falling a little out of love ...

Well, this is my vintage love summer top so far. I've got the torso of it about 2/3's or 3/4's done, and the sleeves each about half done.

Quite frankly, I'm a little annoyed with this whole top - I've started this back in March, and was hoping to make both a blue one and a black one to wear at my brother's wedding in August.

My first issue is with the yarn - I ordered a bunch of Knit Picks Cotlin yarn, and it's already starting to pill on me. :(

Secondly, the actual structure of the pattern is so weirdly written that parts of it was difficult to decode and follow. I'm a bit torn in complaining about a pattern too much, because I know how much work goes in to designing and writing one out, plus I can see on ravelry that this has been test knit a few times. But, on the other hand, despite this being test knit, and the designer claiming to have been published in magazines, I've found mistakes that hadn't been corrected - small ones, mind you, but still - and there are glaring parts of the pattern that are very hard to understand because it's so awkwardly written, and am surprised that none of the test knitters had pointed these out to correct it.

Because of those confusing, weirdly written parts, I've had to put knitting the top on hold for as much as 2 weeks at a time to get replies from the designer to help me understand what I'm knitting. I must admit, that the designer has made an effort to help, but there were times that even the math in her helping was wrong, and it took a lot of back-and-forth to even decode some of what she explained. But she was nonetheless helpful.

I can honestly say that despite my intention of knitting 2 of this top (and I have bought the yarn with the intention of knitting this twice) I'm absolutely not going to bother making it again. I think, if I do ever get around to finishing this top - and at this point, I guess I may as well - the black yarn I bought will be used towards a different top. I'm not sure if it'll get done before the wedding, but I'll try. I think, had I not paid for the pattern or had the yarn start pilling on me mid-knitting, then I would've frogged the whole thing and started over with a completely different design.

Overall I do think it'll turn out alright, I'm just not in love with this pattern any more. But it will make a unique enough top to wear this summer, for sure.

itty bitty bit of progress

I only lost 0.8lb this past week... almost a whole pound, but not quite there. Which is still a loss, nonetheless, so I'm ok with that. :)

The top I'm knitting for my brother's wedding this summer is making a small amount of progress, mainly because (despite my best efforts) I find the pattern to be confusing. There are fragments of the pattern that are just so weirdly worded that I've wound up frogging and reknitting parts of it at least twice. It has often been put on hold also because I had to wait for a reply for help from the designer. Now that I think I've got it figured out enough to finish it, I'm hoping to post progress pictures with my next post!

50% of xmas knitting done!

Well, I got half of my xmas knitting done! I got a bunch of Lion Brand Amazing yarn a few months ago for 99 cents a ball (Isn't that great?! It's normally $9.99 each!) so I used part of it to make these scarves for the inlaws. The thinking is, all I have to do now is make scarves for my brother, SiL, parents and grandmother.

The colours I used (in order, left to right) are Olympia, Aurura, Olympia again, Rainforest and Vineland. They're each just ribbed scarves - either in a K1, P1 rib, or K2, P2 rib, or in the case of the two mobius scarves, a k3, p3 rib. Very easy, and I knit until the entire skein was used up.

another step closer... & finished socks!

I'm down another 3lbs this week - which tallys me up to approx 15.4 lbs lost since I started! (yay!)

I also finished these socks - knit from the toe up. I found two skeins of Patons Kroy Stripes in matching colourway, and knit almost an entire skein for each. Now I've got a pair of nice warm socks ready for Halloween!

yay!

I know that typically, on a diet one should comfortably lose 1-2lbs. That should be healthy and typical. But this past week, even though I followed my points - and even hit the max # of points on most days and went to the movies last tuesday & went a little crazy with movie snacks - I lost 3.4 lbs this week!!! So, after a total of 5 weeks dieting so far, I'm up to 12.4lbs lost! Awesome!

So, I've surpassed my initial immediate goal of losing 10 pounds. That is not only awesome, but encouraging. I'm in a new lower points range as of today, and my new goal is to get up to 25lbs lost, which shouldn't be a problem because I'm practically half way there!

knitting history

I love knitting geekery. Especially anything to do with history. This article details a bit of history on Latvian mittens.

I've admired Latvian mittens for a while now, I've been meaning to work up the courage to knit at least one pair for myself... the colour & pattern work on these are amazing - if only I can get past all the fair isle that needs to be done! But they do look fantastic nonetheless.

One day... hopefully this winter!

... more progress!

When I started this diet a month ago, my short term goal was to lose 10 pounds... well, I'm nearly there. I've lost 2.2lbs since last week, so that makes it a total of 9lbs so far. Considering there was a 'glitch' during the end of the first week which resulted in my gaining a bit of weight, I've technically lost the 9lbs within 3 weeks, really. Which is awesome.

Thank goodness for frozen fruit - I can have a cup and a half of raspberries or strawberries which is only 1 point, and I've gone back to snacking on cottage cheese, which I love! Also, Thinsation chocolate covered pretzels are awesome miracle workers to take care of that sweet or salty craving! I just love them!

That's all the update for now... back to knitting! New handknit item to be posted soon...

idle hands are the devil's playground

Growing up Catholic, one is bound to hear this at least once in their upbringing. I've never been particularily religious, but I've heard this often muttered by my teachers when going to Catholic grade school, not fully knowing what that ever meant.

It is, though, something that I often think about while knitting or crocheting. I've always been, by nature, fidgety - so knitting & crocheting was just naturally a hobby that I'd fall in love with. There's a certain satisfaction in accomplishing the large projects like afghans or sweaters, but the small portable projects are great too.

The top I'm working on to wear this summer is still in progress, I'll post photos of that later. What is keeping me busy on the weekends are the itty bitty projects. For example, I finished four duduza dolls (queuable here on ravelry) that were mailed after the weekend was over. This past Easter weekend, I worked on some toe-up socks that I want to finish before Halloween, since they're in Halloween colours.

I weighed myself this morning - despite the holiday over the weekend, celebrated twice - once on Friday with my DB & SiL, and again on Saturday with DH's family - I still lost 1.2lbs. A great accomplishment, despite the weight being minimal!

The unfortuante thing with holidays is that there are sweets everywhere - and I had my fair shair of cheesecake and chocolates! I was sure I wasn't going to lose anything, but the fact that I did was awesome. I wasn't about to bring that big top to knit when DH & I went up north to visit the inlaws, but having my toe-up socks came in handy to keep my mind occupied enough. My hands were busy knitting stripe after self-stripping stripe in my socks to avoid having that third peice of chocolate or that extra handful of chips.

Having some kind of mindless knitting that's easy and small enough to carry around - like socks - are a handy thing to help keep the excess snacking at bay!

ok, I have to brag...

A few days ago I finished spinning this whole skein of yarn. Yes, I've spun a bunch before, but I have to admit, this is my best and favourite one to date. My future-SiL loves Chanel designs, and also crochets, so I thought I'd make her a skein of handspun inspired by Chanel colours.

It's all wool, but I did incorporate a little black fun fur in it just for fun. I absolutely LOVED this wool, it was so soft and easy to work with, I had no problem spinning it! Plus, since I knew I was going to make this a two ply yarn, what I've done in the past is spin 2 skeins in a Z twist, respun one so it'll become an S twist when I spin both together. (Does that make sense?!?) Well, not this time - for the first time I've managed to create an S twist skein, so there wasn't any need to reball the yarn before twisting the two skeins together.

Total size: 5.9 oz (168g), approx 235 yards (215 meters). Also my largest skein to date! It's approximately worsted weight, although there are some thick-&-thin fragments in it.

PROGRESS!

I've lost four pounds. Four! Well, 4.2 actually. So, this past week I've completely undone the two pounds I've gained from the week before, and lost a little extra.

Yea, I know that most of what is lost initially is pretty much water weight, but it still counts.

Short post for today... more to come later!