WIP Wednesday: Slowly, But Surely

So, I have been thrown into yet another bout of running around like a crazy person this past week, which has certainly taken a tole on my crafting time. Not only did I have a bunch of personal crap to deal with, but last night I taught a knitting class at church ... to about 20 women! It was crazy. Luckily I had assistance by a few other knitters, but man, that was just flat out too many to try and teach in the 1 hour period we had. There were a few who really took to it though, and most of them still seemed enthused when it was over, so that's good. We had so many that there is talk of doing another teaching activity so they can get further in our project.

So, since last I wrote about my WIPs, I did manage to have something to show for my time :)

I finished my Bunsen and Beaker square for the Geek-Along. I managed to finish this one in just a few days because I actually buckled down and worked on it for stretches of longer than 20 minutes like the Tesla square, lol. I feel much more confident in my tapestry crochet abilities now, that's for sure. I'm excited to keep going with the blanket :)

Also, miracle of miracles, is that a sleeve cap I see on my Emelie cardigan? Holy crap, guys, this thing is going to get finished if it kills me. I made the entire sleeve cap once and started on the sleeve itself, but my wrap & turns looked like a hot mess. I never realized that I didn't actually know how to properly wrap & turn. I mean, I knew the wrapping and turning part, but I never worked the picking up of the wraps correctly before. So, since I love this cardigan and this yarn and I've spent so much time making it, I decided it was a perfect time to finally learn it correctly. I tried reading written instructions, but it still wasn't clicking and I couldn't get it right, so I turned to the Free Short Rows Class on Craftsy which finally saved my butt. I am just a more visual person, and I need to see things done in real time.

So now my sleeve cap is looking really nice :) I'm now ready to progress onto the actual sleeve knitting, so hopefully I get more time to work on this in the near future. I'd really like to have this one to wear. It may even assist in distracting the eye while I wear my Skewed Flowers Dress, lol.

In my book world, I am finally finishing This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I actually read half of this book last year, but it's seriously so full of 1910s slang that I could barely understand it. I know that probably makes me sound like a bonehead, but seriously the dialogue is just nuts. So when the audiobook was available this week, I snagged it. I've already passed where I had read to in the physical book, and the audiobook helped a bit on that first half, but holy cow I'm so confused when these people talk, lol. I'm a big history buff and I love historical films and literature, but I've never heard most of this jargon. I am determined to finish it though, so hopefully it all makes sense in the end.

And that's what I've had going on in the craft world these past few weeks. If you'd like to see what others have in the works, head over to Gracey's Goodies and check it out :)

WIP Wednesday: Geek-Along, Teaching Knitting, and Sew Much More

This week has been quite filled with making things :) I managed to finish my first square for the Geek-Along this weekend - my Tesla coil. I decided to do my blanket in crochet, and I learned how to do "tapestry" crochet just for this project. It's actually really easy, the only part I struggled with is figuring out which way to twist the yarn when I changed colors to avoid gaps in color. I got much better with this as I went on, so the top half looks much better in my opinion. It was pretty fun - it's nice to do something really simple where technically it's all single crochet. Following the chart and changing colors for the picture prevented me from getting bored with it like most every other blanket I've tried to make. It definitely bolstered my confidence in the project as a whole, so last night I started my next square: Bunsen and Beaker.

I grew up watching the Muppets (I'm of the Muppet Babies generation, after all), and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker were always some of my favorites. So when faced with which square to work on next, this was the obvious choice. So far I'm sticking to the colors suggested by the designers (I mean, OF COURSE Bunsen and Beaker had to be green and orange). I pulled some Red Heart Super Saver in Spring Green and Red Heart With Love in Mango out of my stash, and I think these are bright and fun colors for the block. I managed to get this far last night before I decided to sew instead, ha ha.

I was asked to teach a knitting class for an activity at church in May that my mom is heading up (they are calling it "Get Your Granny On!" ha ha and they can choose to learn knitting, sewing or crocheting). Since the class will only be about 1 hour of real instruction, I wanted to choose a project that at least seems attainable to the new knitters. As boring as the idea sounded to me at first, I decided on teaching them with a washcloth/hotpad (whichever they want to use it for). I looked up simple, free washcloth patterns and at first thought that one of the knit/purl pop up design ones would be easiest since it just uses the two stitches, so I made this to try it out:

This is the Heart For Ruthie pattern, which I found for free on Ravelry. In theory this was super easy, but holy cow was it crazy following that chart! I decided to make a garter stitch edge instead of moss stitch like the pattern, and I kept messing up reading the wrong line. I had to start over 3 times! Even though the stitches are simple, I decided that following this chart would just be too complicated for a new knitter (especially considering I've followed charts before and had a problem), so I kept looking. I decided to try out this one next:

This is the Feather & Fan Dishcloth pattern, also found free on Ravelry. I was glad to find a pattern that used all the same stitches I used on my first knitting project: knit, purl, yarn over, knit 2 together. I found other feather and fan patterns, but they all included slip slip knit and sometimes even slpo! Definitely not what I wanted to teach for newbies. This pattern worked out great! It was ridiculously easy to memorize the lace pattern and I had this whipped up in about 1.5 hours. This was the example to show the ladies what they will make if they sign up, so I don't have it now, but I plan to use it myself soon :) I've heard good things about knitted dishcloths, but I always thought they would be too boring to make. I also tried this pattern out by teaching my mom to knit - and she took to it wonderfully! This is no small miracle since her mom had tried to teach her when she was younger and pronounced her as hopeless (my mom is left handed, so she tends to be difficult to teach). I was amazed at how quickly it clicked with her and she has completed 3 repeats of the pattern so far :)

I've also been very into sewing lately, and I have 4 finished projects that are waiting to be blogged (!), which is pretty crazy for me. I'm going to space out the posts over the next 2 weeks, so look for them coming soon. Here is a sneak peak at something that I transformed just last night:

This skirt is not a skirt any longer (insert evil laugh here). I'm pretty pleased with how is turned out, so I'm hoping to get pictures of it soon.

So, stay tuned here for more fun creations coming up the next week or so :) In the meantime, head over to Gracey's Goodies to see what others are stitching up!

WIP Wednesday: Secrets Revealed and New Project Planning

Things have been moving right along with the Fuzzy Mitten Mystery KAL, and this week I managed to actually make up the clue, lol. It's the shell! The mystery is officially solved - it's a turtle :) I was right! 

The nicest part about this clue is that the designer included instructions on how to knit it in the round - bless you, Barbara Prime! lol I really don't enjoy seaming and I don't mind using dpns at all, so this worked great for me. I only had one snag though ... I was knitting and knitting, getting closer to the moment that I would close things up and  be finished. I kept thinking, "Where does the pattern say to stuff the shell? Does it not get stuffed? That's so weird!" and I kept knitting anyway. Then it hit me - I was changing the original pattern - the pattern is actually written to knit flat and then seam, so you would stuff it after it's completely knitted - ugh oh.

I had already finished knitting the main part of the shell by the time I figured this out. Not wanting to unpick my stitches, I tried stuffing it through the teeny tiny cast on hole on the bottom first. It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but with determination it worked, lol. Also, for the record - I HATE this kelly green yarn. It's Loops and Threads Impeccable from Michael's (their in-house brand) - I purchased a skein a few years ago and remembered it was similar to Red Heart With Love, when I saw this awesome kelly green I snapped it up. They have definitely changed their product! This yarn is awful. It's so grippy that I could barely get it to slide off my needles, and it gripped itself ridiculously too so it was difficult to keep the stitches even looking. I had another skein of this yarn, and I took it back I was so unhappy with the kelly green, lol. So just be aware if you're in the market for acrylic yarn - stay away from this stuff!

I'm kind of sad to post a picture of my Agatha cardigan, lol. It looks almost identical to the last photo I posted of it. I did knit a few rows this week, but that was about it. Again, I'm working all over my house and redoing furniture in my spare time, so it hasn't left much time for knitting. I'm not too worried about it though since this is a long-sleeved wool sweater and our temps are in the low 90s in the day already. Ugh. I hate Florida summer.

Also, I had kind of a sad morning a few days ago, and decided to console myself by trolling Ravelry boards. I had seen the Geek-Along last year posted by various people, but it just didn't interest me at the time. For some odd reason, this project really appeals to me now. Random! The cool thing is that this year they are making all the blocks with patterns for either double knitting or tapestry crochet - pretty cool. I'm actually contemplating making two blankets - one crocheted with the official blocks for this year so I can enter the contest at the end of the year and one knitted with random blocks I like from last year along with ones I make up myself. I think it's a fun idea. This year's theme is Mad Scientists (the example block up there is for Tesla), so I think it could be a fun project. They will release 48 free block patterns and the blanket is designed to be made up of 24, so you can choose your favorite blocks as you go. My only change I will make is to use worsted weight yarn instead of sport - I have very little sport weight yarn and my stash is overwhelmed with acrylic worsted, so it's the obvious choice. Anyway, I haven't technically started any blocks yet, but I've watched videos on how to crochet intarsia so I'm itching to get started when I get an evening to myself. The Ravelry group is here if you want to join in the fun!

So that's what I have going on this week :) Head over to Gracey's Goodies to see what else is happening in the yarn world.