Tart & Tangy

I'm not sure why... but I have had absolutely ZERO crafting mojo this week.  Seriously!  I'm not sure if I'm burned out after last week's article, or because I'm so busy with school and other things, but I've been totally unproductive this week.  Have you ever felt this way?  I swear I've started a handful of projects and tossed them aside after a few minutes because I either a) don't like the way the project is going, or b) simply can't be bothered to finish!  Goodness!

The good news is that I think I'm on the tail end of things.  You see, one of the great things about being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator at this time of year is that I'm earning free sets all over the place!  I swear I have more new stamp sets than I know what to do with right now... I can't keep up!  When this little lovely arrived in the mail yesterday though, I knew I had to put it to use right away.

 

The set is called Tart & Tangy... isn't it just, well,  juicy?  I'm loving it.  I'm already looking forward to when I have some spare time and can play around with it and put together some more elaborate cards.

YOU can earn this set for free as well!  Just head over to my Stampin' Up! website and place an order of $50 or more, then select Tart & Tangy as your free set!  Sale-A-Bration promotion runs through March 31... not much time left!

The orange/lemon and strawberry make me think of summertime and fruity drinks... sigh... wouldn't this stamp set lend itself well to some BBQ or backyard cocktail party invitations?  Will someone please remind me of that idea in about four months?  Thanks!


 Now that I'm back to the world of crafting... I'm hoping to have lots of new things to share with you in the next few days.  In the meantime, I wanted to flash this at you...

Actually, that shot is really for Marie (her guest post yesterday was so much fun, by the way!  Thanks, Marie!) to prove that I am taking baby steps towards my next non-scarf knit project:  Socks!  See those needles?  Yup, they're double pointed!  I'm a little intimidated by them... let's see how we do!

Guest Post Series: A Knitter's Bag of Tricks

I constantly find myself in awe of the wonderfully talented people I encounter daily - especially here in the land of blogging.  I share links to some of the fabulous projects I come across each weekend in my Week in Review posts, and now on (most) Wednesday's... at least for a awhile... I'm going to be going a step further and inviting one of those creative folks to guest blog here at Ready, Set, Craft!  For my first post in this Wednesday series, I'm thrilled to welcome Marie-Jolie of Permission to Unwind... enjoy!

I'm a bag lady, I can't deny it.  A passionate knitter has to have her bases covered, and my knitting bag keeps me sane in the midst of life's detours.  Waiting in line?  No problem.  The kids' soccer game went into overtime?  No big deal.  Trapped in an elevator for six hours?  Piece of cake.

Every knitter has her/his own idea of what constitutes portable knitting sanity, but here's a sneak peak into my bag of tricks.  After seeing my secrets, I think you'll agree that I'm the next best thing to a Boy Scout in an emergency.

It’s hard to believe this all fits into that little bag, isn’t it? I’ve been at this bag thing since I was a child, so I have it down to a science. (Whether this wins me bragging rights or merely serves as further proof that I need to join a support group is of some debate among my friends and readers.) If you want to create your own portable knitting treasury, I recommend starting with a bag that you absolutely love.  I have about twenty bags (gasp!) that I use for various reasons (most of them knitting-related), but the Dick & Jane bag is my mainstay. 

A closer look at what's inside...

I like to keep ample reading with me... A book or two of knitting inspiration, and a basic portable knitting stitch dictionary (in case I feel like being extra creative).  In my opinion every knitter's bag should include good reading material on the off chance that you sprain your hand, run our of yarn, or simply lose your mojo.

I keep a little zipper pencil case for spare needles, a yarn needle (to weave in ends), cable needles, and a crochet hook or two (sometimes helpful in a knitting emergency).

In a little plastic tote I keep a calculator, measuring tape, tissues, a notepad, sticky notes, spare stitch markers, rubber bands, an a drinking straw (cut into two pieces).  Here's the what and why:

Calculator:  It's inevitable that I will end up having to calculate a stitch count, calculate gauge, or figure out a different size for the project I am working on.

Measuring tape:  I've discovered that guessing the number of inches you've completed is not nearly as foolproof as one might hope.

Tissues:  Everyone needs tissues.  Knitter or not.

Notepad:  This is where I write down new ideas for designs, adjustments I'm making to a pattern, or grocery lists.

Sticky notes:  These are great for little notes that I want to post on the side bar of a book or pattern...or when I want to pass notes in the line at the post office.

Stitch markers:  I have a tendency to lost stitch markers, so I try to always keep extras with me.

Rubber bands:  These are great for binding needles together so that they don't stab into other things in my bag or poke a hole through the bottom (ask me how I know that this can happen...)  They can also double as a point protector or turn a double point needle into a single point needle by wrapping tightly arund one end of the needle to create a barrier to the stitches don't fall off.

Plastic drinking straw:  No, I'm not pulling your leg.  I keep a straw or two with me on the off chance that I lose ALL of my stitch markers.  I can use scissors to snip off little rings from the straw and have extra markers whenever I need them (a little trick I learned from my grandmother).  This also comes in handy if you buy a drink at a restaurant dive through and they forget to give you a straw.

MP3 Player:  Books on CD, music, you name it.  With this little gizmo on hand I can simultaneously knit fabulous things and brush up on my french.

I also keep a homemade sewing kit (with scissors).  You never know when a needle, thread and scissors will be required.  (Like, for example, if you are stranded on an island and have to perform an emergency procedure to close a wound.  I'm just saying...)
 

This little drawstring pouch (a gift from a friend) is perfect to keep track of my current small project.  I always bring a spare ball of yarn (on the chance that I magically knit through the one ball in record time... I'm nothing if not optimistic).  This rests nicely inside the knitting bag and protects my work from wonkiness.

Last but not least, in case I need to bring more than one project with me, I slip my entire Dick & Jane bag into a larger bag.  This behavior embarrasses my husband, but I do it anyway.

Stop snickering.


Head over to Marie-Jolie's blog, Permission to Unwind, to read more about her knitting projects and adventures!

The Valentines I Couldn't Show Until Now... part 2

I love celebrating the holidays with our close family friends and their kids.  I'm the honorary aunt to my BFF Heather's kids, and I always enjoy putting together some small treats for her kids, my nieces Mariah and Lily and my nephew Anthony.

Here's Anthony's Valentines.  He got more candy than the girls... because he's harder to shop for!  I do love the little M&M guy, though!  He also got a sun catcher and some of those crazy little things you put in water and they grow?  Those even amuse ME!  : )

 

You probably remember me showing you on of the fabric drawstring bags I made for the girls...

 

Mariah is quickly heading towards her teenage years, so it's really fun to pick out things for her.  Notice the little LOVE earrings and buttons, and the sparkly stickers.  She is really into all things peace-sign related (what goes around comes around, right?!) so I picked up an iron-on tee-shirt transfer for her that's a peace sign made of hearts.  And of course, you probably remember that little notepad?

  

Because kids shouldn't have all the fun, I made Heather (their mom, my BFF... are you following this?!) a goody bag too.  I filled it with some cupcake accessories since she's my partner in baking crime, some heavenly chocolates, and you can't see well in the picture but the packaged notepad and pen says something along the lines of "I'm only as strong as the coffee I drink and the hairspray I use"  Love it!

  

Lily's bag was the biggest.  She's (almost) two, and I'm hoping she can use it as a toy sack or something afterwards.  I picked her up this cute Valentines-y, cupcake tee from Old Navy.  Adorable!

  

The bag HAD to be big so that it could hold this friend... remember Ruby Bear?  (I love how I titled that post "Ruby Bear Part 1" and part 2 never came!!!)

  

Yup, I finally finished Ruby!  She's not perfect - but she's one of the ONLY things I've ever knit that isn't a scarf!  And although her features aren't perfect, and my increases are too loose, and she's a little fuzzy because the yarn has some acrylic in it... I think she has a certain charm, don't you agree?

 

And finally... I received a little gift of my own in the mail this weekend.  I won a contest last week over at Marie's place (I never win anything!  Yikes!) and got this little bundle of love sent to me.  Thanks, Marie!  And check out the darling stamped tag... a woman after my own heart I swear!  : )

 

Happy Valentines Day, friends!  

Ruby Bear - Part One

I finally got the confidence to start another knit project!  As you know... it took me FOREVER to grasp knitting, and now that I (kind of) know what I'm doing I've had problems deviating from scarfs!  In fact, the only knitting projects I've actually completed successfully (in chronological order) are...

• Mariah's scarf (for her "Get Better Box" 
  

• Multi-colored garter scarf for me (I still LOVE that yarn!) 

• Fun fur scarf (Bella was SUCH a great model!)  

• Baby hats one and two

• 'da Bear (I was NOT happy with how this turned out!)  

• Heather's (belated) birthday scarf
  

... and the majority of these, as you can see, are scarves!!!

So I've started working on the Ruby Bear, a free pattern from Premier Yarns...

Cute, no?  I love it!  After messing around with different needles and yarns to no avail (note to self, patterns generally give you yarn and needle size guidelines for a reason, ha!) I finally got going on it (with the original yarn, but size 10 needles instead of size 9 because that's what I had!)

I've knit up the body (far left) so far (haven't stuffed it yet obviously) and I'm working on the head.  It's actually going pretty smoothly so far.

As you can see, I'm knitting on straight needles, that's all I know how to do!  A lot of the cute patterns I come across are knit on either circulars or DPN's... any of you knitters out there care to...

a) enlighten me about those two types of needles

b) point me toward some good websites or videos to teach me how to use them, or

c) direct me to some good beginning patterns (read:  easy) using each?

(Yup, I'm taking to YOU, Meg and Marie!)

Stay tuned for more updates on Ruby!  I'm hoping to finish her up over the weekend and post to her next week.  Wouldn't that be fun?  On a side note, while investigating Ruby I came across this adorable crochet pattern...

Aaaaah!  The pigs are so cute!  (side bar - I totally went through a phase as a kid where I loved pigs and collected anything to do with them.  Random!)  I bookmarked the pattern of course, even though I have no idea how to crochet...   : )

The (long-awaited) Scarf

In May of this past year, I was in the midst of knitting a scarf for my friend Heather's birthday.  By the time her special day arrived, it wasn't done.  I'd only been knitting a few months at that point and the yarn I had chosen was proving very difficult to knit with.  I wrapped up the unfinished scarf, needles and all, and gave it to her - letting her know that I'd finish it ASAP.

Flash forward seven months:

The Scarf is FINALLY finished.

 

But let me explain!  Shortly after Heather's birthday, I screwed up the original scarf.  I don't even remember what happened.  I think I dropped some stitches off the needles and panicked.  I hated the yard anyways so I started over.

 

 

For a whole variety of reasons, scarfs 2, 3 and 4 didn't work out.  Not enough yarn and the yarn store that sold it closing (seriously!), dropped stitches, yarn that didn't knit up nice.  What a disaster!

 

I finished it just in time (days before!) to give to Heather for Christmas.  Better late than never, right?!  Merry Christmas!

 

'da Bear

After much procrastinating, some crazy needling and a few choice words... 'da bear is complete...


I was right about the assembly - sewing this guy together was HARD. I wish the directions had been clearer - but I suppose it's more knack than skill, and one of those things you get better at the more bears that you knit.

I had three big issues...

How to get rid of the leftover yarn strings? Some of them you could sew through (head through and out the bottom of the body, for example) but that didn't work for all appendages. I ended up finishing the best I could and tucking in loose ends with my needle - which was tricky.

The snout. To create the snout on this particular bear, I was to sew a running stitch in a circle and pull together to tighten and create a 3D effect. My snout is a little too low - you can't really see the mouth. Next time I need to do the snout AFTER I join the head and body together to get a better perspective.

And lastly, the arms. They're a little crazy looking. While my placement of the arms is correct, the angle at which I sewed them is not. So, this particular bear looks a little bit like a muscle man, rather than a traditional teddy with his arms fallen at his sides. So he's got some guns, so what? : )

All in all he was fun to make - and I imagine the larger sized bears (this was the "small" of the small-medium-large patterns) are easier to piece together, but take longer to knit obviously. This bear ended up about 10 inches tall.

Now, to try a bigger bear!

I'm knitting a teddy bear!

My Mum subscribes to Crafters Choice. For those of you that are unfamiliar, it's a book club for solely crafty and cooking books. It's pretty sweet. Through her, I got one of those deals where if I joined I could get four books for 99 cents. I jumped at the chance! The shipping was $11 - but still, four books for $12? You can't beat that!

Here's what came in the mail this week...

If you follow this blog even sort-of regularly - you know that I, along with my partner-in-crime Heather have a SERIOUS cupcake thing going on!


Now that I'm knitting, I absolutely want to learn how to crochet as well!


You know how I like quick and easy projects, and you may also remember that I'm getting a sewing machine for my birthday. I can't wait to give some of these projects a try!

Now, the final book I ordered kind of on a whim...


Look at it - it's adorable. Knitted bears! How sweet! Plus, the book gives all kinds of patterns for clothes and costumes for the bears. I ordered it will full knowledge that I am nowhere near skilled enough to knit a bear. I'm still such a knitting novice! I figured I'd keep it until I got better at knitting and could actually use it.

WRONG!

Turns out that there are patterns for "simple" "intermediate" and "advanced" bears. And you know what? The "simple" bear is just knitting, pearling, increasing, and decreasing. Amazing! I've only been working on it for two days and look how I'm doing...


You have to ignore all the floating strings - the pattern told me to leave long tails for sewing. And yes, he's missing a leg - it's in progress and will be done this evening. If all I did was knit constantly, I swear I could knit up this entire little bear in less than a day easily.

The instructions for assembling and finishing the bear are a little vague - so I'm a bit intimidated about that part. Reads like it will be more complicated than the knitting. BUT, we'll see. I'm just happy to be knitting more than scarves!

Stay tuned, you'll be seeing this little fella again soon... and hopefully he'll have two legs and a face by then! : )

Claire's Hat

I finished my second baby hat. This one actually has a home. It's heading to baby Claire in the morning.

All packaged up and ready to go!

I've graduated from scarves!

I know - two posts in very quick succession here - but I couldn't resist posting a quick photo of THIS...


For those of you who have been with me for awhile and followed my knitting journey - you'll know I've been a bit stuck in a rut (go ahead and click on the "knitting" label for some flashbacks) on beginner scarves. Well, no more!

It was a very simple pattern, with a bit of ad-libbing, and a few imperfections, but I made it through. My first baby hat!

Good thing too since some dear friends of ours just had a little one last week. Off to the store this afternoon to find the perfect yarn and ribbon to knit a baby hat for their little girl!

PS) If you missed it... be sure to check out the "Summer Fun Crayons" below!

Scarf Model

I was at JoAnn's with Mum this weekend and scored a couple of pairs of Lion Brand knitting needles (regularly $8.99 a pair) for .97c a pair in the clearance section. Nice! The needles inspired me to grab some yarn and put them to work - I needed to check and make sure I remembered how to knit!

The packaging of the needles had a simple scarf pattern on it - so I gave it a whirl. It's knit with one color of Fun Fur yarn and one color of Homespun yarn held together. Lucky for me I had some fun fur on hand that I'd scored at the Dollar Store awhile ago (amazing, right?!) and after picking up a skein of Homespun I was off to the races.

I swear I probably spent a whole two hours on the thing. It knit up so fast!

I knew I wanted to share a photo with you - but scarves are kind of tricky to photograph if they're not actually ON someone...


...Good thing Bella was on hand to help out. She is SUCH a fashionista! Look at her pose!



The scarf is just 10 stitches per row for the entire ball of Fun Fur, leaving one yard at the end for casting off. I'm thinking this is a great base scarf pattern to knit some scarves for girlfriends for Christmas. I do think I'll knit it a little wider and longer next time though - which will make it no longer a one skein project - but that's okay.

Wouldn't you just love to get a sassy, cozy, fun-colored scarf like this for Christmas?

MSCE April Day 25 - Alison's Wedding

So my photo taking abilities aren't great. Unfortunately I don't yet have an SLR. Well, that's not true, I have a film SLR (remember that stuff, when we got photos developed with negatives??!) but haven't sucked it up and purchased a digital one yet. And while my point and shoot digital is great for what it is, I just can't take great photos with it.

BUT, I try my best. Here are some candid shots from Alison's wedding weekend, my MSCE April for Saturday April 25...


Oh, and in case you were wondering, I was so tired from the big wedding weekend on Sunday (MSCE April Day 26) that the only crafty thing I did was work on Heather's never-ending scarf. Ha! And it's still not done... : )

Catching Up: MSCE April Days 15-19

So I may be a bit behind on the posting side of things, but I'm certainly not behind with all things MSCE April. I've been doing surprisingly well with the challenge - even though I may not be COMPLETING projects everyday, I'm certainly working on something daily. I'll show you!

(Click on photo to enlarge and see projects a little clearer...)


MSCE April Days 15 & 16: Heather's purple scarf!
Heather's birthday was LAST MONTH - and it's taken me this long to get it even close to being done. Another six inches or so should do it. It's made from really interesting yarn with fuzzies and pieces of fabric woven in. You can hardly see the actual stitches once it's knitted up. Good thing Heather is patient! : )

MSCE April Day 17: Black beaded necklace
All of these beads came from a store bought necklace that broke - months and months ago. I salvaged everything I could, bought some extra seed beads, and have started putting it back together - my way. I'm being ridiculously picky about it, and have started over numerous times already. Plus I know next-to-nothing about jewelry making, so I'm working on he fly. It's less than a quarter of the way finished...

MSCE April Day 18: Sidewalk Chalk Flood!
There was a phenomenal event downtown on Saturday - one in a series of "urban experiments." Essentially, the Sidewalk Chalk Flood was organized by a college guy, promoted by the media but mostly through Facebook. Hundreds upon hundreds of people showed up, received free sidewalk chalk, and went to town! We went with friends and had a blast - it was a BEAUTIFUL day.

The local newspaper did an article on the event the next day and amongst several quotes from participants was this one... "It's both kid friendly and artist driven. In the current economic climate, it's almost as if you're seeing people embrace life and play. It's not about consumerism. It's about people." -- Boy, I just LOVE that. I'm not sure if anyone could have wrapped it up better.

For more about the event click HERE.

MSCE April Day 19: The Pinata
Remember my friend Alison? Remember her wedding? Remember the pinata I was making for her wedding reception? Weeelllll.... her wedding is this coming Saturday! So, after the prototypes earlier this year, it's time to get down to it for real. I got the first two layers done today, and rigged it so it's hanging from the ceiling in my studio to dry. I also cut out and scored the cones to make the points of the pinata - but I forgot to take photos of those. You'll see them in a later post I'm sure, there will be a lot of pinata-ing this week!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Knitting Updates - and a few other things

Oh! I feel like such a blog-slacker. This week has been so CRAZY that I haven't had chance to do anything but knit a little in the evenings.

My craft room is currently a disaster, serving as a dumping ground for unfinished projects, supplies, and more. It's been fun to look at photos of Lolly's and Meg's craft spaces this week and it's inspiring to do some reorganizing of my own space this weekend.

In the meantime, I've been **craving** the time to work on a project. Do you ever feel like that? I've got several to tackle this weekend - so stay tuned for some new projects and tutorials.

I finished the scarf I was working on with the thick and thin yarn over the weekend, and I love it! It's so colorful and sassy!




(excuse the palm trees in the background - some *not-so-lovely* drapery that we inherited from our home's past owners. A for sure project to tackle this summer!)

I'm working on developing my different stitches and patterns, so I'm working on this scarf for a gift using knit two purl two ribbing on really chunky yarn. It's going to be such a thick, cozy scarf, and I'm really getting the hang of ribbing!



Finally, I've started working on following a *gasp* pattern for a baby hat. There's not much to it right now since I've barely started it so it's not even worth a picture, but so far so good!

In non-knitting news, a friend of mine raided her stamp collection and was selling off some of her hardly-used goodies. I scored this bag full of stamps for next to nothing.


So exciting! Now I've got to find me some things to stamp! Stat!