New yarn!

Yesterday, I got more yarn to add to my small stash of new yarn I'd ordered from Knit Picks. I think my new yarn total comes to around $60. That's the most yarn I've ever bought in a short amount of time. Good news is that it should last me for awhile. And no more new yarn until I get a job. I really do need to jump back into looking for a job..


A lot of it is actually Lily cotton yarn. Mostly for dishcloths a couple other random projects.

We got a puppy!

On Saturday, Mom and Jim went to the pet store and there was a cute little poodle that they fell in love with. They haven't stopped talking about her since. Mom needed to go to Richmond today and she decided to take me with her. They'd agreed to get her if she was still there and asked us to take her home. When we got there, she was there. And in no time, I fell in love with her.

Isn't she just adorable? She's like a little ball of fur. The cats aren't really sure what to think of her yet and Selena hasn't even met her yet.

I learned how to cable!

I finally taught myself cabling~ I feel proud of myself. XD My first cabling project is a pair of Fetching gloves for my friend Alli's birthday. I only watched a video on cabling once, weeks ago, and I still remembered how to do it.

What do you think? Not bad for my first cables, eh?

'Nother pair of HP gloves

Yesterday I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was fucking amazing. The day that I ordered the tickets online for the movie, my friend asked me if I could get a pair of gloves like the ones I made me finished in time. I wasn't sure I could but I told her I'd try. And somehow I managed to get a pair of gloves done in 3 days. I think the only thing I've done about that quick before has been dishcloths. xD

I forgot to take a picture of them with my digital, so she texted me a picture of them:


The pattern I used for both gloves is one I came up with myself. Once I make enough of them to have the gauge where they fit me just right, I'll put the pattern up here.

A supply of dishcloths

I think I've figured out what I'm going to do with all the dishcloths I knit. Instead of filling up my projects page on ravelry, I've decided to keep them in one project and simply add the yarn and picture of the FO when I finish it. Afterall, it only takes me a couple hours, if that, to finish one. I'm still going to put up pictures of the ones I do here because this is my knitting blog. xD

I made this one at Mom's request for my step-aunt. She'd liked one I made for Mom so much that Mom wanted to give her one. So I did it this morning before she got here. I'm thinking of making myself a bunch of dishcloths to use up the yarn I only have a little of but I haven't decided yet.

New on my needles: A hat for Dad's 61st birthday in Marine colors (aka, red and gold) and redoing my brother's hat in light sage.

2 days!

I'm really excited! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out in theaters on Wednesday! Only 2 days to go! It would have been cool had I gotten both the gloves and the scarf done, but at least the gloves are done.

My friend who lives in Richmond, which is 2 hours away, wants to go see it with me. That wouldn't be as much of a problem if I had my own car and license. Everytime I run across a friend wanting to see me or wanting to go somewhere, it frustrates me that I don't at least have my license. But getting a license when you aren't used to driving takes time. Its even harder when no one really has much, if any, time to teach you.

I know I don't really talk about myself or whats going on in my life here - thats what my livejournal is for. But if anyone ever wants to get to know me better, you can either check out my livejournal, or email me at karitymitchell90@gmail.com.

My next projects are going to be finishing my wips. I've only got 2, maybe 3. There's the Slytherin scarf that needs finishing, my brother's beanie I promised him months ago, and then figuring out how I want to use up the Red Heart yarn because its not my favorite to work with. Once those are done, I'll probably go through a craze of making fingerless gloves because they're so much fun! :3

HP Premiere Gloves finished!

I feel very proud of myself today. I've completed my very first pair of fingerless gloves. I didn't use a pattern for them, so the gauge is a little tight. The next time I make them, I'll make them a little bigger so they fit better. The first glove is perfect except for the bind off. I was trying to do a new kind of bind off that ended up being real tight and I didn't manage to loosen the bind off when I switched to the usual bind off. On the second one, the bind off is a much better. The thumb hole is a little tight on both I think.

I can definitely see why people love knitting these so much. I do think I have found my newest obsession. Now to finish up some projects I've had sitting around. Once I do, I can really jump into knitting lots of fingerless gloves. And now, for a picture of my gloves:

Back to knitting!

I didn't knit a lot in June but I'm already halfway finished a pair of gloves and its only the 5th of July! They aren't the best but its to be expected, they're just practice. Once I finish up my Harry Potter knitting, I'll think about what I want to work on next.

I was having problem with tension upon trying to start these gloves and then I decided to try a different cast on method. I went with the twisted German cast on and I love it. I'm not having any tension problems at all! My binding off is a little tight, but I'll work on it. And now for pictures!

My very first finished glove.

Almost 50% of my Slytherin scarf!

Tension

Sometimes when I'm knitting the first row (especially when its via magic loop), the tension gets really tight. Not just tight but impossible to move across the needle. I've always been a tight knitter but when you can't even finish the first row because of tension, you know something's gotta change.

I want to take a couple days off of my Slytherin scarf to make myself a pair of fingerless gloves in Gryffindor colors (scarlet and gold). I tried to start them a few minutes but after getting the first part of the magic loop done, I couldn't get the second half done because the tension was impossibly hard.

Anyone have any suggestions as to how to loosen the tension?

I haven't done much knitting lately seeing as I'm only on stripe 6 of the 19 striped house scarf. But I think if I can make the fingerless gloves, I'll be happier to speed through the rest of the scarf. In awhile I'll post a new picture. I've only managed to double what I had since I posted the first picture of it. That really isn't a lot of progress.

Free Pattern: Crocheted Dishcloth

I've got my knitted dishcloth linked to my ravelry profile, so now I can easily add any more patterns I come up with! Here's the crocheted version of the dishcloth Mom taught me.


Materials:
Worsted weight cotton yarn
Size F (3.75 mm) or G (4.0 mm) hook

Skill level: Easy

Pattern:
chain 35. dc in each chain until you reach the end of the row. ch 2. turn.
dc in every dc, chaining 2 at the end of each row before turning.
continue this for 10 rows.

If you want to make the dishcloth bigger, simply add more rows.



If you make this pattern, let me know! I'd love to see what you come up with.

HP Knitting!

The 6th Harry Potter movie - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, is coming out July 15th. I've been meaning to get back into working on my Slytherin house scarf so that I can wear it to the premiere. This past weekend ABC family played the 3rd and 4th movies a lot so it got me back into the Harry Potter fandom. Thus, I've been working on my scarf. I'm going to see if I can knit about a stripe, maybe two, per day. There are 19 stripes total so each stripe is 5% and the final 5% of the scarf will be the fringe.

I'm not going to make it as big as the pattern calls for (because the HP scarves are BIG) because I'm not wearing a really thick and warm scarf in the middle of July!


After the scarf, I'm going to try to make a pair of handwarmers to wear in the cold theater. I have never known a theater to be anything other than cold. Whenever I go see a movie in the theater, I take a jacket so I don't freeze to death. The pattern for the gloves is one I'm making up. It'll be interesting because I've never done any kind of gusset before. Or anything besides hats and scarves. XD

Whats currently on my needles

This past week has been really busy with company coming and going almost all week. So I haven't really been knitting much. There have been a couple things I kept meaning to blog about but I never seemed to get around to it. I've really been slacking off in my blogging lately. My livejournal has updates for the last three days but none of them are finished yet.

Remember how I said I wanted to use up my Red Heart yarn? I think I figured out the best way. Instead of doing small knitting projects like scarves and hats, I decided to crochet myself an afghan. It will also teach me how to do granny squares, something Mom tried to teach me a long time ago and I just wasn't ready. xD She already gave me a quick run through, plus I have a link to two pretty good videos showing the same thing. Speaking of videos, I found one that taught me how to do cabling. <3 Now I can make myself a pair of nice fingerless gloves with cables on them. I have yet to make myself fingerless gloves because I've been scared of cables. Not anymore!

I don't have pictures of anything yet but I'm working on a pair of easy cabled fingerless gloves found on Knitty and an afghan that I'd like to get done before the 21st of June (Litha). It'll probably end up being just a throw for anyone when they get chilly or need something to sleep under. When I get better yarn, I'll make seasonal alter cloths for my alter. I also need to figure out how I'm going to knit a few snake bags for Dad for his birthday. We're going to line them otherwise the snakes would probably get out of small holes but thats something he can really use. I'll make a couple for me too so we don't have to keep using pillowcases for my snake.

I'm also going to try to at least get a Slytherin scarf made before the sixth Harry Potter movie comes out in July. I'm making it smaller so I can stand to wear it in July. Plus I'm not one for huge scarves. I'm not 100% sure I'll use up all the skeins with the scarf, but even most of them would be great, since I got the scarf colors in Red Heart yarn. xD Now that I know where my local LYS is, I can go there for any more of my yarn needs, especially once I get my license and have my own car.

How...?

I'm confused on how to get my designs to show up on my profile on ravelry. I've put the pattern on ravelry but I just can't seem to figure out how to link it to my profile. Do I need more than just one? I don't think I do. And how do I get my picture of the dishcloth to show up for the project? Other than gettiting it on ravelry, I'm confused on what to do.

Someone plz help me.

Free Pattern: Knitted Dishcloth

This is a pattern my mom taught me how to do that is really easy. You can get a dishcloth done in only a couple hours!


Supplies:
Worsted weight cotton
Size US 7 - 9 needles, depending on preference

Skill level: Easy

Pattern:
Cast on 4 stitches
Knit a row
Knit 1, yo, knit until there is 1 st left on the needle, yo, knit 1
Continue in this pattern until you have 40 stitches on the needle, more if you want a bigger dishcloth.
Knit 1, k2tog, knit until there are 3 sts left on the needle, k2tog, knit 1
Continue in this pattern until there are only 4 stitches left on the needle.
Bind off and weave in ends



If you make this pattern, let me know! I'd love to see what you come up with.

Using up yarn stash

I've decided to work on projects that aren't really for any one in particular at the moment so I can use up part of my yarn stash. My yarn stash is mostly made up of two different kinds of yarn - Red Heart and Caron Simply Soft. I like the Caron yarn a lot better than the Red Heart so I've decided to use it up in projects that aren't that important to me. I think I gave about half of it back to Mom (since she was the one who gave it to me anyway) and kept most of the blues and blacks for myself. After all, they are the colors I prefer working with.

Does anyone have any pattern suggestions on things I could do to use up the yarn? Right now I'm working on a 2x2 ribbed scarf and I have a couple other scarf ideas. I don't only want to do scarves though. They just go pretty quick and can use up a lot of yarn. But I know I'll get bored of scarves after awhile so any suggestions would be wonderful.

I might get a picture up of the scarf I'm currently working later today but we'll have to see.

Happy Mother's Day!

I know its late, but happy mother's day to all the Mom's out there! I finished my presents for Mama just in time for mother's day. I actually finished them right before midnight so it was still actually Mother's Day when I handed the second one to her. Like Alli's Mom, I made Mama two dishcloths (Alli's Mom actually got three) and since I was upstairs to give it to her, I went ahead and took a picture. I think this is the quickest I've ever posted pictures of something I've finished. Haha.


Everyone who's seen this picture love them. The dishcloths are so easy to do! Once I make some for me, I'll post the pattern up. Plus I'm too tired to do anything worth anything tonight.

New on my needles: My very first cabling project. We'll get to see how this goes soon.

Dishcloths = done!

Now that I finished the dishcloths for Alli's Mom (which didn't make it out today but will be going out soon), I have a picture of them! I decided on waiting to do Mom's hat so I'm making her a couple of these too. Dishcloths are kinda an on going thing for me because they're so easy and I can do them while deciding on what else to knit for me.

After I do the ones for Mom, I'll be putting up both versions of the dishcloth to Ravelry. One day I'll figure out my fingerless glove pattern.

Dishcloths = almost done!

I'm almost finished making the dishcloths for Alli's mom that I planned on making. Instead of four, I'm stopping at three cause I wanna knit something else for awhile. I'll probably knit something for me before I make Mom's hat but I know she won't mind it being late. She's not much of a hat person and its not cotton so it won't soak up sweat which means she'll probably wear it in the fall and winter but thats it. XD

I've been lazy when it comes to pictures lately so I have a bunch of pictures to put up and shall do tomorrow since I'm sending Alli's mom's dishcloths out tomorrow, or will try to. Once I do, I'll have pictures of other stuff too.

Twilight Knitwear

My like and dislike of Twilight has been back and forth but what I realized awhile ago is that what I really like about Twilight is the story behind it. The story of a vampire falling in love with his prey. And I love Alice. Alice is amazing. But that's not what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about the knitwear from the movie, cause its just that amazing.

One of the really popular items from Twilight is Bella's mittens. There's a whole list of stuff from the movie and then again from stuff people have been inspired to come up with. As for me, there are only two items I really want to make. I bet you've guessed it - they're worn by Alice. I want to make her scarf and shrug. She also wears a cardigan but I'm not much for wearing white. Although I could make it in another color. I'll decide later about that. The shrug doesn't have a pattern out yet and I'm not awesome enough yet to figure it out. So I'm waiting on Natsuki on Ravelry to post the pattern that she used the Erica Shrug and came up with Alice's. All the links are on ravelry but if you want pictures and aren't on ravelry, let me know and I'll get links so you can see them too.

With so much stuff in Twilight, I'm kind of excited to see what they come up with for New Moon. I'll probably end up getting all the movies (and suffer through watching Breaking Dawn) just for the awesome knitwear they are sure to have. xD

Mother's Day Projects

Mom absolutely loves my hat! So, I'm making her one for mother's day with her favorite yarn that's a mixture of purples and greens. It's called Gemstone so thus, her hat is called a Gemstone Lace Hat. That also lightens the load of dishcloths I have to make. They aren't my favorite thing to make, but very easy and can be done in a couple hours time. Once all my Mother's Day knitting is done, I get to decide what to make for myself next!