Remember Me?

OHAI! yes! it's me, I'm popping in to blog for the first time in, ahem, over a year, ahem. I guess I got busy and distracted, and blogging has not been top of my list of things to do. Everything is great here. Since going back to work (coincidentally, the last time I blogged was just around the time I returned to work) I've been pretty busy, and generally pretty happy about it. I'm really just chronicling my knitting at ravelry, flickring and occasional facebooking and other stuff. I moved to a bigger and better apartment over the holidays. Oh, and still I'm selling bags in my etsy shop.

Speaking of the shop, this is the reason for this erratic post, I decided today, in line with the amazing pattern sellers on rav doing "Help for Haiti" donations, that 50% of my bag sales will go directly to Save the Children until January 31st. Save the Children has worked in Haiti for 25 years with 100 staff on the ground. Will be providing food, water, shelter and child-friendly spaces. Because Save the Children's offices did not suffer the structural damage of other non-governmental organizations, other aid workers have taken refuge in the agency's compound, where operations are being run out of offices and tents (quoted directly from Charity Navigator)

So. If you've been debating about buying a cube recently, this could not be a better time to buy one, come on over and see if there are any that take your fancy.

For those of you who don't already know, you can find out when the shop is updated with new items either through following me on twitter, or subscribing to the shop's rss feed.

Just Stuff

First of all, a quick shot of the prize from Knitting Philistine, don't worry, I didn't win another prize, I already 'fessed up to this one.

There's some Gentle Lavender Natural Mineral Sea Salt Soak, Herbal Spa Treatments for Bath (also Lavender), Sweet Orange and Clove Soap, and Peppermint Wish Foot Balm. I have to admit to opening the foot balm right away, and I LOVE it, my post-summer feet ate it up, I've tried a lot of foot moisturizers in the past, and this has to be my favorite so far. Normally I feel that my feet are over-greasy. Forget walking on the hardwood floors afterwards! But this was much better than any other I've tried, I felt like it absorbed a lot better, and was much less greasy. I also felt a difference in softness. I've not tried the other things yet, I think we need some cooler weather before I'm taking a bath. But I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to Melissa. If you want to get some of your own, you can always check out her store.

Speaking of stores, I wanted to say that I'm blown away at the response to my box bags, the first batch sold out in less than 3 days, I've managed to add more here and there. I hope to do a bigger update sometime over the weekend. Anyway, big THANKS to everyone that's stopped by the store to visit, and those that have bought bags. I'm so relieved that people actually like them.

Every time I start a new project, I have, in the back of my mind, the crazyidea, this time it may *the one*. You know, the one that has zero errors, the one without any fudged-up bits. Although I'm pretty sure this will never happen - there is still a part of me, hoping that just maybe....

So, a couple of (slightly) fudged up FO's for you. First of all Spiral Socks. I absolutely adore these socks. I really enjoyed the STR - which is a relief since I have 3 more skeins to use :) it's so... round. As for the socks, I thought I was doing so well with the matching of the socks, opposite swirls and all. However, the swirl came around a lot faster on the second sock than on the first. I could. not. figure it out for ages. Trying them on after finishing last night, I realized what the problem is, I think I actually had less stitches for sock #2!!! Oh well, they still fit (albeit tightly for #2), and I still love them, even though they're not perfectly matched.


Pattern: Swirl Socks by Sulafaye
Yarn: Socks That Rock Lightweight - in January One (btw, how cool to have a colorway named after you?)
Needles: US #2 Pony Pearls
Mods and thoughts: Only the 'oops factor'. I highly recommend the pattern, perfect interest and not too 'fussy' for a variegated yarn.

The second FO began with even higher hopes. Orangina was supposed be knit faster than anyone else has done it (planning to practically finish on vacation - HA!), be perfect, AND make me slimmer. None of these things happened, of course. I'm had moments of losing my place in the pattern at times, creating 'unevenness', and being the lazy knitter that I am, I didn't rip back. Ripping back only happens when it's *really* noticeable, which is rare in my book, my standards are low :) Oh yeah, and I gave myself a face, for a change.


Pattern: Orangina by Glampyre Knits
Yarn: Rowan 4-ply in "Sage"
Needles: Addis Tubos US #3
Mods: again, only the "Schrodinger touch" to certain parts of the pattern, oh! and I made the back slightly longer than the front - not on purpose. I'm undecided about the pattern, like I said, I wanted it to make me thinner. Shockingly - it didn't. Oh well...

And the winners are...

Contest is over - woo hoo! What follows is a bunch of rambling, followed by the winners names, just scroll to the bottom if you just want to know if you have won a bag cube.

Choice A - autumn flowers
Thank you so much everyone for your overwhelming response. I was fortunate enough to have the week off work last week to have time to look over the comments - 247 all-in-all!! I'm not kidding about overwhelming, I can't believe how many of you knit bloggers out there came by to visit - it's exciting for me to see all these new blogs - even if I haven't had time to personally say hi. I really do appreciate your good wishes and support for the new shop (which is now open btw - check out the nifty little 'mini-shop' on the left).

Choice B - Purple Regal
Also during my week off I was been cutting, pinning and sewing like a woman possessed. I love my bags, I'm proud of them, I think they are excellent quality, and they look freaking adorable, but they take up a lot of time. So, if I haven't commented on your blog recently, please don't think I'm ignoring you, I'm still perusing blogs, but not commenting as much as I'd like.

Choice C - Greyscale Flowers
I have found a little bit of time to knit in the evening. The never-ending Orangina is now complete, just in time for the fall - my timing is perfect, as always. But I'm going to save all that knitting stuff for another post, because all you folks want to know right now (if you've not already skipped past to the names) is if you're a winner. First of all I want to let you know about my method of randomly picking - well I toyed with the idea of hats and scrap - for all of about 5 seconds!! Seriously, once you add all the extra entries for everyone, there would have been 364 pieces of paper to write/print and cut - no, I've got enough cutting going on here. Instead, excel became my friend, cut and paste my savior :) Then, after a bit of googling I found this formula:

=INDEX(A1:A364,ROUNDUP(RAND()*COUNTA(A1:A364),0))

Choice D - Amber Eternity
Apparently it works - well, I know it does, I tested it (on another list) a LOT, it's like magic! Now I'm writing this post before picking the names, so, right at this second, I have no idea who the winner will be (although there are a couple of bloggers out there who sent a huge amount of people over here - either by threatening physical violence, or just being known to post a LOT of contests).

Choice E - Golden Blue
Anyway, I think that it's time to put you, and myself, out of our misery and just do it already!!

So here goes - first name out of the hat is..... Jen W

Number 2....... Sally Villarreal

And the final name is .............. Cass (not surprising with over 30 entries in all), now we know, violence - or at least the threat of it, does pay ;)

Congratulations to you lovely winners. You get to choose one the the bags shown in this post. Just email me (schrodinger212 AT gmail DOT com) with your choice and mailing details. Again, thanks to everyone for your support and the amazing response. And don't forget, if you really, really (really) want a bag, you can find them at my store (sorry, couldn't resist one last push).

Next time .... some actual knitting - AND, shock, horror, at least one FO.

Boasting and gloating.

As promised - one bowling bag, tadaaaa!!!!

This bugger took me the best part of a weekend and cost some sore fingers - but it was totally worth it methinks. I made the bag based on a tutorial by qazicat, which I found through the craftster forums.



Her tute was for a much smaller bag from the looks of it, there are no pattern pieces, but I just figured out the size I wanted, and created the side shapes first. The other pieces followed on from there.

I'm exceedingly happy with my bag, it's perfect for work (I made it big enough to hold file folders, as well as pockets for other goodies...



I stayed quiet on the first day out with this bag - the next day I couldn't hold it in anymore, I managed to boast to at leasst 3 different people. The poor spiders got it on Friday AND Saturday - "look what I made". Now here I go again on the blog - I hope that it will be out of my system after this post. I mean, come on, the bag is far from perfect, I'm not overly pleased with the handles - they look a little too 'home-made', know what I mean? And I didn't get a good match with the black panelling at the side. But, it works and it makes me smile.


In knitting news. I finished a pair of Mother & Daughter socks, for a wonderful colleague and her daughter, who are re-loacating to Ireland and will be sorely missed. I'm pretty pleased with how well these socks match each other - this is important for non-knitters, who struggle to appreciate the "unique pairing" of colors us knitters can make.



pattern: basic toe-up (figure 8 cast on) stockinette socks with short-row heels. I found the sock-u-lator II very helpful for figuring out how many stitches to cast on.
needles: Addi turbo 32", US #2 (3mm)
yarn: Lana Grossa Cotton Fantasy, in color #809. and a little bit of Regia cotton surf for the mother socks (left over from the Ampersand Socks) - the cotton fantasy is almost exactly the same as cotton surf. I actually like this yarn a lot - even though it's a cotton blend - and think they will be pretty hard wearing.



I just hope that both mother and daughter love them - oh! and that they fit :)

Happy Father's Day.

Ternion

What's this here?



Yesterday afternoon, I decided, was for sewing, and here's the result.



It's a box bag ternion, just big enough to carry a small knitting projects around and I'm pretty chuffed with them. So I wanted to show them off to you.



I have been knitting too, but nothing worthy of photo's... yet.

EDIT: The bags are my own pattern, which is still evolving, there is still some work to be done on it.