snapdragon crafts

sunday's stitches, vol. 1

sunday's stitches: a moment to slow down and savor whatever your stitching on

I'm determined to do more needlepoint in 2015 ... and I realized that I was my most consistent and productive when I posted weekly with my progress. So sunday's stitches is back! I love this kit, and it would be a perfect pillow to go along with the color palette of my cheater string quilt. So this will be my first project to tackle! I stopped mid-way through the light pink, so I'll continue with that color for now.

See my progress from week to week on past sunday's stitches.

selfish stitching

Are you like me? I dive head first into a slew of selfish projects the minute my Christmas gift knitting is complete! You may recognize the first project--yup, it's another fine tune cowl! I love the first one so much that I decided to make a more neon version to match the crazy eye-scorching hot pink hat I made recently.

The yarn? More Madtosh of course! The main color is called "cosmic wonder dust," a colorway I'd been coveting throughout my strict yarn diet last year. So this was my reward purchase for making the six month mark! The highlight colors are a bunch of Madtosh "unicorn tail" mini skeins. You're seeing the colorways fathom, neon peach, pop rocks, edison bulb, and button jar blue. This is knitting up faster than the first one and I loooooooove it!

My other selfish project is something a little new for me--a shawl! Normally I shy away from knitting these, as I'm not so great at artfully arranging these things on my shoulders and it's just not my day-to-day style. But lately my office at work has been freezing and I've been wishing I had something there to snuggle into when it gets chilly. This is the very first panel of a a lovely striped pattern called varjo by Veera Valimaki. I'm excited to finally be knitting one of her patterns, as I've admired them for years! The blue is another Madtosh yarn, this time in the Oceana colorway. This yarn is sentimental, as I picked it up in an amazing yarn shop located on the Oregon coast the last time I visited my brother. The neon yellow is a hand-dyed yarn I received in a swap that is a dead ringer for the edison bulb colorway. This one will be bright!

Love Your Library Challenge: 2015 Edition

Are you in? This will be our third (!!) year of attempting to make better use of that library of knitting books and patterns we've been collecting! In an effort to stay better focused, I've decided to focus on four toy pattern books I've had in my stash for ages. Now the rules of the challenge haven't changed--it's still the same challenge to actually use the books, patterns, and magazines we've collected over the years! But I'm doing a little experiment to see if focusing on a smaller subset of my library will make me more successful. Fingers crossed! The other change I'll be adopting this year is posting weekly on my progress--so be sure to visit every Tuesday to see how I'm doing and to show off your own progress! (if you'd like a button to snag for your blog, feel free to snag the "Love Your Library" image on the right)

Now, on to the books! During 2015 I will be knitting out of:

Itty-Bitty Toys: How to Knit Animals, Dolls, and Other Playthings for Kids

Knitted Farm Animals: 15 Irresistible, Easy-to-Knit Friends

50 Yards of Fun: Knitting Toys from Scrap Yarn

The Big Book of Knitted Monsters: Mischievous, Lovable Toys

This is going to be fun! Are you joining me in the 2015 Love Your Library challenge? Post a link to your blog below! Welcome aboard!

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2014 Year End Review

Wow, what a year 2014 has been! I just can't resist making these montages of everything that was completed this year--and clearly I was productive, because I've never had to make this many before!

My Ravellenic Games finishes!

7. Betula Ring Cowl

8. Lowbrow Hat I

9. Spiced Cocoa Mitts

10. Lowbrow Hat II

11. Lowbrow Hat III

12. Give 'Em the Slip Mitts

13. Lowbrow Hat IV

14. easter egg dyed yarn

15. sweater from easter egg dye yarn!

16. hunting for pine cones hat

17. squirrel dish cloth

18. apple dish cloth

19. newborn luuk hat

20. wool soaker

21. bitty bot

22. fine tune cowl

23. sewanee shawlette

24. covered tape measure

25. riverbank cowl

26. cassis shawlette

27. lowbrow hat V

28. leaf baby sweater

29. thrummed mittens

30. tarragon the gentle dragon

31. 198 yards of heaven

32. chevron delight cowl

33. duck feet

34. kid's toe-up socks

35. starfish dish cloth

36. nalu mitts

37. rainbow graffiti mitts

38. funky frank loop

39. luuk I

40. simple slippers I

41.bergen street

42. minion i-pad cover

43. robot raglan sweater

44. luuk II

45. sidewinder slouchy hat

46. baby unicorn

47. ardor shawlette

48. simple slippers II

49. frosty the snowman dishcloth

And the grand total is ....

Phew! That was a lot! And looking at the numbers, it really was my most productive knitting year to date! I nearly doubled the yardage I knit, and subsequently had a big jump in number of finished projects as well! Which really isn't all that surprising when you take a look at all the hats, mitts, and accessories I knitted this year.

Now for the moment of truth--how did I do on the resolutions I set for myself back last January? My 2014 knitting resolutions were to:

Goal #1: Knit down my stash. Results? MIXED. I knit more yardage than I ever have before, and I successfully maintained a six-month stretch with ZERO yarn purchases (wahoo!!) ... BUT I made a lot of yarn purchases in the first six months of 2014. I never did the painful calculations, but I would guess that my stash grew this year despite my productivity and yarn dieting.
Goal #2: Finish, frog, or otherwise eliminate my current WIPs. Results? Big fat FAIL on this one! LOL!
Goal #3: Continue my Love Your Library project! Results? MIXED. In total, I knit six projects from books currently in my library. I ended up taking advantage of a lot of amazing free patterns this year, but I still struggle in knitting from my vast library of pattern books.

So what am I thinking about for 2015? My biggest goal for 2015 is a net reduction in my stash size. To that end, I'll be starting another super strict yarn diet tomorrow (another six monther!) and am excited to start working on some "big" projects--I have two blanket quantities of yarn sitting in my stash that I'd like to knit up, for example. And possibly some sweaters. My goal is to consume 100 skeins this year--I'm participating in a challenge that counts partial skeins as a "skein" so this will be easier done that it sounds (and with the added benefit of encouraging me to knit up scraps and pesky remainders!). And despite my failure with Goal #2 in 2014, I'm going to continue in that vein again in 2015. I use a coat rack in my dining room to store works-in-progress in project bags, and frankly the thing is protruding with how many bags are piled on it! So I'm thinking that I will deal with one bag a month, and slowly whittle the coat rack down to a less embarrassing size. Finally, I plan to continue my Love Your Library challenge, but with a twist. I've been accumulating knitted toy books like no other--and despite my love of knitting toys, I have only knit a handful of patterns. So in 2015 I'm going to work my way through a handful of the toy books in my stash. I think the small size of the toys will make this less intimidating, and the focus of staying within a handful of books will be helpful for me. So in short, my knitting resolutions for 2015 are the same as 2014 just with little revisions of focus:

Goal #1: Knit down my stash.
Goal #2: Finish, frog, or otherwise eliminate my current WIPs.
Goal #3: Continue my Love Your Library project!

If you'd like to join in on the 2015 Love Your Library challenge, come back tomorrow! I'll post more specific details and reveal the books I will knit from throughout the year. Happy New Year!

Christmas finish: minion mayhem!

Have you recovered from all your Christmas gift knitting yet? I have one last minute finish I can now show off--another minion! This little guy was finished at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Christmas day--with the recipient to receive it the next day! If you compare this guy to the first minion I made in 2013, he's much taller and narrower. And in my opinion, more accurate in terms of looking like a minion. What a difference gauge makes! I used some yellow Lion Brand Wool I had in my stash, and despite using the same needles (size 6) this guy turned out more lean than the first. It also probably helps that I was more purposeful with stuffing him to maintain that shape, as well. The other modification I made this time was to pick up stitches and actually knit a bib front and back (instead of using duplicate stitch) and i-cord for the should straps. This approach looks soooo much better than duplicate stitch I think. The other mod I made was accidental--I totally forgot to cast on 10 new stitches after moving the arm stitches to waste yarn while making the body. Sooo.... the arms are about six inches smaller in diameter than the pattern calls for. I like this accidental mod! I wasn't super happy with how chunky my first minion's arms were.

So in short, I love how this turned out! If I ever make a third minion, then I'll probably repeat these "accidental" modifications! For more specific details about yarn and quantities, you can find them on my Ravelry project page. And the final verdict? My nephew, the recipient, went crazy and carried this guy around the entire Christmas party. Success! Now onto some selfish stitching....

fun frosty washcloth

How's your Christmas knitting going? I'm surprisingly ahead of the game for once--but it helps that I was not ambitious at all this year! I always like to send something handmade to my Grandma, as she is 200% knitworthy and one of my crafterly role models. This year I was indecisive, which meant something big was off the table. Earlier this year, I made some cute mosaic stitch (slip-stitch colorwork) wash cloths that she liked. And an idea was born. I found this cute frosty the snowman pattern, and away I went! Being thrifty, I used up some color-changing cotton I already had in my stash. I like the effect, but the face would show up better in a solid. Final verdict? Another fun, fast, good last-minute gift pattern!

Pattern: Frosty's Cloth by Becky Curran (link to my Ravelry project page)

Needles: Size 7 Addi Turbo's

Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n Cream Stripes (colorway: country stripes, used approx. 1/3 skein) and mystery cone of white cotton

Mods: None!

Christmas baking has begun as well ... here's my first batch of yummy candy. Pretzels + rolos, melted for about two minutes in the oven, then squished with an M&M on top. Can become "turtles" if you use a pecan half instead of an M&M ... YUM!

finishes!

Finally, some finishes! It's been awhile since I posted on a FO Friday! Above you'll find my finished sidewinder hat for my husband. This was a fast, fun knit and has sat for over a week waiting for me to seam the very top of the hat and weave in ends. It was fun to knit something flat for once--this pattern uses short rows to create the "decreases" at the crown. This is a perfect "manly" hat pattern--I will definitely make this one again!

Pattern: sidewinder + slouchy beanie (link to my Ravelry project page)

Needles: size 7 Addi Turbo's

Yarn: Berocco Ultra Alpaca and Knit Picks Bare DK (dyed jet black by moi). Used about 1/2 a skein each!

But wait--there's more! I finished two needlepoint ornaments in the past couple of weeks as well. Now I need to put up the tree ...

Six months strong!

I did it! I did it! I did it! I pledged to not buy yarn until January 1, 2015 so I'm sticking to that pledge ... but after that all bets are off. I think an achievement this big deserves a reward! But don't worry, I haven't worked this hard to undo all my hard work in one fell swoop. :)

mr. roboto sweater

A finish! We've already been wearing the heck out of this one. It's nice and long and roomy, so with any luck we'll get two years of use out of this sweater! The robot buttons are my favorite detail.

Pattern: Kinsale by Terri Kruse (link to my Ravelry project page)

Needles: Size 8s

Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Tonal Worsted in the Thunderhead colorway (used about 2.33 skeins for the 4T size)

Mods: None! Super straightforward and fast knit!

my cheater string quilt

I mentioned awhile back that I had a quilt top in progress that had yet to be documented here on the ol' blog-o .... ta da! Here it is! This is based off a Moda Bake Shop tutorial for using jelly rolls to make a string quilt. String quilts are something I've admired for years now, so I'm super super happy to be working on this project. The jelly rolls I'm using are from the "Spring House" line of yarn from Moda. Love, love, love these colors. Lots of turquoise blues, yellows, pinks, and greens. Super happy colors. Definitely a spring feeling to it all. This quilt is for my bedroom, which means it's king-sized. I know I will regret this fact when I attempt to machine quilt it. It has been nearly six years since I made a king-sized quilt, so there you go. So far I've used three jelly rolls of the prints, and 1.5 of the white (Kona cotton in Snow? I need to double-check that). I haven't measured to see how much additional border I'll need to get the desired overall size. For now, this project is getting packed up and put on hold so I can regain use of the dining room table with holidays + company arriving soon. To be continued!

feeling festive

I'm in complete denial that in about a week we will be feasting for Thanksgiving. Where in the world did November go? Sometimes I swear that we enter a strange time vacuum on Halloween and don't re-emerge until after the new year ... while I may want to deny the passage of time, my crafting is 100% starting to get into the holiday spirit!

I've been in the mood to do some needlepoint for ages now, and when I spotted these adorable needlepoint ornament kits on Etsy I couldn't resist. These are going to go fast! Sooo addictive and fun!

Other signs that the holidays are upon us ....