FO: Trekkie cloth

I finished this in August but hadn't gotten around to taking a picture of it yet. It was knit with cotton on size 7 needles, and it took me about four hours total. It was a quick knit, and I had a lot of fun with it. As you can see I messed up on the symbol (it is supposed to be the Star Trek symbol) so next time when I knit this project I'll pay better attention to the pattern. I kind of spaced out on a few lines. lol So for now here is what I have. Oh, let me look up the link for the pattern. That's all for now!

http://milotis.wordpress.com/2006/05/08/baby-trekkie-washcloth/

Fabric

I bought new fabric to make curtains out of. I have never sewn with a sewing machine before so I'm really excited to learn how, and especially to make curtain for my new room!

I'm getting settled in just fine after the move. My mom and I have a craft room set up so she can do her quilting and I can do my scrapbooking. It is amazing. More news and pictures of that to come. Hopefully I'll get these curtains done soon to so I can share pics of those. :)

Simply Knitting

Mom went shopping today and when she came back she had presents for me!

A book: The Art of Drawing. (Yay!)

As well as a knitting  magazine from the UK called Simply Knitting.

Let me tell you, people I am IN LOVE with the magazine. I spent about an hour flipping through it and reading most of it. There mag has so much to offer including: letters from reading with pictures of knitting projects, ideas for charities to knit for, knitting around the world, knitting patterns, reviews of books, mags, and websites, products, yarn, etc, pictures of knitting techniques, and stories on a myriad of topics and events. The thing I liked the most was that it felt like it was a look at the knitting community in the UK, and around the world. There was a "home-y" feel to everything. There is a lot of reader participation and contests. I really like it. Oh and the greatest part is that you get a free gift with every issue AND the knitting penpal ads (did you hear people hear me, KNITTING penpals?!!). The gift that I got was a knitting calendar for 2010! How adorable is that? Every month has a different pattern.



Some of the websites that I discovered in October's Issue:

• A new (well new to me) knitting blog to read by knitting Designer Jared Flood. Link. 
• Sock Museum This is a website with the history of sock making, including sock patterns from all over the world that have been knit throughout history. Wicked cool!
• Craft Blips This is a site that searches all over the internet looking for "craft news and gossip". News about all different types of crafts including knitting, crochet, paper crafts, and quilting. Apparently there are several "Blips" sites gathering news on all sorts of topics. This site is the newest addtion to their collection. It's kind of, and I mean kind of, like the Digg of knitting.
  

Probably much more to come about this mag! Check it out if the get the chance. Mom found it at Barnes and Nobels and I looked online and you can order it directly from their website or from Amazon.

Massive Fail!

I have tons of other things going on in my life and I haven't had time to knit in a very long time. I am sad about this, but also glad that I do have time to spend on the other areas of my life that I need to focus on.

Things that are preventing me from knitting:
-I am getting ready to move so most of my knitting is boxed up already.
-I haven't picked up my needles since I've been home from my last tournament (which has been a little over a month), and the more time that passes the harder it is to find a project that inspires me enough to go yarn shopping.
-I am on a very strict budget. If I am not knitting then I am not tempted to look for yarn sales on the internet or to add anymore projects to my queue on Ravelry that will eventually cost me money to complete.

This is a period of great change in my life so I'm adjusting. Knitting would help sooth me but I just haven't picked up the needles in awhile. There is a lot of good stuff going on for me right now, a lot of change, and a lot of stuff that I'm proud of.

Hopefully when I get moved I will be able to put some more effort into this blog, and into my knitting in general. Knitting is one of my passions so I am sad when I am not doing it, but it is okay that I am not as obsessive with it right now as I usually am. There are other things in life that are also important!

The Big Move

So there obviously have not been a lot of updates on here lately. That would be due to the fact that I was working away in Mississippi and sadly I had little time for knitting. I'm back home now tho, but I still do not have much time for knitting. I am packing everything I own up in preparation for the big move to Oklahoma. My stuff is already packed from my last move, but not as well as I would like it to be...so I guess it would be more proper to say that I am "re-packing" everything I own. It shouldn't be that big of a deal but I don't know how much knitting I will be able to complete after I get everything packed up. That remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I broke out my Nintendo DS and have been playing that a ton. It is about time I got it back out since I spent so much money on it. I even bought myself a new game for it. So instead of knitting I'll be video gaming. Trust me though, I would much rather be knitting. Or at least gaming some of the time and knitting the rest of the time. I miss knitting.

Another part of the problem could be chalked up to the fact that I haven't found inspiration for a new project. I mean I have a pretty good sized queue on Ravelry, but that does not necessarily mean that I want to knit all of that stuff right away. I mean there are TONS of things that I could be doing...like Christmas presents, but like I said no inspiration right now. Hopefully I get motivated soon so I can start working on presents. You see, I'm a slow knitter, so starting now would mean that maybe four or five people would get handknit presents.

That's all I have for now. Wish me luck! I hope all the rest of you are knitting away, and loving every minute of it!

Progress

I decided to frog what I had of my socks so far, and I have good news! When I took the knitting off the needles it was actually round! There were not huge gaps like I thought there were be! I might be getting the hang of this knitting in the round thing with DPNs. I'm glad that I frogged cos I know that there will be plenty more mistakes and if I actually take my time and do it the right way then I might have a pair of socks eventually. It might take me a year to figure all of this stuff out, but I will get there some day.

Sorry there aren't any pictures but my poor little camera is dead and I can't fix it because I left the power cord at home or lost it or who knows what.

Socks

I'm knitting socks. Well trying to teach myself how to knit them actually. Things are off to a pretty slow start. These teeny tiny baby needles, and this precious fingering yarn that is finer than hair! That pattern that I don't understand...I mean Old Norwegian cast on? I have never heard of that and I looked up the video on knitting help but there.was.no.sound! You have got to be kidding me. I read the directions from the pattern and watched the video but I am still lost! I need helllp! Because those totally are not my socks over there. :)


For now I'm just using the cast on method that I know. I'm sure it will make things weird or screw something up in the pattern. I'm just too tired to mess with something that I worked at for at least ten minutes and know the same about it as when I first started. If I was not so tired or anxious to get on with the sock knitting I would give it more time. I'm sure that tomorrow, well not tomorrow but the next time I pick up my needles I will put more effort into learning this new (to me) cast on method.


If only I owned that book over there to the right! Then maybe I would have more to go off of! LOL! Then again there are plenty of resources on the internet, and I know that I will figure all of this out. If anyone has any hints or tips for me please let me know. Any information ya'll have to share with me about sock knitting would be great.

Wish me luck!

Update: I have been knitting for at least an hour and a half. In this 90 minutes I managed to get the right amount of stitches cast on, divided them the way I was supposed. Then everything all went terribly wrong. I somehow managed to have my work on only two needles instead of three. I figured out how to remedy that pretty quickly. Then it became increasingly clear as I went along that I could not follow the simple *K2, P1, K2, P1, repeat from * pattern. I pressed on anyway hoping that I was wrong about the (several, I'm sure) mistakes I made in this simple repeat. Then when I went to the second round I got through about 10 stitches and suddenly realized that I was no longer going to be using those set of repeats (I should have switched to *K1, RT (see Stitch Guide), k1, p1, RT, p1; rep from *
to end), but I did not bother to double check the pattern. I just kept on with my knitting and purling and totally forgot that "rnd 2" was supposed to be using a different set of repeats.

So I can:
1-Rip out and start over
2-Keep knitting the cuff pattern (yes they are top down socks) until I get it and THEN frog
3-Knit the whole sock even though there are bound to be many, many more mistakes along with the laundry list I have provided thus far.

I am rooting for option 3 because:
1-I am not going to knit two socks when the first one is so jacked up so,
2-I can just knit this one "practice" sock and frame it
3-Learn all of the things I have no idea how to do at this point including: Learn how to keep stitches tight when I switch needles, turn the heel of a sock, and make a toe.

I'll keep everyone updated as I progress. It might take me FOREVER to knit this one very ugly sock, but I'm going to get this all figured out even if it hurts my tender little fingers and makes me cry! Trial and error, my friends, trial and error.