Yarn Stash

I had a long weekend this weekend, thanks to Hurricane Isaac.  Tampa Bay was expecting tons of rain and heavy winds, but the Hurricane went further west than the original forecast models predicted.  My employer had cancelled work for Monday.  Last time we got a lot of rain, my work was like an island, where the parking areas were completed flooded, even the road in.

So, I decided to work on a project that I have been meaning to do for some time now.  The online knit and crochet database & fiber community, Ravelry, allows you to enter in your patterns, yarn, needles & projects.  I had previously entered in my patterns, magazines & books.  This weekend I entered in all of my stash yarn.

Here is a bin of my oldest yarn.  I have had some of this yarn for years, that I even moved from Mass with it.  I swear I will use it one day.  There are some unfinished objects (UFOs) in there that I have full intention to rip out and make better use of the yarn.  Someday...

Here is a picnic basket full of one skein or half skeins of yarn.  This mostly houses the leftover yarn from my completed projects.  It also has my metal straight needle collection.  My cat, Roo, is dying to jump in that basket.

Here is a small basket of yarn from projects that I have recently completed and don't have room in the bin or the picnic basket.

I need to start stash busting.  Some ideas I have are to make scrap scarves, striping with different textures of yarns.  I did a bit of that for the Trio Scarf and the Quintet Scarf. I have other patterns that would look nice with multi textures and colors.  I also want to make a scrappy throw blanket where I would knit different blocks of different patterns and sew them together.  It would be so kitschy; I would love it.

I have a few knitted Christmas gifts to get through (I'm limiting it to just a few) and then I may just start on some scrappy scarves and throws! 

 

Razzy Socks - Complete!

Yes, finally, I have completed my Razzy Socks!  I first featured these socks in January (original post).  I really did not think that it would take me this long to finish them. 

This is what they looked like before:

I had the pair pretty much done.  I could have kept knitting the ribbon part up my calf, but I really did not want to continue anymore.  So, they sat with the ribbon about an inch high for 3 months.

My sister is my resident expert on socks, so she instructed me to bind off with a needle size that is 4 sizes larger than the original needle size.  I knit these on a size 1, so that means I needed a size 5 to bind off.  That seemed strange but hey, she's knitted over a dozen pairs already.  Who am I to argue?

I bound off with the size 5, keeping it loose.  The goal is to have the sock fit over your heel.  If bound off too tight, then it won't fit.

Here is my loose bind off.  I then slipped them on to get a feel for them....

Viola!  I'm finally done.  They fit a bit loose, with the bind off loose as well.  Well, this is my first pair of socks and I forgot all of the techniques my sister has taught me.

If (I did say if) I make socks again, I will have to do it when I'm with my sister again.  She will have to get me started again.  The next time I do a pair, I will use a size 0 to knit them.  I like my socks tight, these are too loose for my liking.

These may not be perfect, but they were created with my own two hands.  I love 'em!

Tangerine Tango

Each year the color matching system company, Pantone, announces a "Color of the Year."  This color is used in many industries to shape the upcoming trends in color (home decor and fashion, being a few).  This year, Pantone announce Tangerine Tango as the latest color.

It is a cross between a coral and and orange.  I like it, but not sure how it should fit in my wardrobe.  I went searching last week for a shirt or something that was this color or similar to wear to my work's holiday party.

Our holiday party was this weekend (yes, an after-holiday party) on the Starship Yacht.  It is fairly nice weather in the winter in Florida, but unfortunately, was not the case this weekend.  It was and still is in the 50's.  Yikes!  Cold weather on a boat did not seem good.

Back to shopping: my search was rewarded with a sequined-trimmed tank top.  It has that crumpled look like it was knotted-up and not ironed.

But, as you can see below, the straps were too long.  Not a problem.

 
All I did was fold down the strap in the back were it was connected and resewed it.

I trimmed the excess fabric and I was done.  Pretty easy.  I don't usually let something minor like like persuade me from not buying it.  The only extra thing I needed for it was matching thread, that I bought on sale at Joann's.

With this tank, I also bought a sheer, light turquoise blouse with tangerine colored flowers on it.  Since I figured it may be a bit chilly, I chose the dress pants option rather than the dress or skirt.  I also bought a light turquoise fitted jacket to wear over it.  

I painted my nails to match my tank top with a nail color that I already owned (an old color from Mary Kay called Mango Spice):

 In the end, we all had a great time.  Here is me dancing with a broom:

For some reason, someone grabbed a broom and each person had to dance in the middle of the floor with the broom.  Whatever, I did it, it was hilarious!

Here is me and my sweetie :

The outfit was comfortable, the night's festivities were fun and being with my sweetie completed the night.

Razzy Socks

When I went to visit my family in Mass just before Christmas my sister showed me how to knit socks.  I brought a skein of my own up there, but failed to take a pic of it before starting (I know, what kind of blogger am I?).

First we had to separate the skein into two equal weighted balls (50g each).  This yarn is called "self-striping" because the colors in the skein vary, but different from variegated, in that as you knit around the sock, stripes appear as if you purposely knit them there.  Really neat.

Then we took the ends of the balls and matched up the colors.  This took a few yards to get the colors striping at the same rate; we snipped off the extra yarn.  

My sister showed me the techniques she uses from the book Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson.

She showed me the "Judy's Magic Cast On" and I was off and knitting!

I am still knitting them, but I am close to being done.  See how they are striped?  That is the yarn doing all of the work.  Near the toe, it started knitting up a peach and black checker-like appearance.  It reminds me of one of my cats, Jasmine (aka Razzy); she is a Bengal cat.  Her hair shafts are striped with orange and black.

I will model what I have so far:

I am now finishing it up with a k2p2 rib.  Now I must stop blogging and start knitting!

UPDATE:  Click here to see them complete.

Halloween 2010

I love Halloween.  It is one of my favorite holidays because you get to dress up in something ridiculous or be bolder than you would be on a normal day.  I think of it as a challenge each year because I am putting my creativity out there for people to see.  This year is my year to become a cartoon character.  For my character, I need a brown or black bob wig, black-rimmed glasses, orange sweater, red skirt, orange knee-high socks and loafer shoes.....can you figure out who I will be?  Well, I'm not telling you yet, you will have to wait and see.  This costume took a few weeks to prepare, so here was my journey:



Part I - The Skirt

I started with the skirt.  I knew I was not going to find a skirt that was plain enough and had the pleats I desired.  So, about a month ago I started looking in the Joann's flyers (sale circulars, for those of you that are not from Mass) for when McCalls, Butterick, or Simplicity patterns go on sale for $2 or less.  By doing this you save SO much money because the patterns retail for $15 or more.  The pattern I chose was $0.99 (sweet!!) and I used a coupon for the fabric.  I did buy the thread and elastic for the waist, but the total for the skirt was still under $8.

Sewing the hem on the skirt

I just followed the pattern, so I will not bore you with the steps.  It is an elastic waisted full pleated skirt made out of lightweight corduroy fabric.



I'm loving elastic!

Next on the checklist was an orange sweater and knee-high socks.  Now, it is Halloween and one could possibly find the orange knee-high socks, but an orange sweater???  Doubtful.  I was keeping an open mind when I went yard saleing these past weeks.  I was looking for anything that I could somehow make into this orange sweater.  I found this:

Part II - The Orange Sweater and Socks

This is a cream-colored cotton men's crew neck sweater with Dr. Scholl's therapeutic knee-highs.  I bought the sweater at a yard sale for $0.50 and the socks new for about $4 (twin pack).  If you have never tried on circulatory socks before, I encourage it.  They are SO comfortable and soft; I just had to "break them in" before moving on to the next step.  I may have looked funny lounging around the house with socks up to my knees, but they were cozy!  Let me know if anyone wants a pair for Christmas...I'm definitely bringing these to Mass when I go up for a visit in December.


Since the sweater is cream-colored, I thought this is the perfect opportunity to try out RIT dye!  I had never dyed anything before in my life and I always like a challenge, so I went for it.  I have a front-loading washing machine and I am renting, so I decided that dying the items in the machine was not an option.  The package gave a few options: 1. Washing Machine, 2. Stovetop Method, and 3. Bucket Method.  I chose the bucket method because this sweater was not fitting in my stockpot!

Cat Litter Bucket-O-Fun

The directions were to add hot water to a bucket, add the powder packet to about 2 cup of hot water in a separate container, then add the dye to the bucket.  Then soak the garment(s) in water then add to the bucket with the dye and agitate for 10 to 30 minutes.  After about 5 minutes, I felt like I had been standing there forever.  My beau was helping me with this part of the project because he knows I have no patience.  God love him!  The sweater was done in about 15 minutes, but the socks took a second packet of dye and another 20 minutes.  This is because RIT recommends natural materials like cotton; the socks are polyester.  After this step, then you rinse the garment in cool water until the rinse water is clear.  After about 12 buckets of rinse water, the water was still a light peach color, but considerably lighter then the first few rinses.  Then the sweater and socks were put in the washing machine with detergent and dried normally.

How awesome is this sweater??!!

I was very pleased with the sweater, but a bit dimayed with the socks.  I got over it quickly.  This is only for Halloween and nobody will even notice once everything is on.  Now that the sweater is orange, I am not stopping there.  This is not the style of my cartoon charater's sweater; she wears a turtleneck.  I want to stay in character, but this is Florida and I don't want to wear a long-sleeved t-neck in 80+ degree weather.  I decided to have a little fun with the scissors.

Cut and Butterflied

I left about 3 inches to the sleeve on the sweater and then cut up the length of the arm to open it.  I will use one of the sleeves to make my mock cowl-neck.  As for the existing sleeves, I took some leftover elastic and made the sleeves gathered and puffy.

Puffy-sleeve action

I used a ball-point needle and a zig-zag stitch since this is knit and wanted to maintain a bit of the stretch that the knit ribbing gives.  Once the sleeves were done I had to be creative in how to finish the neck.  A t-neck would be too hot, but I did not want to necessarily do anything to the back of the neck area either.  I decided to attempt a cowl-neck.  I pinned and re-pinned several times and did not like it.  I then decided to try an 80's neck style.  Since I already had the puffy sleeves, might as well go for gold.

Had to bring in the big guns - Quilting pins!

I cut off the cuff of the sleeve (did you see how long and tight they were?  I could not figure out how to work with those).  I unstitched the neck and shoulder seam on one side and pinned in the cuffless end, folded.  I resewed the shoulder and neck seam.  So, the sleeve was hanging out of the shoulder, in a way.  I then pinned the length of the arm to the front neck area, as seen above.  I had to break out my flat-head pins I use for quilting; these pins are long.  I gathered it at the neck so the end of the sleeve would meet up with the other shoulder seam. 

Orange you jealous of this classic nugget?!

Anyway, the look I was going for was cowl-neck with the side buttons.  I did not have three buttons, or even two, for that matter, that matched to pull that off.  I was going to leave it like this, with the raw edge, but when I modeled it for my beau, he asked me if it was finished.  Ack!  So, I had to do something with it.  I had a large skirt pin that I gathered the raw end with.  What do guys know about 80's fashion anyway?  This was coming from a guy who admits to wearing MC Hammer pants in the late 80's...

I purchased the bob wig for $6 and black-rimmed glasses for $5, new at the store.  For the shoes, I had a pair of weathered chunky heel loafers that I had in mind for this costume.  Here it is all laid out:

Jinkies!  Any guesses?

We are allowed to dress up in costume at work for Halloween.  So, this past Friday, I donned my costume and grabbed my prop and went to work.  Everyone had a good laugh...

I'm Velma Dinkley, Gang!

I won for Best Costume...Yeah me!  I would like to thank the lady at the yard sale for parting with her husband's old sweater, the little girl who sold me her Scooby Doo stuffed animal at another yard sale, also Dr Scholl's for making a comfortable sock, and .....

The total cost for this costume was under $25!  So, what do you think?  Also, let me know what you are going to be or were for Halloween.  Send me pics!!