FO Friday: Cheery Men Mittens

love to my bloggy friends ❤

Okay it is finally time for me to show off this FO. For some reason(s), like being sick, being away, being lazy, etc. I have never shown a full photo of these! Which is a shame because they are full of happy. In fact, I named them Cheery Men mittens! 1. They are cheery. 2. The yarn is called noro chirimen which I just though was really cute.

It’s a good thing too, because I was feeling like a major grump before writing this. I have so. much. bus. rage. I know I should just let those things go but…URHGHGHGH have some common decency people! It’s not that hard. Anyways I’m getting way off track, as usual…

The pattern is Camp Out fingerless mitts. I love this pattern! I could see myself making…hundreds of these. It’s crazy. Although after my second pair (which I’ve been like 5 rows away from finishing for.ev.er.) I’m going to take a wee break from them.

The yarn is Noro Chirimen as I mentioned earlier. It is a silk wool cotton blend, and actually quite soft. I find Chirimen is less scratchy than say…Kureyon. Which I like. I find it weird that Chirimen is MUCH less popular…a whopping 700 projects on ravelry versus 35,000. & 1 online buying option as opposed to 19. It’s weird. and although this is a “dk” i say it knits up like a worsted, and some spots are definitely aran or heavier.

also, as you can see, 1 skein contains a variety of crazy colors. Sometimes I can’t believe these mitts are from the same skein.

but they are.

POW!

Right?

I knit these puppies up according to pattern on a size 6. I highly highly recommend the pattern to everyone! I get cold hands knitting / typing which causes them to get sore really quickly. These solve that issue for me!

I ❤ them.

& I ❤ all of your projects too, so I’m going over to Tami’s now to check em all out!

Mail Bag

Today I headed to the post office on my way home from work sick (its 1 minute from my house) to pick up a package. I have a few things on the way (i always do) so it was a surprise as to what it would be.

of course I saw the return address being Fresh Stiches and knew EXACTLY who was waiting inside the package.

SHERWIN!!!

The adorable alpaca plushie hand made by Stacey Trock! AKA my most favorite crocheter ever (sorry ya’ll, but I just don’t know many! 😉 )

I can’t crochet to save my life so I was happy to adopt this little fella. He’s sooo cute ^.^ The perfect thing to cheer me up on a day I feel like total garbagio.

Hehehehe. ❤ it’s love.

I also got a really special letter, too.

If you’ve never heard of mother bear, where are you hiding? It’s a project that has knitters and crocheters making bears to give to children who are affected in some way by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. You need to get the pattern in the mail, so this is mine! I’m excited to do a bit of charitable knitting in the future, and I think this is a touching cause.

❤ needless to say, I love my mailbox today. and when i got home, there was ANOTHER missed delivery slip. Wonder what it will be tomorrow!

http://www.motherbearproject.org/

Missing in Action

Hello. It’s been almost a week since I posted! Wow. I don’t know why that is. Actually I think I do.

Maybe it’s because what I’m mainly working on is my test knit for Kessa. I don’t want to give much away so I will just show you this:

Prettty red. It’s actually extremely cloudy out right now so this photo reflects that a lot. I have a feeling by the time I’m done this we should have nice weather again though, so I’m not worried.

It’s also because I have had a really busy week! This week in Ottawa has been EXTREMELY weird weather wise. It has been 25 – 30 degrees Celsius every day! IN MARCH! That’s like 86 degrees Fahrenheit I think? In CANADA. March. For comparison, last year it was like a snow blizzard here this week haha. It’s odd. But we aren’t complaining (although it does worry me).

First, St. Pattys day was awesome! Chris is a DJ / Promoter and he threw a really fun show on Saturday at a nice little bar we’d never been to before. I had a really good time! Of course I worked the next day, which was much less fun.

Then I had more work, and a french class. Last night I went out for dinner and sangria with my best friend at the blue cactus. It was delicious! I love sangria.

Tonight, I’m so excited, we are going to Montreal! We are going to a show at the Belmont, Andy C is here!!! He is an amazing drum and bass DJ, in fact “Winner of the 2011 DRUM n BASS Arena Awards for BEST DJ” which is pretty awesome. I saw him at WEMF(world electronic music festival) last summer and he was SO good. Best DJ all weekend. I love him. LOVE. So to be going out of town, with my bestie, and her other best friend who lives in mtl, for a girly night dancing and partying at an amazing venue to one of my favourite DJ’s…yeah I’m excited.

REALLY EXCITED. poor Chris can’t come, but hey, that’s because he works a nice Monday to Friday job. This is my 1 benefit EVER of working weekends, ha!

So yeah. That’s Sweet. AND THEN, tomorrow, I’m seeing hunger games! Also very exciting. the trailer gave me chills! I think it’s going to be amazing. When I read the book a couple of years ago, I loved them and ripped right through them so fast. I’m excited for this one, and the next 2 as well!

So, a busy week. But a good one. I’m going to keep knit knit knitting on that lapis on the car ride to Montréal today 🙂

okay okay, ONE last thing…guess what! I just bought the gorgeous new colorway “well preserved” from the plucky knitter. LOOK AT THIS LOVELYNESS. I set a timer for noon so I would not miss it. I’m glad because 15 minutes later I checked and they were all gone. Score.

FO: Larch Cardigan

If you’ve read my previous entries on the larch cardigan, then you know it may have been an uphill battle at times. But the fact of the matter is, I won the battle!

I finished the knitting of the Larch earlier in the week and attached the button last night to call it an official FO. I’m still wearing it right now, I love it 🙂 It’s a totally gloomy day here, raining and everything so this purple alpaca hug is making me happy.

Apparently some people actually quite like the way my collar worked out, so I thought I would just go over what I did again quickly for anyone who wanted to recreate it. (If this doesn’t make sense to you, I’m hoping that’s only because I tried to make it so only people with the pattern will know what to do)

Basically, i picked up stitches (in the fashion of the pattern) all the way to the two edges of the cardigan instead of stopping at the earlier point. This took me a few extra rows than prescribed in the pattern so the last 4 rows of picking up I actually counted as the first four rows of the prescribed ‘full rows of ribbing’ over the entire collar.

this meant that when I got to the end of those rows, there was an extra edge to now pick up stitches on. This method definitely makes you work more stitches, that is for sure! The two “horizontal” rows that you can see near the base of the collar are the edges I am talking about. You can look back at this post to see where I circled what I did. This method DOES give you one less seam though! The seam to attach the collar is eliminated.

Overall, I’m totally in love. I realized this is my first finished full sized garment. YEAH! I feel like I’ve already grown so much since i re-picked up knitting about 6 months ago. I’ve done so much more than I ever did before, and it makes me happy! Let’s get to the basics on the cardi though:

Pattern: Larch By Amy Christoffers
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in Lavender Heather from yarn.com
I would definitely use this yarn again, I really like it. There were no unwanted knots in any of the 8 or 9 skeins I used.
Needles: Size 4 Circulars (Knit picks interchangeables were used)
Notes: See above!!
Knit For: Savory Knitting KAL

Tada!

I have tons of housework to get to but I really want to check out the other pretties at Tami’s Amis. I’m blasting some Duffy and hoping it will motivate me to go fast and do both!

you should do that as well 😉

Wips of glory

This is one of my WIPs this week! YEAH! Today my goal is to work on weaving in ends and hopefully finish that by this evening. At six I am going with my mom to buy needles I need for the lapis so I want to have this done so I can start Lapis right away with no guilt necessary! The KAL’s goal was to finish by the 31st of march so I am golden, and really happy with that. I started this on February 8th. Not too shabby.

I am so happy that it looks okay. It definitely differs from the original pattern but in the end it worked. The extra collar stitches I worked made it form a more circular neckline, which is fine with me. I’m so happy, I keep jumping up and down (not kidding). This is my first cardigan and wow, it fits BEAUTIFULLY! If i do say so myself.

I have two other things I’ve been working on today though. 1 is another  pair of Camp Out Mitts. Yes, I’ve already finished the first and not even shown them to you yet!

I knit my first pair up in 2 days but the colors are NUTS! I love them for at home but not for at work, where i dress more…professionally than rainbow. So I cast these on so that I can have them as my travel knitting (Lapis is worked off a huge cone,  not practical) and in about 30 minutes I’ve almost finished the top band. Love it. I’m going to do a post with both pairs though so here’s just a sneak peak of the other pair:

Crazy right?

My other WIP is of course the Lapis. I finally found that size 5 needles get me gauge and I decided to go with the red yarn I bought, which is elann Soie Bambou. I am slightly paranoid about yardage (it only came in giant cones) so I keep checking the stock on the website 😛 there was 19 left when I ordered and still 17 now so I think I will be okay IF I need to order more.

I did a circular swatch so my gauge for in the round would be accurate, although honestly my flat / round stockinette hardly differs at all in tension. The silver yarn is very flashy but I think the red has it’s own sort of luminescence as well. I like the slightly tighter fabric of the red and I think it is a bit more similar to Kessa’s original yarn choice so I’ve decided that’s the one I will be using. I’m naming my project Ruby or Garnet, to go with the theme of Kessa’s Lapis title.

WHEW! Okay, so that’s what I’m working on. I think I’ve got to start posting about things in their own posts and more frequently, instead of a couple of times a week I just dump project on you. Whoops!

Go check out everyone else’s too, of course, at Tami’s Amis.