July EOM Post (ha! Not so late, this time)

Hats - I ended up making one hat for my son, and SEVEN charity hats!

Here are the five that I turned into Charms and CoMC that haven't been posted here yet.

After finding that I had miscounted some of the earlier hats... my new total is 28 charity hats out of 50... 56% of my annual goal.

Finished the Mario baby blanket.

Aran Square - number 1. Number 2 was just too much to tackle... mostly because it took me three times to get guage on this square.

Instead, I did another yarn-eating baby blanket. I held four strands together of various yarns... to get about 4000 yards used up and represent # 7 of the finished blankets completed out of the 13 in my goal.

And last, but not least... the finished top that I 'just had to make'.

June planning post

I got a dozen squares in a swap project over a year ago.... and they weren't 'quite' what I had in mind... but were lovely squares. I've been meaning to seam them up for AGES into pet blankets for the ARL.

HPKCHC -- When I don't have a WIP the First project ready to go, (and my wrists aren't in splints) the plan is to grab four of them and whip one out for Detention.


I picked up some CoSaBi yarn a couple of months ago - bamboo/rayon blend for socks!  The thought is that it just might be a way to get some socks for me that I can wear year-round and not be slipper-socks. Acrylic hasn't worked in the past (well, except for great house slipper-socks). So - a pair of socks!

HPKCHC -- Charms has a 'make a person look good' option - so I'm thinking some pretty lilac hand-knit socks are just the ticket.

NerdWars -- Nerdology Challenge is to look into alternative transportation. Walking! Feet - need coverage for long walks. Still uncertain of my team tie-in I want to use for June. Might be Team Tardis, might be something with Mythology - must decide.

Charity Hats - at least one, maybe two

HPKCHC -- Divination has us staring into the Fire for finding answers to questions. Global Warming and severe storms has me worried about weather. I see cold people in the fire seaking warmth.... so warm hats for charity will help me for the vision.

NerdWars - Giving Geeks Challenge is to prepare for foul weather during fair weather. I plan to donates the hats finished this month, plus some of the earlier hats done this year to a clothing donation site. (Normally I wait until Fall - but they need to be 'delivered' now).

I picked up some lovely cotton/linen blended tonal yarn at the LYS last Saturday... LOVELY yarn. I want to support my LYS, plus I love that they take the time to think about me with their non-wool-content yarn. Since they keep me in mind, I want to recipricate by buying up the lovelies!  They didn't quite have enough of the dark green for a top, but they had a really nice tan-nuetral color to go with it. I'm thinking a stripey tank.

HPKCHC -- Care Of Magical Creatures - Protect yourself from heat. Cotton/Linen yarn? Yeah - this is an easy fit.

NerdWars - Encyclopedia Challenge - has us using Birthdates as inspiration. I found out that the birth stone for June USED TO BE Agate. I found some nice agate photos - one that had a ripple stripe look (but not green, sadly) and another with a nice shade of green. I'm pretty sure I can sell the top as inspired by agate.

13in2013 is suffering - between blankets not wanting to be the size planned and seven weeks in splints... I'm planning a SUPER fast baby blanket (colors to be determined). Double Crochet - with stripes. Simple and fast. 

HPKCHC -- History of Magic has us making baby items

NerdWars - Discovery Challenge - inspired by new life - need I say more?

Aran Blanket Square - at least 1 - pattern to be determined - in a shade of blue

HPKCHC -- Herbology - Craft a cushioning object to hold your pottery to protect it - strategic pic with some pottery on top should work.

Adipose! My inner Doctor Who Geek has been wanting to make one for ages. I wasn't going to do it this month, but then I saw a prompt and decided I could write up a cute little story line with the Adipose.... and how often can you tie Dr Who to Hogwarts? Not often, let me just say. But it should be fun.

HPKCHC -- Defense Against the Dark Arts - make your presentation of what you think a Boggart will look like if it doesn't have anyone looking at it (which would make it turn into the object you fear the most). Adipose are cute, little giggly things... sweet, and harmless. Well, harmless when they are removed from your body slowly... deadly in other circumstances. Kind of like how a boggart is harmless all by itself, but when you confront one - well, not so much!

NerdWars -- Flexibility Challenge - Tied to a drink - I'm thinking Adipose makes me think of my nutrition shake. Mostly white and cold (why do I think they're cold? eh) and formless.... and affects your body weight.

Totebag - I'm a sucker for bags of all sorts... and when I found out there was going to be a speed challenge for making a totebag ON THE DAY I have to get up at 5:00 AM AND SPEND THE DAY TRAVELING (but not driving) - with MUNGO knitting time! Well. Try to keep me from signing up!

HPKCHC -- Quidditch speed trials - Training Film #3 - Start June 6th - competing against other crafters and most points for the early finishers.

NerdWars -- Flexibility Challenge - Not sure I can tie it easily to a drink - but thankfully, they made the challenge optional this term (NICE!).

I'd also like to make at least 2 charity hats and 2 blanket squares - but I don't know if they will fit into Quidditch event number two or get turned into classes with another object. I'll wait to turn the others in until I know what the Scrimmage #1 event requirements are.

May mid-month progress

First, the two scarves - these are made with 'special' (read this as not my favorite) yarn. A simple chain stitch (not so simple due to the blankety-blank nature of said 'special' yarn).

And voila - a frilly (not my style), ruffly (not my style, but at least not SUPER ruffly) scarf.

Perfect to donate to the west coast charities that donate these to women who have been rescued from the sex slave trade or from domestic violence. Something to help them feel worthy. That's something I can get behind.

A second Crocheted necklace - also a simple chain stitch - multiple strands, knotted 'just so'. Another specialty yarn, this one not as bad as the first. I so-so like it, might give it to my niece when I get to go see her this summer... might hang onto it. I had hopes for purple... but was feeling really sick by the time I had made it to the LYS that carried this yarn... and it's a lot more pink than purple. But, it's a nice necklace.

A macrame bracelet - this didn't turn out very well. I do think macrame tied to using suede cord can make an awesome bracelet that would be very wearable. But, this one just didn't turn out very well. I ended up recycling the cord and button after I finished it, as I just wasn't pleased with the end result. It might be partly the colors, but mostly my lack of tension and not getting the end quite right. I wish I had darker colors for the suede I have. But, hey, this was ultra-discounted at a going out of business sale of an LYS, and at the time, I had no idea what I would ever make with it. I will probably try some other macrame with it in the future.

Dyeing a skein of ugly-to-me pink cotton yarn.-- not going to do this one after all. The prompt was to do something with a dark purple... and dying this yarn to purple might still be in the future. But, I didn't manage to get to the stores to buy the dye and my wrists are a little healthier now than they were at the beginning of the month... so instead I used already existing purple super bulky to create another charity hat (just like tons of other charity hats). When my wrists were just so-so, this is such a treat to do some mindless knitting. Though, I think that I'll probably start focusing in the future on doing more with worsted weight scrap-yarn... it takes longer, but those hats are fun as well (love doing the reversible) ... but for a super-quick, get it done with minimal work, this is the pattern I just keep coming back to. (for folks not aware - it's the Elizabeth Zimmerman Brioche Watch Cap pattern).

Quidditch came along while I wasn't looking and peaked my interest... the first event was non-crafting.. to just use Ravelry to clean-up or manage either queue or favorites, etc. I cleaned up my queue a ton removing things that were no longer as inspiring as they were when they were added, re-organizing my tabs as the tabs I had weren't all getting used.

And then, the 'heat training film'.... squeee. It was for charity knitting (hmmm... can't imagine why that would appeal) and either making up to five squares or five hats.... bet you can guess which of those I picked.

Two of my favorite Brioche hats, and three crocheted hats. Sometimes crochet bothers my wrist more... so I tend to avoid it. But these are powerfully fast to make (20 minutes) versus the 2 hour brioche hat pattern. So, I whipped out some more super-bulky (had to be fast, right) hats.

My target goal is 50 charity hats in 2013.... and these six last hats brings my total to 16. A little low for the year, but remember, I spent seven weeks without being able to do any crafting at all. I'm sure I'll catch up with my productivity pretty quickly.

In progress...

My dead fish hat. Doesn't look much like a fish just yet, you can see the lips and the stripes on the body... I am working on the decreases to the tail - then there are the fins and eyes to add... I'm really enjoying the whole, grab a random color from the scrap pile to throw in and might be doing more 'scrap' hats this summer.

Not started yet - Know Your Mushrooms baby blanket... need to wait until 5/26 to start it. Figure that gives me plenty of time to work on my Dead Fish Hat.

Not worked on yet - My little half-done dragon. I'll pick him up as soon as the dead fish hat is done... though it might be June before he's done-done.

March end of month progress post

OWL - not big enough to count... but after cutting it in half, I think it will make an awesome baby blanket:

It's definitely bright and colorful even with all that black. It's almost luminescent.  I had planned on making 25 squares to do a full-sized afghan.. but there was no way I was going to manage to make 25 squares with my sore wrists and I was definitely tired of the pattern by square 10. Since this isn't made to OWL requirements, this got turned in as my second detention project.

 This is finished blanket #4 out of 13.

MISSION/Dissertation - Mission was turned in as a partial. Disseration is still in progress.  Here's my current in-progress photo.

DETENTION

Woops... I need another picture of my sweater...

Potions  - Discovery Challenge:

Baby blanket turned big (guess it's Karma for the OWL that got made small)

Divination (missed deadline for Nerdwars, ended up using something else)

DADA & Nerdology:

Charms & Encyclopedia: (2 of the squares for the Stained Glass Window afghan)

Herbology & Giving Geeks:

This little guy is Arthur the Alien, made with scraps of acrylic... I was worried he wouldn't look 'alien' enough... but my 9 yr old knew immediately that it was an alien and had weird ears. So, that works. He's been mailed off to the 600 Monsters project and I hope he brings a little comfort to someone.

Quidditch 1 & 2 & Flexible Scheduling:

And then an impromptu little project for CoMC made with scraps, a little Dust Bunny:

Not as much as I had hoped, but more than I thought was possible. So, that's all good, right? I'm still sad that I missed out on finishing yet another OWL and yet another Mission. I'm definitely going to try to shoot for ONLY an OWL next term. And probably won't do a Dissertation for NerdWars so that I can focus on finishing my OWL.

Now to start planning April!!!! Woooohooooo!

March Planning

I know. I know. It's already the sixth of March.  I'm not very on top of things right now.  And I REALLY, REALLY struggled to figure out what I wanted to make and how to fit it into the various prompts.

OWL - bombed. Dropped out. sigh. sad.

MISSION/Dissertation - in progress. Will keep tackling it. But, it's currently in time out as I'm frustrated with it. I mis-crossed a cable. Dropped just the cable stitches down about six rows. But then I ended up with a little bit of a mess. Dropped down about ten more rows. Ended up with a bigger mess. Ended up setting it aside. Pretty sure I just need to take the  needles out and completely frog back to a good row and start over at this point. But it was bugging me and I was mad. So, it's in time out. I'm hoping to make a big dent in it this weekend.

DETENTION:

Turned in my finished Brown pullover -but the pic is AWEFUL. Am planning on getting a better picture this weekend! Will post it then.

CLASSES:

Potions - (craft something soothing) Baby Blanket #3 - using pattern Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Baby Blanket -- I really, really like the colors of the pattern picture and wanted to do those colors. BUT. I also wanted to use Bernat Baby Blanket yarn which didn't have enough of the color options I wanted. It's also a bit super-bulky. I was going to cast on fewer stitches. Then I ended up casting on just as many as called for. Had about 8 hours into the project before I realized just HOW SUPER BIG it was becoming. But it's super fast. It's garter stitch. And it's coming out lovely. I'm using a solid blue, a solid tan, a tan & white variegated, and a tan, white, blue variegated yarns. I'll add extra rows to get it semi-roughly-square-ish shaped as opposed to being 2 1/2 times as long as it is wide.

NW: I'm also turning this blanket into Discovery - physical property of water (well, I hope). I just have to figure out a way to tie it to beach foam; which it does remind me a little of. Then I can also tie it to Bad Wolf Bay (being all beachy looking) for Dr Who tie-in.

Divination - (craft something that blocks cold from your skin) another 12 1/2" Aran Square - Woollen Collectibles March Square - again in Blue, probably in newer Red Heart, With Love yarn.

NW: I'm using this for Flexible Scheduling - there were flashbacks in Harry Potter movies where Snape would remember his time growing up with Lily Evans. Lily has blue eyes. For team tie-in - I'm back to Dr. Who... tying to how he would talk about time being all timey-wimey in the episode Don't Blink.... and I think this square is all timey-wimey wonky.

DADA (craft something with at least two colors of the rainbow) - I'm creating a charity hat with half blue yarn and the other half all rainbow-ish.

NW: I found an awesome Dr Who shirt to use for Nerdology. It features a rainbow, a tardis, on a Navy background. I'll tie it to an episode in Dr Who where one of the gents is singing "Over the Rainbow".

Charms (practice a charm - practicing Gemini) - I'm going to try to fit in two more of the Stained Glass Afghan squares in here.

NW: Encyclopedia - represent Architecture... stained glass windows should work fine. Tie-in to the Dr Who episode where they find a Tardis in a Stained Glass window.

Herbology (craft something to overcome shyness) - Creating an Alien stuffie that I can send to 600 Monsters.

NW: Giving Geeks - is for Victim Aid groups, so this is a great opportunity to give another stuffie to 600 Monsters.  For team tie-in I'll use Dr. Who's non-Aliens the Silurian's. They look very alien-like, but were the first hominids on earth. Some of them have three eyes... as does my little alien.

QUIDDITCH
 - Convert stitch pattern into something else... I'd like to find a lace stitch pattern I can use to base a hat off of.

NW: Flexible Scheduling - I'll use Tardis blue and I'll tie it to the flashback on the television series Castle - The Blue Butterfly based on color. The right color choice, and I get a team tie-in and tie to the flashback and it'll fly well.

QUIDDITCH TWO
 - Hat - a hat, any kind of hat. Will have to see what prompts are left for the Hat Study Hall and fit this in there.

February - End of Month post

OWL

Ummm... yeah. Still stuck at the 10 completed from mid-month. Once I realized that I wouldn't be able to finish 25 of these (15 more in six weeks). I kind of crashed on it. I am hoping to still do two more and make a smaller blanket, but it probably won't be til the end of March.

MISSION

I still owe you pictures of the cardigan-in-progress. I proposed my BROOM as the Chocolate Passion Cardigan. The back was super-fast and pretty easy. The panels that go from the bottom center to the front, up the front and then curve around the neck? Not so easy. I've restarted a couple of times. Funny enough, it wasn't the short rows nor the cables that tripped me up the most (although there have been plenty of mis-crossed cables to have to fix). It's mostly been that the directions were really not very clear and have caused me a lot of heartache.

CLASSES
Flying - DONE

Baby blanket 2 done of my goal of 13 blankets in 2013.

Charms & Muggle Studies - DONE

These were hats #4 and #5 from 50 planned for 2013.

DADA - DONE

Herbology - DONE

Divination - DONE

Quidditch x 2 - Two more hats - DONE

I didn't quite get as far as I hoped on the MISSION nor the OWL (in fact, have caved and admitted OWL-failure already). But, I still got a lot done.

PLUS, I participated as a Ninja in Nerd Wars!!!!  I was able to submit the OWL hat and five of my squares for the OWL to Flexible Scheduling. The Twisty screw-like cables on my Aran square for Discovery, the Bulky bright-colored scarf and hat to Encyclopedia (reminicent of a picture of a winter carnival), the blue bunny blankie for Nerdology (inviting Elmer Fudd to eat some wabbit with me). Plus I gave a charity donation to a worthy cause for Giving Geeks. Gotta love being a nerd.

January 2013 Planning Post

My OWL was approved! My OWL was approved!!!! I'm both really, really excited and really, really scared all at the same time. I'm now doubting my ability to get it done... but I'm going to give it a good college try.

OWL
My First blanket to start in 2013 (of the 13 blankets in 2013) is the Stained Glass Windows Afghan.  Stunning, really. I'm using Knit Picks Brava Worsted yarn in BRIGHT shades of the rainbow with the black edging (because really, you do need to use black for leading a stained glass window).  I'm making it 5 x 5 squares, so it'll come out a bit 'bigger' approximately 60" x 60". Plenty big to curl up under. 

Plus it's a perfect Potions project, with all that color?!

BROOM
I am planning on proposing to make the Chocolate Passion Cardigan for my BROOM - Order of the Phoenix Mission. (which won't be able to be started until the end of the month) I am also using Knit Picks Brava Worsted yarn in brown as I really do look the dark, rich color from the pattern pictures. This has a very interesting construction and I'm looking forward to trying it. It also has some fun cable details and I do love me some nice, thick cables.

I'm planning to propose it under the infiltrate Hogwarts by posing as an OWL student. Since I've failed my Herbology OWL and this pattern is just under Herbology requirements, I'm certain this should fly.

CLASSES
I am going to work really hard at not over-doing my class participation this term. I am NOT jumping on the Crazy train. I am not jumping on the crazy train. I am not jumping on the crazy train. (I will be repeating this to myself often, don't mind me... just trying to get a little less cup-crazy).

1. Penelope the Empathetic Monster - by Rebecca Danger for the 600 Monsters project using stash leftover acrylic. They (and I) are aware that Sandy Hook is currently turning away contributions that they cannot manage. I think the whole world wanted to reach out and ease their burden simultaneously. This whole project was originally planned such as to hold off and provide the toys a little bit later after the flood wore off. They're still thinking that might apply, but if it's still too much at that time, they are planning on monsters going to children affected by violence anyway. Which is a wonderful opportunity to give a child a hug who needs it, even if it's from a distance.

I am planning on using Care of Magical Creatures to turn in this project under the option of - to provide strength.

2. Small baby blanket from Lion Brand I am planning to use some yarn I purchased at my LYS - Hill Vintage & Knits from Cascade Cherub in Aran (I think). In shades of Blue and Cream. This should be blanket #2 of 13 started this year.

Still have to decide which class this fits into at this point.

3. A blanket square of some sort - probably a heavily cabled one from O-Wool. They have a 12 month afghan project with a square per month. And January's month looks as good to me as any. This will be part of blanket #3 of 13 started this year - though unless I can figure out how to make more than one square a month, I might have some issues getting a blanket with only 12 squares.

I was thinking this would be an excellent fit for the Herbology prompt craft an item that is excessive in fussy details.

4. A hat (maybe only one, maybe more if I find myself needing more portable projects. This will be the one in my bag that I carry with me. I'm using stash yarn and making my Brioche watch cap (in the round) using worsted weight yarn. This is hat #1 of the 50 I'm attempting to make this year.

One of the yarns is variegated - so it should be a good fit for - Potions - Craft with a variegated or self-striping yarn.

I've looked at the Quidditch prompts and while I might participate, I might not. Nothing stands out right now as an 'ooooh - I need to do x'. I thought about post-poning working on my Monster to include it in the Mascot challenge, but I've already put off starting the monster for a week and while I'm glad I did, I'm also really glad not to wait even two more days. I thought about doing a second monster in new colors for Quidditch, but don't really feel the NEED to do so. And since I'm trying to avoid the crazy train, I think I'll save the participation in Quidditch for when I feel the NEED to do so (or, well, as soon as I can figure out a place to put a charity hat - lol).