Crafting Balance

Day 7: April 29, 2012. Crafting Balance 
Are you a knitter or a crocheter, or are you a bit of both? If you are monogamous in your yarn-based crafting, is it because you do not enjoy the other craft or have you simply never given yourself the push to learn it? Is it because the items that you best enjoy crafting are more suited to the needles or the hook? Do you plan on ever trying to take up and fully learn the other craft? If you are equally comfortable knitting as you are crocheting, how do you balance both crafts? Do you always have projects of each on the go, or do you go through periods of favouring one over the other? How did you come to learn and love your craft(s)?

Today is about balance. Crafting balance, yes – but I could also talk about the balance between knitting and blogging or about life balance and finding time to fit in crafting and so on. For me, this week has been more about blogging rather than knitting. For the most part, I spend quite some time crafting my posts, rewriting and editing and putting in pictures and so on. I try to make sure that I don’t infodump or write paragraphs that are too long (to avoid tl;dr) or too many paragraphs without some kind of visual interest to break them up. So I guess blogging is a kind of craft for me as well. And the balance between the different crafts, that’s the challenge for me.

When it comes to knitting and blogging, I usually go in spurts. I’ll blog very frequently for a bit while my knitting is neglected, and then I’ll get caught up on my knitting and then I’ll be so busy getting projects done that my blogging is rather sporadic. If I am more structured about it then I prewrite posts and schedule them – sometime they only require a few pictures and they’re good to go. I’m also trying to figure out what frequency of blogging works best for me, and for my readers. I mean, if I put up new content every day, then that’s pretty challenging for me, plus I’m not sure you guys enjoy that – it’s hard to catch up on what’s going on. Let me know what you guys think – what do you prefer?

So, let’s talk about the balance between my knitting and my crocheting. I actually started out as a crocheter. I learned to crochet in school when I was, oh, maybe 11 or 12? No, I must have been younger. I have to ask my parents. Anyway, I think my skill level hovered at single crochet stitch, maybe going as far as double crochet stitch. I went to buy yarn with my parents, and I remember coming into the arts & craft section of our department store (when they still had one), and being overwhelmed by all the colors, and the different types of fibers. I had no idea how to decide what to select. We ended up picking this light blue acrylic yarn – nothing special, I don’t remember much about it apart from the fact that it was scratchy, especially after working with it for a while. I plugged away at the scarf for a while.

Why yes, that is a Christmas ornament with a pacifier in it! Making Christmas extra special for my nephew.

And once we moved on to another project in class, I tried to continue crocheting the scarf at home – and tried to motivate myself by labeling it my Christmas present to my Mom. I think it ended up being the shortest scarf ever. Mom still has it, somewhere. ETA: And I apparently started to make gloves for her out of that same yarn. I’ll have to ask her to dig them out.

Well, that was the progress my crafting work made for a while. Over the following years I was more occupied with other hobbys like reading (a lot!), singing, all kinds of sports… I learned to embroider from Mami. Plus there was school, of course, and then college and life and so on. Fast-forward to 2008. I hadn’t been crafting much, and then, and then my sister and brother-in-law announced that were expecting their first child. Yay!

Our family has always placed a great emphasis on handmade gifts. It doesn’t matter if they were big or small, they were all appreciated. Handmade gifts were – and are – more valued than purchased ones, no matter how big. It is the thought and the effort that counts – and when you make a gift, you think about the person you are making  it for, what they would like, what would suit them, and what you can offer. Putting up our Christmas tree always means to look back on our life as a family, where we pull out all the Christmas ornaments, so many of which have been made by us, with all of their little imperfections and cracks.

Now that my sister was pregnant, I really wanted to make something for the baby, something that they would get use out of. I thought about a baby blanket, and I figured out that I could pick up crochet pretty easily, even though I’d forgotten all of the stitches. I decided to make this pretty baby blanket, which I had found through the Lion Brand Yarn website. It was a great way to get back into the groove. While browsing around the Lion Brand Yarn pattern page, I came across a pattern for a baby mobile – and an idea was born. And then I found this awesome Alan Dart Shaun the Sheep mobile, which was perfect, apart from the fact that it’s a knitting pattern. So, with the help of YouTube, the Knitting Help website, and a few library books, I learned how to knit. And fortunately my great-aunt, Mami, my knitting hero, was in town so I could get help from her. That started my love affair with knitting, and since then crochet has been pretty much neglected. Yeah, so much for balance. Oops.

Looking back at my crochet, most of them have been amigurumi projects. Amigurumi projects, hats, and that baby blanket. And everything else – scarves, shawls, socks, hats, cowls, gloves, baby items, toys (uhm, what’s left?) – has been knit. But all the Day 7 posts on this topic have reminded me that I really do like crochet. There are so many amazing designs out there, and I love knitting amigurumi toys. I mean, how can you not love amigurumi? Just look at Geek Central Station’s geeky Amigurumi patterns – Star Wars amigurumi! The Lord of the Rings characters as amigurumi! Captain Jack Sparrow, the Firefly Crew, Star Trek, Indiana Jones!  Full of Win! Though there are also amazing knitted toy options, just look at MochiMochiland or the Hansigurumi patterns!

I forsee crochet in my future And then there is spinning and weaving. I know it’s not Annual Spinning and Weaving Blog Week, but hey, they’re also fiber crafts, and neither are skills that I have. A friend of mine has a loom that she’s offered to let me borrow, so I’ll hopefully get to play with this year. But the craft that I really really really want to learn is spinning. I mean creating thread out a a fiber braid, how amazing is that? It takes us back to the very beginning of fiber crafts – that’s what we need for all the other crafts that follow out of it. It connects us to our ancestors, to the beginning of creating garments, clothing to take us through the seasons and makes us able to adapt to our environment (once garment creation was based on humans having domesticated animals and not being as dependent on our skills as hunters and gatherers and the resultant availability of materials. And if I’m off with my representation of fiber crafts here, I really haven’t researched this, this is off the top of my head, so let me know if I’m wrong).

I’m sorry that this post was so long! I really hadn’t planned on it… but I guess I had a story to tell. I’m sorry to say that this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is over. It really has been a lot of fun. Sometimes it was more challenging than other days to figure out what to write – hello Day 5! – but it definitely was good to topic on a specific topic. I think I’ll do that more often. If you have a topic you’d like me to blog something about, let me know.

I’ll be blogging more frequently than in the last few months, definitely. I’ll also get back to putting up posts about food and photography, as stated in the blog’s header (well, I mentioned reading there, too, but I tend to post more about food), which have been missing. But all in all, it’ll be good to get back to my knitting – I’ve been neglecting it with all this blogging. I have a day to finish up my April project, so hopefully I’ll make it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. If you’d like to see all my posts for this week, go here. And if you’re interested in seeing the posts on the individual days, just run a search for the different short codes to see posts on the different topics: Day 1 – Color Lovers (3KCBWDAY1), Day 2 – Photography Challenge (3KCBWDAY2), Day 3 – Your Knitting or Crochet Hero (3KCBWDAY3), Day 4 – A Knitter or Crocheter for All Seasons (3KCBWDAY4), Day 5 – Something a Bit Different (3KCBWDAY5), Day 6 – Improving your Skillset (3KCBWDAY6), today’s topic, Day 7 – Crafting Balance (3KCBWDAY7), and the Wildcard topic – Craft your Perfect Day (3KCBWWC). I may even put up a a post on the Wild Card topic tomorrow or Tuesday, that topic is just so intriguing.

I’m looking forward to next year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!

Improving Your Skillset

Day 6: April 28, 2012. Improving Your Skillset
How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how’s your intarsia? If you are feeling brave, make a list of some of the skills which you have not yet tried but would like to have a go at, and perhaps even set yourself a deadline of when you’d like to have tried them by.

Phew! After the amount of work that was Day 5, Day 6 should be comparatively easy. I mean, I don’t have to hunch over my photo setup, making minute adjustments – I shot at least 1400 frames, plus a few still, plus all that time music editing – so I ‘just’ have to take a few pictures, and write. I first thought that blogging really takes a lot of time, particularly blogging about a specific topic. I tend to take a lot of time taking photographs and crafting my posts… but this, this has been the most challenging part of any blog post that I’ve put up since I’ve had this blog (granted, this blog is just over a year old, but still)…

So, today talks about skills. I kind of talked about skills I’d like to acquire in last year’s post, so lets review how my goals measure up to my actual achievements. Hmmmm…..

I definitely want to want to try my hand at colorwork (I’m thinking of Spillyjane’s Swedish socks here), improve my sweater fitting skills, try beaded lace knitting, and maybe even dare to tackle my first steek (yikes!).

Well, I have certainly knit  a whole bunch of projects since last year – 39 to be exact. That includes 11 hats, 8 shawls, 4 pairs of baby booties and 5 different children’s toys. There are three items of clothing in there:

• a cardigan for a little girl,
  
• a dress for another little girl,
  

  

• and a cardigan for a baby. 

  

Yup, all three items of clothing are for kids. Not a one for an adult. But apart from the cardigan for a girl, they were already in the planning last year – I had already ordered the buttons and showed them off in last year Knitting and Crochet Blog Week’s embellishment’s post. I did make a few modifications to the dress and the baby cardigan – you’ll find more information on those on the individual pattern pages.

See? I did do some shaping work! I’m planning to knit a cardigan for my Mom, and for my sister (both Connie Chang Chinchio patterns), so there are two opportunities for garment shaping right there (plus I can knit a matching baby Austin hoodie for my sister’s kiddo!).

As for colorwork – well, I still haven’t knit the Swedish Fish socks – yet. Maybe I’ll knit them during this summer’s Ravelympics. For all of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the 2012 Ravelympics games where people knit/crochet simultaneously along to the Olympics, competing in our own categories. Really, it’s lots of fun. Anyway, I’ve seen awesome versions of the Swedish Fish socks where the fish charts are used to make awesome versions as sweaters or vests, too. So that’s on my to do list, but I have made a pair of fingerless mitts that have been well received.

On to the next goal: Beaded lace knitting. Yeah, that hasn’t happened. It’s in the plans, but other wips have been intruding. You know, people having babies. People needing birthday gifts. People getting married. That kind of stuff that interfers with your wip list. Plus the occasional knitalong, and if there’s a pattern that catches your attention and you just HAVE to knit it right then and there yes, Color Affection, I’m looking at you!) I do have beads, and the matching yarn, plus the pattern – Haruni - or maybe Simurgh? – already planned out…

Steeking. Eeek!!!! Yeah, I haven’t yet done that yet. I mean, who would feel good about cutting their knitting? But it’s such a great skill – makes it way easier to knit cardigans, or you can steek armholes and so on and on. It’s a skill I definitely want to acquire, and I think I have a good idea how to acquire it. I came across this awesome Missoni inspired chevron blanket pattern. Well, I’d originally bought Wollmeise Lace in a few different shades of red to create an ombre effect blanket, but now I’m thinking I’ll make the blanket with those different shades of red, plus black and white and grey thrown in too. And to make my life easier, I think I’ll knit the blanket in the round, and then just steek it in the end. That way I’ll hopefully be finished this decade. Now I just have to decide whether to hold the lace single or double….

Given that I have enough on my plate – my queue is 43 pages long – I really don’t need to add other goals. Sooner or later I’ll come across a pattern or design that requires a new skill or a new technique, and I guess I’ll have to decide whether to sink or swim.

So that’s it for today. It’s almost tomorrow, and then I’ll have a post on my crafting balance. And then this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week will be over. Wow, this week has flown by!

A Knitter or Crocheter For All Seasons?

Day 4: April 26, 2012. A Knitter or Crocheter For All Seasons?
As spring is in the air in the northern hemisphere and those in the southern hemisphere start setting their sights for the arrival of winter, a lot of crocheters and knitters find that their crafting changes along with their wardrobe. Have a look through your finished projects and explain the seasonality of your craft to your readers. Do you make warm woollens the whole year through in preparation for the colder months, or do you live somewhere that never feels the chill and so invest your time in beautiful homewares and delicate lace items. How does your local seasonal weather affect your craft?

I’m glad I’m living in an area where you have actual seasons – winter is cold, summer is warm, spring and fall fit in somewhere inbetween. Ok, that’s simplifying things – we might not get snow in winter at all, or we might get a snowpocalypse, spring and fall sometimes are very cold, totally rained out, or unseasonably warm, and summer can be anything from pleasant to stiflingly humid. But still, we have seasons. I can’t quite imagine not living in a place with seasons. Actually, that’s not true. I spent half a year in Tanzania, which has its own weather rhythms. The weather was everything between pleasantly warm to increadibly hot, rainy season with monsoon like rains or short showers, and sometimes the evenings and nights were pretty darn cold. We camped at the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater once and boy, we were wearing plenty layers in our sleeping bags and we were still cold. But the sunrise totally made up for it.

All of these seasons make it possible to knit up all kinds of projects in various yarn weights. I’ll get good use out of blankets as well as lacy shawls. I love my Girasole blanket which I knit out of 1500+ yards of worsted weight. And despite its laciness it’s very warm and cuddly – I originally thought that it wouldn’t be that warm due to the lace pattern but I was totally wrong. Normally I like to knit those kinds of projects when it’s colder outside so I don’t have a huge pile of worsted weight yarn on my lap while the weather is in the 90s Fahrenheit (above 30 Celsius). But this was a KAL project so I knit this in July – but thankfully I had airconditioning or this would not have been pleasant.

But really, I choose my projects depending on who needs what and when – especially when it comes to Christmas gifts! I always have a few projects that I try to knit up last minute, and sometimes I succeed, and sometimes not. Oh, and I’ve learned the hard way that handknit gifts should only go to people who will really appreciate them. Otherwise I feel like an idiot when I put so much hard work into something that they really don’t care for. People who craft themselves seem to be the people who appreciate handmade things most – they really know how much work goes into making something yourself.

I don't think this Ishbel ever made it out of the closet... And I even used Wollmeise for it!

So, my crafting seems to be more of a reflection of my knitting skills rather than seasonal changes. I’ve enjoyed knitting most of my projects – there are a few that I just couldn’t wait to finish them, but mostly, I’ve enjoyed creating them.  I’ve knit a bunch of shawls, scarves and cowls, and bunch of baby items – both toys and garments. I’m pretty new to knitting garments – I’ve knit a sweater and two cardigans, and there are a bunch more in my queue. But I’ll talk about my knitting skills on Saturday, in the “Improving Your Skillset” post. Until then I’ll leave you with (another) collage of seasonal knitting projects. The seasons are (per row): winter, spring, summer, fall. Then you’ll have more unsual ‘seasons’ – the individual pictures are: monsoon season, anytime season, rainy season, Easter, soccer season, and Christmas.

The projects are:

• Koolhaas; Merino Scarflet; Shades of Grey wurm
• cardigan for a girl; Winter Thaw; Bloooo 
• Ghostly whisper; Trillian; Spun Gold
• Sunrise scarf; Red Rose Lintilla; Monkey Business
• Monsoon wedding; grey lovs red; cuore impavido [Braveheart]
• Chick and Egg basket; Spice Man; Gingerbread Man

That’s it from my end for today. Check out some of the other awesome posts on today’s topic by googling for today’s code, 3KCBWDAY4. Or even better, join in! It really is a lot of fun. I’ll see you tomorrow – I’m still figuring out what my creative post will be, but I’ll do my very best. Til then!

It’s just another manic Wednesday

Ok, the original song is about a Manic Monday, but still, live has suddenly turned rather manic. Where has all my time gone? I feel like I’m juggling too many things at the same time. I wish there were more hours in the day.

Apart from all that’s been going on, I’ve been knitting like a speed demon. I’ve gotten a little groove on my index finger where the tensioned yarn runs over my finger. And it’s not going away; in fact, I have broken the skin, and I’ll have to hunt down a band aid. I think I really need to practice my english knitting. I just don’t want to change to my other hand in the middle of the project – I’m concerned that my gauge might change.

But enough rambling. It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for another Yarn Along! My current wip is a Color Affection shawl. Mmmm, lovely squishy garter stitch, what more could you want? Plus colorful stripes, and a interesting pattern – perfect! I decided on the combination of grey and shades of green. I need to supplement my scarf/shawl wardrobe – I already have two in blue, but I gave my red shawl away, and I haven’t knit a green one, so this is the perfect opportunity. There are a few modifications, to make the most out of my yarn, so this will be huge and extra squishy. This is my April project for the 12 Wollmeise skeins in 12 months goals – once this one is done, then I’ll get back to the pea soup blanket. I’ll see my cousin and his fiancee next month, so I really want to finish this one. That way I can give it to them before the wedding – there’s just no way I’d give it to them during the wedding, they’ll be just too busy.

That’s it for my part for today. I’m participating in this week’s Yarn Along – there are links to other great Yarn Along posts there, with information on how to participate yourself. You can also find a link to this post through Tami’s Amis, through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday and Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) series.

(Y)arrrrrrrrrn along!

Another Wednesday, another day to check in and see what I’m knitting and reading. My current read is Winnie the Pooh, which I read for my nephew over Skype. We both love Winnie the Pooh. We have a few other books in that series, but the Honey Cake mix-up is by far his favorite. It’s a really cute story – I must have read it to him a hundred times already, but he still enjoys it. I think there’s something really comforting for kids (especially the young ones) to reread a story, and to know what will happen. Oh, and for all of you Winnie the Pooh lovers, there’s a great series of YouTube videos about “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” It’s a real treat for my nephew, even though he’s only allowed to watch a bit.  He’s kind of scared by Owl, and that funny mole, and Tigger is a bit too hyper – he’s too fast for him to understand, but he loves the songs. I have them memorized by now, too – and I keep thinking of the “Up, down” song when I’m sweating on the elliptical.

As for my knitting, well, I have finished one of my wips, the pleated scarf, I just don’t have a picture of the finished object. And the mystery KAL shawl is almost done – I’m waiting on clue#6, the last clue, and then I’ll have another FO for March. It looks really pretty so far, so I’m curious to see what the finished project will be like. And we’ll apparently need buttons – I guess for optional sleeves?

Now, why did I cast on for another project even though I already have two other wips on the needles, including last week’s project? Well, last week’s melody shawl is going to be my mindless project, the one that I work on while I’m in the car (not while I’m driving!), or waiting anywhere where I’ll likely only be able to knit just a bit at a time, and where I don’t want to worry about keeping track of where I am in the pattern. I’ve made a bit of progress, so this will probably turn into another endless project (and it easily fits into my handbag, as you can see).

The other project is for my cousin and his fiancee – the better than better than pea soup blanket. I really do need to get cracking on that one since I’m probably headed to San Francisco in May or early June, and I’d love to take it with me at the time. It would be rather inconvenient to bring it to the wedding. Plus, I really want to finish this up before it gets too warm.

Ok, so back to the topic at hand. The German Wollmeise group (on Ravelry) is hosting a knit along called 12 Wollmeise in 12 months, with the goal to knit some of your treasured skeins instead of letting them linger in your stash, unknit. You pick out the skeins beforehand, give them a number and each month one number is drawn, and that skein is to be knit up. I’ve knit up January and February’s skeins, but I was late in working on my March project since my time was sucked up by my other Wips. So I’m a bit late to the party, knitting up this beautiful skein of Campari Orange light. It matches my mother’s hat really well, and she’s pretty excited to get this scarf.

The pattern is Anne Hanson’s Fernfrost, a really pretty pattern that shows of the colors beautifully. I thought that this would be a labor of love (well, more or less) since I was all scarfed out after that darn pleated scarf. But this one is flying of the needles, it’s so much fun to knit. I have till Saturday, so I’m hoping I’ll make it. And this time I’ll cast on for my April project right after that so I won’t be under such time pressure at the end of the month. Btw, I’m making this scarf narrower with only two rather than three pattern repeats, as per request, even though I tried to convince her otherwise. And now I’m wishing I had another skein in the color, to knit up a spring-inspired Windward for myself.

Phew, this was a long post. I’m participating in this week’s Yarn Along – there are links to other great Yarn Along posts there, with information on how to participate yourself. You can also find a link to this post through Tami’s Amis, and through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday. Oh, and then there’s Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) series too!

Split Pea Umaro

When I started knitting, I went around offering various family members to knit up something for them, whatever they’d like. That was when my queue was short and when I didn’t know what to knit next. (For the record, my queue is currently 37 38 pages long). And my knitting skills were just in their infancy.

My cousin asked for blanket. That was it. No guideline or anything – no choice on colors, lace or no lace, machine washable or not. At that point of time I got most of my knitting patterns from Lion Brand – I hadn’t yet discovered Ravelry. So the original plan was to knit a blanket out of Lion Brand Handspun – the reviews were good, and hey, machine washable is always good. That was before I actually knit out something out of the Handspun (btw, the name is so ironic – it’s not even remotely similar to handspun yarn), and before I really learned how to look at Ravelry project notes. And suddenly I had a world of patterns at my fingertips. Plus a pile of yarn I didn’t want to knit up.

Fortunately I was able to rehome the yarn during my destash. But I’d completely forgotten about my promise to knit something for him until a few weeks ago, when he asked me where his blanket was. I figured it would make the perfect engagement/wedding present for him and his girlfriend/fiancee. We decided on BrooklynTweed’s Umaro pattern, in Quince and Co Puffin, colorway Split Pea, to match their shagalicious carpet.

I haven’t knit with Quince and Co’s yarns before but the reviews look good. It’s a single ply, and it’s pretty durable, although it didn’t withstand the toddler test. What is the toddler test? Well, it’s when a toddler is trying to help me knit by pulling on the yarn, and me pulling in the other direction. But it’s ridiculously easy to join – spit join – so that was easily fixed. That also means that there are no ends to weave in – yay!

Since it isn’t machine washable, it’ll be somewhat more difficult to take care off. And I’ll be blocking the finished project, to show off the pattern better. Still, it’s bulky yarn so that means it’s pretty gratifying to see the blanket grow.

I’ve been busy knitting up a bunch of other projects, especially hats, and I still need to figure out my January project for the Wollmeise for 12 month challenge will be. (Yup, I know I only have a few days left til February). I have some time since the wedding is in October, but I still want to pick up the project soon since I don’t want to be knitting a heavy bulky weight project when it’s hot outside. Time to tackle my wip (Ravelry project link is here)!

better than pea soup