Knitting, Sci-fi and other stuff...

    I finished the tote bag for my co-worker.  It turned out awesome.  I seriously thought about giving her the original one I made for myself and keeping this second one.   I had shown Nancy a selection of fabrics and let her pick which ones she wanted with the alpaca print.  I think her combo came out so nicely.  I finished everything up late in the evening, so the pictures are dark.  I also neglected to take a nice closeup of my fancy new tags.  I have two or three more bags planned out to do in the next couple weeks so hopefully I'll get a little better pictures. I finished the dishcloth I was working on yesterday and started another.   Revenge of Dish Rag Lizard Ridge I'm changing colors for each short row section.  I'm going for a rainbow.  I need to find more black for the ridges in between.      I have another project I should really be doing instead.  I need to dig around and find the yarn...

      I haven't accomplished much this week.  I was sent home from work Monday and didn't go to my second job Tuesday because of the pesky cold.  But rest and lots of cough medicine is what I needed.       I ripped back on the mitten I had started.  I decided to use the cuff even though it was two stitches larger than the cuff called for in the new pattern I'm using.  I simply decreased stitches on my first plain round.  I finished that mitten except for the thumb.  The pattern is  Hollyhock Mittens  and its free.  Its a pretty simple pattern and I like it.  I'm using Malabrigo Rios.  I'm meeting gauge for the pattern, but I like my mitten fabric a bit more dense than this, so if I ever knit this pattern again, I'll probably go down a needle size or two and knit a larger size.        I finished the dishcloth I started two weeks ago.  It was just a quick round  Pet...

      I thought I'd do a quick review of my Year of Projects.  I started participating around week 5 so I'm summing up my year from that point to present.  I have 24 project entries on Ravelry.  (If I do several dishcloths back-to-back, I usually only make one project entry, so there are more than 24 individual finished items.  Direct Link to Goal Post:  YOP first post   I finished: -3 pairs of fingerless mitts -2 pairs of mittens -2 pairs of socks -5 hats -2 cowls -2 baby blankets -16 dishcloths -1 potholder -1 shawl I have one sock that's going to be frogged and half of another dishcloth that's sitting around because I ran out of that colorway of yarn.  I do have a few other WIPs still hanging about from prior to August of last year.  (We're going to keep pretending they don't exist.) I made a simple little picture "movie" of my projects, enjoy: As far as my quickly thrown together list: I completed 3/5 of my projected projects......

      I finished two more dishcloths and got the ends woven in on the little pile of 5 total that I made from this pattern since the 1st of the month.  I procrastinate very badly when it comes to simple finishing.  I usually have a stack of things that need a small seam, to have the ends woven in or needs a quick steam block.  A couple weeks ago, I went through my pile and seamed up a whole stack of dishcloths and trimmed ends.  I had the ends woven in but I didn't trim them.  The worst part of that is I keep a thread snipper in the same notions pouch as my tapestry needles, so it's not like I even needed to move to get the snips.  So here are the other two cloths.  I did do a candy corn colored one and I love it! I grabbed whatever scraps I had in the project bag at the time and did this last one with those while I was watching TV one night. I think out of all of them the black, white and orange one is my favorite.  Here's the litt...

     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 ...

     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 im...

     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 pat...

     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 prett...