WIP Wednesday: Treasured Heirloom Blanket

Last time I talked about this blanket, I didn't share much other that a photo. We had friends visiting and they were far more fun than my laptop. Since then, I've continued to make progress.

In fact, I've passed the halfway point and have started the decreases. This is the project that I had queued up and planned before I was anywhere near finishing the first charity blanket and it has been everything I hoped for: mostly mindless comfort knitting that will work up quickly for the charity group. Sadly though, I think this is my last day taking it on the subway. It has just become too bulky and doesn't fit in my bag anymore. It is going to make great tv knitting at home. Now I just have to decide what to take on my commute. 

WIP Wednesday: Jeanie Continues

I am dedicating this WIP Wednesday to math. I started Jeanie in September of 2010 and since starting up knitting again it has been competing with my brother's blanket for the project that will never end. It is a great pattern with enough going on that I don't get bored, I have a happy little cheat sheet that keeps me on track but doesn't require that I reference the pattern or charts anymore, and I am very excited about the finished wrap. For some reason, it just doesn't seem like it is getting any bigger. I can work and work and work on it, and I swear it should be somewhere between 8 to 12 feet long by now. Oddly though, it is only 40 inches. My goal is 66 inches. To help me get through it, I am going to try to rephrase my goals. Let's work some math magic, and maybe one of them will be more manageable.

1) 26 inches - Well this one is obvious.

2) 3 balls of yarn - that's all I've got so it has to work. The first ball knit up about 23 inches so in 6 more inches I'll be starting number 3. Then I'll only have 20 inches left!

3) 8 and a half more pattern repeats. One full repeat is about 3 inches so this is a bit more digestible of a goal.

4) 34 more cable rows. This isn't completely accurate because some cables twist more than others, but it makes sense to me because I really recognize the full cable rows.

5) 17 more dropped stitches. Really this is the fun part; these are the rows I'm really looking forward to so why not count them.

FO Friday: Follow Your Arrow

A month ago I shared my Follow Your Arrow shawl as soon as I cast it off and proceeded to whine about blocking it. It is odd to think it, but this mystery lace knit along is just the project that I needed to get back into knitting. While I love lace, it isn't my favorite, and usually registers in my mind as a lot of work. Ysolda Teague is an incredible designer, but we seem to have different tastes so I've never immediately fallen in love with her patterns.

So why after nearly two years of ignoring my knitting was this the project that brought me back to my hobby? Part of it was the structure and schedule of the clues and the excitement of all the bloggers and other knitters I follow. Most of if however was due to one amazing friend.

Katy has been the best enabler a woman can ask for. She has brought me amazing yarns from across the country, sent me gorgeous pattern suggestions, and kept my family wrapped up in wool while I was neglecting my craft. The stars aligned so that I had a new job, a new routine, and time that could clearly be dedicated to knitting. Katy, in her usually loving and excited persistence suggested that I join in for the KAL and convinced me to get hooked. I picked my needles back up for this project and haven't put them down again. I owe a lot of rediscovered joy to her and appropriately this shawl is now hers. I love you Katy! Thanks for enabling.

WIP Wednesday: Another Charity Blanket

Since I was having yarn issues with the other charity blanket, I decided to cast on a second and stay productive. This is the queued pattern that I mentioned before and is knitting up delightfully quick. 

Just a quick post to share today. We have company in town so I'm off to enjoy my time with them. 

TableTop Day - Ideas Needed

TableTop day 2014 is almost here!



Saturday, April 5th is just around the corner and I still don't have a great TableTop day plan. We are certainly going to have company and play games that night, but during the day I'd love to do something extra special and include the girls. They aren't avid board game players yet. At nearly two years old, they haven't quite grasped the concept of taking turns or not tasting meeples. So I'm looking for your ideas!

To get the brainstorming started, here are some ideas that I've had:

Roll & Play -

This one is a simple and quick idea. The girls already own their first dice game. We will practice taking turns learn more about colors, and Daddy will probably have to balk like a chicken.

The girls are really starting to get good with this game, but it still is only about a 20 minute activity and since we play most weekends it doesn't feel particularly special. I want to do something a little extra to make the day stand out.




A New Game -
There are lots of toddler games and it might be something special to just get a new one and play that for a while. I really wish we could get it from our local game store though. A trip to the local game store seems like an outing worthy of TableTop day, but they don't really specialize in games our speed. A trip to KMart or Target doesn't hold the same magic for me. There is one game that I think our local store might have that could do the trick...

Giant Cthulhu Dice -

If you've played Cthulhu Dice, you already know what a simple and fun game it is. If you haven't, you are holding on to far too much of your sanity and should give losing your marbles a try. We could take a trip to the store to pick up a huge die and maybe go to the park and find some parents and other kids for a pick up game. If we wanted to play really risky we could use goldfish to track our sanity and just assume that any toddler instigated rolls or sanity theft is due to their possession by the elder gods.




Off the TableTop-
Speaking of the park, I've been trying to think of a game that we could easily transfer from table top to the park for big, physical playing. The best I've come up with so far, is doing something similar to Candy Land and using our Roll & Play to dictate moves. We could use sidewalk chalk to make squares or even just tape down some construction paper for a quick set up. Roll the dice, move and the first one to the end wins! It still seems better for just a bit older than our girls, but if we could get some other park goers invovled they could be good role models.

What are your ideas? Have you played games with 2 year olds, or gotten them exited about TableTop day? Please share your successes (and fun failures!)

WIP Wednesday: Cody's Blanket

I love my brother, and that love is what keeps this blanket chugging along. I started this project in August 2010. Granted I took a sabbatical from almost all knitting but this is still moving slowly. I dedicated all of my Olympics viewing time to this and probably 90% of my tv time since including the Grammys. Here is my before the Olympics progress 

And here is after the Grammys

Just one new white section is all I have to show for all of that knitting. The good news is these white sections are the final round of the blanket. I'm thinking I will round it out with an Icord boarder. 

Right now I'm trying to decide on the boarder color. I have enough yarn for any of the three. I'm thinking brown and blue on their matching sides. Or maybe a striped boarder that is white/accent color. The stripes might be too busy. I clearly have hours and hours left to decide.  

Queued: Treasured Heirloom Baby Blanket

I don’t have a FO for this Friday, so instead I’ll share with you a Queued. 

My new knitting group has been driving a lot of my Queue additions lately. NYU has a wonderful knit/crochet group that is making an incredible number of charity projects. Just look at this baby blanket hall from last year-

(image source)

They provide all the yarn, and we donate whatever we make. My Queue has been exploding with hats, scarves, blankets and anything that fits into their year-long charity goals. We’ve been doing baby blankets since I joined and I am lagging behind the super fast crocheters that make up most of the group. Today’s Queued is what I hope will be an interesting but quick knit that can help me catch up (even though there is no quota or competition among any of them I feel behind.)

Treasured Heirloom Baby Blanket 

(image source - membership free but log-in required)

This is a diagonal knit square blanket with alternating garter stitch and lace panels. This is a free pattern from Lion Brand while it is written to stop each panel at a certain stitch count, I think I am going to make adjustments and do the panels based on row count. That way I can use any weight yarn  and I’ll just switch from increasing to decreasing when I hit 5.6’ across (Wolfram/Alpha helped me figure that out.) I love this plan because it also means no swatching! I have two other charity blankets on the needles to work through first, but my goal is to get this one into the mix too.

Have you knit any charity blankets? What are your favorite patterns.

My Teeny-Tiny Minions

This past month I have started playing Dungeons & Dragons with a Meetup group in Manhattan.  I've never played before, but the group has been great and very helpful teaching me the rules. There are basically two ways to play. You can be an adventurer and try to take take on the bad guys or you can be the dungeon master and lead the adventure and control the bad guys. Most of the time I am an adventurer, but the way our group works every takes a turn being a dungeon master.

I still don't have a great grasp of the rules, so when my turn to lead the group came up, I decided to play to my strengths. To set up the game board I knit all the bad guys using Anna's new book Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi. My adventurers had to face panthers, gnomes and eladrin, so I had to improvise, but I was able to get the point across.





I confess they probably were not as intimidating as teeny-tiny knits, but now the whole group knows what they are in for when they play with me. Now I need to go work out a teeny-tiny wolf.

Wintercrest Wizard

I got so excited about this that I forgot to blog.





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False Starts

I finished flock, and need a new project. I cast on a quick little toy for Hubby and got this far before I realized my yarn just wasn't going to work.



I started again with new yarn and got this far before I realized I was using the wrong needles.



 I took it as a sign and cast on for a pair of socks instead.



This is how far I got before I realized that I messed up my ribbing and it needs to be started over again. I knit, but I did not accomplish this weekend.

Follow Friday: Geek Dad & Geek Mom

Since it has been so long since I've offered up a Follow Friday and these two fit so well together, I'll give you a two for one deal.

I am not a parent, but I am a geek with a special interest in children's media. These two blogs are a perfect fit for me because they are intended for geeks who are immersed in children's media.

From Geek Dad

I discovered Geek Dad just after grad school and I've been an avid reader ever since. It is a great resource for updates and reviews of gadgets, games, comics, movies, books and Phineas and Ferb!

From Drop Box

I confess, I was leery of Geek Mom when it started. It is a spin off from Geek Dad and my initial thoughts were that separate is inherently not equal.  Women were posting on Geek Dad for as long as I had been reading, so I didn't really find Geek Mom necessary. Geek Mom seems to have some extra parenting tips, education related discussion, and healthy food ideas, but overall it is just more great information. There is a little bit of cross posting with Geek Dad, but they do a great job of organizing theme topics without having overlap redundancy.

Tangle

This is how I'm spending my evening:






How about you?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Migrated

My flock is finally finished. Weaving in all of the ends was a daunting task

While I tackled those, Hubby sewed them onto the branches and arranged the birds. It took both of us the better part of an afternoon, but it was a lovely result.




Here is a baby's eye view!




I love it! Hubby was having trouble letting it go. He had it hanging in our living room right up until I packed it up to ship out. Eventually they migrated south (a bit late but all in one piece) to our friends and their new baby. I hope he enjoys those adorable tummy stripes as much as I do.

Bagged

After knitting dice bags for Hubby and a couple friends, I finally have a reason to make a dice bag for myself. This weekend I went to my first DnD game. Of course, I couldn't go unaccessorized! I couldn't  decide what I wanted so Hubby started one for me with the self-striping yarn that was left over from Syndey's leg warmers. Because of my impatience, I had to take over and I finished it.



I love my sparkly dice! 


Inspired by Hubby's stripes and Being Elmo, I knew exactly what I wanted for my polyhedrals.



Look familiar? You get 100 cool points from me if you immediately thought of this guy:

From Sesame Street

I did much better with my jogless stripe on this bag than my birds. I think that the stripes on the birds were just a bit too thin for the jogless technique that I was trying to use. It worked much better on the wider blue and red stripes here. These little bags are a great way to practice new techniques. I love them. I'll have to come up with an excuse to make some more. Now I just need to resist the urge to buy some primary colored dice that match my bag. Maybe I need one that looks like Bert. Vertical stripes would be a good thing to learn.

Lucky

Despite the lack of knitting, it has been a pretty great summer. It has been full of friends, games and lazy days in the park. I've discovered this summer that I am the luckiest girl. I have two bits of fun evidence to share.

First, Hubby took me to see An American Tale at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I even had an amazing Fievel doll. The movie was as wonderful as I remember (which is lucky on its own) but the really fantastic part was the credits. There was a surprise fireworks show!

 Second, a couple weekends ago we went to see Being Elmo at IFC. We were in a intimate screening room and I loved the film. Again during the credits I got a big surprise. Several of the people who worked on creating the film were available for Q&A. Not only did I get to meet the director but Kevin Clash was a special guest. Here I am with Kevin and Tau



NYC loves me!