Making a case

Until today, my knitting needles, crochet hooks and miscellaneous bits have been kept in a drawer that gets put wherever there's space for it. It has been VERY DIFFICULT to find anything, and I've been meaning to make a case for ages, but haven't gotten around to it. Well, yesterday I finally go around it it! Here is before:

And after:

It's so exciting! I haven't sewn anything in AGES, so it's a little wonky, but it works and is colourful, and that is what counts. My sewing machine got jammed half way through, and wasn't sure what was wrong, and I got rather upset. But then I went to THE INTERNET, found this site, which had the manual for my machine to download (for free!), and it told me what to clean. And it worked after cleaning! Who would have guessed! So I made that first container, but it didn't have space for my circular needles, so I made this as well:

And after:

It's a bit too long, but better too long than too short. I'm going to embroider needle sizes on each section, but it's going to take a while since I haven't done any embroidery since I was about ...twelve? I've already had to unpick one number.

My hat is progressing! I've had to frog bits of it, but I really like how the colours work together.

If you ever have to do colourwork, I thoroughly recommend a colourwork thimble:

It keeps everything so much less tangled! It is really quite wonderful.

Plans

I just finished reading Sweater Quest, by Adrienne Martini and it has inspired me! First of all, it's a great book, it has a great flow to it, and I read it in a couple days because I couldn't stop! I totally recommend it. It inspired me to work on more interesting/challenging projects. I've made a few shirts and a sweater before, but now I want to learn Fair Isle...not on the same scale as Martini, I'm going to try a hat first. A wander through Ravelry came up with a few patterns I liked; atm I'm leaning towards Tracery Tam, but still considering Joni, Midnight Sun Tam, Floppy Fairisle Hat, or Star Flower Tam. Too many choices! The Fornicating Deer Chart definitely deserves an honourable mention though.

I also want to make socks! I haven't made socks before, mostly because I'm not really a big sock person...I tend to wear thick tights or nothing. But I think knitting socks is something I should know how to do, so I picked up some orangey-greeny sock yarn from Michaels, and I'm going to use Knitty's Universal Toe-Up Formula.

I've finished a couple more hats, which I'm happy enough with, but not really excited about. I'm going to take them to Rare Funk sometime next week...I meant to take hats this week, but I had a whole bunch of assignments to catch up on, and couldn't seem to find the time.

This hat is crocheted, I started it about a year ago, but only just finished it. I've made a similar hat before, I really like the spiral pattern. Acrylic single-ply yarn, it's really soft and I like it! It does pill a bit though.


This one is 100% wool. This is the first hat I've knitted, and I didn't use a pattern (of course) so it's a liiiiiittle wonky...but still wearable! I am reasonably pleased with how it turned out.

Next I'm going to see if I can make red and aqua look good together. This could be interesting, here's the yarn I've got:

It will at least be distinctive.

I also got some colourful tape for hula hoops! It's actually hockey tape from the sports store, it's cheap and colourful and I got a whole bunch of colours. So now my hoop has a few different shades of blue on it, so exciting!

I'm making a couple more hoops for friends, which is exciting, I've made back the cost of the materials already. Not sure if anyone else wants to buy hoops from me, but I still have pipe left over, so possibly I'll just make myself some different sizes.

In dumpster diving news, I found 21 tubes of watercolour paint the other day.

They were all in clean packaging, I don't know *why* they were thrown away. More free stuff, I guess, but still. No wonder everyone hates north america.

I'm home for thanksgiving this weekend, and I found some yarn bombing! I wish I'd had a camera with me, but no. In true London, ON fashion, it had been burned by someone...wtf?! It looked like it had been nice before...

Many Exciting Things

I had a terribly productive day the other day. I made a hula hoop! A proper one that is appropriately heavy and large. I can already do a few things (none very well) but it is SO MUCH FUN.


It's (sadly) only black because I only had black electrical tape, and I couldn't get the duct tape to wrap evenly. BUT I found this site, which has all manner of wonderful shiny hoop tape! Yep.

If you want to make a hoop (and you should, it's super easy and they are so much fun), this was the tutorial I used.

Adhering *ahem*...closely to my "hat-a-week" goal, I have finished another hat. It looks like a pumpkin! A stripe-y pumpkin.

I know this picture is just dreadful, I'll take another one tomorrow in decent light, but I was just too excited!

Michael's store brand "Charisma" acrylic chunky, which is actually not bad! It's soft and has a nice stripy pattern. This is actually the first hat I've knitted, all the others have been crocheted. It didn't turn out perfectly, but I like it well enough.

I ran out of yarn two thirds of the way through, so I had to run to Michaels to get more, and (of course) couldn't resist peeking in their dumpster, even though it was raining. But it was worth it, because I found YARN (omg!), acrylic paint, a label punch, and a bunch of glue.

Speaking of yarn, I found this terribly dangerous website: Yarn Find. It is a buy/sell/trade site for yarn....ohhhhh my.

I guess I haven't posted stuff in a while, so here are some more ATCs:

I am in the midst of rediscovering how intensely wonderful Pop Rocks are. Like, oh man. I am actually having dreams that involve me buying massive amount of Pop Rocks. It would be slightly unsettling if it wasn't so AWESOME.

Also, I got asked for drugs the other day! We had to do projects for a class and I ended doing mine on harm reduction approaches to drug use (ie, I handed in TRIP flyers), and then we had to talk about them in class. Then after class a nerdy awkward frosh guy came up and said "Excuse me, do you have any marijuana?" It was really cute! I don't sell drugs, but lolz.

Exciting as this post had been, I have to end it now. Why, you may ask? Because I have to get my hoop on, bitches. And go tell the people who live above me to stop jumping on their floor.