balls and put them all into ziplocks so they'd be safe and then started the first sock. I got about 4" finished of a toe up sock when it happened. I got so busy with school and wedding planning that I didn't have the tie or energy to knit so I couldn't.

By now you're probably confused as to how all this related to knitting or moving or even how this post relates at all to housekeeping. Well I decided that since my new craft room is going to be a lot smaller than this one, that I had to gift some of my yarn away. I went thorough my stash and decided I was more into knitting garments and snuggly things and acrylic just wouldn't do for that sort of thing. So I got a garbage bag (the only thing big enough to hold all that yarn) and filled it with almost all of my acrylic yarn. I kept a few colours for myself that I knew I might use for a kid's item but now my stash looks so bare and empty. But that's ok because my stash of sock yarn was getting too big to live in the living room any longer and needed to start moving upstairs eventually. And now I have room to rebuild my stash with yarn I actually want to have and will knit with. It was actually quite liberating.

Back to packing up my craft room for me. Hopefully it all fits into the new place!

I did it! I finished everything I planned to this Christmas. It ended up being down to the wire, and by this I mean sewing together a 3 foot dragon at 4am Christmas Eve day, whew! but I did it! The only issue with being finished so late and in such a scramble is that, well, I forgot to take pictures of everything.

So I can give you this list and then I'll post pictures at a later date when I can get them.
Pese - Twilight socks in knitpicks canopy colourway
Trudy - Cowl in Malabrigo, duplicate of mine.
Peter - So Square Socks in malabrigo sock
Elijah: JJ the Fire Dragon (aka crochet dragon of doom) in whatever was laying around

This is a huge YAY! but I guess I should start on next year's gifts..

Also, my latest project is The Beekeeker's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits. You use left over sock yarn to make these things called hexipuffs that you stuff and sew into a blanket. The good thing is that they are extremely addicting. The bad thing is that 1. You need over 700 of them for a blanket and 2. I'm running out of left over socks yarn. This means I'll have to actually start knitting socks again so I can get more leftovers for my hexipuffs.

I'm also working on Mr. Fox as part of the 12 TOK patterns in 2012. I'll be making 1 Mr. (bulky weight) 2 Mrs. (worsted weight) and 1 mini (fingering weight) so that takes 4 patterns out of my 12. ^_^

I'm seriously in love with TOK patterns and the amazing community that's built around them on Ravelry. They're becoming my online knitting family. They are super generous and kind hearted and have always been there when I needed a pick me up over the holidays. I really hope to post pictures of everything soon!

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,