10 day tops

Malabrigo March has come and gone. You can check my projects (finished and not) on my rav page. It was a fun month, but now I'm on to BIGGER and better things.

Knitting friend Aimee and I started a KAL with the Miriam top in January.

But, with Malabrigo March, and just how HUGE the project is, we're still not done.

What Miriam has done for me, though, is gotten me REALLY excited about making clothing. I NEVER made straight up clothes with my crochet. Always accessories.

First, I have volunteered to make this dress for Wyrd Sisters, as a shop sample.

Mine is in lanaloft, TEAL. and was going along quite well until Malabrigo March hit. Then, complete stop. But, I'll pick it up over Spring Break.

But, let's talk about personal project... Ive decided I'm going to do a few rounds (aka Months) of 10 day tops. By a few, I mean I have 8 tops in my que and I want to make them all. But, alas, I have a 8-4 type of day job where the only knitting I can allow myself is during lunch (20 minutes).

Thus, 10 day tops will be monthly in 2012. 2011 was year of the blankets. 2012, year of the 10 day tops.

March 10 day top : Sunset Madigan

ok, I love Quince and Co.'s patterns. I'm not WILD about their yarns yet, mostly because I have no experience with them, but, both Miriam and Madigan are their patterns.

On a trip to http://theyarnlounge.com/ , I found 2 (or was it three?) skeins of Sunset Rios, and I had to have them. Then, Madigan started calling, and knitting friend Aimee said I could have her left over .75 skein from her last project. Then, on rav, a

lovely person was selling 3 skeins. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, so I made my first EVER gauge swatch (which yes, I washed and dried).

Cast on: March 30th at 7:40 am.

From the picture, you can see that Madigan has a gorgeous cowl neck. Those welts took me a while. I have until Monday at 7:40am to be done. Think I can do it?

10 day tops, April?

Here are the top 3 for April (although, I think I've settled on one of them)

1) Dorflinger 2) Pegboard 3)Xia

But first, to finish Madigan.

Beth Cyr give away--hoping to win for seester!

Ok, so the artist that made our rings is giving away a ring--and my seester NEEDS this ring. Everyone check out Beth!

Decisions, decisions

For Malabrigo March, Ive added a few additions to the original 5 projects. Altogether now I have 8 projects. Seems like a lot, I know, but 3 of them are 1 night projects. It's really 2 which will take about a week...

So, I've added a few and the pictures are where I'm attempting to get the color combo right. There's a wrap, called the Color Affection wrap, designed by Veera, who's becoming my favorite knit wear designer on Rav. This pattern is the FIRST pattern Ive bought on Rav. It's SO pretty. The assymetry is beautiful to me.

Anyhoo, I can't decide which color to use as the main. If I had one more skein of Vertiver, the pale green, that would hands down win. But, I'm having NO luck finding another skein of this colorway. Thus, I'm stuck with either Verde (dark green) as the main color (eh, would be ok) or a smaller wrap. My classroom stays COLD all year long. I'm excited to use this shawl for my day job.The chilly room is also why I chose to make my Color Affection in worsted, instead of sock or lace weight.

So far, I like the Verde as the main, but I'm not in love with it:

Malabrigo March

Ok, if you don't know it by now, I'm ADDICTED to all things Malabrigo. I do HATE the pilling of the worsted, but I can't get enough of the company's luscious texture. I have a ton of Malabrigo in my stash. 6 skeins of worsted, 5 skeins of lace, 1 Rios, 1 skein of sock. And this March, I'm putting it all to good use for some healthy stash busting. Hopefully I'll win some prizes, but if not, I'll have a good time working on decreasing my ever growing bin of 'LUXURY' yarn.

My Malabrigo March submissions are *nearly* finalized. I'm only doing 2 of the specific project offerings in the ^MM12 KALs, mostly because I don't love anything they chose. Well, I do love a couple, but I'm not a good enough knitter yet to do those ones I love (Like this GORGEOUS thing! Damn that's a very convincing project photo!). There were NO specific CAL projects selected, which irks my nerves a bit. I should have submitted one, I guess. The crochet project delimma gets solved a little further down in the post. Double whammy, baby!

For Malabrigo March:

In the category of General Accessory

The Dominion Bracelet which I discovered in the Entrelac digital mag I ordered last week. My plan is to use a doubled SnowBird lace to make this. I'm also thinking about felting it, but I'll really have to see how it comes out before I make that jump.

Last night I received a copy of the Best of KnitScene. Most of the projects I had already seen when I review the book before I purchased it. But THEN I saw the Phiaro scarf and was awed by it's simple beauty. I love this scarf and before I even finished my dinner, had planned to make it of a newly acquire Noro stash. Sadly, the Noro cast-on was TOO sticky and I frogged it before I finished the first row. I'm using Malabrigo Sock in Tiziano. I think it'll be super classy and more a scarf than a shawl. I don't own shawls and don't wear shawls, so thinning this scarf will totally work for one skein.

2 Official KAL entries:

Last night I planned most of my MM entries, but this morning as I was drafting this blog post I saw these beauties and couldn't believe I missed them last night! These are totally me: I LOVE fingerless gloves, and this pattern is just quirky enough for me not to think I'm repeating myself for a third time on the easy mitts. I'm thinking about doing these in Vertiver, but then there is a picture of 2 different yarns being used for the 2 parts. I might go for a combination (and, YIKES!, maybe not even a Malabrigo!). I have 1 skein of Berroco vintage left over from my Boneyard Shawl which is green and the Vertiver is green... hmmmmm.

Hats are fast and give that immediate gratification. I like this one pretty well, so I'm going to give it a go, in a Rios. Paris Nights is a safe, kinda BLAH

color and the only reason I have it is because someone on Rav was selling it for a great price. Rikke hat=safe, fast, easy project.

Probably will gift it, so if you want it, speak up now!

And, finally, my Crochet submission.

My shawl will be my piece de resistance (I know, I forgot my accents on that phrase!), and it will double as the prototype for the Wyrd Sisters Yarn Shop class I'm teaching in April. This shawl is written in Japanese, but charted very clearly. I'm going to make it in Pearl Ten lace, which I'm thinking about doubling. I have 2 skeins of it, which means a thicker, but smaller shawl, than if I was to crochet it not doubled. Another possible problem with doubling would be a different color for the edging. I have 2 skeins of Frank Ochre lace I could use for the edging, but the deep purple-yellow combo is too Sports Team-ey for my wardrobe.

Wanna join the Malabrigo March Madness? You should. :)

Bernat CAL Afghan.

It's week 2 of the crochet asking Afghan Emily and I are doing together. She is making two, which I thought would be easy enough. Then, we got this week's clue. Yikes! These are yarn intense. Still pretty basic.

I want to post pictures of mine on the bernat page...but I can't because I'm making mine from stash yarn (simple soft)  oh well. To ravelry I go!

Published Pattern!

Ok, so I'm beyond thrilled right now. One of my students from a Thursday night Wyrd Sisters class posted these gorgeous pictures online! So, Ive got my act together and created my first OFFICIAL looking pattern. WOOT!

Now, I just have to figure out how to get the PDF out there for others to buy... Right now it's at the shop, but I'd love ravelry members to be able to buy it, too.

Yarn. the verb

This crochet crazy lady can knit with the best of them now.  After months of frogging and building a respectable stash, I'm not only the crochet lady, but I can say with confidence, 'yes, I can knit that'.   Thus begins the endless list of things I want to work on...  between fingerless gloves (check out the present set I'm making for a friend), and scarves, to my favorite, hats!  There's so much to make!  Thank goodness for ravelry's que feature.  Id be in trouble without it.  

Thus, I dub knitting and crochet as one singular verb: "TO YARN".  I'm sure this isn't an originial idea, but I'm going to document here that at least I had the idea.  heehee.

Ive started my first sweater.  I can't believe I haven't blogged about this lovely gem.  Aimee (over at .thefunctionalspace.blogspot.com) and I decided around early December that after the holidays we were going to do a KAL and probably go with a sweater. We pintrest'ed (http://pinterest.com/larc/aimee-leslie-k2tog/) some patterns from ravelry and I picked the miriam cardigan (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/miriam-cardi) .  I'm still halfway convinced that she's doing this sweater because I love it.  Then, we picked yarn.  Ive been fascinated with elsebeth lavold's silky wool since wyrd sisters opened.  I decided to not go with the quince co yarn, but with a very pretty eucalyptus color silky wool. So far it's a bit of a slog, but I'm feeling better after last Thursday's class at Wyrd Sisters when I got an inch done while my wonderful student Francis and I worked on the start of her beautiful prayer shawl/wrap.  

Speaking of wyrd sister, the yarn bombing went beautifully!  google it and you'll see the news has picked it up and everything.  My "ACT" sign got hung right in between the two entrance doors.  Way too cool!  I wish I could have joined in the bombing, but birthday parties are very important!  Happy birthday Cate!

What are you 'yarning' now?