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.

It's all a charade!

First of all, I want to thank everyone for your lovely comments about the cranes - all so sweet, and I even got comments from new people - thanks for stopping by!

On to the post, I've had these socks done a while now and feel like I've already posted about them but realised that I hadn't - oops. Anyway, the Charade socks, are complete:


Pattern: Charade socks by Sandra.
Yarn: Plymouth Sockotta in color #15
Needles: Knitpicks 32" #1 - magic loop method
Adaptations: I did make the heel a little longer so that the sock could accomodate my high arches - other than that I stuck to the pattern as is. If I were to do the sock again I would probably do toe up with short row heels. I love the pattern though, it really was fun to knit - thanks Sandra!!!!


Note: While I know this yarn will probably make the longest lasting socks ever - I hated it, I didn't like the feel of it, the short bursts of color were a little too short, leaving me with a muddled mix. There were several knots in the skein - bah! I hate knots.

Next time: a bowling bag awaits some photo weather for the photo-shoot that it deserves (yup, I'm proud of it).

1000 Cranes

Not a lot to show off on the knitting front. So, for Earthchick, Samantha, Ceci and anyone else who might be interested - here's some shots of the Schrodinger Household's 1000 origami cranes I spoke of on the 7 random things post.

One lonely crane, with quarter to show size.



1000 origami cranes in a glass vase - pretty rainbow.


Cranes close-up.

PSA

If any of you will be in Central Park this Saturday morning, pop by the bandshell and come see me. I'm volunteering at information booth at the YAI Central Park Challenge. It's a 5k run/3k walk for people with Intellectual Disabilities/Developmental Disabilities. Yeah, I know it's a shameless plug, but it is a fun day - fingers crossed it will stay dry.

Meme

There is knitting going on in the house of Schrodinger, however, not so much of the finishing kind of knitting. So instead of boring you with WIP shots, I thought I would bore you with 7 random things about myself :) Thanks to Gabriella for the tag.

I'm the product of a RAF family, I spent my childhood not living anywhere for more than 3 years at a time. By the time I was 13 I'd spend 3 tours of 3 years in Germany - yet I've not been back since, although this should change at Christmas :) I miss Germany, I have many happy memories there.

Just before we moved back to England I had a memorable trip to Berlin with my school. We stayed in the Olympic stadium. I learned so much on that trip, it was my first realization of the horrors of what had happened during WWII. I also wrote my name on the Berlin Wall, and listened to the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack almost endlessly throughout the trip.

When I was a teenager I tried my hand at a few different crafts, lacemaking, screenprinting, dried and live flower-arranging. I was lucky that my school was also a 'community college' for people in the town, so they offered these classes to the pupils in the school for free. As time has gone on I've also tried jewelry making, hemp jewelry, candle-making & sculpting, wood-working, metalwork, and the usual paining and drawing, bead and wire sculpture, pottery, origami.

I have a fork-lift truck license. Mr B found it when unpacking last week, and I looked at it and remembered the days. Since it was many years ago, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't how to work one now.

Origami was my last obsession before knitting took over, I folded 1,000 cranes for my grandmother, who - when she received them, acted as though I was quite mad - why on earth would I give her 1,000 of these paper things? She never really got my explanation. She has since passed on and my cousin inherited them, she loves them. Not satisfied with just 1,000 for my grandmother, I decided to make an additional 1,000 for myself and Mr B. They sit in our living room in a large glass cylinder in a beautiful rainbow of colours.

Since my position at work has changed, and I'm on the phone helping people much more, I have developed new pet peeves. For example, I've recently realized that I can get very frustrated when someone says "I hear you" while you're in the middle of a sentence - what's the point?

Over the last few years I've developed this adolescent/childish thing whereby, when I hear people say "duty" I tend to giggle. I think that this is because it's pronounced so differently here in the US, that it just sounds like "doodie" from the mouths of so many to me.

200 posts and still going.

Well, I have a great many WIPS going on, so the basket is getting some good use :) It's basically like this, "oh, I really want to try Sandra's sock pattern" (see below), "ooh, I really want to knit up that habu silk [that I had just bought] into a shawl/stole", "oooh, I finally have yarn to make the hourglass sweater I've been wanting to knit forever", "oh yes, and I must make the mother/daughter socks for my wonderful co-worker moving back to Ireland next month". And guess what? I'm still looking beyond the basket to think about the other projects I want to get my hands on. I don't think that I've ever been this ADD with my knitting before - or maybe I forget?

At the back of my mind there 2 balls of Trekking XXL that I bought in a little sale at the Point last week - they want to be on the needles, right NOW. And to top it off, this landed in my mailbox yesterday:

Isn't it pretty? It's 5% cashmere, 95% Australian Merino. A laceweight called Gentle, in "Soft Aqua Blue" from Yarn Place. This was a prize that I won from Redheadskydiver a little while back. Isn't it pretty? Now it's tickling my brain, what lace project should it be? The card made me smile too. Thanks Redheadskydiver!!! It's soft and lovely. Yes, apparently I'm on a lucky streak - maybe it's time to buy my first lotto ticket?

As a result of all this distraction, I don't really have much in the way of FO's to show, just this one sock:



Now this sock - or was it the yarn? Pissed me off on Thursday. There I was on the train, happily knitting away, and out of the blue, the damn thing decides to tell me that maybe, just maybe, it wants to try being a different sock, perhaps a Monkey...

Now you can understand the reasoning behind this thinking, while in progress, it's really hard to see the great tweed-ish pattern - kind of a confused charade. So the yarn starts to worry, it wants to be seen in it's best light after all. But then. I try it on. No, the yarn was wrong, Charade was the right pattern after all - phew! all is good again (it's true that I still have a nagging doubt, however, I'm choosing to ignore it).

Oh, and there have been some requests for apartment pictures. There is still plenty to be done here in our humble abode, but I thought I would oblige. So, here's a couple of shots of the living room to tide you over:





And my crafting space - as you can see , this is still a work in progress - AND (with Mr B there for scale) it's obvious that my stash is a reasonably small size... right?




I'm going to have go now to get ready to go out to celebrate the Mets win :)

Luck o' the British?

I'm a lucky bugger. Look what I won at a work event today.

Packed full of pampering Bath and Body Works goodies - about half of which will be going to work tomorrow where they will be surely more appreciated. But dude! Look at that basket.

I immediately gave it a job. Doesn't it make a great WIP basket?


And, a little teaser of the apartment, I will try to take more pics of the place at the weekend - but with me going to a Mets game Saturday, not sure when that's going to happen :)

Weekend update

First of all, I just have to say 2 words Raverly Rocks! Frecklegirl Jess and her amazing hubby built up this phenomenal site for knitters - it's a perfect way to keep a track of all your projects (finished and WIPS), your yarn, your needles/hooks, your books, patterns your want to do, even your friends. Check it out now, you can only join by invite - so contact them, your invite will be given to you in the order it was received.

While deciding what yarn to buy project to do next, I picked out the baby silk I had in my stash and knit....well.... another shedir. Maybe it's a shedir addiction, may it's that I have tried several patterns with this yarn already and it just didn't want to be them, ever


And this is how much yarn I had left - I measured it, not even 21 inches - PHEW! That was a close one.


Okay, okay, you just want the stats - so here ya go...

Pattern: Shedir cap.
Yarn: 3 balls of Elann's Baby Silk in "Deepest Black", 80% baby Alpaca, 20% silk yarn. I doubled the yarn.
Needles: Addis Turbos, 32" #3's (magic loop method).
Adaptations: I did 4 of the 5 pattern repeats, again.

As for other knitterly goodness. I got my order from WEBS this week, I cast on for a sock, more about this another time.



I also swatched.


I might be pushing this one though, I keep getting 20 stitches, as opposed to the required 19 sts per 4". While I really like the feel of this yarn, I'm not convinced about the color - as is frequently the case with reds/oranges, it's impossible to capture the true color - but I would say there is a little more 'flamingo' going on.

And the spinning has been going well.


There's a little more white in it than I would like, but I'm sure that plying will change it all. Speaking of which, I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle the plying. I got an Ashford lazy kate some time ago, didn't really think about it until I assembled it. However it's too small the bobbins of my mystery wheel - doh! I've been plying from center-pull balls, leaving me with less than perfect plying, I don't want that for this beautificous roving.

Oh! and one more picture - Absorba out in the wild. Don't you just love our bathroom's subway tiles?



Enjoy the weekend - it's a beaut here!