Secret Knitting

Because I am completely distracted by the new Knitty, here is another sneak peak!

Follow Friday: 1000 Awesome Things

From 1000 Awesome Things About page:

1000 Awesome Things is just a time-ticking countdown of 1000 awesome things. Launched June, 2008 and updated every weekday. Published as The Book of Awesome in April, 2010.

I was late in discovering 1000 Awesome things. I didn't hear about it, until the book was published, but now I'm hooked. What can I say, he's got me pegged. Every morning, I am reminded of something small that I find completely awesome. It is usually something simple and situational. Each post sparks a memory of the time that I experienced that something awesome, and memory always gives me a little smile. I am in full support of taking a moment out of each day for good memory and a small smile.

Twitter Bonus: @1000Awesome

Playing With Colors

So I've already broken the rule. While working on my secret project, I shouldn't be working on anything else that isn't for me. Last night I brought my brother's blanket to a new knitting group. It was just the perfect project for the occasion. My secret project is a little fiddly, and my Viper Pilots require a little extra attention. My brother's blanket on the other hand is simple and it fosters chatting and never suffers from distractions.

Instead of pretending that this never happened, I'm confessing and embracing (just for a moment) this fantastic project. The pattern from Woolly Thoughts comes with a line drawing of what the finished object will look like. I was able play with it in paint and work out a bunch of fun different color options. Here is some of combinations I came up with.

Bottle

Hubby has referred to me as an animation snob. I, of course, do not think that I am a snob about it, but I will confess to having some very strong opinions and pretty high standards for cartoons. Really what I think happened is that I never out grew what most people consider children's media. As I got older, I added new interests, but I never stopped enjoying animation and puppetry. There was even a time when I was actively pursuing animation as a career. These interests mean that I have been absolutely giddy about the growing number of animated shorts finding their way to the Internet. I've been especially impressed with the recent surge of stop-motion animation. I've got my fingers crossed that even more great things will be coming in the future.

Since I love seeing these short films so much, I expect I'll be sharing more of them with you. Today I want to share "Bottle." I find the whole message in a bottle concept really romantic. In fact, my wedding invitations were messages in bottles.

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

It doesn't seem like litter at all when it is traveling across the ocean with a purpose like delivering a note or a gift.

Secret Knitting

So now that the holidays have passed, I can get back to my super secret knitting project. I did not have to be super secret about my grandpa's socks, because I knew he wouldn't see them online and no one could see them would spoil the surprise. I started a secret project back in October and now I can work on it again. Here is a sneak peek:

Viper Pilots Continued

Back in the beginning of November, my one and only goal was to finish my Viper Pilots. I started them on my Christmas train ride to Chicago in 2009. I really didn't want these to be on the needles for a full year. Shortly after that, I decided that I absolutely had to knit Grandpa some socks. So, I didn't accomplish my goal. Those Viper Pilots are still on the needles.

Not only are they on the needles, they actively being worked on. They are my purse project, so I work on them in the subway everyday. (That sounds like a lot.) With all the cables and the twisted stitches, that means I average just over one row a day. (That doesn't sound like nearly as much.) I am knitting them two at a time. (That's sounds like twice as fast!) I think that after just one more viper pattern repeat, I will be able to start the toes. The FO is in sight!

I Baked!

My oven does not get any of the love it deserves, but today I filled it with great cookie smells. Today, I finally made some time to bake cookies for Freddy, our doorman. I wanted to make him something for the holidays, but it wasn't until I read about Bezzie's Chocolate Orange Cookies that I knew what to make him.

I know it is a little late for holiday gifts, but I over estimated the time I would have in between all of our traveling in November and December. When we returned from our Christmas visit to Chicago, our oven was broken (there's no telling how long that had been a problem.) Guess who took care of getting it fixed? That's right Freddy. He also kept our sidewalk shoveled and ice free during and after the blizzard. He rounded up space heaters for us when our heat was out for a full week and he helped us keep out the mice that infiltrated back in July. I decided it is never too late to say thank you to Freddy. I baked up a full batch and gave the prettiest ones to Freddy.

These cookies are really good, but not quite as orangy as I was hoping. I think I may have skimped on the orange zest a little. I hate orange peels and as I was zesting, I couldn't help but think about how absolutely disgusting it would be to bite into a piece of peel that didn't get chopped quite small enough. (There are cookies from my childhood that haunt me that had huge chunks of orange peels in them.) By the time I got to the very end of the dough, I was getting bored with the cookie shuffle (emptying and refilling the cookie sheets every 10 minutes) so I just dumped the last of it in the middle of my baking stone.

The Joy of Stats

I am currently geeking out over this video that was shared with me by a couple friends, so today, I share it with you.

Follow Friday: Knitty Blog

If you don't tweet, you may not know what Follow Friday is. It is not that hard to figure out, but I've decided start it as a regular feature on my blog. I am going to go through my blog roll and share with you who I follow in my RSS feed.

From the Knitty Blog about section:

This is the blog for Knitty magazine, which lives on the web at knitty.com.

The four women that make Knitty happen write about things here. We write about Knitty and Knittyspin, and more often, about whatever else we think is interesting. Or silly. Or both. You can tell who’s written a post by looking next to the date.

I follow Knitty because of their obvious awesomeness. Knitty is my favorite online magazine. The tutorials are fantastic and their patterns are always fun. Their blog is just as wonderful. They are of course a go-to source for what is happening in the fiber world. They have some fun contests and giveaways. I trust them to share with me the latest and greatest yarn bombs. Their posts are full of fantastic pictures (many of which are drool worthy yarns and fibers.) If you didn't know that the ladies of Knitter were blogging, please go check them out.

Twitter Bonus: @knittydotcom

Edited to add Twitter account.

The Bro Blanket

I have gotten my very first knitting request! My awesome little bro (who is quite a bit taller than me, but little none the less) asked me to knit him a blanket. I love him, and I couldn't tell him no, but since it is such a big endeavor, I told him that he had to get involved in the planning. I sent him a bunch of links to patterns and made him help me pick out the yarn. I had sent him a link to a Woolly Thoughts pattern and while he was on their site, he settled on the Curve of Pursuit. Hubby is jealous because he asked for one of these back in 2008 when I was considering it for a girlfriend. My bro gets his because it turns out I can be bought (for a blanket's worth of yarn.)

When I did the practice piece for this blanket, I was worried that it would be miserable because of all the ends since the yarn is broken after each triangle is knit. Fortunately, Owen's blanket taught me to sew in my ends along the way. This was my vacation project over Christmas, and I'm happy to say this was the perfect knit for the holidays. It is all knit stitches, but you have to pay just a little of attention. It is easy to work on while watching football or chatting with the family. It also carries enough impressiveness to wow the people who only see my knitting once a year. The best part though is the geeky little tidbits that I got to share when people asked me about it. It turns out this blanket (like a lot of the Woolly Thoughts patterns) is mathematically fantastic! Here is one of the cool little quirks about this pattern: When you finish any square (four of the triangles) you can weigh the blanket and you will need half that weight in yarn to complete the next square. (How cool is that!?!)

eKnitting Books

I have recently become the proud owner of a brand new Kindle, and for Christmas I was lucky enough to receive an Amazon gift card. I know there are so many wonderful things to buy on Amazon, but I am still excited about my new toy. I, of course, want to buy books.

The number one book on my wish list is Knitting Mochimochi and it just so happens that Amazon has a Kindle edition. So, I am wondering what you guys think. Have you bought any eKnitting books? How did you like it? The interactive Table of Contents seems like it wouldn't be too troublesome to get from pattern to pattern. Generally I get most of my knitting inspiration from the pretty pictures and brilliant modifications on Ravelry so I think I won't miss flipping through the pages too much. I am really close to having my mind made up to get it, but I think I was to hear about how much someone loves having their knitting books digital before I go for it. So tell me about it. To ebook or not to ebook! That is my question.

Out of My Element

There is one other gift this year that I wanted to craft, but this time I had to step out of my element. I decided to make my girlfriend a art/crafting apron. I know absolutely nothing about sewing, but I am lucky to have a quilting MIL. I asked her for some help during our Thanksgiving visit and she sent me home with all of this:

There was not a single part of this project that I found easy. I can't draw or cut a straight line so just getting the fabric ready to think about sewing was intimidating. Thanks to the encouragement of my MIL though, I pushed ahead and even included lining and made each piece double sided.

I would like to proudly say that I only sewed through (yes completely through) one of those cute little flower shaped needle heads. It took all of the Christmas specials I own and two full glasses of wine, but I made a full apron!

Sewing is definitely not my craft. I missed cuddling on the couch with Hubby and bending over the dining room table for the evening made my back feel much older than it should. So maybe I'm not a quilter, but it was nice to overcome my fear of the sewing machine. Maybe I'll reach the point of empowerment where I can do my own hemming and small alterations.

Bull Cozy

If you need a little New Year knitting inspiration, I think this will do it:

I like the idea of our market being wrapped up in a nice warm yarn cozy. I think it could only help and bring us luck in the new year.

Christmas Socks

I have decided that I do not like Christmas knitting. There is too much stress and pressure, and I'm tempted to make gifts that I know I can complete on a deadline rather than gifts I think the recipients will like. This year though, I was stumped on what would be the perfect gift for my Grandpa. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that he would probably like some knit socks. In mid-November I accepted that the idea was stuck in my head and nothing else was going to seem like as good of a gift. I cast on some basic socks and spent every knitting moment I had working on them. These were my couch and subway projects. I even lost a DPN to the subway tracks in all of the frantic knitting. I knit through my lunch breaks at work. I wouldn't let myself sleep at all during our cross country trip to and from Thanksgiving with Hubby's family because it was prime knitting time. (Fortunately that meant I was awake for a delightful History Channel special on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.)

I decided to knit these from the toe up. I knit the first leg as short as I thought I could get away with and left the stitches live on some scrap yarn. When I finished up the second one, I assessed my time and decided they both would get another inch and a half on the length of the legs. Hubby has never had a problem with the legs of his socks, but he must like them short. Both his dad and brother commented that theirs were too short. Despite Grandpa having smaller feet than Hubby, they still seemed to be some crazy long socks that went on forever. I did finish them on time though. Two hours into our train ride to Chicago all of the ends were woven in and everything was complete. I had hoped to block them, but I wasn't certain my family would be ok with the guest room smelling like wet wool. (They are not the converts that I am.) Grandpa seemed to like them, but Grammy was definitely giving them an envious look. Unfortunately, despite all of that buildup, I do not have a good FO picture to share, so instead I have this picture that Hubby took of the tree at Rockefeller Plaza. I hope your holidays were great. Happy New Year!

Birthday Warmth

The past couple months have been extremely busy, but I have managed to get some knitting done. Unfortunately, I haven't been very good about sharing it. Hubby and I are great friends with a woman from our campus. When her November birthday was coming up, it was Hubby who said that we needed to knit something for her. Our friend is from India so she is not very keen on these New York winters. Thanks to Kelley, I (and Hubby by proximity) discovered the joys of hot water bottles last year, so we decided to pass on the warmth and knit our friend a hot water bottle cover.

I knit the cover and Hubby knit the patch on the front. This is his first attempts at colorwork, and I have to say I'm really proud.