Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Unfortunately...

Ok, saw this on Donna's blog and couldn't resist giving it a go myself.

Google unfortunately *your name* and have a giggle.

Here's mine...

Unfortunately, Kim has inherited his position of leadership on the basis of filial loyalty and commitment to his father's ideology

Unfortunately Kim is something we seem to have to tolerate on this site

Unfortunately, Kim wore an ugly dress.

Unfortunately, Kim's contract expired before he could make a strong impression, and had no choice but to come back to Korea to play for Chunnam Dragons


And my personal favourite...

Unfortunately, Kim was trapped and prepared to be killed by a GIANT BLENDER!

Gotta love google.

Monday, February 23, 2009

A girl can change her mind, can't she?

Remember my plan for 2009....

2009 - A Plan

There was a thread over on Woolaholics with people's knitting plans for the year. I don't think I can break it down to specific projects and when I want to do them, but I do have some ideas about what I want to achieve this year....

- one pair of socks per month - January done!
- complete my Central Park Hoodie for winter 2010
- 3 squares per month for the afghan I'm (trying to) knit for DH
- I'd like to try a colourwork project - if anyone knows of anything that would be a good starter project then let me know!
- By the end of the year I'd like to be able to sew myself a skirt
- Make that necklace from the kit that my mother bought me for Christmas a few years ago.
- winter jacket/vest for L & M
- New soakers/shorties/longies for F



Well I've had to have a rethink. My knitting time seems to be getting less and less - maybe that's because I've actually been trying to keep up with the housework?! And it seems as though I'm getting slower and slower. Or at least I'm being easily distracted with other things (like wasting time on the computer in the evenings instead of knitting). And I don't think I've come anywhere close to achieving anything on my list so far...

- one pair of socks per month

Well I did get a pair knit in January. And I am almost halfway through the second sock for February. But really and truly, it's all I've been knitting. So if I stick to this plan, all I'm going to knit this year is 12 pairs of socks and nothing else. It's taking me a whole month to knit a pair. So I'm revising this to:

Knit a sock a month - so a pair every other month - 6 pairs this year.

- 3 squares per month for the afghan I'm (trying to) knit for DH

I've managed a half a square so far. That's a pretty poor effort for the approximately 5 I should have knit by now. And the second one is only a boring old garter stitch one. Maybe cause it's boring I can't seem to get into it? Anyway, I will revise this to one per month. At this rate he'll have his rug by the time he retires LOL

- winter jacket/vest for L & M

well it's still summer technically, but if I want these by winter I really should start now. So far I don't even have patterns picked out. I'll get on that this week.


Let's see how that plan is working in a few months LOL

Saturday, February 14, 2009

And here it is....

I know you've been waiting patiently for it (well, at least one of you LOL). My second ever sewing project!!

A library bag for L. And I didn't even follow a tutorial.

L is obsessed with the colour orange. It all started with Harmony Day, the "colour" of which is orange. Then he ended up on the orange team for sports day. Since then it's been orange-this and orange-that. If it's not orange, he doesn't want to know about it. I actually don't like the colour orange all that much myself, so it's been a bit taxing LOL

So he chose the fabric for the bag. And he liked the camo-print-north-american-animals because it had orange on it. Orange coyotes to be specific. I wanted to make the bag reversible so I got some matching orange fabric to go with it and voila! A reversible library bag that indulges his obsession with orange.




It took me quite a while to finish, mostly due to wanting to applique his name on the orange side of it, but being a little afraid of doing so. Last weekend I bit the bullet and did it. And it wasn't all that hard. Don't look too closely at my sewing though LOL And then today I finally got stuck in and made the handles and attached them and sewed the two pieces together. It's turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. I needed to finish it by Tuesday next week, because Tuesday is library day. And we've already had 3 library days without a cool library bag. He's pretty happy with it.


Now, what to make next?

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Charade and other things

Still not a great deal of knitting going on around here. My hands are feeling better so that's a good thing. I think taking a break for a week really helped. I also think that the weather was causing me problems because once the heatwave broke the pain stopped. I'm really hoping that I don't have arthritis. I really need to look into that more. Anyway, knitting has been limited in recent times as I've been sucked into the vortex that is Facebook. Not sure why, as nothing really happens on FB and it's a complete time waster, but I totally have way more friends than my DH so that's a good thing LOL

Charade is going ok. I really like how the yarn is knitting up with this pattern and the pattern itself is quite easy to remember. It just feels a little tedious. It's only a 2-row repeat, so to me it seems to be growing quite slowly. Somehow longer pattern repeats - like Monkey for eg - seemed to go so much quicker. So I'm still not at the heel flap on the first sock and I've got probably another 1.5 inches to go before I'm there - if I decided to make it that long of course. And then I have to do it all again! My plan of having both socks on the go at once hasn't come to fruition as yet. Maybe I'll try to cast the other one on tonight. I'll do that one magic-loop. Maybe that will go quicker with less needle switches. So here's progress so far......


And I finished these capris for F back in January but haven't posted them as I wanted to embellish them, but haven't got around to it yet so I'll let you have a peek at them as is and then again when I'm done with them (assuming it all works out of course, otherwise you won't be seeing them again LOL). They are more like longies on her atm, but by Spring they should be a nice pair of capris or longish shorties for her. I made them a bit big for that purpose. I love how the yarn knitted up in these too - "Frolic" is the colourway from TYC.


I'll also have my second ever sewing project to show off in a few days I hope! Just trying to find a good time to pull the machine out and get it done. F has been quite unsettled in the evenings recently due to a throat infection and well, being 9 months old LOL I'm too afraid to bring the machine out in case the noise disturbs her anymore than she's already disturbed. You'll be excited to know that there's some hand-applique on this one, so I know you'll all be on the edge of your seats waiting to see that LOL I need to get it done before next Tuesday so I will make it a priority this weekend.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Sick baby + extreme heat =

Not much knitting.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

And the winner is....

Charade!!!

I even cast on yesterday afternoon. I'm going to try to do two socks at once - one on a set of dpns and the other magic loop. We'll see. Pics soon I hope.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Eeeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo...

L has been doing this for everything late. Which toy to take to bed. Which drink to have (water or milk?). Which shoe to put on first.... And of course if he doesn't get the result he wants, he does it again, starting with the other one so he's gets his desired choice. Not sure why he just doesn't just choose the one he really wants in the first place. But then he's a 6 year old boy. I'm not sure why he does a lot of things LOL

So the point of all that is, I'm having trouble deciding which socks to knit for the month of February. I'm trying to decide between these (non-Rav link) and these (no non-Rav link sorry). I have variegated yarn so I've tried to narrow it down to patterns that seem to work ok with this. But I'm still torn. So I'm going to implement the most sophisticated decision making tool - Eeeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo - to help me choose. And seeing as there are only two choices, I will be a bit more scientific about it and I'm put the patterns upside down so I don't know which one I'm starting with LOL I want to knit both of these sock patterns so either way it won't matter. I'm just hoping it will help me get past choice and move on to cast on.

I'll report back tomorrow with the results.