Storage Solutions

I finished my Stash Buster Afghan and have posted it over at the knitting blog and after that endeavor I was left with a ton of small skeins and extra skeins and yarn and more yarn and a MESS. For those of you, who've been reading this blog for a while know that I don't function creatively in chaos, some people thrive in it, I just don't. It drives me insane and according to the rest of my clan makes me a tad bit snippy. So what's a girl to do? Well since I bought myself of yarn winder I figured I can cake a lot of this stuff and then assess the damage, I did, spent 8 hours caking yarn, that is EIGHT hours mind you.

After caking and a cramp in my forearm, I needed to figure out how and where to put my supplies, the house is growing ever so small since my son moved back in and I lost my craft room. I work in the dining room and have a corner in the living room that I was storing my yarn but the storage containers I was using were just not working. Every time I went looking for something I needed to dig, not efficient and definitely a creative mojo cramper.

I went shopping for a storage solution that would work for me. I bought two containers that have pull out drawers and started stacking yarn in them once I ran outta room I kept some in the zipper bags that you get when you buy bedsheets, or thermal blankets. I was so happy with this arrangement, I also have a huge bag of yarn and some needles to donate to one of the ladies at knit nite, she wants to give classes to kids in her gated community and needs donations, which I am more than happy to help her with.

Baby Blankets Completed?

Well finally, I finished them, whew! I really had a tough time with these, not that they were complicated, not that the warp was misbehaving, not that the colors are not great, but they were well shall we say, B-O-R-I-N-G, just a snooze fest in my mind, but I'm glad I'm done with one weekends to spare, I can now play with embellishments.

This was my first attempt at said "embellishment", after I finished the very first thought in my head was "UGH ! how tacky does that look!!! I was horrified but it was @ 10:00p.m. last nite and I was tired, so I left it over night. Well guess what, it's still tacky this morning! The ever loving DH said it wasn't so bad, but later confessed that he didn't like it. His suggestion, which I thought was wonderful, is to really use my counted cross stitch knowledge and embroider the name along the side with the dark warp, light weft starting at the bottom, and you think that they don't pay attention, well he shocked me outta my socks, I guess 14yrs of crafting and they actually learn something along the way ;0)

So I dug out my embroidery floss and my book with tons of lettering and I will work on it this week.

New Blog for Knitting

I've decided to keep this blog for my weaving endeavors and move my knitting posts to a new blog at wordpress the name of the the blog is Creative Textiles.

I'd like to keep the two separated in which my projects and ideas don't intermingle and create a mess. I've found that I've been posting less because of all the ideas going around in my mind, so for my creative sanity this should help.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend, we here in South Florida are expecting a cold snap oooooohh a cool 65 degrees, I can't wait. hehe

Working on Overdrive

Just as the title suggests, I'm bored with the baby blankets and have been putting them off. Of course I learned that both baby showers are on the SAME Sunday, they can't be put off any more. Now I'm under a deadline, which I don't like, they're just plain evil, but must finish. I'm looking forward to the embroidery part of the blankets, which I have not done in a few years. The weaving is dragging on, like an endless wave of blah.

The top pics is of the lighter weft and the bottom the darker weft

On the second blanket, I changed the weft to the darker pink and its a drastic contrast from the first, still girly but no so much, I am enjoying the color change as I weave with the different wefts although I should have woven a sample in the beginning this way the change would not have caught me by surprise. I have extra warp towards the end and I think I'll do a sample with the three colors as a keeper for color contrast reference. I know I should do sampling before weaving the actual project, I will keep in mind to put on extra when I warp , make my sample in the beginning and then start my weaving project, with the colors I liked the best in the sample. I know most of the experienced weavers are shaking their collectives heads at me thinking "geez that is so elementary, why doesn't she just get it or do it" and by now I should have. But you know, I like the adventure of not knowing what it will look like until I start weaving, it's part of the excitement and it feeds the kid in me, but granted I should see before hand what I'm doing, that way I avoid the mishap of not liking the color combos. I guess I'm starting to grow up in my weaving journey, and the newbie fly by the seat of my pants is starting to wear off, hopefully not totally gone, maybe just a bit more mature.

With this new maturity in my thinking about how and what I want to accomplish I've been collecting different yarns during the summer for a project I've been visualizing in my mind I know what I want the end project to look like and for then next exercise, I will plan my warp and weft, sample and then dive in. This one should be a lot of fun and a good amount of texture to boot.
This is an up date of my Folk Shawl Ruana, it's been slow going because of the heat, but we are starting to get some relief and I'm starting to get the "I want to finish" on this one, it also helps that the coffee shop our knit group meets at is freezing, so I can wrap myself in something while we knit and gab the night away. I dragging this one to work so I can knit it up at lunch time, it should be done by the end of November.And last but not least the afghan progression I'm on row 27 and have three more rows to go before I start the garter edging. Woohoo, it starting to look finished and hubby is happy, since he's been commenting on how "you work on everything else but my colchita" ( kol-cheeta - little blankie in Spanish) Of course I took a pic where it will eventually have permanent residency, his *cough* ahem *recliner, which I finally broke down and agreed to since it was the trade off for my much needed new living room sofas.

Still Knitting

Progress, I see some progress!! After ripping out the bodice a few times I got the hang of the lace pattern, I know now that I have a mental block for lace. I get confused with the ssk, k2tog and the yo's but I want to learn it and so I knit on . I figure sooner or later it will sink in or I'll give up in dismay and only knit in plain ol' stockinette. Of course the weaver in me craves the pattern effect of the fabric so we must persevere .

This is a close up of the lace, which is really easy as it's only a four row repeat, but I knit and listen to the television so there in lays, my error filled lace, I know I shouldn't be doing that, but I'm hard headed and the wall street meltdown has been interesting if not educational, along with the debates, I have some trouble turning it off.
I also found that counting my rows and repeats were getting confusing for me, not that it's a giant mathematical feat, but well, as I said before I confuse easily. I was on Ravelry, which is taking up way too much of my time lately, and I found that the knitters there were raving about a beaded abacus bracelet. Since beading is one of my first loves I was curious, so I found a thread that was on topic and was pointed towards Sutherland Studios
which gave the most detailed instructions on how to make one. This of course is the results of a few minutes to get the bracelet put together, I must add that I love it and it's as pretty as it is useful. There are 9 small beads with the fifth one being a different color, and 10 of the larger beads, a crystal seed bead separator and a charm to indicate which side you started on. The small ones can be used to count stitches or rows once you get to the end of the beads you can pass a large bead through the separator that is #10, in the picture I'm on row #3. It seems fussy but once you start using it, you get the AHA! moment and wonder how you got along without one.