Post-Grad?

I followed Lucy over to The Blog Readability Test and found out that this blog rates post-grad. Hmm. Seems unlikely, maybe it's all the "technical knitting jargon" :-).

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Birthday shout outs to Lisa & Jana

Happy Birthday to Lisa (today!) and Jana (was Wednesday!). Hope it's a good year for both of you.

I always think of Hawaii when I think of Jana now, because she got married there several years ago. So here's a Hibiscus for her to remind her of the islands:

The pinkish hue isn't just the picture (although it's a little darker in the picture than in real life). Taking an idea from shadow trapunto, I layered a bright pink fabric behind a nice white to give it a little pink flavor. Seemed like fun.

And Lisa loves roses (and other flowers) so I thought I'd send her a bouquet of them (cut from the rose fabric I used for her book several years ago):

Also for Lisa, another cool, cozy, comfy bamboo hat. Same yarn (different colorway), same needles as the blue hat, made-up pattern:

Now I ask you, do you see any purple in the colors in this hat? Nor did I. But when I washed it in cold water and then let it air dry, these annoying purple stripes appeared at the folds. What? Where did that come from? Wandering dye, I suppose. Washed again, inside out this time, and dried without folds (over a glass column), and the stripes on the outside were gone, but remained on the inside and at the bottom, just fainter. I've instructed Lisa not to dry this near anything light, for fear of future purple stripes. Wacky.

Blueberry's candy haul

A picture says it all.

The Blueberry!

Max the blueberry very much enjoyed his halloween and ALL the candy he got. Hoo boy did he get a lot of candy.

Before T&T at Riley & Reed's house:

Being a blueberry at ours:

We couldn't seem to get a picture showing just how darn cute he is in this. Ah well, you'll just have to imagine. And he's so happy to have a blueberry costume. Who knew?

Falling behind

I've got more projects than I can shake a stick at right now. Stay tuned for:
- Max the blueberry
- A couple more hats
- Some mini-quilt surprises
- A mesh-knit backpack that Teri requested

I think that's all that's on the needles or queued for the sewing machine. Now get back to work!

Legos, Beach, Family

Well, San Diego really isn't a lot of fun right now, but it sure was a week ago when we were down there. Shout out to Teri, Bob, Bryce, and Juliet - hang in there.

Look, that Lego-lion ate Bryce & Juliet!

Legoland was fun, so was Mission Beach. Here's Bryce preparing for a dip.

And here's Juliet enjoying her seaweed island.

A couple of sand monsters...(Max rather regretted this later, when trying to get all the sand off again. Juliet didn't mind the sand one bit.)

And here's the cute hat that we got Max at Legoland, that he lost within an hour of playing in the surf. We miss you cute Lion Lego hat. Ah well.

The La Mesa train was fun to explore. Go Green Butterflys!

Felted bag? Check!

Finally, another post!

I finished my felted bag tonight. It was all dry from blocking and I stabbed the holes to insert the handles. It turned out fun! I like the color combo, but it's a shame that the variegated yarn stripe doesn't show up very well on the bag proper. It was really pretty before it felted, now it's just a little lighter stripe. Ah well - it's supposed to match the handles.

Colin's really impressed that the floppy giant-size thing I was knitting felted down into an actual handbag-looking object. Wish I'd taken a "before" picture, but I was just so impatient to try the felting that I didn't think about taking a snap until it was already in the wash. TOO LATE! You'll just have to make do with the "after" picture, plus a few stats.


Stats:

• Yarn: KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in Chocolate (3-5 balls? can't remember, unwilling to check ;-) and Winter Night (less than 1 ball), plus Shamrock in Doyle (2 balls). Probably should have held the yarn double to make it even sturdier. It's pretty sturdy, but a little floppier than I wanted.
• Needles: 10 1/2 circular (36 inch)
• Pattern: Took inspiration and general instructions from this Booga Bag pattern, plus the picture of the Oregon Tote.
• Original knitted size: 14 inches (height), 16 inches wide (side to side), 9 1/2 inches (base width)
• Felted size: 7 inches (height), 13 inches wide (side to side), 6 inches deep (base width)
• Capacity: 1 hardback book, 2 balls of yarn, a circular needle and a swatch. Well, so far at least.

Very little progress on other projects. I really want to do Juno, but am having issues with yarn. I found this Alpaca/wool/cashmere blend that feels just wonderful, but doesn't give me good stitch definition for the cables. I might try some different needle sizes, but I'm not sure it'll work. I do like the denim color, though (see inside bag above). Definitely need more swatching before I can commit to a sweater's worth of yarn. And anyway the Local Yarn Shop is sold out of Rowan Mag 40, so I can't get the pattern right now anyway.