Fitted Pocket Diaper Pattern

Well, several asked and I have finally finished writing it up. Please check the sidebar under "My Stuff to Share" for the pattern.

I need to warn you, this is not a pattern for the faint of heart. Or the beginner (sorry!). If you have questions or difficulties, don't be afraid to contact me and I will try to help you. :^)

The Ravelry Ate My Blog Posts

It's true, I swear. I have been very good at posting on Ravelry, and not so good about keeping up with my blog.

But I do have some things to chat about. Remember my pattern, Thalia?

Sanguine Gryphon has accepted my submission (pending a few details). It will highlight her yarn Dance, which is 100% silk noil. I've started working on getting the pattern into the appropriate format for her, and I'm going to be knitting a sample piece for her too.

I've knit up a cute little raglan for my boy in the same yarn in the Merengue color. (I ran out, haha, so I had to switch to a different yarn at the collar). He loves this sweater. Such a good boy. :^)

The spiraling on the sleeves is a defect of my method with DPNs. Ah well, it's better than ladders and has become less noticeable with wear.





I have some more things to add (as always), but they will have to wait.

P.S. - I have started on the Knitted Fitted Pocket Diaper pattern, but it's going to be a while before I finish it with a toddler around. I've gotten to a section that requires concentration (partly to remember what on earth I did, hah).

Knitted Fitted Pocket Diaper

I thought I would try out a pocket diaper, but I didn't feel like buying or sewing one so I knitted it instead.









It still requires a diaper cover to be worn with it. It's just nice because it has the gussets on the side (which is kind of a luxury for us because we normally just use prefolds).

I'm thinking I might try to figure out a sewn version later. This one is really a little too stretchy around the waist.

Sneaky Raven

Ooh, something shiny! Mine!









Sometimes I forget to take pictures of the pretty things I make before I give them away, but this time I remembered. I think I like this origami presentation, don't you? I had the idea the other day and just started going with it. It just makes it kind of impossible to write in pertinent details, like materials and recommended needle size.

I have some knitting pictures I need to catch up, but I don't have time to do it right now.

It Had To Happen Eventually....

Hehehe, that's right. I made that tiniest and most unmentionable of unmentionables. Well, maybe not tiniest, and maybe not the most unmentionable, but it definitely rates right up there! It took me half a week, believe it or not.

Here is the front.



And this is the back. It is resting on one of my shoes.


I haven't gotten up the nerve to actually wear it yet, but soon. And for those that are interested in the pattern it is the Frecklegirl Thong from Kn1t.com. I highly recommend knitting it to gauge at 8 st/inch, instead of going 10 st/inch like I did. I love the fabric it made but boy is it teeny!

Fresh From The Garden

I've been watching this beauty slowly unfurl for days. The day before yesterday it was a narrow green caterpillar peeking out of the sepals. Yesterday it was a narrow pale green tube.

This morning it was a limp, dangling thing. I've peeked at it intermittently all day and then all of a sudden this evening it was this fresh, perfect blossom.







Incidentally, it is a brugmansia (or Angel's Trumpet). The sap or juice from any part of this plant is toxic, but the flowers are intensely fragrant in addition to being delicately beautiful.

A Floppy Hat

I finished something! It is a floppy hat.

I dyed the yarn purple and blue and green (with white space between the colors). But I didn't care for it much once it was knitted, so I tried overdyeing with burgundy. (I expected two shades of purple, brown, and burgundy at the end). Instead, I got several shades of brown. I decided I liked it even better this way. And then of course I found this nice pattern Palisel that I was able to twist and turn to my own ends.






I wasn't entirely happy with the decreases, but they're much better than my first try and I was tired of messing with it.

Local Pride

In the form of a hat!

I made this up for one of my dear friends of old, a rabid Hurricanes fan. She requested gloves... but I really wanted to use this chart. It was too big for gloves. It's nearly too big for the hat too!

And ummm, if you're reading this Ms. A&W, you still have to pretend to be excited when I give it to you. So there. :')













(This was taken in a mirror, so the logo is reversed).

I haven't actually finished anything else since I last wrote, but I've done a little of this and that and started a ton of things. Dyeing, spinning, (even some cleaning), and casting on and swatching. Hopefully I will have another finished object to show you soon.

Thalia

Allow me to introduce:

Thalia











I'm still plotting to tweak some things for the final pattern, but for just me I'm happy with this shirt.

ETA: I should have mentioned this the first time I posted. My original vision was fairly different from this final version, but I held true to my desire for a tank top inspired by ancient Greek fashion. There is a reason that so many designers through the ages kept looking back to the Greco-Roman period for inspiration!

The ribbing pattern gives the impression of pleats, and the cowl neck gives real pleats and a pleasant drape.

So Close!

So close I can hardly stand it!

If I wasn't sure I would completely lose my marbles I might even try to finish it tonight...

Yeah, I'm not even coherent anymore. Look at the pics and see what you think.







And I haven't been slacking on the pattern-writing either. Currently I am complete on all sizes for the torso, and I have the directions for my size in the rest. I have a strong suspicion the math is going to be hurting my brain when I start fleshing out the other sizes in the bust and back.

For The Family

Every once in a while I manage to catch the kid being extra cute on film. Here's the little cat-tormenter being sweet on the phone. :^)

Fresh Yarn

And bright too!

I did some spinning after finishing Sahara. I used the shetland/angora blend that I dyed with easter egg dye, and some yummy black alpaca. I then plied that in the same direction as the first spinning with a teal rayon thread that I had beaded. I navajo plied the whole thing to get this:



Look at the beads!


I still actually need to work on this a little more. The different fibers took the twist differently and the black sections need more twist (in the navajo plying direction) to be balanced.

Also I need a name for it. So far all that's come to me is "Cyber." Any ideas?


I have been knitting a fair bit on a tank top I'm trying to design. I don't really want to show it until I'm done with it. Especially since there's always the chance it will just get ripped if it doesn't come together properly.


And just because, I leave you with a pic of Kahlua with a flower.

Sahara Is Finished!

Woo! Now for pictures. :^)












Is it time for sweaters yet?

Anniversary Pictures

We did have a very lovely anniversary. Here's our anniversary pictures for this year (I haven't skipped a year yet, although there's a couple years that are kind of rough looking).



(Our friend has a beautiful side-yard, huh)?



It's just not fun unless there's peek-a-boo involved, heh. ;^)

More Sahara

Another progress pic. I'm not that fast, it's just that the last picture I posted had been sitting on my camera for a while.

Look, only one sleeve left to go!


Kokomo is fascinated by this strange ritual. Why did the food-provider spread this mysterious blanket on the floor?


Hehe.

Finished Anti-Tink Bag

I hate that I forgot to take a "before" picture, but here is the "in progress" pic again for reference:




And here is the completed masterpiece!


I added additional jewelry, including a stud in the top of her ear and a ring in the wing. I gave more weight to the outline of the wings, and I added a lighter brown to her hair and eyebrows. I gave her a beauty mark. I outlined the ribbon in her hair with more purple, but it still doesn't really show.

It was so much fun drawing on this thing that I keep looking for other little details I could add. But I really can't b/c I like it the way it is.

The Doomed Shirt

Here it is, the shirt that was bigger every time I tried it on. I tweaked it to make it fit, it fits, I wash it and it's bigger yet again.

Also I kept running out of yarn. It was very frustrating.

I love this yarn and it wasn't cheap, but this is one for the botched file.





It comes close enough to fitting in the cups to have been wearable around the house. Maybe. But check out the rest of it.




And this is after I took it in some and moved the buttons. It hangs all the way down to the small of my back. Bah. Anyone want some pre-knitted fabric?? It's bamboo.

Sahara Progress

I finally got around to editing my pics. This one is a bit outdated but it shows the shaping of Sahara coming along.




I bought myself a knitting bag to hold it because my other bags were a bit small. I found the perfect bag and it was on clearance... only problem was it had Tinkerbell on it.

Here's a pic showing the beginning of the transformation:



I forgot to take a pic before starting. I've already added brown to her hair, outlined her wings in purple and her dress in green, added brown to her eyebrows so they're not just lines, added curved lines to show the sides of her nostrils (it was just one long line for her nose and a dot for the nostril opening before). I shaded her eyes in with green, gave her purple eyeshadow, gave her jewelry, and drew in purple nail polish. That one is really subtle.

I'll take a picture of the finished bag soon.

Coffeeeeee........

I ordered a fancy coffeemaker on Monday. It got here today. From Texas... I think they must have got my order, and immediately jumped in a truck to zip it up here. They're lucky they didn't get caught for speeding.

I mean really? Two days for standard shipping? Woo-hoo!!

I was nervous about the website, because it looked a little sketchy but they have definitely impressed me so far. And I haven't noticed any additional charges on my paypal. ;^)

So, the coffeemaker. It's called Aeropress and it's kind of like a french press, but engineered and tweaked a bit to make even smoother coffee. Supposedly. I looked at reviews on this and other french presses on amazon.com and this one had nearly unanimous raving reviews. And lot of them, too.

I just tried it. With this particular coffee it's definitely a heck of a lot better than my little coffeepot. It's a breeze to clean. I think there's less grounds in the coffee, but I haven't got to the bottom of the cup yet. And I already had a thermometer so the all-important temperature factor is something I can control.


Also, in unrelated news, I got into Ravelry. Yeah... I'm already in the coffee & tea lovers' group. It's going to take me a while just to get my older projects loaded into the system. And the websurfing, yeah, I could lose a few days in there.

Since I probably won't be able to sleep after testing out the aeropress, maybe it's a good thing? Just pity my husband, haha.

So.....Close...!

You might not be able to see in this picture, but I'm only 397 people away from being invited to Ravelry.





In vaguely related news, I've been sick. Watching my number approach on Ravelry's checkpage has helped cheer me up. It's also just about all the knitting content I've been able to manage for the last couple of days.

I have some pictures on my camera but I definitely haven't felt good enough to sort through them. Sorry.

Also that thing I was working on, with only a teaser photo, came out cute-looking but didn't fit at all. I'm going to see if I can pawn it off on someone else to use for the fabric... or something..

Five Years

Five years ago today, something very special happened.





You took my hand.





And you spoke to my heart.




You danced with me.

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And then... you did all three "takes" of the champagne sip with me.




Happy anniversary, darling.