Shamrock Knits

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good

I had a great long weekend. I took Friday off and went to Indiana with my friend Christine and her two girls. Christine and her oldest daughter went to a Mommy and Me knitting class at our friend Lee-Ann's shop, Knitting Today. Her daughter did really well. Ah, a new knitter in the fold.

I was able to finish two of my WIPS. I finished machine knitting the tote bag. It's REALLY huge. Here's a picture of the before felting. It's a little out of focus, but you get the point.

Before felting:

36" long, 22" wide

After felting:

17 3/4" long, 19" wide

It shrunk A LOT, but it's still pretty big. I may cut the sides and front a little and have the back flap over like a cover. Or I just may cut it down a little and fold over to make a hem for strap handles. I haven't decided yet. Here's a picture of it drying while I ponder it's outcome.

 

The Bad

Non-Knitting related: I caught a cold sometime over the weekend. It's not too bad now, but I'm going on vacation soon. I hate flying when your head is congested. Plus, it's no picnic to be sick during vacation. Hopefully, it will be over by the time I go.

Knitting related: I also finished knitting the reversible throw. There's a definite difference in the dye lots, but it's just for me so I don't really care that much. I still have 4 skeins left, so I may make a pillow or something else with it. Since it's acrylic, I washed and dried it. The bad has turned into...

The Ugly

My throw has holes in it. How many you say? Four freaking holes! Three of them aren't too bad, but one is large and right alongside the cables. I am so not happy my friends. I'm going to have to figure out how to repair these. I don't think the small holes will be too bad, but I'm not looking forward to the larger hole. I don't know why this happened. I don't think they're near a yarn change. I think maybe the yarn was just weak in these spots. I had to put it out of my site after taking these pictures. I just don't want to think about it right now. Here's the overall finished product.

And here's the larger hole. I can hear the Psycho knife music as I think of it, though the Jaws music probably suits the picture better. Oh the horror. Halloween has come early. Too over the top? :)

Knitting Therapy

It's been a hectic/crappy/stressful month at work and it seems that the only moments of happiness are when I'm knitting or crocheting. I guess that's why so many people say it's theraputic. Since I got the yarn in for the reversible throw, I've been working on that. Right now, it's about 39" wide and 35" long. It's a quick knit. I've never worked with such large yarn before. Here's another pic of the front and back.

I haven't worked on the crochet star afghan or the poinsetta wreath. I figure I'll work on one blanket at a time. As far as the poinsetta wreath goes, I have absolutely no desire to sew the flowers together at the moment. I think I'll put that aside for awhile and finish it up in a few weeks.

I went to my machine knitting group today. We haven't had a meeting in a really long time. We used to have a meeting once a month, but we had schedule conflicts and then decided to take the summer off. It was good to see everyone again. Other than the patriotic throw I just did, I haven't knit on the machine in quite awhile. It's portable, but it's hard to have a conversation or watch tv while knitting on it, so I haven't used it much lately.

I started on a felted tote. I'm using Ella Rae Classic Print in a green, yellow, blue variegated yarn. I knit the front, bottom, and back today. I have to rehang parts of the bottom and knit the side pieces. Then I have to seam up both the sides to the front and back. I don't have a picture of it yet and will post one soon. I'm making up the pattern as I go along. I have 100 stitches wide and 200 rows high because felting shrinks more in height than in width. It's pretty huge right now, so we'll see how it turns out after it felts. Since it's just a tote for me, it doesn't really matter how big it is or if it's disproportioned. I would like to have a lining in it, but haven't used a sewing machine in forever. Maybe I'll dust it off and give it a try.

I have WIPs!

I've had a  stressful couple of weeks, but I have been knitting. I haven't been happy with my camera lately either. So, for an update on my projects. Yeah, that's plural. I have multiple projects going on. I feel like a grown-up knitter.

Reversible Cable Throw

I finally received the yarn from discountyarnsale this past Monday. I haven't taken it out of the bag yet, but the color looks close. I should be able to start working on this throw again. I'm going to alternate the skeins of yarn in case there's a noticeable difference in the color. But even if there is, it's just a throw and it's not a gift.

Crochet Star Afghan

I still had a ton of red, white, blue, and red/white/blue variegated acrylic yarn in my stash. I've been thinking about crochet ripple afghans and decided it would be a good use to dwindle the stash down. I came across this star shaped crochet pattern from Yarn Diva and fell in love with it. I started this pattern last week and worked on it alot last Saturday.

Felted Poinsetta Wreath

I've knitted and felted all the pieces. I didn't follow the felting instructions because I don't want to mess around with the floral wire like the pattern states. The kit comes with 2 different sized wire. The thicker wire is supposed to be fed through the green stem and up through 3 layers of petals. Then the top  layer of petals is sewn on and has the yellow french knots or beads. I decided that I'm going to sew the petal layers together and onto the wreath frame so they won't come off. I'm not a french knot person, so I think I'm going to go the beaded route. I haven't taken a picture of the felted petals, but here's one of the before flowers. There are a total of 8 flowers all together.

I went to Minneapolis Monday and Tuesday for work and stopped at the Yarnery during lunch. I saw these snowmen last year when I went to the shop, but now they've knit some up with the glittery yarn. Very cute. Of course, I bought the pattern for the accessories as well as a pumpkin pattern.

I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo lace and a crocheted lace scarf they had knit up in the store. It was really nice in person. The scarf pattern looks like a crocheted chevron ripple. I've passed up this lace a couple of times and couldn't resist any more. The blue is not as bright and the lighter color has green in it that doesn't come across in the picture. Very yummy.

My very last bit of news is that I'm finally on Ravelry! Woo Hoo!!! I was just sent notice yesterday. I've started keying in my stash. It has an export function to Excel which would be a great feature if I didn't already key my inventory in Excel a few months ago. Oh well, great minds and all.  I don't have a flicker account yet, so I'll have to do that and take pics of my yarn. Shamrockknits was already taken, so my ID is 'shamrockknitsil'. I didn't have much time to look around the site, but it seems VERY cool. I love that I can see all the projects people have made with a certain yarn.  A lot of my stash was bought because I liked the yarn and I didn't really have a pattern in mind. I think that search function is going to help tremendously. I'll be doing alot of surfing on the site this weekend.