Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 7: Looking Forward

One year from now, when the 5th Knitting & Crochet Blog Week rolls around, where do you hope your crafting will have taken you to? What new skills, projects and experiences do you hope you might have conquered or tried?

• I'd like to finish my remaining 3 UFO which are:  a sweater that just needs to be seamed, another sweater that is about halfway done, and a 3rd sweater that I just restarted.

• My husband gave me yarn money for our anniversary. I decided to buy yarn to make a Color Affection, so I'd like to have that done.

• I've had yarn in my stash to make Jared Flood's Stilwell for several years but I don't feel like my colorwork skills are good enough yet to make it, so I would like to improve those.

• Blog more!

KCBWDAY7

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 6: A Tool to Covet

This might be a stretch because I don't think anyone will covet it but it's all I could come up with. . .my favorite tool is a small black notebook I use to keep track of all my knitting projects. I write down the size I'm making, gauge, tape in a tag with the color and dye lot numbers, then I make notes as I go. I keep track of rows, decreases etc. I used to use index cards but they tended to get misplaced, so now I use a notebook.

KCBWDAY6

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 5: Something A Bit Different

Ode to Unfinished Objects

I started out with seven-ty*

But hard work's brought me down to three.

I wish I were a Manatee,

'Cause they're so calm and cuddily.

To say it's no hyperbole:

I knit and purl so busily,

I'm clearly in the House of Bee.

*Poetic license: I actually started with seven UFO, but "seven-ty" fits better in the rhyme scheme.

4KCBWDAY5

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 4: Color Review

Day 4: Color Review

Today we are asked to

1. Think about what colors we favor when yarn and shopping and crafting:

• I tend to use a lot of blues, pinks and purples in both knitting and quilting.

2. Now look at what colors you have used in your projects and tally those:

• blue: 4
• pink: 2
• purple: 3
• brown: 3
• red: 2

3. Look at what colors you have in your stash and tally those:

• blue: 19 skeins
• pink: 10 skeins
• purple: 8 skeins
• red: 5 skeins
• coral: 8 skeins
• white/off-white: 24 skeins
• green: 10 skeins
• grey/black: 9 skeins

4. Compare to your house animal:

• My house animal is a bee and since my colors aren't very bee-like i.e. black/yellow I wasn't sure how to answer this, but then I realized that a lot of my colors are pastels which look like a flower garden where bees reside. 

4KCBWDAY4

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 3: Infographic

Day 3: Infographic

Today we're asked to use an infographic to display information on our blog.

Last June, in an effort to reduce my number of UFO, I joined the Come Blog-a-long group on Ravelry. On July 1st we posted a list of patterns or projects that we wanted to complete over the year, then every Sunday we would blog about our progress. Even though I haven't kept up with the blogging part, I have made progress on my projects.

I started out with 7 UFO: one was frogged, one was restarted with a few modifications and three are complete! One more just needs to be seamed but since technically it's not finished I didn't include it.

I graphed the time from CO to the day before I joined this group vs. the time from the group start date to FO:

Setting goals helps!

4KCBWDAY3

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 2: Mascot Project

A Mascot Project: Today we're asked to think of or research a project that embodies our house/animal and discuss how we decide upon what projects we make. My sweet husband came up with and drew my mascot for me!

He says I'm an octopus because I sit ensconced in my recliner where I have access to several knitting projects, books (yes more than one), coffee and the tv remote. I could knit one like this, this or this hat.

But addressing the second part of the topic, since amigurumi is not something I'd normally knit, how do I choose what I knit?

Who

• Yarn Harlot: I looked through my finished projects and 6 of my them are projects that the Yarn Harlot also made so she's clearly a source. No surprise there since most everything she makes becomes a huge hit, but I should note that it takes her a LOT less time to finish a project than me.

• Other blogs: I read several designers blogs (such as Thea Colman and Amy Herzog) and have made or am planning to make several of their designs. It was all I could do to not cast on Lilium this past weekend. Being a bee I get distracted easily, so I am trying to keep the number of UFO on the needles at a time to 2 or 3 . . .

Where

• Ravelry: I see projects that friends have made or ones posted in forums and those go into my queue.

Why

• I like to have a mix of projects going where one is a little bit of a challenge, such as a sweater with cables, along with a project that is mindless to work on when I am tired. So far I've mostly made hats and sweaters, but have recently completed one shawl and another is on the needles.

4KCBWDAY2

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 1: The House Cup

My blog has been sadly neglected the last few months. . . but I had so much fun last year participating in Eskimimi's Knitting and Crochet blog week that I decided to join in again this year.

Day 1:  The House Cup

Today's topic is to choose a house that best describes you so I chose The House of Bee because I definitely flit from one interesting project to the next! My Day 3 post will attempt to illustrate this. I ended up with so many UFO on my needles that it got overwhelming, so I am trying to focus on only one or two projects at a time, however it remains to be seen if I will be able to do that!









4KCBWDAY1