Temperature Tuesday and a Swap

We are on our way to summer.  The end of May was almost all dark brown (upper 80s) with a few pink stripes (lower 90s)!  I love the brown and pink together!

Here is a close up of May (between the white stripes).  You can see it just getting hotter and hotter.  I expect next month will introduce the next color (red)!

I also got my Reducio Swap package!  The theme was the TriWizard Tournament!  The outside of my package was so cute!

The inside was even better!

There was a cute little Ravenclaw mini sock, a golden egg (which Millie has claimed and plays with), gillyweed (both as a cloth/doily and in a little vial), a copy of the maze (with 4 champions marked), some tea to keep me warm after a trip into the lake, and 4 mini skeins of handspun yarn for my sock yarn blanket!  So lovely!  I love the Reducio swaps. They are so much fun!

 

 

FO: Hermione Socks

Project: Hermione Socks for me
Pattern: Hermione’s Everyday Socks
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Indiecieta
Needles: US 1 1/2 (2.5 mm)
Started: April 5, 2015
Finished: May 27, 2015
Modifications: I made the cuff only 15 rounds. I knit these on dpns instead of circular needles. I treated needless 1 and 2 as the pattern needle 1, and 3 and 4 as pattern needle 2. It was not a hard conversion.

This yarn is so soft. It is so lovely to knit with. I understand why people love it. It is like butter! This pattern is also so wonderful! It is easy to knit with just enough to be interesting. The texture is lovely and the socks are my most comfortable. This pattern may become my new go to pattern!

I was originally worried that the texture was lost on this yarn, but it isn’t lost at all. I think this pattern would be fantastic for a pooly yarn.

 

HaldeCraft Yarn Club

This round of the HaldeCraft Yarn Club’s theme is Farscape. This month’s installment is called “Soft, yes. Weak, no.”

The yarn is so luxurious!! It is a merino, cashmere, nylon blend. My boys saw it and tried to claim it. This yarn is so very soft that I may make something like arm warmers or a shawlette. It should be were out can be petted!

This is a little more color true. The blues and greets are really pretty.

The yarn also came with a handmade lotion with the same name. It smells clean and just a little floral. I love it!

 

Wee Block Wednesday: The Return

My poor sock yarn blankie got neglected for a few weeks.  I was focused on Zack’s birthday stuff, so I put it aside. Now that that is done, I have picked it back up. It is the perfect instant gratification project combined with mindless knitting.  Since I still haven’t been able to focus much this week, it has been my meditation knitting.  I managed to do three blocks (bringing the total to 111 blocks).

The block on the left is the first block.  It is ShiBui Sock in the Zinnia colorway.  This yarn has been discontinued. It is one of my “time capsule” blocks. I got the yarn in a Blankie Mania swap many years ago. I love the colorway. It is very spring and floral!  The second block is on the right. It is purples, pinks, greys, and a touch of black.  It is Panda by StitchJones in the Umeda colorway.  I believe that this was a hand dye, but I can find no shop or anything on Ravelry.  I got this yarn in the same swap.

The last little block is the pretty blue, purple, yellow, and red block. This is Plymouth Happy Feet in color 7.  The color is so pretty!  I got this in the same swap that I got the others.  These three little blocks have been great therapy for me this past week!

 

Temperature Tuesday

My scarf is continuing to grow. Last week, I got to add a new color. After last Tuesday, we continued with warm temperatures. We did have a few days in the lower 80s, but most of the week was upper 80s and lower 90s. This week should be more of those warmer temperatures!

I have been knitting in my ends, but I haven’t trimmed then. I am still deciding if that is how I want to handle them. They make that side thicker. I am also not sure about how it looks. I may pull them out and weren’t them in differently. I am still deciding!

 

2 FOs!!

This past week was really difficult. A couple I am very close to and work with lost their toddler in a very tragic way.  Most of the week, I was in a bit of a daze. For two days, I couldn’t even focus long enough to work on simple projects.  I finally started to come out of it, and being able to craft became very comforting to me.  As a result, I was able to get a lot done.

First up, my DH’s birthday surprise blanket!  I decided to do this a few days before his birthday. I told him that I was going to make it for someone else. I had him help me pick a pattern to go with the yarn. I thought that it would be so fast because it was bulky.  It was not. In part, it took me a long time because I decided to make it so big!  So here are the details:

Project: Secret Blanket

Pattern: Marshmallow Crochet Baby Blanket

Hook: Size N

Yarn: Bernat Blanket in Mallard Wood (7 skeins)

Started: April 24, 2015

Finished: May 15, 2015

Modifications and notes: I started with a chain of 103 to upsize this to an adult blanket.  It came out 41″ x 56″. I didn’t expect it to take so much yarn, so there are several different dye lots. Only one stands out as very different.  I should have gone up another hook size. This is a little stiff. That being said, my DH has used it every night since it was completed to cover his legs while watching tv (that was what I had intended it for).

You can see the stripe of the differing dye lot in this picture. My husband didn’t really notice (or care), so that is all that matters. This blanket is super soft and warm without being stifling (it is breathable because of the pattern).  I really like how it came out!

On Saturday, my husband’s little cousin announced that she is pregnant. My husband gets to see her once a year, so he asked me if I had anything for him to take up for the new baby. I didn’t, but I had been seeing the Wee Fast, Wee Speedy, and Wee Sweet patterns on Ravelry and Craftsy.  I quickly glanced through and picked Wee Fast. I happened to have a skein of bulky yarn on hand. This wee sweater is so cute and took me around 2 hours to complete (that is a guess given the number of interruptions I had).  The pattern is simple. It would have gone faster, but I used bamboo needles. That never works out well for me!  It slowed me a down a lot.  So here are the details:

Project: Wee Fast

Pattern: Wee Fast

Needles: 10 1/2 and 11

Yarn: Lion Brand Baby First in the Honey Bee Colorway (about 1/2 a skein)

Started and Finished: May 16, 2015

Modifications: My only modification was to start with a size 10 1/2 instead of a 10. This was because I grabbed the wrong needles and was not intentional.  I used a button from my button jar.

 

Temperature Tuesday

Well, April is complete! The white divides the month. As you can see, April ended with cooler temps, and May began with the same cooler temps. It is warming back up again. I am hopeful that I will get to add more colors!

 

Temperature Tuesday and some new purchases

Last week was rough. My husband was out of town for a conference.  Millie had a potty training accident that required me to bathe her and mop the floor. Then Wyatt had a tummy troubles which caused him to have an accident. I had to wipe down walls and floor and kid.  My sister’s husband started drinking, kicked her and her children out, and posted about it in a very scary way on social media. She lives a long ways away, so that was how I learned of it.  I thought he had hurt her when I first read it.  I also had to do two things that cause me enormous anxiety (get my car serviced and go to the dentist).  By the time my husband got home on Thursday night, I was wrung out. Friday, I took half the day off. I went shoe shopping, went to Michael’s (and started a new project), and bought some stuff at Bath and Body. I also got my hair cut and got a massage.  I was feeling a bit more like a human again. Saturday morning, I went to Young Living party. It was nice to hang out with grown ups. I love essential oils, but have been dissatisfied with the brand at my health food store, so I am pretty excited about my order!  We then had a family day. I finally felt refreshed again.

Needless to say, with all that was going on in my life, I wasn’t knitting on my Temperature scarf. I did jot down the high from the day before each morning.  This weekend, I was able to get caught up with the knitting part.

Despite how rough my week was, we really did have lovely weather.  Lots of 80s.  Yesterday and today, it is getting cooler again. I have been  hoping for warmer weather (something I would never do otherwise) because I would love to see a new color added to the scarf!

While my husband was in Las Vegas, he won some money.  Given that I had such a rough week, he gave me most of it (he is really sweet). I had a little shopping spree on Friday.  I ordered two Amy Herzog books.  One is a Kindle book (Knit to Flatter), so there is no picture.  The other is Knit Wear Love.  It just arrived last night. I am super excited about it! I haven’t read either yet, but I will and will talk about them later.

I also made a little order on Gnome Acres. It is a grab bag of 10 mini skeins for my sock yarn blankie! They came packaged so cute and had a little temporary tattoo with them!

Aren’t they lovely. You can’t tell, but a couple of them are sparkly! They also arrived last night. I am hoping to wind at least one tonight.  I am going to have to do a little digging to figure out what colorways I have, but they are so fun!  I had a massive migraine last night. Seeing all these cute little bundles made me wish I could stay up and knit even though I was hurting!

 

Weighty Tasks

I used to have a kitchen scale that I used for weighing yarn. It broke a year ago, and I hadn’t replaced it. I decided my kitchen scale was just not good enough. So, I got a new scale. It is the one from KnitPicks.

It arrived just in time! I am doing a trade with another person on the Yarngasm Podcast Group on Ravelry. I was able to make some little mini skeins! They are all ready to mail out! Trading is so much fun!

 

FO: Mommy’s Ripple Blankie

Do you see what has made it’s way out of a WIP basket and onto the back of my couch? My ripple blankie!! I took it out a week or so ago for a throwback post. When I pulled it out, I realized it was almost done. This week, I have been working on it pretty diligently. I finished it today! I washed and dryer it, and then clipped all my ends. I then took it outside for a photo shoot (just on my porch since we have had a bit of rain tonight).

So, here are the stats:
Pattern: Neat Ripple by Attic24
Yarn: Hobby Lobby I Love this Cotton! In 15 different colors
Hook: G
Started: February 25, 2012
Finished: April 19, 2015
My modifications: I started with 171 chains.

The finished dimensions are 38 inches wide and 56 inches long. The are four stripes of each color. Each stripe is two rows. I had one skein of each color. I ended up with just scraps of each color.

As I type this, my baby girl and I are snuggled under the blankie. It is soft and warm and breathable (not to mention machine washable)! I couldn’t be happier with this project!