Yarn Bombing!

Ever heard of yarn bombing? It's like graffiti, but less permanent and a LOT more fun. This year, Autumn Wiggins, owner of Upcycle Exchange in St. Louis and organizer of the Strange Folk Festival (held every September in O'Fallon, Illinois) is leading the charge for yarn bombing at the O'Fallon Community Park for the festival this year.

To join in and help with knitting (locally or from a distance!), visit here. If you're in need of yarn, Autumn has a great selection at the Upcycle shop!

A Red Scarf, 70s Yarn, and Unicorns

Back in April I started working on the pattern for this scarf. Unfortunately, the scarf started curving like crazy. Thanks to a fellow knitter on Ravelry, I made a minor adjustment to the pattern, frogged the original scarf and started over. I'm about halfway through now with minimal curving/shape issues. The pattern's pretty simple:

R1 - K
R2 - K
R3 - K
R4 - K2 *y/o, K2tog (repeat 8 times)* K1
R5 - K
R6 - K
R7 - K
R8 - K1, K2tog *y/o, K2tog (repeat 7 times)* y/o, K2

Repeat to desired length. End by knitting 3 rows.

A few weeks ago I went to visit my grandma to help her sort her yarn. This is the stash I came home with. A while back she gave me a couple skeins of the red mohair (on top of the pile) to knit up into a shawl, but my cat destroyed the last skein to finish the project and up until my last visit, neither my grandma or I could find more. I bound it off a couple months ago to turn it into a head wrap not realizing there was more yarn just waiting for me. As soon as I find the right buttons to sew on, I'll finish it up and see how it looks.

I was told most of the yarn is from the 70's and I love the colors but haven't decided what to do with any of it yet. I imagine there will be some fun projects in the future...

And speaking of fun projects, I won a give away from this blog. Can you say Unicorns?! I haven't done cross stitch in a while, but this might give me the perfect excuse.

June already?

June has snuck up me this year. My online class started yesterday (Intro to American Government here I come), and I feel overflowing with ideas and projects. Besides knitting, I also do photography and just last month got in with a local shop whose selling my work. I spent the weekend matting greeting cards and working on my pendant necklaces. The rest of the week will be spent matting prints and trying to get some photos of my products taken.

This has left my knitting sorely neglected. I'm still working on a pattern for that scarf that was curving on me; I think I'm about half way through after frogging it and starting over. I started on a pattern for a fingerless glove and in my disarray of a house right now, I lost the notes half way through and am debating starting over or just moving on for now. Tsk tsk, I know.

The weekend before last was spent at my grandma's down in Tennessee where we went through and organized her yarn stash. While helping sort, I was also given a few additions to my own stash. Most are missing tags, but I think the majority are acrylic yarns so at least they'll be washable. She's starting to work on a weaving, something she hasn't done in a decade or two. As we were talking about it, it reminded me of the shoebox weaving I did in school as some 1st or 2nd grade project. Does anyone else remember doing those? I think mine ended up as little rugs for my mom's flower pots.

Collections

After I organized my yarn stash a few months back, I realized how HUGE my stash really is. During the past few months, that stash has only grown. I was gifted a $50 yarn shopping spree for my birthday, Upcycle Exchange opened (see my most recent finds there to the right), and next weekend I'm visiting my grandma who wants me to help organize her stash, and give me even MORE yarn.

Clearly I have become an addict.

Yarn isn't my only addiction collection, though. I also have an affinity for globes/maps, a shelf of antique cameras, and a collection of die-cast pencil sharpeners. Not to mention the now hundreds of books I have that are overflowing out of my three bookcases... I have started on a mission to clean up these collections, and to organize my crafting space and get to work!

So what about all of you out there: What are your addictions/collections?

Ball Winder

A couple weeks ago I ordered the Boye Electric Yarn Ball Winder. At 40% off I justified the cost against the hand winders that I'd previously had my eye on, and when it arrived on my doorstep this past weekend I couldn't wait to test it out. I've only used it on two small skeins so far, but plan on going through a lot more bits and pieces over the next few weeks.

In testing my new winder out, I did run into a few issues. Even the lowest setting seemed too fast for my liking - at least for starting out. At the speed it went, the yarn tangled more easily and came out from the guide, which caused it to periodically stop and need to other be tapped or turned back off and on. Besides those minor setbacks, I'm happy so far and hope I can work out some of the kinks. My hope is that some of the issues I'm having are my not being used to the winder versus a problem with the winder itself.

If anyone else has this winder and has any tips/tricks or just general comments on it, let me know. Below is the before and after of my first skein, the left over yarn from my phone sock.

From muck-up to phone sock

This past weekend I started this pattern for some pretty hand-warmers. Midway through the pattern I realized I'd mucked something up as it wasn't quite matching up with the image. So I altered the pattern a bit, hand sewed up the bottom and side, and ended up with a sock for my phone and/or iPod. All in all not a bad day for a mucked up project.

The yarn I got from a recent raid of Upcycle Exchange (an amazing group you fellow St. Louis crafters should consider joining, or just popping by their new store front for some craft supplies).

Below is the pattern I ended up with:

Phone/iPod Sock Pattern

Yarn weight: Light (yarn didn't have a tag, so I'm estimating)
Suggested Needle Size: 4.00mm

Cast on 34 stitches

Row 1: *k1,p1*
Row 2: *p1,k1*

Repeat Rows 1-2 three times.

Row 3: Knit
Row 4: Purl

Repeat Rows 3-4 fifteen times.

Row 5: *k2,p2*
Row 6: *p2,k2*

Repeat Rows 5-6 three times.

Fold in half (back of stockinette stitch showing), sew bottom and up side, fold inside out(outside in?) and you're done.

Curving?

So I started working on a new scarf, shown on the right.

Cast on 19 stitches

R1 - K
R2 - K
R3 - K
R4 - K2 *y/o, K2tog (repeat 8 times)* K1

I like the pattern it creates, but I'm having a minor issue. The further along I get, the more I'm noticing that the scarf is starting to slowly curve. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the pattern itself or maybe the way I'm knitting. If any of you have any ideas on why it's happening or how I can stop it, let me know.