I bought some recyled sari silk yarn on eBay and it wasn't quite what I'd expected, so I crocheted this cuff as a small project to see how it behaves. The cuff turned out nicely, but it still will take some thinking to come up with appropriate uses for the rest of the 1000 grams of it.
Well, I've finished one of my crunchy socks. The photo is of when it was about 80% complete, but now it's done. I'm not sure when I'll get to the second since it is indeed not terribly comfortable, but now I can go forward with confidence with my primo sock yarns. The striping is fun - I especially like the bit of green under the heel and the subtle Tetris blocks that appeared in the wide color bands - but I really can only imagine myself wearing them while I'm cleaning the bathtub or running around outside through the sprinklers I don't have or something where a heavy-duty, scratchy, plasticy sock would come in handy (the yarn is Red Heart Strata in Splash). Definitely not a relaxing-in-front-of-the-fire sock, but yes, I can knit socks!
So, to save $ and space, I have instituted a budget for my discretionary spending this year. Most of my "fun money" is spent on art & craft supplies, so each month I get an allowance. If I do small things to bring in pocket change (I am a stay-at-home mom), then I can add this to my allowance. So far, so good, but my January money is already blown!
Going along with this, I am going to specifically track my yarn purchases since I have quite enough for a while and it's really easy to track by skein. Until I can fit all of my stash in one storage bin, I am going to have a burn 2 skeins to buy 1 policy (kind of like China's one child policy :D). I'm not going to push stashbusting really heavily because, as I said in my last post, it's time for knitting to step away from the forefront for awhile, but I'm definitely going to do a "yarn diet".
So without further ado:
Also, one thing I spent my Christmas wad on was a Royal brand yarn ball winder, so once I get my oddments wound into pretty cakes, I'll post some pics of the stash.
So, one of my current projects is my first pair of socks. I'll be breaking with the wool tradition here at Twoo Ho Height because I'm using some really nasty, crunchy acrylic yarn, but I am still on a fiber high since getting my Ravelry invite last October (all other craft forms are getting tired of the back burner). My feet aren't sensitive like the top of me is, so it should be okay. The yarn is Red Heart Strata in the Splash colorway and it looks great, but the texture is even rougher and crunchier than regular Red Heart! I'm just turning the heel of the first sock and will get some pics up soon.
This is an example of the holly ornaments I made as incidental Christmas gifts (I really should have made more and given them to more people, but oh, well.) The leaves are felted wool from a thrifted men's wool suit (Ralph Lauren!) and the berries were wet felted from yarn. Glued together with a hot glue gun! I also printed up the symbolism of holly relating to Christmas and the lyrics for The Holly and the Ivy.
Another Christmas '07 recap! This was for a handmade gift exchange for my mom's group. It's an original design. I knitted two identical sides on my Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine (USM) which is really a knitting machine for anything, not just sweaters. I even got the stripes to match on both sides. I also knitted a handle on the USM then seamed and felted (or fulled) it.
After blocking, I needle felted a rose by coiling some of the same yarn I used for the purse on top of some leaves I cut out of wool felt. The closure is a pearly vintage button and I just cut a slit for the buttonhole since the wool really felted well. I left it unlined due to time constraints, but in future versions I will line it, probably knit a separate panel for the bottom, and reinforce the bottom for added rigidity.
This is an entrelac scarf I'm working on in a really dreamy self-striping bulky yarn - Reynolds Smile. It's a little thick and too wide, so I'm going to frog it (it's already off the needles) and decrease it by 1/3 by only having it two squares wide on the diagonal instead of three, go up a needle size (to 11), and maybe also decrease the size of the squares to 8 or 9 (currently they are 10x10 stitches).
This is a felted guitar strap I made from a Lion Brand Yarn pattern for our brother for Christmas (yes, it's an'07 project).
I was mostly happy with how it turned out, but I felted it a lot for a nice thick strap and would have liked it to be longer and wider. Also, I felted it with a white towel and it took forever to pick all the little white pills out!
