Mission (almost) accomplished

Sometimes I am almost willing to admit that I do not lack self-discipline*.  Remember my three WIPs from recent entries?

NO. 1 - FINISHED!!!!!!**

Finished, blocked, done, almost forgotten about.  Not my favourite project in the world, although I'm reasonably satisfied as to how it turned out in the end. 

Lace-up sides result solely from my impeccable fashion sense and have nothing to do with any sizing problems, nothing what-so-ever.

They DO look nice though, don't they? 

PATTERN: my own improvisation, 100% cotton, +/- 300g, 3 mm crochet hook.  I don't like it enough to give it a proper name. 

NO. 2 - FINISHED

Believe it or not, my knitting mojo held and I finished Iris a good few days ago.  It's stretched for blocking now, waiting for any half-decent weather that would allow me to snap some pics. 

BTW, I almost ruined the shawl at the very last step.  A new (to me) bind off technique, described in a tutorial as stretchy and perfect for lace, turned out to create an edge that is very beautiful and...  completely inelastic.  It is also impossible to undo without destroying the yarn so now it's either some very complicated knitting surgery on lace yarn or ignoring the problem and letting it stay as is.  Bound off edge in this particular project is short, so it doesn't look quite so bad.  I think it will pass muster, but only just.  In the end, no harm done, but my joy at finishing the knit is tainted. 

NO. 3 - 90% done. 

On hold for 24-48 hours.  Not my fault.  Too boring to explain. 

Anyway, I'm damn proud of myself.  I really, really, really felt like ditching all those WIPs and starting something new.  I deserve a medal.  Or a cake.

Or a teeny, tiny, super quick sock...

* Do not ask me about cleaning, though.  Or sweets.  Somehow my self-discipline never stretches that far.
** Relief directly proportional to the number of exclamation marks

Assorted randomness

Did you know that if you work on things, they get done? 

Insightful, I know. 

Somehow, I tend to forget that when it comes to finishing projects, nothing works quite as well as sitting down on your ass and putting the hours in (and no, spending those hours on reading crafty blogs does not have the same effect.  Unfortunately.)

Guys, I've been a good little knitter and while I don't have a Finished Object to present just yet, I can definitely report some progress. 

Item A - lace scarf (Iris, if you're curious)

Look, it's growing!

I tackled this unloved and forgotten baby a few days ago and magic happened - suddenly I'm enjoying working on it!  Seriously, while a few weeks back I had to force myself to knit a single 8-row repeat, now the repeats are flying off the needles at lightning speed.  Suddenly I'm not bored by the pattern, thin yarn doesn't irritate me anymore, I'm not even intimidated by the apparent endlessness of the project.  Must be spring or some other charmed vibe in the air.

Touch wood, I can visualise finishing it within a week or so.  IF the magic holds. 

Item B - beach tunic

It's blocking!!!  No, the ordeal is not over yet.  The pieces are not sewn together, I just layered them like that to save space and make sure I block them to the same measurements.  I still need to join the two pieces, weave in the ends and nicely finish all the edges.  Plus, I'm contemplating adding something pretty and lacy along the bottom edge.  A few hours - at least - still need to be invested here, but I can see the finish line.  Just a little further... 

While I'm in my craft room...  hey, do you want to see my stash?

Just a quick pic, to give you a general idea :)  It doesn't look like much but believe me, this shelf is pretty deep and there are tons of yarn hidden in there. 

I get a mood boost just opening the cupboard and peeking in. 

Speaking of mood boosts - if all goes well, pretty soon I'll have a whole lot of cuteness to enjoy (and share!).  Look:

We bought a rooster a while ago, to see if we can raise some chickens for the pot.  He performs his duties admirably, but the ladies are not very interested in motherhood and refuse to go broody.  Technology to the rescue, we invested in this tiny egg incubator and a brooder.  So far so good, keep your fingers crossed for good hatch rate.

15 more days. 

Do sunshine and crochet mix?

That was a rhetorical question.  In my, not at all humble, opinion, they most certainly do not.  I made decent progress on my striped beach tunic, but today the sun came out and, well, not a single stitch so far... 

I'm not ashamed.  This is Ireland, which means that you have to make the most of rain-free days.  There aren't that many. 

I'm in the process of filling my brand new raised beds.  As you can see from the picture below, this is a slow, gradual process.

At the moment, I can't quite afford to buy topsoil, so I have to do things the hard way.  In a far corner of our new property, there is a small hill covered with grass and nettles, and once you strip the greens you find plenty of topsoil mixed with building rubble.  Once again, this is Ireland, rural Ireland, so by 'building rubble' you can substitute 'stones'.  Lots and lots of stones, big ones, small ones, mixed with some rubbish and even bits of broken glass.  I sift through it all shovelful by shovelful and then trawl buckets of topsoil across the garden and into the beds.  See?  Slow process.  It takes me about two days to fill one bed but hey, I'll get there in the end. 

I'd get there sooner, but someone keeps scratching my precious soil away. 

I didn't catch the culprit red-handed but I'm 99% sure it's the chickens*.  They act fast, the little monsters.  I finished filling less than an hour before taking the picture! 

Anyway, there's still some crafting planned for the evening.  I'm a few rows away from finishing second part of the tunic.  At this stage, I have to juggle between four balls of yarn which drives me up the wall.

Just one thing worries me.  It's hard to see on the picture, but the tunic looks very, very small.  A child's garment, rather than adult woman's.  NOT funny.  I'm putting a lot of faith into fabulous stretching qualities of cotton - how much do you think it will grow in blocking? 

I have a plan B up my sleeve - crocheting little inserts on the sides to make the tunic more roomy - because no matter what happens, I am NOT frogging this thing.  I never had a chance to tell you (what with the Internet starvation and the Big Move), but this is my fourth attempt at this design and I simply can't stomach another.  No can do.  Whatever I end up with this time, stays.  Please send stretchy thoughts my way.

* Or neighbours' dog.  But since he's probably the only thing standing between our chickens and Mr Fox during daytime, I won't hold grudge. 

Wanted: project bags

Before I say anything else, let me quickly explain that I'm not going to steal beg for ask you to share your precious collection of project bags.  I'll make them myself, my soon-to-be-recycled fabric drawer is overflowing anyway.  I just badly need a few, and the urgency chimes well with the idea of a wanted poster.  I'd make one such poster if I could draw but really, stick figures are the peak of my artistic ability in non-fibre media, so the dramatic post title will have to do. 

You see, I used to be a faithful knitter.  I would take one and only one project onto my table, and then I would plod away at it until it was finished, even if the very sight of the same yarn for (e.g.) three weeks running made me sick.  Among other things, it meant that projects got finished - if only because I so badly wanted to work on something else, or get my hands on some new yarn or whatever.  Something about the neatness of such strategy worked for me, and when I say 'neatness' I mean this metaphorically and, well, literally.

Just look at this mess.  Here I am in the new house, trying to keep it as nice as possible, and suddenly I find myself with three projects going and yarn/fabric/thread/notions EVERYWHERE.  Skeins keep falling on the floor, rolling happily in my dog's hair (which, I am convinced, hides somewhere whenever it sees the broom and resurfaces happily after the danger's passed), and there's no free chairs anymore because, well, yarn sits there. 

A long time ago, I started a lace shawl for my Other Sister.  I'll be frank - I was sick of it almost instantaneously.  The pattern is simple but so. damn. boring.  I have this much...

...and I'm adding a few rows now and again but on the whole the project is not exactly speeding by. 

No wonder then that when a friend commissioned a crocheted beach tunic, I jumped with joy and forgot all about the blasted lace.  I'm improvising the pattern, working in the general direction of a picture I was shown but I was given a free rein so the piece is definitely going to be unique.  I do hope it's also going to be wearable...  but that's another story. 

The tunic is worked in two pieces and today - oh, glory! - I finished the first one.  

As you can probably guess from my tone, by now I'm slightly fed up with project no.2 as well.  Hey, it's a big one.  And there's a mountain of new sock yarn in my stash, singing siren songs to me. 

For now I'm resisting and socks will wait.  However, another project jumped the queue and changed status from 'I'll deal with it one beautiful day' to 'need to finish soon'.  You see, about a year ago I designed and knit a dress (I will show it to you one day, I promise).  I had some yarn left over, so I added matching boot cuffs.  Yarn still there, so I crocheted a tote bag to finally use it all up.  The bag turned out rather nice, but it needed lining and I'd rather knit than sew so I packed it up and forgot about its existence. 

Last week I had my sister here for a few days and she sewed some 80% of the lining for me (thank you!!!).  I'm a few hours away from the bag being done, dusted and usable.  It would be a sin not to finish it now.  So there you go, project no. 3.

With all this, various tools and pieces are slowly taking over my living space.  Project bags, guys, I badly need project bags!  But - and this is a huge but - sewing project bags would mean starting even more projects and this is simply too much mayhem for me. 

Deep breath in.  Finish what you have.  Sew project bags.  THEN go to socks and the myriad other projects that float through my mind.  Become a faithful knitter again.

That's the plan.  We'll see how it goes. 

Fingerless opera gloves

When I wondered whether or not to start a knitting blog, I seriously worried that I won't have enough projects to write about.  I shouldn't have.  Turns out I have an ever-shifting though never-shortening queue of FOs to present.  There are three or four designs from before the blog was born that I would like to show you, but how am I to do this when I also have a permanent backlog of at least two recent works?

Oh boy, I wish all my problems were of this caliber... :)  Anyway, here's another fresh creation:  fingerless opera gloves.

Made to order, they were practically built around the future owner's hand.  Some ripping was inevitable, but not too much and once the first glove was finished, it was a matter of simple copying to complete the pair.  A satisfying little design, with the result turning out even better than I expected.

I wanted a really snug fit, so the gloves are crocheted in the round only from fingers to wrist, higher up I worked flat, adding snap fasteners along the edges.  Very sophisticated.

You can't exactly see the opening on pictures, and this is because this time I managed to push the unpleasant duty of photographing my FO onto somebody else.  My victim helpful friend is skilled in the art of taking nice snaps, with pretty props etc., but not a yarnoholic herself so construction details that I find really clever did not catch her eye (or lens).  Since I'm not turning this design into a publishable pattern, I figure it's ok if my pics are little vague.

PATTERN:

I really liked these gloves on Etsy*, so I borrowed the stitch and improvised my own construction.  Does this make the pattern mine?  I'm not quite sure.  What do you think, guys? 

* I was going to post a link here to the specific listing, but I can't find it anymore even though I trawled through ALL crochet lace gloves on the site.   It must have been sold, or de-listed.  Instead, here's a link to the original picture reposted elsewhere.  

Quick knits - Crochet Football

With the World Cup final only days away (and wasn't that a mighty trash that Germany treated Brazil to today!), I feel I'm just in time to present my new-ish creation:

A quick knit, planned as a back-up present in case Poppy Girl didn't fit, it took only two days to crochet.  Made entirely from acrylic DK yarn, it is composed of 20 hexagons and 12 smaller pentagons, stretched over a shop-bought rubber ball.  Initially I planned to fill the ball with toy stuffing instead, but I would never achieve such neat tension, and now it bounces, too!

One more picture, this time taken with borrowed, ultra high resolution camera:

Despite my efforts, colours came out a bit funny on all my pics for which I apologise.  In reality, the ball is a combination of very warm shades of yellow and brown (think: sunflowers), accented with bright red thread.

It was enthusiastically received by the Birthday Girl, along with Poppy Girl, which fitted just fine.  BTW, I DID fix those curling shoulder straps in the end.  It took a bit over an hour and I did not enjoy the process much, but I feel it saved the knit.  The devil's in the detail!

One more thing:  apparently, if you are two, footballs are really cool to sit on and I have a picture to prove it :)

PATTERN:

Found online, here.  It is written in Russian, but includes a schematic so it can be worked with even if you can't read the language.

Quick knits - Mary Jane slippers

Sometimes crafting is an inspired creative frenzy, at other times it's strictly practical. 

Ryanair is not known for generosity*, so when my new favourite model, W., arrived to stay with us, she carried only limited amount of luggage.  Slippers, deemed essential post factum, stayed at home.

We seldom entertain, so we don't have a stash of guest slippers waiting at the ready.  I could, of course, drive twenty kilometres to a nearest shonky shop and buy something made in China, but I chose a different approach. 

I dug up my trusty crochet hook and after only a day, these were ready:

Custom made, so they fit perfectly.  Colour, pattern, every detail - exactly as requested by the future owner. Money spent:  zero, because I used odds and ends from my stash.  Petrol burned - none.

It might be a little thing, but this small victory against consumerism really made me happy.

To tell you the truth, I like them so much that although I am not a slipper person, I will probably whip up a pair for myself at some stage :)

PATTERN:

Found online, here.  A fantastic, step-by-step tutorial included, so big thanks to the author.

* If you haven't yet seen this video about joys of flying Ryanair, watch it NOW.  Hilarious!