Hooray!  I finished the Round Afghan!  It turned out beautifuly- it looks so much nicer all laid out in its circular glory than it does bunched up on the needles.  So excited!

Pics and specs:





Yarn used:
Approx 7 skeins total- 3 of Redheart Light and Lofty, 4 of LionBrand Homespun

Size N crochet hook to start, 10 1/2 DPN and 13 circulars

60" diameter

Pattern:
An adaptation of the pinwheel baby blanket.  I made it larger, started with crochet and altered the YO's.  I'll be posting the pattern in the near future. 

All in all, I'd say this was an enjoyable, easy knit.  I finished it in about 3 weeks of casual knitting, as I don't have a whole lot of time for marathon knitting. 
This is a super snuggly afghan that will be great for a nap!  I certainly hope the recipient loves it as much as I do!

In other news, I got my KnitPicks Options needles!  They're very sexy.  I *heart* them.  I love how pointy the tips are, which will make it very easy for lace knitting.  The cables aren't as nice as those on Addis, but the join is very smooth, and makes for quick knitting.

Now its off to the craft store for the next afghan's yarn.

Happy knitting!

I'm getting very close to being finished with the round afghan.  I have about 8" left, but I'm going to continue through the end of the color repeat.  Bad news, though!  Now that I have about 400 stitches on my needles, I've run out of space and I can't findy any circs longer than 29".  Damn my lack of a LYS.  Help is on the way, though.  I just ordered the super sexy Knitpicks Options.  They are on their way to my house right now.  I am so excited!  I ordered the whole starter set plus an extra 13 tips and a 47" cable (for the project at hand). 

So... while I'm so close to being done I can taste it, Round afghan is on hold until my new needles get here. 

Progress:


It looks a little bit like a sleeping bag, no?  I really like the pop of color with the orange and red.  The brown pattern right above the red section has a lot more nuances of color and depth that the photo shows.  I really love that one.  I think I may make a hat and scarf set out of that for myself sometime.

I think I might finish it off with a seed or moss stitch border.  I'm just not a huge fan of garter stitch, and I don't thinke fringe is appropriate for this afghan.

Detail
 

So.. I ran out of needle space last night at about 11pm.  I thought I'd knit slow enough that it would take me through until I got my needles.  Oh well- best laid plans of mice...  So- now that I can't work on Roundie, I set up the design for afghan #4.  I'm going to do my own version of the abfab afghan in shades of green.  I'll use several different weights and texture and a feather and fan-ish pattern.  I'm very excited about it.

As I wasn't able to head out to get the yarn for afghan 4, I decided to cast on for a selfish knit with stash yarn.  I'm making a gray feather and fan shawl (I love feather and Fan- don't know why) made from Homespun. 

Pic:


Just a start.  You can't see the detail very well, but I'm just getitng through the second repeat of the shawl.  It's knit from the center out- kind of unusual, but very fun.  Here is the pattern.  Pretty, yes?

This is being knit up on sz 11 addis.  I'm dying to sink my teeth into another tiny project- I have a penchant for sock weight yarn and sz 3 needles, but I need some rather instant gratification knitting for me.  The yarn is Lion Brand Homespun in the Tudor Colorway.  It is offwhite twined with gray, purple and greenish shades.  It does look quite lovely knit up.  Very subtle.

In other news-
I'm starting to get used to my night shift- I work 3 12 hr shifts from 7p-7a a week, including every other weekend.  It's really getting to be quite enjoyable.  Now, I'm working on getitng my sleep schedule down.  Once that is all set- life will be great. 
Mike and I went to some model homes on Monday evening.  It was so fun!  There was one that we really loved- a sprawling single story townhome with 2 br/2 full bath with a huge kitchen and really open floor plan.  It's a tad bit out of our price range, but If we look in a little less expensive area, it should be very affordable.  It gave us a good idea of what we're looking for.  Yay houses! 

Mike and I went to go see The Departed.  AWESOME film.  I highly highly recommend it to anyone.  Its rather violent, but a great mob/ good cop, bad cop movie. 

Speaking of films, does anyone know and resources for really good movie-related trivia?  We are having a movie- themed wedding.  Each table is going to be tittled adifferent film, rather than table numbers, and we want to put trivia for each one at the tables. 

Next week=baking extravaganza!  I need to make 3-4 pies.  Not quite sure which yet, although I'm thinking Apple, Pecan and Sweet Potato.  We are going up to Mike's grandparent's for Thanksgiving.  This will be the first time I'm meeting the grandparents, who raised Mike until he was about 7.  While I am excited about meeting them (very excited), I am struggling with not being home for Thanksgiving.  It is a big holiday with my family, and I have never missed one.  I wish I could be at both places, especially since my family has gone through some rocky roads this year as far as family relations are concerned.  Oh well- I will perservere.  This is my year to have Thanksgiving off at the hospital.  So if we're going out of town for turkey day, this is the year to do it.  It should be okay. 

That's all from my end.  Happy knitting!

I'm still here- promise! 

I just don't really have anything meaningful to post- some progress is being made on the two afghans I have going on, but nothing too exciting.  I think the next afghan is going to be in a feather and fan lace pattern.  I'm really taken with the idea of knitting lace right now.  When I'm done with these afghans, I want to start some of those beautiful lacy shawls out there.  Another thing on my to do list is Lucky from Stitch n Bitch Nation.  It will give me something to look forward to after I'm done with miles of afghan. 

Ahh...wishful knitting.

Otherwise, things are going well.  I just started on a 12 hrs/day, 3 days a week schedule.  Its fabulous!  Lots of time for keeping myself organized, working out, seeing my sweetiepie and, of course, crafting.

Yay!

I'll update with some pictures soon, promise.

So I completely changed the color scheme of the round afghan.  I'm using 5 colors rather than 9 and allowing myself a much more organic approach to row numbers.  Its about 25" in diameter right now, so its coming along nicely.  Now that I have over 200 stitches on the needles, though, its going to slow down.  Boo!



It does make a very awesome rastafarian hat while on circulars, thought:


Ooo!



I also made our save the date cards for the wedding:
yay!


That's about all for now.  My life is work work work work until my schedule changes.

Today, I'm just going to lay out the pattern and color scheme for my round blanket. I've decided that its going to be rather freestyle, but I'm going to try and stick with a regular color progression and let my row numbers vary.

Knit on 10 1/2 DPN to start, then 13 circular.

Minimum rows- 10 per color

I'm going to shoot for about 60-70 inches in diameter.

( Color scheme )

Here's a bit of what I'm working on right now:

Today, I finished one of five afghans that I'm making for a super special purpose.
Glamor shot:



I crocheted this afghan with Red Heart TLC in Purple Haze, French Lavendar, Blue Moon and Teal.  I used three different block patterns from the book 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton: Lacy Cross, Gothic Window and Big Round.  I crocheted the squares together as an assembly method.  Overall, I'd say this is a fairly quick project.  Its definately portable, as it was made up of 36 9" squares. 
Yarn-Worsted
Hook- I

I'm not sure whether or not I will crochet different square patterns together again.  It caused some frustration, and took a rather long time.  I think that if they were all the same pattern, it wouldn't be nearly as time consuming.  We'll see.

On a side note- I absolutely LOVE this book.  I don't really like working strictly from patterns, but this gives me a lot of inspiration for different blocks- and I can make just about anything from granny squares.  I *heart* granny squares.

Here's a shot of the layout: 



I went for a cross theme for the squares.  it doesn't articulate terribly well in the photos, but all of the squares have a cross going through them.  I am extremely happy with the result.  Even though it took longer than I thought, I really do like the clean edge crocheting the squares gve to the backside of the piece.  If I have time when I'm done with the other four afghans, I may put an edge around it.  I'm not sure though.  This should be a very warm and cozy addition to someone's home!

Here is the second afghan I'm working on:



It will be comprised completely of squares from the Dreamcatcher  Pattern.  They will be in cream and some other yet to be determined color.  Any suggestions on groovy colors with this pattern, feel free to comment.  This is being done up in Lionbrand Pound of Love with a size H hook.

Here's a closeup arty photo of the square:



Last, but certainly not least:



Yarny goodness for the 3rd afghan!  This is going to be knit as a round afghan from the center out in stripes of varying widths.  It should be pretty cool.  This will be done up in LionBrand Homespun and Red Heart Light and Lofty.

Until next time, knit happy!

WElcome to the first ever entry of my new blog! Here, I will document mainly my knitting/crocheting/craft projects, but I'll throw in a healthy dose of cooking experimentation, day to day life and other randomness.

A little about me:
My name is Katie. I'm 24, currently working at a local hospital as a nursing assistant, and engaged to the most wonderful man ever created ever. This is him:


Cute, eh?

The wedding is set for 07/07/07.

Ther things about me... I'm a singer- classically trained dramatic soprano and a jazz belter. Theatre and the arts are one of my passions. I love to cook- hate to clean.  Mainly, I love to create new things-food, clothes, blankets, art- all that jazz.  My focus right now is to make the perfect pie crust.  Its coming, I'm getting close :o)

I love reading, books, movies, listening to books, listening to and making music. 
So that's kind of me in a nutshell more or less.

Crafting
I have been knitting for about 6 years or so.  My first boyfriend's mom taught me how to cast on and knit-I taught myself the rest.  Now, I teach private lessons on the side.  I took a crochet class about 2 or so years ago and totally took off with that.