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Showing posts from 2015

Apparently I Dropped Off the Face of the Earth

     I can't believe I haven't written a blog post since June.  Sorry about that.  In all actuality I have a pretty good excuse.  On July 1st I found out that I'm pregnant!  A few weeks after that I was hit with some pretty terrible morning sickness symptoms and I feel like I fell off the face of the earth for about 2 1/2 months.  I stopped knitting completely mid July and didn't take it back up again 'til the middle of October.  The first trimester can be pretty terrible.  We found out on October 5th that we're having a girl.  I have several projects planned and some yarn set aside or purchased but I haven't actually started anything for the kiddo yet.  So I don't have too many updates.  I also don't have too many pictures, since I've been too tired to really take any.  (Also the weather has been uncooperative for the last weekish.)        Right before I started feeling really crappy I finished up Turnstile.  That's the infinity scarf cowl

Dishcloths and Baby Things

     So in the last month I've finished my training and transitioned from day shift to evenings and now onto nights.  It's only been two weeks, but the whole "day walker" thing came back pretty quickly.  I haven't gotten a whole lot of knitting done, but on the upside I can knit at work again!  That has helped with motivation and the therapy at work is a plus too.  So onto my latest projects.      There were more dishcloths in the off-time between Nerdopolis tournaments.  In no particular order: Revenge of The Dishrag This one is interesting and I think I might do another one eventually.  I may change the increases and decreases along the edge.  I like that its got a sort of vintage quality about it.  Bee Stitch Dishcloth This whole cloth is bee stitch.  While interesting, this is not one I'll ever do again.  Only because its tedious and I don't particularly like the look the texture imparts.  Just a personal opinion. Optical Illusion Cloth

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day Seven

Day Seven (Sunday 17th May): Your Time, Your Place. Where and how do you take time out to knit and/or crochet? Maybe you don’t take time out at all and instead have your needles twirling as you try to juggle a multitude of other tasks with no ‘spare’ time to think of. Maybe you enjoy nothing more than to crochet whilst winding down from a yoga session, chatting with some friends in a nearby café.      My little poll in the sidebar didn't quite work yesterday.  Which is fine since that question was just a joke anyway.  Thank you to everyone who checked out my survey monkey poll.  Alrighty on to todays prompt.   Generally I knit after work.  I get myself settled down on my side of the couch, usually with a TV show going in the background and I craft to my hearts content until I have to go to bed.  If I have tasks to do around the apartment I make sure they're done before I sit down because once I get all situated I don't tend to get back up again.  I do make an attempt

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day Six

Day Six (Saturday 16th May): Polls Apart. Almost every blogging platform offers a way to easily put together and host a poll, and polls, surveys and questionnaires can be a  great way of engaging with your audience and readership. There are times when readers do not feel that they want or have time to think, compose and post an answer or response to a post, but short polls can often be completed with just a few clicks. I have a fun little one question poll over in the sidebar------> For some more fun I used Survey Monkey to make a little survey.  Its the first time I've used this resource and the first time I think I've ever made a survey so please be gentle and go take a peek. SurveyMonkey Link Thanks for stopping by!  Until later.  Happy Crafting. -Q To see what other people have done for this prompt, type 6KCBWDAY6 into google and enjoy!

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day Five

Day Five (Friday 15th May): Something A Bit Different It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog. You may choose to create a podcast, or vlog, create a wordless post, a beautiful infographic or write in verse. You can post on any topic you like, but be sure to post in a style different from your usual blog presentation. There’s not too much guidance for this one simply because the more varied the posts are on this day, the wider the sources of information for other bloggers will be. The laptop is acting up today.  It thinks its not connected to the internet, but it is and all our other devices are working fine... This is going to be a very abbreviated post. Loops on a stick  Ever growing Stitch by stitch Brighly colored string Pulled out farthur From its coiled ring Texture and patterns created Many different stitches Much time must be slated Once finished It'll be useful For washin' some dishes That about does it fo

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day Four

Day Four (Thursday 14th May): Bags Of Fun. Time to delve into that most treasured collection of tools, notions and oddments as you are asked to spill the contents of your knitting or crochet bag, caddy or other method of organization and put your crafting unmentionables on display.      I have several bags, bins and totes for all my yarny goodness.  I'll keep this fairly simple and not take pictures of all seven or eight of my huge Rubbermaid totes.  I'll simply explain that I organize my yarn my type or function.  So I have a tote for dishcloth cotton. One tote just for my "real" Pisgah Peaches & Crème yarn and a second for all the other heathen dishcloth cotton.  Currently that second tote is filled with other random things left over from moving.  (I used every available inch of space to cram things into.)  I have one tote for baby yarns.  A couple of my project bags are in that one too.  I have another tote for crappy acrylic yarn that I'm hanging ont

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day Three

Day Three (Wednesday 13th May): Experimental Photography And Image Handling For Bloggers. Every Year Knitting & Crochet Blog Week tries to feature at least one day where photography takes a key role, because it has been proven many times that what captures reader’s attention for the first few seconds to hopefully hold them long enough to invest the time to read your words is your pictures, and so this topic crops up each year, but every year it yields such different results!      This is the one I struggle with every year.  I'm pretty simple when it comes to pictures and picture taking.  I do my best to take my pictures in good natural light, in order to capture colors at their truest.  As far as getting all artsy, meh, not so much.  I do like playing with color a bit so here are two skeins of yarn I played around with.  MadelineTosh DK in Hosta Blue The yarn label says it all.      Then there are the fun photo collage makers.  I've used Fotor in the past,

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day Two

Day Two (Tuesday 12th May): It’s All About You. Cast your hooks and needles aside! This year you are challenged with one of those tasks that some bloggers can find quite daunting: but there’s never a better time then when we’re all in it together, so let’s shift the focus and turn the attention from the things we make to the things that make us.      I've never been one to delve into my personal life very much.  I guess that talking about my projects, the yarn I use and the patterns I like ,is personal to a certain extent.  To other knitters just talking about yarn is probably very personal.  I've been thinking about this prompt all day in fact.  I thought about explaining what I do for a living, but Medical Technology/Clinical Laboratory Technology/Medical Laboratory Science, whatever the heck we're supposed to be calling ourselves now, tends to be rather complex.  The simplest explanation is that I analyze blood and body fluids such as urine.  I perform complete

Knit Crochet Blog Week Day One

Day One (Monday 11th May): If You Were Yarn. If you were a type or brand of yarn, which would you be? Are you a classic pure wool? Is there extra tension but a bit of bounce in you because of your high twist? Would you be more like a high-maintenance, strictly hand-wash fluffy angora or a ‘bring it on’ acrylic, bravely heading into the world of possible baby-sick laundering disasters knowing that you will always come out bright and unharmed?      If I had been asked this question back in January of 2014 I think my answer would be very different from the one I'm about to give today.  Since that time I have started my second new job and have moved my entire household to a smaller city.  Granted the move was what I wanted, but there has been a transition period for me after leaving everything I'd known and become accustomed to behind after 12 years.  I've made new friends twice, gotten used to different policies and procedures twice.  This second transition has been a bit

Post 100, hurrah!

     Knit and Crochet Blog Week start tomorrow.  I really want post number 100 to be a normal one so I'm doing a quick update.  I've still been knitting dishcloths and I got some more cotton since I realized I was out of purple.  I want to do a rainbow set of ball band dishcloths and its sort of hard to do that without purple.  So here's what I've done: Another Elvish Leaves Dishcloth in the Aloe Vera color.  I'm going to do another in a darker solid green.  I made this one while watching the third Hobbit movie, which was totally a coincidence.  I had to focus on this a bit so I really didn't even watch the movie too much anyway.  This makes a largeish cloth.  I love the lace patterned ones.  The other cloth I made was this one. It's Ball Band Dishcloth .    I use the original Peaches and Crème version.  There are many versions and they're all the same.  I do cut out one pattern repeat to make them smaller.  So I always cast on 39 stitches.  I&#

Rios, Cloths and Tawashi

     I've been knitting dishcloths again.  Even though I started Turnstile I seem to reach for the dishcloths.  I made a few new ones to add to some stash ones for my Lab Week basket.  National Laboratory Professionals Week is celebrated the last full week in April each year.  Each laboratory does something a little different.  Samaritan celebrates with lots of food (at least on Day shift) and baskets.  Anyone who wants to fill a basket with something does so and brings it in.  Each of us then gets tickets and a chance to win a basket.  There was some excellent turn out this year.  We wound up with 30 baskets.  Just to name off a few themes; dinner, wine, candles, chocolate, kitchen items, car wash, beach, yard items, a gift cert and eggs from the resident alpaca farmer.  (That last ne was the one I really wanted.)  I made a bundle of dishcloths topped with tawashi.  It seemed to go over pretty well.  Here are the new items I made for it.  The pattern is Tricolour Dishcloth .

Mad Geek, Liberty and Dishcloths

     I'm going to dive right in with this one.  I got the third and final installment in the Mad Geek Tour; Where No Color Has Gone Before.   This month it was four mini skeins of Doolally in Command Gold, Science Blue, Expendable, I mean, Engineering/Security Red and good old black.  All the renditions of the uniforms had black somewhere, boots, trousers or basically the whole uniform into the later seasons...  Which coincidently are my favorite of all the uniforms.  Alrighty... off topic.  This bundle is called To Go Boldy.  Since they came as a bundle I think I need to do something fair isle with them, maybe a hat...  Since this was the end of the tour I also received the Jessalu bag.  It is awesome, as I expected it to be. It of course follows the Trek theme.  I love the caricature nature of the little people.  I immediately turned it all over looking at them and figuring out who all is represented.  Riker, Data, Picard, Troi, Quark, the Borg Queen, Locutis, Tuvok, Ph