Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!!!

The day of love is upon us and of course I've made a few little goodies for the occasion:
I made Walker the little 'lovebug' and a few little stuffed hearts for my parents. A couple of them have faces on them, but that's a little hard to see in this photo. You just have to trust me.Our job situation hasn't really had any progress. We have a few prospects, but they're all moving at the speed of a molasses covered turtle. So hopefully I'll have some better news by my next post, but don't hold your breath. But that means that I've had plenty of time to knit!
I had some dk yarn kicking around and wanted to make some yummy gloves out of it, but couldn't find a pattern for dk-weight gloves, so I decided to try to write one. The one I managed to finish fits very well, but the one skein didn't quite cover both gloves, so I'll have to order another one...once I get around to doing that. So for now I have a glove and a half lying around. Once I work the kinks out of this pattern, I might get around to writing it out for various sizes and post it here!
I did manage to finish some other handwarmers, though! With some more leftover Christmas yarn, I did another pattern out of the Selvubotter book, but this one is for little girls. So if you know any cold little girls, let me know.Alternatively, if you know any medium-sized girls (or boys) whose hands are chilly, they might also be in luck. With some leftover white yarn from mom's Scandanavian scarf, I made some cute cabley mittens.So now all of my yarn is gone, except for that last half ball of bamboo yarn, which is turning nicely into the forest park scarf, which I found in the Designer One Skein Wonders book (as well as the cable mittens, actually). I made some modifications, like I made it one repeat wider, so I'll be able to block it between 12-16" wide and I'm not going to use the same edging. I won't put any edging along the sides and at the ends, I'm going to put in Pinapple Lace Edging. I'm about halfway through the body pattern (shown below) and then will put on the edging. I think it will end up being 5 1/2 feet long, but that kind of depends on how long the yarn allows for.After that, though, the knitting basket is empty: no more yarn. I will have to order one more skein of elegance to finish those gloves, but after that, I just don't know. I will try to write that pattern for Christina (once she gets me her measurements!) and then I guess I'll just get a lot of reading done. We'll see!
Here's Jericho, looking very comfy in Walker's lap, to wrap things up!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

-Allie

Maine!

Yay, we're finally in Maine! We've got everything moved in and put away and you can see some pictures of the apartment here. No jobs yet, but I'm sure we'll find something soon. The temp agency says they're working hard to find us something, anyway. As you can tell, I've gotten quite a bit of knitting done since my last post. So much for posting more often. Sorry :-/

I recently came to the conclusion that the hat I made for myself last fall makes me look like a pinhead. So I tried to make myself a beret and pretty much failed. I think my head's just too fat. Instead, I ended up making this folded brim number, based loosely on Knitty's Coronet hat, but bigger and with a different cable pattern on the brim, which is a little tough to make out in this picture.It's a little bit big, but that means, no more hathead! I'm in love with this yarn, too. If it wasn't so expensive, I'd make everything in Knitpicks' elegance yarn!
I mentioned in the last post that I would be making my mother a scarf to match the gloves I made her for Christmas, well here it is!It's pretty much just a big scarfy tube with part of the glove chart stuck on it and with the ends sewn together. Mom loves it, so it's a success in my book.

Now for the stash-busting. I still had a lot of fingering weight yarn left, but not much in any one color. So I made these little stripey socks in an attempt to kill a couple skeins. I think I'm going to mail these to a friend of mine.Unfortunately, they were unable to kill my remaining fingering weight yarn, so as usual with little scraps of yarn, I made this adorable trio of cat toys. Left to right: Asparagus man, Mr. Stegs, and Morlock.And Mr. Stegs from the side:

Our naughty kitty is so lucky he can benefit from my yarn scraps! Now all of my fingering weight yarn is left, a couple skeins of worsted (future mittens and valentines miscellany), one of dk (future gloves, elegance!), and that remaining ball of bamboo lace. I swear, this time, I'm really going to get back to working on the Seascape Shawl! I mean it!

Sorry, no pictures of kitties in the beret. It's too big for Jericho and Fatty flipped out when I tried to put it on him :( Also, if there was anything in the previous post that you would like, (as in the Alaska Hat, Vespergyle Mittens, washcloth, or cat beret) you're absolutely welcome to them. I have no idea what to do with them and don't really want to just donate them to charity.

Jericho will wrap things up for me with his customary shot of cuteness.

Cheers!

Leftovers

A lot's happened since my last post, both in knitting and in the rest of my life.
Firstly, Christmas happened. Everyone seemed to like their knit gifts very much. Here's a picture of the scarf I made for dad but forgot to photograph before I wrapped it:It looks nice, but the dye turned some of my needles green. :( It was worth it, though, and Christmas joys were more than enough to overshadow this drawback.
Walker came with me to Maine both to meet my extended family and for an interview with a staffing agency in Portland. Both events went very well: my family enjoyed meeting Walker very much and the staffing agency seems very confident that they should be able to find us something good, which brings me to the next major event. We're moving to Portland. Yay!
We've found a great apartment with brand new appliances about 10 minutes north of my parents and we're fairly confident that we've found someone to take our place in Philly, so (barring a major issue) we're leaving next Saturday! I'm so excited! It will be so nice to be in a place that feels safe and familiar and where we have a good chance of getting a job, hurray!
We'll also be in a convenient place for wedding plans, since it'll take place in Maine. We've got major things, like venues, band, and my dress (I'm going to wear my aunt's dress, which I might post once my mother gives me the pictures she took), but it'll be nice to be around to make the details. Oh, I feel happy again :)
So, knitting news: I had a lot of leftovers from Christmas presents and have been trying to use that up, creating the following projects.
Walker finally conceded that he needed a new pair of gloves, so I made him this fairly simple pair to keep his hands warm:These didn't finish off that scarf yarn, though, so I made this cute little beret. I had intended it for Jericho, but he's still too little and it didn't fit him right. Maybe it'll fit my parents' cat instead. He's certainly large enough...Even after this, I still had a little left over, so I combined it with some of the white cotton blend from Caroline's sweater (which she refused to model for a picture, stinker) to make this hat. I combined a basic roll-brim pattern I got online with a fair-isle pattern from a book. The pattern is called 'Alaska,' so that's what I'm calling the hat. It's a little too small for me, though. So if you know anyone with a smallish head who would like this hat, let me know or I'll just hang on to it.The hat finished off the green yarn, but I still had some white cotton left, so I made a little washclothand a cat toy meant to look like a Chinese dumpling. I think there's only a vague resemblance, but Jericho likes it, so I guess it doesn't matter.Now all I have left is the fingering weight yarn from Walker's socks and Mom's gloves. I made Caroline a pair of gloves from the Selbuvotter book, which I also did not get to photograph so you're just going to have to imagine them in their green-and-white moose-y glory.
Since I'm kind of tired of making socks, I may just make a whole bunch of gloves and mittens, saving them for gifts. Or something. I did start on a really cool pattern I found for argyle mittens called Vespergyle.This one came out nicely, but took me forever (by my standards, anyway). I'm making them on size 1 needles, so they gauge is tiny! I'm going to make the other one and then work on projects with the new yarn I got today. After that I might figure out something to do with the rest of the fingering weight pile.
Next projects with the new yarn are going to be a lovely beret in teal knitpicks elegance (70% alpaca 30% silk), which is soooo soft! I can't help petting it!
I've also got some worsted weight wool to make Mom a scarf to match her gloves.
I've noticed that my posts are kind of getting out of control. I'm sorry about that--I'll try to update more in the future, but once I get a steady job, I might have fewer projects to report anyway.
Wish us luck in our big move!

Cheers,

-Allie