All I'm sayin...

...is that I'm finished! Baby's tired!


I have GOT to get in bed. We're going to Keeneland tomorrow to celebrate Tracey's 35th so I must be fresh for the ponies!!

I'll post more after I've squandered all my money away!

A wee distracted...

...by the awesome that is Ravelry. You'll have to excuse my slacky blog. Baby's been busy :)

Between being up to my ass in work, taking a weekend trip, and knitting, I've hardly had time to blog! I've not really even knit that much either. :( I do spend a lot of time on Ravelry and I really should stop! It's addictive though and it's all I can do most days to NOT log on in lieu of working.

Did I mention Baby's all snotty? The Ohio Valley is a wonderful place to live if you have severe allergies. WONDERFUL. I mean, you get to have watery eyes so you save money on make up, there's always the tissues so you boost the economy...it's awesome. Truly awesome. If you could see me now...wow. I look like I've either been beat up or crying. Or crying over being beat up. Either way, it blows. Heh.

You know what doesn't blow? That "Letter have it" bag I've been working on. I've not posted about it because it's a birthday present for my BFF but I don't think she has the link to this yet and I'm giving her the bag on Saturday so there's time to sneak in a post!

I started on my second felted bag right after I finished the green and brown one. Except I didn't like this one. I was bored w/the stockinette and garter stitches. HATE. It's taken me over a month to finish this because I swear...if I have to make one more garter ridge...I may go nutty. Oh and I had to learn intarsia. And I have to learn i-cords tonight. YAY. Oh wait! The best part...I have to sew the damn thing, felt it, consider lining it, then sew a zipper. The hard part isn't even here yet. Good thing I love BFF, right? Right!

Some pictures:

The back panel

The beginnings of the side/center panel:

And then Baby learns intarsia!!

What's that you say? It looks like a total cluster? You're right!!!

This was SUCH a pain in my ass. I ended up with about eight bobbins.

The finished product is quite nice though. There is a "hole" at the bottom where I worked my first row. I thought I had twisted the yarn but what I thought was twisted wasn't :)

The back is a total mess because I had to strand some of it a teeny bit. The whole thing should have been stranded but whatev. Baby's learnin.

See all those little pieces? Ugh. I'm assuming I should sew them in prior to felting :( I should also try to sew up that hole where I didn't twist the yarn too. More ugh.

I'm really really really dreading tonight's work on this. I have to sew it all together, icord piping on the edges, make handles, felt...UGH. I'm really not into this at all right now. I don't like the handles that come w/the pattern either so I REALLY want to buy some and sew them on myself...I think that'd be way cuter too. We'll see!!!

Feltin' Baby

I'm a stubborn only child and thought, foolishly, that I could teach myself to knit just by reading a book. Ha! Baby's funny too!!

I have a handful of books but the one that was most helpful was Stitch 'n Bitch. By far, it was the most clear and entertaining book I'd laid my little hands on. It's also what my LYS's Knitting for Dummies class was based on.

Since my first class with my LYS went so well, I signed up for the Felted Bag class right away. Class was on Wednesday night and I finished the knitting Thursday. I'm a prodigy. ;)

I felted last night and while nervewracking, it went well! I'd done a lot of reading ahead online about what to do and what no to do, so I was well-prepared.

We knitted the Meema's Marsupial Tote from the Stitch 'n Bitch book for those interested.

Before felting:

After two trips in the short cycle:

As you can tell, it shrunk up quite a bit but I think I could have let it go more but I really didn't want it to shrink THAT much.

Up close of the felting:

And because I'm so effin impressed with myself right now, one more:

I'm a teeny bit disappointed I didn't felt more, but I think I sorta like how it turned out. I could always felt it more...we'll see.

Oh and for those of you who know what the hell you're doing, note my huge mistake in the form of a garter stitch band around the middle. Since I'd never worked with circulars before I screwed up. When I got home from class, I started knitting but did so backwards and was three and a half rounds in before I noticed. I made it an even four and then went back to doing it right. Al thinks it looks intentional and I like it. By some miracle of the Knitting Gawds, it's right in the middle of the green. Go fig.

Despite my lack of sewing skills, I'm going to sew a liner into this over the weekend. When Baby sews, she irons that stitch witchery stuff and calls it's a day. I'm pretty sure I can't do that with wool :) I hope to find a cute non-matchy matchy pattern of fabric that's cheap and see what happens. I mean, how hard can it be, right? I so have this.

Oh! And as far as the class goes...our homework was to get up to where we changed colors and then we'd tackle the rest this coming up Wednesday. Whoops. Baby's an overachiever and was OUT OF CONTROL. I couldn't stop myself. Fortunately, the teacher is a doll and the other woman in the class won't be there. I'm hoping I can either start another bag (maybe another pattern) or pick up some new skills. We shall see!!!

I'll post pics of the bag when it's all lined and ready for its close up!