Project 365 Updates

I worked a full week!  Yay!  I got a lot of knitting done, but I've been to exhauseted/preoccupied/lazy/busy to update my knitting projects so instead, here's the past couple 365 photos.

2011.01.04- Dino got a bath.  He didn't enjoy it.

2011.01.05- Creeeeepy nutcracker at the outlets.  Yes, I did lay on the floor to take the picture.

2011.01.06- Mmmmm Chocolate Cherry Socks

2011.01.07- Dino loves Chipotle, just like the rest of the family!

Project 365- 2011.01.03

Kiera at Barnes and Noble's Starbucks

This is my friend Jackie's 3 month old daughter, formerly called Autumn here.  Daddy didn't like that name so they settled on Kiera.  Kiera is just getting over her phase of sleeping through all my visits (finally!) and she is constantly making funny faces and noises at us.

Kiera came into the world like a tornado and I feel like that is an omen for the rest of her life.  Jackie started having contractions one Saturday night.  The hospital turned her away, saying to come back when they're 2 minutes apart.  I know, the mom's out there are yelling at me right now but I'm not lying!  Sunday night/Monday morning, Jackie's contractions were about 5 minutes apart so they prepared to head to the hospital.  But first she wanted to go to the bathroom....she didn't think she'd hold it all the way to the hospital. 15 minutes later, Kiera popped herself out while Mommy stood over the toilet- she was in too much pain to move.  Grandma delivered her in the bathroom while Grandpa called 911.  The paramedics made it just after the birth to cut the cord and luckily there were no complications.  Though I say luckily for Jackie labor only took 15 minutes!  For a first time mom!  My god, I hope for that someday!

Losing my mind tonight.

First, let me just say, it's been a very long day.  Second, my brain shut down a few hours ago and refuses to restart.

I was just about to write a blog post about the two KALs I'm participating in.  Only I remembered linking Infinite Yarns to the blog already recently.  I actually had to go to my blog site and check back to see if I posted about the KALS.  I did.  Two days ago.

Sigh.

Anyway, here's some pictures of my Moodiness Socks since I can't seem to put any coherent thoughts together.

Project Status

Beginning of Sock #2

Ooopsies.  Can you spot the mistake?

A Looooooong Way to Go

Beginning the Pattern

My homemade chart...since the one in the pattern is literally ass backwards!

These were all taken early early this morning.  I've done two cable crossings already but more pictures will have to come later.

Also, in my tiredness, I made these typos:

triped = tried
battern = pattern

I'll explain the pictures more tomorrow. Maybe.  If my brain turns back on again.

Project 365

2011.01.02- Me and Kyle with a pretty Christmas tree.

We went to see Little Fockers last night (good movie!) and I made Kyle take a picture with me in front of the outlet's Christmas Tree.  Right behind us is the mini ice skating rink they put around what in the summer is a fountain.  They turn the fountain off for winter and put a giant fake tree over it, but it's so pretty :o)

There's also giant creepy nutcrackers all around the mall.  I'm not a fan of those.  Also, I successfully sneaked 2 tall Starbucks drinks into the theater in my bag.  Good thing I had my knitting in a gallon Ziploc bag.  I rock

Photo Help

After posting last night, I found some helpful websites related to Project 365.

http://content.photojojo.com/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/
This is just a basic on the idea of taking a photo per day and sharing it online.

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/7-photography-projects-to-jumpstart-your-creativity
This one has some inspirational ideas on getting creative with your photography.  I think I'm going to implement one photo of me per week (as opposed to their listing of doing it daily).  I also like the scavenger hunt idea.  I'll implement this one soon, asking everyone I know to send me suggestions.  Not just yet though :o)

Happy photographing!
xxo

Finally, a New Year's Resolution

I usually don't make a resolution for the new year, not in my personal life or my knitting/crafting life.  I'm just not good at keeping up with those kinds of things.  Gosh, I can't even keep up with my blog or reading others' blogs.  But I came across something today that I guess inspired me to pick one.

I've heard of the 365 Photo-A-Day projects before, but never considered doing one.  I didn't think I could commit myself to take a picture and post it everyday.  I figured if I had a smartphone it would be a possibility but there's no way I'm going to upload a photo everyday to Flickr or a blog.

I'm reconsidering.  Or, I reconsidered and made up my mind:  I'm doing it!  I probably won't get to actually post my pictures each day, but I'm going to try to do it as often as possible.  And I'm certainly not limiting myself to just one picture per day.  I may have additional photos to share sometimes and why limit myself, especially if I'm not going to post it specifically for that day.

I considered using Flickr, but I'm really not a huge Flickr fan.  Unless you pay, your pictures disappear as you upload new ones.  That's no fun.  I considered starting a new blog just for that.  But then who's going to enjoy those pictures with me?  I guess I could link it to my Facebook so all my family and friends could see, but it seemed meh.  So, on to my fallback- the knitting blog.  Besides, I may wuss out and make a lot of photos knitting related anyway since that's what I do with all my free time.

The photos will usually be a separate post from any other postings.  Or maybe not.  I haven't entirely decided yet.  I'm also thinking of also posting the photos on my Facebook page so that my family and friends can see them too since I don't think any of them actually read this (they mostly don't care about my knitting, some even scoffing at my constantly working on it).

So here's today's photo:

Gianna, Courtney and Johnny Boy...attacked by an angry bird.

Amy from Knitty tweeted a few weeks ago about finding Angry Birds plush for sale to which someone else replied (and she re-tweeted) that there's an amigurumi pattern on Ravelry.  Since Kyle's obsessed with playing that game, I wanted to make him the Angry Cardinal for Christmas.  I told my brother (also a fan of the game) and he decided he wanted one.  At Christmas, my cousin Johnny Boy loved Kyle's Angry Bird and all the kids had fun throwing it around.  He asked me to make him one and this afternoon I whipped this one up for him.  We celebrated his birthday this evening, and of course the kids went crazy throwing it around.  This one just happened to be thrown by my brother and hit Gianna in the face while she was on her laptop.  Basically, this was my evening:  flying stuffed birds and yelling kids having fun.

Happy New Year!

My semester is over.  The holidays are over.  You would think I would have a nice little break then, but no, there's still so much I have to do in the next couple weeks.  But thankfully it will all be dying down soon.

Looking forward to this year, I'm starting 2 KALs today.  Well, sorta.  I'm officially starting one, and I need to buy the yarn for the other one on Tuesday.

Moody Hose
This knit-along is hosted by the Long Socks group on Ravelry.  We will be knitting Moody Hose by Peggy Boisvert.  From the actual pattern:

I designed these after the hose we see Professor Moody wearing for one second at the Yule Ball in the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was intregued by the calf shaping, as it doesn’t seem to follow conventional stocking rules. This is my own interpretation of his kilthose.

These are traditionally knitted cuff-down calf length stockings with a fold over top. There are “clocks” running down the inside and outside of the leg, all decreasing occurs at 4 points next to these clocks, there is no back seam. The clock design incorporates a 5 stitch twisted ribbed cable and a 6 stitch zigzag brocade panel that counts rounds between cable crosses. All decreases occur during cable cross rounds so there is very little need for the chart or pattern once you understand how it works. The heel is done in heel stitch and is started one pattern repeat above the ankle split. The clocks continue into the foot, the sock ends with a plain toe.

I love the look of the pattern and I can't wait to make these socks.  I'm not so crazy about how the pattern was written.  Because the only pattern information is posted on her website, it's not as user friendly as a pdf file.  Everything is very bunched together and some parts aren't explained well.  And the chart!  Oh, the chart. She wrote it out on graph paper (points for ingenuous thinking!), but she says the chart is to be worked top to bottom, left to right.  ...?!?!?!?!?!  Sooooo, completely backwards of every other knitting chart ever.  Gee, thanks.  This really isn't such a big deal to me since I don't have access to a printer until I go back to Pace- I write my patterns out on index cards or in notebooks that I keep with the pattern, including the chart.  So I re-wrote the chart of my index card to be read the traditional way.  So far, I've cast on 100 sts for one sock. I didn't have much energy left for it last night.  I'll be working on it today, doing both socks at the same time.

Whenever I make a Knit Picks order, I always make sure I reach that $50 for free shipping.  I buy sock yarn if I'm not in dire need of something specific, because sock yarn can always be made into simple socks if I don't have a plan for it.  Recently, I order from them because they were having a sale and I stocked up on sock yarn.  Score for me!  I went stash shopping and found some Stroll in a greenish-blue to use for this project.  Mine is a little bright, but I think it will still look great in the patterning of the sock.


Skacel/Knit Purl Hunter KAL #1
This KAL is being sponsored by Skacel in honor of twenty years of ZItron Trekking Yarn.  The designs are by Knit Purl Hunter, aka Michelle Hunter.  This will be a 6-month, 6-project KAL that includes prizes (not sure how this works yet).  I found out about it when I went to Infinite Yarns* with Julia recently.  They're also hosting a KAL Meetup every Friday night for it.  So far, the only instructions we've been given are to cast on and do the toe increases.  We get the next installment of instructions on the 8th.  Julia can't make it to this Friday's meetup and I probably won't go because, well, how long does it really take to do some toe increases?  But I do have to go to the shop for my yarn.

The yarn for this project will be Trekking XXL and the suggested colorway is "Susanne."  Skacel will donate $10 from each purchase to the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.  It's a blue just as bright as my other sock KAL, but this one is a more true blue than a greenish blue.


I can't wait to get these projects going and get some pictures taken!  I have no pictures to share because I broke the adapter for my memory card (I was using an SD Mini made for cell phones because I didn't have the money for a regular sized one, but without the adapter I couldn't get the pictures onto the computer).  I now have a new mini with a new adapter, and hopefully I'll be buying a real memory card with my Christmas money so I can share all the great things I've been working on.




*If you'd like to join the KAL but your LYS doesn't carry the yarn, Infinite Yarns has an online store!