hand cuffs?

I am back from my awesome Midland vacation... there was lots of nice walks with Miss Carolyn, lots of gooood food made by Josh, lots of cuddles (I am going through withdrawal), some good movies, lots of popcorn, and pretty flowers (now I have a little rose plant to take care off).

And you are probably wondering was there any knitting?? well I began my socks.. but I didn't do much knitting, my hands were busy playing Guitar Hero *rocks out*

But... there was a present for Josh that I knitted before I left .. knitted handcuffs!!! that is right, he asked me for some, and now he has some, these are my own design and I plan on refining them some more one day, but for now.. they are just totally fun!

Look into my sweet, innocent face cupcake.. look deeply...

The cupcake cannot resist the allure of Miss Carolyn... it wants to be her friend, keeping paper and notes in place all day long, and providing much glee!

Isn't it cute? I've wanted to make one of these for so long and now it's mine!!! I must make more soon..


Pattern: Cupcake!

Yarn: Base - Easy Knit mercerized wool in Stone, Icing - Bernat Cot'n Soft in Parade Print and white hand spun mohair (by my Mum!)
Needles: 4mm dpn
Notions: 1.5ish yards of ribbon, a large button, 10 glass pebbles, a plastic lid with the base removed, stuffing!
Started / Finish: April 23rd 2007 / April 24th 2007

Modifications: I ended up working with 42 stitches, instead of 36. To achieve this, I added one more round of increases, but left out the middle increase on each needle. Also, when starting with the icing, I increased to 48 to make it puff out more. To work with these additional 12 stitches, I decided to decrease by 8, instead of 6, every other round, which works out to the same number of decrease rows called for in the pattern.

Today was so pretty! I managed to get out for a 30 minute walk, and burnt 150-ish calories playing DDR. It's hard staying on track, but I have goals, and I will reach them. I'll look super cute for school too. Plus, I really want to lose 5lbs for going apartment hunting in Ottawa. Miss Ifi, this really means we'll be out walking ALL the time when you visit! Also, you and I must play Guitar Hero. It needs us to rock out!

Back to knitting, Ms Marigold is coming along nicely! I'm almost ready to join her together. My mystery project is pretty much ready to go to, I just need to find the PERFECT yarn. Something very silky, and dark in colour.

mystery project or curiosity project?

The mystery project is finally done, yes.. for all of you curious people out there that were wondering what I was knitting, well you finally have your chance to see what it is.

I have to say, that I had some problems, first the prototype ran out of yarn, but I learned from it that I needed to redesign it, since it is the first thing that I've done without a pattern, but after all the problems.. HERE IT IS... drum roll please..



That is RIGHT!! It is a knitted belt, whenever I wear this little dress I feel that it is missing something, so I finally have something that makes the outfit unique with something I knitted wheeee ^_^ .. I am so proud of it..

Now... back to those handcuffs.

Carolyn on Carolyn action!

Take one girl named Carolyn, give her a pattern named Carolyn, and look what you end up with:


Carolyn

Pattern by: Jennifer Thurston, Spring Knitty 2007
Size: Medium
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool Merino in Evergreen (2.5 balls) and Peacock (2.05 balls grrr..)
Needles: 4mm and 4.5mm straight, 4mm circular
Notions: 8 - Teal 1.5" buttons
Started / Finish: March 14-ish 2007 / April 17th 2007

Modifications:

The only modifications I made were on the sleeves. Instead of increasing right away after the ribbed cuff, I knit the 14 rows, then started my increases. I also left out one stripe on the sleeve shoulders, because it wouldn't have match up with the body otherwise.

Brief Review:

This pattern was fun to knit up, rather quick knitting on the body sections. (The sleeves take much longer!) It has a very nice fit as well, hugging your body in the right areas. I do look forward to how it will fit once I lose more weight though! Having more room in the sleeves will be lovely.

Since this is a striped pattern, you really need to plan out ending your body and sleeves in the contrast colour. For the medium, this means starting the armhole bind-offs in your main colour.
Also, the medium size has a few miscounts on the sleeves. If the pattern is followed exactly, you end up with 16 sts left, not 20 sts. As mentioned above, I left out a stripe so that the raglan seams would match up perfectly, thus I ended up with 18 sts left on each. As I hadn't made a sweater before, I was worried about this, but I just went with my instinct. It worked out fine!


Now I have my sights set on finishing my French Market Bag, and once I lose a little more weight, I can't wait to start knitting up Intolerable Cruelty! So many things on the go. Even Ms Marigold has gotten attention lately!

yaaaaaaarn!!!!

The yarn store in the Glebe had a yarn sale, so I couldn't resist going and getting some stuff, after all I do needed yarn for 2 projects.

I must confess that I get nervous when buying more than 2 skeins, for some reason just looking at all that yarn is as intimidating as a blank canvass but it is also like.. geeesh I hope they made a mistake and the price is lower, heh.. however that is the nice thing about a sale.

So... I got this yarn for Petunia, or what will one day be Petunia.. I am in loved with the colour and the texture of the yarn... mmmm



getting yarn was nice, but there is bad news.. I ran out of yarn for the mystery project, the good about that.. is that it needs some redesigning so, I can now re-start the mystery project with my new idea and make it work this time and have enough yarn .... mystery project here I come!!! ... again