knitting is driving me to drink

Ages ago, I decided to buy someone's Lion Brand Suede that they had listed in their 'destash' pile on ravelry - despite it not being a natural fiber, I like the texture of it and thought it would be fun to make something with it. So, said person happen to have a lot in their stash - a lot of one ball of several colours, and to cut my cost of postage a bit, I bought the whole lot from her.

As it turns out, and I didn't find this out until after I had received the yarn, that she originally made granny squares out of this yarn, which meant that she crocheted one row, cut the yarn, used anothe colour for the next row etc, and the skeins she sent me was in fact frogged granny squares. The yarn had been cut to peices, and despite my best efforts to try to get my money back, I had no luck.

I've had this bag of pretty much shredded yarn for a while, and not sure what to make with it, and I hate to have to throw it away. I finally figured a good use for some of it: I knit this whiskey bottle from Son of Stitch & Bitch - Projects to Knit and Crochet which I plan to pass on to my brother for his birthday.

The embroidery was a bit of a pain but overall it looks alright. The white parts are knit with Paton's Shetland Chunky that I had left over from the vest I knit my dad a while back

friday the thirteenth

There's apparently only one friday the thirteenth this year, and this is it.

Hubby was out doing service calls, and he happened to drive through Port Dover, where all the bikers are gathered today. It's the 30th year of them gathering there, and the 50th anniversary as well. I wonder what the origin is, of bikers and Port Dover and friday the 13th?

hearts revised

I'm destined to not make the same pattern twice, I think. I've started knitting a hearts blanket from some worsted yarn I found in my office - as an effort to destash what I have - it's the pattern I used to knit a baby blanket for my cousin over a year ago. I got about 3 rows done of the large size and just got SO tired of it. So, I redesigned the actual heart part of it, so the actual heart is about 4 stitches wider and 4 rows longer; the entire pattern repeat is now 8 rows longer. In the end I've cast on 6 fewer stitche for the blanket, and with the new heart pattern it's now 7 hearts across instead of 9.

(picture shows original pattern on left, and my revised version on the right, which I think looks much better)