Look!  I finished something!  It’s my Under the Rose fingerless gloves that I knit for the Ravelympics!  I love this pattern and the yarn I’m using.  The pattern is designed by Wendy from Ganiggle Knits.  I have tiny 6 inch wrists, so I knew these would be too large on me.  I cast on 48 stitches instead of 60 (one less repeat) to make them fit.  It worked, and they fit perfectly!  I didn’t weigh the yarn, but I think I have about half a ball left of the main color and at least three quarters left of the contrasting color.  The gloves are beautiful!  I started them on August 8th, and finished them on August 12th.

And I got a medal for it from Adonis Dionysius Bobicus Maximus!

Pattern: Under the Rose

Pattern Source: Ganiggle Knits

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette in Edamame and Huckleberry Heather

Amount of Yarn: 1 ball of each color

Needles: US Size 1 DPN

Date Started: August 8, 2008

Date Finished: August 12, 2008

I’m designing some fingerless gloves for my second Ravelympics Project!  I’m not going to post pictures yet though, it’s a secret.

Only four more rows of my Under the Rose fingerless gloves!!! (Ravelry link) Then the thumb that I should be able to finish in 10 minutes!  Next for the Ravelympics, either a sock or I’ll design fingerless gloves.  I still need to decide!

That is my necklace.  I made it.  I was a finalist in the 2007 Fire Mountain Gems Beading Contest!  It’s called the Blueberries and Grapes Drop Necklace.  Now I can look at it on the Fire Mountain Gems website!  The picture they took makes it look so nice!  I’m so happy and excited about it!  I already have my necklace for the 2009 contest finished, I just have to take pictures!  The necklace is made with sterling silver, amethyst, quartz, and blue lace agate.  When I entered the contest, I had no idea that I would be a finalist, but I was!

The Olympics and the Ravelympics started on August 8th.  I’ve been knitting my Under the Rose fingerless gloves with Knit Picks Palette for the Glove Decathlon in the Ravelympics.  I have one glove finished and I’m in the middle of the thumb gusset for the second one.  I love this pattern!  It’s easy to follow and knit, and it’s beautiful!  I can’t wait to finish the second glove!  When I do finish it, I’ll either knit a pair of socks with the sock blank that I got in a swap, or design a pair of fingerless gloves.  I haven’t decided yet.

Happy knitting!

Today is the first day of the Olympics and the Ravelympics!  For the Ravelympics, I’m going to be knitting Under the Rose from Ganiggle Knits.  I cast on today at 8 AM I right now I have 2 rows done!  I’m using Knit Picks Palette in Huckleberry Heather and Edamame.  The yarn is soft and I really like it.  I don’t have pictures yet though.  It doesn’t look very interesting right now anyway, just two rows of 1×1 ribbing!  Hopefully I’ll finish it in 17 days before the end of the Olympics…

I’ve also been test knitting!  I’m testing Echoes of Eden for Ganiggle!  It’s a fingerless glove.  I have one finished right now.  The yarn I’m using is Knit Picks Gloss in the Cosmos color.  I love this yarn.  The color is so pretty and the yarn is so soft!  Sorry, no pictures yet.

Wow, really short post!

I made some soap today!  Inspired by the OT: FGF Insanity group on Ravelry and my square watermelon sock blank, I made square watermelon soap!  It was really easy to make, so I’m going to tell you how.

Square Watermelon Soap

Materials:

• clear glycerin soap
• square or rectangle soap mold
• soap dye
• plumeria soap scent
• pearl soap powder (this makes the soap opaque)
• rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle
• coffee mug or glass measuring cup to melt soap in
• polymer clay slicer or knife
• microwave
• popsicle sticks or something to stir soap
• wax paper

1. Cut soap into small pieces and put a small amount into the mug.  Microwave until melted.  Add a few drops of every color of dye you have to the soap until you get something blackish or brownish.  Use a popsicle stick to drip melted soap onto wax paper.  These are the seeds.
2. Cut more soap into small pieces.  Melt soap in microwave.  Mix in green dye, pearl powder, and plumeria soap scent (or another scent) to make dark green.  Pour a thin layer (about an eighth of and inch) into the bottom of the mold.  Spray with rubbing alcohol to pop bubbles.  Let sit for a minute or two
3. Melt more soap and add pearl powder and plumeria scent to make white soap.  Pour a thin layer over the green.  Spray with alcohol and let sit for a few minutes.
4. Peel seeds off of wax paper.  Melt soap and mix in one drop peach color, one drop red, and a few drops of plumeria scent.  Put a few seeds on top of white layer.  Pour pink soap.  Put more seeds on top and push down with popsicle stick.  Spray with alcohol.
5. Let soap dry.  Remove from mold.  Cut into mini watermelon soap bars if desired.  Wrap soap, or use right away!

I got a package today!!!  It’s my sock blank from the Dyed Sock Blank Swap on Ravelry.  I opened the box and saw a tag that said it was from Pink Wool (Pinkwool on Ravelry).  The sock blank is beautiful!  The package also had some little beaded stitch markers that Pinkwool made for me and a tiger tape measure!  The stitch markers are just the right size for socks!  Lisa tie-dyed the Knit Picks sock blank in blue and purple. (my favorite colors!) Thank you so much, Lisa!!!

Pretty yarny things!!!

I also dyed a few sock blanks myself with cushing acid dyes.  The seeds on the watermelon blank spread out a lot, but it still looks good!

This one is called “Square Watermelon”

I dyed this one for my mom

Last Friday I went to a Red Sox game with my family!  I don’t know too much about baseball, but it wasn’t a very good game for the Red Sox.  They lost against the Yankees.  I do have some nice pictures from the game though.

David Ortiz

It’s Fenway Park!

More pictures!

The Citgo sign

And on Saturday I went to the Knit and Crochet Show in Manchester, NH!

There was a Ravelry meet up there!  I met Jess and Casey.  There were a lot of Ravelers, but not as many as the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  Jess was giving out stickers!  It was a lot of fun!

There’s Jess and Casey wearing green.

All the Ravelers around the buttons

The stickers

The show was pretty big.  Lots of vendors were there.  Habu was one of them.  I had to buy four cones (2 oz.) of the Silk Stainless yarn to make the new Sea Tangles sweater from the Knitty surprise.  I also bought a skein of laceweight cotton because it was so soft. Another vendor had Lornas Laces.  I bought 2 skeins of sock yarn from them.  What else did I get… Hmmm… there was a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Whales Road, 3 skeins of purple Noro Cash Iroha, and a pattern for the Woven Kimono Cardigan.

This is just some of the vendors

As we were leaving, there was a car right in front of us.  It turned out that it was Jess and Casey from Ravelry leaving at the same time we were leaving.  Weird, right?  Now for the pictures fo my newly purchased stash.

A picture of everything

The Habu yarn

Lornas Laces in Edgewater and Franklin’s Panopticon

Malabrigo

Noro Cash Iroha

As of three days ago, I decided to collect buttons for my Ravelry bag.  Right now they’re mostly buttons from Ravelry, but I’ll get more.

The bag

It’s Caturday!

Those are my two cats, Thunder and Mitties.  Have a happy Caturday!

Finally! Some knitting!

I know I haven’t posted any knitting on my blog yet.  I’ve only had it 4 days…

Look I finished something!  Or one something, at least.  This is my Spirogyra.  I’m knitting it for the Fingerless Glove Fanatics July KAL on Ravelry.

The group is called Fingerless Glove Fanatics right?

This pattern is so easy to follow! It’s fun to knit.  The yarn is my own handspun Hot Chocolate spun with white merino, brown alpaca, white soysilk, and firestar sparkle fiber.  This is actually only my second time knitting lace!  I’ll have to knit more, I love the lace.  It’s already July 24 ,so I probably won’t finish the gloves for this month, but I’ll finish them sometime!  Here’s a close-up of the stitch detail.

The firestar makes it sparkle so much!

For anyone new to knitting fingerless gloves, I recommend this pattern.  There’s no thumb gusset or fancy shaping.  The shaping is achieved by simply changing needle sizes, and the thumb is made the same way.  After changing to a larger needle size, you just slip some stitches onto scrap yarn for the thumb.  The lace in this pattern is so easy too!  The repeat is only 6 stitches and 10 rows, so keeping track where I was in the pattern was super easy.

Yes, this is my 5th pair of fingerless gloves, and no, I don’t want to stop knitting them.  Small projects like gloves and hats are easy to carry around and are lightweight.  No big and heavy sweaters hanging off of the needles.

I’ve been spinning too!  Right now I have this yarn on my bobbin.

Ooh, the pretty colors!

It’s 4 oz. BFL from Spunky Eclectic in the grand opening color.  I love spinning BFL.  The fiber is shiny when it’s spun, and it’s so easy to draft!  I’m trying to spin a fingering weight 2-ply yarn to knit a Tempest with.  If I can spin enough of this yarn for the main color, I’ll spin 4 oz. of white BFL for the contrasting color.  This is my first time spinning for a sweater, so I hope it comes out right!

Today is my birthday! I got lots of yarn! Here are the pictures.

This is almost everything that I got, I also got some knitting books and shampoo.

I got a ravelry bag!

and a veggie bag!

I had a good day, there was cake, cheesecake, presents, and more cake. Yup, so that’s what happened today. Lots of yarn and stuff!

And now stringcat wants to tell you: