I wanted to make a cute little ball....

This is not it.



This is a very defeated looking, rainbow coconut. And a place to put all of my old receipts. I'm calling it 'ugly dog toy'. Iris and Spirit are thrilled.

I spent 3 hours carefully following a pattern with no picture. That should have been the first clue. I had hope as it kept curving like it should. But as I neared the end of the pattern, I started praying for a miracle. By the last row, I was preparing myself for defeat. I still hadn't sewn it together, so I thought it might fit together like a magical puzzle. It totally didn't. So I stuffed it with old receipts and gave it to my dog. I also did learn how to turn. That was kinda fun. I've learned a bunch this week. I also made some nifty stars too. And some cool little flowers. I want to talk more about both, but I'm feeling lazy, so I'll wait until I can give it my fullest, sincerest attention. I also found some neat articles on how to take care of your lovely wrists and hands. That's also coming up next week.

Instead I thought I would talk about my Cause of the Day!
Today's cause is called Warm Up America.
WUA collects knit or crochet 7"x9" sections and stitches them together to create blankets for people in shelters, churches, health care facilities, nursing homes, the Red Cross and other organizations in need. You can create these squares or sections by yourself, with your friends or as a group. You can also create whole blankets if you want. The site also provides you with some simple knit and crochet patterns and tips on how to connect sections or how to finish. You can drop it off at one of their locations or mail it to:
Warm Up America! Foundation
2500 Lowell Rd.
Ranlo, NC 28054


And on that happy note, I'm off to watch my darling red sox and work on big blue!

New Ideas.

In an attempt to get more involved in the knitting community, I've been joining a lot of awesome knitting groups lately and I've had a lot of great ideas. I joined ravelry, which I totally love. I've managed to find some seacoast knitting groups. One of my favorite groups is called Knutty Knitters and it's for those of us with some head problems. The women are great and I can tell already that it's going places. I'm also going to create my banner with the help of Kynan. I'm hoping to get it up on here soon, as well as on DaWanda. Which leads me to my next announcement... I've set up my shop on DaWanda! I haven't posted any items yet, but I plan to by next week. I'm not really stressed, but the whole thing is kinda daunting. I need to go find out how much it's going to cost to ship things, and who will ship my items the cheapest. I also need to figure out how I'm going to set up my payment options and what my policies will be. I think I'm gonna check other people's out and learn from trial and error.

I've decided to start featuring some awesome causes I've found.
The first one is The Special Olympics Scarf Project. The goal of this project is to give athletes a homemade scarf create an instant bond between maker and participant. This also serves to promote awareness. Their goal is to have collected 5000 scarves by January 15, 2009, just prior to the start of the Winter Games. So far they've collected over 1000. The only thing they ask is that you use Red Heart Super Saver Yarn indelft blue (#885) and white (#311). You can get this at Wal-Mart. You can also get this yarn online. You can knit or crochet any pattern you want as long as you use these yarns.
There's also a group on ravelry dedicated to this cause.

Moving on...

Today's stitch pattern is called triangle squares. This one is really easy, just like the rest I've shown you. The image doesn't do it justice, but the little square I whipped up looked pretty promising. This is a picture of the right side. The wrong looks exactly opposite. Here's the pattern:

Triangle Squares

Cast on in multiples of 5

Row 1: *p1, k4; rep from*
Row 2: *p3, k2; rep from*
Row 3: rep row 2
Row 4: rep row 1
repeat until finished!

And on that note, I'm gonna head out for the day. See you all later!

What I hate about hats... (or learning to make them)

I don't really have anything new to really talk about. I'm still working on my impossibly time consuming blanket. It's starting to get pretty big. It's going to make someone very happy one day. At least I hope it does. As fall comes around, I really need to start getting my stuff together so I can achieve my goal of opening my shop on dawanda soon. I think I'll probably check into what's required to open a paypal account very soon. I also need to put some finishing touches on a few projects that I've almost completed. I need to practice making the flowers for my scarf so they're nice and perfect. I need to start a new project to work on along with this crazy blanky. I know I want to make a hat. I've been practicing knitting circles, but it's been tough. I keep getting things all twisted up. It's so hard to keep things straight in the beginning. There are so few rows on there, you can't really tell. Once it gets all stretched tight across the needles when you're getting the first row or two, it's so hard to tell what's up or down. I didn't really get far, the edge was curling up inside the hat, so I think I'll try purling and see how that goes. The yarn I have is soft and gorgeous. I've heard a few complaints about the Lion Brand Homespun yarn, but I love it. Unfortunately, the needles I have are a little too big. I need to use size 10's, but the only pair of 10's I have are being used for big blue blankey. I'm feeling a bit lazy right now, honestly I've been in a funk lately, but I'm hoping to work my way out of it. I just sit and work on big blue all day. Tomorrow I definitely need to work on my flowers. I think I'll share that pattern with you. It's incredibly easy and pretty rockin'. Anyway, right now, I'm going to get back to watching Primeval, which is ridiculous and silly, but X-Files isn't on for another hour or so. Oh! speaking of which, my unicorn latch hook should be here any day now and I can hardly wait! I'll make sure everyone gets a good look at it. But back to the X-Files, I wanna make a giant latch hook, shag carpet of the "I want to believe" poster. It would be freaking spectacular. I found a book the other day on how to make latch hook rugs. I can't wait to get it and soak it all up. I think that latch hook will be a nice compliment to knitting. It'll be great to get a break from knitting with my wrists get tired. Tiny needles kill my wrists and hands. Oh, and so far, Primeval is just as silly and ridiculous as the ads made it appear. It's something you would more expect to see on sci-fi and not the BBC. Right now it's looking a tiny bit like land of the lost. I can assure you however, that no matter how poor the cgi, lame the plot lines and horrible the acting, I'll probably be seeing a lot more of this show. Oh! I also did manage to join two knitting groups on facebook. Now I just need to stay active in them. I think I need to join a few more, and get to know some people. I need to find some other knitting bloggers I can work and talk with.

Happy Birthday Me!

Hooray! It's my 21st birthday! I couldn't be happier. I just got back from breakfast with my mom and sister. It was delicious and made me so happy. :) I've been trying to come up with something to mention, but after talking with my darling sister, Emily, I have decided to talk about binding (casting) off. Binding off is wicked easy. I always forget how to do it though. It's one of those essential skills that I use so infrequently. Maybe it's because I make lots of blankets, or because it takes me forever to finish anything. As soon as I look it up though, it comes rushing back. There are a bunch of different ways to bind off based on what you're doing, but I'm going to start with the easiest. I haven't really tried any of the other kinds simply because I didn't really know about them, and I never really had the need to learn them. I hit up the net, and I found what appears to be a very promising site called knittinghelp.com. It has actual video of all the different bind offs. If you can't be bothered to check it out, here is my own description of the binding off procedure.

First, knit two stitches just like you have been.


Next, pull the bottom stitch over the top one and off the end of the needle.

Knit the next stitch, then repeat the second step.

When you get to the last two stitches, pulled the bottom over and off the top, just like you have been.

Leaving a nice long tail (you'll go back later and weave this piece through so no one knows it ever existed), cut the yarn. Next, slip the end through your last remaining loop. Pull it tight and you're all set!

On that note, it's time for the pattern of the day!
Today's pattern is insanely easy, and really nifty. This would make a awesome looking scarf. It's the two by two rib, and it looks like this:

Two by two rib
Cast on in multiples of 4.
Row 1- k2,p2
Repeat 'til you're done!

I'm certain that you could easily make you ribs wider. I realize that it would no longer be a 2x2 rib, but it would still look sick. To make your ribs wider, just add more knit stitches. Of course, this means you'd need change your multiples. Say you wanted to make your ribs just a bit wider, just add one more knit, so you'd knit 3, purl 2, then you'd have to cast on in multiples of 5. You could change the purls too. Just keep messing around with it until you're pleased with the dimensions. I just like to think about how rockin' a scarf with some nifty looking stripes going from top to bottom.

It's Monday!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I stayed pretty busy watching the Olympics and re-arranging the living room. I'm also pleased to report that I have come to possess a new computer, which should make this much easier. I also managed to find the memory card reader for my old camera, so now uploading pictures will be much easier, so expect lots of pictures! All weekend I've been trying to decide what I want to talk about. I haven't really come up with much, so I think I'll start off with my pattern of the day. I spent a little while trying to kinda perfect this one. After trying it with a few different types of yarn, I came to the conclusion that this pattern would look awesome and really defined with small needles, and with light worsted or finer yarn. So here it is: the diagonal rib.


The pattern is pretty easy, it takes more attentiveness than the check pattern or the seed stitch, but it's certainly not complicated. I absolutely can't wait to use this pattern.

Diagonal Rib
Cast on stitches in multiples of 4.
Row 1: *k2,p2; rep from *
Row 2: rep. row 1
Row 3: k1, *p2, k2; rep from *, end p2, k1
Row 4: p1, *k2, p2; rep from *, end k2, p1
Row 5: *p2, k2; rep from *
Row 6: rep. row 5
Row 7: rep. row 4
Row 8: rep. row 3

repeat rows 1-8

Easy enough, right?

Day Two.

Part of my reason for waiting to start a blog was my worry that I wouldn't have anything to write about or show people. My posts would be useless and boring. So I decided to check out the net, and see what nifty things I could find. The first place I headed was the Lion Brand yarn website. It's really helpful, and if you want, you can sign up for a weekly email. They have this really neat pattern finder, where you just enter the yarn you're using, who you're making it for (babies, men, dogs, etc..), and most importantly, the difficulty level. They have tons of free patterns, so I'd highly recommend it. They also have the all important abbreviations page.

I've also decided to feature different stitch patterns a few times a week. My plan is to test them first, so that I, as a relatively new knitter can honestly attest to the difficultly level each pattern. My first pattern is one of my favorites, the check stitch. It's really simple, and like most stitch patterns can be altered to fit your personal preferences. The pattern I originally found was for small stitches and looked like this:



Creating this is simple, just cast on your stitches in multiples of 3 and just knit and purl away.

Close Checks
Cast on stitches in multiples of three.
Rows 1-4 *purl 3, knit 3; rep from *
Rows 5-8 *knit 3, purl 3: rep from *
just keep this up til you reach the end, and voilà! A beautiful check blanky, or scarf or whatever!
I decided that I wanted huge checks, so using what I learned making the little checks, I just amplified the pattern.



I made mine with multiples of five. So I cast on 75 stitches, purled the first 5, knit the next 5 and just kept going. To make my checks square, I did this for 5 rows, then switched it up. For the next 5 rows, I knitted then purled. I also came to notice that all of the purled stitches on the right side were raised and all the knitted stitches were flat. This is an easy way to figure out where you are.

Introductions.

It should have been apparent to me as soon as I began to knit feverishly that it was only a matter of time before I started keeping a record of some type to remember all of my frustrations, anxieties, successes, ambitions and purposes. Now that I'm getting closer to opening my online shop, that thought is becoming better than ever. The idea of blogging about my knitting experiences first came to me when I began to look around for a blog to read as I developed as a knitter. I found plenty of knitting blogs, but not a whole lot that were meant for people in the earliest stages of their lives as knitters. So here is my place to post what does and doesn't work, patterns I've found or created and other nifty stuff. When I open my shop this fall, I'll post all of my products here ahead of time to give everyone a chance to snag stuff up before the rest of the world does. I'm also hoping that this blog gives me the chance to meet with like-minded thinkers, and get myself wholly involved in the world of knitting.

That said, I suppose I'll talk a little about my two current projects. My first is a rather ambitious midnight blue blanket. The plan is to create a blanket that resembles the midnight sky. It's made out of soft acrylic, dark blue yarn. I chose size 10 circular needles to make it nice and tight and defined.


Seed Stitch
If using an odd number of stitches:
Row 1: k1, *p1, k1; rep. from *
Repeat this row

If using an even number of stitches:
Row 1: *k1, p1; rep. from *
Row 2: *p1, k1; rep. from*
Repeat these rows.

I'm trying the seed stitch for the first time, which is easy enough- knit, purl, knit purl, forever- as long as you keep remember to do so. If not, you get this annoying ribbing. Naturally, I screwed up. Another thing I constantly had to remind myself to do was to move my yarn back to front, front to back. Otherwise you end up adding stitches. I had to place close attention in the beginning. I also discovered that all odd stitches will be knit and all even stitches will be purled. I used an odd number of stitches (125) and discovered quickly that if I arrived at the end of my row and the last stitch was a knit, then I was set. If it was a purl, I need to go back. Because I was new to this stitch, and a bit lazy, I didn't. I didn't really have an idea what I was looking for because I didn't have much experience, and I was to lazy to do the whole row again. So I kept going, and going, and going. Well, about 5 inches in, my little mistake became glaringly obvious. After thinking about how to fix or hide, I opted to just tear the whole thing up a start again. This time I add 20 more stitches just to be safe. It's taken awhile to work up, but I'm getting there. I'm so glad that the dark cloud that was my screw up is know longer hanging over my head. Once I get this all finished, the next step is going to be adding the stars. That's going to be my finishing touch. I want to place little yellow stars all over the blanket. That's my next challenge. Learning how to knit stars. Tomorrow I'll show you the ridiculously crazy yarn I'm using to make a scarf with. If I can get my old camera working properly.