3KCBWDAY7 Crafting Balance.

Okay, wow!! I did it! Thanks so much to eskimimi for hosting us this week, it’s been great! I’ve already read so many new people’s blog’s but I’m also glad that I will be able to go back and search “3KCBWDAY__” and read more when I have the time. I still need to vote for my favourite photograph and the most creative one too and I’m excited to see who is nominated in each category – we are sure to find some gems we might have missed!

I have very little time right now though. The question is, are you a knitter or crocheter, and how do you balance them if you are both?

I am a knitter.

This is a small selection of needles I keep on my bedside table. Can you spot the lonely crochet hook? This is the extent of my crochet collection.

3KCBWDAY6–Skilllllls!

Wow guys! Can you believe it? We are seriously on day six of knitting and crochet blog week and I’ve managed to post every single day. I definitely feel like I’ve accomplished something so far, but let’s bring it HOME and do all 7 days!

Before I get started I do have to just say thank you for all of the positive feedback I have gotten over the past week. You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Really!!

Anyways, Today’s topic is: “How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how’s your intarsia? If you are feeling brave, make a list of some of the skills which you have not yet tried but would like to have a go at, and perhaps even set yourself a deadline of when you’d like to have tried them by.”

I consider myself to be pretty adept. I’ve been knitting since I was 13 with only a brief hiatus in that time. I mean, I can knit and not look and read at the same time so I’d say i have some skillz.

That said though, there is still tons I want to learn! I’ve already done a lot of new things since picking the needles back up in october, like:
– fair isle
– magic loop
– how to knit a sock (and how to do toe up)
– judys magic cast on
– the challenges associated with knitting a sweater
– how to knit small toys
– crochet borders

But that certainly does not cover everything there is to know!! Some new things I’m interested in:

– lace shawl
– intarsia
– steeking
– knitting with 2 circulars
– better crochet skills
– designing stuff
– more cabling practice!!!
– improve at embroidering things onto my knitting
– needle felting?

Hmm…Can’t think of anything else! I also need to learn how to control my yarn buying impulses 😉

What is on your “to-learn list” ? I’m very intrigued! What else do I need to add to my list?

3KCBWDAY5 – Owlmazing Makes (a) PODCAST!

(ahh, I cannot get the player to embed, please click one of the 2 links below)

link to its podomatic page

DOWNLOAD LINK:
owlmazing.podomatic.com/enclosure/2012-04-27T06_00_40-07_00.mp3

Hey guys,

So today our challenge was to do something DIFFERENT. I decided to honour some of my favorite podcasts and do one of my own! I really hope you’ll take the time to listen, it’s only about 20 minutes long and I put a lot of work into it. I did my best to remove some um’s, likes, my bads, etc but please bear with me! I was very nervous!!

OwlmazingMakes Podcast Episode 1: Shownotes

Introduction
Savvy Girls, Knit 1 Geek 2, Knitting Pipeline, Knitmore Girls, Fluffy fibres, Knit Knit Cafe, Subway Knits, Electric sheep, miss elle knits, hollywood knitter, a playful day, stash and burn, never not knitting, Yarngasm.

knittinghelp.com
craftster.org
ravelry.com

On The Needles
Honey Cowl – Mine.
Art-by-Ana
Stripe study shawl
Minty socks
Gansy stitch socks
Country Weekend Socks
The yarn I couldnt remember – Rowan Amy Butler Belle Organic DK

Off the Needles

Mother Bear Charlie
My mother bear post
Knitpicks Brava

New in the queue – just one more row

Something silver by Veera Valimaki
Regent by Marnie Maclean
Nyame Julia Trice
Coachella by Fathom Harvill

2012 a sweater odyssey group

Favorite things – stitch it

Light Artichoke and asiago dip

When knitting attacks – knitmore girls

Contact

email – owlmazing (at) gmail (dot) com
Blog is right here!!!
Ravelry username: owlmazing

3KCBWDAY4– My Perfect Craft Day

I chose to do the wild card topic for todays post.

“Craft Your Perfect Day
Plan your fantasy day with your craft, It might just take up one hour of your day or be the entire focus of the day, but tell your readers where you’d love to craft, whether you’d craft alone or with friends, knitting or crocheting something simple or spending a day learning new skills.”

My perfect craft day would include:

1. No chores needing to be done, and someone cooking me some cheesy pasta dish in THEIR kitchen, not mine.

2. Being allowed to knit all day and my hands would never ever get sore or tired. I would also have an extremely comfy chair to sit in.

3. A bunch of fun packages would come in the mail that day and I would be grinning.

4. I’d have a latte machine in my house making me vanilla lattes non-stop all day.

5. Everything i knit would look beautiful and I would never have to rip back.

6. I would magically have a bunch of knitting friends and they would all be here. Actually, all of my favorite bloggers would be knitting in my living room! How about that?!

7. oh oh, and there would be really good lighting in my house so I wouldn’t have to crawl into a corner by a window to get a photo (ala my adventure today with the recently cast off honey cowl)

Sounds realistic. right?

3KCBWDAY3– Mother Bear

Today is day 3 of Knitting and Crochet blog week we are supposed to talk about our knitting heroes. At first I considered blogging about one of my favourite designers, you know like Jared Flood, or Veera Valimaki,  Amy Christoffers, Tiny Owl Knits (need i go on?). Or I thought I could talk about a dyer like Art-by-Ana, cakewalk yarns, the plucky knitter, tanis fiber arts, ETC. Don’t get me wrong, I DO think all of those people are freaking amazing…

BUT, I decided to talk about someone, or something, who I think is a real hero to a lot of little people. What am I talking about?

The Mother Bear Project

My first bear, finished this morning! 🙂

The mother bear project is something I’ve been introduced to through podcasts, originally cogknitive although other podcasters have mentioned it too. The project is designed to have knitters create bears that are then sent to countries in Africa to be given to small children who are either infected with the HIV virus or have parents or family who are. Of course there are tons of charities that donate various things like supplies and food to Africa, but I feel like this is a charity that offers something different and special. And it lets us knitters and crocheters do our thing and help others too. It’s also a great way to use up worsted weight scraps that you may have.

Just check out the photo gallery on the website (found here) and tell me the photos don’t make your heart melt and convince you to knit a bear RIGHT. NOW.

His bum! 😛

To get the pattern you have to order it and they will send you a hard copy. It’s a bit of a hassle (that you have to wait!) but they then give you a little tag to attach to your bear and a brochure that you could show other people to let them in on what you are doing. I sent a part of mine to my grandma because I used her birthday money to buy yarn for this project. And it comes fairly quickly too! Plus if you are like me and have about…0 scraps of worsted it gives you time to get your supplies ready too.

I chose to make a knitpicks order for bunches of brava, their new acrylic yarn that I had heard great things about. I figured, you never know what kind of conditions this teddy will be walking into, so something durable (but still soft!!!) would be best. Thinking about a kid getting all attached to their bear and then having it felt or something is just a heartbreaking image in my head! Turns out the yarn is pretty darn great for acrylic and I am pleased! Do you see what color is missing in my drawer? BLACK!!! Dur. It would be helpful for the faces –_-

I’m knitting mine using the magic loop method on size 6 needles. I chose to follow the pattern to the T for the first time just to get the hang of it. I think next time I will knit the head in the round though to avoid a bit of seaming. Overall though, it’s very clearly written and easy to do. I’m doing one boy one, then one girl one. I’m planning on doing a bunch before I send them off to save on postage.

So yeah, to sum it up, my hero is the mother bear project. I admire all of the people who have made bears for little children and I admire the people who work to get them sent across the world. According to the website, as of yesterday, 73,700 bears have been sent out! I admire the children who have to be so strong in the face of so much pain, too.