Wet Winter Cheery Lace

Wendy Johnson, of sock and lace fame, is having a mystery knitalong called Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl KAL over on Ravelry.
And of course, I love to play.
Clue 1 came out last week and clue 2 just two days ago.
It's fun so far.
I'm using a bright, pink Shibui yarn that I've been admiring as decoration for months, waiting to figure out the right project. It had to get on the needles.
I'm also hoping that the bright, poppy colours will counteract any potential old-fashioned-ness of the Estonian lace of this mystery shawl.
Love it.

Life Is Like A Grapefruit

Sometimes, it takes someone else to tell me to knit something. Hitchhiker is an incredibly popular shawl/scarf pattern by talented German designer Martina Behm. There are spinoff hat and mitts, variations on the slanting theme, and over 5000 Hitchhikers knitted on Ravelry. Then sillyfru of the Sassypants Knitter podcast started a KAL. I had this fabulous Sweet Georgia yarn in my stash that I've been wanting to use, so I went for it.

And I love it!

It's a quick, addictive knit and very rewarding in lots of ways.

You start at one corner and knit back and forth, increasing until it's time to make your first tooth (of 42). Achievement! Reward, please.

So you make another one. the rows gradually get longer.

You make another one. And another.

And before you know it, you're happily knitting endless rows just to finish one more tooth. Fabulous.

It also doesn't hurt that this is an immensely wearable scarf with its long, tapered points and squishy garter stitch centre.

I love looking at it all layed out, seeing the variegated yarn move around as the rows change how the colours pool.

All in all, one of the great wins of knitting. There's a reason why this pattern is popular. Go knit one. You'll love it.

Ravelympics 2012

Who wants to watch a bunch of chem'ed up super athletes perform things slightly faster than their peers in massive arenas?
Not me, but when you add crafting to the mix, suddenly you have Ravelympics 2012, and those events are much more interesting to my palate.
Events range from afghans to hats, from dyeing to weaving.
Looking at the list (and the time frame, since 3 weeks seems an awfully short time), I'm considering entering some (not all) of these:

• colourwork crosscountry 
• cowl jump 
• double-knit boxing 
• frogging trampoline 
• hand-dye high dive 
• hat dash 
• home stuff hammerthrow 
• lace longjump 
• mitten medley 
• scarf hockey 
• shawl sailing 
• single skein sprint 
• sock put 
• swatching coxswain 
• synchronized stash busting 
• wips wrestling

What about you? Will you be a Ravelympian? Which team? Which events will you participate in?

Cloudy Days

The last of the Stephen West shawl club patterns, and it's a cutie.

The perfect project to bust some stash.

I'm using my leftover Another Crafty Girl in Squirtle, a colour I am insanely in love with, paired with leftover Wollmeise in Feldmaus. I didn't think I had enough yarn to complete the project, but I was hoping for wool magic.

Well, it didn't happen.
Fortunately, through the magic of Ravelry, I found some more Feldmaus in a destash, but unfortunately, it's much darker than what I had (and somehow not as pretty. It's much more mouse brown than nest brown).
But I could finish the shawl, and it's very wearable. It's really more of a sideways scarf, actually. It goes perfectly with a brown felt beret that is an autumn/winter staple for me.

Carry Me Along

 You know how sometimes, you love a yarn so much, you can't bear to have the leftovers just sitting there, begging you to use them?
No? Well, maybe it's just me.
I made the Swedish Chef hat out of Another Crafty Girl's gorgeous eponymous yarn, and I had some left over. Enough for another hat, perhaps, or half of a larger project.
Then ACG announced a KAL over in her Ravelry group, for any of her Muppets-based yarns.
Perfect!
So the leftover ball of Swedish Chef joined some Wollmeise Sanguinella left over from the Vulpix shawl, and an eye-poppingly bright combination was born.
I wanted an easy project I could knit on the train while hanging out with my mum, so I wanted garter stitch. but not stripes. I wanted each yarn to shine on its own.
Enter Wingspan, a viral pattern immensely popular for its bold, simple, but pleasing construction.

I didn't end up having enough for a full shawl, but the final shawlette is adorable, and very wearable.
Great pattern, great yarns, fun times. What more could you want?

Is that a Green Lantern Lantern?

 This is my tiniest knit ever!
After the crochet disaster of the poor doomed penguin, I wasn't about to try another crochet pattern straight away.
Instead, I adapted a crochet pattern that fellow team mate dulcymh on Ravelry wrote up.
Hey, it's all stitches, right?
So I knitted the Green Lantern lantern.
I mainly followed dulcymh's pattern, but made a few modifications on the fly.

It worked out much better than I expected, and I'm quite pleased with the result.

Look at Sheldon the cat with his fancy new lantern!
He's got accessories of nerddom, all thanks to Nerd Wars and the need for tiny projects.

This was fun.
Of course, now I want to knit more tiny things. Perhaps even develop some sort of skill in it...

Knit with DK yarn on size 2.25mm needles for a *very* tight fabric.

I am made from WIN.

I'm a lucky person. Not $50-bill on the sidewalk lucky, but things-work-out lucky.
I don't win things very often, and I'm certainly no sweepstaker.
In fact, I can tell you every single item I've won in anything, ever.

This week, however, has been unusually full of win.
First, I got a message from a sock knitting Ravelry group, Sock Knitters Anonymous. I'd knitted their mystery sock back in September. Lovely sock, adored the yarn, fell in love with the colour.
And now I've won a prize. And it's yarn!
I got to pick a skein of Goddess Knits sock yarn from her Etsy shop. In honour of the occasion, I picked one in a cheery looking yellow-green, to remind me of the chartreuse sock challenge.
That, and my stash is woefully low on both yellow and green.

But wait, there's more!
Today I come home to a message from my indomitable Nerd Wars team captain, telling me I've won the Round 1 submission draw!

So full of win.

So in short, knit along with others, and fight for your nerddom. Not only does it lead to all kinds of fantastic projects and stretch your knitting, sometimes, you can even walk away with cool prizes for your efforts.

Nerd Wars

It's Nerd Wars time!
What is Nerd Wars?
Why, I'm so glad you asked!
Nerd Wars is a group on Ravelry where geeks get together to craft for their favourite nerddom.
Whether your particular geekery is video games, Star Trek or Doctor Who, you will find like-minded folks here. You can even follow along on the team-crossing blog.

This is my first time participating in an organised crafgting event, and I'm super excited.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Still am not, actually.
But I got my first pick, and for the next three months, I'll be crafting for Team Bazinga! Go team!

No-Hayfever Watercress Mystery Socks

My first ever mystery sock.
What's a mystery sock?

It's a sock pattern broken up into clues. In this case, four clues over four weeks.

You get the pleasure of watching the pattern unfold without quite knowing where you are going.

It was certainly fun, and I love the finished socks. Except for the cuff. it's very ruffly and floppy, so I'm not sure it's my thing.

I absolutely adore the color though. Happy green spring socks!

The power of hexipuffs

Are you puffing? You know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it.
You know you want to.
Hexipuffing, that is.
Hexipuffs are bite-sized little knitting projects, perfect to use up those leftover bits of sock yarn. You know, that skinny, gorgeous yarn that you really, really want to work to the very last inch.

Enter the Beekeeper's Quilt, a gorgeous and colorful way to use up those odds and ends.
At least, that's the theory.
If you're a member of the tiny owl knits Beekeeper's Quilt knitalong on Ravelry, you know that mini skeins are quickly becoming an obsession in their own right.
For now, I'm resisting the lure of purpose-buying yarns, instead I'm actually using up some of my favorite yarns that I actually made socks out of.
It'll be a nice memory to make a puff for every sock I knit.
The Kitten Overlord seems a bit nonplussed by this new development, but she's taking it graciously.
And this is where my puffs will live. Because displaying them nicely while knitting the neverending blanket may be half the battle.

So. Do you puff?

Ravelry

If you have an interest, there is a community on the internet dedicated to it.
in the case of yarn obsessions, you can't go past Ravelry for sheer encyclopedic awesomeness.
Want to be my yarny friend?