A fish I knit/crocheted yesterday :)

I finally have a knitting accessory to brag about :)



From my aunt. I can't tell you how happy it makes me that someone else (other than Mom and Grandma) is being supportive of my knitting enough to buy me knitting related stuff (and not at garage sales).

My Gathered Pullover!

(the spots are on the camera lens)

I'm so happy with it :)

I finally finished my Gathered Pullover yesterday. I wore it today to school and it was great. Acrylic+nylon is so much better than wool temperature wise. Besides that, I love the way it looks. I was so happy with it I told the woman I work with that I made it. lol, I'm told this isn't really bragging, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Doesn't matter though, cause I'm even if it's bragging, after all that work you have to show it to someone. Anyways, I got some nice compliments, and the two women in the lab asked me about knitting in general, so it was nice

After a month, I'm finally at the inc part of the sleeves for my Gathered Pullover. Excitement. Only 5 more inc repeats and I get to do the shoulder shaping. This winter has been so mind there's no real need for it yet. I still want it done.

I got a coupon for the pattern store at Interweave Knits. 20% off - not bad. I only want one hat pattern, so a dollar off is real nice. Somehow $4.50 a hat seems too expensive, but $3.50 is fine.

Knitting post - yay!

My Harry Potter sock yarn arrived. It's so pretty, I love it. I've never loved yarn before until now. This also happens to be my most expensive skein of yarn bought to date - 19 dollars. I think it's worth it.

Harry colorway, obviously.

~

I made a little pouch for my Gameboy Advance SP. It's Michelangelo, my favorite Ninja Turtle.

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My very own Soot Sprite just like in "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Spirited Away". The eyes are buttons with pupils I painted on with black nailpolish. I used this patter: http://saradippity.blogspot.com/2007/09/soot-sprites.html

Yesterday I made my 1000 post on ravelry.com (my favorite knitting site). Very exciting.

Anyways, here are some pictures of my Central Park Hoodie. All the suffering seemed to work out because I like it (except the hood). I made the fish buttons out of fimo. I wasn't sure I wanted to use them and look like and idiot, but in the end I decided I usually look like an idiot anyway, and besides, smiling fish make me happy.

Ugh, I can't believe I had to frog almost the whole body of my Gathered Pullover. I was just starting the army holes... I did the split to front and back... finally got to try it on.... way too big. Way way too big. 2.5 skeins of yarn unraveled, the whole damn cable and everything. 5 days of non-stop knitting. I'm just about ready to shoot someone.

*cry*

I've cast on again, in a smaller size, but my heart isn't in to it. It's just frustration that's got me knitting right now.

3D Magen David

 My very own knit 3D Magen David (Star Of David)! Made to celebrate Israel's 60th Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day)

I was asked for a pattern, so here goes.

Pattern:

This pattern is knit in the round on double pointed needles. Other than that, you just need to be able to do knit stitch, and decrease two ways (k2tog and ssk). No seaming (yay!)

Abbreviations:
sts - stitches
k - knit
rnds - rounds
k2tog - knit 2 together
ssk - slip, slip, kit
CO - cast on
dpn - double pointed needle

Gauge:  7 sts and 11 rows = 3cm x 3cm
I pull really tight, so I got this gauge with worsted 4 ply yarn and US size 4 needles (3.5 mm).
Gauge isn't important as long as you can knit an equilateral pyramid.... but you really do need an equilateral pyramid for it to look right.

Point pattern:
The basic idea is that you cast on an even number of sts, decrease on either side of each dpn every 3rd round until you're down to 2 sts on each needle.

24 sts per point
1. k 2 rnds
2. (k2tog, k4, ssk) 3 times [18 sts left]
3. k 2 rnds
4. (k2tog, k2, ssk) 3 times [12 sts left]
5. k 2 rnds
6. (k2tog, ssk) 3 times [6 sts left]
cut yarn, run tail through sts and pull into the point

Knitting star:
1st point (light blue):
CO 24 sts, split evenly on 3 dpns and join (careful, don't twist!).
Work point as described in point pattern.

2nd point (darker blue):
CO 16 sts, pick up 8 sts along one side of 1st point, split evenly on 3 dpns and join.
Work point as described in point pattern.

3rd and 4th point (darker blue):
Work exactly like 2nd point.

5th point (light blue):
CO 8 sts, pick up 8 sts along one side of 2nd point and pick up another 8 sts along one side of 4th point. (see the two figures below!), split evenly on 3 dpns and join.
Work point as described in point pattern.

figure 1: where to put points 5, 6 and 7

figure 2: this is what point 5 looks like. 2 sides of picked up sts and 1 side of cast on sts.

6th point and 7th point (light blue):
Work exactly like 5th point, picking up sts along 2nd and 3rd point and then along 3rd and 4th point (use figure 1 for help).

When you are done with 7 points, stuff all the points lightly (not too packed because then you'll loose the shape).

8th point (last one!) (darker blue):
Make sure you've stuffed the first 7 points lightly before starting the 8th point. It's hard to do it afterwards.
Pick up 24 sts (8 sts along the 5th point, 8 sts along the 6th point and 8 sts along the 7th point).
Work point as described in point pattern. Before pulling the yarn through the last 6 sts, add a little more stuffing to fill the last point.

All done!

Knit Blanket

Better photo of the color. The middle cable is just stretched, it doesn't actually look so much wider than the others.

Notice the crochet border on the top and bottom :)

Giants Cables Blanket

Finished my blanket!!! (Ravelry link)

I used this pattern by Lion Brand: http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/60607A.html
The pattern was fine, but I got bored towards the end. It was just too much of the same. It's ok, it was worth the trouble. It's so nice and warm and soft.

The stitching together was so much easier than I thought it would be. I just made something up as I went along, but it ended up like Slip Stitch Ver. 1. I liked making it in parts cause it meant I could knit on the train. Also added a crochet border to the top and bottom. I sorta suck at crochet, but it looks half way decent, I think.

The color is off in all the photos, but it's closest to the second photo, under Sputnik. It's really a lot nicer, much more blue than in the photos.

Glasses for scale:

Light Up Knit Pumpkin!

I knit a little pumpkin for Halloween to cheer my mom up. She took that one to work and put it on her desk, so I knit this one for the house.

It's special though. It lights up. I uploaded a video on youtube. Check it out:

Cursed Yarn!

I finally understand what people mean when they talk about cursed yarn. I've got this really pretty yarn from my Safta, but I just can't do anything with it. I tried a few different patterns with it in the past few days, but they all looked so crappy I had to rip them out. Ugh.

Stella's Hat for my aunt

My aunt asked me to make her a black hat. I emailed her some patterns and she picked out "Stella's Hat". The pattern calls for chunky yarn, but I didn't want the hat to be too hot. Instead I bought regular weight yarn, but when when I cast on the hat wasn't nearly big enough. My main problem is that I only have 3 sets of double pointed needles. The recommended size needles (size 7) made the hat too small so I used the next bigger size I have (size 10). They were way too big, and thus the hat is too big too...

I tried it on a couple times while I was making it. I had a feeling it'd be too big, but I didn't know it'd be so huge.

The pattern works on a number of stitches that's a multipication of 8 - so I'll try and cast on 72 stitches (instead of 80) and see if that comes out ok. If not I'll have to go buy needles. I'm thinking size 9 would be useful.

Science and Math geek swap

I spent almost all of November knitting for a Science and Math geek swap. The way it works is, you're set up with a partner and have to make science/math related things for that person. You send out the stuff you made, and someone else sends you stuff. Since people on craftster do all sorts of things, not just knit, it's a good way to get cool stuff you wouldn't know how to make yourself.

Here's the stuff I made:

DNA scarf and hat. I used this pattern for the scarf: http://www.twosheep.com/helix/ and then I sort of stole the idea for the hat from this pattern http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter03/PATTcoronet.html But only the idea, cause the shaping came from the hats my grandma always makes.

Then I made this emission spectrum pillow (my idea, no pattern). It's got the Mercury spectrum on one side....

and the Hydrogen spectrum on the other.

The idea is, when you take hydrogen gas (for example) and you give it energy (most times in the form of electricity), you are making electrons jump from one energy level to another. When they loose that extra energy, the electron falls back to lower energy and emits electromagnetic radiation. Sometimes the radiation is in the visible spectrum (visible light and not UV, infrared, radio waves and so on...), which is what I showed in the pillow. So basically, if you give the right amount of energy to Hydrogen, you can make it emit a photon (a particle of radiation) with the a wavelength that corresponds to red light. The same for the other lines/other colors. Mercury has a lot more lines cause it's got a lot more electrons and a much bigger nucleus. That is the basic of florescent lights. Neon lights are just the same idea, but instead of Hydrogen (which actually gives really pretty pink light) or Mercury (which gives a pretty greenish/blue colored light) it is red/orange. OK, spectroscopy lesson over.

I also knit Saturn, or some other planet with rings.

And Sputnik

They've got wires inside to keep them stiff. I made up the patterns for both of them, but stole the ball pattern from here: http://tiajudy.com/yarnball.htm

The girl I swapped with got my package already. She posted pictures, you can see them here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=209416.0;all along with photos of other stuff other people made. I didn't the stuff she made me yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Baby Blanket

About a month and a half ago I spent about a week and a half knitting this baby blanket for my dad's cousin's new (first) baby. I haven't seen her yet, but the blanket made it to my dad's cousin and her husband, and they sent back lots and lots of thank yous.

Anyway, here's the blanket:

With the flash you can see the actual colors

Without flash it looks bluish - weird. My glasses are there to show scale. They were the only thing I had on me (literally)

A close up of the edge. It was a picot bind-off with a row of k2tog yo before it. I never tried either of those, but it came out really nice.

I just really wanted to try the pattern, and when it was done it was so cute I wanted to keep it for myself. I'm thinking of making one for myself. It'll take an endless amount of yarn (that small blanket took 3 skeins of 200 grams each - and it's only about 1 meter in diameter ), but I think grandma won't mind if I slowly clean out her basement :)

Scarf

I finished my unlce's scarf last night. This pattern was so damn boring. It was 8 rows that I just kept having to repeat over and over again. Scarves are like that, I know, but it could have been a little more interesting. I know the yarn isn't the best for the pattern, but you can sorta see it most of the time. Anyway, I just hope my uncle likes it.

The pattern is based on the Tweed Scarf pattern, but I added more stitches (needed to make it wider), and had to change the design a bit,



The actual yarn is a bit darker.
Notice that this photo shows both sides of the scarf. The actual right side is on the left, which leaves the wrong side for the right - lol.


Yeah, I was too lazy to move the plant or the mat.

I finished my sweater!

I finished my "Rogue" from Girl From Auntie. This is my first sweater, so I'm super excited. I can't believe it only took about two months of non-intensive knitting. It wasn't even that hard. I was so scared of the pattern when I printed it out. Those cable charts are so intimidating looking, but it was fine. The pattern couldn't have been clearer. I didn't have any questions going along. The lady at the LYS (not really local since it's near my grandma's house, in a different country) said the pattern had too much written down, but it didn't. It all made perfect sense and the extra descriptions really helped.

Close up of the sleeve and neck (this is my version of the photo on the girlfromauntie site)


I think my favorite part is the hood. The cables look so fancy but they were all simple.


I used 7 skeins of Galway Highland Heather wool color number 732 (sort of like denim color with pink/purple in it too). I really cut it close with 7 skeins. This is all I had left....

There are only two long strands in that little "ball". The rest are like 8-10 inch pieces that I'm gonna save just in case.

Seaming took me about 4 hours this morning, but I think it looks ok. I was so afraid of having to attach those sleeves, but it wasn't too bad. It looks hand made, but that's ok, it is hand made. I just wish it weren't so hot here. I want to wear it now, but instead I'm still in shorts.