Monday, August 30, 2010

Prisoner of TOS - Er, I mean Azkaban

Don't be fooled by the title, I love being with my knit night group! Yesterday was Prisoner of Azkaban (one of my favorite books, so the movie's awesome-ness doesn't mean as much to me), and it was a lot of fun.

Well, I'm not very articulate right now (woke up about an hour ago), so I'll leave you with some pictures!

These are the prizes I won! A pattern, 2 skeins of yarn, and a pretty handmade stitch marker.





This is a skein of Malabrigo Worsted (a hard find in our LYS's these days) in color Cabernet (oooh, I like the sound of that).

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And this is a skein of Manos Silk Blend in the illuminating color of 3008. Well, it's black. That's not too difficult to identify. Maybe because of the silk sheen we could call it onyx. Or hematite. Thoughts?

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-Sami

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

I finished something!

If you look carefully, you'll notice that something has gone from the WIP column... and made it into the finished objects column! It's been a long time since I completely finished something (since I made my sister's birthday present, the Swirls Slouchy Beret), and now my Rivendell Smoke Ring is complete!

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It's a bit more... substantial than the original concept for a smoke ring, but I used a thicker yarn, and I still think it is gorgeous. I used BMFA STR Heavyweight in color Gail's Autumn Joy, and I used about 60% of the ball. I used fewer repeats (by 2) than what the pattern called for because otherwise I would have gotten a hood more so than a cowl, and I wanted a cowl. Even at this length, it's pretty long.

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But it is so soft, and so squooshy! (Technical term, that.) And I just love the colors. The pattern itself is gorgeous, and I also think it looks fine what with the colors sort of masking it.

Right, now I just have to go and work on something else! (And finish it, too!)

-Sami

P.S. Di and I have started making really cool stitch markers. Next time I'll have lots of pictures of them. (I've replaced all the stitch markers in my projects with these.)

Sunday, August 8, 2010

HP Madness!

In honor of the approaching premiere of the 7th Harry Potter movie (part 1 of 2) in November, my knitting group (aka TOSS) has decided to have get togethers every 3 weeks or so to watch the movies in order. The past two times (the Sorcerer's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets) have been loads of fun, with games and prizes.

Here's what I've won/received so far:

I won this by being one of the HP Bingo winners (we had to listen for HP words, instead of numbers and letters). It is Malabrigo Lace in Butter (and Stacey bought it when I was working, so that was kinda cool, too).

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This yarn I won by being a trivia winner. The other winner was Stacey's 11 year old daughter, who knows probably as much about Harry Potter as I do (which is a fair amount. I'm by no means an expert, but I have read the books and watched the movies several times.), and Lynne, who ran CoS, created prizes from both of Stacey's daughters so they wouldn't be left out (so cute!). This is a Crazy Zauberball by Schoppel-Wolle.

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These yarns were in my goodie bag (Lynne made goodie bags - everyone grab one, trades allowed). They are both skeins of Alpaca & Silk from Blue Sky Alpaca. So soft. The lighter colored one is destined to be come a pair of Bamboo Mitts (gorgeous fingerless gloves - the color seems perfect).

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The next gathering is at the end of August. And then on the 19th of September, Si, Di and I will be hosting the Goblet of Fire at my house. Dad just bought a new TV (Sony Bravia, 52", so cool!) so it should be really fun. And we've come up with tasks, and that's how prizes will be won.

-Sami

P.S. Oh, I bought the yarn for the Saoirse Shawl and the Victoria cardigan yesterday. And I may have cast on the Saoirse Shawl... heh. It was too tempting!

P.S.S. I created another blog for my gardening, Seed of Serenity. Check it out!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

These Past Weeks Paraphrased

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I didn't mean to have such a huge gap, but then I went on vacation... and well, time got away from me, I guess.

This is just a quickie post saying that I still live and that pictures will be coming soon. I've made a fair amount of progress on the Aeolian (11 out of 12 repeats of the Yucca chart), and I finished my first Rivendell sock today (on a related note, what is with that heel??? some errata needs to be published for that one). I finally picked up my Rivendell Smoke Ring once I got home and I'm now 45% done.

I meant to finish the Avalon scarf and Evenstar shawl when I was on vacation, but that didn't happen. It was a very low key vaca, and none of us did a whole lot (but it was really fun because both Si and Di got to come).

But I did decide when we were away that when we got home, I'd frog the Burnished Tunic. And that's what I did, a few minutes before we left for our knit night's Chamber of Secrets gathering (we're doing a marathon of Harry Potter movies, in preparation of the 7th movie being released in November. It's fun - there are games and prizes - I have - *counts* - 4 more skeins of yarn because of it). I decided that I would wait until I could acquire the amount of yarn that is correct for my actual size (I was optimistically delusional when I ordered the yarn intended for this sweater at first).

So, I still have a lot of knitting to do, and as always, when you have a lot of knitting to do, new projects call to you. I'll talk more about that in my next post, but at this point, I've been holding out - but who knows how long I'll be able to resists the startitis. Maybe I'll just do what Di did - I'll print out the patterns of the things I want to make (good thing I just got new ink) instead of casting them on. Hmmm...

Until next time,
Sami

P.S. Oh! I set the twist on my handspun (it remained a single) and I bought the wolf plushie pattern - I just need to buy the needles and I'm on my way (the needles I have are uncomfortable to work with for this pattern)!