Oooops

So much for trying to update more often.  Can't believe it's been a week already!  For a week of no subbing (public schools are on vacation), I've been pretty busy.  I did work at the card store 2 days and then The Boy and I have been just hanging out a lot- taking advantage of us both having some free time for once.

It's been a month since I gave an update on the NLC.  I really haven't gotten all that much accomplished on it in the past month, mostly because of the nonstop hat commissions.  But there has been advancement!  I've joined the sleeves and started the colorwork.  Check it out:

Starting to Separated the Sleeves

Getting there...

From one to two!

Waiting to be joined to the body

Here's how it fits so far

It's hard to try on when the stitches barely fit on the needles all scrunched up

Laid out

Colorwork closeup

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I'm still concerned about the sizing.  We'll see about it though as the knitting progresses.  Oh and another problem:  I still can't find buttons.  I went to 3 yarn stores today and nothing.  I'm gonna have to venture into the city one day and check out some of the fabric stores in the fashion district I think.

In other news, I've started developing the etsy shop.  Nothing is listed yet because I want to make a decent stock of items before actually "opening."  But here's a sneak peak of some of what I'm working on...

I've also finished another pair of Weekend Hats, with quite a bit of yarn leftover:

My first customer, Tijah has just requested another 2 hats!  That'll be 4 in total for her.  She's awesome :o).  I didn't have enough of this black leftover for the plain black hat she requested :o(.  I got some great Crock-O-Dye yarn at Gotham Fine Yarn to make the olive green and off-white hat she requested.  She said I can go crazy with this one (yay no more stripes!!!) so I'm doing argyle.  I knit up 2 swatches to see which order she likes better.  And while we were at the yarn shop, the girls there said The Boy is my Hat Pimp.  I think it's true haha.

Today I ventured out to check out two new yarn stores:  La Casita Yarn and Brooklyn General.  La Casita is new (I think?) and in 2 weeks will be adding the cafe portion of the shop.  They will be serving wine, pastries and coffee.  Can I just move in?  

Brooklyn General was everything I heard it would be and more.  Oh my gosh the amounts of yarn they have.  The store is probably as big as my apartment and one loooooong wall is pretty much only yarns, plus little stands here and there.  There's also amazing fabric...can't wait to go back for some to make some box project bags.  

Purchases today weren't too interesting:  some plain black yarn for one of Tijah's hats, and then some mystery yarn and notions for my Magic Yarn Ball Swap.  Oh and I bought more Fez for some new Emma Hats in more sizes so I can write up the pattern (hers so didn't fit but she liked it anyway) and some blue yarn to knit a laptop sock with the leftover black and grey yarns.

Off to do some knitting!

- <3 -
Steph
xxo

Happy (almost) Valentine's Day

Yesterday brought about some more baking for me...but not so successful.  I attempted sugar cookies but I think I overcooked all of them.  Or else the recipe just comes out a little harder.  But I'd prefer them soft.  I only made half the dough yesterday so I might try cooking a little shorter today.  Doesn't matter because it's all about the decorating...to be done Saturday with the mini cupcakes all for Sunday.

More V-day fun:

Don't these just look delicious??  I found the picture on the Someday Crafts Blog which lead me to the actual baker at Poppies at Play Blog  (here's the post about the cinnamon heart buns).  How flipping cute are those lollipop holders for valentines??  I must archive this idea for when I have kids someday.  Or when I have an actual classroom.  (And now it clicks...no subbing today because everyone's having their V-day parties since next week is vacation.  Damn.)  And a message for the rest of you (especially if you've been snowed in like we were)- if you feel the urge to bake DO IT!  You don't have to go all out, you can use packaged stuff, but there's nothing like having something fresh baked, especially when you share.  (That's for you Jen!)

I need a little space to rant for a moment.  It's the complain that I always have and will have until I'm rich and retired (ha!).  I need more room.  Actually I need a whole apartment just for me and my stuff but that's definitely not feasible right now.  I always try to squeeze into the tiny places and I admit it, I have too much stuff.  I haven't even brought nearly everything from Dad's house to the apartment (I'm so not even interested in moving all my holiday decorations, especially the stuff Mom left for me and Brother when she moved).  But I mostly wish I had better space for crafting.  Knitting is easy.  I can do that anywhere without much need for room.  That doesn't count storage though.  Everything is stored in small bins in my closet or else bags and my project purses and then some things are just scattered throughout my room. 

I took this picture this morning:

That's my desk.  Computer tower is behind the chair under the desk and the white block down there is my sewing machine.  (And that's Mary's Vogue Knitting from 1987 on the desk chair that she loaned me...she's the best!).  I tried to buy a desk with a big enough flat surface that I'd easily be able to put the sewing machine on and work with.  But then there's the monitor and the desk organizer and all the papers and books (currently Stitch 'n Bitch Nation) and other random junk on there.  Ugh no room to sew.  Also no room to cut fabric.  Also, no room for the dress dummy to ever be set up to work with.  Sigh, someday I will have my craft room/office.

As for my knitting, the Weekend Hats for the boys are still not done.  I know, but I spent so much time baking yesterday I didn't get to devote as much time to them as I was hoping (same goes for my homework, which will be taking priority today).  But here they are photographed quickly this morning on my lap (netbook in the back, with the blog being written at the same time).  Emma's birthday is today and I haven't even started designing her hat yet...eek!

**I don't know why but blogger is refusing to center those last two pictures.  They must not be liking me very much today :o(

On to the knitting...

I have made hats now for Tijah, her cousin Jenny, and another Red Lobster friend Dawn.  OTN now is two hats for Jim and Branding who (thankfully) wanted just the opposite of each other:  one black with gray stripes and one gray with black stripes.  I made it through tangled knot portion of knitting because I refuse to cut the yarn between stripings.  I'm working on the decreases for the crown now.

I completely forgot to take a picture of Dawn's pink and white hat :o(  I'll have to have The Boy get a picture of it on her when he gives it to her (if he hasn't already).

With the leftovers from Dawn's hat, I'm making one for The Boy's little sister.  Her birthday is coming up on Friday- she's going to be 6!  We've still got a couple cold months ahead so she's get some use out of it.  And it will perfectly match the colors of her coat :o)

Yesterday's snow day was spent baking for Valentine's Day and shoveling snow.  I shoveled our stoop and sidewalk 4 times (and I know 2 girls in the other apartments did it at least twice) and I shoveled the car out 3 times.  And it was still piling up when I went to bed.  I actually had to turn down subbing for fear of not being able to get my car out/get the car started/make it out there if the roads weren't cleared.  Of course when I woke up they were perfectly cleared, but I'd still have a lot of shoveling to do before leaving which would have taken forever.

Time for some yummy goodness.  I've been planning on making baked goods for Valentine's Day to share with The Boy, his family, Dad and Brother, and Bonnie at the card store (I'll be working that day).  Plans were:  sugar cookies, chocolate mini cupcakes and white mini cupcakes.  The mini cupcakes were to have secret surprise pink centers and either chocolate or vanilla frosting.  Cookies will be glazed and I bought a bunch of sprinkles and confections for the tops of everything.

I wanted to do the sugar cookies yesterday but didn't have enough butter (and did not feel like walking to the store just after an hour of shoveling).  So instead I made two batches of cupcakes.  For the chocolate ones, I used the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Cake (it's on the back of their cocoa powder boxes) and for the white (and pink filling) I used a basic recipe I found on allrecipes.com.  The way things worked out, it was much easier to pipe the pink filling first and then cover it with the regular chocolate or white batter. 

 I had a lot of  chocolate batter left over when I ran out of the cupcake liners so I figured throw it all in a pan and make a small cake with it.  Since it's someone's birthday this week, I wrote her name with the leftover pink filling batter.  

But that didn't work out so well during baking.

That's ok though because obviously it's going to be covered in frosting.  I might fill it too...we'll see.  But I'll re-pipe her name on it after it's frosted when I'm having fun playing decorator (that's all for Saturday).

This morning I went out and walked (over ice since some people are inconsiderate and don't shovel the sidewalk in front of their apartments/stores...ugh!) to the store to get milk and butter.  Once I'm done catching up on blogs and drinking my coffee, and the butter gets soft it's off to baking sugar cookies for me!

CFO: Weekend Hats for Tijah

Time for my first Commissioned Finished Object:  The hats are done (well technically for a week now, but who's couting right?).  

Pattern:  Turn a Square by Jared Flood

Source:  Ravelry or Brooklyn Tweed

Yarn:  Berroco Cuzco in Naturale and Black

Mods:  Obviously the first mod was the striping pattern.  She wanted the same exact hat as The Boy's (which I'm realizing in all the Christmas craziness I don't think I ever did a decent post on) so she got the same stripes.  But then because the Cuzco is so much thicker than what I used for The Boy's, the gauge was off.  I had to modify the stitch counts which wasn't so bad.  Eventually, I'd like to write that up as an addition to the original pattern and post here for anyone interested.

Verdict:  I love these hats.  I love the yarn so much!  It was soft and fuzzy and warm but not overly-so of any of those.  And Tijah loved them too...

And now her cousin (also works at Red Lobster) wants a hat.  Dark blue with baby blue stripes.  The same hat.  I bought the yarn to make it and later that day another waitress there wants one.  Pink with white stripes.  I'm going to get sick of these hats soon.

I started the second hat...and I'm loving this yarn.  Pictures to come soon even though it's almost done already

P.S. I'm almost to the colorwork on the NLC!  But that's been put aside again to get these hats done :o(.  At least I get to go yarn shopping this weekend and I'm going to try out a new yarn shop in the city :o)

What's Been Distracting Me from NLC

A week and a half ago, The Boy was at work and someone commented on the hat I made him for Christmas.  When he told her I made it, she requested the same one in black and white.  We walked to Brooklyn Flea that Sunday (a post about this to come) and on the way back we stopped at Stitch Therapy to grab the yarn. For his hat, I'd used Berroco Ultra Alpaca.  Unfortunately, the shop didn't have any white in this so I bought Berroco Cuzco, figuring it was close enough in gauge and a little girlier looking anyway.

Before I could even cast on, she told The Boy that she'd take two hats- one black with white stripes and one white with black stripes and she'd pay double.  Gotta love it!

I reworked the pattern and numbers a bit to make the gauge fit the size and cast on.  I've been working on this pretty much non-stop, forcing the Northern Lights Cardigan (NLC now) to be put on the back burner for the most part.  I'm working them double knit.  Yeah I know... all the trouble I've had with double knitting lately, why do it again, right?  But that way I knew I'd have two identical hats in reverse colors.  And it doesn't really have the "oh now I have to knit another one" feeling after I finish one.

I absolutely love the way this yarn is knitting up.  It feels so so nice.  So soft and fuzzy.  I'm getting jealous.  I want one for me now!

After double knitting and working the balls from center-pull and the outside end, I wound up with this giant tangled mess.

Luckily now I'm past the striping and back to just two threads.  And also at the decreasing

Mirror images :o) and almost done!

**Oh and sidenote- I have been working on this while watching LOST (among other things like breakfast at the diner, subway rides, waiting around...) and haven't made any major oopsies.  Thank you non-stop stockinette stitch!