Some Goals on a Friday

Today is the third consecutive day off work for me, and I'm taking advantage of it. I have a lot of things to blog about today, so I'm going to jump right in!

I started listening to/watching podcasts again. I got rid of all the old episodes I had collecting virtual dust in iTunes, and downloaded some new ones. My newest favourite is the Subway Knits podcast. Maria has such a wonderful voice for podcasting, and she really holds my attention well. This has been my background soundtrack while knitting Christine's baby shower gift (more on that later). I've also got some episodes of CraftStash and Round the Twist downloading, which I will listen to soon.
In addition to podcasts, I've been listening to songs online on Songza. My friend Jess introduced me to this, and I am really enjoying it. You can select times of day/days of the week/activities to have a soundtrack for, and they will give you a few options. For example, last night I chose "Thursday Evening", "Working (With Lyrics)", "Upbeat Indie" and finally "Female Indie Pop Singers". The first songs were from Emily Haines (of Metric), followed by Feist, Regina Spektor, Kimbra and some other wonderful artists that I really like. I'm definitely going to be using this often. I will still use iTunes, but this is a nice way to discover new artists.

I'm working on Christine's baby shower gift pretty aggressively. Her shower is at the end of this month, and I barely have an inch done. This photo shows the colours, but I undid it all, because the general consensus was that it didn't look great. I modified things a bit, and restarted. So far, so good. This is probably going to be the first and last photo of this on the blog until she receives it. I don't want to ruin the surprise! I have a couple other gifts for her, too. I think she'll really like all of it.

Now, onto the goals. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in 2013. I did the 101 project a few times, and failed miserably. I think by having fewer goals, in a shorter time frame will allow me to stick to them a bit better. Here is what I have so far:
-Knit the stash. I have tons of yarn, and I need to start using it all. I think I'm going to do the skein in/out count again. This worked really well for me in the past. I will knit exclusively from the stash except in the case of special orders, if the yarn is more than 70% off, it is hand dyed sock yarn with a discount, or it's "souvenir" yarn. I need to have some exceptions.
-Blog more about what I am knitting. This is a knitting blog, and it seems like there isn't a heck of a lot of knitting content at any given time. I want to post about what is on my needles, and recently finished projects. I feel this will help me knit the stash more effectively. I can see what I've made, what I used for it, and it will probably give me more ideas of stuff to knit with the random assortment of yarn I have. I'm hoping to post Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and stick with that schedule, but it all depends on how much and when I work.
-Take more pictures. I have an iPhone with a decent camera, I have no excuse for not taking photos. I'm getting a new iPhone at the end of January, with an even better camera, so hopefully that will help encourage me to document more of my life. I won't necessarily share everything on Facebook or Instagram, but I want to have the pictures for myself.
-Get fit. I've gained over 30 pounds in the past year, mostly because of the anxiety medication I started taking November 2011. It increases my appetite, decreases my motivation, and makes me sleep a lot. All things that add up to a terrible weight gain. I want to start running again, which will probably be what I start with. I also want to get a stationary bike so I can pedal and knit at the same time. I wish I could build a bike that generates electricity, so I'd have to pedal every time I want to use my computer. That would be awesome, I think. (If this exists, PLEASE let me know!)
-Take better care of myself. I want to feel better about myself, and that starts with better habits. I need to eat healthier, put some make up on, even if i'm not going anywhere, and use the good shampoo more often. Little things like that will hopefully make me love myself again.
-Pay down my debts. I owe money to the credit card company, and to my parents, to the tune of several hundred each. This year, I want to really make some headway on both of them. My heart says to pay my parents back first, but my head says to pay the credit card with the 19.45% interest first. I will try to find a nice balance.
These are my goals. I won't say resolutions, but they're pretty close to that.

What sorts of goals do you have for the new year?

Recent Treasuries

I've been exploring Etsy, and making treasuries lately.

Here is what I came up with. You can click the images to be taken to the treasury.

Knit Bracelets are in the Shop!

I just listed three cotton bracelets in the shop! They have their own little section, even.
I am using a different, less fancy camera for my items now, and I wanted to test it out to see how well it would perform. I grabbed three bracelets and did whatever I could do. I was really surprised when I uploaded them for the edits. I didn't have to do too much to make them look good. I brightened up the pictures, and fixed up the background a bit, and called it a day.
I figured since I took the photos, I might as well add them to the shop.
We'll see how these do, and hopefully once the weather clears up, I'll take some more photos and add more!
Keep an eye out for a giveaway and some coupons!

Blue and Yellow dishcloths

The stripey cloth I started ages ago is finally finished. It is a nice size at around 8 inches square. It isn't anything fancy like I said before, but I think the colours are quite nice.
As you can see, I have also started another cloth on the diagonal in the same colours. I am not sure where I am going with the groups of cloths in the same colour, but perhaps sets are the place to go. I think three cloths in similar colours bundled together would be nice. Once blue and yellow striped, one plain blue and one plain yellow, for example. Or maybe two diagonal and one horizontal? Suggestions?
I have no idea what colours to use, though. I don't have a whole lot of solid coloured cotton left, but if these go over well, I may purchase some more. What colours are your kitchens and bathrooms (in case you wanted to use them as face/wash cloths)? Or what colours would you love to see paired together?
I am always up for suggestions for this sort of thing!
I think I may give dishcloths for birthday gifts this year. My mom can always use more, many of my friends live on their own, and my relatives always seem to love anything I make.

A New Face Cloth, and Giving Up On Some Goals

I am on a bit of a cotton kick lately. I think this could be an understatement. I hadn't really knit much other than dishcloths for a while, due to some requests for them, and enjoying the switch from knitting scarves and such. I started a new one yesterday, and I am going to work on it later today. It's different, once again, from what I have made in the past because it is striped. Sure, it's nothing fancy, but I love stripes. Light blue and yellow, 35 stitches, on size 6 needles. It's doubled in size now, and looking pretty nice. I am taking a short break from working on it to work on the purple hat I have commissioned.
In other, unrelated news, I have temporarily given up on my mission 101. My goals were mostly long term ones, or had too many parts or something else that was just keeping me unmotivated. I will restart with a brand new list ASAP. Many of the goals will carry over, but
I am going to make sure I have goals that are more easily completed. I am going to continue with some of my knitting related goals (knit myself a blanket, use all of my cotton yarn, organize my whole stash) but give up some others (not buy yarn for 6 months, put my entire stash on Ravelry, knit 101 scarves/neck warmers).
Hopefully everything goes well with starting the new goal.
Perhaps I will start on the first day of Spring?

Large scale baby blanket knitting

Here is my blanket so far. I'm 8 rows in, and I am way too excited for this thing. It is being made out of a GIANT skein of Bernat Baby Boucle in Buttercup, and one in Rosey Posey.
When I say giant skeins, I mean enormous. They are 330g (10.5 ounces). Which works out to 499 meters or 546 yards. I have nearly a kilometer of yarn here!
It's a very easy knit, I am just doing garter stitch for simplicity's sake. Two rows of each colour. I like doing striped projects because I can see my progress quite nicely.
I am going to work on weaving in ends on a few finished projects today so that I can get them ready for Made In Windsor. I still need to figure out what I am going to have in the store over the warmer months. I thought about doing more baby blankets, but I have yet to sell one there. Perhaps if I lower the price by a few dollars? I have to figure out something soon.

Full sized blankets!

I splurged again. Over $100 on yarn. This is getting to be addictive.
Here's a break down on what I bought:
3 skeins of Lion Homespun in Olive
3 skeins of Lion Homespun in Deco
These 6 skeins will become a blanket for my Ottawa buddy, Louis. They are amazing colours, and I really like working with this yarn for some reason. I've started it on the diagonal (my favourite way to do blankets) on 8mm needles.
4 skeins of Lion Homespun in Sunshine State
These were originaly $8 a skein like the rest of the Homespun, but they were marked down to $3 each. My Mom suggested i get 3 of them and make a baby blanket, but I noticed there were 4 there in the same dye lot. I figured I should get all of them for a couple reasons. First of all is my own security. I don't want to run out half way through. Second, I wouldn't want anyone else to find that one gorgeous skein and realise there's not much to do with just one skein.
3 giant skeins of Red Heart Comfort Prints in the 4026 colourway.
These, along with an other skein I already have, will become a blanket for my Ohio friend Rachel. This one will be the Ruffles blanket, with a few modifications. Mostly, shorter sections on the small needles, maybe only 3 rows.
1 giant skein of cotton.
This doesn't really matter what colour. I'm pretty sure it's Sugar and Creme, but its irelevant. It's going to be used for dishcloths. Obviously.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me for the next little bit.

I want to get into Harvesting The Fam, but it's a juried show, and I'm really nervous about that.

GASP! PICTURES?!

Yes, I finally have pictures! Not many, and not very good quality, but they're here. I went outside, for more natural light, and there were about 40 or 50 birds feeding at the THREE feeders we have... They all looked hungry, so I wanted to get out of there ASAP. Not only did I not want the birds to poop on my stuff, I didn't want to be on the bird's wrong end when it took off, that's one of my worst fears...

Anyway, this is what I have been up to.

I ended up frogging the Yellow Star cloth. I wasn't the biggest fan of the pattern, and I couldn't keep track of where I was. I;m going to try to find an other star pattern somewhere, and make a couple of those.

This is the striped baby blanket. Pink Lemonade and Cloud. It's soooo soft and squishy, just like the one made in the Breeze colourway.The stripes are kind of hard to see, so here's a better picture. It's just over a foot long, and I love knitting it. I'm really enjoying the yarn I chose for the baby blankets. This is number One of my Three blankets I want to have finished. I also have the Creamsickle one cast on, so that's number Two.


Sideways, but here's the Breeze blanket. 23x23 inches, ends still not woven in (obviously, I wait till craft show days to do that!). I'm planing on selling them at the show, unless an other one of my cousins has a baby in the near future!

Can you block cotton? Because the Heart Cloth needs it! I'm thinking I might eliminate this pattern. I'm still on the fence about it. The one I made before the last craft show was sold to my friend's mother... So, I'm not sure if she actually wanted it, or if she was just supporting!

The Mystery Cloth! It's more or less seed stitch on one side, and stockinette on the other. I really like it! nice and soft on the ST side, and scrubby enough on the seed side. I would use it for a face cloth

I have a few of Grandma's Favourite made. I'm going to start making them a little larger than I have been.
I have one more of the Ribbon cloths in the works right now. That is by far my favourite pattern. Cancer is something that has touched many people close to me, and, although it's not much, I feel like I'm doing my part.

The Yellow Dishcloth

Since my last update, I've been terribly sick. In that time, I have only been able to knit 6 rows, so I'm up to row 28. Or something. I have no idea, I might have to frog part of it. I may have knit some rows more than once.

I hate being sick.

Anyway, here is a picture of the cloth, thus far because the picture on the site doesn't work. Excuse the terrible lighting, and the cell phone picture, I'm still not feeling that great, and darkness is my friend right now.