Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

Toy Box Monster
Today’s a great day to debut my most recent finished object: an un-named Toy Box Monster!
Toy Box Monster
Knit from Rebecca Danger’s Big Book of Monsters, it is too cute! It’s not quite finished; Mr. TEK thinks he needs a tongue, and I need to get some red felt for it. This little guy is destined for a new baby, due in March 2012. I modified the pattern quite a bit, and I’m so happy with how it knit up. I used Classic Elite Liberty Wool in Rainforest (#7893). It took 2.5 skeins. I really liked working with the yarn, though it could be kinda splitty.

My changes:
  • Cast on and initial increases. I tried 3 or 4 times to get the cast on and the increases started on the bottom of the monster. It did not go well at all. It just looked messy. Instead I used a toe-up sock technique, knit up a square, then picked up stitches around the 3 edges without live stitches. From there I was able to increase to have the right number of stitches. 
  • Lengthened the body. I thought the ball shape would be too small, so I made it more of a pill shape. 
  • Pick-up stitches for arms and legs. I hate hate hate hate hate seaming, so instead of knitting the arms and legs and sewing them on, I decided to just pick-up stitches and knit the limbs directly to the body. For me, and my lack of finishing skills, it looks cleaner and has a smoother transition. 

The specs:
Pattern: Toy Box Monster from Rebecca Danger’s Big Book of Monsters
Yarn: Classic Elite Liberty Wool- Rainforest #7893
Needles: US5
Ravelry Link

Friday, October 21, 2011

The Monster Without a Name

The knitting is done. Forgive the crappy cell phone pic. Better photos are coming!

My knitting has eyes

Why, yes, this was taken in my car.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Sometimes I hate how busy I am

I took a photo yesterday for wordless wednesday. Then I didn't have time to actually post it. Hopefully I can post it tonight... better late than never, right?

Monday, October 3, 2011

It’s FALL!

I love and dread the fall. The colors and temperature is wonderful. The hint of winter in the air as fall fades just sucks. I hate driving in snow so much that it makes me hate and dread the winter. There are parts of winter weather that I love… thick socks, mittens, hats, scarves, slippers… watching it snow when I don’t have anywhere to go… hot tea, hot cocoa, baking bread and cakes and the warmth from the oven keeping me warm. I could go on, but I won’t. I’ll just say that I wish early fall could last forever. Just as I was congratulating myself for keeping up on the blog, I completely fell off the wagon. But that’s okay, I’m okay. So let’s start with my vacation week!

CAMPING! We started a week of vacation with camping on Lake Michigan. It was only two nights, so we figured it would be fun and not too much work. It was really nice. We brought books and a Frisbee (which I promptly and accidentally threw in the lake) and had to go buy some camp chairs from Meijer. We watched the sunset over the lake and sat on the beach the next day. We explored, and I knit a little. The last night it rained… and rained… and rained… we ended up taking the tent down in the rain. Thankfully the tent was well designed and was easy to take down.


CONCERT! Almost as soon as we got home on Monday (we had time for a nap and dinner) we left to drive to the Palace of Auburn Hills for the Foo Fighters! They always put on an awesome show, and this time was no exception. We were rocked for 3 hours! I even managed to get a decent shot with my camera phone. I ran it through lightbox, a free android app, for the post processing. Lightbox_1317165062491.jpge

CYCLING! Good and bad, we did a lot of cycling over our vacation, but Thursday I fell off my bike. I still have the scrapes, but they don’t hurt all the time anymore. We were at our local state park, and we were going fast, about 15 mph. I was coming around a curve and one of my tires must have fallen off the path, which put me off balance and I fell. Luckily, I was wearing long sleeves and pants. My shirt ripped, but my pants didn’t. I had some scrapes/road rash on my left elbow and knee, a huge bruise on my right calf, and a smaller bruise on my right ankle. I think my bike was scraped a little, but I think it was mostly on one of the pedals. Mr. TEK came back and checked it over, so I didn’t see it. The worst part was the simple muscle soreness in the days after. So not only did I fall off my bike, the following Saturday, just 3 days later, we rode in the Tour d’Troit bike ride. We totaled 26 miles for the outing- the ride was 22 miles through some nice and not-so-nice parts of Detroit, plus we did an optional 2 miles on Belle Isle and there were another 2 miles to and from the parking lot. I didn’t take my camera, as I was still sore and uncomfortable. The worst part was that every time I hit a bump it jarred my injured elbow. It was still fun though!

The other major thing we did over the week was complete Mr. TEK’s bookcases. He started building a set of three bookcases for our house last year, but had to stop working on them last summer because of his illness. We did the stain and the polyurethane, and on Sunday got the cases moved into the house and our books out of the storage tubs we had to put them in. We have two in the bedroom and one in the computer room. They look FANTASTIC!

Next time: banana bread, books, and a knitting wip

And don't forget Duke. He is not amused by my photography.

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