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 mid-month Progress (albeit a little late)

OWL - still down and out
MISSION - rough going. The pattern is REALLY HARD TO FOLLOW. I've frogged several sections more than a couple of times because I didn't understand the directions and have just figured out I made another mistake on a piece that I'll have to rip back and rework.  We's running into trouble here... pretty sure this will be a partial turn in for HPKCHC, but am hoping to still finish it by the end of April for NerdWars.

Potions - was supposed to be a baby blanket. Turned in for NerdWars as based on properties of water.

I used a little over Four balls of Bernat Baby Blanket - which is a chenille like super bulky acrylic. The dark blue was leftover from the bunny baby blanket buddy from last month. And the other three balls were on sale at JoAnn's last month. I cast-on toooooo many stitches considering I was shooting for a baby blanket. I added an extra set of five stripes, but it's still a lot wider than long. So, we're turning it on it's side and pretending it was vertically striped.   This will go over well at the homeless shelter, I'm sure. It's incredibly warm and squishy and lovely.

I really enjoyed the mindless knitting and would often pick it up when I got frustrated with my Order Mission. This is blanket #3 finished of 13 for 2013.

DADA / Nerdology (inspired by a Dr Who shirt with a rainbow) - Rainbow child's hat.

My typical 2-color brioche hat knit in the round... I used up almost all of the rainbow variegated Red Heart yarn and some Navy scraps donated by a good friend of mine. I shipped her the leftover Wool Ease Thick and Quick and Easy and she shipped me a TON of acrylic. Since these hats whip up so fast and can use bits and pieces of lots of different yarns (and I have fun pairing different yarns together, so that works) if I can't think of anything else, but want another hat... this is what I usually grab. Especially when I want to work with something other than bulky.

 Quidditch Challenge 3 / Flexible Scheduling (flashback inspired) - I made two Blue Butterfly squares, seamed them... and added a crown to make a hat.

Quidditch Game 3 - A purple Bulky brioche hat for a child

I used the new Hometown USA from Lion Brand yarn that I bought at Walmart. Absolutely perfect (well, except for the Walmart part). It's affordable at almost half the price of the Wool Ease Thick and Quick. It's a good spun super-bulky yarn tht shows off the stitch well and works great for these hats. I'll be making more. I also found that Michael's is starting to carry this yarn... so I'll probably pick it up there instead.

This hat gets me to 10 Charity hats out of 50 for 2013.

Divination / Flexible Scheduling - Afghan Square - about 1/3 done
Charms / Encyclopedia (architecture inspired) - 2 Stained Glass Window squares for the failed OWL blanket - not started yet -- If I can finish these two, I'll seam them with the other 10 and turn them into detention (no points)... but then I can count the yardage towards my goal. And it'll become a baby blanket instead of a full sized afghan (but that would be blanket #4 of 13 for 2013.
Herbology / Giving Geeks - Alien - not started yet

Previously unplanned - but too cute not to do them (hope they are fast)...  Dust bunnies. I'll make them for Care of Magical Creatures (to earn a badge in the Great Hall as well as the last badge I'm missing from Diagon Alley trip.  They might land themselves in some Easter Baskets if they turn out half as cute as I hope they do. Plus, I'm hoping to use some stash - which will earn a third badge... yep. But, of course, time will tell.  I'm trying to focus on the NerdWars projects I need to finish first so I can get those turned in before (or on) the 28th. The bunnies can be finished after the 28th.

For more undone than done. But, I'm working through my list as best as I can. I keep setting aside the mission and/or NOT actually knitting because it's just so frustrating. I'm going to focus on getting my other projects done instead and see what I can't whip out before the end of the month.

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.

Custom-made Knitting Notions bags are in

AND they are BEYOND aweome....!!!!

These were made by the AMAZING Kara who has a shop on Etsy - Darn it! Sew What!

She made them to my request and I think they turned out beyond cool.

First, some Gryffindor pride!

And we can't forget the awesomeness that is a stealthy craft ninja!

The material & zippers are of high quality. The embroidery is amazing. They are lined with contrasting fabric and the perfect size to hold about any notions in a knitting bag that one would want.

Add that she found the most-perfect images to use? And I couldn't be more pleased.

They run $14 regularly, although she did give a 10% discount to folks at the Knitting Retreat last month if they wanted to place a custom order. I've bragged about them on Ravelry and Facebook already... and figured I'd better pop in here and share the awesomeness on my blog as well.

Feb Mid-Month Progress Report

OWL

Keep working on the Stained Glass Afghan - goal will be to have 20 blocks completed by February 28.
Not happening. Sadly the project is bothering my wrists too much.

I have five more squares done (total of ten now). And I'm hoping to start a couple more this month and maybe turn them in for yardage... we'll see.

BROOM

Cast on Chocolate Passion Cardigan with Knit Picks Brava in dark brown (need to find buttons!).  Get to 50% done by February 28.

This is still feasible... I've got the back done. The front two sides also includes the over-sized border...

... pictures will be along a little later.

CLASSES

Flying - Bunny Buddy Baby Blanket (half plushie, half baby blanket) DONE

Charms and Muggle Studies - Charity Brioche hat x 2 DONE (pics posted previously)

DADA - Brioche Scarf

Muggle Studies - February Cabled Square
Herbology - Dishcloth DONE - x 4

Divination - February cabled square - to be started

Quidditch
two baby hats - one cabled, one crocheted with an i-cord & flower DONE

So, current plans are to start the February Aran square tomorrow. Work on the Broom cabled sweater. And work one or two squares of the Windows Afghan - though I'll probably make them one at a time so that I can turn in any that I finish into a seventh class.

Fo's - forgot the washcloths

Totally forgot to post my washcloths I finished yesterday...

These were done by casting on 3 stitches and doing a KFB in front of the middle stitch and after the middle stitch every other row... until I get to the size I want and bind off. Simple & easy... great knitting for when other things are on the mind. I didn't love the yarn self-shading too much as it is quite 'pastel' ... but it definitely makes you think of spring and using these around the house to clean seems like a useful use for the yarn that I don't love.   I used Lily's Sugar n Cream yarn and would get right around two washcloths from each ball of yarn.